Heat Sign Tyler Johnson
THURSDAY, 11:37am: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
WEDNESDAY, 2:48pm: It will be a two-year contract, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald (on Twitter).
9:13am: The Heat and former Fresno State guard Tyler Johnson have struck a deal, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Hoops Rumors reported last week that Johnson had been drawing interest from multiple NBA teams who were impressed with his showing on Miami’s summer league roster. The terms of the deal aren’t immediately clear, though the Heat can hand out no more than a two-year contract for the minimum salary.
Johnson averaged 12.5 points in 22.7 minutes per game across 10 summer league appearances after going undrafted this past June. He notched 15.9 PPG in 33.6 MPG with 43.2% shooting from behind the three-point line this past season as a senior with the Bulldogs.
The Heat will surely make more additions between now and the start of camp, but as it stands, the client of agent Pedro Power seems to have a decent chance of making the opening-night roster, since Miami only has contracts or agreements with 13 other players. Only 11 of them have fully guaranteed deals.
Cavs Consider Signing E’Twaun Moore
Free agent guard E’Twaun Moore is the subject of strong consideration from the Cavs, reports David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). Moore reportedly held off on signing a deal with Olimpia Milano of Italy amid interest from two NBA teams. It appears Cleveland is one of those clubs, though the identify of the other remains unclear.
Moore spent the last two seasons with the Magic, carving out a role in the team’s rotation. Orlando nonetheless declined to tender a qualifying offer worth roughly $1.148MM, making him an unrestricted free agent. The 25-year-old Mark Bartelstein client put up 7.1 points in 20.7 minutes per game during his time with Orlando.
Cleveland has an agreement in place to acquire Kevin Love, but that won’t change the team’s inability to offer more than the minimum salary. The Cavs have pursued swingman Ray Allen, but he’s spoken of a desire for more than the minimum. Moore, whose 35.4% three-point percentage is right in line with his career average of 35.0%, is nowhere near the long-range marksman that Allen has been over his career, but it’s possible that Cleveland sees Moore as a fallback option. That’s just my speculation, however.
Cavs Work Out Chauncey Billups
7:28pm: Billups’ visit with Cleveland was a result of his interest in playing there, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (via Twitter). Billups worked out for the Cavs, and looked rusty but productive, per Spears’ source. No offer has been extended from Cleveland at this point.
12:09pm: The Cavs have met with free agent Chauncey Billups, tweets Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops, confirming an earlier report by Scott Sargent of WaitingForNextYear. It’s unclear whether the sides discussed a playing, coaching or front office role for the 37-year-old who’s spoken openly of the notion of retiring as a player while stopping short of ruling out a return to the court.
Billups acknowledged in March that multiple NBA teams had been in touch about a front office role and said he would consider such an opportunity with the Pistons should the team make it available. The Pistons and Cavs were both reportedly high on him for a job in the front office, though that was before the Pistons removed Joe Dumars, with whom Billups is close, from his role as president of basketball operations.
Nuggets GM Tim Connelly recently had a broad discussion with Billups, but it’s not clear if they spoke about any kind of role Billups might take on in Denver. Coaching holds no appeal to Billups, though Flip Saunders apparently envisioned hiring him as an assistant for the Wolves earlier this summer.
The Pistons declined their team option on Billups for this coming season, and renounced his rights as well, though they’d still be able to offer him the minimum salary, which is likely all he could command after appearing in just 19 games in an injury-wracked 2013/14. The Cavs wouldn’t be able to pay him more than the minimum should they sign him to play.
Cavs Notes: Allen, Waiters, Irving, LeBron
Ray Allen once seemed destined to join the Cavs, but he insists that he’s unsure whether he’ll play again or where he’d do so if he were to return for a 19th season, as I examined earlier today. His apparent criteria for a would-be next team seem to rule out the Cavs, but some of the club’s players hope he’ll reconsider, as we note amid the latest from Cleveland:
- James Jones spent time recently with Allen in Connecticut and is “pretty sure” Allen knows that LeBron James and many of the Cavs would like him to play with Cleveland this year, as Jones told reporters Wednesday, including Tom Withers of The Associated Press. “We talked about those things that are important to us, which are families, our legacies and our careers,” Jones said. “So he has a decision to make. Of course we’d love to have Ray. Hopefully he makes a decision that’s best for him, and hopefully it’s a decision to continue to play. But as far as where he goes and what he’s thinking, I don’t know.”
- James called Dion Waiters a few days before he made his choice to leave the Heat and return to Cleveland, telling the Cavs shooting guard to “be ready,” as Waiters tells Brendan Bowers of SLAM Online. Waiters also dismissed the idea that he and Kyrie Irving can’t co-exist on and off the court.
- The ability for James to hit free agency again next year and his apparent desire for the Cavs to trade for Kevin Love belies the four-time MVP’s assertion that he would patiently await the growth of the team’s young players, argues Bill Livingston of the Plain Dealer. It’s clear that James is exerting his leverage over GM David Griffin and company, Livingston writes.
Knicks Acquire Quincy Acy, Travis Outlaw
4:29pm: The Knicks and Kings have officially announced the trade. Prigioni isn’t involved, so Acy, Outlaw, Ellington and Tyler are the only players changing teams. Sacramento’s statement confirms that New York removed all protection on the 2016 second-round pick going to the Kings.
4:12pm: The Kings have yet to make a final decision about waiving Ellington, according to the latest version of Amick’s story.
3:52pm: New York will guarantee Acy’s minimum salary as part of the deal, Amick tweets.
3:40pm: The Knicks will remove the protection on their own 2016 second-rounder that they already owed to Sacramento rather than send a separate second-round pick to the Kings, as Amick clarifies via Twitter. New York was to have kept the pick if it fell between Nos. 31 and 37, but it’s now entirely unprotected.
3:34pm: Frank Isola of the New York Daily News hears indications that the Knicks will part with Prigioni, too (Twitter link).
3:16pm: The Knicks and Kings have reached agreement on a deal that will send Quincy Acy and Travis Outlaw to New York for Wayne Ellington and Jeremy Tyler, reports Sam Amick of USA Today. Other players will likely be involved in the deal, too. The Kings are expected to waive Ellington and Tyler to clear space beneath the luxury tax line, according to Amick. They can clear Tyler’s minimum salary with ease since it’s non-guaranteed, but they’d use the stretch provision to help clear Ellington’s pay of more than $2.771MM from their books, as Amick points out. Sacramento will also pick up a 2016 second-round pick from New York, Amick writes.
The Knicks had reportedly been trying to trade Wayne Ellington and were open to deals involving Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith and Shane Larkin as they sought to clear a logjam in the backcourt, and specifically at shooting guard. The team had also been mulling whether to include Pablo Prigioni in a deal involving Ellington.
Sacramento has been only about $61K beneath the luxury tax threshold after striking a deal to sign Omri Casspi, and they negotiated with Acy to move the date his minimum-salary contract becomes fully guaranteed from July 25th to August 15th. The raw swap of salaries in the structure of the deal as it stands would give the Kings a net savings of only about $200K, but stretching Ellington’s salary will give Sacramento more breathing room.
Ellington is on an expiring contract, so the Kings would have to waive him prior to September, when the stretch provision would no longer allow the team to reduce his salary for the coming season. Providing they waive him this month, Ellington’s salary would be spread in equal amounts over the next three seasons. So, the Kings would be responsible for close to $924K for him each season through 2016/17, and the move would give them more than $1.8MM in additional space beneath the tax line for this year.
Acy carved out a role in the rotation for the Kings this past season after coming over in the midseason Rudy Gay swap. He averaged 2.7 points and 3.6 rebounds in 14.0 minutes per contest for Sacramento. That works out to a rate of 9.2 rebounds per 36 minutes, demonstrating proficient board work for a player listed at 6’7″. Outlaw saw slightly more playing time, notching 5.4 PPG in 16.9 MPG, sometimes filling in at shooting guard for a depleted Kings backcourt down the stretch of the season. He’ll be on New York’s books for a guaranteed $3MM this season in the final year of a five-year, $35MM deal that the Nets amnestied in 2011. Sacramento put in a partial claim that year, leaving Brooklyn to pay $4MM to Outlaw each year until the contract expires next summer.
Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images.
Latest On Greg Monroe, Pistons
The Pistons recently upped their offer to Greg Monroe from a five-year, $60MM package to one that’s slightly more lucrative than the four-year, $54MM contract that Josh Smith signed last summer, but negotiations have stalled, reports Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. The David Falk client remains in limbo, like fellow restricted free agent Eric Bledsoe, as Detroit’s power to match any offer from another team appears to have scared off suitors.
Falk has been widely expected to seek a max contract for the 24-year-old big man, though many around the league don’t believe he’s worthy of one. Philadelphia is the only team other than Detroit that possesses the cap flexibility to make such an offer sheet at this point, and there have been no indications that the Sixers are willing to do so.
Monroe’s interest in returning to the Pistons reportedly isn’t that strong, but while the Pistons have explored the sign-and-trade market for him with teams including the Blazers, Hawks and Pelicans, no deals have come close to materializing. The Magic and Cavs were linked to Monroe at the beginning of free agency, but Cleveland has since acquired LeBron James and is zeroing in on Kevin Love, and Orlando’s interest was “lukewarm at best,” as Ellis wrote in July.
Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy was in frequent contact with Falk shortly after taking his post in Detroit this spring, and while he reiterated last month that Monroe was still in the team’s plans, Van Gundy admitted the process has left him nervous. Still, the Pistons wield control over where he’ll play next season. That’s true even if Monroe takes the drastic and unlikely step of signing his one-year qualifying offer for less than $5.5MM, a maneuver that would allow him to hit unrestricted free agency in 2015.
And-Ones: Prigioni, Wolves, Adams
Team USA chairman Jerry Colangelo believes many may have missed the point of Mark Cuban’s tirade against the International Olympic Committee, writes Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Still, Colangelo didn’t weigh in on whether or not he agreed with Cuban’s stance, as Price notes, though he emphasized that NBA owners aren’t allowed to dissuade their players from joining their national teams as long as they’re healthy enough to play at the outset.
“I think people need to read between the lines, which is basically he’s not against international competition,” Colangelo said. “He’s against international competition when he believes the beneficiary — being the IOC — is getting the money. So he’s basically saying it’s OK for our players to play internationally if the money goes to the NBA and to the team owners. That’s the difference.”
As Paul George‘s injury shines a spotlight on the relationship between national teams and the NBA, here’s more from around the league:
- The Knicks are fond of Pablo Prigioni, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com, even though they’re thinking of packaging him in a deal that would send Wayne Ellington away. It simply appears as though the Knicks won’t be able to find a taker for Ellington by himself, as Stein explains.
- The Wolves have 15 fully guaranteed deals, as our roster counts show, but they hope to create a spot for Glenn Robinson III, who remains unsigned after Minnesota drafted him 40th overall this summer, notes Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune (Twitter link). There’s a chance they’d be able to accomplish that if they offload more players than they receive in a Kevin Love trade.
- There are bonuses tied to Jordan Adams‘ body fat percentage in his rookie scale contract with the Grizzlies, reports Mark Deeks of ShamSports. It’s an odd incentive clause for this year’s No. 22 overall pick, though it’s not unprecedented, since Marcus Williams once had body-fat stipulations in his deal, too, as Deeks points out (Twitter links).
Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.
Free Agent Stock Watch: Ray Allen
Ray Allen‘s offseason stands as a reminder that probable outcomes don’t always come true. A report in June indicated that he was leaning toward returning for another season and that he wanted to continue playing alongside LeBron James. That pointed to a return to the Heat, who kept the NBA’s all-time leading three-point maker in their plans. Once James bolted to the Cavs, it sent the league for a spin, and perhaps no player felt the dizzying effects as much as Allen did.
The Cavaliers reportedly began their pursuit of the 18-year veteran even before James made his choice to return to Cleveland. Mike Miller started recruiting Allen to come north as the Heat renounced their rights to Allen and used their cap space on others, leaving Miami only the minimum salary to offer. Multiple reports indicated that Allen had begun to lean toward the Cavs, but he put the brakes on that idea, dismissing not only the idea that he preferred Cleveland but raising doubt about whether he’d play at all this coming season.
That sort of back-and-forth suggests that Allen is torn about his next course of action. As he told Don Amore of the Hartford Courant this weekend, he has nothing left to prove after breaking the all-time record for three-pointers made and winning two NBA championships. He’s headed for the Hall-of-Fame sooner or later. He nonetheless remained a productive player this past season even as he stared down his 39th birthday, which took place last month. Returning for another season would allow Allen to put his three-point record further out of reach and chase one more ring, alluring draws for any competitor.
Allen’s 37.5% three-point accuracy fell below his career mark of 40% for the first time in four years this past season, but he shot just 36.3% from long range in 2009/10 and bounced back with new career highs in three-point percentage in each of the next two seasons. A more disconcerting stat from last season is his 12.8 PER, the sort of number that’s usually the domain of below-average NBA players. It was the worst PER that Allen had ever recorded, and teams considering him for more than the minimum salary might worry that his efficiency will suffer another decline.
The Jim Tanner client seemingly rebuffed the idea that he’s only worth the minimum at this point in his career during a conversation a few days ago with Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald. The Cavs and Heat can offer only the minimum, and Cleveland, with rookie head coach David Blatt, doesn’t appear to fit Allen’s preference for a veteran coach, unless he’s willing to count Blatt’s experience overseas.
A dozen NBA teams can give Allen no more than the minimum, as the Lakers have since joined those ranks since I compiled this list last month. The only teams that employ a coach with more than a season of NBA head coaching experience and have more than the minimum salary to spend are the Pistons, Rockets, Pelicans, Magic, Spurs, Raptors, Thunder and Timberwolves. Minnesota can offer just about $100K more than the minimum with the partial amount of its mid-level left over from its deal with Mo Williams, and the Thunder would be unlikely to spend more than the minimum on Allen since they’re bumping up against the luxury tax. The Raptors are flirting with the tax line, too, so they might be similarly hesitant.
That leaves just five teams capable of meeting Allen’s preferences, and only Houston and San Antonio among them are within hailing distance of a title. The Spurs could throw their entire $5.305MM mid-level exception at him if they see fit, while the Rockets could come within about $500K of matching that. Both teams have made three-point shooting a premium over the years, so Allen would fit that bill.
The Rockets would seemingly make more sense, stung as they are from an offseason that didn’t go as hoped and without a logical backup to James Harden. The Spurs have plenty of depth, but they’re closer to the title, a factor that Allen surely wouldn’t dismiss. The team-oriented culture of San Antonio might hold appeal as well, but Houston appears to be in a position of greater need and perhaps greater willingness to make a more lucrative offer, though that’s just my speculation.
Allen said to Murphy that it would take a “perfect storm scenario” for him to play this season, and while the conditions in Texas seem ripe for clouding his thoughts of retirement, the most likely outcome at the moment suggests that Allen has played his final game. But, as we’ve learned from following him this summer, there’s no safe bet.
Xavier Thames Signs With Spanish Team
The 59th pick in this year’s NBA draft is headed overseas, as Xavier Thames has inked a deal with Baloncesto Sevilla of Spain, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). It’s not clear how long the contract is for or whether there’s a buyout involved that would allow him to join the Nets, who acquired his NBA rights in a draft-night trade with the Raptors.
The 6’3″ shooting guard had a breakout year as a senior at San Diego State, upping his scoring from 9.5 points per game to 17.6 PPG. It was nonetheless a mild surprise to see Thames sneak into the back end of the draft, since Chad Ford of ESPN.com ranked him as only the 76th-best prospect while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress pegged him 85th.
The 23-year-old is the only one of Brooklyn’s three second-rounders not to sign with the Nets this summer. Markel Brown, the 44th overall pick, and No. 60 selection Cory Jefferson are set to play with the Nets come fall, as our table of draft pick signings shows. Thames will team with potential 2015 top-10 pick Kristaps Porzingis on Sevilla, as well as head coach Scott Roth, who was an assistant for the Pistons this past season.
Hilton Armstrong To Play In Turkey
Former NBA lottery pick Hilton Armstrong has a deal with Besiktas of Turkey, agent Misko Raznatovic tweets (hat tip to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). The Warriors waived Armstrong last week just before his non-guaranteed salary for the coming season was to become fully guaranteed.
The 29-year-old is returning overseas, where he spent parts of 2011/12 and 2012/13 before briefly reviving his NBA career with Golden State this past season. The 12th overall pick in the 2006 NBA draft played in France and Greece, and he’s also seen time in the D-League over the past few years. His 15 games with the Warriors last season represented his only NBA regular season action since the 2011 lockout.
Armstrong isn’t the only highly drafted former NBA player heading to Besiktas this summer. Former Celtics power forward and 2011 27th overall selection JaJuan Johnson also hooked up with the club, according to Mark Porcaro of Secret Rival.