Hawks Sign Patterson, Petteway For Camp
10:09am: The deals are official, the team announced.
FRIDAY, 9:29am: The Hawks still haven’t made an announcement, but the signings have taken place, according to the RealGM transactions log. Patterson signed Wednesday and Petteway on Thursday, the log shows.
10:02am: The deals for Patterson and Petteway each cover two seasons, reports Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Vivlamore also deems Muscala a “lock” to make the opening-night roster, leaving no more than one spot open for Patterson, Petteway or anyone else the Hawks take to camp.
THURSDAY, 8:51am: The Hawks will have draft-and-stash shooting guard Lamar Patterson and undrafted swingman Terran Petteway in training camp, reports Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (All Twitter links). Vivlamore indicates that they’ve already signed their partially guaranteed minimum-salary contracts, though the team has yet to make an annoucement. Patterson’s deal will carry a partial guarantee while Petteway’s will be non-guaranteed, Vivlamore indicates (on Twitter).
Atlanta has held Patterson’s NBA rights since acquiring them from the Bucks shortly after Milwaukee drafted him 48th overall last year. The Hawks will lose those rights if they cut him. He spent last season with Tofas Bursa of Turkey, averaging 11.2 points and 3.6 rebounds in 28.3 minutes per game. Patterson, who turns 24 next month, led the Hawks in scoring at the Las Vegas Summer League with 13.1 PPG to go along with 5.1 RPG in 25.8 MPG.
Petteway was a surprise entrant for this year’s draft after his junior season at Nebraska, and though he didn’t hear his name called on draft night, he also played a prominent role on Atlanta’s summer league team, averaging 10.9 PPG and 4.3 RPG in 26.0 MPG. He nonetheless struggles to shoot from the outside, having canned just 31.7% of his three-pointers in college. Patterson was better, though not a standout marksman, at 36.9% for his college career.
The Hawks have 13 fully guaranteed contracts and Mike Muscala on a partially guaranteed deal, so it would seem that Patterson, Petteway and Muscala are competing for no more than two spots. Atlanta also has its $2.814MM room exception available, and that would likely go for another guaranteed contract if the Hawks are to use it.
Who do you think has a better shot to make the team, Patterson or Petteway? Leave a comment to let us know.
Southwest Notes: Curry, Fredette, McDaniels
The competition in the Western Conference is fierce, and Rockets GM Daryl Morey acknowledges that even in the wake of the Ty Lawson trade, his team isn’t the favorite, as Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle relays. Still, the Rockets made a key step forward, as Feigen examines.
“People always used to say our point guard position was terrible, the worst, whatever,” Morey said. “I always pointed out that Pat Beverley was a really good player. He’s just maybe suffering compared to all these perennial All-Stars we go against in the West. Obviously, we’re still going to be going against those very difficult All-Stars, but Ty Lawson is somebody who gives you a top-10 point guard in the league, somebody who can really help us.”
Here’s more from the Southwest Division:
- The Pelicans only made a “token offer” to Seth Curry that included a partial guarantee, league sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). A previous report indicated that they were close to a deal with him for a guaranteed contract. Curry signed a two-year, fully guaranteed contract with the Kings.
- New Orleans didn’t want to re-sign Jimmer Fredette, Wojnarowski says in the same tweet. The ex-Pelicans guard signed with the Spurs instead. Still, Fredette faces a challenge to find his niche in San Antonio, where he’ll have to prove he’s capable of replacing Marco Belinelli‘s shooting and beat out Kyle Anderson and Jonathon Simmons for minutes, as Jay Yeomans of the Deseret News examines.
- The three-year contract that K.J. McDaniels signed with the Rockets includes a team option on the final season and starts at $3.19MM, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. That first-year salary figure means Houston is essentially prevented from using any more of its mid-level exception without triggering an $88.74MM hard cap.
- Maurice Ndour‘s contract with the Mavericks is for three years, with this season’s salary and half of next season’s guaranteed, league sources tell Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com (Twitter link).
- Nikola Milutinov, this year’s No. 26 overall pick, is negotiating with Olympiacos of Greece, sources tell Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia. The Spurs draftee had reportedly been close to a deal with Panathinaikos, another Greek team, but Panathinaikos landed Miroslav Raduljica instead. Regardless, the Spurs won’t sign him this season.
Kings Sign Caron Butler
4:00pm: The signing is official, the Kings announced.
JULY 23RD, 3:09pm: Butler has already visited the Kings to sign his contract, and a formal announcement should come soon, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee.
2:25pm: The deal is worth a total of $3MM, tweets Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today, though it appears he’s rounding down. The least he could make over two years would be $3,050,846. In any case, the deal is ostensibly for the minimum.
2:19pm: Year two is a player option, Wojnarowski writes.
JULY 10TH, 1:56pm: The Kings and Caron Butler have agreed on a two-year deal, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Butler recently became a free agent after the Bucks, who had just acquired him via trade from the Pistons, waived him rather than guarantee what would have been a $4.5MM salary.
The Thunder, Bulls, Clippers, Spurs, Lakers and Knicks were all reportedly eyeing him as July neared, and the Cavaliers apparently made consistent contact. Instead, Butler appears headed to Sacramento, which used the cap flexibility it’s secured in its trade with the Sixers to come to agreements with a handful of players already.
The Raymond Brothers client figures to provide depth behind Rudy Gay at small forward, and perhaps play alongside Gay in small-ball configurations. Butler, 35, has mostly been a reserve the past two seasons with the Bucks, Thunder and Pistons, though he started 21 games this year for Detroit.
Suns Eye Justin Hamilton
The Suns are close to making a partially guaranteed offer to two-year veteran Justin Hamilton, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). Hamilton, who finished last season with the Timberwolves, had reportedly been close to a deal last week with Valencia of Spain, but he remains a free agent. In any case, he’s uncertain about signing just a partially guaranteed deal, according to Wolfson.
Minnesota last month decided against making a qualifying offer of only about $1.147MM, $200K more than Hamilton’s minimum salary, an inauspicious sign for his NBA future. He’d been mostly stuck at the end of the bench with the Heat the past two seasons until the three-team Goran Dragic trade took him to the Pelicans, who waived him a couple of weeks later. Minnesota claimed the 7-footer off waivers, sacrificing 2014 second-rounder Glenn Robinson III to do so.
Hamilton averaged 9.0 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 24.9 minutes per game across 17 games with the Wolves. That’s a small sample size, but it appears to be enough to tempt Phoenix to some degree. The Suns have only 13 fully guaranteed contracts and the $2.184MM room exception available, though it would be surprising if they offered Hamilton more than the minimum.
Do you think Hamilton deserves a spot on an NBA roster? Leave a comment to let us know.
Pistons Sign Adonis Thomas For Camp
JULY 23RD, 2:29pm: The deal is official, the Pistons announced via press release.
JULY 16TH, 2:35pm: The Pistons will bring former Magic and Sixers power forward Adonis Thomas to training camp this fall, according to Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press (All Twitter links). Thomas played for Detroit’s summer league team this month. Most camp invitees end up on minimum-salary contracts with little or no guaranteed money, and Ellis indicates that he’ll be fighting for a spot on the opening night roster.
Thomas averaged 8.6 points and 4.0 rebounds in 26.0 minutes per game for the summer Pistons. I identified him in my chat Wednesday as a summer leaguer to watch. He scored 14 points in 37 total minutes of regular season NBA action across six games split between Orlando and Philadelphia in the 2013/14 season. The Happy Walters client played for Detroit’s D-League affiliate last year. The 22-year-old who went undrafted out of the University of Memphis in 2013 is no stranger to NBA training camps, having joined the Hawks, Nets and Pacers during preseason the past two autumns.
The Pistons have contracts or agreements with 17 players, and No. 8 overall pick Stanley Johnson is in line to become the 18th once he signs his rookie scale contract. All but Thomas appear to have fully guaranteed arrangements, signaling that more movement on the way for Detroit before opening night.
Over-The-Cap Spending For 2015/16
Contracts are shorter under the existing collective bargaining agreement than on past labor deals, and so more teams end up with a chance at cap room in the summer. The escalating salary cap will make it so the vast majority of teams can open cap space next year. Even this July, 17 of 30 NBA teams formally dipped under the salary cap at some point.
That still leaves several that have remained above it. The capped-out teams haven’t been dormant, of course, as the NBA’s soft cap still allows them plenty of movement. Bird rights, Early Bird rights and Non-Bird rights all come into play for those teams, as do the two forms of the mid-level exception: The $5.464MM available for teams under the $88.74MM tax apron, and the $3.376MM version for teams over that line. The $2.139MM biannual exception is also there for teams under the apron, as long as they didn’t use it last season.
Here’s a look at the major moves for each team that stayed above the cap, as well as a glance at their remaining flexibility. The link on each team’s name shows its free agent deals:
- Bulls — The keys were re-signing Jimmy Butler and Mike Dunleavy, and with those deals done, Chicago dipped into its taxpayer’s mid-level to re-sign Aaron Brooks for more than what his Non-Bird rights would have afforded. Still $1.126MM of the team’s mid-level remains.
- Cavaliers — The Cavs could have opened up massive amounts of cap space, but re-signing LeBron James, Kevin Love and others was their clear preference. They still have $1.276MM left on their taxpayer’s mid-level after using part of it to sign Mo Williams.
- Clippers — DeAndre Jordan‘s return effectively closed off any non-minimum additions for the Clippers, who had already committed the taxpayer’s mid-level to Paul Pierce.
- Grizzlies — Similarly, the new contract for Marc Gasol meant no more flexibility beyond the minimum salary for Memphis, which had spent the full mid-level on Brandan Wright.
- Heat — Keeping Dwyane Wade and Goran Dragic in the fold meant tax territory for the Heat, who have exercised a measure of austerity in failing to touch any of their taxpayer’s mid-level money.
- Hornets — Charlotte made its splash with trades that sent out Lance Stephenson and brought in Nicolas Batum, and the team has been quiet in free agency. Their $5.464MM mid-level is still intact after they used the biannual exception on Jeremy Lin.
- Nets — Their major move was releasing Deron Williams in a buyout deal, which allows them to dodge the luxury tax. Thus, they still have $2.464MM on their mid-level left after using $3MM combined on Wayne Ellington and Shane Larkin.
- Pelicans — Bringing back Omer Asik and the rest of the team’s free agents was a priority for New Orleans, which spent all but $1.294MM of its mid-level exception to sign Alonzo Gee and re-sign Dante Cunningham for more than his Non-Bird rights were worth.
- Rockets — Houston re-signed Corey Brewer and Patrick Beverley and traded for Ty Lawson all while over the cap. About $2.3MM remains on their mid-level exception, depending on the precise value of the starting salary in K.J. McDaniels‘ new deal, but using it would subject Houston to a hard cap.
- Timberwolves — Re-signing Kevin Garnett helped keep the Wolves over the cap, and they have about $1.5MM left on their mid-level after using much of it to sign draft-and-stash prospect Nemanja Bjelica. They also have their biannual available.
- Thunder — Matching the max offer sheet for Enes Kanter was a pricey move, but the Thunder have kept costs in check as they’ve left their taxpayer’s mid-level untouched.
- Warriors — Golden State wouldn’t have had cap room even if it hadn’t re-signed Draymond Green, and the David Lee trade, still yet to become official, won’t give the Warriors cap room, either. An $876K sliver of the taxpayer’s mid-level remains for the Warriors after they used most of it to re-sign Leandro Barbosa for more than his Non-Bird rights would have allowed.
- Wizards — Washington replaced Pierce via the Jared Dudley trade and the use of all but $1.464MM of the mid-level on Alan Anderson. The Wizards also used their biannual to sign Gary Neal.
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Which over-the-cap team used its resources most effectively? Leave a comment to let us know.
And-Ones: Playoffs, Aldridge, Teletovic, Mekel
The NBA is leaning toward no longer guaranteeing a playoff spot to division winners, commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday, as Brian Mahoney of The Associated Press observes. It would be one more step away from a divisional structure that long ago ceased to have much relevance on roster building, though Pelicans GM Dell Demps recently cited the preponderance of strong post players in the Southwest Division as he spoke about the team’s decision to re-sign Omer Asik. Here’s more from around the NBA:
- LaMarcus Aldridge kept the Trail Blazers in the running for him right up until he committed to sign with the Spurs, as Aldridge said this week in an appearance on ESPN Radio’s The Russillo Show, as Michael C. Wright of ESPN.com relays. Aldridge also insisted that he didn’t exit Portland because of any jealousy toward Damian Lillard. “We got along very well during the season,” Aldridge said. “I thought we played well off of each other. So, all of that stuff is just rumors that I’ve dealt with before. Me leaving had nothing to do with any of that. It was just me feeling like being close to home, by my family, being able to see them more and just a change of scenery. I had been in Portland for nine years. I had been through a couple of rebuilds. So it was just time to try something new. It wasn’t anything toward Damian or the organization.”
- The decision to cancel the meeting between Aldridge and the Knicks was a mutual one, Aldridge also said in his radio appearance, notes Ian Begley of ESPN.com.
- The Nets wanted to keep Mirza Teletovic, offering him a two-year deal that included an option, and the Kings also offered him a two-year deal, but he thought the Suns were a better fit, as Teletovic said to Bosnian media and as Igor Marinovic and NetsDaily relay (Twitter links). Teletovic signed for one-year with Phoenix.
- Former Mavericks and Pelicans point guard Gal Mekel is in talks with three NBA teams, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com hears (Twitter links).
- Many scouts say Dragan Bender is the best international prospect, but whether Bender, who won’t turn 19 until November 2016, enters next year’s draft will depend on where he’d likely be drafted, sources tell Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders, who looks the 2016 draft class.
Raptors Sign Axel Toupane
The Raptors have signed swingman Axel Toupane off their summer league squad, the team announced (Twitter link). Toupane, who turns 22 today, went undrafted in 2014. The move, along with the official signing of Michale Kyser, brings Toronto’s roster to 17 players. Toupane’s deal is partially guaranteed, according to Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca (Twitter link), and it’s almost certainly for the minimum salary, since that’s all the Raptors can give after using their room exception on Bismack Biyombo.
The 6’7″ Toupane has been a mainstay for France’s Strasbourg IG over the past few seasons, and he averaged 7.0 points in 18.3 minutes per game with 35.4% three-point shooting in 2014/15. He put up 4.3 PPG in 10.9 MPG for the Raptors in summer league, missing all four of his three-point attempts.
Toupane faces long odds to make the opening-night roster, especially since the Raptors already have 14 fully guaranteed contracts. He, Kyser and Ronald Roberts all have partially guaranteed deals, and while they’re presumably battling for the 15th and final regular season spot, teams need only carry 13 players. Thus, it would seem Toupane has a far better shot to wind up with Raptors 905, which is Toronto’s new one-to-one D-League affiliate. NBA teams can retain the D-League rights to as many as four of the players they waive at the end of the preseason.
Stephen Jackson Retires
Stephen Jackson has decided to retire from pro basketball, as he revealed via Instagram (hat tip to Manny Randhawa of the Indianapolis Star). The 37-year-old last played during the 2013/14 season for the Clippers. He saw action for eight different NBA teams across 14 seasons, remembered as much for his mercurial demeanor as his potent scoring prowess.
Jackson averaged 15.1 points a game for his career, a remarkable accomplishment given that he was just the 42nd overall pick in 1997. The swingman who came from Butler County Community College in Kansas didn’t appear in his first regular season game until more than three years later, though he jumped in and started 40 games for the Nets as a rookie in 2000/01. He moved on to the Spurs, where he helped them win the 2003 title, and he emerged as a scoring force with the Hawks the next season before a trade to the Pacers. His involvement in the 2004 brawl with the Pistons at the Palace of Auburn Hills marred his tenure in Indiana, but a trade to the Warriors in the 2006/07 season revitalized his career.
Golden State entered the playoffs as the eighth seed and the shocked top-seeded Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs in Jackson’s first spring with the team, and the next season, he eclipsed 20 PPG for the first time in Don Nelson’s up-tempo offense. He set a career high with 20.7 PPG in 2008/09, but the Warriors traded him early the next season to Charlotte, where he helped the then-Bobcats to their first playoff appearance. He didn’t find as much success at his next stop with the Bucks, and his desire for a contract extension hasted his exit from Milwaukee, which sent him back to Golden State in the Andrew Bogut trade. The Warriors flipped him back to the Spurs two days later, but though he spent more than a year in his second San Antonio stint, he sparred with coach/president Gregg Popovich, and the team released him shortly before the 2013 playoffs as Jackson struggled to adapt to his diminished game. The Clippers signed him to a non-guaranteed deal early in 2013/14 but waived him a few weeks later rather than guarantee it for the season.
Jackson, who switched from Dan Fegan of Relativity Sports to Herb Rudoy of Interperformances before his Clippers stint, raked in more than $68.882MM for his career, according to Basketball-Reference and Basketball Insiders data. Remarkably, he only once made more than $10MM in a single season, and that came in 2012/13 with the Spurs.
What will you remember most about Jackson? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Raptors Sign Michale Kyser For Camp
THURSDAY, 9:12am: The deal is official, the Raptors announced.
MONDAY, 12:38pm: The Raptors will bring undrafted power forward Michale Kyser to camp on a partially guaranteed one-year deal, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Kyser played last week for Toronto’s summer league team. It’s almost certainly a minimum-salary arrangement, since according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link), Toronto spent its room exception on Bismack Biyombo.
Many of Kyser’s numbers at Louisiana Tech weren’t overwhelming, as he put up 8.6 points and 6.6 rebounds in 28.5 minutes per game as a senior this past season, but at 6’10”, he patrolled the paint well, blocking 2.9 shots per contest. He put up 3.5 PPG, 4.0 RPG and 0.8 BPG in 14.6 MPG in four summer league appearances.
Neither Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress nor Chad Ford of ESPN.com rated him within their top 100 draft prospects, though Givony did list him as the 74th-best senior in this year’s draft class. Kyser will turn 24 in November, making him older than many rookies. Still, he’s a candidate to wind up on Raptors 905, Toronto’s new one-to-one D-League affiliate.