And-Ones: Rockets, Gay, Livingston, Miles
The Rockets promised Chris Bosh that they would match the Mavs’ offer sheet for Chandler Parsons if he jumped from Miami to Houston, but when Bosh agreed to re-sign with the Heat, the Rockets changed course, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com details (All Twitter links). Houston declined to match the deal for Parsons during the three-day window that expired Sunday night, and now the Rockets are poised to turn their attention back to longtime target Rajon Rondo and find a way back into the Kevin Love sweepstakes, Stein says. Here’s more from around the league after a busy weekend:
- Rudy Gay, who chose in June to opt into the final season of his contract with the Kings, said Sunday that he’s open to signing an extension but will wait to see how the team develops, as he told reporters, including Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. “If I was going to opt out, I was definitely going to look at my options on different teams,” Gay said. “But with me opting in, I’m not saying no extension is going to happen. I’m just trying to see where we’re going as a team and how we plan on getting better.”
- The final season of Shaun Livingston‘s three-year contract with the Warriors is worth $5,782,450 but only guaranteed for $3MM, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. That guarantee could increase if Livingston triggers incentives, Pincus adds.
- Mutual options don’t exist in the NBA, but it appears that the last year of C.J. Miles‘ new four-year deal with the Pacers will function much like a mutual option, as Pincus details (Twitter link). Pincus indicates that his salary for that season is non-guaranteed but becomes guaranteed if he’s not waived after a certain date. Presuming he’s retained, Miles has a player option for that season, according to Pincus.
- Mark Deeks of ShamSports lists the contract guarantee date for Peyton Siva as having been July 12, so it appeared that his minimum salary contract would be fully guaranteed for the coming season when he remained on the Pistons roster through Saturday. However, Vincent Ellis of the Detroit Free Press (on Twitter) and Keith Langlois of Pistons.com both list the date as the 20th, so it appears that Siva’s contract remains non-guaranteed unless he’s not waived on or before this coming Sunday.
- The Jazz didn’t attempt to re-sign Richard Jefferson before he moved on to the Mavs, writes Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune.
Hornets Send Scotty Hopson To Pelicans
The Hornets have traded Scotty Hopson to the Pelicans, both teams announced via press release late Sunday. Charlotte had just acquired Hopson from the Cavs on Saturday. The Hornets receive cash in return.
It’s perhaps only fitting that Hopson has been in two trades in as many days, since his contract was largely designed to be swapped. The Cavs signed him on the last day of March this past season for the rest of the 2013/14, and they tacked on a non-guaranteed 2014/15. Cavs GM David Griffin used the mid-level exception in an apparent attempt to make Hopson’s non-guaranteed salary larger, and thus more useful for salary matching purposes in trades. Griffin nonetheless could have signed a veteran of 10 or more seasons to the minimum salary and created an even larger non-guaranteed 2014/15 salary while spending much less in prorated guaranteed salary last season.
Hopson played all of seven minutes at the end of last season for Cleveland, and it seems doubtful he’ll add to that total for New Orleans. The 6’7″ swingman has played primarily overseas since going undrafted out of the University of Tennessee in 2011, and if he so much as makes it to training camp this fall, it’ll be a first for the one-time McDonald’s All-American.
Cavs Nearing Deal With Mike Miller
SUNDAY, 3:12pm: Miller is a possibility for the Mavs or Rockets, depending on which club doesn’t get Chandler Parsons, tweets Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com.
SATURDAY, 6:40pm: The Cavs and Miller are now making progress on a contract, tweets Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com.
9:56am: Sam Amick of USA Today tweets that the Cavs are not yet close to a deal with Miller, and have only had cursory conversations at this point.
12:33am: The Cavs are closing in on a deal with Miller, tweets Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. Miller on Friday cut off talks with the Nuggets, with whom he was reportedly close to a deal earlier this week, and had the Grizzlies tell him they were ending their pursuit.
WEDNESDAY, 3:27pm: Miller’s price is shooting up, with the Grizzlies, Thunder and Nuggets all in the race along with the Cavs, according to Wojnarowski (Twitter link). He’s in line for salaries of $4-4.5MM, Wojnarowski adds.
11:22am: James reached out to a pair of free agents about joining him on a team if he were to leave the Heat, and Miller was one of them, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Miller can’t sign with the Heat, since his amnestied contract would have run through next season, and teams are barred from re-signing the players they amnesty while their old contracts would still have been in effect.
10:52am: The Cavs are in pursuit of free agent Mike Miller, sources tell Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio (Twitter link). It seems like the latest move in the team’s efforts to land LeBron James, after this morning’s trade to clear max cap flexibility and news of the team’s attempts to sign Ray Allen. Cleveland is also making a run at James Jones, a longtime member of the Heat and a favorite of LeBron’s, TNT’s David Aldridge tweets.
Cleveland reportedly considered claiming Miller off amnesty waivers last summer, but he wound up clearing those waivers and signing with the Grizzlies as a free agent, as Miller apparently gave signals he wouldn’t want to play in Cleveland. It’s not clear whether the chance to reunite with LeBron James, should the four-time MVP sign with Cleveland, would persuade Miller to reconsider a move to the Cavs. The Clippers, Nuggets, Rockets, Thunder and Grizzlies are all reportedly in the mix for Miller, and while a report last week indicating that Memphis believed it was losing a bidding war for the Arn Tellem client also said that Miller would make his decision soon, he remains on the market.
Jones, 33, was little-used the past three seasons, though he did emerge as a rotation player for a time during the postseason for the Heat this past spring. The Miami native is likely in line for a minimum-salary deal wherever he ends up.
Lakers Acquire Jeremy Lin
SUNDAY, 12:22pm: The trade is now official the Lakers have announced via their website. Los Angeles will receive Lin, plus Houston’s first-round pick in 2015, and the 2015 second-round pick that the Rockets had acquired from the Clippers. The Rockets in turn receive the rights to Sergei Lishchuk.
FRIDAY, 1:59pm: The Rockets and Lakers have reached agreement on a deal that sends Jeremy Lin to the Lakers, reports Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported earlier that the teams were finalizing such a deal, while Marc Stein of ESPN.com broke the story about the talks. A future first-round pick is also headed to the Lakers, Goodman confirms, while Wojnarowski’s previous reporting indicated other draft considerations will go from Houston to the Lakers, too. The Lakers will send out cash and the rights to a draft-and-stash prospect who’s playing overseas, Wojnarowski also reported, but no salary will go Houston’s way, helping clear room for Chris Bosh, who’s nearing a commitment to the Rockets.
The first-rounder headed to the Lakers is Houston’s 2015 pick, tweets Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times. It’ll include protections, and the Rockets will also send a second-rounder the Lakers’ way, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle (Twitter link).
The deal indicates that the Lakers are ready to move forward and focus on next summer’s free agent group, since they’re committing nearly $8.4MM of their cap space to Lin. They missed out on LeBron James, and while Carmelo Anthony reportedly hasn’t told the Lakers they’re out of the running for him, another report indicates that ‘Melo has narrowed his choice to the Knicks and Bulls.
Nets Close To Deal With Bojan Bogdanovic
SUNDAY, 9:54am: Sources say that the Nets intend to sign Bogdanovic sometime this coming week, tweets Youngmisuk, who also notes that the departure of Paul Pierce could open up minutes for Bogdanovic and Sergey Karasev.
TUESDAY, 9:03am: The Nets are almost certain to sign draft-and-stash prospect Bojan Bogdanovic, writes Tim Bontemps of the New York Post. A source told Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPNNewYork.com that the 25-year-old forward would agree to an three-year arrangement for the taxpayer’s mid-level exception, with a player option in the final season (Twitter link), a framework that Bontemps pointed to earlier. Such a deal would be worth $3.278MM this year and total nearly $10.277MM over the three seasons.
The 6’6″ Bogdanovic and the Nets agreed to a deal for slightly less last season, but his buyout from Turkey’s Fenerbahce Ulker caused the pact to unravel, and he remained overseas. The former 31st overall pick’s production was down in most categories this past season, as he averaged 13.4 points and 35.0% three-point shooting after putting up 14.3 PPG and 38.7% three-point shooting in 2012/13. Still, his assists per game went from 1.7 to 2.2, indicating that he took on a larger role as a facilitator.
The Nets seemed to originally have their mid-level earmarked for Shaun Livingston, but with his departure for the Warriors, it looks like Bogdanovic has emerged as the club’s next biggest target. Once the mid-level’s gone, the Nets will only have the minimum salary to use on free agents from other teams, so it appears as though much will be riding on Bogdanovic’s ability to contribute next season. Bogdanovic is not to be confused with Bogdan Bogdanovic, whom the Suns drafted 27th overall last month.
Clippers Sign C.J. Wilcox
9:21pm: The Clippers officially announced the signing in a team release (H/T Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times).
12:07am: The Clippers have signed No. 28 overall pick C.J. Wilcox to his rookie scale contract, tweets Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. He’ll receive more than $1.1MM next season if he signs for the standard 120% of the scale amount, as our table of salaries for 2014 first-round picks shows, though 120% of scale isn’t a given for players picked near the end of the first round.
The 6’5″ shooting guard was No. 35 in Chad Ford’s ESPN.com rankings and No. 38 with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress, so it was a mild surprise to see him sneak into the first round. He improved steadily in four seasons at the University of Washington, averaging 18.3 points with 39.1% three-point shooting in 34.9 minutes per game as a senior this year.
Wilcox is set to compete for minutes with Reggie Bullock, who was last year’s first-round pick for the Clippers, in a crowded situation on the wing, where the team also has J.J. Redick, Jamal Crawford, Matt Barnes and Jared Dudley all under contract for 2014/15.
LeBron James Signs With Cavs
8:07pm: The Cavaliers have made the signing official in a team release. “We could not be happier to welcome LeBron James home,” Cleveland GM David Griffin said in the accompanying statement. “Yesterday, LeBron, through his essay, told us he wasn’t going anywhere except Cleveland and that ‘Cleveland is where he always believed he would finish his career.’ These words and commitment put all of us, including LeBron, in the best position to build our franchise the right way and achieve the kind of goals we all know are possible. Expectations will be at the highest levels but no one should expect immediate and automatic success.”
SATURDAY, 5:12pm: James’ contract with the Cavs has been finalized, sources tell Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. It’s a two-year, $42.1MM deal with a player option for the second season. While the deal doesn’t lock James in for the long term run he vowed to fulfill in his announcement, it is designed with an eye toward expected jumps in league revenue and increased earning potential for the game’s best player. Renewed TV deals and an opportunity for the player’s union to renegotiate the CBA in the coming years could lead to significantly higher max contract values. James, who had never been the highest paid player on his own team before signing this time with Cleveland, will look to cash in if those opportunities materialize.
FRIDAY, 11:20am: LeBron James has made his decision, and he’ll sign with the Cavaliers, as he tells Sports Illustrated’s Lee Jenkins.
“Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio,” the Akron native writes in the first paragraph of his as-told-to cover story in Sports Illustrated. “It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up. I sometimes feel like I’m their son. Their passion can be overwhelming. But it drives me. I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can. My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now.”
James said his primary reason for leaving the Heat after four years, four NBA Finals appearances, and two championships isn’t because he didn’t have faith that the front office could put the right team together, but that he wants to bring a title to Cleveland. He always believed he’d return to finish his career in Cleveland, but he just didn’t know when he would come back, he writes. The reaction of owner Dan Gilbert and fans in Cleveland to his 2010 departure for Miami weighed on him, but he said he’s talked the matter out with Gilbert “face-to-face, man-to-man.”
Presumably, it’ll be a max contract worth $20.6444MM in the first season for the four-time MVP, who won his first two such trophies with the Cavs, for whom he played from 2003-10. The Cavs aggressively sought the cap flexibility necessary to create max room, completing a three-team trade with the Nets and Celtics on Thursday that gave them the ability to open cap space for James.
Agent Rich Paul took meetings with the Cavs, Mavs, Suns and Lakers last week while the Heat were the only team with whom James met personally. Paul, who was also in that Heat meeting, was reportedly determined to get his client to return to Cleveland. Heat owner Micky Arison took to Twitter to express that he’s “shocked and disappointed” by the news but thanked James for the memories and wrote that he’d never forget what James brought to the Heat the past four seasons. It’s a far cry from Gilbert’s sharply worded response in 2010, which reportedly had been on James’ mind in the hours leading up to this year’s choice.
The move opens the gates to a number of other decisions around the league, with the free agency of Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh, the fate of trade candidate Kevin Love, and a slew of other important matters still unresolved. The Cavs have reportedly been set to pursue Love contingent on their acquisition of James, though they appear unwilling to give up No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins to facilitate such a deal.
Kings Sign Darren Collison
JULY 12TH, 7:21pm: The Kings have made the signing official in a team release.
1:26pm: The deal is worth $15MM, rather than $16MM, as Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times hears (Twitter link). Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports also has it as $15MM. That would make it for slightly less than the value of the $5.305MM mid-level exception.
11:17am: Sacramento intends to waive a player and use the stretch provision to accommodate Collison’s deal, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. The Kings wouldn’t have to do that to fit underneath the tax line as it stands, so perhaps Sacramento is thinking about adding salary via trade or saving room to re-sign Thomas to a significant deal, though that’s just my speculation (Twitter link). In any case, Collison agreed to the deal under the impression that he will start, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick (on Twitter).
JULY 3RD, 10:45am: The Kings will sign Darren Collison to a three-year, $16MM deal, reports Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). It’s a fully guaranteed deal, Turner adds (on Twitter). Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype first reported that the sides were engaging in talks (Twitter link).
“The Kings were the most aggressive team by far in the free agency, and I respected that on all levels,” Collison said, according to Turner (Twitter link).
Sacramento made its desire to add a pass-first point guard clear, even as it seeks to re-sign restricted free agent Isaiah Thomas. Collison rehabilitated his career during his one-year stint with the Clippers, proving an effective backup to Chris Paul and a capable replacement for the superstar when he went down with injury.
It was difficult for the BDA Sports Management client to leave the Clippers, Turner tweets, and Doc Rivers said he would make re-signing Collison his top offseason priority. Collison told Turner that he didn’t feel that was the case, however (Twitter links).
Collison was reportedly leaning toward returning when he opted out of his deal late last month. Still, the capped-out Clippers were in a tough spot, since they had only the Non-Bird exception to give Collison a 20% raise on his $1.9MM salary without dipping into the mid-level exception.
Instead it’s the Kings using their mid-level to convince Collison to move north. The amount for which Collison signed is what the Kings had wanted to pay Thomas, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee, and while the Collison agreement doesn’t necessarily forestall the return of Thomas, it casts further doubt on the future of Thomas in Sacramento.
Heat Close To Signing Wade, Haslem
SATURDAY, 6:45pm: The agent that represents both Wade and Haslem tells Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel that he is working to complete deals for both of his clients in Miami. Presumably, that’s Henry Thomas of the Creative Artists Agency.
FRIDAY, 4:52pm: The Heat are making a strong pursuit of Dwyane Wade now that Chris Bosh has committed to return, and they’re trying to complete short-term contracts with both Wade and Udonis Haslem, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter links).
Wade opted out of about $42MM over two years last month in an apparent attempt to help the Heat retain LeBron James, who agreed today to sign with the Cavs. Haslem opted out of $4.62MM for next season, but he, like Wade, would be hard-pressed to find comparable salaries on the market, given their declining abilities. Both have played exclusively for the Heat during their NBA careers, but it’s not clear whether the Heat will approach the money they passed up when they declined their options.
The 32-year-old Wade still seems capable of commanding eight-figure salaries, since he still averaged 9.0 points, 4.7 assists and 4.5 rebounds even given his knee trouble. The Bulls gauged Wade’s interest in signing a deal that would bring him back to his native Chicago, but Wade reportedly wouldn’t go for that.
Haslem, who was in and out of the Heat’s rotation this past year, has a market value that probably no more than the minimum salary at this point. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if Haslem, a client of Henry Thomas, just like Wade, winds up with a deal for somewhat more than that from the Heat, even if it doesn’t come close to the $4.62MM he passed up.
Raptors Re-Sign Patrick Patterson
JULY 12TH: The signing is official, per a team release.
JULY 4TH: The Raptors and Patrick Patterson have reached agreement on a three-year, $18MM deal, reports Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Toronto will use Bird Rights to retain the restricted free agent, keeping him away from other suitors before he could sign an offer sheet.
The Suns and Magic were reportedly in pursuit of the power forward. The Raptors apparently feared that some of the above-market deals around the league early in free agency would price them out of the ability to re-sign Patterson and fellow restricted free agent Greivis Vasquez.
The Patterson deal takes care of one part of that equation for the team, but with the club’s trade for Lou Williams shortly before the July moratorium, it’ll be a tight squeeze beneath the projected luxury tax line to sign Vasquez with the hope of adding anyone else. Still, the club appeared to place a priority on Patterson once it secured Kyle Lowry, as worries about the ability of Amir Johnson to stay healthy apparently fueled their desire for a strong backup power forward.
A $6MM average annual value is somewhat high for a bench player, but the capped-out Raptors wouldn’t have had the cap flexibility to shell out quite as much to anyone else had the Sam Goldfeder client ended up elsewhere. Patterson played a critical role in the rotation after coming over from Sacramento in the Rudy Gay trade, averaging 9.1 points and 5.1 rebounds in 23.3 minutes per game with a 16.2 PER for Toronto.