Pistons Notes: Drummond, Johnson, Van Gundy
Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy was left second-guessing himself after making the questionable decision to leave Andre Drummond, whom Detroit signed to a five-year, $125MM contract extension over the summer, on the bench during the final seconds of a loss against the Celtics, Aaron McMann of MLive.com writes.
“I could see it in his face. He felt like he made a mistake,” Drummond said. “I believe in Aron Baynes, and it just didn’t fall. You can’t fault him for that. (It’s) a game of basketball — anything can happen.”
Here is more news out of Detroit:
- Van Gundy did not play Stanley Johnson for the first time this season Saturday night in an effort to jumpstart the offense, Tony Paul of the Detroit News writes. Last month, the Pistons picked up Johnson’s 2017/18 option. Johnson, the eighth overall pick in last year’s draft, averaged 23.1 minutes per contest in 73 games for the Pistons during his rookie season, contributing 8.1 PPG, 4.2 RPG, and 1.6 APG.
- There is an urgency for the Pistons to halt their losing skid before Reggie Jackson returns, but they also need time to implement any lineup changes, McMann relays in a separate piece. “If you’re going to make changes, you want to be able to talk to (your team),” Van Gundy said. “You need at least a morning walkthrough.”
Central Notes: Jackson, Baynes, Seraphin
Reggie Jackson has started to participate in 5-on-5 non-contact drills, Rod Beard of The Detroit News reports. Jackson has been sidelined for over a month because of tendinitis in his left knee and right thumb and there remains no definite timeline for his return. “Nobody’s given me [a timeline]. He was at five weeks yesterday and it was a 6- to 8-week thing,” coach Stan Van Gundy said. “Next week would be the absolute earliest and I’d say that would be really, really optimistic at this point, to think he’d be back Monday of next week. I don’t see it now.”
Here’s more from the Central Division:
- Michael Gbinije is using his D-League assignment as an opportunity to master the role he is likely to play on the Pistons and Van Gundy is impressed with what he sees, Keith Langlois of NBA.com details. “[Some] felt he wasn’t aggressive enough offensively,” said Van Gundy. “I didn’t really see it that way. I thought Mike took his game as a complementary player to the D-League and played the same way there that he would play in the NBA and played well.”
- If Aron Baynes opts out of his current deal at the end of the season and another team offers him more than $11.375MM, it won’t be easy for the Pistons to retain the big man, as Langlois outlines in his latest mailbag. The team only has his partial bird rights, meaning it can only offer him a 175% raise of his current salary in the first year of a new deal.
- Kevin Seraphin is fitting in nicely with the Pacers, Mark Montieth of NBA.com writes. “He’s done some good things,” coach Nate McMillan said. “We certainly have to look at trying to get him some minutes. We’ve been looking for [energy]. So we’ll see.”
Aron Baynes Could Be Difficult To Retain
Aron Baynes is a “starting-caliber center” and Pistons coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy knows it will be difficult to retain him beyond this season, he acknowledged to the assembled media. Baynes, who can opt out of the final year of his three-year, $20MM contract after the season, racked up 20 points and eight rebounds against the Thunder on Monday with Andre Drummond sidelined by ankle injury. “As the president, I’m not supposed to say this because the guy can be a free agent,” Van Gundy said. “You’re not supposed to promote him but he’s a starting center in the NBA. He’s just playing behind an All-Star. You look around at all the starting centers and Aron’s a starting-caliber center in the league, so it’s not surprising he played as well as he did.” The Pistons signed restricted free agent Boban Marjanovic this summer to a three-year contract in part to protect themselves if they’re unable to re-sign Baynes.
Eastern Notes: Vogel, Pistons, Wizards
Magic coach Frank Vogel expects the atmosphere to be emotional when he returns to Indianapolis Monday night to coach against the Pacers for the first time, Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel writes. The Pacers decided not to renew Vogel’s contract in May after a first round exit from the playoffs, and president of basketball operations Larry Bird said at the time that the team needed a new voice. Vogel amassed a 253-187 regular-season record and a 31-30 postseason record with the Pacers. His teams twice reached the Eastern Conference finals. Orlando is 3-6 so far under Vogel.
Here’s more out of the Eastern Conference:
- The Pistons recalled Henry Ellenson and Michael Gbinije on Sunday from the Grand Rapids Drive, Detroit’s D-League affiliate, Aaron McMann of MLive.com relays. NBA Development League affiliate on Sunday. The two rookies will re-join the Pistons on Monday for their game against the Thunder.
- After spending more a good chunk of money over the summer to beef up the bench, frustration is mounting in Washington because of a lack of production from the Wizards‘ second unit, Candace Buckner of the Washington Post writes. The Wizards bench has a minus-11.2 net rating so far this season, as Buckner points out. Summer acquisitions Ian Mahinmi, who is out rehabbing from knee surgery, and Andrew Nicholson, who has not played in three of the last four games, have not helped the cause.
Little Playing Time For Marjanovic
Boban Marjanovic didn’t play at all in his return to San Antonio Friday, which has been a familiar story in his time with the Pistons, writes Rod Beard of The Detroit News. The 7’3″ Serbian came to Detroit this summer when the Spurs elected not to match a three-year, $21MM offer sheet. He has gotten off the bench in just four of the team’s first nine games and is averaging 4.5 minutes in those. Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy said the team wants to see Marjanovic become more aggressive offensively. “In the preseason, he fit well. He’s a very good offensive player and highly skilled,” Van Gundy said. “He’s unselfish, almost to a fault. There’s times he could use his size and be dominant down there offensively, but he really likes to pass the ball — which promotes good team play — but at the same time, we want him to use his offensive skills.”
- Van Gundy is closely monitoring the progress of rookies Henry Ellenson and Michael Gbinije, who were sent to the D-League during the Pistons’ western road trip, Beard notes in the same story. The organization wanted them both to get expanded playing time, at least 30 minutes per night, during their time in Grand Rapids. Ellenson was told to focus on his defensive development. “He knows [defense] is his ticket to getting on the floor [with the Pistons],” Van Gundy said. “He’s very confident, as we are, in his offensive skills.”
NBA 2016/17 Dead Money: Central Division
The concept of “dead money” on a salary cap isn’t as common in the NBA as it is in the NFL, but it essentially functions the same way in both leagues. Dead money refers to the salary remaining on a team’s cap for players that are no longer on the roster.
For NFL teams, taking on a certain amount of dead money is a common practice, since signing bonuses affect cap hits differently, and big-money players are more likely to be released before playing out their entire contracts. That practice is less common in the NBA.
Still, with the NBA’s salary cap on the rise, teams may be a little more willing to part ways with players on guaranteed salaries, since that increased cap gives clubs more flexibility than they used to have. Within the last month, we’ve seen players like Ronnie Price and Greivis Vasquez, who each had $4-5MM in guaranteed money left on their contracts, waived in order to clear room for newcomers.
Over the next week, we’ll examine each of the NBA’s 30 teams, breaking them down by division, to figure out which teams are carrying the most dead money on the cap for 2016/17, and what that information might tell us about those teams. We’ll start today with the Central division, before tackling the other five divisions from Monday to Friday next week.
Here are the 2016/17 dead money figures for the Central teams:
1. Detroit Pistons
Total dead money: $5,398,678
Full salary cap breakdown
The Pistons had a pair of camp invitees with modest guarantees, in Nikola Jovanovic ($30K) and Trey Freeman ($25K), and a last-minute change of plans at point guard meant that they were also on the hook for nearly $12K when they waived Ray McCallum. However, the majority of dead money on Detroit’s books belongs to Josh Smith. The Pistons cut Smith with so much guaranteed salary left on his contract that he’ll count for about $5.332MM against the cap this year — and for the three years after that.
2. Milwaukee Bucks
Total dead money: $1,865,547
Full salary cap breakdown
The Bucks are one of eight NBA teams that entered this season without a D-League affiliate, so they didn’t have a ton of incentive to hand out partial guarantees to camp invitees — they wouldn’t have been able to assign those players to a D-League squad anyway. As such, it comes as little surprise that Larry Sanders is responsible for Milwaukee’s only dead-money cap charge this season. Sanders will continue to count for $1,865,547 annually against the Bucks’ cap through the 2020/21 season.
3. Indiana Pacers
Total dead money: $1,387,667
Full salary cap breakdown
The Pacers were smart about the dead money they added to their cap this fall, paying out partial guarantees to a handful of players they wanted to join their D-League affiliate in Fort Wayne, including Ben Bentil, whose D-League rights they snatched from the Celtics for $50K. Julyan Stone ($50K), Alex Poythress ($35.4K), and Nick Zeisloft ($25K) also got modest guarantees, while Jeremy Evans ($1.227MM) was the only fully guaranteed salary the team cut. The Pacers can’t put the $3.2MM they received from the Mavericks when they acquired Evans toward their salary cap, but that cash ensures that the club actually came out ahead after waiving the forward.
4. Chicago Bulls
Total dead money: $69,500
Full salary cap breakdown
The Bulls have a D-League affiliate for the first time this season, but only one camp invitee – and eventual Windy City Bulls player – required a partial guarantee. That one player was Thomas Walkup, who got $69.5K from the team. It will be interesting to see if the Bulls are any more liberal about handing out partial guarantees to recruit top undrafted rookies to their D-League affiliate in future years.
5. Cleveland Cavaliers
Total dead money: $18,255
Full salary cap breakdown
The Cavaliers didn’t pay any guaranteed money to their camp invitees, and ultimately assigned only two of their cuts to the Canton Charge rather than the maximum four. The team also isn’t carrying any dead money on its cap from players released in previous years, resulting in a cap sheet that is nearly entirely clean. The one exception? An $18K cap hit for Dahntay Jones, since he cleared waivers two days into the 2016/17 season rather than being cut earlier.
Salary information from Basketball Insiders was used in the creation of this post.
Pistons Rumors: Marjanovic, Jackson, Smith
- Point guard Reggie Jackson has begun limited basketball activities but is still weeks away from returning, according to Rod Beard of the Detroit News. Jackson received platelet-rich plasma injections more than a month ago to relieve his left knee tendinitis, as well as a right thumb injury. He has been sidelined since the preseason. “It feels like literally I had dead leg for five weeks,” Jackson told Beard and other beat reporters. “I’m just trying to find trust in my leg to be able to cut. It’s not there yet; I did a few things but it’s still iffy.”
- Jackson’s replacement in the lineup, Ish Smith, has shot 29% from the field over the last five games but that won’t take away his aggression, Aaron McMann of MLive.com writes. Smith signed a three-year, $18MM contract in July to be Jackson’s backup. “At the end of the day, you’ve got to keep shooting because we’re getting good shots,” Smith told McMann and other writers. “Missing easy ones that’s rolling around. Little floaters. Little pull-ups. That’s how it is.”
Pistons Will Have Update On Potential Downtown Move Within "Next Few Weeks"
- Pistons owner Tom Gores reiterated on Monday that his team is “making progress” on negotiations to team up with the NHL’s Red Wings and move his franchise to downtown Detroit. “In the next few weeks, we’ll know for sure,” Gores said, per Rod Beard of The Detroit News.
- As Keith Langlois of Pistons.com details, Gores has also been pleased with the way the Pistons have been able to better the community during the five years he has owned the team, suggesting that the franchise’s ability to have a local impact has exceeded his expectations. “Our ability to impact the community has been more than I ever thought in my life,” Gores said. “As much as I would like to win a championship, the real championship is to affect the city and impact the city. It’s beyond anything I could have expected, to be honest.”
Players With Incentive Bonuses For 2016/17
According to Bobby Marks of The Vertical, there are 33 players around the NBA who can potentially earn incentive bonuses this season based on their own durability or performance, or based on how their team performs. Although Marks doesn’t identify all 33 players who have incentives included in their 2016/17 contracts, he discusses over half of them, passing along a number of interesting tidbits about those potential bonuses. Here are some of the highlights:
Minutes/games played bonuses:
NBA bonuses are deemed either “likely” or “unlikely,” using the previous season’s statistics as a benchmark, so if a player didn’t appear in many games during the previous year, a team can include a games-played benchmark and call it an unlikely incentive. For instance, John Henson‘s contract with the Bucks features incentives if he plays 60 games or 75 games this season. He appeared in just 57 contests in 2015/16, so neither of those marks is viewed as likely.
Miles Plumlee (Bucks), Luis Scola (Nets), Greivis Vasquez (Nets), and Deron Williams (Mavericks) are among the other players who have incentives in their deals for games played or started.
Individual statistic bonuses:
The Trail Blazers got creative with Maurice Harkless‘ new contract this summer, including an incentive bonus in the deal that can be triggered based if he keeps his three-point percentage above a certain level. Jeremy Lin, meanwhile, not only has a three-point percentage incentive, but also has bonuses linked to assists, turnovers, and threes and free throws attempted per 36 minutes.
Individual achievement bonuses:
Players like Bismack Biyombo (Magic), Evan Fournier (Magic), and Will Barton (Nuggets) have incentives related to their individual performances as well, but they’re related to awards and honors, rather than raw statistics. Biyombo gets a bonus if he makes the NBA’s All-Defensive team, Fournier gets some extra money for an All-Star appearance, and Barton would get $250K if he wins the Sixth Man of the Year award.
Of course, some of these incentives are more realistic than others. For instance, Thaddeus Young (Pacers) probably shouldn’t be counting on the $500K incentive bonus that he’d earn if he wins the league’s MVP award.
Team performance bonuses:
Several players, including Fournier, Jon Leuer (Pistons), and Joe Ingles (Jazz) have bonuses related to their teams making the playoffs. Many of those postseason incentives are tied to another condition. For example, for Taj Gibson to earn his bonus from the Bulls, he must appear in at least 60 games, play in at least 75% of Chicago’s playoff games, and average 25 or more minutes per game during the regular season.
Some players also have incentives linked to their teams’ win total, and once again, some are more attainable than others. For example, Nikola Mirotic could earn an extra $800K, but he’d need the Bulls to win 65+ games, so there’s a good chance his shot at that bonus will disappear about halfway through the season.
Be sure to check out the full breakdown from Marks for many more details on players who could earn incentive bonuses in 2016/17.
NBA D-League Assignments/Recalls: 11/6/16
Here are Sunday’s D-League assignments and recalls from around the league:
- The Spurs assigned Bryn Forbes, Danny Green and Dejounte Murray to their D-League affiliate in Austin, tweets Jabari Young of The San Antonio Express-News. The moves were just for practice purposes because the D-League team was training at the Spurs’ practice site.
- Pistons first-round pick Henry Ellenson, who was assigned to the D-League on Saturday, plans to use the experience to improve his game, writes Aaron McMann of MLive. Ellenson and fellow rookie Michael Gbinije were sent to the Grand Rapids Drive for a weeklong assignment while the Pistons are on a western road trip. Ellenson, who has played sparingly so far this season, welcomes the chance. “I’ve got to look at it as an opportunity to improve,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest thing. The team is doing really well right now, so they’re going to go handle business on the West Coast. I’m going to go handle my own this week — and that’s how I’m going to take it.”