Raptors Notes: Future, Casey, D-League
Today’s revelation from the Wizards that John Wall has five non-displaced fractures in his left wrist and hand is tough news for Washington, but it has to sting Toronto, too. There’s no timetable for Wall’s return, but the Raptors will surely wonder what would have happened if the injury had occurred a couple weeks earlier when Toronto was playing the Wizards in the first round. Regardless, Toronto is still picking up the pieces from Washington’s four-game sweep. Here’s more from Canada:
- The Raptors abandoned the idea of rebuilding when their level of play surged following the Rudy Gay trade in 2013/14, but GM Masai Ujiri acknowledged that revisiting those plans isn’t out of the question as he spoke Wednesday on TSN 1050 Radio (audio link), notes John Chick of the Score. “That’s an option,” Ujiri said. “Everything we are going to do is going to be what’s good for this organization and competing for a championship in the future.”
- Ujiri also said during the radio appearance that he didn’t read anything into Kyle Lowry‘s comments about Dwane Casey in the team’s season-ending interviews, remarks which some have interpreted as backhanded praise, as Chick relays in the same piece. Still, Ujiri made it clear in that interview and one with Sportsnet 590 The FAN that he still hasn’t decided whether to bring the coach back for next season, Chick also passes along.
- Casey is set to enter the final guaranteed season of his contract in 2015/16, and while the Raptors are unlikely to sign him to an extension this offseason, Toronto probably won’t fire him just yet, either, according to Sean Deveney of The Sporting News.
- A one-to-one D-League affiliate for the Raptors has appeared more likely for 2016/17 than for next season, but regardless, Ujiri, in his TSN radio spot, left little doubt that securing the affiliate is a priority, as Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca tweets. “We’re busting our butt hard to get this done because this would be a huge victory for us,” Ujiri said. “Were in deep, deep talks.”
How Record 13 Coaching Hires From 2013 Fared
The Thunder cast off Scott Brooks and quickly replaced him with Billy Donovan, while the Magic and Nuggets have taken profoundly deliberate approaches to filling their respective vacancies. It’s possible one or more of the eight teams remaining in the playoffs will make a coaching change, and perhaps probable in the case of the Bulls and Tom Thibodeau. Still, this year’s coaching upheaval can’t compare to the sweeping changes of two years ago, when a record 13 teams switched coaches.
The volume of turnover has gone back down in the last two years, but only seven of the coaches hired in that summer of 2013 still remain with the teams that brought them aboard then. Only five of them have compiled winning records with their teams so far, including Jason Kidd, who already moved on from the Nets to the Bucks, displacing Larry Drew, another one of the 2013 hires.
As the coaching market experiences a markedly calmer offseason, we’ll look at each of the 13 men who found work as NBA head coaches in the summer of 2013. They’re profiled in alphabetical order below, with their records in parentheses:
- Brett Brown, Sixers (37-127) — The losses have piled up, but they’ve largely been beyond Brown’s control, and he probably deserves credit for squeezing a few extra wins out of rosters that weren’t truly NBA-caliber. Brown also merits praise for his willingness to wade through perhaps the most radical rebuilding project in NBA history.
- Mike Brown, Cavaliers (33-49) — It was curious to see this Brown return to Cleveland just three years after the team let him go, and it seemed just as strange that the team once more cut ties after only one year with the only man ever to coach the team to an NBA Finals. Still, Cleveland had higher hopes for 2013/14.
- Mike Budenholzer, Hawks (98-66) — It was tough to realize it during last season’s injury-riddled campaign, but Atlanta clearly scored with the longtime Spurs assistant, who won this year’s Coach of the Year award as he piloted the team to 60 wins. He also served as the team’s acting GM in place of Danny Ferry this season, finishing third in Executive of the Year balloting.
- Maurice Cheeks, Pistons (21-29) — His tenure was the first of the 13 coaching hires to end as Detroit fired him midway through the 2013/14 season. Much was expected of the team after it signed Josh Smith the previous summer, but neither interim coach John Loyer or current coach/executive Stan Van Gundy were able to find success with Smith on the roster before Van Gundy waived him in December.
- Steve Clifford, Hornets (76-88) — Clifford was a Coach of the Year candidate when he guided Charlotte to the playoffs in his first season there, but the inability of new acquisition Lance Stephenson to click with the Hornets this year contributed to a season in which Clifford rarely drew praise.
- Larry Drew, Bucks (15-67) — Milwaukee under Drew went through its only season out of the last six in which it failed to finish within 10 games of this year’s .500 mark, but injuries were largely to blame. Drew remained in the job until Jason Kidd entered the picture in late June, and while he said he doesn’t harbor any resentment about the unusually-timed firing, he nonetheless felt blindsided by it.
- Jeff Hornacek, Suns (87-77) — Like Clifford, Hornacek was a Coach of the Year contender in 2014 who failed to match his first-year success in season No. 2. Still, the Suns were widely expected to finish near the bottom of the Western Conference last year, when they won 48 games, while injuries and deadline trades helped scuttle a run at the last playoff spot this year.
- Dave Joerger, Grizzlies (105-59) — A major restructuring of the Grizzlies braintrust nearly included Joerger skipping off to the Timberwolves last summer, but a sweetened deal helped Memphis reel him back in. Memphis hasn’t missed a beat since controversially replacing Lionel Hollins with Joerger two years ago, and Joerger’s record probably would have been even better if Marc Gasol had been fully healthy last season.
- Jason Kidd, Nets (44-38) — Few rookie coaches have ever met with the sort of expectations Kidd had when he retired from the Knicks and stepped into the coaching job with the crosstown Nets, and by and large he failed to live up to them, though the Nets did play markedly better down the stretch. Kidd left behind hard feelings in Brooklyn amid reports of a power play and ultimately his departure for the Bucks last summer.
- Michael Malone, Kings (39-67) — The hard-edged Malone connected with DeMarcus Cousins like few others, but he failed to ingratiate himself quite as well with his bosses. Malone nonetheless might still be coaching in Sacramento if Cousins hadn’t suffered from a bout of viral meningitis that derailed a fast start for this season’s Kings.
- Brian Shaw, Nuggets (56-85) — Shaw’s another coach who fell victim to numerous injuries, at least in his first season, but a healthier Denver squad failed to compete for a playoff berth in 2014/15, and an apparent inability to motivate his players down the stretch this year seemingly led to his late-season dismissal.
- Doc Rivers, Clippers (113-51) — The Clippers paid a high price to the Celtics for the right to hire him, and when they gave him the same $7MM salary he received in Boston, but while his credentials as an executive are questionable, his coaching bona fides are not. New owner Steve Ballmer secured him this summer for the long-term with a new five-year contract for more than $50MM.
- Brad Stevens, Celtics (65-99) — His record scarcely conveys the impression many around the league have of him as a rising star in NBA coaching ranks, a reputation earned in large measure because of the work he did in the second half of this season. The Celtics traded Rajon Rondo, Jeff Green and several others in a whirlwind of moves, but Stevens guided a starless roster to the seventh seed in the playoffs.
And-Ones: Coaches, Jokic, Payne, Draft
Most of the college coaches who’ve come into the NBA over the past two decades have either left basketball schools that gave them wide autonomy, joined NBA teams with little hope of success, or both, observes Phil Taylor of Sports Illustrated. Brad Stevens doesn’t fit either category, and neither does new Thunder hire Billy Donovan, Taylor argues, suggesting that the success Stevens has found with the Celtics is an auspicious omen for Donovan and a signal that more college coaches are on their way to the league. In any case, Stevens is the only college head coach to jump directly to the NBA since 2000 to guide his NBA team to the playoffs, as I pointed out. Here’s more from around the Association:
- The Nuggets are expected to sign 2014 second-round pick Nikola Jokic prior to summer league in July, according to Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post. It’s not entirely clear whether the deal will cover only summer league or will formally bring the 6’11” draft-and-stash prospect onto the roster for training camp in the fall. However, the Nuggets are anxious to see last year’s 41st overall pick compete against NBA-caliber talent, Dempsey writes. The 20-year-old center averaged 14.9 points and 9.0 rebounds in 30.1 minutes per game this season for KK Mega Vizura in his native Serbia.
- It’s Murray State point guard Cameron Payne‘s dual threat of scoring and passing that truly distinguishes him as a top prospect, but his ability to perform on defense is a question mark, as Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz of DraftExpress examine. Givony ranks Payne as the 20th-best draft hopeful.
- Chad Ford and Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com, in an Insider-only piece, debate the avenues the Nuggets, Heat, Pacers and Jazz have to improve via the draft, sharing conflicting viewpoints on whether it would behoove Utah to spend a third consecutive lottery pick on a point guard.
Nuggets, Will Barton Share Interest In New Deal
The Nuggets would like Will Barton to return, writes Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post, and the shooting guard whose contract is up this summer tells Dempsey that he wants to be back in Denver, too, reiterating his earlier remarks. The team is expected to tender the $1,181,348 qualifying offer necessary to match any competing bids for him, according to Dempsey, who indicates that Denver and the Brian Elfus client are likely to wind up with a multiyear deal.
Barton saw sparse playing time with the Blazers over his first two and a half seasons in the league, but the deadline trade that sent him to Denver this February landed him on a rebuilding team with plenty of minutes to go around. He averaged 11.0 points on 9.0 shot attempts in 24.4 minutes per game over 28 appearances for the Nuggets, compiling a better-than-average 15.9 PER during that stretch.
I identified the 24-year-old among several players eligible for restricted free agency this summer with relatively even chances of being tendered a qualifying offer, but it appears the team is much higher on the former 40th overall pick than I figured. Barton struggles from the outside, having shot only 28.4% from three-point range in Denver and 23.0% for his career, but Dempsey observes that he helped the Nuggets play an up-tempo game, the sort of style the team seems to want its next head coach to implement. Interim coach Melvin Hunt had praise for Barton, but Hunt’s chances of remaining in his job for next season are unclear.
Wilson Chandler‘s partial guarantee of $2MM has jumped to a full guarantee of nearly $7.172MM, as Dempsey notes in a separate piece, so the Nuggets have about $53MM in commitments for next season, not counting a player option of nearly $2.855MM for Jameer Nelson. It remains to be seen what a new deal for Barton, who made the minimum this year, and the Nuggets would look like, but extending the qualifying offer to up his cap hold by a mere $200K would do little to impinge upon the team’s flexibility against a projected $67.1MM cap.
Offseason Outlook: San Antonio Spurs
Guaranteed Contracts
- Tony Parker ($13,437,500)
- Tiago Splitter ($8,500,000)
- Boris Diaw ($7,500,000)
- Patty Mills ($3,578,947)
- Kyle Anderson ($1,142,879)
Non-Guaranteed Contracts
- Reggie Williams ($1,185,784)
Options
- None
Restricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- Kawhi Leonard ($7,235,148) — $4,433,683 qualifying offer
- Cory Joseph ($5,058,153) — $3,034,892 qualifying offer
- Aron Baynes ($3,946,300) — $2,596,250 qualifying offer
Unrestricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- Tim Duncan ($15,542,169)
- Manu Ginobili ($10,500,000)
- Danny Green ($7,647,500)
- (Robert Horry $6,897,000)1
- Marco Belinelli ($3,735,875)
- Jeff Ayres ($2,377,375)
- No. 26 pick ($991,600)
- (Livio Jean-Charles $957,200)2
- Matt Bonner ($947,276)
- (Tracy McGrady $947,276)1
- (Glenn Robinson $947,276)1
- (Damon Stoudamire $947,276)1
- (Nick Van Exel $947,276)1
- (Jacque Vaughn $947,276)1
Draft Picks
- 1st Round (26th overall)
- 2nd Round (55th overall)
Cap Outlook
- Guaranteed Salary: $34,159,326
- Non-Guaranteed Salary: $1,185,784
- Options: $0
- Cap Holds: $54,332,375
- Total: $89,677,485
It seems like the Spurs have been competing in the Finals or Western Conference Finals every season since Tim Duncan arrived back in 1997/98, but there were three times before this year when Duncan’s Spurs lost in the first round. It’s the second one that’s perhaps most instructive. The 2008/09 Spurs managed to go 54-28 in the regular season with Manu Ginobili around for only 44 of those games and none in the playoffs. They fell in five games to the sixth-seeded Mavs in the first round, and in the summer that followed, San Antonio signed Richard Jefferson to a four-year deal worth nearly $39MM. The Spurs put up their worst record of the Duncan era the next season and grew to regret their rare signing of a significant free agent.
Now, it appears the Spurs are plotting an even more serious foray into the free agent market, having reportedly made Marc Gasol their top target most of this season and more recently developed apparent mutual interest in LaMarcus Aldridge. The dynamics are somewhat different now than they were in 2009, since Duncan and Ginobili are six years older and that much closer to the end. Ginobili suggested this week that he’s contemplating retirement more seriously than ever, and that his decision will hinge on Duncan’s. Both are set for free agency this summer, ostensibly making it that much easier for them to say goodbye to the NBA. Still, there were questions even in 2009 about how much longer either of them would last, or at least remain productive, and both were integral parts of San Antonio’s fifth championship in 2014, when Jefferson was already long gone.
Duncan and Ginobili — and Tony Parker, who turns 33 this month — won’t be around forever, but it wasn’t a free agent signing that took the Spurs from two first-round ousters in three years back onto the champion’s podium. It’s chiefly the shrewd acquisition of the draft rights to Kawhi Leonard in exchange for valued role player George Hill that put the Spurs back in title contention, though no one would have known it at the time of the trade in 2011.
A run at free agency this year has been in the works awhile. Spurs coach/president Gregg Popovich more or less acknowledged that this week in his end-of-season press conference, saying that he, GM R.C. Buford and company put this group together with the idea that this summer would represent an opportunity to make key decisions. San Antonio would be entering the offseason with even more uncertainty if Parker hadn’t signed a deal last summer to extend his contract, which was to have expired this year. He’s one of the few Spurs virtually guaranteed to return, and Leonard is, too, even though he’s about to enter restricted free agency. That Leonard didn’t sign an extension of his own in the fall has as much to do with the utility of keeping his cap hold small as anything else, and he reportedly has no plans to seek offer sheets. Even if he did, San Antonio would be expected to match, and as it is, it appears Leonard is destined to continue growing into the centerpiece of the Spurs.
The challenge for Popovich and Buford is in how to surround the Defensive Player of the Year with the talent necessary to keep the Spurs in the title hunt for next season and for years to come. It’ll require some cap gymnastics this summer. If Duncan and Ginobili retire, the Spurs could renounce their rights as well as the rights to every other free agent except Leonard, release Reggie Williams and his non-guaranteed contract, and take a draft-and-stash prospect at No. 26 and get him to agree in writing not to sign in 2015/16. That would leave the Spurs with $44,545,032 against the cap, a total that consists of the team’s guaranteed salary commitments, Leonard’s cap hold, and six additional cap holds equal to the rookie minimum salary that account for open roster spots. The cap is projected to come in at $67.1MM, so that would leave $22,554,968, enough to sign just about any free agent to a max deal, according to our max-salary approximations. There would be roughly $3.5MM worth of breathing room between the max for Aldridge and Gasol, who fall in the 30% max tier, and the hilt of San Antonio’s capacity to clear cap room without a trade.
Of course, the Spurs might like to draft someone who can contribute immediately, or at least be a part of the roster next season, and Duncan and Ginobili might want to come back at more than the minimum salary. Those hypotheticals make the summer ahead especially unpredictable. It’s quite conceivable that Duncan and Ginobili have already signaled to the Spurs what they’d like to receive on their next deals if they were to play again. The cheap three-year, $25MM contract that Dirk Nowitzki signed with the Mavs last summer perhaps sets the bar for Duncan, though it’s tougher to find an analogy for Ginobili. A deal with a starting salary in the range of the full $5.464MM mid-level exception would allow the Argentinian legend a concession to the only NBA franchise he’s known without forcing him to play for a pittance, though that’s only my speculation. Reasonable deals for Duncan and Ginobili such as those would approach a combined total of $14MM for next season. That would knock the Spurs out of the hunt for any sort of marquee free agent unless they can find trade partners willing to take on some combination of Tiago Splitter, Boris Diaw, Patty Mills and Kyle Anderson without giving up salary in return.
None of this accounts for Danny Green, either. He was playing in the D-League when the Spurs signed him in March of 2011, and little more than four years later he’s a sought-after “three-and-D” type whom at least one executive wouldn’t mind paying $6MM a year, as Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops reported. It wouldn’t be altogether shocking for the soon-to-be 28-year-old who’s shot 42.3% over his four full seasons as a Spur to command more than that. No one would pass up a star for him, but he’s been an indelible part of the fabric as a starter on four straight title-contending rosters.
Marco Belinelli has played nearly as many minutes as Green over the past four regular seasons, and he’s another sharpshooting weapon who can spread the floor in San Antonio’s intricate offense. His two finest defensive seasons have come in a Spurs uniform, as Basketball-Reference’s Defensive Box Plus/Minus data shows, though he wasn’t as sharp on either end of the court this year as he was in 2013/14, and he saw his fewest minutes per game since 2009/10. He’ll turn 30 next March, and unless he, too, wants to make a sacrifice and perhaps even take the minimum to stay with the Spurs, an end to his tenure in San Antonio seems a decent bet.
Perhaps a more difficult choice revolves around Cory Joseph. Other teams appear to be circling the waters for the point guard who capably handled the primary backup duties early this season while Mills recovered from shoulder surgery. The Spurs have the power to match competing bids for Joseph, but only if they tender a qualifying offer of more than $3MM. That would be a burdensome price to pay for a third-stringer if he were to simply accept that qualifying offer. Making Joseph a restricted free agent and retaining his rights would make more sense if the team trades Mills, though Mills’ salary for next season isn’t much more than the value of Joseph’s qualifying offer. So, there’s little sense in trading Mills to clear cap room if the Spurs intend to make Joseph a restricted free agent.
A max deal is waiting for Leonard, but Duncan and Ginobili hold the keys to the San Antonio summer, a status they’ve earned in spades. Retire, and the Spurs will have the capacity to sign a top free agent target without trading anyone. Come back, and other key Spurs will have to go if a major name is to join the team. San Antonio’s tradition of winning has made the club attractive to some of the best free agents in this year’s class. Still, given the Jefferson fiasco, it’s worth wondering if the Spurs would prefer instead to trade for the next Leonard, a young talent they could mold to their system from the start, rather than risk disrupting their culture by adding a star who would demand a prominent place in the team’s hierarchy. Finding gems like Leonard is by no means easy, and few teams would have even a moment’s hesitation if someone like Aldridge or Gasol came calling. But the Spurs wouldn’t be who they are if they hadn’t outsmarted the competition and made unconventional choices. Another surprise for the rest of the league may soon be on its way from Alamo country.
Cap Footnotes
1 — See our glossary entry on cap holds for an explanation why these players technically remain on the books.
2 — The Spurs drafted Jean-Charles 28th overall in 2013 but have yet to sign him. San Antonio can keep his draft rights but remove his cap hold from its books if he and the team produce a written agreement that he won’t sign during the 2015/16 season.
The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Central Notes: Middleton, Pistons, Blatt, Love
One executive told Sean Deveney of The Sporting News that Khris Middleton will draw an offer of around $15MM in restricted free agency this summer, explaining that Middleton should get a salary in the range of the $14.7MM Chandler Parsons received this season based on Middleton’s superior defense. Such an offer would be close to the estimated $15.8MM max for Middleton in 2015/16. It would challenge the notion that the Bucks would be likely to match competing bids for the versatile former second-round pick, but Milwaukee has no shortage of flexibility, as I examined when I looked at their offseason ahead. Here’s more from around the Central Division:
- Technology and increased revenue that makes more money available for scouting have changed the way teams evaluate European players, Pistons GM Jeff Bower said, according to Keith Langlois of Pistons.com. Bower and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy recently took a scouting trip to Europe ostensibly to look at draft prospects Kristaps Porzingis and Mario Hezonja, Langlois notes. “The comparisons are much easier to make and the levels of competition are much easier to round off today more so than 10 to 15 years ago,” Bower said.
- David Blatt has an abrupt, self-confident manner and can come across a bit harsh, but the strength of his conviction has no doubt helped him endure the pressure and second-guessing incumbent of coaching a LeBron James team, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com examines.
- The presence of James and the chance to win that comes with him would seem to be as much of an enticement for Kevin Love to remain with the Cavs as any, writes Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com.
Cavs Fear Kevin Love Will Leave In Free Agency
8:28am: Love acknowledged not having returned any of Olynyk’s calls, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group wrote after a one-on-one with the Cavs power forward, Love is saving the conversation with Olynyk for later, but Love insists that he’s moved past the incident, Haynes writes.
“Oh yeah. I’m over it,” Love said. “I’m just trying to get healthy.”
8:21am: The Cavs have “a legitimate fear” that Kevin Love will leave the team in free agency this summer, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports said in an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show (video link; transcription via Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk.com). That’s in spite of his his repeated insistence that he plans to remain in Cleveland, a January proclamation that he would opt in, and shoulder injury that threatens to keep him out for training camp next season. Still, rumors have persisted, and before the injury, people around the Cavs and the rest of the league believed the All-Star power forward wouldn’t hesitate to leave Cleveland, as Wojnarowski wrote last month.
The Celtics had closed the gap on the Lakers as a preferred destination for Love before the injury, Wojnarowski reported then, but Sean Deveney of The Sporting News wrote this week that the Lakers are well out in front among non-Cavs alternatives. Celtics forward/center Kelly Olynyk caused the injury when he hooked Love’s arm as the two were chasing a loose ball, and Olynyk and his camp have continually reached out to Love and his people in hopes of arranging a chance for Olynyk to apologize to Love in private, Wojnarowski writes in a full story. Love, who had a “legitimate loathing” of the Celtics in the immediate wake of the injury, has turned away the effort so far, according to Wojnarowski.
Love has a player option worth more than $16.744MM for next season, but he would earn an estimated $18.96MM in 2015/16 if he opts out and signs a maximum-salary deal. Hitting free agency in 2016 would let him take advantage of a salary cap that preliminary projections show zooming from $67.1MM to $89MM, but those same projections indicate that another giant leap, to $108MM, is due in 2017. That summer of 2017 is complicated by the specter of the mutual option the league and the players union possess to opt out of the collective bargaining agreement, and there are no guarantees that the structure of the contracts that Love and anyone else could sign would be the same.
Thus, it might behoove the Jeff Schwartz client to either opt in this summer or sign a new contract that allows him an out after one season. If he becomes a free agent this year with the intention of doing so again in 2016, there would be no greater financial advantage to signing with the Cavs this summer as opposed to another team with the capacity to give him the max. The NBA’s built-in edge for incumbent teams applies to raises on multiyear deals and the length of contracts, neither of which would be factors in a single-season arrangement.
Pelicans Met With Joe Dumars
7:14pm: Pelicans spokesman Greg Bensel issued a statement saying that the team has not discussed a position with Dumars, nor has the franchise made him a job offer, Marc Stein of ESPN.com tweets.
1:06pm: Executive vice president of basketball operations Mickey Loomis and other Pelicans officials met with Joe Dumars multiple times this past fall to gauge the ex-Pistons executive’s thoughts on the Pelicans, a source told John Reid of The Times-Picayune. Reid confirms a report from Fletcher Mackel of WDSU-TV that the meetings took place during several road games for the NFL’s New Orleans Saints in 2014. It’s possible that the Pelicans will hire Dumars, but no such move is imminent, Reid and Mackel both write. Grantland’s Zach Lowe wrote Wednesday that Dumars remains in play for a supervisory role above GM Dell Demps.
Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher in January alluded to talk around the league that suggested owner Tom Benson was eyeing Dumars, a Louisiana native, but Bucher cautioned that there were no signs that Benson was definitively unsatisfied with Demps. The Pelicans have a team option on Demps for next season, but they’ve yet to exercise it, Reid notes. Benson sent a letter of congratulations last week to Demps, coach Monty Williams and their staffs after the end of a season that saw the franchise return to the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Demps denied a report from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports that the Pelicans gave him and Williams mandates to make the playoffs this year. Reid reported in March that the Pelicans planned to evaluate Demps and Williams at season’s end.
Dumars has long been friends with Loomis and Saints coach Sean Payton and has close ties to Pelicans officials, according to Reid. The Pistons said he would remain with the team as an adviser when his nearly 14-year tenure atop Detroit’s basketball operations ended last year, but his name isn’t listed among the basketball operations personnel in the Pistons media guide for this season.
Southwest Notes: Smith, Ginobili, Gasol
Josh Smith has found contentment in Houston after enduring much criticism elsewhere, and the Rockets share that feeling of satisfaction with the partnership, as Grantland’s Jonathan Abrams examines. There’s mutual interest between Smith, who hits free agency again this summer, and GM Daryl Morey in a new deal, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported last month, and Morey made it clear to Abrams that he values the 29-year-old.
“I’m not sure what we’d do without him,” Morey added. “He’s been critical to getting us where we are right now.”
Houston will have Smith’s Non-Bird rights to give him a 20% raise on the $2.077MM salary he signed for via the Biannual Exception in December. Here’s more from around the Southwest Division:
- Manu Ginobili suggested that he’s never pondered retirement quite so seriously before and said that Tim Duncan‘s decision about whether to play again next season will affect his own, as the swingman wrote for La Nacion’s Canchallena.com and as Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News translates. In any case, Ginobili, whose contract with the Spurs expires this summer, said he’ll take the rest of the month to decide whether to return.
- Concerns about whether Ginobili, Duncan and Gregg Popovich would remain over the course of a three-year deal were in Pau Gasol‘s head when he decided against signing with the Spurs, as Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com writes in a lengthy piece on the Bulls, whom Gasol chose instead.
- Dirk Nowitzki confirmed that there was no vote that took place when the Mavs decided to divvy up playoff shares without giving one to Rajon Rondo, as he said on KTCK-AM this week (transcription via the Dallas Morning News). “No, we actually didn’t vote. It was just the guys who were there that day got a playoff share,” Nowitzki said. “What we usually do is give a lot of weight to the guys that work for you all season long; the locker room guys, the equipment guys, the trainers, the massage guys [or] whoever you feel helped you get through the season. We usually divide it up and then give them a lot of money. I think that got blown out of proportion. It’s not like it was that much money. I don’t think Rondo would have cared either way.”
Northwest Notes: Singler, Donovan, Draft, Gee
Thunder GM Sam Presti reiterated that the Thunder are committed to re-signing Enes Kanter and hope to do so with Kyle Singler as well, pointing to Singler’s shooting, versatility and height in an email interview with Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman. Presti also told Mayberry that he sought input from Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and other Thunder players about the qualities they’d like to see in a coach even though he found it unwise to discuss specific candidates for the team’s coaching vacancy, which he filled with Billy Donovan. Here’s more from around the Northwest Division:
- Incarnate Word combo guard Denzel Livingston, Ohio power forward Maurice Ndour, Penn State shooting guard D.J. Newbill, Illinois shooting guard Rayvonte Rice and TCU shooting guard Trey Zeigler are scheduled to work out for the Jazz today, the team announced (Twitter link). Michigan State swingman Russell Byrd will join them, as Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops reported Tuesday.
- It’s not out of the question that the Trail Blazers will re-sign Alonzo Gee this summer, but it’s doubtful, writes Jabari Young of CSNNW.com, speculating that the Hawks, Spurs and Jazz might be decent bets to sign him instead. Gee remained on an NBA roster all season after signing a non-guaranteed minimum-salary contract the Nuggets, who traded him to the Blazers in the Arron Afflalo deal.
- The Timberwolves made a “colossal blunder” not once but twice in the 2009 draft when they passed over MVP Stephen Curry for point guards Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn, as Michael Rand of the Star Tribune examines.