Lowe’s Latest: Bucks, Knicks, Grizzlies, Pelicans
Grantland’s Zach Lowe looks at instability in the executive suite, profiling the NBA’s six most volatile front offices in the wake of yesterday’s shakeup in Memphis. As usual, Lowe’s work is required reading, but we’ll hit some highlights here:
- Bucks owners Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens have held preliminary talks about potential replacements for GM John Hammond and assistant GM David Morway, but the more likely outcome appears to be that they stay for at least one more year, Lowe writes.
- Former Raptors and Suns GM Bryan Colangelo is open to once more becoming an NBA GM, Lowe hears, but that’s no surprise, given that he was reportedly a candidate for the Cavs and Pistons front office searches. Lowe mentions him within his look at the Bucks, which is coincidental given an earlier report that linked him to an ownership group looking to buy the franchise when it was for sale. Still, it doesn’t appear as though there’s any particular link between the Bucks and Colangelo at this point.
- The Knicks will likely hire someone within the next year to replace Steve Mills as general manager and shunt Mills off into some other role with the organization, according to Lowe.
- Some high-level executives on teams around the league hadn’t heard about Grizzlies attorney David Mincberg, who’s reportedly assumed some power in the basketball operations department, Lowe hears.
- The job of Memphis GM Chris Wallace, whom the team has restored to a prominent role after the departures of CEO Jason Levien and assistant GM Stu Lash, is safe “until he wants to leave,” Lowe writes.
- There have been few reports alleging that GM Dell Demps is on shaky ground to return next year, but people around the league have been curious about whether the team would bring him back for 2014/15, according to Lowe. There have been disagreements between Demps and coach Monty Williams, and the team’s owners favor Williams, Lowe hears. In any case, he’ll probably return, though there will be pressure on him for the team to improve and perhaps make the playoffs next season, Lowe writes.
- Louisiana native Joe Dumars is close to executives with the New Orleans Saints, the NFL franchise that Pelicans owner Tom Benson also owns. That would make him a likely candidate for Pelicans GM job should the team decide to oust Demps, Lowe asserts.
- Pistons coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy says that the team’s ownership will have just as much say as he does in whom they hire as GM, as he tells Lowe.
Each Team’s Odds For Top-Three Picks
The NBA’s draft lottery is set to take place tonight, with the league’s 14 non-playoff teams vying for a chance at the first overall pick and the opportunity to select a player from a crop of prospects that includes Andrew Wiggins, Joel Embiid, Jabari Parker and others.
The odds at landing the first overall pick are cited frequently, from the Milwaukee’s 25% all the way down to Phoenix’s 0.5%. But what chance does each team have to land a top-three pick? Listed in the chart below are the odds each lottery team has at the first, second, and third overall picks, as well as each team’s overall odds at landing in the top three, with explanation where applicable.
The first number you see here is the team’s odds for the first pick. The second is the odds for the second pick, and the third the odds for pick No. 3. The final number is the odds for any top-three pick.
- Bucks — 25%, 21.5%, 17.7%, 64.2%
- Sixers — 19.9%, 18.8%, 17.1%, 55.8%
- Magic — 15.6%, 15.7%, 15.6%, 46.9% — These percentages reflect the Magic’s odds of landing a top three pick with their own selection. They stand a .0076% chance of earning two top-three picks, since they get the less favorable of the Nuggets and Knicks picks, as University of Florida statistics professor Larry Winner tells Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. Winner also calculates the odds that the Magic end up with a top-three pick from the Nuggets and Knicks but fall outside the top three with their own pick as .044%.
- Jazz — 10.4%, 11.2%, 12.1%, 33.7% — The Jazz and Celtics tied for the fourth-worst record, and the Jazz won the random drawing to have the fourth-best lottery odds. Utah’s odds are only slightly better than Boston’s, however, since they take the average of the odds for the fourth and fifth worst teams and give the winner of the random drawing the extra ping-pong ball combination if, as in this case, the number of combinations works out to an odd number. The amalgamated odds for the Celtics and Jazz are courtesy of Celtics assistant GM Mike Zarren and Celtics.com.
- Celtics — 10.3%, 11.1%, 12.0%, 33.4%
- Lakers — 6.3%, 7.1%, 8.1%, 21.5%
- Kings — 4.3%, 4.9%, 5.8%, 15.0%
- Pistons — 2.8%, 3.3%, 3.9%, 9.9%
- Cavs — 1.7%, 2.0%, 2.4%, 6.1%
- Pelicans — 1.1%, 1.3%, 1.6%, 4.0%
- Nuggets — 1.5%, 1.7%, 2.2%, 5.4% — These are the combined odds of Denver and New York, which gives its pick up to Denver in every scenario. The Nuggets in turn owe the less favorable of their pick and New York’s pick to the Magic, as explained above.
- Knicks — 0% (owes its pick to the Nuggets).
- Timberwolves — 0.6%, 0.7%, 0.9%, 2.2%
- Suns — 0.5%, 0.6%, 0.7%, 1.8%
Magic To Partner With Erie BayHawks
MAY 19TH: The deal is now official, according to Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel.
MAY 9TH: An official announcement of the new arrangement will be made the week of May 19th, reports Gino Pilato of D-League Digest.
APRIL 15TH: The Erie BayHawks will serve as the Magic’s D-League affiliate in a one-to-one relationship next season, sources tell Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today. The Knicks announced this spring that they’re ending their hybrid partnership with the BayHawks after the season and starting a D-League expansion team that will serve as their affiliate. Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reported in February that the Magic had been in talks with an existing D-League team about forming a one-to-one relationship, and Zillgitt reveals it was indeed the BayHawks.
The Magic are one of six teams sharing the Fort Wayne Mad Ants this season, and they haven’t made a D-League assignment in 2013/14, even though their roster is full of young, developing players. GM Rob Hennigan and company apparently want to make better use of the D-League, despite the approximately 1,000-mile distance between Orlando and Erie, Pennsylvania that will make it tough for the club to liberally shuttle players back and forth as many teams with closer affiliates do. Still, it’s only about half the distance separating the Heat from their one-to-one affiliate in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
There were 14 NBA teams this season with a one-to-one D-League affiliation. The Pistons will also join that list next season, while the Blazers are ending their relationship with the Idaho Stampede and will share an affiliate in 2014/15. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another team strike a direct partnership with the Stampede before next season. The number of teams with one-to-one affiliates has grown in the past few years, and the D-League hopes someday to have a club lined up with each NBA team.
The hybrid partnership means the Magic will run the basketball operations for the BayHawks, while Erie’s owners will take care of the business end of the club. There are seven NBA franchises that have similar arrangements with a D-League team this season, while other NBA clubs own their affiliates outright.
And-Ones: Watson, Love, Seattle, Isiah, Draft
Earl Watson would like to coach the Jazz next season, and he’s picked up the endorsement of restricted free agent Gordon Hayward, as both Watson and Hayward tell Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com. Watson, who played with the Blazers this year, hasn’t ruled out playing again next season, but if he becomes Jazz coach, he’ll target Hubie Brown as an assistant, he says. Here’s more from around the league with an altered title picture now that Serge Ibaka is expected to miss the rest of the playoffs.
- Kevin Love will have some say in who coaches him next season on the Wolves, owner Glen Taylor confirmed to Charley Walters of the Star Tribune. President of basketball operations Flip Saunders has spoken with eight candidates, but he hasn’t endorsed any of them to Taylor, Walters adds.
- Taylor also said the Wolves lost “a couple million” dollars this year, Walters notes in the same piece.
- Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who partnered with Chris Hansen on an ill-fated bid to buy the Kings and move them to Seattle, is open to purchasing any NBA team, but wouldn’t necessarily bring them to the Emerald City, as he tells Shira Ovide of The Wall Street Journal. He says he wouldn’t move the Clippers out of Los Angeles if he bought them.
- Isiah Thomas and the Pistons are in preliminary talks about a deal for him to purchase a minority share of the team, reports Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News.
- Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey and Cavs GM David Griffin have said they’re open to trading their respective first-round picks for players who can help immediately, according to Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio.
- Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson has political aspirations that would make him reticent to accept the post of executive director of the players union, but the job increasingly appears to be his if he wants it, tweets Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times.
- Hawks and Cavs officials will meet with draft prospect Alessandro Gentile of the Italian league, Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia reports. The swingman is No. 66 in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings and 100th with Chad Ford of ESPN.com.
Offseason Outlook: Golden State Warriors
Guaranteed Contracts
- Andrew Bogut ($12,972,973)
- David Lee ($15,012,000)
- Andre Iguodala ($12,289,544)
- Stephen Curry ($10,629,213)
- Marreese Speights ($3,657,500)
- Klay Thompson ($3,075,880)
- Harrison Barnes ($3,049,920)
- Festus Ezeli ($1,112,880)
- Nemanja Nedovic ($1,104,240)
- Ognjen Kuzmic ($816,482)
Options
- None
Non-Guaranteed Contracts
- Hilton Armstrong ($1,145,685)
- Draymond Green ($915,243; guaranteed for $250,000)*
Free Agents / Cap Holds
- Steve Blake ($7,600,000)
- Jordan Crawford ($5,406,048)**
- Jermaine O’Neal ($2,400,000)
Draft Picks
- None
Cap Outlook
- Guaranteed Salary: $63,970,632
- Options: $0
- Non-Guaranteed Salary: $1,810,928
- Cap Holds: $15,406,048
- Total: $81,187,608
In the span of eight days, the Warriors went from an ex-Knick as their coach to someone who seemed destined to become a future Knick. Instead, Steve Kerr will be on the Warriors bench next season, overseeing an offense with a few triangle-inspired principles but with a heavy dose of Stephen Curry in the pick-and-roll, as he told Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group. Kerr cites Gregg Popovich, who coached him for four seasons in San Antonio, as an influence, but it’s a stretch to declare him a member of the vaunted Popovich coaching tree, or any coaching tree at all, since he’s never coached before. He walks into the job with the sort of comfortable relationships with co-owner Joe Lacob, GM Bob Myers and other Warriors bigwigs that predecessor Mark Jackson didn’t have, but the pressure for Kerr to succeed in a field that’s new to him will be instant. Lacob expected this year’s squad to be a top-four team in a loaded Western Conference, and with limited flexibility for changes to the roster over the summer, the onus will be on Kerr to lift the team to that elite level immediately to avoid the sort of in-house scrutiny that dogged Jackson.
The club enters the offseason with commitments that slightly exceed the projected $63.2MM salary cap. Even if the cap winds up going even higher, any room the Warriors could create would almost certainly not be significant enough to entice the team to renounce its cap holds and officially dip under the cap, thus causing the forfeiture of the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception. That mid-level, worth $5.305MM, figures to be the team’s primary offseason tool. The biannual exception is unavailable, since the team used it to sign Jermaine O’Neal last year. The projected increase to the tax threshold for next season doesn’t get as much publicity as the rise in the salary cap, but it’s actually a larger jump, exceeding $5MM. The ability to spend up to $77MM without incurring the tax gives Golden State plenty of cushion to use the full mid-level, re-sign their trio of free agents, and explore trades that would add to the payroll.
Lacob has expressed his willingness to pay the tax in the right circumstance, and it might come to that if the team is to become a true title contender. Still, short of the chance to acquire a superstar, the Warriors seem more likely to lurk beneath the threshold and revisit the idea of going over it closer to the deadline, when their relative title chances will be more apparent. Golden State pulled off the Andre Iguodala trade last year with much less flexibility beneath the tax than it has now, so the front office has established that it’s capable of finding a way to manage an upgrade even under challenging financial circumstances. Still, the Iguodala deal cost Golden State its ability to promise a team a first-round pick before 2019, and the Warriors don’t have the haul of expiring contracts they needed to make the salaries work last time, making it tough to manage a trade that makes a difference without cutting into the core of the roster.
The most obvious target is the man whom Iguodala knocked from the starting lineup. It was Jackson’s call to bring Harrison Barnes off the bench, and it’s not out of the question that Kerr has different ideas. Still, the Warriors starting five of Iguodala, Curry, Klay Thompson, David Lee and Andrew Bogut was a tantalizingly efficient unit, outscoring opponents by 15.4 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com. That’s the second-best margin of any five-man unit in the league that saw at least 250 minutes together this season. It’s a sign of success, and a sign of failure for the bench, since the team outscored opponents by just 5.4 points per 100 possessions overall.
Barnes doesn’t deserve all the blame for a group of reserves that suffered from the departures of Jarrett Jack and Carl Landry, but the seventh overall pick from 2012 suffered a disturbing stall in his development, with most of his numbers holding steady or declining slightly in spite of more minutes per game. His PER fell from 11.0 as a rookie to 9.8 this season, and most lottery picks who record sub-10 PERs have trouble avoiding the “bust” label. Barnes, who’ll turn 22 in a couple of weeks, seemingly still has time to turn his career around and fulfill his promise. While that possibility makes it difficult to fathom trading him away, it also makes this summer perhaps the perfect time to strike, before the perception of his upside changes for the worse.
The Grizzlies reportedly made a push to trade for Barnes at the deadline, and the Cavs apparently inquired about him, too, but the Warriors brushed off such talks and Lacob publicly cast doubt on the idea of letting him go. The Warriors made counter-proposals in response to a few offers, as Chad Ford of ESPN.com reported as he passed along a list of names that intrigued the team: Greg Monroe, Thaddeus Young, Tristan Thompson, Kenneth Faried, John Henson, Amir Johnson and Kevin Love. Some of those names would appear on any team’s list of intriguing players, and others are cornerstones that their clubs would be reluctant to trade. Still, the Warriors aren’t afraid to try to hit home runs, as their pursuit of Dwight Howard last summer made clear, and the likes of Love can’t be considered out of the realm of possibility, no matter how unlikely they are to wind up in Golden State next season.
Barnes might be the team’s best trade asset, but he isn’t the only one, even if the team does have a few sacred cows. Trading Curry seems unthinkable, and Lacob has vowed to keep Thompson, who’s up for an extension this summer, for the long haul. Bogut just received an extension this past fall, and while his inability to remain healthy is troubling, his presence as a defensive anchor, not to mention his long-term contract, would make it tough for the Warriors to send him away.
Lee inspires much disdain from critics who see beyond his impressive traditional stats, reminiscent of the advanced metrics community’s vitriolic deconstructions of Rudy Gay. The Warriors made their 2013 playoff run largely without his help, save for his laudatory efforts to play through a painful hip injury. He nonetheless has more than $30MM and two years left on his deal, and it might prove impossible to find a team willing to take that on and give back fair value in return this summer. Iguodala has changed teams the past two summers, and if the front office determines it was better off in 2012/13 with reserves like Jack and Landry than this past season with Iggy, there’s a decent chance he’d be on the move again. The Warriors might also attempt to trade bench players for bench players, banking on their ability to get more than they give.
The only pressure the Warriors would have to make a major upgrade this summer would be self-created, and there’s plenty of incentive for the team to concentrate on finding the best mid-level fit available. Curry and Thompson are young, with room for continued improvement, and the same can be said of Barnes, providing that this past season was an aberration. Festus Ezeli was impressive as a rookie, and his return to health bodes well for the bench. No matter what, negotiating that extension with Thompson will be a priority. Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group (no relation) suggested recently that the shooting guard will wind up with $12MM annual salaries, putting him on par with Ty Lawson, who was probably the best player on a 57-win Nuggets team in 2012/13. The Warriors no doubt have higher aspirations than to mimic the team they pushed aside in last year’s playoffs, but Thompson is at best second on Golden State’s hierarchy to Curry, who’s on an even cheaper deal for another three seasons. The Warriors appear to have the foundation and framework needed to contend. The question is whether they have the front office savvy and patience necessary to fill in the gaps.
Cap footnotes
* — Green’s salary becomes fully guaranteed if he’s not waived on or before August 1st.
** — Crawford’s qualifying offer is worth $3,206,867.
ShamSports and Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ were used in the creation of this post.
Pacific Rumors: Rivers, Sterling, Kerr, Hoiberg
Doc Rivers hadn’t ruled out leaving the Clippers in the weeks after questioning whether he’d be back with the team next season amid the Sterling maelstrom, but he finally shut the door on that possibility Thursday. Rivers said he has no plans to go anywhere, pointing to his contract, which runs two more seasons, as Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports tweets.
- Donald Sterling’s threat that he won’t pay his $2.5MM fine is immaterial, since the NBA would simply take it out of the television rights money the league distributes to teams, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com points out (on Twitter).
- Some Warriors players are withholding welcomes for new coach Steve Kerr out of support for the ousted Mark Jackson, and one Warriors player suggests race played a factor in the coaching change, as he tells Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher.
- The Warriors had talks with Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg before hiring Kerr, but there was no formal interview or offer from the team, reports Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group. Kerr and Stan Van Gundy were the top two candidates, with Hoiberg and Lionel Hollins waiting on the next tier, Kawakami believes (All Twitter links).
- Kerr’s base salary is $22MM, with incentives that could take the pay on his five-year deal up to the $25MM figure that’s been previously reported, a source tells Marc Berman of the New York Post.
- The Kings will attempt to trade for a second-round pick, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee.
- A Kings representative who spoke with Jones mentioned Zach LaVine as a draft prospect he liked, though the team official cautioned that the lottery could change the landscape (Twitter link).
Draft Combine Updates: Friday
We gathered a slew of reports connecting draft prospects with teams yesterday on the first full day of the Chicago draft combine, and we’ll do the same today with this post. The latest updates will be on top as we follow the action throughout.
- Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders adds the Pistons, Kings and Suns to the list of teams interviewing Noah Vonleh (Twitter link).
- The Pistons met with Rodney Hood, Ellis tweets, and the Thunder also met with him, Holmes notes (on Twitter).
- Thanasis Antetokounmpo sat down with the Nets, Knicks, Pacers, Cavs, Wizards and Pelicans, according to Woelfel (Twitter link).
2:00pm updates:
- The Pistons have met with Smart and Zach LaVine, according to Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press and Keith Langlois of Pistons.com, respectively (Twitter links).
- Smart is also among the players interviewing with the Celtics tonight, according to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe, and the C’s spoke with Aaron Gordon, too, fellow Globe scribe Baxter Holmes notes (Twitter links).
- Gordon also met with the Magic, who are set to meet with James Michael McAdoo, as well, according to Robbins (Twitter links).
- Tyler Ennis is meeting with the Bucks today after interviewing with the Bulls on Thursday, as Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times and Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com report (Twitter links).
- Jarnell Stokes already worked out for the Raptors, according to Wolstat (on Twitter).
12:02pm updates:
- Dante Exum‘s interview with the Magic went well, he said, adding that the team would like to bring him to Central Florida for a workout, tweets Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. Robbins, in a full piece, added Marcus Smart to the list of top prospects who’ve interviewed with the Magic.
- Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge expressed a fondness for Smart today in an interview with ESPN’s Andy Katz on the network’s coverage of the combine, as Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv notes (on Twitter).
- Gary Harris told Katz he met with the Raptors, Nuggets, Grizzlies and Pistons, as Zagoria once more passes along via Twitter.
- The Raptors will interview Jordan Adams today, according to Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun, who says the team also spoke with James Young (Twitter links).
- Zagoria adds the Sixers, Spurs, Clippers, Mavs, Nuggets, Warriors and Bulls to the list of teams that Kyle Anderson either met or is slated to meet (Twitter link).
- Markel Brown said he’ll talk with the Celtics today, according to A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com (Twitter link).
Latest On Knicks Coaching Search
2:24pm: Phil Jackson and Mike Dunleavy Sr. met this morning, a source tells Marc Berman of the New York Post. The two have had occasional casual meetings for a while, but today’s encounter was more than just a friendly get-together, Berman hears. It’s still unclear whether Jackson considers Dunleavy a strong candidate, a source close to Dunleavy tells Berman.
8:52am: There were no indications as of Thursday afternoon that the Knicks would consider Mark Jackson for the coaching vacancy, but apparently that’s changed, as Marc Berman of the New York Post hears that the former Warriors coach is on New York’s tentative list of candidates. The Knicks are also likely to interview Lakers assistant Kurt Rambis and Bucks assistant Jim Cleamons, assuming they get permission from their respective teams, and Knicks president Phil Jackson is high on Pacers assistant Nate McMillan, too, Berman writes.
Berman echoes earlier reports that the Knicks are eyeing Thunder guard Derek Fisher to coach the team. Still, a source tells the Post scribe that there’s concern about a bidding war between the Knicks and Lakers over Fisher, who plans to retire from playing when Oklahoma City’s postseason run ends. Fisher has expressed less than full-throated enthusiasm about coaching next season, as Berman notes.
Phil Jackson is OK with hiring an established coach who doesn’t specialize in the triangle, but he’d want someone willing to adopt at least a semblance of the triple-post offense, according to Berman. That conflicts somewhat with Thursday’s prevailing wisdom that the Knicks were focused mainly on young coaches with ties to the Knicks president. Other candidates who appear to be in the mix include Nuggets coach Brian Shaw, Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg, Clippers assistant Tyronn Lue and Lakers D-League assistant Luke Walton.
Knicks Likely To Pursue Steve Blake
The Knicks are expected to pursue Steve Blake in free agency this summer, tweets Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com, who confirms an earlier report from Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv that team president Phil Jackson told Raymond Felton he will seek to trade him this summer. The 34-year-old Blake just finished the final season of a four-year, $16MM contract that he signed in 2010 with the Lakers, who traded him to the Warriors at the deadline this year.
Blake has been primarily a reserve the past five seasons, though he started in all 27 of his appearances for the Lakers this year in place of Steve Nash, who missed most of the season with a variety of ailments. Blake has also missed significant time the past two seasons, having played in only 100 of a possible 164 regular season games. He would seem an odd choice to replace Felton, who was New York’s starting point guard, but perhaps Jackson is only seeking him for the bench and will go after a starting-caliber point guard via trade. It’ll be difficult for the Knicks, who’ll likely end up in the tax again next season, to bring in a starting point guard via free agency, since they’ll probably only have the taxpayer’s mid-level to offer.
It’ll be a similarly tough assignment for agent Joel Bell to find a deal for his client that closely resembles his last contract, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Blake sign for more than the minimum salary, especially given the apparent interest this early in the offseason. Blake has spoken of his affection for the Lakers and Warriors, so a reunion with Jackson, his former coach, might not be tops on his wish list. The Knicks could probably snag him for a portion of their smaller mid-level, worth $3.278MM, leaving them with an opportunity to ink one more non-minimum free agent.
Wizards Links: Gortat, Ariza, Wittman, Miller
Marc Stein of ESPN.com continues his Summer Scoop series with a look at the Wizards, who have little to be disappointed about in spite of last night’s playoff elimination at the hands of the Pacers. We’ll sum up the highlights here and pass along some additional insight:
- The Wizards are indeed interested in re-signing Trevor Ariza as well as Marcin Gortat, but there’s concern that they’ll prove too expensive to retain, Stein writes, pointing to Gortat as the team’s top priority should it have to choose. Martell Webster shot a dreadful 23.1% from behind the arc in the postseason, but he looms as a superior plan B at small forward than anyone the Wizards have to replace Gortat, Stein suggests.
- J. Michael of CSNWashington.com pegs the salary that the Wizards will have to shell out to retain Gortat at about $10MM. Executives around the league believe Gortat and Ariza will cost a combined $15-20MM in annual salaries, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe reported this week.
- Coach Randy Wittman, whose contract is up, is likely to return as coach, Stein hears, but there was chatter entering the playoffs that a loss in the first-round would prompt the Wizards to dump Wittman and pursue George Karl and Alvin Gentry. Now the only question is whether the team will offer Wittman a one-year deal to align his contract with that of GM Ernie Grunfeld, which expires after next season, or make it a long-term pact for the coach.
- The Wizards are leaning toward retaining Andre Miller, whose $4.625MM salary for next season is only guaranteed for $2MM, but they haven’t made up their minds yet, Stein reports.