Warriors Pick Up Option On Festus Ezeli
THURSDAY, 6:09pm: Golden State has officially exercised Ezeli’s option, the team has announced.
WEDNESDAY, 9:13am: The Warriors will exercise their team option to keep Festus Ezeli on his rookie scale contract through 2015/16, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Ezeli will make nearly $2.009MM that season, as our Rookie Scale Team Option Tracker shows. The club also has 2015/16 rookie scale team options pending with Harrison Barnes and Nemanja Nedovic, with a decision due by the end of Friday.
Ezeli missed all of 2013/14 after undergoing right knee surgery, but he played a key role the previous year as a rookie, starting 41 games. He averaged 2.5 points and 4.0 rebounds in 14.4 minutes per contest over 78 appearances during the season as a whole. The now 25-year-old Ezeli saw just 15 minutes total in two preseason games this month, but it appears the Warriors are willing to let him prove his health over a longer period of time before giving up on the final pick of the 2012 first round.
Golden State is facing a salary crunch for the 2015/16 season, as Ezeli’s option will lift the team’s guaranteed salaries to about $58.1MM. That doesn’t include any money for Klay Thompson, who’s pushing for the maximum salary in extension talks with the team. A max deal for Thompson and picking up the team option on Barnes would put Golden State at roughly $77MM in guaranteed salary to eight players, and that doesn’t count a nearly $1.271MM player option for Brandon Rush and assumes the team turns down Nedovic’s option. That figure would put Golden State above this season’s $76.829MM luxury tax line, and while that line is expected to rise for 2015/16, it’s unclear by how much.
Minor Moves: Covington, Mekel, Heat, Warriors
Robert Covington nearly had a deal with the Sixers this week shortly after the Rockets waived him, but talks broke down over contract length and the 23-year-old forward is expected to sign with the D-League instead, Shams Charania of RealGM reports. Philadelphia offered a four-year arrangement with a “high” amount of guaranteed salary, Charania writes, but Covington apparently passed on that. The sides were unable to forge a deal on a shorter contract, Charania notes. Covington joins K.J. McDaniels, the 32nd pick in this year’s draft who inked with the Sixers for just one year, among those resisting Philly’s efforts to tie up young players on long-term deals. The deluge of players hitting waivers in the past week has led to news around the D-League and international circuits, and we’ll pass along the latest here:
- Gal Mekel isn’t thinking of heading overseas to play in the wake of the Mavs‘ decision to waive him Wednesday, tweets David Pick of Eurobasket.com, so he’ll remain free to sign with another NBA team providing he clears waivers.
- Khem Birch, Larry Drew II, Tyler Johnson and Shawn Jones have agreed to join the Heat‘s D-League affiliate, reports Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel (Twitter link). Miami is using its ability to reserve the D-League rights to up to four of its preseason cuts to keep Birch, Johnson and Jones out of the D-League draft, but Drew played with the Heat’s D-League affiliate last year, so he wouldn’t have been subject to the draft. That allows the Heat to preserve their ability to retain the D-League rights to one player they waive during the regular season. Andre Dawkins seems a likely candidate for that sort of maneuver, Winderman suggests (on Twitter).
- Sean Kilpatrick will play for the Warriors D-League affiliate, tweets Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv, who confirms an earlier report that Aaron Craft will do the same. That means Golden State retained the D-League rights to both after waiving them last week.
Warriors Unlikely To Pick Up Nedovic’s Option
The Warriors are “leaning strongly” toward declining their team option for 2015/16 on Nemanja Nedovic, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. The option is worth nearly $1.152MM, as our Rookie Scale Team Option Tracker shows. That’s not much in the grand scheme of Golden State’s payroll, but the team is poised to have trouble avoiding the tax for 2015/16, as I outlined earlier.
Nedovic put up 1.1 points in just 5.9 minutes per game as a rookie last season, and he was an afterthought even though Golden State struggled to find a backup to Stephen Curry at the point. The Warriors signed Shaun Livingston this summer to a three year contract worth about $16.631MM in large measure to fill the backup point guard role, helping cloud the future of Nedovic, who was the 30th overall pick in 2013.
The Warriors will have about $58.1MM in commitments for next season once they pick up Festus Ezeli‘s option, as they reportedly will do, and presumably they’ll do the same with Harrison Barnes, adding about another $3.873MM. Those option pickups plus the max deal for Klay Thompson that the shooting guard is looking for would put the Warriors at roughly $77MM for eight players next season, not counting a nearly $1.271MM player option for Brandon Rush. That would put the team over the tax based on this year’s threshold, but it’s unclear where that tax line will be next year. Co-owner Joe Lacob reportedly has no desire to pay the tax at this point even though he’s spoken in the past of a willingness to do so.
Pacific Notes: Thompson, Lakers, Vujacic
Warriors owner Peter Guber expressed regret Monday after sending an email that appeared to play on ethnic stereotypes, as Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports details. At least one team employee took offense, according to Spears. Hawks controlling owner Bruce Levenson is selling his stake in the Atlanta franchise after the discovery of an email he sent that contained racial overtones, and Hawks GM Danny Ferry is on indefinite leave of absence from the team after his racially charged comments. It remains to be seen if any such fallout with happen with Guber in the wake of the Donald Sterling scandal that touched off heightened awareness around the league. Here’s more from the Pacific Division:
- Extension-eligible Klay Thompson reiterated his desire to stay with the Warriors in comments to Michael Lee of The Washington Post, who notes Stephen Curry‘s verbal influence on the team’s decision to keep Thompson out of Kevin Love trade proposals. “It’s arguments either way if you make a move or what not, how your team is going to look and if it’s a good move or not,” Curry said to Lee. “Obviously, you know that other guy was pretty good, but when you have a core that’s continuing to get better, you got a lot of good chemistry, we fit together, it makes sense. And you want to fight for that. [Thompson is] nowhere near his ceiling.”
- The Lakers aren’t planning to apply to have Steve Nash‘s salary wiped from their cap based on a medical retirement, GM Mitch Kupchak told reporters Monday, as Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times notes (Twitter link). Nash hasn’t announced his retirement even though the 40-year-old is out for the season with nerve damage in his back. The team is instead applying for a Disabled Player Exception.
- Sasha Vujacic has signed with Spain’s Laboral Kuxta, the Euroleague announced. Sportando’s Enea Trapani first reported the move involving the eight-year NBA veteran who spent time last season with the Clippers on a 10-day contract. He’ll replace former Kings swingman Orlando Johnson, whom the team is letting go, according to Trapani.
Southwest Notes: Barea, Mavs, Pelicans, Cotton
The Rockets were the busiest Southwest team on roster cut-down day, waiving a total of five players to get down to 15. However, the Mavericks had an interesting day as well, deciding to waive reserve point guard Gal Mekel in hopes of reuniting with recently released J.J. Barea. Let’s see what else is going on in the Southwest tonight:
- As Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News writes, any team that wants to claim Mavericks-target Barea off waivers would need more than about $4.5MM in cap space, or a trade exception or disabled player exception of at least that size. Sefko mentions the rival Rockets as a team that might want to claim Barea but likely wouldn’t based on its lack of flexibility.
- The Mavericks tried to acquire Barea from the Wolves last season but the teams couldn’t come to an agreement, according to Jon Krawczynski of the Associated Press (via Twitter).
- The Pelicans‘ desire to re-sign Omer Asik is a factor in the team declining to pick up the 2015/16 option on Austin Rivers, writes John Reid of the Times Picayune. Reid adds that with Eric Gordon likely to opt in to his $15.5MM salary for next season, New Orleans preferred the additional financial flexibility.
- Bryce Cotton, who was released by the Spurs last week, plans to sign with San Antonio’s D-League affiliate in the next few days, sources tell Jabari Young of Comcast Sports Northwest (via Twitter).
And-Ones: Brazil, Shorter Games, Hawks, Nets
The NBA has struck a deal to partner with Brazil’s Liga Nacional de Basquete, the top domestic league in that country, Grantland’s Zach Lowe reports. The arrangement will likely give the NBA an ownership stake in the league and will allow for the exchange of ideas on marketing, player development and other best practices, according to Lowe. Many NBA league office types would like to see the pro game played with one universal set of rules around the globe, a sentiment that some others around international basketball share, Lowe notes, so the Brazilian deal could be a step in that direction. There’s more from Lowe amid our look at the latest around the league:
- There’s “nearly unanimous” opposition to the idea of reducing the length of games to 44 minutes, as Lowe writes in the same piece, laying out a handful of reasons why many around the league are against the idea that the NBA experimented with earlier this month. Still, Lowe believes there’s a decent chance the idea resurfaces at some point.
- Sources tell Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal that they expect the Hawks to sell for at least $750MM and perhaps close to $1 billion. Presumably, those figures pertain to 100% of the franchise, and it’s still uncertain just how much of the Hawks will end up on the block.
- Evercore Partners, with Bruce Ratner at the controls, is once more shopping its 20% share of the Nets after tabling that pursuit earlier, Kaplan adds.
- Warriors camp invitee Aaron Craft will play for the team’s D-League affiliate, his agent tells Bob Baptist of The Columbus Dispatch (Twitter link). That signals that Golden State made him one of the four preseason cuts it can reserve for its affiliate, since Craft would otherwise have to go through the D-League draft.
- Kim English, whom the Bulls waived earlier this month, has a deal with SLUC Nancy, a French team, sources tell Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia.
And-Ones: Oladipo, Jordan, Bryant
There are a number of young up-and-coming small forwards in the league. John Zitzler of Basketball Insiders profiles the ones he thinks will have breakout seasons in 2014/15. Here’s more from around the league:
- Victor Oladipo underwent surgery to repair a facial fracture and is expected to be out for a month, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The Magic guard said that the surgery went well and vowed to come back strong in a pair of tweets.
- $100K of Jerome Jordan‘s minimum salary was locked in today, as he remained on the roster beyond the partial guarantee date, as noted on the updated Nets salary sheet maintained by Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.
- The Nets used their trade exception of $788,872 to receive Casper Ware‘s $816,482 contract in the trade that sent Marquis Teague to the Sixers, tweets Pincus. The incoming salary is allowed to exceed the exception within $100K. The Nets created a new exception equivalent to Teague’s salary, as we noted last night.
- If Kobe Bryant has indeed scared away potential free agents, then Lakers management is to blame for the state of the franchise, Ken Berger of CBSSports.com writes. One league executive tells Berger, “They’re [the Lakers] the ones that gave him a $48MM extension knowing that nobody wanted to play with him. And they were also the ones that gave away multiple first-round picks for an over-the-hill Steve Nash. Not to mention firing every coach that Magic [Johnson] decided he didn’t like.”
- The Warriors‘ Klay Thompson has two outspoken allies in his quest for a contract extension, writes Diamond Leung of Bay Area News Group. Thompson’s father Mychal, a former NBA player, has insisted that his son is worth a maximum-salary extension. The senior Thompson’s opinion was echoed earlier this week by former Warriors coach and current ESPN broadcaster Mark Jackson. “It’s good to hear from guys like that because they both played in the NBA, and both were successful in the NBA and [have] been around the game for so many decades,” Klay Thompson said. “So if they think I’m that quality type of player, it makes me think highly of myself as well.”
Arthur Hill contributed to this post.
Warriors Waive Five Players
The Warriors have waived Aaron Craft, Jason Kapono, Sean Kilpatrick, James Michael McAdoo, and Mitchell Watt, the team announced in a press release. These moves will reduce Golden State’s preseason roster count to 15, which is the regular season maximum. None of these moves come as a surprise as all were longshots to make the regular season roster. All of the players except for Kapono had partial guarantees for $35K. Kapono’s deal was non-guaranteed, so the Warriors aren’t on the hook for any money for him.
Craft averaged 8.9 PPG and 4.7 APG during his four seasons at Ohio State. He put up 7.4 points in 22.0 minutes per contest in July during Las Vegas summer league play for the Warriors after going undrafted in June. The 22-year-old also joined the Sixers for the Orlando summer league, though he didn’t see nearly as much playing time. Craft appeared in four preseason games, averaging 3.0 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.00 steal in 14.7 minutes per contest.
The veteran Kapono appeared in five preseason games, averaging 3.2 and 1.6 rebounds in 8.7 minutes per game. The 6’8″, 33 year-old swingman last played in the NBA during the 2011/12 season when he appeared in 27 games for the Lakers. Kapono’s career numbers over nine seasons are 6.7 PPG, 1.7 RPG, and 0.8 APG. His career slash line is .442/.434/.835. He had officially announced his retirement back in May of this year, but decided to give making the Warriors a shot.
The undrafted Kilpatrick signed with the Warriors on October 20th but did not see any action in the preseason. McAdoo appeared in five preseason games, averaging 5.6 PPG, 3.6 RPG and 1.2 SPG in 13.0 minutes per contest. Watt appeared in two preseason games, averaging 3.5 points, 2.0 rebounds, 1.5 assists and a team-leading 1.5 blocks while logging 9.5 minutes per game.
Pacific Notes: Lakers, Barnes, McLemore
Former Warriors coach Mark Jackson believes Klay Thompson has “got to get” maximum salaries in his next deal, even as the team is reportedly pushing for him to take less as the October 31st extension deadline nears. Of course, after a controversial end to his tenure in Golden State, it’s quite possible that Jackson’s advancement of the idea of max money for Thompson is a dig at the Warriors, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News suggests (Twitter link). In any case, we’ll soon see if the team is willing to come to terms with Thompson or set him up for restricted free agency next summer, and as we wait, here’s more from around the Pacific Division:
- Lakers co-owner Jeanie Buss takes exception to an ESPN.com report that indicated that Kobe Bryant is driving free agents away from the Lakers, as she made clear today in an appearance on ESPN’s SportsCenter. “”Any free agent that would be afraid to play with Kobe Bryant is probably a loser, and I’m glad they wouldn’t come to the team,” Buss said. The report indicated that Paul George signed his extension with the Pacers last year in part because he had reservations about Bryant and didn’t want to hit free agency and sign with the Lakers, though George has publicly questioned the report’s veracity (Twitter link).
- Matt Barnes felt as though he was being replaced when the Clippers pursued other small forwards in free agency this summer, as he tells Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. Barnes nonetheless says he would like to come off the bench even though coach Doc Rivers said Wednesday that he’ll start on opening night.
- Ben McLemore is leaving agent Rodney Blackstock, as he confirmed to reporters, including James Ham of Cowbell Kingdom, who originally reported the move. The shooting guard hasn’t decided when he’ll hire a replacement, Ham adds. The Kings picked up their team option on McLemore this past weekend.
Warriors Sign Sean Kilpatrick
TUESDAY, 5:08pm: Kilpatrick’s deal with Golden State is for the minimum but contains only $35K in guaranteed salary, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (via Twitter).
MONDAY, 4:59pm: The Warriors have signed shooting guard Sean Kilpatrick, the team announced. The team is limited to giving the minimum salary, but it’s unclear if there’s any guarantee involved for the 24-year-old who went undrafted this summer out of the University of Cincinnati. The addition gives Golden State a full 20-man preseason roster and also allows the Warriors to keep Kilpatrick’s D-League rights should the Warriors turn around and waive him before opening night.
The 6’4″ Kilpatrick poured in 20.6 points in 33.8 minutes per game for the Bearcats this season, though he rejects the idea that he’s merely a scorer, as he told Zach Links of Hoops Rumors before the draft. He averaged 4.3 rebounds in his four-year college career in spite of his height. Kilpatrick was in summer league with the Sixers this year.
Golden State has 13 fully guaranteed deals, partial guarantees with five others, and a non-guaranteed pact with Jason Kapono. The Warriors, like every other team in the league, must trim down to no more than 15 players a week from today.