And-Ones: LeBron, Noah, Lopez, Lamb, Ross
The combination of his on-court brilliance and his influence over coaching matters and player personnel give LeBron James unprecedented power, and GM David Griffin concedes to Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher that no one in the Cavs organization other than Dan Gilbert is as powerful as James is.
“He’s going to have the biggest voice, he’s the most important, accomplished player in the league and he’s an absolute basketball savant,” Griffin said. “He has the most thorough understanding of X’s and O’s on the floor and best mind for the game off the floor of any human being I’ve ever known. Coach, front-office person, anything. It would be crazy for me not to consult with him on what we want to do.”
Still, Griffin rejects the notion that James runs the franchise, and executives around the league tell Bucher that Griffin has earned the trust of the four-time MVP. While we wait for James to resume his quest for a fifth MVP tonight against the Knicks, see more from around the NBA:
- Joakim Noah makes it clear that he reveres Thunder coach Billy Donovan, who was his coach at the University of Florida, but Noah, poised to hit free agency this summer, wouldn’t say in a Q&A with Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com whether he’s considered playing for Donovan again. Noah’s Bulls and Donovan’s Thunder play Thursday. “I just know I’m going to want to win really bad. Not because I’m playing against Coach Donovan; I love Coach Donovan, obviously,” Noah said to Friedell. “He’s like a father figure to me. Somebody that I’ve gone through a lot with. My time with him as a coach was the best time of my life, and it was a lot more than just basketball.”
- Brook Lopez and his representatives sought to persuade the Nets to keep his name out of trade rumors as they negotiated the three-year max deal that Lopez ultimately signed with Brooklyn this past summer, as he tells Chris Mannix of SI.com. Reports indicated that the Wasserman Media Group client twice nearly ended up in deals that would have sent him to the Thunder last season. “We asked them to temper those ideas,” Lopez said. “We told them to pump the brakes a little.”
- Jeremy Lamb will have to make major improvements to justify his three-year, $21MM extension, writes Ben Golliver of SI.com, who argues that Charlotte has too optimistic a view on the potential of the former lottery pick. The Terrence Ross deal meanwhile offers a decent chance for both him and the Raptors to extract value, Golliver opines as he hands out grades for both extensions.
Offseason In Review: Denver Nuggets
Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees and more will be covered as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.
Signings
- Darrell Arthur: Two years, $5.755MM. Signed via room exception. Second year is a player option.
- Will Barton: Three years, $10.6MM. Signed via Bird rights.
- Mike Miller: One year, $1.499MM. Signed via minimum salary exception.
- Jameer Nelson: Three years, $13.622MM. Signed via cap room.
Extensions
- Wilson Chandler: Four years, $46MM. Fourth year is a player option. (Renegotiation and extension)
- Danilo Gallinari: Three years, $45.15MM. Third year is a player option. (Renegotiation and extension)
Trades
- Acquired Joey Dorsey, Nick Johnson, Kostas Papanikolaou, Pablo Prigioni, $440K, and Houston’s 2016 first round pick (lottery protected, otherwise it becomes Portland’s 2017 second-rounder) from the Rockets in exchange for Ty Lawson and Denver’s 2017 second-round pick. Dorsey, Prigioni, Johnson, and Papanikolaou were all subsequently waived.
Waiver Claims
- None
Draft Picks
- Emmanuel Mudiay (Round 1, 7th overall). Signed via rookie scale exception to rookie scale contract.
- Nikola Jokic (2014 Round 2, 41st overall). Signed via cap room for four years, $5.5MM. Fourth year is a team option.
- Nikola Radicevic (Round 2, 57th overall). Likely to remain overseas.
Camp Invitees
Departing Players
Rookie Contract Option Decisions
- Gary Harris (third year, $1,655,880) — Exercised.
- Jusuf Nurkic (third year, $1,921,320) — Exercised.
The Nuggets clearly determined that a change in leadership was key. The optimism that surrounded the team when it won 57 games in 2012/13 had disappeared amid injuries, underwhelming play and disillusionment by the time the Nuggets fired coach Brian Shaw nearly two years later. Interim coach Melvin Hunt had the support of the players, but Michael Malone, who was seemingly on the right track for the Kings before they fired him last December, won over team president Josh Kroenke and GM Tim Connelly in interviews for the job. The Denver brass consulted with the new coach a few months later when they traded point guard Ty Lawson to the Rockets for four players the team waived prior to opening night, a move that cleared the way for No. 7 overall pick Emmanuel Mudiay to take the reigns.
New coach and new point guard aside, the Nuggets largely remain the same, and judging by their moves this summer, they actively sought to keep it that way. A late September deal with Mike Miller was their only free agent signing that wasn’t a re-signing, and they took advantage of a salary cap rule that no other team has used since the existing collective bargaining agreement went into effect in 2011 to secure Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler for the long term. Thus, the fate of Malone and Mudiay will largely define the 2015 offseason for Denver.
Malone is a hard-nosed coach whose Kings teams played at a relatively controlled pace, but he acknowledges that the Nuggets want an up-tempo attack and insists he can direct one. He also sought to dispel the notion that he has any hard feelings toward Pete D’Alessandro, whom the Nuggets hired to a front office role this summer and who was Sacramento’s GM when the Kings fired Malone. Conflicting reports painted different pictures of the role D’Alessandro played in Malone’s dismissal.
Still, that relationship is likely secondary to the bond that Malone and Mudiay must form. The coach has expressed an understanding that while he doesn’t have much stomach for losing, it behooves the future of the team that he give Mudiay every opportunity to learn this season. Jameer Nelson will be around to help, thanks to the deal the Nuggets gave the 33-year-old point guard who initially had his doubts about Denver. The Steve Mountain client opted out but re-signed with the Nuggets at a raise, even though he was coming off a career-low 8.3 points per game. He’s embraced the leadership role that the Nuggets value him highly for, as Matt Moore of CBSSports.com detailed. Nelson can also mentor another developing point guard, as the Nuggets elected to eat two fully guaranteed seasons on Nick Johnson‘s deal to keep former second-round pick Erick Green on his partially guaranteed contract.
Not every veteran the Nuggets kept this summer is around merely for leadership purposes. Denver clearly wants to benefit on the court from the rejuvenated Gallinari, who looked strong down the stretch last season and over the summer while playing for the Italian national team. The Nuggets “absolutely could have” traded for multiple first-round picks for either Gallinari or Chandler, as Zach Lowe of ESPN reported, and while they explored the idea of a Gallinari swap at the deadline and apparently at draft time, too, Gallinari’s affection for Denver helped secure his place there, Lowe wrote. Indeed, Gallinari has said he wants to finish his career with the Nuggets, and thanks to the team’s deft use of the renegotiation-and-extension rule, he’s set to remain under contract until 2018, unless he opts out a year early. The former No. 8 overall pick was previously poised to hit free agency in 2016, just as the cap is set to surge.
Chandler also could have elected free agency in 2016, but he decided against wading into a lucrative market to lock in as many as four eight-figure annual salaries on his new deal with the Nuggets. He’s been the subject of frequent trade rumors the past year, and as a 28-year-old role player on a rebuilding team, those aren’t necessarily going to go away, even though the Nuggets can’t trade him until January. The combo forward gave up the chance to choose another team that might offer a more logical fit, but he was well-compensated for that choice.
Darrell Arthur also had financial motivation to stick with Denver. He admits he almost bolted for the Clippers in free agency this past summer, but the Clips could only have paid him the minimum salary, and the Jerry Hicks client wound up with almost twice that to stay in Denver. It’s a pay cut from the more than $3.457MM he made last season, but he remains in place as part of a crowded frontcourt. So, too, does Kenneth Faried, in spite of trade rumors that have surrounded him the past couple of years, and chatter about the idea of a Faried trade hasn’t stopped, Lowe wrote recently. Stability marked the Nuggets offseason, but that doesn’t mean the same will be true going forward.
Denver invested in youth as well as its veterans, locking in Will Barton on a three-year deal and signing draft-and-stash prospect Nikola Jokic to a four-year deal. Both are in the rotation to start the season. Barton originally came via last season’s Arron Afflalo trade, a positive signal that if the Nuggets do start offloading more of their veterans, the front office is savvy enough to identify prospects who can become contributors. Jokic also proves Denver’s acumen for drafting big men, as he and Jusuf Nurkic, a product of the 2014 draft, form an intriguing combination at center.
The Nuggets seemingly have one foot in the future and the other planted firmly in the present. That’s a challenge for Malone to navigate, but it’s clear that player development is a priority even as the Nuggets hesitate to strip down their roster and go for a full-scale rebuild. The strength of the Western Conference will likely keep them out of the playoffs, enhancing their chances in a draft in which they could have as many as four first-round picks. The Nuggets, if they continue to draft well, have a decent chance to climb back into the Western Conference elite before the deals they made with their vets this summer run to term.
Eddie Scarito contributed to this post. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of it.
Pacific Notes: Russell, Barnes, Ezeli, World Peace
Lakers coach Byron Scott didn’t think Emmanuel Mudiay was a true point guard as the draft approached, and the coach questioned his decision-making, but Mudiay dismisses it as just “another human’s opinion,” writes Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News. Mudiay delivered 10 assists, albeit with six turnovers, in Denver’s win Tuesday over the Lakers, leading him to retort, “Thank you Byron Scott for saying I’m not a point guard,” tweets Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post. Mudiay played down the stretch of the close game while D’Angelo Russell, whom the Lakers took with the No. 2 overall pick instead of Mudiay, sat on the bench. That left Russell searching for answers, observes Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link).
“I have no idea,” Russell said about how he can convince Scott he’s worthy of crunch-time minutes. “It’s just something I’ve got to deal with.”
Scott insists Russell will have his opportunities, though Russell wasn’t in the mood to compare himself to Mudiay, calling him “just another player,” as Bill Oram of the Orange County Register relays (Twitter links). See more on the Lakers amid the latest from the Pacific Division:
- The Warriors failed to reach extensions with Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli before Monday’s deadline, but Barnes and Ezeli are fond of their surroundings and GM Bob Myers remains committed to finding a way to keep them, as Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports details. “We worked hard to get both [deals] done, but we weren’t able to,” Myers said to Spears. “We made a good effort. They looked hard at what we proposed. Ultimately, they decided to see what the market was in July, which is fine. We will work just as hard then to try to work something out.”
- Metta World Peace, who’s on a non-guaranteed deal, has yet to appear in any games for the Lakers so far, but he’s OK with that, he tells Bresnahan. “It’s about looking at your surroundings, what you’re presented with, how you’re going to take that and become successful,” World Peace said. “How can I help the organization? How can I help myself? How can I help the guys? I’m just locked in. I’m focused on improving and winning. The minute you focus on something else, it’s a problem.”
- Caron Butler has averaged 12 minutes per game in three appearances for the Kings so far, but like World Peace on the Lakers, Butler’s offseason signing was in large measure for his experience and locker room presence, as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee examines.
Reaction To Terrence Ross Extension With Raptors
The three-year extension that the Raptors gave Terrence Ross is a compromise between what he’s produced so far and the player he has the potential to become, posits Raptors vice president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman, as Mike Ganter of the Toronto Sun relays. Various reports have pegged its value from $31MM to nearly $33MM.
“Any time you have a rookie contract the guys, just by definition, are at a stage in their career where they’re probably yet to realize their potential so you’ve got to find that middle ground between where you think the player will go and where he is now,” Weltman said. “That’s why a lot of extensions don’t get done. But, yeah, we like to feel we’ve found some middle ground with Terrence where we’re paying him in the hope that he becomes a great player and we think he has that in him.”
The team is impressed with Ross’ work ethic, and Weltman admits that the rising salary cap is reflected in the value of the deal, notes Ganter. See more about one of the most talked-about of the seven rookie scale extensions this year:
- Ross is most comfortable playing shooting guard, where the Raptors have him now as a backup after using him as a starter at small forward in the past, and the extension is a reasonable hedge against his value going up as he continues to develop, observes Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca.
- GM Masai Ujiri has shown that he’d rather set the prices of his players than have the market do that for him, but he’s taking a risk with Ross, who has yet to show that he has the mental toughness necessary to excel, opines Doug Smith of the Toronto Star. The Ross contract appears to be one that Ujiri feels he’d be able to trade if the swingman doesn’t end up producing, Smith believes.
- The 3-point shooting ability Ross has, supply and demand, and the insurance it gives the team in the event DeMar DeRozan bolts are all reasons why the Ross extension wasn’t too much of a gamble for the Raptors, Sportsnet’s Michael Grange argues.
- Ross needs to show significant improvement and become more efficient and consistent to prove worthy of the deal, opines Eric Koreen of the National Post.
What do you think of the Ross extension? Leave a comment to give us your take.
Heat, Grizzlies Talk Mario Chalmers Trade
9:58pm: Chalmers said that he was unaware of any trade rumors regarding himself until he arrived at the arena for tonight’s game against the Hawks, Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel writes. “It definitely surprised me,” Chalmers said of the rumors. “But I also know it’s a business. I didn’t know anything until I got here today.”
4:15pm: Some, presumably around the Grizzlies, have quietly expressed disappointment with what they see as Udrih’s lack of conditioning, athleticism and defense, according to Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal. The team’s general belief is that Smith isn’t yet ready to assume Udrih’s place in the rotation, Tillery adds.
2:44pm: Sources who spoke with Stein raised the possibility that Udrih could be included in a would-be deal, as Stein writes in a full story. The Grizzlies would have to give up another player to take in Chalmers, however, since Udrih only makes slighly more than $2.17MM this season, as Stein alludes to. The Grizzlies could only absorb 150% plus $100K of the salary they gave up.
2:00pm: The Jazz attempted to trade for Chalmers over the offseason, but the Heat didn’t take them up on it, a source recently told Jody Genessy of the Deseret News (Twitter link).
1:06pm: The Heat and Grizzlies have talked about a potential trade that wound send Mario Chalmers to Memphis, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com, who cautions that no deal is imminent (Twitter links). The Heat are in line to pay repeat-offender tax penalties if they finish the season above the $84.74MM tax line, and rumors have persistently surrounded Chalmers, who makes $4.3MM on an expiring contract and ceded his starting job to Goran Dragic last season. Miami had seemingly tabled the idea of a Chalmers trade as of late August but weren’t ruling out a deal as soon as October, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reported this summer.
Heat officials offered Chalmers in trades earlier this offseason with the tax in mind, one GM told Jackson (Twitter link), which jibes with reports from throughout the summer. Ramona Shelburne and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com first reported in June that the Heat were shopping Chalmers, as well as Chris Andersen, in an effort to clear the way for a new deal with Dwyane Wade, though team president Pat Riley denied it. Still, ESPN colleague Zach Lowe heard soon after that Chalmers and Andersen were available “for nothing” in return, an indication that the team was simply looking to shed salary.
The Grizzlies, fresh off a 50-point loss Monday to the Warriors, have Mike Conley firmly entrenched at the point, though he, like Chalmers, is on an expiring contract. Beno Udrih is Conley’s backup, with Russ Smith the third point guard. Nick Calathes departed in free agency this past summer. They’re roughly $5MM shy of the tax line, so they could take in Chalmers’ salary, but they don’t have a trade exception large enough that would allow them to absorb Chalmers without sending salary in return. Their only contract without a fully guaranteed salary for this season belongs to JaMychal Green, and it carries a partial guarantee of $150K.
The sides could seek a third team to facilitate a swap that would allow the Heat not to have to take salary in return for Chalmers, though it’s unclear if that idea has come up in the talks between Miami and Memphis. Shedding the $4.3MM owed to Chalmers would lower Miami’s tax bill, but it wouldn’t eliminate it. The Heat have about $91.9MM in guaranteed salary as it counts toward the tax, so the Heat would still need to eliminate about $3MM to duck under the tax threshold. Andersen is on an expiring contract worth $5MM this year, but his name isn’t involved in the latest report.
Chalmers is averaging 6.7 points, 3.0 assists and 1.7 turnovers in 18.0 minutes per game in three regular season contests so far, figures that would extrapolate to one of the worst lines of his NBA career if the numbers held for the entire season. Still, he has a wealth of playoff experience, unlike Tyler Johnson and Josh Richardson, who are behind him on the depth chart, and offloading Chalmers without bringing in a comparable player would weaken the Heat as they seek to return to prominence this season, observes Ethan Skolnick of the Miami Herald.
The interest from Memphis would appear to indicate the Grizzlies want to upgrade their point guard depth, though Udrih has seemingly as well if not better than Chalmers has so far this season, averaging 6.5 points, 4.0 assists and 1.3 turnovers in 15.8 minutes per game. Chalmers could help their outside shooting, which Memphis has long lacked, but he shot just 29.4% from 3-point range last season, well beneath his 36.1% career accuracy from behind the arc.
Do you think the Grizzlies make sense as a trade destination for Chalmers? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
NBA Teams Designate Affiliate Players
NBA teams cut as much as 25% of their rosters at the end of the preseason, but franchises that have D-League affiliates have a way to maintain ties to many of the players they release from the NBA roster. An NBA team can claim the D-League rights to up to four of the players it waives, as long as the players clear waivers, consent to join the D-League, and don’t already have their D-League rights owned by another team. These are known as affiliate players, as our Hoops Rumors Glossary entry details.
NBA teams allocated 46 affiliate players to the D-League at the beginning of the season last year, and this year, that number has risen to 56, according to the list the D-League announced today. These players are going directly to the D-League affiliate of the NBA team that cut them and weren’t eligible for the D-League draft that took place Saturday. Teams that designated fewer than the maximum four affiliate players retain the ability to snag the D-League rights of players they waive during the regular season, but for now, this is the complete list:
Boston Celtics (Maine Red Claws)
Cleveland Cavaliers (Canton Charge)
Dallas Mavericks (Texas Legends)
Detroit Pistons (Grand Rapids Drive)
Golden State Warriors (Santa Cruz Warriors)
Houston Rockets (Rio Grande Valley Vipers)
Indiana Pacers (Fort Wayne Mad Ants)
Los Angeles Lakers (Los Angeles D-Fenders)
Memphis Grizzlies (Iowa Energy)
Miami Heat (Sioux Falls Skyforce)
New York Knicks (Westchester Knicks)
Oklahoma City Thunder (Oklahoma City Blue)
- Michael Cobbins
- Mustapha Farrakhan
- Michael Qualls
- Dez Wells
Orlando Magic (Erie BayHawks)
Philadelphia 76ers (Delaware 87ers)
Phoenix Suns (Bakersfield Jam)
Sacramento Kings (Reno Bighorns)
San Antonio Spurs (Austin Spurs)
Toronto Raptors (Raptors 905)
Utah Jazz (Idaho Stampede)
Also, several players who were on NBA preseason rosters are on D-League rosters through means other than the affiliate player rule. Most of them played under D-League contracts at some point within the last two years, meaning their D-League teams have returning player rights to them. Others entered through last weekend’s D-League draft, while others saw their D-League rights conveyed via trade. Most of these players aren’t with the D-League affiliate of the NBA team they were with last month, with a few exceptions.
- Keith Appling, Magic — Magic affiliate
- Jordan Bachynski, Pistons — Knicks affiliate
- Earl Barron, Hawks — Suns affiliate
- Sampson Carter, Grizzlies — Cavaliers affiliate (D-League draft)
- Patrick Christopher, Grizzlies — Grizzlies affiliate
- Bryce Cotton, Jazz — Spurs affiliate
- Michael Dunigan, Cavaliers — Cavaliers affiliate
- Jarell Eddie, Warriors — Spurs affiliate
- C.J. Fair, Pacers — Pacers affiliate
- Jimmer Fredette, Spurs — Knicks affiliate
- Stefhon Hannah, Bulls — Pistons affiliate
- Jaron Johnson, Wizards — Rockets affiliate
- Omari Johnson, Trail Blazers — Celtics affiliate
- Perry Jones III, Celtics — Grizzlies affiliate (D-League draft)
- Tre Kelley, Heat — Heat affiliate
- Jordan McRae, Sixers — Sixers affiliate (D-League draft)
- Cartier Martin, Pistons — Grizzlies affiliate
- Toure’ Murry, Wizards — Mavericks affiliate (traded with Rockets affiliate for his D-League rights)
- Dan Nwaelele, Grizzlies — Warriors affiliate
- Marcus Simmons, Bulls — Pacers affiliate
- E.J. Singler, Jazz — Jazz affiliate
- DaJuan Summers, Knicks — Knicks affiliate
- Adonis Thomas, Pistons — Pistons affiliate
- Sam Thompson, Hornets — Pistons affiliate (D-League draft)
- J.P. Tokoto, Sixers — Thunder affiliate (traded for his D-League rights)
- Talib Zanna, Thunder — Thunder affiliate
Roster information from Adam Johnson of D-League Digest, Chris Reichert of Upside & Motor and freelancer and Hoops Rumors contributor Mark Porcaro was used in the creation of this post.
Furkan Aldemir Finalizing Deal To Play In Turkey
Furkan Aldemir is putting the finishing touches on a four-year deal with Darussafaka Dogus of Turkey, reports international journalist David Pick (Twitter link). The Sixers were reportedly likely to re-sign him if they were granted a 16th roster spot via hardship, but it looks like Aldemir will be returning to his home country instead of Philadelphia. It’s unclear if the would-be contract will have any escape clauses that would allow him to return to the NBA anytime soon.
Darussafaka Dogus had been in pursuit of the former 53rd overall pick, according to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia, and Pick heard that the team was the front-runner to sign Aldemir, who wants to return to his homeland. Aldemir, 24, played for Turkey’s Galatasaray in between the time the Clippers drafted him in 2012 and last December, when the Sixers signed him after trading for his draft rights. Philadelphia waived him last month in spite of his guaranteed salary of nearly $2.837MM for this season. The Sixers could defray a small portion of that guaranteed salary via set off rights if the Turkish deal gives him more than the NBA one-year veteran’s minimum salary of $845,059 for this season.
Aldemir averaged 2.3 points and an efficient 4.3 rebounds in 13.2 minutes per game over 41 appearances with the Sixers last season. The Sixers released him knowing that they had several players out with injury but would have to wait until they played at least three games to qualify to petition the league for an extra roster spot they could use to re-sign Aldemir or bring in someone else.
Sixers Eye Furkan Aldemir, 16th Roster Spot
The Sixers would probably sign Furkan Aldemir if the league permits them to carry a 16th player via the hardship provision, a source told Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News, confirming recent speculation (Twitter link). Joel Embiid, Carl Landry, Kendall Marshall and Tony Wroten are all expected to be out for at least next two weeks, and all missed the first three games of the regular season, so Philadelphia, which has 15 players already, meets the criteria necessary to petition the league for an extra player. Aldemir, whom the Sixers waived before opening night, is meanwhile drawing interest from overseas, ostensibly giving Philadelphia competition.
Darussafaka Dogus of Aldemir’s native Turkey is interested in the 24-year-old big man, according to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia, and Aldemir is pushing to return to his home country, where Darussafaka is the favorite to land him, a source tells international journalist David Pick (Twitter link). Aldemir played for Galatasaray before the Sixers signed him last December. Philadelphia guaranteed Aldemir’s salaries for both 2014/15 and 2015/16, and the Sixers ate nearly $2.837MM when they released him last month. The Sixers could set off a small portion of that when he signs his next contract, though the Sixers are still more than $4MM beneath the NBA’s minimum team salary of $63MM.
The hardship provision would allow the Sixers a 10-day window to stay at 16 players, and they could apply again once it’s over if their injured players are still expected to remain sidelined. The Sixers could keep Aldemir, or whomever they might add as a 16th player, and waive another player once they no longer have access to the provision, if they choose.
Offseason In Review: San Antonio Spurs
Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees and more will be covered as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.
Signings
- LaMarcus Aldridge: Four years, $84.072MM. Signed via cap space. Fourth year is a player option. Contains 15% trade kicker.
- Matt Bonner: One year, $1.499MM. Signed via minimum salary exception. Partially guaranteed for $750K.
- Rasual Butler: One year, $1.499MM. Signed via minimum salary exception. Non-guaranteed.
- Tim Duncan: Two years, $10.894MM. Signed via Bird rights. Second year is a player option.
- Jimmer Fredette: One year, $1.015MM. Signed via minimum salary exception. Partially guaranteed for $508K. Waived.
- Manu Ginobili: Two years, $5.755MM. Signed via room exception. Second year is a player option.
- Danny Green: Four years, $40MM. Signed via Bird rights. Fourth year is a player option.
- Kawhi Leonard: Five years, $94.313MM. Signed via Bird rights. Fifth year is a player option. Contains 15% trade kicker.
- Boban Marjanovic: One year, $1.2MM. Signed via cap room.
- Jonathon Simmons: Two years, $1.4MM. Signed via minimum salary exception. Second year is a team option.
- David West: Two years, $3.051MM. Signed via minimum salary exception. Second year is a player option.
Extensions
- None
Trades
- Acquired Ray McCallum from the Kings in exchange for San Antonio’s 2016 second round pick.
- Acquired the draft rights to Giorgos Printezis and Atlanta’s 2017 second round pick (top-55 protected) from the Hawks in exchange for Tiago Splitter.
Waiver Claims
- None
Draft Picks
- Nikola Milutinov (Round 1, 26th overall). Signed overseas.
- Cady Lalanne (Round 2, 55th overall). Playing in the D-League.
- Deshaun Thomas (2013 Round 2, 58th overall). Signed via minimum salary exception for one year, $525K. Waived.
Camp Invitees
Departing Players
Rookie Contract Option Decisions
- Kyle Anderson (third year, $1,192,080) — Exercised.
The Spurs could have stopped with the LaMarcus Aldridge deal, and they still probably would have had the most successful offseason of any team in the league. Still, the true measure of San Antonio’s summer is reflected in the rest of the moves that the Spurs made. The addition of David West at the minimum salary and the retention of all three members of the starting lineup who reached free agency, plus Manu Ginobili, give this year’s Spurs team extra depth and weapons that could prove key, given the age of the team’s mainstays and the thin margin of error in the Western Conference. The signing of West, in particular, underscored the allure of the winning culture that coach/president of Spurs basketball Gregg Popovich and GM R.C. Buford preside over, and it clearly played a role in allowing the team to snag Aldridge, too.
Family ties also swayed the former Trail Blazer, a Texas native, but regardless of his motivation, his arrival is as transformative for the Spurs as it is for him. Aldridge acknowledged that he had concerns about San Antonio’s egalitarian offense, given his long track record of high scoring in Portland, but assistant coach Ime Udoka reassured him that the Spurs wouldn’t ask him to make wholesale changes to the way he plays. Still, a significant on-court adjustment is taking place for the former No. 2 overall pick, who was averaging only 16.0 points per game through his first four regular season appearances with the Spurs, a mark that would be his lowest since he put up 9.0 points per game as a rookie. That’s a small sample size, of course, but the Spurs, as witnessed by Aldridge’s off-kilter 44.6% shooting in those four games, have yet to find a way to properly utilize their most talented inside counterpart to Duncan since they had David Robinson.
West presents yet another challenge, since the Spurs have to figure out to squeeze the most out of what he has to offer without that many minutes to go around. Much has changed on the inside, where centers Tiago Splitter and Aron Baynes are no longer around and Aldridge and West, who are power forwards, have replaced them. Splitter’s departure was necessary if the team was to both sign Aldridge and re-sign Danny Green, and thus San Antonio sent Splitter to the Hawks for virtually nothing aside from cap space. Popovich admitted it wasn’t a move he particularly enjoyed making, and he executed the trade without yet knowing that Aldridge would sign, making for a nervous few days in the Spurs front office.
Still, the salary cap math didn’t give San Antonio much of a choice, and the team had even less recourse with Baynes, who left for a tidy $19.5MM over three years with the Pistons. The Spurs recruited 7’3″ All-Euroleague First Team center Boban Marjanovic with a sliver of their cap room, but out of all the adjustments going on in San Antonio, none may be more profound than the ones Marjanovic must endure as the 27-year-old receives his first taste of the NBA.
The Green deal that played such a significant role in the team’s decision to shed Splitter was a surprise, given all the teams lined up to poach the swingman and the report that identified him as “a goner.” Green expressed platitudes toward the Knicks, about whom he told Marc Berman of the New York Post, “anybody turning down a meeting with them would be crazy,” but he doesn’t think the Knicks were as interested in him as he thought they’d be, Green said to Chris Mannix of SI.com. The Mavericks, Pistons, Blazers and Kings were also linked to the Bill Duffy client, but the Spurs won out in part because he was attracted to the idea of playing with Aldridge, who consulted Green about his own free agency. Once more, the signing of Aldridge proved a catalyst for another of the team’s summer moves.
Of course, the Aldridge deal couldn’t have come about unless the Spurs had elected against signing Kawhi Leonard to an extension in the fall of 2014, a maneuver that kept his cap hold as small as possible and allowed the Spurs to use cap space until they circled back to re-sign Leonard for the max. Leonard could have sought out and signed a short-term offer sheet with another team to punish the Spurs for making him wait, and he even could have signed his qualifying offer, but neither such option was truly in play for the unassuming client of agent Brian Elfus. Such was Leonard’s commitment to the Spurs that he agreed to the framework of what would become a five-year max deal within the first 15 minutes of free agency. The Spurs waited to formalize the arrangement until after they’d used the cap space that the Leonard maneuver gave them the chance to create.
Like Leonard, Duncan and Ginobili weren’t going to make their respective free agencies competitive affairs. It was Spurs or retirement for both, and while it took until July for them to announce their intentions, publicly at least, they came back to San Antonio, with Duncan’s choice — the first among the two — seemingly influencing Ginobili’s to some degree. Each took a significant pay cut, with Duncan consenting to play for about half of his salary from last season and Ginobili taking just the $2.814MM room exception this season after he made $7MM in 2014/15.
Ginobili might have been able to command more, though his game, unlike Duncan’s, is showing its age. That underscored the importance of retaining Green, since Ginobili, at 38, probably isn’t fit for the starting job at two guard. The other incumbent, Marco Belinelli, seemed an unlikely candidate to inherit the job, and the Spurs never appeared in the mix to re-sign him as he departed for Sacramento.
The Spurs wound up with a guard in exchange from Sacramento, in a roundabout way, relinquishing only a second-rounder (and likely a late one at that) for Ray McCallum, who takes over the third point guard duties from Cory Joseph, who signed with Toronto. Most third point guards don’t see much playing time, but with Tony Parker, like Ginobili, seemingly in decline, and given San Antonio’s penchant for resting its veterans, McCallum figures to get his chance. So, too, should Rasual Butler, who made the team out of camp over Jimmer Fredette and others. Butler has played significant minutes for the Pacers and Wizards the past two years despite having signed non-guaranteed deals with them, too.
Butler is 36, and like so many of the Spurs, his days in the NBA are numbered. Yet Aldridge showed with his commitment of at least three years that the end for the team’s lengthy run as a title contender remains a ways off. Perhaps even more significantly, Leonard is locked in through at least 2019, when he’ll only be turning 28. The Spurs spent the offseason trying to build a champion for this season, but they also put together a bridge to championship opportunities in the future.
Eddie Scarito contributed to this post. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of it.
Western Extension Notes: Waiters, Ezeli, Leonard
Thunder GM Sam Presti cited the rising salary cap and “the potential for further changes to the cap system itself as a whole prior to the summer” as reasons why he, Dion Waiters and Waiters’ representatives agreed to table contract talks until July, notes Royce Young of ESPN.com. Still, mutual interest exists, Presti insists.
“Dion has made it clear that he feels he has found a basketball home in Oklahoma City and is committed to being a part of the culture that exists, and the team sees him as someone who has his best basketball in front of him and has the potential to be a contributor for years to come with more time to develop in our program,” Presti said in the statement he issued to media.
The deal that Waiters, a Landmark Sports Agency client, passed up from the Thunder was team-friendly, and his camp hopes the projected surge in the salary cap bears an improved market for him, according to Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders. See more on the aftermath of Monday’s extension deadline around the Western Conference:
- The Warriors and Festus Ezeli were close to a deal on an extension, but his agent talked him out of signing what some called a team-friendly deal, sources tell Kyler for the same piece. Ezeli is a client of agent Bill Duffy.
- Meyers Leonard declined a “considerable” offer from the Trail Blazers when he and the team failed to reach an agreement before Monday’s extension deadline, a source tells Jason Quick of CSNNW.com. Still, Leonard, who said he’s betting on himself, would prefer to re-sign with the team in restricted free agency next summer, as Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com relays. “I like Portland a lot, I love this team, I love the city,” Leonard said in part. “So hopefully after this year we’ll get something done, because I truly believe that we have a good core group of guys. I came in with Damian [Lillard], CJ [McCollum] is just a year behind us, all the other guys that [president of basketball operations] Neil [Olshey] has brought in. I feel like we’re just going to keep going up, and that’s a good thing.”
- Five of the seven players who signed rookie scale extensions this year were in the Eastern Conference, but the two most lucrative deals of the bunch went to Western Conference representatives, as our extensions recap shows.