Heat Sign Chris Johnson For Camp
FRIDAY, 3:02pm: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
THURSDAY, 12:57pm: The Heat are expected to add former LSU center Chris Johnson to their camp roster, reports Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel (Twitter link). Johnson is not to be confused with the Celtics swingman by the same name. The Heat are limited to giving out only the minimum salary to the three-year veteran, though since the team has only been carrying 11 fully guaranteed deals, there’s a decent chance that Johnson’s contract will include a small partial guarantee.
Guaranteed money didn’t help Johnson stick with the Timberwolves for opening night last year, as Minnesota waived him and his minimum salary at the end of training camp. He went to China to play with Zhejiang Guangsha instead, and but he nearly made it back to the NBA with the Kings in March before a failed physical scuttled his deal with Sacramento. The 6’11” Johnson also reportedly worked out for Charlotte earlier that month.
The addition of the 29-year-old Johnson will bring the Heat to a full 20-man preseason roster. Four players have partial guarantees in addition to the 11 fully guaranteed members of the Heat, while veterans Shannon Brown and Reggie Williams are among those who’ll be in Miami’s camp without any guaranteed salary, making for tough competition.
Spurs Sign John Holland For Camp
The Spurs have signed former Boston University shooting guard John Holland, the team announced in a press release that set the training camp roster. San Antonio has plenty of flexibility to exceed the minimum salary, but it’s almost certain the team hasn’t done so here, and the deal is most likely only partially guaranteed, if that.
Holland has spent his three years as a pro playing in Europe after NBA teams passed on him in the 2011 draft, bouncing from France to Spain and back to France again for last season. He’s nonetheless been a member of three NBA summer league teams in the past two years, joining the Thunder and Heat in 2012 and the Timberwolves last summer. The 25-year-old scored 10.6 points in 27.4 minutes per game for Gravelines in France this past season, making 33.3% of his three-point attempts.
The signing gives San Antonio 19 players for camp, but 15 of them have fully guaranteed contracts. That means it’ll be an uphill battle for Holland to stick, and he’ll have to compete against Bryce Cotton, Josh Davis and JaMychal Green, all of whom have diminutive partial guarantees.
Bulls Sign Kim English, Ben Hansbrough
The Bulls have signed one-year NBA veterans Kim English and Ben Hansbrough, the team announced via press release. The team is limited to giving out the minimum salary, and while it’s unclear whether there’s any guaranteed salary involved for either of them, it’d probably be nominal guarantees at best for the guards.
Hansbrough worked out for the Pistons and Lakers within the past month or so, while English was part of a large-scale Nets workout early in the offseason that seemed more geared toward summer league. The 2012/13 season is the only year that each has spent on an NBA regular season roster, with Hansbrough averaging 7.2 minutes per game for the Pacers that year while English saw the floor for 9.9 MPG in 41 appearances for the Pistons, who drafted him 44th overall in 2012. The 26-year-old Hansbrough, who went undrafted in 2011, spent this past season playing for Gran Canaria in Spain, while English, also 26, was with Italy’s Montepaschi Siena last year.
The additions give Chicago 17 players for camp. E’Twaun Moore has a partial guarantee for the 13th spot on the roster, likely leaving Hansbrough and English to compete against Nazr Mohammed and Solomon Jones to impress the team enough to keep them instead.
Bulls Sign Solomon Jones
2:25pm: The signing is official, the team announced via press release.
1:40pm: The Bulls have struck a deal with eight-year NBA veteran Solomon Jones, according to his representatives at the Priority Sports agency (Twitter link). It’s a one-year deal for the minimum, as Shams Charania of RealGM confirms (on Twitter). Both the agency and Charania indicate that the 6’10” center has already put pen to paper, but the team has yet to make an official announcement. It’s not clear whether there’s any guaranteed money involved. Still, given the 13 deals with at least some guaranteed money that the team is already carrying and Chicago’s reluctance to keep more than the NBA-minimum 13 players for opening night in recent years, Jones’ salary is probably non-guaranteed.
Jones appeared in 11 games with the Magic early last season before the Magic waived him rather than guarantee his salary for the rest of the year. The 30-year-old played for the Knicks D-League affiliate after Orlando let him go, and he also traveled to play in a second-tier Chinese league during the summer. He managed only 1.3 points and 1.5 rebounds in 7.7 minutes per game for Orlando last season, and he’s never seen more than 13.9 minutes per game in any one NBA season.
The Bulls have a well-stocked frontcourt with Joakim Noah, Pau Gasol, Taj Gibson and Nikola Mirotic, and Nazr Mohammed is probably the favorite if the team retains a player on a non-guaranteed contract, so it’s tough to envision Jones lasting long in Chicago. The team has a dozen fully guaranteed pacts, while E’Twaun Moore‘s deal is partially guaranteed for $425K.
Spurs Re-Sign Aron Baynes
2:13pm: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
1:35pm: The contract will be worth $2.1MM, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link), so he didn’t sign the qualifying offer. San Antonio likely used its Early Bird rights with Baynes to facilitate the deal and preserve its mid-level and biannual exceptions.
FRIDAY, 1:25pm: It’s a fully guaranteed deal for one year, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. That leaves open the possibility that Baynes signed his qualifying offer, worth about $1.115MM, but it remains unclear whether that’s the case.
THURSDAY, 8:26am: Not long after the most prominent of the two lingering restricted free agents re-signed with his team, it appears the other one will follow suit. Aron Baynes is in San Antonio for a physical and is expected to put pen to paper on a new deal with the Spurs, reports Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News (Twitter link). Both he and Eric Bledsoe had remained in restricted free agency for almost the entire offseason before Bledsoe re-signed with the Suns Wednesday. The terms of the deal for Baynes are unclear.
The Spurs appeared to maintain a consistent interest in re-signing the Entersport client even as they eyed others, and Baynes also appeared to want to continue to play in San Antonio even as he considered overseas options. San Antonio was reportedly open to a sign-and-trade with another NBA team, and China’s Shanghai Sharks jumped into the running for the 27-year-old center, but neither possibility appeared to gain much traction.
Baynes played a limited role for the Spurs after originally signing with the club midway through the 2012/13 season. He averaged 3.0 points and 2.7 rebounds in 9.3 minutes per game last season, and he only made it into 14 of San Antonio’s 23 playoff games en route to the title this spring, hitting the floor for 7.2 MPG in the postseason.
If Baynes has a fully guaranteed deal, it will presumably mean San Antonio’s regular season roster is set, since the team has been carrying 14 fully guaranteed pacts. The Spurs had been among the teams in pursuit of Ray Allen, while they’d also reportedly worked out veteran free agents Jamaal Franklin, Hakim Warrick, and a host of others, including Michael Beasley, who wound up committing to sign with the Grizzlies. A guaranteed deal for Baynes would likely forestall a deal with any other free agent deserving of guaranteed money, and it would make it more difficult for JaMychal Green, Bryce Cotton or Josh Davis to remain with the team come opening night on their partially guaranteed contracts.
Thunder Sign Michael Jenkins For Camp
MONDAY, 6:39pm: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
FRIDAY, 2:04pm: The Thunder and free agent shooting guard Michael Jenkins have struck agreement on a deal for training camp, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (on Twitter). Agent Daniel Moldovan tweeted this summer that Jenkins had a camp deal with the Nets after he’d been part of Brooklyn’s summer league squad, but his name wasn’t on the roster that Brooklyn released yesterday. Oklahoma City has the capacity to give more than the minimum salary, but it’s unlikely that Thunder did so, though perhaps there’s a small partial guarantee involved.
The 28-year-old Jenkins has spent much of his pro career overseas after going undrafted out of Winthrop in 2008, having played in Italy the past two seasons. Jenkins averaged 10.3 points and shot 39.9% from three-point range in 25.9 minutes per game for Pallacanestro Cantu last year, but his numbers were even better for Centrale del Latte Brescia the year before, when he put up 17.0 PPG in 31.4 MPG with 41.1% accuracy from behind the arc.
The Thunder have been carrying 14 fully guaranteed deals plus a non-guaranteed pact with Lance Thomas. That ostensibly gives Jenkins a decent shot to make the opening-night roster for Oklahoma City, though the Thunder have only carried 14 players to start the season the last two years.
Key Dates For 2014/15 NBA Season
Today is the last day before training camps begin for a few NBA teams, and the entire league will be in camp by Tuesday. The 2014/15 season is indeed upon us, and several dates will be important as teams continue to craft their rosters. Here’s a look at the key days on the calendar for NBA player movement between now and the end of the 2014/15 regular season:
- September 27th: Training camps open for the Spurs, Cavs, Heat, Nets and Kings
- September 30th: Training camps open for all other teams
- October 27th: Deadline for teams to set opening-night rosters (4pm CT); last day for teams to execute sign-and-trades.
- October 28th: Regular season begins
- October 31st: Last day teams may sign players to rookie scale extensions; last day teams may exercise team options on rookie scale contracts
- December 15th: First day that most players signed during the offseason may be traded
- January 5th: First day that teams may sign players to 10-day contracts
- January 7th: Teams must waive any remaining non-guaranteed contracts or guarantee them for the rest of the season (4pm CT)
- January 15th: Last day teams can apply for disabled player exceptions
- February 1st: Former first-round draft picks can begin signing rookie scale contracts that take effect in 2015/16.
- February 19th: Trade deadline (2pm CT)
- March 1st: Last day players can be waived and remain eligible to play in the postseason with another NBA team
- March 10th: Deadline for teams to use disabled player exceptions
- April 15th: Regular season ends; last day teams can sign players for 2014/15 regular season or playoffs; luxury tax calculations are based on rosters as of the end of the day
NBA.com and Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ were used in the creation of this post.
Rockets Sign Akil Mitchell For Camp
FRIDAY, 11:07am: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
WEDNESDAY, 2:02pm: The Rockets are set to sign former Virginia power forward Akil Mitchell, reports Mark Berman of Fox 26 Houston (Twitter link). The team has its biannual exception available to give him more than the minimum, but it seems most likely that it’s a minimum-salary deal for training camp that includes a nominal guarantee, at best.
The 6’8″ Mitchell spent time with Houston’s summer league team in July after going undrafted in June. He averaged 3.3 points and 4.8 rebounds in 19.5 minutes per game for the Rockets in the Orlando summer league, numbers that reflect what he did in college, where he put up 6.8 PPG and 7.0 RPG in 25.7 MPG as a senior. He had an expanded offensive role in his junior season, when he scored 13.1 PPG.
Mitchell, 22, is probably the final addition to the camp roster for Houston, which had been carrying deals with 19 players. It’ll be a tough road for him and the other camp invitees to make it to opening night, since 15 Rockets have fully guaranteed deals and Patrick Beverley, the projected starter at point guard, is on a non-guaranteed contract.
Eastern Notes: Garnett, Vogel, Heat, Walker
Kevin Garnett finally dismissed all doubt that he would return for the coming season, telling reporters that while he considered retirement, he’s once more decided to put it off, notes Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News (Twitter link). A report in June indicated that Garnett would be back with the Nets, but Garnett hadn’t spoken publicly about his plans. Retirement could be a ways off, as the 38-year-old said he won’t rule out playing beyond this season, the final year of his contract, as Bondy also relays (via Twitter). Still, Garnett’s comments gave Tim Bontemps of the New York Post the sense that he’s planning to hang it up next summer (Twitter link). There’s more from the player once known as The Kid as we detail the latest from the Eastern Conference:
- Garnett was in touch with Paul Pierce as the Wizards signee went through free agency and called his departure for Washington “bittersweet,” as Bontemps chronicles (Twitter links). KG said he was in the dark during former coach Jason Kidd‘s exit from the Nets, however, as Andy Vasquez of The Record tweets.
- Frank Vogel is entering the final year of his contract to coach the Pacers, but he tells Scott Agness of Vigilant Sports that he’d like to remain in the job “forever.” President of basketball operations Larry Bird has suggested that the team is open to negotiating an extension with Vogel before this season begins, as Agness points out.
- The Heat never made offers to veterans Andray Blatche, Ramon Sessions, Jordan Crawford, Wayne Ellington and others, team president Pat Riley and GM Andy Elisburg say, according to Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. Winderman surmises that the frustration that many veterans stuck at the end of the Heat’s bench expressed last year made the team wary of adding too many players with expectations of playing time.
- The Hornets are just beginning extension talks with Kemba Walker, but GM Rich Cho indicated to reporters Thursday that he’s pleased with the point guard’s growing maturity, as Lang Greene of Basketball Insiders points out.
Atlantic Notes: Celtics, Grunwald, Sixers
The Keith Bogans trade enables the Celtics to create a trade exception equivalent to the value of Bogans’ $5,285,816 salary, but just how they structure the deal to come up with that exception isn’t clear. They could absorb the $1.6MM salary of John Lucas III into their $2.09MM Courtney Lee trade exception, essentially exhausting it while preserving the full amount of their $4.25MM trade exception from the Kris Humphries deal, a path that Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders suggests (Twitter link). Alternatively, they could fold Lucas into the Humphries exception, reducing its value to $2.65MM while leaving the $2.09MM Lee exception intact. In any case, the minimum salaries of Erik Murphy, Dwight Powell and Malcolm Thomas don’t figure into the equation, since Boston can absorb them into the minimum salary exception. There’s more on the aftermath of the trade amid the latest from the Atlantic Division:
- Thomas and Lucas, on non-guaranteed contracts, are long shots to remain with the Celtics come Tuesday, when training camp begins, though Murphy, who has a partial guarantee of $100K, will be “evaluated,” tweets Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com. Goodman indicates that Powell is likely to stick, at least for camp, with his fully guaranteed deal.
- Former Knicks GM Glen Grunwald admits that he was caught off guard when the team decided to fire him a year ago and disputes owner James Dolan’s assertion that he wasn’t well-versed in analytics, as Grunwald tells Marc Berman of the New York Post.
- It’s a stark reality for the stripped-down Sixers, and coach Brett Brown emphasized that he won’t measure success in terms of wins and losses this year, as he spoke to reporters, including Tom Moore of Calkins Media. Asked whether he’s on board with the drastic rebuilding process, Brown quipped, “I have to be, don’t I?”