Wizards Reopen Practice Facility
The Wizards have reopened their practice facility for voluntary workouts, the team announced today in a press release. Friday, the first day of D.C. “phase one” for reopening, was also the first day that players were allowed back at the MedStar Wizards Performance Center for individual on-court work.
According to the Wizards’ announcement, the building will remain closed to the general staffs of the Wizards, the WNBA’s Mystics, and the G League’s Capital City Go-Go until local guidelines allow for reopening. However, players are permitted to work out while following strict protocols provided by the league, including no more than four players being in the building at a time.
The Warriors, Spurs, and Pistons are now the only three teams that haven’t reopened their facilities or officially announced plans to do so next week. Golden State has long targeted the week of June 1 to get back into its building, however — we’ll see if San Antonio and Detroit follow suit.
Knicks, Celtics Reopening Practice Facilities
Two more teams are reopening their practice facilities, as the NBA moves toward having all 30 teams back in their buildings for voluntary individual workouts.
The Knicks announced (via Twitter) that they reopened the MSG Training Center today, while the Celtics said in a press release that they’ll do the same with the Auerbach Center on Monday, June 1. Both teams noted in their statements that they’ll be adhering to the safety guidelines established by the NBA and local health officials.
Reopening practice facilities has been the first step for the NBA and its teams as it works toward potentially resuming the 2019/20 season this summer. A total of 24 teams have now reopened their respective buildings to players, with the Celtics set to do so on Monday and the Bulls planning to follow suit on Wednesday.
That leaves just four teams that have yet to get back into their facilities. Two of those clubs – the Warriors and Pistons – are far removed from the playoff hunt, while the other two – the Spurs and Wizards – could still have a path to the postseason under certain play-in scenarios.
NBA Targeting July 31 For Return To Play
NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the league office informed the Board of Governors on today’s conference call that July 31 is the tentative target date for a return to play, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
That target date doesn’t tell us exactly when the NBA would want its season to end, since we don’t know how many games will be played once the season resumes. However, a typical postseason requires about two months from start to finish, so it appears as if the league is comfortably playing through August and September.
According to Charania (via Twitter), the NBA discussed four potential return scenarios on today’s call with team owners. Those scenarios were as follows:
- Bringing back 16 teams and advancing directly to the postseason.
- Bringing back 20 teams and using a play-in pool that would involve a group stage.
- Note: The Trail Blazers, Pelicans, Kings, and Spurs would likely be involved in this scenario in addition to the playoff teams.
- Bringing back 22 teams and playing regular season games to determine seeding. A play-in tournament would then be used to determine the final playoff teams.
- Note: The Suns and Wizards would be added to this scenario, as ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne tweets.
- Bringing back 30 teams, completing a 72-game regular season, then conducting a play-in tournament for the final playoff teams.
Within each of those scenarios, the NBA could tweak the details and go in a few different directions. For instance, even something a solution as simple as advancing to the postseason with the current top-eight seeds in each conference could involve reseeding those teams from one through 16, regardless of conference.
It seems like a safe bet, however, that the format the league eventually lands on won’t stray too far from one of those four options. Marc Berman of The New York Post tweets that returning with 24 teams is believed to still be on the table as well, so that may be a variation of the third option listed above.
According to Charania (via Twitter), that fourth and final option – with all 30 teams returning to play – looks like the least likely outcome. Charania reports that Hornets owner Michael Jordan advocated on today’s call for player safety and not asking players to return for meaningless games — that viewpoint has been voiced by at least one superstar player as well. So unless all 30 teams get a chance to make the playoffs, which seems like a long shot, the NBA is unlikely to bring them all back.
The NBA and NBPA are expected to further deliberate in the coming days, with Silver potentially bringing a proposal back to the Board of Governors for a vote next week.
Notes On NBA’s Potential Return To Play
The two-hour conference call this afternoon that included the league’s Board of Governors and commissioner Adam Silver featured plenty of discussion and debate about what form the resumption of the NBA season should take, including the financial implications of various proposals, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter). Unsurprisingly, there was ultimately no consensus among team owners, per Woj.
As Wojnarowski details, the league and the NBPA will continue to talk about potential scenarios for the NBA’s return. However, there’s an expectation that within the next week or so, Silver and the NBA will ask teams to vote on a specific proposal.
According to Woj, most teams are pushing ideas that reflect their own interests, but there’s a sense they’d get behind Silver – whether enthusiastically or reluctantly – if he and the NBPA agree on a plan and want to move forward with it (Twitter links).
Here’s more on the potential resumption of the 2019/20 season:
- After Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer provided some of the results of the GM survey conducted by the NBA last week, Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter links) reports a few more. According to Charania, most GMs don’t want the season to extend beyond October 1, and 60% voted in favor of a 72-game regular season. Charania adds that the non-playoff teams were “split” on resuming the season.
- Tim Bontemps of ESPN also has some details on those GM survey results, noting that general managers support the idea of adding more inactive spots to team rosters and making two-way players available for the postseason.
- In a lengthy column, David Aldridge of The Athletic explores several aspects of a potential NBA return, including how COVID-19 testing would work in Orlando, what player agents are hearing from their clients, and why there’s confidence that Walt Disney World is the best choice to host the league. “I’m fairly certain that Disney is going to work,” one source told Aldridge. “Vegas had some of the logistical things we needed but didn’t have the environment that could enhance our health protocols. Vegas scared me to death. Florida worried me a little bit because of the state opening up so early, but having a venue that can basically be closed off, I do think we can check off the venue issue off our list. I think we’ve got that down.”
- Mark Medina of USA Today digs into the some of the logistics on how, specifically, it will work if the NBA resumes its seasons at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Medina shares some details – and some speculation – on where teams would play, how they’d practice, and where they’d stay while in the Disney “bubble.”
Southeast Notes: Hornets, Kulboka, Magic, Gordon, Heat
Lithuanian forward Arnoldas Kulboka is remaining with Spanish club Bilbao Basket for next season after receiving interest from Zalgiris Kaunas in his home country, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. The 22-year-old was selected by the Hornets with the No. 55 overall pick in the 2018 draft, but has yet to sign an NBA contract.
According to Donatas Urbonas (Twitter link), Kulboka’s agent Tadas Bulotas said that if not for the coronavirus pandemic, his client was planning to join the Hornets this year. As leagues take different approaches to COVID-19, the NBA offseason will no longer necessarily line up with the offseason for European leagues, complicating decisions for players looking to make the jump one way or the other.
Kulboka could potentially revisit the possibility of joining the Hornets in 2021.
Here’s more from around the Southeast:
- NBA scouts believe Magic forward Aaron Gordon is best suited to play power forward and also feel as if he tries to do more than he should in Orlando, according to Josh Robbins of The Athletic. “I think the thing for him is he just has to realize that he has to accept that he is going to be a high-level role player — a borderline All-Star if he plays his role really well,” one scout told The Athletic. “I think in his mind there are times when he sees himself in the same vein as some of the superstars, and I think sometimes that can get in his way.”
- In a separate mailbag article for The Athletic, Robbins examines the Magic‘s free agency outlook and discusses whether it would make sense for the team to experiment with playing Nikola Vucevic and Mohamed Bamba alongside one another.
- After spending most of the NBA’s hiatus in California, Heat forward Andre Iguodala has returned to South Florida, writes Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. In Miami, Iguodala will be able to take advantage of the team’s reopened practice facility for individual workouts. Jimmy Butler and Solomon Hill are now the club’s only players not in town, Winderman notes.
Austin Daye A Candidate To Return To NBA?
The 15th overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft, Austin Daye spent his first six professional seasons in the NBA, primarily with the Pistons. Having played in international leagues since then, Daye is a candidate to return to the NBA this year, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando.
As Carchia reports, Daye has an out clause until June 30 in his contract with Italian club Reyer Venezia. The veteran forward, who will turn 32 next Friday, is in talks with an NBA team and could even return stateside before the end of this season if the league’s transactions moratorium is lifted and teams get an opportunity to make roster moves.
Daye is one of many players on international teams with an NBA out who may have his decision impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. He’d have to be pretty confident he has an opportunity lined up before he exercises that out clause — given the uncertainty surrounding the remainder of the NBA season and the coming offseason, staying overseas could be the safest move for Daye and other players with outs, as we discussed on Thursday.
A former Gonzaga standout, Daye averaged 5.2 PPG and 2.6 RPG with a .402/.351/.778 shooting line in 293 NBA regular season games (14.1 MPG). Although Daye did win an NBA championship with San Antonio in 2014, he didn’t play much for the Spurs and has enjoyed more individual success in Europe, winning an LBA (Italian League) Finals MVP award in 2019 and earning Italian Cup MVP honors in 2020.
Bradley Beal: Trade Rumors “A Sign Of Respect”
Despite the fact that Bradley Beal signed a contract extension with the Wizards last fall and remains locked up through at least 2022, he continues to be the subject of trade rumors and speculation. Most recently, a New York Daily News report indicated the Nets were having internal discussions about potential avenues of acquiring Beal.
That Daily News report included the caveat that the Wizards are likely uninterested in trading their All-Star guard. Beal’s agent Mark Bartelstein subsequently shot down the idea as well. Speaking to Jackie MacMullan of ESPN, Beal chose to view those rumors in a positive light, even as he downplayed them too.
“To me, I look at it as a sign of respect, that I’ve been doing good things and guys want to play with me,” Beal said. “That’s an unbelievable feeling. When you hear that Kyrie (Irving) and KD (Kevin Durant) want you, s–t, that’s amazing. At the same time, you don’t know how much there is to it, or how easy it would be to do. And I’ve put down roots in D.C. I’ve dedicated myself to this town, this community. I love it here, and it would feel great to know I could grind out winning here instead of jumping to another team.”
Beal did admit that he sometimes can’t help but think about different possibilities when he hears his name mentioned in trade rumors. However, he stressed that he has no desire to leave D.C. at this time — especially with fellow backcourt star John Wall set to be back at full strength for the start of the 2020/21 season after more than a year on the shelf with heel and Achilles injuries.
[RELATED: John Wall Declares Himself “110%” Healthy]
“My biggest thing right now is that I want to play with John again,” Beal said. “I want to see him get back to that level where I know he can be, especially since my game has grown so much (while he’s been out). What can we accomplish together? I’m so happy he’s healthy, working his tail off.”
O’Connor’s Latest: GM Survey, Roster Expansion, Lottery, More
On Thursday, the NBA held a call with its 30 teams’ heads of basketball operations – general managers and those with similar titles – to discuss a potential return to play, as well as the results of the survey the league sent those GMs earlier this month.
According to Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer, half of the league’s GMs voted to proceed directly to the playoffs without playing any more regular season games. And just over half of the league’s GMs were in favor or reseeding playoff teams one through 16, regardless of conference. Meanwhile, support for a play-in pool similar to the World Cup’s group stage was lukewarm — approximately 75% of GMs voted for a play-in tournament, with just 25% or so supporting the play-in pool concept.
As O’Connor notes, the call was about gathering information rather than committing to a specific plan. The NBA still has a Board of Governors call scheduled to happen today, and even then, talks are expected to continue through the weekend without a formal vote on a return to play quite yet, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski confirms (via Twitter).
As for which plans received more support in the GM survey, the NBA is aware that the results, in many cases, reflect a team’s particular interests — for instance, the Lakers and Bucks supported a play-in tournament over a play-in pool, since the latter would result in a more challenging path to the second round.
“Adam isn’t taking the results seriously,” one team executive told O’Connor earlier in the week. “Every team is obviously gonna vote for what’s best for them.”
Here’s more from O’Connor:
- General managers “unanimously” favor the idea of expanding rosters for the postseason, sources tell The Ringer.
- According to O’Connor, the NBA’s preference is for no group workouts to take place until teams arrive in Orlando, since the league will be in a better position to implement its own safety measures and COVID-19 testing procedures there. However, teams are pushing back against that idea, arguing that their players need more of a ramp-up period, and multiple executives expect the NBA to relent, O’Connor writes.
- Teams on Thursday’s call had questions about how the draft lottery would work in the event of a play-in tournament or other tweaks to the usual playoff format. There are no clear answers yet on that issue, per The Ringer.
- According to O’Connor, every source he has spoken to this week believes that the NBA would prefer to have at least some of its teams stay home. The league is prioritizing health and safety – ie. minimizing the amount of people in its “bubble” – over fulfilling certain regional television contracts.
2020/21 Salary Cap Preview: Utah Jazz
Hoops Rumors is looking ahead at the 2020/21 salary cap situations for all 30 NBA teams. Due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the NBA, it’s impossible to know yet where the cap for 2020/21 will land. Given the league’s lost revenue, we’re assuming for now that it will stay the same as the ’19/20 cap, but it’s entirely possible it will end up higher or lower than that.
After acquiring Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic during the 2019 offseason, the Jazz were viewed as a strong candidate to join the likes of the Lakers and Clippers in the top tier of the Western Conference. Utah flashed that potential at times, but some prolonged slumps raised doubts about whether the team is a true contender.
At 41-23 and fourth in the West, the Jazz are theoretically well positioned to win a playoff series this summer, but Bogdanovic’s season-ending wrist injury limits their upside. Utah should get another opportunity to reach its ceiling next season, however, as nearly all its key contributors remain under contract.
Here’s where things stand for the Jazz financially in 2020/21, as we continue our Salary Cap Preview series:
Guaranteed Salary
- Rudy Gobert ($26,525,281)
- Bojan Bogdanovic ($17,850,000)
- Joe Ingles ($10,863,637)
- Royce O’Neale ($8,500,000)
- Donovan Mitchell ($5,195,501)
- Ed Davis ($5,005,350)
- Tony Bradley ($3,542,060)
- Rayjon Tucker ($340,000) — Partial guarantee. Non-guaranteed portion noted below. 1
- Total: $77,821,829
Player Options
- Mike Conley ($34,502,132)
- Note: Early termination option
- Total: $34,502,132
Team Options
- None
Non-Guaranteed Salary
- Georges Niang ($1,783,557) 2
- Juwan Morgan ($1,517,981)
- Miye Oni ($1,517,981)
- Nigel Williams-Goss ($1,517,981)
- Rayjon Tucker ($1,177,981) 1
- Total: $7,515,481
Restricted Free Agents
- Jarrell Brantley (two-way qualifying offer / $1,445,697 cap hold): Non-Bird rights
- Justin Wright-Foreman (two-way qualifying offer / $1,445,697 cap hold): Non-Bird rights
- Total (cap holds): $2,891,394
Unrestricted Free Agents / Other Cap Holds
- Jordan Clarkson ($20,156,250): Bird rights
- No. 23 overall pick ($2,284,800)
- Emmanuel Mudiay ($1,620,564): Non-Bird rights
- Total: $24,061,614
Offseason Cap Outlook
It’s a safe bet Conley won’t be passing on the opportunity to earn $34.5MM next season, so we’ll assume he waives his ETO (ie. opts in). If we add his salary to Utah’s guaranteed contracts, along with Niang and the team’s first-round pick, we’re up to about $116MM for 10 roster spots. As such, there’s virtually no doubt the Jazz will be operating as an over-the-cap team.
The Jazz’s ability to make use of their full mid-level exception will depend in part on whether they re-sign Clarkson. Committing mid-level-type money to Clarkson could put Utah right up against the tax and take the full MLE off the table. But if Clarkson walks, the organization should have a bit of flexibility.
Cap Exceptions Available
- Mid-level exception: $9,258,000 3
- Bi-annual exception: $3,623,000 3
Footnotes
- Tucker’s new salary guarantee date is unknown.
- Niang’s new salary guarantee date is unknown.
- These are projected values. If the Jazz’s team salary continues to increase, they may be limited to the taxpayer mid-level exception ($5,718,000).
Note: Minimum-salary and rookie-scale cap holds are based on the salary cap and could increase or decrease depending on where the cap lands.
Salary information from Basketball Insiders and Early Bird Rights was used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
And-Ones: Bonuses, Travel, Blazers, TBT
While it’s not at or near the top of the NBA’s list of priorities at this point, one issue the league will have to address is how players bonuses and incentives will be determined for the 2019/20 season. In an Insider-only story, Bobby Marks of ESPN identifies a number of interesting cases that remain up in the air due to the fact that the season has been suspended and may not be completed in full.
For instance, Tyus Jones‘ contract with the Grizzlies calls for him to receive a bonus worth $858K if the team wins 33 or more games. Memphis was at 32 wins when the NBA went on hiatus. Sixers center Joel Embiid, meanwhile, would have his salaries for the next three seasons become fully guaranteed if he logs 1,650 minutes this season — he was 321 minutes short of that mark when the league suspended play.
As Marks explains, the outcome of some of those incentives may have to be negotiated, but in general, the most logical approach would be for the NBA to prorate a player’s stats over a full 82-game season. For instance, if the Sixers finish the season having played just 65 out of 82 games, Embiid’s per-game minutes average for 65 games (20.4 MPG) would be prorated over 82 games. That would work out to 1,677 minutes, so he’d receive his guarantee. The same goes for Jones, since the Grizzlies were on pace to win well over 33 games.
That approach, which the NBA took during the 2011/12 lockout season, wouldn’t help players who have incentives tied to percentages — for instance, a player who needed to make 35.0% of his three-point attempts to earn a bonus and finished at 34.7% wouldn’t receive that extra money.
As we wait to see how the NBA resolves that issue and others, let’s round up a few more basketball odds and ends…
- NBA players and staff who are outside the country are now permitted to re-enter the United States via a U.S. Department of Homeland Security issue, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. That will benefit not only international players like Luka Doncic and Sekou Doumbouya, who returned to their home countries during the hiatus, but also Raptors players and coaches who are currently in Toronto.
- In a piece that focuses primarily on the Trail Blazers, Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN looks at what it’s been like for players to return to their teams’ practice facilities this month during an ongoing pandemic.
- The Basketball Tournament (TBT), an annual summer event that features a number of former college standouts and overseas players, isn’t being postponed or canceled, according to organizers. As Myron Medcalf of ESPN details, participants will be tested repeatedly for COVID-19 and a team will be eliminated if one of its players tests positive. The plan is to move forward with the tournament in July.