Pacific Notes: Hibbert, Crawford, Cousins, Evans
- The Clippers aren’t anxious to trade Jamal Crawford, but trade rumors from earlier this summer, his exclusion from the team’s DeAndre Jordan recruiting effort, and the addition of newcomers at his position are inauspicious signs for his future with the team, as Dan Woike of the Orange County Register examines. Crawford seems to be wondering about whether the Clippers still appreciate him, and that doesn’t auger well for team chemistry if he’s still on the roster at the start of the season, Woike believes.
- DeMarcus Cousins is a major fan of Reggie Evans, notes Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops, who writes amid a look at the top remaining free agents. Evans, who spent the last season and a half with the Kings, remains unsigned.
- Quincy Acy has a non-guaranteed salary on the second season of his new two-year deal with the Kings instead of a player option, as had previously been reported, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link).
- Undrafted rookie Duje Dukan‘s two-year deal with the Kings is for the minimum salary, Pincus shows on the same page.
Bucks Arena Plan Clears Major Hurdle
2:24pm: Walker said today that he’d sign the bill, note Stein and Journal Sentinel colleague Patrick Marley. Feigen expressed measured confidence and said it’s possible for the funding to be secured in time for an autumn groundbreaking.
12:48pm: The public funding plan for a new Bucks arena in Milwaukee has received approval from the Wisconsin State Assembly by a 52-34 vote, reports Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Twitter link). The measure passed the state senate two weeks ago and now heads to Governor Scott Walker for his signature. Walker has consistently supported the idea of a new building that would keep the team from leaving town.
Should Walker sign the bill, which seems a likely proposition, Milwaukee County must authorize the purchase of the land for the building and the City of Milwaukee must negotiate a lease, tweets Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today. State, county and city leaders have been under pressure from the league to make sure an arena is ready by the start of the 2017/18 season, with the NBA having threatened to take the team away from owners Marc Lasry, Wesley Edens and Jamie Dinan and sell it to others who would move the team. The public is on the hook for half of the arena’s expected $500MM cost.
Bucks president Peter Feigin released a statement hailing today’s vote. Still, progress toward the arena has been somewhat slow-going, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com wrote in April that the Bucks and civic leaders faced a realistic deadline of June to secure funding. The legislature separated the arena bill from the state budget package last month, a move that bought more time. Windhorst nonetheless indicated that groundbreaking must take place this fall for the plan to remain on schedule.
Atlantic Notes: Jackson, Celtics, Boatright
- The Celtics are unlikely to use their $2.814MM room exception, according to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe (Twitter link). That’s not surprising, since the C’s already have 17 fully guaranteed contracts, including Zoran Dragic, whom the team is expected to either waive or trade.
- Ryan Boatright‘s minimum salary deal with the Nets is already partially guaranteed for $75K this season, according to NetsDaily (Twitter link). A previous report indicated that guarantee wouldn’t kick in until August 1st. Boatright will lock in $200K if he sticks on the roster for the regular season, NetsDaily adds. However, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders shows Boatright only with a $75K guarantee until November 15th, when that guarantee would increase to $125K.
- The Knicks are letting go of interim D-League head coach Craig Hodges, reports Marc Berman of the New York Post. Hodges had reportedly been expected to remain as a D-League assistant.
Nuggets Sign Nikola Jokić
JULY 28TH, 12:26pm: The signing is official, the Nuggets announced. For more details on the contract, click here.
JULY 14TH, 8:34am: The Nuggets have yet to make an official announcement, but the signing has taken place, according to the RealGM transactions log.
JULY 13TH, 11:09am: The four-year deal is worth $5.5MM, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com, who indicates that Jokić has already signed the deal. The team has yet to make any formal announcement (Twitter links).
JULY 10TH, 11:28am: It’s a four-year deal with an option on year four, agent Misko Raznatovic tweets (hat tip to Sportando’s Enea Trapani). It’s not clear whether that’s a team or player option. The team still hasn’t made any formal announcement.
JUNE 30TH, 12:12pm: The Nuggets are finalizing a fully guaranteed three-year contract with Nikola Jokić, whom Denver drafted 41st overall last year, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post wrote in May and again on Twitter today that Denver was expected to sign the 6’10” center before summer league, but it wasn’t clear just what sort of deal he would be getting.
Jokić had been insistent on a long-term deal, but he was enthusiastic about the prospect of joining Denver and had begun making it known he was on his way there, as David Pick of Eurobasket.com chronicled. The 20-year-old averaged 16.5 points, 9.7 rebounds in 29.5 minutes per game for KK Mega Vizura in his native Serbia this past season.
Denver has about $53MM in guaranteed salary against a projected $67.1MM cap, so the Nuggets could open cap space and sign Jokić into that. Otherwise, they’d have to use the $5.434MM mid-level exception on him. Either way, the signing couldn’t become official until next week, when the July Moratorium is over.
Hornets Sign Elliot Williams For Camp
TUESDAY, 12:04pm: The deal is official, the team announced.
MONDAY, 4:47pm: The Hornets will sign former first-round pick Elliot Williams to a training camp deal, a source tells Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer (Twitter link). Williams was with Charlotte on a 10-day contract this past season, but the team let him go to make room for Mo Williams, who’s since moved on to the Cavs. The terms of the deal aren’t immediately clear, but while Charlotte has its full $5.464MM mid-level exception available, it seems likely it will be a minimum-salary arrangement.
Elliot Williams reportedly worked out earlier this month for the Knicks and Spurs, but instead it appears he’s circling back to the Hornets, where GM Rich Cho is a familiar face from their time together with the Trail Blazers organization, Bonnell notes (on Twitter). The 22nd overall pick from 2010 has struggled to find his footing in the NBA, appearing last season only on a series of five 10-day contracts split between Charlotte, the Jazz and the Pelicans. The now 26-year-old shooting guard put up 2.8 points in 9.2 minutes per game across 13 appearances in 2014/15. He saw more extensive action in 2013/14 with the Sixers, with whom he put up 6.0 PPG in 17.3 MPG.
Charlotte had already been carrying 15 players, at least 13 of whom have fully guaranteed deals, as our Hornets roster page shows. Rookie Aaron Harrison, who’s on a deal that’s partially guaranteed for $75K, would seem Williams’ prime competitor for an opening-night roster spot.
What do you think of Williams’ chances to stick with the Hornets for the regular season? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Latest On Norris Cole
Norris Cole sees the prospect of signing his qualifying offer of more than $3.037MM from the Pelicans as a viable option, a league source tells Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops, who writes amid a roundup on the top remaining free agents. The Sixers have interest, as Scotto reported two weeks ago, but it’s unclear how far that interest extends, as Scotto writes in his latest piece.
The Pelicans are apparently only willing to go so far themselves, so it’s not a shock that Cole would consider the chance to take the one-year qualifying offer and hit unrestricted free agency next summer, when the cap is set to surge to a projected $89MM. The market for the Rich Paul client has seemed cool this summer compared to the weeks leading up to the February trade deadline, when Wizards, Thunder, Bucks and Cavs all reportedly had interest before the Pelicans acquired him from the Heat in the three-team Goran Dragic trade.
Anthony Davis said Monday that he hopes Cole is back with the Pelicans, as John Reid of The Times Picayune notes (Twitter link). New Orleans let the deadline for teams to unilaterally withdraw qualifying offers pass last week, a signal that the Pelicans maintain at least some level of interest, and indeed, Reid has consistently heard that’s the case. The Pelicans have been carrying 13 deals and are well below the $84.74MM tax threshold, so they have flexibility. Another key date looms Saturday, when the minimum salary for Toney Douglas would go from non-guaranteed to fully guaranteed if he remains under contract through that day.
Do you think Cole would be wise to take the qualifying offer? Leave a comment to let us know.
Knicks, Others Eye Kevin Seraphin
The Knicks, Lakers and Wizards continue to show interest in Kevin Seraphin, league sources tell Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops (Twitter link). Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports reported interest from the Lakers early this month, and Scotto added the Wizards a few days later, but this appears to be the first time New York has come up in connection with the center.
The Knicks are also among the teams with interest in Carlos Boozer, but it’s not clear if New York sees the pair of big men as an either-or proposition. The Knicks and Lakers have their $2.814MM room exception available, but the Wizards have his Bird rights, so they can outbid other teams.
The Wizards were expected earlier this month to attempt to find a team willing to sign-and-trade for Seraphin, a maneuver that would ostensibly allow Washington to create a trade exception. In any case, Seraphin seemed a long shot to return to the Wizards at season’s end, as he’s reportedly been looking for a chance to compete for the starting job, though, according to Scotto, Washington at least touched base with him this month. The Wizards have Marcin Gortat entering year two of a five-year deal to man the pivot. Starting would also be a difficult proposition for Seraphin in New York, where free agent signee Robin Lopez seems firmly entrenched, and the same is probably true of the Lakers, who traded for Roy Hibbert.
The Suns and Mavericks also reportedly showed interest earlier this month, though it’s unclear if they’re still in the mix. The Spurs apparently had tentative interest in case David West signed elsewhere, but West took the minimum to play for San Antonio.
Which team needs Seraphin the most: The Knicks, Lakers or Wizards? Leave a comment to let us know.
Ekpe Udoh Signs To Play In Turkey
Former No. 6 overall pick Ekpe Udoh has signed with Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahce Ulker, the team announced (Twitter link; translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). It’s a one-year deal for in excess of $1MM with no NBA escape clause, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. News of NBA interest in the big man was scarce this summer after he saw little action with the Clippers this past season.
Udoh averaged just fractions of a point and a rebound in 3.9 minutes per game across 33 appearances on his one-year, minimum-salary deal with the Clippers. He reportedly picked the Clippers over interest from the Cavs, Bulls and Kings last year in part because he thought he’d see more playing time in L.A., but that didn’t materialize. The now 28-year-old averaged 19.1 minutes per game and made 14 starts for the 2013/14 Bucks.
He’ll have a chance to rehabilitate his NBA career with surely plenty of eyes from the league watching his team, which also includes NBA veterans Pero Antic, Gigi Datome and Jan Vesely as well as Bogdan Bogdanovic, whom the Suns drafted 27th overall last year, notes David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). Fenerbahce will play the Nets in a preseason game this year.
Do you think Ekpe Udoh is an NBA-caliber player? Leave a comment to tell us.
Hornets Rumors: Batum, Zeller, Cho, Clifford
The Celtics offered the Hornets a package that included four first-round picks to entice Charlotte to give up the No. 9 pick last month, sources tell Grantland’s Zach Lowe. Boston was willing to give up its own pick at No. 16, the No. 15 pick that they would tentatively have acquired from the Hawks, an unprotected future first-round pick from the Nets (presumably the 2018 pick Brooklyn owes Boston) and a future first-rounder from either the Grizzlies or the Timberwolves (presumably the ones those teams already owe Boston), as Lowe details. Some front office members in Charlotte liked the idea, but owner Michael Jordan preferred to roll with Frank Kaminsky, whom the Hornets took at No. 9, several sources said to Lowe. The Grantland scribe delves into the implications of that choice, and he touches on more, too, as we highlight amid the latest from the Queen City:
- Nicolas Batum‘s camp has been talking about how much he’d like to play with the Raptors, given the international appeal of Toronto, several league sources tell Lowe. The native of France, whom the Hornets traded for last month, is set to become a free agent after this coming season.
- The Hornets have been willing to talk about Cody Zeller when they discuss trades with other teams, sources tell Lowe. That jibes with a report from shortly before the draft that Charlotte was aggressively shopping the big man.
- GM Rich Cho and coach Steve Clifford have had a chilly relationship since last year’s departure of president of basketball operations Rod Higgins, sources familiar with the situation tell Lowe, yet Cho, Clifford and Hornets vice chairman Curtis Polk all downplay the notion. “I would say it’s a good relationship now,” Cho says. “I value his input. We’re not always going to agree, but I wouldn’t expect to.”
- Polk, Jordan, Cho, assistant GM Chad Buchanan and director of player personnel Larry Jordan, Michael’s brother, are the primary decision-makers for the team, according to Lowe.
- Charlotte shopped Noah Vonleh and the No. 9 pick in a package to try to move up in the draft before abandoning that pursuit and trading Vonleh in the Batum deal, as Lowe details.
- The Hornets had interest in Rodney Hood going into last year’s draft, Lowe hears. Hood wound up going at No. 23 to Utah, and Charlotte had an opportunity to move down into a spot where it might have nabbed him instead of Vonleh, as Lowe explains.
- Hornets brass likes Elliot Williams, whom the Hornets have reportedly agreed to sign to a camp deal, but they see him as an insurance policy and don’t view him as a replacement for backup point guard Brian Roberts, reports Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer (Twitter links).
Latest On Carlos Boozer
The Knicks, Rockets and Mavericks continue to have interest in signing Carlos Boozer, league sources tell Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops (Twitter link). Scotto first identified the Knicks as among the teams eyeing the Rob Pelinka client earlier this month, though Marc Berman of the New York Post reported soon thereafter that the Knicks had engaged in internal conversations about him but hadn’t made a formal pursuit. Chris Broussard of ESPN.com pegged the Mavs and Rockets as among the teams in on Boozer just before free agency began, while Broussard later heard that the Mavs were one of four teams in talks with the former All-Star.
The Knicks and Mavericks have access to the $2.814MM room exception. The Rockets are in a tough spot, since they only have roughly $2.3MM left on their mid-level exception to spend but would trigger a hard cap if they gave any of it to Boozer. Houston also has No. 32 pick Montrezl Harrell who remains unsigned.
Several other teams, including the Clippers, Spurs, Raptors, Pelicans, Nuggets, Nets, Lakers and Heat, have reportedly been interested in Boozer over the last month, but it’s unclear if any of them remain in the mix. Boozer and the Clippers reportedly had mutual interest.