Clint Capela Declares For Draft
One of the top European talents appears to be on his way to the NBA, as Clint Capela has officially entered the draft, his French team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). The French league power forward is No. 18 in Chad Ford’s ESPN.com prospect rankings, and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress has him at No. 19.
Capela is 6’11” with a wingspan of 7’4.5″ that helps him defensively and on the boards. He averaged 7.0 rebounds in 20.9 minutes per game for Elan Chalon in France, though he isn’t a featured player on offense, scoring 9.7 points on 6.4 shots per game. The native of Switzerland spent nearly half the season coming off the bench.
An NBA team would have to pay $500K to buy him out of his French contract, as Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reported earlier this month, though that probably wouldn’t be a stumbling block. It wouldn’t come out of his rookie scale salary, since it’s less than the Excluded International Player Payment Amount specified in the collective bargaining agreement.
Damien Inglis To Enter Draft
French league forward Damien Inglis is entering this year’s draft, reports Pedja Materic of BeoBasket (Twitter link). Inglis, who turns 19 next month, is the 38th-best prospect in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings, but Chad Ford of ESPN.com has him unranked.
Inglis has an intriguing build, with 6’9″ height and a 7’3″ wingspan, and several NBA scouts have told Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports that they’re high on his defensive ability. The native of French Guiana didn’t put up impressive offensive numbers for Chorale Roanne in France this season, scoring just 4.7 points in 15 minutes per game. Still, he shot 38.7% from three-point territory.
Inglis tells Spears that he might withdraw from the draft before the June 16th deadline to do so. He wouldn’t be automatically draft-eligible until 2017.
“I want to develop my game with a good team who is very interested and focused on me,” Inglis said. “I want to play in the league next year but it depends. I don’t really want [to] take my name out.”
And-Ones: Ratings, Kerr, Kings, Sixers
All five of the teams in the NBA’s three largest media markets saw declines in local ratings during the regular season, and local ratings fell about 5% leaguewide, report John Ourand and John Lombardo of Sports Business Journal. The news belies an otherwise rosy financial picture for the league, with the latest salary cap projection for 2014/15 coming in at $63.2MM, a more than 7.7% hike from this season. Here’s the latest from the Association:
- Steve Kerr is concerned with the failure of the Knicks to capitalize on their resources in the James Dolan era, and Kerr intends to do his research before taking any offer from the team, a source tells Frank Isola of the New York Daily News.
- Former New York Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum is likely to become Kerr’s agent, Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com reports.
- Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro isn’t ruling out the idea of trading the team’s first-round pick, and he’ll also try to trade for a second-round pick, as he told reporters, including Ailene Voisin and Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee (All Twitter links).
- Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News would be shocked if Arnett Moultrie were back with the Sixers for 2014/15. Cooney sizes up the future for each Sixer and looks ahead to the draft, noting that Brett Brown is enamored with Dante Exum.
- The Warriors‘ purchase of land in San Francisco for a new arena appears to end any hope that they’ll remain in Oakland, writes Matthew Artz of the Bay Area News Group. “I wish them well,” Oakland city councilman Larry Reid said. “It was my hope that the Warriors would build a new arena in Oakland, but there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do.”
- Gordon Monson of The Salt Lake Tribune provides a taste of the local antipathy toward leading Jazz coaching candidate Jim Boylen.
Hoops Rumors Featured Feedback
We value your input on the news we cover here at Hoops Rumors. That’s why we’re passing along some of the best insight from our comments and the Hoops Rumors Facebook page. Share your reaction to and insight on the news and rumors around the league, and you’ll have a chance to see your name here. Check out what readers had to say in previous editions of Hoops Rumors Featured Feedback.
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This week, we’ll start with input from reader Z…., who looked ahead at what Rick Adelman‘s retirement means for the Wolves.
Hopefully, this doesnt cost them Kevin Love if he wasn’t already all but gone. He has said a multitude of times in interviews that one of the things he wants is for Adelman to remain the coach. Obviously, there are extenuating circumstances here, but it still could be something to think about. That team has had so much bad luck over the past three years. Their peripherals always suggest they should be much better. Their injuries have really hurt them, including this year. They really just need one more wing player that can provide some defense or maybe someone that can guard the point guard spot, and they could be a playoff team in the West…I would also like to see Kevin Love’s defense improve a little heading into next season.
There was also a coaching change in New York, where the Knicks fired Mike Woodson. Brian Paolercio thinks the fate of whomever Phil Jackson picks to be the team’s next coach could hinge on one of the league’s most mercurial players.
- I will always be thankful for the good times, but when the bad times hit it felt like the wheels came off and he couldn’t stop the bleeding. Hopefully the rest of the team buys into this, but if J.R. Smith, Woodson’s pet project of sorts, buys into what Phil is doing, then I suspect a lot of the rest of the team will too.
Aaron Harrison and brother Andrew Harrison have let the suspense build as the April 27th deadline for underclassmen to enter the draft approaches. Carl Glover took to the Hoops Rumors Facebook Page to share his thoughts on whether they’ll enter the draft and just how well they can play in the NBA.
- “If one goes, they both go. I think that is the consensus. I think they go simply because of this. I don’t ever see them becoming top-10 picks, unless they stay all four years which I don’t see happening, either. If [Tyler] Ennis is a lottery pick and Elfrid Payton from ULL is a potential top 25 pick, I can definitely see Andrew Harrison falling between the two of them. My thing is, 6’5″, 215-pound point guards (only 19 years old) just don’t grow on trees. Bring him in as a backup for two or three years where he only has to play 20 MPG and then give him the reins.”
We appreciate everyone who adds to the dialogue at Hoops Rumors, and we look forward to seeing more responses like these from you!
Nedim Buza, Adin Vrabac To Enter Draft
Bosnian small forwards Nedim Buza and Adin Vrabac are entering this year’s NBA draft, agent Alex Raskovic tells Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress (Twitter link). Buza is No. 61 on Givony’s list of the top 100 prospects, and while Vrabac doesn’t appear on that list, he checks in 55th in Givony’s 2015 mock draft.
Both play for KK Spars in their native Bosnia. Vrabac has posted better numbers than his more highly regarded counterpart, posting averages of 11.2 points and 3.0 rebounds per game, while Buza checks in at 8.0 PPG and 2.7 RPG. The difference appears to be Buza’s superior outside shot, as he’s nailed 39.6% of his shots from behind the arc this season, compared to Vrabac’s anemic 23.8% mark from three-point territory.
Vrabac won’t be automatically draft eligible until 2016, and Buza can wait until 2017, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see either of them withdraw from the draft. International players who don’t play NCAA basketball have the luxury of testing the waters and going through workouts with NBA teams, since the deadline for them to withdraw isn’t until June 16th.
Julius Randle Declares For Draft
Kentucky freshman Julius Randle announced today that he’s entering the draft this year, in a press conference with the school. He’s the final member of a group generally regarded as the top five prospects for this year’s draft to declare, joining Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid and Dante Exum, as our list of early entrants shows. Randle is No. 4 in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings, and No. 5 with Chad Ford of ESPN.com.
The power forward averaged 15.0 points and 10.4 rebounds per game for a loaded Kentucky team that made it to the NCAA championship game. He was second only to Wiggins on Givony’s rankings heading into the season, but he wasn’t quite as dominant as hoped and he struggled with consistency, as Eddie Scarito of Hoops Rumors wrote when he covered Randle for our Prospect Profile series. He had just 10 points and six rebounds in the title game loss to Connecticut.
Randle is 6’9″ with a 6’11” wingspan, limiting his defensive impact. He blocked just 0.8 shots per game and came away with 0.5 steals per contest. Still, his elite rebounding numbers and wide body suggest he’ll be tough to keep off the boards as a pro, and his scoring on a Kentucky team with plenty of other offensive options bodes well for him, too.
Randle joins James Young among Wildcats declaring for the draft this year, with the status of sophomore Alex Poythress and freshmen Dakari Johnson, Aaron Harrison and Andrew Harrison up in the air. Sophomore Willie Cauley-Stein and freshman Marcus Lee have decided to return to Kentucky.
Cavs Notes: Griffin, Brown, Irving, Waiters
Reports have linked Cavs interim GM David Griffin to the front offices of the Knicks, and, more recently, the Pistons, but he indicated a strong preference to remain in Cleveland as he spoke today with reporters, including Jodie Valade of The Plain Dealer.
“You’re either all the way in, or you’re all the way out,” Griffin said. “There’s no in-between. This is where I want to be.”
Here’s more on Griffin and the Cavs:
- Griffin said he doesn’t know when he’ll hear about his future with the team from owner Dan Gilbert, and while he said he’s confident that he and Gilbert are moving in the same direction, Griffin also said he needs to improve, Valade notes in the same piece. Still, the acting GM gave the impression that his job is safe, as Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio observes (Twitter link).
- Coach Mike Brown is on shakier ground, according to Amico, and ownership is looking for honest assessments of Brown from the team’s players and, once in place, its front office staff, Amico writes.
- Griffin would like to shift the team’s focus from “asset accumulation mode” to “target acquisition mode,” he says, and he plans to target size, toughness, basketball IQ and shooting, as Valade chronicles. Still, he’s high on his backcourt pairing of Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters. “I’ve seen flashes of them being very, very good together,” Griffin said. “… They’re two ball-dominant, drive-and-kick players. They require spacing and shooters. It’s too easy to look at them and blame one of them. It’s a collective thing.”
Draft Rumors: Parker, Embiid, Wiggins
Many have assumed that the top overall pick in the draft will be Kansas star Andrew Wiggins or teammate Joel Embiid, but ESPN.com’s Jeff Goodman, for an Insider-only piece, surveyed 30 NBA execs and Duke’s Jabari Parker came out on top. Parker got 17 votes while Embiid got eight and Wiggins took home five. The uncertainty surrounding the top of the draft makes for plenty of intrigue with the June 26th event just a little more than two months away. Here’s the latest:
- Mouhammadou Jaiteh is withdrawing from this year’s draft, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM, who reported last month that the French center was entering the field. It’s a little surprising to see the 19-year-old withdraw this early, before he had a chance to work out for NBA teams, as he did when he tested the waters last year. He’s ranked No. 63 with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress, and 98th with Chad Ford of ESPN.com.
- Spanish league big man Kristaps Porzingis won’t enter the draft this year, he tells Kārlis Krēgers of Latvian website LETA (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). That sets him up with a strong chance to become a first-round pick in 2015, as he’s ranked No. 15 on Givony’s 2015 mock. Ford has Porzingas as the 65th-best prospect for this year.
- There are plenty of high-scoring small forwards available in this year’s class, writes NBA.com’s David Aldridge. Aldridge’s list starts with the obvious (Wiggins, Parker) but goes on to highlight mid-first round types like Duke’s Rodney Hood, N.C. State’s T.J. Warren, and Syracuse’s Jerami Grant.
- A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com ranks the top point guards and summarizes their strengths, topping the list with Dante Exum.
Gregg Popovich Wins Coach Of The Year
Gregg Popovich has won the NBA’s Coach of the Year award, the league announced, joining Pat Riley and Don Nelson as the only three-time winners of the honor. It’s the second such award in three years for the Spurs coach, who was also the top coach in 2012 and 2003.
Popovich garnered 59 out of a possible 124 first-place votes, with Jeff Hornacek of the Suns finishing second in just his first season as an NBA coach. Tom Thibodeau finished third, followed by Steve Clifford, Dwane Casey, Terry Stotts and Doc Rivers among coaches who received first-place votes.
Popovich led the Spurs to the league’s best record of 62-20, all the while managing minutes for Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, San Antonio’s trio of stars over the age of 30. With Rick Adelman‘s retirement Monday, Popovich is the NBA’s active career wins leader, having racked up 967 regular season victories since taking over the team in the middle of the 1996/97 season.
Last year’s Coach of the Year, George Karl, found himself out of a job in the offseason, but that almost certainly won’t happen with Popovich, who’s firmly ensconced in the Spurs organization. He’s the NBA’s longest-tenured coach by more than a decade.
K.J. McDaniels Plans To Declare For Draft
Clemson junior K.J. McDaniels plans to announce that he’s entering the draft this week, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. The small forward is 21st in the prospect rankings that Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress compiles, and he’s 22nd with Chad Ford of ESPN.com.
McDaniels showed significant improvement this year, with his scoring average jumping to 17.1 points per game from the 10.9 PPG he put up as a sophomore in spite of fairly similar playing time. He also grabbed 7.1 rebounds and blocked 2.8 shots per game this season, impressive numbers for the 6’6″ small forward who excelled on the defensive end of the floor.
On offense, the 21-year-old shot the ball from the outside a bit too much considering his 30.4% accuracy from behind the arc. McDaniels averaged 3.8 three-point shot attempts per contest.