Knicks Open To Re-Signing Andrea Bargnani
Suddenly resurgent former No. 1 overall pick Andrea Bargnani has Knicks president Phil Jackson interested in re-signing him on a reasonably priced deal this summer, a league source tells Marc Berman of the New York Post. Berman heard from an executive that the Leon Rose client would command at least a one-year deal for the minimum salary, though another exec told Berman that the forward/center would merit no more than that. Bargnani almost certainly won’t end up with a salary anywhere close to his $11.5MM pay for this season, yet the interest from the Knicks is a sharp turnaround from earlier this season, when the club reportedly shopped him on the trade market and mulled buyout talks.
The Knicks have the ability to sign Bargnani to a veteran extension between now and June 30th, the final day before his contract expires, but such extensions are rare and that outcome is probably remote. He’ll nonetheless represent a $17.25MM cap hold on New York’s books should he indeed hit free agency, so the Knicks seem destined to renounce his Bird rights to clear that hold and open cap room to sign other free agents, though that’s just my speculation. The Knicks would have to use cap space, an exception, or the minimum salary to sign Bargnani if they renounce him.
Bargnani appeared a likely buyout candidate as the trade deadline approached, but Jackson publicly cast doubt on that idea, pointing to the 29-year-old’s scoring ability. He’s put up 18.6 points on 13.4 field goal attempts in 31.1 minutes per game in five appearances as a starter over the past 10 days, and he was a 21.4 PPG scorer in 2010/11 for the Raptors.
The native of Italy made it clear last week that he wants to remain an NBA player rather than head back overseas, though he wouldn’t specifically address a long-term future with the Knicks when asked, Berman notes. Rose, his agent, is also the representative for Carmelo Anthony, as Berman points out, though the influence of the Creative Artists Agency on the Knicks hasn’t appeared as widespread as it was before Jackson’s tenure began.
Wizards Interested In Bobby Brown
The Wizards are considering Bobby Brown as they mull options for their lone open roster spot, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). They also maintain an interest in Will Bynum, to whom they’ve frequently been linked since last month. Stein first reported shortly before the trade deadline that Washington’s interest in Brown depended on what the team did at the trade deadline. The Wizards brought in Ramon Sessions for Andre Miller the day after Stein’s initial report surfaced, but it appears the team continues to look to upgrade its depth at guard.
Brown is a 6’2″ point guard who’s used the last two seasons in China to raise his profile since his last NBA action in 2009/10. He put up 31.3 points, 6.3 assists and 3.1 turnovers in 40.3 minutes a game for China’s Dongguan Leopards this season after scoring 30.7 PPG for the team last year. The season is over for the Leopards, and while the Aaron Mintz client signed a three-year deal with the club this past summer, the contract does include escape clauses that would allow him to return to the NBA.
The Cavaliers reportedly had interest in Brown as of January, though their roster appears largely set, with the trade deadline in the past and 15 players under contract through at least the end of the season. He was apparently speaking to multiple NBA teams in mid-February, but a deal has yet to emerge.
Bynum came free from his Chinese team a week ago following the club’s playoff elimination. Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal in January identified the Cavs as an interested party for him, too, and Shams Charania of RealGM reported that the Wizards were eyeing him shortly thereafter. J. Michael of CSNWashington pegged Bynum as the team’s primary target aside from Ray Allen, and while Allen has said he won’t play this season and Bynum has picked up an endorsement from John Wall, Michael cast doubt this weekend on Washington’s appeal to Bynum. The Wizards are looking internally for solutions to their recent woes, Michael wrote, noting that Bynum also has a minor hamstring injury. The Wizards, who’ve lost 13 out of 17 and cling to the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference, are limited to giving out no more than the prorated minimum salary.
Multiple Teams Interested In JaVale McGee
10:06pm: Teams that are still interested in signing McGee also include the Rockets, Raptors, and Heat, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports tweets.
FRIDAY, 8:48pm: The Mavericks are still interested in McGee, but other teams that could offer the big man more playing time could be more appealing, Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News writes. Dallas is unable to offer McGee more than a minimum salary contract for the remainder of the season, Sefko adds.
11:48am: There’s “no way” the Raptors would cross the $76.829MM tax line to sign McGee in spite of GM Masai Ujiri‘s affection for him, tweets Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun. The Raptors have a team salary for tax purposes of $76.096MM, as I pointed out earlier. A prorated minimum-salary contract until season’s end for McGee would only cost the team $231,503 if he signed today, after he clears waivers at 4pm Central time, so presumably the club can still bring him in and avoid the tax. So it follows that the Raptors won’t engage in a bidding war, Wolstat adds (on Twitter). However, the Raptors may be closer to the tax line than it appears based on incentive clauses in player contracts, which aren’t always fully reported.
WEDNESDAY, 10:10am: The Raptors are thinking about pursuing McGee, Stein tweets.
5:27pm: The Warriors have expressed major interest in McGee, and view him as an insurance policy for Andrew Bogut, Chris Broussard of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link).
TUESDAY, 3:59pm: The Mavericks are “seriously interested” in JaVale McGee, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com, but the sense is he won’t rush to choose a team should he clear waivers as expected on Wednesday, Stein adds (Twitter links). Plenty of other teams are interested, Stein notes, echoing a Monday report from Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports indicating that no less than 10 teams are in the mix. It’s nonetheless somewhat surprising to see Dallas emerge as one of them, since the Mavs earlier today committed their final open roster spot to a contract through season’s end Bernard James.
The teams that are in the mix for McGee reportedly envision him as a third-string center and won’t offer the big man more than the league minimum to sign. The Heat are among those interested in the oft-injured veteran, Stein tweets. While the remainder of the teams considering making a run at McGee are not yet known, the Wizards are not one of them, Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post notes.
The 27-year-old appeared in just seven contests for the Sixers after being acquired from Denver, averaging 3.0 points and 2.2 rebounds in 10.2 minutes per contest. In 382 career games McGee has averaged 8.4 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.8 blocks. His career slash line is .540/.200/.587.
Wesley Matthews Tears Achilles, Out For Season
Soon-to-be free agent Wesley Matthews will miss the rest of the season after tearing his left Achilles tendon in Thursday’s win against the Mavs, the Blazers announced (Twitter link). Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported the news. It’s a crushing blow not only to Portland’s title hopes but to the Jeff Austin client, who appeared poised for a lucrative contract in free agency this summer.
The 28-year-old was averaging 16.1 points in 34.0 minutes per game on 39.1% three-point shooting with a career-best 16.1 PER this season. The trade deadline acquisition of fellow shooting guard Arron Afflalo looms even larger for the Blazers in the wake of Matthews’ injury. It’s too late for Portland to apply for a disabled player exception, but the team does have an open roster spot, another product of that Afflalo trade.
Matthews hinted before the start of the season that he had no intention of leaving the Blazers when he hit the open market in July, and last month he made his preference to stay in Portland clear. The Knicks nonetheless apparently plan to give chase. The Cavs were reportedly a trade suitor for him this season, though it’s unlikely they end up with enough cap flexibility to make a competitive contract offer for him in the offseason.
Just what sort of money a healthy Matthews would have merited isn’t exactly clear, but he was probably set for a significant raise on his salary of more than $7.245MM this season, likely into eight-figure territory, though that’s just my speculation. The torn Achilles clearly hurts his value, though Matthews, a sixth-year veteran, has only missed 13 regular season games in his NBA career. He said tonight that he’ll try to heal within five months, according to Jabari Young of CSNNW.com (Twitter link), which would bring him back to the court in August. Matthews nonetheless acknowledged a more common timetable would encompass about eight months, Young also notes, putting him in line to miss the first few games of the regular season in 2015/16.
Hawks Sign Jarell Eddie To 10-Day Contract
THURSDAY, 10:10AM: The Hawks officially announced via press release that they have inked Eddie to a 10-day deal.
WEDNESDAY, 8:15AM: The Hawks have agreed to sign training camp invitee Jarell Eddie to a 10-day contract, reports Shams Charania of RealGM. The small forward has been playing for the Spurs affiliate in the D-League. He’ll move into Atlanta’s lone open roster spot Thursday, according to Charania.
Eddie, who went undrafted out of Virginia Tech this past June, joined the Hawks for preseason on a deal without any guaranteed salary. The Celtics claimed Eddie shortly after Atlanta released him about a week shy of opening night, but he lasted only a few days in Boston and didn’t make the regular season roster. He instead made his mark as a sharpshooter in the D-League, knocking down 42.2% of his three-point looks for the Austin Spurs and winning the D-League’s All-Star Game three-point contest. The 23-year-old is averaging 12.1 points in 25.6 minutes per game across 36 appearances for San Antonio’s affiliate. The Hawks have frequently used the Austin Spurs for D-League assignments because of the close ties between the Atlanta and San Antonio organizations and Atlanta’s lack of its own one-to-one affiliate.
The Hawks reportedly spoke to Ray Allen earlier this season, and speculation that the NBA’s all-time leading three-point shot-maker would head to Atlanta intensified when the Hawks opened a roster spot in the trade that sent Adreian Payne to the Timberwolves. However, executives around the league have begun to doubt that Allen will play this year, and while a 10-day contract doesn’t cost the Hawks much flexibility, Atlanta’s use of one on a three-point shooter is nonetheless seemingly a further signal that teams are moving on from Allen.
Ray Allen Says He Won’t Play This Season
Ray Allen will not play this season, as he says in a statement released through agent Jim Tanner and the Tandem Sports and Entertainment agency. He’s not ruling out a return for 2015/16 but adds that he’ll take rest of this season and the offseason ahead to decide about that, suggesting that it’ll again be a long wait before we know if, much less where, Allen will play again. The 39-year-old has languished as the most sought-after free agent since the start of training camp, though the Cavs, long the front-runner for the friend and former teammate of LeBron James, recently appeared to drop out of the running. They were one of of 14 teams who expressed serious interest, a source tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link).
“Over the past several months, I have taken a lot of time to deliberate what is best for me,” Allen said in the statement. “I’ve ultimately decided that I will not play this NBA season. I’m going to take the remainder of this season, as well as the upcoming off-season, to reassess my situation, spend time with my family and determine if I will play in the 2015/16 season.”
The Grizzlies, too, appeared no longer to be in the Allen sweepstakes as of this weekend, not long after executives around the league reportedly began losing faith that he’d sign. The Warriors, Wizards, Spurs, Heat and Hawks were keeping in touch with Allen’s camp as of early February, and Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers said at about that time that he’d recently spoken to him.
Just about every playoff-bound team reportedly reached out to Allen at some point this season. The Wizards were apparently the most aggressive suitor as of January, though LeBron visited Allen’s home in Miami to woo the sharpshooter while the four-time MVP was in town for rehabilitation.
The Bulls were another suitor, though a trip he made to Chicago earlier this season wasn’t basketball-related, Tanner said. Tanner batted down reports that indicated his intentions regarding one team or another all throughout the process that began when he became a free agent in July. Allen said over the summer that it would take a “perfect storm scenario” for him to play this season, and he pointed to a desire for a veteran coach and more than the minimum salary.
Allen was seemingly leaning toward retirement in late December, though he indicated during the middle of last season that he wasn’t planning to retire so soon. If he doesn’t return, he’ll walk away as the NBA’s all-time leader in three-pointers made and career earnings in excess of $184.356MM, according to Basketball-Reference.
Latest On Nets, Hawks Sales
WEDNESDAY, 1:20pm: Investor and Lionsgate Entertainment chairman Mark Rachesky is joining the Frankel-Itzler-Starker bid, league sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com. At least one of the groups with interest in the Hawks is willing to pay more than $900MM, a source tells Stein, though it’s unclear if that total would include bonds tied to the arena that aren’t part of the franchise value, as Mike Ozanian of Forbes.com recently suggested. Stein also adds the names of Indonesian sports and media moguls Erick Thohir and Handy Poernomo Soetedjo to the group fronted by baseball legend Hank Aaron. Wilkins, the Hawks icon and current front office executive for the team, is expected to be a “prominent” member of a bidding group, Stein also hears.
12:23pm: Geffen tells Peter Newcomb of Bloomberg News that he’s not interested in buying the Nets, as Newcomb’s Bloomberg colleague Scott Soshnick tweets.
MONDAY, 8:54am: The Chinese investment conglomerate Fosun is bidding for the Hawks and has interest in the Nets, report Josh Kosman and Claire Atkinson of the New York Post, who hear from a sports banker who believes the Hawks will strike a deal with a new owner in six weeks. The investment fund for the government of the nation of Qatar and former interim Clippers CEO Dick Parsons are also among those interested in the Nets, a franchise that multiple sports bankers believe would sell for as much as $2 billion, according to Kosman and Atkinson. Impresario David Geffen is also considering a run at the Nets, Kosman and Atkinson write, renewing apparent interest from the past. The Post scribes also identify “two wealthy U.S. families” as parties eyeing the Nets.
One of the bankers to whom Kosman and Atkinson spoke disputed an earlier report that the NBA is mandating that current Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov attach his 45% stake in the Barclays Center to his 80% share of the team, saying that the league hasn’t made a decision. The league is promising a verdict on the matter soon, but the confusion over just what’s a part of the sale is causing complication, Kosman and Atkinson hear. Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Enterprises has confirmed it’s shopping its 20% stake in the team, though Prokhorov’s camp has been reluctant to make the same pronouncement regarding its interest in a sale.
The Qatari investment fund seems an unusual bidder, though it has existing connections to the sports world. It owns a French soccer team, as Robert Windrem of NetsDaily points out. It also has ties to the NBA through beIN, a French sports television channel, the NetsDaily scribe tweets. Others linked to the Nets include former Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, investor David Bonderman and hedge fund manager David Einhorn, as well as Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
The same banker who suggested the Hawks sale will be complete in six weeks tells Kosman and Atkinson that he believes the NBA would like to see the Hawks sold before the Nets are. A deadline for preliminary bids for the Atlanta franchise passed last week, and a long list of potential buyers exists. Tampa Bay Rays part-owner Randy Frankel is teaming with rapper-turned-entrepreneur Jesse Itzler and brokerage firm founder Steven Starker in one bid. Former NBA players Grant Hill and Junior Bridgeman, former Suns and Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo, and neuropsychologist Richard Chaifetz are partnering for another. The owners of Atlanta’s WNBA team, Kelly Loeffler and Mary Brock, along with their husbands, Jeffrey Sprecher and John Brock, are also reportedly interested in bidding for the Hawks. Former players Dominique Wilkins, Dikembe Mutombo and Chris Webber, former Grizzlies CEO Jason Levien, attorney Doug Davis and Seattle-focused investors Chris Hansen and Thomas Tull have been linked to the club, too.
Southeast Notes: Beasley, Webster, Mo Williams
Michael Beasley has promised to reform in the past, but he knows there’s a decent chance his 10-day contract with the Heat represents his final opportunity in the NBA, observes Shandel Richardson of the Sun Sentinel. The former No. 2 overall pick’s deal expires at the end of Saturday.
“I’m still the same guy, but it’s desperation for me,” Beasley said. “This is my last chance, my last shot. It’s either play or sit down and I’m not ready to play at `The Y’, not ready for open gyms. I’m playing to eat right now, and I got kids. It adds that much more.”
While we wait to see if Beasley’s third career contract with the Heat will lead to a fourth, here’s more from the Southeast Division:
- The Nets would have had to take Martell Webster if they’d traded Jarrett Jack to the Wizards at the deadline, and the deal would have involved the teams swapping future first-round picks, Grantland’s Zach Lowe tweets. Those Jack proposals appeared to be contingent on Brooklyn’s failed Reggie Jackson-for-Brook Lopez talks, as Lowe points out (on Twitter).
- Mo Williams says he took his time on successful Cavs teams earlier in his career for granted and is grateful for last month’s trade that sent him from Minnesota to the Hornets and gave him a chance to compete for a playoff berth again, as he tells Jessica Camerato of Basketball Insiders. The soon-to-be free agent signed with the Wolves knowing they wouldn’t be contenders, but it seems his focus has changed. “I just want to win. It’s as simple as that — just win,” Williams said. “I’m at the point at my career where I’ve made a lot of money, been an All-Star, and one thing I haven’t experienced is playing at the highest level and that’s winning a championship. That’s everybody’s goal.”
- Re-signing Trevor Ariza would have helped the Wizards better overcome their recent struggles, but that was a sacrifice the franchise was willing to make to save cap flexibility for a shot at Kevin Durant in the summer of 2016, as Ben Standig of CSNWashington.com examines.
Jazz To Sign Jerrelle Benimon To 10-Day Deal
The Jazz are set to sign power forward Jerrelle Benimon to a 10-day contract, a source tells Chris Reichert of Road to the Association (Twitter link). Benimon has been playing with Utah’s affiliate in the D-League since shortly after the Nuggets, who’d signed him for training camp this past fall, waived him in advance of opening night.
Benimon had a $35K partial guarantee on his Nuggets contract, more than the $29,843 he’d make on a standard 10-day contract for a rookie. Still, it seems the 23-year-old is poised for his first taste of regular season NBA action after going undrafted of Towson this past June. He’s averaging 19.9 points and 10.6 rebounds in 34.9 minutes per game in 35 D-League appearances this season.
Utah is without an open roster spot for now, but two members of the Jazz are on 10-day contracts. The team’s deals with Jack Cooley and Bryce Cotton expire at the end of Thursday.
Financial Impact Of Deadline Trades Series
The details surrounding perhaps the wildest trade deadline in memory aren’t easy to sort out. Deadline day saw a dozen trades involving 17 teams and 39 players, not to mention draft picks, cash, the rights to draft-and-stash players, and trade exceptions. The result was sweeping and in some cases dramatic changes.
We went in-depth on the financial implications of the deadline moves in a series of six posts, one for each division. Each is linked below, and this summary post will appear on the right sidebar under the “Featured Posts” category for easy access, since the effects of the deadline player movement will be felt as the draft and summer free agency approach. In addition, we’ve updated our leaguewide list of trade exceptions.