Western Notes: Warriors, Mekel, Leonard
Golden State stood pat at the trade deadline, but Warriors consultant and part-owner Jerry West, who has plenty of say on personnel, thinks the team still needs to make some kind of move, as he told Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group.
“I think for sure we need to have a piece. For sure,” West said. “And I think as we get further into the year, I think if you watch how teams are going to particularly concentrate on our backcourt, we need more shooting and people who can make shots consistently. I think in games that we flounder in is when our guards are not able to go out there and score 45 to 60 points on any given night. … There’s going to be a bull’s-eye on those two guys’ backs.”
West made his remarks the day after the team signed James McAdoo for the season, filling the last open roster spot. Here’s more from around the Western Conference:
- Former Pelicans and Mavs point guard Gal Mekel is close to a deal with Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod, a source tells David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter links). The GM of the Russian team is confident that Mekel will sign the deal, which would have an NBA escape clause, Pick adds. Mekel had been holding out hope for an NBA deal since his brief stint with New Orleans in December, but he recently appeared to be losing patience.
- It’s been a rough year for Kawhi Leonard, Spurs president/coach Gregg Popovich said, with the reigning Finals MVP suffering through injury woes and a shooting slump as restricted free agency looms this summer, as Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News explores. He’s nonetheless averaging career highs virtually across the board and, as McDonald writes, he remains eminently valuable to the Spurs.
- Amar’e Stoudemire is having an instant effect on the Mavericks, notes Jean-Jacques Taylor of ESPNDallas.com. The Mavs signed the ex-Knick last week, and it’s a prorated minimum-salary deal that goes until season’s end, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders shows (Twitter link).
- The Kings have hired Vance Walberg as an assistant coach, the team announced. Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group first reported that the move would be expected if Sacramento hired George Karl as head coach. Of course, the Kings did indeed hire Karl last week. Walberg is leaving the Sixers staff for his new job.
Aldridge’s Latest: Thunder, Lopez, Jackson
The Thunder aren’t making moves simply out of fear that Kevin Durant will jump ship in 2016 and Russell Westbrook will follow suit the next year, a league source tells TNT’s David Aldridge for his Morning Tip column on NBA.com. Still, it’s been an active season for GM Sam Presti, who went over the tax line to acquire Dion Waiters and stayed above it after Thursday’s swap that sent out Reggie Jackson and brought in Enes Kanter. Aldridge has much more in his column, and we’ll hit the highlights, many of which are Thunder-related:
- The Thunder let the Nets know they wouldn’t do the proposed Jackson/Brook Lopez trade just 15 minutes before the deadline, Aldridge reports. The Nets likely would have dealt Jarrett Jack to the Wizards if they’d done that deal, Aldridge adds.
- The concern that Arron Afflalo would turn down his player option and hit the open market dissuaded the Thunder from trading for him, as Aldridge explains.
- The Rockets preferred Goran Dragic to Jackson and the Celtics weren’t willing to trade young players for the then-Thunder guard, Aldridge writes.
- The Thunder didn’t have plans to re-sign Kendrick Perkins in the summer even before they traded him at the deadline, according to Aldridge.
Nets To Sign Thomas Robinson To 10-Day Deal
1:49pm: Robinson has agreed to sign a 10-day contract, though the Nets are expected to eventually sign him for the rest of the season, Wojnarowski reports in a full story.
1:26pm: Nets officials changed their minds about Robinson this weekend after they were initially uninterested in signing him, according to Tim Bontemps of the New York Post (Twitter link).
12:57pm: Robinson confirmed the agreement to Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders, as Kennedy relays in a pair of tweets.
12:47pm: The Nets and Thomas Robinson have agreed to a deal that will see the big man join the team after he clears waivers from the Nuggets, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Denver released him Sunday after agreeing to a buyout deal, so he’s poised to clear waivers Tuesday. It’s something of a surprise to see Brooklyn end up with the former No. 5 overall pick, since a report late Sunday indicated that the Nets weren’t interested. That ran counter to an earlier dispatch from Shams Charania of RealGM that said Brooklyn, along with the Spurs, Suns, Heat and Hornets, had engaged in talks with Robinson.
Brooklyn has an open roster spot, so no corresponding move is required. The Nets are limited to paying the Tony Dutt client no more than the prorated minimum salary, which is less than the other teams reportedly in discussions could offer, as I explained. Still, it’s not a shock to see him settle for the minimum, as he’s struggled to live up to his lofty draft position, and Brooklyn is poised to become his fourth team in fewer than three NBA seasons. The Blazers declined their team option on the fourth year of his rookie scale contract before trading him to Denver at the deadline on Thursday.
Robinson was one of three prospects the Nets were particularly enamored with when they traded their 2012 lottery pick to Portland, according to Mike Mazzeo of ESPNNewYork.com (on Twitter). That pick came in sixth, which the Blazers used to select Damian Lillard, so Brooklyn wouldn’t have had a chance to nab Robinson, since the Kings took him fifth. Since then, Robinson has displayed proficiency on the boards, hauling in 11.7 per 36 minutes for his NBA career, but he’s otherwise failed to make much of an impact.
Pistons Notes: Prince, Jackson, Van Gundy
Tayshaun Prince said he was angry when he realized the Celtics had traded him Thursday, as Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press details. Prince didn’t call him out by name, but Ellis believe Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge is the object of Prince’s rage.
“I thought no trade was going to happen at all,” Prince said. I was going to be in Boston and see what happened, whether the buyout was going to happen or not. The buyout wasn’t 100%. So I thought there was no trade at all. We get ready to go on the bus to practice and they said, ‘Come here, you’ve been traded.'”
Prince was set to talk buyout with the Celtics before the trade, but Pistons coach/president Stan Van Gundy doesn’t believe Prince will push for a buyout with his new team, and Van Gundy isn’t inclined to give him one. Here’s more from the Motor City:
- Prince added that he felt disrespected when the Pistons traded him to the Grizzlies two years ago, but “that’s a story for back then,” Prince said, according to Ellis.
- Owner Tom Gores is impressed with the “nimble” handling of the trade deadline that Van Gundy and GM Jeff Bower displayed, as Ellis notes in a separate piece. “Stan believes he can do very special things in this league,” Gores said of new acquisition Reggie Jackson. “I believe there’s something Stan saw in Reggie and thinks he can be a real superstar in the league,” Gores said.
- Van Gundy has said he believes the Pistons job will be his last coaching gig, and he’s not sure if he’d want to work as an executive without coaching, as MLive’s David Mayo notes. The 55-year-old made it sound as if he’d rather coach than manage if it came to that. “I don’t know about that,” he said of an executive-only role. “I didn’t really think about that [after the deadline]. I know I was glad when it passed and you can sort of get back to just having your mind on coaching now, until the season’s over, and then you go back to the draft and free agency. But being able to just focus on what goes on on the court, it’s nice, because that last week, it was tougher on Jeff than it was on me, but it was tiring.”
Atlantic Notes: McGee, ‘Melo, Thomas, Brown
The Sixers don’t want a buyout with JaVale McGee, and he doesn’t want one either, notes Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Still, coach Brett Brown indicated that the center has to prove his worth.
“We are coming into this whole thing with an open mind,” Brown said. “He is around a bunch of genuine people, coaches that care. That will give him every chance to keep moving and to be as good as he can be. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But it’s not going to be on us.”
McGee, who’s making $23.25MM combined this year and next, has four points and five rebounds in 24 total minutes across two games with the Sixers so far. Here’s more from around the Atlantic Division:
- The reason that Phil Jackson estimates that Carmelo Anthony will be out of action for four to six months instead of the eight-week timetable Anthony mentioned previously is because of a partial tear in Anthony’s left patellar tendon, reports Marc Berman of the New York Post. The Knicks star played with that tear most of the season, according to Berman.
- The first call Danny Ainge placed to a free agent this past July was to Isaiah Thomas, Ainge told reporters, including Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald. Of course, the Celtics lost out on Thomas this summer but wound up with him via Thursday’s trade with the Suns.
- Lionel Hollins has consistently expressed enthusiasm about rookie Markel Brown in spite of his lack of playing time for the Nets, but now injuries to others and a stylistic shift have Brown seeing more minutes, as Tim Bontemps of the New York Post examines. The shooting guard drafted 44th overall this past June is without guaranteed salary for next season.
Financial Impact Of Deadline Trades: Southeast
Last week’s trade deadline was a dizzying affair, with 39 players and 17 teams involved in a dozen trades, including a trio of three-team transactions. The day had wide-ranging effects on the salary structures of those 17 teams, and we’ll examine the aftermath for each of them in this multipart series.
We’ll begin today with the Southeast Division, home to the Heat, who acquired Goran Dragic, arguably the top player involved in the deadline-day trades, and the Wizards, who engineered an Andre Miller trade for the second deadline in a row. The salary figures listed here denote this season’s salaries, though we’ll also discuss salary for future seasons.
Miami Heat
In: ($9,206,250)
- Goran Dragic ($7,500,000)
- Zoran Dragic ($1,706,250)
Out: ($6,159,673)
- Norris Cole ($2,038,206)
- Shawne Williams ($1,227,985)
- Justin Hamilton ($816,482)
- Danny Granger ($2,077,000)
The Heat slightly lowered their financial commitments for 2015/16, since Zoran Dragic‘s salary for next season is about $464K less than Danny Granger‘s player option. That’s rare for a team that acquires a star, but it’s not nearly the most significant financial upshot here. There was no reasonable chance that Miami would have had been able to clear the cap room to chase Goran Dragic with a fair offer in free agency if they hadn’t traded for him at the deadline. Making a play for Dragic without already having him in the fold would likely have required Dwyane Wade to down his $16.125MM for next season and agree to re-sign for mid-level exception money. Even a “Heat lifer” such as Wade would no doubt hesitate to do that. The motivation to trade for Dragic was much greater for the Heat than for the Knicks or the Lakers, two of the other teams Dragic was reportedly eyeing, and two teams expected to have enough cap room to pay him the max this summer. Those teams will still be out there once Dragic turns down his $7.5MM player option, as he plans to do, but now Miami has the financial advantage of Dragic’s Bird rights to go over the cap to sign him.
For the time being, the trade makes it more difficult for the Heat to find a way to offset the loss of Chris Bosh for the season, since it causes the Heat’s team salary to leap by $3MM, putting them only around $1MM shy of the tax line. That makes it unlikely the team uses the full value of its nearly $2.653MM disabled player exception.
Washington Wizards
In: ($2,077,000).
- Ramon Sessions ($2,077,000)
Out: ($4,625,000)
- Andre Miller ($4,625,000)
Sacramento used a trade exception to accommodate this swap, which gave the Kings more than twice as much salary as they gave up, and that in turn allowed the Wizards the chance to create a trade exception of their own. The precise value of that new exception is unknown, since J. Michael of CSNWashington.com writes that the team used part of its $4,329,089 Trevor Ariza trade exception to absorb Sessions, while Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders figures the Wizards kept that exception intact (Twitter link). Michael’s way lets the Wizards create a new exception equivalent to Miller’s $4,625,000 salary, leaving the Ariza exception at $2,252,089. Pincus has the Wizards creating a new exception worth the difference between the salaries for Miller and Sessions, which comes to $2.548MM. If I had to take a guess, I’d say the Wizards did it as Michael indicates, since in that case the larger exception would be the newer of the two, giving it a later expiration date. However, that’s just my speculation.
What is clear is that Washington gave up some cap flexibility next season, taking on Sessions’ 2015/16 salary of more than $2.17MM instead of Miller’s contract, which expires at the end of this season, for some relief against the tax threshold this season. The Wizards were $1MM shy of the tax line going into the deadline, and now they have $3.548MM in breathing room. Even without the trade, Washington could still have added any player on a prorated portion of the minimum salary, which is all they have to give, and avoided the tax, assuming unlikely bonus clauses in the contracts of the players already on the roster didn’t trigger. I’d imagine the move was motivated more by Washington’s belief that Sessions can outperform Miller than by any immediate tax concerns, though that’s just my speculation. In any case, the team wouldn’t have had a chance to open enough cap room this summer to chase a marquee free agent before the trade, so adding Sessions’ salary for next season doesn’t do much harm. The Wizards should still have enough room beneath the projected $81MM tax threshold for 2015/16 to use the full biannual and non-taxpayer’s mid-level exceptions.
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Bucks Waive Larry Sanders In Buyout Deal
9:38pm: Sanders was cleared to play by the NBA and is in full compliance with the league’s anti-drug policy, according to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today (Twitter link).
6:47pm: The Bucks have waived Sanders, the team announced (Twitter link). “We believe this decision is in the best interest of our team,” GM John Hammond said. “We wish Larry well and remain excited about the future of the Bucks organization.” Not surprisingly, the team didn’t release any details about the terms of the buyout, but presumably Sanders is indeed giving up a significant chunk of salary in the arrangement.
SATURDAY, 6:33pm: The buyout deal is done, Wojnarowski reports, adding that the center is giving up approximately half of the original value of his $44MM deal (Twitter links). It’ll be a while before he plays again as he continues to deal with personal issues, Wojnarowski adds.
WEDNESDAY, 5:13pm: Sanders has no plans to pursue a deal with another team to play in the NBA this season, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports.
12:12pm: The buyout deal still isn’t final, according to Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times (Twitter links).
10:58am: Sanders will be getting $14.5MM of the $33MM originally owed him after this season, a source tells Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops, who reiterates that the Bucks will spread that amount via the stretch provision (Twitter link)
10:51am: The Bucks still haven’t received signed paperwork on the buyout from Sanders, as USA Today’s Sam Amick cautions (on Twitter).
10:38am: Sanders didn’t want to report to the Bucks following the end of his suspension, thus giving the Bucks leverage to extract as much as they did in the buyout, a source tells Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders (Twitter links). It’s unlikely Sanders will sign with another team this season, Kennedy’s source adds and as Kyler also tweets, which makes sense, given that it appears he won’t return to the court in 2014/15.
10:32am: Sanders will receive $15MM more from the Bucks on top of the team’s nearly $8MM payout to him so far this season, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders hears (Twitter links). Milwaukee will use the stretch provision to spread that $15MM over seven years instead of the three remaining on Sanders’ contract, Kyler also hears.
10:05am: The Bucks and Larry Sanders already have a deal on a buyout, reports Shams Charania of RealGM, who says the agreement has been in place for days. He’ll only receive $13MM of the money left on his four-year, $44MM contract, Charania adds. Sanders is in the first year of that pact. Charania seconds a report minutes earlier from Marc Stein of ESPN.com that Sanders will hit waivers no later than March 1st, so he’ll be eligible to play in the postseason for another team. However, it’s unlikely that he returns to the court this season as he continues to deal with personal issues, as Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher wrote overnight.
A drug-related suspension already cost Sanders $1.2MM of his $11MM salary for this season. That suspension ended for the final game before the All-Star break, but he didn’t appear in that contest, and he hasn’t played for the Bucks since December 23rd, long before the NBA handed down the ban. The 26-year-old denied a report amid his absence that he was contemplating retirement, but at this point it seems his career has taken a serious downturn following a breakout season in 2012/13.
Milwaukee rewarded him the following summer with the $44MM deal, which came in the form of a rookie scale extension. He broke his hand in a nightclub fight early last season, which touched off his woes, and he missed time again later in the 2013/14 campaign because of a fractured orbital bone. The league hit him with his first drug-related suspension in April. His production fell off amid the injuries, and trade rumors surfaced. There appeared to be serious interest from other teams as of draft time, but later in the summer, assistant GM David Morway affirmed that Sanders was a part of the club’s future. However, the level of his performance failed to bounce back this season, and it appears the relationship between the club and Sanders has soured.
Clippers, Mavs Cautiously Interested In Sanders
THURSDAY, 7:25pm: The Clippers have also shown interest, and the Cavs did as well prior to garnering a commitment from Kendrick Perkins, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Still, sources tell Stein that Sanders has no plan to play again this year, echoing earlier reports. Presumably the Clippers would tread carefully with Sanders, just as the Mavs would, though that’s just my speculation.
WEDNESDAY, 11:58am: The Mavs have “cautious and complicated interest” in Larry Sanders, who’s reportedly poised to hit waivers as part of a buyout deal with the Bucks, reports Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com. It would take a convincing case from Happy Walters, the agent for Sanders, and Monta Ellis, who clashed with Sanders when they were teammates in Milwaukee, would have to give his blessing for a deal between Sanders and the Mavs to come to fruition, MacMahon cautions. MacMahon indicates that the interest would be for a deal this season, but Sanders is reportedly unlikely to return to the court or seek a deal this season.
Dallas only has the minimum salary to offer for any deal this season, as MacMahon points out. Marc Stein of ESPN.com identified the Mavs as a potential suitor for Sanders this past spring, but it seems his value has only declined since then. The center appears set to give up the majority of the $33MM he was set to make in the final three seasons of his deal with the Bucks.
The Mavs have a strong relationship with Walters, according to MacMahon, and Jermaine O’Neal‘s decision this week to abandon his efforts to play this season left the Mavs without one of their big man targets. Dallas had been prepared to sign both O’Neal and Amar’e Stoudemire, as Stein and MacMahon wrote earlier. Stoudemire has committed to joining the Mavs after clearing waivers today.
Five Teams In Talks With Thomas Robinson
Thomas Robinson has had conversations with the Spurs, Nets, Suns, Heat and Hornets in the wake of his buyout deal with the Nuggets, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). The former No. 5 overall pick went to Denver in the deadline-day trade that sent Arron Afflalo to the Blazers.
The Suns can spend the most, with more than $3.247MM in cap room. Miami has a disabled player exception worth nearly $2.653MM it can spend. The Spurs have a prorated portion of their mid-level, worth about $2.4MM, while the Hornets have their room exception, which comes to about $2MM at this point. The exceptions that San Antonio and Charlotte possess reduce in value daily. The Nets are limited to the minimum salary, which also prorates on a daily basis.
Robinson has seen his minutes decline each season after his rookie campaign, when he was traded midseason from the Kings to the Rockets. Portland acquired him when Houston sent him out in a cap-clearing move that helped the Rockets sign Dwight Howard, but at each stop, the power forward has failed to live up to his draft position. Still, he’s an efficient rebounder, averaging 4.2 boards in 12.2 minutes per game this season.
Gary Neal To Push For Buyout
FEBRUARY 21ST, 6:37pm: The Timberwolves have no plans for a buyout with Neal, sources tell Wojnarowski (Twitter link). The season-ending injury to Shabazz Muhammad has no bearing on Minnesota’s thinking, Wojnarowski adds.
FEBRUARY 20TH, 9:35am: Saunders indicated that he remains disinclined to do a buyout, as Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune relays. “I’m not into buyouts,” Saunders said. “I’m not into paying a guy to play for someone else. It has to make sense for the team, not just the player.” To be clear, Neal would by definition be the party relinquishing money in a buyout, though Minnesota would still have to pay whatever remains on his contract, even if he hooks up with a new team.
5:42pm: The Wizards would have interest in Neal if he were to become a free agent, J. Michael of CSNWashington.com reports (Twitter link). Washington has an open roster spot it could use to add Neal, Michael adds.
4:21pm: The Bulls also have interest in Neal should he reach a buyout deal, according to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune (Twitter link).
FEBRUARY 19TH, 11:38am: Neal wants a trade to a playoff team, and the Hawks remain one of four or five postseason-bound clubs with interest in trading for him, reports Ken Berger of CBSSports.com (Twitter links). He will indeed push for a buyout if there’s no trade, Berger adds (Twitter link).
6:38pm: The Wolves are trying to include Chase Budinger in any trade involving Neal, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link).
FEBRUARY 18TH, 4:09pm: Neal continues to prefer either a trade or a buyout rather than remaining in Minnesota, Chris Mannix Of SI.com reports (Twitter link). Atlanta remains interested in Neal, Mannix adds.
FEBRUARY 13TH, 1:08pm: There’s a significant level of interest in Neal around the league, and the Hawks are among the teams that would like to sign him, but substantive buyout talks between the Relativity Sports client and the Wolves have yet to take place, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.
9:12pm: Neal and his representatives will make a push to reach a buyout deal with the Wolves, in spite of Minnesota’s preference he remain on the roster for the remainder of the season, Wolfson tweets.
3:38pm: The Wolves have no plans to arrange a buyout with Neal, Wolves coach/executive Flip Saunders told reporters, including Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune (Twitter link). Instead, Saunders said he insisted on receiving a shooter in the deal with the Hornets, Zgoda notes, though Neal has slumped from behind the arc this year, as I noted (below).
12:40pm: Minnesota is looking at either a buyout or another trade involving Neal, Charania now says (on Twitter).
FEBRUARY 10TH, 12:22pm: The Wolves plan to explore a buyout with Gary Neal after having acquired him from the Hornets this afternoon, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link) Charania previously reported that the team would look for ways to flip the guard (Twitter link), but his latest dispatch indicates that Minnesota won’t do that. Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities first raised the possibility that Neal would push for a buyout (on Twitter). In any case, the Wolves have plans for the roster spot that today’s trade opened up, tweets Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press, adding that he’s heard that spot should be filled by day’s end.
Neal, 30, is making $3.25MM in the final season of a two-year contract that he signed in 2013 with the Bucks, who shipped him to the Hornets a year ago. He’s a client of Dan Fegan’s Relativity Sports, an agency with multiple Timberwolves clients, as Wolfson points out (Twitter link).
The fifth-year veteran is experiencing his worst three-point shooting season so far, nailing just 29.3%. He was a 39.4% three-point shooter during his first four seasons of action, and that skill led Charlotte to acquire him at last year’s deadline. Neal has averaged 9.6 points in 21.7 minutes per game across 43 appearances this season.