Western Notes: Williams, Asik, Rondo
Devin Harris hopes to have a “rejuvenated” Deron Williams with the Mavericks next season, according to Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com. Williams signed a two-year deal with Dallas last month after being waived by the Nets.
“I know what kind of player he is,” Harris said of Williams, whom he was once traded for. “I know he’s excited to be rejuvenated here, especially coming back home. And you know, hopefully he can kind of rejuvenate what he’s been doing, play at a high level and get us to where we need to be.”
Here’s more from the Western Conference:
- The Pelicans signed Omer Asik to a five-year, $58MM contract this offseason and Ben Dowsett of Basketball Insiders believes it is one of the worst contracts handed out this offseason. The writer cites Asik’s age as well as the declining value of the traditional center as reason for the pessimism. Only $44MM of the center’s deal is fully guaranteed, so the team could get out from the contract if needed after only four years.
- Dowsett also lists Rajon Rondo‘s new pact with Sacramento as a deal that the team will ultimately regret. Rondo’s deal is for $9.5MM over one season, but Dowsett believes the Kings could have signed the point guard for less due to the lack of suitors, which would have allowed the team to spend elsewhere.
Chris Crouse contributed to this post.
Latest On JaVale McGee
AUGUST 8TH, 4:32pm: McGee’s current focus is on getting himself healthy, though several teams have expressed interest in the center, sources have informed Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). According to Kennedy, the Lakers and the Mavs appear to be the front-runners to sign McGee.
5:11pm: The interest is mutual, sources tell Stein (Twitter link).
4:54pm: The Mavs are “very concerned” about the center’s health, MacMahon tweets. That casts a pessimistic tone, since McGee’s condition is the linchpin to the Mavs’ interest in him, as Stein reported (below).
1:58pm: The interest would appear to hinge on McGee’s health, but if he checks out, chances are strong that he becomes the team’s top priority, Stein tweets. The sides had their first in-person meeting of substance on Sunday, the ESPN scribe adds.
JULY 13TH, 1:33pm: The talks are on an exploratory level at this point, sources caution to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
JULY12TH, 11:10pm: The Mavs have initiated talks on a potential deal with unrestricted free agent center JaVale McGee, reports RealGM’s Shams Charania (on Twitter).
This, of course, comes after DeAndre Jordan spurned Dallas and re-signed with the Clippers, so the Mavs are still in the hunt for a big man. McGee, 27, has been a free agent since being waived by the Sixers in March. Earlier this offseason, the Kings expressed interest in McGee, as did the Rockets, Raptors and Heat.
McGee put up career lows this past campaign in several categories, including his 11.1 minutes per game across 23 appearances split between Denver and Philadelphia.
Southwest Notes: Lawson, Marjanovic, Mavs
The Southwest Division put five teams in the playoffs this past season and may well do so again in 2015/16, but it doesn’t receive much love from the ESPN Insider 5-on-5 crew, none of whom rank the Spurs or another Southwest team as the NBA’s best heading into the coming season. The Spurs and Rockets get one nomination each for No. 2, and while San Antonio gets plenty of support for No. 3, Bradford Doolittle and Ethan Sherwood Strauss both cite marquee free agent signing LaMarcus Aldridge‘s need for an adjustment period as one reason why they don’t rank the Spurs more highly. While we wait to see if the Spurs indeed encounter a measure of adversity, see more from around the Southwest here:
- The Rockets understand the risk involved in having traded for Ty Lawson, GM Daryl Morey tells Calvin Watkins of ESPN.com, who details Lawson’s string of alcohol-related brushes with the law and his potential path to recovery. “We take those very seriously,” Morey said of Lawson’s issues. “He’s had some very serious incidents in his past and in his recent past. We feel like he’s part of the Rockets family now and through our conversations with him we feel confident he’s getting the help he needs and he’s taken that step to say this is something he needs to do is improve on those areas.”
- The agent for Boban Marjanovic disputes the Spurs‘ claims that he’s not healthy enough to play for his national team this summer, as Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News details. The Serbian Basketball Federation is also fighting the decision that the Spurs made over concerns about ankle and foot problems for the center whom they signed last month. “After the game, he didn’t play basketball for 5 weeks,” agent Misko Raznatovic wrote on Twitter, referring to a June 28th contest (Twitter links). “Absolutely out of physical activity. And now is badly injured and can’t play! NO WAY!”
- The subtraction of Monta Ellis, the additions of Wesley Matthews, Deron Williams, John Jenkins and first-round pick Justin Anderson, and the retention of Charlie Villanueva set the Mavericks up to become more of an outside shooting team this coming season, as Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com examines.
Mavs Re-Sign Charlie Villanueva
AUGUST 6TH, 3:35pm: The signing is official, the Mavs announced via a press release.
AUGUST 4TH, 10:04pm: Villanueva announced via his personal Twitter account that the signing was completed, though no official announcement has been made by the Mavericks as of yet.
JULY 7TH, 1:04pm: The Mavs and Charlie Villanueva have agreed to a deal for the minimum salary, reports Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com (Twitter link). It’s a one-year arrangement, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com adds (on Twitter). It’s fully guaranteed, according to MacMahon (Twitter link).
MacMahon had anticipated the deal. Villanueva made the opening night roster for the Mavs on a non-guaranteed deal last year, and he stuck all season as he helped preserve an NBA career that had been flagging during his time with the Pistons. Dallas had apparently wanted to keep him around at the minimum, and Villanueva expressed his wish to keep playing for coach Rick Carlisle.
The Jeff Schwartz client will make $1,499,187 as a 10-year veteran, a raise on the $1,316,809 he saw on last season’s minimum. Still, Dallas will pay only $947,276, which is the two-year veteran’s minimum, and the league will cover the rest, since he’s on a one-year minimum deal. The Mavs can’t trade him without his consent since he re-signed for only one year, and thus would lose his Early Bird rights if Dallas were to trade him, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders points out (Twitter link).
Mavs Sign Samuel Dalembert
AUGUST 6TH, 1:27pm: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
JULY 25TH, 1:19pm: The Mavericks have reached a one-year agreement with veteran center Samuel Dalembert, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports tweets. According to ESPNDallas.com’s Tim MacMahon, Dalembert will receive the veteran’s minimum (Twitter link).
This comes as no surprise, as ESPN’s Marc Stein reported nearly two weeks ago that the parties had mutual interest. Stein tweeted on Saturday that the Mavs are still looking at other center options, as they are in advanced talks with Tunisian center Salah Mejri and have not ruled out JaVale McGee if he’s healthy.
Dalembert was the Mavs’ No. 1 center as recently as 2013-14, when he started 68 games for them. He was then included in the Tyson Chandler swap with the Knicks. The 34-year-old only played 32 games for New York, including 21 starts, and averaged 4.0 points and 5.3 rebounds.
He gives the club additional depth behind Zaza Pachulia, who wound up with Dallas in a trade with the Bucks after top free agent target DeAndre Jordan decommitted and re-signed with the Clippers.
Western Notes: Harris, Gallinari, Jazz
Devin Harris anticipates a change in his role with the Mavericks after the offseason additions of Deron Williams, Wesley Matthews, and the team’s new deal with J.J. Barea, Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com writes. “I would consider the backcourt crowded, but I think we got solid pieces — one, two and three,” Harris said. “I don’t know how much of a role change I’m going to have, but I think I’ll probably be playing mostly off the ball, you know, with J.J. coming back and with Deron coming in. But we’ll see what happens throughout training camp. You never know what will happen.” Harris also indicated that the franchise has recovered and moved on from what he termed, “the whole DeAndre Jordan fiasco,” Sneed adds. The center had spurned Dallas after reaching a verbal agreement in order to re-sign with the Clippers.
Here’s more from the Western Conference:
- Danilo Gallinari admits that he was pleasantly surprised by the Nuggets‘ renegotiation-and-extension offer, which he has officially signed, Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post relays. “I was very fast in saying yes to this extension,” Gallinari said. “I’m very happy to stay in Denver. This extension came because of the people in Denver, the fact that I’ve been in Denver for a while now and the fact that I love the city.“
- The forward also noted that he was pleased with the Nuggets‘ offseason moves, including the hiring of Michael Malone as coach, Dempsey adds. “I’m very confident in the choices they made this summer in changing the coach and everything,” Gallinari said. “They are doing everything possible in their capacity to win. And I think that they made the right choices, and hopefully we can start winning again starting this season.“
- Despite point guard Dante Exum possibly suffering a torn left ACL on Tuesday, the Jazz are more than likely going to rely on Trey Burke, Bryce Cotton, and Raul Neto at the one spot, rather than signing or trading for a veteran player to bolster their depth, Tony Jones and Aaron Falk of The Salt Lake Tribune write.
Cavaliers Sign Richard Jefferson
AUGUST 5TH, 5:15pm: The signing is official, the team announced.
2:56pm: Stein’s full story includes Cuban’s response.
“He called and talked to me,” Cuban said. “RJ said he had an opportunity with an Eastern Conference team. He said he would honor what he [originally agreed to with the Mavs] but thought the other was a better fit. I told him I was OK with it and understood.”
2:43pm: Jefferson called Mavs owner Mark Cuban prior to choosing Cleveland over Dallas, so the Dallas organization was aware of this before it happened, as Cuban tells Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
JULY 21ST, 2:01pm: Richard Jefferson is breaking off his deal with the Mavericks to sign with the Cavaliers instead, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Jefferson was to sign a one-year deal for the minimum with Dallas, as Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reported earlier this month. It’s the second time this summer that the Mavs have had a free agent commit to them and later back out, as DeAndre Jordan notoriously did earlier this month. Jefferson won’t see any more money with the Cavs than he would have if he’d stayed on his deal in Dallas, as the Cleveland pact is also for the minimum salary, reports Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group (Twitter link). The Cavs deal is for one year, a league source told Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal.
It appears Dallas was at least somewhat on board with Jefferson’s change of heart, as opposed to Jordan’s, as a source told Lloyd that the Mavs gave the free agents who committed to them the chance to back out in the wake of Jordan’s flip-flop (Twitter link). Wesley Matthews said earlier that Dallas afforded him the same luxury, but he instead recommitted for about $13MM more. The Mavs also bumped the value of J.J. Barea‘s deal significantly higher. It’s unclear if Dallas offered a better deal to Jefferson than the one he originally agreed to.
The minimum for Jefferson, a veteran of 14 NBA seasons, is worth $1,499,187, but, since the deal is only for one season, the Cavs only owe him $947,276, the equivalent of the two-year veteran’s minimum. That’s key, since Cleveland is poised to go deep into the tax. Still, the Jefferson deal will cost Cleveland about $3.6MM in tax penalties on top of his salary, as former Nets executive Bobby Marks points out on Twitter.
It’s the second consecutive summer in which the Cavs are signing a veteran forward who spent the previous season with Dallas. Cleveland did so last year with Shawn Marion, who retired after this past season.
Jefferson ends up with the same salary as he would have made in Dallas, but his switch is not without consequence. He’ll have to pay state income tax for Ohio, as he wouldn’t have had to do in Texas, and his Mavs deal would have given him the power to block trades afforded by rule to players who return to their teams on one-year contracts. Jefferson will also be eligible only for Non-Bird rights with the Cavs next summer, instead of the Early Bird rights the Mavs would have held with him.
Southwest Notes: West, Marjanovic, Ndour
David West had kept the Spurs on his radar as a potential destination for years prior to his surprising decision to sign with San Antonio last month for the minimum salary, as the power forward told WRAL-FM in Raleigh, North Carolina (audio link; transcription via Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News).
“At this point, I just want to win games,” West said. “I feel like I’m in a position to where I had a choice to make. I just chose to give myself a chance to win. The Spurs have an unbelievable culture. I just want an opportunity to be in that system and experience it and see what comes of it.”
Among those who signed new deals this summer, West will see the third greatest decline in pay this coming season compared to last. See more on the Spurs amid the latest from the Southwest Division:
- The Serbian national team said it will challenge a decision the Spurs have made to pull newly signed center Boban Marjanovic out of international competition this summer, as the Serbian Basketball Federation announced and as Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia translates. Serbia provided a copy of a letter the Spurs sent informing the national squad that it had exercised its right to unilaterally withdraw the center from international play because doctors had found a congenital defect in his feet that makes them more vulnerable to breaking. Marjanovic played on a broken foot this spring to help his club team, Red Star Belgrade, win the Serbian KLS League title, as David Pick recently chronicled for Bleacher Report.
- Grantland’s Zach Lowe is willing to cautiously bet that the Rockets won’t sign rookie scale extensions with either Terrence Jones or Donatas Motiejunas out the desire for greater cap flexibility next summer. Still, Lowe sees the extension candidacy of Jones as especially fascinating (Twitter link).
- Mavs signee Maurice Ndour has a partial guarantee worth $437K on his $874,636 salary for the 2016/17 season, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reveals (Twitter link).
Southwest Rumors: Matthews, Bonner, Rockets
The Mavericks have tempered their expectations of Wesley Matthews for the upcoming season because they don’t want to jeopardize his future, according to Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com. Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said that the club won’t take any shortcuts as Matthews recovers from a torn Achilles tendon, Sneed continues. “I think the most important thing is that he makes a full recovery, because we’re signing him to a four-year deal,” Carlisle said. “The first year is more about making sure that he’s right and getting him out there on the right terms, and from there we want him to make a full recovery and continue to get better.” Matthews said in the same story that the Mavs will get their money’s worth, even though they have been criticized for giving him a $70MM deal. “It’s just going to make me hungrier to prove that I’m worth the money,” he said. “I’m not concerned with that. I just know that I can play this game, and I know that I can play it at a high level.”
In other news around the Southwest Division:
- Maurice Ndour will see $1 more the minimum on his three-year contract with the Mavericks, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). It’s fully guaranteed for this season, but the guarantees beyond that are still unknown, Pincus indicates. Brandon Ashley, Jarrid Famous and Jamil Wilson are also receiving the minimum from the Mavs this year, Pincus shows on the same page.
- Matt Bonner received a $795,000 guarantee from the Spurs on his $1.5MM deal, Pincus reports in a separate tweet. Bonner gets the full amount if he’s still on the roster on January 10th.
- Rockets executive vice president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas has been named International Player Personnel Scout for USA Basketball, the team announced Monday. Entering his fourth season with the Rockets in that capacity, Rosas was previously the Mavericks’ GM.
Western Notes: McDaniels, Barton, Babbitt
Here’s a look at the latest contract news from the Western Conference:
- The three-year contract that K.J. McDaniels signed with the Rockets is worth exactly $10MM, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders shows (Twitter link).
- Will Barton will make $3,533,333 in each season with no options in his new three-year deal with the Nuggets, according to Pincus.
- Luke Babbitt‘s two year deal with the Pelicans is for the minimum salary, reports Pincus (Twitter link).
- Salah Mejri is receiving a guaranteed rookie minimum of $525,093 this season, the first on his three-year deal with the Mavs, tweets Pincus.
Will Joseph contributed to this post.