Jazz Waive Grant Jerrett
The Jazz have waived Grant Jerrett, the team announced. Jerrett’s salary for this season is a fully guaranteed $947,276, so Utah will be on the hook for that unless another team claims him off waivers. The move brings Utah down to 17 players, only 12 of whom have fully guaranteed deals.
The power forward’s contract, which he signed in the summer of 2014, is for the minimum salary but it covers four seasons, so a team would have to have cap space or an exception other than the minimum salary exception to snag him off waivers, limiting the chances a team claims him. This season is the last guaranteed year.
It’s no surprise to see the Jazz make this move, despite the salary implications, since Jerrett is still recovering from a shoulder injury he suffered in the first game of summer league, notes Aaron Falk of The Salt Lake Tribune (Twitter link). He only appeared in three games for Utah last season after he was part of the three-team Enes Kanter/Reggie Jackson trade at the deadline, and he’d only made his way into five games for the Thunder prior to the swap. That’s in spite of his pedigree as the 40th overall pick from the 2013 draft.
The move further opens the competition in Jazz camp. Jeff Withey has a team-high $200K partial guarantee and Treveon Graham is assured of at least $75K, while Bryce Cotton, Chris Johnson and Elijah Millsap have no guaranteed money. Utah can keep no more than three of them without waiving another fully guaranteed deal, which seems unlikely.
Do you think Jerrett would prove worthy of an NBA roster spot if given playing time? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Southeast Notes: Splitter, Hardaway, Richardson
Tiago Splitter knew that the Spurs were planning a major play in free agency and says he expected that he would be traded this past summer, observes Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News. Sure enough, the Spurs sent him to the Hawks, and Splitter admits that leaving San Antonio was difficult to accept at first, as McDonald relays. Spurs coach/president Gregg Popovich struggled with the decision but is optimistic it’ll work out for all involved, notes Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“It was very difficult,” Popovich said. “When someone is with you for a while you get close to the family. That’s the business side of the situation that shows its ugly head once in a while. If we wanted to add the talent that we added, you had to do something. You can’t pay everybody. Tiago being here in Atlanta is a perfect fit for both parties.”
The center says he’s since warmed to Atlanta, according to McDonald. See more on another player the Hawks brought in via trade this summer and other items from the Southeast Division:
- The Hawks traded for Tim Hardaway Jr. because he offers a combination of upside and experience and because they needed a backup shooting guard behind Kyle Korver, Vivlamore writes in a separate piece. He’s following Korver’s lead as he adjusts to Atlanta’s offense, which is quite different from the triangle he played in last season with the Knicks, as Vivlamore details.
- Justise Winslow isn’t the only Heat 2015 draftee making a strong impression in camp, as second-rounder Josh Richardson is showing his scoring touch and meshing with Justise Winslow, observes Jason Lieser of the Palm Beach Post. The Heat were shocked when Richardson, whom they pegged as the 24th-best prospect in the draft, slipped to No. 40, Lieser notes. “He’s a very competitive two-way player and you just don’t see those types of guys that often that really want to take on the challenge defensively,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Richardson. “He’ll guard multiple positions and stick his nose in their for loose balls. And offensively, he’s got nice poise.”
- Paul Pierce left a leadership void in Washington when he opted out of his Wizards contract and signed with the Clippers, and while trade acquisition Jared Dudley believes he can fill it in one regard, he likes John Wall‘s leadership by example so far, as J. Michael of CSN Mid-Atlantic details.
Hoops Rumors Chat Transcript
4:02pm: We hosted the weekly live chat.
3:00pm: The preseason is at roughly the midway point, and much remains unresolved as teams evaluate end-of-the-bench options. The Pelicans, with Anthony Davis ensconced at power forward, are scrambling to find a center, but it doesn’t seem they’re in the market for Larry Sanders, in whom the Mavs reportedly maintain a level of interest. The Pistons are less than two weeks away from having to waive at least a pair of players with fully guaranteed salaries unless they can find a trade taker. Plus, conflicting reports exist about whether the Knicks were in talks with Lamar Odom about a potential comeback before Odom’s health took a turn for the worse.
We can talk about all that and more in today’s chat, so click here to join!
Knicks, Lamar Odom Engaged In Recent Talks?
2:41pm: The Knicks never brought up the idea of signing Odom and made no offer, team sources tell TMZ Sports.
8:51am: Lamar Odom‘s camp and the Knicks had recent discussions about a comeback for former Lakers sixth man, his personal trainer Fareed Samad told TMZ Sports, adding that he was optimistic about Odom’s chances with New York. Odom was hospitalized Tuesday night after having been found unresponsive in a legal Nevada brothel. He’s in a coma and his heart is failing, according to a separate TMZ Sports report.
The Knicks signed Odom on the last day of the season in 2013/14 and released him before he ever saw action with the team. Phil Jackson, who coached Odom on the Lakers and had taken over as Knicks team president shortly before the Odom signing, brought him aboard in one of his first moves, but Odom never showed up to work out with the team while under contract that summer, according to Marc Berman of the New York Post (Twitter link).
Odom, who turns 36 next month, last appeared in an NBA game in the 2013 playoffs with the Clippers. Still, he’d lost 35 pounds off his 6’10” frame since the beginning of June this year in preparation for an NBA comeback attempt, Samad said to TMZ Sports.
The Knicks went to camp with 19 players on the roster, one beneath the preseason roster limit. Sasha Vujacic, a former Lakers teammate of Odom and another Jackson protege, is one of 13 with fully guaranteed deals even though he has played just two games in the NBA since 2010/11, demonstrating Jackson’s fondness for his purple-and-gold connections.
Still, Odom’s pressing health condition would appear to overshadow the notion of a return to the Knicks or any NBA team. The Jeff Schwartz client gained friends around the league amid a life marred by tragedy, as Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports details.
Eastern Notes: Monroe, Robinson, Harrellson
Co-owner Marc Lasry’s confident demeanor and relationship with Jason Kidd sold Greg Monroe and agent David Falk on the Bucks, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com details. Lasry had never pitched a free agent before, but he led Milwaukee’s presentation, assuring Monroe that Kidd would be the team’s coach for the long-term, which helped sway the big man after years of coaching turnover in Detroit, Windhorst writes.
“He was very down to earth, but also passionate, and he connected with Greg,” Falk said of Lasry. “We didn’t need parades or balloons; this was a business decision. Marc treated it that way. What they had already put in place was strong, and he sold that.”
Monroe, who signed with Milwaukee for three years at the max, called his meeting with the Bucks “something I will never forget.” See more from the Eastern Conference:
- Thomas Robinson said the Nets showed “heavy interest” in him before the 2012 draft, when he went fifth overall, and the longstanding connection made it an easy choice for him to sign with Brooklyn this summer, as he told Tim Bontemps of the New York Post. “I’m glad I’m here a few years down the road, after the stuff I’ve been through. I’m more mature now than I was when I probably wanted to come here,” Robinson said in part. “[I want to] take advantage of all of my opportunities. I feel like I’m right back where I was getting drafted again … now it’s just time.”
- The Wizards signed Josh Harrellson because they like his shooting and wanted someone who would help them work on their new, more perimeter-oriented offense in practice, writes Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post. Harrellson’s contract is non-guaranteed and the Wizards have 15 full guarantees. He’s taking a realistic approach, treating the preseason as a showcase for the 29 other teams while hoping to make a strong impression on the Wizards for another chance in the future, as Castillo explains.
- The Sixers should let go of Furkan Aldemir, who’s ceiling is already apparent, and instead keep undrafted rookie Christian Wood for the regular season because of Wood’s superior upside, opines Tom Moore of Calkins Media. Such a move would entail a financial sacrifice, since Aldemir has a fully guaranteed salary of nearly $2.837MM while Wood is only assured of $50K, as Moore points out. Aldemir also shares agent Misko Raznatovic with Dario Saric, Moore concedes (on Twitter).
Battle For Roster Spots: Central Division
Hoops Rumors will be taking a team-by-team look at the battles for regular season roster spots going on around the NBA this month, the last before rosters shrink from the offseason limit of 20 to the 15-man regular season maximum. We’ve already checked out the Northwest, Pacific, and Southwest division franchises, and now we’ll look at the Central Division:
BUCKS
15 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: Johnny O’Bryant — $845,059)
Non-guaranteed players
- Jorge Gutierrez
- Marcus Landry
- Josh Powell
Analysis: It would seem as though the opening night roster for the Bucks is set, though Gutierrez, a holdover point guard from last season, conceivably poses a threat to some degree and is averaging an assist-to-turnover ratio of better than three-to-one in the small sample size of the preseason so far. O’Bryant, who has the team’s cheapest full guarantee, is averaging 7.3 points and 4.3 rebounds in 18.9 minutes per game in preseason action, not overwhelming stats but not numbers that would suggest his job is in jeopardy. The fully guaranteed salary of Damien Inglis isn’t much greater than Bryant’s, but he’s only a year removed from having been the top pick of the second round and an injury kept him out all of last season, so the Bucks have yet to see what the small forward can do.
BULLS
13 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: E’Twaun Moore — $1,015,421)
Non-guaranteed players
- Cameron Bairstow — $425K partial guarantee
- Jordan Crawford
- Cristiano Felicio
- Marcus Simmons
Analysis: The Bulls have traditionally carried only 13 players on opening night, the league minimum, though last season was the first since 2008/09 that they carried 14. That’s still one shy of the 15-man maximum that most teams started with, and it underscores the idea that jobs are at a premium at the end of Chicago’s bench. The team is apparently enamored with Felicio, but to stick on the roster into the regular season he’d have to overcome Bairstow’s financial advantage of a sizable partial guarantee, plus one of the fully guaranteed players, unless the team breaks with tradition and carries a full roster. Crawford has four years of NBA experience and the pedigree of having been a first-round pick on his side, but he’s only averaging 5.4 minutes per game in the preseason so far. Moore, who has the team’s cheapest full guarantee, is seeing 26.0 MPG.
CAVALIERS
13 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: Joe Harris — $845,059)
Non-guaranteed players
- Dionte Christmas
- Quinn Cook
- Jared Cunningham
- Austin Daye
- Chris Johnson
- Nick Minnerath
- D.J. Stephens
Analysis: The specter of the unsigned Tristan Thompson looms over the Cavs, as do injuries to Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love and Iman Shumpert. Players at the end of the bench are liable to see some meaningful playing time at the start of the regular season, depending on how quickly those key figures return to the team. Jared Cunningham is tied with J.R. Smith with a team-high 15.0 points per game in the preseason so far, and Cunningham’s 25.0 minutes per game are the most on the Cavs, so he appears to be in strong position. Christmas, who signed just this weekend, played nearly 17 minutes and scored 10 points in his debut, and every Cav who has seen action so far is averaging at least 10 MPG.
PACERS
15 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: Shayne Whittington — $845,059)
Non-guaranteed players
- Toney Douglas — $600K partial guarantee
- C.J. Fair
- Kadeem Jack
Analysis: The Pacers have 15 full guarantees, but the final spot on the opening night roster appears to be in flux thanks to the partial guarantee they gave Douglas, which is almost as large as the full guarantee Shayne Whittington has. Douglas, who’s averaging 6.2 points in 13.1 minutes per game during the preseason, is putting up numbers superior to Whittington’s 2.5 PPG in 9.3 MPG. Paul George and George Hill both believe Douglas is worthy of a regular season spot, as Nate Taylor of the Indianapolis Star notes (Twitter links). “It’s a tough situation for our front office,” George said. “We feel Toney is the makeup of this team.” Fair, a camp invitee with the Pacers for a second year in a row, is also seeing more minutes than Whittington is, but the Pacers reportedly signed Jack with the D-League in mind.
PISTONS
17 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: Spencer Dinwiddie — $845,059; Darrun Hilliard has a smaller salary for this season, but part of next season’s salary is guaranteed, too.)
Non-guaranteed players
- Jordan Bachynski
- Adonis Thomas — $60K partial guarantee
Analysis: It’s not a matter of sorting through non-guarantees and partial guarantees for the Pistons, who have a league-high 17 fully guaranteed salaries. Detroit will have to eat at least two full salaries, barring a trade. Danny Granger, who continues to nurse his way back to health, seems like the most logical cut despite the $2,170,465 owed to him. Hilliard, with $1.1MM in guaranteed money for this year and next on his contract, has seen less playing time than anyone but Bachynski so far in preseason. However, coach/executive Stan Van Gundy hinted that it’s because the team already has a strong feel for this year’s 38th overall pick, notes Keith Langlois of Pistons.com, so Hilliard seems a decent bet to stick on the roster. A sprained wrist is keeping Cartier Martin, who’s due $1,270,964, from the court, but after seeing little playing time last season, he’s a candidate for the waiver wire. Reggie Bullock, with $1,252,440 coming his way, is aveaging 10.0 points in 18.0 minutes per game, and his upside works to his benefit. The same is true for Dinwiddie, a second-rounder from 2014 who’s seeing 21.2 MPG so far.
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Pelicans Sign Mirza Begić
The Pelicans have signed Mirza Begić, a 7’1″ center from Bosnia and Herzegovina who split last season between clubs in Spain and Slovenia, New Orleans announced via press release. Injuries to Omer Asik and Alexis Ajinca, the top two centers for the Pelicans, have sent the team scrambling. The Pelicans signed Jerome Jordan this weekend, and though they’d signed Greg Smith just days earlier, Smith failed his physical, prompting the team to void his contract. Begić becomes the 20th player on the team’s roster, bringing the Pelicans to the preseason roster limit.
It’s the first brush with the NBA for the 30-year-old Begić, who went undrafted in 2007. He averaged 7.3 points and 4.6 rebounds in 17.8 minutes per game across a combined 58 appearances for Spanish powerhouse Laboral Kuxta and Slovenia’s Union Olimpija. He spent 2013/14 with Olympiakos of Greece after several years with Real Madrid, so he’s been a part of some of Europe’s most well-known and heavily scouted clubs.
Anthony Davis and Kendrick Perkins are the only fully guaranteed Pelicans who’d offer any sort of conventional fit at center among the 13 healthy Pelicans with fully guaranteed contracts, while Jordan and power forward Jeff Adrien are the only big men among the team’s camp invitees, aside from Begić. The Pelicans announced last week that Ajinca would miss four to six weeks and Asik three weeks, throwing into question whether either will be ready for opening night against the Warriors on October 27th.
Western Notes: Rondo, West, Nuggets
It’s been barely two weeks since the start of training camp, but Kings coach George Karl has already had some run-ins with Rajon Rondo, the point guard said in a Q&A with Manny Vieites of Cowbell Kingdom (video link; scroll to 1:00 mark). Karl said this summer that he expected them to butt heads to some degree, notes Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk.
“It’s not been going too well,” Rondo said to Vieites. “We got into a couple of arguments the last couple of days, but hopefully we continue to talk and get better.”
It’s unclear what Rondo’s remark means for the Kings, but it’s not ideal, Grantland’s Zach Lowe observes (on Twitter). Rondo is signed for just one season, with a salary of $9.5MM. See more from the Western Conference:
- The Spurs have a “mythological lure,” as David West put it in an interview with USA Today’s Sam Amick as he explained his decision to sign with San Antonio for the minimum salary. “I’ve been a Spurs fan my whole life, and having an opportunity and wanting to learn from [Tim] Duncan and Manu [Ginobili] and Tony [Parker] and obviously Coach [Gregg] Popovich and all his knowledge, I just felt like it was a good environment, and it was the best environment,” West said.
- Erick Green appears to have shown enough during the offseason and training camp to convince the Nuggets to keep him, posits Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post as he takes a crack at predicting the Nuggets lineups. Denver has 15 fully guaranteed pacts while Green has just a $100K partial guarantee. Nick Johnson, who came via the Ty Lawson trade and who possesses the smallest full guarantee at just more than $845K, isn’t in Dempsey’s lineup predictions, so ostensibly he’d be the one to go.
- Turmoil seems to stalk the Kings, and the moves they made this summer don’t bode well for the long term, but Sacramento still has as much of a chance at the last playoff spot in the Western Conference as any of their competitors, opines Tim Bontemps of the New York Post.
And-Ones: Malone, Draft, D-League, Amerileague
Michael Malone was an assistant coach on teams that featured LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Chris Paul, so he’s using that experience to draw the attention of rookie Emmanuel Mudiay, as Malone explains to Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle. The new Nuggets head coach is getting a second chance to lead a team after the Kings fired him this past December, and Malone reiterated his feeling that the turmoil Sacramento endured after his dismissal served to validate the work that he and his staff had done.
“By the end of it, I looked like John Wooden,” Malone said to Simmons.
Malone will seek to right a franchise that had its share of upheaval last season. See more from around NBA circles:
- UNLV is the latest school to organize a preseason showcase for NBA scouts, joining Kentucky and LSU, reports Jeff Borzello of ESPN.com (ESPN Now link). A handful of UNLV players are drawing looks from NBA personnel, Borzello says, but only Stephen Zimmerman, a 7’0″ freshman center, appears in the top 100 prospects for 2016 that Jonathan Givony compiles for DraftExpress or on Chad Ford’s ESPN.com Big Board.
- The Timberwolves will speak with organizers in Omaha who say they’ve secured a commitment for a D-League franchise there at some point, but the Wolves would prefer their eventual one-to-one D-League affiliate be closer to Minneapolis, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities. The Wolves are less likely to end up with a D-League affiliate in the near future than any team except the Bulls, opines Adam Johnson of D-League Digest. Johnson identifies the Hornets as the team most likely to have its own D-League team soon, probably by the 2016/17 season.
- The Amerileague, a startup domestic minor league with six teams, is handing out contracts worth as much as $50K per month, notes international journalist David Pick (Twitter link). That’s about twice as much as D-Leaguers in the top salary tier make for an entire season.
‘De Facto’ Expiring Contracts
Expiring contracts don’t have the value they used to, with plenty of teams poised to have maximum-level cap flexibility next summer, but they can still help teams clear cap space when a need arises. A glance at our list of 2016 free agents gives you an idea of the players entering the final seasons of their contracts this year, but the players marked with an (N) on that page fall into a special category.
Those players have non-guaranteed money for next season, empowering their teams with a choice. A team could trade for one of these “de facto” non-guaranteed contracts and use this season to gauge whether the player is worth keeping, and if not, the team could just waive the player and benefit from the extra cap room next summer. So, in that context, “de facto” non-guaranteed deals are somewhat more valuable than simple non-guaranteed deals. That’s especially so with contracts that don’t have any special guarantee dates written into them. In those cases, the team can wait to see how the July free agency rush plays out until deciding whether to keep or unload the player.
Unless a contract otherwise stipulates it, a player with a non-guaranteed salary can’t be assured of any money until the season begins. However, plenty of deals do insert earlier dates that trigger guarantees, and so sometimes, teams in possession of non-guaranteed deals don’t have the luxury of waiting to see what happens in July. That’s true of most of the largest “de facto” expiring contracts this season. Ty Lawson, Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko all have non-guaranteed salaries of $5MM or more for 2016/17, but they become fully guaranteed if their teams keep them through dates that precede July 12th, the first day teams can officially do business after the July Moratorium next year. Lance Stephenson essentially falls into this category, since his contract isn’t non-guaranteed but includes a team option. The decision on that option is due June 29th.
Here’s a look at every “de facto” expiring contract with a salary worth more than $2MM for 2016/17, with any guarantee dates listed in parentheses. The figures listed are roundest to the nearest $1K, and the players are listed in descending order of salary.
- Ty Lawson, Rockets ($13.213MM non-guaranteed until day after last game of Finals or day after draft, whichever is later)
- Amir Johnson, Celtics ($12MM non-guaranteed until July 3rd)
- Lance Stephenson, Clippers ($9.405MM team option)
- Jonas Jerebko, Celtics ($5MM non-guaranteed until July 3rd)
- Kris Humphries, Wizards ($4.63MM non-guaranteed until June 30th)
- Drew Gooden, Wizards ($3.547MM)
- Anthony Tolliver, Thunder ($3.488MM)
- Mike Scott, Hawks ($3.333MM)
- Sonny Weems, Suns ($2.941MM non-guaranteed until July 11th)
- Joel Anthony, Pistons ($2.5MM)
- Shelvin Mack, Hawks ($2.433MM)
- Furkan Aldemir, Sixers ($2.18MM)
- Kendall Marshall, Sixers ($2.048MM)
- DeJuan Blair, Wizards ($2MM non-guaranteed until June 30th)
The players below have salaries of $2MM or more that are partially guaranteed for next season, so they fit a looser definition of “de facto” expiring contracts. The details for each are in parentheses, and again the figures are rounded to the nearest $1K. This time, the players are in alphabetical order.
- Vince Carter, Grizzlies (only $2MM of $4.264MM guaranteed)
- Boris Diaw, Spurs (only $3MM of $7MM guaranteed until June 30th)
- Ersan Ilyasova, Pistons (only $400K of $8.4MM guaranteed until July 1st)
- Jarrett Jack, Nets (only $500K of $6.3MM guaranteed until June 30th)
- Shaun Livingston, Warriors (only $3MM of $5.782MM guaranteed)
- J.R. Smith, Cavaliers (only $2.2MM of $5.375MM guaranteed)
- Jason Thompson, Warriors (only $2.65MM of $7.01MM guaranteed)
- P.J. Tucker, Suns (only $1.5MM of $5.3MM guaranteed)
- Martell Webster, Wizards (only $2.5MM of $5.845MM guaranteed until July 1st)
Notes:
— Anderson Varejao is set to make $10.361MM in 2016/17 with a partial guarantee of just $1MM less than the full total. Thus, he doesn’t offer much benefit as a “de facto” expiring contract, and so he’s not listed above.
— Webster’s full 2016/17 salary becomes guaranteed if he appears in 70 games this year.
— This list doesn’t include players with pending rookie scale team options for 2016/17, since the decisions on those are due November 2nd.
The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post.