2014/15 NBA Reverse Standings
There’s just one week left in the 2014/15 regular season, meaning that for the 14 teams that don’t make the playoffs, the lottery and the 2015 NBA draft become the primary focus. Much of the draft order and many of the lottery positions remain in flux, and with the Hoops Rumors Reverse Standings, which list the NBA’s 30 teams from worst to first, you can follow along as it comes down to the wire. We update these standings daily to reflect the outcomes of the games that took place the night before.
The Reverse Standings take into account playoff teams in each conference, so they’re essentially a reflection of what the 2015 first-round order would look like if the lottery goes according to the odds. Traded picks are indicated via footnotes. For instance, the note attached to the Thunder’s pick shows that they’ll send it to the Sixers if it falls outside the top 18 selections. The final week of the season will determine the pick’s fate, since the Thunder are in 14th place in the Reverse Standings as the non-playoff team with the best record, but they’re only a half-game back of the Pelicans, who occupy the 18th spot.
The existence of the lottery means there’s no guarantee that teams atop the Reverse Standings will draft in the order in which they finish, but the worse a club’s record, the better shot it has at landing the cream of the 2015 draft class. This year’s top prospects include Karl-Anthony Towns, Jahlil Okafor, D’Angelo Russell and Emmanuel Mudiay, all of whom carry plenty of star potential.
Our Reverse Standings feature can be found at anytime on our right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features.” It’s a great resource not just for monitoring a team’s draft position, but also for keeping an eye on whether or not traded picks with protection will be changing hands in 2015. Be sure to check back often as the season draws to a close!
D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera Withdraws From Draft
APRIL 8TH: Smith-Rivera has changed his mind and won’t enter the draft, reports Brian Snow of Scout.com (Twitter link). It’s unclear whether he formally submitted paperwork, but even if he had, the NCAA allows players to withdraw and maintain college eligibility until this coming Monday.
MARCH 31ST: Georgetown junior shooting guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera has decided to enter the NBA draft, the school announced. Smith-Rivera faces long odds to find his way to an NBA roster, as he isn’t among the top 100 prospects that either Chad Ford of ESPN.com or Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress compile. Ford has him at No. 185, and while Givony doesn’t list an overall ranking, he tabs him as the 61st-best prospect among college juniors. It’s unlikely that the 6’3″ Smith-Rivera would have been any more than a fringe prospect had he remained in school for another season, Givony tweets. Still, Givony surmises that he’ll undoubtedly draw interest from European teams (Twitter link).
The 22-year-old averaged 16.3 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists in 34.4 minutes per game with 38.7% three-point shooting this season, certainly a respectable line, though with the exception of his assists, those numbers were all down from his sophomore year. He was fairly well-regarded coming out of high school in 2012, as he ranked 37th in the Recruiting Services Consensus Index that year, one spot ahead of current lottery prospect Willie Cauley-Stein.
Smith-Rivera was the leading scorer for this year’s Hoyas, who entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 4 seed and advanced to the round of 32 before falling to fifth-seeded Utah. He plans to sign with an agent, according to the school’s announcement, though if he holds off on doing so, he can still withdraw his name by April 12th and retain his eligibility for his senior year.
Grayson Allen Plans To Stay Out Of Draft
Duke freshman shooting guard Grayson Allen plans to stay out of the draft this year and return to school for his sophomore season, sources tell Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). While Allen’s freshman campaign wasn’t a stellar one from a statistical standpoint, the guard turned some heads with his 16 point performance in Monday night’s NCAA Championship win against Wisconsin where Allen drained five of his eight field goal attempts.
Allen is the 32nd-ranked prospect on the list that Chad Ford of ESPN.com compiles, though Ford said today that he’s hearing lots of positive feedback from NBA personnel, which means there’s a decent chance he would have vaulted into the first round (Twitter link). Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress doesn’t have Allen among his top 100 prospects ranking, likely because Allen has been expected to stay in school. The 19-year-old is No. 30 on Givony’s list of the top freshmen.
In 35 appearances this season for the Blue Devils Allen averaged 4.4 points, 1.0 rebound, and 0.4 assists in 9.2 minutes per contest. His shooting line was .425/.346/.849.
Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.
Timberwolves Sign Arinze Onuaku
5:10pm: Minnesota has been granted a hardship exception by the league and has officially inked Onuaku, the team announced.
1:34pm: The Timberwolves are bringing in Arinze Onuaku to help their injury-depleted roster, tweets Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press. Minnesota already has 15 players on contracts that run until at least the end of the season, but with Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic and Shabazz Muhammad out for the season and four other injured players, it seems as though the team is a candidate for a 16th roster spot via hardship exception. Minnesota added Jeff Adrien and Sean Kilpatrick earlier this season using that mechanism. In any case, a deal for Onuaku would have to cover the balance of 2014/15 and couldn’t be a 10-day contract, since there are fewer than 10 days left in the regular season.
Onuaku has spent this season with the D-League affiliate of the Cavs after the Pacers had him on their NBA roster for the preseason. The 27-year-old power forward was briefly with Cleveland and New Orleans during the regular season in 2013/14, and those teams gave him his first official NBA action, though he appeared in only five games for both the Cavs and Pelicans put together. Onuaku went undrafted out of Syracuse in 2010, but at 6’9″, he’s looked strong on the boards for the D-League Canton Charge this year, racking up 12.2 rebounds in 34.6 minutes per game across 41 appearances. He’s also averaged 17.5 points on 11.5 shots per game.
Kevin Garnett, Anthony Bennett, Gorgui Dieng and Gary Neal are also injured for Minnesota, leaving the team with only Justin Hamilton, Adreian Payne and Robbie Hummel as inside players. So, Onuaku would help in that regard, and he’d also keep the team from scrambling to find a player to meet the minimum of eight healthy guys for the start of a game. The Wolves were down to seven healthy players when they signed Kilpatrick to be their eighth last month for a game against the Knicks, choosing him in part because he was a only short distance away.
Poll: Should Brook Lopez Opt In Or Opt Out?
The Nets appeared close to trading Brook Lopez at least two times before the February deadline, but since coach Lionel Hollins put him back in the starting lineup on March 8th, he’s been sizzling, and the Nets have gone 11-6. He’s averaged 21.9 points and 9.5 rebounds in 33.8 minutes per game during that stretch, helping carry the Nets into position for a playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. Those numbers would be career highs if extrapolated over an entire season, and his rebounding is particularly encouraging for a 7-footer who’s somehow managed only 8.1 boards per 36 minutes for his career. He’s put up 26.2 PPG on 61% shooting in his last 11 games, becoming the only NBA player to do that over any 11-game stretch this season, as Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders points out (Twitter link).
All of this is cast against the backdrop of a crucial decision for Lopez and for the Nets. The 27-year-old has a player option worth more than $16.744MM that, if he were to opt in, would leave Brooklyn with seven players with guaranteed salaries that add up to only about $6MM shy of the projected $81MM luxury tax line for next season. If he opts out, the Nets still wouldn’t have the ability to open significant cap room to replace him, and Brooklyn would be liable to lose the catalyst for its turnaround this season with nothing to show for it.
The stakes are perhaps even more consequential for Lopez. He played in all 82 games his first three seasons in the league, but a broken foot that required three surgeries in three years and forced him to 134 missed games during that span left him with a reputation as damaged goods. He’s started only 39 games this season after playing in only 17 last season, and there’s no telling if his revival and return to health are but short-lived phenomena.
Lopez said last month that he hadn’t given thought to the option, though executives around the league seem to have had it on the minds for some time. Grantland’s Zach Lowe heard in December that most of those execs thought he would opt in. Today, Lowe wrote that the opposite is now true, which echoes what Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck had heard in December, when he reported that many execs expected him to opt in.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports said last week that he’s heard estimates that Lopez will draw offers with annual salaries of $13-14MM if he hits free agency this summer. Those figures would give him less next season than he would make on his option, but free agency would likely give him the chance to lock in those salaries on a long-term deal that would ensure him of far more money than the option would. Lopez, a Wasserman Media Group client, also must consider the rising salary cap for 2016/17, and the rising maximum salaries that will come with it. Lopez’s existing deal is a maximum-salary arrangement, and if he opts in and continues playing the way he has the past month, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to see him land another max deal in the summer of 2016.
So, let us know what you would tell Lopez to do if you were one of his agents. Should he opt in, take a higher salary than it seems he would otherwise see for 2015/16 and the risk of injury and regression that comes with it, or opt out and cash in while he’s hot, even if it means missing out on a better payday next year? Use the comments section if you’d like to give him more specific advise.
Ashton Pankey To Enter Draft
Manhattan junior forward Ashton Pankey plans to turn pro and enter this year’s NBA draft, as he tells Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv (Twitter links). The 6’10” 22-year-old is an unheralded prospect who’s unlikely to be drafted, as he’s unranked in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress listings, and Chad Ford of ESPN.com doesn’t have a profile for him.
Pankey spent his first two years in college at Maryland, including a redshirt year in 2010/11, when he appeared in only one game before undergoing season-ending left leg surgery. He had a limited role on offense the next year, and after sitting out a season as he transferred to the Jaspers, he again had a single-digit scoring average in 2013/14. That changed this season, when he put up 13.4 points on 8.3 shots in 27.5 minutes per game, chipping in 6.7 rebounds per contest, too. He led the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in fouls given this season, but Manhattan won the conference tournament and earned an NCAA Tournament bid, albeit for a play-in game, which it lost to Hampton.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Pankey end up with some predraft workouts for NBA teams and perhaps play in the summer league, but it still seems a long shot that he’ll earn an invitation to training camp. He’ll likely begin his pro career with a season in the D-League or overseas, though that’s just my speculation.
Draft Notes: Kentucky, Johnson, Jones
Kentucky coach John Calipari acknowledged Monday that Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Trey Lyles, Andrew Harrison and Aaron Harrison are all likely to declare for the draft, as Kyle Tucker of The Courier-Journal relays. Devin Booker and Dakari Johnson are still weighing their options, according to Calipari, Tucker notes, adding that the coach expects that Tyler Ulis, Alex Poythress and Marcus Lee will decide to stay. Calipari later addressed the idea of his own departure for the NBA, downplaying the idea in a piece on his own website, wherein he said he doesn’t have a desire to prove himself in the NBA. A recent report indicated that Calipari “desperately” wants an NBA job, and he apparently still has supporters within the Nets organization. Here’s more on those potentially making the college-to-NBA leap:
- Projected lottery pick Stanley Johnson is on the fence as he decides whether to enter the draft this year or return to Arizona for a sophomore year, sources tell Jon Rothstein of CBSSports.com, with one source describing him as “really torn.” The small forward is the No. 9 prospect in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings and No. 11 with Chad Ford of ESPN.com.
- NBA personnel who spoke with Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com are in wide agreement that Final Four Most Outstanding Player Tyus Jones would go in the final third of the first round this year if he entered the draft, as Goodman writes in an Insider-only piece. Those sources also tell Goodman that the freshman point guard’s stock is peaking and that he wouldn’t benefit from staying at Duke another year, and even Jones’ father is encouraging him to declare. The Pistons, Pelicans, Sixers and Magic are among the NBA teams focusing on the Minnesota native, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities.
- Brice Johnson is returning to North Carolina, multiple sources tell Evan Daniels of Scout.com. The junior power forward was No. 50 in Givony‘s rankings, while Ford had the power forward 82nd.
Cavs, Raptors Eyeing Cory Joseph?
The Cavs and Raptors should be expected to “take long looks” at soon-to-be restricted free agent Cory Joseph, tweets Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun. The Spurs can match offers for the Toronto native with a qualifying offer of nearly $3.035MM, though they already have a backup point guard on a long-term deal in Patty Mills, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe points out, and Tony Parker signed a three-year extension that kicks in next season. Still, Spurs coach/president Gregg Popovich expressed hesitancy today to take playing time from Joseph, complimenting the 23-year-old’s tenacity, notes Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News (Twitter links).
It’s not the first time Joseph has impressed Popovich with his drive, though the Rich Paul client told McDonald a few months ago that he didn’t even ask his agent about a rookie scale extension when he was eligible this past offseason, figuring the team wouldn’t give him one. McDonald speculated when he wrote in January that it would be tough for San Antonio to afford Joseph this summer, considering his increase in minutes and production, though Joseph’s role has regressed since he filled in as a starter when both Parker and Mills were injured in December. The Spurs have Joseph’s Bird rights, though he’ll presumably be down the list of priorities with Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Danny Green and Marco Belinelli among the other Spurs set to hit free agency.
Raptors GM Masai Ujiri has pledged to pursue Canadian players, so it makes sense that he’d at least consider signing Joseph. Toronto has a chance to open up cap space, with only about $49MM in commitments for next season. The Cavs have even less guaranteed salary on their books, but that doesn’t include money for four of their five starters, including LeBron James, and they seem poised to zoom into luxury tax territory. So, Cleveland would have a tough time ending up with Joseph unless the team used the $3.376MM taxpayer’s mid-level exception or convinced him to take the minimum, though James and Joseph share the same agent.
Lowe’s Latest: Lopez, Biyombo, Davis
Most executives around the league expect Brook Lopez to turn down his player option for next season, worth more than $16.744MM, writes Grantland’s Zach Lowe. That’s on the heels of his surge over the past month, as he averaged 20.9 points and 9.1 rebounds per game in March, and he’s upped those numbers to 22.8 PPG and 9.8 RPG so far in April. Lowe wrote in December that most execs thought Lopez would pick up the option, so it seems his hot streak has changed thinking around the league. Still, Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck wrote just a week after Lowe’s report in December that he had heard from many executives who expected even then that Lopez would opt out. The Nets center said a few weeks ago that he hadn’t thought about what to do with the option, so there’s some mystery here. Lowe has more rumors from his latest column, which focuses on players with decent chances of becoming this year’s version of what DeMarre Carroll was in 2013, when he signed a two-year, $5MM pact that wound up a bargain deal for the Hawks.
- Bismack Biyombo will almost certainly see the value of his qualifying offer from the Hornets shrink from more than $5.194MM to nearly $4.046MM thanks to the starter criteria that he has virtually no chance of meeting. Executives are “nearly unanimous” that he wouldn’t command annual salaries of that nearly $5.2MM amount in free agency this summer, according to Lowe, though while most people believe a team could snag him for about $4MM a year, no one is sure about that, Lowe adds.
- Ed Davis rejected a multiyear contract offer from the Grizzlies this past summer, several league sources tell Lowe. He instead signed with the Lakers on a two-year deal for the minimum salary with a player option that he’s said he plans to decline in search of a long-term deal this summer. Davis turned down a rookie scale extension in the fall of 2013 that would have given him annual salaries of $5-6MM beginning this season, as Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal reported this past October.
- Derrick Williams doesn’t intrigue front offices as much as he did a year ago, Lowe writes. He, too, is in line for a reduced qualifying offer from the Kings for failing to meet the starter criteria.
- Lowe identifies the Spurs as a team to watch on Mirza Teletovic, though it’s unclear if that’s just speculation. The Nets can match offers if they extend a qualifying offer of more than $4.21MM.
10-Day Contract Trends In 2014/15
There are fewer than 10 days left in the regular season, so that means there won’t be any more 10-day contracts this year. Still, it was the most prolific season for 10-day contracts in recent years, as 48 players signed a least one such deal, up from 41 last year and 36 the year before. It’s the most in any season on record in our 10-Day Contract Tracker, which dates back to the 2006/07 season.
We’ll use the data from this year’s tracker to illustrate a few trends and notable statistics that emerged from this year’s 10-day signings. It’s still possible that we’ll see some 10-day signees ink deals that cover the rest of the season, and perhaps a team or two will choose to end one of its current 10-day deals before it runs to term, so some of the data may change. Still, we can see a fairly accurate picture of the 10-day landscape now that no new 10-day deals may be issued. Here’s a look at what happened:
- The Jazz emerged as the team that gave out the most 10-day contracts, though that’s no surprise, since they had a commanding lead as of a few weeks ago. They signed ten 10-day deals with six players. The Knicks and Clippers finished right behind them, as each gave out seven 10-day deals to four players.
- Four players signed 10-day contracts with multiple teams, and one, Elliot Williams, signed 10-day contracts with three teams — the Jazz, the Hornets and the Pelicans. None of those teams signed him for the season. The three other multiteam 10-day signees are JaMychal Green (Spurs and Grizzlies), Chris Johnson (Jazz and Bucks) and Quincy Miller (Kings and Pistons), each of whom eventually wound up with a rest-of-season deal.
- Teams re-signed 26 10-day signees to deals that covered the rest of the season. Only three of them came after a single 10-day contract, as most of the players cycled through two 10-day pacts before moving on to rest-of-season deals.
- A dozen players signed two 10-day contracts with a team but didn’t end up with rest-of-season deals. That includes Williams, who didn’t re-sign with the Jazz or the Pelicans despite two 10-day stints with each.
- There were 14 players signed to just a single 10-day contract with a team, though four of those deals are still current, so there’s a decent chance they’ll join the trio of guys who followed one 10-day with a rest-of-season pact.
- Five players saw their 10-day contracts end early, as their teams exercised their right to terminate the deals before the 10 days were up. The shortest time a player spent on a 10-day contract was two days, as the Pelicans released Toney Douglas the day after signing him. New Orleans circled back around and signed him for the season more than a month later.
- The longest period of time a player spent on a 10-day deal was 13 days. That’s because the Pistons signed John Lucas III to a 10-day contract right before the All-Star break, which was lengthier than normal this year. The league stipulates that 10-day contracts cover at least three games, and the long gap in the schedule afforded Lucas extra time on his deal.
- Mark Bartelstein’s Priority Sports & Entertainment was the leading agency involved with 10-day contracts this year, with five clients signing 10-day pacts. Three of them wound up signing for the season, while a fourth, Lester Hudson, is still on a 10-day contract with the Clippers.