Wizards Sign Garrett Temple
JULY 29TH: The deal is official, according to the RealGM transactions log and Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link), though the team has yet to make an announcement.
JULY 18TH: The Wizards have struck a deal with Garrett Temple that will allow the free agent guard to return to Washington, reports J. Michael of CSNWashington (Twitter link). It’ll be a two-year contract for the minimum salary that includes a player option for the final season, Michael adds (on Twitter). The move had been expected, as Michael wrote earlier this week.
Still, there were other teams in the market for the 28-year-old client of John Hamilton, as the Heat, Magic and Bulls all appeared to show interest. One report indicated he was leaning toward signing with Miami, while another contended that the wasn’t considering any offer from the Heat. Temple said early this month that he’d look at other teams but that he’d “love” to sign a new deal with the Wizards.
Temple bounced around the fringes of the league at the beginning of his career, playing for three teams in each of the 2009/10 and 2010/11 seasons. He finally gained firm footing with the Wizards in 2012/13, starting 36 games, but Washington had less call for him this past season, and his 1.8 points and 8.5 minutes per game were the lowest of his career. The new deal nonetheless signals that the Wizards have trust that Temple would perform capably if pressed into more action this coming year.
Lorenzo Brown To Play In Italy
Former Sixers guard Lorenzo Brown has signed with Reyer Venezia of Italy, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). The terms are unclear, and it’s uncertain whether the new contract for the Andy Miller client includes an out clause that will allow him to return to the NBA this year, should an opportunity arise. He recently completed a five-game stint with the Clippers summer league team, averaging 13.6 points per game.
Brown, 23, appeared in 26 games with the Sixers last season before they cut him in March to make room for a 10-day contract to Darius Johnson-Odom. He was the 52nd pick in the 2013 draft, but the Timberwolves relinquished his rights when they waived him prior to opening night last season.
The Sixers scooped him up a few weeks into the season, but he saw most of his playing time at Philadelphia’s D-League affiliate, averaging 19.9 points, 6.9 assists and 5.3 rebounds in 35.0 minutes per game for the Delaware 87ers. He saw just 8.6 MPG with the big club in Philly, notching 2.5 PPG, 1.6 APG and 1.1 RPG. Brown also spent time with the D-League’s Springfield Armor.
Union Elects Michele Roberts
Trial lawyer Michele Roberts became the first woman to lead a major North American pro sports union early Tuesday morning when the National Basketball Players Associated elected her as its new executive director. TNT’s David Aldridge was the first to report the news (Twitter link). Roberts captured 32 of a possible 36 votes among player representatives from each of the league’s 30 teams and the union’s executive committee, easily surpassing the required two-thirds majority in spite of reports detailing dissension before the vote.
“Let’s be clear: I’m sure there were people that noticed I was a girl,” Roberts said to reporters, including Ken Berger of CBSSports.com, following the vote. “Having said that, I frankly wanted to address that question up front whenever I spoke with any of the members of the executive committee and the union. My sense was, the only thing people cared about was my resolve.”
Roberts, a member of the Washington, D.C.-based firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, has won plaudits as a “talented and ruthless” litigator, Berger writes. She beat out Mavs CEO Terdema Ussery and tech industry CEO Dean Garfield, the other two finalists for the job that’s remained vacant since the union ousted longtime executive director Billy Hunter at the All-Star Game in 2013.
“It shows how open-minded our players are,” union president Chris Paul said, as Berger notes. “With any of the candidates, it wasn’t about race or gender. It was about who was going to be the best person in that position. From day one in interviews, she tackled every question head first. … There were tough questions she was faced with. She didn’t back away from them. She didn’t shy away from them. She told us her story, and it really sat well with us.”
Roberts first emerged as one of two finalists for the post in February, but the union decided soon after to renew its search. Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson teamed with the NBPA to form a search committee that interviewed more than 70 candidates, but Johnson left the process amid disagreement with the union’s executive committee in the days leading up to the vote. Johnson’s departure seemed to reopen the door to the skepticism and discord that had marked much of the union’s slow movement toward a hire. Agents and players alike called for yet another delay in the process. A player told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link) that he wanted more time to consider the finalists after they each made presentations Monday night to the attendees, who were roughly 120 in number, as Berger writes. That’s in contrast to the 35 who were in attendance when Hunter was deposed, Berger also points out.
Former union executive committee member Jerry Stackhouse was particularly critical. He believed current executive committee members, who identified Roberts as a candidate before Johnson’s involvement, were attempting to “save face” by supporting her candidacy, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick (Twitter links). Stackhouse attended the meeting, but was eventually forced to leave because he’s no longer an NBA player, Amick notes (Twitter link).
Paul and the executive committee were indeed the prime movers behind the choice of Roberts, sources told Wojnarowski (Twitter link). Ultimately, Roberts’ track record as a litigator, unblemished character, and her vision for change won over the rest of the union’s voting members, as Wojnarowski, in a full story, and Berger report. The close ties between league management and Ussery, whom former commissioner David Stern considers a friend, scuttled his chances, Jared Dudley told Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com (Twitter link).
Wolves, Mo Williams Close To Deal
The Wolves and Mo Williams are nearing an agreement, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The free agent guard had chiefly been connected to the Mavs of late, but Dallas instead used the $2.732MM room exception it had earmarked for a potential deal with the ex-Blazer on Jameer Nelson. The Wolves have their $5.305MM mid-level exception to spend, so it’s possible that Williams will end up with more than he would have made with the Mavs.
Williams, 31, had made re-signing with Portland his “only goal” at the outset of free agency after he turned down a $2.77MM player option. The capped out Blazers used their exceptions on Chris Kaman and Steve Blake, leaving only the Non-Bird rights they held on Williams to give him no more than a 20% raise, and it became clear within the second week of free agency that the chances for a return were slim.
The Wolves, John Krawcyznski of The Associated Press (on Twitter) notes, have been looking at the veteran for a few days now. Team president Flip Saunders & Co. see Williams as a strong fit to play on the second unit alongside rookie dunking machine Zach LaVine. In 74 games for the Blazers last season, Williams averaged 9.7 PPG and 4.3 APG in 24.8 minutes per contest. Williams also turned in a career low 41.7% field goal percentage and 11.8 PER, numbers that he’ll look to improve on this season.
Wolves Targeting Thaddeus Young
3:08pm: The Sixers want at least a first-round pick in return for Young, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities. That echoes Philadelphia’s stance regarding Young at the trade deadline this past February.
2:29pm: The Wolves are interested in acquiring Thaddeus Young as part of a Kevin Love trade, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Minnesota has been working on ways to deal for Young, either as part of a Love deal or through a separate transaction, Stein writes, though those efforts have been going on for quite some time, tweets Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press.
The Sixers have reportedly held interest in trying to fold Young into a deal that would send Love to another team and allow Philadelphia to recoup other assets. Sixers GM Sam Hinkie nonetheless said after the draft that he expected Young would be back with the team, as Stein notes, though the general belief is that the Sixers are open to trading their 26-year-old combo forward, according to the ESPN scribe. Young is set to make more than $9.4MM this coming season and has an early termination option he can exercise to hit free agency next summer.
The ideal scenario for the Wolves involves a three-team arrangement involving Cleveland in which Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and Young end up in Minnesota, Love goes to the Cavs, and expiring contracts and draft picks head to Philadelphia, according to Krawczynski. Still, that idea is just one of many in play, Krawczynski cautions (Twitter links). The Cavs can’t deal Wiggins until August 23rd, since league rules stipulate that a draft pick can’t be traded for 30 days after he signs, as Wiggins did this past Thursday.
2014 Rookie Scale Extension Primer
The deals involving star players aren’t yet over this offseason. Even beyond the unresolved free agencies of Eric Bledsoe and Greg Monroe and the looming specter of a Kevin Love trade are rookie scale extension candidates. Any player who signed a rookie scale contract is eligible to sign an extension from July 1st to October 31st after his third season in the league. If the player doesn’t sign an extension in that window, he’ll be eligible for restricted free agency the next summer.
Six players signed rookie scale extensions last offseason, and Kyrie Irving became the first to do so this summer, signing the first day he was eligible. Here’s a look at what Irving received and a primer on the rest of the market.
Kyrie Irving, Cavaliers — Irving already signed a five-year max extension. Irving’s lone financial concession was giving up the right to receive approximately 30% of the salary cap should he trigger the Derrick Rose Rule. He’ll instead earn about 27.5% should he meet the Rose Rule criteria and the standard 25% max if not.
Klay Thompson, Warriors — Agent Bill Duffy is seeking the max in negotiations with Golden State, and the team appears to have decided to keep his name out of offers for Love, at least for the time being. The Warriors have taken steps to plan for such a deal, even dating back to the veteran extension they signed last year with Andrew Bogut. Co-owner Joe Lacob has vowed to strike a deal with the shooting guard, though it’s not entirely clear whether he intends to do so through an extension or next summer in restricted free agency. Signing an extension would trigger the Poison Pill Provision, making it difficult for the Warriors to trade Thompson until next summer, so I think he’ll sacrifice some money for a degree of certainty. Prediction: Four years, $58MM.
Kawhi Leonard, Spurs — The Finals MVP is confident a deal will get done, and Gregg Popovich believes the 23-year-old will become the face of the franchise. Still, the three straight games with 20 points or more he compiled in the last three games of the Finals represented the first such streak in his entire career, and only the second time he’d ever scored 20 in as many as two games in a row. He’s also grown among a Spurs core that sacrificed money for championships. Prediction: Four years, $50MM.
Nikola Vucevic, Magic — There’s reportedly mutual interest in a deal, though it sounds like Orlando has put the matter on the backburner. Vucevic’s progress seemed to stall this past season, but the leap he made in his second NBA season, the first in which he saw significant playing time, is probably enough to convince the Magic to deal. Orlando has been profligate in its spending on mid-tier veterans, so I imagine the team will follow suit with its promising 23-year-old center. Prediction: Four years, $48MM.
Kenneth Faried, Nuggets — Denver GM Tim Connelly and coach Brian Shaw spoke in support of Faried this spring, and Connelly was to have met with agent Thad Foucher and company at the beginning of this month. Still, the Nuggets reportedly floated Faried’s name in trade talks early last season, and concerns about his defense remain. Prediction: Four years, $44MM.
Ricky Rubio, Timberwolves — Agent Dan Fegan wants the five-year max that former GM David Kahn infamously refused to give to Love in order to save it for Rubio, but injury and shooting woes have kept the point guard from displaying superstar potential. Flip Saunders, who replaced Kahn in the Minnesota front office, might be willing to overpay a smidge to prevent losing both Love and Rubio, but given Fegan’s demands, it seems unlikely they come to terms. Prediction: No extension; restricted free agency next summer.
Tristan Thompson, Cavaliers — The Rich Paul client has increased leverage now that LeBron James, the top client on Paul’s list, has returned to Cleveland, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports recently wrote. Cleveland will have a tough time engineering cap flexibility to chase Love next summer, and it would be hard to trade Thompson if he signed an extension, thanks to the same Poison Pill Provision that would trip up the Warriors and their extension-eligible Thompson. It’s also tough to see where Tristan Thompson fits in if Cleveland does acquire Love. Prediction: No extension; restricted free agency next summer.
Jimmy Butler, Bulls — Butler is yet another rookie scale extension-eligible player tied to Love. The Wolves would reportedly like to receive Butler in a trade involving Love, but the Bulls apparently kept him out of their recent offer. That indicates that Chicago envisions a future with the Happy Walters client. Prediction: Four years, $42MM.
Reggie Jackson, Thunder — The last time a Thunder sixth man came up for a rookie scale extension, they traded him to the Rockets. It doesn’t seem like a drastic move like the James Harden blockbuster will happen this time, but Jackson wants a job at starting point guard he won’t get as long as Russell Westbrook‘s in town, and GM Sam Presti has seemed dismissive of extension chatter. Prediction: No extension; restricted free agency next summer.
Kemba Walker, Hornets — Charlotte has taken a fast track to rebuilding the past two seasons, but next summer might be about maintaining the status quo more than building, with Al Jefferson possessing the chance to hit free agency. Unless GM Rich Cho has designs on keeping everyone together and making a significant upgrade at point guard, I think he’ll be willing to get a deal done with Walker before Halloween. That goes double if it prevents another team from driving up Walker’s cost in restricted free agency, just as Cho drove up Gordon Hayward‘s cost this summer. Prediction: Four years, $40MM.
Extension longshots:
These are the rest of the players eligible for rookie scale extensions this year. Even though none of them seem likely to sign, I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or two of these players ink a small-scale extension like the four-year, $14MM deal the Grizzlies gave Quincy Pondexter.
- Bismack Biyombo, Hornets
- Brandon Knight, Bucks
- Norris Cole, Heat
- Derrick Williams, Kings
- Cory Joseph, Spurs
- Alec Burks, Jazz
- Enes Kanter, Jazz
- Iman Shumpert, Knicks
- Tobias Harris, Magic
- Marcus Morris, Suns
- Markieff Morris, Suns
Nemanja Dangubic Likely To Remain In Serbia
Spurs second-round draftee Nemanja Dangubic is close to signing with Serbian club KK Crvena Zvezda, the website Novosti.rs reports (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). KK Partizan, another Serbian team, is also pursuing him, but the 54th overall pick from this year’s draft is leaning toward Crvena Zvezda, according to the Novosti.rs report.
The Spurs acquired the rights to Dangubic, a 6’8″ shooting guard, in a draft-night trade with the Sixers. Dangubic, 21, would be the latest in a long line of Spurs “draft-and-stash” players from overseas. It’s no surprise the team isn’t bringing him aboard for this season, given the difficulty that Dangubic would face in finding playing time on a team that’s poised to return nearly everyone from last year’s championship roster.
Dangubic spent the last two years with KK Mega Vizura, another Serbian franchise. He averaged 10.3 points and 3.6 rebounds in 26.2 minutes per game this past season.
Pacific Notes: Thompson, Young, Clippers
Every coach in the Pacific Division next season will be in either his first or second season on the job. Presumably that group will include Byron Scott, who says he has just a few loose ends to tie up before he’s the next coach of the Lakers. Here’s more from the Pacific:
- Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are confident that the Warriors aren’t looking to break up the “Splash Brothers” backcourt tandem with a trade that sends Thompson to the Wolves for Kevin Love, as the Golden State guards tell Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. Thompson said new coach Steve Kerr gave him the “vibe” that he won’t be traded. Kerr is reportedly among the advocates within the team’s brass for keeping Thompson.
- Nick Young says he feels like the Lakers made him a priority when they re-signed him to his new four-year deal, but he acknowledged he might not have ended up with the team had Carmelo Anthony decided to go to L.A., as he tells Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com.
- Matt Barnes said it’s realistic that Clippers players would boycott if Donald Sterling remains the owner into next season, as he said in an appearance on The Chris Mannix Show on NBC Sports Radio (Facebook link; hat tip to USA Today’s Nina Mandell). Still, he acknowledged that with the process tied up in court, he just wants to see the NBA move “swiftly and abruptly” toward Sterling’s ouster. ““It’s tough,” he said. “I think you guys [the media] are like we are, we’re not exactly sure how far they can push it. We know where they stand and what they want. At the end of the day it comes down to legalities and business, stuff that has to be handled in a court of law. It’s a very touchy, very iffy situation. We’re about two months out from camp, and I think as it gets closer and as we get a better understand of what’s going to happen I think you will have a better idea of what we are going to do.”
Exhibit 9 Contracts
Several players will sign summer contracts in the weeks ahead, and by definition, those contracts are non-guaranteed. Some of those deals, called Exhibit 9 contracts, will contain even fewer assurances for the player, but teams can only sign players to Exhibit 9’s under specific circumstances.
Standard NBA contracts ensure that if a player is hurt while performing for the team, his salary is guaranteed until he recovers or the end of the season, whichever comes first. Teams can waive Exhibit 9 contracts at any time should the player get hurt and owe a mere $6K.
Since most training camp invitees wind up getting waived before the start of the season, Exhibit 9’s are a vehicle for teams to avoid the sort of situation that befell the Clippers last year, when Maalik Wayns suffered a preseason knee injury. It was a non-guaranteed contract, but not an Exhibit 9, so the Clippers had to carry him on their roster into the regular season. The deal for Wayns was to have become fully guaranteed for the season if the Clippers failed to waive him by the end of December 1st, and he was still unable to play at that point. He gave the Clippers a break when he agreed to push the guarantee date back to January, and the team eventually waived him in advance of that deadline once he had recovered. Still, the injury cost the Clippers an extra month’s worth or so of salary that they may never have intended to pay out. The Clippers were luxury taxpayers last season, compounding the cost of Wayns’ injury.
Exhibit 9’s must be for one season, and they must be for the minimum salary. Just about every summer contract is a minimum-salary arrangement, but many of them stretch three or four seasons, as teams look to take advantage of rules that make lengthy deals more team-friendly. Still, such benefits have a price, as the Wayns example proved.
Teams must have 14 players on the roster before signing anyone to an Exhibit 9. Sometimes, there are players who are curiously released just at the start of training camp, before they have any chance to play their way on to the team. Such was the case with Patrick Christopher and Kalin Lucas last season. The Bulls signed the pair on September 12th and waived them on October 2nd, the second day of camp. As Mark Deeks of ShamSports explained, the Bulls signed them to non-Exhibit 9 deals to bring their roster to 14 and facilitate the use of Exhibit 9’s on the players they wished to have compete for a spot on the opening-night roster. They released Christopher and Lucas before they had a chance to get hurt.
Christopher agreed to a deal Friday with the Grizzlies, who already had 14 players under contract, so there’s a strong chance he’s receiving an Exhibit 9 this time. That’ll give him a chance to at least show what he can do against NBA competition in the preseason in an effort to make it to opening night, even if all the team owes him would be $6K if he gets hurt.
Just as with summer contracts, teams need not have the cap room or exception space to sign a player to an Exhibit 9, as long as they create the necessary room if they keep the player into the regular season. That allowance wouldn’t come into play in most circumstances, since the minimum-salary exception is all that’s necessary to have room for an Exhibit 9. Still, Exhibit 9’s are handy tools for clubs dealing with hard caps. The unintended imposition of guaranteed salary that an injury to a non-Exhibit 9 player might incur could put a hard-capped team in a difficult spot, one in which it might have to waive or trade another player to accommodate someone it merely intended to bring to camp.
The limited liability of Exhibit 9’s help create opportunities for the sort of player who teams would otherwise deem too much of a long shot to make the roster and not worth the risk of having to pay him throughout the season. Still, these deals open up fringe NBA prospects to medical expenses that $6K wouldn’t be enough to cover, just for a chance to compete for a spot at the end of the bench come November.
Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.
Eastern Rumors: Love, Knicks, Douglas-Roberts
The Knicks made a longshot trade offer for Kevin Love that the Wolves immediately turned down, reports Chris Herring of The Wall Street Journal. The offer was Amar’e Stoudemire, Iman Shumpert, and Tim Hardaway Jr., a package well shy of the value Minnesota is looking to secure in any potential deal for Love. Stoudemire and Shumpert have apparently been on the block of late, but while Hardaway is reportedly “virtually untouchable,” New York’s shot in the dark at least shows its willingness to part with him for the right return. Here’s more from around the East:
- A Wolves official disputes the notion that the Knicks ever made an offer for Love, as Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press reports (on Twitter).
Earlier updates:
- Chris Douglas-Roberts is among the free agents who interest the Heat as they look for veteran wing players, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Agent Wallace Prather has reached out to the team about client MarShon Brooks, but it’s unclear whether the Heat have any interest in him. The Heat are among 11 teams limited to paying no more than the minimum salary to free agents from other clubs, as I noted earlier today.
- Miami is remaining non-committal about bringing back free agents Michael Beasley and Greg Oden, as Jackson writes in the same piece. The agents for both veterans tell Jackson that the Heat have been in contact regarding their clients, but that they are receiving interest from other teams as well.
- The Hornets didn’t necessarily sign Brian Roberts for the room exception, as originally thought, when they made his deal official Wednesday, tweets Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times. It appears as though they have enough cap space to use on Roberts and preserve the exception to use on someone else, should they choose.