Blazers Owner On Aldridge, Tax, Involvement
Paul Allen has to settle for the title of second-richest NBA owner, since new Clippers owner Steve Ballmer outranks him, at least according to the Forbes 400. Allen and his Blazers have recently found themselves looking up at the Clippers and others in the NBA standings, too, but there weren’t many teams in between Portland and the top last year. Allen is enthusiastic about the direction of the Blazers, but he stopped short of declaring his team a contender when asked after the team’s first practice today. The tech magnate opened up about plenty of other topics, as Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com transcribes. We’ll share a few highlights here:
On extension talks this summer with LaMarcus Aldridge
“I just thought it was very important that we have a direct discussion with LA. It went great. We presented him with a couple of options and obviously he thinks the option of being unrestricted next season and of course looking at a very long [new contract] is the one he chose to pursue. We understand that, but we thought we should talk through all those things. It was just great to be able to sit down with LA and get a chance to really understand his thinking about the team. He’s very excited about the team. You guys talked to him at media day yesterday and I hope you got that sense, too.”
On paying the luxury tax:
“I think it’s been a while since I’ve been in the luxury tax. David Stern used to give me an extremely hard time about being as deep in the luxury tax as we went at one point. It’s not something I’m looking at, at this point, but look, we’ll try to do what we can to be as competitive as we can in the future without causing ourselves a bunch of problems down the road by going way over the cap and impacting our ability to sign free agents in the future and things like that. So it’s a very delicate balancing act to try and create yourself a championship window and then keep developing young players, too. I think if you look at, for instance, what the Seahawks, what we did winning the Super Bowl, that was with a very young team. So you have to blend the experience with young players and develop those as well. That’s something [GM] Neil [Olshey] and his staff are very focused on.”
On his involvement with the team:
“It’s funny, I was just looking at the press guide. Certainly I was excited when I first became the owner. I think now, I’m just as excited. I think we’ve got a great staff here and I’m not quite as involved in the details of things as I used to be, although I still love the draft. We’re going to have a meeting after this practice to go over the plan for the season and even looking ahead to the offseason after that to try and see what things we’re going to keep in mind. I love it and it’s going to be an exciting year.”
Nuggets Sign Pops Mensah-Bonsu For Camp
3:24pm: The team has made the deal official, including Mensah-Bonsu’s name on an updated version of the camp roster.
TUESDAY, 1:04pm: Mensah-Bonsu practiced with the team today, observes Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post, confirming that the veteran will indeed be with the team (Twitter link). The Nuggets have yet to publicly acknowledge any signing, however, and they haven’t made any announcement regarding their reported deals with Alonzo Gee and Joe Alexander, either.
MONDAY, 4:51pm: The deal is non-guaranteed, a source tells Pick (Twitter link).
4:10pm: Four-year NBA veteran Pops Mensah-Bonsu has turned down a pair of lucrative offers from European clubs to instead agree to join the Nuggets for training camp, tweets David Pick of Eurobasket.com. The Nuggets have the capacity to give the 31-year-old more than the minimum, but it seems unlikely they would do so for the 6’9″ power forward who last appeared in an NBA regular season game during the 2010/11 season. It’s unclear whether there’s any guaranteed money involved.
Mensah-Bonsu has made stops in Turkey, Italy and Spain since his departure from the NBA, averaging 8.7 points and 6.3 rebounds in 20.1 minutes per game last season for Turkey’s Galatasaray. Still, it’ll be the second straight autumn in which the former George Washington University standout will join an NBA team for camp, since he did so with the Wizards last year.
Nuggets GM Tim Connelly is making a habit of bringing players long absent from the NBA to Denver’s camp, having done so with Joe Alexander and Marcus Williams already this year. The Nuggets have 13 fully guaranteed deals and two that contain partial guaranees, so there’s no clear path for Mensah-Bonsu or the other two NBA vets to make it to opening night.
Nuggets Sign Alonzo Gee
3:23pm: The team has made the deal official, including Gee’s name on an updated version of the camp roster.
2:58pm: Gee didn’t take part in the team’s first practice today, but he took his physical and is still on track to join the team, tweets Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post. Gee’s name wasn’t on the camp roster the Nuggets released today, but it seems that’s a matter of timing and doesn’t signal that the deal is off.
7:31am: The Nuggets and Alonzo Gee have struck agreement on a deal, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Denver had been actively pursuing the free agent small forward, as Charania wrote over the weekend. The team has the capacity to exceed the minimum, but it’s unlikely they’ve done so in this case. Still, it seems a distinct possibility that there’s at least a partial guarantee involved for the five-year veteran.
Gee cleared waivers Saturday after the Kings cut him loose last week, not long after acquiring him from the Rockets in the Jason Terry trade. It was the third trade in which Cleveland’s former starting small forward found himself this summer, as teams passed around his contract, which had been worth a non-guaranteed $3MM for this season. Still, the 27-year-old Happy Walters client drew interest from the Nuggets as soon as he became available, proving he still has some value in spite of a down year this past season.
The move will bring the Nuggets to the preseason roster limit of 20 players. Denver has guaranteed deals with 13 of them and partial guarantees out to three more, so just how much guaranteed money Gee gets will probably dictate the likelihood that he’ll make the opening-night roster.
Eastern Notes: Rondo, Monroe, LeBron, Raptors
Soon-to-be free agent Rajon Rondo expressed utmost confidence Monday that Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge can return the team to contention, as Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald observes.
“Yeah, I’m pretty smart,” Rondo said. “I know this isn’t a championship team. But we’re going to go out there every night and fight hard. I think if we continue to do the little things and believe in each other and believe in [coach] Brad Stevens, we’ll surprise a lot of people. I have complete trust in Danny. The worst year of my career, in two months we turned it around. So I’m not worried about what he’s capable of doing. He’s done it.”
Rondo also spoke about the frequent appearance of his name in trade rumors, half-kiddingly suggesting that he’d like a no-trade clause in his next deal. It’ll be tough for him to avoid more rumors this season, one in which he seems like the most prominent trade candidate leaguewide. Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:
- The Pistons aren’t giving up hope that they’ll reach a long-term deal with Greg Monroe, even though his signed qualifying offer means he’ll be an unrestricted free agent next summer, owner Tom Gores told reporters, including Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free-Press. Monroe isn’t ruling it out either, as we noted yesterday.
- Mike Miller confirmed a June report from Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com that the Heat‘s decision to amnesty him in 2013 upset LeBron James, as Miller tells Chris Haynes of the Plain Dealer. “LeBron thought it was an unnecessary change,” Miller said. “I’m not saying I would have been a difference-maker. San Antonio was unbelievable last year and there are a lot of things that go into a season, but it was difficult for LeBron. It was difficult for all of us. It was difficult for me. I had to uproot my family and move again. It was tough. I think he was disappointed because he understands legacies and he understands what he wants to do in life. That’s what makes him special.”
- Raptors GM Masai Ujiri had hoped to find a one-to-one D-League affiliate for this season, according to Doug Smith of the Toronto Star, who writes that the idea remains on the table for future seasons. Toronto will be one of 13 NBA teams sharing the Fort Wayne Mad Ants this year.
Pacific Rumors: Morrises, Liggins, Gay, Kobe
Marcus Morris says he thinks Markieff Morris should have received a greater share of the four-year, $52MM combined total of the extensions that agent Leon Rose negotiated for the twins, as he told reporters, including Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. Markieff said it would be OK if he and his brother ended up on different teams, but he added that there was no reason for them to walk away from what the Suns had to offer.
“It’s a dream come true,” Markieff said. “We feel like we’re home together. When they offer us great money to stay together, why not take it instead of going through free agency? We’re both going to have great seasons. … The game is more fun together. It means more. We’re definitely past that point of not being able to play apart, but another four years definitely won’t hurt anything.”
Here’s more from around the Pacific:
- DeAndre Liggins doesn’t appear on the training camp roster the Clippers released today, so it looks like he won’t be joining the team after all. There were conflicting reports about whether he had a deal to do so.
- Rudy Gay said he briefly began extension talks with the Kings over the summer, but he put them on hold when he joined Team USA, notes Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. Still, Gay’s not opposed to having his agents at Octagon Sports resume talks, Jones adds.
- Kobe Bryant isn’t ruling out the idea of playing beyond his contract, which ends in the summer of 2016, shortly before his 38th birthday, observes Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. “Whether I do or not, we’ll have to see that two years from now,” Bryant said. “I don’t know, but I could [play longer]. Physically, I don’t see an end to the tunnel.”
- Confidence in the continued development of the team’s young players made the Warriors hesitate to trade for Kevin Love, as GM Bob Myers told NBA TV, while Klay Thompson, in his NBA TV appearance, expressed appreciation for Steve Kerr‘s role in forestalling a swap. Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group provides a transcription. “If it is the truth, it’s awesome,” Thompson said of Kerr’s opposition to a move. “I appreciate Steve for that. It just makes me want to play even harder for him if he really did believe that, so it gives me a new sense of confidence, really.”
Clippers Sign Joe Ingles
SEPTEMBER 30TH: The deal is official, the team announced, listing Ingles on the preseason roster.
SEPTEMBER 25TH, 10:47pm: The signing has taken place, according to the RealGM transactions log.
2:32pm: Dan Woike of the Orange County Register hears the deal is non-guaranteed, contradicting the earlier report (Twitter link). Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times also has it as a non-guaranteed deal, and he confirms it’s for the minimum (on Twitter).
12:16pm: Ingles’ representatives at Priority Sports confirmed the deal, via Twitter.
11:35am: The deal is guaranteed, Pick tweets.
SEPTEMBER 16TH, 8:45pm: The Clippers and Australian swingman Joe Ingles have agreed to a one-year deal, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. It’s almost certainly for the minimum, since that’s all the Clippers can hand out. It’s unclear whether the pact is guaranteed, as Stein wrote earlier this month that Ingles would likely land a guaranteed deal with an NBA team, while Ingles told Boty Nagy of The Courier Mail, a Queensland-based newspaper in Australia, that he wouldn’t be receiving any guaranteed money.
Stein referred to Ingles a couple of weeks ago as a “virtual lock” to sign in the NBA, with seven or eight teams in pursuit as he put on a strong showing in the FIBA World Cup. The Grizzlies and Sixers were among those clubs, though Stein said Ingles was unlikely to end up in Philadelphia, even given his ties to former Australian national team coach and current Sixers bench boss Brett Brown. The guaranteed salaries on the books for Memphis put them only about $1.2MM shy of the luxury tax line, and Stein cites that as reason why the Grizzlies didn’t make as hard a push for Ingles this season as they did last year, when he rejected a two-year offer from the team. Still, the minimum salary that Ingles is in line to receive from the Clippers wouldn’t have put the Grizzlies into the tax, and Marc Gasol, who can become a free agent next summer, supported the idea of bringing his former Spanish-league teammate to Memphis. The Hawks, Jazz, Pacers and Bucks are the other NBA clubs to have been linked to Ingles over the past two offseasons.
The 6’8″ Ingles, who turns 27 next month, spent last season playing for new Cavs coach David Blatt with Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel, averaging 6.0 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 21.2 minutes per game as a part-time starter. His numbers were better in the World Cup, as he put up 11.4 PPG, 3.2 RPG and 3.4 APG in nearly 31.0 MPG. Ingles had a tough time generating interest on the European professional circuit before his World Cup performance, according to David Pick of Eurobasket.com, yet he turned down private workout invitations from NBA teams during summer league in July, Pick tweets.
The Clippers have been carrying 14 fully guaranteed pacts plus a deal with DeAndre Liggins that’s presumably no more than partially guaranteed. The team has kept fewer than 15 players on the opening-night roster in recent years, but perhaps new owner Steve Ballmer is willing to change that.
Nuggets Sign Marcus Williams
SEPTEMBER 30TH: The signing is official, the Nuggets announce as they release their training camp roster.
SEPTEMBER 23RD: The deal has been signed according to the RealGM transaction log, although no announcement from the team has been made yet.
SEPTEMBER 22ND, 10:52am: The contract will cover one season, Charania notes via Twitter.
10:30am: The Nuggets and former University of Arizona forward Marcus Williams have agreed to a deal, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Williams is not to be confused with the former University of Connecticut point guard by the same name. It’s likely a minimum-salary deal for camp, though the Nuggets have most of their $5.305MM mid-level exception to give him more. It’s not clear whether the deal includes any guaranteed salary.
Williams played 11 NBA regular season games in two seasons with the Clippers and Spurs after San Antonio made him the 33rd overall pick in 2007, but he’s been out of the league since the Spurs waived him in the 2009 preseason. He’s spent time with San Antonio’s D-League affiliate since then, and he’s also been a mainstay for China’s Shanxi Zhongyu. He’s averaged 30.7 points over the last three seasons with the Chinese club, a mark that’s put him near the top of the scoring leaders in the Chinese Basketball Association, a circuit dotted with NBA veterans.
Denver appears to offer Williams, who’ll turn 28 in November, a decent chance to make it to opening night, since the Nuggets had been carrying only 13 fully guaranteed deals. Jerrelle Benimon, Erick Green and Quincy Miller all have partially guaranteed minimum salaries.
Contract Details: Papanikolaou, Suns, Sixers
Teams have made several roster moves in the past few days as they’ve prepared for camp, leaving a few loose ends to resolve contractually. Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders provides a few answers to the questions left unresolved, so we’ll pass along his revelations here:
- The Rockets essentially reversed the salaries in each year of Kostas Papanikolaou‘s deal after the league forced the team to sign him to a new contract. He’ll make slighly more than $4.591MM this year and nearly $4.798MM next season, Pincus reports (Twitter link). It’s unclear whether the contract has guarantee dates, like the original pact, but it does include a signing bonus of almost $207K, according to Pincus (Twitter links).
- The extensions that Markieff Morris and Marcus Morris signed with the Suns include salaries that go down in year two before rising again in years three and four, Pincus reveals (Twitter links). An earlier report had indicated that they were all escalating salaries.
- Zoran Dragic will only make $1.5MM this year and the same amount in 2015/16, so his Suns contract is slightly less lucrative than thought, as Pincus details (Twitter link). Those figures include a signing bonus of about $413K.
- The Sixers used some of their cap space to give Jerami Grant, this year’s No. 39 overall pick, a four-year contract that’s fully guaranteed for the first two seasons and non-guaranteed thereafter, according to Pincus (Twitter link). The final season also features a team option, Pincus adds. The salary of nearly $885K in the first year is more than the rookie minimum, but it’s otherwise a minimum-salary arrangement.
- Christian Watford‘s new deal with the Celtics covers one year at the minimum salary and is non-guaranteed, Pincus shows (Twitter link). That makes him eligible to have signed an Exhibit 9 Contract that would keep the C’s from paying him if he were to suffer an injury in preseason, though it’s not clear whether it is indeed one of those sorts of pacts.
Proposed Lottery Changes Garner Broad Support
Teams are giving widespread support to the league’s proposal to more evenly distribute the chances that lottery teams have of winning the top overall pick, sources tell Grantland’s Zach Lowe. Owners could vote on the proposal, which would reduce the chance the worst team has at the No. 1 pick from 25% to 11%, as early as this season, Lowe adds. It’s unclear when the change would take effect. Lowe wrote in July that the new rules might be in place in time for the 2015 lottery, but followed a few weeks later to note that many took issue with the idea of such a sudden change.
The proposal, one of several the league has considered, didn’t initially inspire much fervent support, but it appears from Lowe’s latest dispatch that it has picked up steam. A “powerful distaste” for the radical rebuilding effort the Sixers are undertaking is fueling the desire to lessen the incentive that teams have to bottom out, Lowe writes. Philly’s brass is at least cool to the idea of change, if not actively resisting it.
There is concern around the league that making it tougher for the very worst teams to win the lottery will make it more difficult for small-market teams to succeed, according to Lowe, since building through the draft is a cost-effective alternative to marquee free agent pursuits. Still, it’s unclear whether this fear is enough to derail any changes or prompt the league to adopt milder reforms.
Northwest Notes: Jackson, Aldridge, Rubio
Reggie Jackson‘s continued insistence on starting for the Thunder complicates the notion of an extension for the fourth-year guard, as The Oklahoman’s Anthony Slater examines, writing that a deal before the October 31st deadline would be “surprising.” Still, Kevin Durant tells Sam Amick of USA Today that Jackson loves the organization and believes that “it’s going to all work out,” as a report this weekend indicated that the Oklahoma City front office is enamored with Jackson. While we wait to see what happens as the Thunder face an extension deadline with a talented sixth man for the second time in three years, here’s more from around the Northwest Division:
- LaMarcus Aldridge repeated his intention to re-sign with the Blazers in the summer while pointing out that it doesn’t make financial sense for him to sign an extension, as he told reporters, including Kerry Eggers of the Portland Tribune.
- Ricky Rubio indicated to reporters Monday that he believes extension talks are affecting his ability to perform on the court, notes Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press. Still, Wolves coach/executive Flip Saunders doesn’t think they’re hurting his game, Krawczynski adds. Rubio and Wolves owner Glen Taylor reportedly spoke several times by phone last week.
- There’s “no way” Kenneth Faried ends up with a max extension from the Nuggets, writes Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post, who speculates that $12MM annual salaries would fit the bill for the power forward.