Cavs Sign Channing Frye To One-Year Deal
JULY 19: The Cavaliers have officially signed Frye, the team announced today in a press release.
JULY 14: The Cavaliers have agreed to bring back veteran forward Channing Frye, reports Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports. According to Charania, Frye will sign a one-year, minimum-salary deal with Cleveland.
Frye will earn approximately $2.39MM this season and count for roughly $1.51MM on the Cavs’ cap sheet.
The 35-year-old played in 144 games for Cleveland over parts of the last three seasons. He was traded from Orlando to LeBron James‘ squad at the 2016 deadline before being dealt to the Lakers during a massive overhaul at the 2018 trade deadline. Now, he’ll head back to Cleveland from Los Angeles as LeBron goes in the other direction.
Frye, a 13-year veteran averaged 5.0 points and 2.5 rebounds per contest in limited minutes (13.1 MPG) last season. He’s widely known as a solid locker room presence and that will likely be valued by a team that could end up embarking on a total rebuild should it trade Kevin Love.
Luke Adams contributed to this post.
Nets Sign Shabazz Napier
JULY 17: The Nets have officially signed Napier, the team announced today in a press release.
JULY 14: Shabazz Napier will head to Brooklyn on a two-year deal, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com. The terms of the agreement between Napier and the Nets have not yet been disclosed, but it will feature a second-year team option, per Wojnarowski.
Napier, who is celebrating his 27th birthday today, was the No. 24 overall selection in the 2014 draft. He experienced his best season as a pro during the 2017/18 campaign with the Trail Blazers, averaging 8.7 PPG, 2.3 RPG, and 2.0 APG as the first guard off the bench for Portland.
Although he was eligible for restricted free agency this summer, Napier didn’t receive a qualifying offer from the Blazers, making him unrestricted. As such, he’ll be able to sign with the Nets outright.
The UConn product will join the Nets and compete for minutes alongside D’Angelo Russell and Spencer Dinwiddie. Brooklyn could use another ball-handler after shipping Jeremy Lin to the Hawks earlier this week.
Having taken on the Kenneth Faried and Darrell Arthur contracts in a trade with the Blazers, the Nets don’t have much cap room left, but may have the flexibility to offer Napier more than the minimum, if they so choose. The team will use its $4.45MM room exception to sign Ed Davis.
Notes & Reactions On The Jabari Parker Signing
The Bucks felt that the organization and Jabari Parker were trending in different directions, league sources tell Jordan Schultz of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The team let Jabari Parker become an unrestricted free agent, allowing him to sign a two-year, $40MM deal with the Bulls.
Schultz notes that GM Jon Horst didn’t have to rescind the qualifying offer which kept Parker as a restricted free agent, but he did so to allow Parker the ability to negotiate the best possible deal with Chicago.
Here are more notes and reactions from around the league:
- For Parker to provide good value at $20MM per season, he’ll have to develop into an All-Star caliber player, Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com writes. Pelton can envision a scenario where Parker continues to be limited defensively and becomes what amounts to a high-scoring sixth man. The scribe sees that value to be comparable to Will Barton‘s deal, one that will pay the wing an annual value of $13.5MM.
- The Bucks would have had to part with either a productive player or attach an asset in order to dump one of their players with larger, unfriendly contract if they intended to sign Parker and stay under the luxury tax, Pelton notes in the same piece. Pelton evaluates Milwaukee’s roster and finds that it didn’t have any smaller contracts that provided poor value, meaning the franchise would have had to find takers for either Matthew Dellavedova, Tony Snell or John Henson, something that’s easier said than done.
- The Bucks are set to have $116MM on the books this season after the signings of Ersan Ilyasova and Brook Lopez, ESPN’s Bobby Marks notes (ESPN now link). Milwaukee’s future cap space will be dependent on what Khris Middleton does with his $13MM player option next season. If he opts out and Eric Bledsoe does not return, the team could have upwards of $28MM in cap space.
Jazz Sign Naz Mitrou-Long To Two-Way Deal
4:08pm: The signing is now official, the Jazz confirmed in a press release.
2:39pm: The Jazz will sign Naz Mitrou-Long to a two-way contract, according to Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).
“I’m just happy that the Jazz were so patient with me and just kept contributing to the fact that they wanted to see me grow,” the guard said (via Eric Woodyard of the Deseret News on Twitter).
Mitrou-Long earned two 10-day deals with the Jazz last season, as the team needed to add depth at the guard spot with Ricky Rubio battling injuries. He didn’t see any real action for the NBA club though, entering just one contest for a total of one minute.
Mitrou-Long also played for Utah’s G League affiliate, the Salt Lake City Stars, last season. The soon-to-be 25-year-old appeared in 40 games with the Stars, averaging 18.0 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per contest.
Noise From The North: The Latest On Kawhi Leonard
Kawhi Leonard has dominated headlines all summer and he’ll likely be featured in the rumor mill until either the Spurs trade him or he commits to playing in San Antonio long-term. Rumors of the Raptors making a play for the disgruntled star made rounds during Summer League, and other teams such as the Sixers and Celtics come up in speculation about where Leonard is going to play next season.
Most of the news may simply be noise, as Leonard has long been linked to Los Angeles, the only city he reportedly wants to play for. Cris Carter of Fox Sports hears that Leonard hasn’t changed his stance.
“Nothing’s changed from Kawhi’s side from these standpoints: He still wants to go to Los Angeles, and he’s still not interested in being rented out for one season, so that being Philadelphia, Boston, Toronto or any other team,” Carter said on First Things First on Friday (Twitter link).
Carter, a Hall-of-Fame NFL wide receiver, is an unlikely source for NBA news, though he appears to be dialed into the situation. Longtime sports agent Mitch Frankel, who represents Leonard, was Carter’s agent during his NFL playing days.
Carter relayed that Leonard’s camp has remained in contact with the Spurs and they were told by the organization that they’d be notified if the club was closing in on a deal. That hasn’t happened and no rival team has been in contact with Leonard, something that would typically happen if another team was in conversations to acquire a player in a trade.
Leonard’s camp considered issuing a press release about the rumors of Toronto making a play for him, Carter added. No such thing has since been released and the silence from Leonard’s people is partially to blame for the rampant speculation about the Raptors swooping in and acquiring the former MVP candidate, Sean Deveney of Sporting News writes.
Deveney believes that a Leonard trade remains distant and adds that it’s easy to see why NBA executives are connecting the dots between Toronto and San Antonio. GM Masai Ujiri has the ammunition to pull off a trade that provides value to San Antonio while maintaining Toronto’s status as a serious Eastern Conference contender.
Such a deal could be centered around a package of DeMar DeRozan and young prospects or picks and the Raptors have a deep enough team to give up two or three contributors and still surround Leonard with a top-ranked cast.
However, Deveney believes it would be foolish to make the trade for Leonard without assurance that he’ll stick around past the 2018/19 campaign. For the Raptors or any team outside of Los Angeles, getting that long-term commitment doesn’t appear to be in the cards. Leonard is a generational talent, but for those non-Southern California teams, the risk may be even greater than the reward and a trade seems unlikely until that ratio tilts in one of the other 27 organizations’ favor.
Warriors Sign Damion Lee To Two-Way Deal
JULY 14: The Warriors have officially signed Lee to a two-way contract, the team announced today in a press release.
JULY 10: Damion Lee has agreed to a two-way contract with Warriors, Chris Haynes of ESPN.com reports.
Lee, who will soon marry Stephen Curry‘s sister, Sydel, played in 15 games for the Hawks last season. The shooting guard received a pair of 10-day deals with the club late in the season before signing with Atlanta for the remainder of it.
The 25-year-old played the majority of last season for the Warriors’ G League affiliate. Lee spent parts of two seasons in the G League after not hearing his name called on draft night 2016. He split his collegiate career between Drexel University and the University of Louisville.
Adam Silver Talks Warriors, Playoffs, Free Agency
It isn’t “necessarily” bad that the Warriors are so dominant, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said during a Tuesday press conference in Las Vegas (link via Mark Medina of The Mercury News). Silver explained that the NBA isn’t trying to create a “forced parity,” but wants to ensure that there’s a “parity of opportunity” for the league’s 30 teams.
“There’s a fair point to be made in a tax system when certain teams are spending significantly more than others, that’s not parity of opportunity,” Silver added. “Also, certain teams have advantages other teams don’t based on their resources and market and the wealth of the market. They may be in a position to go deeper into the tax than another team does.
“Under the current system right now, we want teams to compete like crazy. The Warriors, within the framework of this deal, should be doing everything they can to increase their dominance,” Silver continued. “That’s what you want to see. We want every team to compete in every way they can within the rules. If it makes sense to make adjustments to the rules next time, we’ll look into that.”
Here are a few more notable comments from Silver’s Tuesday’s presser:
- Silver acknowledged that the idea of seeding teams 1 through 16 in the postseason has “real appeal,” but cautioned that it would take time to implement (link via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN). “In our estimate, we could be looking at roughly 40-50% more travel,” Silver said. “It doesn’t mean we can’t, but it is not something we can do quickly. It would require really a wholesale re-examination of how we do the schedule, how our television deal works.”
- The NBA may make adjustments to the start of the free agent period to avoid having it begin at midnight ET on July 1, according to Silver (via Youngmisuk). With so much attention focused on free agency, the league would like to avoid having the first wave of major signings break in the middle of the night.
- Silver spoke about the California Classic Summer League, adding that it “exceeded all expectations,” as NBC Sports California relays (on Twitter). The league will discuss expanding it beyond the current structure, which only features four teams, including the host Kings.
- According to Silver, the investigation into workplace misconduct allegations in the Mavericks‘ business offices should wrap up by the end of July (link via Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press).
- As we detailed on Tuesday night, Silver suggested that the NBA expects to make adjustments to its one-and-done rule for prospects in the coming years.
Luke Adams contributed to this post.
NBA Expected To Lower Age Limit
The one-and-done rule may soon come to an end, as NBA commissioner Adam Silver believes it’s time to consider allowing recent high-school graduates to enter the league.
“I’m not here to say we have a problem,” Silver said via NBA.com. “And I love where the league is right now. But I think we can create a better system.”
The new system should be in place by the 2021 draft, though there was no official timeline set.
“My personal view is that we’re ready to make that change,” Silver said. “It won’t come immediately. But when I’ve weighed the pros and cons, given that Condoleezza Rice and her commission have recommended to the NBA that those one-and-done players now come directly into the league and in essence the college community is saying `We do not want those players anymore,’ I think that tips the scale in my mind.”
Changes to the age-limit rule would require an amendment to the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. NBPA executive director Michele Roberts said she expects there will be some news in the coming weeks, adding “Stay tuned.”
Heat Failing To Find Trade Market For Several Players
The Heat have tried to deal both Hassan Whiteside and Tyler Johnson this offseason but found a lack of interest in the pair of expensive veterans, sources tell Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.
Whiteside will make roughly $25.4MM this season before he gets to deliberate a $27.1MM player option in the summer of 2019, He’s seemed unhappy with his playing time late in the 2017/18 campaign and it’s fair to wonder whether he would be open to a buyout if the team can’t trade his enormous contract. However, even if Miami makes the center miserable by further reducing his playing time, Jackson hears that it’s unlikely Whiteside walks away from the money.
Johnson will take home $19.2MM as part of the four-year pact he signed two summers ago. The Nets had presented the shooting guard with a $50MM offer sheet during the player-friendly 2016 free agent period. The offer spread more than 75% of Johnson’s total salary over the final two years of the deal. Miami surprisingly matched at the time and they’re now facing the first of two $19MM+ salary years.
Jackson adds that Dion Waiters has also been brought up in trade talks. Waiters has three years and approximately $36MM left on his contract.
Miami has no clear path to cap space next summer without moving the aforementioned players. Top names like Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler, and Klay Thompson are expected to hit the market and the team won’t be in a position to make a patented Pat Riley free agency pitch unless it gets creative with its roster.
Western Notes: Capela, Stephenson, Jazz
The Rockets and Clint Capela may not be that far apart in negotiations toward a new deal, as Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle (Twitter link) is hearing that the team’s initial offer was not as low as previously reported. Sources tell Feigen that the July 1 offer was for $85MM over five years with Capela having the ability to earn up to $90MM based on incentives.
Rumors claiming the center wanted an offer in the neighborhood of $100MM over four years, similar to Steven Adams‘ pact, surfaced recently. Previous reports had Houston offering approximately $60MM over four years.
One source tells Feigen that the Rockets are optimistic about reaching a deal. Houston has the ability to match any offer, as Capela is a restricted free agent.
Here’s more from the Western Conference:
- Magic Johnson said he consulted LeBron James before bringing Lance Stephenson, Rajon Rondo, and JaVale McGee to the Lakers, as Mike Bresnahan of Spectrum SportsNet relays (Twitter link). “LeBron’s won championships, been to eight straight Finals. You think Rob [Pelinka] and I are not going to ask him? No, we’re going to definitely ask him his opinion because he knows those players better than us,” Johnson said.
- Stephenson said the Lakers want him to “bring intensity” every night, as Spectrum SportsNet’s Mike Trudell passes along (Twitter link). The 27-year-old wing officially signed his one-year deal today.
- Chemistry was a major reason why the Jazz decided to keep their core intact. “Chemistry is a hard thing,” GM Dennis Lindsey said (via the Associated Press). “It’s a hard thing to predict. You can get five great people in the room and have it just not click for whatever reason, so we didn’t want to overthink that.”