Cavs Sign Mike Miller
5:53pm: The team has followed with an official announcement.
AUGUST 5TH, 5:32pm: The team still hasn’t made a formal announcement, but the signing has taken place, according to Pincus (Twitter link). It’s for two years and $5.6MM and it includes a 15% trade kicker, according to Pincus, who confirms that it indeed features a player option for the final season.
JULY 15TH: Mike Miller has agreed to join the Cavs on a two-year deal with a player option for the final season, reports Chris Broussard of ESPN.com (Twitter link). It’s for a total of $5.5MM, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (on Twitter), though Broussard says the Nuggets and Rockets offered more. Miller had been torn between Denver and Cleveland, as Wojnarowski reported earlier this afternoon (Twitter link). The Cavs are likely using their room exception on the sharpshooting swingman, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.
The Arn Tellem client was reportedly near a deal with the Nuggets when LeBron James decided to return to the Cavaliers, which allowed Miller a chance to play with James again. Miller was ineligible to sign with the Heat, since his previous contract with Miami, which the Heat amnestied, ran through next season. James had apparently reached out to Miller to see if he would be interested in joining him were he to leave the Heat this summer.
The Grizzlies, Clippers, Thunder, Blazers and Mavs were other teams reportedly interested in the 34-year-old, who showed this past season that his body is still capable of handling the rigors of the NBA. He played in all 82 games for the first time since he was a rookie, giving Memphis a valuable shooter in reserve. His 45.9% accuracy from behind the arc was the second-best mark of his career.
Miller’s camp appeared to try to ward off the possibility that the Cavs would claim him off amnesty waivers last summer by advancing talk about back surgery, but now Miller is willingly taking a discount to go to Cleveland, in a twist of events.
Cavs Sign James Jones
AUGUST 5TH: The signing is official, the team announced via its website.
JULY 16TH: The Cavs have struck a one-year deal with James Jones for the minimum salary, a source tells Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal (Twitter link). That means another ex-Heat teammate of LeBron James is headed to Cleveland. It’s unclear if the contract will be guaranteed.
Cleveland had been pursuing Jones, a favorite of LeBron’s, in conjunction with Mike Miller soon after it signed the four-time MVP. Cavs GM David Griffin also convinced Miller to take a discount to come to Cleveland, the same place he was reluctant to go last year, and now it seems the team will focus on its attempt to convince Ray Allen, also late of the Heat, to move north.
The Warriors, Wizards, Pelicans and Heat all made offers to the 33-year-old Jones, but LeBron’s recruiting effort led the Miami native to choose the Cavs instead, according to TNT’s David Aldridge (Twitter link). Jones spent the past six seasons with Miami, never averaging more than 19.1 minutes per game, but his 4.9 points per contest this past season represents his second-highest scoring average in a Heat uniform. The Joel Bell client also serves as the secretary/treasurer for the players union.
And-Ones: Bledsoe, Sixers, Seattle
The relationship between the Suns and Eric Bledsoe continues to sour, and as it does, it’s looking like he’ll end up taking Phoenix’s one-year qualifying offer, worth about $3.7MM, tweets Chris Broussard of ESPN.com. That route would allow him to hit unrestricted free agency by next summer, but it would also represent a severe discount, not only on the maximum salary that Bledsoe has been seeking, but also from the four-year, $48MM offer the Suns have reportedly made. It’d be a surprising move if he ends up taking the QO, but it doesn’t seem as though the Rich Paul client is any closer to another deal. There’s more on Bledsoe amid the latest from around the league:
- Four NBA executives and two agents who spoke with Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic believe that the four-year, $48MM offer the Suns reportedly made to Bledsoe is fair and don’t think that the 24-year-old point guard has merited the maximum salary. “I’m surprised that they would offer him that much,” one of the executives said. “They don’t need to. It is really fair and, in fact, generous. He is talented, but he has never put it together very long, and he hasn’t been healthy. It’s hard to turn your team over to him.”
- The possibility that the Sixers could acquire Anthony Bennett and give up Thaddeus Young as the third team in a Kevin Love trade, one that Brian Windhorst of ESPN raised in a radio interview Monday, would be difficult to comprehend, argues Dei Lynam of CSNPhilly.com. Philadelphia’s purge of existing talent has been so profound that such a swap would seem like piling on, Lynam posits.
- Coming up short in bids for the Bucks and Kings prompted Steve Ballmer to pounce on the chance to strike a deal to buy the Clippers and abandon his dream of bringing the NBA back to Seattle, as he tells Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times. The former Microsoft CEO said he hopes Seattle ends up with a team eventually, though he reiterated that he has no intention of moving the Clippers.
Poll: Which NBA Team’s Offseason Is Worst?
There are surely a few dissenters who believe otherwise, but by and large the winners of the NBA offseason so far have been the Cavaliers, who vaulted to the top of the list the moment LeBron James chose to return to Cleveland. Just about all doubt about the success of the team’s summer would be erased if the Cavs complete a trade for Kevin Love, a swap they seemingly move ever closer to making.
It’s not as easy to identify the team that’s endured the worst summer. The Heat might be a logical candidate, having lost the league’s best player, but they nonetheless pulled Chris Bosh away from the Rockets and other suitors and convinced Luol Deng to sign a deal for less than market value. Those kinds of signings would be the envy of many other franchises.
The Timberwolves were at the bottom of the list that TNT’s David Aldridge compiled for this week’s Morning Tip column on NBA.com. The specter of a Love trade hangs over the organization, and agent Dan Fegan appears ready to make the Wolves pay a premium rate if they want to sign Ricky Rubio to an extension. Still, it seems there’s a strong chance Minnesota will walk away from a Love trade with Andrew Wiggins, the No. 1 overall pick from this year’s draft, so it could be worse in Minnesota.
The Blazers are just one step above the Wolves on Aldridge’s list, their presence a product of inactivity outside of the signings of Chris Kaman and Steve Blake to man their bench. But Portland improved mightily after last summer, when Robin Lopez and Mo Williams were the marquee additions.
The Rockets have had the fourth-worst offseason so far, according to Aldridge, sitting one spot in front of the Heat, the very team that snatched Bosh from their clutches. They declined a team option that would have let them have Chandler Parsons for less than $1MM, then watched as the Mavericks gave Parsons a near-max offer sheet that they judged too lucrative to match. Houston missed out on targets James, Bosh and Carmelo Anthony, landing Trevor Ariza in a sign-and-trade as their most prominent addition. Still, Houston retains most of its mid-level exception, and with a trade exception for nearly $8.4MM from the Jeremy Lin deal, the Rockets might not be done yet.
Paul George‘s gruesome injury on August 1st was an unfortunate coda to what had been a disappointing month of July for the Pacers, who lost Lance Stephenson to the Hornets. Signees C.J. Miles and Rodney Stuckey stand so far as the team’s primary replacements for their premiere wing players. More than two-thirds of Hoops Rumors readers think that’s enough for Indiana to go from two straight conference finals appearances to missing the playoffs altogether this year. Aldridge ranks Indiana’s offseason as the fifth-worst, even though George, who’s under contract through 2019, is expected to return to the Pacers eventually, if not this season.
Let us know which team has had the NBA’s worst offseason so far in your eyes. Check out our Free Agent Tracker, this year’s draft results, and this year’s draft-and-stash signees for reference. You can choose from one of Aldridge’s bottom five, or select the “Another team” option and tell us who you have in mind in the comments.
Clippers To Audition Bynum, Oden, Okafor
12:11pm: Andy Miller, the agent for Blatche, disputes the report, telling Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times that his client has no workout scheduled with the Clippers (Twitter link).
8:45am: The Clippers are set to work out free agent centers this week, with Andray Blatche, Andrew Bynum, Greg Oden and Emeka Okafor among those on the docket as the team seeks depth, reports Jorge Sedano of ESPN Radio (Twitter link). The inclusion of Bynum’s name is surprising, since last month he was giving serious thought to sitting out the season. There have been widespread questions about Okafor’s health, too, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe wrote at the bottom of one of his pieces from last month.
Blatche was the most productive of the quartet last season, averaging 11.2 points and 5.3 rebounds in 22.2 minutes per game for the Nets. Bynum appeared in only 26 games because of his persistent knee trouble, while Oden, mostly healthy over the course of a full season for the first time in his career, appeared in only 23 contests as a deep reserve for a Finals-bound Heat team. Okafor missed the entire season because of a herniated disk in his neck.
The hard-capped Clippers can only offer the minimum to anyone they sign. Oden, who has six years of official experience, is the only one among the four named in Sedano’s report who could receive a multiyear contract from the team. One-year deals for the minimum salary only count against a team’s cap for the two-year veteran’s minimum, so that would allow the team to ink deals with Blatche, Bynum and Okafor, each of whom has a minimum salary that exceeds the roughly $1.149MM that the Clippers have left under their hard cap. The team has only 12 players on its roster, so it will have to add another player eventually to reach the 13-man regular season minimum.
Spurs Name Becky Hammon Assistant Coach
Becky Hammon has become just the second woman to hold a formal NBA assistant coaching position, as the Spurs announced in a press release today that they’ve hired her for their staff. Lisa Boyer was on the Cavs bench in 2001/02. Natalie Nakase served as an assistant coach in the summer league with the Clippers this year.
“I very much look forward to the addition of Becky Hammon to our staff,” Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said in the team’s statement. “Having observed her working with our team this past season, I’m confident her basketball IQ, work ethic and interpersonal skills will be a great benefit to the Spurs.”
Hammon will team with fellow Spurs assistant Ettore Messina, who joined the staff earlier this summer in an unusual, though not unprecedented, jump from overseas. David Blatt became the first coach to go from leading an overseas club to a head coaching position in the NBA when the Cavs hired him in June. The NBA also broke ground this year when the Nets signed Jason Collins, who became the first openly gay male athlete in the NBA, NFL or Major League Baseball.
The Spurs made Hammon an unofficial coaching intern of sorts this past season when she accepted their invitation for her to shadow the coaching staff during games, practices and meetings, as Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News detailed in February. The 37-year-old Hammon is in her final season as a WNBA player as she wraps up a 16-year career in the league. She’s spent the past eight summers as a member of the WNBA’s San Antonio Silver Stars, who fall under the same ownership umbrella as the Spurs.
Moore Puts Off Italy Deal Amid NBA Interest
TUESDAY, 11:41am: Two NBA teams have entered the mix, prompting Moore to hold off on signing with Olimpia Milano, Carchia reports. Moore went past the Monday deadline the Italian team had set for him to sign, and the club has begun to search for alternatives, as Carchia details. However, the team still hopes that Moore will ink his deal, Carchia tweets.
MONDAY, 3:43pm: Former Magic guard E’Twaun Moore will sign a one-year deal with Olimpia Milano of Italy, Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia reports. Fellow Sportando scribe Enea Trapani reported last week that the club had interest. The value of the deal isn’t immediately clear.
The Magic decided against a qualifying offer for the 25-year-old, and it appears he didn’t generate enough interest from other NBA teams as an unrestricted free agent to keep him from going overseas. That’s somewhat surprising, given that Moore was a part of Orlando’s rotation the past two seasons, averaging 7.1 points in 20.7 minutes per game over the course of his time with the Magic. It’s possible that Olimpia Milano’s offer was especially lucrative, though that’s just my speculation.
Moore has experience in Italy, having played for Benetton Treviso during the 2011 lockout, as Carchia notes. The Mark Bartelstein client joins a group of several other notable NBA free agents who’ve found deals overseas this summer, as our Free Agent Tracker shows.
Five-Year Contracts Rare In Today’s NBA
One of the primary thrusts of the latest collective bargaining agreement is to limit contract length, and if the number of five-year deals handed out is any indication, it’s mission accomplished. Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Marcin Gortat are the only free agents to have received five-year deals this summer, and that’s an uptick from 2013, when teams combined to hand out only two such contracts. There have been two five-year rookie scale extensions signed in each of the previous two years, and only one player, Kyrie Irving, has inked a five-year rookie scale extension so far this offseason.
No deal under the current CBA is allowed to run more than five years, and a tight set of rules exist that keep most contracts from running longer than four seasons. Clubs can only sign their own free agents to five-year deals. That applies even for sign-and-trades, giving players no recourse but to stay with their teams should they insist on five-year commitments. Rookie scale extensions can run as long as five years, but a five-year extension triggers the Designated Player rule. That keeps teams from signing a player to a five-year rookie scale extension if they’ve already done so with another player on the roster. A Designated Player must receive the maximum salary in the first year of his deal, further dissuading teams from that sort of arrangement. Veteran extensions aren’t allowed to run for more than three seasons, as I noted Monday.
The first free agency and extension period under the current collective bargaining agreement took place in 2011, but it was condensed as the league scrambled to start the 2011/12 season after the lockout that year. So, the first full offseason under the existing set of rules took place in 2012, and even since then, the way teams hand out five-year deals has evolved. It’d be difficult to see guys like Jason Thompson and Ersan Ilyasova wind up with such lengthy contracts in today’s market, and even Brooklyn’s deal with Deron Williams, that summer’s marquee free agent signing, seems decidedly player-friendly two years later.
We’ve listed each of the five-year contracts signed since the 2012 offseason, grouping them by free agent deals and extensions. Click the year for more information on each deal.
Five-year free agent contracts
- George Hill, Pacers
- Ersan Ilyasova, Bucks
- Jason Thompson, Kings
- Deron Williams, Nets
- Chris Paul, Clippers
- Nikola Pekovic, Timberwolves
- Carmelo Anthony, Knicks
- Chris Bosh, Heat
- Marcin Gortat, Wizards
Five-year rookie scale extensions
- Blake Griffin, Clippers
- James Harden, Rockets
- Paul George, Pacers
- John Wall, Wizards
- Kyrie Irving, Cavaliers
Lamar Patterson Signs With Turkish Team
The 48th overall pick in this year’s draft is headed overseas, as Lamar Patterson has signed with Tofas Bursa of Turkey, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). The Hawks acquired the rights to Patterson on draft night, sending their 2015 second-round pick to the Bucks in exchange. The terms aren’t immediately clear, and whether the deal includes any sort of NBA escape clause is unknown.
“Lamar is in a good position to continue his development while playing meaningful minutes for a strong professional program next season,” Hawks GM Danny Ferry said in a statement from the team. “We have a great respect for the international game and will be closely monitoring Lamar’s progress with Tofas.”
The 22-year-old shooting guard acknowledged the chance that he would head overseas but indicated a preference for signing with the Hawks when he spoke last month with Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Patterson expressed excitement about the deal with Tofas Bursa while maintaining that his goal is to eventually play for Atlanta in his comments as part of the statement from the Hawks. It appears that the Hawks are content to stash both of their 2014 second-rounders overseas, since Edy Tavares, whom Atlanta drafted 43rd overall, is reportedly likely to stay with his team in Spain. Still, the Hawks brought 2013 second-round pick Mike Muscala aboard in the middle of last season, so there’s precedent for Atlanta to sign Patterson or Tavares before next summer.
Patterson averaged just 6.0 points in 25.3 minutes per game across six summer league appearances in July for Atlanta, but he was an all-around threat as a senior for the University of Pittsburgh this year. He notched 17.1 PPG in 32.6 MPG while also putting up 4.9 rebounds and 4.3 assists per contest with 38.8% three-point shooting in his final campaign for the Panthers.
James Anderson Signs To Play In Lithuania
Free agent swingman James Anderson has officially signed a one-year contract with Zalgiris Kaunas of Lithuania, the Euroleague announced. The move is somewhat surprising, since the former 20th overall pick was a significant part of the Sixers roster last season, having started 62 games. Tolis Kotzias of the Greek news outlet SportDay originally reported the news (Twitter link).
The 20th overall pick from 2010 departs the NBA after his strongest season in the league. He averaged 10.1 points and 3.8 rebounds in 28.9 minutes per game for Philadelphia, though his 10.9 PER demonstrates a lack of efficiency. Anderson had difficulty establishing a toehold in the league, as the Spurs declined the third-year team option on his rookie scale contract and his next two deals were minimum-salary arrangements. The Sixers acquired him when they claimed him off waivers from the Rockets last summer, but Philadelphia waived him in June before his minimum salary for the coming season would have become fully guaranteed.
The deal to play in Lithuania is the first overseas venture for the ASM Sports client. It’s unclear whether the contract will allow Anderson, 25, an avenue to return to the NBA at any point this season.