Clippers Frustrated Over Gillian Zucker’s Authority?
FRIDAY, 12:48pm: Rivers denies the content of the TMZ story, tweets Dan Woike of the Orange County Register.
TUESDAY, 8:33am: Several players and key figures within the Clippers organization feel that president of business operations Gillian Zucker is overstepping her bounds and usurping the authority of coach/president of basketball operations Doc Rivers, reports TMZ Sports. One player decided against re-signing with the Clippers because of the confusion over whether Rivers or Zucker has more power, TMZ adds. Zucker became involved in player development and decisions involving playing time, but it’s “painfully obvious” that she doesn’t understand NBA culture, having previously worked in auto racing, players said to TMZ.
Zucker denied knowledge of any such issues to TMZ, saying that the lines are “very clear” between the team’s business department, which owner Steve Ballmer hired her to oversee, and the basketball side. People within the organization who say the issues exist profess that they like Ballmer but are anxious for him to put a check on Zucker’s authority before the situation gets worse, according to TMZ.
Zucker was the impetus for the departure of more than 10 employees within the Clippers who were either fired or quit, HBO’s Bill Simmons tweets. Zucker’s administration is also having trouble with the league, team sponsors, and the team’s TV deal, Simmons adds (Twitter link). The Clippers appear to be $40MM apart on annual local TV rights fee proposals with Fox Sports, as Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times reported this week, and are considering a streaming service, as Claire Atkinson of the New York Post reported last month.
Glen Davis, Dahntay Jones, Hedo Turkoglu and Ekpe Udoh are the Clippers who became free agents July 1st and who haven’t re-signed with the team. The Clippers also waived Lester Hudson and Jordan Hamilton, neither of whom has re-signed. Ostensibly, the player who chose not to return to the Clippers because of Zucker is one of those six.
And-Ones: Lottery, Calipari, White
Lottery reform came close to happening last year, but commissioner Adam Silver thinks it will be a couple of years before the league considers it again, as he told Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe.
“There’s a recognition that the lottery is only one aspect of how to build a team,” Silver said. “And given the inflow of the new television money next season and the large increase in the cap, ultimately the owners concluded that while we think we need to take a fresh look at the lottery system, let’s wait and look at the system holistically once the new money comes in.”
The Sixers and Thunder were reportedly the leaders of the opposition to derail a reform measure last year that had appeared likely to pass before they and 13 others teams blocked it. Here’s more from the NBA at large:
- Rumors persist that John Calipari has interest in coaching in the NBA, with the Kings the team most recently linked to him, but Calipari reiterated to Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com that he wants to remain at the University of Kentucky and doesn’t want an NBA return. “I don’t,” Calipari said. “I went through some things last year and I had a simple question for an owner. The impact I have on these young people, the impact to help change their families’ lives, the impact I have in the seat I’m in at Kentucky to move people in a positive way, can I have that in the NBA? Where do I get the satisfaction from? What do we do that has an impact on a community, has an impact on people, or am I just coaching to try to help you make more money and win a championship? Tell me how because I’m a stage in my life that’s not what moves me.’ “
- Former first-round pick Royce White is focused on a return to the NBA and is considering a $200K offer from the Amerileague, a new U.S.-based semipro league, reports Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com. Four-year veteran and fellow former first-rounder David Harrison has already signed a $200K deal of his own to join the league, which aims to offer top high school talent an alternative to college ball, as Goodman details. “Ultimately I believe I can play in the NBA and I want to do whatever I can to get back there,” said White, whose fear of flying sparked controversy that’s helped limit him to just three NBA appearances so far. “I’m 24 and to this point my career has had little to do with my ability. There’s a lot of misinformation out there that I require a lot of special accommodations and that’s not the case. I’m willing to fly, and flew several times to play in Orlando this past summer [for summer league with the Clippers].”
Mitchell, Newton To Fill In For Ailing Saunders
FRIDAY, 10:14am: Saunders recently experienced complications related to treatments that he’s completed for his cancer, and he’s undergoing tests and treatment at a Minnesota hospital, the team announced via press release, adding that GM Milt Newton will take on an expanded role in the front office while Saunders recovers. The team also confirmed that Mitchell will serve as interim head coach. Wolves CEO Rob Moor says the timetable for the return of Saunders, who is taking what the team calls a leave of absence, is a matter of months, not weeks, tweets Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune.
“First and foremost, my immediate concern is for the Saunders family and the health of Flip,” owner Glen Taylor said in the team’s statement. “Our priority right now is for him to regain his strength so that he can be 100 percent when he returns to his Timberwolves duties. In the interim, I remain confident in the direction of our team. I have known Sam Mitchell for a number of years, back to his playing days in Minnesota. He is a former NBA Head Coach of the Year. I have no doubt he will get the most out of our players and will continue to serve as a great mentor to our young and talented players as interim head coach.”
Newton, also quoted in the release from the team, expressed confidence in Mitchell and said he doesn’t anticipate a change in the team’s basketball philosophy, and Mitchell conveyed similar sentiments in his contribution to the statement and in his comments during today’s press conference, as the Wolves relay via Twitter.
THURSDAY, 3:03pm: The Timberwolves will soon name assistant coach Sam Mitchell as interim head coach while Flip Saunders continues to battle cancer, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Saunders had planned to stay in his dual jobs of head coach and president of basketball operations despite his treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, but it appears that plan has changed. Hope exists for Saunders to return to the bench at some point this season, Wojnarowski adds (on Twitter).
Saunders, 60, has a career regular season coaching record of 654-592 that he compiled as head man of the Timberwolves, Pistons, and Wizards. His career regular season mark in Minnesota is 427-392, and his Timberwolves teams have gone 17-30 in the postseason.
Mitchell has previous head coaching experience, having spent four plus seasons as coach of the Raptors from 2004/05 through part of the 2008/09 campaign. He won the Coach of the Year award in 2006/07, when the Raptors went 47-35 and won the Atlantic Division. Through 345 regular season games Mitchell has compiled a mark of 156-189, and he owns a lackluster 3-8 postseason mark. He had previously interviewed for the head coaching job with the Wolves, and he is reportedly a favorite of owner Glen Taylor after having spent 10 seasons with the franchise as a player. The 52-year-old’s most important task this season as coach will be to continue developing Minnesota’s wealth of young talent.
Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.
Southeast Notes: Beal, Batum, Spoelstra, Hezonja
- Shaun Powell of NBA.com speculates that it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Hornets offer Nicolas Batum an extension. The small forward, whose contract expires after this season, is eligible for a veteran extension, though he could receive better terms if he signs one on or after the six-month anniversary of the June 24th trade that brought him to the Hornets, as I noted here. In any case, Powell likes most of the moves Charlotte has made this summer after the disastrous Lance Stephenson signing of last year.
- Erik Spoelstra is the second-longest tenured coach in the NBA, but he’s never won a playoff series without LeBron James, so he faces pressure this season with a Heat team expected to advance beyond the first round, opines Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel.
- Mario Hezonja‘s potent, versatile offensive game prevailed upon the Magic to ignore a more pressing need at power forward with the fifth overall pick, writes Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel. The Magic are well-stocked at the wing, but Hezonja may well emerge as the ideal sixth man, playing both the two and the three, Schmitz argues.
Pelicans Interested In Chris Douglas-Roberts
The Pelicans have keen interest in six-year veteran Chris Douglas-Roberts, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The 28-year-old has been out of the NBA since the Celtics waived him in January, shortly after his arrival via trade from the Clippers. The market has otherwise appeared scarce for the Anthony Jones client, despite his prominent role in the rotation for playoff-bound Charlotte in 2013/14.
A strained Achilles tendon helped curtial the impact that Douglas-Roberts had for the Clippers on a guaranteed minimum-salary contract this past season. He appeared in only 12 games, averaging 1.6 points in 8.6 minutes per contest. He put up 6.9 PPG in 20.7 MPG for Charlotte the season before, nailing 38.6% of his three-point attempts.
The client of agent Anthony Jones would give New Orleans another option at small forward, a trouble spot for the team over the past few seasons. The Pelicans are also eyeing Rasual Butler, whom they reportedly auditioned Wednesday, and they also reportedly worked out Corey Webster, a shooting guard prospect from New Zealand. New Orleans has 13 players on fully guaranteed contracts plus partially guaranteed deals with Sean Kilpatrick and Bryce Dejean-Jones, as our Pelicans roster page shows. Restricted free agent Norris Cole remains in limbo.
Do you think Douglas-Roberts can duplicate his season with Charlotte two years ago? Leave a comment to tell us.
Atlantic Notes: Galloway, Marshall, Nets
- Kendall Marshall‘s new contract with the Sixers covers four years and is worth an even $8MM, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). It’s front-loaded with a fully guaranteed $2,144,772 salary for this season, as Pincus also shows.
- The Nets traded $500K in cash to acquire the draft rights to Xavier Thames, to whom they declined to make the required tender by today’s deadline, forfeiting those rights, as NetsDaily notes. Brooklyn has sent out $7.5MM in trades for draft picks since the start of owner Mikhail Prokhorov era in May 2010, and of those picks, only Bojan Bogdanovic and Markel Brown are on the roster, and the Nets retain the draft rights to only Juan Vaulet, this year’s 39th overall pick, NetsDaily also points out.
- The Nets expect to have a D-League affiliate in Brooklyn for 2016/17, league sources inform NetsDaily for a separate piece, though GM Billy King said in June that the process will take a couple of years. In any case, the lack of an affiliate for this season, with so many young players on the Nets roster, is not ideal, as NetsDaily explains. Brooklyn sent two players on D-League assignment last season, both of whom ended up with the Celtics affiliate, as I noted earlier today.
Nets Sign Dahntay Jones
THURSDAY, 3:00pm: The signing is official, the team announced via a press release.
MONDAY, 12:18pm: The Nets and 11-year veteran Dahntay Jones have agreed to terms on a non-guaranteed deal, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports. The Clippers, Kings and Knicks expressed interest in signing the Mark Bartelstein client on the first day of free agency, as Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders reported at that point, but the market for the 34-year-old had seemed to dry up since then.
Jones finished this past season on the Clippers after signing a pair of 10-day contracts. It was his first NBA action in a while, since he hadn’t played in the NBA during the 2013/14 season, and the Jazz waived his non-guaranteed contract shortly before opening night in 2014. His work on the defensive end has helped him to a lengthy NBA career even though he’s only averaged double-digit points per game once, in 2009/10 with the Pacers. Jones put up less than a point per game in 3.7 minutes per contest for the Clippers, but the team apparently thought highly of his contribution to team chemistry.
His pedigree as a former Duke Blue Devil surely endears him to fellow Dukie Billy King, the Nets GM, but Jones nonetheless faces a challenge to make the opening night roster in Brooklyn. The Nets only have 12 fully guaranteed contracts, but five others have partially guaranteed money in their deals with Brooklyn.
Do you think the Nets will keep Jones for the regular season, or will he be a camp casualty? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
How Teams Without Own Affiliates Used D-League
The disappearance of shared D-League affiliates this season shouldn’t have much of an effect, since the 13 teams that shared the Fort Wayne Mad Ants last season rarely sent players on assignment, argues Chris Reichert of Upside & Motor. The Hawks, as Reichert notes, were the exception.
Atlanta made 11 assignments to the D-League in 2014/15, more than twice as many as any other NBA franchise without a one-to-one NBA affiliate. The Raptors were next in that category, with four, but they’ve started their own D-League team for this season. Still, the Hawks aren’t strangers to the system that will govern their D-League assignments in the months ahead.
The 11 remaining NBA teams without their own D-League affiliate may assign players to the affiliates of other NBA franchises, just as the Hawks did three times last season when the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, the D-League squad Atlanta shared with a dozen other NBA teams, had a full roster. The Hawks used the arrangement to find a home particularly conducive to the development of their players, as Adam Johnson of D-League Digest observes, sending Adreian Payne on two occasions to the affiliate of the Spurs. Hawks coach/executive Mike Budenholzer was a longtime assistant in San Antonio before taking the job in Atlanta, and he’s brought a similar operation with him to his new job. The Hawks also sent John Jenkins to the affiliate of the Jazz, another organization with close ties to the Spurs.
Of course, it won’t always work out that way. Not every NBA team has close similarities with another, Johnson notes. The D-League will ask for volunteers among its ranks to take NBA players on assignments, but if the affiliate that the NBA team making the assignment doesn’t raise its hand, the NBA club has to choose another volunteer or have the destination for its assigned player determined at random if no volunteers emerge.
It’s an imperfect system, but it’s the price NBA teams that haven’t invested in their own D-League outfits must pay. Of course, many of those teams figure to simply decline to participate, given their lack of D-League assignments in the past.
With an assist from the D-League Usage Reports that Eddie Scarito of Hoops Rumors compiled, below is a list of every D-League assignment that the 13 teams without a one-to-one D-League affiliate made last season. Those teams collectively sent players to the one-to-one affiliates of other NBA franchises on six occasions, with the Spurs taking on six such players.
Atlanta Hawks
- November 20th: Assigned Adreian Payne (Recalled November 23rd)
- November 28th: Assigned John Jenkins (Recalled December 8th)
- November 28th: Assigned Adreian Payne (Recalled December 6th)
- December 6th: Assigned Mike Muscala (Recalled December 8th)
- December 9th: Assigned Adreian Payne to Spurs affiliate (Recalled December 22nd)
- December 19th: Assigned Mike Muscala (Recalled December 20th)
- December 28th: Assigned Mike Muscala (Recalled December 29th)
- December 30th: Assigned John Jenkins to Jazz affiliate (Recalled January 20th)
- December 30th: Assigned Adreian Payne to Spurs affiliate (Recalled January 12th)
- February 7th: Assigned Mike Muscala (Recalled February 8th)
- March 1st: Assigned Mike Muscala (Recalled March 2nd)
Brooklyn Nets
- January 1st: Assigned Markel Brown to Celtics affiliate (Recalled January 8th)
- January 1st: Assigned Cory Jefferson to Celtics affiliate (Recalled January 8th)
Charlotte Hornets
- December 27th: Assigned Noah Vonleh (Recalled December 31st)
- December 28th: Assigned Jeffery Taylor to Spurs affiliate (Recalled January 9th)
Chicago Bulls
- None
Denver Nuggets
- January 20th: Assigned Erick Green (Recalled January 25th)
Indiana Pacers (this year, they’ll have their own affiliate)
- January 27th: Assigned Shayne Whittington (Recalled January 30th)
- April 8th: Assigned Shayne Whittington (D-League Playoffs)
Los Angeles Clippers
- January 6th: Assigned C.J. Wilcox (Recalled January 21st)
Milwaukee Bucks
- None
Minnesota Timberwolves
- None
New Orleans Pelicans
- December 5th: Assigned Russ Smith (Recalled December 8th)
- December 11th: Assigned Russ Smith (Recalled December 20th)
- January 9th: Assigned Russ Smith (Traded to the Grizzlies on January 12th)
Portland Trail Blazers
- None
Toronto Raptors (this year, they’ll have their own affiliate)
- December 25th: Assigned Bruno Caboclo (Recalled January 1st)
- February 18th: Assigned Bruno Caboclo (Recalled March 8th)
- March 12th: Assigned Lucas Nogueira (Recalled March 16th)
- March 17th: Assigned Lucas Nogueira (Recalled March 26th)
Washington Wizards
- November 20th: Assigned Glen Rice Jr. (Waived on January 7th)
Pelicans Work Out Rasual Butler
Free agent Rasual Butler worked out for the Pelicans at their practice facility Wednesday, sources tell John Reid of The Times Picayune, who writes at the bottom of a story about the team’s signing of Sean Kilpatrick. Before this, the Spurs were the last team with interest linked to the 36-year-old, with Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops reporting that San Antonio continued to eye Butler after The Oregonian’s Jason Quick first identified the Spurs as an interested party in early July. The swingman would like to play for the Heat, as Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald wrote a few days ago, though it’s unclear if Miami wants that to happen.
Butler expressed a desire this past spring to return to the Wizards, with whom he played last season after making the regular season roster on a non-guaranteed deal for the minimum salary, and he appeared eager to join the Blazers after they became interested soon after free agency began this summer. Portland reportedly shifted gears away from him soon thereafter, however.
No movement appears to be taking place in negotiations between the Pelicans and lingering restricted free agent Norris Cole, Reid notes, leaving the team with 13 fully guaranteed contracts, plus partially guaranteed deals for Kilpatrick and undrafted shooting guard Bryce Dejean-Jones, as our Pelicans roster page shows. The team also worked out shooting guard Corey Webster, a prospect from New Zealand, as Niall Anderson of The New Zealand Herald reported and as Reid confirms.
Do you think Butler would be a fit for the Pelicans? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Warriors, Juwan Staten Agree To Deal
The Warriors and undrafted West Virginia point guard Juwan Staten have agreed to a one-year deal, agent Colin Bryant tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Staten was with the Kings for summer league. Golden State has been carrying 17 deals, at least 13 of which are fully guaranteed.
Staten, 23, was the 81st-best draft prospect this year in Chad Ford’s ESPN Insider rankings, while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress had him at No. 98 about a week before the draft. His playing time shrunk this past season as a senior compared to his junior year, when he averaged six more minutes per game. The 5’11” Ohio native put up 14.2 points, 4.6 assists and 2.0 turnovers in 31.3 minutes per contest for the Mountaineers this year.
A sore left knee curtailed Staten’s summer league experience, as he appeared in just one game. The Warriors are short on traditional point guards behind Stephen Curry, with Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa the backups, so Staten will try to make his case for the regular season as a more conventional insurance option. If he doesn’t make it to opening night, the Warriors can retain the D-League rights to him and as many as three other camp cuts.
Do you think Staten can win a place on the Warriors regular season roster? Leave a comment to let us know.