Thunder Cut Jenkins, Solomon, Zanna
The Thunder have waived camp invitees Michael Jenkins, Richard Solomon and Talib Zanna, the team announced via press release. All three were on non-guaranteed contracts. The moves leave Oklahoma City with 15 players, including a non-guaranteed pact with Lance Thomas. A report earlier this week indicated the team planned to keep only 14 players for opening night, but it appears the Thunder have changed plans, as they’ll keep Thomas into the regular season, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. That’s perhaps because Anthony Morrow has a sprained left MCL, an injury that typically takes four to six weeks to heal, according to Royce Young of ESPN.com (Twitter links).
Jenkins joined the Thunder in late September after agent Daniel Moldovan had said earlier in the summer that the shooting guard would instead be in Nets camp. The 28-year-old who was on his first NBA contract after going undrafted out of Winthrop in 2008 put up 6.0 points in 17.5 minutes per game in seven preseason appearances with Oklahoma City.
Solomon, a power forward, put up 4.7 PPG in 11.9 MPG in three preseason appearances this month after going undrafted out of Cal in June. Zanna, another power forward, showed his strength on the boards, posting 4.4 PPG and 5.0 RPG in 17.4 MPG across seven exhibitions. He was an undrafted free agent who came out of Pittsburgh this year and played with the Sixers in summer league.
Eastern Notes: Butler, Wizards, Maxiell, Inglis
The Bulls and Jimmy Butler are “millions apart” in extension talks, according to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, and while the precise gap is unclear, it’s not uncommon for sides to be as far apart as the Bulls and Butler are even a week before the extension deadline, Johnson writes. The team and Butler’s representatives at Relativity Sports this week had their first extensive talks in awhile, Johnson adds. Here’s more from around the Eastern Conference:
- The Wizards recently tried to pry Julyan Stone out of his contract with Reyer Venezia of Italy, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (on Twitter). The point guard has an escape clause in the pact, according to Charania, who suggests that Stone would be disinclined to leave the team since he’s seeing heavy playing time. It’s unclear if the Wizards maintain interest after signing John Lucas III earlier this week.
- Jason Maxiell will remain with the Hornets on opening night in spite of his non-guaranteed contract, coach Steve Clifford confirmed today to reporters, including Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer (Twitter link).
- Bucks rookie Damien Inglis will miss at least another six weeks because the right foot he broke during a predraft workout for the Thunder has not healed, tweets Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Bucks drafted Inglis 31st overall in June. His deal is guaranteed for this season.
Nets, Sixers Swap Marquis Teague, Casper Ware
3:24pm: The Sixers have followed with a formal announcement of their own. The press release notes that Philly will receive the more favorable of Milwaukee’s and Sacramento’s second-round picks in 2019.
2:47pm: The Sixers have acquired Marquis Teague and a protected 2019 second-round pick from the Nets in exchange for Casper Ware, as Brooklyn announced via press release. The pick headed Philadelphia’s way originally comes from Milwaukee as compensation for the Bucks hiring of coach Jason Kidd. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported the clubs were in trade talks about Teague, and Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News wrote that the clubs were close to finalizing a deal.
Teague is entering the third year of his rookie scale contract, set to pay him more than $1.12MM this season, which is fully guaranteed. A decision is due by a week from today on his fourth-year team option worth in excess of $2.023MM, but a report during the offseason indicated that Brooklyn was unlikely to pick that up. It’s unclear if Philadelphia is similarly willing to pass on the option, though the Sixers have tens of millions more in terms of cap flexibility than the Nets do to keep the point guard on the books.
Ware, another point guard, has a much less decorated pedigree than the other player in the trade. He’s on a non-guaranteed contract for the minimum salary, and he seems a long shot, at best, to remain with Brooklyn until opening night. The now 24-year-old was playing in Italy last season before he signed a pair of 10-day contracts with the Sixers, who followed up with a low-risk multiyear deal.
The Nets are likely to waive Ware, a source confirms to Andy Vasquez of The Record, who adds that the team is likely to keep the 15 remaining players on its roster for opening night. That’s a boon for Jorge Gutierrez and Cory Jefferson, who have partially guaranteed contracts, and Jerome Jordan, whom coach Lionel Hollins has advocated keeping in spite of the center’s non-guaranteed deal.
Teague heads to a Sixers team with an unsettled roster featuring 20 players just three days in advance of Monday’s deadline for teams to cut down to no more than 15 guys. He becomes just the 10th fully guaranteed contract on Philly’s books. It’s the second trade within the calendar year of 2014 for Teague, whom the Bulls shipped to Brooklyn in January.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Pistons Opt In With Drummond, Caldwell-Pope
The Pistons have picked up their 2015/16 team options on Andre Drummond and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, the club announced via press release. There was never any real doubt that Detroit wouldn’t keep Drummond around for that season at little more than $3.272MM, and the same was largely true of Caldwell-Pope, who’s set to receive nearly $2.892MM in 2015/16, as our Rookie Scale Team Option Tracker shows.
Drummond has shown flashes of potential during his two seasons with the Pistons that suggest he can become an elite NBA center. He finished first in the league in total offensive rebounds and total rebounding percentage last season, but he also topped the NBA with 273 personal fouls. Caldwell-Pope was drafted at No. 8 in 2013, a spot higher than Drummond went in 2012, but he struggled to gain his footing in the NBA as a rookie last year, shooting just 31.9% from three-point territory and averaging 5.9 points in 19.8 minutes per game.
The moves give the Pistons about $38.1MM in commitments for 2015/16. That’s plenty of room beneath a projected $66.5MM cap to either retain Greg Monroe, who’ll be an unrestricted free agent in the summer, chase other significant free agents, or both.
Dee Bost Signs To Play In Turkey
FRIDAY, 2:33pm: The deal is official, the team announced (Twitter link; translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia).
THURSDAY, 8:25am: Former Jazz camp invitee Dee Bost has a one-year deal with Trabzonspor of Turkey, Sportando’s Enea Trapani reports. Utah had reportedly maintained interest in having the point guard play for its D-League affiliate, but it appears he’ll go overseas instead. It’s not clear what Bost will make with Trabzonspor, but it likely involves a greater salary than he would have made in the D-League.
The Jazz waived Bost nearly two weeks ago, and he didn’t appear in any preseason games, suggesting that he was a long way from making Utah’s regular season roster, even though the team guaranteed his salary for $65K. He had more extensive involvement with the Blazers last year, averaging 3.5 points in 10.4 minutes per game across four preseason contests before Portland let him go about a week before opening night.
Bost, now 25, spent much of last season with the Blazers one-to-one affiliate, the Idaho Stampede, which this year serves as the one-to-one affiliate of the Jazz. He also saw action with Trotamundos de Carabobo of Venezuela last year, and he’s no stranger to European competition, having played with Montenegro’s KK Buducnost VOLI in 2012/13.
Notable Recent Preseason Trades
Last week’s swap between the Celtics and Pistons doesn’t typify the sort of trade that’s taken place within a couple of weeks of the start of the regular season in recent years. Neither would the near-deal between the Nets and Sixers involving Marquis Teague. Recent history suggests significant names will be on the move before the games start to count on Tuesday. Legitimate game-changers like Chris Paul, James Harden and Marcin Gortat have changed hands within in two weeks of opening night in the past three preseasons, and even a more subtle move still wound up having a significant impact.
Here’s a look at the four most important trades to happen within two weeks of opening night since the start of 2010. The preseason trades from 2011 took place in December after the lockout pushed opening night back two months.
October 25th, 2013 (Four days before opening night)
- Wizards acquire Marcin Gortat, Shannon Brown, Kendall Marshall, and Malcolm Lee from the Suns in exchange for Emeka Okafor and Washington’s top-12 protected 2014 first-round pick. — Gortat was the clear centerpiece of this exchange, and the Wizards waived Brown, Marshall and Lee shortly after the deal. The Polish Hammer replaced the injured Okafor in the lineup and helped the Wizards to their best postseason performance in more than three decades, which prompted Washington to re-sign him to a five-year, $60MM contract.
October 27th, 2012 (Three days before opening night)
- Rockets acquire James Harden, Daequan Cook, Cole Aldrich and Lazar Hayward from the Thunder in exchange for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, Dallas’ protected 2013 first-round pick (Mitch McGary, 2014), Toronto’s protected 2013 first-round pick (Steven Adams) and the Bobcats’ 2013 second-round pick (Alex Abrines). — Perhaps the most controversial trade of the 2010s lifted the previously stripped-down Rockets, who immediately signed Harden to a max extension, to the playoffs by the end of the 2012/13 season. The Thunder, who refused to give Harden an extension quite as lucrative as he sought, remain an elite team, but they haven’t returned to the Finals since the deal. For more on this deal, check out our Trade Retrospective.
December 24th, 2011 (One day before opening night)
- Hornets (now Pelicans) acquire Greivis Vasquez from the Grizzlies in exchange for Quincy Pondexter. — It took another season before the effects of the trade paid dividends for either team, but Vasquez went from an afterthought in Memphis to averaging 9.0 assists per game for New Orleans in 2012/13. Pondexter’s 45.3% three-point shooting for the Grizzlies in the 2013 playoffs helped him net a four-year, $14MM extension.
December 14th, 2011 (11 days before opening night)
- Clippers acquire Chris Paul, Memphis’ 2015 second-round pick (converted to cash) and New Orleans’ 2015 second-round pick from the Hornets (now Pelicans) in exchange for Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu and the more favorable of the Clippers and Minnesota’s 2012 first-round picks (Austin Rivers) — If the Harden trade wasn’t the most controversial in recent years, this one was, if only because of its juxtaposition against a deal that would have sent Paul to the Lakers before the NBA, which owned the New Orleans franchise at that point, rejected the proposal. Paul has turned the Clippers into contenders, and the Hornets-turned-Pelicans haven’t made it back to the playoffs. For more on this deal, check out our Trade Retrospective.
Southeast Notes: Stephenson, Nelson, Wizards
The Magic have more money that counts against the cap for players who are no longer with the team than any other NBA franchise this season, notes Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. That $14.2MM figure is likely to escalate soon with partial guarantees out to four of the team’s camp invitees. It also doesn’t include the cash going to the amnestied Gilbert Arenas, which doesn’t affect the cap. Still, Orlando isn’t alone, since “dead money” is piling up around the league as teams make cuts in advance of opening night. There’s more on the Magic amid the latest from the Southeast Division:
- Lance Stephenson admits he wanted to re-sign with the Pacers, but he told Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star that he wasn’t ready to commit when the team set a tight deadline for him to accept its offer. The team quickly moved on and struck a deal with C.J. Miles on the second day of free agency, depleting its limited room against the luxury tax line, and that sealed Stephenson’s departure, as the new Hornets guard said to Buckner. “They didn’t have nothing else. They had no more money or anything. That was basically it right there,” Stephenson said. “Soon as I said no to that offer, they went and signed C.J. I figured they thought I had no chance of coming back, they just went on and signed C.J. … I felt like it was a wrap after that.”
- The Pacers did follow up their five-year, $44MM offer to Stephenson with offers of three and four years, Buckner writes, refuting an earlier report.
- Jameer Nelson‘s agent, Steve Mountain, said as recently as June that the point guard wanted to remain with the Magic for this season, but Nelson tells Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com that he instead felt it was time to leave Orlando. The Mavs signee referred to his departure from the Magic, who waived him at the end of June, as a mutual decision.
- Wizards GM Ernie Grunfeld doesn’t think the lack of a one-to-one D-League affiliate significantly hinders his team, but he nonetheless told Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post that the Wizards are looking into the possibility of having a D-League partner for future seasons.
Celtics Claim Jarell Eddie Off Waivers
FRIDAY, 11:23am: Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge has confirmed the move, according to the team’s official Twitter account.
THURSDAY, 9:37pm: Boston has indeed claimed Eddie off of waivers, as is reflected in the RealGM transactions log. No announcement from the Celtics has been made yet.
5:34pm: The Celtics have claimed small forward Jarell Eddie off waivers from the Hawks, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Boston takes over Eddie’s one-year, non-guaranteed contract for the minimum salary, and the move ups Boston’s roster to 18 players, though that figure includes Tim Frazier, whom the Celtics are poised to release.
Boston has guaranteed contracts with 16 of its players, so it seems that the team will probably turn around and waive Eddie before opening night, though that’s just my speculation. The C’s have the ability to retain his D-League rights, an asset the Hawks lose as a result of the waiver claim, so I’ll also speculate that Boston is making the move with the D-League chiefly in mind.
The 6’7″ Eddie averaged 2.7 points in 13.1 minutes per game across three preseason appearances with Atlanta after going undrafted out of Virginia Tech in June. He posted 13.3 PPG and 5.4 RPG in 32.6 MPG as a senior with the Hokies last season.
Hornets Waive Dallas Lauderdale, Brian Qvale
The Hornets have waived big men Dallas Lauderdale and Brian Qvale, the team announced via press release. They were on non-guaranteed contracts, as was Justin Cobbs, whom the team also let go. The moves take Charlotte’s roster down to 15 players, and while they can carry as few as 13 for opening night if they choose, it appears as though Jason Maxiell is set to remain with the team into the regular season on his non-guaranteed deal.
Both Lauderdale and Qvale saw just three minutes of action during the preseason, going scoreless. It was Lauderdale’s second straight year in camp with an NBA team after he spent last fall with the Blazers. He played 39 games for Portland’s D-League affiliate last season, averaging 7.5 points and 8.7 rebounds in 29.3 minutes per contest.
Qvale has spent his professional career overseas since going undrafted out of the University of Montana in 2011. He’s played with teams in Turkey, Belgium and Germany, and while it’s conceivable that he’ll remain stateside to play in the D-League this year, the Hornets are without a one-to-one affiliate.
Nets Opt In For 2015/16 With Plumlee, Karasev
The Nets have exercised their team options to keep Mason Plumlee and Sergey Karasev on their rookie scale contracts through 2015/16, the team announced. The moves were expected for both, and particularly for Plumlee, who was a part of Team USA’s gold medal-winning squad in the FIBA World Cup this summer after a strong rookie season last year. Plumlee will make nearly $1.416MM in 2015/16, while Karasev is in line for almost $1.6MM that year, as our Rookie Scale Team Option Tracker shows.
Plumlee, the 22nd overall pick in 2013, was efficient in his time on the floor last season, racking up a 19.0 PER, and he began to see more significant run after Brook Lopez went down to injury, averaging 9.1 points and 6.0 rebounds in 22.0 minutes per game after the All-Star break. Karasev came to Brooklyn via trade from the Cavs, who drafted him last year three picks before the Nets selected Plumlee. The small forward from Russia made it into just 22 NBA games for an average of 7.1 minutes per contest as a rookie, but Brooklyn, owned by fellow Russian Mikhail Prokhorov, insisted on receiving Karasev in the deal instead of a pair of second-round picks.
The moves give the Nets about $58.7MM in commitments against a projected $66.5MM salary cap for 2015/16, though that figure doesn’t include a player option worth more than $16.7MM for Lopez. It also doesn’t take into account a rookie scale team option worth more than $2MM for Marquis Teague, but the Nets are reportedly close to trading Teague to the Sixers.