Clippers Sign Nikoloz Tskitishvili For Camp
SEPTEMBER 25TH, 7:50pm: The Clippers have officially announced the signing.
SEPTEMBER 14TH, 10:50am: The RealGM transactions log confirms the signing took place, but the Clippers still haven’t made an official announcement.
SEPTEMBER 10TH, 1:06pm: The Clippers have signed 2002 No. 5 overall pick Nikoloz Tskitishvili to a non-guaranteed deal that covers one season, reports international journalist David Pick (Twitter link). The team has yet to make a formal announcement. It’ll be for the minimum salary, since that’s all the Clippers have to offer. The deal nonetheless represents a comeback for a player considered one of the all-time draft busts. Tskitishvili, 32, has been eyeing another go at the NBA of late, having been out of the league since 2006, as Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post recently chronicled.
The 7-footer averaged just 2.9 points and 1.7 rebounds in 7.2 minutes per game during his four-year NBA career, spent mostly with the Nuggets, who made that fateful draft pick, passing over Amar’e Stoudemire, among others. He also played for the Warriors, Timberwolves and Suns, passing briefly through the hands of the Trail Blazers before a camp deal with the Knicks in the fall of 2006 that was his last NBA contract.
Tskitishvili spent the past season with Champville of Lebanon, racking up 21.0 points and 11.6 rebounds in 37.6 minutes per game, as Pick notes (on Twitter). He told Dempsey that he hoped that the Nuggets would give him the chance to come back to the NBA and erase the memories of his earlier flameout in Denver, but instead it’s the Clippers who will give him an opportunity.
“You can blame me or you can find some reasons to blame,” Tskitishvili said to Dempsey. “When they draft you as a No. 5 pick, really I shouldn’t have taken it, and stayed in Europe a couple more years. But you can’t say no to the No. 5 pick. You might never come to the NBA. I was afraid for the future. This was my opportunity to be in the NBA. This was guaranteed. I had to take it. If I played overseas for a couple years or three years [though], I would be much better.”
The Clippers have 14 fully guaranteed contracts plus a non-guaranteed deal with Chuck Hayes, and they’re also reportedly bringing undrafted center Yanick Moreira to camp. So, Tskitishvili has at least a somewhat reasonable chance to make the opening night roster nearly a decade after his last regular season game.
Do you think Tskitishvili will finally make an impact in the NBA, or will his comeback be short-lived? Comment to tell us.
Grizzlies Sign Dan Nwaelele, Waive Christopher
FRIDAY, 5:58pm: The Nwaelele signing has taken place, and the Grizzlies have indeed waived Christopher, according to the RealGM transactions log. The team has yet to make any official announcement regarding either move.
THURSDAY, 8:47am: The Grizzlies will bring shooting guard Dan Nwaelele to training camp, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Agent Dave Gasman confirms the deal via Twitter. The 31-year-old Nwaelele, who went undrafted out of the Air Force Academy in 2007, will replace Patrick Christopher, who won’t be with the team, according to Stein, despite having signed earlier this month. Memphis also reportedly struck a non-guaranteed deal Wednesday with Ryan Hollins, so the Grizzlies have signed contracts or verbal agreements with 19 players, not including Christopher. Fourteen of them have fully guaranteed deals.
Nwaelele has yet to appear on an NBA regular season roster, but he was with the Spurs for camp in 2013. He spent his first five post-college years serving an Air Force commitment, and he made the D-League affiliate of the Warriors at an open tryout in 2012. He returned to the Warriors D-League team after his preseason stint with the Spurs, and in 2013/14, he averaged 12.4 points and 4.4 rebounds in 31.1 minutes per game, with strong 41.6% three-point shooting.
Christopher was on a non-guaranteed minimum-salary contract, so Memphis isn’t eating any money as it lets him go. The swingman made his official NBA debut with the Jazz last season, but he has a history with the Grizzlies, who had him for the preseason last year but waived him prior to opening night.
Latest On Steve Nash
SEPTEMBER 25TH, 3:53pm: The Warriors have officially hired Nash, confirming that he’ll serve as a player development consultant, the team announced via press release.
“Steve Nash was one of the best guards to ever play in this league and we are so happy to add him to our staff and have him working with our players,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said in the team’s statement. “Even though he possessed incredible individual skills and abilities, Steve always played the game with a team-first mentality, which is something that we emphasize greatly within our group. Steve and I have a great relationship from our time together in Phoenix while I was general manager, and we share a lot of beliefs about how the game should be played and about the work ethic that goes in to being great. I can’t wait to work with him again and have him around our team.”
The two-time MVP also expressed his enthusiasm for the partnership.
“I look forward to joining Coach Kerr and his great staff and helping out in any way that I can,” Nash said. “The Warriors played such a beautiful style of team basketball last season and it’s a style that I am very familiar with and enjoyed playing throughout my career. This team is extremely talented, as they proved in winning the championship last season, but they also have a number of core players who are relatively young in their careers. That is a very unique blend and I’m excited about the opportunity to work with these guys and hopefully pass along some of the lessons that I learned during my career.”
SEPTEMBER 24TH, 1:00pm: Nash seemed to confirm in a video with Sportsnet Central’s Caroline Cameron that he’ll be working on the Warriors staff this season, as Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group transcribes. Nash answered a question about how he can help Stephen Curry and said that “hopefully I’ll learn as much from him as he will from me.”
SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1:58pm: The Mavericks held out hope as recently as late June that they could convince Steve Nash to come out of retirement to play for them this coming season, sources told Marc Stein of ESPN.com. The 41-year-old is nearing a deal to join the Warriors as a part-time player development consultant, as Stein also reports. The point guard announced his retirement in March, months after a nerve ailment had sidelined him for the season and made it seem doubtful, at best, that he would ever return to action. The Lakers held on to his contract until waiving him in April.
Nash spent six seasons in Dallas between 1998 and 2004, blossoming along with Dirk Nowitzki, who remains a close friend and whose charity softball game Nash took part in this summer, as Stein notes. Mavs owner Mark Cuban told Kenneth Arthur of Rolling Stone last year that his worst move as an owner was letting Nash sign with Phoenix in 2004. Nash’s level of play reached even higher levels when he was with the Suns, the team with which he won both his MVP awards.
Dallas had only spot duty in mind for Nash this time around, but Nash made it clear last year that if he were to play again, he would only do so as a Laker, as Stein points out. The Cavs tried and failed to convince Nash to push for a buyout from the Lakers last season that would have allowed him to finish up 2014/15 in Cleveland, as Stein reported in March. Nash said then that he wanted to live in Southern California forever, but while he’s poised to join a Northern California team, he’d only spend a few days each month with the Warriors, Stein writes.
The Mavs, as they stand, have no shortage of point guards, with four on the roster. That includes offseason addition Deron Williams and J.J. Barea, who re-signed with the team this summer, as well as holdovers Devin Harris and Raymond Felton.
What do you think Nash’s greatest legacy as a player will be? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Sixers, Blazers, Raptors Eye Anthony Bennett
3:49pm: The Cavaliers, Blazers, and Jazz will also pass on claiming Bennett, Wojnarowski relays (Twitter link).
FRIDAY, 3:40pm: The Sixers don’t intend on making a waiver claim on Bennett, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports tweets.
2:31pm: A “growing suspicion” around the league is that Bennett will end up with the Blazers, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (All Twitter links). Portland would like to sign him in free agency instead of claiming him off waivers, though given their deficit beneath the $63MM salary floor, absorbing Bennett’s full salary wouldn’t necessarily cost the Blazers extra money, Stein points out. A waiver claim would surely be Minnesota’s preference, too, since the team would be off the hook for any money to Bennett in that situation.
11:58am: The Sixers, just like the Blazers, plan to carefully study the possibility of claiming Bennett, Wojnarowski reports in a new full piece. Bennett’s camp would prefer that he hit free agency so that he can choose his next team, Wojnarowski adds.
TUESDAY, 11:21am: The Trail Blazers are expected to pursue No. 1 overall pick Anthony Bennett once he hits waivers following his Timberwolves buyout deal, reports Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Bennett and the Wolves have agreed to the buyout, and the team will release him soon, Charania reported minutes ago. Portland has enough cap room to claim Bennett off waivers, but it’s not immediately clear if the Blazers plan to do so or prefer to chase him in free agency. The Sixers also have the cap room necessary to claim him, and the Cavaliers have a trade exception large enough to snag him off waivers, too, though it’s not clear if either of those teams have any such inclination. The Jazz can clear the requisite cap space if they cut some non-guaranteed money, but they are unlikely to have interest, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported Monday.
Portland employs Canadian national team head coach Jay Triano as an assistant coach, as Charania alluded to and as former Nets executive Bobby Marks points out (Twitter link). The Raptors also have interest, as Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities has heard, though Toronto could only end up with him if he hits free agency first, and the Raptors would be limited to paying him the minimum salary, since they used up their cap space and spent their room exception on Bismack Biyombo.
The Blazers have only 13 fully guaranteed contracts, plus four more without full guarantees, as our roster count shows. They have a league-low of nearly $48MM in guaranteed money, so they would have no trouble fitting Bennett on the roster. The trick would be in finding playing time for him at power forward, where Portland has Meyers Leonard and Noah Vonleh, whose presence Jabari Young of Comcast SportsNet Northwest cited to Hoops Rumors when he suggested reasons why the team hasn’t signed Tristan Thompson to an offer sheet. The addition of Bennett, if it takes place, would ostensibly extinguish any hint that Portland would circle back to Thompson before the start of the season, though that’s just my speculation.
Toronto doesn’t have a clear-cut starter at power forward, seemingly Bennett’s best position, since the Raptors appear poised to take a small-ball approach with free agent signee DeMarre Carroll at the four, where the alternative would be starting Patrick Patterson. Still, the presence of Luis Scola and James Johnson would complicate Bennett’s chances at minutes.
The Sixers already have signed contracts or verbal deals with 20 players for camp, so they’d have to get out of one of them to add Bennett. Only 13 Sixers have fully guaranteed pacts, including Nerlens Noel, who was the front-runner to become the No. 1 pick in 2013 before an injury cleared the way for Bennett. Noel is the presumptive starter at the power forward position, though the rotation at the four is settled beyond him.
What do you think would be the best landing spot for Bennett? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Jordan McRae Signs Required Tender From Sixers
Jordan McRae has signed his required tender from the Sixers, reports Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). That means the No. 58 overall pick from the 2014 draft is with the team on a non-guaranteed contract for the minimum salary that covers one season. Philadelphia has yet to make an announcement. The development is troublesome for the team, which already had signed contracts or verbal agreements with 20 other players, as our roster count shows, and teams can’t formally sign more than 20.
Conflicting reports existed on whether McRae was likely to end up signing with the Sixers this year. It appeared most recently that McRae would pass on the tender and that Philadelphia wasn’t expecting him to take it, but apparently he’s jumped on the offer. The Sixers can just as easily cut him loose and proceed without him, but that would come at the cost of the shooting guard’s draft rights.
The Tandem Sports & Entertainment client is the third second-round pick who’s taken the required tender from the Sixers in the last two years. K.J. McDaniels, the 32nd overall pick in 2014, signed his required tender last fall before the Sixers traded him in the middle of the season to the Rockets, while J.P. Tokoto, this year’s No. 58 overall pick, took his required tender from the Sixers earlier this month. McRae and Tokoto surely hope to parlay the move into a deal as lucrative as the three-year, $10MM contract McDaniels signed with the Rockets in restricted free agency this summer.
Paul Pierce Likely To Retire If Clippers Win Title
Paul Pierce said today that he’ll probably retire if the Clippers win the NBA championship this year, tweets Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times. The 37-year-old, who turns 38 next month, pondered retirement at the end of this past season before signing a fully guaranteed three-year contract worth nearly $10.584MM with the Clippers this summer. The deal contains a total of $8MM in guaranteed salary, with the non-guaranteed money bundled in the final season, which is partially guaranteed for $1MM.
Whether Pierce decides to give back a portion of that guaranteed money is ultimately up to him, though he would probably do so if he indeed retires. The team could press the issue and suspend him without pay for failing to honor his contract, but it’s doubtful the matter would come that. Instead, the team would likely see at least a portion of Pierce’s guaranteed salary of almost $3.528MM for 2016/17 come off the books. The Clippers have nearly $76.5MM committed for that season, when the salary cap is projected to rise to $89MM.
Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers and Pierce have a longstanding relationship from their time with the Celtics, so surely Rivers would like to see Pierce stick around. However, he’d certainly take a championship, too. Pierce said he thought the Clips would win the title this past season, notes Dan Woike of the Orange County Register (Twitter link). Rivers isn’t sure just how he’ll deploy Pierce on the court, but the 17-year veteran said he knows his playing time will decline and that he’s nonetheless on board with whatever Rivers decides to do with him, according to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter links). Pierce saw 26.2 minutes per game in the regular season and 29.8 MPG in the playoffs for the Wizards last season.
How much do you think Pierce has left? Leave a comment to weigh in.
Wizards Officially Sign Five For Camp
The Wizards have officially signed Josh Harrellson, Jaron Johnson, Toure’ Murry, Jaleel Roberts and Ish Smith, the team announced. All five moves were expected, and none of them have any guaranteed salary, according to reports. The Wizards already have 15 fully guaranteed deals, so it would be tough for today’s camp additions to stick for opening night. All except Johnson are known to be on one-year contracts for the minimum, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders, though it would be surprising if Johnson signed for terms that were any different.
Harrellson, a three-year veteran big man, is returning to the NBA after sitting out last season as he recovered from back surgery. Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports first reported the deal with the 26-year-old.
Charania also revealed that Johnson, a 23-year-old shooting guard, would attend Wizards camp. Johnson spent last season with the D-League affiliate of the Rockets after going undrafted out of Louisiana Tech in 2014.
The Wizards are familiar with Murry from his time on a pair of 10-day contracts with the team last season. J. Michael of CSN Mid-Atlantic reported the deal between the Wizards and the 25-year-old combo guard.
Roberts is poised to celebrate his 23rd birthday next month in Wizards camp. Charania reported that the center who went undrafted out of UNC-Asheville this year would head to Washington.
Four teams had Smith at one point or another in 2014/15, and though he had a strong finishing kick with the Sixers, the 27-year-old point guard will have to fight to stay on the roster in Washington. Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post reported Smith’s deal with the Wizards.
Which Wizards camp invitee has the greatest potential to surprise and remain on the roster for the start of the regular season? Leave a comment to tell us.
Northwest Notes: Rubio, Donovan, Matthews
Timberwolves GM Milt Newton poured cold water on persistent Ricky Rubio trade rumors, telling Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press that the front office is “not talking to anybody about trading Ricky” and that the team expects the point guard to play an integral role.
“He’s one of the best facilitators in the NBA,” Newton said. “We’ve got a young team of guys that are athletic, that are going to get up and down. And we’re going to utilize those talents that they have. Who better than Ricky to be the one leading the charge, pushing the pace, pushing the ball and getting our guys easy opportunities and getting the ball where they can be their best? We’re looking to him to be that person.”
Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher said earlier this month that the Wolves had lost faith in Rubio and had gauged the market for him, though Bucher added that he heard trade talks weren’t ongoing. Since then, Newton assumed control of the front office from the ailing Flip Saunders, who’s on a leave of absence as he recovers from cancer treatments. See more from the Northwest Division:
- Thunder GM Sam Presti said this week that he didn’t have any influence in Billy Donovan‘s assistant coaching hires, moves that complement the first-year NBA head coach with veterans Monty Williams and Maurice Cheeks, as The Oklahoman’s Berry Tramel details. “Billy, great quality about him, he did not know Monty, and he did not know Maurice Cheeks,” Presti said. “He interviewed those guys. He really liked them. He felt like they could help. He was totally aligned with our vision for an organization. One of the things that make him able to do that, he naturally and intrinsically gravitates to those kinds of people. Those guys have been great together. We’re grateful those guys were willing to jump in. Both those guys have accomplished a lot.”
- The Trail Blazers had no reason to pay a premium to retain Wesley Matthews once LaMarcus Aldridge left, given Matthews’ torn Achilles and the rebuilding phase that Portland is entering, contends Shaun Powell of NBA.com in his review of the team’s offseason. Jabari Young of Comcast SportsNet Northwest presented a different take on that in our latest installment of The Beat.
- The max deal Matthews signed with the Mavs appears on the list of the five worst contracts for the future that Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports compiled. Also on the list is Enes Kanter, who signed an offer sheet with the Blazers that the Thunder matched, and former Thunder point guard Reggie Jackson, now on a five-year, $80MM deal with the Pistons.
Lakers Rumors: Playoffs, Buss, Hibbert, Huertas
The Lakers roster is strong enough for the team to have legitimate playoff aspirations, GM Mitch Kupchak contends, as USA Today’s Sam Amick writes. “The goal every year, of course, is to win the championship,” Kupchak said. “I’m really hopeful that we can be fun to watch, and certainly win a lot more games than we won last year. I don’t know why hopes of a playoff position shouldn’t be in the picture. That’s kind of where it stands.” Still, Kupchak was more guarded than he was a year ago, when he declared that the expectation for last season’s squad was to win a championship, observes Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times. The Lakers instead finished a franchise-worst 21-61. See more on the purple-and-gold:
- Kupchak downplayed the idea that co-owner Jim Buss will resign from his job as the team’s executive VP of basketball operations if the Lakers don’t make the Western Conference Finals by 2017, a standard to which primary owner Jeanie Buss has said she’ll hold her brother. Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News has the details. “If he felt that way and I agreed, we would’ve traded our picks for veteran players,” Kupchak said. “But we didn’t.” Jim Buss has seemingly tried to soften the parameters of his pledge that he’d step down if the Lakers aren’t contending by the end of the 2016/17 season.
- The GM sees D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson and Julius Randle as starters for the future, and he also expressed high hopes for Roy Hibbert, who’s on an expiring contract, as Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times relays. “Hibbert is young enough to be included,” Kupchak said. “If Roy has a good to great year, and we can bring him back at 28 years old, I don’t know why he can’t be part of that core.”
- Lakers players are impressed with what they’ve seen from Brazilian rookie Marcelo Huertas during voluntary team workouts, and the point guard has a legitimate chance to make the opening night roster, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports. Huertas signed a contract with no guaranteed money, and while the Lakers have plenty of flexibility with only 12 fully guaranteed deals, the team is open to offloading one of those full guarantees if someone on a non-guaranteed pact proves a better player, Kupchak said, as Pincus notes in his piece.
- Former Lakers coach Phil Jackson thinks it’s possible Kobe Bryant will play for a team other than the Lakers in 2016/17, as we detailed earlier.
Hawks To Sign Earl Barron For Camp
The Hawks will sign Earl Barron to a training camp deal to replace the retiring Jason Richardson, a source tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The nine-year veteran finished last season with the Suns. He’s the 20th player with whom the Hawks have either a signed contract or a verbal agreement, putting them at the preseason roster limit, though they’ll ostensibly release Richardson soon.
The 34-year-old Barron hadn’t drawn much interest in free agency this summer, as our rumors page for him indicates, but he’s shown a knack for making his way onto NBA rosters despite limited playing time. Last season’s 16 games with the Suns were the most Barron had played in an NBA season since 2010/11, when he totaled 21 appearances split among three teams. The center’s best season was 2007/08, when he appeared in 46 contests, and 15 of them as a member of the starting lineup, for the Heat.
Atlanta offers him a decent chance at a regular season roster spot, since the team only has 13 fully guaranteed contracts. Mike Muscala has half of his two-year veteran’s minimum salary guaranteed, ostensibly giving him the inside track on spot No. 14. The four players aside from Barron who are in the mix for the 15th spot, assuming the Hawks carry that many guys on opening night, have a combined one year of NBA experience, so Barron is by far the best option if coach/executive Mike Budenholzer prefers a veteran.
Do you think Barron could help the Hawks this season? Leave a comment to weigh in.