Southwest Notes: Wallace, Hollinger, Ross
While previous reports have indicated that GM Chris Wallace's role with the Grizzlies wouldn't change after the hiring of John Hollinger and Stu Lash, Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that Wallace, Hollinger and Lash are expected to have equal input with CEO Jason Levien, who'll have final say on basketball matters. While Wallace expressed a willingness to work in the new environment, Tillery wonders if this might signal the end of Wallace's tenure in Memphis, writing that "only time will tell" how long he stays on board. Here's more on the Grizzlies front office and other news from the Southwest Division.
- Tillery notes the Grizzlies hiring of Hollinger isn't the first time the team has employed an analytics specialist in the front office. Aaron Barzilai, who's now with the Sixers, worked for the Grizzlies as a consultant for several years.
- Beckley Mason of The New York Times wonders if the Spurs have been sitting Matt Bonner, with whom they're more efficient than when he's not on the floor, to give more minutes to DeJuan Blair in an effort to showcase Blair for a trade.
- The Mavericks had interest in Terrence Ross before the Raptors took him eighth overall this June, reveals Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com (Twitter link). The Mavs held the 17th pick in the draft before trading it to the Cavaliers, so that means they were either thinking of trading up or believed Ross might slip out of the lottery.
- Chandler Parsons was a steal for the Rockets in the second round of the 2011 draft, but the 6'9" small forward was convinced he was headed elsewhere, as Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle details. "I thought I was going to go to the Celtics, 100 percent," Parsons said. "That was probably my best workout. I killed it."
- We went in-depth on the summer moves made by the Mavs and Hornets today as part of the Hoops Rumors Offseason in Review series.
Offseason In Review: Dallas Mavericks
Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team's offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees, and more will be covered, as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.
Signings
- O.J. Mayo: Two years, $8.22MM. Signed via cap room. Second year is player option.
- Chris Kaman: One year, $8MM. Signed via cap room.
- Delonte West: One year, $1.22MM. Signed via minimum salary exception.
Trades and Claims
- Acquired Nos. 24, 33, and 34 picks in 2012 draft from the Cavaliers in exchange for No. 17 pick in 2012 draft and Kelenna Azubuike.
- Acquired cash from the Lakers in exchange for No. 55 pick in 2012 draft.
- Acquired the rights to Tadija Dragicevic from the Jazz and cash from the Rockets in exchange for Lamar Odom (sent to Clippers) and the draft rights to Shan Foster (sent to Jazz).
- Acquired Darren Collison and Dahntay Jones from the Pacers in exchange for Ian Mahinmi. Mahinmi was signed-and-traded.
- Claimed Elton Brand off amnesty waivers from the 76ers. Bid $2.1MM for one year.
- Claimed Eddy Curry off waivers from the Spurs.
Draft Picks
- Jared Cunningham (Round 1, 24th overall). Signed via rookie exception.
- Bernard James (Round 2, 33rd overall). Signed via minimum salary exception.
- Jae Crowder (Round 2, 34th overall). Signed via cap room.
Camp Invitees
- Josh Akognon
- Chris Douglas-Roberts
- Melvin Ely
- Tu Holloway
- D.J. Mbenga
Departing Players
- Kelenna Azubuike
- Brian Cardinal
- Brendan Haywood (amnestied)
- Yi Jianlian
- Jason Kidd
- Ian Mahinmi
- Lamar Odom
- Jason Terry
Rookie Contract Option Decisions
- Dominique Jones , $2.3MM: Declined
It didn't take long for the Mavericks offseason to become about Plan B. Dallas-area native Deron Williams announced his intention to re-sign with the Nets on the third day teams could negotiate with free agents, and that reshaped the entire summer. Regardless of owner Mark Cuban's contention that the team is better off without D-Will, or whether Cuban submarined his team's efforts to sign the point guard by skipping their meeting with Williams to tend to his reality show "Shark Tank," the Mavs had to move on.
The post-Williams strategy appears similar to what governed the team's moves before last season, when they dumped multiple parts from their 2011 championship team to clear enough cap space to go after Williams. The Mavs have a preponderance of expiring deals that set the team up to make a run at another star next summer. It's a risky move, considering Dirk Nowitzki is 34 and already showing signs of breaking down, having missed the first month and a half of the season following arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. And, as I outlined in August, it will be tough for the Mavs to make the numbers work if they want to go after Dwight Howard, the biggest name scheduled to hit free agency this summer. Chris Paul would be a little bit easier to swing, but there's no guarantee either of them are willing to turn back on their apparent satisfaction in L.A. A flurry of rookie-scale extensions at the October 31st deadline this year knocked many of the cheaper would-be restricted free agents out of the market, so the Mavs might just be better off sticking with the team they assembled this summer.
The key piece has turned out to be O.J. Mayo, who was signed for a relative pittance after the Suns, who appeared to be Dallas' primary competition, took a pass on him. It's not often you can acquire a former third overall pick just a few months shy of his 25th birthday, but that's what the Mavericks did, and he's become the team's leading scorer in Nowitzki's absence. Mayo had been relegated to a bench role by the Grizzlies, who went so far as to fail to tender him a qualifying offer this summer, eschewing their right to match other offers for him. While that may have been as much about cost-cutting as anything else, it reflected a down market for Mayo, despite the fact he posted career highs in PER (14.7) and win shares per 48 minutes (.094) last season. Cuban, a devotee of advanced metrics, no doubt took notice. While odds are slim that Mayo will exercise his player option for next season, the Mavs would at least have to be considered one of the frontrunners to re-sign him if they want to do so.
Dallas signed Chris Kaman to a one-year deal that gives him close to twice as much as Mayo is getting this season. That doesn't seem like an overpay, especially considering the more lucrative long-term deals that other teams handed out to JaVale McGee and Omer Asik, far less polished centers. Kaman is quietly off to a strong start, increasing his scoring average to 14.2 points per game, second on the team behind Mayo, and posting a career-high 17.9 PER. The true test for Kaman will come when Nowitzki returns and the two big men are forced to mesh, but the Mavs GM Donnie Nelson has expressed confidence about their fit.
The Mavs created the cap room necessary to sign Kaman when they amnestied Brendan Haywood. They also used the amnesty system to pick up Elton Brand from the Sixers. Between Kaman and Brand, the Mavs have plenty of size inside, just as they had when Haywood and Tyson Chandler teamed with Nowitzki for the title-winning squad in 2011. It's a little surprising that another team didn't put in a higher bid for Brand, who put up 11.0 points, 7.2 rebounds and an 18.0 PER as the starting power forward for the Sixers last season, and it's even more puzzling considering teams didn't have to commit to him for more than one year. He's one reason why the Mavs haven't completely fallen apart with Nowitzki out.
Trading Lamar Odom to the Clippers also represented a fortunate turn for Dallas, since the team would have been on the hook for his partial guarantee of $2.4MM if they couldn't find a trading partner. Considering Odom, who spent his lost year in Dallas pining for a return to L.A., probably wasn't amenable to the vast majority of NBA cities, Nelson and company wisely negotiated with one of the L.A. teams.
The Mavs thought they had found a starting point guard in the trade with the Pacers that netted Darren Collison, but he's already been replaced in the starting lineup by Derek Fisher. It's early yet, and most of Collison's numbers are up over last season, so it might be premature to say this didn't work out for Dallas. It seemed to make sense to go with a 25-year-old over incumbent Jason Kidd, who's 39. Kidd probably wouldn't have minded a role as Collison's backup, but the Mavs clearly had no interest in matching the three-year deal for more than $9MM he got from the Knicks. Kidd's surprisingly effective play in New York this season isn't helping matters, but even if Collison doesn't work out, the move was low-risk. Collison will be a restricted free agent this summer, and Dahntay Jones, the other player the Mavs got in that deal, can also come off the books in unrestricted free agency, even if he's somewhat overpaid at $2.9MM this season. Acquiring both Collison and Jones was preferable to the four-year, $16MM deal the Pacers gave Ian Mahinmi as part of that trade.
While the team's parting with Kidd was somewhat acrimonius, Cuban said recently that he would have liked to have kept Jason Terry around but "couldn't make the numbers work." He's likely referring to the number of years, which was three, that Terry got from the Celtics as opposed to his annual salary, which averages $5.225MM over the life of that deal. If the Mavs had convinced Terry to take a one-year deal, however, they probably wouldn't have signed Mayo, so parting ways with Terry was probably for the best as far as Dallas is concerned.
The Mavs probably aren't going to win the title this season, and they'll have difficulty upgrading the roster next summer. Before the season, Mavs coach Rick Carlisle likened his team's chances to those of a wild-card team in baseball and football that counts on a strong playoff run to overcome an up-and-down regular season. Those teams don't emerge nearly as often in the NBA, but the 2011 Mavericks are probably the closest example of that kind of team the league has had in recent years. Nowitzki, Mayo and Kaman give the team plenty of offensive firepower, and they have the size that's traditionally been necessary to win in the postseason. That may have changed when the small-ball Heat broke through last season, but the Mavs are hoping the 2013 playoffs have more in common with 2011 than 2012.
Luke Adams contributed to this post.
Spears On Trade Candidates
In addition to the well-documented cases of Pau Gasol, Jose Calderon and Anderson Varejao, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports shares a litany of tidbits from high-ranking executives on trade candidates from around the league. Here's the chatter going on about each player:
- Andrea Bargnani, Raptors — "Toronto definitely wants to move Bargnani," a GM told Spears.
- MarShon Brooks, Nets — The Nets put him on the trading block over the summer, but his rookie-scale contract is making it hard for the team to part with him, since there are few more valuable players on the market with a matching salary.
- Andrew Bynum, Sixers — The Sixers are trying to find another starting center, according to Spears, who hears from a GM who figures the team is starting to get panicked about Bynum health. "They could get a really interesting deal for (Bynum)," the GM said. "I could see them doing that."
- Tyreke Evans, Kings — Despite a meeting with GM Geoff Petrie that went well, according to a source close to Evans, the Kings will trade him if they don't think they can afford to re-sign him as a restricted free agent this summer.
- Tyler Hansbrough, Pacers — Spears speculates that the team could trade him for help at the wing.
- Gerald Henderson, Bobcats — Like Evans, Henderson will likely be dealt if the team decides against re-signing the restricted free agent over the summer.
- Kevin Love, Timberwolves — "I don't think that's a match that is permanent in Minnesota," an assistant GM tells Spears. "I'm not saying they're shopping, but if they can get the right deal they would look at it. And I don't think he wants to be there."
- Paul Millsap, Jazz — The Jazz are more likely to trade Millsap than Al Jefferson because Millsap, who makes almost half as much money, will "go to the highest bidder" in free agency next summer, according to a GM.
- Timofey Mozgov, Nuggets — With Mozgov a restricted free agent next summer, the Nuggets are likely to go with Kosta Koufos and JaVale McGee in the middle instead, and with other Nuggets set to hit the market, a rival GM tells Spears that Denver won't pay the luxury tax.
- Derrick Williams, Timberwolves — Both player and team would be pleased with a trade, and an executive for another team warns that Williams' value is shrinking as he continues to sit on Minnesota's bench.
Pacific Rumors: Dwight, Suns, Gentry, Gasol
Tomorrow, most of the players who signed this offseason become eligible to be traded, and NBA scribes have been busy today rounding up rumors of potential moves. We've passed along pieces from Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN, Marc Stein of ESPN.com and HoopsWorld's Bill Ingram, and now Ken Berger of CBSSports.com checks in with a quarterly report on the season thus far along with his weekly Friday 5 discussion with fellow CBSSports.com scribe Matt Moore. The highlights from both pieces concern Pacific Division teams, and we'll round them up here.
- Berger says sources confirm earlier rumors of an impending shakeup for the Suns, and he also notes the disconcerting struggles that this year's first-round pick Kendall Marshall is having during his stint in the D-League. He agrees with Stein that Alvin Gentry is safe this season, citing owner Robert Sarver's lack of willingness to pay two head coaches, but Berger doesn't think Gentry will be back next year, predicting that he'll wind up on Mike D'Antoni's staff with the Lakers.
- Not surprisingly, Berger tabs Pau Gasol as the league's biggest trade chip, believing the Lakers have little else to offer teams, and that they may have to accept the short end of a deal if it means bringing in players who are a better fit.
- Berger details the frustration Dwight Howard's feeling as the Lakers struggle, and reminds readers that a trade to L.A. wasn't Howard's first choice.
Ingram On Love, Derrick Williams, Mayo
It's been a busy day of news off the court for the Timberwolves, as we passed along a number of Wolves rumors earlier today, and this afternoon HoopsWorld's Bill Ingram checks in with a few more.
- Ingram praises the offseason moves of Wolves GM David Kahn, and believes that if Kevin Love continues to criticize the team, Minnesota might be better off trading him, perhaps to the Lakers in a Pau Gasol swap.
- The Wolves would like to send Derrick Williams out as part of a package, and Ingram thinks Williams might fit in well with the Cavs. Earlier today, we heard that Minnesota reportedly has strong interest in Anderson Varejao.
- Ingram lists Nicolas Batum and O.J. Mayo as the two offseason targets the Wolves missed out on, adding that Mayo took less money because "he had his heart set on Dallas." Going into the summer, the Wolves were seen as a team that might go after Mayo, but this is the first we've heard suggesting that Minnesota did indeed pursue him. It seems that Mayo couldn't have been turning down too much money, from the Wolves or anyone else, to sign with the Mavs, given his recent comment to Stein that he was disappointed with the two-year, $8.22MM deal he got.
Odds & Ends: Terry, Mayo, Belinelli, Crawford
We heard earlier today that Mavs owner Mark Cuban would have liked to have kept Jason Terry, who signed with the Celtics. Terry said he was disappointed that the first call he fielded this summer wasn't from the Mavs, as Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram details. Cuban also claims that he vetoed a deal former Mavs coach Don Nelson had set up during the 2004/05 season that would have sent Terry to the Jazz for Raul Lopez, Price notes. That one seems far-fetched, but if it's true, you'd have to give Cuban credit for quite a save. Here's the rest from a busy day and night in the NBA.
- O.J. Mayo can opt out of his contract this summer, but Cuban hopes he'll stay with the Mavs even longer than the eight years Terry was around, Price tweets.
- Chris Paul and former Hornets teammate Marco Belinelli are close friends, but Paul didn't recruit Belinelli to join the Clippers this summer because he thought the Bulls would be a better fit for the Italian sharpshooter, as K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune observes (Sulia link).
- The Bulls went hard after Jamal Crawford before last season, but wound up giving the money they had set aside for him to Richard Hamilton instead, according to Johnson (Sulia link).
- Though Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo was telling reporters Monday that coach Dwane Casey's job is not in jeopardy, Mike Ganter of the Toronto Sun wonders whether that will be Colangelo's call to make, surmising everyone in the organization except Jonas Valanciunas shouldn't get too cozy.
- Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times corrects his earlier statement about the draft pick the Lakers owe the Suns, detailing the protections on that and other draft picks that will prevent L.A. from drafting in the first round next June.
- Sean Deveney of The Sporting News gauges the early returns on the rookie-scale extensions handed out before the season, and believes Stephen Curry, Jrue Holiday and DeMar DeRozan are the steals of the bunch.
- SB Nation's Tom Ziller goes in depth on the Maloof family dynamics at play as the fate of the Kings, the team they own, hangs in the balance.
Lakers Considering Adding Point Guard
11:43pm: The Lakers’ top target is Jose Calderon, but the Raptors insist on packaging him with others, tweets Stein.
11:29pm: Stein believes the Lakers will also take a look at Mike James and Jonny Flynn, in addition to exploring trades (Twitter link).
10:50pm: The Lakers are thinking about signing Delonte West, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Still, the Lakers will look at other options, though as Stein points out, the team is at the 15-man roster limit. That’s why the Lakers were hesitant to sign Derek Fisher before he went to the Mavs, as L.A. was attemping to trade one of its existing point guards (All Twitter links).
10:19pm: The Lakers have been committed to waiting for Steve Nash to return before making a move, but after a disheartening loss to the Cavs tonight dropped L.A. to 9-13, the Lakers are giving thought to other options at point guard, tweets Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com. Nash expects to be out at least another two weeks, as we heard earlier today, and last week the Lakers announced Steve Blake would undergo surgery on a torn abdominal muscle that was to have kept him out at least another six to eight weeks.
The Lakers have been going with Chris Duhon and Darius Morris at the point, but they combined for just two points and three assists tonight. Free agent options appear to be limited, as the Wizards, also in need of a point guard, took a pass on Ben Uzoh and Blake Ahearn after working out both of them this weekend. Delonte West, Mike Bibby and Eddie House are among some of the more notable names available. Bibby and House have both played for Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni with other teams, but neither saw much time running the offense.
The trade market could be a more fruitful route, particularly once most free agents who signed this summer become eligible to be traded on Saturday. As part of a package that involves Pau Gasol, the Lakers have been linked to Jose Calderon, who acknowledges that he’s on the block. That would represent a drastic move, however, and would probably be overkill if Nash can return later this month. Calderon’s $9.7MM salary figure would prevent anyone from acquiring him unless they were willing to give up a lot, as fellow ESPNLosAngeles.com scribe Arash Markazi points out via Twitter, and the Raptors point man has a 10% trade kicker on top of that. While the Lakers may be exploring their options, the team may simply conclude that it must patiently try to sort out its difficulties until Nash returns.
Northwest Notes: Love, Lindsey, Blazers, Lawson
The most significant news coming out of the Northwest today was Kevin Love's criticism of the Wolves, and there's plenty of reaction to that along with other notes from the division.
- Matt Moore of CBSSports.com surmises that Wolves GM David Kahn is at the center of Love's frustration with the franchise, and believes owner Glen Taylor may be forced to choose between the two at some point.
- Taylor remains a fan of Kahn, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN, who points out the team holds an option on Kahn's contract for next season.
- The timing of Love's comments could have been much better for a team on the verge of creating excitement in Minnesota for the first time in a while, opines Tom Powers of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
- Jim Souhan of the Star Tribune agrees with Love's remarks, based on what he's heard from others inside the Wolves organization, and believes that if Love departs in the summer of 2015, it will represent the most significant mistake of Kahn's tenure.
- New Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey is slowly implementing some of the principles he learned while working with the Spurs, but plenty of similarities already existed between the two franchises, as Bill Oram of The Salt Lake Tribune examines.
- Blazers GM Neil Olshey hinted at a move around the trade deadline that would help the team's rebounding, but The Oregonian's Jason Quick doesn't think the Blazers have enough assets for a swap, believing the team must instead look to the draft and free agency (Twitter links).
- Jim Cavan of The New York Times examines how Jrue Holiday, who got a four-year, $41MM extension from the Sixers before the season, has outplayed fellow point guard Ty Lawson, who's fresh off a four-year, $48MM extension from the Nuggets.
Neil Olshey On Trades, Lillard, Batum, Stotts
Blazers GM Neil Olshey dished about his team with Justin Termine and Mateen Cleaves on the "Off The Dribble" show on SiriusXM Sports, revealing details about his plans and some of the moves he's made since taking over the Portland front office in June. Part of the agenda for the team is to address its rebounding deficiencies at the trade deadline and in the offseason, Olshey revealed. Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com put together a transcript of the full interview (hat tip to Ben Golliver of Blazer's Edge), and we'll run down some of the juicier material here.
On whether the team will make moves to try to salvage this season:
"We need to see what we have, we need to develop our assets, we need to continue to groom Wes Matthews and Nic Batum and LaMarcus Aldridge and get them to get to the next level, but look, next summer we're going to have $13MM in cap room, we're going to have a first (round pick), three seconds, we have an aggressive owner who's willing to spend whatever it takes to win. So the only thing we want to do is we don't want to race to the middle. We want to make moves that put us up at the upper echelon of the Western Conference when this thing comes together for a sustainable period of time, not make a bunch of incremental moves that maybe let us slide into eighth to go get swept in the first round and then be back to the drawing board again."
On the drafting of Damian Lillard:
"I just really felt when I met the kid and spent time with him and watched him interact with my staff, my owner and our coaches at the time, that he was the kind of guy you could hand the ball to day one, just like a Kyrie Irving or a (Russell) Westbrook, a (Derrick) D. Rose. I'm not comparing him to those players, but that's what those organizations did as well, and I really felt like he had the kind of gravitas and composure where opening night he could take the ball. And there were going to be some bumps in the road, but once we lived through them, he was a franchise-caliber point guard."
On the decision to match the Wolves' offer sheet for Nicolas Batum:
"Well look, he's a dynamic wing player. He's clearly far better than anybody we thought would be available on the free agent market had we not matched the offer sheet. We have an owner that,. he wants to build. He doesn't want to rebuild; he wants to build and he doesn't want to take a step backwards basketball-wise. We just felt like Nicolas was just coming into his prime; it's the first year he's going to be a full-time starter. He makes a huge impact on the defensive end of the floor, he can go for big numbers, and I really felt like the kind of system that Terry Stotts was going to run was absolutely suited for his skill set. He's off to a career year as well. Nicolas is a part of the core."
On the hiring of coach Terry Stotts:
"I think we took a little bit of a different approach. We put the roster together first and then hired the best coach we thought would fit it. I thought Terry would be a great partner; he and I had a relationship prior to this. We'd been on the floor together working with players. I think he has a great … he gets great respect from his players. I thought he would know how to utilize LaMarcus (Aldridge) to the best of his ability, and I think I felt like we have a lot of pieces very similar to the Dallas team that won the championship in terms of skill set and style of play. And we really felt like when he implemented that offense, it was going to heighten the value and production of guys like Wes Matthews and Nic Batum, which was really important to us, to make sure those guys took the next step in their development as players. I also knew he'd be open to playing younger players. That had been his history."
Magic Rumors: Harrington, Turkoglu, Nicholson
The Magic finished off a five-game West Coast road trip having gone 3-2, with impressive victories against the Lakers and Warriors. Orlando is 8-12, not too shabby for a team that was supposed to go into full-scale rebuilding following the Dwight Howard trade this summer. There are a few items of interest as the Magic prepare to play host to the Hawks tomorrow, most of them courtesy of Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel.
- Power forward Al Harrington hasn't played a game yet for the Magic as he recovers from a staph infection in his right knee, but he insists he'll be back before the February 21st trade deadline. Harrington acknowledges his Magic tenure could be a brief one, since he's rumored to be on the trading block, and Schmitz notes that Harrington is holding off on buying a house in Central Florida.
- Harrington, 32, is in his 15th NBA season, but isn't considering hanging it up soon, saying he wants to make it through 20 seasons.
- While Harrington said he has a target date for his return, but wouldn't reveal it, Hedo Turkoglu doesn't know when he'll be back from a broken left hand suffered in the season opener.
- John Denton of Magic.com chronicles the development of rookie power forward Andrew Nicholson, the 19th pick in this year's draft.