Heat Sign Shawne Williams
The Heat have signed forward Shawne Williams, the team announced. Miami is limited to shelling out only the minimum salary, but it’s not clear how long the deal is for or whether the salary for the former 17th overall pick is guaranteed.
Williams spent 36 games with the Lakers last season, most of them coming while he was on a non-guaranteed deal at the start the season. The team cut him loose just before the deal was to become fully guaranteed and re-signed him to a 10-day contract after he spent time in the D-League. He was out of the NBA during the 2012/13 season, and he’s more than three years removed from his most productive campaign, when he averaged 7.1 points in 20.7 minutes per game and shot 40.1% from behind the three-point arc for the 2010/11 Knicks. The career 33.3% three-point shooter hasn’t been able to duplicate that sort of marksmanship since.
The Heat had been carrying only 10 guaranteed contracts and 12 players total, so the signing helps them bolster their roster, and Williams appears to have a strong chance to make it to opening-night. The 28-year-old is a client of Relativity Sports agent Happy Walters, as our Agency Database shows.
2014/15 Roster Counts
There are two months to go until training camps opens, and we’ve already seen players invited to camps on non-guaranteed contracts. In some cases, those deals have taken their respective teams over the 15-man regular season roster limit. That’s OK this time of year, since teams can carry as many as 20 players in the offseason. Clubs must pare their rosters down to no more than 15 by opening night.
In the meantime, several teams will hang above that 15-man line. Some clubs may have more than 15 contracts that are at least partially guaranteed. That means they’ll wind up paying a player who won’t be on the regular season roster, unless they can find trade partners.
With more movement to come, here’s the latest look at each team’s roster size. Check out our schedule of guarantee dates for more information and to see the names of specific players without fully guaranteed deals.
(Updated 9-19-14)
- 76ers (17): 8 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed, 5 non-guaranteed
- Bucks (18): 14 fully guaranteed, 3 non-guaranteed (1 unknown – Micheal Eric)
- Bulls (13): 12 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed
- Cavaliers (19): 12 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed (1 unknown-Lou Amundson)
- Celtics (21*): 14 fully guaranteed, 3 non-guaranteed (4 unknown – Evan Turner, Tim Frazier, Rodney McGruder, Christian Watford)
- Clippers (17): 14 fully guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed (2 unknown – DeAndre Liggins, Jared Cunningham)
- Grizzlies (18): 14 fully guaranteed, 4 non-guaranteed
- Hawks (16): 13 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed (1 unknown – Elton Brand)
- Heat (19): 11 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed, 4 non-guaranteed
- Hornets (15): 14 fully guaranteed (1 unknown – Dallas Lauderdale)
- Jazz (18): 13 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed
- Kings (18): 11 fully guaranteed, 2 partially guaranteed, 5 non-guaranteed
- Knicks (18): 14 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed
- Lakers (15): 13 fully guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed (1 unknown – Roscoe Smith)
- Magic (19): 14 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed (3 unknown – Seth Curry, Kadeem Batts, Drew Crawford)
- Mavericks (18): 15 fully guaranteed, 2 partially guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed
- Nets (17): 13 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed (1 unknown – Michael Jenkins)
- Nuggets (16): 13 fully guaranteed, 3 partially guaranteed
- Pacers (19): 13 fully guaranteed, 2 partially guaranteed, 4 non-guaranteed
- Pelicans (18): 12 fully guaranteed, 3 partially guaranteed, 3 non-guaranteed
- Pistons (16): 16 fully guaranteed
- Raptors (17): 13 fully guaranteed, 4 partially guaranteed
- Rockets (19): 14 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed (2 unknown – Tarik Black, Francisco Garcia)
- Spurs (17): 14 fully guaranteed, 3 partially guaranteed
- Suns (16): 13 fully guaranteed (3 unknown – Earl Barron, Casey Prather, Joe Jackson)
- Thunder (15): 14 fully guaranteed, 1 non-guaranteed
- Timberwolves (18): 15 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed
- Trail Blazers (18): 15 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed
- Warriors (18): 13 fully guaranteed, 5 partially guaranteed
- Wizards (16): 13 fully guaranteed, 1 partially guaranteed, 2 non-guaranteed
* — The Celtics have formal contracts with 20 players, but they’ve yet to make their deal with Evan Turner official. They’ll have to get rid of at least one of their 20 players under contract before they can formalize their pact with Turner.
Several NBA Teams Eyeing Dahntay Jones
AUGUST 1ST: The Wizards were indeed present at the workout, but they don’t have interest in signing Jones, reports Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post (Twitter link).
JULY 30TH: The Kings, Cavs, Spurs, Thunder and Wizards were all in attendance at a workout that Jones held today in Las Vegas, tweets Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders. Between 15 and 20 NBA clubs were set to take a look at him this week, as Kennedy reported earlier this month.
JULY 21ST: Ten-year NBA veteran Dahntay Jones is set to work out for the Knicks and Sixers this week, and in addition to a reported meeting with the Clippers earlier this month, he also worked out for that team, too, as Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reports. The shooting guard and Mark Bartelstein client is close with former Nuggets teammate Carmelo Anthony, though New York’s addition of Jones would only add to a logjam at the two-guard that Knicks GM Steve Mills has already publicly acknowledged.
The Knicks are apparently discussing trades involving J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to clear up that position, as we noted Sunday. New York also worked out Jones this past February, seemingly the closest brush that the now 33-year-old had with the NBA last season after the Bulls waived him early in the preseason. Still, that was before the arrival of Knicks team president Phil Jackson, and what attracts the team to Jones now is his competitiveness and leadership, according to Isola.
The Knicks, now as they were in February, are limited to the minimum salary, and the Clippers are similarly hamstrung. The Sixers have ample cap room to use on Jones, but it’s nonetheless unlikely that he’ll warrant any better than a guaranteed minimum-salary contract. He’s averaged 5.6 points in 16.3 minutes per game over his career, and put up 3.4 PPG in 13.0 MPG in 2012/13, his last NBA season.
Eastern Notes: LeBron, Wade, Monroe, Bucks
Dwyane Wade said today that he didn’t try to recruit LeBron James back to the Heat when the two spent time together shortly before the four-time MVP announced his decision to sign with Cleveland, as Wade told reporters, including Jason Lieser of the Palm Beach Post. James didn’t tell Wade about his decision until after their time traveling back to Miami from Las Vegas, according to Wade, but James dropped enough hints to make his choice apparent.
“We had a long flight back from Vegas,” Wade said. “I probably knew then, without him telling me at that moment. You could tell where someone’s heart is and what they’re thinking. I kind of knew at that moment. As his friend, I’m just supportive. As crazy as that might sound, I’m supportive of my friend doing what makes them happy. Obviously same thing with him in this situation. You’ve gotta do what makes you happy — selfishly do what makes you happy. The decision to go back home was that.”
There’s more from Wade amid the latest from the Eastern Conference:
- Wade also said that he wanted to be with a winning team more than he wanted the money he sacrificed when he opted out of his contract and re-signed with the Heat on a discount deal, as Lieser notes. Wade is convinced that the total of $10.694MM over the next two seasons that the transactions cost him gives Miami a better chance at success. (Twitter links).
- Greg Monroe‘s interest in returning to the Pistons isn’t too strong, but while Detroit talked with the Hawks and perhaps the Suns about sign-and-trades involving him, those teams have moved on, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports told podcaster Aime Mukendi Jr. Buddy Grizzard of Hawks/Hoop provides the transcription.
- The Bucks gave second-round pick Johnny O’Bryant $600K in the first year of an otherwise minimum-salary contract, notes Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). Milwaukee used part of its cap space to complete the deal with this year’s 36th overall pick.
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Rose Trying To Smooth Tension With Bulls
9:15pm: Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf released an official statement disputing Cowley’s report.
“I am confounded by the irresponsible report in the Chicago Sun-Times suggesting there is anything approaching discord or confusion between the Bulls executive office, coaching staff, and Derrick Rose or any other Bulls player,” the owner said. “To the contrary, I can remember no time when the organization has been any more focused, optimistic, and cohesive. I’ve got to assume suggestions otherwise are intended to undermine the goals and objectives, spirit, and reputation of the Chicago Bulls. I am deeply disappointed that unnamed sources and totally inaccurate statements and assumptions can be used to foment nonexistent friction. The report is totally without basis or fact. It is pure malicious fiction.”
Rose is on the record in acknowledging the tension in Cowley’s story, but perhaps Reinsdorf takes issue with the specifics of the disconnect portrayed by the Chicago Sun-Times scribe’s sources.
5:03pm: Derrick Rose acknowledged tension between his camp and the Bulls organization and is working diligently to heal the wounds, as he told Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. The discord, which has resulted in a growing lack of communication between Rose and the team, stemmed from potshots that Rose’s camp, one that includes brother Reggie Rose and agent B.J. Armstrong, took at the franchise, according to Cowley. It boiled over with Rose’s seeming reluctance to recruit Carmelo Anthony, as Cowley writes.
A source tells Cowley that Rose resisted the team’s efforts to get him to talk to Anthony after a workout Rose conducted at the United Center on the day of the team’s meeting with the star free agent. Rose ultimately had a conversation with Anthony, and this week Rose detailed what he told the high-scoring forward, seemingly casting it as somewhat more than the brief hello that one of a few conflicting reports about the meeting suggested it was.
Cowley hears that Bulls officials didn’t know that Rose wouldn’t show up at the team’s dinner with Anthony that evening and were “irate.” Rose was nonetheless an enthusiastic recruiter of Pau Gasol, Cowley notes.
“That’s someone that I knew I could play with,’’ Rose told Cowley about why he recruited the Spanish-born center. “You think about Pau, him now being in the East, what he’ll be able to achieve with the way we play, the way we dump the ball in the post a lot. It could be great.’’
Armstrong is a former Bulls executive who, Cowley hears, harbors ill feelings toward Bulls vice president of basketball operations John Paxson, though Armstrong vehemently denies such an assertion. Rose’s contract with the Bulls runs for three more seasons, and it doesn’t contain any option clauses, so Armstrong would be unable to take his client to free agency until 2017.
Bucks Sign Johnny O’Bryant
THURSDAY, 5:35pm: The final year of O’Bryant’s contract is actually non-guaranteed salary, rather than a team option, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.
6:40pm: O’Bryant’s deal is for three years, with the third year being a team option, reports Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
WEDNESDAY, 5:02pm: The Bucks have signed Johnny O’Bryant, the 36th pick in this year’s draft, the team announced. Exact terms of the contract were not announced. He’ll compete for playing time with Ersan Ilyasova and John Henson, though O’Bryant seems destined to spend significant time in the NBA D-League this season to help him develop.
The 6’9″ power forward had appeared in five games for the Bucks during Summer League play in Las Vegas, where he averaged 8.2 points and 5.4 rebounds in 18.2 minutes per contest. He saved his best game for last, when he posted 10 points and 10 rebounds against the Warriors Summer League entry.
O’Bryant played for three seasons at LSU, where he averaged 12.7 PPG, 7.7 RPG, and 1.3 APG for his career. He earned First Team All-SEC honors in 2013 and 2014.
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Nuggets Sign Gary Harris
JULY 31ST: The team has followed up with a formal announcement, making the signing official.
JULY 9TH: The Nuggets have signed 19th overall pick Gary Harris, according to Aaron J. Lopez of Nuggets.com (Twitter link). Harris will likely be making a little more than $1.5MM this season, as our table of salaries for 2014 first-round picks shows.
Denver’s other first-round pick, 16th overall selection Jusuf Nurkic, is reportedly working on a buyout from his overseas club and remains unsigned, though the latest report indicates that he’s likely to join the Nuggets this year. Both came via trade from the Bulls in a deal in which the Nuggets surrendered the rights to No. 11 pick Doug McDermott.
Harris, a 6’4″ shooting guard, averaged 16.7 points in 32.3 minutes per game this past season, with 35.2% shooting from behind the three-point line. Eddie Scarito of Hoops Rumors, who examined the prospect profile of Harris, cast the former Michigan State Spartan as a strong value for teams picking 10th through 15th, suggesting that he’s a steal for the Nuggets at No. 19.
Eastern Notes: Irving, Lottery, Moore, Bayless
Kyrie Irving is still upset with rumors that he wanted out of Cleveland that persisted until he signed a five-year extension nearly a month ago, and he has no issue with ceding his position as the preeminent star of the Cavs to LeBron James, as Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding details. Of course, Irving might wind up as the third most important player on the team should Cleveland swing a deal for Kevin Love. There was news on that front earlier, and we’ll pass along a few more items from around the Eastern Conference here:
- The league’s proposal for evening out the odds in the draft lottery isn’t generating a ton of enthusiasm from the Sixers or anyone else, Grantland’s Zach Lowe writes. Critics most commonly suggest that it wouldn’t effectively deter tanking for the top pick and that it would encourage tanking among teams with a chance to make the playoffs, according to Lowe. Many agree with the Sixers that immediate implementation of the proposal for next year’s draft would be an issue.
- The league projects the Sixers to have turned a net profit of about $10.4MM from last season, Lowe also reveals in his piece. Still, the Sixers didn’t make any contributions to revenue sharing last season, Lowe writes, a matter that had reportedly been a bone of contention for other clubs.
- Former Magic guard E’Twaun Moore is drawing interest from Olimpia Milano of Italy, Sportando’s Enea Trapani reports. Orlando withdrew its qualifying offer to Moore last month, making him an unrestricted free agent.
- The contract that Jerryd Bayless signed today with the Bucks is for two years and a total of $6MM, a source tells Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
- Hawks swingman Kyle Korver has been re-elected to a three-year term as vice president of players union, Lowe reports (Twitter link).
Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.