Hornets Notes: Hayward, Roberts, Delany
Somewhat lost amid the shuffle of a three-team trade and the latest updates on LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony is Tuesday’s late-night agreement between the Hornets and restricted free agent Gordon Hayward on a max offer sheet. The Jazz are reportedly determined to match, so it doesn’t seem as though Hayward will end up in Charlotte. Still, the net effect could be a jump in the value of fellow restricted free agent small forward Chandler Parsons, making it harder for the Rockets to hang on to him, argues Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. Here’s more on Hayward and the Hornets:
- Hayward intended to meet with the Suns before he decided instead to commit to the offer sheet from the Hornets, a source tells Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer (Twitter link).
- The Hornets are planning a visit with free agent point guard Brian Roberts, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. He’s No. 1 on Charlotte’s wish list as it searches for a backup point guard to Kemba Walker, Wojnarowski adds.
- Pat Delany has officially joined the team as an assistant coach, the Hornets announced. He had been serving as the coach of the Heat’s D-League affiliate.
Cavs Eye Chandler Parsons As LeBron Fallback
The Cavs harbor strong interest in Chandler Parsons, and he would be the team’s first target should LeBron James decide to sign elsewhere, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. The Cavs are going after Ray Allen, Mike Miller and James Jones in an effort to woo LeBron, but Parsons appears to be an option for them independent of the four-time MVP, since Cleveland has more than $20MM in cap flexibility after today’s agreement to unload Jarrett Jack.
Parsons, a restricted free agent, is in high demand, as the Mavs are apparently readying an aggressive courtship of the small forward once they know for sure they won’t land LeBron or Carmelo Anthony. The Suns, Celtics, Lakers, Bulls and Wolves have also been linked to him since the start of free agency, but the Rockets can match any team’s offer.
The Cavs have also reportedly eyed Trevor Ariza for their cap space in the event they don’t land LeBron. Channing Frye was also a target, but he already agreed to a deal with the Magic.
Heat Considering Mario Chalmers Sign-And-Trade
Miami has explored the possibility of sending Mario Chalmers out in a sign-and-trade to add more talent, sources tell Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The Heat are meeting with LeBron James today after agreeing to deals with Josh McRoberts for the value of the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception and Danny Granger for the equivalent of the bi-annual exception.
Chalmers, 28, struggled mightily in the playoffs, averaging only 6.4 points per contest, and was benched for the team’s final postseason game. It was the first time he didn’t start for the Heat in the past three seasons, and he recorded a career-high 14.0 PER this past year during the regular season. He tied his career mark with 4.9 assists per game, and his 9.8 PPG approached his best, too.
The Sam Goldfeder client has expressed interest in returning to Miami for next season. Still, the Heat made a run at Kyle Lowry before he re-signed with the Raptors, and the club apparently envisions bringing in someone new to play his role. Chalmers would have to agree to go elsewhere in any sign-and-trade, though the Heat could attempt to force his hand and decline to make an offer for him to stay.
Nando De Colo To Play In Russia
WEDNESDAY, 7:27am: The deal is official, the team announced. CSKA’s statement indicates that the contract includes an option for a third season, but it’s unclear whether that’s a team or a player option.
MONDAY, 1:23pm: Wojnarowski’s full story indicates that De Colo turned down a two-year offer from Toronto, though just how much money was a part of it remains unknown.
12:54pm: Guard Nando De Colo has turned down an offer from the Raptors and will sign with Russia’s CSKA Moscow, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). De Colo was reportedly offered a two-year deal for the equivalent of $4.08MM, according to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia (Twitter link).
De Colo is a restricted free agent, giving the Raptors the opportunity to match offers from other NBA teams, but the international market isn’t bound by that. The Raptors, who agreed to trade Steve Novak to the Jazz last week to free up room beneath the luxury tax line, are trying to secure a deal with Greivis Vasquez, and there was a strong chance they wouldn’t have been able to give De Colo what the Russian team apparently offered.
The Hidden Value Of Brendan Haywood’s Contract
A 34-year-old backup center on the Hornets roster seems an odd selling point for the Cavs to use in their pitch to woo LeBron James back to Cleveland, but Brendan Haywood is reportedly one of the players the Cavs believe can help them win over the four-time MVP. It’s not because of any recruiting message Haywood might deliver to James. Rather, it’s because of a vestige of the amnesty provision that’s scarcely considered outside of NBA front offices.
The Hornets agreed on draft night to a trade that will send Haywood to the Cavs. It won’t be official until after the July moratorium, which runs through Wednesday. On the surface, the deal seems like a pedestrian exchange of the aging Haywood and 45th overall pick Dwight Powell for reserve small forward Alonzo Gee.
Haywood was in the middle of his ninth season with the Wizards in 2010 when they traded him to the Mavericks, who re-signed him that summer to a six-year deal worth more than $52MM. Dallas also traded for Tyson Chandler that same offseason, and when Chandler beat out Haywood for the starting job, Haywood’s deal quickly became an object of regret. The only saving grace about that contract for Dallas was that his salary for the final season, worth more than $10.5MM, was non-guaranteed. That wasn’t enough to save Haywood from the chopping block in 2012, when the Mavs used the amnesty clause to waive Haywood and clear the cap room necessary to sign Chris Kaman to a one-year, $8MM deal, another contract that didn’t pan out for Dallas.
The then-Bobcats, sensing an opportunity to acquire a serviceable player they might not be able to woo in free agency, since they had just compiled the league’s worst winning percentage of all time, submitted a claim for Haywood. Unlike regular waivers, amnesty waivers allow teams to make partial claims in which they essentially place bids on the player. The Bobcats entered either the highest bid or the only bid — whether they had competition remains unknown — and won the rights to Haywood for $6.15MM. That amount was spread over the three remaining seasons on the contract that were fully guaranteed. The Mavs would pay the rest of his guaranteed salary, but it wouldn’t count against their cap.
The final, non-guaranteed season remained untouched. Dallas isn’t on the hook for that money, and Charlotte would only be responsible for it if it kept him past his contract guarantee date, which is August 1st, 2015, according to Mark Deeks of ShamSports. That gave the then-Bobcats, or any team to which they traded Haywood, full control over the deal’s final season, which is 2015/16. It left an unbalanced contract on Charlotte’s books, with salaries in the neighborhood of $2MM for the first three post-amnesty seasons preceding a hefty leap to more than $10.5MM.
Haywood will almost certainly be waived before next August and never receive that $10.5MM. Still, after next year’s July moratorium, that salary would still count toward the league’s salary matching requirements if the Cavs, once they officially acquire him from Charlotte, were to flip him in another trade. Cleveland could bring in a player making as much as $5MM more than Haywood’s non-guaranteed 2015/16 salary, and the team that gives up such a player could waive Haywood and gain a chunk of cap space equal to that approximately $10.5MM salary. Therein lies the value of Haywood.
The rechristened Hornets aren’t in any position to attract James to their team, or any starry 2015 free agent like Kevin Love or Rajon Rondo, the presence of owner Michael Jordan notwithstanding. For them, the trade will net immediate cap flexibility, since Gee’s $3MM salary is non-guaranteed for 2014/15, whereas Haywood’s salary is guaranteed for this coming season.
Haywood would still have been valuable to the Hornets, who could have traded his deal to acquire a high-dollar player next summer. But it’s even more valuable to the Cavs, who can use it to show another high-dollar player — LeBron — that they have the capability to surround him with game-changing talent.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
And-Ones: Union, Celtics, Blatche, Diawara
The players union is worried that teams like the Heat are trying to strong-arm players into making financial sacrifices by triggering hard caps with the use of the non-taxpayer’s mid-level and bi-annual exceptions, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe explains. Clubs can’t exceed the tax apron, the line $4MM above the tax threshold, if they use either the larger mid-level or the bi-annual. Ron Klempner, the interim executive director for the union, argues that such teams can eschew those exceptions and find ways that don’t trigger a hard cap to accommodate contracts for the players they want.
“Teams are being exposed for what they are doing,” Klempner told Lowe. “It has been laid bare. They are hiding behind the rules. Teams like the Heat have the ability to bring back all their players, and give them raises, but they are choosing to go in another direction.”
Here’s more from around the league:
- The Celtics remain on the lookout for players who will appeal to the Wolves in hopes that Minnesota will agree to a deal that sends Kevin Love to Boston, as Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe details.
- The Raptors will meet Wednesday with free agent Andray Blatche, tweets Chris Broussard of ESPN.com.
- Former NBA swingman Yakhouba Diawara is working out for the Raptors today in hopes of a comeback, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link).
- Sixers second-round pick Vasilije Micic is staying overseas and won’t sign with Philadelphia for this season, reports Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Micic went 52nd overall last month.
- Janis Timma, the 60th pick in last year’s draft, will also stay overseas this coming season rather than sign with the Grizzlies, who hold his rights, as Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal writes in a subscription-only piece.
- The Jazz, Rockets and Warriors all recently auditioned Tyler Honeycutt, but the former Kings small forward has signed a two-year deal with Russia’s Khimki Moscow, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia).
Raptors CEO On Carter, Nash, Title Aspirations
Tim Leiweke, CEO of the Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment group that owns the Raptors, believes the franchise is poised for a “growth spurt” with the unique advantage of having an entire country behind it, as he tells USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt. Leiweke points to the team’s willingness to spend, the acumen of GM Masai Ujiri, and the organization’s commitment to competing for championships as selling points for free agents. He also speaks about the effect that former Raptors star Vince Carter had on Canadian basketball, remarks made all the more interesting by Carter’s status as a free agent and reports indicating that the team is in the mix to sign him. Zillgitt’s entire piece is a must read for Raptors fans, but we’ll share a few particularly relevant snippets here:
On Vince Carter and his influence on back-to-back No. 1 overall picks Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins, both of whom are Canadians:
“That is Vince Carter. I give him an enormous amount of credit. That [Raptors] team and that era is the era that is beginning to produce the Wigginses, the Bennetts. He inspired those kids to play basketball at the highest level. Now we get a chance to do that with our era, but we won’t see the results of that for another 10 years.”
On Steve Nash:
“There are probably few people who admire and like Steve Nash like I do. I had the privilege of getting to know him when he came to the Lakers. I love Steve Nash. I hope whenever his career ends, and I hope it’s not today, I hope a great player like that gets to go out on a high. That said, I definitely would hope there’s day in time where Steve Nash is playing a role here somehow.”
On the team’s Atlantic Division title this season, which it celebrated with the hanging of a banner:
“Personally, I wouldn’t have done the banner. They didn’t ask me, but if they did I would’ve told them that doesn’t mean anything. I don’t go in the locker room and congratulate the guys because we haven’t done anything yet. Our guys know that. It’s not that I don’t love our guys and I won’t fight for them. But we haven’t done anything yet. I don’t understand why everyone’s happy. We have work to do here. For me, are we on the right path? Yes. Do we have a chance to do something great? Yes. Talk to me when we do it. I’m not happy. Masai’s not happy.”
Timberwolves Sign Zach LaVine
2:06pm: The Wolves have officially signed LaVine, the team announced (Twitter link).
11:28am: LaVine indeed signed for the standard 120% of the rookie scale, Wolfson tweets.
11:16am: No. 13 overall pick Zach LaVine has signed his rookie scale contract with the Wolves, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). He’s likely receiving nearly $2.056MM for the coming season, assuming he signed for the standard 120% of the rookie scale, as our table of salaries for this year’s first-round picks shows.
There were conflicting reports that Minnesota had given LaVine a promise that they would select him 13th, though the 6’6″ UCLA shooting guard wound up with the Wolves regardless of whether it was preordained. He was one of three players from his school to go in this year’s first round, as Jordan Adams followed at No. 22 to the Grizzlies and the Spurs spent the 30th pick on Kyle Anderson.
LaVine, 19, averaged 9.4 points and shot 37.5% from three-point range in 24.4 minutes per game during his freshman season with the Bruins this year. He’s a raw prospect who’ll require patience from the Wolves, as Eddie Scarito of Hoops Rumors detailed.
2014 Draft Pick Signings
Teams commonly show their newly minted draft picks off to the public in the days following the event, even going to the trouble of printing up jerseys for them to hold for the cameras. Yet unlike free agency, when such displays only happen after contracts are officially signed, most teams wait a while to finalize their deals with draft picks. In some cases, the players never wind up wearing those jerseys in a game, and that’s especially true of second-rounders.
Still, most first-rounders ending up signing at some point, and the predetermined rookie scale contracts they sign eliminate most of the negotiation. I recently ran down the likely salary for each first-round pick, and that’s what the first-rounders with “signed” by their names are getting, unless otherwise noted. There’s no scale for second-rounders, so they wind up signing deals of varying structure and worth. As we update this post throughout the offseason, you’ll see details on the contracts for each second-rounder who signs with his NBA club.
Each player is listed next to the team that holds his rights, which isn’t necessarily the team that drafted him, since so many picks change hands on draft night. We’ll update this post whenever there’s news of a signing, and you’ll be able to find a link to it under the “Hoops Rumors Features” menu on the right sidebar so you can keep up to date throughout the summer.
First Round
- Cavaliers: Andrew Wiggins — signed
- Bucks: Jabari Parker — signed
- Sixers: Joel Embiid — signed
- Magic: Aaron Gordon — signed
- Jazz: Dante Exum — signed
- Celtics: Marcus Smart — signed
- Lakers: Julius Randle — signed
- Kings: Nik Stauskas — signed
- Hornets: Noah Vonleh — signed
- Magic: Elfrid Payton — signed
- Bulls: Doug McDermott — signed
- Sixers: Dario Saric — playing overseas
- Timberwolves: Zach LaVine — signed
- Suns: T.J. Warren — signed
- Hawks: Adreian Payne — signed
- Nuggets: Jusuf Nurkic — signed
- Celtics: James Young — signed
- Suns: Tyler Ennis — signed
- Nuggets: Gary Harris — signed
- Raptors: Bruno Caboclo — signed
- Thunder: Mitch McGary — signed
- Grizzlies: Jordan Adams — signed
- Jazz: Rodney Hood — signed
- Heat: Shabazz Napier — signed
- Rockets: Clint Capela — signed
- Hornets: P.J. Hairston — signed
- Suns: Bogdan Bogdanovic — playing overseas
- Clippers: C.J. Wilcox — signed
- Thunder: Josh Huestis — agreed to sign with the D-League
- Spurs: Kyle Anderson — signed
Second Round
- Bucks: Damien Inglis — signed to a three-year, $2,650,431 deal
- Sixers: K.J. McDaniels — signed to a one-year deal for the minimum salary
- Cavaliers: Joe Harris — signed to a three-year, $2,710,369 deal
- Knicks: Cleanthony Early — signed to a minimum-salary deal
- Grizzlies: Jarnell Stokes — signed to a three-year, $2,550,490 deal
- Bucks: Johnny O’Bryant III — signed to a three-year, $2,425,490 deal
- Raptors: DeAndre Daniels — playing overseas
- Pistons: Spencer Dinwiddie — signed to a three-year, $2,525,490 deal
- Sixers: Jerami Grant — signed to a four-year, $3,761,614 deal
- Timberwolves: Glenn Robinson III — signed to a one-year deal for the minimum salary
- Nuggets: Nikola Jokic — playing overseas
- Rockets: Nick Johnson — signed to a fully guaranteed three-year minimum-salary deal
- Hawks: Walter Tavares — playing overseas
- Nets: Markel Brown — signed to two-year deal for the minimum salary
- Cavaliers: Dwight Powell — signed to a two-year deal for the minimum salary
- Lakers: Jordan Clarkson — signed to a two-year deal for the minimum salary
- Pelicans: Russ Smith — signed to a three-year deal for the minimum salary
- Hawks: Lamar Patterson — playing overseas
- Bulls: Cameron Bairstow — signed to a three-year deal for the minimum salary
- Suns: Alec Brown — unsigned
- Knicks: Thanasis Antetokounmpo — agreed to sign with the D-League
- Sixers: Vasilije Micic — playing overseas
- Rockets: Alessandro Gentile — playing overseas
- Spurs: Nemanja Dangubic — playing overseas
- Thunder: Semaj Christon — agreed to sign with the D-League
- Magic: Devyn Marble — signed to a three-year, $2,710,369 deal
- Knicks: Louis Labeyrie — playing overseas
- Sixers: Jordan McRae — playing overseas
- Nets: Xavier Thames — playing overseas
- Nets: Cory Jefferson —signed to a two-year deal for the minimum salary
Grizzlies To Invite Wilbekin, White To Camp
The Grizzlies will invite Scottie Wilbekin and Okaro White to training camp, according to Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal, who writes in a subscription-only piece. White, a forward from Florida State, and Wilbekin, a point guard from Florida, both went undrafted last month. It doesn’t appear as though either stands much of a chance of making the team’s opening night roster, as Tillery says the Grizzlies’ hopes involve the pair winding up with their D-League affiliate, but it sounds like they’ll at least receive the opportunity.
Wilbekin was the 50th-ranked senior on Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings, while White checked in at No. 67. Both are on the Grizzlies summer league roster for this week in Orlando, while Wilbekin will also suit up for the Sixers in the Las Vegas summer league.
If both accept the invitations and sign summer contracts, they’d be on non-guaranteed minimum-salary deals that wouldn’t count against the cap unless they made the opening night roster. NBA teams can reserve the D-League rights of three players who fail to make the cut out of training camp each fall, and it seems Memphis has two such slots earmarked for the Sunshine State duo.