2014 Draft-And-Stash Signees
The players selected in last month’s draft aren’t the only draftees signing with NBA teams. Six “draft-and-stash” prospects agreed to deals with the teams that held their NBA rights this month, finally coming to the NBA after having spent at least a year outside the league. They wound up with widely varying financial terms, as we examine here:
Updated 8-11-14
Nikola Mirotic, Bulls — The prize import from overseas signed a deal precisely equivalent to the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception over three years, even though the Bulls used cap space to sign him. It had been three years since the Rockets drafted Mirotic 23rd overall, so the Bulls, who acquired his rights via trade at the 2011 draft, weren’t limited to giving him rookie scale salaries. That helped Chicago immensely, since Mirotic had to commit more than $3MM when he bought his way out of his contract with Spain’s Real Madrid. Mirotic still had enough leverage to command a trade kicker and, reportedly, assurances from the Bulls that he wouldn’t be traded. He’ll make a total of more than $16.6MM over the life of the contract.
Bojan Bogdanovic, Nets — Bogdanovic came to Brooklyn for a three-year contract at the full value of the taxpayer’s mid-level exception, a less lucrative version of the mid-level than the Bulls gave Mirotic. Bogdanovic also received a trade kicker, just as Mirotic did. Bogdanovic was a product of the 2011 draft, again just like Mirotic, but he was a second-round pick, so the rookie scale wouldn’t have applied no matter when he signed. He’s not to be confused with Bogdan Bogdanovic, whom the Suns drafted 27th overall last month. That Bogdanovic figures to be on this list a few years down the road, since he just signed a multiyear contract to play in Turkey.
Kostas Papanikolaou, Rockets — The Papanikolaou deal is like the Bogdanovic signing in that both were former second-round picks who received mid-level money, but Papanikolaou’s first-year salary, worth nearly $4.6MM, is significantly higher. That’s because Houston used the majority of its $5.305MM non-taxpayer’s mid-level on the forward, who has a two-year pact for about $9.4MM.
Lucas Nogueira, Raptors — Nogueira was the 16th pick of the 2013 draft, and Toronto acquired his rights via trade last month. The rookie scale still applies to him, unlike Mirotic, so he’ll likely make a salary of nearly $1.763MM for this coming season, part of which will go toward his buyout. That’s the standard 120% of the rookie scale amount for the 16th pick in this year’s draft, rather than last year’s, but the scale applies to the year in which the player signs, not the year in which he’s drafted. The deal is worth $8,473,305 over four seasons.
James Ennis, Heat — Heat president Pat Riley has raved about last year’s 40th overall pick, whom Miami acquired from the Hawks shortly after they drafted him. The Heat used part of their cap space to come to terms with Ennis, even though he won’t see any more than the minimum salary in any of the three years for which he signed. Riley’s praise indicates that Ennis is likely to stick around for a while, but the team has the option to waive him by the end of opening night and pay him only his $200K partial guarantee if it so chooses.
Erick Green, Nuggets — Denver used a portion of its mid-level exception to sign Green, whom the Nuggets acquired in a trade shortly after the Jazz picked him 46th overall in the 2013 draft. The part of the mid-level the team gave him is equivalent to just the minimum salary, so he’s receiving significantly less than Mirotic and Bogdanovic. The three-year pact is worth about $2.3MM. It’s only guaranteed for $50K, according to Mark Deeks of ShamSports.
Pierre Jackson, Sixers — There’s a decent chance that Jackson, last year’s 42nd overall pick, would be higher on this list had he not ruptured his achilles tendon shortly before signing with Philadelphia. The Sixers reacquired his rights from the Pelicans last month after drafting him 42nd overall in 2013, and while he and the Pelicans couldn’t agree to terms last year, he sprung for 29.1 points per game in the D-League. He wound up with a one-year, minimum-salary deal that’s guaranteed for $400K, as Deeks noted when he reported the signing.
Bucks Sign Jerryd Bayless
JULY 31ST: The deal is official, the Bucks announced (on Twitter).
JULY 17TH: The Bucks and Jerryd Bayless have reached a deal, as the Phoenix native tells Mark McClune of Phoenix CBS affiliate KPHO-TV (Twitter link; hat tip to Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported Tuesday that the sides were nearing an agreement, and they had been discussing a two-year arrangement between $6-7MM with no option clauses, according to Gardner.
Bayless spent the bulk of last season with the Celtics after an early-January trade brought him from Memphis, and he quickly identified Boston as a place he wanted to stay for the long term. The client of Excel Sports Management reiterated that stance on multiple occasions during what appears to have been a brief tenure with the Celtics, and coach Brad Stevens appeared to lobby the front office for his return. The Celtics had Early Bird rights on the combo guard that would have given them the means to make an offer equal to or greater than what he seems to have netted from the Bucks, but ultimately it looks like the sides couldn’t reach a deal.
Milwaukee appears to be technically operating over the cap, though the team has eyed using its flexibility to open up space and make an offer to Eric Bledsoe, among other targets. A competitive offer for Bledsoe would likely require the team to trade some of its guaranteed salary, and there have been conflicting reports about Milwaukee’s willingness to trade Ersan Ilyasova. A two-year deal for Bayless with a starting salary that’s roughly half of the $6-7MM figure that Gardner floated for the total value of the deal could be a fit for part of the $5.305MM mid-level, should the Bucks stay above the cap. Otherwise, Milwaukee would likely have to use cap room.
Heat Notes: LeBron, ‘Melo, 2016, Allen
Heat team president Pat Riley went after free agents this year with the idea that LeBron James would return to the team, and he sold potential signees on that notion, as he told reporters, including Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Still, Riley said James didn’t answer frequent emails and texts that he sent in an effort to recruit him back to Miami, Jackson notes. That suggests that the only communication between the two took place when James met with Riley a few days before he made his decision to sign with the Cavs, as Jackson details. We rounded up several key passages from Riley’s address on Wednesday, and we’ll pass along other noteworthy tidbits here among the latest Heat-related news:
- Riley called Leon Rose, the agent for Carmelo Anthony, after LeBron left, but, “We were a little bit late to that party,” Riley said, as Jackson writes in the same piece. Anthony had already finished meeting with other teams, and he made his decision to re-sign with the Knicks the day after LeBron made his choice.
- The team will be focused on making a splash in free agency in 2016, Riley said, adding that it would have been the plan even if LeBron had remained, according to Jackson.
- Riley said the Heat will keep Justin Hamilton through Friday, when his non-guaranteed contract becomes partially guaranteed for more than $400K, as Jackson notes.
- Miami hasn’t given up hope of re-signing free agent Ray Allen, tweets Jason Lieser of the Palm Beach Post. Riley said he’s remained in contact with Allen’s agent, Jim Tanner, Jackson writes.
- Riley confirmed that Miami has spoken with Michael Beasley‘s people about re-signing with the team, Lieser tweets. “He’s still a consideration, absolutely,” Riley said. Beasley reportedly auditioned for the Lakers on Wednesday.
- The team is also still thinking about re-signing Greg Oden, Riley added, as Jackson notes. Jackson reported last week that the Heat were non-committal about bringing back Beasley and Oden.
- Guard Tyler Johnson impressed during a summer league stint with the Heat and is drawing interest from multiple NBA teams, a source tells Hoops Rumors.
Sixers Fighting Changes To Draft Lottery
THURSDAY, 8:44am: A Sixers source tells Jason Wolf of the Wilmington News Journal that Philadelphia isn’t particularly opposed to the notion of evening the odds for the top pick, but the source nonetheless indicates that the Sixers aren’t high on the idea. An Eastern Conference executive who spoke with Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer believes that the Sixers’ lack of effort to field a competitive roster is negatively affecting the integrity of the league. A vote to approve the league’s proposal could take place as early as October, Pompey writes.
WEDNESDAY, 9:14am: The Sixers are resisting proposed changes to the draft lottery system, but their lengthy rebuilding process and willingness to build non-competitive rosters has curbed revenues and angered other teams, reports Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. The league has put forth a proposal to even out the odds for the top pick by as soon as next year, giving the team with the worst record in the NBA significantly longer odds of winning the lottery.
The league’s proposal would grant the top four teams in the lottery the same 11% odds of winning the No. 1 overall pick, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe explained a few weeks ago. All of those teams would have better odds under the current system. The Sixers finished with the second-worst record in the league last year, and there’s seemingly a strong chance they’re even worse this coming season, especially if they deal away Thaddeus Young, who’s been in multiple trade rumors of late, for little or no immediate return. Philadelphia is hoping to delay any change in the lottery until at least 2016, Windhorst writes.
GM Sam Hinkie‘s team will also be without Joel Embiid, who has a broken foot, and Dario Saric, who’s playing overseas, to start next season, meaning the Sixers will be without both of the players they netted with their pair of lottery picks from last month. The Sixers took a similar long-range approach last summer when they drafted injured center Nerlens Noel, who missed his entire first season.
The Sixers had the second-worst attendance in the league last season despite their presence in large-market Philadelphia. Smaller-market teams typically stand to benefit from the NBA’s revenue sharing plan that redistributes cash from franchises in urban hubs. The NBA has remediation plans in place to address teams that fall short of expectations based on market size, but it appears as though the Sixers aren’t carrying the weight that many other franchises expect them to.
Wizards Waive Melvin Ely
THURSDAY, 7:42am: There’s been no formal announcement from the team, but the move has indeed taken place, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (on Twitter) and the RealGM transactions log.
WEDNESDAY, 4:26pm: The Wizards are waiving power forward Melvin Ely, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Ely came to Washington from the Pelicans as part of the three-team sign-and-trade that sent Trevor Ariza to the Rockets. His non-guaranteed minimum salary has been scheduled to become fully guaranteed at the end of Friday, but it appears the Wizards are releasing him before that happens.
New Orleans brought the 36-year-old back into the NBA after a three-year absence from the league with a contract signed with just two days to go in the season. The inclusion of the non-guaranteed 2014/15 salary made it plain that the Pelicans intended to use him as trade fodder, and his contract proved key in the team’s ability to acquire Omer Asik, as I explained earlier.
Washington has been less than $200K shy of the tax line, but dropping Ely will allow the team to open up more than $1.3MM of extra space beneath the threshold, room to add another minimum salary or two. The Wizards are also hard-capped, so even if they go over the tax line, they can’t go more than $4MM into the tax at any point this season.
Warriors Waive Hilton Armstrong
4:56pm: Golden State has officially placed Armstrong on waivers, the team announced via press release.
4:23pm: The Warriors are waiving center Hilton Armstrong, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Armstrong’s minimum-salary deal has been to set to become fully guaranteed if the team doesn’t waive him by the end of Friday, but it appears Golden State will do so.
The 29-year-old signed four different contracts this past season with the Warriors, who first added him in December and later inked him to a pair of 10-day deals. They secured him for the balance of the season with a week to go before the playoffs, tacking on the non-guaranteed 2014/15 salary. It was the first NBA action in three years for the former No. 12 overall pick, but he saw fewer than 100 minutes in the regular season. He made it into all seven games of Golden State’s playoff series against the Clippers, but he only saw 17 total minutes across those appearances.
The move gives the hard-capped Warriors some extra wiggle room, as they had been roughly $4.5MM beneath the tax line and $8.5MM under the tax threshold, the latter of which is the line they can’t cross. That room will come in handy if the team, which has been involved in Kevin Love talks, needs to accommodate salary in a trade. The Warriors can open up nearly another $1MM if they waive Draymond Green by the end of Friday, but they’ll almost certainly not do that.
Heat Re-Sign Chris Bosh
JULY 30TH: The deal is finally official, the team announced, after Bosh spent much of the month traveling overseas.
“Chris Bosh is a two-time NBA champion and one of the most versatile big men in the league,” Heat president Pat Riley said. “His unique skillset makes him one of the best players in the game today. I’ve always felt he was committed to this organization, this staff and this city. I think he’s going to have the opportunity of a lifetime leading this team next season and having the nine-time NBA All-Star back in the fold was a big key for us. We are very blessed to have him.”
JULY 11TH: The Heat and Chris Bosh are finalizing an agreement on a five-year deal for the maximum salary, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). The Rockets believed they would get Bosh to commit to their offer of the maximum, which by rule was only for four years, with lower annual raises, but the Henry Thomas client ultimately spurned Houston to remain with the Heat. The new max deal will include a starting salary of $20,644,400, and total $118,705,300 over the life of the contract.
Bosh and his wife love living Miami, and their affection for South Florida was a strong factor in the decision, tweets Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com. It’s a major victory for the Heat and team president Pat Riley, who’ll know the team will at least keep one of its three stars after LeBron James bolted for the Cavs. The Lakers and Bosh reportedly had mutual interest, too, but ultimately it came down to a decision between the Rockets and Heat.
Before the Rockets made their push, Bosh seemed like a strong bet to return to Miami, having said publicly that he would return. Still, that seemed to hinge on the return of LeBron, and when he left for Cleveland, Bosh seemed destined to follow the four-time MVP out of Miami.
Instead, the Heat will retain the No. 3 player in the Hoops Rumors Free Agent Power Rankings. As Charlie Adams of Hoops Rumors wrote when he examined Bosh’s free agent stock, Bosh had plenty of leverage to secure a lucrative payday in a destination of his choice after establishing himself as an athletic force defensively and a versatile scorer.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
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Rumors connecting Kevin Love to the Cavs are mounting, but reader Manchershaw Engineer thinks the pressure is on the Cavs, and not the Wolves, to swing a trade that delivers Love to Cleveland before he becomes a free agent next summer.
- No, this is the great myth this rumor is trying to create. If Minnesota doesn’t trade him to Cleveland, he can’t go to Cleveland THIS YEAR OR NEXT. He can’t go there as a free agent without taking a ridiculous pay cut. Based on that alone, any team that thinks they are a good situation for Love should trade for him. Because if you trade for him, not only do you have his Bird rights, you’ve also eliminated any possibility of him winding up in Cleveland. Sure, he *could* walk at the end of the year, but the teams involved (Chicago, Golden State) are a lot better options to sign with than the teams that are going to have cap room after this season. There’s almost no chance he doesn’t re-sign if one of those teams trades for him.
The Sixers oppose changes to the draft lottery that would make it tougher for the worst teams in the league to net the No. 1 overall pick as soon as the 2015 draft, and while buffalonichols is a critic of the lottery, he thinks the league shouldn’t be in such a hurry.
- No matter how you feel about the NBA draft lottery, and I think it’s terrible, I think the Sixers have a point here. You can’t have rules set in place and then change them suddenly in midstream. If the NBA is going to change the way the lottery works, they should phase it in so teams building their core under the current system don’t get screwed. Announce the changes now and then implement them in two or three years so teams can change their strategies going forward. Or, you know, just eliminate the lottery altogether in a few years.
I took a stab at forecasting the market for rookie scale extensions, listing Tobias Harris among those unlikely to sign one. Cigamodnalro followed with several well-considered dissenting opinions. Here’s his take on Harris:
- Orlando has a logjam at small forward, it is true, but I think Harris is already a vocal leader of the team, and that this will only be magnified in the absence of vets like Jameer Nelson. Milestones like making the [USA Basketball] Select Team obviously only serve to increase his value to the team and possibly around the league. [Maurice] Harkless is significantly more likely to be the one moving on, I would think.
Check out what more readers had to say in previous editions of Hoops Rumors Featured Feedback. We appreciate everyone who adds to the dialogue at Hoops Rumors, and we look forward to seeing more responses like these from you!
Lakers Work Out Michael Beasley
The Lakers conducted a workout with free agent Michael Beasley today, reports Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com (Twitter link). The team is limited to paying the minimum salary, but that would probably be enough for the former No. 2 overall pick who’s slowly rebuilding a once-wayward career.
Beasley has reportedly been receiving interest from clubs around the league as the Heat have taken a lukewarm stance toward re-signing him. The interested teams apparently found him a mature and efficient addition for the Heat last season, though he wasn’t a part of Miami’s rotation in the postseason. He averaged 7.9 points and 3.1 rebounds in 15.1 minutes per game across 55 regular season appearances. His 16.8 PER was the second best of his six-year career, demonstrating the efficiency that has him an object of desire.
The Jared Karnes client took a completely non-guaranteed deal to join the Heat last season, but he’s probably in line for a guaranteed contract this time around. Still, he’s unlikely to approach the three-year, $18MM contract he signed with Phoenix two years ago. Beasley and the Suns agreed to a buyout last summer.
And-Ones: Union, Douglas, Nets, Moreland
The contracts for six NBA players will become fully guaranteed if their teams don’t waive them by the end of Friday, and two more players will earn partial guarantees if they avoid getting cut. Draymond Green and Khris Middleton almost certainly won’t be cast aside between now and that deadline, but for the rest, the summer temperatures won’t be the only reason to sweat out the next few days. Here’s more from the NBA:
- Players association VP Roger Mason Jr. insists that union leadership addressed concerns from membership regarding the hiring process for a new executive director and the departure of search committee leader Kevin Johnson, as Mason tells Bleacher Report’s Jared Zwerling. Discord had marked the union’s Monday meeting in which Michele Roberts handily won a vote to fill the executive director vacancy.
- The Bulls had been targeting free agent Toney Douglas, but they’ve abandoned their pursuit after signing Aaron Brooks, according to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune.
- Former NBA head coach Paul Westphal highlights the assistant coaching hires that the Nets officially announced today. Brooklyn also brought on Joe Wolf, Jay Humphries and Mavs assistant Tony Brown. John Welch and Jim Sann are the only holdovers from last season.
- The Warriors and Knicks were interested in undrafted forward/center Eric Moreland, according to Shams Charania of RealGM. Charania reported Tuesday that Moreland had agreed to join the Kings instead.
- The Hawks invited summer league guard Stephen Holt to fall training camp, but he instead signed a deal with a German team, reports Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.