Eastern Notes: Dudley, Cavs, Granger
Bucks coach Jason Kidd believes that the newly acquired Jared Dudley will have a big impact on the team’s younger players, Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel writes. “When you look at a veteran coming from winning programs – Phoenix, the Clippers – that’s important,” Kidd said. “When I talked to him, he talked about learning from Grant Hill and what it means to be a professional. We need that in the locker room as much as we need him to be himself on the court by defending and knocking down threes and being part of the team.”
Here’s more from the east:
- Mike Miller told reporters including Chris Fedor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he chose to sign with the Cavs for a chance to win another championship alongside LeBron James, and that the addition of Kevin Love reinforced those expectations. “Before [Love], we still had the same expectations,” said Miller. “With him it makes those expectations a little more exciting. Now it’s on us as players and the coaching staff and organization to do our job and come together and show our commitment by making sacrifices within the locker room.”
- Miller added that Cleveland’s influx of veterans with championship experience will help instill commitment across the roster. “Every team is different and it’s a matter of commitment level,” Miller said. “The best thing is we have a handful of guys that have done it before. You add pieces like Shawn Marion, James Jones, LeBron, Brendan Haywood and that makes it a lot easier when you’re saying stuff to other players.”
- Danny Granger is the Heat newcomer that has the potential to be the wild card this season and provide an unexpected boost, Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel opines. Winderman also believes that a number of Miami players who hold opt-outs after the season will be especially motivated to produce this season.
Cray Allred contributed to this post.
Several NBA Teams Eye Julyan Stone
Free agent Julyan Stone has workouts scheduled with the Lakers, Cavs, Clippers and Heat, and the Kings are in the mix for the point guard as well, reports Shams Charania of RealGM. The Lakers audition will be his second with the team, Charania notes via Twitter. Stone had been set to work out for the Spurs, and he did so this week, while two Chinese teams have floated lucrative offers for the 25-year-old, as Charania details.
The market seems to have quickly accelerated for the Giovanni Funiciello client who’s been without a deal for nearly two months after the Raptors let him go in July, shortly before his minimum-salary contract was to have become fully guaranteed. It appeared at the time that there was a decent chance the Raptors would sign him back on a new deal, as Charania reported then, but Toronto doesn’t appear to be in the hunt at this point.
Each of the four clubs that Charania links to Stone in his most recent report appear to have the roster flexibility necessary to provide a clear path to the opening night roster. The Heat have only 11 fully guaranteed deals, and the Cavs do as well, although Shawn Marion will presumably have a full guarantee on his contract once he signs, and one of Cleveland’s partially guaranteed contracts belongs to Anderson Varejao. The Kings have 12 fully guaranteed deals, but they’ve agreed to trade Jason Terry, who has one of them, to the Rockets, likely for non-guaranteed salary in return. The Clippers and Lakers have 13 full guarantees apiece. The Spurs have 14 full guarantees and three partial guarantees, but they can offer more money than any of the other clubs, since they still have their $5.305MM non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception available. The Kings have their $2.077MM biannual exception, while Stone’s remaining suitors are limited to the minimum salary.
Pacers Sign Arinze Onuaku For Camp
FRIDAY, 10:20am: The Pacers have confirmed the signing with a formal announcement.
THURSDAY, 1:01pm: It’s indeed a non-guaranteed deal, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.
WEDNESDAY, 11:10pm: Arinze Onuaku has signed with the Pacers according to the RealGM.com Transactions log. The length or terms of the deal are unclear, but it’s most likely a non-guaranteed camp deal. After their recent agreement with Chris Singleton, the Pacers had been carrying 18 players on their preseason roster, with 13 of those deals guaranteed.
The 6’9″, 27 year-old appeared in a total of five games last season, split between the Pelicans and the Cavaliers. Onuaku averaged 0.6 PPG, 1.6 RPG, and 0.6 APG. His slash line was .200/.000/.500.
Onuaku will compete for a roster spot in what is currently a crowded Indiana frontcourt. Ahead of him on the depth chart are David West, Roy Hibbert, Luis Scola, Ian Mahinmi, and Lavoy Allen.
Western Notes: Gobert, Faried, Udoh, Pelicans
The Jazz have a group of promising young big men that includes Derrick Favors and Trevor Booker, as well as Enes Kanter, who’s up for a rookie scale extension. Rudy Gobert didn’t see much playing time last season, but he’s put his offseason improvement on display in the FIBA World Cup this week, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe chronicles.
“We have really high hopes for him,” Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey said. “The tools Rudy has from a height and length standpoint are obvious, and he really likes basketball. A motivated seven-footer is a good place to start.”
Gobert is still a long way off, but it’ll be interesting to see how his development plays into the team’s negotiations with Kanter. Here’s more from the West:
- Kenneth Faried, who’s also extension-eligible, expressed a desire this week to remain with the Nuggets, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com observes (Twitter links). The Thad Foucher client has only helped his stock with Team USA as he’s emerged as a game-changer in the FIBA World Cup.
- The Cavs, Bulls and Kings all had interest in signing Ekpe Udoh, but the chance to play for Doc Rivers on a winning team that emphasized defense persuaded him to choose the Clippers instead, a source tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. Playing time was also a consideration, agent Michael Silverman tells Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link).
- Omer Asik‘s arrival in New Orleans sets the Pelicans up for a drastic improvement defensively and figures to help boost the darkhorse MVP candidacy of Anthony Davis, as Tom Haberstroh of ESPN.com examines in an Insider-only piece.
And-Ones: Allen, Thabeet, Arroyo, Ingles
Only a half dozen second-round picks from this June are without deals to play in the NBA, overseas or the D-League, as our log of this year’s draft pick signings shows, and Friday looms as a key date for them. That’s the last day their NBA teams have to make a required one-year tender for the minimum salary without losing their rights to them. Such glorified training camp invitations might not be ideal for draftees who’d hoped to establish more solid footing in the NBA, but if any are at an impasse in negotiations, the deadline could be a tipping point. While we wait to see how that plays out, here’s the latest from around the league:
- Ray Allen has fielded recruiting calls from LeBron James and others, as the sharpshooter tells Don Amore of The Hartford Courant, but Allen cites a desire to stay around his family as he continues to insist that there’s a strong chance he’s played his last game. “I don’t want to go into a situation where I don’t understand the coaching, don’t understand the direction of the team,” Allen said. “My family is very important in making the decision. Right now, there is nothing that I need to do. If I ultimately decide this will be it for me, I’m content with that.”
- Hasheem Thabeet remains on the Sixers roster, so it appears they’ve guaranteed his salary for the coming season. Monday was the last day they could waive him without owing him his $1.25MM pay for 2014/15, as Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman confirmed. Philadelphia was reportedly likely to waive him in advance of that deadline.
- NBA teams would have to buy Carlos Arroyo out of his deal with Galatasaray in Turkey to bring him stateside for this season, and while he’d consider returning to the Association, no one from the NBA has shown serious interest, as he tells HoopsHype’s David Alarcon.
- The widespread NBA interest in Joe Ingles is surprising, observes David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). The Australian small forward was having a tough time generating interest from European teams before this week’s strong FIBA World Cup showing, according to Pick.
Anderson Varejao Wants To Stay With Cavs
Anderson Varejao has spent his entire career with the Cavs and, if he has his way, he’ll keep it that way until he’s through playing. The big man told Raul Barrigon of HoopsHype that he has every intention of staying in Cleveland even though he is slated to hit the open market next summer.
“I want to stay in Cleveland, I really don’t think about that. They know what I want to do, they know I want to stay,” said Varejao, who answered in the affirmative when asked if he wants to retire in Cleveland.
The whole interview is worth a read, but are a few more highlights from Varejao’s Q&A with Barrigon..
On whether he thought he’d ever play with LeBron James again:
I did! I wasn’t sure when, but I thought there was a chance for him to come back. I didn’t expect it now, but eventually, because he’s from there, I thought there was a chance…All these years there were a lot of people on my ear telling me that I should ask for a trade because LeBron wasn’t there and the team was in a rebuilding process. They told me I should leave, that I should go to another team and try to help win a title and I always said no, I won’t. I don’t need to leave. I like the city, I like the people here, and I’m going to keep fighting through this. And now that LeBron is back the people [are] telling me I did the right thing [laughs].
On whether the arrival of Kevin Love means that his role will change:
I don’t think it’s going to change. I played with LeBron for six years and what I did was playing defense, setting screens for everybody, fighting for every rebound and being ready on the offensive side when I get the ball.
On the new-look team developing chemistry:
Sometimes it takes some time to have it, for everybody to get on the same page, to know what to do. And we have a new coach, new system, a lot of new things going on. But we’re going to have to stay patient and grow as a team.
And-Ones: Wiggins, Dragic, Ingles
While a dark cloud hung over the Wolves franchise from the moment Kevin Love made it known he was prepared to move on, Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press reports that the team’s fan base has been energized by the package Minnesota received in the Love trade. The Wolves just set a team record for most season-ticket packages sold in a week, after netting Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett, and Thaddeus Young in the franchise-altering move. Here’s more from Minnesota and the rest of the league:
- Wiggins tells Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune that he is happy to have been traded to the Wolves, where he will be thrust into a much bigger role than he would have carved out with the superstar-heavy Cavs.“I wanted to go to a place where I’m pushed to do a lot and become a special piece for the team. It’ll help me reach my potential,” said Wiggins. “I said I wanted to play for a team that wanted me, and now I’m here and I feel nothing but love.”
- The Pacers are one of the teams interested in Zoran Dragic, reports Orazio Cauchi of Sportando. The younger brother of Goran Dragic is under contract in Spain. It is unclear if the guard is poised to exercise any sort of escape clause that would allow him to come stateside, although he’s reportedly eager to someday play in the Association.
- Joe Ingles is generating interest from multiple NBA teams, tweets David Pick of Eurobasket.com. Pick says the Australian wing, who spent last season with Maccabi Tel Aviv, will need to perform well at the FIBA World Cup to get a shot.
Poll: Which 2013/14 Trade Will Have Greatest Impact?
When you look through last season’s trades, you’ll quickly notice that many of the deals revolved around players on the last years of their contracts, second-round draft picks, and other low-impact assets. A good amount of the players traded last year have already moved on from the team that acquired them, and many of the moving pieces failed to significantly help or hinder the fate of the teams involved for 2013/14.
Still, any given trade’s legacy can drag on for many years and in unexpected ways, as Eddie Scarito’s Hoops Rumors Trade Retrospective series has shown. I’ve gathered some of last year’s trades with loose ends and/or ramifications that have already stretched beyond last season.
- Kings and Raptors swap Rudy Gay, Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson, and other pieces. While Quincy Acy, Aaron Gray, and John Salmons are no longer a part of either franchise, Gay, Vasquez, and Patterson are all on the same rosters through at least 2014/15. Toronto became a playoff team after this trade, and Gay played some of the best basketball of his career as a King. Each franchise hopes to have cemented part of its future core with this deal.
- Cavaliers and Bulls swap Luol Deng, Andrew Bynum, and picks. Deng is now a member of the Heat, and Bynum is an unsigned free agent. The Bulls are still owed Sacramento’s first-round pick, which is top-10 protected through 2017, along with a handful of others from this deal. Chicago also avoided the tax by waiving Bynum’s partially guaranteed contract, and this deal marked the beginning of a strategy to chisel out enough cap flexibility acquire a marquee talent this summer. The team aimed for Carmelo Anthony, but ultimately signed Pau Gasol.
- Sixers and Pacers swap Danny Granger, Evan Turner, and more. The Sixers still own the Warriors second-round pick for 2015, and Indiana re-signed Lavoy Allen after receiving him in this trade. The bigger names in Granger and Turner have both landed in Miami and Boston, respectively. The Sixers bought out Granger after the deal, and the remaining hole at shooting guard plays into Philadelphia’s plans to remain less than competitive for the coming season. Granger was no longer a high-impact player for the Pacers at the time of the deal, although the team struggled mightily after his departure and is now without Paul George and Lance Stephenson for 2014/15, offensive talents that made Granger expendable at the time.
A team’s track record of draft success and player development, combined with the deal’s timeliness, all factor into our expectations. Which trade do you expect to look back on as more than a wrinkle in the NBA landscape?
Which 2013/14 Trade Will Have The Greatest Impact?
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Kings and Raptors 61% (596)
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Cavaliers and Bulls 30% (294)
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Sixers and Pacers 9% (92)
Total votes: 982
Central Rumors: Rose, Cavs, Crawford
Derrick Rose looked solid in Team USA’s dominating 114-55 victory over Finland today in the opening round of the 2014 FIBA World Cup. The 2010/11 MVP made just three of the eight shots he took, but he scored 12 points and dished out three assists over 22 minutes on the floor. The Bulls are surely crossing their fingers as they watch Rose in tournament play, praying the stud point guard can make it to the regular season injury free. Here’s the latest from the Central:
- The Cavs have been considering signing a point guard before the start training camp, writes Terry Pluto of the Plain Dealer. However, Pluto hears that Cleveland doesn’t see adding another guard as a major need and that they won’t bring aboard another backcourt player if they can reach a deal with Ray Allen.
- Former Indiana State big man Josh Crawford will work out for the Pacers next week, reports Enea Trapani of Sportando (via Twitter). Crawford, who has never suited up for an NBA club, currently plays in Bulgaria.
- John Zitzler of Basketball Insiders has a look at the development of young centers from around the league and concludes that Andre Drummond is due for a monster year with the Pistons, while Larry Sanders will need to work hard to restore his image with the Bucks.
And-Ones: Flynn, Pistons, Love
Former NBA lottery pick Jonny Flynn has signed a contract with Capo d’Orlando of the Italian League, the team announced (translation by Sportando). Flynn last saw action in the NBA with the Blazers during the 2011/12 season. His career numbers are 9.2 PPG, 1.9 RPG, and 3.9 APG. His career slash line is .400/.338/.809.
Here’s more from around the league:
- With Greg Monroe likely to sign his qualifying offer, the Pistons‘ frontcourt trio of Monroe, Josh Smith, and Andre Drummond will be together for another season. Coach Stan Van Gundy‘s challenge will be to figure out how to use them more effectively than they were last season, writes Perry A. Farrell of the Detroit Free Press.
- Kevin Love has essentially traded places with Chris Bosh, writes Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. Love is now the third option on the Cavs, much like Bosh was alongside LeBron James and Dwyane Wade with the Heat, Winderman notes, and it’s the statistical sacrifices of the third player that determines if these star trios are successful.
- With the news that the Spurs are interested in Ray Allen, Nick Borges of ESPN.com runs down the free agent market for the future Hall-of-Famer. Borges notes that if Allen is seeking a title contender and the highest salary, then San Antonio is the best option. The Spurs can offer Allen the $5.3MM non-taxpayer mid-level exception. The Clippers, Mavs, Heat, and Cavaliers can only give Allen a veteran’s minimum contract.