Mavericks, Suns Announce Preseason Schedules
The Mavericks formally announced their 2025 preseason schedule on Wednesday, as Marc Stein of The Stein Line relays (via Twitter).
Stein reported nine days ago (Twitter link) that the Mavericks would hold their training camp this fall in Vancouver, Canada. Today’s press release confirms that Dallas will travel to Vancouver for a training camp held at Simon Fraser University from September 30 through October 4.
The Mavs’ preseason slate begins Oct. 6 when they host the defending champion Thunder in Fort Worth, Texas. They will return to Dallas on Oct. 11 for their second preseason contest vs. Charlotte.
On Oct. 13, the Mavericks will head to Utah to face the Jazz. Dallas’ preseason slate concludes on Oct. 15 with a neutral game in Las Vegas against the Lakers.
The Suns also announced their preseason schedule today (Twitter link).
According to the press release, Phoenix’s first preseason game is Oct. 3 in Palm Desert, CA vs. the Lakers. The Suns will then make a lengthy trip to Macao, China for a pair of contests against the Nets on Oct. 10 and Oct. 12.
Phoenix’s preseason schedule concludes with a home contest against the Lakers on Oct. 14 — a quick turnaround given the long international flight.
Thunder Sign Malevy Leons To Exhibit 10 Deal
The Thunder have signed free agent forward Malevy Leons, the team announced in a press release.
While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Rylan Stiles of SI.com says Leons signed an Exhibit 10 contract.
After going undrafted out of Bradley in 2024, Leons signed an Exhibit 10 deal with the Thunder last September and was waived before the 2024/25 season began.
At that point, it seemed like Leons would be headed to the G League to start his first professional season, but he was actually re-signed to a standard contract and spent two-plus weeks with the Thunder last fall, earning $126,356 on a minimum-salary deal before being cut in mid-November.
Leons’ NBA contributions were modest. He played 21 total minutes over six appearances and recorded two points, three rebounds and one assist. The 6’9″ Dutch forward was a regular contributor at the NBAGL level with the Oklahoma City Blue though, averaging 10.5 points, 7.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.0 block on .489/.353/.773 shooting in 47 games (26.9 minutes per contest).
The Thunder now have 17 players under contract, plus a reported two-way agreement with Branden Carlson.
An Exhibit 10 is a non-guaranteed training camp contract and is typically designed to ensure a player can receive a bonus worth up to $85,300 if they’re waived before the season begins and spend at least 60 days with their club’s affiliate. Exhibit 10 contracts can also be converted into two-way deals, and Oklahoma City will have one open two-way spot after Carlson signs.
Second-Rounder Max Shulga Signs Two-Way Deal With Celtics
August 6: In a press release, Boston has officially announced its signing of Shulga.
July 30: Former VCU standout Max Shulga has signed a two-way contract with the Celtics, according to the official transactions log at NBA.com.
Shulga was selected No. 57 overall in the 2025 draft. Boston acquired his rights in a trade with Orlando.
A 6’4″ guard, Shulga was born in Kyiv, Ukraine and played high school basketball in Madrid, Spain. He spent three college seasons at Utah State prior to transferring to VCU in the summer of 2023.
In two seasons with the Rams, Shulga averaged 14.5 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.3 steals in 72 games (32.8 minutes per contest). He posted a shooting line of .440/.402/.826 over that stretch and earned first-team All-Atlantic 10 honors each of the past two seasons. Shulga was also the conference’s Player of the Year in 2024/25.
While Shulga is now officially under contract, the Celtics still have an unsigned second-round pick (No. 46 overall) in big man Amari Williams. He’s also expected to sign a two-way deal, as former ESPN employee Jonathan Givony reported on the second night of the draft.
Shulga will earn $636,435 for his rookie season and can appear in up to 50 games in 2025/26.
Daeqwon Plowden Signs Two-Way Deal With Kings
2:55pm: Plowden’s two-way deal with Sacramento is official, per the transactions log at NBA.com.
2:06pm: Free agent wing Daeqwon Plowden has agreed to sign a two-way contract with the Kings, agent Drew Kelso tells Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
Plowden is a Philadelphia native who spent five college seasons at Bowling Green prior to going undrafted in 2022. The 26-year-old played for the affiliate clubs of the Pelicans and Magic during the 2022/23 and ’23/24 campaigns.
Last July, Plowden signed a two-way contract with the Warriors. While he drew strong reviews for his play in 2024 Summer League, Golden State wound up waiving him last September to make space on the roster for 2024 second-round pick Quinten Post.
The 6’6″ guard/forward caught on with the Hawks organization, signing an Exhibit 10 deal before being waived last October and playing for their G League affiliate, the College Park Skyhawks. He signed a two-year, two-way contract with Atlanta in December and was traded to — and subsequently released by — Phoenix earlier this month.
Plowden made his NBA debut for the Hawks on January 15, recording 19 points and four rebounds while making seven of his eight field goal attempts in 25 minutes. He made four garbage-time appearances over the following four months prior to the season finale on April 13, when he notched 17 points and four rebounds on 7-of-12 shooting in 31 minutes.
Plowden, who participated in the NBAGL’s Up Next event at All-Star weekend in February, recently played for the Kings’ Summer League team in Las Vegas, averaging 7.3 PPG and 2.7 RPG in 14.3 MPG across six contests. He shot 37.5% from deep and was impressive on defense, tweets Matt George of ABC 10 Sacramento.
In 40 games with College Park last season, Plowden averaged 15.0 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 1.7 APG and 1.1 SPG (31.7 MPG). He posted a shooting line of .404/.327/.877.
As our tracker shows, Plowden will fill Sacramento’s third and final two-way spot, joining Dylan Cardwell and Isaiah Stevens as players on two-way deals.
Wolves’ Donte DiVincenzo To Miss EuroBasket For Italy
Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo was granted Italian citizenship on a sporting basis earlier this month to participate with Italy’s national team in international events. He announced today via the Italian basketball federation (Twitter video link) that he will miss this summer’s EuroBasket due to a recent “physical issue” he experienced as he began preparing for the tournament.
“What’s up everyone? I just wanted to say how happy and thankful I am and excited I am to finally become an Italian citizen,” DiVincenzo said (hat tip to Alessandro Maggi of Sportando). “I want to thank the federation and Italian institutions for making all this happen and being possible in record time.
“Unfortunately, I’m sorry I will not be able to join the national team this summer due to a physical issue that over the last few days forced me to make this difficult, difficult decision. But my goal remains the same. It remains with the journey of Italian basketball going forward, you know, World Cup and the Olympics, and for a very long time. So I just wanted to show my commitment, send my best of luck to the team, and see you all soon.”
According to Maggi, at a press conference on Wednesday in Milan, national team coordinator Gigi Datome clarified that DiVincenzo felt pain in his left big toe, the same digit which cost him 19 games last season due to a turf toe issue.
“On 21 July, we received clearance from the (Timberwolves),” Datome said. “Donte was resuming training, but between 22 and 23 July, he felt discomfort in his big toe, which had already cost him a month out this season. We set a deadline yesterday, and according to doctors and specialists, we were talking about three to four months of therapy, so it wasn’t possible. He sent the video to show that we were on the same page. That’s how it went.”
Aggravating the toe injury sounds somewhat ominous, particularly given the timeline Datome mentioned. However, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic (Twitter link) hears the Wolves view DiVincenzo’s EuroBasket absence as a precautionary measure and the team isn’t concerned about his availability for the start of next season.
Execs Weigh In On Cam Thomas’ Value
Fred Katz of The Athletic recently polled 16 rival NBA executives about what “fair” contracts would look like for the four primary restricted free agents who remain unsigned.
We have already relayed stories regarding Jonathan Kuminga, Josh Giddey and Quentin Grimes, with the key caveat that teams are much more likely to be conservative in their valuations than agents because they don’t want their own players to become too expensive in the future.
In today’s story, the executives weighed in on Nets guard Cam Thomas, who led Brooklyn in scoring with a career-high 24.0 points per game in 2024/25 but was limited to just 25 appearances due to hamstring issues. As Katz writes, Thomas was easily the most polarizing name of the group, and executives were uncertain about whether their views were consensus or otherwise.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if this was way lower or higher,” said one executive who proposed a two-year, $32MM deal. “His scoring is very much ‘eye of the beholder.’”
Whereas 15 of the 16 respondents proposed contracts of at least three years for each of Kuminga, Giddey and Grimes, only eight did the same for Thomas. And while most executives viewed Kuminga ($17-25MM annually), Giddey ($20-25MM) and Grimes ($12-17MM) as having relatively stable market values, the same was not true for Thomas.
In addition to various contract structures – including a one-plus-one (two years, $40MM with a team option, so only $20MM guaranteed), seven two-year deals, five three-year contracts, and three four-year proposals (no one proposed a five-year deal) – the hypothetical offers also ranged anywhere from $10MM to $30MM per year, with the average being $16.7MM annually but only $42.7MM in total guaranteed money.
According to Katz, only two executives valued Thomas in the exact same way. They were also the most bearish on him as a player, offering $20MM total over two years. And the executive who was seemingly the most bullish on the 23-year-old — deeming a three-year, $90MM deal as being “fair” — was quick to add a caveat.
“I wouldn’t personally give (it to) him … But I justified it as ‘fair’ because if I’m him, I’m saying I’m better than Jalen Green and that’s way less than he got,” said the staffer who suggested the $90MM contract, the most lucrative deal in terms of both total money and annual average value.
As Katz points out, Green received a three-year, $105MM rookie scale extension last October. But other score-first guards, like Collin Sexton and Norman Powell, have been traded for relatively modest returns, and the Jazz couldn’t find a taker for Jordan Clarkson, who reached a buyout and signed a minimum-salary deal with the Knicks.
The Nets need someone to score points next season, even if they’re clearly more focused on the 2026 draft than their results in the standings, and Thomas is the player best equipped to do that, Katz writes. But Brooklyn also has a lot of leverage as the only team which can currently make Thomas a strong offer, something it reportedly has shown little interest in doing to this point.
Doug McDermott Signs With Kings On One-Year Contract
July 29: The signing is official, according to a team press release.
July 21: Veteran sharpshooter Doug McDermott is re-signing with the Kings on a one-year contract, agents Mark Bartelstein and Andy Shiffman tell Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
According to Charania, McDermott will earn $3.6MM in 2025/26, which is the veteran’s minimum for a player with 10-plus years of experience.
James Ham of TheKingsBeat.com confirms the news (via Twitter).
McDermott is entering his 12th NBA season and second with Sacramento. He appeared in 42 games last season but didn’t play much, averaging 3.5 points while shooting 43.6% from long distance in a career-low 8.1 minutes per contest.
The 33-year-old forward was a lottery pick back in 2014 (No. 11 overall) after a standout college career at Creighton. While McDermott hasn’t made the same sort of impact in the NBA that he did in college, he remains a dangerous shooter and off-ball cutter who needs to be accounted for at all times on offense, though he is often targeted on the other end of the court.
We’ll have to wait and see whether or not McDermott’s new contract is guaranteed. He will be the 15th player on the Kings’ standard roster, as our tracker shows.
Northwest Notes: Caruso, Hartenstein, Nuggets, Hansen
Alex Caruso‘s regular season impact for the Thunder was fairly modest, as he made just 54 appearances while ranking just ninth on the team in minutes per game (19.3). That turned out to be by design — Caruso appeared in all 23 games during the team’s title run and ranked fifth on the team in MPG (24.4), writes Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman (subscriber link).
As Mussatto details, Caruso didn’t score 20 points a single time during the regular season but recorded three such games in the playoffs. The 31-year-old significantly boosted his three-point percentage as well, going from 35.3% during the season to 41.1% in the playoffs.
Defense and outside shooting were the main weaknesses of Josh Giddey, the player Oklahoma City traded to acquire Caruso, who excelled in both of those areas during the postseason. In Mussatto’s view, Caruso was the Thunder’s third-most important player in the playoffs (behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams), which is why he earned an A-plus for his 2024/25 performance.
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
- In another story for The Oklahoman, Mussatto commends the fit and play of center Isaiah Hartenstein, the Thunder‘s big free agent addition last summer, giving him a grade of A-minus. Unlike Caruso, Hartenstein had an excellent regular season but didn’t have the same level of impact during the playoffs. Still, the 27-year-old was vitally important in the second-round matchup against Denver, Mussatto notes, and provided the size and rebounding the team lacked in 2023/24.
- The Nuggets have had a busy offseason, trading Michael Porter Jr. and a 2032 first-round pick to acquire Cameron Johnson (and roster-building flexibility); trading Dario Saric for Jonas Valanciunas; and adding Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway Jr. in free agency. Longtime analyst and former NBA star Charles Barkley is a fan of the moves they made, he told Sean Keeler of The Denver Post. “I think (the Nuggets) and the Houston Rockets have probably had the best summers (in the NBA),” Barkley said. “And (the Nuggets), they’ve got the best player in the world (in Nikola Jokic). They just needed some more depth. They kind of broke the team up after they won the first championship (2023), and that’s really unfortunate. (They’ve) still got the best player. You want to give them as many opportunities as possible. But I thought they had a great summer.”
- The Chinese Basketball Association recently announced that Trail Blazers first-round pick Yang Hansen will miss the 2025 Asia Cup in order to prepare for his rookie season, tweets Sean Highkin of RoseGardenReport.com. Hansen received permission from the Chinese national team to skip the event due to scheduling conflicts with Blazers mini-camps in August. He will instead stay in Portland this offseason.
Raptors Release Colin Castleton
The Raptors have waived big man Colin Castleton, the team announced in a press release.
Castleton, who went undrafted out of Florida in 2023, spent his rookie season on a two-way contract with the Lakers, who waived him last October, a few days before the 2024/25 campaign began.
Shortly after being cut by L.A., the 25-year-old caught on with the Grizzlies, again signing a two-way deal. Memphis released him in January.
After spending a few months in the G League, Castleton inked a pair of 10-day deals with Toronto in March before joining the 76ers on a 10-day pact in early April. The Raptors re-signed him to a two-year standard contract on the final day of the regular season.
Castleton’s minimum salary for 2025/26 was non-guaranteed, so the Raptors won’t incur a cap charge by waiving him.
In 26 total appearances for Memphis, Philadelphia and Toronto last season, Castleton averaged 4.7 points and 4.7 rebounds in 16.6 minutes per game.
As Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca tweets, Castleton didn’t play well for the Raptors during Summer League action, averaging 2.6 PPG and 4.0 RPG in 11.5 MPG over five contests in Las Vegas. He shot just 33.3% from the field and struggled with turnovers (1.8 per game).
Castleton’s NBAGL rights are currently controlled by the Magic, notes Blake Murphy of Sportsnet.ca (Twitter link).
The Raptors now have 16 players on their standard roster, including 14 players on guaranteed deals, plus A.J. Lawson on a non-guaranteed contract and David Roddy on an Exhibit 10 deal for training camp. All three of their two-way spots are filled, as our tracker shows.
Free Agent Notes: Thomas, Jazz, Kings, Westbrook, Boston
Reports have indicated there’s a significant gap in contract negotiations between restricted free agent guard Cam Thomas and the Nets, his incumbent team. As Grant Afseth of FastbreakJournal.com writes, Thomas doesn’t appear to have much leverage, with so few teams having the ability to sign him to an offer sheet that might give Brooklyn pause.
“He’s a talented scorer, but he’s kind of stuck in the middle right now. He wants star money, but a lot of teams see him more like a microwave scorer off the bench,” a veteran scout for a team who made last year’s playoffs told FastbreakJournal.com. “That disparity is what’s keeping him on the market.”
Echoing reporting from Jake Fischer, Afseth also states that Thomas seems “increasingly likely” to sign his $6MM qualifying offer, which would give him an implied no-trade clause and a chance to hit unrestricted free agency in 2026.
Here are a few more free agent items of interest:
- League sources tell Afseth that the Jazz, who could theoretically make a run at a top restricted free agent using their $26.6MM trade exception, don’t appear to be interested in Thomas. However, rival teams believe Utah might be intrigued by another RFA who offers more versatility and defense. “If Utah uses that cap space, it’ll be for someone like Quentin Grimes, someone who can knock down threes and guard multiple positions, but still can create off the dribble,” an Eastern Conference executive told FastbreakJournal.com. “He’s also shown flashes as a scorer and play-maker in Philly. He’s shown he can grow into a more complete player in the right system. That’s a different type of bet than what you’re making on Thomas.” The Jazz wouldn’t be able to complete an offer sheet using a trade exception, but could make a sign-and-trade deal.
- According to Matt George of ABC 10 Sacramento (Twitter link), the Kings and veteran guard Russell Westbrook continue to have mutual interest. However, George has heard that Sacramento would probably need to trade either Devin Carter or Malik Monk to make room in the backcourt for Westbrook, who remains an unrestricted free agent after declining his 2025/26 player option in June. The nine-time All-Star suited up for Denver last season.
- Free agent wing Brandon Boston Jr. is in “advanced talks” with Greek EuroLeague club Panathinaikos, per Spurs reporter Dusty Garza (Twitter link; hat tip to Sportando). The 23-year-old guard/forward is coming off a solid season with New Orleans in which he averaged 10.7 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.3 steals in 23.6 minutes per contest, with all of those figures representing career highs. However, Boston was limited to just 42 games due to an ankle injury, which required surgery in April, and the Pelicans declined their team option on his contract for ’25/26, making him unrestricted.