Lowe’s Latest: Kidd, Blatche, Hammond, Profits
Departing Nets coach Jason Kidd planned to eventually fire most if not all of the team’s front office as he sought control of the club’s basketball operations, several league sources tell Grantland’s Zach Lowe. The Grantland scribe has plenty more revelations on Kidd’s shocking change of address as well as insight on revenue and profitability for several NBA franchises. We’ll hit the highlights here:
- Kidd suggested to Nets ownership at midseason that they replace GM Billy King, though he didn’t pitch himself for the job at that point, Lowe writes. The Bucks sought permission to talk to Kidd earlier this month, and when the Nets hesitated to respond, Kidd made his push to assume control of Nets front office.
- The Nets publicly termed Andray Blatche‘s midseason absence a product of “personal reasons,” but it was instead because Kidd had essentially suspended him out of concerns over the big man’s conditioning and preparation, according to Lowe. Kidd’s move impressed Nets brass, Lowe adds.
- The jobs of Bucks GM John Hammond and assistant GM David Morway are safe for the time being, Lowe hears, adding that those two nonetheless had no knowledge of ownership’s negotiations with Kidd.
- The Nets are projected to have lost a league-high $144MM this year, Lowe reports. The Wizards are next on that list, projected to have lost just $13MM.
- The Bucks are set to make about $18MM from the league’s revenue sharing program and $3MM from luxury tax payouts, making up for the $6.5MM the team is projected to have lost this year.
- The Hornets are projected to have lost almost $34MM while taking in only about $22MM in revenue sharing income. The Pistons are set to tally $26MM in losses and recoup only $10.6MM.
- The Lakers lead the league with a $100.1MM projected profit, followed by the Bulls at $61MM, Rockets at $40.7MM, Celtics at $33.1MM and Thunder at nearly $29MM. The Spurs, Jazz and Nuggets also are in line to profit.
- The high-revenue Knicks are expected to have lost $3.5MM.
Free Agent Rumors: Lowry, Gasol, Parsons, Ariza
Raptors GM Masai Ujiri is likely to make a strong push to re-sign Kyle Lowry just as free agency begins tonight to prevent the Heat and Rockets from having a chance to jump in, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Here’s more free agency chatter with 11 hours left to go until negotiations can begin:
- Pau Gasol will meet with the Thunder, Bulls and Warriors, reports Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times, who suggests the big man hasn’t ruled out a meeting with Lakers brass, either.
- Chandler Parsons would be on board with a sign-and-trade to the Wolves if the money is on the mark, a source close to Parsons tells Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). Minnesota reportedly has interest in Parsons as a fallback trade target in a Kevin Love swap.
- The Rockets, Mavs, Lakers, Clippers, Cavs, Raptors, Suns and Pistons are all suitors for Trevor Ariza, as Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders hears (Twitter link).
- The Rockets and Mavs are gearing up to sign Jordan Hill, as are the Lakers, Hill’s incumbent team, Wojnarowski tweets.
- The Magic are likely to make a play for Rodney Stuckey, as Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press writes.
- Kent Bazemore is anticipating interest from the Suns, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (on Twitter).
- Matt Bonner is interested in a return to the Spurs, as Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News observes (Twitter link). “I’d love to be back, especially if everybody is coming back.”
- Damian Lillard would like to see the Blazers go after Channing Frye, Vince Carter, Spencer Hawes and Ariza after re-signing Mo Williams, the point guard tells Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com. Carter would be open to signing with Portland, Haynes hears.
Hoops Rumors 2014 Free Agent Tracker
With free agency set to officially get underway in a matter of hours, and news and rumors already swirling, Hoops Rumors is here to help you keep track of which players are heading to which teams this July. We’ve got a new version of a feature we introduced last season: our Free Agent Tracker. Using our tracker, you can quickly sort through contract agreements, sorting by team, position, free agent type, and a handful of other variables.
A few notes on the tracker:
- During the July moratorium (July 1st-9th), most of the information you’ll find in the tracker will reflect contract agreements, rather than finalized deals. As signings become official, we’ll continue to update and modify the data as needed.
- Similarly, contract years and dollars will be based on what’s been reported to date, so in some cases those amounts will be approximations rather than official figures. Salaries aren’t necessarily fully guaranteed either.
- A restricted free agent who signs an offer sheet will be listed under the team that extended the offer sheet, but note that those signings won’t be official unless the player’s original team declines to match within the three-day period to do so. If the original team matches, we’ll update the tracker to show that the player is back with that team.
Our 2014 Free Agent Tracker can be found anytime on the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features,” and it’s also under the “Tools” menu atop the site. It will be updated throughout the offseason, so be sure to check back for the latest info. If you have any corrections, please let us know right here.
Magic Waive Doron Lamb
The Magic have waived Doron Lamb, the team announced, confirming a report from Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. His minimum-salary contract was set to go from non-guaranteed to fully guaranteed if the team hadn’t waived him by the end of Tuesday.
The 22-year-old shooting guard hits unrestricted free agency after his second season in the league, having averaged 3.6 points in 13.1 minutes per game for Orlando this past year. He came to the Magic as part of the J.J. Redick trade with the Bucks at the deadline in 2013.
Milwaukee made the Arn Tellem client the 42nd overall pick in 2012, but last season’s production to similar to his output as a rookie. He’ll likely be in the market for another minimum-salary deal, perhaps with a partial guarantee.
Latest On Carmelo Anthony
Carmelo Anthony is confident that the Knicks will offer him a maximum-salary contract to entice him to stay, a source tells Frank Isola of the New York Daily News. The team is reportedly willing to do so in spite of Phil Jackson‘s repeated public attempts to persuade the star forward to re-sign for less. Anthony is eligible for a deal worth more than $129.1MM over five years, as Luke Adams of Hoops Rumors explained.
The sought-after free agent is set to meet with the Bulls on Tuesday, Mavs and Rockets on Wednesday, and the Lakers at some point this week, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com. The visit with Lakers brass is likely to happen Thursday, Isola writes. The Knicks are nonetheless apparently upbeat about their chances to keep the 2012/13 scoring champ.
The Bulls appear to be in the lead to snatch him away from New York. Derrick Rose reiterated his stance that he doesn’t feel that it’s his place to recruit stars to the team while nonetheless praising Anthony’s game in an interview with Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. A source close to Rose told K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune that Anthony understands that Rose would like to have him in Chicago and denied that Rose would prefer that the Bulls acquire Kevin Love instead of Anthony.
Tony Parker Buys Majority Stake In French Club
JUNE 30TH: Parker has become president of Asvel Villeurbanne, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). Carchia confirms that this means he’s now the majority owner of the team (Twitter link). Former NBA players Michael Finley and Corey Maggette will become minority owners, Parker said as part of the team’s release.
MARCH 21ST: Tony Parker will purchase a controlling interest in Asvel Villeurbanne, the French team that he’s owned in part since 2009, as Le Progres reports on its website (hat tip to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando; translation via Jeff Garcia of Project Spurs). Parker said he plans to play five or six more seasons in the NBA and round out his playing career by suiting up for his own team.
Parker’s contract with San Antonio runs through next season, though only $3.5MM of his $12.5MM salary in 2014/15 is guaranteed. The Spurs will almost certainly retain him and pay out his full salary next season, making him a part of a marquee free agent class in the summer of 2015, when he’ll be 33 years old. Parker’s timeline would have him leaving the NBA when he’s 37 or 38.
Parker is a native of Belgium, but he identifies as a French national, having played in France prior to his arrival in San Antonio for the 2001/02 season. The Spurs also have French native Boris Diaw on their roster, and they employed Nando De Colo, another French native, until they traded him to Toronto at the deadline. The Spurs have a greater number of players from overseas than any other NBA team, and they’ve long been innovators in mining the international market for talent.
The Spurs took Asvel Villeurbanne’s Livio Jean-Charles with the 28th pick in the draft last summer, although San Antonio has yet to sign him. I wouldn’t be surprised if San Antonio envisions using its partnership with Parker to funnel more prospects through Asvel Villeurbanne and utilize the team as though it were an international farm club of sorts, though that’s just my speculation. Parker’s plan to buy the French team could also draw scrutiny from the NBA, which may see it as a conflict of interest or an arrangement that could give the Spurs an unfair competitive advantage.
Rockets Decline Option On Troy Daniels
The Rockets have turned down their team option on postseason revelation Troy Daniels, the team announced. The team intends to extend a qualifying offer to the swingman today, just as it will with Chandler Parsons, to make both of them restricted free agents in hopes of retaining them for next season, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. Rockets brass will pitch marquee free agents on the idea of having both Daniels and Parsons back, Feigen adds (Twitter links).
Daniels was set to make the one-year veteran’s minimum of $816,482 on the option next season. His qualifying offer will be worth $200K more than that. There’s a decent chance he’ll command more than the minimum after emerging as a key rotation player in the playoffs, averaging 7.8 points on sizzling 53.3% three-point shooting in the final four games of Houston’s first-round loss to the Blazers. Even if that sample size proves too small to merit a raise, the qualifying offer means he’ll represent a slightly larger cap hit on Houston’s books as the team chases LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and other stars in free agency.
The Rockets signed Daniels shortly after the trade deadline, cutting Ronnie Brewer to make room. He only appeared in five regular season games, but dazzled in the D-League, putting up 21.9 PPG and shooting 40.1% from behind the arc.
Offseason Outlook Series
The draft is in the books, but the NBA’s free agent scramble awaits. We’ve been taking an in-depth look over the past two months at each of the NBA’s 30 teams and the challenges they face as they try to improve their rosters this summer. All 30 Offseason Outlook pieces have been published, so if you missed any of your favorite teams, here’s a link to each piece, sorted by division:
Atlantic
Central
Southeast
Southwest
Northwest
Pacific
Raptors Have No Interest In Lowry, Heat Deal
7:10pm: Bucher has retracted the story via his Twitter feed, saying the information he obtained from sources was incorrect (All Twitter links).
FRIDAY, 6:02pm: An agreement in principle on the trade is “imminent,” reports Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report. Bucher also backs off the assertion that a Bosh return to Toronto was a definite part of the deal, now saying that Bosh and the Raptors intend to meet to “gauge his interest” in returning.
9:55pm: Norris Cole would head to the Raptors in this scenario, too, Bucher hears (Twitter link).
THURSDAY, 9:42pm: The Raptors are seeking to send Kyle Lowry to the Heat in a sign-and-trade that would also involve Chris Bosh opting out and heading back to Toronto, Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher tweets. The soon-to-be free agent Lowry and the Heat reportedly have mutual interest, even though Lowry has expressed a strong affection for Toronto.
The notion that Bosh, who would be a free agent should he opt out of his deal, would head back to the team where he began his career, seems an odd one, especially given Bosh’s strong desire to remain in Miami. Still, it’s apparently questionable whether he’d want to remain with the Heat if LeBron James left.
It’s not truly surprising that the Raptors would envision trading Lowry for Bosh, given that Bosh is a perennial All-Star and Lowry has never been selected for the game. Still, the notion that the Raptors are attempting to make the move, even as they’ve professed allegiance to Lowry time and again, indicates that they’re willing to be bold and leave no option unexplored this summer.
Wizards To Retain Andre Miller
The Wizards have let Andre Miller know that they’ll keep him past Saturday, when his $2MM partial guarantee for next season jumps to a full guarantee on his $4.625MM salary, agent Andy Miller tells J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. The Wizards had been leaning toward keeping him, as Michael Lee of The Washington Post reported earlier today, advancing an earlier report of the same from Marc Stein of ESPN.com in May.
Miller filled a need at backup point guard this past season when he came over to Washington at the trade deadline. Still, he played even fewer minutes per game for the Wizards than he did in the first half of the season for Denver, where he clashed with coach Brian Shaw, who had already cut his playing time. The Wizards appear to be making a strong push to re-sign both Marcin Gortat and Trevor Ariza, one made even more important with today’s news of Martell Webster‘s back surgery, and the savings that could be reaped from waiving Miller might have come in handy.
The 38-year-old Miller was nonetheless a functional part of the rotation on the most successful Wizards team in more than three decades, and his 14.6 PER is a desirable figure for a bench player. His contract expires after the coming season, so the Wizards aren’t making a lengthy commitment. Michael suggests that the deal Wizards draft-and-stash prospect Tomas Satoransky has with a team in Spain coupled with the team’s failure to land preferred draft target Spencer Dinwiddie helped make the team’s decision regarding Miller easier.