Serbia, Greece Set 12-Man Rosters For Olympics
Two more nations have set their 12-man rosters for the upcoming Olympic games in Paris, with Serbia and Greece both officially announcing their squads (Twitter links).
The Serbian roster is headlined by three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic and includes a few more NBA players beyond the Nuggets center. Hawks guard Bogdan Bogdanovic, Hornets guard Vasilije Micic, and Heat forward Nikola Jovic will also represent Serbia in Paris.
Jovic’s inclusion is particularly notable, since there was some uncertainty earlier this month about whether he’d be healthy enough to play. He injured his ankle during an offseason workout in Miami in June, but has apparently received medical clearance for the Olympics.
Nikola Milutinov, Ognjen Dobric, Vanja Marinkovic, Marko Guduric, Filip Petrusev, Aleksa Avramovic, Dejan Davidovac, and Uros Plavsic round out Serbia’s roster. Former NBA first-round pick Aleksej Pokusevski, who finished last season with the Hornets, isn’t among the final 12.
Meanwhile, Greece has also confirmed its Olympic roster, which will be led by another former NBA MVP, Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo. Giannis is the only Antetokounmpo suiting up for Greece in France at this year’s event, since his brothers Thanasis Antetokounmpo and Kostas Antetokounmpo are both dealing with injuries.
While Giannis is the only active NBA player on the Greek roster, a few others have previously played in the league, including Nick Calathes, Georgios Papagiannis, and Kostas Papanikolaou. Former Stephen F. Austin standout Thomas Walkup also signed an NBA contract back in 2016, though he never appeared in a regular season game.
Dinos Mitoglou, Giannoulis Larentzakis, Vassilis Charalampopoulos, Nikos Chougkaz, Dimitris Moraitis, Panagiotis Kalaitzakis, and Vassilis Toliopoulos make up the rest of Greece’s roster.
Serbia’s first pool-play game of the Olympics will take place on Sunday vs. Team USA, while Greece’s Olympic schedule will tip off a day earlier, with a Saturday showdown vs. Canada.
Mavs Second-Rounder Melvin Ajinca Signs With ASVEL
Melvin Ajinca, who was selected with the No. 51 overall pick in last month’s draft, won’t be immediately joining the Mavericks. The 6’8″ forward has signed a one-year contract with ASVEL Basket, according to an announcement from the French team.
A native of France, Ajinca has spent the last several years playing in his home country, including the past two seasons with Saint-Quentin. The club played in LNB Pro B (France’s second-tier league) in 2022/23, then earned a promotion to LNB Elite (the top league in the country) for the ’23/24 season.
In 28 games for Saint-Quentin last season, Ajinca averaged 9.3 points and 3.3 rebounds in 24.6 minutes per contest. The 20-year-old struggled to score efficiently, however, making just 37.5% of his shot attempts from the floor, including 30.9% of his three-pointers. That trend continued this month at the Las Vegas Summer League, where he made just 13-of-44 (29.5%) shot attempts across five games for the Mavs and went 5-of-25 (20.0%) from beyond the arc.
Dallas traded up during the second round of last month’s draft in order to nab Ajinca. The Mavs sent the No. 58 pick and $1MM in cash – along with the draft rights to Petteri Koponen – to the Knicks in exchange for the No. 51 pick, which they used on Ajinca.
There was never likely to be room on the Mavs’ 15-man roster for Ajinca though. Dallas currently has 13 players on guaranteed contracts, with Spencer Dinwiddie set to sign a one-year deal and Markieff Morris widely expected to return to fill out the roster.
Ajinca looked like a possible two-way candidate, but now that he’ll remain overseas for at least one more season, the Mavs will have the flexibility to fill that third two-way slot with another player. Alex Fudge and Brandon Williams are currently on two-way contracts with the club, leaving one opening.
Russell Westbrook Gave Up $1.7MM In Buyout Agreement With Jazz
As part of a buyout agreement with the Jazz, veteran guard Russell Westbrook gave up exactly $1.7MM, according to Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter link). Utah waived Westbrook on Saturday.
The buyout reduces Westbrook’s cap hit on Utah’s books from $4,027,525 to $2,327,525, giving the team a little extra salary cap flexibility. No team currently has more cap space than the Jazz, who still have about $33MM in available room.
The Jazz also reportedly received $4.3MM in cash from the Clippers in their trade for Westbrook, so despite being on the hook for about $2.33MM of the guard’s salary, they’ll come out nearly $2MM ahead from a financial perspective.
Westbrook will also come out ahead, since he’s reportedly on track to sign a minimum-salary contract with the Nuggets. That deal with Denver will pay him $3,303,771, increasing his total earnings for the 2024/25 season to $5,631,296, exceeding what he would have made if he had remained on his original $4.03MM contract.
As for the Clippers, they presumably could’ve reached a similar buyout agreement with Westbrook, but trading him to Utah allowed them to give Kris Dunn a more lucrative contract than they otherwise would’ve been able to. Using Westbrook’s $4MM+ outgoing salary for matching purposes, L.A. acquired Dunn via sign-and-trade, giving him a starting salary of $5,168,000 on his new three-year deal.
Westbrook is on track to serve as Jamal Murray‘s primary backup and play a significant role in Denver this season. Nikola Jokic reportedly advocated for the addition of the former MVP.
TNT Sports Submits Matching Paperwork To NBA
TNT Sports issued a statement today confirming that it is making an effort to retain its NBA rights beyond the 2024/25 season by exercising its matching rights (Twitter link). A previous report indicated that Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT’s parent company) intended to match the media rights package that Amazon had negotiated with the league.
“We’re proud of how we have delivered for basketball fans by providing best-in-class coverage throughout our four-decade partnership with the NBA,” TNT’s statement reads. “In an effort to continue our long-standing partnership, during both exclusive and non-exclusive negotiation periods, we acted in good faith to present strong bids that were fair to both parties.
“Regrettably, the league notified us of its intention to accept other offers for the games in our current rights package, leaving us to proceed under the matching rights provision, which is an integral part of our current agreement and the rights we have paid for under it.
“We have reviewed the offers and matched one of them. This will allow fans to keep enjoying our unparalleled coverage, including the best live game productions in the industry and our iconic studio shows and talent, while building on our proven 40-year commitment for many more years.
“Our matching paperwork was submitted to the league today. We look forward to the NBA executing our new contract.”
Despite the confident tone of TNT’s statement, this process won’t be as simple as an NBA team matching an offer sheet on a restricted free agent in order to retain the player.
The league is expected to argue that Warner Bros. Discovery can’t simply match Amazon’s offer due to the differences in the two companies’ distribution methods. Amazon is a streaming giant, whereas TNT is a cable network. While WBD does have a streaming service of its own, that service (Max) reportedly has about half of the subscribers that Amazon Prime Video does.
Amazon’s package of games also isn’t the same as the one TNT is losing. It reportedly includes playoff contests, including one conference final every other year. It also features the in-season tournament (NBA Cup), as well as regular season games on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. It’s reportedly worth $1.8 billion annually.
There has been speculation that TNT’s decision to match could lead to a lawsuit, a financial settlement for WBD, or possibly a newly negotiated fourth broadcast package.
Amazon is one of the three broadcast partners with whom the NBA negotiated a new media rights deal. The other two are Disney (ESPN/ABC) and NBC. The new deals will begin at the start of the 2025/26 season.
Raptors Buy Out Sasha Vezenkov, Waive Javon Freeman-Liberty
The Raptors have cut a pair of players from their offseason roster, announcing today that forward Sasha Vezenkov and guard Javon Freeman-Liberty have been placed on waivers.
Vezenkov is the more notable name of the two. The 2023 EuroLeague MVP signed a three-year contract with the Kings last summer, but had an underwhelming NBA rookie season, logging just 12.2 minutes per game in 42 appearances off the bench. He averaged 5.4 points and 2.3 rebounds per game with a shooting line of .440/.375/.800.
Vezenkov, who will turn 29 next month, was traded from Sacramento to Toronto in June along with Davion Mitchell in a deal that created additional cap flexibility for the Kings.
Around the time of that trade, reports surfaced indicating that the 6’8″ forward had reached a lucrative long-term agreement to return to Olympiacos, his former team in Greece. However, he remained under contract with the Raptors on a deal that included a guaranteed $6,658,536 salary for 2024/25 (plus a team option for ’25/26).
The Raptors’ release of Vezenkov creates a path for him to rejoin Olympiacos once he clears waivers and also generates significant cap savings for the team. According to Blake Murphy of Sportsnet.ca (Twitter link), Vezenkov gave up his entire $6,658,536 salary for ’24/25 in a buyout agreement in order to facilitate his exit, leaving no dead money on Toronto’s books.
As for Freeman-Liberty, the former DePaul standout spent most of last season on a two-way contract with the Raptors before being promoted to the standard roster on March 1. He appeared in 22 games at the NBA level as a rookie, averaging 7.0 PPG, 3.2 RPG, and 1.8 APG in 18.3 MPG.
Freeman-Liberty’s minimum-salary contract for 2024/25 contained only a small partial guarantee, which would have increased from $100K to $150K if he had remained on the roster through July 23. Toronto will carry $100K in dead money after waiving the 24-year-old.
The Raptors now have 14 players on standard guaranteed contracts and about $11MM in breathing room below the luxury tax line, according to Murphy (Twitter link). Toronto’s newfound financial flexibility gives the front office the ability to spend more than the veteran’s minimum to fill the 15th roster spot or potentially to take on unwanted salary in a trade.
Sixers Officially Sign David Jones To Two-Way Contract
As expected, the Sixers have signed undrafted rookie free agent David Jones to a two-way contract, according to a press release from the team.
Jones, a 6’6″ wing, had a highly productive junior campaign for Memphis in 2023/24, averaging 21.8 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 2.2 steals per game on .459/.380/.797 shooting in 32 contests (32.3 MPG). A native of the Dominican Republic, Jones had previous collegiate stops at DePaul and St. John’s before transferring to the Tigers.
Jones’ agreement with Philadelphia was reported shortly after the second round of the draft concluded on June 27. He subsequently suited up for the Sixers’ Summer League teams in both Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, averaging 9.1 PPG, 5.6 RPG, and 1.6 SPG in seven games (18.2 MPG). He had his best performance of the month on Sunday vs. Boston, racking up 23 points, eight rebounds, and three blocked shots.
The 76ers have now officially filled two of their two-way slots, adding Jones and fellow rookie free agent Justin Edwards after they went undrafted. The third slot will reportedly be taken by three-year veteran Jeff Dowtin, who agreed to a two-way deal with Philadelphia on Sunday.
Mavericks, Spencer Dinwiddie Agree To One-Year Deal
Veteran point guard Spencer Dinwiddie is returning to Dallas, having agreed to a one-year contract with the Mavericks, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Dinwiddie, 31, was previously a Maverick from 2022-23 for almost exactly one year. He was traded from Washington to Dallas at the trade deadline in February 2022 as part of the return for Kristaps Porzingis, then was sent to Brooklyn at the 2023 deadline as part of the package for Kyrie Irving.
Dinwiddie played well during his first stint in Dallas, averaging 17.1 points, 4.9 assists, and 3.1 rebounds in 32.3 minutes per game across 76 outings (60 starts). He posted a shooting line of .466/.404/.788 during that time — those field goal and three-point percentages are well above his career marks.
The veteran guard was less effective in 2023/24 across 76 appearances (52 starts) for the Nets and Lakers, posting averages of 10.5 PPG, 4.7 APG, and 2.7 RPG in 28.3 MPG while shooting .392/.337/.805.
The hope is that a return to Dallas will help fuel a bounce-back season for Dinwiddie, who still has a home in Texas and whose partner is from the state, according to Brian Lewis of The New York Post (Twitter link). As Lewis observes, the move also reunites Dinwiddie with Irving — the two guards played together in Brooklyn from 2019-21.
The Mavericks’ interest in Dinwiddie was reported earlier this month by Michael Scotto of HoopsHype and was reiterated over the weekend by Marc Stein.
The terms of the Mavs’ agreement with Dinwiddie have yet to be reported. While Dallas could technically offer more than the veteran’s minimum using the mid-level or bi-annual exception, the team doesn’t have a ton of wiggle room below the first tax apron, so a minimum-salary deal seems more likely.
Assuming Dinwiddie’s salary is fully guaranteed, he’d be the 14th Maverick on a guaranteed contract for 2024/25. A.J. Lawson, the 15th man, has a non-guaranteed deal and would need to be waived in order to make room for the club to re-sign veteran forward Markieff Morris, whose return is considered likely.
Bucks Sign Gary Trent Jr.
JULY 20: The signing is official, the Bucks announced (via Twitter).
JULY 16: Free agent swingman Gary Trent Jr. has agreed to sign a one-year contract with the Bucks, agents Rich Paul and Lucas Newton tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link). Shams Charania had reported on Monday that Milwaukee was among the contending teams pursuing Trent.
While Wojnarowski doesn’t specify the financial terms, Milwaukee is currently operating over the second tax apron and can only offer a minimum-salary contract to an outside free agent like Trent, so it seems safe to assume the deal won’t be worth more than that.
Trent is a talented scorer and shooter who averaged 16.4 points per game during his three-and-a-half seasons in Toronto and has made 38.6% of his career three-point attempts. He’s not much of a play-maker and is inconsistent defensively, but he’s opportunistic on that end of the court, having averaged 1.5 steals per contest across his past three seasons.
A 25-year-old player with that sort of résumé isn’t typically available for the veteran’s minimum, and reporting as recently as least week indicated Trent was reluctant to settle for an offer in that range, so it represents a coup for the Bucks to get him at that price.
Milwaukee had been in the market for help at shooting guard after losing starter Malik Beasley to Detroit earlier this month. According to Wojnarowski, the Bucks recruited Trent “hard” during his free agency.
Trent earned $18.5MM in 2023/24 and had reportedly hoped to earn a raise as an unrestricted free agent. While the Raptors are said to have a discussed the possibility of a deal in the $15MM range, they never formally put that offer on the table and essentially moved on from Trent in late June after drafting Ja’Kobe Walter, exercising Bruce Brown‘s team option, and taking on salary in a trade with Sacramento, as Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca tweets.
Once they officially finalize their deal with Trent, the Bucks will have 15 players on standard contracts, including 14 on fully guaranteed salaries and Andre Jackson on a partially guaranteed deal.
The move to Milwaukee will reunite Trent with Bucks point guard Damian Lillard — the two were teammates in Portland from 2018-21.
Community Shootaround: Where Will Tyus Jones Sign?
When we ranked the NBA’s top 50 free agents entering the 2024 offseason, point guard Tyus Jones came in at No. 15. As I wrote at the time, Jones had long been considered one of the league’s best backup guards but showed in 2023/24 that he was able to maintain his strong per-minute production in a starting role.
As the Wizards’ starting point guard, Jones established new career highs in field goal percentage (48.9%), three-point percentage (41.4%), points per game (12.0), and assists per game (7.3) while continuing to protect the ball better than just about anyone in the league. His 1.0 turnover per game in ’23/24 represented the worst mark of his career.
But nearly three weeks into free agency, Jones remains unsigned, with no clear path to matching or exceeding the $14MM salary he earned last season.
When John Hollinger of The Athletic examined Jones’ situation 10 days ago, he wrote, “(Jones) wants to be a starter and wants to do it for a team better than the Wizards, but he might have to settle for 50 percent of those goals.”
That dilemma could be one reason why the 28-year-old remains unsigned, but I’m not sure it tells the whole story. Even if Jones does settle for 50 percent of those goals, he may have to accept a pay cut too. There are few teams around the NBA with the ability to commit $14MM to a free agent, even via sign-and-trade. That includes the Wizards, who could technically re-sign Jones for $14MM (or more) using his Bird rights but are less than $10MM away from the luxury tax line and aren’t about to become a taxpayer for their current roster.
Many of the teams in need of a point guard when the offseason began have addressed the position with other moves. The Spurs signed Chris Paul. The Pelicans traded for Dejounte Murray. The Suns and Bucks, who needed reliable backups and could only offer minimum-salary deals, added Monte Morris and Delon Wright, respectively.
The Magic looked to me like a potential fit for Jones. Even once they’d used up all their cap space, they had the full room exception ($7.98MM) available. Jones could’ve provided a steady, veteran presence in a young backcourt that features promising young guards like Jalen Suggs, Anthony Black, and Cole Anthony but lacks a reliable distributor. However, the Magic – apparently not wanting to bring aboard a player who will take significant playing time away from their younger players – opted to sign veteran point guard Cory Joseph as their 15th man.
There are some other fits that could work for Jones, but many of those teams can only offer the veteran’s minimum, if that. The Heat, for example, could use a play-making guard like Jones to give them an alternative to score-first options like Terry Rozier and Tyler Herro, but Miami doesn’t want to surpass the second tax apron and currently doesn’t have enough flexibility below the second apron to sign a 15th man — even for the minimum.
The Kings are one interesting option. Sacramento has Jordan McLaughlin, Devin Carter, and Keon Ellis behind star point guard De’Aaron Fox, but McLaughlin may be better suited as a third option, Carter is a rookie who is recovering from shoulder surgery, and Ellis isn’t really a true point guard. Jones could make sense as Fox’s backup, but it would probably take a sign-and-trade to get him a reasonable salary and squeeze him in under the first tax apron. I expect the Kings will simply lean on McLaughlin and Malik Monk as ball-handlers when Fox is off the floor.
There are two teams with the cap room necessary to make Jones a strong offer, and both the Pistons and Jazz could theoretically benefit from having a veteran like him around to mentor their young guards (Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, and Marcus Sasser in Detroit; Keyonte George and Isaiah Collier in Utah).
But it’s unclear if Jones would start on either roster, and he’d be moving from one lottery team to another, which might not appeal much to him. If they want to be involved in the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes, the Pistons and Jazz also may not be eager to upgrade their current rosters any further by signing a solid rotation player like Jones.
It’s hard to find an obvious fit for Jones. There’s certainly no team out there that’s in position to contend, needs a starting point guard, and has the cap flexibility necessary to make him a strong offer. It’s unclear if there’s any club that meets even two of those three criteria.
We want to know what you think. Do you see a good match for Jones out there? Where do you think he ends up, and on what sort of contract?
Head to the comment section below to share your thoughts!
And-Ones: Media Rights, Seattle, Vegas, 2025 Draft, Offseason
The NBA’s new media rights agreements with Disney (ESPN/ABC), NBC, and Amazon won’t give those partners matching rights during the next round of negotiations in 11 years, industry sources tell Mike Vorkunov and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. For instance, if the NBA were to reach an agreement on a rights deal with Netflix in 2035, Amazon wouldn’t be given the right to match Netflix’s offer.
The league presumably didn’t want to deal with that complication again in its next media rights negotiation period, given how Warner Bros. Discovery’s matching rights have affected this year’s talks. Warner Bros. Discovery (the parent company of TNT Sports) reportedly intends to exercise its matching rights on Amazon’s new package of games. The league, in turn, is expected to challenge WBD’s interpretation of those rights, which could result in a legal battle.
The NBA’s new media deals will go into effect at the start of the 2025/26 season and will run through ’35/36.
We have more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- If Seattle gets a new NBA team in the next round of expansion, the ownership group that controls the NHL’s Seattle Kraken is considered the significant frontrunner, but the bidding for a Las Vegas franchise looks more wide open, according to Randall Williams and Kim Bhasin of Fortune.com, who hears from two sources that the total price tag – including building a new arena – could reach $7 billion. The company that owns the Red Bull brand is among the groups with interest in a Las Vegas team, per Williams and Bhasin.
- Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report has published his “way-too-soon” mock draft for 2025, with Duke forward Cooper Flagg at No. 1, followed by Rutgers guard Dylan Harper. Baylor wing V.J. Edgecombe, Rutgers swingman Ace Bailey, and UNC guard Drake Powell round out Wasserman’s top five.
- In an Insider-only story for ESPN.com, Bobby Marks takes a look at each team’s most impactful transaction of the offseason so far and what moves might still be coming before the regular season tips off.