Heat Notes: Oladipo, Butler, Lowry, Jovic, Martin, Highsmith
Heat guard Victor Oladipo has been upgraded to questionable for Tuesday’s game against Detroit, says Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald, noting that it’s the first time Oladipo has received that designation this season. The former All-Star has yet to appear in a game this fall due to left knee tendinosis, but it sounds like his debut is imminent.
If Oladipo is able to play on Tuesday, it would help the Heat make up for some other veteran absences. As Chiang writes, Jimmy Butler, who recently missed seven games due to a knee injury, has been ruled out for the second night of a back-to-back set as the club attempts to manage his workload.
A handful of players have also been listed as questionable, including Kyle Lowry due to left ankle discomfort, per Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel (Twitter link). Lowry is the only Heat player who has yet to miss a game this season, but that streak appears to be in jeopardy.
Here’s more out of Miami:
- Heat rookie Nikola Jovic didn’t shoot the ball well in his first game with the Sioux Falls Skyforce on Sunday, making just 3-of-12 shots from the field. But he appreciated the opportunity to play big minutes and wouldn’t object to another G League assignment, as Chiang relays for The Miami Herald. “It helps me a lot with my feel for the game,” Jovic said. “I can try to do things more than with the Heat because the ball is in my hands in Sioux Falls and it’s sometimes on me to work and try to get a shot. But when I’m with the Heat, I’m doing the same thing but it’s not on me to be that guy right now. I don’t know yet, but I think I’ll probably go back (to Sioux Falls) again and I think it’s a great thing for me.”
- Asked to play power forward this season following P.J. Tucker‘s departure, Caleb Martin has expanded his game for the Heat, per Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald. Meanwhile, in his Miami Herald mailbag, Chiang wonders whether Martin’s skill set is being maximized in his current role.
- Heat forward Haywood Highsmith didn’t initially realize that he had increased the partial guarantee on his contract to $700K last week, according to Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I’m not going to lie. I didn’t realize it at all,” he said. “… I forgot. I thought it was in January. I should know those dates.” The rest of Highsmith’s $1.75MM salary for 2022/23 will become guaranteed if he remains under contract through January 7.
Northwest Notes: Vanderbilt, Blazers, Wolves, Holmgren, Nuggets
Jazz forward Jarred Vanderbilt had one of his best games of the season vs. Portland on Saturday, registering 16 points, seven rebounds, four assists, and a pair of steals while making all four of his 3-point attempts.
As Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune notes, the performance was well-timed, given that Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard previously singled out Vanderbilt as someone he’d like to play with. On Saturday, Lillard responded to a tweet about Vanderbilt’s possible trade value with an eyes emoji, though he has since deleted that one.
Vanderbilt is on a team-friendly contract and is under team control for another season beyond this one, so the Jazz may not be motivated to move him at this season’s deadline. But if they do make him available, it seems safe to assume the Blazers will be among the teams inquiring, given Lillard’s influence within the organization.
Here are a few more items from around the Northwest:
- Patrick Beverley is having a down year on the court in Los Angeles this season, but the Timberwolves have missed his locker room leadership, according to Chris Hine of The Star Tribune. Head coach Chris Finch said on Monday that the team is still seeking its identity and looking for leaders. “Everything about winning requires leadership. It’s something that we’ve not been great at,” Finch said. “We’re trying to find a voice collectively, trying to find a personality as a team. Those are things that we’ve got to keep working on, trying to cultivate as a team. That’s my job.”
- As expected – and as long planned – Thunder rookie Chet Holmgren underwent a successful “secondary” procedure on his foot on Tuesday to remove hardware from his initial Lisfranc surgery in August, the team announced. According to the Thunder, the timeline for Holmgren’s recovery hasn’t changed, and he remains on track to return for the 2023/24 season.
- Nuggets head coach Michael Malone is willing to take the blame for the club’s inconsistent bench play so far this season, writes Mike Singer of The Denver Post. “That unit has struggled most of the year, and I take responsibility for that,” Malone said. “Not finding a way to get those guys to play together, to play the right way, and most importantly, just to have some success.” Denver’s bench players have a net rating of minus-5.3, the third-worst mark in the NBA.
Southwest Notes: Jones, Chandler, Luka, Mavs, Spurs
With Ja Morant sidelined on Monday due to left ankle soreness, Tyus Jones showed why the Grizzlies made him the NBA’s highest-paid backup point guard this past summer, writes Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal. Inserted into the starting lineup, Jones responded by scoring 28 points and dishing out 10 assists en route to an impressive Memphis win over Miami.
While we could quibble over whether Jones is technically the NBA’s highest-paid backup point guard (Russell Westbrook is coming off the bench in Los Angeles while earning more than three times as much), the Grizzlies point guard is perhaps the league’s highest-paid point guard who signed his contract expecting to be a backup — even if he doesn’t think of himself that way.
“I feel like I view myself as a starter in this league,” Jones said. “I feel like I am a starter in this league. I just come off the bench, and I have no shame in that. I love being in Memphis, and I take pride in my role.”
Morant’s absence and Jones’ promotion gave Grizzlies rookie Kennedy Chandler the rare chance to play a major role off the bench, and he logged a season-high 26 minutes in the win over the Heat. As Evan Barnes of The Memphis Commercial Appeal details, Chandler has taken advantage this season of the opportunity to lean from the two veteran point guards ahead of him on the depth chart, but admits he has had to adjust to not playing regularly.
“It’s hard. It’s the first time I’ve ever dealt with this. My whole entire life I’ve played 30 minutes (a game),” Chandler said. “This is a business, it’s a growing up moment for me to just keep my mind right.”
Here’s more from around the Southwest:
- Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd recognizes that the workload Luka Doncic has handled so far this season isn’t sustainable, according to Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports. Doncic ranks first in the West with a 37.9% usage rate and is second in the conference in minutes per game (36.8). “For 82 games, it’s no way that he can play at this level, the usage is just way too high. No one can. You know, the things that we ask him to do on the offensive end and then asked him to defend on the other end. It’s a lot,” Kidd said, noting that other players will have to step up for Dallas.
- Now a member of the Wizards, former Mavericks big man Kristaps Porzingis is willing to admit in a conversation with Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports that he “just wasn’t the right guy” to be Doncic’s co-star. “On paper, it would be the perfect fit, but it just didn’t mesh the way that we wanted to,” Porzingis said. “We just did not mesh together well. Sometimes it’s like that in the workplace, you know? It just didn’t work out the way you expected.”
- The Spurs are doing a ton of homework to prepare for the possibility of landing Victor Wembanyama in the 2023 draft, including considering how their current players might mesh with him, according to LJ Ellis of SpursTalk.com. The Spurs won’t have more than a 14% chance of winning the No. 1 pick in next year’s lottery, but it seems likely they’ll be among the top contenders for Wembanyama — San Antonio is currently just 6-18, dead last in the West.
Hoops Rumors Chat Transcript: 12/6/2022
Hoops Rumors hosted a live chat today at 12:00 pm Central time (1:00 pm Eastern).
Click here to read today’s transcript and join us on Thursday at 11:00 am CT for our next live chat, hosted by Dana Gauruder!
Scotto’s Latest: Bulls, Mavs, Suns, Muscala, Wright
A number of NBA executives who have spoken to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype are “closely monitoring” the Bulls, Scotto told co-host Yossi Gozlan in the latest episode of the HoopsHype podcast. With Chicago off to an underwhelming 9-14 start and with no indication of when Lonzo Ball might be back on the court, teams are curious to see whether the club might become a seller.
There’s “a lot” of league-wide interest in DeMar DeRozan, according to Scotto, who says Nikola Vucevic is another name that figures to pop up in trade rumors over the next couple months. Scotto adds that some teams would have interest in Zach LaVine too, but the Bulls seem unlikely to move him midway through the first season of a five-year, maximum-salary contract.
Having signed with the Bulls over the summer, Goran Dragic and Andre Drummond will become trade-eligible on December 15, and Scotto suggests they could be worth keeping an eye on if Chicago does decide to sell, since both players are low-cost veterans who could slide into rotation roles on playoff teams.
Here are a few more highlights from the podcast:
- With JaVale McGee out of the rotation, it’s possible the Mavericks could peruse the trade market in search of another center. According to Scotto, if Dallas does look into that possibility, any trade target would have to be an upgrade defensively and a contrast to Christian Wood.
- Scotto has heard from some executives that the Suns ideally don’t want to add any extra salary to their books in a Jae Crowder trade. Crowder is on an expiring $10.2MM deal.
- Thunder big man Mike Muscala drew interest from about 10 teams as a free agent this past offseason, so if Oklahoma City is willing to make him available, he’d likely be a popular low-cost target, says Scotto. Due to the terms of his contract, Muscala has the ability to veto any trade that involves him.
- The Wizards hope to get Delon Wright within the next two weeks, per Scotto. A weekend report suggested the veteran guard could even be back in action this week.
Jonathan Isaac Practicing With Lakeland Magic
The Magic have assigned forward Jonathan Isaac to their G League affiliate in Lakeland for practices as he moves closer to an NBA return, writes Khobi Price of The Orlando Sentinel.
Price describes it as a “significant step” in Isaac’s return-to-play process, noting that it will be the first time the 25-year-old will get to play 5-on-5 against other basketball players during his injury rehab. Isaac has been doing some 5-on-5 work with Orlando’s coaching staff when the Magic are in town, while primarily doing individual workouts while the team is on the road, Price explains.
Isaac tore his ACL in 2020 and suffered a setback earlier this year, undergoing a minor procedure in March. He last played in an NBA game on August 2, 2020 in the Walt Disney World bubble, 856 days ago.
That ACL tear occurred in his second game back from another major left knee injury, which had kept him on the shelf since January 1, 2020. In other words, Isaac has appeared in just three NBA games since the calendar turned to 2020, and sustained major injuries in two of those games. It’s no wonder then that the Magic have proceeded extremely cautiously with his return to the court this fall.
Although Isaac is entering one of the final stages of his recovery process, there’s still no specific timeline for his season debut, according to Dan Savage of OrlandoMagic.com, who says that will depend on how the Magic forward responds to the G League practices and continued treatment.
A talented and versatile defender who averaged 2.3 blocks and 1.6 steals per game in his abridged 2019/20 season, Isaac is earning $17.4MM this season and is under contract for two more years at the same price. His 2023/24 salary is partially guaranteed for $7.6MM, while his ’24/25 cap hit is non-guaranteed.
Jason Kidd: Mavs’ Josh Green Is “Going To Get Paid”
Former first-round pick Josh Green is “playing great,” according to Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd, who predicted on Monday that Green is headed for a significant payday on his next contract if he continues on his current trajectory.
“The truth is, the kid is really good, and if he continues to keep working, he’s gonna make a lot of money,” Kidd said during his postgame media session (Twitter video link via Callie Caplan of The Dallas Morning News).
When one reporter pointed out that Kidd made similar comments about Jalen Brunson, who ultimately left Dallas in free agency, the head coach said with a laugh that Brunson’s payday with the Knicks was “not my fault,” adding that “hopefully (Green) doesn’t leave.”
“But I didn’t lie to you, (Brunson) got paid,” Kidd said. “Josh is gonna get paid a lot of money, I’m telling you here today. If he continues to work and help with the team, the kid has all the talents to be a superstar. He just has to play. … The more minutes he gets, the better he’s gotten.”
Green, who is earning approximately $3.1MM this season, played sparingly in his first two years in Dallas, averaging 4.0 points and 2.3 rebounds per game on .493/.311/.647 shooting in 106 total appearances (14.0 MPG).
The 6’5″ wing has earned a more substantial role this season and is putting up 7.2 PPG on .602/.462/.698 shooting in 20.2 minutes per night. Kidd’s comments on Monday came after Green had 16 points, five assists, and four rebounds on 6-of-7 shooting in a blowout win over Phoenix.
Because Green is in the third year of his rookie scale contract, he’ll become eligible for a rookie scale extension in July. If he doesn’t sign a new deal during the 2023 offseason, he’d be on track for free agency in the summer of 2024.
The Mavericks will be in a better position to retain Green than they were with Brunson, since they’ll be able to make the 22-year-old a restricted free agent at the end of his current contract. Because Brunson was a second-round pick and signed a four-year contract, he became an unrestricted free agent when that deal expired.
For his part, Green said on Monday that he appreciated the praise from Kidd and that he feels as if he’s made real progress in the past year. As he observed, he spent some time with the Texas Legends in the G League last fall — now he’s a valued member of Dallas’ rotation.
“It means a lot. Anything coming from coach means a lot,” Green said (video Twitter link via Caplan). “Especially putting myself into where I was a year ago. I was down in Frisco a year ago, so being able to hear that, it’s awesome.”
Heat Notes: Health, Oladipo, Reserves, Big Four
At 11-12, the Heat remain below .500 for the time being, but with their lineup finally getting healthy, the team submitted a statement win over the Celtics in Boston on Friday night, according to Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald, who suggests that it may be premature to rule out last year’s two Eastern Conference Finals teams meeting again in that series this year.
“We never lost confidence in this group, in ourselves,” Jimmy Butler said after the victory, Miami’s fourth in five games. “We know what we’re capable of. We just have to go out and prove it. We’re not worried about anybody else, just the guys in our locker room and coaching staff, ownership, management. We have a long way to go but we can get there.”
Given that the Heat are still outside of the playoff picture in the East, tied for ninth in the conference, they’ll need to show more to be widely considered a serious threat to make it to the Finals. But the players in the locker room aren’t worried about what outside observers think the team can and can’t do.
“You got to think about it, we were No. 1 in the East (last season) and people didn’t even pay us any mind,” Bam Adebayo said. “Then being where we’re at now, they’re definitely not talking about us. The biggest thing for us is just stacking up the wins.”
Here’s more on the Heat:
- Victor Oladipo, who has been sidelined all season due to a knee injury, isn’t ready to offer a specific target date for his return, but said “hopefully soon” when asked when he might be ready to suit up, per Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald. “We’ll see. It’s more of a day to day thing, how I feel and what we feel makes the best sense,” Oladipo said. “I trust our training staff and the people I work with as well, coming up with a solid plan and make sure I’m ready to go.”
- Although Oladipo and Omer Yurtseven remain on the shelf, the Heat are otherwise relatively healthy after fighting a serious battle with the injury bug during the first quarter of the season. Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel examines whether a handful of Miami’s reserves, including Haywood Highsmith, Duncan Robinson, and Nikola Jovic, will continue to see regular playing time now that the depth chart isn’t quite so thin.
- Friday’s win over Boston represented the first time in over a month that the Heat had Butler, Adebayo, Kyle Lowry, and Tyler Herro all available for the same game. As Winderman details in another Sun Sentinel story, head coach Erik Spoelstra is referring to that quarter as his “Big Four,” and they lived up to that moniker on Friday, scoring 99 of Miami’s 120 points.
Community Shootaround: New Orleans Pelicans
After picking up a third straight win – and eighth in their last 10 games – on Friday in San Antonio, the Pelicans have a 14-8 record, which puts them in a tie for the No. 2 spot in the West, just one game back of the top-seeded Suns.
New Orleans was expected to take a significant step forward this season with Zion Williamson returning from the foot injury that sidelined him for all of 2021/22, so the team’s strong start isn’t a major surprise. Still, even fans and observers who expected the Pelicans to emerge as a playoff contender have to be impressed by what they’ve seen so far, as Will Guillory of The Athletic writes.
Despite having their “Big Three” of Williamson, Brandon Ingram, and CJ McCollum fully available for just 10 of 22 games so far, the Pelicans have the fourth-best net rating in the NBA (+6.5) and the second-best mark in the West.
Their success can largely be attributed to their depth, with starters Jonas Valanciunas and Herbert Jones playing important roles, while Trey Murphy, Larry Nance Jr., Jose Alvarado, Devonte’ Graham, Naji Marshall, and even raw rookie Dyson Daniels all play productive minutes too.
Williamson, meanwhile, appears to be emerging as the superstar he was long expected to be come after being drafted first overall in 2019, averaging an outstanding 26.4 PPG, 9.8 RPG, 5.2 APG, 2.0 SPG, and 1.4 BPG on 67.5% shooting in his last five games.
“We are a special team. I think as the season goes on, the world will get to see that,” Williamson said, per Guillory.
If the Pelicans can get their three stars on the court at the same time more often, they’ll look even more “special.” In the 172 minutes they’ve played together so far this season, Williamson, Ingram, and McCollum have a net rating of +16.5, per NBA.com.
Despite the Pelicans’ impressive play so far, oddsmakers are still relatively bearish on their chances of making a deep postseason run. BetOnline.ag gives the Pels only the seventh-best odds to come out of the West, with the Suns, Warriors, Clippers, Nuggets, Grizzlies, and Mavericks all ahead of them.
Perhaps that’s not surprising, given that New Orleans was just 36-46 last season and hasn’t won a playoff series since 2018. Still, there’s a recent blueprint that Willie Green‘s club will be looking to follow — that blueprint was established by Green’s old team in Phoenix.
The 2019/20 Suns went just 34-39, but finished that season on a tear and then made the NBA Finals the following year in their first postseason appearance in over a decade. The Pelicans have looked like a different team since acquiring McCollum and Nance at last season’s deadline and especially since getting Williamson back. If they win one playoff series, maybe more will follow.
As Guillory points out, the next six weeks may shape the consensus on just how high New Orleans’ ceiling in 2022/23 is. Of the team’s next 22 games, 15 are against clubs that are .500 or better, including three matchups with the West-leading Suns in the next two weeks. If the Pels make it through that stretch and continue to hold a top-four seed in the West by mid-January, it’ll be a lot easier to view them as a legitimate contender.
We want to know what you think. How high is the Pelicans’ ceiling this season? Are they a real threat to come out of the West, or are they still a year or two away from making a deep playoff run?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in!
Wizards Notes: Beal, Porzingis, Gafford, Hachimura
Appearing on the No Chill with Gilbert Arenas podcast, Wizards star Bradley Beal was asked by Arenas’ co-host Josiah Johnson about why he decided to sign a long-term contract to remain in D.C. this past summer. Beal responded by explaining that he appreciates the influence he has earned within the organization and believes in the talent on the roster.
“Not everybody gives you a voice in the organization. I have a voice here,” Beal said (hat tip to Paul Terrazzano Jr. of TalkBasket). “I never had a chance to fully play a year with (Kristaps Porzingis). That enticed me. He’s probably the best big I’ve played with. I like (Kyle Kuzma)’s ability to be able to spread his wings a little bit more, develop into the player that we think he can be. And then I think I like the young core that we were developing. Rui (Hachimura) is really good, had an awesome summer. Deni (Avdija)‘s just gonna continue to get better. And then Corey (Kispert)‘s a knockdown shooter, who is a pro’s pro.
“We still need to get better. I’m not sitting here saying, ‘We’re gonna hold up the Larry (O’Brien trophy). We’re going to beat Milwaukee (in the playoffs) tomorrow.’ No. But to have the pieces we have, we have enough to know that we can compete on a nightly basis with no BS. We know that we got a job, everybody’s able to be a star in their role, and we can go do that.”
It would have been hard for Beal to turn down the Wizards’ five-year, $251MM+ offer, which included a no-trade clause, in any scenario. But the star guard admitted that he didn’t actually have a ton of viable alternatives on the free agent market, alluding to the fact that many contending teams were in the tax, or at least well over the cap. The teams operating with cap space this summer were virtually all retooling or rebuilding clubs.
“On the flip side of it, the business side of it. There were no teams in the market, free agency-wise. I’m just being frank,” Beal said. “There was nowhere else for me to go where I can be like, ‘Oh, I can go win.’ It was teams that strategically wasn’t what I wanted. So realistically, I won’t say my hand was forced, but this was my best decision and best option on the table at the time.”
Here’s more on the Wizards:
- While you could gripe about some of his poorly timed late-game turnovers, Beal is otherwise off to a strong start in the first season of his mega-deal, writes Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington. As Hughes observes, Beal’s current streak of 11 consecutive 20-point games is already better than any run he had last season, and his shooting percentages (.520 FG%, .352 3PT%) have rebounded in a major way after a down year in 2021/22 (.451 FG%, .300 3PT%).
- As Hughes notes in another story for NBC Sports Washington, Unseld used centers Kristaps Porzingis and Daniel Gafford together in the frontcourt on Friday for the first time all season. The move, an attempt to counter the impact that Charlotte’s duo of Mason Plumlee and Nick Richards was having on the boards and in the paint, was a success, with the Wizards outscoring the Hornets by 18 points during Porzingis’ and Gafford’s 12 minutes together. According to Hughes, the combination looks like an “in case of emergency” option for Unseld, but it could be worth trying more, given its effectiveness on Friday.
- Head coach Wes Unseld Jr. said on Friday that there’s no real timeline for Rui Hachimura‘s return from a bone bruise in his right ankle, referring to the fourth-year forward as “week-to-week,” according to Ava Wallace of The Washington Post (Twitter link). Hachimura has missed the Wizards’ last seven games.