Bulls Waive Jordan Crawford, Marcus Simmons
The Bulls have waived Jordan Crawford and Marcus Simmons, the team announced via press release. The release of Simmons, a shooting guard who went undrafted in 2011, comes as no surprise, but Crawford, a four-year NBA veteran, appeared to have a decent shot to stick for opening night. The moves reduce the Bulls roster to 15 players, including 13 full guarantees, though that doesn’t necessarily mean the team is through with preseason cuts, since Chicago usually starts the season with only 13 or 14 players. Both Crawford and Simmons signed non-guaranteed deals.
Crawford, 26, was trying to restart his NBA career after spending last season in China and the D-League. The combo guard made 35 starts in 39 appearances for the Celtics in 2013/14, but he spent the second half of that season buried on the bench with the Warriors following a trade, and he’s had trouble regaining his foothold in the NBA since. He averaged 3.2 points in 7.2 minutes per game across five preseason appearances this fall.
Simmons and Crawford were briefly teammates with the D-League Fort Wayne Mad Ants last season. The 27-year-old Simmons won 2010/11 Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year honors as a senior at USC, but he’s struggled offensively, shooting just 28.8% on 52 three-point attempts in the D-League last year. He went scoreless in about three minutes of preseason action for the Bulls.
Cameron Bairstow and Cristiano Felicio remain as the only Bulls without full guarantees. Bairstow has a $425K partial guarantee, and while the Bulls are high on Felicio, he’s without any guaranteed money.
And-Ones: Amerileague, Fredette, Draft, Coaches
The viability of the Amerileague plunged further into question Wednesday as a former spokesperson for the league revealed to freelance journalist Erin Ashley Simon that the league’s CEO was using a fictitious name and is actually Glendon Alexander, a former McDonald’s All-American with multiple fraud convictions. Amerileague operations manager Marcus Bass confirmed the news to Jeff Goodman and Paula Lavigne of ESPN’s Outside the Lines. Alexander has resigned as CEO, reports Adam Johnson of D-League Digest (Twitter link), ending a trail of suspicion about his involvement that Kami Mattioli of The Sporting News first detailed in May. Henry Walker recently became the first player who appeared in the NBA during the 2014/15 season to sign with the Amerileague, but Walker’s agent, Mike Naiditch, tells Hoops Rumors that, “If there was never a league, then [there] was never a deal.”
The Amerileague draft was to take place today, but Bass tells Johnson that the event is on hold (Twitter link). See more from around basketball:
- An unwillingness to adjust his freewheeling college game to the NBA style of play led to Jimmer Fredette‘s lack of success in the league, one of his former NBA assistant asserts to Michael Lee of Yahoo Sports. The Spurs waived Fredette on Wednesday, though four other NBA teams still reportedly have some level of interest in him.
- Vanderbilt junior center/forward Damian Jones says he plans to enter the 2016 draft, as Adam Sparks of The Tennessean relays. Chad Ford of ESPN.com ranks the 6’10” Jones as the 14th-best draft prospect, while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress has him at No. 16.
- Hawks assistant Kenny Atkinson, Magic assistant Adrian Griffin and Pelicans assistant Darren Erman are future head coaching candidates to watch, according to Chris Mannix of SI.com. Heat assistant David Fizdale draws an honorable mention on Mannix’s list.
How Tristan Thompson Deal Affects Cavs Tax Bill
The Cavaliers finally struck a deal to sign Tristan Thompson on Wednesday night when the sides reached agreement on a five-year, $82MM arrangement, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group and the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. The precise value of the contract is still unknown, but Thompson will draw a salary of $14.2MM this season, a source told Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today (Twitter link). [UPDATE, 4:00pm: The precise value of this season’s salary for Thompson, who has officially re-signed, is $14,260,870, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). So, we’ve revised the numbers you see below accordingly.] That’s the key figure in what likely proved a stumbling block as negotiations dragged on for months: the luxury tax.
The Cavaliers already had a payroll well above the $84.74MM tax threshold before coming to terms with Thompson, and signing him means Cleveland is in line to shell out a total that’s second only to the $190MM-plus the Nets paid in taxes and salary during the 2013/14 season. The league makes its tax calculations according to payrolls on the final day of the regular season, so it’s still too early to determine exactly how much the Cavs will pay. However, the $14,260,870 figure for Thompson shows the sort of financial straits the Cavs are getting themselves into.
Cleveland was a taxpayer this past season, but the team is not in line for repeat-offender penalties, which kick in when a team pays the tax in at least three years out of the previous four. That’s a saving grace, but the Cavs will still be paying plenty. Their existing amount of guaranteed salary, before Thompson, was $94,907,206, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. All of it was committed to the 13 Cavaliers aside from Thompson who have fully guaranteed salaries this season, since the Cavs aren’t carrying any partial guarantees. Adding $14,260,870 to that figure would bring it to $109,168,076, or $24,428,076 more than the tax line.
That number reflects the team’s salary as it relates to the cap, but the tax incorporates other calculations. Any Cavs player who triggers an incentive clause in his contract that the league deems they’re unlikely to achieve would make the number rise accordingly for tax purposes. Conversely, if any of the Cavs fail to meet likely incentives, the team’s tax number would go down. The tax also treats all minimum-salary contracts equally, except for players whom teams signed as draft picks. That makes Joe Harris, last year’s 33rd overall pick, cheaper for the Cavs than most other players on minimum-salary contracts would be. His $845,059 one-year veteran’s minimum salary, which is fully guaranteed, is reflected on the team’s payroll as just that. If the Cavs were to keep Jack Cooley on his $845,059 one-year veteran’s minimum contract for the entire season, it would show up at $947,276 when the league adds up Cleveland’s payroll at season’s end.
The estimated $109,168,076 payroll figure for Cleveland, which includes Thompson, entails a roster of 14 players, one shy of the regular season maximum. Most teams carry 15 on opening night, and almost every team has a 15th player at some point during the year. Teams usually make at least slight changes to their personnel over the course of the season, so it’s a stretch to assume that Thompson and the 13 other fully guaranteed players will constitute the Cavs roster by season’s end. However, here’s how the league would tax the Cavs in the event that $109,168,076 figure holds:
- Cleveland would first have to pay a $7.5MM penalty for exceeding the tax line by at least $4,999,999.
- Penalties of $8.75MM, $12.5MM and $16.25MM would follow, since the team would also burst through the next three tax brackets.
- The Cavs would have to pay $3.75 for every dollar they spent above $20MM. Since the Cavs would be $24,367,206 above the tax threshold, they would pay $4,428,076 times $3.75, or $16,605,285.
- Add $16,605,285 to $7.5MM, $8.75MM, $12.5MM and $16.25MM, and you get a total tax bill of $61,605,285.
This scenario would mean a payout of $170,773,361 in salary and taxes. Again, that’s an estimate, since the Cavs are bound to make roster changes between now and the end of the season and incentives clauses could come into play. Still, it demonstrates the kind of financial commitment that owner Dan Gilbert is making. Cleveland’s first pro championship since 1964 would carry tremendous psychological value to the city’s sports fans, and for Cavs ownership, the prospect of delivering that title is apparently worth plenty in actual value, too.
Magic Waive Greg Stiemsma
The Magic have waived Greg Stiemsma, the team announced via press release. The move takes the Magic down to 15 players, the regular season roster limit. Orlando has 13 fully guaranteed contracts, and while teams aren’t required to carry more than that many players, most start the season with 15, which suggests Orlando has made its final preseason cut. If that’s the case, center Nnanna Egwu and Devyn Marble will make the Magic opening night roster on their non-guaranteed deals. Stiemsma was attempting to do the same after signing a non-guaranteed deal with the Magic shortly before the start of training camp last month.
Stiemsma, 30, went scoreless and grabbed two rebounds this month in his lone preseason appearance, which lasted close to 10 minutes. A strained Achilles tendon kept him out of the first few exhibitions this fall, notes Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. The five-year NBA veteran was on the Raptors roster all of last season, but he rarely saw playing time, averaging just 3.9 minutes per contest over a scant 17 games.
The release is one of two transactions the Magic have made in the past 24 hours, as Orlando also waived Melvin Ejim late Wednesday. Saturday is the last day teams can waive summer contracts without them counting against the books, so the Magic could still make moves that bump Egwu and Marble from the roster.
Southwest Notes: Chandler, Mavs, Anderson, Sykes
It caught Tyson Chandler off guard when the Mavs pursued DeAndre Jordan instead of him, and Chandler felt as though he needn’t take a backseat to anyone, as Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News details. An extension was on the table before the start of last season, as Chandler and Mavs owner Mark Cuban both confirmed to Sefko, but Chandler elected to become a free agent, since doing so would have allowed him to re-sign with Dallas for five years instead of three, Sefko notes. Instead, the Mavs looked elsewhere, and Chandler signed with the Suns, a turn of events that left Chandler with a right to be bitter about what happened in Dallas, as Cuban said, according to Sefko.
“I would be, too,” Cuban said. “We had extension discussions for a reason. And then we went for it on a player that wasn’t ready to be gone for.”
Still, Cuban added he felt justified in going after Jordan, saying he’d “rather swing and miss than not step up to the plate,” as Sefko relays. See more on Chandler amid the latest from around the NBA:
- Chandler made it clear Wednesday that he doesn’t feel animosity toward Cuban, observes Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com, though comments the center made on Tuesday that Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic conveyed showed that his feelings are still raw. “I definitely felt like, after winning a championship and [helping] bring it there, that I was going to be there for the long run,” Chandler said Tuesday. “I never heard of a championship team being broken up like that. When they traded for me to come back, I sat at the podium with everybody else and heard them say this was going to be a long-term deal and they weren’t going to make the same mistake as last time and blah-blah-blah. Seven months later, the same thing happens again. But I learned in this business that you can’t trust everybody. That’s why it is what it is.”
- Ryan Anderson endured personal and physical hardships the last two years, but this summer, he finally had a chance to concentrate on his game, and new Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry is impressed so far, as Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel details. Anderson is entering the final season of his contract.
- Spurs camp cut Keifer Sykes plans to join the team’s D-League affiliate once he clears waivers, a league source tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).
Hoops Rumors Chat Transcript
4:05pm: We hosted the weekly live chat.
3:00pm: Preseason cuts are starting to come at a fast rate, and teams are casting some prominent names aside. None has caused as much of a ripple as San Antonio’s decision to release Jimmer Fredette today, but Ben Gordon and intriguing prospect Robert Upshaw have also hit waivers within the past week. More are surely to follow, with Saturday looming as the final day for teams to waive summer contracts without them counting against the cap, and Monday the deadline for teams to set opening night rosters. We can talk about that and more during this week’s chat.
Pacific Notes: Crawford, Barnes, Ezeli, Hibbert
It took a sell job from Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers, but Jamal Crawford is on board with continuing to be a part of a crowded rotation, as Dan Woike of the Orange County Register details. Rivers and Crawford spoke about their issues over the summer and again before camp, and while Crawford took to social media this summer to drop vague hints that he was dissatisfied, the two-time Sixth Man of the Year now says it can “easily work” for him in L.A. Rivers said in September he was unlikely to trade Crawford, swatting down rumors. See more from the Pacific Division:
- Warriors co-owner Joe Lacob would like to see the team sign Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli to extensions before the November 2nd deadline, but he’d still be OK with them ending up in restricted free agency next summer, as Lacob said in a podcast with Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group. Lacob also made it seem as though it’s unlikely that Steve Kerr will coach the team in the opener as he continues to nurse his ailing back.
- Roy Hibbert is fostering team chemistry in a way that no one did on the Lakers last year, Jordan Clarkson tells Bill Oram of the Orange County Register. The big man doesn’t see it as all that important but thinks that if he can help others perform, it will reflect well on him in the future. Hibbert is poised to hit free agency this coming summer. “When the team wins,” Hibbert said, “everybody wins. So helping them is going to help me on the court in the long run and then that will help whatever contract stuff. So you have to be selfless.”
- Omri Casspi is struggling in the preseason, but coach George Karl isn’t worried about the player in whom the Kings invested $5.8MM on a new two-year deal this summer, observes Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. “I think the way he played at the end of last year, he’s earned the right to be given some freedom and opportunity to figure out what happens this year,” Karl said.
Spurs Waive Keifer Sykes
The Spurs have waived Keifer Sykes, the team announced via press release. He joins Jimmer Fredette, Deshaun Thomas and Youssou Ndoye on the waiver wire, as previous reports from Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports foretold that the Spurs were cutting them, too. Sykes, a 21-year-old point guard who went undrafted out of Wisconsin Green Bay this year, was on a non-guaranteed contract, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. Today’s moves leave the Spurs with 16 players, including 13 on fully guaranteed deals.
Sykes failed to score, record an assist or commit a turnover in nearly 19 minutes of preseason action spread over three games. He fared better with the Cavs in summer league, averaging 9.4 points in 18.3 minutes per contest.
San Antonio’s final roster spot appears to be a one-on-one battle between veterans Rasual Butler and Reggie Williams, presuming the Spurs keep Matt Bonner and his sizable partial guarantee. Neither Butler nor Williams has any guaranteed salary. The Spurs aren’t obligated to carry more than 13 players, a consideration since the team is over the luxury tax threshold, but most teams carry 15 on opening night.
Who do you think the Spurs should keep for the regular season? Leave a comment to let us know.
Spurs Waive Jimmer Fredette
1:01pm: Fredette’s release is official, the team announced via press release.
10:18am: The Spurs are waiving former No. 10 overall pick Jimmer Fredette today, reports Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The ex-BYU star signed with San Antonio in late July on a one-year, minimum salary contract that was guaranteed for only $507,711, half of the full season’s salary, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reported. The Spurs will be responsible for that amount if he clears waivers. It’s the latest fall from grace for the popular and once-heralded prospect who’s failed to gain traction in the NBA since the Kings drafted him in 2011.
The partially guaranteed contract meant that a spot on the regular season roster was no certainty, even though his partial guarantee was the league’s third largest for this season. A vaunted outside shooter coming out of college, he averaged only 2.0 points and 13.2 minutes per contest in two preseason appearances for San Antonio, failing to connect on all three of his three-point attempts. He made just 18.8% of his three-pointers last year with the Pelicans, though he’s a 38.1% shooter from behind the arc for his four-year NBA career.
Fredette’s scoring and minutes per game have decreased each year since he put up a modest 7.6 PPG in 18.6 MPG for the Kings in 2011/12. Sacramento waived his rookie scale contract in a buyout deal shortly after the trade deadline in 2014, and he signed with the Bulls soon thereafter. He rarely made it off the bench in Chicago and inked a one-year, fully guaranteed contract for the minimum salary with New Orleans in the summer of 2014.
The move will leave San Antonio with 17 players, since they’re also waiving Deshaun Thomas and Youssou Ndoye, as Charania reported earlier. The Spurs have 13 full guarantees plus a $749,594 commitment to Matt Bonner that represents the league’s largest partial guarantee for 2015/16.
Do you think we’ll see Fredette get another chance in the NBA? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Spurs Waive Deshaun Thomas, Youssou Ndoye
1:00pm: The moves are official, the team announced via press release.
10:11am: The Spurs have waived Deshaun Thomas and Youssou Ndoye sources tell Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The team has yet to make an official announcement, though Charania indicates the moves have already taken place. Ndoye went undrafted out of St. Bonaventure this year, while the Spurs picked Thomas 58th overall in the 2013 draft, so releasing him means the team is relinquishing his draft rights. Both have non-guaranteed contracts, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The subtractions will leave San Antonio with 18 players, meaning at least three more cuts have to take place before opening night. The Spurs have 13 fully guaranteed salaries, as our roster count shows.
Thomas, a 24-year-old combo forward, totaled nine points on 2 for 9 shooting in about 29 minutes of play spread over two preseason appearances. The former Ohio State standout who averaged 19.8 points in his final season with the Buckeyes appeared intent on joining the Spurs this season after playing two years overseas, and he signed for the terms of the required tender San Antonio had to make to keep his draft rights. While a release from the Spurs today would give any NBA team a crack at Thomas, San Antonio can elect to keep his D-League rights.
It appears San Antonio will be doing just that with Ndoye, as the expectation when he and the team reached agreement was reportedly that he would end up with the D-League Austin Spurs. Ndoye still plans on signing with San Antonio’s D-League affiliate should he clear waivers, as Charania writes in a full story. The 24-year-old center averaged 3.3 PPG in 10.0 MPG across three preseason appearances.