Warriors, Harrison Barnes Halt Extension Talks
Harrison Barnes has decided against an extension with the Warriors, GM Bob Myers told reporters today, including Sam Amick of USA Today (Twitter link). The sides were facing a November 2nd deadline to reach a deal that would keep Barnes out of restricted free agency next summer. Barnes said he prefers to focus on this season and defending Golden State’s championship and seems “very comfortable” with the idea of ending negotiations until July, observes Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group (Twitter link).
Barnes said a month ago that extension talks were going well shortly after Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported that he had turned down a four-year, $64MM offer. That offer came before he changed agents, switching from Jeff Wechsler of 24/7 Sports Management to Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management. Myers made it clear over the summer that he wanted to sign the former No. 7 overall pick to an extension, though co-owner Joe Lacob more recently told Kawakami that while he’d like to see the team do an extension with Barnes, he’d be OK with him ending up in restricted free agency.
Next season’s projected maximum salary for a player with Barnes’ level of experience is $20.4MM, though that number stands to escalate if the cap ends up higher than the projected $89MM, as some around the league reportedly believe it will. Golden State already has $74.8MM in guaranteed salary for 2016/17, including partial guarantees for Jason Thompson and Shaun Livingston. The cap hold for Barnes, worth more than $9.683MM, would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the Warriors to pursue max level free agents while waiting to re-sign Barnes next summer, as the Spurs did with Kawhi Leonard‘s restricted free agency this year. A sign-and-trade would represent the most logical path to a marquee free agent addition for Golden State, and Kawakami speculated that the Warriors would be better positioned for sign-and-trades if they inked Barnes to an extension.
Barnes had a breakthrough season last year under coach Steve Kerr, who moved him back into the starting lineup after he’d spent a year coming off the bench behind Andre Iguodala. He still averaged the same number of minutes per game, but he posted better scoring and rebounding averages, and he improved his three-point shooting from 34.7% to an elite 40.5%.
The former University of North Carolina player is still just 23, with room for improvement, as I noted when I profiled Barnes’ extension candidacy, suggesting that $16-18MM a year would satisfy both sides. That was before news surfaced that Barnes had turned down Golden State’s offer of $16MM annual salaries.
Atlantic Notes: Zeller, Lee, Ross, Faverani
The Celtics are interested in rookie scale extensions for Tyler Zeller or Jared Sullinger only if they consent to decidedly team-friendly deals, league sources tell Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald. The C’s are prioritizing flexibility and the “feeling is” that the team would be pleased to re-sign them in restricted free agency next summer if they perform well this season, Bulpett writes. The extension window for both closes at the end of November 2nd. Perry Jones is also up for a rookie scale extension, but he’s in a fight simply to preserve his roster spot for this season.
Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- David Lee concedes that he would have preferred to stay with the Warriors for the rest of his career, but he also makes it clear that he’s “really, really excited” to join the Celtics, Bulpett relays in the same piece.
- A 50-50 chance exists that the Raptors and Terrence Ross will reach an extension deal by the November 2nd deadline, sources tell Grantland’s Zach Lowe, who takes educated guesses on Zeller and other rookie scale extension candidates.
- Former Celtics big man Vitor Faverani, who reached a two-year agreement to play for Maccabi Tel Aviv back in July, is likely to be let go by the team due to knee issues, international journalist David Pick reports (Twitter link).
- Wesley Saunders, who was waived by the Knicks on Friday, is expected to join the team’s D-League affiliate in Westchester, Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com tweets.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Warriors Cut Babb, Eddie, Henry, Udofia
The Warriors have waived Chris Babb, Jarell Eddie, Xavier Henry and Chris Udofia, the team announced via press release. Cutting those four non-guaranteed deals gives the Warriors 15 players, the regular season maximum, and it’s a positive signal for Ian Clark, whose deal is also non-guaranteed. Golden State has 13 full guarantees plus a partial guarantee for James Michael McAdoo, who has the support of coach Steve Kerr.
Henry, a five-year NBA veteran, has the most extensive experience of the four players Golden State is letting go, though the 24-year-old just signed with the team Monday in a move that could be related to his D-League rights. That was the same day the Warriors also inked Udofia, 23, who went undrafted out of the University of Denver in 2014. Neither saw any preseason action. Both signed non-guaranteed contracts for the minimum salary that only covered one season, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reported (Twitter link).
Babb, a 25-year-old shooting guard, came to Golden State from the Celtics in this summer’s David Lee trade. He averaged 2.8 points in 11.4 minutes per game during six preseason appearances. Eddie agreed in August to a deal for camp. The 23-year-old small forward posted 4.5 points in 10.1 minutes per game across two preseason contests.
Clark would pick up a partial guarantee of about $474K if he sticks for opening night. The 24-year-old offseason signee had a strong preseason, knocking down five of his 12 3-point attempts and averaging 5.9 points in 13.1 minutes per game over seven appearances, including one start. The two-year NBA veteran who’s played for the Jazz and Nuggets circled back to the Warriors this year after first making his mark in the NBA on Golden State’s summer league team in 2013.
Do you agree with Golden State’s moves? Leave a comment to give us your input.
Pacific Notes: Crawford, Barnes, Ezeli, Hibbert
It took a sell job from Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers, but Jamal Crawford is on board with continuing to be a part of a crowded rotation, as Dan Woike of the Orange County Register details. Rivers and Crawford spoke about their issues over the summer and again before camp, and while Crawford took to social media this summer to drop vague hints that he was dissatisfied, the two-time Sixth Man of the Year now says it can “easily work” for him in L.A. Rivers said in September he was unlikely to trade Crawford, swatting down rumors. See more from the Pacific Division:
- Warriors co-owner Joe Lacob would like to see the team sign Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli to extensions before the November 2nd deadline, but he’d still be OK with them ending up in restricted free agency next summer, as Lacob said in a podcast with Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group. Lacob also made it seem as though it’s unlikely that Steve Kerr will coach the team in the opener as he continues to nurse his ailing back.
- Roy Hibbert is fostering team chemistry in a way that no one did on the Lakers last year, Jordan Clarkson tells Bill Oram of the Orange County Register. The big man doesn’t see it as all that important but thinks that if he can help others perform, it will reflect well on him in the future. Hibbert is poised to hit free agency this coming summer. “When the team wins,” Hibbert said, “everybody wins. So helping them is going to help me on the court in the long run and then that will help whatever contract stuff. So you have to be selfless.”
- Omri Casspi is struggling in the preseason, but coach George Karl isn’t worried about the player in whom the Kings invested $5.8MM on a new two-year deal this summer, observes Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. “I think the way he played at the end of last year, he’s earned the right to be given some freedom and opportunity to figure out what happens this year,” Karl said.
Lakers Notes: Buss, Upshaw, Frazier, Roster
Lakers executive vice president of basketball operations Jim Buss admits his pitches to free agents in recent years have lacked oomph because he couldn’t promise them immediate success, but he’s confident he has the core in place now to change that, as he explains to Sam Amick of USA Today. Buss is particularly high on No. 2 pick D’Angelo Russell, Amick notes.
“I think we’ve done a great job [rebuilding],” Buss said. “Yeah, I think we’re in dynamite position. Not good position – dynamite. I think we’ve turned the corner. I don’t know if you discount that terminology, ‘turn the corner.’ But when you’re headed down the wrong road, and you can finally get off that road and turn the corner, that’s huge in my opinion.”
Buss set a timeline for turning the Lakers around that his sister Jeanie, the team’s primary owner, interprets as a mandate to get to the Western Conference Finals by 2017, and he believes the team is ahead of schedule and just needs to land a major free agent this summer, as Amick details. See more on Buss and the Lakers:
- Warriors consultant Jerry West thinks the criticism of Buss is off-base, as he tells Amick for the same story. “He’s really smart … but he’s the easiest target there is,” West said of Buss. “And I will tell you, it’s grossly unfair sometimes. Grossly unfair. It’s almost like they want him to be a reincarnation of his dad, but he can’t.”
- Issues surrounding Robert Upshaw “that go beyond talent” proved too worrisome for the Lakers, who waived the big man today, tweets Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times, though whatever the issues are, they aren’t outrageous, Pincus cautions. Coach Byron Scott cited a “big-time learning curve on both ends” for Upshaw, according to Times colleague Mike Bresnahan (Twitter link). In any case, Scott said the Lakers hope Upshaw and Michael Frazier, whom they also cut today, clear waivers and sign with the team’s D-League affiliate, notes Bill Oram of the Orange County Register (on Twitter).
- Both Bresnahan and Oram speculate that Metta World Peace and Jabari Brown are on the bubble for the last regular season roster spot on the Lakers, with Bresnahan suggesting that World Peace has a slight lead (Twitter links).
And-Ones: Cavs, Davis, Aldridge, Kobe, Teodosic
The Cavaliers are the pick to win it all and LeBron James is the favorite for MVP in the league’s annual GM survey, as John Schuhmann of NBA.com presents. More than half the executives who responded favor the Cavs, while the Warriors garnered only 17.9% of the vote, the third-lowest percentage for a defending champ in the 13-year history of the GM survey. Still, neither of last year’s Finals teams has Anthony Davis, whom a whopping 86.2% of respondents selected as the player they’d most want to build their teams around.
LaMarcus Aldridge drew 79.3% of the vote for the offseason acquisition who’ll make the greatest impact, and the Spurs garnered the same percentage for the team that had the best offseason, unsurprisingly. See more on Aldridge’s decision amid the latest from around the NBA:
- Aldridge thought he would re-sign with the Trail Blazers when he put off thumb surgery last season, and he thinks the Blazers did all they could to keep him, but the lure of playing closer to his home in Texas proved too great when the time came for a decision, as he told Chris Mannix of SI.com. Aldridge said to Mannix that the idea that he left Portland because he couldn’t get along with Damian Lillard was overblown, and that while he and Lillard mutually acknowledged that they could have communicated better with each other, they don’t have a poor relationship. “But I never had an issue playing with him or anything like that or with him being the face or them promoting him or anything like that,” Aldridge said in part. “If I had an issue like that then why go to the Spurs? They don’t promote anybody.”
- Kobe Bryant‘s presence was one of the best parts of meeting with the Lakers this summer, Aldridge insisted to Mannix for the same piece, striking back at the notion that he didn’t want to play with the Lakers star.
- The GM poll also shows 28-year-old shooting guard Milos Teodosic, who plays for CSKA Moscow but whose NBA rights aren’t tied to any team, as the second-best international player outside the NBA aside from Sixers draft-and-stash prospect Dario Saric. Plus, more GMs want to see revamped lottery odds than any other rules change.
Western Rumors: Warriors, Green, Ingles
The Warriors remain uncertain when coach Steve Kerr can return to the team on a full-time basis, ESPN.com’s Marc Stein and Ethan Sherwood Strauss report. Kerr, who underwent two offseason back surgeries, was with the club on its weeklong preseason trip through Southern California, but there’s no timetable on when he can coach on a daily basis, the story continues. ”He still doesn’t know,” interim coach Luke Walton told reporters after the team’s practice on Monday. “He’s not going to force a return.”
In other news around the Western Conference:
- Clippers coach Doc Rivers feels the Warriors are too thin-skinned about recent comments he made about them, according to Diamond Leung of the Bay Area Sports Group. In an interview with Grantland, Rivers insinuated that the Warriors were lucky they didn’t have to play his club or the Spurs in the playoffs last season, Leung continues. He told reporters on Monday that he’s taken aback by the Warriors’ strong reaction to that notion, Leung adds. “I’m really surprised how sensitive they are about it,” Rivers said. “They are the champions, so they can just be the champions.” Walton told Leung that Rivers is playing mind games with the champions. “It doesn’t make much sense if it’s not,” Walton said. “There’s no other reason to bring that type of stuff up.”
- Second-year point guard Erick Green is making a strong case for a Nuggets roster spot even though he doesn’t have a guaranteed contract, Chris Dempsey of the Denver Post writes. New coach Michael Malone has raved about Green during camp, though Green suffered a temporary setback with a minor knee injury, the story continues. Green, who could make $845,059 if he stays with the team through the season, bounced back with a 16-point, four-assist outing against the Thunder on Sunday night. But the club would have to move one of 15 players with guaranteed contracts in order to retain Green, Dempsey points out.
- Jazz forward Joe Ingles had more difficulty deciding to take the summer off than he did re-signing with the club, Aaron Falk of the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Ingles stayed put by inking a two-year, $4.3MM deal, then opted not to participate in the Australian national team’s Olympic qualifiers over the summer. “I’m not going to say it was like the hardest decision of my life, but it was something that weighed on me for a little bit,” he told Falk. “I did want to play.”
Warriors Sign Swingman Xavier Henry
The Warriors have signed swingman Xavier Henry to an undisclosed contract, the club announced Monday via press release. The Warriors apparently view Henry as an insurance policy. He was signed for the purpose of eventually playing for the team’s D-League affiliate in Santa Cruz, Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group tweets.
The 24-year-old Henry averaged 2.2 points and 9.6 minutes in nine games with the Lakers last season before rupturing his left Achilles tendon in practice last November. The Lakers waived Henry in late December while he was in the early stages of his recovery.
The 6’6” Henry has also played for the Grizzlies and Pelicans organizations. Originally selected by the Grizzlies as the No. 12 overall pick in the 2010 draft, Henry has appeared in 185 games during his career.
Presumably, Henry could eventually work his way into the mix on the Warriors’ 15-man roster if Golden State has injuries and Henry can show that he’s all the way back from his injury.
Golden State’s training camp roster now stands at 19 players.
Warriors Sign Chris Udofia
MONDAY, 6:02pm: The club has announced the signing of Udofia via press release, which also indicates the team has inked Xavier Henry.
FRIDAY, 10:13am: The Warriors are in the midst of signing small forward Chris Udofia, a source tells Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops (Twitter link). The 23-year-old went undrafted out of the University of Denver in 2014 and played for the Rockets in the 2014 summer league. The move will take Golden State, which waived point guard Juwan Staten late Thursday, back to 18 players, with 13 fully guaranteed salaries.
Udofia’s school played in three different NCAA Division I conferences during his time there, and he won Defensive Player of the Year honors in two of them. Still, his shot attempts per game and scoring average declined in both of his last two college seasons. He posted 12.3 points and 5.4 rebounds in 34.4 minutes per game as a senior in 2013/14.
He’ll ostensibly join Ian Clark, Chris Babb and Jarell Eddie in a competition for a regular season roster spot that I explained earlier today, though it’s not a given that any of them will make it to opening night, since the Warriors are a taxpaying team and don’t have to carry more than 13 players. The Warriors can claim the D-League rights to as many as four of the players they waive, so that will be an option with Udofia if Golden State doesn’t keep him on the NBA roster.
Pacific Notes: Warriors, Young, White, Mitrovic
The Warriors have largely the same roster they did when they won the title in June, but with a handful of players entering the final season of their contracts and Steve Kerr on a health-related leave of absence, this year’s team has a different feel, as TNT’s David Aldridge writes in his Morning Tip column for NBA.com. Stephen Curry says it’s “weird” not having Kerr around and acknowledges the challenges of everyone coalescing once more, as Aldridge relays.
“We are, technically, the same team,” Curry said. “We have everybody minus David Lee back, and Jason Thompson. But we’re different in that regard. Because everybody’s in a different place in their careers. Maybe stuff’s going on off the court. You’ve got to kind of separate what we did last year from this year, even though it’s the same personalities in the locker room. Support each other, encourage each other, figure out how we can mesh all the different storylines together into one goal, which is doing what we did last year.”
See more from the Pacific Division:
- Nick Young calls the trade rumors that surrounded him this summer “confusing” and “motivating,” but the Lakers didn’t find a taker, and Young and coach Byron Scott are entering this season preaching optimism about their continued partnership, as Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News details. “Me and Byron are good, but I’m using it as motivation,” Young said. “I’m just trying to do my part and stay alive. I’m trying to do everything he tells me to do. Anything I got to do to stay out there on the court.”
- Suns camp cut Terrico White will play for Phoenix’s D-League affiliate, a source tells Adam Johnson of D-League Digest (Twitter link). White cleared waivers this weekend after the Suns released him Thursday. NBA teams can retain the D-League rights to as many as four players they waive, so White appears to be one of Phoenix’s four.
- Kings draft-and-stash prospect Luka Mitrovic is expected to miss several months because of a left knee injury, Sportando’s Orazio Cauchi tweets. Mitrovic, the last pick of this year’s draft, signed an extension with Crvena Zvezda of Serbia this summer. Sacramento holds his NBA rights as a result of the cap-clearing trade with the Sixers this summer.