Offseason Outlook: Los Angeles Clippers
Guaranteed Contracts
- Chris Paul ($21,468,696)
- Blake Griffin ($18,907,725)
- J.J. Redick ($7,085,000)
- Spencer Hawes ($5,543,725)
- C.J. Wilcox ($1,159,680)
- (Carlos Delfino $650,000)1
- (Jordan Farmar $510,922)2
- (Miroslav Raduljica $252,042)3
Non-Guaranteed Contracts
- Jamal Crawford ($5,675,000)4
- Matt Barnes ($3,542,500)5
- Jordan Hamilton ($1,015,421)
- Lester Hudson ($1,015,421)6
Options
- None
Restricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- None
Unrestricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- DeAndre Jordan ($17,160,185)
- Austin Rivers ($3,110,796)
- Glen Davis ($947,276)
- Dahntay Jones ($947,276)
- Hedo Turkoglu ($947,276)
- Ekpe Udoh ($947,276)
Draft Picks
- None
Cap Outlook
- Guaranteed Salary: $58,077,790
- Non-Guaranteed Salary: $8,748,342
- Options: $0
- Cap Holds: $24,060,085
- Total: $90,886,217
This looked like the year the Clippers would make that next step forward. They were one win away from their first-ever Western Conference Finals berth, but they whiffed on all three chances to grab that victory. Instead, the team hit its head against the same ceiling it has repeatedly, losing in the conference semifinals for the third year out of four. What’s worse is that the specter of losing DeAndre Jordan in free agency presents a clear path in which they could get significantly worse for next season, and there’s no readily apparent way to get much better.
No, a return to the lottery isn’t in store, given the continued presence of both Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, both signed through 2016/17 with player options for 2017/18. Yet with more than $58MM guaranteed against a projected $67.1MM cap, and more than $6.7MM tied up in non-guaranteed salary to key contributors Jamal Crawford and Matt Barnes, the Clippers would have no cap flexibility to sign an adequate replacement should Jordan bolt. The former 35th overall pick has spoken in glowing terms about Doc Rivers, the coach who took him from playing only 24.5 minutes per game in 2012/13 to an All-NBA Third Team selection in the span of two years, but Jordan has said the Clippers aren’t necessarily the favorites to sign him. Indeed, Jordan has expressed through back channels that he will have extreme interest in joining his home-state Mavericks this summer, multiple sources told Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com last month.
The Clippers appear ready to make him a five-year maximum-salary offer. Jordan has said he won’t sign a one-year deal to try to reap an even greater payday when the salary cap escalates sharply in the summer of 2016, so ostensibly the Clippers can tempt him with the fifth year and 3% higher raises that only they can offer him. Of course, Jordan never said he wouldn’t sign a two- or three-year deal to take advantage of the salary cap when it’s projected to rise into the $100MMs. The financial advantage the Clippers have wouldn’t be as pronounced in that scenario. It could well come down to comfort rather than money. While Jordan’s affection for Rivers is obvious, he’s rumored to have had a falling out with Paul, though teammate Dahntay Jones says that isn’t true.
A Jordan departure would carry a silver lining of sorts for the Clippers. Removing the league’s leading rebounder and All-Defensive First Team center from the roster would leave the Clippers without a reasonable chance to break through in a way they didn’t this year, and so it would likely goose Rivers into more extensive retooling with an eye on the summer of 2016. They could try to trade Crawford’s expiring, partially guaranteed contract for a future first-round pick or a promising young player on a rookie scale contract. They could explore what sort of bounty they might get in return for selling high on Redick, who’s coming off the best season of his career, knowing that he’d be 32 by the time they could spend freely again. They could try their luck at using the full mid-level again after blowing it on Spencer Hawes last year. None of those approaches would necessarily bear fruit, but as long as the Clippers didn’t clutter their 2016/17 books too much, missing on Jordan would allow them the chance to go after Kevin Durant and other star 2016 free agents.
Jordan is, without a doubt, one of the top centers in the game, but he’s no Durant. Maxing out Jordan this summer would mean he’d be making in the neighborhood of $20.5MM in 2016/17, and coupled with the more than $20.1MM that Griffin has coming and the nearly $22.9MM the team committed to Paul, and the Clippers would have about $63.5MM against the preliminary projection of an $89MM salary cap for three players alone, never mind the money on the books for Redick and Hawes. That would make it almost impossible for the Clippers to sign Durant to his estimated $25MM maximum salary.
The effects of a max deal for Jordan would be even more immediate, since it would essentially force the Clippers to either pay the tax or unload a key member of the team, like Redick or Crawford. A slight chance exists that the Clippers could dodge the tax apron, the line $4MM above the tax threshold, but it’s more likely the Clips would zoom above the apron, too. That means the team would be unable to acquire a player via sign-and-trade or spend more than the $3.376MM taxpayer’s mid-level amount on the starting salary for any free agent from another team. Just crossing the tax threshold carries with it stricter salary-matching rules for trades, never mind the apron.
Regardless of whether the Clippers sign Jordan or not, they’re already hamstrung when it comes to Austin Rivers. They can’t sign him for a starting salary any more than $3,110,796, which is the value of the rookie scale team option that the Pelicans declined before the season. That rule is in place so teams can’t try to get around the rookie scale and give their recent first-round picks more money as an enticement to stick around for the long term, but it doesn’t matter that the Clippers had nothing to do with that option decision. It still applies, even though Rivers was traded twice this season. It wouldn’t matter if the Clippers wanted to sign him using cap room, the mid-level, or any form of exception. That $3,110,796 figure is as high as they can go.
Of course, that doesn’t mean any other team will want to exercise its right to pay him more than that. Rivers had his moments in the playoffs, when he shot 37.1% from three-point range, but he was still a net negative during the postseason according to Basketball-Reference’s Box Plus/Minus metric, just as that statistic suggests he has been during all four regular seasons of his NBA career. Doc Rivers unsurprisingly wants to re-sign his son, and there is a degree of promise left for the former 10th overall pick who won’t turn 23 until August 1st. Still, there won’t be a clamor for his services from competing teams, and even $3,110,796 may well be too rich for the Clippers’ tastes, especially considering the other salary constraints they face.
The perception of nepotism concerned Doc Rivers before GM Dave Wohl and a pair of assistant coaches talked him into trading for his son. Doc Rivers suggested that Wohl had worked to convince him for months, dating back to last summer. Yet for myriad other reasons, Doc Rivers might be wise to give Wohl or someone else the final say in the front office. Rivers succeeded with the Redick sign-and-trade in his first weeks on the job, but he’s done little since to upgrade the talent on the roster, outside of the enhancements he’s made to Jordan and others through his coaching. Perhaps Rivers would be well-advised to concentrate on what he does best, better than just about anyone in the game, and simply coach while someone else handles player personnel. Owner Steve Ballmer just last summer gave Rivers a five-year deal worth more than $50MM to serve both as coach and president of basketball operations, but Rivers needn’t do two jobs for Ballmer to get his money’s worth. Both Wohl and assistant GM Gary Sacks have been at the controls before, and if the Clippers wanted to look elsewhere, the chance to work for the deep-pocketed Ballmer in a warm-weather glamour market with two incumbent superstars on the team would be appealing to just about any executive.
Still, it doesn’t seem like Rivers is going to be without his front office responsibilities anytime soon, and when it comes to keeping Jordan around, that’s probably an advantage for the Clippers. Whoever’s running the team will have to excel at building the team’s depth, or at least improve on the spartan supporting cast that’s there now. The placement of Paul, Griffin and Jordan on this year’s All-NBA Teams showed the Clippers’ core is as strong if not stronger than any other in the league. Paul could overcome his playoff demons, Jordan could make more free throws, and Griffin could challenge for the title of the best player in the league, and the Clippers could still fall short of a title if the team can’t fill a rotation with enough players worthy of staying on the floor.
Cap Footnotes
1 — The Clippers waived Delfino in August 2014 and used the stretch provision to spread his remaining guaranteed salary over the next five seasons.
2 — The Clippers waived Farmar as part of a buyout deal in January and used the stretch provision to spread his remaining guaranteed salary over the next three seasons.
3 — The Clippers waived Raduljica in August 2014 and used the stretch provision to spread his remaining guaranteed salary over the next five seasons.
4 — Crawford’s salary is partially guaranteed for $1,500,000.
5 — Barnes’ salary is partially guaranteed for $1,000,000.
6 — Hudson’s salary becomes fully guaranteed if he remains under contract through July 15th.
The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post.
Draft Notes: Rozier, Looney, Timberwolves
The NBA draft is just one month from tonight. The lottery and the combine are finished, so team workouts will be the main focus from now until draft night. Now that we know where every team will pick, we debuted our mock draft this weekend, and we’re continuing with our Prospect Profile series. Here’s more on the draft as the event starts to get close:
- Louisville point guard Terry Rozier has made a habit of overcoming the odds, and he didn’t disappoint in his workout with the Jazz this weekend, according to Utah vice president of player personnel Walt Perrin, as Carter Williams of the Deseret News examines. The Jazz were one of 17 teams scheduled to audition Rozier, Williams writes, a group that apparently includes the Rockets and Spurs.
- Kevon Looney added the Nets, Wizards, Jazz, Suns, Bulls, Cavs, Raptors, Hawks and Knicks to the list of the teams he interviewed with at the draft combine earlier this month, as the UCLA power forward revealed to Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News. Looney is a raw prospect, but even though he feels he could have improved if he’d stayed in college, he tells Medina that he’s confident he can also develop at the NBA level.
- Connecticut point guard Ryan Boatright, LSU power forward Jordan Mickey, Texas combo forward Jonathan Holmes and Louisville swingman Wayne Blackshear are among the players tentatively scheduled to work out Friday for the Timberwolves, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link).
And-Ones: Max Players, Clippers, Bulls, Payrolls
The benefits to this summer’s max-level free agents of signing a short-term deal to re-enter free agency when the cap surges in the next couple of years outweigh the risks, argues Louis Roxin of RealGM. A couple of executives who spoke to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders take the opposite viewpoint, arguing that the specter of a decline in production, a major injury, or both make it too difficult to pass up a four- or five-year deal (Twitter links). Of course, team executives probably want to avoid paying a premium if they can avoid it, but how it all plays out this summer will be fascinating to watch. Here’s more from around the league:
- Clippers reserve Dahntay Jones insists there’s no rift between DeAndre Jordan and Chris Paul, as had been reported, telling TMZ that everyone on the team is united in their desire for Jordan to re-sign in free agency this summer. “Those guys are brothers, man,” Jones said of Jordan and Paul. “They sit with each other on the plane, on the bus. If you don’t like a guy you stay away from him.”
- The Bulls front office was miffed when Tom Thibodeau left his last contract extension unsigned for months and think he hasn’t given them enough credit for building the roster, while some in the organization feel the coach wants more power, as Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com hears. Friedell provides a timeline of the breakdown in the relationship between the coach and the Chicago brass.
- The Nets have the highest 2014/15 payroll, but their paltry $351K in money to the waived Brandon Davies pales in comparison to the $24.8MM the crosstown Knicks spent on six players no longer on the roster, including Amar’e Stoudemire, as Pincus examines.
Teams With The Most 2015 Draft Picks
Don’t cry for the Sixers because they didn’t wind up with either of the two extra lottery picks that could have come their way. GM Sam Hinkie isn’t morose about it, in part because the team will receive those first-rounders from the Lakers and Heat eventually, and because Philadelphia has a league-high six total picks this year anyway. That’s the case even though the Sixers traded away their own second-round pick. Only the Celtics, with four, even come close. If there’s a team that deserves sympathy, it’s the Clippers. They’re the only franchise without a pick this year, and thanks in large measure to their max deals for Blake Griffin and Chris Paul, they’re without many other means to improve this offseason.
Five of Philly’s six picks come in the second round, including two of the last three picks, a result of Hinkie’s prioritization of second-rounders in trades. A second-round pick isn’t as likely to become a productive player as a first-round pick is, but the Sixers have five times as many chances to find an exception to the rule than they would if they had stood pat.
While 19 of this year’s 60 picks changed hands, including 14 in the second round, precisely half the teams in the league possess two picks, the same number as if there hadn’t been any trades. Some of those teams did trade at least one of their selections, but in those cases, they pulled off other deals to even the ledger.
Here’s a breakdown of each team’s picks, categorized by the total amount of selections they have. To check out the order by selection, click here:
Six picks
- Sixers (3, 35, 37, 47, 58, 60)
Four picks
- Celtics (16, 28, 33, 45)
Three picks
- Hawks (15, 50, 59)
- Jazz (12, 42, 54)
- Lakers (2, 27, 34)
- Timberwolves (1, 31, 36)
Two picks
- Bucks (17, 46)
- Cavaliers (24, 53)
- Heat (10, 40)
- Hornets (9, 39)
- Magic (5, 51)
- Mavericks (21, 52)
- Nets (29, 41)
- Nuggets (7, 57)
- Pacers (11, 43)
- Pistons (8, 38)
- Rockets (18, 32)
- Spurs (26, 55)
- Suns (13, 44)
- Thunder (14, 48)
- Wizards (19, 49)
One pick
- Bulls (22)
- Grizzlies (25)
- Kings (6)
- Knicks (4)
- Pelicans (56)
- Raptors (20)
- Trail Blazers (23)
- Warriors (30)
No picks
- Clippers
Northwest Notes: Nuggets, Wolves, Batum
The centerpieces for the Nuggets appear to be Danilo Gallinari and Jusuf Nurkic, as Mark Kiszla of The Denver Post sees it, and Kiszla finds it reasonable that the team will talk this summer about trading Ty Lawson, Kenneth Faried, or both. In any case, team president Josh Kroenke made it clear to Kiszla and fellow Post scribe Christopher Dempsey that he intends a strong push to find a star.
“There’s a period of transition that’s coming up, and we’re going to be aggressive … as an organization,” Kroenke said. “And continue to be aggressive until we feel we have the roster that truly can compete for something special.”
Kroenke judges by the volume of trade inquiries that he’s received from other teams, which include two calls since the season ended, that the players on Denver’s roster have plenty of value, Dempsey notes. There’s more on the Nuggets amid the latest from the Northwest Division:
- The Timberwolves are tentatively planning a predraft workout with two-guards Rashad Vaughn from UNLV, J.P. Tokoto from North Carolina and Michael Frazier from Florida next month, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter links).
- The prospect of a Nicolas Batum trade seemed far-fetched last summer, but now it’s a realistic possibility, as The Oregonian’s Joe Freeman writes in a roundtable piece with other Blazers beat writers. Freeman would nonetheless bet on Batum staying in Portland and having a bounceback season in 2015/16, the last on his contract.
- Thunder GM Sam Presti wants to re-sign Enes Kanter and Kyle Singler, and that has to do with the team’s cap situation as much as the talent and production of the pair of soon-to-be restricted free agents, The Oklahoman’s Darnell Mayberry posits. Let them go, and the Thunder wouldn’t have the cap flexibility to replace them, Mayberry points out.
- Kroenke pointed to a lack of communication as the most unexpected shortcoming of Brian Shaw‘s tenure as Nuggets coach, as Dempsey writes in a separate piece.
Mitch Kupchak On Kobe, Draft, Trades
Kobe Bryant has signaled to Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak that the 2015/16 season will be his last as an NBA player, as the GM relayed Thursday in a radio appearance with Rick Fox and Jared Greenberg on SiriusXM NBA Radio (audio links), and as Baxter Holmes of ESPNLosAngeles.com passes along. Bryant hasn’t ruled out playing beyond next season, Holmes notes, and said in March that he would probably hold off on a decision until after the 2015/16 campaign is through. Still, if there’s a free agent who would hesitate to sign with the Lakers because he’s worried about the presence of Bryant for one or more seasons, that free agent “should go someplace else,” Kupchak said. The GM said on the radio with ESPN’s Colin Cowherd (audio link) that it “looks as though” the Lakers will keep the No. 2 overall pick, but he also made it clear that it’s not a foregone conclusion, as Holmes writes in a separate piece. Kupchak had much more to say in his radio spots, as Holmes transcribes. Both pieces are worth a read for Lakers diehards, but we’ll hit the highlights here:
On Kobe Bryant:
“He’s on the last year of a deal. There have been no discussions about anything going forward. I don’t think there will be. He’s indicated to me that this is it. A year from now, if there’s something different to be discussed, then it will be discussed then. I talk to him from time to time … and he is recovering. He’s running. He’s getting movement and strength in the shoulder. We expect a full recovery, but yeah, he’s much closer to the end than to the beginning.”
On the strength of this year’s draft class:
“I do think that there are four or five players that are very, very good, and when you look back on [the draft] 10 years from now, I think they could all be All-Stars. But I don’t think there’s anybody that next year will lead a team to champagne in June. If that does happen, particularly with us, then we’ll have to get lucky in the offseason, particularly with free agency. Kobe is going to have to come back and be very healthy, which I understand he’s on track for. But I don’t think right now that there’s anybody who can make that kind of difference right away.”
On whether perimeter players have become more important than big men:
“You could argue that. The jury is still out, but you could argue that, and there’s no doubt that the game that’s being played today is very different from the game that was played eight to 10 years ago. It’s the three-point shots, the drive-and-kick [style]. Now, the teams that have had great success still have centers. San Antonio, they’ve done pretty well with a center there. Memphis has a great center. Although they didn’t advance this year, they have an excellent team. Golden State, they don’t use their center to score points, but they still have a 7-foot, 7-foot-1 guy. So you still need size in this league. You need a rim protector. A guy that takes space. A guy to pass the ball to run the offense through.”
On the value of moving up to the No. 2 pick in the lottery:
“Let’s just say there was a team that had the fifth or sixth or seventh pick, and they wanted to go to No. 2. In that area of the draft, just to move up two or three or four slots, normally, it’s hard to do. And the price that that team would pay would be high, because they’ve targeted a player that they really want. Obviously the other team would know that, and they would have to pay for that.”
Central Notes: Blatt, Hezonja, Bucks, Pacers
Part of the heat that’s surrounded Cavs coach David Blatt this year is media-driven, argues Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. His brusque manner with reporters has fueled a perhaps unprecedented level of criticism, Amico writes, but owner Dan Gilbert is in his corner one year after making the surprising hire. While we wait to see if Blatt can lead the Cavs to a 2-0 series lead on the Hawks tonight, here’s more from around the Central Division:
- Mario Hezonja makes sense for the Pistons at draft pick No. 8, and while he’s a streaky shooter who has a prickly demeanor with teammates, he doesn’t carry nearly the same risk as Darko Milicic did when the Pistons blew the No. 2 pick on him in 2003, writes Terry Foster of The Detroit News.
- Bucks GM John Hammond wants the team to build “organically” with a long-term approach and said Milwaukee will target size and shooting in the draft this year, as The Associated Press relays. “We’re still very much an unfinished product,” Hammond said. “We need to continue to add toughness and energy to our team, so we have multiple needs.”
- The Pacers on Tuesday will work out draft prospects Delon Wright, Marcus Thornton, Pat Connaughton, Jabril Trawick, Greg Whittington and Jonathan Holmes, the team announced. Thornton, a point guard from William & Mary, is not to be confused with the forward from Georgia by the same name who worked out for the Sixers, and of course he isn’t the six-year NBA veteran shooting guard who also goes by that name.
Offseason Outlook: Memphis Grizzlies
Guaranteed Contracts
- Zach Randolph ($9,638,555)
- Mike Conley ($9,388,426)
- Courtney Lee ($5,675,000)
- Tony Allen ($5,168,539)
- Vince Carter ($4,088,019)
- Jordan Adams ($1,404,600)
- Jarnell Stokes ($845,059)
- (Fab Melo $437,080)1
- (Jamaal Franklin $163,297)2
Non-Guaranteed Contracts
- Beno Udrih ($2,170,465)3
- Jon Leuer ($1,035,000)
- JaMychal Green ($845,059)4
- Russ Smith ($845,059)5
Options
- Jeff Green ($9,200,000 — Player)6
Restricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- Nick Calathes ($1,147,276) — $1,147,276 qualifying offer7
Unrestricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- Marc Gasol ($18,960,000)8
- (Steven Hunter $7,022,400)9
- Kosta Koufos ($5,700,000)9
- No. 25 pick ($1,025,700)9
- (Gilbert Arenas $947,276)9
- (Keyon Dooling $947,276)9
- (Leon Powe $947,276)9
- (Marcus Williams $947,276)9
Draft Picks
- 1st Round (25th overall)
Cap Outlook
- Guaranteed Salary: $37,881,575
- Non-Guaranteed Salary: $3,822,583
- Options: $9,200,000
- Cap Holds: $37,644,480
- Total: $88,548,638
Five straight years, the Grizzlies have taken their core of Tony Allen, Mike Conley, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph to the playoffs, and five straight years, they’ve failed to break through to the Finals, much less win a title. A loss to the 67-win Warriors in this year’s playoffs wasn’t at all unexpected, but it was nonetheless tough to take after Memphis broke out to a 2-1 series lead. It’s worth wondering if this team, as constructed, can ever reach the pinnacle. The Grizzlies appear prepared to give it another try, to foist a maximum-salary contract on the 30-year-old Gasol with the faith that his improvement this season wasn’t the last step forward he’ll take as a player before he begins an inevitable age-induced series of steps back. Gasol, whose heart is in Memphis but who wants to win, has to decide this summer if he, too, believes that it’s possible with this Grizzlies team.
The former Defensive Player of the Year has given precious few hints about the path he’ll choose, but signals from elsewhere suggest Gasol’s favored path leads right back where he’s been. The Spurs worry Memphis the most among Gasol’s many fans among NBA front offices, but they’re poised to pursue LaMarcus Aldridge, seen as more obtainable, before they go after Gasol, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com recently reported. The Knicks became pessimistic early in the season about their chances to land Gasol, as Marc Berman of the New York Post heard then, and more recently Beno Udrih, whom the Grizzlies claimed off waivers from the Knicks last year, said he doesn’t think the Knicks have a chance. Indeed, most of Gasol’s teammates think he’ll be back, according to Michael Wallace of ESPN.com, and GM Chris Wallace does, too, as he told WHBQ-AM.
If somehow they turn out to be wrong, it would be a mighty blow to the franchise but not necessarily a devastating one. Memphis would likely be able to clear enough cap room for a max offer to at least the marquee free agents eligible for the 30% max, if not those in line for 35% or more. The Grizzlies could pitch Aldridge on the idea of having a team where he’d be an unquestioned lead dog. They could point to Gasol’s offensive strides and tell DeAndre Jordan that he can make the same sort of improvements under coach Dave Joerger and his staff. They could rectify perhaps the franchise’s most egregious mistake, trading Kevin Love on draft night in 2008, and tell him, if he opts out this summer, that he can compete for titles in Memphis just as he could in Cleveland but without the pressure of “fit in or fit out” admonitions from LeBron James.
Still, it appears the most likely scenario involves the Grizzlies luring none other than their own star to sign a 30% max deal, probably for the full five seasons. Unless Gasol engineers a short-term deal, Memphis would luck out and avoid him catching the first wave of the rising salary cap when it rolls in next season. The Grizzlies as it is are without any eight-figure salaries on the books for next season, and while a max deal for Gasol and an opt-in from Jeff Green would keep Memphis from opening cap room this summer, the team would be primed to go into the summer of 2016 with plenty of flexibility. That’s when Conley comes up for a new deal to replace the bargain contract that’s allowed the Grizzlies to make other moves to stay on the fringes of the title picture the past few seasons. Re-signing Conley would take the higher max that Gasol appears to be missing out on, and while whatever deal Gasol might sign this summer wouldn’t look like quite as much of a bargain come 2016/17 as Conley has been, the Grizzlies would benefit nonetheless.
For now, Memphis is waiting on Gasol and Green. It appears the thinking for now is that Green will opt in, as Stein wrote, but that’s far from certain. If Green opts out and Gasol re-signs, Memphis could open roughly $7MM in cap space, based on the projected $67.1MM cap and an estimated $19MM max for Gasol. That would involve stripping away a host of supporting characters, including Kosta Koufos, and unloading the 25th overall pick or using it on a draft-and-stash prospect. There would be ways for the Grizzlies to use that space to shore up some of their deficiencies. DeMarre Carroll would fit right in defensively and give the team a legitimate three-point threat. The same could be said of Danny Green, while Arron Afflalo, should he opt out of his deal with the Blazers, is a proven scorer who could add another dimension to the Grizzlies offense. Still, it would take a lot of contingencies to break in the right direction for any of them to end up in Memphis.
It seems more likely that Memphis stays above the cap and has the $5.464MM mid-level as its primary financial tool for an upgrade. Koufos has expressed a desire for more playing time, making him a threat to bolt, so the Grizzlies may well find themselves debating the merits of an upgrade on the wing or at backup center. The team’s level of faith that Jordan Adams, last year’s first-round pick, can make a contribution next season would play into that. Memphis knows what it has in Jon Leuer, who’s been on the fringe of the rotation the past two seasons, so that might be comfort enough for the club to go after the likes of Marco Belinelli, Mike Dunleavy, or Jared Dudley with the mid-level. The Grizzlies could probably split the mid-level and still come away with Gerald Green, Rodney Stuckey, Luke Babbitt or Wesley Johnson, though each of them comes with the risk of being just another wing player who doesn’t give Memphis enough of what it needs.
Indeed, these Grizzlies have always lacked a dynamic threat on the wing who can both attack the basket and shoot from the outside while playing capable defense. Such talents aren’t easy to find for a team without eight-figure cap flexibility, but the test for Wallace is to find one on the cheap, develop one from within or, as he and former CEO Jason Levien have tried to do since the Rudy Gay trade, cobble together the right mix of flawed but talented role players. That’s not easy, but Wallace would surely be glad to attack that deficiency rather than worry about how to replace his star center.
The emergence of the Grizzlies as one of the league’s most respected defensive forces over the past several years mirrored Gasol’s development into the same, and that’s no coincidence. This summer will go a long way toward determining whether that’s as far as they both can go, or if there’s another growth spurt left for both sides.
Cap Footnotes
1 — The Grizzlies waived Melo in August 2013 and used the stretch provision to spread his remaining guaranteed salary over the next three seasons.
2 — The Grizzlies waived Franklin in August 2014 and used the stretch provision to spread his remaining guaranteed salary over the next five seasons.
3 — Udrih’s salary is partially guaranteed for $923,000.
4 — Green’s salary is partially guaranteed for $150,000.
5 — Smith’s salary becomes partially guaranteed for $150K if he remains under contract through July 15th and fully guaranteed if he remains under contract through July 25th.
6 — The cap hold for Green would be $13,800,000 if he opts out.
7 — The cap hold for Calathes would be $947,276 if the Grizzlies elect not to tender a qualifying offer.
8 — The cap hold for Gasol will be the lesser of $23,744,532 and the NBA’s maximum salary for a player with his seven years of experience. That maximum will almost certainly be less than $23,744,532, so the number listed above is an estimate of the max.
9 — See our glossary entry on cap holds for an explanation why these players technically remain on the books.
The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Southwest Notes: Gentry, Gasol, Mavs
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr confirmed Thursday that lead assistant Alvin Gentry has interviewed for the Pelicans head coaching job, as Kerr told reporters, including Antonio Gonzalez of The Associated Press. Kerr said he’s OK with Gentry taking time to interview on off days, Gonzalez notes, and a source close to Gentry told John Reid of The Times-Picayune that it appears as though Gentry will again interview with New Orleans after Golden State’s season is over. Here’s more from around the Southwest Division:
- Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger feels as though Marc Gasol has essentially already made up his mind about what he’ll do in free agency, but he’ll head to Spain sometime soon to pitch the All-NBA First Team center on re-signing with the Grizzlies, notes Geoff Calkins of The Commercial Appeal in a subscription-only piece. The Grizzlies don’t seem too nervous, but Gasol isn’t giving any promises, and his departure would be a devastating blow to the franchise, Calkins argues.
- Count GM Chris Wallace among those in the Grizzlies organization with confidence in Gasol’s return. “I firmly believe we will re-sign Marc Gasol this summer,” Wallace said on WHBQ-AM radio, according to host Peter Edmiston (Twitter link).
- Unless the Mavericks can lure Gasol or DeAndre Jordan to Dallas this summer, they should prioritize re-signing Tyson Chandler, as Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News believes.
- A panel of ESPN.com writers, in an Insider-only piece, agree that the Pelicans coaching job is more attractive than a would-be opening for the Bulls and that New Orleans should look to re-sign Omer Asik this summer.
Lakers, Celtics, Pistons Eye DeMarre Carroll
The Lakers have major interest in soon-to-be free agent DeMarre Carroll, a source tells Sean Deveney of The Sporting News, who adds the Celtics and the Pistons to the list of teams interested in the vastly improved small forward. Carroll went down with a left knee injury Wednesday during Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, but an MRI revealed only a sprain, the team announced via press release, listing him as questionable for Game 2.
An executive who spoke recently with Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops estimated Carroll’s next annual salary will be around $8-9MM, a giant leap from his pay of little more than $2.442MM this season. The Hawks would like to re-sign Carroll, Deveney writes, but they only have Early Bird rights on him, meaning they’d have to use cap space to give him a starting salary of any more than about $6MM. Atlanta has the cap flexibility to pay him $8-9MM next year, as do the Lakers, Celtics and Pistons, but the Hawks won’t have the chance to give him a five-year contract or 7.5% raises as they could with full Bird rights, which would have given Atlanta a leg up on other teams.
Carroll, when prompted last month, said he’d be interested in the Knicks, though more recently he made it clear that he places a high value on player development, a strength of the Hawks franchise. The former 27th overall pick bounced around to four teams in his first four NBA seasons before becoming a standout three-point shooter with the Hawks. He nailed 39.5% of his attempts from behind the arc this season, a career high.