Northwest Notes: Faried, Bennett, Kaman
People close to the Nuggets have indicated that Kenneth Faried played a larger role in the downfall of former coach Brian Shaw than publicly known, according to Ben Dowsett of Basketball Insiders. Trade rumors surrounded Faried for much of the past year, and many people around the league expect Denver will deal him away. Still, Dowsett takes Shaw to task for his performance as a coach last season and calls the hiring of Michael Malone the team’s best offseason addition. See more from the Northwest Division:
- Anthony Bennett looked strong playing for the Canadian national team during the summer, and Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor downplayed the idea that the Wolves will trade the former No. 1 overall pick, telling Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities, “We shouldn’t assume he’d go” (Twitter link). The Wolves have reportedly been willing to move Bennett for the right return.
- Chris Kaman would probably fit best on a contender, but he enjoyed playing for the Trail Blazers last season, and Kaman’s level of contentment has had much to do with whether he’s been successful over the past few seasons, as The Oregonian’s Joe Freeman examines. Kaman will make $5.016MM this season in the last year of his contract.
- The exodus of so many of last season’s Trail Blazers has C.J. McCollum excited about the more prominent role he’s poised to take on this year, one reminiscent of his time as a scoring force in college at Lehigh, as he tells Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders. McCollum is hopeful that he can continue to work with Steve Nash, who helped him with his game this summer, even though Nash is reportedly finalizing a deal to become a part-time player development consultant for the Warriors.
Pacific Notes: Morris, Kobe, Nash, Thompson
Suns free agent signee Tyson Chandler is optimistic that the team and Markieff Morris can resolve their differences, having gone through a tenuous time himself years ago when New Orleans traded him to the Thunder only to have Oklahoma City nix the deal, as Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic details. Phoenix doesn’t intend to fulfill the trade demand that Morris has made, Coro writes, which jibes with his report from earlier and what Grantland’s Zach Lowe heard, even though Morris reportedly plans on greeting the Suns front office with silence and coach Jeff Hornacek with only one-word answers if they bring him to camp.
“It’s not about them,” Chandler said to Coro about Suns executives. “That’s no offense to Ryan [McDonough], the GM, or the owner. Players play for players and the coaches. You’ve got a bond. Management has nothing to do with anything that goes on when you’re on the court. That’s just my thoughts. I’m not saying this for anything against Keef either. He’s a man and he has to go through his own process. But he can be special and I know he will. I feel like all this stuff will be forgotten once we kick off and we’re having success.”
See more from the Pacific Division:
- The Lakers announced a nine-month recovery timetable when Kobe Bryant had surgery to repair his torn right rotator cuff in January, which would have made his return in time for camp a close call, but he’s been medically cleared for all basketball activities, Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding hears.
- Warriors coach Steve Kerr is high on what Steve Nash can bring as a part-time player development consultant for the team, though he cautioned in an interview with Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group that the deal to hire him for that role isn’t official. Kerr added that he won’t ask Nash to return to play, as the Mavs reportedly considered doing. “In Phoenix we grew very close and he’s probably the smartest basketball player I’ve ever been around in my life, not only the way he played but the way he prepared and trained and thought about the game,” Kerr said to Kawakami. “I just felt like if we could just get him to help out, just be around our guys occasionally and develop relationships, spend some time on the floor with them occasionally, it’d be a big help.”
- Kerr expressed his desire for continuity, though he does envision a role for trade acquisition Jason Thompson, as he said to Kawakami for the same piece. The coach was also quick to point to his fondness to James Michael McAdoo, who has only a partially guaranteed deal with the Warriors.
Pacific Notes: Hibbert, Green, Suns
Draymond Green had spoken with one other unnamed franchise prior this to re-signing with the Warriors this offseason, the forward told Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders. “It wasn’t much. I talked to one other team and that was really not a serious conversation at all [because] I knew where I wanted to be,” Green said. “I knew where I was going to be and my focus was to have my agent, B.J. Armstrong, work with the Warriors and get a deal done. That was the main focus. I talked to Joe [Lacob]. I talked to Peter [Guber]. I knew where I was going to be, I knew where home was, and we got it done. It was great that the Warriors stepped up to the plate and got it done in the fashion that they did, where I didn’t have to sign an offer sheet or anything like that and we just got the deal done. It says a lot about the Warriors as an organization, it says a lot about Peter and Joe as an ownership group, it says a lot about the front office with Bob [Myers], Kirk [Lacob], and Travis [Schlenk] and everyone else. I’m one of their guys and they stepped up to the plate and got it done. That meant a lot to me.” Green did note that the Pistons were not the team with which he spoke, Kennedy adds.
Here’s more out of the Pacific Division:
- Roy Hibbert agreed to waive part of his 15% trade kicker to join the Lakers because the franchise made it known that they wanted him, something the Pacers did not do, Mike Bresnahan of he Los Angeles Times writes. “In the long run, it was a no-brainer,” Hibbert said. “If I were to say I wanted my $2MM and the trade couldn’t get done, I would have been back in Indy and wouldn’t have gotten that $2MM anyway. I would have had to basically fight an uphill battle just to try and get on the court. Hopefully I can make that [money] up in the long run if I do well.” The center gave back all but $78,185 of what otherwise would have been a $2.3MM payout for being traded to make the deal happen.
- While the Suns may indeed have enough talent to compete for a playoff spot in the West, the team will likely fall short of the postseason for the third straight year, Tim Bontemps of the New York Post (Facebook link) opines in his season preview of the franchise.
Western Notes: Jazz, Nash, Mavs, Crabbe
The Jazz are content to play through the preseason, at least, with the point guards they have now, rather than trading for a Dante Exum replacement, reports Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah won’t turn down an overwhelming offer, but the team isn’t pushing for a deal as Exum recovers from surgery two weeks ago on the torn ACL in his left knee, as Jones details. The team was reportedly interested in dealing for Garrett Temple and pursued Jason Terry before he re-signed with the Rockets, but Jones and Tribune colleague Aaron Falk wrote shortly after Exum’s injury last month that the Jazz would probably replace him in-house with Trey Burke, Raul Neto and Bryce Cotton. See more from the Western Conference here:
- Steve Nash is finalizing a deal with the Warriors to become a part-time player development consultant for the team, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The two-time MVP, now 41 years old, announced his retirement this spring. Warriors coach Steve Kerr was Suns GM during Nash’s time in Phoenix.
- Point guard isn’t an issue for the Mavericks, who again feature four players at that position, as Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com notes. The team replaced Rajon Rondo with Deron Williams, re-signed J.J. Barea and, though the Mavs reportedly planned to shop Raymond Felton, he remains in Dallas.
- Allen Crabbe‘s 35.3% three-point shooting last season was respectable but far from elite, and this year is the last on his contract, so the former 31st overall pick spent much of the summer working on his shot with Blazers assistant coach Nate Tibbetts, as Joe Freeman of The Oregonian details. Portland kept Crabbe past the point this summer when his minimum salary for the season ahead became guaranteed.
Hoops Rumors Community Shootaround 9/14/15
At this time last year, very few people anticipated that the Golden State Warriors would be the NBA’s premier team in 2014/15. While the Warriors had a strong young nucleus, they also had a rookie head coach in Steve Kerr. There were plenty of questions regarding their core group after the Warriors lost in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs to the Clippers.
You know the rest. From start to finish, the Warriors were more than just a contender. They dominated in the regular season, then validated their gaudy 67-15 record by storming through the playoffs and knocking off the hobbled Cavaliers in the Finals.
A repeat would seem to be well within their reach, given that all their starters are back, as well as many of their key reserves. Not only do they have the league’s reigning MVP in Stephen Curry, they re-signed restricted free agent and versatile forward Draymond Green to a long-term contract.
The Warriors had some good fortune last season, as their core players remained relatively healthy throughout the season. An injury to a key performer could drastically change their outlook. As we’ve seen many times before, it’s not easy to remain the top dog in the Western Conference.
The competition is fierce and several teams will be nipping at the Warriors’ heels. The always-dangerous Spurs added prized free agent LaMarcus Aldridge. The Clippers remained a viable contender once free agent DeAndre Jordan changed his mind and spurned the Mavericks to stay in L.A. The Thunder possess the league’s best 1-2 punch in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. The Rockets reached the conference finals and have their own formidable superstar duo in James Harden and Dwight Howard. The Grizzlies are chock-full of wily, playoff-tested veterans. Even the Pelicans, behind the league’s best young big man Anthony Davis, can harbor realistic dreams of a deep playoff run.
Our topic of the night, just two weeks away from training camp, is this: Which Western Conference team poses the biggest threat to the Warriors’ supremacy?
Take to the comments to share your thoughts and opinions on this topic. We look forward to what you have to say.
Western Notes: Timberwolves, Vonleh, Warriors
Timberwolves interim coach Sam Mitchell will have his patience tested by flashy point guard Ricky Rubio, David Aldridge of NBA.com opines. While the franchise wants to take pressure off Rubio by making him understand that he’s no longer viewed as its savior, he may be on a shorter leash than he had with coach Flip Saunders, who is out indefinitely while he receives cancer treatments, Aldridge continues. It was Saunders, as the franchise’s president of basketball operations, who gave Rubio a $56MM extension last year, Aldridge points out. In the same piece, Aldridge also reports that many people around the league felt team owner Glen Taylor wanted to bring back Mitchell as the team’s head coach, though not under these circumstances. Mitchell was one of the franchise’s most beloved players and a former NBA Coach of the Year with Toronto, Aldridge adds.
In other news around the Western Conference:
- Noah Vonleh’s size, shooting touch and ballhandling make him an intriguing prospect but he needs to prove he can consistently use those skills against NBA competition, according to Mike Richman of The Oregonian. Vonleh, who was traded to the Trail Blazers from the Hornets this offseason, led Portland’s summer team in scoring (17.3 points per game) and rebounding (8.5) while displaying his ballhandling and ability to take slower forwards off the dribble, Richman continues. A sports hernia injury in training camp sidelined Vonleh early in his rookie season and he got buried in Charlotte’s crowded frontcourt rotation, Richman adds.
- Ian Clark and Jarell Eddie will receive approximately half of their salaries if they make the Warriors’ opening night roster, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets. Clark, a 6’3” shooting guard, would receive $474K on the contract he signed Monday. Eddie, a 6’7” small forward who also signed Monday, would make $423K.
- The Warriors announced that 1,650 fans were denied access to Oracle Arena last season due to counterfeit tickets purchased from third-party vendors, Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group tweets.
Warriors Sign Ian Clark To Camp Deal
SEPTEMBER 14TH, 5:22pm: Clark has signed with the Warriors, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reveals (Twitter link), though the team hasn’t made an announcement. It’s a non-guaranteed deal that becomes partially guaranteed for $474K if he’s not waived by the end of the day before opening night.
JULY 27TH, 2:38pm: The Warriors have agreed to sign two-year veteran shooting guard Ian Clark, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Golden State and the David Mondress client are still negotiating terms, but Clark has committed to the team, Charania adds. Golden State is limited to paying him the minimum salary, so it would seem the back-and-forth would be over length and the amount of guaranteed money. He became an unrestricted free agent after the Nuggets decided against making a qualifying offer of about $1.147MM.
Clark, 24, had hoped the Nuggets would re-sign him after his summer league performance, in which he averaged 13.4 points per game and made 12 of 24 total three-point attempts, but Denver renounced its rights to him to clear cap room. That didn’t preclude the team from re-signing him, but it did make it seem to make the possibility less likely. Denver claimed him off waivers from the Jazz late last season, apparently with the idea of keeping him for this year, but it appears that plan didn’t work out.
Golden State has 13 guaranteed contracts, leaving room under the 15-man regular season roster limit for the team to give one to Clark. The Warriors have a connection with him that dates back to the Las Vegas Summer League in 2013, when a 33-point outburst in the championship game helped him secure a contract with the Jazz. He’d gone undrafted out of Belmont earlier that summer.
Do you think Ian Clark has a shot to make the rotation for the Warriors this year? Leave a comment to let us know.
Warriors Sign Jarell Eddie To Camp Deal
SEPTEMBER 14TH, 5:15pm: Eddie has a signed contract, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (on Twitter), though the team has yet to make an announcement. It’s a two-year, minimum-salary arrangement, and it’s non-guaranteed, Pincus says.
AUGUST 21ST, 10:29am: The Warriors and Jarell Eddie have reached agreement on a deal that will bring the one-year veteran to training camp to compete for a spot on the opening night roster, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Eddie, a small forward who went undrafted out of Virginia Tech in 2014, was with the Hawks on a 10-day contract this past spring, though he didn’t appear in a game. The Warriors have only 13 fully guaranteed contracts, as our roster count shows, meaning Eddie will likely compete with James McAdoo, Chris Babb and Ian Clark for a regular season spot.
Eddie, who turns 24 in October, made his mark as a three-point shooter while in the D-League for most of last season, nailing 127 of his 281 in-game attempts, a sizzling 45.2%, for the affiliate of the Spurs. He averaged 12.9 points in 26.2 minutes per game, but nonetheless made only 18 starts in 44 appearances for that team and didn’t receive a call-up to San Antonio. The Spurs and the Pacers both had him on their summer league squads last month, and he continued his sharpshooting, connecting on 46.3% of his 67 shots from behind the arc.
Several NBA teams and clubs from overseas had been in pursuit Eddie, Charania writes in a full story. Golden State would appear to give him a fairly decent chance of sticking for the regular season. McAdoo has only a $100K partial guarantee, while Babb’s deal, which the Warriors acquired in the David Lee trade, is non-guaranteed. The Warriors and Clark, another three-point marksman, were still negotiating the terms of their pact when they committed to each other in late July.
Do you think the Warriors need Eddie’s outside shooting, or should they focus on players with different skills? Leave a comment to tell us.
Pacific Notes: Morris, Lakers, Warriors
The wild offseason for Suns disgruntled power forward Markieff Morris continued when the league issued Morris a $10,000 fine for “a public statement detrimental to the NBA,” and more specifically, “Morris’ desire to be traded by the Suns,” Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic writes. Morris has yet to back off his trade demand. The situation will likely get more interesting very soon because the Suns are required to report on September 28th, as Coro mentions.
Here’s more news on the Pacific Division:
- Landing Roy Hibbert in a trade with the Pacers was the Lakers‘ best offseason move, but the summer was another total failure for the franchise, from the perspective of the “championship-or-bust” mentality, SI.com’s Ben Golliver opines. The Lakers flopped in their pursuit of LaMarcus Aldridge, as Golliver points out. Acquiring Hibbert was a worthwhile gamble, however, because the center, who will earn $15.5MM this season in the final year of his contract, cost only unused cap space and a minor draft asset, Golliver writes.
- Despite not making any splashy additions, the Warriors had a solid summer because they were able to re-sign players like Draymond Green and should have a very strong chance at repeating as champs, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders writes. Power forward Jason Thompson was the Warriors’ biggest addition, but the team did not have to do much tinkering because the roster was already loaded, Kennedy adds.
Warriors, Juwan Staten Agree To Deal
The Warriors and undrafted West Virginia point guard Juwan Staten have agreed to a one-year deal, agent Colin Bryant tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Staten was with the Kings for summer league. Golden State has been carrying 17 deals, at least 13 of which are fully guaranteed.
Staten, 23, was the 81st-best draft prospect this year in Chad Ford’s ESPN Insider rankings, while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress had him at No. 98 about a week before the draft. His playing time shrunk this past season as a senior compared to his junior year, when he averaged six more minutes per game. The 5’11” Ohio native put up 14.2 points, 4.6 assists and 2.0 turnovers in 31.3 minutes per contest for the Mountaineers this year.
A sore left knee curtailed Staten’s summer league experience, as he appeared in just one game. The Warriors are short on traditional point guards behind Stephen Curry, with Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa the backups, so Staten will try to make his case for the regular season as a more conventional insurance option. If he doesn’t make it to opening night, the Warriors can retain the D-League rights to him and as many as three other camp cuts.
Do you think Staten can win a place on the Warriors regular season roster? Leave a comment to let us know.