Atlantic Rumors: Rivers, Allen, Nets, Knicks
Celtics coach Doc Rivers weighed in on Ray Allen's departure from the team in a radio interview with 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston, as Brian Robb of Celtics Hub transcribes (hat tip to ESPNBoston.com), but Allen is anxious to move past his acrimonius departure from Boston, as Tom Haberstroh of ESPN.com writes. Here's the rest of the day's news from Atlantic Division clubs.
- A spokesperson for Mikhail Prokhorov insists the billionaire's return to politics won't have any bearing on his ownership of the Nets, notes Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News.
- Deron Williams believes the Knicks got a better point guard when they switched out Jeremy Lin for Raymond Felton this summer, as Tim Bontemps of the New York Post documents.
- With Amare Stoudemire sidelined up to five weeks, Rasheed Wallace would seem to be in line for a more significant role than originally planned for the veteran who appears to have made the Knicks on a non-guaranteed deal, writes Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv. Still, it's unclear whether Wallace will be in condition to play by this week's opener.
- While delivering some parting shots to outgoing commissioner David Stern, Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News says the Sixers face as significant a decision as any in the league about whether to re-sign Andrew Bynum, and adds that the team would be "crazy" to commit major money to him right now.
- Andray Blatche has made the Nets opening-night roster on a non-guaranteed deal, but in the wake of taunts from Knicks guard Iman Shumpert, Blatche knows he'll continue to face criticism for last year's subpar play with the Wizards, as Roderick Boone of Newsday examines.
- Greg Payne of ESPNBoston.com passes along Rivers' reflections on the last five seasons with the Celtics.
- A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com looks at how a deep bench could serve the Celtics well.
Nets Waive James Mays, Carleton Scott
SATURDAY, 9:07am: The Nets formally announced both cuts via press release.
FRIDAY, 12:51pm: Nets coach Avery Johnson confirmed today that the team has made two cuts, releasing James Mays and Carleton Scott, according to the team's official Twitter account. Both players are expected to join the Nets' D-League affiliate, the Springfield Armor.
Mays, a Clemson product, spent the last two seasons playing in Turkey. The 6'9" forward played for the Pacers' and Raptors' summer league teams in 2010. Scott, who graduated from Notre Dame in 2011, spent last season playing in Austria before playing for the Nets' summer league team this July.
Having also waived camp invitee Stephen Dennis earlier this week, the Nets have now reduced their roster to 15 players. The team could head into the regular season with its current group, though it's also possible that another cut may be coming, if Brooklyn prefers to keep an open roster spot. Josh Childress, on a non-guaranteed contract, figures to be on the bubble as the Nets' 15th man.
Odds & Ends: Wiggins, Howard, Bynum, Kings
With David Stern's retirement at the forefront of talks this week at the NBA's Board of Governors meetings, a number of other topics being pushed to the back burner. One such subject, according to Ken Berger of CBS Sports, is the issue of advertising on uniforms. The NBA's owners have agreed to table the issue for now, and likely won't revisit it until the board meets again in April, says Berger (Twitter links). Here are a few more odds and ends from around the league:
- Andrew Wiggins' father tells Eric Prisbell of USA Today that he expects his son to reclassify and play college basketball next season (hat tip to RealGM.com). Wiggins would then be eligible to enter the 2014 NBA draft, where he's expected to be perhaps the No. 1 pick.
- Appearing on 98.7 FM in New York, Dwight Howard confirmed that he "really wanted" the Magic to trade him to the Nets last year. Mike Mazzeo of ESPNNewYork.com has the details.
- The Sixers need a healthy Andrew Bynum over the long term, which means that in the short term, it's wise not to rush him back into action, says Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News.
- A 7% stake in the Kings, held by bankrupt Sacramento developer Bob Cook, is expected to be auctioned off, reports Dale Kasler of the Sacramento Bee. It will be available to any of the team's current owners, including the Maloofs, or an outsider.
- Even though it was amnestied off the Magic's cap, Gilbert Arenas' contract still ranks at the top of Justin Verrier's ESPN.com list of the 10 worst contracts in the NBA.
- With the deadline for rookie-scale option decisions looming, Rob Mahoney of SI.com looks at five second-year players in need of a turnaround this season.
- In his daily mailbag for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Ira Winderman explains why the Heat haven't been seriously linked to free agent big man Mehmet Okur.
Nets Waive Stephen Dennis
The Nets have officially waived Stephen Dennis, the team announced today (via Twitter). With Dennis no longer on the roster, Brooklyn is now carrying 17 players.
Dennis, a 6'6" guard out of Kutztown University, was part of the Nets' summer league squad in July before he inked a training camp deal last month. He didn't appear to make much of an impression in the preseason, playing 21 minutes in three games and recording just two points, one rebound, and a steal.
With 13 players on fully guaranteed contracts, the Nets are expected to fill out their roster with one or two players out of a group that includes Andray Blatche, Josh Childress, James Mays, and Carleton Scott.
NBA GMs Weigh In On 2012/13 Season
The results are in on NBA.com's annual survey of the league's general managers, with all 30 NBA GMs weighing in on dozens of questions about the 2012/13 season and the 2012 offseason. We won't round up all of their answers here, so feel free to check out the full results at NBA.com, but here are a few of the more notable responses:
- 70% of respondents believe the Heat will repeat as NBA champs, while 96.7% think Miami will win the Eastern Conference. Since GMs aren't allowed to vote for their own teams, that means the rest of the league's 29 GMs picked the Heat to come out of the East.
- The Lakers are the favorites to come out of the West, earning 60% of the votes. The Thunder (36.7%) and Nuggets (3.3%) were the only other teams mentioned.
- LeBron James is the player most GMs would start a franchise with, earning 80% of the votes.
- 86.2% of GMs believe the Lakers made the best offseason moves, with Dwight Howard (70%) and Steve Nash (20%) earning the most votes for the summer addition who will make the biggest impact. Los Angeles' sign-and-trade for Nash was also voted the summer's most surprising move.
- Besides the Lakers, the other teams receiving votes for the best offseason roster moves were the Nets, Hawks, and Warriors.
- The Nets (62.1%) ran away with the votes on which team will be most improved, while Andre Iguodala (16.7%) topped the choices for most underrated acquisition — the Celtics' duo of Jason Terry and Courtney Lee also received support in that category.
- Anthony Davis (76.7%) and Gregg Popovich (80%) were the runaway picks for rookie of the year and the NBA's best coach, respectively.
Atlantic Rumors: Lopez, Brewer, Fields, Lee
The Knicks boast three of the league's top 10 preseason scorers, including Carmelo Anthony, who leads the NBA at 21.3 points per game. Teammates J.R. Smith and Amare Stoudemire come in third and 10th respectively, while Brook Lopez of the crosstown rival Nets is sixth. Lopez is also sixth in another preseason category, and that's a part of our roundup of items out of the Atlantic Division.
- After his rebounding rates declined in each of the last three seasons, Lopez is the league's sixth-leading rebounder in the preseason, averaging 9.0 boards in 27.0 minutes per game. If he keeps it up, Zach Harper of CBSSports.com believes there will be much less reason to think the Nets overpaid him with the four-year, $60.826MM contract he signed this summer.
- The Knicks made a strong recruiting effort to land Ronnie Brewer, who signed a minimum-salary deal with the team in July. The 27-year-old swingman turned down larger offers from other teams to do so, as he told HoopsWorld's Alex Kennedy (Sulia link). "At the end of the day, it didn’t come down to money," Brewer said. "It came down to the best situation for me, as a person and as a player. I wanted to go somewhere I could win and have success. I wanted to go to a situation where playing basketball would be fun and I would enjoy doing it."
- Raptors guard Landry Fields said a personal issue hampered his play on the court for the Knicks last season, and isn't surprised the Knicks let him and Jeremy Lin go over the summer, given the team's unwillingness to stand pat, as Marc Berman of the New York Post documents. "The last two years with the Knicks, it’s been such a roller coaster pretty much. I’m used to that. If things were consistent, that would surprise me."
- Courtney Lee's improved defense and diversified offensive game have been pleasant surprises for the Celtics so far, writes Frank Dell'Apa of the Boston Globe.
Nets Exercise Option On MarShon Brooks
The Nets have officially picked up their 2013/14 option on MarShon Brooks, the team announced today (Twitter link). Brooks, who will earn about $1.21MM in '13/14, will have one more team option on his contract for 2014/15.
Brooks, 23, had a strong rookie season for the Nets, averaging 12.6 points in 56 contests. His upside and his inexpensive rookie-scale contract made him an attractive trade target this summer, and he'd likely be playing elsewhere in 2012/13 if Brooklyn had been able to land Dwight Howard from the Magic. He remains under contract with the Nets though, flying under the radar as an important bench piece after a busy offseason in Brooklyn.
As our rookie contract option tracker shows, Brooks is the 15th player to have a 2013/14 option exercised by his team this offseason.
Odds & Ends: Nets, PEDs, Radmanovic, Invitees
Newsday's Roderick Boone says the Nets are a work in progress, but passes along praise from Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "It's like this is a whole new franchise," Rivers said. "It feels like they just plucked this team out of the space, and all of the sudden they've got a hell of a team in our division that wears black uniforms. It's unbelievable. I don't know if they could've done anything better. This is terrific." The Nets also drew admiration from Kevin Garnett, but Brooklyn coach Avery Johnson believes all the talk is just a psychological ploy from the team that's won the Atlantic Division five years in a row, calling it "a straight setup," as Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News documents (Sulia link). As the gamesmanship intensifies and the regular season draws closer, here's more from around the league.
- The head of the World Anti-Doping Agency called upon the NBA to institute testing for human growth hormone, and says there are "gaps" in the league's measures to prevent the use of performance-enhancing drugs, Henry Abbott of ESPN.com reports.
- Bulls offseason signee Vladimir Radmanovic is having trouble adjusting to the physical demands of playing for coach Tom Thibodeau, and might not be a part of the team's rotation come opening night, writes Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times.
- Eric Pincus of HoopsWorld sizes up the chances each team's training camp hopefuls have of making the opening-night roster.
- Micheal Eric and Kevin Jones haven't seen much playing time in preseason games, which makes practice all the more important for the pair, both of whom are trying to make the Cavaliers on non-guaranteed deals, as Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Plain Dealer chronicles.
- Vince Carter appears to be the favorite to assume the sixth-man role that Jason Terry played for the Mavericks before departing via free agency this past summer, according to Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News.
- Keith Schlosser of Ridiculous Upside identifies six intriguing prospects who are likely to be available in the D-League draft, including Phil Jones, who was in camp with the Timberwolves earlier this month.
Eastern Notes: Heat, Irving, Rasheed, Pistons
We looked at news from the Western Conference already, so here's a trip around Eastern Conference camps, with the start of the regular season just a dozen nights away.
- Joseph Goodman of the Miami Herald thought a few days ago that Terrel Harris was a shoo-in for a spot on the Heat roster, but now believes Garrett Temple has a legitimate chance to beat him out (Twitter link). Both guards are on non-guaranteed deals.
- Kyrie Irving did plenty to justify his position as the top pick in the 2011 draft last season, when he won Rookie of the Year honors, but Cavs coach Byron Scott still believes he has a long way to go to realize his potential, as Steve Aschburner of NBA.com writes.
- Marc Berman of the New York Post has details on Rasheed Wallace's contract with the Knicks, and confirms that it's without even a partial guarantee.
- Joe Dumars is the league's third-longest tenured executive in charge of player personnel decisions, as Luke Adams of Hoops Rumors pointed out yesterday, and the Pistons president of basketball operations told Keith Langlois of Pistons.com he's never been as impressed with his players' offseason work as he is this year (Twitter link).
- Nets coach Avery Johnson said he expects free agent signee Jerry Stackhouse, a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, to make his primary contribution as a locker room presence, a la Juwan Howard with the Heat the past two seasons, as Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News tweets.
Heat Rumors: LeBron, Lewis, Chalmers, Blatche
A report by Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com suggesting the Lakers could go after LeBron James in 2014 went out like something of a hurricane watch for South Florida today, and Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com adds to Miami's anxiety, tweeting that the Bulls, too, would go after King James when he comes available. Of course, it makes sense that plenty of teams covet the three-time MVP, and Friedell believes the Bulls rank below the Heat and Lakers on LeBron's wishlist (Twitter link). While the threat that he might leave someday is indeed present, LeBron remains under contract with the Heat for at least two more seasons. As Miami focuses on the present, here are the latest Heat-related rumblings:
- James denied knowledge of Windhorst's story earlier today, responding, "What story? The Marvel Comics story?" when asked about it by reporters, including Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel (Twitter link).
- Winderman argues that, given Rashard Lewis' minimum-salary contract, any contribution the team gets from him this season should be seen as gravy for a team that already had a successful offseason with the signing of Ray Allen.
- In the same piece, Winderman also suggests Mario Chalmers could become a trade candidate if fellow point guards Norris Cole and Garrett Temple impress.
- The Heat kicked the tires on Andray Blatche this summer, but despite his emergence as the league's fourth leading scorer in the preseason at 17.0 points per game for the Nets, Winderman doesn't believe Miami is missing out, since Blatche would likely have been glued to the Heat bench.
- Heat coach Erik Spoelstra says Dwyane Wade is ahead of schedule as he recovers from offseason knee surgery, Chris Tomasson of Fox Sports Florida reports (Sulia link). The last we heard, Wade was hoping to be ready for opening night.