Rockets Waive Tyler, Walker, Cummings, Livingston
The Rockets have waived Jeremy Tyler, Chris Walker, Will Cummings and Denzel Livingston, the team announced (Twitter link). All four were on non-guaranteed deals. The moves leave Houston with 16 players, including 14 on fully guaranteed contracts. Arsalan Kazemi and Joshua Smith, the other two players, have non-guaranteed salaries.
Tyler, a three-year NBA veteran, is the only one of the four players the Rockets cut today who has previous experience in the league. The center, now 24, last appeared in a regular season game during 2013/14, with the Knicks. He posted eight points and eight rebounds in a total of 29 minutes spread over two preseason games for the Rockets this fall.
Walker, 20, is a once-heralded college recruit whose stock fell precipitously at Florida. He joined the Rockets summer league team in July after going undrafted this year and averaged 5.7 points in 8.3 minutes per game across three preseason appearances.
Cummings, just like Walker and Livingston, went undrafted this year and played with Houston’s summer league team. The 23-year-old former Temple point guard made it into six preseason games and averaged 4.2 points, 2.5 assists and 12.5 minutes per contest. Livingston, a combo guard from Incarnate Word, notched 7.5 points in 11.5 minutes per game during his four preseason appearances.
Gregg Popovich To Become Team USA Coach
Spurs coach/president Gregg Popovich will succeed Mike Krzyzewski as head coach of Team USA, as USA Basketball announced via press release. He’ll retain his Spurs duties but expand his role with the national team once Krzyzewski steps down following the 2016 Olympics. Popovich served Team USA in the past as an assistant coach from 2002-04.
“I’m extremely humbled and honored to have the opportunity to represent our country as the coach of the USA National Team,” Popovich said in the USA Basketball statement. “What the program has accomplished over the last decade under the leadership of [USA Basketball Chairman] Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski is truly impressive. I will do my utmost to maintain the high standards of success, class and character established by Jerry, Coach K and the many players who have sacrificed their time on behalf of USA Basketball.”
Popovich, 66, will serve through the 2020 Olympics, and Colangelo, 75, will remain in his job through then, too, but it’s unclear if either will stay with USA Basketball beyond that. Krzyzewski, who confirmed earlier this week that he’s stepping down next year, will remain with the program as a special adviser.
Today’s news is no surprise, as a coaching source had told Ken Berger of CBSSports.com that Popovich was the No. 1 choice for the job, though the swift timing of the announcement, almost a year before the transition will take place, was unexpected. He’ll have to balance his Team USA duties with coaching as well as his front office capacity as president of Spurs basketball, though GM R.C. Buford has long taken a leading role in personnel decisions.
Do you think Popovich should be taking the Team USA job, or should he simply focus on the Spurs? Leave a comment to let us know.
Pelicans Cut Chris Douglas-Roberts, Sean Kilpatrick
The Pelicans have waived Chris Douglas-Roberts and Sean Kilpatrick, the team announced via press release. The moves give New Orleans 17 players, 13 of whom have full guarantees. Neither Douglas-Roberts nor Kilpatrick has any guaranteed salary.
Most of the original camp invitees for the Pelicans were wing players like Douglas-Roberts and Kilpatrick, but injuries at point guard and center threw the preseason into flux for New Orleans. Centers Omer Asik and Alexis Ajinca, point guard Norris Cole, and swingman and occasional point guard Tyreke Evans are all missing time, plus starting point guard Jrue Holiday is on a minutes restriction. Point guards Nate Robinson and Bo McCalebb and power forward Jeff Adrien are the remaining non-guaranteed players for the team, while rookie shooting guard Bryce Dejean-Jones has a $50K partial guarantee.
The 28-year-old Douglas-Roberts was attempting to revive his NBA career after he saw action in only 12 games last season. He averaged 7.0 points in 19.7 minutes per game across seven preseason contests for New Orleans, including one start, but it wasn’t enough to save his spot on the roster. Kilpatrick, 25, looked strong, too, averaging 10.4 PPG in 14.2 MPG. He was the beneficiary of an injury problem last year with the Timberwolves, when he earned a roster spot in large measure because of his proximity to New York, where the Wolves were set to play the Knicks but didn’t have enough healthy players.
Who should the Pelicans keep for opening night? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Top Bloggers: Brian Robb On The Celtics
Anyone can have a blog about an NBA team, but some set themselves apart from the rest with the dedication and valuable insight they bring to their craft. We’ll be sharing some knowledge from these dialed-in writers on Hoops Rumors in a new feature called Top Bloggers. As with The Beat, our ongoing series of interviews with NBA beat writers, it’s part of an effort to bring Hoops Rumors readers ever closer to the pulse of the teams they follow. Last time, we spoke with David Zavac, managing editor of SB Nation’s Fear the Sword. Click here to see the entire Top Bloggers series.
Next up is Brian Robb, who is the owner and editor-in-chief of Celtics Hub, part of ESPN’s TrueHoop Network. You can follow Brian on Twitter at @CelticsHub and click here to check out his stories.
Hoops Rumors: The Celtics added David Lee, Amir Johnson and second-round draft pick Jordan Mickey to an already crowded mix of power forwards this summer. How can Brad Stevens divvy up playing time to get the most out of what they have?
Brian Robb: It’s all been about finding the right combinations. There’s an array of guys worthy of minutes, but certain guys complement each other better. For instance, Lee is a great passer and can initiate offense, so he’s a better fit with the likely starting backcourt of Marcus Smart/Avery Bradley, since that’s not a strength for either of those guys. Minutes will probably fluctuate game-to-game though, based on matchups and how particular players are performing.
Brian Robb: R.J. Hunter has looked the smoothest of the rookies, even though all three have had their moments. Hunter’s quick release has been a weapon (even though his accuracy has been off). He’s also been a better defender than advertised. The Celtics finished toward bottom of league in 3-point shooting last year, so Hunter should get his chances if he can help there. Mickey and Rozier have also looked sharp at times, but both players have too much veteran depth in front of them to make a major impact.
Brian Robb: I think they are on track. They’ve been patient waiting for the proper time to use all their draft picks in a big deal, but they are also building a solid reputation around the league with the way they have gone about things as an organization. Players seem to respect Brad Stevens and his scheme and players have fallen in line with his game planning. If Boston can continue to step forward in the East this year, they could be in line to make a big-name addition via trade/free agency next summer.
Brian Robb: I think the Celtics dodged a bullet there, especially when you consider one of the unprotected picks from Brooklyn would have been headed to Charlotte in that deal. Given the state of that franchise, that pick could have been higher than the No. 9 selection on its own. Winslow is a promising prospect, but the Celtics already have Jae Crowder signed long-term at the small forward. Winslow would have helped but could have been redundant with Crowder around.
Hoops Rumors: The Celtics certainly didn’t have trouble pulling off trades last season, when they engineered 11 swaps between July 1st and the February trade deadline. Is there anyone they would have been better off keeping?
Brian Robb: I don’t think so. I think it was pretty clear last year that Ainge sold on Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green at the right time. Everyone else dealt away was expendable, so the team shouldn’t really have any seller’s remorse in the interim.
Hoops Rumors: The Celtics improved their roster this summer, but so did several other teams that finished in the middle of the pack in the Eastern Conference last year. Are the Celtics in any better position now than they were going into the offseason?
Brian Robb: I think they will be better overall because of the continuity they can build upon with 10 returning players from last year’s roster. The rest of the East improved, but the Celtics played at such a high level in the final three months of the regular season, finishing the year with a 24-12 record in their final 36 games. They won’t match that pace, but should still be a 45-plus win team after adding Lee and Johnson into the equation.
Pistons Waive Martin, Thomas, Bachynski
9:49am: Bullock has indeed won a regular season roster spot, tweets Keith Langlois of Pistons.com.
9:21am: The Pistons have waived Cartier Martin, Adonis Thomas and Jordan Bachynski, the team announced via press release. The moves leave Detroit with 16 players, all of whom are on fully guaranteed contracts, but they nonetheless provide a strong indication of what the opening night roster will look like. Danny Granger has been away from the team rehabilitating his knee trouble, and indications surfaced even when the Pistons traded for him this summer that they would waive him, as Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press recently explained to Hoops Rumors. That, plus the three players hitting waivers today, puts Reggie Bullock in a strong position to make the regular season roster. Martin also has a fully guaranteed salary, so the Pistons will swallow $1,270,964 assuming he clears waivers, and they’ll eat the $60K guarantee for Thomas if he passes through waivers, too. Bachynski’s deal is non-guaranteed.
Martin, 30, picked up a player option after teammates reportedly encouraged him to do so despite his apparent dissatisfaction with his playing time. He appeared in only 23 games last season, averaging 8.6 minutes per contest, even though Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy committed a two-year deal to him on the first day of free agency in 2014.
The 22-year-old Thomas said that Van Gundy assured him he had a shot to make the regular season roster when the Pistons signed him this summer, but Thomas has dealt with Achilles tendon issues that limited him to a single preseason appearance of about 10 minutes. He spent last season with Detroit’s D-League affiliate, making the All-D-League Third Team, and the Pistons still own his D-League rights.
Bachynski scored six points in about six minutes of action spread over two preseason games. The 26-year-old center who went undrafted out of Arizona State in 2014 joined the Pistons on his first NBA contract this summer after having split last season between the D-League affiliate of the Knicks and Turkey’s Ekishehir Basket.
Bullock already had a line on a regular season roster spot because of his strong preseason play, and the Pistons are thinking about picking up Bullock’s $2,255,644 team option for 2016/17, Ellis reported. A decision on the option, part of the rookie scale contract for the former 25th overall pick, is due November 2nd. The Pistons acquired him from the Suns in the same trade that brought in Granger and Marcus Morris.
And-Ones: Valanciunas, Union, Hawks, Jazz
Teams that would like to trade for Jonas Valanciunas believe the Raptors are “lukewarm” on the center, Grantland’s Zach Lowe writes within his annual League Pass rankings. Executives from around the league wonder how Valanciunas would fit in another system and whether a player like him can thrive in today’s NBA, Lowe adds. Toronto just signed Valanciunas to a four-year, $64MM extension this summer, trigging the Poison Pill Provision, which makes any trade a difficult salary-matching proposition, and GM Masai Ujiri has said on multiple occasions that the Raptors highly value the former No. 5 overall pick. See more from around the NBA:
- Union executive director Michele Roberts hopes that next month she and NBA commissioner Adam Silver will begin formal negotiations toward a new collective bargaining agreement, as Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports details. The league hasn’t given Roberts any ultimatums regarding revenue or other labor issues, she tells Spears, expressing optimism that they can settle their differences without a work stoppage. Roberts, after watching Lamar Odom‘s struggles, would also like to see the union create a transition program for players retiring from basketball, Spears writes.
- Mike Budenholzer doesn’t anticipate making a change in playing style because of the free agent departure of DeMarre Carroll, who signed with the Raptors for four years and $58MM, as the Hawks coach/executive tells Chris Mannix of SI.com. Budenholzer isn’t putting pressure on any one player to replace Carroll, Mannix adds. “Just in general, I’ve told them, ‘be yourselves, do not try to do too much,'” Budenholzer said. “Sometimes when you are given opportunities to make reads, you have to make simple plays. That is what is going to be best for us. We feel fortunate we have a good group of guys that can all play significant roles. It may not be as stable as it has been the last two years. We will just kind of make some decisions and go from there.”
- E.J. Singler‘s deal with the Jazz was a two-year, minimum-salary arrangement that carried a $50K partial guarantee, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). Utah, which released Singler on Thursday just one day after signing him, will be responsible for that $50K if he clears waivers.
Mavs Release Jarrid Famous
The Mavs have waived center Jarrid Famous, the team announced via press release. Dallas needed to cut a player to accommodate its signing of former Xavier point guard Tu Holloway, since the team was already at the preseason roster limit. Famous signed with the team in July, but the deal only included a $10K partial guarantee, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. Only Dwight Powell, whose salary is non-guaranteed, had less. The Mavs will be on the hook for that $10K assuming Famous clears waivers.
The 27-year-old Famous was in his second NBA training camp, having joined the Pacers in 2011, the same year he went undrafted out of South Florida. He embarked on an overseas odyssey in the meantime, one that he recalled this past May in an interview with Zach Links of Hoops Rumors. Famous has made a concerted effort to make the NBA in the past year after previously focusing on overseas opportunities, as Zach detailed. He averaged 2.0 points and 1.8 rebounds in 9.6 minutes per game across five preseason appearances with the Mavs.
Dallas still has work to do to pare down to the 15-man regular season roster maximum. The Mavs have 15 full guarantees plus a sizable $500K partial guarantee to JaVale McGee and matching $50K partial guarantees for Brandon Ashley and Jamil Wilson.
Should the Mavs keep McGee? If so, whom should they cut? Leave a comment to tell us.
Mavs Sign Tu Holloway
OCTOBER 22ND, 2:11pm: The Mavs have indeed signed Holloway, the team announced via press release. Dallas has also waived Jarrid Famous, the team also says in the release. The corresponding move was necessary, since the Mavs already had 20 players, the preseason maximum.
OCTOBER 14TH, 10:35am: Former Xavier point guard Tu Holloway is leaving the Venezuelan team Guaros de Lara after receiving an invitation from the Mavericks, the Guaros de Lara says (Twitter links; translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). It’s not entirely clear if it means Dallas is signing him, auditioning him in a workout or merely bringing him in for talks, but the Mavs are already familiar with the 26-year-old’s game, having had him on the summer league roster in 2012. They would have to make a corresponding move to sign Holloway, since the Mavs are already at the 20-man preseason roster limit. Dwight Powell is the only player on the Mavs without at least a partial guarantee on his contract, as our roster count shows, though the partial guarantee for Jarrid Famous is just $10K, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.
Guaros de Lara had Holloway on a guaranteed contact that included an NBA out, according to Carchia. He played for the Venezuelan team the past two seasons and has also made stops in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Belgium and Turkey since going undrafted in 2012. He totaled 12 points, eight assists and three turnovers in nearly 44 minutes of action over four games with the Mavs summer league team in July of that year after posting averages of 17.5 points, 4.9 assists and 3.0 turnovers in 36.6 minutes per game as a senior for Xavier in 2011/12.
The Mavs intend to keep all four of the point guards they have on fully guaranteed deals, according to coach Rick Carlisle, so that would make it remarkably tough for Holloway to find his way onto the regular season roster in Dallas. The Mavs can claim the D-League rights to as many as four players they waive, so it would appear Holloway has a stronger chance to be with the D-League Texas Legends than the Mavs come the end of the month, though that’s just my speculation.
Do you think Holloway has NBA-caliber talent? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Cavs Waive Nick Minnerath
2:01pm: The move is official, the team announced.
1:01pm: The Cavs will waive combo forward Nick Minnerath to make room for Tristan Thompson, reports Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group and the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Twitter link). The team is at the 20-man roster maximum and can’t officially re-sign Thompson until it releases someone, and it looks like Minnerath is the one to go. The 26-year-old who went undrafted out of the University of Detroit Mercy in 2013 joined the Cavs last month on a non-guaranteed deal.
Minnerath averaged 2.7 points in 9.8 minutes per game over three preseason appearances for Cleveland. He spent the first two seasons of his pro career playing in France and Spain, though he had brushes with the NBA during summer league in 2013 and 2014. He’ll next play for the D-League affiliate of the Cavs assuming he clears waivers, Haynes writes in a full story, so it looks like the Cavs will make him one of the four camp cuts whose D-League rights they’re allowed to claim.
Cleveland plans to keep its roster at the 20-man preseason maximum as long as possible, as Haynes reported last week, which means the Cavs probably won’t make extensive cuts until Saturday, the last day for teams to waive summer contracts without them counting against the cap. The Cavs had been planning to carry only 14 players on opening night, as Haynes also reported prior to the Thompson deal, so that puts the non-guaranteed contracts of Dionte Christmas, Quinn Cook, Jack Cooley, Jared Cunningham, Austin Daye and D.J. Stephens in jeopardy.
Hawks Waive Terran Petteway
1:53pm: The release is official, the team announced via press release.
10:46am: The Hawks have waived Terran Petteway, according to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Twitter link). The team has yet to publicly announce the move, though Vivlamore indicates it has already taken place. The undrafted swingman from Nebraska signed a deal that carries a $75K partial guarantee, so Atlanta will be responsible for that if he clears waivers. The move leaves the Hawks with 17 players, including 13 full guarantees and partial guarantees to Mike Muscala and Lamar Patterson, as our roster count shows.
Muscala is a “lock” to make the opening night roster, as Vivlamore has termed it in the past, and Petteway appeared the only strong challenger to Patterson for the 15th regular season spot, based on their matching $75K partial guarantees. Still, Patterson, the 48th overall pick from 2014, has averaged twice as many minutes in the preseason as Petteway has. Petteway, 23, averaged 1.7 points in 7.2 minutes per game in three preseason appearances.
Earl Barron and DeQuan Jones remain on Atlanta’s roster with non-guaranteed deals. The Hawks will have to cut them by the end of Saturday if they don’t want to incut a cap hit for either of them.