Pacific Notes: Durant, Barnes, Scott, Jefferson
The Warriors are “the leaders in the clubhouse” for Kevin Durant, an NBA GM recently said to Vincent Goodwill of CSN Chicago (Twitter link), a comment that echoes the Tuesday report from Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports that Golden State would be Durant’s preferred choice if he leaves the Thunder. Wojnarowski heard that Durant isn’t leaning one way or another toward leaving Oklahoma City, but Goodwill’s report doesn’t indicate that Durant’s preference for the Warriors is contingent on a decision about the Thunder first. See more from Golden State amid news from the Pacific Division:
- An “undercurrent of disenchantment” existed within the Warriors organization about the length of time it took for Harrison Barnes to return from a sprained ankle earlier this season, according to Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com. Barnes, who missed 16 games with the injury, hasn’t shown enough to prove he’s worthy of a massive contract in restricted free agency this summer, Poole contends. The uncertainty over his future makes it easier to see why the Warriors drafted combo forward Kevon Looney last year, as Poole explains.
- The second half of the season is essentially a referendum whether the Lakers retain Byron Scott for next year, sources close to the organization tell Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times, who adds that Scott would help his cause if the team becomes more competitive and if the young players on the Lakers show signs of development. A lot of people around the league expect the Lakers will move on from Scott this summer, but the team says he’s definitely sticking around to the end of the season and will undergo an evaluation after that, Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News said on NBA TV this week, as Harrison Faigen of SB Nation’s Silver Screen & Roll transcribes.
- Power forward Cory Jefferson has returned to the Suns D-League affiliate following the expiration of his 10-day contract with Phoenix this past weekend, notes Chris Reichert of Upside & Motor (Twitter links).
- The Suns have formally hired NBA coaching veteran Bob Hill as an assistant coach, the team announced. Wojnarowski reported Monday that the move would take place.
T.J. Warren To Miss Rest Of Season
WEDNESDAY, 7:58am: The Suns acknowledged the injury and confirmed Warren is out for the season via the team’s official Twitter account.
TUESDAY, 3:52pm: T.J. Warren will miss the rest of the season for the Suns because of a broken foot, league sources told Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The loss of the 14th overall pick from the 2014 draft is the latest blow to a Suns team that’s suffered a disastrous season so far. The combo forward has been battling a right ankle impingement for the past week and missed Sunday’s game against the Mavericks.
The Suns are already missing Eric Bledsoe, who’s out for the season with a torn meniscus in his left knee, and Ronnie Price, who’s out for a few weeks with a toe injury. Brandon Knight has a groin injury that’s keeping him out an indefinite period of time. The Suns might qualify for a hardship provision of a 16th roster spot if doctors expect Price and Knight to miss the next two weeks or more, but they already have an spot open beneath the usual 15-man limit. It’s too late in the season for the team to apply for a disabled player exception.
Warren averaged 11.0 points in 22.8 minutes per game and shot 40% from 3-point range this season, part of a group of young Suns players that’s offered some sense of optimism in a lost season so far. Phoenix is 14-35 so far and fired Jeff Hornacek on Monday. Warren’s rookie scale contract runs through 2017/18 with a nearly $3.153MM team option on the final season. The Suns already picked up his option for next season, worth almost $2.129MM.
Western Notes: Garnett, Gay, Kilpatrick
Kevin Garnett gave reporters a pointed endorsement of interim coach Sam Mitchell, as well expressed his approval of the direction that the Timberwolves are headed as a franchise, Jerry Zgoda of The Star Tribune relays. “I feel real good about the progression of this team since Day 1 and I think it needs to be said and needs to be understood that I’m endorsing Sam Mitchell and our coaching staff and this organization,” Garnett said. “More importantly, I’m excited about our future. I’m excited about our young players. I feel like we’re getting better. These last 10, 15 games, we’ve gotten better. You see it and I think that needs to be said. I think you all need to understand we’re supportive around here.”
The veteran had raised some eyebrows with his previous silence regarding Mitchell, Zgoda notes. “Just because I haven’t done a lot of interviews and voiced my opinion on a lot of things,” Garnett continued, “I want you guys to understand that not only do I endorse Sam Mitchell, but the other players do, too. We believe not only in him, but the system and what we’re trying to do here. I think everybody needs to understand that. The transformation and what we’re trying to do here is build something for the future and these are the first steps of that. I don’t really come to you guys a lot and say two weeks, but I just want you guys to know that needs to be heard and said.”
Here’s the latest from out West:
- The Clippers are looking for a small forward and have interest in Rudy Gay, but their interest isn’t strong enough to obtain him, ESPN’s Chris Broussard says in a video report. Gay has been linked to the Clippers previously, as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee wrote in January, but it wasn’t clear just how they viewed him. Dana Gauruder of Hoops Rumors profiled the trade candidacy of the Kings combo forward Monday.
- Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook don’t have any trouble seeing eye-to-eye, sources tell Zach Lowe of ESPN.com as part of a larger piece on the Thunder. The team has been scanning the market for wing players but hasn’t made any serious pursuits, several league sources said to Lowe, who also hears that new coach Billy Donovan has been better at holding the team’s stars accountable during film sessions than predecessor Scott Brooks was.
- The Nuggets don’t intend to sign Sean Kilpatrick for the remainder of the season, Nate Timmons of BSNDenver.com tweets. Kilpatrick’s second 10-day pact expired on Monday.
Central Notes: Meeks, Love, Christmas
The Pistons have been linked to soon-to-be free agents Ryan Anderson and Al Horford as well as trade candidate Markieff Morris, but they’re satisfied with incumbent power forwards Ersan Ilyasova and Anthony Tolliver, writes Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. That doesn’t mean they won’t seek an upgrade in the offseason, when Tolliver’s contract expires, but GM Jeff Bower made it clear to Ellis why the team is in no rush to make a deal now.
“That upheaval creates upheaval throughout the locker room,” Bower said. “When you do make changes like that, you’d like to think you’re doing it for more than just minor, insignificant shuffling. Sometimes you need a major shakeup, but usually when those scenarios exist, you have a group you don’t think is functioning well and you don’t see a long-term lifespan with them.”
See more on the Pistons amid the latest from around the Central Division:
- Jodie Meeks will face limitations for the rest of this month after encountering a setback in his recovery from the broken foot he suffered at the start of the season, and he’s unlikely to play much this season, Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy told reporters, including Rod Beard of The Detroit News (Twitter links). “For practical matters, it’s really hard to see him being able to get back and make much of a contribution this year,” Van Gundy said.
- David Blatt didn’t prioritize making Kevin Love comfortable in the Cavaliers offense, but in Tyronn Lue‘s brief time as Blatt’s replacement, Love already looks more comfortable than he’s ever been since joining Cleveland before last season, writes Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal.
- The Pacers have assigned Rakeem Christmas to the D-League, the team announced. The 36th overall pick from the 2015 draft has spent the vast majority of the season with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants and he’s still yet to play in an NBA regular season game.
Heat Eye Joe Johnson For Post-Buyout Market
Joe Johnson would stir the interest of the Heat if he buys his way off the Nets, Ethan Skolnick of the Miami Herald hears (Twitter link). Johnson said today that he doesn’t know whether he’ll negotiate a buyout but didn’t rule out the idea and added that he’ll have a talk with agent Jeff Schwartz in the next week, as the swingman told reporters, including Andy Vasquez of The Record. The 34-year-old Johnson is making close to $24.895MM, a difficult salary to fit in a trade, and it doesn’t appear as though the Heat see him as a trade target.
The Heat are without combo guard Tyler Johnson, who’s scheduled to undergo rotator cuff surgery this week, for at least two months, and they don’t have an open roster spot to make an addition. Miami could always waive a player and risk eating his salary, but that would be a risky proposition financially. The Heat are faced with either clearing about $5.5MM in salary, likely via trade, or paying repeat-offender luxury tax penalties at season’s end.
Midseason signees usually end up with the prorated minimum salary, though particularly attractive buyout candidates sometimes command more. The Heat have about $2.85MM on their taxpayer’s mid-level exception to spend, but doing so would impose a further financial burden. Johnson is averaging 11.3 points per game, his fewest since the 2002/03 season, and shooting a career-worst 39% from the field, but he put up 13.5 points a night and shot 48.5% in January. Johnson has said multiple times this season that he’ll prioritize finding a winning team when he next hits free agency, and the Heat, at No. 3 in the Eastern Conference, would seemingly fit that bill.
Would Johnson help the Heat? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Kevin Durant Fond Of Warriors; Clippers Loom
The Warriors would be “significant” front-runners for Kevin Durant should he leave the Thunder this summer, league sources told Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports, who places emphasis on the word “significant.” Still, the former MVP isn’t leaning one way or another toward staying or leaving Oklahoma City, Wojnarowski adds. The Wizards, Rockets and Heat still loom as likely suitors, but the Clippers are determined to make a push for him and wouldn’t hesitate to trade Blake Griffin to facilitate the acquisition of Durant, as Wojnarowski details.
Durant wants to win titles and create a legacy, Wojnarowski writes, and the Warriors, the defending champions who sit at 44-4 this season, would give him a strong chance to do so. Draymond Green is on board with the move and is expected to recruit Durant this summer, though Stephen Curry, given his talent and personality, would be the most persuasive voice, Wojnarowski adds, nonetheless leaving it unclear whether Curry is expected to go as hard after Durant as Green is.
Golden State has long eyed Durant’s upcoming free agency, Wojnarowski notes, and so has much of the rest of the NBA, of course. The Warriors nonetheless have a reputation for aiming high, and Harrison Barnes, set for restricted free agency at season’s end, looms as a sign-and-trade chip, as Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group has pointed out.
The Warriors have close to $75MM committed for next season against a salary cap that’s projected to come in at $89MM, and with Durant’s maximum salary projected at $24.9MM, that creates a financial road block. However, Wojnarowski’s Vertical colleague Bobby Marks lays out a hypothetical scenario in which the Warriors trade Andre Iguodala, waive and stretch Andrew Bogut, waive and stretch Jason Thompson, renounce their rights to and elect against a qualifying offer for Barnes and renounce other cap holds to create enough cap room to sign Durant outright.
The Clippers, with close to $78MM in guaranteed salary for next season, would need to perform similar cap gymnastics to open the space necessary to sign Durant, making the sign-and-trade a more viable option. The Thunder wouldn’t go for a sign-and-trade unless they knew Durant was leaving, according to Wojnarowski, who nonetheless points out that Griffin, who starred for the University of Oklahoma, is an Oklahoma native. Teams are already calling the Clippers to inquire about trading for the injured Griffin, but coach/executive Doc Rivers appears set on keeping him and seeing how the team performs in the postseason, Wojnarowski writes.
Joe Johnson Not Dismissing Buyout Idea
Joe Johnson said today that he doesn’t know whether he’ll ask for a buyout from the Nets but added that he plans to talk with his agent in the next week, notes Andy Vasquez of The Record (Twitter links). The new Jeff Schwartz client said when reports asked whether he would request a trade that his situation isn’t ideal but that he’s not “forcing anything,” according to Vasquez. Johnson is pulling in the league’s second-largest salary this season, nearly $24.895MM, making any trade cumbersome to pull off, but the prospect of a buyout has been the subject of frequent speculation. However, no indication existed at the time of the team’s coaching change last month that the 34-year-old wanted a buyout, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported.
Such a move would entail Johnson giving up a portion of his salary, so he has financial incentive to stay put even though he said in December that he’ll prioritize winning when he next becomes a free agent, which is currently slated to happen at season’s end. The 15th-year veteran reiterated today that he plans to look for a winner in free agency and added that he wants to play two or three more seasons after this one, Vasquez relays (Twitter links).
“A winning situation. It’s not going to be to no highest bidder or nothing like that, I just want to make sure the situation’s right for me,” Johnson said.
Still, the swingman didn’t rule out the possibility that he’d re-sign with the Nets, according to Vasquez (on Twitter). Johnson expressed confusion in September about why Deron Williams bought his way off the Nets this past summer, saying, “It’s not that bad here.” That was before the Nets embarked on what’s been a miserable 2015/16 season so far, as the team is 12-37 so far and without its first-round picks for 2016 or 2018. Brooklyn made the playoffs in all three of the previous seasons that Johnson was a part of the team.
It would be difficult for the Nets to negotiate a buyout at this point, since they don’t have a GM, as Vasquez points out (Twitter link). Assistant GM Frank Zanin is running the front office while the Nets conduct a search, reportedly with the hopes of making a hire before the February 18th trade deadline. Johnson and the team essentially have until March 1st to negotiate a buyout, since that’s the last day that a player can be waived and be eligible to take part in the postseason with another team.
Should Johnson push for a buyout or stay put, collect his checks, and wait to hit free agency in the summer? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Head Coaching Status Update For All 30 Teams
Jeff Hornacek on Monday became the fourth NBA head coach this season to be fired, joining David Blatt, Lionel Hollins and Kevin McHale, as the volume of coaching dismissals this season eclipsed the number of coaches who signed extensions with their respective teams. No one seems to be in as tenuous a situation as Hornacek was prior to Monday’s news, but at least three others are “lame ducks,” just like he was. That means they have unexercised team options or are without full guarantees on their contracts for next season, so some level of uncertainty surrounds their long-term future.
Here’s a look at each coaching situation around the NBA, categorized by the changes that have taken place since the start of this past offseason:
Firings
- David Blatt, Cavaliers — Replaced by Tyronn Lue
- Lionel Hollins, Nets — Replaced by Tony Brown (interim)
- Jeff Hornacek, Suns — Replaced by Earl Watson (interim)
- Kevin McHale, Rockets — Replaced by J.B. Bickerstaff (interim)
Signed extensions
- Brett Brown, Sixers
- Steve Clifford, Hornets
- Rick Carlisle, Mavericks
Unexercised team options for next season
- Dwane Casey, Raptors
- Terry Stotts, Trail Blazers
- Randy Wittman, Wizards (next season’s salary partially guaranteed)
New hires
- Billy Donovan, Thunder
- Alvin Gentry, Pelicans
- Fred Hoiberg, Bulls
- Michael Malone, Nuggets
- Scott Skiles, Magic
Other moves
- Mike Budenholzer, Hawks — Added president of basketball operations job title
- Sam Mitchell, Timberwolves — Named interim coach in place of the late Flip Saunders
The rest of the NBA’s head coaches are believed to be under contract through at least next season. That doesn’t mean their jobs are necessarily safe, and a wide gulf exists between the relative job security of, say, Gregg Popovich and Byron Scott. Still, we’ll list them all here:
- Derek Fisher, Knicks
- Dave Joerger, Grizzlies
- George Karl, Kings
- Jason Kidd, Bucks
- Steve Kerr, Warriors
- Gregg Popovich, Spurs
- Doc Rivers, Clippers
- Byron Scott, Lakers
- Quin Snyder, Jazz
- Erik Spoelstra, Heat
- Brad Stevens, Celtics
- Stan Van Gundy, Pistons
- Frank Vogel, Pacers
Fallout From/Reaction To Suns Coaching Change
The Suns, as constituted, simply aren’t good enough, GM Ryan McDonough acknowledged today in a radio appearance this morning on the “Doug & Wolf Show” on Arizona Sports 98.7 (Twitter link). McDonough also said that he accepts responsibility for the state of the team and, when asked about his own job security, said he hadn’t been given any guarantees and hadn’t asked for any (All Twitter links).
“It is our job to coach the players we have and to fill our roster to the best of our ability and we haven’t,” McDonough said.
See more from McDonough and others as the Suns dig out from under Monday’s firing of Jeff Hornacek and the appointment of assistant coach Earl Watson as interim head coach.
- Watson will be a candidate for the long-term head coaching job, McDonough also said in his radio appearance (Twitter links). McDonough added in response to a question that he hasn’t reached out to Sixers assistant and former Suns head coach Mike D’Antoni, whom the team has reportedly been poised to target.
- Players expressed support for Watson when the Suns shook up their assistant coaching staff in late December, according to Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. Markieff Morris and Watson get along, notes Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).
- The Suns still have a roster built to run the two point guard attack that Hornacek orchestrated, and Hornacek’s firing is a signal of potential changes to come in the team’s approach to player personnel, Coro writes in the same piece. Turnover issues and the emergence of lottery pick Devin Booker, a traditional shooting guard, further that notion, Coro adds.
- The Suns set up Hornacek for failure when they neglected to pick up his team option for next season before this season began, making him a lame duck, and when they failed anticipate the fallout from the Marcus Morris trade, contends Paula Boivin of the Arizona Republic. Hornacek deserved some of the blame, but not as much as the Suns organization assigned to him, Boivin opines.
- Hornacek’s firing won’t change the problems that hang over the franchise, which sorely lacks a culture of mutual respect and trust between ownership and the rest of the organization, contends Ben Golliver of SI.com.
Nets Notes: Ferry, Cap Exception, Jackson
Danny Ferry is no longer a viable candidate for the Nets GM job, sources tell Brian Lewis of the New York Post. Lewis previously heard that Ferry wasn’t “the likeliest candidate” not long after the former Hawks and Cavs GM emerged as a contender, in spite of his support from former GM Billy King. The candidacy of John Calipari is on the wane, Lewis also hears, which jibes with earlier reports from Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck that Calipari wasn’t under serious consideration and from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, who wrote that owner Mikhail Prokhorov hadn’t shown a willingness to pay the $120MM over 10 years that Calipari reportedly wants. See more from Brooklyn:
- It appears the NBA granted Brooklyn’s request for a disabled player exception to compensate for the loss of Jarrett Jack, as Bobby Marks of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports indicates within a look at the team’s situation heading into the February 18th trade deadline. That would give the team a $3.15MM cap exception to sign, trade for or claim a player whose contract doesn’t run past this season.
- The Nets felt as though the Thunder “bamboozled” them last year when negotiations on a trade involving Brook Lopez and Reggie Jackson fell apart in the final hour before the deadline, writes Mike Mazzeo of ESPNNewYork.com. Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy said Monday that he thought his team had no chance to trade for Jackson two weeks before the deadline-day swap that sent the point guard to Detroit, as Mazzeo relays.
- Restricted free agents are more likely than longer-tenured unrestricted free agents to look for a team that will give them minutes and opportunities rather than a strong chance to win, arguest Jonathan Tjarks of RealGM, who suggests five soon-to-be restricted free agents the Nets should consider this summer.