Hawks Sign Austin Daye To Two-Year Deal
SATURDAY, 9:44am: The signing is official, the Hawks announced in a press release.
1:55pm: Next year’s salary will be non-guaranteed, according to Vivlamore (Twitter link).
12:53pm: Daye’s new contract will cover next season as well, Vivlamore also reports (on Twitter).
12:22pm: The Hawks will indeed sign Daye, Vivlamore confirms (Twitter link).
12:05pm: Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer didn’t confirm that the team would sign Daye for the season, but he dropped a hint, saying, “I would say he’s in a good place,” as Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution relays.
FRIDAY, 11:42am: The Hawks are expected to sign Austin Daye through at least the end of the season, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Daye’s second 10-day contract with the team expires overnight tonight.
Daye’s playing time has been sparse during his time with Atlanta, as he’s averaged 3.0 points in 6.6 minutes per game across five appearances. He saw 10.3 MPG in 26 games with San Antonio earlier this season, but the last time he averaged double figures in that category was 2012/13, the season the Pistons traded him to the Grizzlies. That ended a tenure with Detroit that began when the team made him the 15th overall pick in 2009. The veteran small forward won’t offer the Hawks much in the way of playoff experience, since he’s only played a total of 26 postseason minutes.
Atlanta’s other 14 players already have contracts that carry through the end of this season or beyond, but the team has retained flexibility with its other roster spot since trading Adreian Payne, the No. 15 pick from 2014, to the Timberwolves in early February. It originally seemed as though the club had made the trade in part to clear room on the roster to ink sought-after free agent Ray Allen, but he decided against playing in the NBA this season. The Hawks have cycled through 10-day contracts with Daye and Jarell Eddie instead, as our 10-Day Contract Tracker shows, but now it appears they’ve settled on Daye.
Lakers Sign Dwight Buycks To 10-Day Contract
7:54pm: The Lakers have officially signed Buycks, the team announced.
1:47pm: Scott specified that it’s a D-Leaguer the team is close to signing, as Medina notes in a full story. So that’s seemingly further indication that Buycks is the guy, though it appears we’ll soon find out definitively one way or the other.
FRIDAY, 1:41pm: The Lakers are close to signing a player, according to coach Byron Scott, though he didn’t say who, Medina tweets. The Lakers announced Thursday that Ellington will miss the remainder of the season, so that’ll help the team’s case for a hardship exception.
THURSDAY, 2:05pm: The Lakers are waiting for approval from the NBA for a hardship exception, according to Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times, who argues that it should be an open-and-shut case with Bryant, Randle, Young and Price all out of action (Twitter link). Wayne Ellington was also scheduled to undergo an MRI on his right shoulder, to which he suffered a mild separation during Wednesday’s game, according to Pincus and Medina (Twitter links).
12:46pm: There’s “nothing definitive” about any potential Lakers signing, according to Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News (Twitter link).
11:21am: The Lakers are signing point guard Dwight Buycks to a 10-day contract, a league source tells Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Charania’s tweet indicates that the signing has already taken place, though the team has yet to make a formal announcement. The team already has 15 players under contract, but there’s a chance the Lakers won’t have to clear another player to sign Buycks thanks to the hardship provision. The league had earlier granted the team an extra roster spot via hardship to carry Jabari Brown on a pair of 10-day deals. The Lakers couldn’t use that temporary roster relief to sign Brown to his two-year deal Wednesday, so the team waived Steve Nash to make room. Even without Nash, the Lakers have four players who’ve been out at least three games and who are seemingly expected to miss significantly more time, so the hardship remains a possibility.
Kobe Bryant and Julius Randle are done for the season, and there’s a decent chance that’s the case for Ronnie Price, too. Nick Young hasn’t played since February 22nd with a small fracture on his left kneecap. The Lakers are thin at the point with Jordan Clarkson and Jeremy Lin the team’s only healthy players at the position.
Buycks has been on the Lakers’ radar for the while, having reportedly worked out for the team in November in a head-to-head audition with Gal Mekel. The 26-year-old Buycks has since played for China’s Tianjin Steel and has been with the Thunder’s D-League affiliate for the past month. He’s a one-year NBA veteran thanks to having spent last season with the Raptors, though he played in only 14 games for Toronto, averaging 3.1 points and 0.7 assists in 10.4 minutes per contest. The 6’3″ Buycks, who went undrafted out of Marquette in 2011, has shown an all-around game in the D-League the past few weeks, adding 6.8 rebounds per game to go with averages of 18.2 PPG and 6.2 APG in 34.4 MPG. He was a scoring force in China, producing 26.9 PPG, 5.4 RPG and 5.1 APG in 37.4 MPG.
Northwest Notes: Lawson, Wright, Robinson
Most executives from teams around the league expect the Jazz to gauge the market for their first-round pick this year, and while front offices usually don’t give much thought to trading lottery picks before the lottery happens, Grantland’s Zach Lowe tosses out some hypothetical scenarios. The Nuggets asked for multiple first-round picks in Ty Lawson trade talks leading up to the deadline, sources told Lowe at the time, and the Grantland scribe speculates that he’s a possible fit for the Jazz. Lowe also names the Kings and Celtics as teams to watch in regard to Lawson, though it’s unclear if that’s also merely speculation. In any case, here’s more from around the Northwest Division:
- Dorell Wright is expected to miss the next four to six weeks with a broken left hand, the Trail Blazers announced (Twitter link). That’s a blow for Portland, which will seemingly be without him for at least the first round of the playoffs, though the team’s deadline acquisition of Alonzo Gee, who’ll likely see more minutes, and Arron Afflalo continues to pay dividends, tweets Jabari Young of CSNNW.com. Wright will be a free agent at season’s end.
- The Nuggets and Thomas Robinson mutually decided against having Robinson stick around Denver for the rest of the season after the midseason trade that brought him aboard, as Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post writes in his mailbag column. The Sixers claimed Robinson off waivers from the Nuggets in February.
- Enes Kanter has been more productive following the trade that sent him to the Thunder than he ever was with the Jazz, and that’s in large measure because of the on-court chemistry he has with Russell Westbrook, as Josh Kopelman of Daily Thunder examines.
Atlantic Notes: Sullinger, Crowder, Amundson
The Celtics received an unexpected boost to their playoff hopes today, as the stress fracture in Jared Sullinger‘s left foot that was to have kept him out for the rest of the season has healed so that he can return to game action, at least on a limited basis, beginning tonight, the team announced. The surprising news helps Sullinger, who’s up for a rookie scale extension this coming offseason, as well as his team, which is tied with the Heat for the final postseason berth in the Eastern Conference. Here’s more from around the Atlantic Division:
- Jae Crowder is grateful to the Celtics for giving him a more prominent role than he had in Dallas before the Mavs sent him out in the Rajon Rondo trade, as he tells Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald. The swingman is content in Boston as restricted free agency looms this summer, Bulpett details, arguing that the swingman has done enough to warrant as long of a commitment as possible from the Celtics.
- Knicks team president Phil Jackson praised Lou Amundson and Lance Thomas on Thursday amid his comments about the future to season ticket holders, as Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com points out (Twitter link). The pair will be free agents this summer, and Amundson has said he’d like to re-sign.
- Trading for Thaddeus Young and putting rookie Markel Brown in the starting lineup have combined to help Deron Williams play better since the All-Star break, Nets coach Lionel Hollins asserted in an appearance with Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts on WFAN-AM (transcription via NetsDaily).
Pistons Interested In Re-Signing Joel Anthony
Pistons coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy said he wants to have soon-to-be free agent Joel Anthony back with the team next season, tweets Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. Van Gundy and company clearly have higher priorities, Ellis cautions, but it’s nonetheless a strong endorsement for the eighth-year veteran who’s seen just 8.3 minutes per game in 43 appearances this season.
Anthony is making $3.8MM this season, the last of a five-year, $18.25MM pact he signed with Heat in 2010. He’ll seemingly have to take a pay cut, and with the Pistons poised to be able to dip under the salary cap with less than $28MM in guaranteed salary for next season, it wouldn’t be altogether surprising to see Detroit renounce his Bird rights to clear his bloated $7.22MM cap hold. The Pistons can avoid that issue if they agree to terms with him before the July Moratorium ends and reduce that cap hold to his new salary.
The Mike Higgins client has seen his most significant playing time of the season since Greg Monroe went down with a strained right knee in mid-March, as he’s compiled 4.4 points and 3.5 rebounds to go along with an impressive 2.7 blocks in 16.5 minutes per game. Monroe is an unrestricted free agent at season’s end, so perhaps the past few weeks are a glimpse of the future with Anthony absorbing the backup center minutes behind Andre Drummond.
Anthony quickly warmed to the Pistons when they traded for him during the preseason, and he said in November that he wanted to re-sign with Detroit. The Pistons will be busy, with Monroe and Reggie Jackson also hitting free agency, but it seems as if there’s mutual interest between the team and Anthony.
Cavs Notes: LeBron, Shumpert, Blatt, Harris
LeBron James wouldn’t mind seeing the Heat in the first round of the playoffs, as he made clear before Thursday’s Cavs-Heat game, notes Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. Cleveland is more or less locked into the second spot in the Eastern Conference, while the Heat are a half-game out of the seventh seed. It would be an odd coda to two of the most momentous free agency decisions in NBA history, the ones that bookended LeBron’s tenure with Miami. James can once more hit free agency again this summer, though unlike the last two times, it seems he’ll almost certainly stay put. Here’s more from Cleveland:
- Knicks team president Phil Jackson said he’s disappointed with how it turned out with Iman Shumpert, also saying that the numerous injuries in the swingman’s past played a role in the decision to trade him to the Cavs, according to Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com (Twitter links). Shumpert is set for restricted free agency this summer.
- David Blatt hadn’t held an NBA job of any kind when the Cavs hired him, and he came under pressure earlier this season, but he’s shown growth in his first year in charge of the team, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group examines. James as well as soon-to-be restricted free agent Tristan Thompson are among those who praise Blatt, as Haynes relays.
- The Cavs have assigned Joe Harris to the D-League, the team announced. It’s the ninth assignment for the rookie, who has a guaranteed minimum salary next season, and all of his trips to the D-League have come since Cleveland’s pair of midseason trades netted Shumpert, J.R. Smith and Timofey Mozgov.
How Coaches Fared After College-To-NBA Move
The Nuggets and Magic are reportedly planning to target University of Florida coach Billy Donovan this coming offseason, and Donovan is apparently as receptive as ever to taking an NBA job. He has a track record of producing successful NBA players be the most decorated college coach to come to the NBA in quite some time, perhaps since Rick Pitino, who coached Donovan in college, made his leap from Kentucky to the Celtics. That didn’t turn out well for Pitino, and he certainly wasn’t alone. No coach who has gone directly from a college job to an NBA head coaching job since the turn of the century has guided his team to the playoffs. Of course, that would change if Brad Stevens makes the postseason with his Celtics this year, and Boston is tied with the Heat for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Here’s a look at each of the coaches who’ve made the college-to-NBA jump since 2000. Note that this doesn’t include former college coaches who were in other jobs, such as NBA assistant coaching gigs, when they became NBA head coaches.
- Brad Stevens, Butler to Celtics, 2013 — 59-98, no playoffs (yet)
- Mike Dunlap, St. John’s (assistant) to Bobcats, 2012 — 21-61, no playoffs, fired after one season
- Reggie Theus, New Mexico State to Kings, 2007 — 44-62, no playoffs, fired midway through 2008/09 season
- Mike Montgomery, Stanford to Warriors, 2004 — 68-96, no playoffs, fired in 2006
- Leonard Hamilton, Miami (Fla.) to Wizards, 2000 — 19-63, no playoffs, resigned in 2001
- Lon Kruger, Illinois to Hawks, 2000 — 69-122, no playoffs, fired midway through 2002/03 season
Knicks Notes: Draft, Chandler, Free Agency
Knicks president Phil Jackson told a gathering of the team’s season ticket holders Thursday that he knows whom he would select with the No. 1 overall pick if New York wins the lottery, notes Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. He offered hints that it would be either Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor, who are locked in a tight race atop most draft projections, and he tipped his hand when he pointed to defense as a key for a team’s big man, since Towns has the better defensive reputation, as Begley observes. Surprisingly, he cited Tyson Chandler, whom the Knicks traded away last summer and who’ll hit free agency in the offseason, as the sort of defender the team needs. We already passed along some more of what Jackson and GM Steve Mills had to say at the event, and we’ll cover the rest of the relevant news here, as Begley, Marc Berman of the New York Post, Peter Botte of the New York Daily News and Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv relay:
- Mills and Jackson indicated a willingness to listen to offers for their pick, though Jackson cautioned that part of his job is “shepherding the whole organization so that you don’t get caught in giving away draft picks, you don’t get caught without a future aspect.”
- Jackson said he’d like to sign one or two starting-caliber players in free agency, but he and Mills downplayed the idea of chasing stars. “It’s a different approach than in the past — we won’t go after the biggest name out there, we’ll go after players who fit in system and style,” Mills said. “It may in fact be a big-name player but it’s going to be who fits system-wise.”
- The Knicks fell well short of Jackson’s initial expectation of the playoffs, but the opportunity to rebuild “may be a godsend,” the Zen Master argues. “I commiserate for the people who put a lot of money out there, who have season tickets who sit and watch the game. I empathize with that part of it. To rebuild this team, we knew we were going to have to take the team apart to get where we have to. I can make the argument we had to go through it. [Expletive] happens and this season it did happen to us.”
- Jackson once more defended the Chandler trade, saying he made it because Chandler would be a free agent this summer and because of the risk involved with the now 32-year-old’s age and history of injuries. Still, Chandler has missed only six games for the Mavs this year.
Montrezl Harrell, Terry Rozier To Enter Draft
THURSDAY, 7:12pm: Rozier has officially signed with Verus Management, Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops tweets.
MONDAY, 2:06pm: Louisville junior power forward Montrezl Harrell and sophomore combo guard Terry Rozier are entering this year’s draft, coach Rick Pitino said today during his season-ending press conference, as The Courier-Journal relays. Harrell is 21st on Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings and 24th with Chad Ford of ESPN.com. There’s more of a gulf in opinion on Rozier, who’s the 26th-best prospect according to Ford but just 39th-best as Givony has it.
Harrell’s stock slipped during the season, as he was No. 12 with Givony and No. 16 with Ford prior to the season. He stands 6’8″, and he’s neither a natural power forward nor a true small forward, as Eddie Scarito of Hoops Rumors writes in our latest Draft Prospect Power Rankings. The 21-year-old averaged 15.7 points and 9.2 rebounds in 35.1 minutes per game this season, all higher numbers than last year, but his per-36-minute figures in scoring and rebounding declined as the Cardinals moved from the American Athletic Conference to the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The difference in projections on the 6’2″ Rozier were even more pronounced during the preseason, when Ford ranked him 11th and Givony had him 50th. Rozier, also 21, had a breakout campaign after failing to see much action as a freshman, putting up 17.1 PPG and 5.6 RPG in 35.0 MPG this season. He also averaged 3.0 assists against 2.2 turnovers per game.
Lakers Notes: Rondo, Dragic, Hill, Brown
It’s a “safe bet” that the Lakers will pursue Rajon Rondo and Goran Dragic, with Rondo the first priority, according to Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. The team’s interest in the two is no secret, as reports have indicated for months that the Lakers have been targeting the pair of point guards who changed places via trade this season. Neither is a lock to re-sign with their respective clubs, as reports have also indicated, so it seems the Lakers have at least a decent chance to land an upper-tier free agent, which they haven’t done the past two summers. Here’s more on the purple-and-gold:
- The Lakers are leaning toward picking up their $9MM team option on Jordan Hill, unless they become confident that a star free agent big man will sign with them, executives tell Deveney for the same piece. The team wants to be active in free agency, Deveney writes, but opting in with Hill would give them more than $44MM in commitments, not counting Jordan Clarkson‘s non-guaranteed salary, their own first-round pick and the first-rounder they’re receiving from the Rockets.
- Jabari Brown feels as though a 22-point outing in his final game on the last of his 10-day contracts with the Lakers helped his case to secure his new deal. as Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times relays. Coach Byron Scott continues to be impressed, as Bresnahan also notes. “Every game it seems like he shows you a little bit something else,” Scott said. “He seems a little bit more confident, a little bit more comfortable every game.”
- The Lakers haven’t made progress in the win-loss column this season, as they’re just one defeat away from tying last year’s 55 losses, but Scott points to the departures of Pau Gasol, Steve Blake and Jodie Meeks as reason why that’s not a shock, tweets Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News.