Recap Of Non-Guaranteed Contract Decisions
February 24 was a key date for the NBA players who were on non-guaranteed contracts for the 2020/21 season. While their salaries won’t technically become guaranteed until February 27, the players who remained under contract through 4:00pm central time on Wednesday are now assured those guaranteed salaries. If released today, they wouldn’t clear waivers by the start of February 27, so they’ve survived the cut.
While several players with non-guaranteed contracts were released in recent days, most are now safe. We’ll use the space below to break down those decisions from around the league.
The following players will have their non-guaranteed 2020/21 salaries become fully guaranteed on Saturday:
- PJ Dozier (Nuggets): $1,762,796
- Javonte Green (Celtics): $1,517,981
- Taj Gibson (Knicks): $2,283,684 ($1,442,968 cap hit)
- Willy Hernangomez (Pelicans): $1,737,145 ($1,620,564 cap hit)
- Frank Kaminsky (Suns): $1,882,867 ($1,620,564 cap hit)
- Damion Lee (Warriors): $1,762,796
- Alex Len (Wizards): $1,697,755 ($1,265,372 cap hit)
- Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot (Nets): $1,824,003
- Kelan Martin (Pacers): $1,445,697
- Jalen McDaniels (Hornets): $1,517,981
- Juwan Morgan (Jazz): $1,517,981
- Mychal Mulder (Warriors): $1,517,981
- Jaylen Nowell (Timberwolves): $1,517,981
- David Nwaba (Rockets): $1,824,003
- Miye Oni (Jazz): $1,517,981
- Cameron Payne (Suns): $1,977,011
- Naz Reid (Timberwolves): $1,517,981
- Jae’Sean Tate (Rockets): $1,445,697
- Matt Thomas (Raptors): $1,517,981
- Dean Wade (Cavaliers): $1,517,981
- Paul Watson (Raptors): $1,445,697
The following players were waived within the last few days before their salaries could become fully guaranteed. Their dead-money cap hits are noted:
- Quinn Cook (Lakers): $797,183
- Shaquille Harrison (Jazz): $770,433
- Damian Jones (Suns): $785,285
- Andre Roberson (Nets): $163,818
- Glenn Robinson III (Kings): $930,930
- Iman Shumpert (Nets): $447,155
- Sindarius Thornwell (Pelicans): $721,484
- Noah Vonleh (Nets): $263,995
Some of these players remain on waivers, so their salaries technically could still become fully guaranteed – and their cap hits could be fully removed from their old teams’ books – if they’re claimed by a new team.
Salary information from Basketball Insiders was used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Cavs Sign Brodric Thomas To Two-Way Contract
9:45pm: Cleveland has officially signed Thomas and waived Bolden, Russo tweets.
1:45pm: The Cavaliers are signing G League guard Brodric Thomas to a two-way contract, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Thomas had been on a two-way deal with Houston, but was cut earlier in the month to open up a spot for Ray Spalding. Thomas saw very limited minutes in four games for the Rockets, but has been a regular starter for the club’s NBAGL affiliate, averaging 16.4 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 3.0 APG, and 1.6 SPG in eight games (33.4 MPG) for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
Cleveland will waive two-way center Marques Bolden in order to make room for Thomas, sources tell Kelsey Russo of The Athletic (Twitter link). Bolden has played 29 total minutes in six games for the Cavs this season and has also had a limited impact at the G League level, recording 6.3 PPG and 6.0 RPG in three games (17.0 MPG) for the Canton Charge.
After officially completing those two transactions, the Cavs will once again have a 16-man roster, with 14 players on standard contracts and a pair on two-way deals. Dean Wade is the lone player on the standard roster without a fully guaranteed contract, but Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com (Twitter link) hears the club has no plans to waive Wade before today’s salary guarantee deadline.
Lamar Stevens, the Cavs’ other two-way player, has recently emerged as a regular part of the club’s rotation, and a source tells Fedor that Cleveland will likely consider converting Stevens’ contract to a standard contract at some point. However, the fact that the Cavs are clearing space for Thomas by waiving Bolden rather than promoting Stevens to fill the open spot on the 15-man roster suggests that’s a decision that will be made later in the season.
Western Notes: Porzingis, Mavs, Cousins, Mulder, Kings
The Mavericks have put on a full-court press in downplaying reports from Bleacher Report and SNY.tv suggesting that they’d gauged Kristaps Porzingis‘ potential value on the trade market. Team owner Mark Cuban sent messages to beat reporters on Tuesday denying that the team had discussed Porzingis with anyone and expressing displeasure with at least one of the anonymous quotes in the Bleacher Report story.
Additionally, as Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News reports, multiple other key members of the organization disputed the idea that Porzingis might be a trade candidate. Townsend says he was told that the “pat answer” president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson gives to teams asking the Mavs about trades is that Luka Doncic and Porzingis are off the table.
According to Townsend, he was also “emphatically” told that the Mavericks haven’t initiated discussions with any franchise about a Porzingis trade, and that when one team did inquire about the big man, “the answer was a quick no.”
When a team swiftly and emphatically denies a report about a rumored trade discussion, it’s sometimes the case that the report got some details wrong, or was altogether false. However, in this instance, multiple reputable reporters had similar stories, and the Mavs’ insistence that they’d never deign to consider a Porzingis trade feels a little over the top, given his injury history, his contract, and his good-but-not-great production.
While I don’t expect the Mavericks to actually trade Porzingis this season or even in the offseason, it’s not unreasonable to assume the team is doing some damage control here and won’t consider the former lottery pick completely off-limits going forward.
Here’s more from around the Western Conference:
- Although the Mavericks have had on-and-off interest in DeMarcus Cousins for years and could use some rebounding help, Dallas isn’t considered a viable landing spot for the veteran center, who is currently on waivers, tweets Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News.
- Warriors guard Mychal Mulder had been viewed as a candidate to be released today, before his full-season salary became guaranteed, but Anthony Slater of The Athletic (Twitter link) hears that Mulder isn’t going anywhere for now. The 26-year-old has another non-guaranteed season on his deal, so Golden State will retain some flexibility with him this offseason if he remains on the roster.
- In spit of the Kings‘ eight-game losing streak and Tyrese Haliburton‘s increased production (17.1 PPG and 5.4 APG on .529/.485/.778 shooting in his last 11 games), head coach Luke Walton has no plans to change the starting lineup and insert the rookie guard, writes James Ham of NBC Sports California.
Kings Release Glenn Robinson III
3:58pm: The Kings have made it official, announcing in a press release that they’ve waived Robinson.
3:36pm: The Kings intend to waive forward Glenn Robinson III, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link). The move will open up a spot on Sacramento’s roster, which is currently full.
Robinson, 27, signed a one-year, non-guaranteed minimum-salary contract with the Kings during the offseason after playing for the Warriors and 76ers in 2019/20. The veteran won the team’s final roster spot in training camp and appeared in 23 games for Sacramento, averaging 5.3 PPG and 2.0 RPG on .424/.364/.913 shooting in 16.0 minutes per contest.
Robinson is currently away from the Kings for personal reasons and was reportedly anticipating his release, since today is the deadline for teams to waive players on non-guaranteed deals and avoid paying their full-season salaries.
As Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee noted earlier, Robinson has been dealing with a minor knee issue and the Kings would have to continue to pay him until he’s healthy enough to play, but that injury isn’t believed to be serious.
Assuming Robinson goes unclaimed on waivers, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent on Friday, while Sacramento carries a cap hit of at least $930,930 on their books.
Jazz Waive Shaquille Harrison
The Jazz have waived veteran guard Shaquille Harrison in advance of today’s salary guarantee deadline, the team announced in a press release. Ben Anderson of KSL Sports first reported (via Twitter) that Utah was cutting Harrison.
A 6’4″ guard who previously played for Phoenix and Chicago and has a reputation as a strong defender, Harrison signed a non-guaranteed minimum-salary contract with the Jazz during the offseason. Although he appeared in 17 games for the team, he never established himself as a rotation player — virtually all of his minutes came in garbage time of double-digit wins or losses.
By waiving him today, the Jazz will avoid paying Harrison’s full-season salary. Rather than carrying a $1.62MM cap hit for the guard, they’ll assume a $770,433 dead-money charge, assuming he passes through waivers unclaimed. If another team claims him, Utah could remove his cap hit entirely.
The Jazz have two other players with non-guaranteed contracts, but there’s no indication that Miye Oni or Juwan Morgan are going anywhere. Assuming they remain on the roster through today, their 2020/21 salaries will become fully guaranteed.
Utah now has two open spots on its 15-man roster and will have to fill at least one of those openings within the next two weeks, perhaps by signing a player to a 10-day contract.
Nets Officially Sign Tyler Cook To 10-Day Deal
As expected, the Nets have signed G League forward Tyler Cook to a 10-day contract, the team announced today in a press release. No corresponding move was necessary, as Brooklyn opened up three spots on its 15-man roster on Tuesday night by waiving Iman Shumpert, Noah Vonleh, and Andre Roberson.
Undrafted out of Iowa in 2019, Cook spent time as a rookie on a two-way contract and a pair of 10-day deals with Cleveland before joining Denver for the NBA restart as a substitute player. He only appeared in 13 total NBA games, but played more for the Canton Charge and OKC Blue in the G League, averaging 12.9 PPG and 5.7 RPG in 29 games (21.3 MPG).
Cook returned to the G League for the 2020/21 season and has been one of the standouts at the Walt Disney World bubble over the last couple weeks, averaging 20.8 PPG, 9.6 RPG, and 4.4 APG in eight games (33.3 MPG) for the Iowa Wolves.
Cook’s 10-day contract, which will pay him approximately $99K, will run through the rest of the season’s first half. The Nets will have to decide after that point whether to bring him back on a second 10-day deal to start the second half.
Today’s move makes the Nets the first team to formally sign a player to a 10-day contract this season without utilizing a hardship exception to do so. Brooklyn is also expected to re-add Shumpert and Roberson on 10-day deals of their own, assuming both players clear waivers later this week.
NBA Reveals Second-Half Schedule For 2020/21
The NBA has officially unveiled its schedule for the second half of the 2020/21 regular season, which will get underway on March 10 and will run through May 16. The regular season will be followed by a play-in tournament from May 18-21, with the postseason getting underway on May 22.
The league intentionally put off finalizing the second-half schedule until now in order to account for the many postponements that have occurred during the first half due to the coronavirus and a weather-related emergency in Texas. A total of 33 games originally scheduled for the first half had to be postponed, though two of those contests were incorporated into the later part of the first-half schedule.
The plan for now is for all 30 teams to play a full 72-game schedule, which means the teams hit hardest by postponements in the first half will face a rigorous second-half slate. The Grizzlies, for instance, have to make up six first-half games and are scheduled to play 40 games in 68 days in the second half, including 11 back-to-back sets.
The full day-by-day schedule for the second half can be found right here.
Listed below are links to the rest-of-season 2020/21 schedules for each NBA team, organized by conference and division:
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Atlantic Division
Central Division
Southeast Division
WESTERN CONFERENCE
Northwest Division
Pacific Division
Southwest Division
2020/21 NBA Reverse Standings Update
Throughout the 2020/21 NBA season, Hoops Rumors is maintaining a feature that allows you to keep an eye on the tentative 2021 draft order. Our 2020/21 Reverse Standings tool, which lists the NBA’s 30 teams from worst to first, is updated daily to reflect the outcomes of the previous night’s games.
Our Reverse Standings are essentially a reflection of what 2021’s draft order would look like with no changes to lottery position. We’ve noted each club’s odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick, based on the league’s current lottery format.
[RELATED: Hoops Rumors Glossary: Draft Lottery]
In instances where two non-playoff teams or two playoff teams have identical records, the order in our standings isn’t necessarily definitive — for draft purposes, the NBA breaks ties via random drawings, so those drawings would happen at the end of the year.
Of course, the 14 non-playoff teams all draft before the 16 playoff teams, even if some non-playoff teams have better records than those that made the postseason. Our reverse standings account for playoff seeding, though for now they assume that the Nos. 7 and 8 teams in each conference will earn those final two postseason spots. Since the NBA’s new play-in format opens the door for the Nos. 9 and 10 seeds to sneak into the postseason, we may have to account for a little movement in the draft order at season’s end.
Traded first-round picks are included via footnotes. For example, the note next to Golden State’s pick says the Warriors will send their pick to the Thunder if it’s not in the top 20. As of today, the Warriors’ pick projects to be exactly 20th, meaning that pick wouldn’t change hands.
The Timberwolves are currently in the driver’s seat at the “top” of our reverse standings — their 7-25 record giving them a 2.5-game cushion on the second-worst team, the 9-22 Pistons, with the 11-21 Cavaliers up next. It will be interesting to see whether that race tightens now that Chris Finch has taken the head coaching reins from Ryan Saunders in Minnesota.
Although the league’s bottom three teams will all have an equal chance at the No. 1 overall pick (14.0%) and a top-four selection (52.1%), finishing atop the reverse standings would still benefit the Wolves — the NBA’s worst team can’t fall further than the No. 5 pick, while the third-worst team could end up selecting as low as No. 7.
The Rockets‘ and Thunder‘s spots in the reverse standings are also worth keeping an eye on over the course of the year. Oklahoma City has the ability to swap first-round picks with Houston, but only if the Rockets’ pick doesn’t land in the top four. Currently, Houston is tied for the NBA’s fourth-worst record, while the Thunder are tied for the league’s sixth-worst mark.
Our Reverse Standings tracker can be found at anytime on the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features” on our desktop site, or on the “Features” page in our mobile menu. It’s a great resource not just for monitoring a team’s draft position, but also for keeping an eye on whether or not traded picks with protections will be changing hands in 2021. So be sure to check back often as the season progresses!
Note: Mobile users are advised to turn their phones sideways when viewing the Reverse Standings in order to see team records and lottery odds.
Lakers Release Quinn Cook
FEBRUARY 24: The Lakers have officially released Cook, the team announced today in a press release. He’s now on track to clear waivers on Friday, while L.A. will carry a cap hit of about $797K if he goes unclaimed.
FEBRUARY 23: The Lakers are waiving veteran guard Quinn Cook, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). The move will leave the team with a pair of open spots on its 15-man roster.
Cook, who will turn 28 in a month, averaged 11.5 minutes per game in 44 regular season games for the Lakers last season, but has played even less of a role in 2020/21, logging just 62 total minutes in 16 appearances. He has played double-digit minutes just once.
As Charania explains (via Twitter), the Lakers valued Cook, but wanted to gain some extra roster and cap flexibility for possible upcoming moves, and his non-guaranteed contract made him the obvious roster casualty. Wednesday is the deadline for teams to waive a player on a non-guaranteed deal and avoid paying them his full-season salary.
Assuming Cook is officially released on Tuesday, his cap hit will dip from $1.62MM to about $785K, creating a little extra breathing room below the hard cap for Los Angeles. The Lakers will have up to two weeks to fill at least one of their two open roster spots to get back to the league-mandated minimum of 14 players on standard contracts, but could do so temporarily with a 10-day signing.
With two open roster spots, the Lakers will have some options on the trade market, but may ultimately focus on the post-deadline buyout market, as the defending champs will be a compelling destination for the top players who reach free agency.
Cook, meanwhile, would clear waivers and become an unrestricted free agent on Thursday if he goes unclaimed. According to Charania, the former Duke standout is expected to draw some interest around the league.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Pacific Notes: GRIII, Lakers, Whiteside, George, Warriors
Glenn Robinson III, who is currently away from the Kings for personal reasons, may not return to the team, writes Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. Robinson’s salary for 2020/21 is non-guaranteed, and teams must waive players on non-guaranteed contracts today in order to avoid taking on their full-season cap hits.
According to Anderson, Robinson is believed to be anticipating his release, but the Kings hadn’t communicated their intentions as of Tuesday night.
As Anderson explains, the situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that Robinson is dealing with a knee injury. A team that waives an injured player who is on a non-guaranteed deal must continue paying him until he’s healthy enough to return or until his contract expires, whichever comes first. Robinson’s knee issue doesn’t appear serious, but it will be a factor for the Kings to consider as they mull their options.
Here’s more from around the Pacific:
- Jovan Buha of The Athletic explores how waiving Quinn Cook gives the Lakers even more options on the buyout market, while Dan Woike and Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times identify Kings center Hassan Whiteside as one frontcourt player the team could pursue either via trade or buyout.
- Clippers forward Paul George was pleased to earn All-Star honors, but is among the players who don’t believe the game should be played at all this season, as Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN details. George told reporters that he was fined earlier in the season for having a teammate over to his house, which is one reason why he questions the decision to bring 24 players from all over the league to Atlanta for the All-Star Game.
- The return of Stephen Curry (37 points) made the biggest impact in the Warriors‘ win over New York on Tuesday, but head coach Steve Kerr was also pleased to have centers James Wiseman and Kevon Looney available again, telling reporters that Wiseman looked “great” and that Looney “makes the game easier for everybody else” (link via Nick Friedell of ESPN). Wiseman missed 11 games with a wrist injury, while Looney was out for 10 games due to an ankle sprain.