Cavs Pick Up Option On Timofey Mozgov
1:00pm: The move is indeed official, the team confirmed.
9:59am: The Cavs have picked up their $4.95MM team option on Timofey Mozgov, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The team has yet to make an official announcement, but it would appear that the move has indeed taken place. It’s largely an academic transaction, since it would have been shocking if Cleveland had turned down a relatively inexpensive option on the starting center whose acquisition helped turn the team’s season around this year.
Mozgov came from Denver via trade on January 7th in a move that involved two first-round picks heading to the Nuggets. Cavs GM David Griffin and his staff had long coveted the 7’1″ native of Russia, and when the Cavs rebounded from a 19-20 start to reach the Finals with Mozgov locking down the interior on defense, it validated the team’s pursuit.
Cleveland has only slightly more than $31MM in guaranteed salary after picking up Mozgov’s option, though that number doesn’t include a slew of marquee free agents, including LeBron James and Kevin Love. The Cavs appear intent on retaining much of their team and have reportedly had internal discussions about a shelling out a payroll between $100-$110MM plus some $75MM in taxes next season.
Offseason Outlook: Cleveland Cavaliers
Guaranteed Contracts
- Kyrie Irving ($15,800,000)1
- Anderson Varejao ($9,638,554)
- Timofey Mozgov ($4,950,000)2
- Joe Harris ($845,059)
Non-Guaranteed Contracts
- Brendan Haywood ($10,522,500)3
Options
- LeBron James ($21,573,398 — Player)4
- Kevin Love ($16,744,218 — Player)5
- J.R. Smith ($6,399,750 — Player)6
- Mike Miller ($2,854,940 — Player)7
Restricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- Tristan Thompson ($11,916,019) — $6,777,589 qualifying offer
- Iman Shumpert ($6,542,438) — $4,433,683 qualifying offer
- Matthew Dellavedova ($1,147,276) — $1,147,276 qualifying offer8
Unrestricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- James Jones ($947,276)
- Shawn Marion ($947,276)
- Kendrick Perkins ($947,276)
- No. 24 pick ($1,068,400)
Draft Picks
- 1st Round (24th overall)
- 2nd Round (53th overall)
Cap Outlook
- Guaranteed Salary: $26,283,613
- Non-Guaranteed Salary: $10,522,500
- Options: $52,522,306
- Cap Holds: $23,515,961
- Total: $112,844,380
The Cavaliers went through an astounding transformation in the space of one year that wasn’t limited to the obvious change that took place when LeBron James came back. To be certain, the return of James had some degree of influence on just about every move the team has made since, and even some of those that took place before, as GM David Griffin and company cleared the cap space necessary to sign him for the max. Still, only four of the players who ended the 2013/14 season on the Cavs roster are still with the team, and coach David Blatt is new, too. Griffin, in his first full year on the job, has been busy, and he’ll stay that way.
Only four Cavs have guaranteed contracts for next season, and as many as 10 players are either headed for free agency or can choose to do so. The Cavs will have to pay dearly if they’re to keep together a roster that, even with two of its three best players injured, took the Warriors to six games in the Finals. Tristan Thompson is in line for a sizable raise from his rookie scale salary of not much more than $5.138MM, and James, Kevin Love, J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Matthew Dellavedova also appear likely to command raises, to varying degrees. The Cavs are reportedly bracing for a payroll that ends up between $100MM and $110MM, figures that don’t include the luxury taxes they’d incur for crossing the tax threshold, projected at only $81.6MM. Owner Dan Gilbert appears willing to pay to help Cleveland win an elusive championship, but winning isn’t just a matter of throwing money around.
That said, the Cavs will assuredly make another max offer to James when he opts out, as he’s widely expected to do in search of a two-year max deal with a player option. Cleveland will certainly accommodate that wish, moving on to the thornier issue of Love. The former All-Star whom James pushed the team to acquire didn’t appear to be the right fit for the Cavs. His numbers dropped off precipitously, and while that wasn’t thoroughly unexpected on a team with far more talent than he’d ever played with, Love nonetheless looked at times like a mere shadow of the player he was in Minnesota. That the team won two playoff series and came halfway to winning the Finals without him further speaks to the idea that the Cavs would be just fine if he weren’t there. Rumors have gone on for months suggesting Love would seek a way out, but Love has been just as persistently expressing that he’s intent on staying in Cleveland. Griffin expects the Jeff Schwartz client to opt out even though he told Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group in January that he planned to opt in, but it nonetheless appears as though he intends to re-sign with the Cavs. Conflicting reports paint somewhat different pictures of whether the Cavs intend to make a max offer for him. The Cavs would have a difficult time replacing him if he were to go elsewhere, so it would not be surprising if that max offer indeed goes on the table.
The return of James and Love would allow the team to keep its core intact, but so many other decisions loom about the rest of the roster. Thompson plays Love’s position, but he also shares agent Rich Paul with James, who’s indicated that he wants Thompson to stay with the Cavs. Reports show that Thompson and Paul have asked for a max or a near-max deal after rejecting a four-year, $52MM offer from the Cavs during extension talks this past fall. A max deal for Thompson would start at an estimated $15.8MM and go up by 7.5% of that initial amount each season, so it would entail far more than what Cleveland apparently offered in an extension if Thompson wants a lengthy deal. The former No. 4 overall pick could instead demand a short-term deal to more quickly reach unrestricted free agency and the escalated salary cap that’s on the horizon. A max deal, whatever its length, might not be the ideal outcome for Cleveland, given the positional overlap and Thompson’s modest career scoring average of 10.1 points per game, but retaining a talented inside force with upside, and keeping James satisfied, would have its benefits.
Smith plans to opt out and re-sign, as he told ESPN’s Chris Broussard, but the Cavs surely won’t want to lock themselves into paying a premium over a long, fully guaranteed deal to a player who’s shown as much inconsistency as Smith has over the course of his career. Eight-figure salaries seem like a reach, but Smith is surely looking for better than his nearly $6.4MM option would give him. A compromise involving salaries of $8MM or slightly more would make sense, though that’s just my speculation.
Smith’s companion in the trade that brought them both in from the Knicks is also poised to hit free agency, though Iman Shumpert’s will be of the restricted variety. That said, the advantage that Cleveland has to match all competing bids is mitigated to a degree by the knowledge other suitors have of the Cavs’ cap situation. Given Cleveland’s other plans, the Cavs wouldn’t have the means to sign a comparable replacement for Shumpert if they failed to match an offer sheet from another team. Six teams have already expressed interest in the Happy Walters client and league executives believe he’ll command salaries in excess of $8MM, Haynes reports. Still, Shumpert isn’t an elite defender; he only drew one vote in All-Defensive Team voting this year, though he was eighth among shooting guards in ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus/Minus. He’s a passable three-point shooter, but not a dangerous one, so he doesn’t quite fit the “three-and-D” mold. The 25-year-old was expected to start for the Cavs when the trade went down, but he wound up coming off the bench after Smith proved more valuable while a shoulder injury delayed Shumpert’s Cavs debut. Cleveland would have to swallow hard before matching an offer sheet with eight-figure salaries if it comes to it.
Dellavedova sure outplayed his minimum-salary deal in the Finals, but the Cavs surely won’t get carried away with a small sample size. An inflated price for Dellavedova wouldn’t cost other teams as much as it would cost the Cavs, given the team’s expected tax bill, so that would give another team incentive to come in high with an offer for him. Still, it would be surprising to see the undrafted guard end up with a salary greater than the value of the $3.376MM taxpayer’s mid-level exception next season, and if he does, Cleveland wouldn’t be wise to match an offer sheet for that sort of money.
The Cavs could use their Early Bird rights with Dellavedova to bring him back for a taxpayer’s mid-level amount and still have their actual taxpayer’s mid-level to spend on an outside free agent. The Cavs would like to add a facilitating guard who can either back up or play alongside Kyrie Irving, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com reported. Former Cleveland State standout Norris Cole, another Paul client and a former teammate of James on the Heat, looms as a possibility, though the Pelicans can match offers for him as a restricted free agent. So, too, is the case for the Spurs and Cory Joseph, another former first-round pick with whom the Cavs have been linked. Mo Williams reportedly has strong interest in the Cavs, but the taxpayer’s mid-level would represent a pay cut, and at 32, he’s outside the age range of 26 to 30 that Griffin has said he’ll prioritize.
Regardless of whom the Cavs might sign with that exception, Brendan Haywood‘s non-guaranteed salary gives the team a uniquely valuable trade chip. The Cavs can take in as much as $5MM more than Haywood’s salary via trade if they manage to pull off the trade after the July Moratorium but before they cross the tax threshold, or $13,253,125 if they’re already a tax team. So, technically, they could trade Haywood for David Lee, allowing the Warriors to move off Lee’s nearly $15.494MM salary and waive Hawyood’s non-guaranteed salary to help mitigate their tax bill. The efficacy for Cleveland of paying Lee that much money, plus the taxes on that amount, to compete for time at the same position as Love and Thompson play is dubious, however. The Cavs could instead dangle the Haywood contract to try to acquire just about any trade candidate on a team looking to shed salary, though it appears, from Windhorst’s latest report on the team’s efforts to find a taker for Haywood, that Cleveland is looking at modestly priced options, a sign of some level of austerity.
Still, it doesn’t seem as though the Cavs will do much holding back financially as they aim to cross the finish line after coming ever so close to a championship this year. Griffin has made it clear that he understands that as James enters his 30s, the team has no time to hesitate. The Cavs will no doubt try to win as much as they can before James’ vast abilities inevitably tail off. It’s difficult to predict exactly when that will happen, but Cleveland would be wise to plan for it. Re-signing Smith, Shumpert and others to reasonably priced short-term deals this summer will give the team a chance to get out from the tax in a few years, which could forestall repeat-0ffender tax penalties and, most crucially, allow the Cavs access to tools like the full mid-level and sign-and-trades again. Flexibility is key for NBA teams, and even as Cleveland commits to a bloated payroll for 2015/16, the Cavs can help themselves this summer if they retain as much capacity as possible to once more go through significant chances if necessary a few short years from now.
Cap Footnotes
1 — Irving’s salary will be equivalent to the league’s maximum for a player with four years of experience. That figure won’t be known until after the July Moratorium, so an estimate is used above.
2 — Mozgov’s salary was originally in the form of a team option, but the Nuggets have picked up that option.
3 — Haywood’s salary would become fully guaranteed if he remains under contract through August 1st.
4 — The cap hold for James if he opts out would be the lesser of $24,773,280 and the league’s maximum salary for a player with 10 or more years of experience. It’d almost certainly be the latter, an estimated $22,120,000.
5 — The cap hold for Love if he opts out would be the lesser of $23,578,593 and the league’s maximum salary for a player with seven to nine years of experience. It’d almost certainly be the latter, an estimated $18,960,000.
6 — The cap hold for Smith would be $9,773,265 if he opts out.
7 — The cap hold for Miller would be $3,278,400 if he opts out.
8 — The cap hold for Dellavedova would be $947,276 if the Cavaliers elect not to tender a qualifying offer.
The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post.
Arron Afflalo Opts Out From Trail Blazers
JUNE 23RD: The deadline for Afflalo to opt in was Monday, and since that’s lapsed, he has officially opted out, The Oregonian’s Joe Freeman reports. Player options require players to say when they’re opting in, but they don’t have to give any notice if they’re opting out.
JUNE 21ST: Afflalo is expected to opt out, tweets David Aldridge of TNT.
MAY 7TH: It’s still too early to say definitively that Afflalo will opt out, sources tell The Oregonian’s Joe Freeman, who writes in a roundtable report that examines the shooting guard’s brief time with the Blazers and whether the team should bring him back for next season.
MAY 1ST: Arron Afflalo intends to turn down a $7.75MM player option for next season and become a free agent this summer, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. That’s even though a shoulder injury forced him to miss the initial two games of Portland’s first-round series against the Grizzlies and seemed to limit him the rest of the way. Afflalo went scoreless over about 29 minutes of play across the final two games of that series, which the Blazers lost 4-1. As the end of the regular season neared, he was reportedly ready to let his postseason performance dictate what he would do with the option, with the plan seemingly having been to opt in if he didn’t play well, so it appears the Sam Goldfeder client has changed course.
The Blazers gave up a first-round pick, among other assets, to acquire Afflalo from the Nuggets at the deadline, but it looks like yet another key member of their team will hit free agency. Fellow shooting guard Wesley Matthews, LaMarcus Aldridge and Robin Lopez are also among the Blazers who can choose to leave this summer. GM Neil Olshey said Thursday that he has contingency plans for each in case they don’t re-sign, and it seems increasingly likely that he’ll have to employ his plan for Aldridge, who no longer appears the safe bet to re-sign that he once was. Portland only has about $23MM in guaranteed salary for next season against a projected $67.1MM cap, so the Blazers have no shortage of flexibility.
Portland has Afflalo’s Bird rights, though unless the Blazers are willing to insert a fifth year in the 29-year-old’s next contract, that will matter little, since he’s not a contender for a maximum salary. The Blazers can offer 7.5% raises instead of 4.5% raises, but another team can offset that with a higher salary in the first year of the deal. Afflalo was the Magic’s leading scorer in 2013/14 with 18.2 points per game, but his scoring was off significantly, from 18.2 points per game last year to 13.3 this season, despite a much less profound dip in the number of his field goal attempts. He was better defensively this season, as Basketball-Reference’s Defensive Box Plus/Minus shows, but he had a woeful 8.2 PER in his 25 regular season games as a Blazer.
Nuggets Eye Sergio Rodriguez?
The Nuggets are one of three NBA teams interested in signing four-year NBA veteran and current Spanish league point guard Sergio Rodriguez, reports Jesus Perez Ramos of Mundo Deportivo (translation via HoopsHype). The 29-year-old Rodriguez is seeking $6MM salaries on a deal that covers at least three fully guaranteed seasons, according to Ramos. Conflicting reports paint a confused picture of whether Rodriguez is high on a return to the NBA, where he hasn’t played since 2009/10, but Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, who indicated that Rodriguez does want back in the league, wrote that NBA front offices regard him as an elite backup point guard.
Rodriguez’s deal with Real Madrid requires a buyout worth 2 million euros, Ramos writes. That’s the equivalent of more than $2.234MM at today’s exchange rate. Even though that’s much greater than the $625K that NBA teams can’t exceed in international buyouts this coming season without essentially taking the rest out of the player’s paycheck, it isn’t expected to be an obstacle to getting him to the NBA, according to Wojnarowski.
The Nuggets have more than $53MM in guaranteed salary against a projected $67.1MM cap, though the team has been heavily involved in trade rumors of late, so just how much it’ll have to throw around is unclear. Rodriguez put up 10.7 points, 5.1 assists and 1.8 turnovers in 21.9 minutes per game this season in Spain. He averaged 4.3 PPG, 2.9 APG and 1.3 TOPG in 13.2 MPG across his time in the NBA with the Trail Blazers, Kings and Knicks.
Warriors To Shop David Lee
TUESDAY, 9:36am: The Warriors are looking for Lee takers with their first-round pick, at No. 30, as a potential addendum to a deal, Grantland’s Zach Lowe writes. Golden State nonetheless almost certainly won’t give up two picks, league sources tell the Grantland scribe. Record gate receipts from their Finals run has fueled Golden State’s comfort with absorbing a moderate tax hit, accrording to Lowe, who suggests that Golden State could find a happy medium with its tax payments if it did a buyout with Lee that left a reduced portion of his salary on its books or traded him in a deal that brought back some salary, but not as much as Lee makes.
FRIDAY, 8:07am: Myers wouldn’t rule out the idea of trading Lee but didn’t confirm that the club is actively trying to trade him, either, as he spoke to reporters Thursday and as Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com relays.
“I know it’s been reported, but we’re still trying to figure out everything with the roster,” Myers said. “At this stage, we usually have more time before the draft or free agency. But I won’t sit here and say we’ve decided anything definitively. If I did, I’d probably end up changing my mind, or we would change our mind. Because what I’ll find out now and what we’ll find out is the next seven days prior to the draft and whatever it is until July 1, there’ll be a lot of different things that’ll be thrown at us that we’ll explore. So it’s not the right time to even say we’re absolutely going in one direction or the other.”
WEDNESDAY, 12:57pm: The Warriors and representatives for David Lee have agreed to work together to find another team willing to take on his salary of nearly $15.494MM for next season, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The news comes as no shock, as a new deal for Draymond Green, which GM Bob Myers this week indicated was a likelihood, would send the team zooming well past the projected $81.6MM luxury tax threshold if Golden State doesn’t shed salary. Lee, the team’s most expensive player this past season, re-emerged in coach Steve Kerr‘s rotation during the Finals, but he’d largely been a non-factor this season prior to that.
The Warriors engaged in serious discussions about Lee with the Jazz near the deadline, according to Spencer Checketts of 1280 The Zone, son of former NBA executive Dave Checketts. Golden State has long been willing to trade Lee for assets of value, but the team hasn’t been on board with simply giving away the favorite of co-owner Joe Lacob, as Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group reported at the deadline. Still, it would appear as though the team would prefer to unload Lee’s salary in exchange for players with little or no guaranteed money, which would make it difficult for Golden State to extract much for him via trade. Lacob wouldn’t rule out trading Lee when Kawakami asked him about it earlier this spring, and Lee last week acknowledged the possibility that the Warriors might trade him in the offseason ahead.
The 32-year-old Mark Bartelstein client has been diplomatic about his reduced playing time, though he admitted in March that it was challenging at times, saying that it would be impossible for him to accept if the Warriors weren’t as successful as they are. He saw just 18.4 minutes per game this past season, by far his fewest since he was a rookie, and just 8.2 MPG in the playoffs.
Lee’s contract, which expires after next season, is nonetheless challenging for the Warriors to move while clearing salary. Golden State would either have to find a willing trade partner with enough cap space to absorb it (the Jazz would likely qualify) or take back non-guaranteed contracts in return in a deal with a capped-out team that must send back salary pursuant to the league’s salary matching rules. No team in the league has a trade exception large enough to take on Lee.
Offseason Outlook: Golden State Warriors
Guaranteed Contracts
- Klay Thompson ($15,501,000)1
- David Lee ($15,493,680)
- Andrew Bogut ($12,000,000)
- Andre Iguodala ($11,710,456)
- Stephen Curry ($11,370,786)
- Shaun Livingston ($5,543,725)
- Harrison Barnes ($3,873,398)
- Festus Ezeli ($2,008,748)
Non-Guaranteed Contracts
- James Michael McAdoo ($845,059)2
Options
- Marreese Speights ($3,815,000 — Team)3
- Brandon Rush ($1,270,964 — Player)4
Restricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- Draymond Green ($2,725,003) — $2,725,003 qualifying offer5
- Justin Holiday ($1,147,276) — $1,147,276 qualifying offer6
- Ognjen Kuzmic ($1,147,276) — $1,147,276 qualifying offer7
Unrestricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- (Jordan Crawford $5,406,048)8
- (Jermaine O’Neal $2,400,000)8
- Leandro Barbosa ($947,276)
- No. 30 pick ($943,300)
Draft Picks
- 1st Round (30th overall)
Cap Outlook
- Guaranteed Salary: $77,601,793
- Non-Guaranteed Salary: $745,059
- Options: $5,085,964
- Cap Holds: $14,716,179
- Total: $98,148,995
Continuity is a word rarely attached to any team’s offseason strategy. Most franchises spend those months upgrading at positions of need, executing a rebuilding plan, retooling with young players or making flashy moves. Even many championship teams rarely stand pat, either out of necessity because of salary issues or free agency, or under the assumption they cannot repeat without a different mix.
Not so with the Golden State Warriors. Their avowed goal this offseason, as GM Bob Myers declared after the team’s first title in 40 years, is to keep their young core intact. Considering that all but one of their starters is 27 years old or younger, that’s not surprising. Sure, they’d like to make a couple of tweaks but the Warriors seem poised to defend their title with most, if not all, of their rotation players returning in their same roles.
“When you have the success that we had, you like to keep it together as much as possible,” Myers said during his postseason press conference. “It doesn’t mean you don’t open your eyes to see what else is out there, but if it’s a close call, you always want to retain the talent that got you a championship.”
Golden State’s front office has one major order of business this summer — retaining its best frontcourt player, Draymond Green. That will come at a high price financially but there’s little chance that Green will wind up in another uniform. Green, who is represented by former NBA player B.J. Armstrong of the Arn Tellem-led Wasserman Media Group, is due for a massive increase in pay after making less than $1MM this past season. It’s expected that the restricted free agent will command a max level contract or something in that ballpark with a starting salary of approximately $16MM.
Green has emerged as one of the league’s top two-way players and should have his share of suitors. There were rumblings during the season that the Pistons would make a strong push for Green, who grew up in Michigan and developed into an All-American talent under coach Tom Izzo at Michigan State. But while the Warriors cannot address the situation publicly, they have quietly made it known that they will match any offer that comes his way. Green himself said he wasn’t going anywhere, though that proclamation came during the euphoria of the championship celebration.
It may actually be in the Warriors’ best interest if Green signs an offer sheet. That would allow them to lock up Green for another three or four seasons without any tricky negotiations. While it’s almost unfathomable to believe that Green would sign his qualifying offer of $2.725MM, he could attempt to work out a shorter deal with the Warriors that would allow him to swiftly re-enter the market as an unrestricted free agent.
The tricky part for the club is securing Green’s services long term while avoiding the dreaded luxury tax in the short term. They have $77.6MM in salary commitments for next season with the tax line projected to come in at $81.6MM. The easiest way to stay under the tax threshold is to deal David Lee‘s expiring contract of approximately $15.49MM and that’s the most likely outcome. While Myers hasn’t committed to doing that, it’s the only viable way to avoid the luxury tax without dealing one of those core players. Though Lee played a valuable role in the NBA Finals, he dropped out of coach Steve Kerr‘s rotation during the regular season.
Naturally, everyone around the league is well aware of the Warriors’ predicament and Golden State may have to give up an additional asset or two, such as draft picks, to make the deal happen. The Jazz reportedly engaged in serious discussions with the Warriors about acquiring Lee at the trade deadline and he could still help Utah and many other teams with his offensive skills. But no team has a trade exception big enough to absorb Lee’s contract, so the Warriors must find a trade partner with at least that much cap space or one that possesses some major non-guaranteed contracts. A third party might be required to pull it off.
A big reason why the Warriors have so much guaranteed money tied up is that they were proactive in re-signing the Splash Brothers. Klay Thompson‘s four-year extension with a starting salary of $15.5MM kicks in next season. The contract of reigning league MVP Stephen Curry has two years remaining and he will make the bargain basement rate of $11.37MM next season.
Once the Green-Lee issues are decided, the Warriors can focus on working out a contract extension with Harrison Barnes. Both parties are interested in getting something done by the October 31st deadline and it’s estimated that Barnes will command an annual salary in the $10MM-$12MM range. That wouldn’t affect the Warriors’ bottom line next season, since the extension would kick in for the 2016/17 season when the league’s salary cap is expected to dramatically increase.
The team’s only unrestricted free agent is veteran reserve shooting guard Leandro Barbosa, who was part of Kerr’s rotation most of the season. If Barbosa does not return, they will be in the market for a backup shooting guard. The Warriors also have to decide whether to exercise their $3.815MM team option on Marreese Speights — an unlikely prospect considering their cap situation — and extend qualifying offers to Justin Holiday and Ognjen Kuzmic.
They can add depth with their first-round pick at No. 30 overall (they don’t have a second rounder) and through free agency via exceptions. They have the mid-level and bi-annual exceptions available if they can avoid the luxury-tax apron. Otherwise, they’d be limited to the taxpayer mid-level exception of $3.376MM.
That’s how they could make those aforementioned tweaks. Otherwise, the Warriors seem content to bring the not-so-old gang back and stay the course.
Cap Footnotes
1 — Thompson’s salary will be the league’s maximum salary for a player with four years of experience or $15,501,000, whichever is less.
2 — McAdoo’s salary is partially guaranteed for $100,000.
3 — The cap hold for Speights would be $4,754,750 if the Warriors decline their team option on him.
4 — The cap hold for Rush would be $947,276 if he opts out.
5 — The cap hold for Green would be $947,276 if the team decides not to tender a qualifying offer.
6 — The cap hold for Holiday would be $947,276 if the team decides not to tender a qualifying offer.
7 — The cap hold for Kuzmic would be $947,276 if the team decides not to tender a qualifying offer.
8 — See our glossary entry on cap holds for an explanation of why these players technically remain on the books.
The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post.
Pistons Interested In Tim Hardaway Jr.?
4:55pm: Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy said today that he’s never talked to the Knicks about a Hardaway-Jennings deal, tweets Keith Langlois of Pistons.com.
9:31am: A person with firsthand knowledge of the Pistons’ thinking tells Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press that there’s nothing to the chatter involving Hardaway and Jennings (Twitter link).
8:08am: The Pistons have reached out to the Knicks about trading for Tim Hardaway Jr., league sources tell Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com, who writes at the bottom of a larger piece about Kevon Looney. Begley suggests that the Pistons would want to send back Brandon Jennings in such a deal, though it’s not clear if that’s truly the case or if the Knicks would be willing to take on the point guard who’s still recovering from a torn Achilles, at least without receiving other assets in return.
Hardaway has shown promise the last two seasons since the Knicks took him 24th overall in the 2013 draft, averaging 10.8 points on 35.3% shooting in 23.5 minutes per game. He improved slightly this past season, one in which he started in 30 of 70 appearances. It’s unclear whether the Pistons see him as a backup or a potential competitor for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for the starting job at shooting guard.
The rookie scale salary of less than $1.305MM that Hardaway is to receive next season wouldn’t be a match for the nearly $8.345MM that Jennings is set to make. The Knicks don’t have a trade exception large enough for Jennings, so New York would have to add other salary to a Jennings-Hardaway swap if it took place before June 30th. However, both teams are poised to open cap space in July, so they could do a one-for-one like that as under-the-cap teams next month without having to worry about salary-matching.
It wouldn’t be surprising if picks in this week’s draft were involved, though that’s just my speculation. The Knicks have been widely rumored to have interest in trading back from the No. 4 spot. Detroit has the eighth pick.
Clippers Explore Potential Jamal Crawford Trades
MONDAY, 4:33pm: Chandler is indeed an object of the Clippers’ interest, Markazi clarifies via Twitter. He’s on a lengthy list of Clippers small forward targets that includes soon-to-be free agents Pierce, Mike Dunleavy and Al-Farouq Aminu, according to Dan Woike of the Orange County Register (Twitter link).
THURSDAY, 12:10pm: The Clippers are investigating the possibility of trading Jamal Crawford, sources tell Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com, who writes amid a story about the impact of Monday trade acquisition Lance Stephenson. One option would be to trade Crawford and C.J. Wilcox to the Nuggets for Wilson Chandler, according to Markazi, though it’s unclear from the report which side, if either, has interest in such a deal.
Crawford’s salary of $5.675MM is only guaranteed for $1.5MM if he’s waived by the end of June 30th, though he remains a productive player who doesn’t seem like a candidate for a purely salary-clearing move. Still, the arrival of Stephenson, who plays Crawford’s positions, would appear to give L.A. less of a need for the two-time Sixth Man of the Year award winner.
Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers told Fred Roggin of The Beat 980 this week that he’s looking for a starting small forward to replace Matt Barnes, whom the team sent out in the Stephenson trade, as Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times relayed via Twitter. The team is reportedly interested in Paul Pierce should he opt out from the Wizards. Chandler, who’ll make nearly $7.172MM on an expiring contract next season after the Nuggets let his partial guarantee date pass this spring, would probably fit that bill, too, though this past season was only the second in his eight-year NBA career in which he started at least 70 games.
Crawford switched agents recently, joining the Wasserman Media Group, and while his contract runs through next season, it’s perhaps a sign that he anticipated change in the nearer future. Wilcox, last year’s 28th overall pick, saw only 101 total minutes this past season, and while he has a guaranteed salary of nearly $1.16MM coming his way for 2015/16, a decision is due by October 31st on the $1.2MM-plus third-year team option attached to his rookie scale contract.
Goran Dragic Formally Opts Out From Heat
Goran Dragic has turned down his $7.5MM player option for next season, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The team has yet to make an official announcement, but since player options don’t require players to say when they’re opting out, only when they’re opting in, there may well be no formal acknowledgement of the move from the team. Dragic’s decision has been thoroughly expected, as he said in April that he would opt out, as he had long planned to do. The Heat are preparing a five-year offer in excess of $80MM for him to return, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported this weekend, but an offer in the neighborhood of $80MM would still be significantly less than the max.
The expectation when Miami acquired Dragic from the Suns in exchange for a package that included two first-round picks was that the Heat would make him a max offer this summer, as Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com reported at the time. However, the team is apparently in salary-clearing mode with Dwyane Wade angling for more money amid his openness to leave Miami, so perhaps that’s led the Heat to try to see if they can save on Dragic, a client of Bill Duffy and Rade Filipovich.
A five-year deal worth somewhat more than $80MM would still be roughly in line with what other teams can offer in terms of total money, since competitors are limited to handing out only four-year contracts. Dragic has been insistent that he’s high on Miami, but he apparently nonetheless saw the Lakers as a “perfect fit” at the trade deadline, and that team is reportedly a likely suitor, as are the Knicks, Pelicans, Kings and Bucks.
Rockets, Wolves Interested In Greivis Vasquez?
12:19pm: Wolfson clarifies that he has no sense that the Raptors are interested in Bennett (Twitter link).
11:40am: Greivis Vasquez said in a press conference in his native Venezuela today that he’s heard the Timberwolves and Rockets like him and that while he’d prefer to remain in Toronto, he’s preparing to become a starting point guard if the Raptors trade him, as Basket Vinotinto relays in Spanish (Twitter links; hat tip to Sporando’s Emiliano Carchia). Vasquez is to make $6.6MM next season, the final of a two-year deal he signed last summer to serve as Kyle Lowry‘s backup.
The Rockets are reportedly planning a push to sign restricted free agent point guard Patrick Beverley, though they’d have a hole to fill at the position if he signs elsewhere and Houston doesn’t match. Statements from Ricky Rubio and Flip Saunders have seemed to tamp down rumors suggesting that either he, the team, or both have interest in trading him. Presuming Rubio stays in Minnesota, Vasquez would project as a backup there. Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities suggests the Wolves would indeed have interest in trading for Vasquez, though Wolfson hears mixed word on whether Toronto would want former No. 1 overall pick Anthony Bennett, a Canadian, whose salary would fit for a potential trade (Twitter link).
Houston can offer the Raptors cap relief in the form of Kostas Papanikolaou‘s non-guaranteed salary if the team picks up his team option. Vasquez has spent one full season as a starter, in 2012/13 with New Orleans, and he averaged 9.0 assists per game that year.