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Author: Chuck Myron

Draft Notes: Knicks, Russell, Hunter

By | at March 19, 2015 1:59 pm

Today’s 32-game NCAA tournament schedule will draw plenty of eyes from fans and NBA personnel alike, even if the connection between college postseason success and NBA riches isn’t all that strong. Still, it serves as a gateway into the buildup for June’s draft, and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress outlines today’s games from a prospect-focused perspective. We’ll share more draft-related items here as the action heats up:

  • Knicks president Phil Jackson made it obvious that he’s high on Ohio State combo guard D’Angelo Russell, drawing a fine for complimenting the underclassman’s game, and Chris Herring of The Wall Street Journal examines how Russell would fit on the Knicks. There’s a potential for a fit there, but he’s not the typical sort of player Jackson’s teams have had to run their offenses, and his lack of defensive skill would force the team to prioritize stoppers in free agency, Herring opines.
  • Russell, Jerian Grant, Myles Turner, Devin Booker and R.J. Hunter are the five prospects an SI.com panel of writers believes have the most on the line during the NCAA Tournament.
  • Hunter, a Georgia State shooting guard, leads a pack of mid-major prospects who have a chance for rare high-profile showcases in the tournament, as Chad Ford and Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com examine in an Insider-only piece. Eastern Washington’s Tyler Harvey and Kyle Collingsworth of BYU are others who appear in line to be drafted, according to Ford and Pelton.
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Wizards Likely To Re-Sign Toure’ Murry

By | at March 19, 2015 12:59 pm

The Wizards are likely to sign Toure’ Murry to a second 10-day contract even as they continue to keep an eye on No. 1 target Will Bynum, league sources tell Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). The team signed Murry last week as Bynum nursed a hamstring injury, though it appeared then that Bynum, if healthy, would be Washington’s preference, as Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post reported at that point. The team’s first 10-day deal with Murry expires at the end of Saturday.

Murry, the former Knicks and Jazz combo guard, also seemingly found a place on the roster in part because of the absence of Garrett Temple, who’s out with a hamstring injury of his own. Still, Murry has seen only four minutes of action for the Wizards so far. That’s nonetheless more than the single regular season minute of play he saw with the Jazz, who signed him to a two-year, $2MM deal in the offseason that was partially guaranteed for $250K.

Washington has 14 contracts that carry through the end of the season, so Murry’s spot represents the team’s measure of flexibility. That spot had been open since the Wizards waived Glen Rice Jr. on January 7th until they signed Murry, with Ray Allen apparently the team’s ultimate goal until Allen decided earlier this month he wouldn’t play in the NBA this year.

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Western Notes: Gasol, Kings, Jazz, Messina

By | at March 19, 2015 12:29 pm

“The understanding is” that Marc Gasol will indeed be the No. 1 target of the Spurs this summer, depending on the fates of fellow soon-to-be free agents Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili, a Western Conference GM told Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. Gasol has given plenty of signals that he prefers to stay in Memphis, and if he were to leave, he would likely move only to a team that would give him a better chance to win a title, sources also tell Deveney. The Spurs would conceivably fit that bill, but even if they don’t end up with Gasol, one GM expects San Antonio to make a surprise move this summer and hints that it’ll come at draft time, as Deveney details. There’s more on the Spurs amid the latest from around the Western Conference:

  • Kings adviser Chris Mullin, reportedly a candidate for the team’s coaching position earlier this season, resisted the recent hirings of coach George Karl and vice president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac, high-ranking team execs tell Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee. GM Pete D’Alessandro also resisted the hiring of Divac, who’s technically atop him in the organization, according to Voisin, though D’Alessandro said to Voisin on Tuesday that he and others are pleased to have the former center around.
  • The Hornets have three prominent former members of the Jazz, and Al Jefferson, Marvin Williams and Mo Williams all expressed fondness for their time in Utah when their new team came to Salt Lake City for Monday’s game, observes Mike Sorensen of the Deseret News. Mo Williams will hit free agency again this summer, and Jefferson can, too, if he turns down a $13.5MM player option.
  • Spurs assistant coach Ettore Messina would like to become a head coach in the NBA someday, but he’s content with the Spurs and said he’d ask Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford for advice before pursuing a head coaching job, as Messina told Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia).
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Players With The Largest Cap Holds For 2015/16

By | at March 19, 2015 11:20 am

Bird rights help teams re-sign their own players, but cap holds are what prevent the same teams from loading up on high-salaried players of their own while also spending lavishly on free agents from other teams. It’s still possible for teams to do that to a degree, depending on the amount of cap flexibility they have, their willingness to renounce their Bird rights to some of their players, and just how high the cap escalates from one year to the next. Cap holds will be less troublesome after next season, when the cap is expected to surge into $90MM territory.

Still, for this year, cap holds are what stand between the illusion of cap space and reality. The Grizzlies have only about $38MM in guaranteed salary for next season, but the notion that they’ll enter the summer with significant cap room is far-fetched if they have designs on keeping Marc Gasol. The sought-after Spanish center will represent a cap hold of about 30% of the salary cap, equivalent to the maximum salary he can make next season. For the right to give Gasol a fifth year in his next deal, along with higher annual raises than he can see elsewhere, the Grizzlies have to keep that maximum amount, likely to be in excess of $18MM, on their books, and they wouldn’t be able to use it to sign other free agents. The Grizzlies surely wouldn’t renounce their Bird rights to Gasol, and the cap hold that comes with it, unless he commits to another team. Those rights are automatically renounced if he signs elsewhere, but that’s clearly not the ideal outcome for Memphis. Factor in Jeff Green‘s $9.2MM player option, and it seems certain that the Grizzlies would only get to use cap space to replace players who depart this summer, not to build around them.

The Knicks are in a different situation with Andrea Bargnani. There’s apparently mutual interest in a new deal, but likely at a drastically reduced price compared to the $11.5MM he’s making this season. Cap holds usually represent much higher amounts than a player’s previous salary, to account for the potential of a raise, so Bargnani’s cap hold will come in at $17.25MM. New York, with only about $32.4MM in guaranteed salary for next season, would surely prefer to use most of that $17.25MM worth of potential cap space on others. Thus, it seems likely that unless the Knicks and Bargnani agree to a new, cheaper deal during the July Moratorium and quickly finalize the contract at moratorium’s end, the team would renounce his Bird rights. The team could still circle back to sign him using a smaller chunk of cap space or the room exception.

Here’s a look at every soon-to-be free agent whose cap hold will represent at least $10MM on the books for their respective teams this summer. Players who have options on their contracts aren’t listed, so conceivably, this list could be even longer. In any case, the players atop the list will likely represent cap holds equivalent to the maximum salaries, which are based on experience and a percentage of the salary cap. The precise values of the maxes won’t be known until after the moratorium, so we’ve included last year’s figures as a guide. Those numbers are likely to escalate this season with the rising cap.

Note: The figures here are rounded to the nearest $1K.

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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10-Day Contract Tracker

By | at March 19, 2015 10:00 am

The 10-day contract isn’t just the domain of the fringe prospect. It’s a path that several notable names take to re-establish their NBA careers. This season, players who were once taken with the first overall pick (Kenyon Martin), the second overall pick (Michael Beasley) and the fourth overall pick (Tyrus Thomas) have all signed 10-day contracts.

The bulk of the signings that take place this time of year are usually of the 10-day variety, and we’re keeping on top of all of them. Hoops Rumors has created a database that allows you to track every 10-day signing all season long. The 10-Day Contract Tracker includes information on all 10-day contracts signed from the 2006/07 season on, giving you a chance to identify trends regarding your favorite teams and players. The search filters in the database make it easy to sort by team, player and year. You can even see whether a player and team signed a second 10-day contract, and if the short-term deals led to an agreement that covered the rest of the season.

For instance, if you want to see how many 10-day deals Lou Amundson has signed over the course of his career, you can find that information here. Similarly, if you want to see all the 10-day contracts the Mavericks have signed in recent years, you can do so here.

A link to our 10-Day Contract Tracker can be found at any time in the Tools menu at the top of the page, or in the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features.” We’ll be keeping it up to date for the rest of the season, so be sure to check back to keep tabs on the latest signings as they become official.

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Central Notes: George, Kaun, Van Gundy

By | at March 19, 2015 8:59 am

Paul George should come back to play if he’s healthy enough to do so before season’s end, but not so he can help the Pacers win more games down the stretch, argues Steve Aschburner of NBA.com. Instead, the focus should be on helping George shake off the rust so he can be ready to go full-speed next season, even if there’s concern that inserting him into the lineup would disrupt the rhythm of this year’s team, Aschburner believes. Here’s more from around the Central Division, which has a strong chance to send the Pacers and three other teams to the playoffs this year:

  • The Cavs are giving thought to signing draft-and-stash prospect Sasha Kaun this summer, according to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia. The 29-year-old from Kansas is on an expiring contract with Russia’s CSKA Moscow, as Mark Porcaro shows in our Draft Rights Held Players database, and Carchia hears that Kaun has told the Russian club that he won’t be back next season. Cavs coach David Blatt coached Kaun on the Russian national team, Carchia notes.
  • The Pistons are in line for the seventh overall pick pending the lottery, as our Reverse Standings show, but coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy admits that he hasn’t seen an entire Kentucky game all year, MLive’s David Mayo observes. Van Gundy’s coaching duties have kept him from seeing much college basketball at all this season, and breaking down prospects is a task that he’s left to scouts and other staffers, as Mayo details. Still, Van Gundy added that he intends to watch video before the draft of just about every game the top 10 or 15 prospects played this season, according to Mayo.
  • Draft-and-stash signee Nikola Mirotic has raised his game to fill the void of the injured Jimmy Butler, Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson, turning into the sort of shooter the Bulls had hoped fellow rookie Doug McDermott would become, writes Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com.
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Jazz Lead NBA In 10-Day Contract Signings

By | at March 18, 2015 2:45 pm

The Jazz under GM Dennis Lindsey have proven that they’ll dig deep to find talent. They use the waiver wire, work out a ton of draft prospects each year, and, this season, they’ve signed 13.3% of all the 10-day contracts issued across the NBA. They’ve inked 10 such contracts with six different players, both league highs. Bryce Cotton this week joined Elijah Millsap as the second among those six to earn a deal that runs at least until the end of the season. Four weeks are still left before the regular season is over, and it would be surprising if the Jazz didn’t continue to make entries in our 10-Day Contract Tracker.

Five other teams have handed out six 10-day contracts, while 20 of the NBA’s 30 teams have signed at least one 10-day contract this year. We’ve ranked each team by the number of 10-day deals its given out, with the recipients in parentheses.

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Heat Sign Michael Beasley For Season

By | at March 18, 2015 1:26 pm

1:26pm: The signing is official, the Heat announced.

1:12pm: The deal is believed to cover next season as well with a team option, according to Winderman, who writes in a full story. I’d speculate that next season would involve non-guaranteed salary rather than a team option, since that’s a more typical structure for this sort of contract, but that remains to be seen.

WEDNESDAY, 12:10pm: Karnes confirms via Twitter that his client will re-sign with the Heat.

TUESDAY, 1:02pm: Heat coach Erik Spoelstra indicated today that the Heat will re-sign Michael Beasley on Wednesday to a contract that covers the balance of the season, tweets Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Today is the final day of his second 10-day contract with the team, so the sides would have to do a deal for at least the rest of 2014/15 if they were to continue their partnership. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the team indeed commit to the former No. 2 overall pick for at least the next month or two, given the praise that Spoelstra and team president Pat Riley have given him since he signed the first of his 10-day contracts with Miami late last month.

The Jared Karnes client has also played a fairly prominent role for the team on his pair of 10-day deals, averaging 9.5 points and 3.9 rebounds in 22.9 minutes per game across 10 appearances. Those averages are better than he posted last season, when he was on the Heat’s roster all year. He spent most of this season playing in China after a brief stint with the Grizzlies during the preseason.

Miami has a full 15-man roster with 14 players already signed through at least the end of the season, so a new deal for Beasley would close off the Heat’s ability to add another player without waiving someone else. Miami is limited to giving Beasley no more than the minimum salary, but the team can tack an extra year onto the deal if it wants and if Beasley and Karnes permit it. It would be reasonable to expect Beasley to demand at least a significant partial guarantee for that to happen, but it’s unclear if either side is thinking beyond 2014/15.

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Qualifying Offer Adjustments Via Starter Criteria

By | at March 18, 2015 1:21 pm

The timing of the three-team trade that sent Iman Shumpert to the Cavaliers on January 5th was likely influenced more by the looming leaguewide contract guarantee date than by any other factor. Still, it was rather significant that the move came after Shumpert had played his 24th game of the season, having started each of them. That was precisely the number of starts that Shumpert needed to make this season to average 41 starts over this season and last, which triggered a bump in his qualifying offer via the league’s so-called starter criteria. Shumpert hasn’t started a single game since the trade, but the Cavs will have to make a qualifying offer worth $4,433,683, instead of $3,695,169, to match offers for him in restricted free agency this summer.

Qualifying offers took on a new level of importance this past summer, when Greg Monroe followed through on his threat to sign his qualifying offer from the Pistons as a means to control his future and reach unrestricted free agency as soon as possible. Eric Bledsoe seemingly came close to doing so before he ended up with a five-year, $70MM deal with the Suns. Kevin Seraphin signed his qualifying offer from the Wizards, joining Monroe in a move that only 16 others have made since 1995. A report before the trade deadline this year indicated that Reggie Jackson was open to signing a qualifying offer from the Thunder.

The qualifying offer almost always represents a steeply discounted salary for a player of the likes of Monroe, Bledsoe and Jackson, which helps explain why Monroe is probably the best player ever to have signed one. Still, for others, like Seraphin, it represents a salary in line with their value. That’s why the starter criteria, which help determine how much qualifying offers are worth, are a key factor for many.

The starter criteria are fulfilled if a player eligible for restricted free agency makes 41 or more starts or plays 2,000 minutes in the season preceding the end of his contract, or in the average of the two seasons preceding the end of his contract. The following are the consequences for meeting or not meeting the starter criteria as they appear in our Hoops Rumors Glossary entry on qualifying offers and as informed by Larry Coon’s invaluable Salary Cap FAQ:

  • A top-14 pick who does not meet the starter criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to the amount the 15th overall pick would receive if he signed for 120% of the rookie scale.
  • A player picked between 10th and 30th who meets the criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to the amount the ninth overall pick would receive if he signed for 120% of the rookie scale.
  • A second-round pick or undrafted player who meets the criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to the amount the 21st overall pick would receive if he signed for 100% of the rookie scale.
  • For all others, the standard criteria determine the amounts of their qualifying offers.

The final four weeks of the season will be crucial for a pair of players eligible for qualifying offers this summer. Henry Sims of the Sixers needs to make 10 more starts to bump his qualifying offer from $1,181,348 to $2,725,003. That’s an iffy proposition, since he’s been in and out of the starting lineup this season and last made a start on March 2nd. The Pelicans don’t have enough games left for Norris Cole to make enough starts, but if he averages 32.7 minutes per game over the 15 contests remaining on the team’s schedule, his qualifying offer will go from $3,036,927 to $4,433,683. That’s unlikely but conceivable, since he’s averaging 26.8 MPG as a Pelican.

The following players are former second-round picks or undrafted players who’ve already triggered the starter criteria and are due qualifying offers of $2,725,003 this summer. Their previous qualifying offers are listed by their names.

These are the players selected with picks 10-30 in the 2011 draft who’ve triggered the starter criteria for qualifying offers of $4,433,683 in the offseason ahead. Again, the previous qualifying offers are listed next to their names.

These are 2011 lottery picks who almost certainly won’t meet the starter criteria, meaning their qualifying offers will decline to $4,045,894. The qualifying offers they had been in line to make are listed by their names.

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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Western Notes: Wiggins, Chandler, Booker

By | at March 18, 2015 12:03 pm

The Raptors are reportedly already planning a run at Andrew Wiggins, and there are apparently whispers that he’d love to play for his hometown Toronto team someday, even though he can’t elect unrestricted free agency until 2019. Still, Wiggins said today, in advance of tonight’s Timberwolves-Raptors game, that he’s quite content in Minnesota, making his remarks to reporters, including Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun (Twitter link).

“I love Minnesota,” he said. “They treat me nice up there. I plan to be there a very, very, very long time.”

That’s no doubt the plan for the Wolves, too, who acquired the 2014 No. 1 overall pick this year in the Kevin Love trade. Here’s more from the Western Conference:

  • Tyson Chandler knew the Mavericks were trying to trade for him this past summer, but he didn’t think it would happen, as he tells Ian Thomsen of NBA.com. “I think the Knicks had rejected every possible trade that they offered,” Chandler said. “I didn’t think I was going from New York. The Knicks had visited me to teach me the triangle offense two days before I got traded. So I definitely didn’t think [a] trade was in the works.”
  • The Jazz are 11-2 since the trade deadline, when the deal that sent Enes Kanter out created more playing time for Trevor Booker. The ex-Wizards power forward didn’t expect Utah to play this well when he signed with the Jazz in the offseason, and he wants to remain with the team, as he tells Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune. Only $250K of his $4.775MM salary for next season is guaranteed.
  • Pelicans coach Monty Williams praised Eric Gordon for putting the team above himself when he decided not to have surgery on the torn labrum in his left shoulder, a move that would have helped ensure he’s 100% for next season, the last on his contract, observes Jimmy Smith of The Times-Picayune. Gordon can hit free agency as soon as this summer if he chooses, though he’d have to turn down a player option worth more than $15.514MM to do so.
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