Players With Partial Guarantees
Unlike years past, no one in the NBA is carrying a truly sizable partial guarantee into the season. Full guarantees for some were long ago clinched, as was the case for Jamal Crawford, whose $1.5MM partial guarantee became a $5.675MM full guarantee when he remained under contract through June 30th. Others are simply unable to command much guaranteed money, as more than two dozen players have partial guarantees of less than $100K.
Contracts like the one Amir Johnson had with the Raptors last season simply don’t exist this year. Johnson’s deal called for a partial guarantee of $5MM on his $7MM right up until the leaguewide guarantee date in January. Of course, he stuck for the entire season and earned his full salary, but teams and agents are becoming more savvy about inserting early guarantee dates that spur action during the summer, when most player movement takes place and both the team and the player have better opportunity to search for alternatives. Johnson’s latest deal, which he signed in July with the Celtics, is a prime example. His $12MM salary for 2016/17 is non-guaranteed until the end of next July 3rd, when it would become fully guaranteed, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.
Guarantee dates often apply to partially guaranteed salary, too. Today is the day that Langston Galloway locks in $440K of his minimum salary if he avoids hitting waivers. He already triggered a partial guarantee of $220K when he remained with the Knicks through July 1st, under terms that Pincus first reported.
A $440K guarantee is relatively paltry in the world of NBA salaries, but it would mean Galloway would have the fifth-largest partial guarantee in the league. He’d join two Spurs, including Matt Bonner, who tops the list with half of his $1,499,187 minimum salary guaranteed. The partial guarantee on the contract he signed this summer is larger than the full salary for many on this list simply because he falls into the largest minimum salary bracket as a veteran of 11 seasons. Check out the full list of partial guarantees below:
Partial guarantees, ranked from most to least lucrative
- Matt Bonner, Spurs — $749,594
- Toney Douglas, Pacers — $600K
- Jimmer Fredette, Spurs — $507,711
- Mike Muscala, Hawks — $473,638
- Langston Galloway, Knicks — $440K (assuming he remains under contract through today)
- Cameron Bairstow, Bulls — $425K
- Tyler Johnson, Heat — $422,530
- JaVale McGee, Mavericks — $250K
- Markel Brown, Nets — $200K
- Eric Moreland, Kings — $200K
- Scottie Wilbekin, Sixers — $200K
- Jeff Withey, Jazz — $200K
- Melvin Ejim, Magic — $150K
- JaMychal Green, Grizzlies — $150K
- Cliff Alexander, Trail Blazers — $100K
- Erick Green, Nuggets — $100K
- Jonathan Holmes, Lakers — $100K
- Ricky Ledo, Knicks — $100K
- James McAdoo, Warriors — $100K
- Elliot Williams, Hornets — $80K
- Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Knicks — $75K
- Ryan Boatright, Nets — $75K
- Lorenzo Brown, Timberwolves — $75K
- Treveon Graham, Jazz — $75K
- J.J. O’Brien, Jazz — $75K
- Lamar Patterson, Hawks — $75K
- Terran Petteway, Hawks — $75K
- Ronald Roberts Jr., Raptors — $75K
- Adonis Thomas, Pistons — $60K
- Brandon Ashley, Mavericks — $50K
- Bryce Dejean-Jones, Pelicans — $50K
- Michael Frazier, Lakers — $50K
- Quincy Miller, Nets — $50K
- Donald Sloan, Nets — $50K
- Jamil Wilson, Mavericks — $50K
- Christian Wood, Sixers — $50K
- Vince Hunter, Kings — $35K
- Robert Upshaw, Lakers — $35K
- Michale Kyser, Raptors — $25K
- Malcolm Miller, Celtics — $25K
- Darius Morris, Nets — $25K
- Levi Randolph, Celtics — $25K
- Shannon Scott, Raptors — already $25K
- Axel Toupane, Raptors — already $25K
- Corey Walden, Celtics — already $25K
- Jarrid Famous, Mavericks — $10K
The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post.
Wizards, Josh Harrellson Agree To Camp Deal
The Wizards and Josh Harrellson have reached agreement on a non-guaranteed deal, reports Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The three-year veteran spent last season playing overseas after the Pistons waived him in July 2014. He’ll have a tough time sticking with Washington past the preseason, since the Wizards already have 15 players on fully guaranteed contracts, which puts them at the regular season roster limit.
A debilitating back injury in early 2014 threatened his career, but Harrellson returned to action eight months after surgery and split last season between China and Puerto Rico. The big man who earned the nickname Jorts for his fashion sense at the University of Kentucky played summer league ball with the Suns this July, averaging 8.4 points and 5.1 rebounds in 17.2 minutes per game across seven appearances.
The efficient rebounding nonetheless failed to elicit much chatter about interest from NBA teams, though he told Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press at summer league that, “My main goal is to get a contract out of this. Even if it’s a partial [guarantee], just something.” He’ll instead settle for a non-guaranteed arrangement.
Harrellson is poised to compete with fellow NBA veterans Ish Smith and Toure’ Murry in Wizards camp. The Wizards are also reportedly set to sign undrafted center Jaleel Roberts from UNC-Asheville, though a more recent report casts Roberts merely as a “possibility” for Washington.
Do you think Harrellson belongs in the NBA, whether it’s with the Wizards or another team? Leave a comment to tell us.
Western Notes: Jazz, Nash, Mavs, Crabbe
The Jazz are content to play through the preseason, at least, with the point guards they have now, rather than trading for a Dante Exum replacement, reports Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah won’t turn down an overwhelming offer, but the team isn’t pushing for a deal as Exum recovers from surgery two weeks ago on the torn ACL in his left knee, as Jones details. The team was reportedly interested in dealing for Garrett Temple and pursued Jason Terry before he re-signed with the Rockets, but Jones and Tribune colleague Aaron Falk wrote shortly after Exum’s injury last month that the Jazz would probably replace him in-house with Trey Burke, Raul Neto and Bryce Cotton. See more from the Western Conference here:
- Steve Nash is finalizing a deal with the Warriors to become a part-time player development consultant for the team, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The two-time MVP, now 41 years old, announced his retirement this spring. Warriors coach Steve Kerr was Suns GM during Nash’s time in Phoenix.
- Point guard isn’t an issue for the Mavericks, who again feature four players at that position, as Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com notes. The team replaced Rajon Rondo with Deron Williams, re-signed J.J. Barea and, though the Mavs reportedly planned to shop Raymond Felton, he remains in Dallas.
- Allen Crabbe‘s 35.3% three-point shooting last season was respectable but far from elite, and this year is the last on his contract, so the former 31st overall pick spent much of the summer working on his shot with Blazers assistant coach Nate Tibbetts, as Joe Freeman of The Oregonian details. Portland kept Crabbe past the point this summer when his minimum salary for the season ahead became guaranteed.
Central Notes: Thompson, Hammond, Tellem
Tristan Thompson and fellow Rich Paul client Norris Cole probably need to sign their qualifying offers to hit unrestricted free agency next summer if each is to truly get the most out of his earning potential, opines Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders. Kyler sees signed qualifying offers as the most likely outcome for both. Still, the Basketball Insiders scribe doesn’t think that necessarily means they won’t end up re-signing with their respective teams in 2016, even though Paul has said that Thompson wouldn’t re-sign with the Cavs next year if he took his qualifying offer this year. See more news on Cleveland and the rest of the Central Division here:
- Bucks GM John Hammond deserves to stick around after positioning the team for a continued climb up the Eastern Conference standings, so Monday’s extension was the right move for Milwaukee, argues Sekou Smith of NBA.com. Hammond, who’s been in his job since April 2008, is No. 9 on the list of the longest-tenured primary basketball executives that I compiled earlier today.
- Keith Langlois of Pistons.com details the agenda for Arn Tellem, who joined the Pistons organization as vice chairman of Palace Sports and Entertainment this summer. Tellem is close with GM Jeff Bower, but the former super-agent’s new job will chiefly involve community outreach.
- Cavs draft-and-stash prospect Edin Bavcic has signed with Sopron of Hungary, agent Dragan Jankovski of the BeoBasket agency revealed on Twitter (hat tip to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). A 2006 draftee, he seems unlikely to ever play in the NBA, though Cleveland did sign 2008 draftee Sasha Kaun to his first NBA contract just last week.
Longest-Tenured Primary Basketball Executives
Determining the longest-tenured executives in the NBA isn’t nearly as straightforward as running down the longest-tenured coaches or each team’s longest-tenured player. Many front offices run chiefly as committees, with a chorus of voices carrying weight. That’s the case for the Warriors, and apparently for the Bucks, where coach Jason Kidd‘s has no shortage of influence. Still, the Bucks clearly value GM John Hammond, having signed him to an extension Monday. Hammond’s job description indicates that he does the bulk of the day-to-day work to construct and maintain Milwaukee’s roster, even if he’s merely on equal footing with Kidd when it comes to player personnel input, as co-owner Marc Lasry indicated to Chris Mannix of SI.com in December.
Judgment calls abound when it comes to identifying a single person as each team’s primary basketball executive. Coach and president of basketball operations Flip Saunders is atop the organizational chart in Minnesota, but he’s away from the team on a leave of absence while he recovers from cancer treatments. So, we’ll go with GM Milt Newton, who’s calling the shots in his stead. Pat Riley is the unquestioned chief executive for the Heat, but he was the team’s coach for much of his tenure in Miami, and Randy Pfund served as GM for several seasons while Riley manned the bench. However, the Heat bestowed the title of team president on Riley the day they hired him September 1995, a title he still holds, and little room for doubt has existed about his level of power over the Heat’s roster since his arrival. Thus, he tops the list below as the NBA’s longest-tenured primary basketball executive.
We’ve given credit to Suns GM Ryan McDonough and Hornets GM Rich Cho for all the time they’ve spent within their respective organizations, even though both of them previously served alongside others who held the title of president of basketball operations. GM Dennis Lindsey gets the nod in Utah despite the presence of executive vice president of basketball operations Kevin O’Connor. Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird and Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace are farther down this list than they could be, since we’re counting only from when they returned to power after an absence, in the case of Bird, and an exile, in the case of Wallace.
It’s a tricky undertaking, but the point is to identify the go-to player personnel decision-maker for each team and the length of time each has served. Here’s the complete list, spanning an even 20 years:
- Pat Riley, Heat: September 1995
- Mitch Kupchak, Lakers: August 2000
- R.C. Buford, Spurs: July 2002
- Danny Ainge, Celtics: May 2003
- Ernie Grunfeld, Wizards: June 2003
- Donnie Nelson, Mavericks: June 2005
- Daryl Morey, Rockets: May 2007
- Sam Presti, Thunder: June 2007
- John Hammond, Bucks: April 2008
- Gar Forman, Bulls: May 2009
- Billy King, Nets: July 2010
- Dell Demps, Pelicans: July 2010
- Rich Cho, Hornets: June 2011
- Bob Myers, Warriors: April 2012
- Neil Olshey, Trail Blazers: June 2012
- Rob Hennigan, Magic: June 2012
- Dennis Lindsey, Jazz: August 2012
- Ryan McDonough, Suns: May 2013
- Sam Hinkie, Sixers: May 2013
- Masai Ujiri, Raptors: May 2013
- Tim Connelly, Nuggets: June 2013
- Doc Rivers, Clippers: June 2013
- Larry Bird, Pacers: June 2013 (returned to organization)
- David Griffin, Cavaliers: February 2014
- Phil Jackson, Knicks: March 2014
- Stan Van Gundy, Pistons: May 2014
- Chris Wallace, Grizzlies: May 2014 (returned to power)
- Mike Budenholzer, Hawks: September 2014
- Vlade Divac, Kings: March 2015
- Milt Newton, Timberwolves: September 2015 (interim)
Which tenure do you think will be the next to end? Leave a comment to let us know.
Sixers Sign Christian Wood
SEPTEMBER 14TH, 5:47pm: Wood has put pen to paper with the Sixers, his agents at ASM reveal via Twitter (hat tip to Sportando’s Orazio Cauchi). The team has yet to make an announcement.
SEPTEMBER 8TH, 1:54pm: The partial guarantee is worth $50K, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link).
3:40pm: The deal is for four years, and it includes a partial guarantee, tweets Derek Bodner of Philadelphia magazine.
SEPTEMBER 7TH, 11:41am: The Sixers have reached agreement with undrafted UNLV power forward Christian Wood, agent Matt Ramker announced via Twitter. Wood was reportedly to have signed a partially guaranteed contract with the Rockets, but it appears that’s not happening. The 6’11” Wood, who turns 20 later this month, was one of the most heralded prospects not to be selected in June’s draft.
Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress ranked Wood the 25th-best prospect right before the draft this year, and Chad Ford of ESPN.com had him at No. 38, but subpar performances in predraft workouts caused his stock to fall, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports wrote when it appeared Wood was on his way to the Rockets. He averaged a double-double as a sophomore this past season at UNLV, posting 15.7 points and 10.0 rebounds in 32.7 minutes per game. He put up 6.5 PPG and 4.0 RPG in 14.6 MPG across four appearances for the Rockets in summer league. It’s not surprising to see Philly jump into the mix for a player in whom Houston had interest, since Sixers GM Sam Hinkie used to work under Rockets GM Daryl Morey.
The move injects some doubt into another deal agreed upon shortly after the draft. Philadelphia reportedly already had contracts or verbal agreements with 20 players before striking the deal with Wood, and teams can’t bring more than 20 players to training camp. The Sixers have reportedly intended to sign T.J. McConnell to a partially guaranteed deal after he went undrafted out of Arizona. Jordan McRae and J.P. Tokoto have also appeared on their way to Sixers camp, but those arrangements appear in jeopardy for now. Still, the Sixers could clear room for all of them if they trade or release other players already on signed contracts.
The Rockets recently broke off a partially guaranteed deal with Chuck Hayes, so it wouldn’t be altogether surprising if the same circumstances surrounding that dissolution are at play with Wood. Houston would trigger a hard cap if it signs No. 32 overall pick Montrezl Harrell for more than the minimum or for more than two years, and the Rockets are perilously close to that hard cap amount, as I examined in depth earlier in the offseason. Clearing partially guaranteed agreements would help the Rockets secure Harrell on a long-term deal, maintain flexibility and reduce their luxury tax bill.
Do you think Wood will make the Rockets and the teams that passed him up in the draft regret their choices? Leave a comment to tell us.
Grizzlies Sign Patrick Christopher For Camp
The Grizzlies have signed former Jazz swingman Patrick Christopher to a non-guaranteed deal that covers one year at the minimum salary, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The team has made no official announcement, but it appears the move has indeed taken place.
Christopher joined Memphis for camp last year, too, though the team waived him prior to opening night. He saw his first official NBA action with the Jazz instead after inking in December, though Utah let him go in January before his contract became guaranteed for the season. The 27-year-old is the 18th player on the Grizzlies, who are carry 14 fully guaranteed pacts, as their roster count shows.
Christopher went undrafted in 2010 out of the University of California, Berkeley. He played for the Pistons’ summer league team that year, then spent his first three seasons in Turkey and France. He signed with the Bulls in 2013 but was waived early in training camp and wound up with the D-League’s Iowa Energy, earning All-Defensive Second Team honors for the 2013/14 season.
He faces long odds to make the regular-season roster. The Grizzlies have Courtney Lee, Vince Carter and Jordan Adams at shooting guard and veterans Jeff Green, Matt Barnes and Tony Allen at small forward.
Warriors Sign Ian Clark To Camp Deal
SEPTEMBER 14TH, 5:22pm: Clark has signed with the Warriors, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reveals (Twitter link), though the team hasn’t made an announcement. It’s a non-guaranteed deal that becomes partially guaranteed for $474K if he’s not waived by the end of the day before opening night.
JULY 27TH, 2:38pm: The Warriors have agreed to sign two-year veteran shooting guard Ian Clark, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Golden State and the David Mondress client are still negotiating terms, but Clark has committed to the team, Charania adds. Golden State is limited to paying him the minimum salary, so it would seem the back-and-forth would be over length and the amount of guaranteed money. He became an unrestricted free agent after the Nuggets decided against making a qualifying offer of about $1.147MM.
Clark, 24, had hoped the Nuggets would re-sign him after his summer league performance, in which he averaged 13.4 points per game and made 12 of 24 total three-point attempts, but Denver renounced its rights to him to clear cap room. That didn’t preclude the team from re-signing him, but it did make it seem to make the possibility less likely. Denver claimed him off waivers from the Jazz late last season, apparently with the idea of keeping him for this year, but it appears that plan didn’t work out.
Golden State has 13 guaranteed contracts, leaving room under the 15-man regular season roster limit for the team to give one to Clark. The Warriors have a connection with him that dates back to the Las Vegas Summer League in 2013, when a 33-point outburst in the championship game helped him secure a contract with the Jazz. He’d gone undrafted out of Belmont earlier that summer.
Do you think Ian Clark has a shot to make the rotation for the Warriors this year? Leave a comment to let us know.
Warriors Sign Jarell Eddie To Camp Deal
SEPTEMBER 14TH, 5:15pm: Eddie has a signed contract, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (on Twitter), though the team has yet to make an announcement. It’s a two-year, minimum-salary arrangement, and it’s non-guaranteed, Pincus says.
AUGUST 21ST, 10:29am: The Warriors and Jarell Eddie have reached agreement on a deal that will bring the one-year veteran to training camp to compete for a spot on the opening night roster, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Eddie, a small forward who went undrafted out of Virginia Tech in 2014, was with the Hawks on a 10-day contract this past spring, though he didn’t appear in a game. The Warriors have only 13 fully guaranteed contracts, as our roster count shows, meaning Eddie will likely compete with James McAdoo, Chris Babb and Ian Clark for a regular season spot.
Eddie, who turns 24 in October, made his mark as a three-point shooter while in the D-League for most of last season, nailing 127 of his 281 in-game attempts, a sizzling 45.2%, for the affiliate of the Spurs. He averaged 12.9 points in 26.2 minutes per game, but nonetheless made only 18 starts in 44 appearances for that team and didn’t receive a call-up to San Antonio. The Spurs and the Pacers both had him on their summer league squads last month, and he continued his sharpshooting, connecting on 46.3% of his 67 shots from behind the arc.
Several NBA teams and clubs from overseas had been in pursuit Eddie, Charania writes in a full story. Golden State would appear to give him a fairly decent chance of sticking for the regular season. McAdoo has only a $100K partial guarantee, while Babb’s deal, which the Warriors acquired in the David Lee trade, is non-guaranteed. The Warriors and Clark, another three-point marksman, were still negotiating the terms of their pact when they committed to each other in late July.
Do you think the Warriors need Eddie’s outside shooting, or should they focus on players with different skills? Leave a comment to tell us.
Bucks Sign John Hammond To Extension
4:58pm: The extension is official, the Bucks announced, confirming that it carries through 2016/17.
12:12pm: The Bucks are extending the contract of GM John Hammond through the 2016/17 season, a source tells Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Twitter link). Hammond’s deal was to expire at the end of this coming season. However, the team isn’t retaining assistant GM David Morway, Gardner also reports (on Twitter).
“A great deal of our team’s success and progress is due to the vision and hard work of John,” Bucks owner Wes Edens said, according to Gardner. “He’s assembled a talented and competitive roster and we’re very pleased that he will continue to lead basketball operations.”
Hammond was quoted in a statement about the end of Morway’s time with the team, as Gardner relays. That suggests Hammond played a role in the decision not to bring him back.
Questions have surrounded Hammond’s power in Milwaukee since Edens and partners Marc Lasry and Jamie Dinan purchased the franchise last year. Lasry told Chris Mannix of SI.com in December that he preferred a committee approach and indicated that coach Jason Kidd‘s voice carried just as much weight. The extension means Hammond’s contract will end at the same time as Kidd’s, Gardner notes. Lasry admitted last summer that it was a mistake to keep Hammond out of the loop when the team brought Kidd into the organization. The new owners were non-committal about Hammond when they first bought the team in the spring of 2014, and it was around that time that they held preliminary talks about potential replacements for Hammond and Morway, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe reported then.
Still, the 61-year-old Hammond has remained, and the team’s bounceback season in 2014/15 that included a playoff berth this spring, plus the surprise signing of marquee free agent Greg Monroe, surely had much to do with the team’s willingness to work out an extension. Hammond won the league’s Executive of the Year award in 2010, after his second season in charge of the front office, but the Bucks have yet to equal the 46-36 mark they put up that year, and they haven’t moved past the first round of the playoffs under Hammond’s watch, either.
Morway had spent the last two years in his role with the Bucks after coming over from the Pacers, where he served under Larry Bird and Donnie Walsh, who held the title of president of basketball operations.
Do you think an extension for Hammond is the right move? Leave a comment to let us know.