Lakers To Work Out Roscoe Smith
Training camp cut Roscoe Smith is the latest in the procession of players the Lakers are bringing in for tryouts, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). The 23-year-old small forward, who’ll audition for the team today, joins Gal Mekel, Jordan Hamilton, Dwight Buycks, Quincy Miller and Tyrus Thomas, all of whom have reportedly either worked out for the Lakers in recent days or are scheduled to do so.
Smith signed with the Lakers for training camp on a non-guaranteed one-year deal for the minimum salary after going undrafted out of UNLV, and the team let him go in advance of opening night after he averaged 3.1 points in 14.9 minutes per game during seven preseason contests. The Lakers retained his D-League rights, and he’s put up 18.3 PPG in 35.5 MPG in three games so far for the Los Angeles D-Fenders. The Lakers must notify the D-League before the workout and ensure that Smith doesn’t miss a D-League game to avoid running afoul of the rules governing NBA teams and their D-League affiliates, notes Gino Pilato of D-League Digest (Twitter link).
The Lakers have won two in a row to improve to 3-9, but their 1-9 start was the worst in franchise history. They possess a Disabled Player Exception worth nearly $1.499 for Julius Randle and may also obtain another such exception worth nearly $5MM for Steve Nash, since both players are out for the season. Still, none of the players to whom the Lakers have been connected of late would appear to merit more than the minimum salary.
Ronnie Price and Wayne Ellington, who have partially guaranteed deals, are the only Lakers without fully guaranteed salaries, though Kevin Ding of Bleacher Report recently suggested Xavier Henry is in danger of being cut despite his one-year guaranteed contract for $1.082MM. Ellington had been on leave from the team as he mourned the recent murder of his father, but he returned to the Lakers today, notes Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News (Twitter link).
Rift Developing Between Nets, Andrei Kirilenko?
12:42pm: No buyout negotiations have taken place between Kirilenko’s camp and the team, sources tell Bontemps, adding that if a trade were to happen, it would likely not take place until after December 15th. Still, it appears “inevitable” that if a trade doesn’t happen, a buyout will, Bontemps writes, even though the Post scribe hears that Kirilenko’s leave of absence from the team isn’t related to his lack of playing time.
12:28pm: The Nets say Andrei Kirilenko won’t be joining them on their three-game road trip, notes Tim Bontemps of the New York Post, while a source tells Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News that a resolution to the situation likely won’t happen until Kirilenko is on another team (Twitter links). The Nets cited personal reasons for Kirilenko’s absence, and coach Lionel Hollins told reporters today that he doesn’t know if the 33-year-old forward will be return to the team once it gets back from the trip.
Kirilenko has only seen a total of 36 minutes of action across seven of Brooklyn’s 12 games so far this season, a sharply reduced role even from last season’s career-low 19.0 minutes per game. He signed a two-year deal for about $6.5MM in the summer of 2013 that was so far beneath market value that it sparked concern that he and fellow Russian Mikhail Prokorov, the owner of the Nets, had worked out an under-the-table arrangement. An NBA investigation cleared them of any wrongdoing. The deal contained a player option for this season worth more than $3.3MM that Kirilenko chose to exercise to remain with the Nets, but it appears as though his relationship with the team has suffered since he made that decision in June.
The Nets have Joe Johnson and Kevin Garnett starting at the forward positions and Alan Anderson and Mirza Teletovic backing them up. Kirilenko, in his 13th NBA season, has played both small forward and power forward, but it appears as though Hollins prefers to play others. Kirilenko, a client of Marc Fleisher, is eligible to be traded immediately, unlike many players in the league whose teams must wait until at least December 15th. The Rockets are reportedly seeking trades at an unusual time for such activity, and they and the Cavs have apparently been in discussions of late with the Wolves about acquiring Corey Brewer, who like Kirilenko has established a reputation as a strong perimeter defender.
And-Ones: Bledsoe, Union, Rondo, Mavs, Sixers
Eric Bledsoe says he never worried about the Suns‘ acquisition of yet more high-level point guards in the offseason, but staying healthy was a concern as his contract negotiations dragged on, as he tells Chris Mannix of SI.com, who writes in his Open Floor column.
“I stayed in the gym working out. I just had to make sure I didn’t get hurt,” Bledsoe said. “My agent was calling me, telling me not to go play with everybody. I pretty much wrapped my body in bubble wrap.”
Bledsoe’s numbers are off a bit this year after the summer hiatus, so while we wait to see if he can regain his form once he shakes off the rust, here’s more from around the league:
- Union executive director Michele Roberts has made an effort to forge a relationship with several top agents, in contrast to predecessor Billy Hunter, who kept agents at arm’s length, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News examines. Still, some agents are miffed about her choice of of Roger Mason, who supported her candidacy for the executive director job, to conduct a review of agent regulations, as Ken Berger of CBSSports.com wrote earlier this week.
- Rajon Rondo doesn’t see this season as a rebuilding year for the Celtics, notes Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe (Twitter link).
- The Mavs have been paying greater attention to scouting talent for their D-League club as the connection between Dallas and its affiliate grows, as Eduardo Najera, the coach of the Mavs D-League affiliate, tells Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News.
- The Sixers have a plan to return to contention eventually, but they are taking a risk that their players will learn to accept losing in the meantime, Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News believes.
Atlantic Notes: Sixers, Bass, Calderon
The Raptors are the best team in the Eastern Conference at 9-2, but the rest of the Atlantic Division is off to a rough start. The four other teams are all below .500, and the Sixers haven’t won in 11 tries. They’ll visit the 3-10 Knicks on Saturday in a game with early 2015 draft lottery implications. Here’s more from the struggling Atlantic:
- Sixers coach Brett Brown and GM Sam Hinkie didn’t realize when they took their respective jobs in 2013 that the team’s roster this season would be so devoid of immediate contributors, Brown admitted Thursday, according to Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Brown said the expectation had been that the Sixers would use their pair of lottery picks this year to bring in players who would be on the floor now instead of the injured Joel Embiid and Euroleaguer Dario Saric. “We put our big-boy pants on and made a decision that is best for the club long-term,” Brown said. “Time will tell. But the year that we are all now living in is a result of those types of decisions. That’s why you look on the floor and see a roster like you do and resumés like you do.”
- Boston acquired Brandon Bass to be a complementary piece on a contending team, making his value to this version of the Celtics hard to divine, as Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com writes in his mailbag column. If the Celtics make a trade, Bass is among the most likely candidates to go, Forsberg opines.
- Much hinges on the return of Jose Calderon as the most significant offseason addition for the Knicks is poised to make his regular season debut for New York, writes Marc Berman of the New York Post.
Bernard James Signs With Chinese Team
FRIDAY, 8:04am: James has officially signed with the Shanghai Sharks, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Enea Trapani).
WEDNESDAY, 9:45pm: James has indeed signed a deal to play in China, Sefko reports. Eduardo Najera, James’ coach with the Texas Legends, has also confirmed that James has left the team and is on his way to China, though the team that inked James is still unknown, Sefko adds.
12:34pm: Former Mavs center Bernard James is set to play in China, reports Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News (Twitter link). The identity of the team the Happy Walters client is joining is unclear, as are the terms of the deal. James, whom the Mavs cut before the season began, had been playing for the Mavs D-League affiliate after Dallas retained his D-League rights.
James re-signed with Dallas in September on a guaranteed one-year deal for the minimum salary, and he was presumably in line to reprise the backup big man role he had played for the Mavs the previous two seasons. However, the resurgence of training camp invitee Charlie Villanueva during the preseason helped push the 29-year-old James out, and Dallas decided to eat his guaranteed salary and keep Villanueva on his non-guaranteed pact. James, a former U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant, is averaging 11.5 points and 10.0 rebounds per game in two D-League appearances so far.
The Mavs might be in line to recoup a portion of the $915,243 they owe him this year if James’ Chinese deal is lucrative enough to trigger set-off rights. A similar scenario is at play should Gal Mekel, whom the Mavs also let go in spite of a guaranteed contract, wins a spot with the Lakers after his tryout this week.
John Lucas III Spurns Lakers To Play In China
FRIDAY, 7:49am: Lucas is joining the Fujian Sturgeons, the team that signed Al Harrington this past summer, Stein reports (Twitter link).
WEDNESDAY, 8:40am: Seven-year NBA veteran John Lucas III has called off a scheduled workout with the Lakers this week to sign with a Chinese team instead, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Sportando’s Enea Trapani first reported that Lucas was finalizing a deal in China, and while the identity of the club isn’t entirely clear, Trapani suggests that it’s the Yao Ming-owned Shanghai Sharks, who just let go of Delonte West. The financial terms of the Chinese pact for Lucas are unclear, but it likely involves guaranteed money of the sort that the Lakers would be hesitant to offer.
Lucas turned down offers from Chinese Basketball Association teams Jilin Northeast and Fujian, as agent Bernie Lee told Shams Charania of RealGM earlier this month, shortly after the Wizards released him at the end of the NBA preseason. The Thunder, Pacers and Grizzlies were showing interest in the point guard, too, as Charania reported, adding that Lucas was looking for a longer-term arrangement than any Chinese or NBA teams were willing to provide. Lucas appeared to be targeting a return to the Bulls, for whom he played in 2010/11 and 2011/12, but it doesn’t look like there’ll be a reunion in the near future.
It’s been a whirlwind past few months for Lucas, who turns 32 on Thursday. The Jazz had him under contract for a non-guaranteed $1.6MM at the beginning of the offseason, but they traded him to the Cavs in July. Cleveland flipped him two months later to the Celtics, who promptly waived him. The Wizards picked him up in late October, presumably with an eye on keeping him for the start of the regular season, but Washington put him back on waivers before opening night.
Reports have indicated the Lakers are working out Quincy Miller, Tyrus Thomas and Dwight Buycks as they seek upgrades for their 2-9 squad. Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding suggested this week that Xavier Henry would be the odd man out if Miller came aboard, though Henry has a guaranteed salary. Ronnie Price and Wayne Ellington have partially guaranteed deals. In any case, the Lakers would have to let someone go if they were to make a signing, since they already have a full 15-man roster.
D-League Moves: Hawks, Wizards, Mavs
Wednesday was the 23rd day of the NBA season, and teams had already made 31 D-League assignments or recalls by the time the day was through. We’ve been keeping track of all the comings and goings, and we’ll continue to log them throughout the season on the post linked here. The movement continues, as we detail:
- The Hawks sent Adreian Payne to the D-League today, reports Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who adds that the team plans to keep him with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants through this weekend’s games, at least. The Hawks are without a one-to-one affiliate, as they share the Mad Ants with a dozen other teams.
- One of those teams is the Wizards, who sent Glen Rice Jr. to the Mad Ants today, the team announced. Payne and Rice are the only two players so far this season who’ve gone on NBA assignment to the Mad Ants, who can only carry as many as four NBA assignees at once. The NBA and the D-League have established a protocol to help NBA parent clubs of the Mad Ants find a place for their D-League-bound players if the openings in Fort Wayne are full, as we detailed earlier.
- The Mavs have assigned Ricky Ledo to the their one-to-one D-League affiliate, the team announced. Ledo played in more than three times as many D-League games as he did NBA games last season, and he’s yet to appear in a game for the big club this year.
Offseason In Review: Chicago Bulls
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
- Pau Gasol: Three years, $22.346MM. Signed via cap room. Includes a 15% trade kicker.
- Kirk Hinrich: Two years, $5.587MM. Signed via room exception.
- E’Twaun Moore: Two years, $1.964MM. Signed via minimum-salary exception. First year is guaranteed for $425K. Second year is non-guaranteed.
- Nazr Mohammed: One year, $1.448MM. Signed via minimum-salary exception. Non-guaranteed.
- Aaron Brooks: One year, $1.146MM. Signed via minimum-salary exception.
Extensions
- None
Trades
- Acquired 2014 pick No. 11 and Anthony Randolph from the Nuggets in exchange for 2014 pick No. 16, 2014 pick No. 19, and the less favorable of Chicago’s and Portland’s 2015 second-round picks.
- Acquired the rights to Milovan Rakovic from the Magic in exchange for Anthony Randolph, the more favorable of Chicago’s and Portland’s 2015 second-round picks, the more favorable of Chicago’s and Portland’s 2016 second-round picks, and cash.
- Acquired the rights to Tadija Dragicevic from the Mavericks in exchange for Greg Smith.
Waiver Claims
- None
Draft Picks
- Doug McDermott (Round 1, 11th overall). Signed via rookie exception to rookie scale contract.
- Cameron Bairstow (Round 2, 49th overall). Signed via cap room for three years, $2.333MM. Second year is $425K guaranteed. Third year is non-guaranteed.
- Nikola Mirotic (2011, Round 1, 23rd overall). Signed via cap room for three years, $16.631MM. Includes a 15% trade kicker.
Camp Invitees
Departing Players
Rookie Contract Option Decisions
- Tony Snell (third year, $1,535,880) — Exercised
The Bulls didn’t end up with Carmelo Anthony or Kevin Love this year, but they nonetheless made their most significant upgrades since Derrick Rose‘s MVP season in 2010/11. The past calendar year has featured upheaval in Chicago, starting with the January trade of Luol Deng, and the Bulls gave every indication that more changes were on the way heading into the summer. Their pursuit of Anthony was always fraught with pitfalls, thanks mostly to the salary cap chicanery that GM Gar Forman and executive VP of basketball operations John Paxson would have had to pull off to give him a contract anywhere near the max. It was Plan A, to be sure, but Forman and Paxson weren’t without intriguing alternatives that extended beyond what for the most part appeared to be a long shot bid to trade for Love.
To affect any of the major changes they sought, the Bulls had to unload Carlos Boozer‘s unwieldy $16.8MM salary. They held the amnesty provision in their quiver, but waiving him meant still having to pay him, even if he would vanish from the team’s cap figure. So, the Bulls sought to trade the power forward who’d never quite lived up to having been the team’s marquee signing from 2010, the last time Chicago made such sweeping changes.
Forman and Paxson kept the notion of a Boozer trade alive even as they neared a deal with Pau Gasol for more than they would have been able to pay if they had kept Boozer and remained over the salary cap. The Bulls had talks with the Lakers about turning the Gasol acquisition into a sign-and-trade that would have allowed Chicago to cobble together matching salaries to send out. Chicago also wound up giving Nikola Mirotic a deal with a starting salary at precisely the amount of the mid-level exception, the most the team could have paid him while remaining over the cap. Ultimately, no palatable trade for Boozer came about, forcing the Bulls to amnesty him. Chicago moved on from the idea of a sign-and-trade for Gasol and simply inked him outright into the cap space that the amnesty had created, using the rest of the cap room on Mirotic and a long-term deal for second-round pick Cameron Bairstow. Still, the Bulls caught a break when the Lakers claimed Boozer off waivers, defraying a $3.251MM portion of the cost of Boozer’s salary.
Gasol gives the Bulls a gifted passer and a player whose game is more multidimensional than Boozer’s, and coach Tom Thibodeau has already taken advantage of the opportunity to pair Gasol with center Joakim Noah in a twin-towers starting lineup. The Spanish center is an odd fit to a degree because of Taj Gibson, whose game continued to grow last season. Still, Gibson is seeing even more minutes per game this year than he did last year, though the maladies that have kept Noah and Gasol out of a few games have no doubt contributed to that. Mirotic plays power forward, too, so the Bulls wouldn’t have been in a bind without either Boozer or Gasol. Still, given the team’s title aspirations, a proven and still capable veteran with two championship rings trumps the intrigue of a rookie, even if that rookie was perhaps the best player who wasn’t in the NBA last season.
Mirotic has nonetheless seen 12.1 minutes per game so far this year, about the same amount of playing time that Thibodeau has given to small forward Doug McDermott, the 11th overall pick in this year’s draft. The Bulls saw fit to consolidate their pair of later first-round picks to move up for McDermott, even if it meant absorbing the guaranteed salary of Anthony Randolph to do so. Randolph complicated Chicago’s pursuit of cap flexibility until the Bulls attached him to a pair of second-round draft picks and cash in a trade that sent him to Orlando. That move, combined with the acquisition of McDermott, meant the Bulls had turned two first-rounders and two second-rounders into a single first-rounder, but the first-rounder the Bulls wound up with was the only lottery pick in the bunch. There are plenty of doubts about McDermott’s ability to translate his high-scoring college game to the NBA, particularly given Thibodeau’s defense-first approach, but contenders like Chicago rarely have a chance to add a player of his talent through the draft. It’s a risk worth taking, and it demonstrates that Forman and Paxson are thinking of the long-term future even as they try to win the title this year.
Still, the Bulls held the line with Jimmy Butler, reportedly offering him somewhat more than $11MM a year in extension proposals that the swingman turned down. The former 30th overall pick is off to a roaring start this season, averaging 21.3 points per game and answering the questions that surrounded his offensive capabilities, which had seemed to lag behind his defense. The Bulls may end up having to shell out much more than $11MM a year if Butler can keep it up, but the Happy Walters client has pledged to remain with the Bulls, and Forman and Paxson would no doubt be willing to pay a premium for a budding two-way star.
Key to preserving success in the near term and the long term is loyalty, and Kirk Hinrich showed his affection for the Bulls organization when he reportedly turned down better offers to accept the room exception from Chicago. The 33-year-old had spent nine of his 11 years in the NBA as a Bull, averaging as many as 16.6 PPG during the 2006/07 season. That scoring average was nearly cut in half two years later, and he’s spent most of his time since as an afterthought on offense. The former Kansas standout is never going to be an elite scoring force, but he might have had a much more significant role than the one he’s played in Chicago if he had signed with either the Hornets or the Jazz, the pair of teams that apparently challenged the Bulls for his services. Neither of those clubs would have given him his best chance at his first championship, however. Given the eternal questions surrounding Rose’s health, Hinrich’s ability to both fill in for the former MVP when necessary and play alongside him when not makes Hinrich more valuable to Chicago than his salary or his statistics reflect.
Yet the Bulls aren’t going to win the title if Hinrich, or fellow offseason signee Aaron Brooks, ends up starting at point guard. The Bulls rise and fall with Rose, and short of the acquisition of a star like ‘Melo or Love, that’s not going to change. Forman and Paxson did their best this summer to keep the Bulls in the title hunt this season and for years to come, but they remain beholden to the knees of the team’s former No. 1 overall pick.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Lakers To Work Out Gal Mekel, Jordan Hamilton
1:33pm: The Lakers remain fond of Price, as Charania notes in a full story. Price and Ellington are the only Lakers without fully guaranteed contracts, as we noted below, and Ellington is expected back Friday from the leave of absence he took to mourn the murder of his father, as Mike Trudell of Lakers.com notes via Twitter.
THURSDAY, 12:59pm: Mekel will work out a second time for the Lakers on Friday, and he’ll again be matched up against Buycks, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link).
WEDNESDAY, 11:35am: The Lakers are set to audition Gal Mekel this week, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com, while Jordan Hamilton is scheduled to work out for the team Thursday, reports David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). They’re just two of several players the 2-9 Lakers are eyeing, joining Dwight Buycks, Quincy Miller and Tyrus Thomas among those trying out for the purple-and-gold. John Lucas III also reportedly had a workout scheduled with the team before taking a deal to play in China instead. Mekel will audition head-to-head against Buycks, according to Pick (Twitter link).
Visa issues scuttled a deal that Mekel was set to sign earlier this month with the injury-hit Pacers, who inked A.J. Price instead rather than wait an extra day for the problem to be resolved. There’s reportedly been widespread interest in Mekel, the 26-year-old former Mavs point guard, whom Dallas waived shortly after opening night in spite of his guaranteed contract to accommodate the signing of J.J. Barea.
Hamilton opened the season with the Jazz after they claimed him off waivers from Toronto, where he had an impressive preseason showing for the Raptors. The 26th overall pick from 2011 nonetheless lasted only about a week in Utah before the team let him go. He’s spent most of his NBA career with the Nuggets, who traded him to the Rockets at the deadline in February.
The Lakers are at the 15-man roster maximum, so they’d have to unload a player to bring someone aboard. They have partially guaranteed salary out to Ronnie Price and Wayne Ellington and fully guaranteed pacts with their other 13 players, though Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding suggested this week that Xavier Henry was the most likely cut if the team were to ink Miller.
Pacific Notes: Gay, Clippers, Kerr
The Kings were in a position of power when DeMarcus Cousins signed his rookie scale extension last year, but Rudy Gay‘s decision to sign a veteran extension with the team this week is demonstrative of the strides the franchise has taken, as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee examines.
“Obviously, when my contract was ending, I thought about going into free agency and maybe seeing what happens, but why search it when you have what you want right here?” Gay said.
Owner Vivek Ranadive and GM Pete D’Alessandro convinced the forward that the Kings were no longer the disorganized club that he’d heard stories about, Gay said, adding that having spent the offseason with Cousins helped influence his decision, too, Jones tweets. A bond with new point guard Darren Collison and comfort with the Sacramento community were also factors, Gay acknowledged, as fellow Bee scribe Ailene Voisin notes (Twitter link). There’s more on the Gay extension amid the latest from the Pacific Division:
- The Clippers planned to re-sign Willie Green after waiving him this summer, but the Magic stymied that when they claimed him off waivers, writes Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. “We were not very happy with the Magic on that one,” Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers said.. “We just assumed that no one would pick him up. Willie’s one of those guys you just want around.” Rivers also said that Green can serve as an assistant coach for him after he retires, Woike notes.
- Turning down Knicks president Phil Jackson to take the Warriors job instead was “probably the hardest thing that I had to do professionally,” Steve Kerr tells Michael Lee of The Washington Post. “He basically made my career. From my experience in Chicago, that allowed me to have the success to sign as a free agent in San Antonio, where I had another incredible experience. My career path, started with Lute Olson [at Arizona] … but Phil’s the guy who got me rolling and gave me all the opportunities that I have in front of me right now.”
- The Gay extension was a positive step for the Kings, and one the team had to make to move toward playoff contention, Voisin opines.