Lakers Waive Johnathan Williams, Scott Machado
The Lakers officially announced that they have waived forward Johnathan Williams and guard Scott Machado, leaving the club with 16 players, including two two-way players, on what is likely their final regular season roster. Shams Charania of The Athletic first reported the news on Williams.
Williams, 23, went undrafted out of Gonzaga after averaging 13.5 PPG and 8.3 RPG during his senior season and earning first team All-WCC honors. He played for the Lakers’ during Summer League in Las Vegas before he signed with the club back in July.
Machado, 28, was looking for a return to the NBA after he appeared in six games for the Rockets during his rookie season in 2012/13. He spent last season with the South Bay Lakers, L.A.’s G League affiliate, where he may very well end up again this season alongside Williams.
Knicks Waive Joakim Noah, Allen, Coby
The Knicks have officially announced that they have waived center Joakim Noah, with both Adrian Wojnarowski and Ian Begley of ESPN reporting that the club will utilize the stretch provision on his contract after failing to reach a buyout agreement.
The team also officially announced the release of Kadeem Allen and Jeff Coby, thereby bringing its roster down to 17 players, including two two-way players, in time for the beginning of the regular season.
We wrote in extensive detail about Noah’s situation a few days back, with Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News reporting that the Knicks would likely waive Noah when they set their 15-man regular season roster if and when the team was unable to find a deal to trade the veteran big man.
As Bobby Marks of ESPN notes, the Knicks will incur an $18.5M cap hit this season for Noah, which could be reduced by $522,252 if the center signs a guaranteed minimum salary contract elsewhere. For the next 3 seasons (2019-20 to 2021-22), the Knicks will be charged $6.4M per season.
Allen, a 2017 second-round draft pick by Boston, spent his rookie season on a two-way contract with the Celtics, but was waived earlier this summer before he signed a one-year, non-guaranteed contract with the Knicks. He could end up with the Westchester Knicks, New York’s G League affiliate, if he’s not picked up on waivers by another team.
Coby, 24, and a member of the Haitian national team, played four seasons in the Ivy League at Columbia before heading overseas and then going undrafted last year before signing with the Knicks earlier this month. He’s also a good bet to end up in Westchester.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Pelicans Waive Jarrett Jack, Garlon Green
The Pelicans have made two moves to get themselves to the required roster limit in anticipation of the upcoming regular season, officially announcing that they have waived veteran point guard Jarrett Jack and rookie forward Garlon Green.
With the moves, New Orleans’ roster now stands at 16, including two-way player Trevon Bluiett. As Will Guillory of The Athletic notes, these cuts likely mean that both Kenrich Williams and Troy Williams will make the final roster, although it’s possible one of those player’s contracts will get converted to the team’s other two-way deal alongside Bluiett.
Jack, who we indicated yesterday would probably make the team after the front office decided to part ways with Darius Morris, will likely draw some interest from other teams around the league looking for veteran leadership. He has averaged 10.8 points and 4.6 assists per game in his 13 NBA seasons.
Green, meanwhile, who signed with the Pelicans back in July after playing on the club’s summer league team in Las Vegas, averaged 4.0 points and 1.5 rebounds in four preseason games. The team will incur a $50K cap hit for him, which amounts to the amount of money guaranteed to Green in his contract.
Clippers Sign Jamel Artis
OCTOBER 12th, 6:21pm: The signing is official, the team’s PR department tweets.
OCTOBER 10th, 9:19pm: According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Clippers are signing recently-waived swingman Jamel Artis to a partially-guaranteed deal. As Charania notes, Artis was in training camp with Kings up until this past weekend.
The timing seems interesting, considering a report from earlier today that the club is actually seeking out trades to get rid of players, but it’s unlikely that the Clippers plan to keep Artis, with the 25-year-old more likely to end up with the Clippers’ G League affiliate, the Agua Caliente Clippers.
Artis, who spent the 2017-18 campaign on a two-way contract with the Magic, averaged 5.1 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.2 assists across 18.6 minutes per game last season.
Southwest Notes: Pelicans, Anthony, Mirotic, Mavs
The Pelicans, suffering through lingering injuries, are still looking to establish a new identity, writes William Guillory of The Athletic. For example, the team was without Nikola Mirotic and Darius Miller early on this preseason, but when both returned Friday, newcomer Julius Randle sat out because of a minor back injury.
Given the above, it’s no surprise that the Pelicans are winless through their first three preseason games, with head coach Alvin Gentry saying his team was unimpressive in Friday’s loss to the Knicks. “I didn’t think we played very good at all. We didn’t have ball movement… That’s not who we are at all.”
Fortunately for the Pelicans, they still have time to figure things out before the season starts, and Randle did suit up and play in tonight’s game. Ultimately, the team believes it has all the pieces in place to compete in the Western Conference and build on last year’s success. We’ll begin to find out if they can when they visit the Rockets one week from tonight to open the 2018/19 regular season.
There’s more from the Southwest Division:
- In other Pelicans news, Liz Mullen of the SportsBusiness Journal tweets that BDA Sports and Bill Duffy have signed Mirotic away from Dynasty Sports. Mirotic will be an unrestricted free agent in next summer’s talented free agent pool.
- As Sam Amick of The Athletic notes, the addition of Carmelo Anthony for the Rockets brings the combined All-Star appearances between the team’s new “Big 3” (Chris Paul and James Harden) to 25 – the same combined total between the Warriors’ Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and DeMarcus Cousins.
- The Mavericks have fired team photographer Danny Bollinger after he was accused of having a history of propositioning female co-workers and making lewd comments, writes Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News.
Jazz Exercise Third-Year Options On Mitchell, Bradley
The Jazz announced today that they have exercised their third-year rookie scale team options for the 2019/20 season on guard Donovan Mitchell (link) and center Tony Bradley (link). The deadline to do so was October 31.
Mitchell, the 2017/18 runner-up for Rookie of the Year, joined David Robinson, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Wilt Chamberlain as the only rookies to lead their team in scoring while also winning 45-or-more games. His option decision was the definition of a no-brainer, with his future looking as bright as any young player in the league.
Meanwhile, Bradley, who was acquired by the Jazz on draft night in 2017, only saw action in nine games for the club as a rookie, but started 24 games for the team’s G League affiliate, the Salt Lake City Stars. He averaged 15.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.3 blocks in 29.6 minutes per contest.
Mitchell’s 2019/20 cap hit will cost the Jazz a team-friendly $3.6MM, while Bradley will earn just under $2MM that season. Both players also have a fourth-year rookie scale team option for the 2020/21 campaign.
Thunder Sign Donte Grantham
OCTOBER 10: The signing is official, according to Real GM.
AUGUST 26: The Thunder are signing former Clemson forward Donte Grantham to a one-year contract, reports TigerNet.com. Terms have not yet been disclosed but it’s likely a training camp deal with little to no guaranteed money.
Before tearing his ACL in January, Grantham was averaging a career-best 14.2 points and 6.9 rebounds per game for the Tigers while also shooting a career-high 56.0 percent from the floor and 41.9 percent from 3-point range.
Despite injuring his knee as a senior, Grantham, 23, still became just the sixth player in Clemson history to amass 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 200 assists in a career. He finished his four-year career with the Tigers starting 113 out of 114 career games and leaves as the 33rd leading scorer in program history.
Meanwhile, the Thunder already have a roster full of guaranteed salaries, so it’s likely that the team is planning on Grantham playing for the Oklahoma City Blue, its G League affiliate.
Kalin Lucas Signs With Kings
Michigan State alum, point guard Kalin Lucas, has signed with the Kings, per RealGM’s transaction log. The signing’s imminence was first reported by Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times.
Lucas, 29, appeared in one game for the Grizzlies back during the 2014-15 season, but has not played in the NBA since. He spent last season with Hapoel Jerusalem of the Israeli Basketball Premier League after being waived by the Magic in October. He also played in the G League for the Iowa Energy on two separate occasions.
Lucas may be a candidate to return to the G League and play for the Stockton Kings if he is waived, or he may return back overseas, because it’s unlikely he makes the Kings’ roster with De’Aaron Fox, Yogi Ferrell, and Frank Mason all on guaranteed contracts.
Northwest Notes: Thunder, Roberson, Curry, Gibson
With a mammoth luxury tax bill looming at the end of the year, the Thunder plan on sticking with 14 players on their roster to begin this season, reports Erik Horne of The Oklahoman.
“Right now we’re going with what we have,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. “If something changes, I’ve always said this with Sam (Presti) and Troy (Weaver), they’re always looking to improve, make our team better all the time… that would be something that if Sam decided to do that, we’d probably talk about that.”
As Horne notes, the decision to keep the roster at fourteen makes sense considering the Thunder would face major luxury tax implications with the signing of a fifteenth player.
Right now, both Bryce Alford and K.J. McDaniels are on training camp contracts with the Thunder, so they’ll ultimately be waived if Horne’s report is accurate unless one of them impresses enough to force the Thunder into waiving someone with a guaranteed salary.
There’s more from the Northwest Division:
- In another piece for The Oklahoman, Horne writes that Thunder swingman Andre Roberson has been looking good in practice despite not yet being cleared for contact. Because he’s still rehabbing, he’s mostly limited to shooting drills at this point.
- Joe Freeman of The Oregonian reports that all indications out of Trail Blazers practice is that new addition Seth Curry is looking good. Teammates are praising his jump-shooting and playmaking ability, while coaches are impressed with his basketball intelligence and versatility.
- According to Nick Friedell of ESPN, Timberwolves forward Taj Gibson was surprised at Jimmy Butler‘s trade demand, saying, “I worked out with him all summer, so when I said what I meant, it was like a right hook. I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t know. I thought — it looked like from everything things were going good.”
Hoops Rumors Originals: 9/22/18 – 9/29/18
Every week, the writing team here at Hoops Rumors creates original content to complement our news feed. Below are our segments and features from the past seven days:
- In his Weekly Mailbag, Arthur Hill answered readers’ questions regarding the Nets’ future plans, the ability of the Spurs to compete for a title this season, and the reason behind Jamal Crawford remaining unsigned.
- Luke Adams also took a look at five notable veteran free agents still available, including the aforementioned Crawford.
- With October 31 looming closer and closer, Luke Adams analyzed five rookie scale team options that may not be exercised.
- We continued our 2018 Offseason in Review, and analyzed the following teams:
- In two Community Shootaround posts, we asked:
- Should the Timberwolves move on from Tom Thibodeau?
- Which team is going to win the Northwest Division in 2018/19?
- Luke Adams checked in on the breakdown of each team’s roster count going into training camp.
- Finally, Luke Adams relayed both the oldest and youngest players on NBA rosters.