And-Ones: Turnover, Lottery, Mayo, Refs
As Alex Kennedy of HoopsHype notes, we’re upon the time of the year when the NBA’s coaching carousel is in full swing. And while this time of the year is exciting for new hires like Monty Williams, it’s also a sobering reminder of how NBA head coaches have the highest coaching turnover rate among the four major sports leagues over the past 20 years.
On average, a new head coach is hired in the NBA every 2.4 seasons as opposed to every 2.6 seasons (NHL), 3.1 seasons (MLB) and 3.4 seasons (NFL) in the other three leagues. Ironically, but not altogether unexpected, the teams with less coaching turnover actually have significantly higher records (e.g. see the Spurs and head coach Gregg Popovich).
On the other end of the spectrum, the Nets, Pistons and Knicks all have an NBA-high 12 coaching changes in the last 20 years and all have a winning percentage below .500 during that span. The one outlier is the Lakers, who have a winning percentage above .500 over the last 20 years despite the fact that they’ll be on their eighth coach this summer.
The entire article regarding the study is worth a read, and once you’re finished, check out some more odds and ends from the basketball world below:
- Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz of ESPN take a look at what’s at stake for every team in next week’s lottery, including each team’s likely picks, odds and questions for the teams in the lottery, traded picks and more.
- After having recently averaged 22.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in a Taiwanese league, former NBA guard O.J. Mayo signed a deal in China with Hunan Jinjian, per Orazio Cauchi of Sportando.
- In an article from The Associated Press, it was relayed that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wants half of all new referees joining the league to be women — and he would like to see teams hire female coaches, too.
Five Key Stories: 4/27/19 – 5/4/19
If you missed any of this past week’s biggest headlines from around the NBA, we’ve got you covered with our Week in Review. Here are some of the most noteworthy stories from the last seven days:
The Suns have agreed to hire Sixers’ assistant coach Monty Williams as the franchise’s next head coach. Williams, who first interviewed with the Suns on April 26, was the first candidate that Phoenix brought in after parting ways with Igor Kokoskov. He was also reportedly always the Suns’ prime candidate for the job. Williams will stick with Philadelphia until the end of the club’s playoff run before officially making the move to Phoenix and signing a five-year deal. Williams, 47, previously served as head coach for the Pelicans from 2010-2015 where he posted a modest record of 173-221.
In other head coaching news, the Lakers have no plans to interview any other candidates and will reach out to Tyronn Lue in the coming days to offer him the team’s head coaching position. Lue, who met with Lakers’ brass for a second time last week, has not yet heard from L.A., but reports suggest it’s only a matter of time. The hire will reunite Lue with Lakers’ forward LeBron James, a coupling that brought the Cavaliers their first-ever NBA championship back in 2016.
The Timberwolves plan to hire Rockets’ executive Gersson Rosas as their new president of basketball operations. Rosas, who has spent the better part of two decades with the Rockets under Daryl Morey, has been a popular target in recent years for teams with openings in their front office. He was reportedly considered by the Hornets, Pistons, and Sixers in 2018 and he interviewed with both the Pelicans and Wizards this spring. It remains to be seen whether or not Rosas will retain GM Scott Layden and/or head coach Ryan Saunders.
Nets’ shooting guard Allen Crabbe has exercised his player option for the 2019/20 season, thereby locking in his $18.5MM salary for next year and putting the 27-year-old veteran on track to reach unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2020. Crabbe, whose cap hit could derail some offseason free agency plans for the Nets, may find himself on the trade block, or the Nets could waive and stretch his salary over the next three seasons. Doing so would create dead cap hits of $6.17MM for the 2019/20, 2020/21, and 2021/22 seasons.
Veteran NBA shooting guard Gerald Henderson has ended his comeback effort and officially announced his retirement. Henderson underwent multiple surgical procedures on his hip last summer to treat ongoing arthritis and when he was finally able to work out again, he tore his Achilles tendon during a pickup game. Henderson, still only 31, joined the Hornets’ broadcast team at FOX Sports Southeast in January for the second half of the 2018/19 season.
Here are 10 more NBA-related headlines worth passing along this week:
- The Grizzlies, continuing to revamp their front office, promoted former NBA champion Tayshaun Prince to the title of Vice President of Basketball Affairs within the franchise’s basketball operations department.
- Head coach Doc Rivers officially signed his long-term contract extension with the Clippers after hinting at the same in March in an effort to quell rumors that had begun to swirl about his interest in the Lakers.
- Despite a relatively disappointing 2018/19 season, the Thunder have no plans to move on from head coach Billy Donovan, with general manager Sam Presti telling reporters that he expects Donovan to be back in Oklahoma City for the 2019/20 season.
- While it remains to be seen for what team, veteran shooting guard Vince Carter, now 42, has confirmed that he intends to continue his playing career into the 2019/20 season.
- It’s looking more and more likely that Spurs’ head coach Gregg Popovich will return next season, and if he does, he is expected to sign a three-year contract that will ensure he remains the NBA’s highest-paid coach.
- The Wizards, looking for a someone to replace Ernie Grunfeld atop the front office, met with former Pelicans’ interim GM Danny Ferry on Tuesday to discuss the opening. They also met with Rosas before he took the head position in Minneapolis and with Troy Weaver, the VP of basketball operations for the Thunder.
- The Mavericks plan to target both Kemba Walker and Bucks’ swingman Khris Middleton in free agency this summer to solidify the team’s starting lineup around Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis.
- Beginning as early as the 2021/22 season, the Pistons’ G League franchise will begin playing in Detroit at a new $25MM athletic facility that will house the Wright State University basketball teams.
- Celtics’ president of basketball operations Danny Ainge suffered a mild heart attack on Tuesday night in Milwaukee. Ainge, 60, has since returned to Boston and is expected to make a full recovery.
- The Bulls and head coach Jim Boylen agreed to terms on a deal that will extend Boylen’s contract beyond the 2019/20 season. Despite a rough year record-wise, Chicago’s front office views Boylen as the teacher that the club’s young roster needs, and love the way he was able to build relationships with his players.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Hoops Rumors Originals: 4/27/19 – 5/4/19
Every week, the Hoops Rumors writing team creates original content to complement our news feed. Here are our original segments and features from the past seven days:
- Some player option decisions are a foregone conclusion, but here are five to watch this offseason.
- In this week’s polls, we asked:
- Which team is going to win the Bucks/Celtics series?
- Which team is going to win the Nuggets/Blazers series?
- Which conference semifinal series is most likely to go the full seven games?
- We provided the 2019 NBA Draft Lottery odds, with the Knicks, Cavaliers, and Suns all having a 14% shot at the top-overall pick.
- Our 2019 Offseason Salary Cap Digest series focused on the following teams:
- Luke Adams provided an interesting perspective on this year’s draft, analyzing four lottery scenarios that are more likely than not to occur.
- In this week’s Community Shootaround posts, we asked:
- Which NBA Finals match-up would you most like to see?
- Do the Rockets have what it takes to come back and beat the Warriors in four out of five games?
- To begin this year’s Five Key Offseason Questions series, Luke Adams took a look at some pressing issues facing the Cleveland Cavaliers.
- Dana Gauruder’s Stock Watch series focused on Eastern Conference playoff participants whose free agent value has risen or dropped due to their playoff performance.
Raptors’ Pascal Siakam Doubtful For Game 4
In what some are describing as a karmic turn of events, Raptors’ forward Pascal Siakam, the team’s second-best player throughout this postseason, suffered a right calf contusion in Toronto’s Game 3 loss to the 76ers and is subsequently being listed as doubtful for Sunday’s Game 4, reports Adrian Wojnarowki of ESPN (h/t to Hoops Rumors’ own JD Shaw).
Siakam maintains that he is unaware of when the injury occurred, but as Tim Bontemps of ESPN and others have noticed, Siakam appears to have used his right calf to trip Sixers’ big man Joel Embiid during the fourth quarter of Toronto’s loss on Thursday night. A closer look at the video appears to show Embiid’s left knee colliding with Siakam’s calf, and Siakam did not return to the game after the collision.
A top-candidate for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award, Siakam is averaging 22.9 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 2.5 assists per game this postseason. Should he miss tomorrow afternoon’s game, Toronto will look for both Kyle Lowry and Marc Gasol to step up their games in his absence to help Kawhi Leonard and the rest of the team even up the series with Philadelphia at 2-2.
Community Shootaround: NBA Finals Match-Up
The NBA’s conference semifinals are underway and that means we’re down to eight teams as the Warriors, Nuggets, Trail Blazers, Rockets, Bucks, Raptors, Sixers, and Celtics each won their first-round series. The Warriors have taken control of their series with a 2-0 lead but the remaining series are all tied up at 1-1 and the Rockets are heading home for games 3 and 4. As such, every club still has a realistic shot of moving forward to the conference finals.
As everyone is well aware, the Warriors are the two-time defending NBA champions and winners of three of the last four. They are also the prohibitive favorites again this season and perhaps the one team that could be classified as league villains, while the other three Western Conference teams haven’t been to an NBA Finals since the Rockets in 1995.
Meanwhile, the Cavaliers and Heat (via LeBron James) have controlled the Eastern Conference playoffs for the last decade or so, with Milwaukee and Toronto never having won the East and Philadelphia and Boston not having been conference champions since 2001 and 2010, respectively.
With that all said, there are certain to be a bevy of opinions on what would be the best finals match-up, so we’re asking you that very question. Which NBA Finals match-up do you want to see? Is that the match-up you expect as well? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Pistons’ Players Give Dwane Casey Rave Review
Despite a sweep at the hands of the NBA-best Bucks, the Pistons’ first season under first-year head coach Dwane Casey was a relative success, as Detroit made the postseason for the first time since the 2015/16 season and posted a 41-41 regular season mark, the franchise’s third-best record in the last 12 seasons.
And according to Keith Langlois of Pistons.com, Pistons’ players were largely happy with their first season under Casey as well, as he received rave reviews from his roster after his stellar reputation around the league was found to be well-deserved.
“Talking to people (last) summer, you hear the same thing – that’s a really positive thing,” All-Star forward Blake Griffin said. “Consistency. One thing everybody talks about with coach Casey is the type of person he is: great guy, very disciplined and cares about his players. I saw that through the course of the season.”
Casey was also given high marks by his players for being able to hold them accountable for lack of effort and execution while simultaneously refraining from being so intense to the point of pushing guys away, no small task for a head coach in the NBA.
“Coach Case has this calm under pressure that is pretty cool,” reserve point guard Ish Smith said. “He had his moments, like any coach, when the players are not giving you what you expected out of them. But we dealt with a lot of adversity. He never got down, he never was frustrated, he never got mad. The end result was the playoffs and that’s a huge tribute to his personality.”
Coach Casey was also able to cultivate a positive relationship with Griffin, the team’s consensus best player, which is yet another important aspect for any NBA head coach.
“We are very, very lucky to have a coach like him,” said Griffin. “A coach who stands for and represents the things he does. He was great this season. I really enjoyed playing for him.”
Grizzlies Interested In Sarunas Jasikevicius
After Jazz assistant coach Alex Jensen interviewed on Tuesday for the team’s vacant head coaching position, another name has now emerged as a candidate to be the Grizzlies’ next head coach, according to Adrian Wojnarowski and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.
The Grizzlies, who fired coach J.B. Bickerstaff following a record of 33-49 during the 2018/19 season, reportedly plan to soon meet with Lithuania’s Sarunas Jasikevicius, currently the head coach of Zalgiris Kaunas and one of the EuroLeague’s rising coaching stars, as the team continues to go through the early stages of its coaching search.
Jasikevicius, 43, is known for his strong-willed leadership style and coaching teams that exhibit elite ball movement and offensive execution, skills that have become synonymous with success at the NBA level.
As we detailed last summer, the Raptors interviewed Jasikevicius before hiring Nick Nurse and even offered him a job as an assistant coach on Nurse’s staff before he opted to remain in Lithuania. Since that time, his name continues to come up with front offices around the league as a possible NBA coaching candidate.
Jasikevicius, once a decorated EuroLeague player, also played two seasons in the NBA with the Pacers and Warriors from 2005 to 2007, where he held career averages of 6.8 PPG and 2.9 APG while shooting 35.5% from long range and over 90% from the foul line.
Drive Look To Remain In Grand Rapids
As we relayed this afternoon, the Pistons plan to relocate their G League affiliate to Detroit after the Wayne State University Board of Governors approved a plan to build a new $25MM athletic facility with a 3,000-seat arena for its basketball teams.
But, according to James Hawkins of The Detroit News, it appears as though the Pistons are going to need to a new affiliate, as the Grand Rapids Drive, the Pistons’ current NBAGL affiliate, have no plans to leave Grand Rapids.
“We are deeply committed to our fans and love being part of the sports landscape in the community that we’ve called home since 2014,” per an official statement from the Drive. “This team has been community-built and supported for five seasons, and we are looking forward to continuing the growth of the franchise here in West Michigan.”
“We have no plans on relocating to Detroit but continue to have great communication and a positive relationship with the Pistons organization,” the statement continued. “We are solely focused on our sixth season this upcoming fall, in partnership with the Detroit Pistons and the NBA.”
The Pistons currently have an agreement with the Drive for a NBA/G League affiliation that runs through the 2020/21 season, and any change in affiliation would require approval from the NBA. For what it’s worth, Pistons vice chairman Arn Tellem says it is still unclear whether the Drive or an expansion franchise will be joining the Pistons in Detroit.
“We’re (Pistons and Drive) in discussions right now and I don’t know,” Tellem said. “We have a commitment that we can get an expansion team, and it may be an expansion team. We’ll see how our discussions are resolved as we talk with the NBA and the Grand Rapids team… All we know is we’re going to be bringing a team here for the 2021 season and we’re in discussions now. I’m not sure what team it will be. All I know is there will be a team here.”
Draft Notes: FAQ, Hommes, Fernando
While most NBA fans are currently glued to their televisions every night watching playoff basketball, the 2019 NBA Draft is now less than two months away, meaning it’s also time for fans to begin thinking about what their favorite team is going to do on June 20.
Fortunately, Jeremy Woo of Sports Illustrated has put together a constructive FAQ piece to help the average fan with some common questions related to the NBA Draft process. From whether Zion Williamson is a lock for the No. 1 overall pick to the new rules regarding agents, Woo does a nice job giving an overview of this year’s hot topics.
One of those topics is how the NBA continues to attempt to improve its pre-draft process with the addition of the inaugural G League Elite Camp set to take place from May 12–14 (the night of the NBA lottery), followed by the combine from May 15–19. Part of the camp includes testing of fringe-combine prospects who, if they perform well during the camp, will earn combine invitations.
There are some more draft-related notes to pass along this evening:
- Daulton Hommes, the 2018/19 Division II Men’s National Player of the Year, will reportedly keep in his name in the 2019 NBA Draft and forego his final season of college basketball, per Mark Zeigler of The San Diego Union-Tribune. Hommes, 22, played his college ball at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and is one of the only D-II players to crack ESPN’s big board, currently coming in at No. 93.
- Sam Vecenie of The Athletic has put out his latest mock draft, and he’s shared some interesting information he obtained from one high-level NBA front office representative. Per that individual, there’s no such thing as a “bad” draft from an NBA scouting perspective, as each team is generally only looking for one player who exceeds the value of where their team’s draft slot is located. Therefore, the league’s premier front offices have confidence they can come away with a player they like relative to their draft position.
- Maryland sophomore forward Bruno Fernando, ESPN’s No. 34 prospect, will remain in the draft, per a message posted on his Twitter account. In the post, Fernando thanks God and everyone who helped him at Maryland along his journey, including his teammates, professors, coaching staff, and head coach Mark Turgeon. Fernando had until May 29 to officially remain the the draft.
Poll: Which Team Will Win Bucks/Celtics Series?
The Celtics came out in Game 1 earlier today and unexpectedly thrashed the Bucks, 112-90, to take a 1-0 series lead and home-court advantage away from Milwaukee and MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo.
While Kyrie Irving had a magnificent game, scoring 26 points and dishing out 11 assists, Al Horford appeared to be the consensus player of the game on social media after the final buzzer sounded, as the big man put up 20 points and 11 rebounds while simultaneously putting together a masterful defensive effort on The Greek Freak, holding Antetokounmpo to 22 points and only two assists on 33% shooting.
Some interesting story lines for Game 2 (which tips off Tuesday night in Milwaukee) and the remainder of the series include the possible return of Celtics’ guard Marcus Smart, who traveled to Milwaukee but wasn’t in uniform for today’s game. Smart is not expected to return for Game 2, but he has been practicing with team in recent days and could possibly return before the end of the series.
Bucks’ guard Malcolm Brogdon, who is recovering from a partially torn plantar fascia in his right foot, could also return for this series at some point, but his return remains more unclear that that of Smart. Meanwhile, Brogdon’s primary replacement, Sterling Brown, left Game 1 with back spasms. It’s still unknown whether his status for Game 2 will be affected.
Will all that said, what do you think the final outcome of this series will be after what you saw in Game 1? Will Giannis and the 60+ win Bucks come back with a vengeance of will the surging Celtics make quick work of Milwaukee? Vote below in our poll, then head to the comment section to weigh in!
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