Wizards, Bradley Beal Decide Against Extension
11:57am: Beal’s camp and the Wizards mutually called a halt to extension talk this morning, Bartelstein tells J. Michael of CSNMidAtlantic.com. “We decided it was best to wait when it makes better sense for both sides,” Bartelstein said. Beal can sign a five-year deal as a free agent, but because Wall is Washington’s Designated Player, an extension for Beal could have been for no more than four years.
10:16pm: The Wizards will not sign Bradley Beal to an extension before tonight’s 11pm Central deadline, sources tell TNT’s David Aldridge (Twitter link). The prospect had seemed unlikely anyway, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com wrote late Sunday, with the Wizards preferring to put off a deal until the former No. 3 overall pick enters restricted free agency next summer, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News reported Friday.
Washington fully intends to re-sign Beal for the maximum next summer, according to Deveney. The Mark Bartelstein client will be able to negotiate with other teams, but the Wizards can match offers. Beal could take the drastic step of signing his qualifying offer, worth about $7.471MM, but that would be a drastic discount from his projected maximum salary of $20.4MM. The sharpshooting 22-year-old said recently that he was confident about working out a deal with the Wizards before the extension deadline but would be OK with either outcome.
The Wizards are pursuing the same course that the Spurs took with Kawhi Leonard that allowed them to sign LaMarcus Aldridge this summer. The Pistons and Andre Drummond are also going that route. Those teams decided against extensions for their up-and-coming stars to preserve cap flexibility. Beal’s cap hold for next summer is $14.2MM, and that number is on the books until the sides agree to terms. Locking in the maximum salary, a difference of more than $6MM from Beal’s cap hold, would render Washington with little or no maneuverability to supplement a 2016/17 roster that would feature Beal, John Wall and a maximum salary free agent addition such as Kevin Durant, as I explained. As long as Beal is unsigned, the Wizards could sign other free agents next summer and simply use Bird rights to re-sign him or match an offer sheet.
Beal has started the season strongly. He’s averaging 25.3 points in 35.0 minutes per game and has canned 10 of 20 three-point attempts in three regular season games so far, though the same size is small, of course. He’s nonetheless ahead of Wall and leading the team in scoring and shot attempts.
Magic, Andrew Nicholson Unlikely To Do Extension
The Magic and Andrew Nicholson are unlikely to reach a deal on an extension by tonight’s 11pm Central deadline, as TNT’s David Aldridge hears (Twitter link). That’s not at all surprising, since little, if any chatter about an extension existed over the summer, as our rumors page for Nicholson suggests. He, like Evan Fournier, whom the Magic are also reportedly unlikely to extend, is poised for restricted free agency in July.
Nicholson, 25, has only seen four minutes of playing time in the regular season so far. His minutes per game have declined each season since his rookie year, when he averaged 7.8 points in 16.7 minutes per game and made 28 starts for the Magic. Orlando drafted him 19th overall in 2012, making him one of many young players in which the team invested for its post-Dwight Howard era, but others have passed him by in the rotation.
Orlando doesn’t have a ton of flexibility heading into the summer of 2016, when many teams will be able to lavish free agents with lucrative deals under a projected $89MM cap that some apparently think will skyrocket to $95MM. The Magic already have more than $60.5MM in commitments to nine players.
Extension Off Table For Thunder, Dion Waiters
The Thunder and Dion Waiters have decided against signing a rookie scale extension before tonight’s 11pm Central deadline, a source tells TNT’s David Aldridge (Twitter link). That means Waiters is set to become a restricted free agent in July. Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported late Sunday that the sides were continuing talks, but it appears they’ve broken them off. The Landmark Sports Agency client was enthusiastic about reaching an extension as the Thunder actively explored the idea last month, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports heard a few weeks ago.
Oklahoma City likes to reward players who want to be there and the team is more concerned with building Kevin Durant a stable supporting cast for the long-term than making too many commitments to non-stars in the event that he bolts in free agency, as Royce Young of ESPN.com recently explained. GM Sam Presti said in September that only slight adjustments were necessary for Waiters to make a significant impact. That seemed to make the case why the Thunder would have interest in an extension, but it nonetheless appears as though it wasn’t compelling enough for the sides to come to terms.
The team was open to the idea of an extension over the summer, but only if he would concede to a discount, Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders reported. It’s unclear just how much of a discount would have been required, but the value of the 23-year-old had seemingly plummeted last season as he failed to reach either 40% shooting from the floor or 30% from behind the arc and reached new lows in points and minutes per game.
Assuming Waiters proves worthy of more than the mid-level exception, it could prove challenging for the Thunder to replace him if he signs elsewhere next summer and Oklahoma City elects not to match. The team has nearly $66MM on the books for 2016/17, with projections that show the salary cap at $89MM and a maximum salary for Durant at $24.9MM, with many reportedly believing those numbers will surge even higher. That would leave little opportunity for the Thunder to open cap space to sign a replacement if they don’t use their Bird rights on Waiters to retain him.
Do you think the Thunder will keep Waiters beyond this season? Leave a comment to let us know.
Atlantic Notes: Ross, Thomas, Lopez, Fisher
The Raptors have had talks with Terrence Ross but had made no offer as of late Sunday, Sportsnet’s Michael Grange reports. The Aaron Mintz client presents a conundrum because his skill and athleticism don’t always show up in his performance, as Grange examines.
“Consistency is the key on both ends of the floor, not just his offense but his defense,” said Raptors coach Dwane Casey. “And that’s a huge question with him.”
Ross said he likes his new role as a bench player, but despite his status as a reserve, Grange believes $10MM is not out of the question if he and the team agree to terms. As the hours dwindle in advance of tonight’s rookie scale extension deadline at 11pm Central, see more from the Atlantic Division:
- Langston Galloway is continuing to thrive for the Knicks on his partially guaranteed deal this season, and the same is true for Lance Thomas, as Marc Berman of the New York Post examines. Thomas re-signed with New York on a one-year deal of nearly $1.637MM, slightly above the minimum. It doesn’t hurt that Thomas is an ex-teammate of Kevin Durant, Berman posits.
- The roster the Nets put together for this season is thin on three-point shooting, and that allows defenses to focus on stopping Brook Lopez inside, which has forced Lopez to take far fewer shots from close to the basket than he did last season, fellow Post scribe Tim Bontemps observes. Brooklyn re-signed Lopez this summer for three years at the max.
- Knicks coach Derek Fisher is stepping out from team president Phil Jackson‘s shadow as he’s moved away from the triangle somewhat during the team’s first few games this season, notes Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News.
Rockets To Pick Up 2016/17 Option On Clint Capela
SUNDAY, 6:45pm: The Rockets have picked up the option, Feigen reports. The team has yet to make an announcement.
SEPTEMBER 28TH: The Rockets will exercise their team option to keep center Clint Capela on his rookie scale contract for the 2016/17 season, a source tells Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. The formal decision on the option, worth $1,296,240, is due November 2nd, nearly a year before the option season begins.
It’s no shock to see Houston poised to make the move, since most rookie scale team options are picked up, even though Capela saw action in only 12 games and scored a total of 32 points in the regular season this past year, his first in the NBA after the Rockets made him the 25th overall pick in 2014. Capela took a step forward in the postseason, when he saw minutes in place of the injured Donatas Motiejunas. The rookie appeared in more playoff games (17) than regular season contests and averaged 3.4 points in 7.5 minutes per postseason game.
The option will put a slight squeeze on Houston’s cap flexibility for next summer, though the team will only have about $45.6MM in commitments once the option formally goes on the books. That doesn’t count a player option worth more than $23MM for Dwight Howard, Ty Lawson‘s non-guaranteed salary in excess of $13.2MM, or any money for Terrence Jones and Donatas Motiejunas, whose contracts will expire at season’s end if they don’t reach extensions with Houston by that same November 2nd date. The salary cap is projected to hit $89MM next summer.
Do you think Capela will become a productive player for the Rockets? Leave a comment to let us know.
Timeline: Injuries Force Pelicans Roster Shuffle
No team has made more moves since training camps began this season than the Pelicans, who’ve endured a seemingly unending stream of injuries. They began with Quincy Pondexter still recovering from offseason knee surgery, and he’s yet to play this season. It only worsened from that point, and executive VP of basketball operations Mickey Loomis and GM Dell Demps have been shuffling the roster ever since. Here’s a timeline of the past five weeks leading up to today, when the Pelicans made yet another move, their 17th transaction in October.
- September 24th — Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry announces that Jrue Holiday will be under a minutes restriction until January as he continues to recover from a stress reaction injury in his lower right leg that cost him 42 games last season, as John Reid of The Times Picayune details. That means no more than 15 minutes in regular season games and no back-to-backs, Gentry says.
- September 29th — The Pelicans open camp with 13 players on fully guaranteed contracts, shooting guard Bryce Dejean-Jones on a deal that’s partially guaranteed for $50K, plus non-guaranteed deals with wing players Chris Douglas-Roberts, Sean Kilpatrick and Corey Webster. Power forward Jeff Adrien, also on a non-guaranteed pact, is the team’s other player in camp, giving the Pelicans an 18-man roster.
- October 3rd — Backup center Alexis Ajinca suffers a right hamstring strain in the preseason opener for New Orleans. The team announces two days later that it expects him to miss four to six weeks. He misses the rest of the preseason but returns in time for the regular season opener.
- October 7th — Starting center Omer Asik suffers a right calf strain in practice. The team announces the next day that Asik is expected to miss three weeks. He hasn’t played yet, though a chance exists that he will Saturday, tweets John Reid of The Times Picayune.
- October 9th — The Pelicans sign center Greg Smith, who played for the Mavericks last season.
- October 10th — The team voids its contract with Smith, who failed his physical.
- October 11th — Jerome Jordan, who played for the Nets last season, signs a non-guaranteed deal with the Pelicans.
- October 11th — Backup point guard Norris Cole suffers a high left ankle sprain in practice. He’s reportedly expected to miss six to eight weeks.
- October 12th — Small forward Luke Babbitt, a candidate to start, strains his left hamstring in a preseason game. Three days later, the Pelicans announced that he would be out indefinitely. He hasn’t made it back yet, but like Asik, he may also play in Saturday’s game, Reid notes in the same tweet.
- October 13th — The Pelicans sign Mirza Begić, a 7’1″ center from Bosnia and Herzegovina who’d never been in the NBA before. He spent last season playing in Spain and Slovenia. His deal is non-guaranteed. The move takes New Orleans to 20 players, the preseason limit.
- October 15th — New Orleans waives Webster. The roster goes down to 19.
- October 15th — The Pelicans sign former University of New Orleans point guard Bo McCalebb, an NBA neophyte. It’s a non-guaranteed deal with a partial guarantee of $50K that would go into effect if he sticks for opening night. The roster goes back to 20.
- October 16th — Begic hits waivers, dropping the roster to 19.
- October 16th — The Pelicans sign point guard Nate Robinson, who’d been a free agent since a pair of 10-day contracts with the Clippers expired last spring. That takes the roster up to 20 players again.
- October 16th — New Orleans waives Jordan, knocking the roster down to 19 once more.
- October 20th — Swingman and occasional point guard Tyreke Evans undergoes right knee surgery that’s expected to keep him out six to eight weeks.
- October 23rd — The Pelicans waive Douglas-Roberts and Kilpatrick. The roster is at 17.
- October 24th — McCalebb goes on waivers before his partial guarantee kicks in. The team also releases Adrien and Dejean-Jones. That leaves New Orleans at 14 players, one below the regular season limit.
- October 26th — The Pelicans claim Ish Smith and his non-guaranteed contract off waivers from the Wizards. The well-traveled point guard was briefly a Pelican last season but never suited up for the team. He finished the season with the Sixers, playing well. The move gives New Orleans 15 players.
- October 26th — Dejean-Jones clears waivers, forcing the Pelicans to eat his partial guarantee of $50K.
- October 27th — Gentry increases the minutes restriction on Holiday to 20, as Reid detailed. Holiday sits out the opening game of the regular season, the first of a back-to-back for the Pelicans. Robinson starts at point guard at plays 19 minutes. Smith comes off the bench to play 38 minutes.
- October 28th — Holiday starts and plays 21 minutes, slighly exceeding his increased minutes limit. Smith plays close to 29 minutes off the bench. Robinson, in a reserve role, appears for only four minutes.
- October 29th — The Pelicans waive Robinson, and the roster goes back to 14.
- October 30th — Point guard Toney Douglas, who played for the Pelicans last year and whom they waived in July, re-signs with New Orleans. Again, the roster reaches 15 players.
The Pelicans, with playoff aspirations, sit 0-2 heading into their home opener Saturday against the Warriors in a rematch of Tuesday’s opener at Golden State. Still, for all their woes, Anthony Davis remains unhurt, so it could be much worse.
The RealGM transactions log was used in the creation of this post.
Latest On Wizards, Bradley Beal Extension Talks
The Wizards fully intend to sign Bradley Beal to a maximum-salary contract, but they prefer to do so next summer instead of before Monday’s deadline for an extension, a source told Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. The team reportedly offered an extension worth less than the max, and earlier it appeared Washington wanted some non-guaranteed salary involved in any max deal. Beal recently expressed confidence that the sides would work something out before the extension deadline but said he would be fine with either outcome.
The latest news makes sense, given the financial motivation the Wizards have to hold off. Beal’s cap hold for next summer is $14.2MM, and that number sticks on the books until the sides agree to terms. Beal’s projected maximum salary is $20.4MM, and signing him to that figure for next season would give the team almost no flexibility to sufficiently build a roster around Beal, John Wall and a maximum salary free agent addition such as Kevin Durant, as I explained. Keeping Beal unsigned would allow the Wizards to sign other free agents first before circling back to Beal and signing him for the max using Bird rights. It’s a strategy the Spurs used with Kawhi Leonard that freed them to sign LaMarcus Aldridge and others this summer, and the Pistons are going the same route with Andre Drummond for next year.
Beal and agent Mark Bartelstein don’t have to play along, but while they could pursue an offer sheet that would take Beal to unrestricted free agency as soon as 2018, Washington would almost certainly match. He could unilaterally reach unrestricted free agency in 2017 if he signs his qualifying offer, but the qualifying offer is worth only about $7.471MM.
Ken Berger of CBSSports.com reported in May that the Wizards were ready to do a max deal with the former No. 3 overall pick, and that, coupled with a report from J. Michael of CSNWashington.com last year that the Wizards were already planning to do an extension with Beal, seemed to signal that he’d sign this summer. It appears Washington’s plan has changed since then, as Michael noted in August.
Do you think Beal is worth the max? Leave a comment to let us know.
Central Notes: Noah, Tellem, LeBron, Harris
Joakim Noah set the record straight Friday, telling reporters that he didn’t ask Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg to remove him from the starting lineup. Hoiberg indicated in an interview with Grantland’s Zach Lowe that Noah had done so, as Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com and K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune relay (Twitter links).
“I never said I want to come off the bench,” Noah said. “I said I will do what’s best for the team.”
The coach didn’t directly say that Noah had requested the move, though that was the interpretation that Lowe took from the remark (Twitter link). In any case, Noah, a 2016 free agent, obviously would prefer to start, but in spite of the benching and Hoiberg’s comment, he isn’t upset with the coach, Johnson notes (All Twitter links). “The truth is I think I’m more effective playing the 5. And Pau [Gasol] is the same. And we have two very good 4s. So this makes sense,” Noah also said. See more from the Central Division:
- Pistons owner Tom Gores continues to enthusiastically support coach/executive Stan Van Gundy, and he also suggested that owners around the league regard the addition of former agent Arn Tellem as a coup, citing comments his fellow owners made to him, notes Keith Langlois of Pistons.com. Tellem became vice chairman of Palace Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of the Pistons, over the offseason. “Most of the owners were wondering, how the heck did we get Arn? He lives in great weather, he’s probably the most renowned NBA agent ever, he knows everybody in basketball – and we convinced him to come to Detroit,” Gores said. “That was the good secret in the room. ‘How the hell did you do that, Tom?”
- The upgrades the Cavs made to their bench during the offseason stand to give LeBron James a better chance to rest, but he still expects to play in 82 games after appearing in only 69 last year, observes Sam Amico of AmicoHoops.net.
- The Cavs appear to be questioning the potential of Joe Harris after an up-and-down preseason, Amico adds in the same piece. Harris has a fully guaranteed deal for this season, but next season’s salary is non-guaranteed.
Jodie Meeks To Miss 12-16 Weeks
The Pistons expect Jodie Meeks to miss the next 12 to 16 weeks as he recovers from a broken right foot, the team announced via press release. Meeks underwent surgery Thursday for what the team is calling a non-displaced fracture of the fifth metatarsal, an injury he suffered in Wednesday’s game. Detroit has a full 15-man roster, and no one on it has any non-guaranteed salary, so making a move to offset the loss of Meeks would present a challenge.
Meeks appeared for an 11-minute stint in Detroit’s opener and had played six minutes in the game in which he got hurt. A stress reaction in his lower back helped limit Meeks to only 60 games last season, his first with Detroit after he signed a three-year, $18.81MM deal in one of Stan Van Gundy‘s first moves as Pistons president of basketball operations in the summer of 2014. Meeks averaged 24.4 minutes per game last season and shot 34.9% from three-point range, both numbers that were markedly lower than the ones he posted in 2013/14 with the Lakers.
Former No. 8 pick Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is the starter at shooting guard, where Meeks plays, and the Pistons have Reggie Bullock and Stanley Johnson who can play there, too, notes Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press (Twitter link). Rookie swingman Darrun Hilliard will be active tonight, Ellis adds, but it’s unclear if he’s in the mix for minutes.
The Pistons are also without Brandon Jennings for the first several weeks of the season, but they’d have to endure two more significant injuries to qualify for a hardship provision of a 16th roster spot. The injuries to Meeks and Jennings aren’t expected to sideline either of them for the entire 2015/16 season, so Detroit couldn’t get a disabled player exception, either. The Pistons have their $2.814MM room exception available, but few, if any, remaining free agents would warrant that sort of money.
Sixers Pick Up Options On Embiid, Noel, Stauskas
The Sixers have exercised their team options for 2016/17 on Joel Embiid, Nerlens Noel and Nik Stauskas, the team announced. League sources told Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer the moves would happen shortly before they took place. The news comes as no shock, as Pompey notes, though it represents a noteworthy vote of confidence for Embiid, to whom the Sixers are committing a salary of $4,826,160 for that season without him having played a single regular season game yet. Noel will make more than $4.384MM and Stauskas will see about $2.993MM on their 2016/17 options, as our post on Upcoming Rookie Scale Option Decisions shows, adding in excess of $12MM to Philadelphia’s payroll and doubling the team’s salary commitments for that season.
Teams are facing a Monday deadline for rookie scale team options like these. The vast majority of the these options are exercised, even in cases in which players have yet to blossom, though rarely does a highly touted prospect’s career begin as inauspiciously as Embiid’s has. Philadelphia committed the third overall pick to him last year, knowing that he’d already suffered a broken foot. He wound up missing all of 2014/15, and a follow-up surgery is expected to cost him the entire 2015/16 season, too.
Noel’s option was much more of an open-and-shut case. He, like Embiid, missed his first year under contract with the Sixers because of injury, but the 2013 No. 6 pick delivered last season, finishing third in Rookie of the Year voting and averaging 9.9 points and 8.1 rebounds in 30.8 minutes per game. He’ll be up for a rookie scale extension next summer.
Stauskas, another former top-10 pick, struggled in his rookie season last year as a member of the Kings, shooting just 32.2% from 3-point range after connecting on 44.1% of his 3-pointers in college. He came to Philadelphia via offseason trade, and while injuries forced him to miss the preseason and the first game of the regular season for the Sixers, he’s probable for tonight’s contest, according to Pompey.
One more matter the Sixers have until Monday to resolve is whether to grant a rookie scale extension to Tony Wroten, though little suggestion exists that they’ll sign him to one, so he’s likely set for restricted free agency in July. The Sixers also have a team option on Hollis Thompson for 2016/17, but a decision on that isn’t due until the summer because he’s not on a rookie scale contract.
Are the Sixers wise to be patient with Embiid? Leave a comment to tell us.