Cavs Make Iman Shumpert Available?
TUESDAY, 12:05pm: The Cavs intend to keep Shumpert, barring an unforeseen major offer from another team, sources told Sam Amico of Amico Hoops.
9:12pm: Cleveland isn’t actively thinking about trading Shumpert, whose name simply came up because his contract was a fit for salary matching purposes in a larger proposal, reports Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders (Twitter links).
MONDAY, 2:42pm: The Cavaliers are making Iman Shumpert available for a trade, report Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. Cleveland had been seeking a three-and-D wing to back him up, given his history of injuries, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group and the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported a month ago, but now it seems the Cavs would be willing to send out Shumpert himself. He’s making close to $8.988MM this season in the first year of a four-year, $40MM deal he signed with Cleveland just this past summer.
Shumpert is averaging a career-low 6.2 points this season, one in which he’s played in only 30 of Cleveland’s 52 games so far thanks to a preseason wrist injury. His 3-point shooting is off, at 32.2%, his lowest rate of accuracy since he shot 30.6% from behind the line as a rookie in 2011/12. Still, he’s the sixth best shooting guard in ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus Minus and is having his finest season to date on D according to the Basketball-Reference Box Plus Minus metric.
Cleveland appears to be operating on multiple fronts in addition to the search for wing players, as they’ve been eyeing big man Kosta Koufos, Stein reported earlier today, while also reportedly shopping Kevin Love. The Cavs want a star in return for Love, and not the role players and draft picks the Celtics have offered in their recent talks, Stein and Windhorst hear.
Jazz Have External Trade Talk About Trey Burke
The Jazz have held multiple discussions with other teams about trades involving Trey Burke, league sources tell Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune. Still, the Jazz aren’t in line to acquire fellow point guard Jeff Teague from the Hawks, Jones tweets, despite an earlier report that they were thinking about pursuing him. Utah rejected an offer from the Hawks of Teague for Rodney Hood and a draft pick, according to Spencer Checketts of 1280 The Zone radio in Salt Lake City (Twitter link).
Jazz coach Quin Snyder has praised Burke for his defense, Jones notes, and the No. 9 overall pick is shooting a career best 42.3% from the floor and 34.7% from 3-point range. Still, his minutes are at a career-low 23.6 per game, down significantly from the 30.1 he saw last season, even though he seemed to be first in line to start when Dante Exum went down with a torn ACL in the summer. The Jazz have gone with rookie Raul Neto as the starter instead and often employed lineups with three wing players instead of a point guard.
Burke, the No. 9 pick from the 2013 draft, is making more than $2.658MM this season in year three of his four-year rookie scale contract. He’ll be up for an extension this summer.
Jones speculates that George Hill, whom the Pacers have reportedly dangled in talks with Atlanta about Teague, would be a strong fit for the Jazz, and that he’d be obtainable if Utah has interest (Twitter links). The Tribune scribe believes that an offer of Burke and the unprotected 2017 first-round pick the Warriors owe the Jazz would be reasonable in exchange for Hill. Still, it’s unclear whether any connection exists between the Jazz and Pacers on that front.
Kings Eye Ryan Anderson, Make Belinelli Available
The Kings would like to sign Ryan Anderson in free agency this summer, and they’re pondering whether it would be wise to trade for him at the deadline to gain his Bird rights and the ability to give him a fifth year in a new contract this summer, reports Zach Lowe of ESPN.com, adding that the same is true for the Pistons. Sacramento is making several players available for a trade, including Marco Belinelli, according to Chris Mannix of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports (audio link; scroll to 14:45 mark), who also mentions the availability of Rudy Gay and Ben McLemore, which earlier reports made clear. It’s unclear if any of them are connected to Anderson. The Pelicans rejected a proposal from Sacramento of Anderson for Gay, as Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops reported, though James Ham of CSN California cast doubt on the notion of whether that offer took place.
Several teams have shown interest in Belinelli as well as Gay, Ham later reported, though it’s unclear just who’s in the mix for Belinelli, in particular. The shooting guard who turns 30 next month recently entered the starting lineup, but he’s shooting a career-worst 29.9% from 3-point range, off precipitously from last season’s 37.4% clip and his career mark of 38.1%. He’s nonetheless averaging more 3-point attempts than in any of his nine seasons so far. Sacramento signed him this past summer to a three-year, $19MM deal, fending off the Warriors, Hornets and Heat. The contract gives him nearly $6.061MM this season.
Anderson’s name has been mentioned frequently in rumors of late, both as a trade candidate and a looming free agent. Miami, like the Kings and Pistons, has also drawn mention as a team with interest in signing him over the summer, but it’s unclear if the Heat have any inclination to trade for him. A source with an NBA team told Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders a while ago that he expects Anderson to command a maximum-salary contract with a projected starting salary of $24.9MM. Lowe makes passing mention of $20MM as a possibility for Anderson’s salary next season.
New Orleans reportedly made Anderson available for a swap earlier this season, but the team wasn’t anxious to trade him, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders reported. The Wizards have apparently asked about him and the Rockets “kicked the tires” on Anderson earlier this season, Kyler also reported. The Raptors have strong interest in trading for him, as Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press heard. New Orleans apparently had talks with the Suns that involved Anderson, too.
Heat Interested In Randy Foye
The Heat have been looking into inexpensive 3-and-D wing options, including Nuggets shooting guard Randy Foye, according to Zach Lowe of ESPN.com. Foye was said to be available as of mid-December, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders reported then, and that’s no surprise, given his shrinking role in Denver. He’s averaging career lows in points and minutes per game while shooting a career worst 29.6% from 3-point range, well beneath his career mark of 37.0%.
Foye is making $3.135MM on an expiring contract, so Miami would have to match for that salary, and given the Heat’s position as a tax team and the repeat-offender tax penalties they face if they don’t ditch roughly $5.5MM from their payroll by season’s end, they have incentive to send salary Denver’s way. The Heat have been aggressive in trying to trade a player on the end of their bench, especially Chris Andersen and Jarnell Stokes, as Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reported around the same time that fellow Herald scribe Ethan Skolnick heard Miami had explored trading for Omri Casspi. It’s unclear if the Nuggets would want either Andersen, whom they amnestied in 2012, or Stokes, who’s spent enough time in the D-League this season to be named one of its All-Stars. Neither of them have a salary that would work in a one-for-one swap involving Foye, with Anderson’s $5MM pay too large and Stokes’ minimum salary too small.
Concern over the health of Chris Bosh clouds Miami’s trade deadline plans. The Heat have reportedly spoken with the Rockets about a swap involving Hassan Whiteside and Dwight Howard, but Miami isn’t sold on Howard’s character and the way he’d fit with the Heat, Lowe adds.
Rockets, Heat Talk Dwight, Whiteside Swap
TUESDAY, 8:34am: The Heat have questions about Howard’s character and the way he’d fit with their team, sources tell Zach Lowe of ESPN.com.
MONDAY, 10:56am: The Rockets and Heat are talking about a potential trade that would involve Dwight Howard and Hassan Whiteside, according to Frank Isola of the New York Daily News (Twitter link). Miami would have to come up with at least an additional $17,315,052 in salary to make such a trade work within the league’s salary-matching rules, thanks in part to Howard’s trade kicker, and significantly more if the Heat want to cut payroll to avoid repeat-offender tax penalties. The Heat have reportedly measured the market for Whiteside, and the Rockets have reportedly gauged interest in Howard, too, if only on a due-diligence basis.
Howard is making in excess of $22.359MM this season, while Whiteside earns the three-year veteran’s minimum of $981,348. Both are poised for free agency this summer, with the Rockets expecting Howard to opt out and Whiteside’s bargain contract set to expire. The Heat have only Early Bird rights on Whiteside, meaning they’d have to use cap room to pay him in excess of roughly $6MM next season. The same would be true for the Rockets, or any other team that might trade for him before Thursday’s 2pm Central time deadline. The Heat reportedly believe Whiteside, who turns 27 this summer, would command a salary of at least $17MM. The Sean Kennedy client will no doubt try for a max deal with a projected starting salary of $20.4MM, while Howard, only three and a half years older but with eight additional years of NBA experience, is expected to seek his max of a projected $29.3MM.
Miami has reportedly grown frustrated with the emotional Whiteside, while the Rockets are looking for answers while they sit at 27-28, in ninth place in the Western Conference. ESPN’s Chris Broussard said this morning that Howard would like to play for his hometown Hawks, though it’s unclear if Atlanta has interest, and the market for the former All-Star center apparently hasn’t been overwhelming so far.
Can you envision a workable trade proposal involving Howard and Whiteside? Share your ideas in the comments.
Knicks Offer To Attach O’Quinn To Calderon Trades
TUESDAY, 8:31am: New York is seeking rotation players on expiring deals for Calderon and O’Quinn, sources tell Zach Lowe of ESPN.com.
MONDAY, 3:06pm: The Knicks are offering Kyle O’Quinn to potential trade partners as they seek to offload Jose Calderon, report Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. New York harbors a strong desire for Jeff Teague, Stein and Windhorst write, with the Knicks having reportedly spoken with Atlanta about Teague last month, but it’s unclear if O’Quinn and Calderon have been a part of any talks between the Knicks and Hawks.
Trade rumors have surrounded Calderon since he underwhelmed following a 2014 trade that sent him from Dallas to New York, and he’s making close to $7.403MM this year on a contract that runs through next season. O’Quinn sees $3.75MM this year on a four-year deal worth about $16.013MM that he inked just this past summer as part of a sign-and-trade with the Magic.
O’Quinn’s role has shrunk in recent weeks, as he’s averaged only 7.3 minutes per game since the calendar turned to 2016. He’d seen 13.8 minutes a night prior to that, a rate of playing time that was still reduced from his final two seasons with the Magic.
Nets Likely To Part Ways With Andrea Bargnani
TUESDAY, 6:59am: Colangelo and Rosas are still in the race for the GM job, Wojnarowski clarifies (on Twitter).
MONDAY, 11:24am: Andrea Bargnani is among the players almost certain to work a buyout with their respective teams if they’re not traded by Thursday’s 2pm Central deadline, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports. It’s not surprising to see David Lee and J.J. Hickson as the other names on Wojnarowski’s short list of buyout candidates, since Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck reported earlier this month that the Celtics intended to either trade Lee or do a buyout, while the Nuggets have apparently been shopping Hickson. Bargnani is in the first season of a two-year deal for the minimum salary that includes a player option for next season and is averaging only 13.8 minutes per game, by far the fewest of his 10-year NBA career.
Still, it’s difficult to gauge just what the Nets will do with their personnel, since they’re in the midst of hiring a new GM. Nuggets assistant GM Arturas Karnisovas and Spurs assistant GM Sean Marks continue to talk with the team as it moves toward second interviews this week, league sources told Wojnarowski. The general consensus around the NBA as of Friday held that former Raptors and Suns GM Bryan Colangelo would ultimately emerge with the gig, as Beck reported then, though Colangelo and Rockets executive VP of basketball operations Gersson Rosas aren’t necessarily out of the running, Wojnarowski indicates. Chris Broussard of ESPN on Thursday identified Colangelo, Karnisovas and Marks as the front-runners for the job that’s been vacant since the Nets removed Billy King from the position last month.
Regardless of whom the Nets choose as GM, he’ll be only one part of a committee that will hire the team’s next coach, Wojnarowski also writes. Various reports have indicated that some combination of team chairman Dmitry Razumov, board member Sergey Kushchenko, CEO Brett Yormark and owner Mikhail Prokhorov’s holding company president Irina Pavlova comprise the committee in charge of the GM search. The new GM will join that group in its efforts to find a coach, according to Wojnarowski. The Nets hope to draw from a pool of coaching candidates that includes NBA head coaching veterans Jeff Van Gundy and Tom Thibodeau and Spurs assistant Ettore Messina. Mike Mazzeo and Marc Stein reported last month that Brooklyn had strong interest in Thibodeau, and Stein later identified Messina as a candidate, but this appears to be the first legitimate link between the Nets and Van Gundy.
Whomever ends up coaching the Nets likely won’t have Bargnani, unless the team speeds through the process. March 1st represents the de facto buyout deadline, since it’s the last day any player can hit waivers and still be eligible to play for another NBA team in the postseason.
Deadline Trades Involving High Salaries Rare
Trade rumors have involved some fairly significant names in the past few days, some of whom are pulling down sizable salaries. Chief among them is Dwight Howard, who’s making more than $22.359MM this season on the maximum-salary contract he signed with the Rockets in 2013. Kevin Love, who just this past summer signed a max deal that gives him $19.689MM this season, has also drawn mention. However, in part because trades involving highly paid players are difficult to put together under the constraints of the league’s salary-matching rules, few who have especially impressive paychecks change teams this time of year.
No one who’s been traded during February in any of the past three years has had a higher salary than Danny Granger, who was due more than $14MM when he went from the Pacers to the Sixers in 2014. Only two others making $10MM or more have found themselves in trades at or near the deadline in the last three years. The deadline was particularly devoid of money changing hands in 2013, when J.J. Redick, with his $6.19MM salary, was the most well-compensated player to get swapped.
The list below shows the top salaries to change hands via trade during the month of February since 2013. Note that Marcus Thornton appears twice, having been included in trades each of the last two years. (He may again be traded this year, but he’s only making the minimum this time around.)
- Danny Granger, Pacers to Sixers, 2014 — $14,021,788
- Kevin Garnett, Nets to Timberwolves, 2015 — $12MM
- JaVale McGee, Nuggets to Sixers, 2015 — $11.25MM
- Thaddeus Young, Timberwolves to Nets, 2015 — $9,660,869
- Kendrick Perkins, Thunder to Jazz, 2015 — $9,654,342
- Marcus Thornton, Celtics to Suns, 2015 — $8.575MM
- Marcus Thornton, Kings to Nets, 2014 — $8.05MM
- Tayshaun Prince, Celtics to Pistons, 2015 — $7,707,865
- Arron Afflalo, Nuggets to Trail Blazers, 2015 — $7.75MM
- Goran Dragic, Suns to Heat, 2015 — $7.5MM
- Isaiah Thomas, Suns to Celtics, 2015 — $7,238,606
- Evan Turner, Sixers to Pacers, 2014 — $6,679,867
- Spencer Hawes, Sixers to Cavaliers, 2014 — $6.6MM
- J.J. Redick, Magic to Bucks, 2013 — $6.19MM
The Basketball Insiders Salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Eastern Notes: Monroe, Carter-Williams, Love
Greg Monroe isn’t available but Michael Carter-Williams is “undeniably gettable,” sources tell Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. That conflicts with one side of an earlier report indicating that Milwaukee had let other teams know it was open to giving up Monroe for the right price, but it confirms the other part, about the team’s willingness to trade Carter-Williams just a year after acquiring him from the Sixers at last year’s deadline. The Bucks are turning away calls on Jabari Parker, Stein and Windhorst also write. See more from the Eastern Conference:
- Cleveland has made it clear it wants a star in return for Kevin Love, not the role players and draft picks the Celtics are offering, league sources tell Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. Some executives around the league are growing stronger in their belief that the Cavs are more likely to entertain Love trades in the summer than they are now. the ESPN scribes add.
- The market is strong for the first-rounders that the Sixers have from the Thunder and Heat this year, according to Bobby Marks of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports, and with a below-average draft class and several teams devoid of first-round selections, it would be wise for Philadelphia to thinking about trading the picks, Marks opines.
- The Heat have recalled Jarnell Stokes from the D-League, the team announced (Twitter link). Miami sent Stokes, whom the team is reportedly dangling in search of a second-round pick and tax relief, on assignment late last week so he could play in the D-League All-Star Game this past weekend, notes Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel (on Twitter).
And-Ones: Lue, Anderson, Burks, Luwawu
Five NBA head coaches have been fired since the start of the season, and a sixth, George Karl, nearly was. That’s left a skittish environment in coaching circles, as Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post examines.
“I think maybe the owners are running out of patience,” said Tyronn Lue, who took over the Cavs from the fired David Blatt. “I’m not sure. Just talking to the guys, it’s good to get a long-term deal, because you never know what’s going to happen in this league. In our situation alone, we’re number one in the East and we got to the NBA finals last year, and then something like this unfortunately happens. I think you just have to continue to see improvement every year. A lot of times, I know ownership, they get anxious, and they probably think they’re better than what they really are. So that tends to play a part in it.
Lue reportedly signed a three-year deal when he took the head coaching job in Cleveland, though GM David Griffin denied it. See more from around the NBA with the trade deadline precisely 72 hours away:
- Ryan Anderson is anxious to explore free agency this summer, so he’d only be a rental for any team that might acquire him at the trade deadline, a source told Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Conflicting reports paint a confusing picture of the likelihood that Anderson will end up in a trade, though more of them indicate that he’s not the likeliest trade candidate on the Pelicans than the other way around.
- Alec Burks is progressing well in his recovery from a fractured left fibula and the general expectation is that the Jazz shooting guard will return to action in March, tweets Jody Genessy of The Deseret News. That’s nonetheless slightly behind the eight-week timetable reported in late December.
- Draft prospect Timothe Luwawu of the Serbian club Mega Leks is an all-around swingman with a rapidly emerging 3-point game, strong passing and intriguing defensive skill who must improve his ball-handling and willingness to finish inside and overcome his occasional mental lapses on the floor, observes Jonathan Givony of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports. Luwawu is Givony’s 15th-rated prospect for this year.