Heat, Dorell Wright To Meet About Possible Signing
The Heat and Dorell Wright are scheduled to meet about the possibility of a deal, league sources told The Vertical’s Shams Charania. The sources suggested the sides could have a formal agreement by Sunday, Charania adds. Miami is once more eligible to sign a player without crossing the tax threshold.
The Heat have 13 players, two shy of the limit, and they reportedly plan to carry 15 players into the playoffs. They’re only $46,106 shy of the tax and a prorated minimum salary contract would count $5,572 per day for tax purposes. That means they can sign one player today and another on Wednesday, the final day of the regular season, while still avoiding the tax. Sunday is the first day they could sign two players in one day without incurring the tax.
Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald wrote this weekend that the Heat were considering Wright, as well as Briante Weber. Reports have connected the Heat and Wright since last summer, when Jackson heard the sides were in talks. The 11-year NBA veteran wound up signing to play in China, but the Chinese season is over and he’s free to sign with any NBA team. The Heat checked on Wright shortly before the end of his time in China, as Jackson reported then.
The 30-year-old Wright told Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders last month that he would prefer a multiyear deal, and while the Heat have the ability to accommodate him, it would slightly after the timing of their ability to sign him and fill the 15th roster spot, since that would increase his salary for tax purposes to $8,819 per day. The Heat would meanwhile insist that Wright and anyone else they sign be comfortable with the idea of being placed on the inactive list for playoff games, as Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel hears (Twitter link). NBA teams can only have 13 active players for any game.
Still, the Heat and Wright have a long history that dates to 2004, when Miami drafted him 19th overall. He played his first six NBA seasons with Miami and has a close relationship with Dwyane Wade, Charania notes. His most recent NBA appearance was with the Trail Blazers last season, when he averaged 4.6 points in 12.3 minutes per game with 38% 3-point shooting.
Grizzlies Sign Xavier Munford To Two-Year Deal
THURSDAY, 11:24am: The signing is official, the Grizzlies announced via press release, referring to it as a multiyear deal. Memphis is limited to the minimum salary exception, so that means Munford’s new contract is a two-year arrangement that covers the rest of the 2015/16 season and 2016/17. He’ll make $874,636 next season and, provided the contract begins today as the team indicates, it’ll pay $21,621 for this season. The Grizzlies have a team option on next season, a league source tells Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal (Twitter link). The team waived Ryan Hollins minutes ago, so Memphis has 16 players as it stands.
WEDNESDAY, 9:06am: The Grizzlies will sign shooting guard Xavier Munford for the rest of the season and the playoffs, a league source tells Shams Charania of The Vertical (Twitter link). Chris Herrington of The Commercial Appeal suggested earlier this week that such a move would come in light of his increasing role and production. Still, it’s unclear whether the Grizzlies would be allowed to carry extra roster spots in the postseason as they’ve done since last month via the hardship provision, so the fate of some Memphis players is unclear. The Grizzlies currently have 16 players, one over the usual limit, and that doesn’t include Munford.
Bryce Cotton is on a 10-day contract that expires after Saturday’s game against the Warriors, and the other 15 Grizzlies have contracts that cover the rest of the regular season and the playoffs. If the NBA won’t let the Grizzlies carry extra players into the playoffs, they’ll have to waive one of those 15 for Munford to stick around, and two if they also want to keep Cotton.
The Grizzlies haven’t clinched a playoff spot yet, but they drew closer to doing so with Tuesday’s win over the Bulls. Memphis has a three and a half game lead on the ninth-place Rockets.
Munford is averaging 5.6 points in 14.2 minutes per game for the Grizzlies and has nailed eight of his 13 attempts from behind the arc. He played nearly 34 minutes in Sunday’s game against the Magic and has averaged 24.4 minutes over the last three outings for Memphis. The 23-year-old who went undrafted out of Rhode Island in 2014 had never signed an NBA contract before he inked his first 10-day deal with the Grizzlies last month, having instead played most of this season and last for the D-League affiliate of the Suns. It’s unclear if his new contract with Memphis will also cover next season, but if it doesn’t, the Grizzlies would be able to make him a restricted free agent this summer and match offers for him.
Fallout From Sixers Front Office Change
The resignation of Sixers GM Sam Hinkie on Wednesday night brought an end to one of the most controversial front office tenures the NBA has ever seen. Philadelphia went 47-195 in Hinkie’s time, its winning percentage decreasing in each of his three seasons. Now, it appears the task of rebuilding the Sixers will fall to Bryan Colangelo, whom the team is reportedly poised to hire as its new GM, and his father, Jerry Colangelo, the team’s chairman of basketball operations. See the fallout from Philly:
- Hinkie’s resignation shocked Sixers higher-ups, a league source told Pompey. Hinkie was with the team and other members of the organization for three hours, posed for the team picture and met with managing owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer for 90 minutes before dropping his bombshell of a resignation letter, Pompey relays. Members of the Sixers brass were keen on Hinkie’s knowledge of analytics and ability to manage the salary cap but found him lacking in other skills necessary for the GM job, so they met with him at times over the past three or four months about reducing his role and mitigating his shortcomings, according to Pompey. Those conversations heated up over the past two weeks, Pompey adds.
8:58am updates:
- Coach Brett Brown was a Hinkie hire, but his job is safe, a league source told Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link). The Sixers extended Brown’s contract through the 2018/19 season shortly after Jerry Colangelo’s hiring in December.
- The Sixers were planning to announce after the season that Hinkie would be in charge of analytics and that they were bringing someone else into the front office, a league source told Tom Moore of Calkins Media (Twitter link). Sources told Pompey that the team asked Hinkie to take a lesser role to accommodate the hiring of Bryan Colangelo. Ownership thought Hinkie would accept this sort of arrangement, according to The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
- Tension built between Hinkie and ownership in the months after the team hired Jerry Colangelo, league sources told John Gonzalez of CSNPhilly.com. The owners wanted the Colangelos to take the lead role in dealing with players and agents in free agency, but Hinkie thought he “had it covered,” Gonzalez hears.
- Hinkie stepped down without notifying his employees, who learned of his resignation via social media, several sources told Pompey for the same piece. Staff who worked under Hinkie were often frustrated about his lack of communication, Wojnarowski tweets. Hinkie was reluctant to trust anyone outside a small circle of confidants and employees he hired, team sources told David Aldridge of NBA.com.
Wolves Owner Thinks Kevin Garnett Will Return
Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor doesn’t anticipate Kevin Garnett retiring in the offseason, as Taylor relayed Wednesday night to Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). The 39-year-old who turns 40 next month is under contract at $8MM for the 2016/17 season, which would be his record 22nd year in the NBA.
“You’d have to ask him, but from everything he’s told me, he wants to be [back],” Taylor said.
Many people close to Garnett weren’t sure whether or not he’d return to play next season, Wolfson said in a February podcast. Garnett hasn’t appeared in a game since January 23rd as he’s dealt with soreness in his right knee.
His decision is liable to affect what former teammate Paul Pierce does, as they’ve frequently considered the idea of retiring at the same time, according to Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald. Pierce, 38, is in the first season of a three-year contract with the Clippers. His salary of nearly $3.528MM for next season is fully guaranteed, while only about $1.096MM is guaranteed for 2017/18.
Garnett started in all 38 games he played this season, though he only averaged a career-low 14.6 minutes per contest. His primary role has been as a locker room leader for the team’s young core. He’s expressed interest in eventually buying the Wolves, though he can’t own even a minority share until after his playing days are done.
Indiana C Thomas Bryant Declines To Enter Draft
Indiana freshman center Thomas Bryant has decided against entering this year’s NBA draft, sources told Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The 6’10” 18-year-old had been a first-round prospect, coming in 23rd in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings and 26th with Chad Ford of ESPN.com. He figures to improve his stock with another year in college, as Givony has him eighth in his 2017 mock draft.
The relative youth of the Rochester, New York, native raised concern for one NBA executive, who told Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv he doesn’t think Bryant is physically ready for the NBA. Still, it’s somewhat surprising that he didn’t at least enter the draft to go through workouts and the combine and gauge his stock, since prospects can do so and still retain their college eligibility if they withdraw from the draft by May 25th and refrain from hiring an agent. That said, prospects can only “test the waters” twice before they become automatically draft-eligible, so if Bryant had entered and withdrawn from the draft this year and again next year, he could be drafted after his junior year, ready or not.
Bryant was No. 25 in the Recruiting Services Consensus Index last year, but the Hoosiers limited his playing time this season to some degree as he averaged just 22.6 minutes per game. He posted 11.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per outing with 68.3% shooting.
Highlights From Sam Hinkie’s Resignation Letter
The 13-page resignation letter than GM Sam Hinkie sent to Sixers owners, which Marc Stein of ESPN obtained, lays bare the philosophy of an executive whose tenure was marked by public silence as much as it was by lost games. It was nonetheless a common example of the sort of communication he privately had with the owners, according to Sam Amick of USA Today (Twitter link). In his latest dispatch, Hinkie cites everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Warren Buffett to Bill Belichick, among less notorious figures, as Tom Haberstroh of ESPN.com notes (Twitter link). The ex-GM defends the moves he made, along with the general ideas of taking the long view and going against the grain.
“To develop truly contrarian views will require a never-ending thirst for better, more diverse inputs,” Hinkie writes. “What player do you think is most undervalued? Get him for your team. What basketball axiom is most likely to be untrue? Take it on and do the opposite. What is the biggest, least valuable time sink for the organization? Stop doing it. Otherwise, it’s a big game of pitty pat, and you’re stuck just hoping for good things to happen, rather than developing a strategy for how to make them happen.”
We’ll hit the highlights of the more than 7,000-word opus here:
- Robert Covington is with the Sixers now, but he was originally with the Rockets, a sore point for Hinkie, who says he wanted him immediately after he went undrafted in 2013 but instead returned from his postdraft press conference to discover Covington was off the market. Hinkie writes that he stewed over that for more than a year until signing him in November 2014, a few weeks after Houston waived him.
- Hinkie claims that the Sixers set an all-time NBA record in acquiring the rights or swap rights to more than 26 draft picks in his first 26 months as GM.
- Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge received Hinkie’s Executive of the Year vote in 2014 after the Celtics acquired a first-round pick and a second-round pick along with Joel Anthony in a January trade that year. Hinkie had worked to acquire the same package, he writes.
- Hinkie points to a recent quote from Peter Holt, the former primary owner of the Spurs, who said the free agent signing of LaMarcus Aldridge was years in the making. Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News originally had the story. “Give R.C. Buford credit,” Holt said. “[Gregg Popovich] is a great coach, but R.C. came to us with this plan three years ago, four years ago — seriously. And we’ve worked at it ever since. He, by far, was the general. We wouldn’t be where we are, in this position, if it hadn’t have been for R.C. Buford.”
Hoops Rumors Chat Transcript
4:02pm: We hosted the weekly live chat.
3:30pm: Early entrants for the NBA draft have dominated the headlines this week, but it’s been a newsy day in more traditional NBA circles, with the Knicks, Timberwolves and a possible reunion for Dwight Howard and Chandler Parsons making waves. All the stories have left less than the usual amount of time to chat, but we can still cover lots of ground.
Rubio Says GM Told Him He Was Almost Traded
Ricky Rubio says Timberwolves GM Milt Newton told him the team “almost traded” him at the deadline but didn’t because the right offer didn’t come, but Newton dismissed that notion, saying the point guard might have misinterpreted their conversation, as both relayed in interviews with Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press. Reports indicated the Wolves engaged in trade talk regarding Rubio before the February deadline with the Bucks and, to a lesser degree, the Knicks. Milwaukee turned down an offer of Rubio and a protected 2016 first-round pick for Khris Middleton, while Minnesota rejected a counterproposal of Michael Carter-Williams for Rubio, according to Zach Lowe of ESPN.com.
“When the GM comes to you and says that’s what happened, it hurts, but you’ve got to be professional,” Rubio said. “You’ve been here all your career and thinking they were supporting you. At some point, they weren’t. But I’m professional. I’m going to give it my all. I love playing basketball and every time I step on the court I want to win.”
Newton told Krawczynski he would try to communicate more often with Rubio and said he’s already sought the point guard’s input on possible moves. The GM, to whom the Wolves have committed through at least the summer, called Rubio “extremely valuable to the organization,” as Krawczynski notes.
“I told him we’ve never, ever called another team to trade you, but it is my job to listen,” Newton said. “I even shared that with his agent. I never told him we almost traded you, because we didn’t almost trade him.”
Parsons To Discuss Teaming Up With Dwight
Chandler Parsons answered affirmatively when Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com asked whether he and Dwight Howard would have conversations this summer about teaming up again. Parsons and Howard, who played together on the Rockets during the 2013/14 season, are both expected to turn down their respective player options for next season and hit free agency this summer.
The Mavericks are the front-runners to retain Parsons, as MacMahon previously reported, and while the Mavs have interest in Howard, they wouldn’t approach the maximum salary of nearly $30MM in a contract offer to him, MacMahon hears (ESPN Now link). Parsons, in his interview with MacMahon, expressed his affection for Dallas, the Mavs organization, coach Rick Carlisle and Dirk Nowitzki. Parsons called Mark Cuban the best owner in the NBA and said he wouldn’t want to play for anyone else, but he stopped short of committing to stay with the Mavericks. The versatile forward has played a key recruting role for the Mavericks as they’ve pursued free agents in the past, but he indicated that’s on hold until his own contractual situation is resolved.
“It’s tricky, because if I’m going out and I’m recruiting a free agent right in the beginning of free agency, and they obviously know that I’ve opted out of my contract and I’m still not signed with the Mavs, it’s difficult for them to get an understanding of what the foundation of the Mavs is going to be going forward when the main guy recruiting them still isn’t signed,” Parsons told MacMahon. “That’s something that [agent Dan] Fegan and Mark and [president of basketball operations] Donnie [Nelson] and everybody, they have to talk early on to maybe get something done. Obviously, Dan will be talking to every team in the league with there being so much cap space everywhere, but that’s a tricky thing. I can’t really recruit anybody to Dallas until I know that I’m coming back to Dallas.”
The Magic are reportedly Parsons’ second choice, and Howard apparently has interest in returning to Orlando if he can’t re-sign with the Rockets. Parsons also detailed the close relationship he still has with other former teammates still with Houston as part of his chat with MacMahon.
Dragan Bender Enters Draft
11:40am: Bender is unlikely to take part in any predraft workouts for NBA teams, Pick hears (Twitter link). The season for his team in Israel could stretch until June 9th, precisely two weeks prior to the draft, as Pick points out.
9:14am: The buyout in Bender’s Israel deal is in excess of $1MM, a source told Pick, who nonetheless adds that he still won’t become a draft-and-stash prospect (Twitter link).
8:46am: Elite European prospect Dragan Bender officially entered the draft this morning, agent Doug Neustadt says, according to Fran Fraschilla of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The 18-year-old power forward already told Maccabi Tel Aviv, the Israeli team he’s played for this season, that he intends to leave, tweets international journalist David Pick. Bender is the No. 3 prospect in the rankings that both Chad Ford of ESPN.com and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress compile.
Officials from at least one NBA team believe the buyout clause in his contract with Maccabi Tel Aviv requires only $650K, precisely the amount an NBA can pay without it affecting his rookie scale contract, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders reported earlier this week. That, combined with the news that he’s told the Israeli team he’s headed elsewhere, seems to make it clear that Bender won’t be a draft-and-stash player and will appear on NBA hardwoods this fall. If so, it’ll bring years of anticipation to a climax, though he doesn’t turn 19 until November, and his body isn’t close to ready for the NBA, Givony wrote in February.
Bender has nonetheless been the object of intrigue for quite some time despite his pedestrian stats overseas. He’s seen just 12.3 minutes per game for Tel Aviv so far this season, averaging 4.7 points and 2.3 rebounds, though he’s shown an emerging 3-point stroke, hitting 39.7% of his 63 attempts. He can play small forward or center in addition to the four, as Ford notes in his profile, and that versatility comes with an underrated toughness, according to Givony.