Western Notes: Brown, Green, Morey, Ebanks
Shannon Brown remains on the Wizards roster for now following last night’s trade, though the team is expected to let him go. He isn’t a lock to clear waivers, but if he does, HoopsWorld’s Steve Kyler hears he’d like to sign with the Lakers (Twitter link). Marc Stein of ESPN.com tweets that several teams are interested, and Brown has yet to make up his mind. Fellow ESPN.com scribe Ramona Shelburne isn’t sure the Lakers will be too inclined to pick up Brown, since they already have 15 players under contract (Twitter link). Here’s more from the West:
- After being bounced among seven NBA teams and two international stops by age 27, Gerald Green is OK with waiting for his turn to get minutes in the Suns‘ rotation, writes Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. Green, who came to Phoenix in the Luis Scola deal, is one of three small forwards on the team, but he should see more time at two-guard now that Brown is elsewhere.
- Rockets GM Daryl Morey paid no attention to rumors that his job was on the line in recent years, writes Sam Amick of USA Today. “I heard second hand those rumblings, and it never made sense to me,” Morey said. “Maybe because I knew Mr. Alexander had a lot of faith in what we were doing and was really an architect in a lot of the strategy, so we were executing on a plan and the owner knew it. I think that, yeah, if we hadn’t been able to turn the corner like we hoped, then at some point he probably says, ‘Hey, I’ve got to change horses,’ and that’s fine. That’s his right. I wouldn’t have been bothered. But he had a lot of belief in us, and I don’t forget that.”
- Former Lakers forward Devin Ebanks was among the players the Mavs cut this week, and he has committed to play with the the Texas Legends, the D-League affiliate of Dallas, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo (Twitter link).
- Bob Myers was an agent before he became GM of the Warriors, and that experience shows in his masterful negotiations on extensions for Andrew Bogut and Stephen Curry, writes Marcus Thompson II of the Bay Area News Group. We had plenty more on Bogut’s extension in a post earlier today.
Zach Links contributed to this post.
Suns Pick Up Options On Plumlee, Morris Twins
The Suns have exercised their 2014/15 options on center Miles Plumlee and forwards Marcus Morris and Markieff Morris, according to Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic (Twitter link). Markieff Morris will make $2,989,239 next season, slightly more than his twin brother Marcus, who’ll earn $2,943,221. The option covers the fourth season for both Morrises, while Plumlee’s $1,169,880 option is for his third, as our rookie contract option tracker shows.
Plumlee has impressed in the preseason after arriving over the summer via trade from the Pacers, and his improvement made the Suns more comfortable with trading Marcin Gortat to the Wizards. Marcus Morris also came to the Suns in a trade, as the Rockets shipped him to Phoenix at the deadline in February. Houston drafted him 14th overall in 2011, one pick before the Suns took his brother at No. 15, which accounts for the slight difference in salary between the two.
The more than $7.1MM the exercised options add to Phoenix’s books still leave the team with ample projected cap space next summer. The Suns will have only about $22.1MM in commitments for 2014/15, about $40MM beneath the cap.
Timberwolves Waive Chris Johnson
2:40pm: The Wolves have officially announced the moves, according to the team’s Twitter account.
1:19pm: The Timberwolves have waived big man Chris Johnson, a source tells Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). The former LSU Tiger is not to be confused with the Chris Johnson from Dayton whom the Nets waived earlier today. The Wolves will be on the hook for Johnson’s guaranteed $916,099 salary this season. The move likely means Robbie Hummel and A.J. Price, both of whom are on non-guaranteed deals, have made the opening-night roster, since the subtraction of Johnson leaves Minnesota with 15 players.
Multiple reports this month indicated Johnson’s spot on the team was vulnerable in spite of the guaranteed money on the contract he signed with the team last season after a pair of 10-day deals. He appeared in just two games for a total of nine minutes during preseason action. He averaged 3.9 points and 2.0 rebounds in 9.5 minutes per game across 30 contests for the Wolves last year.
Wolves Pick Up Options On Rubio, Williams
SATURDAY, 2:38pm: The team has officially announced, via Twitter, that it’s exercising the options on Rubio and Williams.
TUESDAY, 1:16pm: The Wolves will exercise their team option on Ricky Rubio for 2014/15, a source tells Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune, and it’s a move that comes as no surprise. The source also confirms that the team will exercise its option on Derrick Williams, as owner Glen Taylor told Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities last night. Rubio’s option adds another $5,070,686 to the team’s payroll for next season, as our rookie contract option tracker shows.
I listed Rubio among the “no brainers” last month when I examined rookie option decisions, and there was never any doubt that Minnesota would ensure team control over the former No. 5 overall pick through his fourth season. A trickier decision involving Rubio looms next offseason, when the Wolves must decide whether to grant him a lucrative extension.
Picking up the options on Rubio and Williams will push the team’s commitments for 2014/15 to $68,403,149, ensuring the Wolves will be well over the cap unless they can move some salary via trade. Once these option pickups become official, Minnesota will trail only the Nets for the most amount of guaranteed money on the books for 2014/15.
Hawks Release Eric Dawson
The Hawks have cut Eric Dawson, according to a press release from the team. The move brings Atlanta’s roster down to 15 players, but there’s still some uncertainty, since only 12 of them have fully guaranteed deals. Mike Scott seems likely to stick on his $100K guaranteed deal, and Shelvin Mack seems to slot in as the third point guard. If the Hawks do carry 15 players at the start of the regular season, it’s likely that Cartier Martin, on a non-guaranteed deal, beat out Dawson for a spot.
The 29-year-old Dawson came to camp with the Hawks hoping to add to an NBA resume that includes just four regular season games with the Spurs in 2011/12. Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer was an assistant on that San Antonio team, but the connection wasn’t enough to earn Dawson an opening-night roster spot. He notched 3.0 points and 4.0 rebounds in 11.3 minutes per game over three preseason contests.
Atlanta won’t be on the hook for Dawson’s non-guaranteed salary. If the Hawks keep just 13 players, they’ll retain about $3MM worth of wiggle room under the cap, as well as their $2.652MM room exception to use to acquire players later in the season.
Magic Exercise 2014/15 Options On Four
SATURDAY, 1:59pm: The Magic have officially announced the moves.
FRIDAY, 10:12pm: Having just made their camp cuts this evening, the Magic will pick up their rookie-scale options on four players tomorrow, reports Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. The team is set to guarantee the 2014/15 salaries of Maurice Harkless, Tobias Harris, Andrew Nicholson and Nikola Vucevic.
Robbins first reported that the team had decided on the option pickups back in July, well ahead of the October 31st deadline and long before most teams make these kinds of moves. Together the exercised options will add $8,565,534 to the team’s 2014/15 commitments, bringing the total to about $33.4MM — the 11th lowest amount of guaranteed salary in the league when I ran the numbers and projected next summer’s cap space for every team earlier this month.
Vucevic and Harris, who’ll be playing their fourth NBA seasons in 2014/15, will receive about $2.75MM and $2.4MM, respectively, while Harkless and Nicholson, who’ll be third-year guys that season, are set to make around $1.9MM and $1.5MM. Check out our tracker for details on 2014/15 rookie contract options for each team as the October 31st deadline to exercise them draws near.
Pacers Waive Hilton Armstrong
The Pacers have waived center Hilton Armstrong, the team announced via press release. That leaves Rasual Butler‘s deal as the only non-guaranteed contract on a roster that’s down to 14 players. Butler hasn’t necessarily made the team, since coach Frank Vogel has indicated the Pacers are likely to go with just 13 players to start the regular season.
Armstrong played sparingly in the preseason, appearing in seven games and averaging 1.3 points and 2.4 rebounds in 6.1 minutes per contest. The 28-year-old has five years of NBA experience, but he hasn’t seen regular season action since 2010/11 with the Hawks.
The Pacers have about $69MM on their books for this season, roughly $2.7MM beneath the luxury tax threshold. The team has been adamant about avoiding the tax, so keeping fewer than the 15-player roster max as the regular season gets underway will allow them some flexibility to sign players later this year.
Grizzlies Cut Barrett, Ely, Gaffney, Reed
The Grizzlies have waived Andre Barrett, Melvin Ely, Tony Gaffney and Willie Reed, the team announced via press release. All four were on non-guaranteed deals, and without them, Memphis is carrying just 13 players, the NBA minimum.
Gaffney had the best chance of sticking, according to Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, but the team will instead carry only its 13 fully guaranteed contracts (Twitter link). The 28-year-old Gaffney, a 6’9″ big man, saw the most action of any of the Memphis camp invitees, averaging 2.0 points and 2.9 rebounds in 10.7 minutes per game in seven preseason tilts. Still, it wasn’t enough for him to make his first NBA regular season roster.
The Grizzlies signed Reed late last season, but he didn’t get into a game, and like Gaffney is still waiting to make his official NBA debut. Ely is the most seasoned of the cuts, but his attempt to revive an NBA career that’s been dormant since the 2010/11 season falls short. Barrett’s been out of the league even longer, not having appeared in a regular season game since 2007/08, but he, too, will remain out of the league for now.
Bulls Release Dexter Pittman, D.J. White
The Bulls have placed Dexter Pittman and D.J. White on waivers, the team announced via press release. Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com reported the news shortly before the transactions took place (Twitter link). The moves pare the team’s roster down to 13, the minimum number of players a team can carry in the regular season. Both were on non-guaranteed deals.
Mike James remains the only Bulls player without any guarantee on his contract, so it looks like the 38-year-old guard has made the opening night roster. Second-round pick Erik Murphy, who has a $250K guarantee, also remains with Chicago.
The Bulls are over the luxury tax line, so getting down to 13 players is likely a cost-cutting move for the franchise, which paid the tax for the first time last season.
Fallout From Andrew Bogut’s Extension
The Warriors took a risk Friday, committing eight-figure salaries through 2017 to Andrew Bogut, who’s played just 44 regular season games over the past two seasons because of multiple injuries. It’s a foray into the unknown that GM Bob Myers appears comfortable with.
“Taking a cue from (co-owner) Joe Lacob, when we see something we like, we try to keep it,” Myers said. “We don’t want it to hit the market. I think that was the same we felt in regards to Steph (Curry). This was an asset we didn’t want to lose. So if it meant betting on our player, we were willing to do that. … Maybe it’s a philosophy of the organization.”
Marcus Thompson II of the Bay Area News Group passes along that quote and plenty more in a pair of pieces on the extension. We’ll cover the highlights from those, as well as reaction from others to Golden State’s gamble:
- Thompson pegs the maximum amount Bogut can earn at $41.4MM, and estimates his base salary as $12.9MM for 2014/15, $12MM in ’15/’16, and $11.1MM in ’16/’17. Those numbers are lower than the ones previously reported. The extension is still worth much more than $10MM a year, a threshold that Bogut found important to surpass, according to Thompson.
- Still, a three-year, $30MM deal wouldn’t have been acceptable to Bogut, as fellow Bay Area News Group scribe Tim Kawakami hears. The extension didn’t come cheaply for the Warriors, but the team made the right move in locking him up long-term, Kawakami opines.
- Bogut believes he can attain his incentives, triggered each season if he plays 65 games and makes either the All-Star Game, one of the All-Defensive or All-NBA teams, or is named Defensive Player of the Year. “We came up with a number that was fair for both parties,” Bogut said, according to Thompson. “Obviously, I gave up a little bit now from what we could’ve gotten in the offseason. If you can walk in a straight line and chew gum, there is a premium on 7-footers in the league. I knew that. But I’ve enjoyed my time in the Bay here … so once we came to some common ground, it was a no-brainer for me.”
- The Warriors told Bogut at the end of last season that they wanted to sign him to an extension, and Bogut set Friday as the deadline to come to a deal, Thompson writes. Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle provides detail on how negotiations for the extension got started.
- Bogut sacrificed money in the deal to allow the team to preserve cash for Klay Thompson, who’s extension-eligible next summer, Marcus Thompson tweets.