Extension Rumors: Butler, Rubio, Thompson
The 11:00pm Central deadline for rookie-scale extensions is only about half a day away, and there’s sure to be action in the hours ahead as decisions loom for the remaining eligible players. Here’s the latest as of this morning:
- The Bulls and Butler were apart by $2.5MM in average annual value as they talked Thursday, Johnson reports. Butler’s camp doesn’t see a deal happening before the deadline, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick (on Twitter), which isn’t surprising considering the gap.
- The Wolves are willing to sign Rubio to a four-year extension worth $52MM, and the team would perhaps be on board with going up to $54MM, according to Wolfson (Twitter link). Agent Dan Fegan has reportedly been seeking the maximum salary for his client, which would likely entail at least $66MM over four years, but Rubio would take $58MM, Wolfson says.
- There’s “plenty of pessimism” surrounding the talks between Tristan Thompson and the Cavs as a gap remains in their proposals, reports Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com (via Twitter).
Earlier updates:
- Ricky Rubio is more likely than not to sign an extension with the Wolves as advanced negotiations have taken place between the sides over the past few weeks, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com. That echoes an earlier report from Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities, who heard from people outside the organization who believed Rubio and the team would ultimately settle on a four-year, $52MM deal.
- Agent Brian Elfus has been in San Antonio negotiating with the Spurs this week, as Stein writes in the same piece, but Kawhi Leonard is nonetheless unlikely to sign an extension, Stein says, seconding a report from ESPN colleague Chris Broussard. Stein hears the Spurs prefer to take Leonard to restricted free agency next summer to maintain maximum financial flexibility. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports wrote earlier this week that the Spurs were reluctant to give Leonard the maximum salary he’s seeking.
- Talks are continuing between the Warriors and Klay Thompson and the Cavs and Tristan Thompson, Stein reports.
- Brandon Knight and Norris Cole appear unlikely to receive extensions, according to Stein, though talks are still going on between the Bucks and Knight’s agent, Arn Tellem, a source tells Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Stein seconds earlier reports indicating that Jimmy Butler, Reggie Jackson and Iman Shumpert also seem unlikely to sign extensions.
- The Bulls are going to have to increase their offer to Butler to entice him to sign, tweets K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune. It’s unclear what the Bulls have on the table, but as of a week ago the sides were “millions apart,” as Johnson wrote then.
Knicks To Decline Option On Shane Larkin
The Knicks have decided to pass on their 2015/16 rookie scale team option with Shane Larkin, tweets Marc Berman of the New York Post. Berman suggests this was New York’s plan all along, though previous reports had indicated that New York was picking up the option before the team had an apparent change of heart. Larkin’s option was worth more than $1.675MM for that season, as our Rookie Scale Team Option Tracker shows. The Knicks picked up a nearly $1.305MM team option for 2015/16 on Tim Hardaway Jr. and waived trade acquisition Arnett Moultrie, who also had a pending rookie scale team option.
Declining Larkin’s option will set the point guard up for unrestricted free agency next summer, a year after the Knicks acquired him from the Mavs in the Tyson Chandler trade. The 18th overall pick in the 2013 draft played sparingly as a rookie, averaging 10.2 minutes per game across 48 appearances, though he’s started the first two games of the year for the Knicks, who are without Jose Calderon because of injury.
The primary motivation for turning down the option appears to be New York’s desire to preserve cap flexibility for next summer. That also appears to be behind the apparent unlikelihood that the team will reach an extension with Iman Shumpert before tonight’s deadline to do so. The Knicks have about $32.7MM tied up for 2015/16, plenty of room beneath a projected $66.5MM salary cap.
Thunder Eye Mekel Amid Westbrook Injury
Russell Westbrook broke the second metacarpal bone in his right hand during Thursday’s game against the Clippers, and the “early indication” is that he’ll miss four to six weeks, writes Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman. The Thunder had already expressed interest in former Mavs point guard Gal Mekel, reports David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). Mekel is set to clear waivers today if he goes unclaimed, but the next step remains unclear for the Thunder, who have just eight healthy players following a rash of injuries that includes Kevin Durant‘s fractured right foot.
The Thunder, who have a full 15-man roster, applied to the league for a hardship provision before Westbrook’s injury that would allow them to add a 16th player, but the NBA turned them down because they had yet to play three regular season games, USA Today’s Sam Amick tweets. The hardship rule requires that at least four players miss three or more regular season games, so Oklahoma City is likely to apply again after their third game on Saturday, according to TNT’s David Aldridge (Twitter link). Reggie Jackson, Jeremy Lamb, Mitch McGary, Anthony Morrow and Grant Jerrett are all dealing with injuries of varying severity.
Lance Thomas is one of the team’s few remaining healthy players, but his non-guaranteed contract is the only one on the Thunder’s roster that doesn’t include a full guarantee, as our roster counts show, so Oklahoma City has little flexibility absent the ability to add a 16th man. The Thunder are about $1.74MM shy of the luxury tax line, but signing a 16th player to a non-guaranteed prorated minimum-salary deal would allow them to maintain at least a sliver of breathing room.
Sebastian Telfair is the only healthy point guard on the roster, as Mayberry points out, though Jackson is expected back as early as Saturday. Still, if the Thunder prioritize the addition of a point guard, the pool of free agents at the position includes Will Bynum, John Lucas III, Ish Smith and others.
Warriors Pick Up Option On Festus Ezeli
THURSDAY, 6:09pm: Golden State has officially exercised Ezeli’s option, the team has announced.
WEDNESDAY, 9:13am: The Warriors will exercise their team option to keep Festus Ezeli on his rookie scale contract through 2015/16, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Ezeli will make nearly $2.009MM that season, as our Rookie Scale Team Option Tracker shows. The club also has 2015/16 rookie scale team options pending with Harrison Barnes and Nemanja Nedovic, with a decision due by the end of Friday.
Ezeli missed all of 2013/14 after undergoing right knee surgery, but he played a key role the previous year as a rookie, starting 41 games. He averaged 2.5 points and 4.0 rebounds in 14.4 minutes per contest over 78 appearances during the season as a whole. The now 25-year-old Ezeli saw just 15 minutes total in two preseason games this month, but it appears the Warriors are willing to let him prove his health over a longer period of time before giving up on the final pick of the 2012 first round.
Golden State is facing a salary crunch for the 2015/16 season, as Ezeli’s option will lift the team’s guaranteed salaries to about $58.1MM. That doesn’t include any money for Klay Thompson, who’s pushing for the maximum salary in extension talks with the team. A max deal for Thompson and picking up the team option on Barnes would put Golden State at roughly $77MM in guaranteed salary to eight players, and that doesn’t count a nearly $1.271MM player option for Brandon Rush and assumes the team turns down Nedovic’s option. That figure would put Golden State above this season’s $76.829MM luxury tax line, and while that line is expected to rise for 2015/16, it’s unclear by how much.
Undrafted Rookies On Opening-Night Rosters
When an NBA prospect doesn’t hear his name called on draft night the year that he’s eligible to be selected, it’s hardly a death sentence for his chances of playing in the league. For many such players, it’s actually an advantage to go undrafted, since that allows them to negotiate with 30 NBA teams instead of just one. Few, if any, players who are passed over on draft night can say in the immediate aftermath that it’s likely that they’ll someday be in the Association, but it didn’t stop the 84 undrafted players who appeared in an NBA game last season.
I listed the undrafted rookies who’d secured deals within about two months after the draft this year, but many more signed after that, and several of the players on that August list failed to make it to opening night. It’s not uncommon to see several undrafted rookies dot training camp rosters around the league, but most of them don’t end up making it to opening night.
There were 13 undrafted rookies on opening-night rosters two years ago when I made a similar examination, and this year there are 11. The Pacers are the only team that has two such rookies. One of them, Shayne Whittington, is from this year’s draft class, while the other, Damjan Rudez, comes from overseas after going undrafted back in 2008, demonstrating both of the paths that this year’s undrafted first-year players have taken. Joe Ingles of the Jazz and Zoran Dragic of the Suns are the other rookies who hail from outside North America and who played international ball for years after the NBA passed them up on draft night. This season, they’ve finally come to the NBA.
Here’s the complete list of the undrafted rookies on opening-night rosters this year, along with their teams and the year in which they were eligible for the draft:
- Tarik Black, Rockets (2014)
- Andre Dawkins, Heat (2014)
- Zoran Dragic, Suns (2011)
- Alex Kirk, Cavaliers (2014)
- Joe Ingles, Jazz (2009)
- Eric Moreland, Kings (2014)
- Damjan Rudez, Pacers (2008)
- JaKarr Sampson, Sixers (2014)
- Travis Wear, Knicks (2014)
- Shayne Whittington, Pacers (2014)
- Patric Young, Pelicans (2014)
Extensions Unlikely For Leonard, Butler
THURSDAY, 1:59pm: Johnson suggests the potential remains that Friday’s 11:00pm Central time deadline will motivate Butler and the Bulls to strike a deal, but the Chicago Tribune scribe adds that the sides remain far apart in their proposals (Twitter link).
WEDNESDAY, 11:54am: Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler are unlikely to sign extensions with the Spurs and Bulls, respectively, before Friday’s deadline, a source tells Chris Broussard of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Leonard is reportedly seeking the maximum salary, and while a recent report indicated Butler and the Bulls were “millions apart” in talks, that sort of separation is not uncommon in the days leading up to the rookie scale extension deadline. Broussard also hears the Knicks won’t grant an extension to Iman Shumpert, advancing the reporting of ESPN colleague Ian Begley.
Bulls GM Gar Forman said earlier today that he’d met with Butler’s agent, Happy Walters, and that Butler’s left thumb injury wouldn’t affect negotiations, tweets David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune. The injury is expected to keep him out no longer than three weeks, as K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune notes (Twitter links). It’s unlikely that the eye infection that plagued Leonard throughout the preseason and forced him to miss San Antonio’s opening night game Tuesday would affect an extension for him, either.
The Spurs and Brian Elfus, who represents Leonard, have reportedly met several times in the past few weeks but have made no progress, though the Spurs appear poised to match any maximum salary offer sheet that Leonard would sign in restricted free agency next summer. The reigning Finals MVP appears prepared to buck the tradition of San Antonio’s stars agreeing to discounts, though the Spurs could still prevail on Leonard to do so next summer even if they can’t convince him to take less in an extension by the end of Friday.
Butler expressed confidence just days ago that he and the Bulls would come to an extension, so presumably talks, which the swingman said a month ago were going in the right direction, have hit a snag. Chicago apparently had a preference to come to an extension rather than let Butler, who turned 25 last month, hit restricted free agency. The Bulls have about $60.2MM tied up for 2015/16, and Kirk Hinrich holds a nearly $2.9MM player option, so Chicago probably wouldn’t have the cap flexibility to replace Butler if he were to sign an offer sheet and Forman and company decided against matching.
Hornets Notes: Walker, Taylor, Jefferson
The start of the season has gone just about as well as could be scripted for Kemba Walker and the Hornets, who reached a deal on a four-year, $48MM extension Tuesday and formally announced it today. In between, Walker hit the game-winning shot to give Charlotte an overtime victory Wednesday in its first regular season game since reclaiming the Hornets nickname. Here’s more from The Hive:
- Hornets GM Rich Cho didn’t hide his enthusiasm about the Walker extension, and Walker is excited, too, as Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer notes (Twitter links). “I would love to be here as long as I can,” Walker said. “I love the city of Charlotte.”
- Jeff Taylor received 18 months of probation and was ordered to pay $1,840 today after pleading guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor domestic assault and property destruction charges, reports Kevin Grasha of the Lansing State Journal. Taylor remains on paid leave from the Hornets, and Cho said today that the team will take its cues from the league, noting that the NBA has yet to finish its investigation of the matter, Bonnell observes (Twitter links).
- Al Jefferson can hit free agency in the summer if he turns down his $13.5MM player option, but Michael Jordan made it clear earlier this week that he has no intention of letting the center get away, as the owner told Bonnell. “Al is a straight shooter. We love him,” Jordan said. “He took a gamble on us. That obviously plays into our thinking.”
Minor Moves: Covington, Mekel, Heat, Warriors
Robert Covington nearly had a deal with the Sixers this week shortly after the Rockets waived him, but talks broke down over contract length and the 23-year-old forward is expected to sign with the D-League instead, Shams Charania of RealGM reports. Philadelphia offered a four-year arrangement with a “high” amount of guaranteed salary, Charania writes, but Covington apparently passed on that. The sides were unable to forge a deal on a shorter contract, Charania notes. Covington joins K.J. McDaniels, the 32nd pick in this year’s draft who inked with the Sixers for just one year, among those resisting Philly’s efforts to tie up young players on long-term deals. The deluge of players hitting waivers in the past week has led to news around the D-League and international circuits, and we’ll pass along the latest here:
- Gal Mekel isn’t thinking of heading overseas to play in the wake of the Mavs‘ decision to waive him Wednesday, tweets David Pick of Eurobasket.com, so he’ll remain free to sign with another NBA team providing he clears waivers.
- Khem Birch, Larry Drew II, Tyler Johnson and Shawn Jones have agreed to join the Heat‘s D-League affiliate, reports Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel (Twitter link). Miami is using its ability to reserve the D-League rights to up to four of its preseason cuts to keep Birch, Johnson and Jones out of the D-League draft, but Drew played with the Heat’s D-League affiliate last year, so he wouldn’t have been subject to the draft. That allows the Heat to preserve their ability to retain the D-League rights to one player they waive during the regular season. Andre Dawkins seems a likely candidate for that sort of maneuver, Winderman suggests (on Twitter).
- Sean Kilpatrick will play for the Warriors D-League affiliate, tweets Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv, who confirms an earlier report that Aaron Craft will do the same. That means Golden State retained the D-League rights to both after waiving them last week.
Extension Appears Unlikely For Reggie Jackson
It appears unlikely that the Thunder and Reggie Jackson will sign an extension before the deadline to do so at 11:00pm Central on Friday, according to Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman. The sides had been engaged in active talks as recently as a couple of weeks ago, but it’s unclear whether negotiations continue. GM Sam Presti had reportedly been confident a month ago about striking some sort of deal with the fourth-year guard, but it looks like that if it happens, it’ll take place in restricted free agency next summer rather than in the form of an extension this fall. The Thunder traded James Harden and Jeff Green not long after rookie scale extension talks broke down with those two, Mayberry notes, but Presti has said he has no plans to send Jackson away.
Jackson expressed hope for an extension during a September interview, but in the same conversation he made it clear that he was prepared in case agent Aaron Mintz and the team couldn’t agree to terms this month. Mintz and his partners at Creative Artists Agency are likely to use Eric Bledsoe‘s five-year, $70MM deal with the Suns, Kemba Walker‘s four-year, $48MM extension with the Hornets, and any extension that Ricky Rubio and Brandon Knight might sign as benchmarks for the Jackson talks, Mayberry writes.
The 24-year-old Jackson is suffering from a bruised right wrist and a sprained right ankle and missed Oklahoma City’s regular season opener Wednesday, but he’s expected back in a few days, and the injuries appear unlikely to affect whether he signs an extension. Of greater import is likely whether the Thunder sees him as a long-term solution as a starter in the backcourt next to Russell Westbrook, as Cray Allred of Hoops Rumors wrote when he looked at Jackson’s extension candidacy. Jackson has long expressed a desire to start, and while smaller lineups are in vogue, he and Westbrook are both listed at just 6’3″.
Latest On Cavs, Tristan Thompson
THURSDAY, 8:06am: A sense of optimism surrounds the talks at this point, sources tell Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal. Lloyd hears that Thompson is seeking annual salaries of more than $10MM, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he isn’t targeting the roughly $12MM number that Windhorst pegged in his report from earlier (below). Thompson and Anderson Varejao, who’s discussing a veteran extension with the Cavs, are likely to make about the same amount if they’re to sign extensions, and it doesn’t appear as though Varejao is willing to accept much less per year than his current salary of nearly $9.705MM, Lloyd writes.
MONDAY, 10:32am: Negotiations between the Cavs and Tristan Thompson have stalled as the Rich Paul client seeks salaries of around $12MM a year in a rookie scale extension, reports Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. Still, both sides maintain hope that they’ll reach a deal by Friday’s deadline, Windhorst adds. The report adds some clarity to a series of conflicting dispatches regarding whether Thompson and Cleveland were in talks, as I laid out earlier in light of the news that the Cavs are discussing an extension with Anderson Varejao.
Executives and agents around the league are keeping an eye on the talks with Thompson to gauge how closely LeBron James is involved with Cleveland’s front office decision-making, as Windhorst details. James and Thompson are both clients of Paul, and James holds a player option for next season that he can decline to hit free agency this summer, which makes the team a “little uncomfortable,” Windhorst writes, even though James has said multiple times he has no intention of leaving. Thompson will start the season as a bench player after Varejao won the starting center job, and it would be difficult for many teams to stomach paying $12MM for a sixth man.
Still, agents are growing bolder with an influx of TV money on the way, and lucrative deals for Eric Bledsoe, Gordon Hayward and Chandler Parsons this summer have left many player representatives optimistic about the prospect of restricted free agency, according to Windhorst. Greg Monroe, who wound up signing a qualifying offer worth just $5.48MM for this season, is a cautionary tale, though he reportedly rejected much more lucrative proposals.
The Cavs have only about $21.5MM in commitments for 2015/16, but that doesn’t include money for James, Love or Varejao, all of whom can become free agents. Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters and second-round pick Joe Harris are the only Cavs under fully guaranteed contracts that contain no option clauses for that season.