Hornets Waive Justin Cobbs
10:26am: The move is official, the team announced via press release.
8:48am: The Hornets are waiving Justin Cobbs, Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia reports. Carchia indicates that the move has already taken place, and while the team has yet to make an official announcement, Hornets assistant GM Chad Buchanan spoke of the 6’3″ point guard in the past tense in his remarks to the Sportando reporter. Dropping the non-guaranteed contract for Cobbs will reduce the Hornets roster to 17 players.
“Justin was really good for us,” Buchanan said. “He plays hard and is a very mature kid with a good work ethic. He makes shots, isn’t selfish and plays defense. He has a bright future.”
Cobbs played sparingly in two preseason games this month, scoring just two points in about nine total minutes of action. The 23-year-old joined Charlotte after going undrafted out of California and playing for the Grizzlies in summer league. He also attended preseason camp with Laboral Kuxta in Spain before joining Hornets camp, and while the Spanish team’s coach praised Cobbs in comments to Carchia, the coach also indicated that he’s still a year or two away from becoming ready for Euroleague action.
The move leaves the Hornets with 14 fully guaranteed contracts plus non-guaranteed pacts for Jason Maxiell, Dallas Lauderdale and Brian Qvale. Maxiell is the leading contender for the 15th spot on the regular season roster, should the team keep that many for opening night, and Hornets coach Steve Clifford appears to favor holding on to the former longtime Pistons big man, as reports indicated earlier this week.
Knicks Waive D.J. Mbenga, Orlando Sanchez
The Knicks are have waived center Didier Ilunga-Mbenga and power forward Orlando Sanchez, the team announced (Twitter link). Peter Botte of the New York Daily News and Newsday’s Al Iannazzone reported the team would make the moves minutes before the announcement (Twitter link). The news is no surprise, even though Sanchez has a partially guaranteed deal. Sanchez’s partial guarantee is only $15K, and that amount will stick on New York’s cap figure for the rest of the season unless another team claims him off waivers. Mbenga’s deal is non-guaranteed.
Mbenga was making his first foray back into the NBA since the 2010/11 season, save for a brief preseason stint with the Mavs in 2012. The 33-year-old reunited with Knicks team president Phil Jackson, who coached him on back-to-back Lakers championship teams in 2009 and 2010. The seven-year NBA veteran scored two points in less than five minutes of action in his lone preseason appearance this month. Sanchez saw just a single minute in his only preseason game. The 26-year-old went undrafted out of St. John’s this summer before competing for the Dominican Republican in FIBA World Cup action. Sanchez will sign to play for the Knicks D-League affiliate, agent B.J. Bass tells Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv (Twitter link).
The Knicks still have 18 players on their roster, though they probably won’t have much trouble deciding whom to cut to winnow down to 15 players in time for Monday’s opening-night roster deadline. They have 14 guaranteed contracts plus a partial guarantee for Samuel Dalembert, who’s expected to play a significant role. Langston Galloway and Travis Wear are long shots to make the club in spite of their nominal partial guarantees, as is new signee Jordan Vandenberg.
Steve Nash To Miss Entire Season
7:21pm: The Lakers have confirmed that Nash will miss the season, the team announced. He still hasn’t decided whether he’ll retire in the wake of the news, USA Today’s Sam Amick tweets.
6:58pm: Nerve issues will keep Steve Nash from playing this season, reports Kevin Ding of Bleacher Report. Sources tell Ding that the Lakers are expected to rule the 40-year-old point guard out for all of 2014/15 because of recurring nerve damage in his back. Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times confirms that Nash will not play this year (Twitter link). The Lakers can apply for a Disabled Player Exception worth nearly $4.851MM, or half of his $9.701MM salary for this season, but they can’t take Nash’s contract, which expires at season’s end, off the books.
If the Lakers waive Nash, they could apply for a salary exclusion if he’s deemed to have suffered a career-ending injury. However, they’d have to wait to apply for that on the one-year anniversary of his last game, which took place on April 8th last season. That would give the NBA only about a week before the end of the regular season to grant the exclusion, which would wipe Nash’s salary from the team’s cap figure, though the Lakers would still have to pay the former MVP his salary. Still, that’s unlikely to change the equation much for the Lakers, as few, if any, free agents of impact are available at that point in the season, and it wouldn’t affect the team’s cap room for next summer, since Nash’s contract expires at season’s end one way or another.
The league has an insurance policy that covers teams for a portion of the salary for around 150 players in case they are injured, but the insurance company may choose as many as 14 players to exempt from that policy each year. It’s not clear whether Nash is one of those exempt players, but if the insurance covered Nash when he first signed his deal in 2012, at which point he was still fully healthy, he’d still be covered now. The insurance nonetheless has no bearing on Nash’s cap figure.
In any case, the prospect of Nash returning to the court for 2015/16 or beyond seems remote, so there’s a strong chance his career is at an end. The 15th overall pick in the 1996 draft didn’t show his true potential until a trade sent him to the Mavs after his second NBA season. He blossomed into an All-Star alongside Dirk Nowitzki, and when Nash left as a free agent in 2004 for Phoenix, where he teamed with coach Mike D’Antoni, he reached new levels, winning back-to-back MVP awards his first two seasons with the Suns. He remained productive for many years, averaging 10.7 assists during the 2011/12 season, when he turned 38, prompting the Lakers to sign-and-trade for him in the summer of 2012. He joined Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol to form a star-studded Lakers team that was a chic pick to win the championship, which would have been a first for Nash, but the team fell well short of expectations and lost in the first round of the playoffs.
A broken leg that Nash suffered in just his second regular season game with the Lakers helped limit him to 50 games in 2012/13 and touched off the nerve trouble that was largely responsible for him appearing in just 15 games last season. He never lived up to his contract, worth more than $27.9MM over three years, and he admitted this spring that he wasn’t going to retire because he wanted to collect his salary for this season. Still, Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak has said he doesn’t regret doing the deal.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Knicks Sign Jordan Vandenberg
The Knicks have signed center Jordan Vandenberg, the team announced (on Twitter). New York is limited to the minimum salary for the Australian native who went undrafted out of North Carolina State this June, though it’s unclear if he’ll receive any guaranteed salary. The 7’1″ Vandenberg becomes the 20th player on the Knicks roster.
New York is familiar with the 24-year-old from his stint with the team’s summer league squad. He played just 10 minutes total in a pair of summer league games, and he only averaged more than 12 minutes a night once during his five seasons at N.C. State, where he received a medical redshirt in his third year despite appearing in seven contests. Vandenberg averaged 4.6 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 22.3 minutes per game as a senior this past season.
The Knicks likely have their opening night roster set with 14 fully guaranteed contracts plus a partial guarantee with Samuel Dalembert, so it seems they’re making this move with the D-League in mind, although that’s just my speculation. New York can keep the D-League rights to as many as four of the players it cuts during the preseason, but veterans like D.J. Mbenga, who’s with the Knicks on a non-guaranteed deal, rarely wind up in the D-League, which is usually the domain of younger players like Vandenberg.
Pacific Notes: Lakers, Barnes, McLemore
Former Warriors coach Mark Jackson believes Klay Thompson has “got to get” maximum salaries in his next deal, even as the team is reportedly pushing for him to take less as the October 31st extension deadline nears. Of course, after a controversial end to his tenure in Golden State, it’s quite possible that Jackson’s advancement of the idea of max money for Thompson is a dig at the Warriors, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News suggests (Twitter link). In any case, we’ll soon see if the team is willing to come to terms with Thompson or set him up for restricted free agency next summer, and as we wait, here’s more from around the Pacific Division:
- Lakers co-owner Jeanie Buss takes exception to an ESPN.com report that indicated that Kobe Bryant is driving free agents away from the Lakers, as she made clear today in an appearance on ESPN’s SportsCenter. “”Any free agent that would be afraid to play with Kobe Bryant is probably a loser, and I’m glad they wouldn’t come to the team,” Buss said. The report indicated that Paul George signed his extension with the Pacers last year in part because he had reservations about Bryant and didn’t want to hit free agency and sign with the Lakers, though George has publicly questioned the report’s veracity (Twitter link).
- Matt Barnes felt as though he was being replaced when the Clippers pursued other small forwards in free agency this summer, as he tells Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. Barnes nonetheless says he would like to come off the bench even though coach Doc Rivers said Wednesday that he’ll start on opening night.
- Ben McLemore is leaving agent Rodney Blackstock, as he confirmed to reporters, including James Ham of Cowbell Kingdom, who originally reported the move. The shooting guard hasn’t decided when he’ll hire a replacement, Ham adds. The Kings picked up their team option on McLemore this past weekend.
Nets Waive Willie Reed
The Nets have waived power forward Willie Reed, the team announced via press release. The 24-year-old had signed a non-guaranteed contract, so Brooklyn isn’t on the hook for any of his salary. The move takes the Nets down to 16 players, with one more subtraction required before opening night.
Reed is technically a two-year veteran, even though he’s never played an NBA regular season game. He’s signed at the end of the regular season each of the last two years with the Grizzlies and Kings, respectively, but those teams cut him loose before he saw any action. The 6’10” Reed averaged 4.0 rebounds in 16.6 minutes per game in two preseason contests this month, but it wasn’t enough to win a spot for opening night.
Brooklyn has 13 fully guaranteed contracts plus $75K guaranteed for Cory Jefferson and $25K for Jorge Gutierrez, but Jerome Jordan has impressed on his non-guaranteed deal. Coach Lionel Hollins admitted he’s rooting for Jordan to stick with the team.
Rockets Sign Geron Johnson, Waive Akil Mitchell
The Rockets have signed former University of Memphis shooting guard Geron Johnson and waived power forward Akil Mitchell, the team announced via press release. The terms of the deal for Johnson aren’t immediately clear, but it’s probably a minimum-salary arrangement, perhaps with a nominal guarantee. Houston will be stuck with the $150K partial guarantee on Mitchell’s contract unless another team claims him off waivers.
Johnson went undrafted this past June, but he’s been on Houston’s radar for a while. The Rockets were among the teams that worked him out prior to the draft, and he joined Houston’s summer league team in July. The now 22-year-old Johnson averaged just 8.9 points in 27.9 minutes per game as a senior with the Memphis Tigers last season, but he grabbed 4.9 rebounds per contest even though he’s only 6’3″.
Mitchell also went undrafted this summer and scored his deal with the Rockets shortly before training camp began. Still, he didn’t play in any of the team’s preseason games and a report last week indicated he hadn’t been with the Rockets for several days.
Houston still has 20 players on its roster, and with 15 fully guaranteed contracts plus a non-guaranteed pact with starting point guard Patrick Beverley, the Rockets have a logjam they must resolve by Monday’s deadline for teams to set their opening-night rosters. Johnson seems unlikely to remain with the team into the regular season, so it appears the Rockets are signing him chiefly to be able to claim his D-League rights, though that’s just my speculation.
Grizzlies Waive Earl Clark, Hassan Whiteside
4:15pm: Both players have been officially waived, the team announced in a press release.
2:08pm: The Grizzlies have waived Earl Clark and Hassan Whiteside, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the team has yet to make a formal announcement. They possessed two of the team’s four remaining non-guaranteed contracts, and their subtraction leaves Memphis at 16 players, one more than the team can carry on opening night.
Clark was a hot commodity a year ago, when he signed a two-year, $8.5MM deal with the Cavs. However, only the first season was guaranteed, and the forward couldn’t duplicate what had been a career year with the Lakers in 2012/13. The Cavs sent him to the Sixers, who quickly cut him loose, and aside from a pair of 10-day contracts with the Knicks, he spent the second half of last season out of the league. The Spurs auditioned him before he inked with the Grizzlies, but it seems he didn’t make enough of an impression on the Memphis brass to stick into the regular season.
Whiteside was also attempting to return to the NBA, though the former 33rd overall pick’s regular season experience consists of just 19 games over two seasons with the Kings from 2010-12. He was with the Raptors in summer league this year and spent time playing in Lebanon last season.
Patrick Christopher and Kalin Lucas remain as the only players without full guarantees on the Memphis roster, and ostensibly one, if not both, will go by Monday’s deadline for teams to cut down to no more than 15 players. The Grizzlies have only carried 13 players on opening night the last two years.
Eastern Notes: Pierce, Vucevic, Stephenson
Paul Pierce figures coach Jason Kidd‘s departure from the Nets helped dampen the team’s enthusiasm to re-sign the forward to a new deal this summer, as Pierce tells reporters, including Andy Vasquez of The Record. Pierce cites Kidd as one of the primary reasons he encouraged the Celtics to trade him to Brooklyn in 2013, as Vasquez notes. There’s more on key figures who changed places as well as one who’s committed to stay where he is among the news from around the Eastern Conference:
- Nikola Vucevic is careful to point out that he hasn’t put pen to paper on an extension with the Magic, but he nonetheless made it clear that he’s ecstatic about the agreement that agent Rade Filipovich and the team have reached, as Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel details.
- Representatives for Lance Stephenson urged the Pacers to offload other players to find room for the shooting guard under the tax line this summer, with the names of Luis Scola and Donald Sloan arising in the talks, but Indiana held firm against doing so, reports Shams Charania of RealGM. The Alberto Ebanks client has said he cried when he told the Pacers he was signing with the Hornets instead, but Stephenson tells Charania that he hasn’t spoken to Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird since he made up his mind to join Charlotte.
- Charania also hears from a source who confirms that Jason Maxiell is the leading contender for a regular season roster spot among the Hornets camp invitees, as the RealGM scribe writes in the same piece. Coach Steve Clifford seems in favor of keeping Maxiell, writes Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer.
- Christian Watford will play for the Celtics‘ D-League affiliate assuming he clears NBA waivers, reports David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). That means the C’s are following through on their plan to keep Watford’s D-League rights, though Pick hears that the power forward turned down many offers from European teams to instead go to the D-League.
- Phil Jackson shared his scouting report on every Knicks player with Charley Rosen, writing for ESPN.com. The coach-turned-executive admits camp invitees Langston Galloway and Travis Wear are destined for the D-League.
Pacific Notes: Hill, Price, Thomas
The Clippers tied for third among the teams most likely to win the NBA title as the league’s GMs see it, as John Schuhmann of NBA.com details amid the results of the league’s annual GM survey. Still, they figure to receive a strong challenge in their own division from the Warriors. While we wait to see how it plays out, here’s the latest from the Pacific:
- Jordan Hill confirmed rumors from this past spring that he wouldn’t have re-signed with the Lakers if Mike D’Antoni were still the coach, as he tells Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News. Medina adds the Heat, Spurs and Magic to the list of suitors who went after the power forward this summer.
- Byron Scott stopped short of acknowledging that Ronnie Price is a lock to make the opening-night roster for the Lakers, but the coach said that injuries to the team’s other point guards would make it tough to let him go, Medina notes in a separate piece. “If you look at it that way, we have to [keep him],” Scott said. “Ronnie gets more of an opportunity. So far in my opinion, he has taken full advantage of it.”
- The Suns told Isaiah Thomas when they pitched him in free agency this summer that they valued him as a starter even though they made it clear they wanted to retain Eric Bledsoe, as Thomas tells Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders. Thomas isn’t concerned with whether he starts, but he did express continued bitterness toward the Kings, telling Kennedy he wasn’t surprised that they didn’t re-sign him and that he always felt the Sacramento organization underappreciated him.