Clippers Waive Lester Hudson
JULY 16TH, 7:58am: The Clippers officially waived Hudson, the team announced via press release before the guarantee deadline Wednesday night. He’s reportedly expected to sign in China.
JULY 15TH, 11:13pm: The Clippers will waive Lester Hudson today, a league executive tells Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). Bolch reported Tuesday that the move was likely. Hudson’s non-guaranteed minimum salary, worth $1,015,421, would become fully guaranteed if he remains on the roster through today.
The 30-year-old joined the Clippers this spring on a 10-day contract, and he later beat out Nate Robinson, who was still recovering from a left knee injury, for a deal that covered the rest of the season. The Clips and Hudson tacked an extra year onto the contract, but the team is poised to let him go, clearing more roster flexibility to add other minimum-salary signees. No. 56 overall pick Branden Dawson just officially signed to a contract that runs two years at the minimum with the first year guaranteed, according to Dan Woike of the Orange County Register (on Twitter).
Hudson averaged 11.2 minutes per game in five regular season games and made cameo appearances in seven playoff contests, his first NBA action since the 2011/12 season. He had been playing in China, where he was a major scoring force, pouring in 31.2 points per game for Liaoning this past season before joining the Clippers.
Lester Hudson Expected To Sign In China
Lester Hudson is expected to return to play for Liaoning of the Chinese Basketball Association, assuming he clears waivers from the Clippers, tweets Nick Bedard of Basketball Buddha. The team has yet to officially announce Hudson’s release, but a league executive told Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times that the Clippers would waive the point guard today, the last day for them to do so without guaranteeing his full minimum salary for 2015/16.
Hudson spent much of this past season with Liaoning before joining the Clippers for the stretch run. He averaged 31.2 points per game for Liaoning and led the CBA with 3.1 steals per contest. He’d played in China in each of the three seasons since 2011/12, the last in which he’d seen NBA action prior to his time with the Clippers this spring.
Most Hoops Rumors readers predicted that Hudson would end up outside the NBA for this coming season. The early guarantee date that his agents at Priority Sports negotiated with the Clippers affords Hudson the likelihood of free agency before opportunities dry up both stateside and abroad. Any NBA team could claim him using the minimum-salary exception and keep him from returning overseas, but because of the full guarantee that would kick in for him if a team did that, it seems likely that he’ll pass through waivers.
Atlantic Notes: Pressey, Prokhorov, Williams
Phil Pressey, whom the Celtics waived today, is already drawing interest from other teams, according to agent Aaron Mintz, as Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe reports, though he’d have to clear waivers before he could sign. In any case, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge had no shortage of praise for the point guard, as Himmelsbach relays.
“Phil may be my favorite player I’ve ever been around in the NBA, as a player, a coach or as an executive,” Ainge said. “It was a very difficult morning for me today. He’s a player I’d want on my team all the time. Unfortunately, we just have an abundance of small guards already. It’s unfortunate. He’s helped us a lot in the last two years, and he’s a classy and hardworking player.”
Here’s more from around the Atlantic Division:
- An announcement could come within the next two weeks that Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov has bought Bruce Ratner’s 20% stake in the Nets, a move that would give Prokhorov 100% of the team, Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher says (video link). The possibility still exists that Prokhorov will move in the other direction and sell off his majority interest, but the indications are strong that he’ll indeed buy the remaining shares of the team, Bucher says. Such a deal would also see Prokhorov’s interest in the Barclays Center rise from 45% to 100%, according to Bucher. Still, the move may well have more to do with debt that Ratner’s company owes Prokhorov and his partners than Prokhorov’s desire to own all of the team and the arena, since according to NetsDaily, Ratner faces a deadline to resolve that debt.
- The precise amount of money the Nets will have on their cap each of the next five years as a result of the buyout and stretch of Deron Williams‘ contract is $5,474,787, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (All Twitter links). That means he gave up exactly $16MM in the buyout. His new contract with the Mavericks is worth $5.4MM this year and $5.6MM next season, according to Pincus, so assuming he remains on that contract through the end of 2015/16, and assuming he and the Nets didn’t waive set off rights, Brooklyn’s obligation for 2015/16 will be further reduced to about $3.197MM.
- Shooting guard Daniel Hackett, who worked out for the Knicks, has a verbal agreement to sign with Olympiacos of Greece, sources tell Sportando Emiliano Carchia. New York was willing to sign Hackett for training camp, Carchia adds, but it looks like he’ll stay overseas.
- Fenerbahce Ulker said the contract that former Celtics forward Gigi Datome signed with them covered two years, but it includes a player option for a third, according to Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald.
Southwest Notes: Mavs, Williams, Calathes
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban spoke Tuesday with Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and “it started off more than a little frigid,” as Cuban recounted via Cyber Dust, his social media app, and as the Dallas Morning News relays. That’s not surprising, given the DeAndre Jordan saga, but Cuban said he and Ballmer cleared the air.
“I told him exactly what I told other owners, I didn’t have a problem with his hail Mary approach to keeping a player,” Cuban wrote. “I understood why they did it. And even how they did it. They got their player back. End of story.”
Cuban said he doesn’t have a problem with the July Moratorium, which seemingly helped facilitate Jordan’s reversal, but even if he did, the moratorium doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon. Here’s more from around the Southwest:
- Deron Williams‘ two-year deal with the Mavs is worth $10MM and includes a player option, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
- The clock appears to be ticking on an NBA future for Grizzlies restricted free agent Nick Calathes. The point guard denied to Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal that he has signed with Panathinaikos of Greece, but he’ll commit to that team if he doesn’t find an NBA deal today, according to David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). Calathes is drawing NBA interest, but he’s hesitant to continue as a backup, Pick hears. The Mavericks have reportedly contacted him, though that was two weeks ago. Memphis has the power to match all competing bids from NBA teams, but not from overseas clubs.
- Panathinaikos is close to a deal with center Nikola Milutinov, this year’s 26th overall pick, Sportando’s Enea Trapani writes. Regardless, Milutinov won’t soon be joining the Spurs, the team that drafted him, as San Antonio has informed the NBA that it won’t sign him or 2013 No. 28 pick Livio Jean-Charles during 2015/16, allowing San Antonio to remove their cap hits, notes Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter links).
- The Rockets reportedly had hopes of signing draft-and-stash prospect Marko Todorovic this summer, but that won’t be happening, as the big man has signed a three-year deal with Khimki Moscow, the Russian club announced (Twitter link; hat tip to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia).
- Spurs GM R.C. Buford said he and the front office didn’t think that they would have been able to snag Ray McCallum if he’d have been a free agent on the open market, so they were pleased to pull off the trade with the Kings that brought him in, as Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News chronicles. McCallum, who’s excited about the deal, earned a $200K partial guarantee on his salary when the Spurs didn’t waive him Sunday.
- A $390,089 sliver of Houston’s Jeremy Lin trade exception expired Monday, though it was essentially too small to use. The Rockets had already used the majority of the exception, once worth $8,374,646, to trade for Corey Brewer and Alexey Shved in December.
- Brewer’s new three-year deal with the Rockets is worth precisely $23,420,913, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders shows.
Celtics Waive Phil Pressey
12:22pm: The move is official, the team announced.
11:39am: Ainge confirmed that he’s about to put Pressey on waivers, tweets Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald, though the executive doesn’t sound excited about it. “It’s really tough for us to waive Phil,” Ainge said.
11:00am: The Celtics have chosen to waive Phil Pressey rather than guarantee the minimum salary for the two-year veteran, reports Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe (Twitter link). Today is the last day the team can release Pressey before his $947,276 salary, currently non-guaranteed, locks in. Pressey was also reportedly a candidate to go to the Warriors in the David Lee trade, which has still yet to become official, so it would appear more likely that Boston will include Chris Babb in that swap.
Pressey saw 11 starts as a rookie, averaging 15.1 minutes per game that season, but he saw less playing time this year even though he was a more efficient scorer. President of basketball operations Danny Ainge liked his perimeter defense, but the point guard position is crowded in Boston, with Marcus Smart, Isaiah Thomas, Evan Turner and this year’s No. 16 overall pick, Terry Rozier, among the team’s options.
Boston’s acquisition of Perry Jones III from the Thunder on Tuesday spelled further trouble for Pressey, since it added another already-guaranteed deal to the roster. The Celtics seemingly remain a work in progress, and while teams don’t have to cut down to 15 players until the end of training camp, it appears that Boston doesn’t want to commit to Pressey at this point. He’d be eligible to re-sign with the Celtics if he clears waivers.
Clippers Sign Branden Dawson
WEDNESDAY, 11:31am: Dawson has officially signed with the Clippers, the team announced.
TUESDAY, 2:22pm: The Clippers are expected to sign Branden Dawson, this year’s No. 56 overall pick, within the week, reports Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). The former Michigan State forward’s strong showing in the summer league is fueling the Clippers’ desire for a deal, Bolch indicates. It would likely be a minimum-salary deal covering no more than two seasons for Dawson, since that’s all the Clippers are limited to after re-signing DeAndre Jordan and spending their taxpayer’s mid-level exception on Paul Pierce.
New Orleans originally drafted Dawson, quickly trading him to the Clippers in return for cash. Early returns on the $630K investment are positive for the Clips, as the 22-year-old averaged 12.8 points and 10.3 rebounds across 25.6 minutes per game in his first four summer league appearances.
Defense is Dawson’s calling card, but he’s been working on a jump shot, as he told Zach Links of Hoops Rumors before the draft. The 22-year-old mentioned the Clippers and the Pelicans among the teams that liked him.
And-Ones: Labor, Moratorium, Max Salaries
Commissioner Adam Silver struck an optimistic tone about labor negotiations with a December 15th, 2016 deadline looming for owners and players to opt out of the collective bargaining agreement, writes Sam Amick of USA Today.
“You know, I’m not sure if the players association is going to opt out,” Silver said as he addressed media Tuesday. “[Union executive director] Michele [Roberts] made some early remarks suggesting maybe they were leaning that direction, but she hasn’t told me that she plans to opt out. And I know that in discussions that she and I have had and I’ve had with players association representatives, it’s clear the goal on both sides is to avoid any sort of work stoppage whatsoever and maybe even to avoid the opt out.”
Still, Silver claims a “significant number of teams” are losing money, Amick notes. The commissioner said the league projects that it’ll need to issue a $500MM check to the players after the 2016/17 season because total salaries aren’t expected to add up to the required 50-51% of basketball related income, even as the salary cap surges, as Ken Berger of CBSSports.com observes. Berger sees a strong chance that the owners opt out, in spite of Silver’s seeming confidence that such can be avoided. Here’s more from around the league:
- Owners discussed the idea of changing the July Moratorium to avoid sagas like the one that surrounded DeAndre Jordan as he decommitted to the Mavs to return to the Clippers, but none of the owners could come up with an appealing solution, Silver said, according to Berger.
- The projected maximum salaries for next season are $20.4MM for players with fewer than seven years of experience, $24.9MM for those with seven to nine years in the league, and $29.3MM for veterans of 10 or more years, tweets former Nets executive Bobby Marks. See this year’s max salaries right here.
- The union continues to consider a get-tough stance on agencies that represent both players and coaches, but the most likely outcome is a continuance of the same policies, despite the conflict of interest, Grantland’s Zach Lowe reports. Agencies are allowed to represent both as long as they create separate divisions, with separate agents, to handle player and management clients, as Lowe explains. Still, not all are pleased with arrangement, and when the Bucks, who have close ties to Excel, drafted Excel client Rashad Vaughn last month, some people around the league found it untoward, Lowe writes.
- The Nets once more led luxury taxpayers for this past season, though it wasn’t the record amount of some $90MM from a year ago. This time, they paid $19.98MM, followed by the Cavs with $6.96MM, the Clippers at $4.8MM, and the Thunder at $2.79MM, salary cap expert Larry Coon tweets. Teams that didn’t pay the tax saw $830K each as a result.
- The second-round pick that the Celtics are sending to the Thunder as part of the Perry Jones III trade is Boston’s own 2018 second-rounder, but if it falls within the top 55 picks that year, the Celtics’ debt to Oklahoma City is extinguished, according to RealGM.
Mavs Eye Tyrus Thomas
The Mavericks are among the parties who’ve observed workouts that former No. 4 overall pick Tyrus Thomas is staging in Las Vegas, as David Pick of Eurobasket.com hears (Twitter link). Thomas has looked strong, Pick notes, passing along that Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahce Ulker has been watching, too. It’s the latest development in the Mavs’ wide-ranging search for another big man to complement trade acquisition Zaza Pachulia in the wake of DeAndre Jordan‘s reversal of his decision to sign with the team.
Various reports from the past few days have indicated the Mavs are interested in Ryan Hollins, Tyler Hansbrough, Elton Brand, JaVale McGee, Samuel Dalembert and Kevin Seraphin. Some of them, Seraphin in particular, would probably command more than the minimum salary, but that doesn’t figure to be the case for Thomas, who has been out of the NBA since 2012/13, save for a 10-day contract with the Grizzlies this past season.
Thomas didn’t have much of a chance to play with Memphis, scoring four points in his seven total minutes of action across two games, and he didn’t light it up in more extensive time with the Grizzlies’ D-League affiliate, averaging 5.6 points and 4.1 rebounds in 18.7 minutes per game over 16 contests. He turns 29 in August, still young enough to sustain hope that he’ll tap into at least a measure of the potential that made him such a high draft pick coming out of LSU in 2006.
Mavs Sign Deron Williams
The Mavericks have signed unrestricted free agent Deron Williams, the team announced in a press release. Williams became a free agent Monday when he cleared waivers from the Nets as part of a much-publicized buyout deal. Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported Friday that Williams, a Dallas-area native, was expected to sign a two-year contract worth about $10MM, though Stein later said the deal would be worth between $10MM and $12MM (Twitter link).
The deal with the Mavs will set off a portion of the money that Brooklyn still owes the Jeff Schwartz client. Set-off rights absolve Brooklyn from paying half the difference between what Williams will make each year with Dallas and the one-year veteran’s minimum salary each of those years. The terms of Williams’ buyout, in which he forfeited all but about $27.5MM of the nearly $43.374MM left on his contract, call for the Nets to pay him about $5.5MM a year for the next five seasons. The contract only covered this season and next, but Brooklyn used the stretch provision to spread out its remaining commitment to him.
Nets coach Lionel Hollins denies that Williams’ failure to see eye-to-eye with him, which reportedly led to an altercation in which the point guard had to be restrained from going after his coach, was the reason Brooklyn saw fit to move on. Williams doesn’t figure to find a more sympathetic coach in Dallas, where Rick Carlisle clashed with Rajon Rondo this past season. The deal with Williams helps offset the void at point guard that Rondo left when he and the team essentially parted ways during the playoffs during the playoffs, and it also helps salve some of the wounds from DeAndre Jordan‘s reversal of his decision to sign with the Mavs.
Yet Williams is no longer the top-flight point guard he was when the Mavs courted him in free agency during the summer of 2012, when he spurned Dallas to instead re-sign with the Nets. The now 31-year-old Williams scored fewer points per game and saw fewer minutes per game this past season than any year since he was a rookie. Still, he was more efficient in his time on the floor than fellow former Nets All-Star Devin Harris, who’d otherwise be in line for the starting job in Dallas, and Williams comes without the cost of assets that trading for Ty Lawson or Brandon Jennings probably would.
Spurs Sign Danny Green
JULY 14TH, 5:33pm: The deal is official, the Spurs announced in a press release.
JULY 1ST, 10:33am: The Spurs and Danny Green have agreed to a four-year, $45MM deal in a surprising development, reports Chris Broussard of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Sources who spoke with Ken Berger of CBSSports.com had referred to the swingman as a “goner,” but he’s instead apparently staying, rebuffing interest from several other teams. Green confirmed to Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News that he is indeed re-signing after the July Moratorium (Twitter link).
The news is likely a disappointment for the Pistons, Mavericks, Blazers, Knicks and especially the Kings, who’d reportedly made Green their top target. The Bill Duffy client had said it would be “crazy” not to meet with New York, but apparently the Spurs, his preferred team, made him an offer to enticing to turn down.
The move allows San Antonio to retain its starting shooting guard, though the Spurs have reportedly agreed to trade starting center Tiago Splitter to the Hawks to clear room for a push toward signing LaMarcus Aldridge or another marquee free agent.