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Author: Chuck Myron

Jeanie Buss On Jim Buss, Jackson, D’Antoni

By | at September 22, 2013 8:39 am

Jeanie Buss is the Lakers representative on the NBA's Board of Governors, making her as much the primary owner of the team as any member of the Buss family is following the passing of patriarch Jerry Buss in February. She hints at tension between her and brother Jim Buss, writing in the latest edition of her memoir that she wants Jim "to realize that I'm not the enemy." The Los Angeles Times published an excerpt of the updated portion of "Laker Girl" online today that centers around the team's abortive pursuit of Jeanie's fiancee, Phil Jackson, for their coaching vacancy last season. It's plenty revelatory, not just about the Jackson situation but the ongoing dynamics of the Lakers front office, so we'll recap the highlights here:

  • Jeanie was moved to tears when the team decided to hire Mike D'Antoni instead. "The sequence of events — Phil almost coming back and then being told someone else was better for the job — practically destroyed me," she writes. "It almost took away my passion for this job and this game. It felt like I had been stabbed in the back. It was a betrayal. I was devastated."
  • Jeanie, who oversees the franchise's business operations, says she and Jim had never spoken about basketball before Jim sought her input prior to asking Jackson about his interest in the job.
  • Jackson never demanded part-ownership, a "ridiculous" salary, or an arrangement that would have allowed him to miss some of the team's road games, according to Jeanie, but he did ask for input on personnel decisions.
  • The Lakers were aware of the negative publicity that choosing D'Antoni over Jackson would bring. When GM Mitch Kupchak called Jackson to tell him that they were going with D'Antoni, Kupchak told him he thought the media firestorm would "blow over in a month," Jeanie writes.
0 comments Los Angeles Lakers

Western Notes: Rautins, KJ, Lin, Suns

By | at September 21, 2013 10:45 pm

The three teams doling out the greatest number of $10MM+ salaries this year are all from the Eastern Conference, as I examined this evening, but of the leaguewide total of 60 salaries of $10MM or more this season, Western Conference teams are set to pay 29 of them. That's a remarkably even split considering nearly a quarter of those salaries are concentrated with just the Nets, Knicks and Bulls. It demonstrates a depth of highly compensated talent in the West, which has been widely perceived as the NBA's power conference for years. Here's the latest news from the Western Conference:

  • Author R.E. Graswich contends in his book that Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson played a secondary role to David Stern in the fight to keep the Kings from moving, as Graswich explains to Cambi Brown of CBS13 in Sacramento. Graswich also claims that Johnson harbors a grudge against the Kings, who drafted Kenny Smith one spot before Johnson went off the board in 1987.
  • Andy Rautins spent last October with the Thunder, but it doesn't look like he'll be in an NBA camp this time around. The Fraport Skyliners of Germany have announced on their website that they've signed the former second-round pick (translation via Emiliano Carchia of Sportando).
  • Jeremy Lin tells ESPN.com that he believes Dwight Howard's arrival in Houston will alleviate some of the pressure the Harvard grad felt to perform for the Rockets last season, when he was down on himself for not duplicating "Linsanity."
  • Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic profiles new Suns coach Jeff Hornacek's assistants, two of whom were Suns teammates of Hornacek in their playing days.
0 comments City of Seattle Houston Rockets Phoenix Suns Sacramento Kings

Nets, Knicks, Bulls Have Most $10MM+ Salaries

By | at September 21, 2013 9:09 pm

The salary cap and luxury tax are in place to help curb the advantages that large-market teams would have in an open market. They haven't stopped the Nets and Knicks from having more players making at least $10MM this season than almost every team in the league. Only the Bulls, who like the Knicks have four such players, are in the same class as the New York contingent, which is led by the Nets and their fivesome of eight-figure players.

The Bulls and the Big Apple teams seem even more profligate when juxtaposed with the four NBA clubs that don't have $10MM+ contracts at all. The Suns and Sixers play in fairly large markets, but they're still without highly paid talent, just as the Kings and Bucks are. Two more teams don't have anyone who's guaranteed at least $10MM, since Hedo Turkoglu and Andrew Bynum are promised only $6MM from the Magic and Cavs, respectively.

A team top-heavy with well-compensated players doesn't always succeed on the basketball court, of course. The Heat have won back-to-back championships with no one other than their trio of stars making $10MM or more. The Rockets and Grizzlies figure to be among the Western Conference elite even though they each only have a pair of eight-figure salaries. And since the three teams with the most high-dollar contracts all play in the Eastern Conference, at least one of them isn't going to make the conference finals — and that assumes that the Heat won't make it that far.

Here's the complete list:

Teams with five $10MM+ contracts

Teams with four $10MM+ contracts

Teams with three $10MM+ contracts

Teams with two $10MM+ contracts

Teams with one $10MM+ contract

Teams without a $10MM+ contract

  • 76ers
  • Bucks
  • Kings
  • Suns

ShamSports was used in the creation of this post.

0 comments Brooklyn Nets Chicago Bulls New York Knicks

Each Agency’s Highest-Paid Client

By | at September 21, 2013 5:00 pm

An NBA agency is only as valuable as the players it represents, and every agency has one client who's more valuable than the rest. In some cases, value isn't derived directly from money. Amare Stoudemire may be the highest-paid client on the Relativity Sports roster, but that doesn't mean he's more important to the agency than Dwight Howard is. Still, even an overpaid player can be a jewel for an agency as an example of the power of negotiation. 

Using the Hoops Rumors Agency Database and ShamSports, I've found the player with the highest 2013/14 salary for each agency with at least three NBA clients. I've listed the current agency for each player, so, as with LeBron James and the Klutch Sports Group, the agency that negotiated the deal might not be represented. LeBron is nonetheless Klutch's marquee client.

This list goes by this season's base salary, not the total value of the deal, and it's organized alphabetically by agency:

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Jazz Rumors: Offseason, Corbin, Burke, Leslie

By | at September 21, 2013 4:05 pm

The Jazz took a step back competitively this summer to open up playing time for their younger guys, and GM Dennis Lindsey promises Steve Luhm of The Salt Lake Tribune that the team won't reverse course.

"… We are not running away from the decisions we made," Lindsey said. "We are looking to embrace this and we will embrace it — all the challenges of being so young. I believe we have the talent and character to move forward — incrementally. We are very much looking forward to the start of the journey with this young core group."

Lindsey passed along a couple of other noteworthy tidbits in his conversation with Luhm, and we'll round them up here along with an update on a member of last year's Jazz team:

  • The GM explained why the team abandoned its hunt for an annual playoff berth. "We were O.K. with being playoff-competitive as long as we had [salary cap] flexibility, too," he said. "But if we had invested in our veteran players, we were going to lose that flexibility, especially with some other [contract] extensions coming up."
  • Lindsey emphasizes a collaborative approach in the front office, which also includes VP of basketball operations Kevin O'Connor and newly hired assistant GM Justin Zanik. Coach Tyrone Corbin has a say, too, and his input was critical in swaying the team to trade for Trey Burke on draft night, Lindsey says.
  • Travis Leslie was briefly a member of the Jazz last season, though he didn't appear in a game. He signed with JSF Nanterre in France last month, but comments the team's head coach recently made suggest that Leslie could once more make a quick exit, notes Gabriel Pantel-Jouve of Catch & Shoot (translation via HoopsHype).
0 comments Utah Jazz

Poll: Which Player Deserves Max Extension More?

By | at September 21, 2013 2:48 pm

We presented Hoops Rumors readers yesterday with a variety of values for a contract extension between the Pacers and Paul George, and asked which was the most likely result. More voters chose the five-year maximum-salary option than any other scenario. Such a deal would put him on par with John Wall, who maxed out with the Wizards in July. 

George had a breakout season last year and led the Pacers to within a game of the NBA Finals. Wall has never made the playoffs and only played 49 games last season after injury delayed his start, but he finished strong and clearly won over Wizards ownership. Their basic statistics are rather similar. George averaged 17.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists last season, while Wall put up 18.5 PPG, 4.0 RPG and 7.6 APG. George had the greater defensive impact for his team in terms of points allowed per 100 possessions, while Wall's 20.8 PER displays significantly more efficiency than George 16.8 PER.

Wall's already got his five-year max deal, and George is perhaps soon to follow. Regardless of how much George winds up with, do you think he's more deserving of the max than Wall is? Let us know with a vote, and share more on the subject in the comments.

Poll: Which Player Deserves Max Extension More?

  • Paul George 64% (317)
  • They're both equally deserving or undeserving 24% (116)
  • John Wall 12% (60)

Total votes: 493

2 comments Hoops Rumors Polls Indiana Pacers Washington Wizards

Josh Childress To Join Wizards For Training Camp

By | at September 21, 2013 1:18 pm

The Wizards have landed 30-year-old swingman Josh Childress, who'll be with the team in camp, tweets Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype. Presumably it'll be a standard non-guaranteed camp deal for the Chris Emens client who appeared in just 14 NBA games last season before the Nets waived him in December.

This summer the former sixth overall pick turned down a lucrative offer from Olympiacos of Greece, the team that lured him away from a sixth-man role with the Hawks in 2008. The Cavs, Spurs and Pelicans all auditioned Childress over the past couple of months, and the Knicks were among several teams with which he had talks.

Childress is the first player the Wizards have invited to this year's camp outside of their exisiting 15 guaranteed contracts. He could push for playing time at small forward with Chris Singleton sidelined six to eight weeks with foot surgery. Still, Washington already has Martell Webster and rookies Otto Porter and Glen Rice Jr. at the position, so Childress figures to have an uphill battle to make the opening-night roster.

1 comment Transactions Washington Wizards

Free Agent Stock Watch: Lou Amundson

By | at September 20, 2013 10:28 pm

Seventeen days have gone by since agent Mark Bartelstein said Lou Amundson would strike a deal within the week, and the veteran power forward remains unsigned. Amundson has one more week left before NBA training camps start, and it's beginning to look like he'll still be looking for work when the balls start bouncing.

The 30-year-old has never wowed with his ability in seven seasons after going undrafted out of UNLV. He's only once signed for more than the minimum salary, landing a two year, $4.6MM deal from the Warriors in 2010 after averaging career highs of 4.7 points and 4.4 rebounds per game for a Suns team that went to the Western Conference Finals. He's nonetheless maintained a consistent presence on NBA rosters, appearing in 327 games while making just seven starts in his career. 

Amundson's shooting percentage has declined in each of the past four seasons, hitting an ugly 39.5% last year, when he split the season between the Timberwolves, Bulls and Pelicans. He has a better impact on the defensive end. During the three years in which Amundson saw his greatest amounts of minutes per contest, his Suns and Warriors teams were better defensively with him on the floor in terms of points allowed per 100 possessions, per NBA.com. That's somewhat misleading, since the opposite was true in 2011/12, the only other season he averaged at least 10 minutes a night. That year he was with the Pacers, a better defensive squad than the high-scoring outfits he'd been a part of in Phoenix and Golden State. It suggests Amundson is an average interior defender, which isn't necessarily unappealing if he's on the fringes of the rotation, as he has been the past couple of seasons. 

The 6'9" Amundson has always been proficient on the boards, notching 10.1 rebounds per 36 minutes for his career. His 17.0% rebounding percentage would have put him fourth on the list of the top rebounders still available that Luke Adams of Hoops Rumors put together in early August if he'd averaged enough minutes last season to qualify. Such board work hasn't resulted in NBA jobs for Hamed Haddadi, Johan Petro or Lamar Odom, the three guys on the list who would have been ahead of Amundson, so it's certainly no harbinger of an NBA deal.

The Lakers and Clippers met with Amundson last month, the latest among a sizable group of teams reported to have had interest in him at some point this summer, one that includes the Knicks, Heat, Kings, Mavericks, Hawks, and Pacers. Many of those clubs also pursued Greg Oden, and it seemed then as though they considered Amundson as Plan B. Oden signed a fully guaranteed minimum-salary contract, an arrangement that was less player-friendly than the two-year deal with a player option that he initially agreed to. Perhaps Oden's concession drove down the price for Amundson, who might not be so willing to make a sacrifice of his own, though that's just my speculation.

Amundson signed a guaranteed minimum-salary pact with the Wolves last year, but I'd be surprised to see him do that this time around. He's probably looking at no better than a partial guarantee, if he gets a guarantee at all. Many jobs with overseas teams have been snapped up, but the international market is probably more favorable for Amundson now than it would be in another month or so if he found himself on the chopping block after opting to go to an NBA training camp on a non-guaranteed deal. His best bet is probably signing overseas, and while the idea of opening the season out of the NBA for the first time since 2007 might not appeal to him, it doesn't mean his career in the Association is over. If Amundson can ink a deal with an NBA out or in China, where the season ends early, he could find his way stateside again later in the season, perhaps on what would be the sixth 10-day contract of his career. 

0 comments Free Agent Stock Watch

Western Rumors: Budinger, Lakers, Vasquez

By | at September 20, 2013 9:12 pm

A handful of teams were reportedly suitors of Chase Budinger this summer, but after just a single injury-shortened year in Minnesota, the Timberwolves had already won his heart, as he told reporters today, including Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune (video link). 

"It was a fairly easy decision." Budinger said of re-signing with the Wolves. "I just fit perfectly in Rick Adelman's system. He trusts me. I know the coaching staff. I know what they expect of me. Just all in all, I was very comfortable here, and that was the main reason why I came back." 

Zgoda's video also shows Budinger and Dante Cunningham talking about the club's offseason additions. Here's more from Minnesota's Western Conference rivals:

  • Dave Murphy of Forum Blue & Gold confirms that Nick Minnerath will pass up a training camp invitation from the Lakers to play for Obradoiro in Spain (hat tip to Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times). We suspected as much when the Spanish team announced its deal last month with the undrafted former University of Detroit forward. 
  • Greivis Vasquez hasn't yet played a game for the Kings, who acquired him via trade from the Pelicans this summer, but the team already faces a decision about whether to extend his rookie-scale deal. Sacramento GM Pete D'Alessandro is among those who praises the Venezuelan point guard in Alex Kramers' piece for Kings.com, which chronicles Vasquez's unlikely journey to the team.
  • The Kosta Koufos trade figures to open up the Nuggets starting center job for JaVale McGee, but Timofey Mozgov is also in line for more playing time as the primary backup at the position after inking a new three-year deal in the offseason. The big man recognizes the opportunity before him, as he tells Aaron J. Lopez of Nuggets.com.
0 comments Denver Nuggets Los Angeles Lakers Minnesota Timberwolves Sacramento Kings

Little Financial Incentive Exists For Many In 2013/14

By | at September 20, 2013 7:37 pm

The movitation of looming negotiations for a new contract can drive players to put a little extra into a season. Even guys who aren't in the final years of their deals may have a financial carrot on a stick, with team and player options and non-guaranteed seasons to be decided on for 2014/15. Former first-round draft picks entering their third seasons can look forward to the prospect of a lucrative extension.

Still, there are plenty of others who have no direct financial incentive to play well in 2013/14. They have contracts that include a fully guaranteed season in 2014/15, with no options to be decided upon next summer. No teams have more players in this situation than the Bucks, Nuggets, Timberwolves, and Trail Blazers, all of which hope eight of their guys can find something else to drive them. The Heat have the specter of a third straight championship to shoot for, but everyone on the team will be playing for a contract, too, since they're the only NBA franchise without anyone locked into his 2014/15 salary.

This compilation doesn't take into effect players who are up for veteran extensions, since those are rare under the new collective bargaining agreement. Over time, the latest CBA should curtail the number of players without a negotiation ahead, since it places stricter limits on the length of deals.

Everyone who signed a long-term, fully guaranteed free agent contract this summer is on the list. It also includes John Wall and Larry Sanders, who signed long-term rookie-scale extensions. There are a few of this year's second-round picks shown here, but none of the first-rounders, since they must sign rookie-scale contracts which call for either an option decision or an extension candidacy in each of the three offseasons between the four years of the deal. Since many guys on rookie-scale deals sign extensions, unlike other NBA players, we've included those who are set for rookie-scale extension eligibility in 2014.

Of course, just because a player doesn't have a tangible financial incentive to play for doesn't mean there isn't some money at stake. A player's off-court endorsement earnings are often affected by his play, and if a guy lollygags this season, only to ramp up his production when negotiations draw closer, front offices might not be fooled. Teams can get rid of them by trading them or waiving them, but these players will still be due their 2014/15 salaries:

ShamSports was used in the creation of this post.

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