Pacific Links: Warriors, Hunter, Dwight
The Lakers moved with a game and a half of the final playoff spot tonight with a stunning 25-point comeback on the road against the Hornets, putting pressure on the Warriors, Rockets and Jazz. The Rockets added Aaron Brooks in the past few days to help their postseason cause, and Golden State may be the next team to bolster its roster, as we note here:
- It seemed as recently as two days ago the Warriors were in no rush to add to their 13-man roster, but co-owner Joe Lacob tells Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group that the team will probably make a signing soon. Lacob confirms the team has enough room under the luxury tax threshold to add someone for the minimum, and Kawakami believes the W's would find a fit in Dominic McGuire, who spent time with the team last season and would likely welcome a return.
- Suns coach Lindsey Hunter still has the "interim" tag attached to his title, but the team's front office saw him as the long-term solution when they promoted him, writes HoopsWorld's Alex Kennedy, who would be surprised if Phoenix doesn't retain Hunter this summer.
- Dwight Howard's characterization of his former Magic teammates as "people nobody wanted" drew a pithy response from Jameer Nelson earlier today, and Rashard Lewis followed suit, as Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel details.
- The soon-to-be free agent's reputation is also taking a beating from front office types, as a Western Conference said he "wouldn't touch Howard with a 10-foot pole," Kennedy tweets.
Poll: Which Western Team Will Miss The Playoffs?
A recent surge by the Bucks, combined with slumps by the Sixers and Raptors, has all but ended any drama surrounding which Eastern Conference teams will make the postseason. But while the eight Eastern teams may be fairly locked in, there's still a heated race going on out west, where at least one of the Warriors, Jazz, Rockets, and Lakers won't make the cut.
Currently, the Warriors (34-27) have the best record of the four clubs, followed by the Rockets (33-28), Jazz (32-28), and Lakers (30-31). However, Golden State has been sliding down the Western Conference standings in recent weeks, having lost 10 of 13 games before a Monday night win against the Raptors.
Still, with only six of their remaining 21 games on the road, the Warriors are in good position to hang on to a playoff spot. The Rockets appear to have an inside track on a postseason berth as well, given their fairly manageable rest-of-season schedule. John Hollinger's playoff odds list the Warriors and Rockets at 85.3% and 98.4%, respectively.
Things are less certain for the Jazz and Lakers. Utah has lost four of five, and has a particularly tough schedule the rest of the way, including games against the Bulls, Knicks, Thunder, and Grizzlies in the next 10 days. Nonetheless, the Jazz hold a two and a half game lead on the Lakers, who remain on the outside looking in. That's why L.A.'s odds of earning a playoff spot are still just 45.3% compared to Utah's 61.3%, according to Hollinger's formula.
With six weeks remaining in the regular season, there's still plenty of time for the playoff picture to change significantly, and plenty of opportunities for teams to gain or lose ground — the Warriors, for instance, still have multiple games on the schedule against the Rockets and Lakers, as well as one against the Jazz. A 4-1 or 1-4 performance in those contests could be the difference in whether or not the team makes the playoffs.
In all likelihood though, three of these four teams will appear in the postseason, while the other club will be watching from home. Which do you think will be the odd team out?
Which Western team will miss the playoffs?
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Utah Jazz 50% (606)
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Los Angeles Lakers 39% (472)
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Golden State Warriors 7% (83)
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Houston Rockets 4% (46)
Total votes: 1,207
Odds & Ends: Howard, Armstrong, Warriors
The Knicks topped the Cavaliers 102-97 tonight, but they had a serious scare in the second quarter when Carmelo Anthony stumbled near midcourt and injured his right knee. The forward was ruled out for the remainder of the game but the good news is that there are no tests planned for his knee, which probably means that he won't miss significant time. The Knicks have tomorrow off and that will give Anthony some time to rest up and reevaluate his condition before Wednesday's game against the Pistons. Here's more from around the Association..
- Plenty of people in the basketball world seem to think that Dwight Howard will skip town this summer, but Josh Smith is putting his money on Howard staying with the Lakers, writes Mark Medina of the L.A. Daily News. “I can’t pick his brain and be in his head but to me, I don’t see him going anywhere,” the Hawks forward said. “It would be a shock to me.”
- The Warriors have two open roster spots, but a source tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter) not to be surprised if no one is added due to difficulty of landing playing time in Golden State. That fits with the report we heard earlier today about the W's not being in a rush to sign more bodies.
- With center options dwindling in the D-League, Gino Pilato of Ridiculous Upside looks at the big men that are left for NBA teams to consider. Former first-round pick Hilton Armstrong, currently with the Santa Cruz Warriors, is among the frontcourt players to keep an eye on.
- Shaun Powell of Sports On Earth looks at coaches on the hot seat. Hawks coach Larry Drew, Pistons coach Lawrence Frank, and Clippers head man Vinny Del Negro should all feel a little toasty, according to Powell.
Warriors Not Using Open Roster Spots For Now
Since February's trade deadline, we've seen teams like the Knicks, Heat, and Celtics move to add players on 10-day contracts or multiyear deals, filling their open roster spots. After trading Jeremy Tyler and Charles Jenkins on deadline day, the Warriors are another team with a pair of open roster spots, but according to Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group, the Warriors are in no rush to add any more bodies.
Thompson reports that Friday's buyout deadline didn't yield the sort of players the Warriors had been anticipating. Had players like DeJuan Blair or Timofey Mozgov been bought out, Golden State would have been interested, but none of the current free agents or players on waivers strongly appeal to the team.
According to Thompson, if the Warriors were to add another player to the roster this season, the move would require the approval of coach Mark Jackson. Since Jackson is big on chemistry and doesn't necessarily want to take away minutes from his current players, it may not make sense for the club to bring in a player simply to have him sit on the bench.
As I detailed last week, the Warriors are also one of a handful of teams sitting just below the tax line. Based on reported salaries, Golden State would still probably have room to bring in a pair of players on pro-rated minimum contracts, but there may be players on the roster with incentives we don't know about, inching the Warriors close to the tax line. In that case, it wouldn't make sense for the club to add more salary and risk going into the tax.
Odds & Ends: Draft, Oden, Greene, Kings
The news of the night so far in the NBA is that Pacers' Roy Hibbert and Warriors' David Lee have each been suspended one game without pay for their roles in last night's skirmish (Twitter links from Yahoo's Marc Spears). In addition, Lance Stephenson, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson were each fined $35,000 for "escalating the altercation." Hibbert already told Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star that he will pay Stephenson's fine for being a good teammate, tweets Wells.
Lee will serve his suspension tonight, as the Warriors visit in the Knicks in one of 10 games on tonight's schedule. Mark Jackson, back in Madison Square Garden as head coach of the Warriors, has already expressed his displeasure with the league's decision, tweets Adam Zagoria of NBA.com. Here are some other odds and ends from around the league:
- Chad Ford of ESPN released his latest draft blog, available to insiders only and complete with an updated top 30. Ben McLemore of Kansas tops his big board but as Ford asserts, this year's top 10 promises to be as ever-changing as any in recent memory.
- Greg Oden will not decide on his next team until July, reports Sam Amico of Fox Sports. This agrees with last week's report from Marc Spears of Yahoo that Oden won't sign until the offseason, though it sounds like this came directly from Oden's agent, Mike Conley. Amico writes that Oden came close to signing with the Cavaliers earlier this month, but an agreement couldn't be reached. Conley believes that once Oden works his way into game shape, he will again have All Star potential.
- Free agent forward Donte Greene, now healthy after fracturing his ankle in August, will work out for teams at Eastern Michigan University on Sunday, tweets Marc Spears of Yahoo. Spears reported last week that the Nets, Pacers, Hornets, Spurs, Bulls, Knicks, Magic, Rockets, and Cavaliers have all checked in on Greene, who played the last four seasons in Sacramento. Citing a league source, Nets Daily has reported the Nets are not currently interested in filling their open roster spot by adding Greene.
- As was rumored yesterday, it appears that Kings minority owner John Kehriotis does in fact intend to submit a "back-up offer" to the Maloofs to buy the Kings, reports Tony Bizjak of the Sacramento Bee. Kehriotis apparently has the capital to match the offer from the Seattle group and believes he has the legal right to counter their attempt to buy the team, according to the report.
- Meanwhile, the Sacramento city council voted on Tuesday night to approve the request made by city officials to begin negotiations over the financing of a new arena, reports Bizjak. These negotiations are a crucial element to Sacramento's bid to keep the Kings.
Teams Just Below The Tax Line
Earlier today, I looked at the six NBA teams projected to be taxpayers at the end of this season. However, just because those are the teams currently in the tax doesn't mean that they're a 100% lock to be the league's only taxpayers this year.
In all likelihood, no club currently below the tax threshold ($70,307,000) will make a signing that takes its team salary into tax territory. The cost would simply outweigh the benefit. But there are a handful of teams whose current cap figure is close enough to the cutoff that they're worth keeping an eye on for the remainder of the season.
If, for instance, a team near the tax line suffered a number of injuries and needed to release a couple of guaranteed salaries and replace those players with free agents, suddenly that team's cap hit would be dangerously close to the tax.
With about 70% of the season in the books, minimum-salary contracts would only be worth a pro-rated amount of the usual amount, so a rest-of-season minimum deal signed today would only represent a cap hit of about $250K. Still, even if they're faced with injury or depth issues, the following teams may be reluctant to make too many moves the rest of the way, for fear of approaching that tax threshold:
- San Antonio Spurs: $69,750,910
- Golden State Warriors: $69,631,506
- Los Angeles Clippers: $69,354,409
- Detroit Pistons: $69,050,344
Storytellers Contracts was used in the creation of this post.
Teams Projected To Be In The Tax
On deadline day, the Warriors traded a pair of minimum-salary players, Jeremy Tyler and Charles Jenkins, for essentially nothing. Sixers GM Tony DiLeo confirmed that his team not only acquired Jenkins and put heavy protection on the second-round pick sent to the Warriors, but received an amount of cash from Golden State that more than covered the youngster's salary for the rest of the season. The specific details of the Hawks trade for Tyler aren't clear, but we can probably assume Golden State included a similar amount of cash there, and that Atlanta's second-rounder included similar protection.
For the Warriors, paying a little extra money now made more sense than paying the price later, as trading Jenkins and Tyler allowed the team to get below the tax threshold ($70,307,000) and avoid becoming a taxpayer. The moves will not only save the team from making a tax payment itself at year's end, but will allow the Warriors to receive a portion of the tax payments from the clubs above the threshold.
While the Warriors chose to avoid the tax, the Bulls resigned themselves to becoming a taxpayer for the first time rather than give up a future first-round pick to get below the line. A club like the Celtics also chose to remain marginally over the threshold, while others like the Heat, Nets, and Lakers remained significantly in the tax. Here are the clubs projected to be taxpayers this year, along with their current team salaries, which could rise if they make additional signings before season's end:
- Los Angeles Lakers: $100,166,250
- Miami Heat: $83,204,612
- Brooklyn Nets: $83,147,981
- New York Knicks: $80,165,743
- Chicago Bulls: $74,061,031
- Boston Celtics: $71,371,552
Of the six teams on this list, three of them – the Lakers, Heat, and Celtics – were also taxpayers last season, putting themselves in line for the repeater tax down the road. Teams that are in the tax for four of five seasons are subject to the repeater tax, so after being taxpayers for two consecutive years, the Lakers, Heat, and Celtics will have to stay out of the tax for two of the next three seasons to avoid paying the more punitive repeater penalty in 2016.
Storytellers Contracts was used in the creation of this post.
Western Notes: Warriors, Thunder, Bledsoe, Jazz
The most intriguing game on tonight's schedule happens out west, where the Lakers are in Denver as they try to get back to .500 for the first time since they were 15-15 at the end of December. While we wait to see if the Nuggets can keep the Lakers below .500, let's check out a few Western Conference links….
- If a big-name trade candidate becomes available this summer, the Warriors should be in the mix, says Matt Steinmetz of CSNBayArea.com, pointing out that Golden State will have young talent, draft picks, and big, expiring contracts to offer.
- As Derek Fisher prepares to join the Thunder for the rest of the season, Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News points out (via Sulia) that even when it became clear Oklahoma City wouldn't be re-signing Fisher last summer, the team had nothing but praise for him.
- When Thunder GM Sam Presti spoke on Friday about the trade that sent Eric Maynor to the Trail Blazers, he mentioned the trade exception acquired by Oklahoma City in the deal. But the Thunder also acquired the rights to Georgios Printezis, and Wendell Maxey of Ridiculous Upside thinks the club should strongly consider eventually bringing him stateside.
- By keeping Eric Bledsoe through the deadline, the Clippers are now expected to have a backup plan this summer if Chris Paul unexpectedly decides to sign elsewhere. But assuming Paul re-signs, the team will have to decide what Bledsoe's long-term future holds, writes Jovan Buha of ESPNLosAngeles.com.
- In a lengthy piece on players and teams who are "on notice" after the trade deadline, Grantland's Zach Lowe explores the Jazz's decision to keep both Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson last week.
- Following up on Dirk Nowitzki's comments about wanting to play beyond his current contract, Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com wonders how much of a bargain Nowitzki would give the Mavericks in his next deal.
Teams With Open Roster Spots
Since the trade deadline, a pair of contenders have taken advantage of having an open roster spot, with the Knicks adding Kenyon Martin on a 10-day contract and the Thunder agreeing to sign Derek Fisher for the remainder of the season.
For New York and Oklahoma City, adding a veteran as a 15th man makes sense for depth purposes, and we may see a few more playoff contenders take the same approach as Friday's buyout deadline nears. For non-contenders, a D-League pickup or two may be more likely, as teams take a look at players who may be able to contribute beyond this season.
Clubs carrying fewer than 15 players are more likely to add free agents at this point, since they won't have to release a player on a guaranteed contract to clear space for a pickup. So with the help of our constantly-updated roster counts page, let's take a quick look at the list of teams with at least one open roster spot. The number of available spots is indicated in parentheses.
Eastern Conference:
- Boston Celtics (2)
- Brooklyn Nets (1)
- Charlotte Bobcats (1)
- Chicago Bulls (1)
- Detroit Pistons (1)
- Miami Heat (1)
- Orlando Magic (1)
Western Conference:
- Golden State Warriors (2)
- Houston Rockets (1)
- Los Angeles Clippers (1)
- Los Angeles Lakers (1)
- Memphis Grizzlies (2)
- New Orleans Hornets (2)
- Sacramento Kings (1)
Brigham On Future Contenders
Joel Brigham of HoopsWorld has a new column examining which teams have a chance to be title contenders five seasons from now, taking into account possible moves in free agency and the ages of the teams' core players.
- Brigham believes the Thunder still have the brightest future, given that Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and Serge Ibaka will all be under 30 in five seasons.
- LeBron James' free agency will play a major role in determining the next title contender, Brigham writes. The health and effectiveness of Dwyane Wade will determine whether James stays with the Heat, but the Cavaliers and Lakers are also possible destinations.
- On that note, Brigham writes that, although Kyrie Irving is blossoming into a superstar, the Cavs will not be a contender unless James signs in Cleveland.
- The Bulls will still be contenders if Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah stay healthy, Brigham writes. He also notes that Nikola Mirotic will have come over to the NBA by then.
- The trade for Thomas Robinson added another young piece to the James Harden/Jeremy Lin core the Rockets have built, Brigham writes. Additionally, the team is still well under the cap and can add another high-level player via free agency.
- Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge give the Blazers a solid core to build around, writes Brigham.
- Brigham writes that there will be uncertainty every year for the next five as to whether Chris Paul will still be with the Clippers.
- Even if Stephen Curry's ankles don't hold up, Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes give the Warriors a good young core, Brigham says.
- Brigham writes that the Pacers have excellent cornerstone players in Roy Hibbert and Paul George.