Nets Sign Goran Dragic, Waive Jevon Carter
FEBRUARY 22: The Nets have officially signed Dragic and waived Carter, the team announced in a press release.
Dragic’s rest-of-season contract will pay him $728,742 and will have a cap hit of $460,463. Since Brooklyn is well over the tax line, the club’s end-of-season tax bill will further increase as a result of the signing.
FEBRUARY 21: After being bought out by the Spurs last week, point guard Goran Dragic has made a decision on his next team, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic, who reports (via Twitter) that Dragic will sign with the Nets.
Dragic, who was traded from Toronto to San Antonio at this month’s deadline, had reportedly been considering a handful of suitors, including the Bucks, Warriors, Bulls, Lakers, and Clippers.
Dallas, where Dragic would’ve had the opportunity to team up with fellow Slovenian Luka Doncic, had also been considered a potential landing spot earlier in the season. However, the Mavericks weren’t said to be in the mix for him following his buyout, having acquired another point guard (Spencer Dinwiddie) at the trade deadline.
In Brooklyn, Dragic should get the opportunity to share point guard duties with Patty Mills. Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons, of course, will be in the mix as well, but Irving is ineligible for home games as long as New York City’s vaccine mandate remains in place and it’s unclear when Simmons will make his Nets debut.
The move to Brooklyn will also give Dragic an opportunity to reunite with head coach Steve Nash, who played in Phoenix when Dragic first entered the NBA as a Sun. Marc Stein reported on Sunday that Nash was very involved in the process of recruiting his former teammate.
Dragic averaged 13.4 PPG, 4.4 APG, and 3.4 RPG on .432/.373/.828 shooting in 50 games (26.7 MPG) for the Heat in 2020/21. However, he appeared in just five games for the Raptors this season after being sent to Toronto as part of the Kyle Lowry sign-and-trade. He hasn’t played since November, having taken a personal leave of absence from the Raptors up until he was traded to San Antonio.
The Nets have a full 15-man roster and will have to waive a player in order to officially sign Dragic. That player will be guard Jevon Carter, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link). The team will have the option of stretching Carter’s guaranteed $3.925MM salary for 2022/23 across three seasons. His current $3.65MM salary will remain on the ’21/22 cap.
Brooklyn used its full mid-level exception to sign Mills in the offseason and doesn’t have its bi-annual exception available, so Dragic will sign a minimum-salary contract with the club. The exact value of his deal will depend on when he officially signs, but the 35-year-old will earn $15,182 per day.
Northwest Notes: Wolves, Beverley, Lillard, Sneed
Back in 2017, Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, and Zach LaVine were in the early stages of their respective careers with the Timberwolves and had picked out a neighborhood where they’d all have homes within walking distance of one another, writes Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic.
“I remember us all talking about getting houses in the same cul-de-sac so we could be locked in every single day with each other and make that camaraderie and unity that we needed to win a championship,” Towns told Krawczynski.
The trio’s plan to turn the Timberwolves into a contender together was derailed when LaVine was traded to Chicago and Wiggins was later sent to Golden State, but Towns, Wiggins, and LaVine were reunited at this weekend’s All-Star Game in Cleveland, each representing a different team.
As Krawczynski relays, former Minnesota coach Ryan Saunders said his father – the late Flip Saunders, who built that Wolves roster – would have been “so proud” to see all three players make the All-Star team, even if they were no longer teammates in Minnesota.
“It was just really cool to see us all on that stage and where we came from, being together on the same team and us all leaving and figuring out our own way,” LaVine said. “Everything happens for a reason.”
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
- John Hollinger of The Athletic takes a look at the Timberwolves‘ decision to sign Patrick Beverley to a one-year, $13MM contract extension, noting that the team will be over the cap and under the tax line this offseason and didn’t really sacrifice any flexibility to extend Beverley. Minnesota remains in good position to potentially use cap room in 2022/23, Hollinger adds.
- Speaking to Adam Caparell of Complex Sports, Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard reiterated that, despite a disappointing season, he remains committed to the franchise for the foreseeable future. “I’m loyal to what I believe,” Lillard said. “I do love living in Portland. I do love playing for the Trail Blazers. But I’ve built this. I’ve been part of this for 10 years. I’ve been part of the change here and us being a successful franchise. I know what means something to me in my heart. And that’s winning a championship here.”
- Xavier Sneed‘s new two-way contract with the Jazz is a two-year agreement, covering 2022/23 in addition to the rest of this season, Hoops Rumors has learned. That doesn’t guarantee that Sneed will remain with the team next season, but it gives Utah the option to hang onto him without needing to sign him to a new deal.
Atlantic Notes: Celtics, Thibodeau, M. Robinson, Raptors
Despite being one of the NBA’s marquee franchises, the Celtics haven’t hosted the All-Star Game since Bill Russell played for the team, back in 1964. According to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe, the team may be interested in changing that. Sources tell Washburn that the Celtics’ ownership group is taking steps to submit an application to host the event.
As Washburn writes, the Celtics don’t own the TD Garden outright, which is a logistical hurdle that must be overcome, and the locales for the next two All-Star Games – Utah in 2023 and Indiana in 2024 – have already been set. But the fact that Boston is taking steps toward applying is noteworthy, according to Washburn, who says the ownership group’s interest level in hosting the game has long been “tepid” until now.
Here’s more from around the Atlantic:
- Marc Berman of The New York Post argues that Tom Thibodeau shouldn’t be the fall guy for a disappointing Knicks season, observing that the front office made multiple roster moves Thibodeau wasn’t gung-ho about, including adding Kemba Walker and letting Reggie Bullock walk in free agency. Thibodeau also reportedly wasn’t exactly pushing for last month’s Cam Reddish trade. “They haven’t collaborated with him like they did last year,” a coaching source tells Berman.
- Sean Deveney of Heavy.com spoke to one rival general manager who thinks Mitchell Robinson‘s next contract will be in the range of the full mid-level exception, projecting a three-year, $33MM deal. The Knicks center, who is currently extension-eligible, will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
- Eric Koreen of The Athletic looks at some of the questions facing the Raptors for the rest of the 2021/22 season, including how important Precious Achiuwa and Dalano Banton are to the franchise, both in the present and future. As Koreen notes, Achiuwa and Banton have played well enough to warrant regular roles, but they don’t contribute much in the half-court offense, which has been Toronto’s biggest Achilles heel.
- Within the same story, Koreen suggests the most likely outcome for the Raptors‘ open 15-man roster spot is that two-way player Justin Champagnie is promoted to fill it.
Nets Notes: Drummond, Simmons, Trade Reactions
Veteran center Andre Drummond played more than 22 minutes just once in his final 31 games as a Sixer, but he has already exceeded that benchmark twice in three appearances since being traded to the Nets.
Drummond, who has averaged 21.7 minutes per game with the Nets, will likely see that number continue to increase as long as his conditioning is up to par, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. The big man says he has felt “tired” since arriving in Brooklyn, but is looking forward to getting the chance to play more.
“From the moment I’ve got here, I condition in the morning and I condition after the game,” Drummond said. “So by the time the [All-Star] break is over, I should be back to normal again, just getting myself back in that speed and that mode again.”
Having averaged an impressive 12.3 rebounds per game in his part-time role so far, Drummond is helping to address an area of weakness for the Nets. Head coach Steve Nash, noting that his team had “struggled to rebound the ball,” said he’s counting on the 28-year-old to continue playing a key role.
“He fills needs that our group is looking for, and we’re excited for him to continue to get more comfortable in the way we play and also really get in great shape,” Nash said. “He’s going to play more minutes for us as far as the way we project things to go, so he’s used to [backing up Joel Embiid], but we’re asking him to play more.”
Here’s more on the Nets:
- The plan is for Ben Simmons to “really ramp it up this week” to see where he’s at in terms of his conditioning, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne said during an appearance on NBA Today on Monday (video link). Although Shelburne suggests Simmons is “getting close,” she cautions that his Nets debut isn’t imminent yet. “It’s going to be more like weeks rather than months,” Shelburne said (hat tip to NetsDaily).
- Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer spoke to a handful of players at All-Star Weekend to get their thoughts on the Simmons/James Harden blockbuster completed on February 10 by the Nets and Sixers. “Just 12 months ago … we were thinking Brooklyn was going to go on to win five championships in a row, and that was the narrative, ‘Who can stop this Big Three?’ It didn’t pan out that way, and now they’re shuffling the deck again,” veteran guard Fred VanVleet said, jokingly adding that, for the Raptors’ sake, he hopes the deal doesn’t work out for either team.
- At 31-28, the Nets hold the No. 8 seed in the East and wouldn’t be guaranteed a playoff spot if the season ended today. However, veteran guard Patty Mills is optimistic about what the rest of the season will look like for the club, especially once Kevin Durant returns and Simmons is available. “I think being able to add the pieces we’ve added, getting people back from injury, this is who we got,” Mills said, per Peter Botte of The New York Post. “I keep talking about the vibe around the locker room and everyone enjoying each other’s presence. … You can feel it in the locker room and that’s gonna carry us a long way, I believe, if we can stay tight as a group. It’s gonna take all of us to get the job done. It’s a massive push for us coming up.”
And-Ones: LeBron, 2022 Cap Room, Maker, Rookies
Lakers superstar LeBron James has been the face of the NBA for the better part of the last two decades and is happy to continue in that unofficial role until he retires, as Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports writes.
“I’ve held that title of ambassador,” James said. “Nobody told me to do it, but I felt like if I wasn’t gonna do it, who was gonna do it? So I took that responsibility, and I’ll continue to do it till I’m done playing the game.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver tells Goodwill that he’s “not prepared to talk about the post-LeBron era” yet, since James is still playing at an All-NBA level and presumably has multiple strong seasons left in him. However, he’s not worried about having to prepare for a leadership void among the game’s superstars.
“At some point, a new player or players will emerge, I think, [to] take that leadership mantle in the league. It seems they always do,” Silver said. “I’m just not prepared, even in the slightest, to start thinking about the league without LeBron, because he continues to be as committed as ever to the competition, to the league overall.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Danny Leroux of The Athletic takes a look ahead at the 2022 offseason, identifying the teams that project to have the most cap flexibility. As Leroux outlines, the Pistons and Magic remain the best bets to create significant cap room, while teams like the Spurs, Trail Blazers, Pacers, and Grizzlies could potentially join them, but have more variance.
- Veteran big man Thon Maker spoke to Alec Strum of NetsDaily about his role with the Long Island Nets – Brooklyn’s G League affiliate – and his efforts to make it back to the NBA. Maker has played a limited role in Long Island so far, averaging 5.8 PPG and 5.1 RPG in 15 games (17.4 MPG), with a dismal .360 FG% (.133 3PT%).
- Mike Schmitz of ESPN (Insider link) updated his NBA rookie power rankings over the All-Star break, providing best-case comps for Evan Mobley (Anthony Davis), Cade Cunningham (Luka Doncic), Scottie Barnes (Scottie Pippen), and other standout rookies.
Rest-Of-Season NBA Dates, Deadlines To Watch
With the All-Star Game behind us, we’re preparing for the home stretch of the 2021/22 NBA season. Here are a few noteworthy dates and deadlines to keep an eye on before the playoffs begin in April.
February 28
- Last day for contract renegotiations.
A team with cap room can renegotiate a player’s current-year contract to give him a raise as part of a contract extension. However, the only club with any real cap space is Oklahoma City, and the Thunder only have one extension-eligible player, Isaiah Roby (Luguentz Dort will become extension-eligible next month). I wouldn’t count on the Thunder renegotiating and extending Roby’s contract in the next week — he has spent much of the season out of the team’s rotation.
March 1
- Last day a player can be waived by one team and remain eligible to appear in the postseason for another team.
As we outline in our glossary entry on buyouts, a player doesn’t need to be signed by March 1 in order to retain his playoff-eligible — he simply can’t be waived after that date. A player who is waived on March 1 and signs with another team on April 8 would be playoff-eligible for his new team, but a player who is waived on March 2 and signs on March 5 wouldn’t be.
March 10
- Last day to use a disabled player exception.
The Cavaliers ($3.2MM), Nuggets ($2.6MM), and Pelicans ($1.9MM) still have disabled player exceptions available that they could use to sign a player to a rest-of-season contract or to claim a player with an expiring contract off waivers. However, disabled player exceptions are used more frequently at the trade deadline than after it, especially when the buyout market lacks marquee names. The likeliest scenario is that these DPEs will expire without being used.
April 10
- Last day of the NBA regular season.
- Last day players can sign contracts for 2021/22.
- Last day two-way contracts can be converted to standard NBA contracts.
- Luxury tax penalties calculated based on payroll as of this day.
More than half of the NBA’s teams currently have at least one open spot on their 15-man rosters. It’s safe to assume that most – if not all – of those clubs will fill those openings by April 10. Playoff teams will want to make sure they have as much veteran depth as possible, just to be safe, while several lottery teams will likely sign younger players to multiyear deals without guarantees beyond this season in order to get a longer look at them in the summer.
April 11
- Playoff rosters set (2:00pm CT).
April 12-15
- NBA play-in tournament.
April 16
- NBA playoffs begin.
While they wait for the play-in tournament to conclude, the top six teams in each conference will get a longer-than-usual break between the regular season and the postseason, giving them some time to recharge before the playoffs begin.
Trail Blazers Promote Trendon Watford, Waive Dennis Smith Jr.
1:40pm: Watford’s promotion and Smith’s release are now official, according to an announcement from the Trail Blazers. Portland now has an open two-way slot.
11:40am: The Trail Blazers have reached an agreement on a deal with rookie forward Trendon Watford that will promote him from his two-way contract to the 15-man roster and give him a new four-year contract, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter).
According to Wojnarowski, Portland will waive guard Dennis Smith Jr. in order to create an opening on the 15-man roster for Watford. Smith is currently sidelined due to an elbow injury.
Watford’s new four-year contract will be worth $5.8MM, says Wojnarowski. The Blazers will dip into their mid-level exception in order to go up to four years and to give the 21-year-old a salary worth a little more than the prorated minimum for the rest of 2021/22 — the remaining three years will be worth the minimum. Additionally, the final two seasons of the deal will be non-guaranteed, according to Woj.
Watford, who went undrafted out of LSU in 2021, quickly caught on with the Trail Blazers on a two-way deal and was one of the very first players to officially sign a contract once the ’21/22 league year started in August.
Watford began the season out of the rotation and didn’t play double-digit minutes in a game until January 3, but he has appeared in every one of Portland’s games since then. In 24 games since the calendar flipped to 2022, he’s averaging 5.5 PPG and 3.9 RPG on 60.4% shooting in 15.5 minutes per contest. We identified him last week as one of the players on two-way contracts who was a candidate for a promotion.
Smith, 24, signed a non-guaranteed contract with Portland in the 2021 offseason and won a roster spot in training camp. He appeared in 37 games for the team, averaging 5.6 PPG, 3.6 APG, 2.4 RPG, and 1.2 SPG in 17.2 minutes per contest. Before he injured his elbow, the former lottery pick had become a more regular part of the rotation due to Damian Lillard‘s absence.
The fact that Portland is opting to waive Smith rather than injured forward Joe Ingles, who was acquired for salary-matching purposes at this month’s trade deadline, suggests that the team may still see value in Ingles’ Bird rights. However, with Ingles out for the rest of the season due to a torn ACL, he remains a candidate to be cut in the coming weeks if the Blazers want to make another signing.
Jazz Notes: Mitchell, Gobert, 2023 ASG, Hernangomez
The Jazz have made the playoffs in each of the four years since Donovan Mitchell entered the NBA and are on track to do so again in 2022. However, Mitchell has yet to make it beyond the second round of the postseason and is feeling more urgency to make a deeper run this spring, as he tells Tony Jones of The Athletic.
“I think I’m really at a point now where we’ve made the second round, and we want more,” Mitchell said. “We crave it. I watched Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp in the Super Bowl; they just found ways to win. So, for me, that’s the biggest thing. The ultimate goal is for us to be the last team standing. That’s the sign of the ultimate winner.”
In addition to voicing his desire for the Jazz to “take another leap,” Mitchell once again brushed off the notion that there’s any tension between him and teammate Rudy Gobert, echoing comments he made to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports earlier this month.
“I’m at a point now where it’s the NBA, this is what it is,” Mitchell told Jones. “People are going to write things. If I have to respond every five minutes to a story, then I’m taking away from my teammates, and I’m taking away from my happiness. I love this team, and we want to find a way to win as a group. I’m focused on my team. As long as my teammates and my coaches know my intentions, then that’s what it is. But I’m not going to allow articles to deter me from my main goal. I love this group. So, let’s find a way to do it.”
Here’s more on the Jazz:
- Rudy Gobert, who watched 19-year veteran LeBron James hit the game-winning shot against his team in Sunday’s All-Star Game, said he’d love to be able to replicate LeBron’s longevity, as Sarah Todd of The Deseret News writes. “I’m taking great care of myself, just to trying to see how far I can go,” said Gobert, who is in his ninth season. “Whenever I feel like I either can’t play anymore or I lose that competitive edge, then I’ll probably stop it, but for sure I would love to play for 19 years.”
- In the wake of 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland, Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune looks ahead to the 2023 event, which will be hosted by the Jazz, and considers what it will mean for the Salt Lake City market. It’s the first time the All-Star Game will be played in Utah since 1993.
- Juan Hernangomez, acquired by the Jazz at the trade deadline, is under contract through 2022/23, but his salary for next season is non-guaranteed, so he’ll likely become a free agent this summer, if not sooner. As Antigoni Zachari of Eurohoops relays, Hernangomez would like to finish this season in the NBA and could remain stateside beyond that, but he’s also expected to draw significant interest from teams in Spain, including Barcelona, according to international reports. Hernangomez played in his home country for Estudiantes for two seasons from 2014-16 before entering the NBA.
Roster Moves Required This Week For Celtics, Bucks
The NBA’s roster rules don’t require teams to carry a full squad of 15 players on standard contracts all season long, but they do call for a minimum of 14 players (not counting two-ways).
A club is permitted to temporarily dip below that minimum during the regular season, but can only do so for up to two weeks at a time. Once that two-week grace period is up, the team must get back to having at least 14 players.
With that rule in mind, the Celtics and Bucks will be required to make additions to their respective rosters this week.
In a series of three trades at the February 10 deadline, Boston sent out seven players and took just two back, creating five open spots on its 15-man roster. The Celtics have since signed two players – Luke Kornet and Sam Hauser – but still have three roster openings. Their two-week grace period comes to an end this Thursday, so they’ll have to add a 13th and 14th man at that point.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, entered trade deadline day on February 10 with a full 15-man roster, but made a three-for-one trade, opening up a pair of roster spots. Since then, the Bucks have signed DeAndre’ Bembry, but parted ways – at least temporarily – with Greg Monroe, who had been on a 10-day contract. Because Bembry’s signing occurred after Monroe’s deal expired, the club has had two open roster spots since the trade deadline and will have to fill one of them before the end of the week.
Neither the Celtics nor the Bucks will be forced to sign anyone to a rest-of-season contract this week if they don’t want to.
For instance, Milwaukee has reportedly been “aggressive” in its pursuit of Goran Dragic and would likely happily sign the veteran point guard for the rest of the season. But if Dragic delays his decision or joins another team, the Bucks could simply fill their 14th roster spot with a 10-day signing, temporarily meeting the minimum roster requirement while continuing to weigh their rest-of-season options.
[UPDATE: Dragic is signing with the Nets]
The Celtics, meanwhile, haven’t been linked to Dragic, and there aren’t a ton of intriguing alternatives on the buyout market, so it’s possible they’ll turn to a couple young players rather than veterans. President of basketball operations Brad Stevens has suggested the team may take the Miami Heat route of signing a prospect or two to a late-season multiyear deal for developmental purposes. But if Boston hasn’t yet zeroed in on a specific candidate for that sort of investment, 10-day signings are a viable possibility for the short term.
The Celtics aren’t far off from the luxury tax line, while the Bucks are already in the tax, so the two teams will be cost-conscious as they consider potential roster moves. I’d expect both clubs, for now at least, to simply get to the required roster minimum of 14 players while keeping their 15th slots open.
Community Shootaround: NBA’s Next Disgruntled Star
When Ben Simmons was pushing for a trade out of Philadelphia prior to the 2021 season, multiple reports indicated that Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey was holding out for a deal that netted his team a star.
The thinking was that even if no team was willing to proactively shake up its roster in the fall by trading an All-Star player for Simmons, it would only be a matter of time before a player of that caliber became disgruntled with his current situation and asked for a trade. When that happened, Morey and the 76ers wanted to be ready to pounce.
While Morey faced some criticism at the time for his stance, it was a defensible one — in recent years, the NBA generally hasn’t made it more than a few months before a star player shakes loose. Sure enough, in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline, whispers of James Harden‘s discontent in Brooklyn grew louder and louder, culminating in the deadline-day blockbuster that sent Harden to the Sixers and Simmons to the Nets.
The Simmons and Harden situations are just the latest examples of the superstar wanderlust that has dominated the NBA for at least the last half-decade. Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook (twice), Paul George (twice), and Harden (twice) are among the players who have requested – or demanded – trades to new teams within the last five years.
Taking into account the NBA’s recent history, it’s probably safe to assume that another star player will be angling for a trade before the end of 2022, whether that takes the form of a private request to the team or an ugly public standoff.
As Howard Beck of SI.com writes in his article on the subject, speculation among team executives has focused on players like Pelicans forward Zion Williamson, Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell, and Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard.
All of those players have said the right things publicly, but a June report claimed that Williamson’s family wanted him out of New Orleans, and there has been plenty of chatter about Mitchell’s relationship with teammate Rudy Gobert being a warning sign in Utah. Lillard, meanwhile, seriously considered his future last summer and remains committed to Portland for now, but with the team in retooling mode, it’s possible he’ll eventually try to win a title elsewhere.
Those aren’t the only stars worth keeping an eye on. Wizards guard Bradley Beal can be a free agent this summer, and Washington isn’t exactly close to championship contention. Irving can also reach free agency in 2022 and his union with the Nets seems less stable than it did a year ago, in part due to his inconsistent availability due to his vaccination status. Even Lakers star LeBron James has raised eyebrows lately with comments about his future and his apparent frustration with L.A.’s deadline inactivity.
It sometimes only takes one down year, one short-lived postseason run, or one bad relationship to convince a star player to ask out, so it’s certainly possible that other players we haven’t mentioned could become unhappy with their current situations in the coming months — at this time last year, we certainly didn’t expect Harden to be seeking another trade so soon.
With all that in mind, we want to know what you think. Which star(s) will be the next to push for a trade? How soon will it happen, and how many stars might we see change teams this summer?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!