Hornets Rumors: Trade Deadline, Untouchables, Rozier, Hayward
The Hornets are expected to be more active at this season’s trade deadline than they have been in recent transaction windows, according to Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports, who notes that the team is under new ownership after the sale of the franchise to a group led by Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin was finalized last summer.
Although Schnall and Plotkin reached an agreement to buy a majority stake in the team from Michael Jordan in June, the transaction wasn’t completed until August, so the new owners weren’t yet in full control at the draft and in free agency. That means this year’s trade deadline represents the Hornets’ first opportunity to reshape its roster under their new leadership group.
Here’s more from Fischer on the Hornets:
- According to Fischer, league personnel have indicated that the only three players on Charlotte’s roster that the team isn’t open to moving are guard LaMelo Ball, forward Brandon Miller, and center Mark Williams.
- Terry Rozier‘s impressive play this season – including a career-best 24.0 points and 6.8 assists per game on .457/.369/.875 shooting – has made him a more viable trade candidate than ever, Fischer says, adding that the guard has a “known preference” to end up with the Heat if he’s dealt. Rozier, who is earning $23.2MM in 2023/24, is owed $51MM+ across two more seasons after this one.
- Veteran forward Gordon Hayward has generated a good deal of rival interest, but seems more likely to change teams via buyout than trade, per Fischer. While that could open the door for certain teams that aren’t in position to match Hayward’s $31.5MM salary to pursue him, it could close the door on others — a club whose salary is above either tax apron wouldn’t be permitted to sign him on the buyout market.
NBA Postpones Wednesday’s Warriors/Jazz Game
The NBA has elected to postpone the game between the Warriors and the Jazz that had been scheduled for Wednesday night, the league announced in a press release (via Twitter).
The postponement is due to the medical emergency affecting Warriors assistant coach Dejan Milojevic. As we detailed this morning, Milojevic suffered a “sudden and serious” health issue on Tuesday during a private team dinner with Golden State coaches and players.
The exact nature of Milojevic’s health issue isn’t known, but the postponement of tonight’s game is a clear indication of how significant it is. He has been hospitalized in Salt Lake City.
[UPDATE: Milojevic has passed away at age 46]
According to the NBA, a new date for the game between the Warriors and Jazz will be announced at a later time.
The next game on Golden State’s schedule is a Friday contest at home vs. Dallas.
James Harden Hopes To Remain With Clippers Beyond Season
Because James Harden is on a two-year deal and an NBA contract must cover at least three seasons to be extended, the Clippers star won’t become extension-eligible before he reaches free agency this summer. However, as Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN writes, Harden indicated on Tuesday that he’s enjoying his time in Los Angeles and hopes to remain with his hometown team beyond this season.
“I’m here, home,” Harden said. “We have an opportunity. I want to be able to keep the core together for a few years and I haven’t had those opportunities the last few years. So things are going well and I’m happy.”
It took a few games for the Clippers to hit their stride following the acquisition of Harden on November 1, but the club has been on a roll since getting off to a 3-7 start, winning 23 of its past 30 games. L.A. now holds a 26-14 record, good for the No. 4 spot in the Western Conference.
Harden’s 16.9 points per game this season would be his lowest mark since he was a sixth man in Oklahoma City in 2011/12, but he’s among the NBA’s assist leaders with 8.4 per night, and his 41.9% three-point rate would represent a career high.
Prior to Harden’s postgame comments, Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report and TNT reported during Tuesday’s TV broadcast that the former MVP would like to sign a long-term contract and spend the rest of his career with the Clippers. That suggests that Harden is conveying that desire both publicly and privately.
Still, as Timothy Rapp of Bleacher Report observes, this wouldn’t be the first time that Harden’s desire to spend the rest of his career with his current team was reported by the media or expressed by the guard himself, only for that not to come to fruition. Similar reports surfaced during Harden’s time in Houston, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, and he ultimately asked to be traded out of all three spots.
Harden acknowledged on Tuesday that he “thought the same thing last year” about signing long-term in Philadelphia, per Youngmiusk, which is why he “did all those sacrifices” — that’s presumably a reference to the pay cut he took in 2022, as well as the role he accepted in the Sixers’ offense, which he later said felt like being “on a leash.”
Still, as long as his relationship with the Clippers’ front office doesn’t break down as dramatically as his relationship with Sixers president Daryl Morey did, it sounds Harden plans on remaining in L.A. past 2023/24. For what it’s worth, after Kawhi Leonard signed a three-year contract extension with the Clippers last week, he expressed a belief that “everybody is coming back,” while Paul George said he’s optimistic about reaching an agreement on a new deal of his own with the franchise.
Warriors Notes: Milojevic, Payroll, Draymond, More
Warriors assistant coach Dejan Milojevic has been hospitalized in Salt Lake City, team sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.
According to ESPN’s report, Milojevic – who was in Utah with the team for Wednesday’s game vs. the Jazz – was at a dinner with players and coaches when he suffered a “sudden and serious” health issue. The exact nature of that issue is unclear.
As Anthony Slater of The Athletic relays (via Twitter), the Warriors confirmed this morning in a statement that Milojevic suffered “a medical emergency” at a private team dinner, adding that updates on his status will be provided as appropriate.
A former star player in Europe and the longtime head coach of Mega Basket in Serbia, Milojevic made the move to the NBA for the first time in 2021, joining Steve Kerr‘s staff in Golden State and winning a title to cap off his first year with the franchise. This is his third season as a Warriors assistant.
Here’s more out of Golden State:
- Although the Warriors haven’t been shy about going deep into luxury tax territory in recent years, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN said during an appearance on NBA Today (YouTube link) that he believes the club will be more conscious of its financial situation going forward, in large part due to the increased restrictions facing teams above the second apron in the new CBA. “I don’t think their decisions are simply, right now, ‘Hey, we see a player we really like and we’re going to trade for him,'” Wojnarowski said. “Because financially they can’t keep going forward at the salary level they’re at.”
- Draymond Green‘s return from his indefinite suspension on Monday didn’t go as planned for the Warriors, who fell to the undermanned Grizzlies by a score of 116-107. Green came off the bench and played just 23 minutes, telling reporters after the game that “it was fun being back on the court” despite the loss, per Kendra Andrews of ESPN. “I think (the minutes) will go up pretty fast, but until it does I will try to be the best I can be in the minutes I have and bring a spark to this team,” Green said.
- Green wasn’t happy with the defensive effort he saw from the Warriors in Monday’s loss, according to Andrews. “(The defensive plan) falls off when it’s about having pride,” he said. “You have to have pride in yourself as a man, that I’m not going to let a guy score. But our closeouts were too soft, and rotations were too slow, so there’s just no pride. Until every guy takes pride in themself and wants to stop the guy in front of them, we’ll suck.”
- Monday’s ugly loss in Memphis, which dropped the Warriors’ record to 18-22 on the season, increased the level of pressure on the team’s front office, suggests Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area.
Trade Rumors: Warriors, Gafford, Nets, Heat, Murray, Pelicans
In a wide-ranging look at the in-season trade market, Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report examines the trade rumors surrounding Pascal Siakam, Dejounte Murray, Zach LaVine, Kyle Kuzma, and several other players and teams around the NBA.
Among Pincus’ most interesting tidbits? He hears that the Warriors are very high on rookie Brandin Podziemski and aren’t expected to move him, with one source advising that it’s safe to leave the guard out of “fake trades.”
Pincus also notes that while the Wizards have several intriguing trade candidates, including veteran guards Tyus Jones and Delon Wright, they’ve set a “greedy” asking price for center Daniel Gafford, who is on a multiyear contract. As Pincus explains, that’s not meant to be a shot at Washington — it’s simply a reflection of the fact that the team would need a significant return to part with its starting center, who is under team control through 2025/26.
Here are a few more trade-related rumors and notes from across the league:
- Brian Lewis of The New York Post believes there’s a good chance that at least one, if not two, of the Nets‘ three oldest players – Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Royce O’Neale – will be on the move ahead of the February 8 trade deadline. However, echoing a recent Adrian Wojnarowski report, Lewis stresses that there are no plans to deal forward Mikal Bridges, who remains a crucial part of the team’s core.
- After a report last week suggested that the Heat could be a suitor for Hawks guard Dejounte Murray, Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald digs into how plausible a trade between the two teams might be. According to Jackson, one person in contact with Miami’s front office expressed skepticism about the odds of the Heat aggressively pursuing Murray, but that source doesn’t know for sure what the team will do.
- Christian Clark of NOLA.com expects the Pelicans to explore the trade market in the hopes of adding a defensive-minded center capable of playing with the starters. As Clark explains, that would make the team more comfortable starting more offensively inclined players at other positions.
Atlantic Notes: Dolan, Embiid, Sixers, J. Porter
Knicks owner James Dolan has been accused of sexual assault, according to reports from Ben Sisario of The New York Times and Marjorie Hernandez and Selim Algar of The New York Post.
Dolan’s accuser, Kellye Croft, filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday claiming that he pressured her into unwanted sex with him and that he coordinated an encounter with Harvey Weinstein, who allegedly sexually assaulted her. Croft worked as a masseuse on a 2013 tour headlined by The Eagles that also featured Dolan’s band, J.D. and the Straight Shot. The incidents with Dolan and Weinstein are said to have taken place in 2013 and 2014.
One of Dolan’s attorneys issued a statement saying that there is “absolutely no merit” to the allegations: “Kellye Croft and James Dolan had a friendship. Mr. Dolan always believed Ms. Croft to be a good person and is surprised she would agree to these claims. Bottom line, this is not a he said/she said matter and there is compelling evidence to back up our position. We look forward to proving that in court.”
Asked today about the lawsuit, commissioner Adam Silver didn’t have much to tell reporters so soon after the publication of the reports, as Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN tweets. “I saw the article and don’t know anything else about it other than I read the article so we’ll stand by and wait to find out more information,” Silver said.
Here’s more from around the Atlantic:
- Sixers star Joel Embiid, who returned on Monday from a three-game injury absence, said he’s not worried about meeting the 65-game requirement to qualify for end-of-season awards such as MVP. “It doesn’t matter how many games I play,” Embiid said (story via ESPN.com). “The goal is to be healthy the rest of the year.” Embiid isn’t on the injury report for Tuesday’s contest vs. Denver, so it appears he’ll square off on the second night of a back-to-back set against fellow MVP Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets.
- Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer takes a look at how Daryl Morey‘s and Nick Nurse‘s time together in Houston laid the groundwork for them to reunite with the Sixers. Nurse tells Mizell that he believes his history with Morey has given him a leg up during his first year in Philadelphia. “Where the relationship enhances what’s happened is the speed at which we can move things along,” the head coach said. “Because we know each other, it’s not this, ‘Where’s this guy coming from?’ six-month process. That part I think has been a big plus.”
- Jontay Porter didn’t open the season on the Raptors‘ roster, but the two-way big man has appeared in each of the team’s past seven games and earned his first start on Monday vs. Boston. Given how Porter has performed so far in Toronto, he could turn out to be a developmental win at a key position for an organization that has lacked those under-the-radar success stories in recent years, writes Eric Koreen of The Athletic.
Kings’ Mike Brown Fined $50K By NBA
Kings head coach Mike Brown has been fined $50K for “aggressively pursuing” a referee during the team’s Sunday loss in Milwaukee and for publicly criticizing the officiating after the game, the NBA announced today in a press release (Twitter link).
Brown was ejected in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game when he confronted and berated referee Intae Hwang to express his displeasure with how the game was being called (Twitter video link via Sean Cunningham of Fox 40 Sacramento).
During his postgame press conference, Brown brought the team’s video coordinator and a laptop to show reporters specifically which calls led to his ejection (Twitter video link via Carmichael Dave).
“The referees are human, and they’re going to make mistakes, but you just hope that there’s some sort of consistency and there’s some sort of communication between the refs,” Brown said. “The refs tonight, they were great, they communicated with me all night. But in terms of consistency, you guys saw it right here. In my opinion, the consistency wasn’t here tonight.”
It’s a significant penalty for Brown relative to other fines that players and coaches have received for criticizing the officiating, which suggests that the league wasn’t pleased by the Kings coach’s on-court outburst — or by the extra preparation that preceded his postgame comments and the visual examples that accompanied them.
By comparison, Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic was fined $25K for a postgame rant ripping the officiating earlier this month.
Scotty Pippen Jr. Signs Two-Way Contract With Grizzlies
2:42pm: Pippen has officially signed with the Grizzlies, the team announced today in a press release (Twitter link). He’ll be eligible to appear in up to 26 regular season games for the club.
2:30pm: Former Lakers guard Scotty Pippen Jr. has agreed to a two-way contract with the Grizzlies, agent Erika Ruiz tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link). According to Wojnarowski, it will be a two-year deal, covering not just the rest of this season but 2024/25 as well.
Pippen, the son of Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen, spent his rookie year in 2022/23 on a two-way deal with the Lakers after going undrafted out of Vanderbilt. He logged just 32 total minutes in six games at the NBA level, but played regularly for the South Bay Lakers, averaging 22.2 points, 5.3 assists, and 3.7 rebounds in 28.3 minutes per game across 35 NBAGL appearances in the Showcase Cup and regular season.
After spending training camp with Los Angeles again this past fall, Pippen was waived ahead of the regular season and returned to South Bay. He has put up 20.2 PPG, 5.9 APG, and 5.3 RPG with a .485/.329/.846 shooting line in 17 G League games this season.
The Grizzlies had a two-way slot available after promoting Vince Williams to their standard 15-man roster last week. Pippen will join G.G. Jackson and Jacob Gilyard as Memphis’ two-way players.
Once Pippen officially signs, Memphis will have a full roster of 15 players on standard contracts and three on two-way deals. However, as we outlined earlier this afternoon, the Grizzlies are in position to fill out their roster beyond the standard limits due to a series of injuries that will make the team eligible for hardship exceptions.
Grizzlies Expected To Qualify For Multiple Hardship Exceptions
As we explain in our glossary entry on the subject, an NBA team that qualifies for a hardship exception is permitted to add an extra player to its standard roster beyond the usual 15-man limit. In some cases, if a club’s roster is especially injury-plagued, that club can be granted multiple hardship exceptions and is allowed to sign multiple replacement players to 10-day contracts.
A team qualifies for a hardship exception when it meets all of the following criteria:
- It has at least four players unavailable due to injury or illness.
- All four of those players have missed at least three consecutive games.
- All four of those players are expected to remain sidelined for at least two more weeks.
If a team has five players who meet those criteria, it can qualify for two hardship exceptions; six players who meet the criteria would result in three hardship exceptions.
The Grizzlies have dealt with a banged-up roster all season long and were awarded a pair of hardship exceptions simultaneously earlier in the season. Memphis used them to sign Jaylen Nowell and Shaquille Harrison to 10-day deals.
Those exceptions expired once the roster got a little healthier, but the injury bug is doing a number on the Grizzlies again as of late, putting the team in position to once again qualify for multiple hardship exceptions.
Currently, the Grizzlies have four players who definitely meet the criteria: Steven Adams, Brandon Clarke, Ja Morant, and Marcus Smart. Adams and Morant are out for the season, while Clarke and Smart are still at least several weeks away from returning, and all four players have missed at least the past three games.
Once Desmond Bane misses his third straight contest on Thursday in Minnesota, the Grizzlies will have at least five players who meet the hardship criteria, since Bane is expected to be out for at least six weeks. That means Memphis will be in position to add at least two players via hardship exceptions.
It may not stop there — Derrick Rose has missed the past seven games due to a hamstring issue and his return timeline is unclear. If the Grizzlies aren’t counting on him to be back within the next two weeks, he’d meet the hardship criteria too. On top of that, Jake LaRavia is expected to be out for at least three weeks, so once he sits out a third consecutive game on Saturday, he’d fit the bill as well.
It’s unclear exactly how many hardship exceptions the Grizzlies will qualify for once the dust settles, but it certainly looks like the club is in position to begin supplementing its 15-man roster with temporarily fill-ins on 10-day contracts. It won’t be a surprise if Memphis signs a couple free agents for depth purposes at some point this week.
New York Notes: Thomas, Dinwiddie, DSJ, Walker, Brunson, McBride
Following his eighth game since being moved from the Nets‘ starting lineup to the bench, Cam Thomas was asked after Monday’s loss to Miami whether he has gained a feel for the rotation patterns and whether he’s gained a “comfortability” with them. Thomas quickly replied with a blunt “no,” then paused for a few seconds before continuing (Twitter video link via Erik Slater of Clutch Points).
“I mean, it could change,” Thomas said. “I’m just doing my job. I’m just doing what I need to do when I get out there to produce. No, I don’t really have no comfortability coming off the bench or starting. Whatever (head coach Jacque Vaughn) wants me to do, that’s what I’m gonna do.”
Thomas subsequently clarified that he meant he doesn’t feel any complacency, according to Brian Lewis of The New York Post.
Thomas has had a few big nights since moving back to the bench, including scoring 26 points last Thursday and 23 on Monday. But he has also had 0-for-11 and 0-for-7 performances during that eight-game stretch and is shooting just .339/.263/.700 since being removed from the starting five. Brooklyn has lost seven of those eight contests.
Here’s more on the NBA’s two New York teams:
- Veteran Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie continues to start, but played a limited role for a second straight game on Monday, logging just 20 minutes after playing only 16 on Thursday in Cleveland. As Lewis of The New York Post notes, Dennis Smith Jr. has been one beneficiary of Vaughn’s rotation tweaks — Smith played 32 minutes on Monday. “I’ve always talked about this being performance-based,” Vaughn said. “I thought Dennis had a good attack for us defensively. We’re just in a position right now where you have to perform, and that’s across the board. So that’s a challenge to the entire group from the beginning of the game to the end to be locked-in and to give everything you have on both ends of the floor.”
- After Lonnie Walker scored 20 points in 25 minutes in last Thursday’s loss to the Cavs, Jared Schwartz of The New York Post wondered if the Nets might need to make more room for the veteran wing in the rotation. However, Walker has gone scoreless on 0-of-8 shooting in 21 total minutes in his other three appearances since returning from a hamstring injury.
- Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson missed a second consecutive game on Monday due to a calf contusion, but his return doesn’t appear far off. Head coach Tom Thibodeau suggested that the issue is more about “pain tolerance” than concern about the risk of re-injury, writes Stefan Bondy of The New York Post. “It’s day-to-day,” Thibodeau said. “It’s a little better today. When he’s ready, he’s ready.”
- With Brunson unavailable, Miles McBride got another start at point guard and set a new career high in points for the second time in three days, putting up 20 in a loss to Orlando. However, he blamed himself for the loss, citing his game management in a fourth quarter in which the Knicks scored just 16 points, per Bridget Reilly of The New York Post. “I’d say it’s my fault as a point guard. I needed to get everybody where they needed to be and manage the game a little bit better at the end,” McBride said. “… I gotta make sure I get everybody where they need to be and take control.”