Multiple Hawks Players Reportedly Wanted Coaching Change
There was hope entering the season in Atlanta that the previously-existent friction between Hawks head coach Lloyd Pierce and star guard Trae Young would be a thing of the past, but it reemerged as the season progressed, according to Chris Kirschner, Sam Amick, and David Aldridge of The Athletic. And the Athletic trio suggests that Young wasn’t the only Hawks player frustrated by Pierce’s coaching style.
Sources tell The Athletic that several members of the Hawks were “eager to hear a new voice,” and that multiple players recently shared their desire for a change with team management. By the time Pierce was let go on Monday, player support for him was dwindling, per Kirschner, Amick, and Aldridge.
As the trio details, there wasn’t a single moment this season that resulted in Pierce losing the locker room, but it happened over time due to a number of small moments that added up.
“There’s no telling when he lost it,” a source close to the team told The Athletic. “He didn’t have support from many people. It came down to him not being able to manage egos. That’s what did him in, especially these young guys. It’s tough.”
The Athletic’s report, which is worth checking out in full if you’re a subscriber, includes many other interesting tidbits on the Hawks’ coaching change. Here are a few highlights:
- Pierce’s job security was already tenuous by the end of the 2019/20 season, but a number of factors – including the abrupt hiatus and Pierce’s strong voice during the social justice movement – helped save his job for the time being, according to The Athletic’s report.
- Multiple Hawks players felt last season as if they weren’t having their concerns heard when they approached Pierce about them, and started going to assistant coach Chris Jent with those concerns instead, per The Athletic. Players once again felt unheard this season when they asked Pierce about adjusting the late-game offense to make it more free-flowing.
- Sources tell The Athletic that Cam Reddish was among the players who bristled at Pierce’s coaching style and felt as if he was being “picked on” behind the scenes. According to Kirschner, Amick, and Aldridge, some Hawks players believe Reddish’s ceiling is as high as anyone’s on the roster and thought Pierce’s approach was stunting his development.
- The Hawks’ fourth-quarter struggles this season bothered team owner Tony Ressler, who “grew incensed” when the club kept losing winnable games by blowing late leads, per The Athletic’s trio. GM Travis Schlenk has said the decision to fire Pierce was his and his front office’s, but at the very least, Ressler had to sign off on it.
And-Ones: All-Star Game, Olympics, Dunk Contest, SPACs
Speaking to Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press, NBA commissioner Adam Silver went into more detail on why the league felt compelled to hold an All-Star Game this season amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Silver, who has previously cited fan engagement as a key reason for not canceling the game, reiterated that point in his conversation with Reynolds.
“It’s the largest factor, the amount of engagement we get from our fans around All-Star,” Silver said. “Historically, in the modern digital age, we have roughly 100 million people vote for our All-Stars, and we came out about the same this year even with a shortened voting period.”
While Silver has insisted that the NBA is thinking about its fans, it’s safe to assume the league is also considering the interests of one of its largest broadcast partners, Turner Sports. The All-Star Game is one of TNT’s biggest annual events, and the network presumably pushed for the game to take place. If the game had been canceled, the league likely would’ve had to renegotiate aspects of its TV agreement with Turner Sports.
“My personal view is very few people do anything just for the money,” Silver told Reynolds. “But at the same time, while we’re clearly in a health emergency in this country, we’re also in the midst of an economic crisis and that extends to the NBA as well. There are tens of thousands of people who are dependent on the NBA for their livelihoods. So, for those who say we’re doing it for the money, they could say the same thing about our entire operation, about the fact that we’re even playing our season.”
Let’s round up a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Team USA’s pre-Olympic camp in Las Vegas is scheduled to coincide with the NBA’s conference finals this summer, meaning one of the many difficult decisions USA Basketball will face relates to whether certain players are worth waiting for, Reynolds writes in another Associated Press story. The program is expected to have to make a handful of contingency plans as it prepares its roster for the Tokyo Olympics.
- Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards, Celtics swingman Jaylen Brown, and Hornets forward Miles Bridges are among the players who have turned down invitations to participate in the 2021 slam dunk contest, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. Pelicans star Zion Williamson also passed on the event, Haynes adds (via Twitter). The NBA will officially announce the participants for this year’s dunk contest, skills challenge, and 3-point contest tonight.
- In a story for The New York Post, Josh Kosman and Thornton McEnery explore how the NBA will have soon have to make a decision on how to handle “special-purpose acquisition corporations” (SPACs) that want to purchase shares of franchises. The Warriors approached the NBA about selling a minority stake in their team to such a company, but withdrew that request when the league put off a decision, per Kosman and McEnery.
NBA To Loosen Restrictions On Two-Way Contracts For 2020/21
The NBA and NBPA intend to further loosen the restrictions facing players on two-way contracts for the rest of the 2020/21 season, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Currently, players on two-way contracts are limited to appearing in 50 regular season games and aren’t eligible for the postseason. The plan is to eliminate both of those restrictions, pending Board of Governors approval, according to Charania.
[RELATED: 2020/21 NBA Two-Way Contract Tracker]
The rule change would allow standout two-way players such as Wizards guard Garrison Mathews, Raptors forward Yuta Watanabe, and Warriors wing Juan Toscano-Anderson to play in all their teams’ remaining regular season games and to be active for the playoffs as well.
Players on two-way deals who exceed 50 games played would earn a salary bump, according to Charania. Currently, those players are making $449,155, half of the rookie minimum. If a two-way player appears in more than 50 games, his salary would be the rookie or veteran’s minimum that corresponds with his years of NBA service, as seen here.
The rule change will give teams some added roster flexibility during a season in which they’ve often found themselves missing a player or two due to the NBA’s health and safety (COVID-19) protocols. Sources tell Charania (Twitter link) that the lifting of those two-way restrictions received “massive support” among NBA executives today on a conference call.
Hoops Rumors Chat Transcript: 3/2/2021
There are just 23 days left until the 2021 NBA trade deadline arrives, which means trade discussions around the league will be heating up in the coming weeks.
With that in mind, we’ve brought back our weekly live chats leading up to the deadline. While those live chats will focus primarily on potential trade scenarios, we also welcome questions on free agency, the salary cap, the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and anything else NBA-related. Our chats will take place each Tuesday at 12:00 pm central time (1 pm ET).
Today’s chat transcript can be found right here.
Southwest Notes: Oladipo, Porter, Ball, Winslow
Word broke over the weekend that Victor Oladipo had turned down a contract extension offer from the Rockets, but the two-time All-Star actually passed on that offer a while ago, he confirmed on Monday. As Oladipo explained, the proposal was just a formality, since the team understood he wouldn’t sign it.
“It was more along the lines, ‘We know you’re not going to accept it, but we still want you to understand we want you here,'” Oladipo said of the Rockets’ offer. “… It was put in front of me or given to me to show me that they want me to be here. I didn’t get a chance to say yes or no. They already knew I wasn’t going to accept it anyway.”
Oladipo’s decision to decline the offer doesn’t necessarily mean that he has no interest in remaining with the Rockets long-term — it’s more about his desire to reach the open market this summer as a free agent. He had previously turned down a more lucrative offer from Indiana for the same reason.
Here’s more from around the Southwest:
- Before he makes his debut for the Rockets, recently-acquired guard Kevin Porter is getting back up to speed in the G League, and his stint with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers is going well so far. Porter was officially named the NBAGL Player of the Week on Tuesday after averaging 27.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 7.0 assists, and 2.0 steals in his past four games.
- Lonzo Ball has been the subject of some trade rumors this season, but the Pelicans guard thinks that he, Zion Williamson, and Brandon Ingram could be the start of a formidable long-term core for the franchise, as Christian Clark of NOLA.com writes. “I love playing with those guys,” Ball said of the two standout forwards. “I’m really cool with them off the court as well. We’re all young. I think we can do some big things.”
- It took nearly a year for him to finally take the court for the Grizzlies, but now that he’s healthy, Justise Winslow is grateful that the team traded for him and stuck with him during his lengthy injury rehab process, as Evan Barnes of The Memphis Commercial Appeal details. “This trade was one of the best things to happen in my life on and off the court for me,” Winslow told sideline reporter Rob Fischer on Sunday. “This organization just being so patient with me. I’m just so thankful. A lot of gratitude and a lot of joy in my heart right now.”
Hawks Notes: Pierce, McMillan, Schlenk, Bogdanovic
Addressing reporters on Monday night following the announcement of Lloyd Pierce‘s dismissal, general manager Travis Schlenk didn’t offer a ton of specific details for why the Hawks made a head coaching change, simply stating that the team was underachieving relative to its expectations, as Sarah K. Spencer of The Atlanta-Journal Constitution writes.
“As we said at the beginning of the season, our goal was to have progress this year, to move forward,” Schlenk said. “And we just felt like that wasn’t happening as quickly as we wanted it to. … We felt like for the organization, it was the best thing for us to do moving forward.”
Hawks owner Tony Ressler has admitted to pressing for the team’s big spending spree during 2020’s free agency period and badly wants to get back to the postseason. However, Schlenk said that he and his basketball operations staff made the decision to move on from Pierce, with Ressler’s approval.
“Certainly Tony signs off on all major moves we make on the basketball side or on the business side, as far as that goes, but this wasn’t a decision that Tony made,” Schlenk said, according to Spencer. “… I don’t think it’s any secret that Tony is very passionate and wants the organization to be successful. He’s willing to give us all the resources that we need to be able to do that. Up to this point in my tenure here, he’s been extremely supportive of any decision I feel like we needed to make, and this was the same situation here.”
Here’s more on the Hawks:
- Nate McMillan will be the Hawks’ interim head coach and is the first candidate named by Chris Kirschner of The Athletic in his list of possible permanent coaching options for Atlanta. Schlenk was noncommittal on Monday when asked about the possibility of McMillan holding the job permanently, stating that the Hawks will cross that bridge when they get there, per Spencer.
- Pierce’s firing raises some bigger questions about the Hawks’ decision-making, according to John Hollinger of The Athletic, who suggests the clock has begun ticking on Schlenk and the front office, especially if the team’s 2020 free agent additions don’t start providing more value soon. While injuries to Bogdan Bogdanovic, Kris Dunn, and De’Andre Hunter this season have been unlucky, the signings of Danilo Gallinari and Rajon Rondo look like “clear failures,” Hollinger contends.
- Schlenk shared some good news during his Tuesday morning appearance on 92.9 The Game in Atlanta, announcing that Bogdanovic will play on Tuesday on a minutes restriction (Twitter link via Mike Conti). Bogdanovic has been out since January 9 due to a knee injury.
- A pair of veteran NBA coaches – Rick Carlisle and Gregg Popovich – expressed disappointment in the Hawks’ decision to fire Pierce, as Dwain Price of Mavs.com and Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press relay.
Rubio On Wolves’ Play: “I Don’t Feel Like This Is Building Something”
So far, a midseason coaching change has done nothing to help the Timberwolves turn things around. After starting the season with a league-worst 7-24 record, Minnesota replaced head coach Ryan Saunders with Chris Finch, but the club has lost Finch’s first four games by an average of 17 points per contest.
Besides being frustrated by the results on the court, veteran point guard Ricky Rubio is concerned about the Wolves’ process and the habits they’re developing, as Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic writes.
“We have to build good habits from day one, and I don’t think we are in the right way, to be honest,” Rubio said on Sunday. “I can be here and be positive like we’re trying to be and it’s OK. But we have the worst record in the league. We lost way too many games by 20-plus, and I don’t feel like this is building something. It’s hard. You always have to take positive things and of course, we want to get better, but at one point we got to start wanting to change something, and it’s not happening.”
After hosting the Hornets on Wednesday in their final game of the first half, the Wolves will be off for a week, and Rubio expressed hope that the All-Star break will benefit a team that is “not playing good.”
Rubio made it clear he wasn’t blaming Finch, who “has a lot on his plate” taking over a struggling team in the middle of the season. More practice time under the new coach might help, according to Rubio, who was frustrated by the fact that the Wolves couldn’t stop Devin Booker and the Suns from scoring on Sunday when Phoenix repeatedly ran the same set.
“When you’re young and you gotta play through the mistakes, I understand,” Rubio said, per Krawczynski. “But at one point, if you do the same mistake over and over again, it means you’re not learning. Learning through mistakes as a young team can happen, but then make different mistakes. I think we’re doing the same mistakes over and over.”
Rubio, who was reacquired by Minnesota in the fall to complement young guard D’Angelo Russell, hasn’t been a great on-court fit with D-Lo and is having one of the worst seasons of his 10-year NBA career, averaging a career-low 7.6 points per game on 37.8% shooting. While president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas may explore dealing Rubio at the trade deadline, the guard’s $17.8MM guaranteed salary for 2021/22 will make him a tricky piece to move.
Kings’ Woodard Out At Least 3-4 Weeks With Hamstring Strain
Kings rookie forward Robert Woodard II has been recalled from the G League, but he won’t be available to play for Sacramento anytime soon. According to a press release from the team, Woodard suffered a left hamstring strain on Sunday while playing for the Austin Spurs and will be re-evaluated in three or four weeks.
The 40th overall pick in the 2020 draft, Woodard has seen limited action for the Kings this season, logging garbage-time minutes in six games before being assigned to the G League at the end of January. Because Sacramento’s NBAGL affiliate (the Stockton Kings) isn’t in action this season, Woodard joined San Antonio’s affiliate at the G League bubble in Florida.
Although the Spurs have no direct investment in his development, Woodard was playing big minutes for Austin at Walt Disney World, averaging 16.8 PPG, 11.0 RPG, and 1.3 SPG in 12 games (31.3 MPG). He struggled with his shot, however, making 41.5% of his overall attempts and just 21.3% from beyond the 3-point line.
Austin is tied for fourth in the G League standings with an 8-4 record, but if the team is going to make a deep run in the eight-team, single-elimination playoff tournament next week, it will have to do so without Woodard.
The Kings, meanwhile, now have a number of players unavailable, as Jabari Parker and Hassan Whiteside remain in the NBA’s health and safety protocols, while Chimezie Metu is out with a broken wrist. Standout rookie Tyrese Haliburton is also day-to-day with a calf injury.
Hawks Fire Lloyd Pierce
The Hawks have dismissed head coach Lloyd Pierce, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link). The club has put out a press release officially confirming the decision to relieve Pierce of his duties.
“We would like to thank Lloyd for his work and commitment to not only the Hawks organization but the city of Atlanta. He and his wife, Melissa, are tremendous people who have made a positive impact throughout the city,” general manager Travis Schlenk said in a statement. “We have high expectations for our team on the court and we believe by making this change now that we can have a strong second half of the season.”
Pierce, who previously served as an assistant coach in Cleveland, Golden State, Memphis, and Philadelphia, was hired as the Hawks’ head coach by Schlenk in 2018. Pierce led the team to a 63-120 (.344) record in two-and-a-half seasons, with no playoff appearances.
The Hawks’ sub-.500 records in Pierce’s first couple seasons were to be expected, since the organization was still in rebuilding mode. However, there were increased expectations in Atlanta in 2020/21 — the club badly wants to make the postseason this spring following a major spending spree in free agency. The Hawks are just 14-20 after getting off to a 10-9 start, and have coughed up a number of fourth-quarter leads.
It’s worth noting that Atlanta has been hit hard so far in ’20/21 by the injury bug, with all of the team’s major free agent additions – Bogdan Bogdanovic, Danilo Gallinari, Rajon Rondo, Kris Dunn – missing at least a dozen games due to health issues. Dunn has yet to suit up at all for his new team, while up-and-coming youngster De’Andre Hunter has been out since January. However, it seems the Hawks’ decision-makers weren’t willing to attribute the club’s inconsistent and underwhelming play in the first half to those absences.
According to Wojnarowski (via Twitter), the Hawks are hoping that lead assistant Nate McMillan will take over as their interim head coach.
McMillan is certainly the most logical candidate to assume the reins on an interim basis — his résumé includes lengthy head coaching stints for the Pacers, Trail Blazers, and SuperSonics, and he ranks 22nd on the NBA’s all-time list with 661 wins as a head coach. However, McMillan – who is meeting with Pierce and the rest of Atlanta’s coaching staff this afternoon – has been “fiercely loyal in his support of Pierce,” Woj notes.
[UPDATE: Nate McMillan Agrees To Be Hawks’ Interim Head Coach]
Pierce, who is set to be part of Gregg Popovich‘s Team USA coaching staff at this year’s Olympics in Tokyo, is the second NBA head coach to be dismissed during the 2020/21 season, joining former Timberwolves coach Ryan Saunders.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Super-Max Candidates To Watch In 2021
The Designated Veteran Extension, as we explain our glossary entry on the subject, is a relatively new addition to the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. It allows players with 7-9 years of experience, who would normally qualify for a maximum starting salary of 30% of the cap, to qualify for a “super-max” contract that starts at 35% of the cap, a level normally reserved players with 10+ years of experience.
A player who has seven or eight years of NBA service with one or two years left on his contract becomes eligible for a Designated Veteran Extension if he meets the required performance criteria and hasn’t been traded since his first four years in the league. A Designated Veteran contract can also be signed by a player who is technically a free agent if he has eight or nine years of service and meets the required criteria.
The performance criteria is as follows (only one of the following must be true):
- The player was named to an All-NBA team and/or was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year in the most recent season, or in two of the last three seasons.
- The player was named the NBA MVP in any of the three most recent seasons.
Technically, players like Gary Harris and Evan Fournier meet the criteria related to years of service with one team and could theoretically become eligible to sign a super-max extension this year, but they’re obviously not viable candidates to make an All-NBA team in 2021.
There are, however, a few players who are more realistic candidates to qualify for a super-max veteran contract based on their All-NBA candidacy. Let’s dive in and examine a few of those cases…
Joel Embiid (Sixers)
When Embiid first signed his five-year, maximum-salary contract with the Sixers back in 2017, he had appeared in just 31 games over the course of his first three NBA seasons, making the investment a risky one. The deal included some injury protection for Philadelphia, giving the team the ability to waive Embiid without fully guaranteeing the salaries in later years of the deal if one of the injuries he experienced early in his career became a recurring issue.
The idea of the Sixers waiving Embiid seems absurd now. While the former third overall pick hasn’t exactly been an iron man since the start of the 2017/18 season, there are no longer any concerns about his career being derailed by health issues before it could really get off the ground.
Embiid will have seven years of NBA service under his belt at the end of the 2020/21 campaign and if he earns a spot on an All-NBA team, he’d have done so twice in the last three years, having made the Second Team in 2019.
For now, he looks like an awfully safe All-NBA bet — his 30.0 PPG, 11.3 RPG, .519/.415/.858 shooting line, and solid defense have made him a legit MVP candidate. Health is always the wild card for Embiid, but as long as he stays on the court for most of the second half, an All-NBA spot should be a lock. That would make the big man eligible to sign a super-max extension with the Sixers this offseason.
Embiid remains under contract through 2023, with a $31.6MM salary in ’21/22 and a $33.6MM figure for ’22/23. A super-max extension would tack on four years to those two seasons and would start at 35% of the ’23/24 cap.
It’s too early to know exactly where the cap will end up in 2023/24, but if we use a conservative estimate and assume it will rise by 3% annually in each of the next three summers, that would result in a four-year total of up to $187MM on a new Embiid deal that runs through 2027. It will be fascinating to see how eager the 76ers would be to put that extension – which would cover Embiid’s age-29 to age-32 seasons – on the table.
Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)
Like Embiid, Jokic has played like an MVP candidate and is a lock for an All-NBA spot, barring an injury or another unexpected development. Jokic, who was the All-NBA Second Team center in 2020, is making a case for a First Team spot this season, averaging 26.7 PPG, 10.9 RPG, and 8.5 APG on .564/.421/.879 shooting through 33 games for the Nuggets.
Unlike Embiid, however, Jokic will only have six years of NBA experience at the end of the 2020/21 season. That means that even though he can technically gain super-max eligibility by earning an All-NBA nod for the second straight season, Jokic wouldn’t officially be able to sign a new extension with Denver until 2022, once he has his seven years of service.
This is the same situation Giannis Antetokounmpo found himself in last year — he gained super-max eligibility following the 2018/19 season based on his multiple All-NBA spots and his MVP award, but wasn’t able to actually sign that super-max contract until the 2020 offseason, once he had seven years of service. The Bucks, of course, planned all along to offer him the super-max as soon as they could, and it’s probably safe to assume the Nuggets will do the same for Jokic.
Jokic’s current contract is virtually identical to Embiid’s, with matching $31.6MM and $33.6MM cap hits for the next two seasons after ’20/21. Because Jokic wouldn’t be able to sign a super-max until 2022 though, he could get a five-year extension at that point — if we once again assume annual 3% cap increases, that deal could be worth up to an eye-popping $242MM.
Zach LaVine (Bulls)
While Embiid and Jokic have clear paths to All-NBA spots in 2021, LaVine is a longer shot to get there. The Bulls guard is having the best year of his career and currently ranks sixth in the NBA with 28.7 points per game, but he’s not a strong defender and Chicago’s place in the standings is unlikely to do him any favors with All-NBA voters.
Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, Luka Doncic, and James Harden look like the top contenders to fill the guard spots on the first two teams, which means LaVine would be competing with stars like Bradley Beal, Kyrie Irving, Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, Ben Simmons, and Jaylen Brown, among others, for a Third Team spot.
LaVine’s current deal pays him well below the max, at just $19.5MM annually, so earning an All-NBA spot would make him eligible for a massive raise. If we once again count on annual 3% salary cap increases, a super-max extension for LaVine would could be worth up to $235MM over five years, starting in 2022/23.
Even if he beats the odds and earns an All-NBA spot, LaVine seems unlikely to receive that sort of offer from the Bulls, who traded Jimmy Butler to Minnesota when his super-max eligibility loomed a few years ago. But the super-max wrinkle would further complicate LaVine’s contract situation, which should be very interesting to monitor even if he falls short of an All-NBA team.
Because he’s earning just $19.5MM next season, LaVine would typically only be eligible for a four-year, $104.8MM veteran extension — the Bulls would almost certainly put that offer on the table, but LaVine would probably pass, since he’d be eligible for a far higher salary as a free agent in 2022.
It’s worth considering, however, that Chicago projects to have a significant chunk of cap room available during the 2021 offseason, giving the team the option of renegotiating the final year of LaVine’s contract to give him a raise and a more lucrative extension. That may be the most likely outcome for the first-time All-Star, who is a super-max long shot but is still likely to command more than the $26MM annual salary the Bulls can offer without a renegotiation.
Luka Doncic (Mavericks)
To be clear, Doncic will not be eligible for a starting salary worth 35% of the salary cap on his next contract. But the Mavericks star is being mentioned here because he’ll likely become eligible for a lesser form of the “super-max” contract.
When a former first-round pick is entering the fourth and final year of his rookie contract, he’s eligible to sign a rookie scale extension that starts at 25% of the cap. But if that player has met the super-max performance criteria listed at the top of this story (based on MVP, DPOY, or All-NBA honors), his rookie scale extension can instead start at 30% of the cap.
Most of the time, a player who signs a rookie scale extension that can start at 30% of the cap does so conditionally — for instance, Jayson Tatum was on the 2019/20 All-NBA Third Team, then signed a rookie scale extension prior to the ’20/21 season. Because his extension will go into effect next season, Tatum still has to earn an All-NBA spot again this season to meet the super-max criteria (an All-NBA spot in the most recent season, or in two of the past three seasons) and to qualify for that 30% starting salary.
Doncic, on the other hand, has a chance to pull off a rare feat. Because he was named to the All-NBA First Team in just his second season, he’ll become eligible for a 30% starting salary if he earns All-NBA honors again this year, in his third season. It wouldn’t matter whether or not he’s an All-NBA player again in 2022, because he would have already met the necessary benchmark — two All-NBA berths in three years.
Assuming Doncic earns an All-NBA spot this season, which looks like a safe bet, he’d be eligible to sign a five-year rookie scale extension worth a projected $201.5MM, which would begin during the 2022/23 season.
Like Tatum, Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, and De’Aaron Fox all signed rookie scale extensions in 2020 that will increase in value if they meet certain performance criteria, so they’re worth keeping an eye on this season too.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.