Southeast Notes: Jones, Seraphin, Boozer
Despite expressing interest in a return to the Heat, James Jones just couldn’t pass up the chance to play with LeBron James again. Although it’s not clear whether or not Miami had intentions of bringing Jones back for the 2014/15 season, as Joseph Goodman of the Miami Herald details, there’s no doubt LeBron’s return to the Cavs influenced Jones’ decision to hook up with Cleveland. Here’s the latest out of the Southeast..
- The Wizards elected to let Kevin Seraphin hit restricted free agency this summer, but Washington wouldn’t be against bringing the big man back at a price lower than the $3.89MM his qualifying offer would have been worth, reports J. Michael of CSNWashington.com (on Twitter).
- The salary in the first year of Trevor Ariza’s new contract is $8,579,089, according to Mark Deeks of ShamSports, so that’s the value of the trade exception the Wizards create from the sign-and-trade that sent Ariza to the Rockets. Washington is using part of that trade exception to accommodate this evening’s sign-and-trade acquisition of DeJuan Blair. The precise amount of the exception that the Blair trade uses won’t be known until Blair’s first-year salary figure is reported.
- The Hornets aren’t interested in placing a bid on the recently amnestied Carlos Boozer, reveals Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer (via Twitter). Chuck Myron of Hoops Rumors had predicted as much earlier today when the club agreed to terms with Lance Stephenson.
- Andrew Perna of RealGM grades the Hornets‘ acquisition of Stephenson, praising Charlotte and criticizing the Pacers’ decision to let the shooting guard walk after the Heat seemingly lost a step this summer.
Chuck Myron and Cray Allred contributed to this post.
Texas Notes: Mavs, Nowitzki, Rockets, Messina
The Mavs‘ offer to Lance Stephenson was for two years and $20MM, rather than three years at that total, according to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv, who corrects his earlier report (Twitter link). Chris Broussard of ESPN.com confirms that the sides had a “handshake agreement” on a two-year, $20MM pact contingent on the Rockets matching the Dallas offer to Chandler Parsons. Of course, the Rockets declined to match, and Stephenson wound up with Charlotte instead. There’s more on another offer the Mavs have made amid the latest from the Lone Star State:
- Dallas is willing to give summer league swingman Eric Griffin a partially guaranteed deal, reports Keith Schlosser of Ridiculous Upside. Griffin, who went undrafted out of Campbell in 2012, was in camp with the Heat last autumn. It’s unclear whether he’ll accept what the Mavs have on the table, indicating other NBA clubs may have interest, though that’s just my speculation.
- A source close to the Lakers denied that the team floated a maximum-salary offer to Dirk Nowitzki, telling Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News that the Lakers would never have done so.
- The Rockets intend to sign second-round pick Nick Johnson this summer, a source tells Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com (Twitter link). The shooting guard from Arizona went 42nd overall in last month’s draft.
- The Spurs officially hired European coaching star Ettore Messina as an assistant coach Tuesday, the team announced, more than a month after GM R.C. Buford denied a report that they were close to a deal. Messina appeared to be a strong candidate for the Jazz head coaching vacancy this spring and was mentioned in connection to the Lakers head job, too.
Eastern Notes: Stephenson, Miller, Knicks
Some Pacers players attempted to persuade the team to sweeten its offers to Lance Stephenson, but the front office resisted, according to Sean Deveney of the Sporting News. Stephenson agreed early this morning to bolt for the Hornets, and as his new three-year, $27.5MM deal quickly came together, the Pacers never received the opportunity to match Charlotte’s offer, as Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star writes. There’s more on his deal amid the latest from the Eastern Conference:
- The Mavs made a three-year $20MM offer to Stephenson, reports Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv (Twitter link). The new Hornets two-guard would have joined the Mavs instead if the Rockets hadn’t passed on matching the Mavs’ offer sheet to Chandler Parsons, according to Chris Broussard of ESPN.com.
- The Pacers made two different five-year offers to Stephenson, but he rejected them both, favoring a shorter arrangement, agent Alberto Ebanks tells Buckner (Twitter link). Indiana wasn’t willing to go shorter than five years, Broussard writes in his piece.
- The Nuggets had a three-year, $12MM offer on the table for Mike Miller, but he passed it up for two years and $5.5MM with the Cavs thanks to persistent entreaties from LeBron James, as Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com details.
- Knicks president Phil Jackson thinks the team has too many guards, and he may end up waiving Wayne Ellington, whom New York acquired in the Tyson Chandler trade, writes Marc Berman of the New York Post.
- The Jazz almost doubled the average annual value of the deal that the Wizards were willing to give Trevor Booker, according to J. Michael of CSNWashington.com.
- The Hawks held on to Pero Antic through Tuesday, meaning his non-guaranteed salary for 2014/15 has become fully guaranteed for $1.25MM. The same is true for Kyle O’Quinn, whose minimum salary with the Magic went from non-guaranteed to fully guaranteed when Orlando kept him Tuesday.
Hornets Interested In Lance Stephenson
9:29pm: Stephenson will meet with Hornets brass in Las Vegas tomorrow, tweets Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders.
9:13pm: The Hornets are looking into possibly signing Lance Stephenson, reports Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer. As Bonnell mentions, the team hadn’t shown much interest in Stephenson once free agency began; however, having lost out on Gordon Hayward after Utah decided to match the Hornets’ offer sheet for the young forward, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that they’d target another prominent free agent swingman.
Earlier this month, talks between Stephenson and Indiana reached an impasse, as the 6’5 guard chose not to accept a five-year, $44MM deal. Yesterday, we heard that the Pacers couldn’t increase their offer for more than what they’ve already presented to Stephenson. Today, Pacers owner Herb Simon gave Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star a brief description about where the franchise currently stands with respect to negotiations. “We made him a wonderful offer and they didn’t think it was enough so it’s a simple situation” (Twitter link).
Hornets, Hawks Likely To Bid On Carlos Boozer
The Hornets and the Hawks are early favorites to register a bid for Carlos Boozer while he’s on amnesty waivers, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter links). The Bulls used the amnesty provision to waive Boozer this afternoon.
Teams are required to have cap space to submit a bid, unlike with regular waivers, which allow teams to use trade exceptions. It’ll take at least enough cap room to register a bid for Boozer’s $1,448,490 minimum salary, a GM confirms to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link), though it’ll probably take significantly more than that, given the interest. Boozer will go to the team that makes the highest bid, if there are multiple bids, and if there are two or more bids for the same amount — a possibility, since it’s a blind bidding process — Boozer would go to the team with the worst record from last season. The team that makes the winning bid will pay that amount for Boozer next season, while the rest of his $16.8MM salary will be covered by the Bulls. The bidder’s portion will count against the salary cap, but Chicago’s won’t.
Charlotte has about $52.652MM in guaranteed salary for this coming season, giving it slightly less than $10MM in cap flexibility to make a bid. The Hawks are technically operating over the cap, but they could open about $12MM.
Eastern Notes: Knicks, Antic, Turner, Hornets
The Knicks are bringing back Carmelo Anthony on a near-max deal, but Knicks president Phil Jackson signaled that austerity is ahead for the club as it looks to preserve cap flexibility for next summer. Marc Berman of the New York Post has the details, including Jackson’s comments about his desire for the Knicks to get out of the tax, a goal that the team will be unable to accomplish for the coming season without significant salary-clearing trades.
Here’s more from the east:
- The Hawks will not waive Pero Antic and his $1.25MM contract for next season will be fully guaranteed tomorrow, reports Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Twitter link).
- The Celtics are interested in free agent Evan Turner, tweets Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com, echoing last week’s report from Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities on Minnesota’s pursuit of the former No. 2 overall pick. Turner apparently remains the top priority for the Wolves, Wolfson adds (Twitter link).
- The Hornets haven’t improved their team since free agency began, writes Scott Fowler of The Charlotte Observer. The team has failed to make a big splash, and the signing of Marvin Williams won’t offset the loss of Josh McRoberts to the Heat in free agency, opines Fowler.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Heat Sign Josh McRoberts
JULY 14th, 5:05pm: The Heat have made the announcement that the deal is now official. Of the signing, Pat Riley said (Twitter links), “We felt from day one that he was one of our main targets. We are delighted that this multi-faceted player will help us immensely in being the kind of team that Coach Spoelstra wants with his versatility.”
2:58pm: The deal that McRoberts received from the Heat was slightly better than the Hornets’ best offer, as Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer hears (Twitter link). The Heat released a statement today acknowledging their agreement with the power forward.
JULY 7th, 2:03pm: Josh McRoberts has verbally committed to sign with the Heat, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Miami appeared to be in a two-way battle with the Hornets earlier today. It’s a four-year deal worth the full value of the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception, with a player option for the final season, Stein adds (on Twitter). That would make it worth $22,652,350, as I explained.
The use of the mid-level will make the Heat hard-capped for the 2014/15, meaning they can’t go more than $4MM above the tax level at any point. That hard cap is projected to be about $81MM.
Charlotte apparently made the same offer to retain the slick-passing power forward, but the Heat have seemingly won out. An increasing number of executives reportedly believed that the client of agent Mike Conley Sr. would indeed end up with a deal for the mid-level.
It’s the first agreement so far this month for the Heat and team president Pat Riley, who’ve been courting LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade in the hopes that the star trio will return. McRoberts isn’t the sort of significant free agent addition that Marcin Gortat, Kyle Lowry and Luol Deng, all of whom the Heat have reportedly had on their radar, would have been, but he is coming off a career year. He averaged 8.5 points and 4.8 rebounds in 30.3 minutes per game for the then-Bobcats, but he also notched one of the league’s best assist-to-turnover ratios, averaging 4.3 and 1.1 in those categories, respectively. The Blazers, Mavs, Cavs, Clippers, Knicks, Spurs, Suns and Lakers were all among his reported suitors.
Western Notes: Blazers, Parsons, Cunningham
Agent Mark Bartelstein told Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com last week that there remained a chance that Mo Williams would re-sign with the Blazers, but the door is largely closed to that possibility, leaving a disappointed Damian Lillard, as Haynes writes.
“He’s someone who I can say will be a friend forever,” Lillard said. “We got that close in a year. He’s was the one guy I wanted back the most but that’s not in my power and I understand that. We still talk and plan to link up down the road but it’s tough to know he’s not coming back.”
Still, Lillard added that he likes Portland’s additions of Chris Kaman and Steve Blake. Here’s more from around the West:
- Rockets GM Daryl Morey called the structure of the offer sheet Chandler Parsons signed with the Mavs “one of the most untradeable structures that I’ve ever seen” in an appearance on SportsTalk 790 AM in Houston, as Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com transcribes.
- The Rockets have reached out to Dante Cunningham, who’s still a long shot to re-sign with the Wolves, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link).
- The Warriors remain in touch with Jermaine O’Neal as he ponders retirement, observes Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group.
- Anthony Morrow is set to join the Thunder and Brian Roberts has a deal with the Hornets, and the Pelicans went ahead Sunday and renounced their rights to both, as the RealGM transactions log shows.
Hornets Send Scotty Hopson To Pelicans
The Hornets have traded Scotty Hopson to the Pelicans, both teams announced via press release late Sunday. Charlotte had just acquired Hopson from the Cavs on Saturday. The Hornets receive cash in return.
It’s perhaps only fitting that Hopson has been in two trades in as many days, since his contract was largely designed to be swapped. The Cavs signed him on the last day of March this past season for the rest of the 2013/14, and they tacked on a non-guaranteed 2014/15. Cavs GM David Griffin used the mid-level exception in an apparent attempt to make Hopson’s non-guaranteed salary larger, and thus more useful for salary matching purposes in trades. Griffin nonetheless could have signed a veteran of 10 or more seasons to the minimum salary and created an even larger non-guaranteed 2014/15 salary while spending much less in prorated guaranteed salary last season.
Hopson played all of seven minutes at the end of last season for Cleveland, and it seems doubtful he’ll add to that total for New Orleans. The 6’7″ swingman has played primarily overseas since going undrafted out of the University of Tennessee in 2011, and if he so much as makes it to training camp this fall, it’ll be a first for the one-time McDonald’s All-American.
And-Ones: Monroe, Celtics, Siva, Anthony
There is a possibility that restricted free agent Greg Monroe is avoiding signing any offer sheets in order to force a sign-and-trade deal out of Detroit, writes David Mayo of MLive. If Monroe never signs an offer sheet, the Pistons have nothing to match, and his agent David Falk could attempt to force a sign-and-trade to a preferred destination or advise Monroe to sign a qualifying offer which would then make Monroe an unrestricted free agent in 2015, notes Mayo.
Here’s more from around the league:
- The Celtics best bet is to hold off on making any big moves until the summer of 2015, writes Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com. In the piece, Forsberg breaks down Boston’s salary cap for the next two summers and weighs in on what moves the team could make.
- If the Rockets match the offer sheet that Chandler Parsons signed with the Mavericks, this won’t leave Dallas with many options at small forward, writes Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com. If the Mavs miss out on Parsons, look for them to make a run at Lance Stephenson, notes MacMahon.
- The Mavericks have a history of losing out on restricted free agents, MacMahon writes in a separate article.
- Carmelo Anthony‘s impending return to the Knicks was about business for both sides, not sentiment, writes Mike Vaccaro of The New York Post.
- Anthony’s return to the Knicks signifies he’s more concerned about being paid than he is about winning, though that shouldn’t necessarily make him an object of scorn, writes J.A. Adande of ESPN.com
- Peyton Siva’s non-guaranteed minimum salary contract became fully guaranteed for the coming season when he remained on the Pistons roster through Saturday.
- The Hornets and the Mavericks are showing interest in free agent guard D.J. Augustin, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link).