Several Midseason Signees On Multiyear Deals
This time of year, most of the contracts that NBA teams hand out are of the 10-day variety. None of this season’s 10-day signees have deals for the rest of the season yet, though some of them likely will after the expiration of their second 10-day contracts with their respective teams.
Still, there are several midseason signees on non-10-day deals who remain under contract, and the majority of of their teams included extra, non-guaranteed seasons on their deals when they were signed. Many of those contract details weren’t reported at the time, but thanks to Basketball Insiders, ShamSports, and Storytellers Contracts, we know which teams have given themselves an extra bit of leverage and which haven’t, as explained below. All are making the minimum salary:
- Diante Garrett, Jazz (signed November 13th): Garrett is on the fringe of the rotation at 14.4 minutes per game, and Utah tacked a pair of non-guaranteed seasons onto his contract, which runs through 2015/16.
- Elliot Williams, Sixers (signed November 20th): Like Garrett, he’s on the periphery as a contributor, notching 13.8 MPG, and the Sixers, as is their wont, gave him a four-year non-guaranteed contract.
- Chris Douglas-Roberts, Bobcats (signed December 11th): The fifth-year veteran is only signed for this season, but he figures to be a mainstay this year with Jeff Taylor out for the season, even though Michael Kidd-Gilchrist has returned from his injury.
- D.J. Augustin, Bulls (signed December 13th): The injury-ridded Bulls are giving Augustin 30.4 MPG, and without much room under the salary cap, they probably couldn’t afford to let him and his guaranteed contract go and sign another player. His deal runs only through this season.
- James Johnson, Grizzlies (signed December 16th): The former 16th overall pick has been a revelation for Memphis, which is giving him 22.9 MPG as he solidifies the team’s bench. The Grizzlies may regret only signing him for this season.
- Kendall Marshall, Lakers (signed December 20th): Since moving into the starting lineup for his fifth game with the Lakers, the 2012 lottery pick is averaging 12.1 points and a whopping 11.4 assists in 38.7 MPG, resurrecting his career. It seems a strong bet the team will keep him next year, since his contract includes a non-guaranteed season for 2014/15.
- Alexis Ajinca, Pelicans (signed December 20th): The center’s contract is fully guaranteed for next season, so he’ll be around New Orleans for a while. He’s started seven times despite seeing just 13.9 MPG as the Pelicans reportedly shop for another big man.
- Jeremy Tyler, Knicks (signed December 31st): The player the Knicks cut J.R. Smith‘s brother to accommodate has barely seen the floor more than Smith did in his time with New York, notching just 7.0 MPG. His contract includes a non-guaranteed season for 2014/15.
- Hedo Turkoglu, Clippers (signed January 16th): Freed from Orlando, Turkoglu is averaging 11.2 MPG in L.A. as he attempts to knock the rust off, having played in just 17 games over the past two seasons. He’ll be a free agent at season’s end, since the Clips only signed him for this year.
Honorable mention: Malcolm Thomas, Spurs/Jazz (signed December 3rd) — An injury to Kawhi Leonard forced Thomas off the Spurs roster, but the contract he signed with San Antonio is still valid, since the Jazz claimed him off waivers this weekend. The deal includes a non-guaranteed season for 2014/15.
Lakers Rumors: Carmelo, D’Antoni, Free Agents
The Lakers stood at .500 on December 20th, but since then, they’ve won only three of their last 19 games, leaving them without a realistic chance of making the playoffs this season. That doesn’t happen often in Lakerland, but even with a high draft pick coming, the team is focused on solving its woes via free agency. That’s the focus of the chatter around the Lakers today, less than 24 hours after could-be target Carmelo Anthony scored 35 points to help send the purple-and-gold to their latest loss. Here’s the talk:
- Marc Berman of the New York Post detects an icy edge to the relationship between Anthony and Mike D’Antoni, his former coach. Berman figures the hard feelings make it unlikely that Anthony would sign with the Lakers this summer.
- If Anthony does sign with the Lakers, it would be an ominous sign for D’Antoni’s job security, opines Harvey Araton of The New York Times.
- Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding lays out seven reasons why Anthony won’t sign with the Lakers, suggesting that ‘Melo’s ball-stopping, defensive shortcomings, and character flaws are already giving the Lakers pause.
- Within the same piece, Ding notes that Lakers brass is pleased with the job D’Antoni has done this season.
- As a free agent destination, the Lakers “might be less desirable than at any point in their history,” writes Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders, who points to changing economics and increased leaguewide television exposure as reasons why.
- Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com answers reader questions in a Laker-themed mailbag column. Markazi can envision the Lakers and Pau Gasol agreeing on a much cheaper deal for the big man this summer.
Eastern Notes: Pierce, Lowry, Pistons
It was an emotional Sunday evening in Boston for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, who returned for the first time as Nets players, but it might have been especially awkward for Pierce, who had spent his entire career in green before this summer’s trade. The move devastated Pierce, writes Jackie MacMullan of ESPNBoston.com, who says the C’s second all-time leading scorer was near tears almost the entire time she interviewed him this past summer. Pierce told MacMullan that he wondered why the Celtics didn’t allow him to finish his career in Boston.
“I loved it here,” Pierce said Sunday. “Never wanted to leave.”
Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:
- The sense around the league is that the Raptors are more likely to keep Kyle Lowry than to trade him, but that could simply be a matter of Toronto’s high price tag for the point guard, which no other team has accepted yet, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter links). Lowry will be a free agent at season’s end, and Stein suggests that’s motivation for Raptors GM Masai Ujiri to continue trade talks
- Jose Calderon says the Pistons never made him an offer to re-sign with the team this summer, observes Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free-Press. “They were in contact with me, but I think they were waiting for Josh Smith, so I was just waiting and waiting, and Dallas came with a great offer … I couldn’t say no to that,” Calderon said.
- The Wizards spent their bi-annual exception this summer on Eric Maynor, who’s fallen so far out of the rotation that he isn’t even playing in blowouts, notes J. Michael of CSNWashington. Still, there’s plenty of reason why Maynor and the Wizards won’t soon be parting ways. His guaranteed contract includes a $2.1MM player option for next season, and he probably wouldn’t command as much if he were to become a free agent, Michael points out.
- The Sixers have assigned Lorenzo Brown to the D-League, the team announced. It’ll be the third time the point guard has gone to the Delaware 87ers this season, but his last pair of D-League stints lasted only a single day.
Celtics To Re-Sign Chris Johnson
JANUARY 26th: A source tells Mark Murphy (via Twitter) that Johnson will probably get a second 10-day deal.
JANUARY 17th, 11:19am: The team announced the signing, via press release. Having waited an extra day to make the deal official means the club gets to squeeze in an extra game for Johnson, whose contract won’t expire until after Boston’s game against the Nets on January 26th, as Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald points out (Twitter link).
THURSDAY, 12:44pm: The Celtics plan to sign Johnson on Friday, according to Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
11:14am: Chris Johnson and the Celtics are finalizing a deal, and the expectation is that he’ll sign a 10-day contract, tweets Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com. Adrian Wojnarowski reported overnight that Johnson was in town for a workout with the club. The small forward from Dayton is not to be confused with the Chris Johnson from LSU who played with the Celtics during the 2010/11 season. The move brings Boston’s roster to 14 players.
Johnson has been averaging 19.4 points and 6.8 rebounds in 37.2 minutes per game for the D-League’s Rio Grande Valley Vipers this season, after spending training camp with the Nets. His only official NBA action came on a pair of 10-day contracts with the Grizzlies last season, when his averages were 3.6 PPG, 1.4 RPG and 12.8 MPG.
The Celtics traded away Jordan Crawford and MarShon Brooks yesterday, and they’ve excused Keith Bogans from the team, so Johnson will bolster the team’s dwindling wing depth. Boston will have an open roster spot even after adding Johnson, and Wojnarowski’s report seemed to suggest the team might be working out other players.
Johnson is a client of Pinnacle Management Corp., as our Agency Database shows.
Trade Candidate: Andre Miller
It’s been more than two weeks since Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports tweeted that many around the league believed the Nuggets were trying to trade Andre Miller within the next 48 hours. Talk surrounding the 37-year-old point guard has cooled considerably since then, even though he still hasn’t appeared in a game since his confrontation with coach Brian Shaw during a game on January 2nd. The news that Danilo Gallinari will miss the season no doubt deals a fatal blow to whatever hope of contention the Nuggets may have clung to, meaning there’s less reason to keep an wily-but-aging backup around.
The notion that the Nuggets might trade Miller predates his clash with Shaw, as evidenced by chatter from this past summer. Earlier this season, teams around the league were expecting the Nuggets to unload Miller before the deadline. Miller’s value has no doubt taken a hit during the season, the least productive of his 15-year career. His minutes are at unprecedented lows, but his per-36-minute scoring and assist averages are lower than ever, too.
Still, he’s one of the most durable players in the history of the league. This is the first season in which he’s missed more than two games, but all of his absences have come as a result of his rift with Shaw rather than injury. His statistical declines this season could have as much to do with a poor fit in Shaw’s system as they do with any physical breakdown. Surely, all of his skills haven’t eroded so quickly.
Miller doesn’t possess the floor-stretching ability to shoot from long range that many teams require of their perimeter players, as most of his shots come from around the basket. Still, he creates plenty of looks for others with his crafty passing. He somehow managed to finish 18th in the league in total assists last season despite playing only 26.2 minutes per game, and he was 17th in assist percentage.
The 15th year veteran could help a team like the Suns, who are last in the league in assist percentage, according to NBA.com, in spite of the presence of Goran Dragic to pick up the slack while Eric Bledsoe‘s torn meniscus heals. Suns owner Robert Sarver calls his team a work in progress, so perhaps he’d be willing to have GM Ryan McDonough bring Miller aboard to show Bledsoe a few tricks and to help the team make the playoffs this season. The Nuggets might like to acquire Channing Frye to help with their shooting, though adding another big man to Denver’s crowded frontcourt doesn’t seem ideal.
The Kings are fourth worst in assist percentage, which explains their entreaties for Miller. Sacramento is reportedly anxious to move Marcus Thornton, but their package of either Thornton or Jimmer Fredette plus a second-round pick for Miller apparently hasn’t prompted the Nuggets to budge. That could change by the deadline, and Thornton could be an intriguing buy-low candidate for Denver, but it doesn’t look like there’s much traction here.
The Rockets have the sixth-worst assist percentage, and I’m not sure if either Patrick Beverley or Jeremy Lin is a championship-caliber point guard. Houston possesses plenty of long-range shooting that the Nuggets could use, but analytically driven GM Daryl Morey might not want to sacrifice any of the three-point arsenal he so highly values to go after an aging point guard who might not be a significant upgrade. The Knicks have been trying to find a way into Miller talks, but they don’t appear to have the sort of assets the Nuggets are seeking.
Miller, for as much guile, ball movement, and reliability as he can provide, is overpaid this season on a $5MM salary. He makes $4.625MM next year in the final year of his deal, but that’s only partially guaranteed for $2MM as long as he’s waived before July. He seems the sort of player that a contender willing to swallow hard and open its pockets would trade for in hopes of inching closer to a title. He could also be a fill-in for one of those teams if in case of an injury at the point guard position. The Nuggets don’t have much at stake this season, so they can afford to sit back and wait for other teams to come calling. The urgency lies with the teams seeking Miller, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if Denver doesn’t trade him until the deadline, when teams are under pressure to submit their best offers.
Odds & Ends: Young, Draft, Spurs, Celtics
Thaddeus Young‘s name figures to be in plenty of rumors between now and the February 20th trade deadline. “There is not a GM in the league who wouldn’t want Thaddeus Young on their team,” an NBA executive tells Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Still, Young’s contract, with average salaries of more than $9MM through 2015/16, remains a turn-off for would-be trade partners, Pompey writes. The Inquirer scribe takes a stab at sketching the Sixers roster for 2014/15, concluding that a turnaround is still a ways off. Here’s more on a couple of prospects who could be in Philly next year, as well as more from around the NBA:
- Several NBA scouts are leaning toward regarding Indiana’s Noah Vonleh as a better power forward prospect than Kentucky’s Julius Randle, according to Chad Ford of ESPN.com, who debates the matter with colleague Kevin Pelton in an Insider-only piece.
- The Spurs wanted someone who could guard small forwards after learning Kawhi Leonard would miss the next three or four weeks, and Gregg Popovich says that led them to sign Othyus Jeffers, observes Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News.
- A splintered Clippers front office kept the team from trading for Kevin Garnett at the deadline last year, and that prompted the Celtics to draw back from discussions with the Nets about Paul Pierce, sources tell Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. The C’s would have been better off had those deals gone down than they are with the package they obtained from the Nets this summer, Deveney surmises.
- Doc Rivers stuck up for Tom Thibodeau, his former assistant coach, saying that he didn’t think “any right-minded organization” would allow him to leave, as Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times notes. Rumors have suggested the Bulls might let their coach out of his contract so he can take over the Knicks.
- Keith Schlosser of Ridiculous Upside wonders what more Pierre Jackson must do to convince New Orleans to sign him. The Pelicans hold the NBA rights to the D-League’s leading scorer, but they’ve given Jackson permission to seek a trade.
Spurs Sign Othyus Jeffers To 10-Day Deal
3:44pm: The Spurs have officially announced the signing.
FRIDAY, 10:34am: Coach Gregg Popovich says the team will sign Jeffers to a 10-day contract today or Saturday, depending on how quickly he can travel to join the team (Twitter link).
THURSDAY, 3:43pm: Jeffers and the team are on track to finalize their deal later today or early Friday, tweets Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News, relaying the news from fellow Express-News reporter Mike Monroe. The team waived Thomas earlier, clearing the roster spot necessary for Jeffers to sign.
11:07am: The banged-up Spurs have set their sights on inking D-Leaguer Othyus Jeffers to a 10-day contract, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. A signing would require the team to waive someone, since San Antonio is at the 15-man roster limit. Kawhi Leonard broke his right hand last night, joining Tiago Splitter and Danny Green among the injured Spurs.
Jeffers, a 6’5″ shooting guard, has averaged 22.8 points and 11.4 rebounds per game in 22 contests for the Iowa Energy this season after spending camp with the Timberwolves. The two-year NBA veteran last appeared in the league during the 2010/11 season with the Wizards. He also got into a single game with the Spurs that season while on a 10-day contract.
Power forward Malcolm Thomas would seem the most logical choice for a cut. He made his debut for the Spurs on Sunday, even though he’s been under contract with the team since December 3rd. He’s spent much of his time with San Antonio on four separate assignments to the D-League.
Pacific Notes: Suns, Lakers, Collison
Owner Robert Sarver tells Dan Bickley of The Arizona Republic that he feels “OK,” but not “great” about his surprising Suns, who sit at 24-17 in seventh place in the West
“We’re a work in progress,” he said. “What I feel really good about, and what I feel, is optimism. It’s optimism that we have some really good pieces, a good coaching staff and a number of assets that, if we make smart decisions, will lead us back to the elite level of play.”
Sarver had much more to say, and we covered his comments on Eric Bledsoe earlier today. We’ll pass along another item of note from Bickley’s interview amid our look at the Pacific Division:
- Suns president of basketball ops Lon Babby endorsed Jeff Weltman, then with the Bucks and now with the Raptors, for the Phoenix GM job this summer, but Sarver made the decision to hire Ryan McDonough instead, according to Bickley.
- The Lakers aren’t sure they want to make a significant investment in any free agent other than LeBron James this summer, so they’ll probably instead pursue lower-tier free agents with short-term deals and gear up for 2015, Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding writes. Regardless, the team won’t use the draft as its primary vehicle toward contention, according to Ding.
- Darren Collison‘s success in place of Chris Paul raises the odds that he’ll opt out of his contract, as Jeff Caplan of NBA.com surmises. Collison signed his deal with the Clippers when it became apparent to him that the Mavs didn’t want him back, a stance the point guard saw as disrespectful. “As a competitor you look at it that way,” Collison said. “They had their situation. I’m just glad that I fell into a situation like the Clippers that’s given me an opportunity. Now I have a chance to play for a contending team that’s going to try to play for something more special.”
- Marcin Gortat is grateful to the Suns and says he harbors no hard feelings about their decision to trade him this past fall, though he admits there will be emotions involved as he returns to Phoenix with the Wizards for tonight’s game. Michael Lee of The Washington Post has more.
Wizards Eye New Deal With Marcin Gortat
1:40pm: Stein’s full story suggests the Wizards have made an extension offer to Gortat, though the terms of any such offer are unclear.
12:31pm: The Wizards will make it a priority to re-sign Marcin Gortat this summer if they can’t sign sign him to an extension before his contract runs out at the end of June, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter links). Washington’s brass is “thrilled” with the client of Guy Zucker, according to Stein. The news comes on the heels of a Monday report that the Wizards are interested in fellow big man Greg Monroe and would like to trade for him before the deadline or sign him as a restricted free agent this summer.
Gortat, who’ll turn 30 next month, is averaging 12.0 points and 8.8 rebounds with a 16.0 PER for the Wizards this year after coming over a few days before the season began via trade from the Suns. He’s capably filled the hole created when Emeka Okafor, who went to Phoenix in the same trade, suffered a preseason neck injury that’s kept him out of action ever since.
The Wizards have big man Nene on a contract that pays him $13MM a year through 2015/16, so the team would logically have room for only one of Gortat and Monroe along their front line. Monroe presents a younger option who’s putting up slightly superior numbers as a 23-year-old this season, and he has the hometown appeal of having played for Georgetown University. It’ll probably be difficult to obtain him, since the Pistons will have the right to match offers if they keep him until the summer, and the trade market for promising young big men is always full of competition.
Gortat would figure to come more easily, since he’s already in Washington and the Wizards have his Bird Rights. The seventh-year veteran can re-sign for as much as five years with the Wizards if he hits free agency, but could only add three years to his existing deal if he were to sign an extension, making it more financially sound for him to wait until July, Stein notes.
The Polish Hammer is finishing up a five-year deal that pays him more than $7.7MM this season, but he signed that contract when he was still a backup for the Magic, so I think he’s in line for a raise that would put his annual take at around $10MM. Gortat’s age would suggest he’d like the security of a long-term deal, but I’m not sure the Wizards would be willing to do a fifth year unless he and Zucker agree to a steep discount. Even a fourth year could be an ambitious proposition for the Wizards, though that could be mitigated if they can arrange for the fourth season to be partially guaranteed.
Gortat admits to Michael Lee of The Washington Post that it’s been an adjustment playing aside another big man in Nene and serving as a complimentary player on offense, neither of which he experienced while with the Suns. Still, he believes he’s much more content in Washington than he would have been if he were still in Phoenix.
“Playing in Phoenix was a totally different story,” he said. “I had more space under the basket. I knew that [I] was going to get the ball inside and I was the guy who was going to work. Here, it’s a different story. But I can say, I don’t mind doing that. As long as we’re winning, I don’t mind at all.”
Sacramento Arena Plan Clears Hurdle
Sacramento City Clerk Shirley Concolino has rejected an attempt to put public funding for the city’s new arena up for vote, reports Ryan Lillis of The Sacramento Bee. A pair of groups called Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork (STOP) and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal had collected nearly 23,000 signatures on a petition to put the funding on a June ballot, which would have cast some degree of doubt on the city’s ability to keep the Kings. The groups will likely take legal action to overturn today’s decision, according to Lillis.
“I’ve never seen a petition with as many flaws as this one,” Concolino said.
Seattle investor Chris Hansen, whose agreement to buy the Kings and move them to Seattle was rejected by the NBA this past spring, admitted in August to bankrolling the petition drive. Several reports have since called the legitimacy of the signatures into question. Concolino said today that several different versions of the petition circulated, some with “substantial” variations. None of the petitions contained a clause required by California law that would inform signers that the result of the vote to deny public arena funding would be binding.
If the Kings don’t move into a new arena by 2017, the league may strip the team from Vivek Ranadive’s ownership group and arrange for it to be sold to owners who’ll move it into a suitable building in another city, as The Bee reported in May. The team must also show progress toward the arena’s completion in a timely manner, so a rejection of $258MM worth of public funding for a $448MM arena would seriously jeopardize the future of the Kings in Sacramento. Still, reports have indicated that voters would be supportive of the funding, so even if the measure appears on the ballot, it wouldn’t necessarily be a significant blow to the city’s efforts to keep the team.