Warriors Add Jordan Bell To Camp Roster
SEPTEMBER 26: Bell has officially signed with the Warriors, per RealGM’s transactions log.
SEPTEMBER 24: The Warriors are bringing back big man Jordan Bell for training camp, according to Marc J. Spears of the Undefeated (Twitter link). The addition of Bell – along with the reported deals for Langston Galloway and Avery Bradley – will bring Golden State’s roster to the preseason maximum of 20 players.
Bell, 26, began his career in Golden State after being selected with the 38th overall pick in the 2017 draft. He was part of the rotation for his first two professional seasons and won a title with the team in 2018, but departed in free agency in 2019 and has bounced around a little since then, playing for the Timberwolves, Grizzlies, and Wizards before returning to the Dubs during the last week of the 2020/21 campaign.
In 160 total regular season games, Bell has averaged 3.7 PPG and 3.1 RPG in 12.1 minutes per contest. It looked as recently as last weekend as if he might be headed overseas for the 2021/22 season, but he’ll at least get a chance to make an NBA roster this fall.
Although Bell will be in the mix for Golden State’s 15th roster spot for the regular season, he’s probably the least likely of the five candidates to make the team, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic, who suggests the Warriors are more likely to keep someone from a group of guards that includes Gary Payton II, Mychal Mulder, Galloway, and Bradley. Slater identified Payton and Bradley as the favorites, given their talents on defense.
Bell is also ineligible for a two-way contract, so if he doesn’t make the Warriors’ regular season roster and doesn’t catch on with another NBA team, he may have to turn to the G League or an international league.
Stein’s Latest: Timberwolves, Ujiri, Simmons, Lacob, Dragic
Incoming Timberwolves owners Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore won’t assume majority control of the the franchise from Glen Taylor until 2023, but they’re operating in some ways as if they’re already the team’s primary owners, says Marc Stein of Substack.
Shortly after Gersson Rosas was dismissed this week, Timberwolves reporter Dane Moore suggested (via Twitter) that rumors have circulated for months that Rodriguez and Lore want to bring in a “top-five” front office executive. Stein doesn’t specifically confirm that rumor, but he corroborates it, writing that word circulated at Summer League in August that A-Rod and Lore would have loved to make a run at veteran executive Masai Ujiri, who ultimately re-upped with the Raptors.
While those reports suggest that the Wolves’ new ownership group wants to make a splash, league sources tell Stein that Sachin Gupta is expected to get every chance to impress the team during his time running the basketball operations department. According to Moore (Twitter link), Gupta – whose title is executive VP of basketball operations – doesn’t technically have the “interim” tag attached to his position, an indication that he’ll receive serious consideration for the permanent job.
Here’s more from Stein’s latest NBA roundup:
- According to Stein, teams around the NBA are skeptical that the Sixers genuinely want to bring back Ben Simmons, viewing Doc Rivers‘ media comments on Wednesday as an attempt to regain trade leverage rather than a legitimate effort to mend the team’s relationship with Simmons.
- It may seem odd that Warriors owner Joe Lacob was fined for comments about Simmons that didn’t even mention him by name and made it clear that Golden State isn’t really interested in the Sixers star. However, Stein says the tampering penalty was “as automatic as these ever get,” since there was no doubt Lacob was referring to Simmons, and his comments could be viewed as an attempt to diminish the 25-year-old’s trade value.
- It doesn’t appear that any deal involving Goran Dragic is imminent. Stein writes that the Raptors want to be as competitive as possible this season, and Dragic can help with those efforts. Toronto also believes that more appealing trade scenarios could arise once the season gets underway and more teams need a point guard due to injuries or underperformance.
Spurs Hire Manu Ginobili As Special Advisor
Within a press release announcing more than a dozen additions and promotions within their basketball operations department, the Spurs confirmed today that they’ve hired former star player Manu Ginobili as a special advisor to basketball operations.
Ginobili’s role with the franchise was first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, who hears that the four-time NBA champion will work closely with Spurs players, focusing on their development both on and off the court.
According to Wojnarowski, the Spurs have been persistent in trying to get Ginobili to accept a position with the organization since he retired as a player in 2018. Head coach Gregg Popovich, CEO R.C. Buford, and general manager Brian Wright believe Ginobili can help pass on the Spurs’ culture to the next generation of players and staffers, Woj adds.
The 44-year-old spent 16 seasons with the Spurs, earning two All-NBA nods and a Sixth Man of the Year award in addition to his four championships with the club. He also won an Olympic gold medal with Argentina in 2004.
Pistons Convert Jamorko Pickett To Two-Way Deal
Having promoted Luka Garza from his two-way contract to a standard deal, the Pistons didn’t waste any time in filling their newly-opened two-way slot. According to the team (via Twitter), forward Jamorko Pickett has had his Exhibit 10 deal converted into a two-way pact.
Pickett, who went undrafted after playing four seasons at Georgetown, averaged 12.2 PPG, 7.2 RPG, and 2.1 APG in 26 games (34.7 MPG) as a senior in 2020/21.. He started 109 of 119 games during his college career and made 36.5% of his 3-point attempts, including 37.3% last season.
Pickett signed a non-guaranteed training camp deal with Detroit in August. It initially looked like he’d probably be released before the regular season and join the Pistons’ G League team, the Motor City Cruise, as an affiliate player. However, Detroit created some roster flexibility by trading away Sekou Doumbouya and Jahlil Okafor, providing a pathway for Pickett to stick around.
The Pistons now project to have a full 20-man camp roster, with camp invitees Derrick Walton and Cassius Stanley expected to join the 18 players who are already officially under contract.
Celtics Sign Theo Pinson To Camp Deal
SEPTEMBER 23: The signing is official, per RealGM’s transactions log.
SEPTEMBER 22: Free agent wing Theo Pinson will sign with the Celtics for training camp, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
Pinson, who will turn 26 in November, appeared in 31 games for the Nets from 2018-20, then spent last season on a two-way contract with the Knicks. He appeared in 17 games for New York, but only played a total of 34 minutes in those games, putting up just two points and five rebounds on 1-of-9 shooting (0-for-8 on threes).
While his NBA numbers have been underwhelming, Pinson has played well at the G League level, averaging 19.1 PPG, 5.9 RPG, and 5.5 APG on .441/.382/.841 shooting in 44 games (34.0 MPG) across two seasons for the Long Island Nets.
Pinson will join Juwan Morgan and Luke Kornet as players attending Boston’s training camp without any guaranteed salary. Earning a spot on the 15-man roster will be an uphill battle, since the Celtics have 14 players on guaranteed contracts, plus Jabari Parker on a partial guarantee. However, the club does have one open two-way slot, so Pinson could be a candidate to fill it.
Changes To NBA’s Extension Rules Have Reduced Star Movement In Free Agency
In their latest Collective Bargaining Agreement, which went into effect in 2017, the NBA and NBPA relaxed the rules for veteran contract extensions and introduced the “super-max” extension. The changes made it easier for players to qualify for extensions and ensured that many of those players wouldn’t necessarily earn more money if they waited for free agency.
As a result, the number of veteran stars agreeing to extensions prior to free agency has increased in recent years. Already this offseason, for instance, 10 players have finalized veteran extensions, and many of those players – including Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Joel Embiid – are among the NBA’s biggest stars.
Under the previous CBA, there was little incentive for most veteran stars to get a deal done early. For instance, as Bobby Marks of ESPN (Insider link) writes, after Durant won his MVP award in 2014, the Thunder could’ve only offered him a two-year, $44.9MM extension. If the current rules had been in place, a four-year, $139MM offer would’ve been possible. Or Durant could’ve signed a five-year, $178MM extension with Oklahoma City a year later.
While we don’t know if Durant would’ve accepted such an offer, we do know that opting for free agency was, at the time, the only viable path for him if he wanted to maximize his earnings. That opened the door for him to leave Oklahoma City for Golden State as a free agent.
“The extension rules have been a game changer to teams,” an Eastern Conference GM told Marks. “At least we are not caught off guard now if a player does not want to stay.”
As Marks details, players have become more inclined to lock in their lucrative long-term contracts early, knowing that if they do eventually want a change of scenery, there are ways to put pressure on the team to try to make that happen. Ben Simmons is currently pushing the Sixers to trade him with four years left on his contract, while it looked briefly this summer like Damian Lillard – who has four years left on his deal with the Trail Blazers – might take the same path.
“I always tell my client to take the money now in an extension and worry about the future later,” one agent said to ESPN. “We can always force a trade later and it would be reckless giving up guaranteed money now.”
With stars increasingly more likely to agree to extensions, we’ve seen fewer big names change teams as free agents as of late. In 2020, Gordon Hayward – coming off an injury-plagued stint in Boston – was the biggest star to join a new team as a free agent. This offseason, that honor may belong to 35-year-old point guard Kyle Lowry. And the list of free agents for 2022 isn’t exactly loaded with star power — James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Bradley Beal, and Zach LaVine are the most noteworthy names, but Harden and Irving seem likely to agree to extensions this fall, and it’s possible Beal will too.
It wasn’t long ago that teams deliberately hoarded cap space in the hopes of making a run at star free agents, but that approach hasn’t really paid dividends during the last couple summers and is perhaps falling out of fashion.
“You are naive to think that the best way to build your roster is through free agency and not the draft and trades,” a Western Conference GM told Marks. “Preserving cap space and waiting for that next great player to become available will get you fired.”
As Marks notes, it remains to be seen whether this is a short-term trend or a sign of things to come, especially since we don’t know how certain rules could be tweaked in the next CBA. Still, given how many of 2022’s potential star free agents have already come off the board and how few teams project to have significant cap space next offseason, it doesn’t look like this trend will reverse in the immediate future.
Heat Notes: Morris, Foran, Fodor, Bradley
New Heat forward Markieff Morris, who is set to play for his fifth different team since the start of the 2018/19 season, tells Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel that he hadn’t really been expecting to have to find a new home this offseason.
“For sure, I thought I was going back to the Lakers,” Morris said. “But, sometimes I’m not in teams’ plans and that’s how it works sometimes.
“… It’s been difficult, because my first two teams I was with nine years. And then the last two I’ve been with four teams. Sometime it can be the money. Sometime it can be the fits. I enjoyed all those places, but sometimes that’s how it goes in the NBA. You’ve just got to keep pushing forward.”
Morris added that he’s looking forward to playing whatever role is asked of him with his new club.
“You ask me to score, I’ll score. You ask me to defend, I’ll defend. You ask me to rebound and set the tone, that’s what I’ll do also,” he said.
Here’s more on the Heat:
- A pair of veteran Heat staffers won’t be around the team this year, reports Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald. According to Jackson, longtime strength and conditioning coach Bill Foran is retiring after spending more than three decades with the franchise, while shooting coach Rob Fodor will still be part of the organization, but will assist players remotely – via Zoom sessions and phone calls – since he wants to live in a different part of the country.
- Avery Bradley was “very much” open to returning to the Heat this summer after signing with the team last offseason, but Miami wasn’t interested in a reunion at this time, according to Jackson (Twitter link). Bradley, who is still a free agent, was scheduled to work out this week for Golden State.
- In case you missed it, we relayed some minor details on some of the Heat’s newest contracts earlier today.
Haralabos Voulgaris No Longer With Mavericks
The Mavericks have parted ways with Haralabos Voulgaris, a well-known sports gambler who was hired by the team in 2018 as the director of quantitative research and development, reports Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News.
As Townsend explains, Voulgaris wasn’t fired by the Mavs. His contract expired at the end of the 2020/21 season and the club simply opted not to re-sign him to a new one.
Although Voulgaris was never Dallas’ head of basketball operations, his departure from the organization is worth highlighting, since he had reportedly gained an outsized influence in the front office in recent years.
A report in June stated that Voulgaris had either initiated or approved nearly all of the Mavs’ roster moves for the last two seasons and suggested that his influence was virtually on par with that of president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson. While Mavericks owner Mark Cuban disputed The Athletic’s portrayal of how much power Voulgaris had, the executive’s abrasive personality was reportedly a source of some tension in the front office and he was said to have a “strained” relationship with star guard Luka Doncic.
Now, three months after that report was published, neither Nelson nor Voulgaris are part of Dallas’ front office, which was overhauled this offseason. Nico Harrison is the team’s new general manager and president of basketball operations.
Contract Details: Pangos, Exum, Heat, Robinson
Although new Cavaliers guard Kevin Pangos has no years of NBA service under his belt, he’s not receiving the rookie minimum on his new two-year deal with the team. As Keith Smith of Spotrac tweets, Pangos’ guaranteed first-year salary is $1,669,178, while his non-guaranteed second-year salary is $1,752,637.
Interestingly, while they don’t align with the rookie minimum, those two figures do show up on our minimum-salary chart for this season. Pangos’ first-year salary is the equivalent of the minimum salary for a player with two years of NBA experience. His second-year salary is the equivalent of the second-year minimum salary for a player who currently has one year of NBA experience.
Here are a few more contract details from around the league:
- Dante Exum‘s new three-year deal with the Rockets is even more complicated than initially reported. Exum’s base salaries increase by 8% annually ($2.5MM, $2.7MM, and $2.9MM), while his likely bonuses decrease by 8% per year ($2.5MM, $2.3MM, and $2.1MM). Exum also has some unlikely incentives which increase by 8% annually ($375K, $405K, and $435K). In total, his three-year deal could be worth as much as $16.215MM, but only his first-year base salary ($2.5MM) is guaranteed.
- As Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald notes, several of the Heat‘s newly-signed contracts include up-front payments. For instance, Kyle Lowry can get $21.25MM of his $26.98MM salary for 2021/22 by opening night, rather than receiving it in equal installments all season. Jimmy Butler‘s extension also features a substantial advance payment, while Duncan Robinson and P.J. Tucker are entitled to more modest ones.
- Speaking of Robinson, the final year of his new five-year contract with the Heat isn’t just an early termination option — it’s also only partially guaranteed. That means even if he opts into his fifth year, the Heat could save $10MM of his $19.888MM salary by waiving him. However, Robinson’s fifth-year salary would become fully guaranteed if Miami wins a title by that point and he meets certain minutes and games-played thresholds.
Details On Timberwolves’ Dismissal Of Gersson Rosas
The Timberwolves‘ dismissal of president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas was made for “performance reasons,” a high-ranking team source told Jon Krawczynski and Shams Charania of The Athletic. The team’s lack of success during Rosas’ tenure was a key factor in the decision, and complaints from staffers about Rosas’ leadership also played a part, per The Athletic’s duo.
However, another issue that factored into the timing of the move was the fact that the Wolves recently learned that Rosas – who is married – had a “consensual intimate relationship” with a member of the organization, according to Krawczysnki and Charania, who suggest that the relationship made several people within the franchise uncomfortable.
The Athletic’s deep dive into the situation in Minnesota’s front office uncovered sources who said Rosas worked his staffers long hours without giving them much input into personnel decisions. Some members of the front office took issue with those decisions, such as the one to include such light protections (top-three) on the first-round pick the Wolves sent Golden State in the D’Angelo Russell trade.
Rosas did have backers within the organization, including some who reached out to The Athletic in recent weeks to defend the way things were going, per Krawczynski and Charania. Some of Rosas’ defenders believe the pandemic and the change of ownership were factors that contributed to tension in the front office, while Rosas himself “vehemently disputed” that there were any significant problems with the team’s culture.
Still, many of The Athletic’s sources described Rosas’ tenure as dysfunctional, and when those complaints reached ownership, Glen Taylor, Alex Rodriguez, and Marc Lore decided the situation was untenable and a move needed to be made sooner rather than later.
“It’s hard,” said one staffer who followed Rosas to Minnesota after he was hired in 2019. “He’s not who I thought he was.”
The report from Krawczynski and Charania is worth checking out in full if you’re an Athletic subscriber. Here are some of the other highlights:
- New interim head of basketball operations Sachin Gupta is well-regarded by team officials and is expected to get a chance to earn the permanent job, sources tell The Athletic. However, Krawczynski and Charania note that Gupta did “butt heads” with Rosas this summer when Gupta sought to make a lateral move to the Rockets for a similar job with higher pay, and Rosas blocked him. Rosas defended the decision by saying that the move wouldn’t have been a promotion, and it was too close to the draft and free agency to let a top executive with so much knowledge of Minnesota’s plans leave to join a rival. According to The Athletic, Rosas “banished” Gupta from the team’s offices in August and allowed him to seek employment elsewhere at that point, but Gupta decided to stay with the Wolves after ownership got involved.
- Some player agents had issues with Rosas’ negotiating tactics, according to Krawczynski and Charania, who point to the team’s recent contract talks with Jordan McLaughlin as one example. A source tells The Athletic that Rosas reneged on promises about the role McLaughlin would have going forward after Patrick Beverley was acquired. Although agents recognized Rosas’ primary allegiance was to the organization, they expected better treatment in certain scenarios, according to The Athletic’s duo. “Rosas was the cause of mishaps and pulled his promises,” the source said of the McLaughlin negotiations.
- Rosas’ decision to replace head coach Ryan Saunders with Chris Finch during the season without considering any other candidates – including minority candidates – wasn’t popular with some staffers, and neither was the decision to part with veteran scout Zarko Durisic last year, per Krawczysnki and Charania. Some people believed those moves flew in the face of Rosas’ portrayal of the organization as a “family.”
- Krawczynski and Charania say Rosas was “working feverishly” this offseason to try to acquire Ben Simmons, who was viewed by some people in the organization as the roster’s missing piece. It’s unclear if Gupta will have the same level of interest in the Sixers star.
- A report from Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report confirms and adds some details to many of the issues reported by The Athletic, including the recent discovery of Rosas’ “consensual extramarital affair” with a team staffer.