Central Notes: Scola, Bucks, Butler
LeBron James still hasn’t hit his 30th birthday, which comes next month, but there’s evidence to suggest that he’s already past his prime, as Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher examines. The four-time MVP hasn’t been able to carry the Cavs to the sort of performances they were expected to have so far this season, but he’s not the only one struggling for Cleveland, which is just 6-7. Here’s more from the Central Division:
- Pacers power forward Luis Scola still thinks of what might have been if the Spurs, who drafted him in 2002, hadn’t traded his rights to the Rockets in 2007 before he joined the NBA, as Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News details. Playing with San Antonio would have meant pairing with Tim Duncan, whom Scola calls “my biggest hero,” and fellow Argentine Manu Ginobili. All three are set to hit free agency this summer, but there’s retirement talk surrounding Duncan and Ginobili, and Scola spoke of the chance to play with them as though it wouldn’t come again.
- The Bucks are facing an 2017 deadline to break ground on a new arena, lest the league seize control of the team, but commissioner Adam Silver downplayed any urgency surrounding the situation as he visited Milwaukee on Tuesday. Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the details. “I didn’t come here to announce deadlines,” Silver said. “We want to work in partnership with the city and the state to get a new arena built. We’re always going to be reasonable.” Silver, who advocated for the repeal of a “jock tax” in Tennessee, expressed measured support for such an arena funding source in Wisconsin, where a jock tax is under consideration, as Walker notes.
- Jimmy Butler rejects the idea that he’s a marquee player, but Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau is the latest to gush about the swingman poised for restricted free agency this summer, observes Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com. “He’s been incredible,” Thibodeau said. “He’s a star, and he does it on both ends of the floor. He’s just an amazing player. We’ve had him play the point, we’ve had him play the 2, the 3, and [Tuesday] he played the 4. And he hasn’t had any opportunity to practice the 4. So he just got out there, he’s smart, he’s tough, he does whatever the team needs, and he found a way to help lead us into coming back and having a shot at the end.”
2014/15 NBA Reverse Standings
The 2014/15 season is only about a month old, but many scouts and executives around the league are already preparing for the 2015 NBA draft. They’re no doubt cognizant of how their respective NBA teams are doing as they attempt to get an idea of where they’ll be picking, and with our Reverse Standings, which list the NBA’s 30 teams from worst to first, you can easily follow along, too. Hoops Rumors will be updating 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 with no changes to lottery position. Traded picks are also included via footnotes. For instance, the notes next to the Hawks’ and Nets’ picks indicate that Atlanta has the right to swap its selection with Brooklyn’s. For now, that looks like a plus for the Hawks, since they’d be able to grab the Nets’ lottery pick (currently No. 11) and send their own pick (currently No. 19) to Brooklyn.
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 group of prospects, which includes Jahlil Okafor, Emmanuel Mudiay, Karl-Anthony Towns, isn’t as highly touted as the 2014 draftees were, but there’s still 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!
Pistons Rumors: Van Gundy, Anthony, Mitchell
Stan Van Gundy admits that it’s been difficult to strike a balance between the demands of the now and preparing for the future, as he told reporters, including Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News. The coach/executive acknowledged that the last-place Pistons have quite a ways to go.
“I don’t think it’s gonna be overnight,” Van Gundy said of building his team into a winner. “I’d like it to be. [Owner] Tom [Gores] would like it to be, but I don’t think it’s gonna be an overnight thing.”
Van Gundy had more to say, as we detail amid the latest from the Motor City:
- Van Gundy said Gores is overlooking areas of incremental improvement that will need more time to develop, but he reiterated earlier statements that indicate the close working relationship he has with the owner, as MLive’s David Mayo details. “I’m very much aware of what his thinking is, and I think he’s very much aware of what mine is, and we’re on the same page,” Van Gundy said after a 90-minute conversation with Gores on Monday. “But I don’t really think that somebody in my position could have much closer communication with an owner than I do. I can’t even imagine that. I can’t.”
- Detroit traded for Joel Anthony just last month, but the 32-year-old big man, whose contract is up at season’s end, has already let Van Gundy know that he wants to re-sign with the Pistons this summer, as Anthony tells Shams Charania of RealGM. “I love the idea of being here, staying here moving forward and having a chance to help them turn this franchise around,” Anthony said. “Stan has been very adamant about wanting to change the culture, so to be part of that … I don’t want to say it’s more special than playing on a contending team that could win it all, but it would be very satisfying and gratifying to be part of a situation where you’re able to turn things around.”
- The Pistons have assigned power forward Tony Mitchell to the D-League, the team announced. It’s the first trip to the Grand Rapids Drive this season for Mitchell, who played 11 games on D-League assignment last season. He’s not to be confused with the former Bucks small forward by the same name.
Largest Player Options For 2015/16
Player options can be a nuisance for teams. Teams interested in trading for Corey Brewer earlier this month reportedly sought to have him waive his $4.905MM player option for 2015/16, and Brewer doesn’t even possess a particularly expensive option. No team would mind having LeBron James at the value of his league-high $21.573MM player option for next season, but the specter of Roy Hibbert‘s $15.514MM option, tied for the fifth-most expensive 2015/16 player option in the NBA, is a complication for the Pacers.
There’s a decent chance that the salary would be better than any that Hibbert would be able to command in free agency, but he’d probably be able to secure a much greater amount of money over the long term if he opts out, so it isn’t easy for the Pacers to guess what he’ll do. President of basketball operations Larry Bird and company are no doubt keyed into the thinking of the center who’s been a part of the team since 2008, but until they know for sure, the Pacers will have to look ahead to next summer with uncertainty about whether they’ll have significant cap room. Add to the mix David West‘s $12MM player option, another one that could go either way, and there’s no clear picture of the summer ahead for Indiana, which, aside from the options, currently has about $36MM in commitments for 2015/16.
Hibbert and West possess two of the NBA’s nine 2015/16 player options worth more than $10MM, but the Pacers are just one of three teams with multiple players holding such lucrative options. The Cavs, with two of the three most expensive ones, and the Heat are the others. The tenth-most expensive player option in the league, which belongs to Thaddeus Young, is actually an early termination option, though it functions much the same way as a standard player option does.
Jared Dudley holds the only other early termination option for 2015/16, but the possibility, if not the assumption, that he’ll opt in led the Clippers to trade him to the Bucks this summer for a pair of contracts with non-guaranteed salary for 2015/16 instead. The Clippers didn’t have to factor in that non-guaranteed money when they waived Carlos Delfino and Miroslav Raduljica, the two players they acquired in the Dudley trade, and used the Stretch Provision to spread their salaries. Conversely, the value of Dudley’s option would have counted if the Clippers were to have simply waived and stretched him, so even though Dudley may never end up seeing that money, it’s already influenced where he’s playing. However, if Dudley’s option were merely a player option instead of an early termination option, the salary wouldn’t necessarily have counted. Players and teams who sign contracts that contain player options choose whether or not the player will receive the salary in the option year in the event that he’s waived before he has a chance to decide on the option.
The presence of player and early termination options will no doubt come into play again as teams discuss trades between now and the February 19th trade deadline. All 33 player options for 2015/16 are listed below and rounded to the nearest $1K.
- LeBron James, Cavaliers: $21.573MM
- Brook Lopez, Nets: $16.744MM
- Kevin Love, Cavaliers: $16.744MM
- Dwyane Wade, Heat: $16.125MM
- Eric Gordon, Pelicans: $15.514MM
- Roy Hibbert, Pacers: $15.514MM
- Al Jefferson, Hornets: $13.5MM
- David West, Pacers: $12.6MM
- Luol Deng, Heat: $10.152MM
- Thaddeus Young, Timberwolves: $9.972MM (early termination)
- Jeff Green, Celtics: $9.2MM
- Monta Ellis, Mavericks: $8.72MM
- Arron Afflalo, Nuggets: $7.5MM
- Goran Dragic, Suns: $7.5MM
- J.R. Smith, Knicks: $6.4MM
- Gerald Henderson, Hornets: $6MM
- Paul Pierce, Wizards: $5.544MM
- Chase Budinger, Timberwolves: $5MM
- Corey Brewer, Timberwolves: $4.905MM
- Jared Dudley, Bucks: $4.25MM (early termination)
- Raymond Felton, Mavericks: $3.95MM
- Kirk Hinrich, Bulls: $2.855MM
- Mike Miller, Cavaliers: $2.855MM
- Jameer Nelson, Mavericks: $2.855MM
- Steve Blake, Trail Blazers: $2.17MM
- Jordan Farmar, Clippers: $2.17MM
- Danny Granger, Heat: $2.17MM
- Alan Anderson, Nets: $1.333MM
- Cartier Martin, Pistons: $1.271MM
- Brandon Rush, Warriors: $1.271MM
- Al-Farouq Aminu, Mavericks: $1.101MM
- Ed Davis, Lakers: $1.101MM
- Garrett Temple, Wizards: $1.101MM
The Basketball Insiders salary pages and Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ were used in the creation of this post.
Central Notes: Butler, Knight, Gray
Few would have imagined that the Bucks, who had the worst record in the NBA last year, would have a better mark nearly a month into this season than LeBron James and the Cavs do, but that’s the case, with Milwaukee at 7-7, a half-game clear of 6-7 Cleveland. Still, it won’t be difficult for the Cavs to climb back into contention for a high playoff seed, since they’re only two games back of the Central Division-leading Bulls in the loss column. Here’s the latest from the Central:
- Jimmy Butler tells Ben Golliver of SI.com that it was difficult to pass on an extension with the Bulls last month but that he turned down Chicago’s offer because he believed in his ability to improve his offensive game after a step back last season. Butler has proven wise so far, averaging 20.8 points per game on 49.7% shooting this season compared to 13.1 PPG and 39.7% shooting last year.
- Brandon Knight has had three coaches in his four NBA seasons, but his relationship with new Bucks coach Jason Kidd has been positive so far, and a desire for stability is one reason why Knight wants to re-sign with the Bucks this summer, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News examines.
- Aaron Gray won’t play this season because of a heart ailment, and he acknowledges that there’s a chance that he’ll never be healthy enough to return, as he says to MLive’s David Mayo. Still, he’s not giving up hope, and a couple of weeks shy of his 30th birthday, Gray is serving as an unofficial assistant coach for the Pistons, who waived him last month in part because of his health, as Mayo details. “They brought me here for a service,” Gray said. “Even though I’ve been waived, the type of guy I am, I’m still getting paid for two years. I just wouldn’t feel right not contributing as much as I possibly could.”
Xavier Henry Out For Season With Torn Achilles
TUESDAY, 2:04pm: Henry is expected to recover in time to for the start of next season, the Lakers note amid an announcement acknowledging that he underwent surgery today. Henry’s contract only covers this season, however, so he’ll have to convince teams that he’s healthy in free agency.
MONDAY, 6:33pm: The Lakers have confirmed that Henry is expected to be out for the rest of the season, the team announced. He’ll have surgery Tuesday.
5:09pm: The MRI showed that the Achilles is torn, and Henry will miss the rest of the season, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (on Twitter).
2:31pm: The Lakers suspect that Xavier Henry ruptured his left Achilles tendon during practice today, the team announced (Twitter link). Henry is undergoing an MRI to confirm the initial diagnosis. The injury would probably knock the 23-year-old out for the season, though there’s no timetable yet. The team is already expected to be without Steve Nash and No. 7 overall pick Julius Randle for the rest of 2014/15.
Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding suggested recently that the Lakers were likely to release Henry if they signed Quincy Miller, one of several players the Lakers reportedly worked out in the past several days. The Lakers used a portion of their room exception to re-sign Henry this summer to a fully guaranteed one-year deal for $1.082MM, but he’s struggled to come back from a series of injuries that have plagued him since his hot start for the Lakers last season. The 12th overall pick from the 2010 draft is averaging just 2.2 points in 9.6 minutes per game in nine regular season appearances so far this year.
Henry’s deal is one of 13 fully guaranteed pacts for the Lakers, who also have Ronnie Price and Wayne Ellington on partially guaranteed contracts, as our roster counts show. Ryan Kelly is out at least another five weeks with a torn right hamstring, so a long-term injury for Henry would put the Lakers in line to receive a 16th roster spot if they apply for one and if the league allows it. The NBA has already granted a Disabled Player Exception for Randle, which lets the Lakers exceed the minimum salary to sign a player, and the team’s application for a more sizable DPE for Nash, which would be worth nearly $4.851MM, is still pending, as we passed along earlier today.
Rockets Show Interest In Al Harrington
The Rockets are thinking about signing power forward Al Harrington, who just left his Chinese team because of apparent interest from NBA clubs, reports Yannis Koutroupis of Basketball Insiders. Houston has a full 15-man roster, so the team would have to make a corresponding move if it were to add Harrington.
The 34-year-old veteran of 16 seasons is a sharpshooting power forward who would seemingly fit well within Houston’s perimeter-oriented offense. He’s a 35.2% shooter from three-point range for his career, and he knocked down the long ball with 34.0% accuracy in 34 games last season with the Wizards. He expressed hope that he would re-sign with Washington once he returned from China, where he had been averaging 32.8 points per game for the Fujian Sturgeons, but it’s unclear if the Wizards are willing to consider him at this point.
Terrence Jones, Houston’s starting power forward, is out indefinitely with a peroneal nerve contusion, which is an injury to his left leg. The team has 13 fully guaranteed contracts, and starting point guard Patrick Beverley is on a non-guaranteed deal, as our roster counts show. Tarik Black, who has already earned more than the $50K partial guarantee on his deal for this season, appears to be the most vulnerable Rocket, though that’s just my speculation. The Rockets have reportedly been anxious to make a trade to upgrade their rotation, but perhaps they envision being able to do so with the addition of a rejuvenated Harrington instead.
Western Notes: Lakers, Price, Martin, D-League
The Lakers are in contact with the NBA about “roster possibilities” in the wake of Xavier Henry‘s season-ending torn Achilles, tweets Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times. The team will probably apply for a Disabled Player Exception for Henry, according to fellow Times scribe Eric Pincus (Twitter link). That’s even though the $541K exception would only be useful to acquire a player making a prorated salary. Here’s more on the Lakers and a few of their Western Conference foes:
- There’s a strong possibility that the Lakers will cut Ronnie Price to bolster their injury-hit roster, as David Pick of Eurobasket.com hears (Twitter links). Price’s minimum salary is partially guaranteed for about $329K, and that guarantee jumps to more than $658K if he remains under contract through December 15th.
- The Timberwolves confirmed today that Kevin Martin had surgery to repair his fractured right wrist that they expect will keep him out about six to eight weeks (Twitter link), echoing an earlier report of that timeframe. The Wolves have considered applying for a 16th roster spot, and if the league grants it, the team would most likely add a post player, as Flip Saunders said Monday to reporters, including Andy Greder of the St. Paul Pioneer Press (Twitter link).
- Dahntay Jones is set to sign with the D-League, reports Gino Pilato of D-League Digest. The 10-year NBA veteran spent the preseason with the Jazz, who cut him before opening night. No D-League team holds the rights to Jones, so the D-League waiver system will determine the identity of his new team, Pilato notes.
- Tyler Ennis is in a tough position in a deep Suns backcourt, but this year’s 18th overall pick doesn’t mind the stigma of his recent four-day D-League assignment, as he told reporters, including Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun. “A lot of people look at it as a bad thing, D-League, and think it’s something horrible, but it’s not like we’re stuck down there for the year,” Ennis said. “They let us know they want to see us play and see us stay in shape and we thought it was a good thing as far as us going down and playing well. I think I was able to show that I should be on this [NBA] level.”
Offseason In Review: San Antonio Spurs
Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees, and more will be covered, as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.
Signings
- Boris Diaw: Four years, $28MM. Re-signed via Bird rights. Third year partially guaranteed for $3MM. Fourth year non-guaranteed.
- Patty Mills: Three years, $11MM. Re-signed via Bird rights.
- Aron Baynes: One year, $2.077MM. Re-signed via mid-level exception.
- Matt Bonner: One year, $1.448MM. Re-signed via minimum-salary exception.
Extensions
Trades
- Acquired 2014 pick No. 54 from the Sixers in exchange for 2014 pick No. 58 and 2014 pick No. 60.
Waiver Claims
- None
Draft Picks
- Kyle Anderson (Round 1, 30th overall). Signed via rookie exception to rookie scale contract.
- Nemanja Dangubic (Round 2, 54th overall): Playing overseas.
Camp Invitees
- Bryce Cotton
- Josh Davis
- Fuquan Edwin
- JaMychal Green
- John Holland
- Robert Vaden
Departing Players
Rookie Contract Option Decisions
- None
The NBA has learned not to mess with the team from south Texas, and the team from south Texas has learned not to mess with success. The Spurs have begun 2014/15 with a roster almost identical to the one that steamrolled the Heat in the Finals last season. The only difference is that Damion James, who scored just six points in five regular season games and didn’t appear in the playoffs, is no longer around and Kyle Anderson, the last pick of the first round this year, is in his place. Still, it’s not as if GM R.C. Buford and Gregg Popovich, who carries the dual title of coach and president of Spurs basketball, were without decisions to make in the offseason.
Before Buford and Popovich could make their decisions, Tim Duncan had to make his. The franchise icon had a player option for 2014/15, one that the league adjusted from $10MM to more than $10.361MM, and he briefly considered retirement before ultimately opting in for a chance to win back-to-back titles for the first time. There were also questions surrounding Manu Ginobili‘s willingness to return for another season, but Ginobili had no player option on his contract, which runs through this season, and he said in April that he was “pretty sure” he would be back for this season. He confirmed that in June, saying that he plans to play through 2014/15 and maybe 2015/16.
The future of Duncan and Ginobili reportedly played into extension talks with Kawhi Leonard last month. Leonard had been seeking the max in the months after winning the 2014 Finals MVP, but such a commitment would have compromised San Antonio’s potential to open significant cap space this coming summer. That’s space the Spurs are apparently thinking about using to pursue marquee free agents if Duncan and Ginobili retire. The Spurs have close to $34.2MM in salary commitments against a projected $66.5MM salary cap for 2015/16. That doesn’t count cap holds for the seven players whose contracts expire at season’s end, including Duncan, Ginobili and Leonard. The Spurs could renounce their rights to Duncan and Ginobili if they retire, but because the team decided against an extension for Leonard, his cap hold will only take up slightly more than $7.235MM. San Antonio could spend up to the cap and still give Leonard a new deal, or match another team’s offer sheet, via Bird rights. Several league executives told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports that the Brian Elfus client will command max offer sheets in the summer, but the Spurs would almost certainly match any offer sheets that come his way, Wojnarowski wrote. So, it seems that San Antonio’s decision to pass on an extension for the 23-year-old has more to do with timing and salary cap strategy than doubts about his ability, even though Leonard’s three straight games of 20 or more points in the Finals constituted the first such stretch of his career.
It’s not as if the Spurs are opposed to extensions. They handed out a rare veteran extension to Tony Parker, giving him the maximum amount such an extension would allow. Parker could have signed a new contract with the Spurs or another team next summer for much more in annual salary and either four or five years instead of the three that the veteran extension rules allow. Instead, he again gave San Antonio a discount, just as he did when he signed his last extension. Parker made it clear that he wants to eventually finish his career in San Antonio, underscoring the unusual, if not unique, deference that he, Duncan and Ginobili so often give to the only NBA organization for which they’ve ever played. Parker very well could have commanded a salary in the neighborhood of $20MM for 2015/16, depending on where the maximum salary is set, but with only about $13.438MM coming his way, the Spurs have significantly more spending power to replenish their roster should Duncan and Ginobili retire.
It’s no surprise that the organization decided to recommit itself to the man at the controls of that culture of sacrifice, signing Popovich to a multiyear extension. Popovich has been the NBA’s Coach of the Year two out of the last three seasons, and he’s done so while wielding front office power in tandem with Buford, the reigning NBA Executive of the Year. The 65-year-old Popovich has joked that he’ll walk away from his job when Duncan retires, but he’s reportedly eager to coach four or five more years, and he’s suggested that he promised Parker that he’ll continue for the duration of the point guard’s extension, which runs through 2017/18.
Boris Diaw‘s contract will also keep him in San Antonio for that timeframe, providing the Spurs continue to want him around. San Antonio lavished better than mid-level money on the versatile big man, protecting themselves with non-guaranteed salary at the back end and some creative clauses, including incentives tied to Diaw’s ability to keep his weight in check. The Blazers were the only other team linked to the Doug Neustadt client, so it was a bit surprising to see San Antonio pay a premium on a long-term deal to a 32-year-old who only started 24 regular season games last season. Still, Diaw’s unselfishness on offense, which fits snugly into San Antonio’s philosophy, and his ability to guard multiple positions on defense helped prove his value.
The Spurs balanced their expensive deal for Diaw against a discount for Patrick Mills, whose shoulder injury derailed his free agency. The point guard reportedly had mutual interest in the Knicks, but once he received his diagnosis, it became clear he would re-sign with the Spurs. The Hornets, too, apparently planned to go after Mills but changed their minds when the injury surfaced. The 26-year-old will be making salaries roughly equivalent to the taxpayer’s mid-level exception the next three years, which is a team-friendly arrangement for a point guard who emerged as one of the league’s best backups last season.
San Antonio spent much of the summer with 14 players under fully guaranteed contracts for this season while negotiations dragged on with restricted free agent Aron Baynes, who eventually became the 15th. The Spurs spent time mulling sign-and-trade possibilities and Baynes cast an eye toward signing with a European team. San Antonio reportedly looked at alternatives including NBA veterans Ray Allen, Gustavo Ayon, Michael Beasley, Jamaal Franklin and Hakim Warrick, among others. San Antonio was particularly persistent with Ayon, who wound up heading overseas after a pair of Spanish teams resolved a dispute over his rights. That left the Spurs to circle back to Baynes, though San Antonio reportedly continues to eye Allen.
Change will eventually come to the Spurs, but for now, just about everyone involved has agreed that the chance to a repeat as champions, perhaps the lone accomplishment the Popovich-Duncan era team hasn’t achieved, is enticing enough to stick around for. San Antonio is the rare team that’s been able to maintain its success while keeping plenty of flexibility for the future, thanks in large measure to sacrifice from Parker and others, and while Duncan and Ginobili near the end, San Antonio’s run as an elite team seems poised to continue for the foreseeable future.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Al Harrington Leaves China Amid NBA Interest
China’s Fujian Sturgeons have signed DJ White to replace Al Harrington, who has opted out of his contract, the team announced (translation via Emiliano Carchia of Sportando). Harrington left the team to pursue “immediate NBA offers,” according to David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link), and the GM of the Sturgeons acknowledged that the NBA was a possibility for Harrington as he spoke to reporters, Carchia writes. Still, it’s unclear which NBA teams have interest in the 34-year-old power forward. Many former NBA players who sign to play in China are bound to their respective clubs for the abbreviated Chinese season, but the deal that Harrington inked in August contained an out clause, according to Evan Wang of Hupu.com (Twitter link). The terms of the deal for White aren’t immediately clear.
Harrington was in fine form in the early going this season for Fujian, averaging 32.8 points and 10.8 rebounds with 37.5% three-point shooting in 38.7 minutes per game. The 16-year NBA veteran said in August that he had drawn interest from some non-contending NBA teams but that he hoped to re-sign with the Wizards, the team he played for last season, when he returned from China. The Wizards have a full 15-man roster, but they have Glen Rice Jr. on a partially guaranteed deal, and Rasual Butler‘s contract is non-guaranteed. Nene, who plays Harrington’s position, is dealing with plantar fasciitis in right foot, as Todd Dybas of The Washington Times notes, though the team doesn’t expect the injury to keep him out for long. Harrington struggled to find playing time last year with the Wizards after spending most of 2012/13 recovering from the effects of a staph infection that he contracted while undergoing knee surgery in April 2012. The Dan Fegan client was a key cog for the Nuggets prior to the operation, averaging 14.2 PPG and 6.1 RPG in 27.5 MPG during the 2011/12 season.
White, whose one-month deal with Spain’s Laboral Kuxta expired a few weeks ago, had reportedly been looking for a chance to latch on with an NBA team, but he’ll instead return to China, where he spent much of the previous two seasons. He’s been able to parlay his Chinese stints into NBA work both years, joining the Celtics at the end of the 2012/13 season and the Hornets (then Bobcats) last spring.