Josh Smith Envisions Pairing With Rajon Rondo
Pistons forward Josh Smith acknowledges the idea that he’ll join prep school teammate Rajon Rondo on the same NBA team anytime soon is far-fetched, but he’s optimistic that it will happen sometime, as he tells Baxter Holmes of the Boston Globe. The two have spoken about the possibility multiple times, Smith says.
“He’s my best friend, especially in the NBA,” Smith said. “We definitely connect. We take family vacations together.”
Smith added that Kevin Garnett joined them for those trips. There was trade talk surrounding Rondo and Smith prior to the deadline, but neither ever appeared close to changing teams. Smith says he’s content playing with the Pistons, who last month reportedly shopped him. A pair of reports this summer from fellow Globe scribe Gary Washburn indicated that Detroit was interested in acquiring Rondo via trade. Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge insisted he wasn’t looking to deal the four-time All-Star, and set a steep price tag on him as the deadline approached.
Smith is under contract through 2016/17, while Rondo is set to become a free agent after next season. The Pistons, at this point, have enough cap flexibility for the summer of 2015 to sign Rondo for up to the max if both sides would be willing, but the BDA Sports Management client will surely have plenty of other suitors.
Rondo didn’t speak to Holmes about his relationship with Smith, who was the point guard’s roommate at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia. Oak Hill coach Steve Smith invoked Rondo’s connection to the school earlier this season when he claimed that Carmelo Anthony, another Oak Hill alum, was attempting to recruit Rondo to the Knicks, but Anthony and Rondo denied those talks.
Wizards Re-Sign Drew Gooden To 10-Day Deal
SATURDAY, 11:57am: The Wizards have officially signed Gooden to another 10-day contract per a team release.
FRIDAY, 11:39am: Gooden confirms he’d accept the offer of another 10-day contract, which the Wizards are planning to make, Michael notes (Twitter link).
THURSDAY, 3:51pm: Gooden will indeed stick around on another 10-day deal, reports J. Michael of CSNWashington.com.
3:35pm: The Wizards are likely to re-sign Drew Gooden to another 10-day contract, a source tells Michael Lee of The Washington Post. His first deal is set to expire at the end of Friday night. The team brought the Dan Fegan client aboard late last month to offset an injury to Nene that will keep him out for at least the next three weeks.
The 32-year-old went scoreless in his first two appearances but dropped 12 points on six-for-seven shooting in 19 minutes against the Jazz on Wednesday night. Gooden saw significant playing time in both halves, signaling that the Wizards see him as a potential rotation piece, at least for the time being. Washington has 14 players on guaranteed contracts, meaning Gooden occupies the team’s last open spot as it jockeys for playoff position in the Eastern Conference.
The former Kansas Jayhawk spent much of 2013/14 out of the NBA after the Bucks put him on amnesty waivers over the summer. Gooden balked at joining the Wizards when they traded for him in 2010, prompting the team to flip him in another trade four days later, but even with GM Ernie Grunfeld, who swung those deals, still in place, the two sides agreed to a reunion this year.
And-Ones: Lakers, Jackson, Bulls, ‘Melo
The Lakers are privately concerned about the quality of the free agent market this summer, and they’re worried about the prospect of a third straight season outside of the title picture next year, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports. Stein’s note comes within a piece in which he and other ESPN.com writers examine the early-termination option decisions facing LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. Most of them believe the quartet of stars, all of whom are in the top 10 of our Free Agent Power Rankings, will indeed become free agents. While we look forward to the summer, here’s the latest from around the league:
- Phil Jackson “went out of his way” to clarify in an interview with Sam Amick of USA Today that Joe Dumars made the decision last summer to hire Maurice Cheeks as Pistons coach, Amick writes. Jackson served as a consultant during the team’s coaching search last year, and Amick wonders if the Pistons would make a play to replace Dumars with Jackson, who reportedly has an offer to join the Knicks front office.
- The Bulls haven’t begun to seriously crunch the numbers for a pursuit of Carmelo Anthony, according to Ken Berger of CBSSports.com, downplaying the idea that Chicago is gearing up to chase the Knicks star.
- League sources tell Berger that Nikola Mirotic will be seeking salaries worth $3-4MM from the Bulls this summer, as Berger writes in the same piece. That’s a surprise, since an earlier report indicated that Mirotic would probably ask for significantly more than the mid-level exception, worth a starting salary of $5.305MM next season.
- The Wolves were in deadline talks about trading J.J. Barea, but they aren’t so eager to get rid of him that they’d waive him this summer and use the stretch provision on his more than $4.5MM salary for next season, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cites.
Vitor Faverani Out For Season
Vitor Faverani will miss the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on a torn lateral meniscus in his left knee, the Celtics announced via press release. The rookie center has been out since January 28th. The Celtics have also been hit with a season-ending injury to Gerald Wallace, and the team sent Keith Bogans home earlier this year after a dispute over playing time. Avery Bradley is also out indefinitely, leaving Boston with 11 available players, including Chris Babb, who’s on a 10-day contract.
The continued absence of Faverani is probably a favorable sign for Babb, though the team could just cycle through others on 10-day contracts. The Celtics are seven games out of the playoffs and in 12th place in the Eastern Conference, so Faverani’s injury will have little bearing on the postseason race.
Faverani, 25, had been playing in Spain when he signed with Boston this summer. His contract is guaranteed for a little more than $2MM next year, and it includes a non-guaranteed season in 2015/16.
Knicks Offer Front Office Gig To Phil Jackson
The Knicks have offered Phil Jackson a job in their front office and he’s expected to make his decision next week, reports Frank Isola of the New York Daily News. Jackson has met with Knicks owner James Dolan about rejoining the franchise for which he won two championships during his playing career. The position would entail more than just consulting, a source tells Isola, though it’s unclear exactly what sort of role Jackson would play.
Knicks GM Steve Mills reportedly met with Jackson a couple of weeks ago about the team’s head coaching position, which Mike Woodson continues to occupy, but Jackson said he wasn’t interested in returning to the sidelines. Jackson was anxious to instead meet with Dolan, though apparently there are concerns about how the outspoken Jackson would mesh with the Knicks owner, who typically muzzles his front office employees. The 68-year-old Jackson is also set to undergo another knee replacement surgery, so his health is a concern.
Jackson has said on multiple occasions of late that a front office position would be more appealing to him than a coaching job, and he was apparently in line to run the basketball operations for the Kings if they had moved to Seattle last season. He also served as a consultant to the Pistons last summer when they chose Maurice Cheeks as coach, whom Detroit fired a month ago. Jackson says he’s remained an unpaid adviser to Pistons owner Tom Gores. He’s also engaged to Lakers co-owner Jeanie Buss, and he’s never worked in a formal capacity for any organization other than the Lakers since his relationship with Buss began more than a decade ago.
Jackson would be “handsomely compensated” in his job with the Knicks, Isola writes, though he doesn’t indicate just how much money would be on the table. Jackson signed for the highest coaching salary in NBA history when the Lakers lured him out of retirement in 2005, so it could take a significant outlay for the Knicks to do the same to bring him to their front office.
The hiring of Jackson could affect the team’s plans with Carmelo Anthony. Jackson pointed to Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire when he called the team’s roster “clumsy” last year, Isola notes.
Knicks Rumors: Anthony, Noah, Love
Carmelo Anthony isn’t changing his mind about his desire to opt out of his contract this summer, a source tells Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com, who adds that the Knicks, long confident about keeping their star, are starting to worry. Windhorst nonetheless believes Anthony would be better served opting in for 2014/15 and testing free agency next year, when a more attractive list of teams will have cap flexibility. Here’s more on a Knicks franchise producing more news than victories these days:
- Joakim Noah calls the report that he attempted to recruit Anthony to the Bulls “gossip,” but when asked whether it’s accurate, he said the answer doesn’t matter, observes Aggrey Sam of CSNChicago.com. Sam hears that Anthony also had a conversation with Kevin Love, though Sam doesn’t make it entirely clear if they spoke about teaming up.
- The Knicks will place their D-League affiliate in Westchester, New York, Jonah Ballow of Knicks.com confirms via Twitter. A formal announcement is due Monday. A report late last month indicated a Knicks-owned affiliate in Westchester was in the works to replace New York’s relationship with the Erie BayHawks, who will remain but have a different NBA affiliation next season.
- The “general consensus” when the Knicks hired GM Steve Mills was that they would eventually seek a talent evaluator to complement him, according to Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com, who wonders if that’s the role the team is considering for Phil Jackson.
Coaching Rumors: D’Antoni, Corbin, Woodson
Doc Rivers has quickly become the singular voice of authority for the Clippers, but what Lakers counterpart Mike D’Antoni says carries no such weight, as Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com examines. D’Antoni, who’ll be in the final year of his contract next season, doesn’t seem to have much of a future with the team, Shelburne writes. It’s been nearly a year since the start of the most prolific offseason coaching purge in NBA history, and while it’s unlikely there will be 13 new sideline bosses next season, there will probably be at least a few. Here’s more on where a couple of other coaches stand:
- Tyrone Corbin said he hasn’t had discussions with the Jazz about a new contract to replace the one that expires at the end of the season, tweets Jody Genessy of the Deseret News. Corbin casts the decision to hold off on talks as his, as Genessy also notes, and the coach insists that his uncertain future hasn’t affected the team’s performance. Corbin said he isn’t feeling any extra pressure, either (Twitter links).
- Mike Woodson has been mistrustful of the Knicks front office, according to Frank Isola of the New York Daily News, who wonders what GM Steve Mills‘ chat with Phil Jackson about the coaching job will do to Woodson’s relationship with his bosses (Twitter link).
- There was more than a year between the end of Woodson’s tenure with the Hawks and the start of his time with the Knicks, but he didn’t receive any NBA head coaching offers during that period, a source tells Marc Berman of the New York Post.
Knicks GM, Phil Jackson Met About Coaching Job
12:36pm: Jackson had wanted to meet with Knicks owner James Dolan instead of Mills, as Broussard noted in his report, but Jackson would be leery of working for Dolan, a source tells Marc Berman of the New York Post. Berman also hears that Jackson needs another knee replacement surgery and raises the specter that he could serve the team as a consultant on its coaching search, as he did with the Pistons last summer.
12:05pm: The Knicks would consider offering Jackson a front office position, a source tells Frank Isola of the New York Daily News.
10:35am: Knicks GM Steve Mills and Phil Jackson had a meeting about two weeks ago about the possibility of the Zen Master taking over as Knicks coach, reports Stephen A. Smith of ESPN.com. Jackson told Mills he wasn’t interested, Smith hears. Jackson recently issued yet another denial of the notion that he’ll ever come back to coach in an interview with Sam Amick of USA Today. The Knicks are reportedly planning to keep coach Mike Woodson until the end of the season and make an offseason search for a marquee coach part of its pitch to Carmelo Anthony, who can opt out of his contract and leave as a free agent this summer.
Jackson, 68, has repeatedly downplayed the idea that he would return to coaching, leaving a degree of wiggle room in those statements but making it clear that he prefers a front office role. The Knicks have Mills and assistant GM Allan Houston, whom they’re reportedly grooming as a future GM, already in the front office, so it’s unlikely there’d be room for Jackson to have much of a say in the team’s personnel decisions.
The team is reportedly eyeing Tom Thibodeau, Jeff Van Gundy and Stan Van Gundy, too, though Thibodeau will still be under contract with the Bulls this summer, and it doesn’t appear as though he’s going to force his way out of that deal. Stan Van Gundy won’t rule out coaching next season if there’s an overwhelming opportunity, but he’s unlikely to come back to the sidelines. Jeff Van Gundy would probably be interested in returning to his old job, but if he insists on having any control over personnel matters, that could complicate the team’s pursuit.
Latest On Carmelo Anthony, Mike Woodson
Carmelo Anthony is looking for reasons to stay in New York, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com, who hears from people close to the superstar that he doesn’t want to make it seem as though he’s tacitly admitting that he needs to find a better team to win. Knicks owner James Dolan is planning to try to convince Anthony that one reason to stay is the notion that the team’s disaster of a season is Mike Woodson‘s fault, Stein hears.
Sources tell Stein that Dolan is only keeping Woodson around this year so that Knicks brass can make the case to Anthony that the team’s problems are almost entirely because of Woodson. Making a coaching change now would give the Knicks a chance to fail without Woodson, opening up the potential for Anthony to conclude that his teammates are the main issue. The Knicks are 22-40, in 11th place in the Eastern Conference and five and a half games out of the playoffs.
In addition to pinning the blame on Woodson, Dolan plans to sell Anthony on his financial incentive to re-sign with the Knicks, promise to bring in another superstar no later than 2015, and vow that he’ll hire a marquee coach this summer, Stein hears. Anthony is reportedly more interested in what the Knicks can tell him about the reinforcements they can bring in this year rather than 2015, which lends credence to the significance of a coaching change. There’s been some sentiment within the organization since Christmas that Woodson should be fired, but the team isn’t hesitating to make a move now just because it doesn’t feel it has a qualified assistant coach ready to take over, Stein writes.
Magic Re-Sign Dewayne Dedmon To 10-Day Deal
FRIDAY, 8:34am: The signing is official, according to a press release from the team.
TUESDAY, 12:24pm: The team will indeed sign Dedmon to a second 10-day deal, according to Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel (Twitter link). His first contract will expire at the end of Thursday.
MONDAY, 7:55am: The Magic are expected to re-sign center Dewayne Dedmon to a second 10-day deal, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports amid his weekly power rankings. The undrafted rookie has played in just one game for a total of three minutes so far for Orlando after inking with the team nearly a week ago, but it appears the Magic are confident they can find more time for him. It’s unclear if the Magic have similar plans with Adonis Thomas, who signed a 10-day contract with the team at the same time Dedmon did.
The 24-year-old former USC Trojan is already on his third NBA team after stints with the Warriors and Sixers earlier this season. A second 10-day contract would be Dedmon’s fourth overall this year, as our 10-Day Tracker shows. He’s averaged 2.6 points in 9.9 minutes over 16 NBA appearances in 2013/14. The 7-footer has been impressive so far on the boards, notching 11.5 rebounds per 36 minutes.
Dedmon, a client of Michael Silverman, has also spent 15 games in the D-League this year, posting averages of 15.2 PPG and 13.6 RPG in 33.7 MPG. The Magic have just 12 guaranteed contracts, affording them plenty of flexibility to keep him for the season if they choose to do so once Dedmon’s second 10-day pact runs out.