Pelicans Won’t Rule Out Eric Gordon Trade
The Pelicans didn't hesitate to bring a seemingly unwilling Eric Gordon back last summer, matching a four-year maximum-value offer sheet from the Suns. This time, New Orleans doesn't appear to have reservations about letting him go. GM Dell Demps told reporters today, including John Reid of The Times-Picayune, that the team would consider deals for Gordon or anyone else on the team's roster.
The news is in keeping with what we heard close to the deadline, when it appeared the Pelicans were more likely to revisit trade offers in the summer than pull the trigger immediately. Part of the reason for that appears to have been the reservations that several teams had about Gordon's balky right knee, not to mention his contract, as Reid writes. Gordon would have to approve any trade that takes place from now until July 14th, since that's when the Pelicans matched his offer sheet from the Suns.
One deadline rumor linked the Warriors to Gordon in a deal involving Klay Thompson. Gordon counted Golden State and Phoenix as places he wouldn't mind winding up via trade, but regardless of whether Gordon would OK a trade to the Suns, that can't happen at all until one year from the time the Pelicans matched his offer sheet from them.
Gordon was out for the first 29 games this season with a patella tendon disorder and bone bruise in his right knee, the same one on which Gordon underwent arthroscopic surgery during the 2011/12 season, when he saw action in just nine games. He was under a minutes restriction for most of this past season, and averaged 30.1 minutes per game in 42 contests while shooting 40.2%, both career lows.
Mike Brown Twice Turned Down Suns Job
The Suns attempted to bring Mike Brown aboard as coach at midseason, when they let go of Alvin Gentry, and again this month, but Brown rebuffed the team both times, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Stein says Brown passed this time around to focus on the Cavs, where he remains the leading candidate, according to the Associated Press, and other openings (Twitter links). It's further indication interim coach Lindsey Hunter could be on his way out, following the departure of GM Lance Blanks within the hour, as the ESPN.com scribe surmises.
Brown and Cavs owner Dan Gilbert met yesterday and could meet again as soon as today. There's pressure on Cleveland to move quickly, since Brown would reportedly be the top choice of Hawks GM Danny Ferry if he decides to let go of Larry Drew after the team finishes its postseason run.
The Sixers and the Pistons are the only two teams other than the Cavs to have coaching vacancies at the moment, but Brown does not appear to be a candidate for either job. Nonetheless, it appears the former Lakers coach has landed on his feet after his ouster in L.A. just five games into the 2012/13 season.
Suns Part Ways With GM Lance Blanks
The Suns have announced they're parting ways with general manager Lance Blanks. The move puts the future of interim coach Lindsey Hunter in doubt, since Blanks has been Hunter's primary ally in Phoenix, notes Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). USA Today's Sam Amick tweets the same, adding that Blanks had a year left on his contract.
"Lance has been a trusted friend and colleague," said Suns president of basketball operations Lon Babby, in a statement released by the team. "I thank him personally and professionally for his hard work on behalf of the Suns. We will continue to prepare for the offseason even as we look for his replacement."
Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News wrote in January that Blanks could be on shaky footing, along with Babby, who wound up getting a new two-year deal with the team earlier this month. It was in January that the Suns parted ways with coach Alvin Gentry, and around that time, Amick noticed Blanks seemed unsure about his future (Twitter link). Still, the timing of today's move comes as something of a surprise, since outgoing GMs often remain with their teams through the draft, as Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer points out, via Twitter.
Both Blanks and Babby came aboard in the summer of 2010. Without Amare Stoudemire, who left for the Knicks that offseason, the Suns went from a Western Conference finalist in 2010 to a mediocre team the next two seasons. Last summer, Phoenix sent Steve Nash to the Lakers in a sign-and-trade, and the Suns finished 25-57 this year, their worst winning percentage since their inaugural season of 1968/69.
The Suns vacancy is the first front-office position to come open so far this offseason. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports volunteers the name of Mark Warkentien, a Knicks executive and former Nuggets vice president of basketball operations, as a possible candidate (Twitter link).
Central Notes: Scott, Bucks, Cavs, Pistons
Two of the league's three current head-coaching vacancies are with Central Division teams, and this morning we rounded up the latest on the Cavaliers' search. There's plenty of other news from Cleveland and the rest of the Central today, so let's dive in:
- Former Cavaliers coach Byron Scott will be a candidate for the Bucks job if the team elects not to retain Jim Boylan, tweets Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio.
- The Cavs possess four draft picks this year, but they'll likely try to package their second-rounders, at 31st and 33rd overall, to move up in the first-round, where they have picks No. 19 and, pending the lottery, No. 3, writes Bob Finnan of The News-Herald.
- Mary Schmitt Boyer of the Plain Dealer agrees, and also believes it's possible the Cavs could offer both of their first-rounders in an effort to land the No. 1 overall pick.
- The Pistons may trade their pair of second-round picks (38th and 56th overall) for a late first-rounder, Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press believes, perhaps targeting a team reluctant to shell out the guaranteed money required to sign first-round picks.
- MLive's David Mayo surmises that the Pistons structured Lawrence Frank's contract to end in 2014, when they were scheduled to have ample cap space. Freeing themselves from the contracts of Ben Gordon and Tayshaun Prince to create room this summer accelerated Frank's exit, Mayo opines.
Recent Significant Transactions During Postseason
The NBA usually focuses strictly on basketball during the playoffs, but front offices don't go completely dark during this time of year. Scouts and executives are preparing for the draft and free agency, and sometimes teams get a jump-start on the summer with a key move. Here are five such transactions from the past three springs.
June 20th, 2012: Pelicans (then Hornets) trade Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza to Wizards for Rashard Lewis and the 46th pick in the 2012 draft — None of the players in this deal had team-friendly contracts, but New Orleans swapped two years of Okafor and Ariza for one season of Lewis, whose massive $22.7MM salary for 2012/13 was only guaranteed for $13.7MM. New Orleans waived Lewis to save the $9MM difference. The Wizards played well in stretches this season, but Okafor and Ariza failed to help them into the playoffs. Both intend to opt in for next season, at a combined cost of $22.2MM.
May 30th, 2011: Timberwolves sign Ricky Rubio — Rubio and the Wolves ended a nearly two-year wait, finally agreeing on a rookie-scale contract after Minnesota made him the fifth overall pick in 2009. The two-year delay made Rubio slightly more expensive, since he signed for the 2011 scale amount, rather than the figure from 2009, but it also bought the Wolves some time before they have to extend or re-sign Rubio with his next contract, which figures to include a sizable raise. If Minnesota had signed Rubio in 2009, his rookie contract would be up this summer.
April 20th, 2011: Grizzlies extend Zach Randolph — Eighth-seeded Memphis had a 1-0 lead on the No. 1 seed Spurs when the Grizzlies finalized their four-year, $66MM extension. Z-Bo paid immediate dividends, leading Memphis to a series victory over San Antonio and helping push the Thunder to seven games in the next round. The past two seasons haven't been as fruitful, though, as Randolph's scoring has declined to an average of 14.4 points per game in 2011/12 and 2012/13 after four straight 20-PPG seasons.
June 17th, 2010: Kings trade Spencer Hawes and Andres Nocioni to Sixers for Samuel Dalembert — The Kings sent the 10th pick in the 2007 draft away with one season remaining on his rookie-scale contract for Dalembert, who also had just one season left on his deal. Unlike the affordable Hawes, Dalembert cost $13.4MM that season, and gave the Kings just 24.2 minutes per game. Nocioni had a similar cap hit spread out over two seasons, with $13.5MM left on his deal through 2012, but he never played a significant role in Philadelphia.
April 20, 2010: Trail Blazers extend Marcus Camby — Camby signed a two-year, $17.7MM extension, but after helping the Blazers to their third straight playoff appearance in 2011, Portland traded Camby to the Rockets at the deadline in 2012. In return, the Blazers received only Hasheem Thabeet and Jonny Flynn, neither of whom is with the team anymore, along with a future second-round pick. The Rockets signed-and-traded Camby last summer for a package of three players who are no longer with them, either.
Atlantic Links: Curry, Sixers, Celtics, Iverson
Yesterday was the first day since 1974 that two pro basketball teams held playoff games in New York, and the Knicks and Nets made the most of it. Both came away with victories and 1-0 series leads. The other three teams in the Atlantic Division are making noise off the court, as we detail here.
- Sixers players have spoken positively about assistant coach Michael Curry, who appears ready to become a head coach again after his unsuccessful stint leading the Pistons in 2008/09, tweets Vincent Goodwill of the Detroit News. Curry will interview for the head job with the Philadelphia and may do so with the Cavs, but he doesn't appear to be a candidate for Detroit, Goodwill adds (Twitter link).
- John Mitchell of the Philadelphia Inquirer believes the Sixers should embrace rebuilding and resist the urge to spend significant cash on free agents this summer in a quick-fix effort.
- With Doug Collins no longer in a position to dictate the direction of the team, the time is right for the Sixers to pursue a marquee general manager, argues fellow Inquirer scribe Bob Ford.
- Ray Allen is pleased that Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has given him the license to post up smaller defenders, something he said Celtics coach Doc Rivers did not allow him to do, according to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe.
- Washburn has heard rumors that the Celtics considered signing Allen Iverson this season, but he says there's no truth behind them.
- HoopsWorld's Stephen Brotherston looks back on the tenure of Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo, concluding that the team shouldn't fire him. If Toronto wants to make a change to its front office, it should give more responsibility to Ed Stefanski, its executive vice president of basketball operations.
Rockets GM On Lin, Harden, Free Agency
Rockets GM Daryl Morey oversaw one of the most active front offices during the 2012/13 season, pulling off nine transactions, including a pair of trades at the deadline. None of those moves appear to have been quite as significant as the James Harden trade Morey engineered a few days before the season began. Fittingly, the Rockets match up with Harden’s former team as they begin the playoffs against the Thunder tonight. Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle caught up with Morey to look back on a few of his moves and gaze ahead to the summer, when the Rockets are confident they can clear the cap space necessary to go after Dwight Howard. Here are a few of Morey’s comments:
On his initial expectations for the season:
“I had prepared (owner) Leslie (Alexander) for just a horrible season if we don’t get Jeremy (Lin) and don’t make the trade for James (Harden). I actually think Leslie was prepared for it for the first time. I think it was the right approach. We were hoping to avoid a down year, but I don’t see any way we could have avoided it if we don’t have some of the things break our way, Omer (Asik), Jeremy and James, and even getting guys like (Carlos) Delfino on very good deals at the end of free agency. A lot of stuff had to come together.”
On how he expects to improve the team:
“I think we’ll have to do a little more than growth from within. I hope it’s all growth from within. We’ll still take bets on young players, but we also may have to look outside, most likely through free agency than trades. We have that cap room and we like our young players and are reluctant to trade most of them, if not all of them.”
On his plan for pursuing free agents:
“We’re not the first team to be young and hope for the future. We know probably the No. 1 mistake franchises make is in this phase to spend money on the wrong players, and it ties them up. We’ll be real careful. We’re going to be careful in free agency. We’re not going to be straightforward — team need, sign guy, team need, sign guy.”
Cavs Rumors: Brown, Gilbert, Assistants
A majority of Hoops Rumors readers don't believe Phil Jackson will consider coaching the Cavs, even though a source tells Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio that Jackson would "absolutely" listen if the team called. While the Zen Master is far and away the biggest name associated with the team's search, there are plenty of other candidates, and there's news on several of them this morning:
- The team has had informal conversations with former coach Mike Brown about a reunion, writes Bob Finnan of The News-Herald, who passes along a report from WKYC-TV in Cleveland that Brown and owner Dan Gilbert will meet Sunday.
- A source tells Finnan that Brown would be the top choice for the Hawks if they decide to make a coaching change. That's no surprise, given the ties between Brown and Atlanta GM Danny Ferry.
- The Cavs aren't expected to discuss the opening with any college coaches, and the hiring process will move swiftly, according to Finnan.
- Finnan adds Melvin Hunt of the Nuggets and Michael Curry of the Sixers to the list of assistant coaches who may receive interviews, which already included Michael Malone (Warriors), Brian Shaw (Pacers) and David Fizdale (Heat).
- The Cavs will indeed interview Shaw, just as they did when they hired Byron Scott in 2010, reports Terry Pluto of the Plain Dealer.
- Flip Saunders, Nate McMillan and Avery Johnson have all either directly or indirectly expressed interest in the position, Pluto also writes.
- The Cavs have a chance to make an impression on Kyrie Irving with their coaching hire, so that means much is riding on the team's decision, opines fellow Plain Dealer scribe Bud Shaw.
Eastern Rumors: Kenyon, Nets, Magic, 76ers
The playoffs are under way, and the Knicks have drawn first blood, going up 1-0 in their series against the Celtics. That's not the only playoff game in the Big Apple today, as the Nets take on the Bulls tonight in Brooklyn for Game 1 of their series. We rounded up news on New York's pair of NBA teams this morning, and we'll broaden the focus to the Eastern Conference as a whole here:
- Nets GM Billy King said he never considered signing Kenyon Martin, tweets Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News. Martin, who waited all summer and the majority of the season before the Knicks picked him up in February, had nine rebounds in 28 minutes to help New York open the playoffs with a win, and Bondy counts King's decision to pass up that kind of production as a mistake.
- The Magic have intriguing young pieces in Nikola Vucevic, Tobias Harris and Maurice Harkless, but they lack a sure-fire All-Star, as Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel concludes as he examines the state of the team's rebuilding effort.
- Still, Orlando's situation should be the envy of the Sixers, opines Tom Moore of PhillyBurbs.com. While owner Josh Harris asserts that there are "bunch of young assets on this team," Moore sees Jrue Holiday as the only one.
- The Sixers passed on Roy Hibbert, Paul George and Kenneth Faried in recent drafts, as Michael Kaskey-Blomain of the Philadelphia Inquirer notes, wondering what could have been if the team had made the right picks.
- With an eye toward what figures to be an active offseason for the Bobcats, Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer assesses each of the players on the team's roster.
Mavericks Tops In NBA Transactions In 2012/13
The Mavericks began the season looking to unload Dominique Jones in a trade, but wound up shuttling Eddy Curry, Troy Murphy and Derek Fisher on and off their roster. They picked up Mike James on a 10-day contract, signed him to another, and finally signed him for the rest of the season. They participated in a deadline-day trade, swapping Dahntay Jones for Anthony Morrow. They finally parted ways with Jones when they waived him in March, signing three different replacements to 10-day contracts before settling on Josh Akognon and inking him for the season.
That's merely a partial summary of the league-high 16 transactions the Mavs engaged in during the 2012/13 season. None of them were able to forestall the Mavs first non-playoff season since 1999/00. The Nuggets, meanwhile, sat back and made no moves en route to a franchise-record 57 victories.
Stability didn't necessarily translate into success. Of the five other teams that made two or fewer moves, only one finished with a record of .500 or better, and that team, the Lakers, would hardly call this season a rousing success. The 66-win Heat and the playoff-bound Celtics finished tied behind the Mavs for the second-most transations, with 13 apiece.
A few notes about our count of the number of transactions for each team this season: Since the Blazers waived Jared Jeffries the day after the regular season ended, that move isn't counted on this list. The list also doesn't include D-League assignments and recalls or instances in which a player leaves a team after his 10-day contract expires. But, if a team terminates a 10-day contract early, as the Pelicans (nee Hornets) did with Henry Sims, that transaction is counted here.
- Mavericks: 16
- Celtics: 13
- Heat: 13
- Timberwolves: 13
- Pelicans: 11
- Knicks: 10
- 76ers: 9
- Cavaliers: 9
- Grizzlies: 9
- Rockets: 9
- Wizards: 8
- Clippers: 7
- Hawks: 7
- Bobcats: 6
- Bulls: 5
- Spurs: 5
- Warriors: 5
- Jazz: 4
- Nets: 4
- Pacers: 4
- Raptors: 4
- Magic: 3
- Suns: 3
- Thunder: 3
- Kings: 2
- Lakers: 2
- Trail Blazers: 2
- Bucks: 1
- Pistons: 1
- Nuggets: 0
To keep tabs on every NBA transaction as it occurs, bookmark our transactions page, follow @hoops_trans on Twitter, or use our transaction-specific RSS feed.
RealGM.com was used in the creation of this post.