Michael Kidd-Gilchrist Likely To Miss Season
TUESDAY, 3:03pm: Kidd-Gilchrist will have surgery, the team announced. The Hornets didn’t confirm the timetable, but this news signals that he’ll indeed miss the season.
5:08pm: It’s more likely than not that Kidd-Gilchrist will undergo season-ending surgery, but a non-surgical alternative exists that would allow him to miss only six to eight weeks, a source tells Bonnell. However, going without surgery would leave Kidd-Gilchrist more vulnerable to tearing the labrum again, Bonnell adds. Kidd-Gilchrist will meet Tuesday with a team doctor to discuss his options, as the Hornets said in their press release.
4:26pm: An MRI reveals Kidd-Gilchrist has a torn labrum in that right shoulder, the Hornets announced via press release. The team didn’t provide a timetable. That’s a different injury to the shoulder than previous reports indicated.
2:09pm: The injury is a season-ender, Wojnarowski writes in a full story, which represents only a slight adjustment of the six-month timetable, as I pointed out below. Wojnarowski also refers to the injury as a shoulder separation, not a dislocation.
MONDAY, 1:44pm: Hornets small forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist will have surgery on his dislocated right shoulder and miss six months, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The news is a devastating blow for Charlotte’s playoff hopes just weeks after the team signed the former No. 2 overall pick to a four-year, $52MM extension. Kidd-Gilchrist appeared to suffer the injury when he took a hard fall to the floor in Saturday’s preseason game.
Most shoulder dislocations force players out for only between three and 12 weeks, as Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer pointed out, so the timetable that Wojnarowski reports is surprising. It’s unclear if Kidd-Gilchrist suffered additional injury.
The Hornets reportedly plan to sign nine-year veteran swingman Damien Wilkins, a move that appears directly tied to the Kidd-Gilchrist injury, though Wilkins, who’s 35 and has been out of the NBA for two years, is unlikely to give Charlotte the production it will miss from Kidd-Gilchrist, a top-flight defender.
A return in six months would bring Kidd-Gilchrist back in time only for the last week or two of the regular season. If the league determines that Kidd-Gilchrist is likely to miss the entire season, the Hornets could apply for a disabled player exception. However, it would only be worth 50% of his $6,331,404 salary this season, which would come to $3,165,702, and not the $5.464MM it would be worth if Kidd-Gilchrist was already playing under the terms of his extension, which doesn’t kick in until next season. The Hornets already have their full non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception worth $5.464MM that they’ve yet to touch, so it remains to be seen if the team will bother applying for the disabled player exception. The mid-level gives Charlotte more cap flexibility than every team in the league except the Trail Blazers, Sixers and Jazz.
The only other cap-related compensation that might become available for the Hornets this season is a hardship provision for an extra regular season roster spot, but that would only come into play if three other players are expected to miss an extended period of time, and that’s not the case for now.
Charlotte traded for Nicolas Batum in the offseason, though he was already likely to start along side Kidd-Gilchrist. The Hornets offloaded Gerald Henderson in that trade and Lance Stephenson in another, so Jeremy Lamb, who came to Charlotte via yet another trade, seems like a strong candidate to inherit a starting spot.
What additional move, if any, should the Hornets try to make to offset the loss of Kidd-Gilchrist? Leave a comment to tell us.
Grizzlies Sign Sampson Carter
The Grizzlies have signed former UMass combo forward Sampson Carter, the team announced via press release. Carter, 25, went undrafted in 2014 and split last season between teams in Slovakia, Portugal and the Dominican Republic. He replaces shooting guard Dan Nwaelele, whom Memphis waived Monday. Today’s move gives the Grizzlies a full 20-man preseason roster again.
Carter put up 10.3 points and 4.8 rebounds in 27.9 minutes per game with 35.0% three-point shooting for the Minutemen as a senior in 2013/14. He initially signed with BC Prievidza in Slovakia before moving on to CAB Madeira in Portugal and finally to Club Virgilio Castillo, also known as Chola, of the Dominican Republic.
He’s a long shot to make the Grizzlies, who have 14 fully guaranteed contracts plus a partial guarantee for JaMychal Green, as our roster count shows. Still, he seems like a candidate to end up on the D-League affiliate of the Grizzlies. Memphis can retain the D-League rights to as many as four of the players it waives, and fellow Grizzlies camp invitees Ryan Hollins and Yakhouba Diawara are veterans unlikely to end up in the D-League.
Volume Of Five-Year Deals Surged In 2015
The drastic increases in the salary cap are still a year away, but the understanding that the changes are on the horizon seemed have a significant effect on this offseason. Perhaps one of the most demonstrable changes came in the amount of new five-year contracts. Free agents signed more five-year contracts this summer than in the previous three years put together, as I briefly noted during the initial July rush. It’s an indication that teams won a key power struggle with players.
The lure of better money a year from now made short-term deals ostensibly more attractive than ever for this year’s free agents. Conversely, teams had motivation to tie up valuable players for as long as possible now, lest they be able to command more money in a year or two, or three or four.
Few players, if any, have as much leverage as those whom teams deem worthy of maximum-salary deals, but even among that group, the number of five-year contracts was higher this year. Pen hit paper on only one five-year max deal per summer each of the previous three years, including last season, when Carmelo Anthony took slightly less than his max to re-sign with the Knicks. This year, a trio of players signed five-year max deals, including Kawhi Leonard, who indicated that the length of his deal intrigued him even more than the money. Leonard may be an outlier who wouldn’t necessarily have sought the most lucrative arrangement for himself no matter the cap dynamics, and Marc Gasol, at age 30, may have been wise to grab a max deal while he still can. It’s nonetheless worth wondering if the Cavs, and not Love, were the party that insisted upon five years in Kevin Love‘s deal.
The proliferation of five-year deals also indicates a willingness from players to stay put, and from teams to retain their existing talent, since only incumbent teams may offer five-year contracts.
Whatever the reasons, here’s a list of every five-year free agent contract signed the past four offseasons. Note that the list doesn’t include extensions, like the five-year pacts that Anthony Davis and Damian Lillard signed this summer, since those players weren’t free agents. Salaries are rounded to the nearest $1K.
2015
- Marc Gasol, Grizzlies ($113.212MM — max)
- Kevin Love, Cavaliers ($113.212MM — max)
- Kawhi Leonard, Spurs ($94.343MM — max)
- Jimmy Butler, Bulls ($92.34MM)
- Goran Dragic, Heat ($85.002MM)
- Draymond Green, Warriors ($82MM)
- Reggie Jackson, Pistons ($80MM)
- Brandon Knight, Suns ($70MM)
- Khris Middleton, Bucks ($70MM)
- Omer Asik, Pelicans ($52.978MM)
- Jae Crowder, Celtics ($35MM)
- Kyle Singler, Thunder ($24.3MM)
2014
- Carmelo Anthony, Knicks ($124.065MM)
- Chris Bosh, Heat ($118.705MM — max)
- Eric Bledsoe, Suns ($70MM)
- Marcin Gortat, Wizards ($60MM)
2013
- Chris Paul, Clippers ($107.343MM — max)
- Nikola Pekovic, Timberwolves ($60MM)
2012
- Deron Williams, Nets ($98.772MM — max)
- George Hill, Pacers ($40MM)
- Ersan Ilyasova, Bucks ($40MM)
- Jason Thompson, Kings ($30.188MM)
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Do you think teams and players will continue to sign a larger number of five-year deals each summer, or is this just a one-year phenomenon? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Southwest Notes: Terry, Grizzlies, Leonard, Gentry
The Pelicans offered Jason Terry more than the guaranteed one-year deal for the minimum salary that the Rockets gave him, but he preferred a better chance to make the Finals with Houston, even though his role on the Rockets will likely shrink, reports Calvin Watkins of ESPN.com.
“I don’t have to play a lot of minutes to be effective,” Terry said. “With the minutes, I know my role and what’s expected out of me, and that goes a long way.”
Terry saw 21.3 minutes per game for Houston in the regular season last year but 28.6 in the playoffs as he filled in for the injured Patrick Beverley, a duty that would now fall to trade acquisition Ty Lawson. See more from the Southwest Division:
- The Grizzlies‘ addition of Brandan Wright and subtraction of Kosta Koufos sacrifices defense, and especially rebounding, for the sake of offense, as Chris Herrington of The Commercial Appeal examines. That leads Herrington to wonder if Marc Gasol should undo some of his changes from last season, when he tilted his game more toward the offensive end.
- Kawhi Leonard had made a total of less than $8.5MM in his first four years in the NBA before re-signing with the Spurs on five-year max deal worth more than $94MM this summer, but he’s more enthusiastic about the length of the contract than the money involved, notes Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News.
- Alvin Gentry is adopting a looser, more relaxed approach with the Pelicans than former coach Monty Williams did, incorporating some techniques from the year he spent as an assistant under Steve Kerr with the Warriors, as John Reid of The Times Picayune details.
Early Preseason Cuts Not Uncommon
The vast majority of the more than 120 players who’ll hit waivers this month will do so in the final few days before the start of the regular season. Some of them are competing for spots on the regular season roster. Others are around so that their teams can evaluate them during training camp and preseason practices in an effort to gain greatest amount of knowledge possible about intriguing prospects should a need arise later on. Still more fall into that latter category as players bound for the D-League, since signing a player to the NBA roster for the preseason is one way to secure his D-League rights.
Those reasons generally dictate that teams will hold on to those players as long as possible, but sometimes, cuts come with weeks to go before opening night. That was the case for Nikoloz Tskitishvili this weekend, when the Clippers released the former fifth overall pick, and Dan Nwaelele, whom the Grizzlies waived Monday night. It’s not quite clear exactly why the teams parted ways with either so quickly, though Nwaelele suffered a minor injury that had kept him out of practice. I’d speculate that Nwaelele’s contract, a one-year, non-guaranteed deal for the minimum salary, was an Exhibit 9 that limited the team’s liability in case of an injury. If so, the Grizzlies needed only to pay him $6K when they waived him. Of course, Memphis might have saved that $6K if he’d healed by the end of the preseason, so it’s still tough to tell exactly what went on. In any case, he’ll return to the Warriors D-League affiliate, as international journalist David Pick reported, since the Santa Cruz Warriors held his D-League rights from his time with them in 2013/14. Where Tskitishvili will end up remains a mystery.
Sometimes, players request their early release. That was the case last year with Michael Beasley, who asked off the Grizzlies so he could take a deal to play in China. Beasley had reportedly been suffering from an illness that would have made it difficult for him to stick for opening night on his non-guaranteed deal for the minimum salary, while China’s Shanghai Sharks were offering a lucrative contract, so the former No. 2 overall pick had financial motivation to make his move.
On other occasions, the financial motivation is the team’s. Exhibit 9’s aren’t allowed unless a team already has 14 players under contract, and so occasionally, teams will sign a player to a standard contract just so they can sign others to Exhibit 9’s and then release the player on the conventional deal. Players who aren’t on Exhibit 9’s and who sustain injuries while playing for the team receive their salary until they’re ready to play again, regardless of whether the team waives them. Thus, any player signed to a standard contract whom the team doesn’t believe is worthy of a regular season roster spot is a quick waiver candidate, lest he sustain injury in practice or a preseason game. Michael Dunigan of the Cavaliers appeared to be in that position, but he’s still on the Cavs roster. He’s one of 20 players with Cleveland, so he or another would have to go if the team finally signs Tristan Thompson, and that demonstrates another reason why camp invitees might hit waivers early. Sometimes, teams simply need the roster room.
Here’s a list of each of the players who hit waivers more than two weeks before opening night last year, one that suggests Tskitishvili and Nwaelele will have plenty of company shortly.
- Vander Blue, Wizards — October 3rd
- David Stockton, Wizards — October 3rd
- Keith Bogans, Sixers — October 7th
- Jarvis Varnado, Sixers — October 7th
- Michael Beasley, Grizzlies — October 9th
- Vernon Macklin, Pelicans — October 9th
- Dee Bost, Jazz — October 10th
- Kevin Murphy, Jazz — October 10th
- Luke Hancock, Grizzlies — October 13th
- John Holland, Spurs — October 13th
- Chris Johnson, Heat — October 13th
- James Southerland, Trail Blazers — October 13th
- Reggie Williams, Heat — October 13th
Southeast Notes: Ferry, Budenholzer, Dragic
Mike Budenholzer and former Hawks GM Danny Ferry are close, but Budenholzer encouraged Ferry to resign in September 2014 so that the Hawks could more easily put their racism scandal behind them before the opening of training camp last season, report Kevin Arnovitz and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. Their piece goes deep into the downfall of Ferry, who instead went on a leave of absence that extended until he took a buyout this past summer, and the team’s previous ownership group, one that had lost money each year since it purchased the franchise in 2004, Arnovitz and Windhorst reveal. Former controlling owner Bruce Levenson had nonetheless structured a long-term deal for Ferry when he hired the executive, one that other GMs called the “Golden Ticket” for its favorability to the former Spurs and Cavs executive, Arnovitz and Windhorst write. Prominent co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. opposed that deal and never saw eye-to-eye with Ferry, who upset him on several occasions, such as when Ferry had harsh words for former coach Larry Drew, according to Arnovitz and Windhorst.
See more on the Hawks amid the latest from the Southeast Division:
- Gearon didn’t initially take issue with the tenor of Levenson’s racially charged 2012 email — the one that ultimately led to his decision to sell the team, as Arnovitz and Windhorst detail in the same piece. Gearon instead put pressure on Levenson when the email again came up amid an internal investigation that Ferry’s racial comments touched off, and when a reporter was coming close to breaking the story of the scandal, Levenson decided to take a proactive step and announce his intention to sell, the ESPN scribes recount. Levenson remained a fan of Ferry and nearly brought him back before the sale took place, but the team’s renaissance worked against that, as Levenson decided too much was going right to risk disruption.
- Goran Dragic is wistful about no longer playing with his brother, but he re-signed with the Heat without assurances they would keep Zoran Dragic and was on board when the team traded him, as he explains to Jason Lieser of The Palm Beach Post. “I was sad, of course,” Goran said of the trade. “I know how much he wants to be part of a team in the NBA, but I understand this is a business. That’s a better situation for him right now. He’s gonna get playing time. He signed a good deal in Russia. He’s happy. That’s a good thing. Sometimes, for me, when you play with your brother, sometimes it’s a little bit stressful because if he’s not getting playing time, it affects you too. But everything’s good now.”
- Jaleel Roberts didn’t think he would end up in training camp with the Wizards after he failed to wow them with his summer league performance, but he’s grateful for the opportunity after an overseas offer didn’t pan out as he expected it to, writes J. Michael of CSNWashington.com.
And-Ones: Clippers, Paul, Union, Gentile, Bender
Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers acknowledges that if the team doesn’t break through this season, it would be reasonable to conclude that this core of players never will and that major changes are necessary, as he tells Grantland’s Zach Lowe.
“We’re all on that edge together,” Rivers said. “I believe we’re gonna be really good. But if we’re not, it depends on how we play, and what the reason is. That’s what would make you make a big decision.”
See more Clippers-related news amid our look around the league:
- Clippers point guard Chris Paul is taking a determined stance in his role as president of the National Basketball Players Association as labor talks with the league approach, writes Kurt Streeter of ESPN the Magazine. Paul’s serious, no-nonsense demeanor helped lead the union to the hiring executive director Michele Roberts, as Anthony Tolliver, one of the union’s vice presidents, explains to Streeter. “At first there was a little bit of, um, hesitancy to elect a woman,” Tolliver said. “Not because we’re sexist, but we just weren’t quite sure how our guys were going to react to that. But Chris was adamant. He thought she’d be the best leader. By the end of the process, every single guy on our committee thought she was the best candidate. Chris said that from the beginning. We ended up following his lead.”
- Roberts earned $1.2MM in her first year on the job, according to Liz Mullen of SportsBusiness Journal, who writes in a subscription-only piece.
- The Rockets will try to sign draft-and-stash swingman Alessandro Gentile next summer, and a decent chance exists that they’ll make it happen, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com amid a piece on draft prospect Dragan Bender, who dominated Gentile last week in an exhibition between their European teams. Bender wouldn’t be selected lower than third overall if he enters the 2016 draft, Stein believes. Gentile was the 53rd overall pick in 2014 and is under contract with Italy’s EA7 Milano through 2018, as Mark Porcaro shows in our Draft Rights Held Players database.
Players Who Can Veto Trades
No-trade clauses, like the one Carmelo Anthony says he has no intention to waive to facilitate an exit from the Knicks, are rare in the NBA. Only a half-dozen of the most decorated players have them. It’s much more common that a player will gain a de facto no-trade clause through a quirk in the league’s collective bargaining agreement.
Bird rights, Early Bird rights and Non-Bird rights are all mechanisms that allow teams to go above the salary cap to retain their own players. Trades usually have no effect on those rights, but that’s not the case with players on one-year contracts, or two-year contracts that include an option. A team that acquires a player on a one-year deal via trade can’t use any form of Bird rights to re-sign that player the following offseason. The player often stands to lose financially in such a case, so the NBA allows players who re-signed with their previous teams on one-year contracts, or two-year contracts with option clauses, to block trades if they choose.
Two other situations allow players to veto trades. Players who sign offer sheets that their original team ends up matching don’t have to be traded if they don’t want to for one year after signing the offer sheet, and players who accepted qualifying offers can block trades, too.
One additional note: No player signed this offseason can be traded until December 15th, at the earliest.
Here’s a team-by-team breakdown of players who can block trades this season:
No-trade clauses
- Carmelo Anthony, Knicks
- Kobe Bryant, Lakers
- *Tim Duncan, Spurs
- Kevin Garnett, Timberwolves
- Dirk Nowitzki, Mavericks
- *Dwyane Wade, Heat
Players whose offer sheets were matched
- Enes Kanter, Thunder
Players accepting qualifying offers
- Norris Cole, Pelicans
- Matthew Dellavedova, Cavaliers
Players re-signing for one year (or two years including option)
- Lou Amundson, Knicks
- Darrell Arthur, Nuggets
- Leandro Barbosa, Warriors
- Matt Bonner, Spurs
- Aaron Brooks, Bulls
- *Tim Duncan, Spurs
- Manu Ginobili, Spurs
- LeBron James, Cavaliers
- James Jones, Cavaliers
- Austin Rivers, Clippers
- J.R. Smith, Cavaliers
- Lance Thomas, Knicks
- Jason Terry, Rockets
- Charlie Villanueva, Mavericks
- *Dwyane Wade, Heat
*- Players with an asterisk by their names have a no-trade clause expressly written in their contracts and have a de facto no-trade clause, too.
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Southwest Notes: Butler, Ajinca, Green
The Spurs weren’t the only NBA team interested in Rasual Butler when he signed with San Antonio last month, as a Western Conference suitor lurked, but the 36-year-old finds there’s “no place better to be than here,” reports Jabari Young of the San Antonio Express-News. Butler’s contract is non-guaranteed, but he has a line on a regular season roster spot, according to coach/executive Gregg Popovich, as Young notes.
“He’s a seasoned pro in a sense that he knows himself, he knows what role he can play,” Popovich said. “He’s at a stage in his career where he just wants to be a part of something that’s just positive and good. He obviously can shoot the basketball. If he couldn’t shoot, we wouldn’t be talking to him. You got to have a skill to play. For all those reasons, he’s somebody that’s got a great shot to make our team.”
The Spurs have 13 fully guaranteed contracts, seemingly leaving two available spots on the opening night roster. See more on the Spurs amid the latest from the Southwest Division:
- Pelicans backup center Alexis Ajinca will miss the next four to six weeks because of a right hamstring strain, the team announced. New Orleans committed a four-year, $19.5MM deal to Ajinca this past summer, and the team is without any other natural center to play behind Omer Asik, with the possible exception of Anthony Davis. The injury could bode well for power forward Jeff Adrien, the only big man without a fully guaranteed salary on the Pelicans.
- Jeff Green says he was frustrated with the lack of a consistent role with the Grizzlies following the midseason trade that took him to Memphis, but he’s optimistic about this year, and coach Dave Joerger is expecting a breakout season, as Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal details. Green is set for free agency this coming summer after picking up his $9.2MM player option this past June. “It was tough to not be in one role. One day I’d start, one day I’d come off the bench. I was playing the 3 and the 4. It was tough,” Green said. “It’s hard to do. There’s only a few players that can really do that. I’m thankful to be in that position to be able to do that. But when you come onto a team halfway through the year, having to do that is tough because you never get a grasp of what you really need to do for the team. This year, I have an open mind. It doesn’t matter what position I play, I’m going to give it my all.”
- Cory Joseph started for the Spurs most of December last year and wound up seeing only 22 total minutes during the postseason. A similarly occasional place in Sacramento’s rotation has trade acquisition Ray McCallum willing to embrace the same stop-and-start playing time with the Spurs, as Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News chronicles. Joseph snagged a four-year, $30MM deal with the Raptors this past summer, and McCallum is due for restricted free agency at season’s end.
Carmelo Anthony Says He Won’t Ask For Trade
Carmelo Anthony rebuked speculation that he would eventually become disenchanted with the Knicks and ask for a trade, saying “hell no” in response to a reporter’s question to that effect, notes Al Iannazzone of Newsday (Twitter link). He once more reiterated his faith in team president Phil Jackson, Iannazonne observes, and ‘Melo added that he was bothered all summer by the notion that he wanted to be traded and the idea that he was against the team’s decision to draft Kristaps Porzingis fourth overall, tweets Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com.
Anthony’s contract, which still has four years and more than $101.606MM left on it, includes a no-trade clause and also features a 15% trade kicker, a bill the Knicks would have to pay if Anthony ever did consent to a swap. That would further complicate any potential trade scenario. The Knicks plummeted to a 17-65 record this past season, the first on Anthony’s contract and the first full season for Jackson as team president. They drafted chiefly for the long run when they chose the still-developing Porzingis, and they missed on Greg Monroe and other key free agent targets, but they upgraded the roster for the near term with signings of Robin Lopez, Arron Afflalo and others. Anthony’s return from knee surgery, which limited him to 40 games last season, also figures to help the Knicks bounce back.
‘Melo hinted this weekend that he intends to remain with the Knicks even beyond his contract, which carries a player option for the final season. The 31-year-old said recently that he’s taking Porzingis, 19, under his wing, having called the Latvian big man “a steal” in the initial wake of the draft.
Do you think Anthony will remain with the Knicks for the entire term of his contract? What about for the rest of his career? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.