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Hoops Rumors Originals

Hoops Rumors Features

November 18th, 2014 at 2:22pm CST by Chuck Myron

Hoops Rumors passes along the latest news and rumors on NBA player movement 365 days a year, but those aren’t the only updates you’ll see on the site. On our right sidebar, you’ll find a number of additional features and featured posts. Here’s a rundown of a few of them:

  • The new Trade Rumors App lets you stay on top of all of the rumors wherever you go. The App has customizable feeds that let you filter the news from Hoops Rumors and our sister sites MLB Trade Rumors and Pro Football Rumors. Versions are available for both iOS and Android. Best of all, it’s free!
  • We’re keeping track of the players eligible for free agency in 2015 as the ability for LeBron James, Kevin Love, Rajon Rondo, Marc Gasol and others to hit the market next year begins to affect the landscape of the league.
  • Kevin Durant isn’t the only player set for free agency in 2016. Many NBA front offices are already scoping out the full class of 2016 free agents.
  • Our agency database is a handy reference point for determining the representation for virtually every NBA player.
  • Several NBA teams can pay no more than the minimum salary to any free agent signee. Our updated list identifies these clubs.
  • We’re about midway through our look at how each of the NBA’s 30 teams fared during the offseason with our Offseason In Review series. Every franchise receives in-depth treatment on the complete scope of the offseason, from the draft, through free agency, and up to the October 31st rookie scale extension deadline.
  • Teams are already pivoting their focus toward the trade deadline, but many players remain ineligible to be traded for several more weeks. Here’s the date that each offseason acquisition may be traded.
  • Our list of outstanding traded player exceptions is updated whenever a trade exception is created, used or expires.
  • Some teams have more flexibility than others, and our roster counts show which of them have room beneath the 15-man maximum. It also lets you see which players have non-guaranteed salary, making them more vulnerable should their teams look to make a move.
  • Our Rookie Scale Team Option Tracker is a team-by-team recap of every player whose 2015/16 rookie scale team option was either exercised or declined before the October 31st deadline.
  • Eddie Scarito is looking back on notable trades from the past several years to see how they’ve panned out over time. He recently examined the deals that sent Dwight Howard to the Lakers, Deron Williams to the Nets, and Kevin Garnett to the Celtics.
  • Using our 10-day contract tracker, you can find any 10-day contract signed this year or in any season since the 2006/07. You can sort by player, team, year and other variables.
  • We give you a turn in the spotlight when we showcase the best reader comments with our Hoops Rumors Featured Feedback posts.
  • On Wednesdays at 3:00pm CT, I answer reader questions in a live chat. You can check out transcripts of our past discussions here.
  • We’re tracking each team’s use of the amnesty clause. Our complete table shows which clubs have used the provision and which still have it available.
  • The Hoops Rumors glossary helps explain some of the more complex concepts in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement. Recently, I added an entry on D-League assignments, which should continue to grow in frequency this season.
  • We’ll be keeping track of each of those D-League assignments and recalls throughout the year, categorizing them by team.
  • Zach Links rounds up the best of the blogosphere with Hoops Links on Sundays.
  • If you’re looking to catch up, our Week in Review posts compile the top news and rumors from the past seven days, while our Hoops Rumors Originals posts recap the site’s original content for the week. Both roundups are published every Sunday.
  • Be sure to check out the Featured Posts section on the right sidebar for more original pieces from the Hoops Rumors writing team. Recently, we debuted the Hoops Rumors 2015 Free Agent Power Rankings, spoke with Knicks D-League assistant coach and former Bulls guard Craig Hodges, and examined the more than $450MM handed out in rookie scale extensions this year.
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Offseason In Review: Denver Nuggets

November 18th, 2014 at 11:36am CST by Chuck Myron

Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees, and more will be covered, as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.

Signings

Extensions

Trades

  • Acquired 2014 pick No. 16, 2014 pick No. 19, and the less favorable of Chicago’s and Portland’s 2015 second-round picks from the Bulls in exchange for 2014 pick No. 11 and Anthony Randolph.
  • Acquired Arron Afflalo from the Magic in exchange for Evan Fournier and 2014 pick No. 56.

Waiver Claims

  • None

Draft Picks

  • Jusuf Nurkic (Round 1, 16th overall). Signed via rookie scale exception to rookie scale contract.
  • Gary Harris (Round 1, 19th overall). Signed via rookie scale exception to rookie scale contract.
  • Nikola Jokic (Round 2, 41st overall). Playing overseas.
  • Erick Green (2013, Round 2, 46th overall): Signed via mid-level exception for three years, $2.333MM. First year is partially guaranteed for $50K. Second and third years are non-guaranteed.

Camp Invitees

Departing Players

Rookie Contract Option Decisions

  • None

Perhaps the greatest additions the Nuggets made to their lineup this offseason were simply the healthy returns of several players who missed significant time with injuries last season. Danilo Gallinari and JaVale McGee, two would-be starters who accounted for nearly $20.9MM in payroll, appeared in a total of five games put together during 2013/14. J.J. Hickson and Nate Robinson, two key acquisitions from the summer of 2013, suffered torn ACLs. A roster that was largely unchanged from a 57-win squad in 2012/13 sunk to just 36 wins, 13 games out of the playoffs.

NBA: Detroit Pistons at Denver NuggetsThe Nuggets entered the summer without the capacity to create cap room short of a trade and seemingly little motivation to make a substantive change, short of the availability of a superstar. They were reportedly involved in trade talk for Kevin Love, and at one point they were apparently Minnesota’s most favored trading partner outside of the Cavs and Warriors, but it never looked as though a deal was close. Denver had already acquired another team’s leading scorer by the time July began, bringing back Arron Afflalo from his two-year sojourn in Orlando, where he’d taken on much of the offensive load for a still-developing team. GM Tim Connelly used the sizable trade exception left over from the sign-and-trade deal that sent Andre Iguodala to Golden State the year before, and since it was Iguodala whom the Nuggets acquired to replace Afflalo back in 2012, this summer’s deal completed a circle.

The now 29-year-old Afflalo returns to Denver a more accomplished player than when he left, and one who showed a greater knack for making it to the free throw line even as he took a career-high 4.1 three-point attempts per game last year. Afflalo is also closer to the end of his contract, which pays him $7.5MM this year and would do the same in 2015/16, though he appears poised to opt out this summer. The cost to the Nuggets seemed low at the time of the trade, as Evan Fournier had yet to show why former GM Masai Ujiri spent the 20th overall pick of 2012 on him, but the Magic reportedly chose the shooting guard over other Afflalo trade packages that would have given them a future first-rounder. The wisdom of Ujiri and Magic GM Rob Hennigan is more readily apparent as Fournier has averaged 17.3 points per game to start the season in Orlando, nearly as many as Afflalo put up last season, though Fournier’s 50.9% three-point shooting suggests a regression is in order.

In any case, with a veteran to slot in at shooting guard, where Denver had been weak after the departure of Iguodala, Connelly and his staff decided two mid first-round rookies were better than one, trading the No. 11 overall pick in this year’s draft for Nos. 16 and 19. The presence of Afflalo, Randy Foye and a healthy Robinson will keep 19th pick Gary Harris from having a significant effect for a while, but 16th pick Jusuf Nurkic is already nudging his way into the rotation at center. Coach Brian Shaw has at times given Nurkic, McGee and Timofey Mozgov all meaningful minutes during games, a three-headed center rotation that worked for Shaw’s mentor, Phil Jackson, with the Bulls in the 1990s but is far from ideal. The Cavs showed consistent trade interest in Mozgov this past offseason, and while the Nuggets seemed just as consistent in turning them away, Nurkic’s development adds an intriguing subplot to Mozgov’s situation.

The Nuggets can also go three deep at power forward with Kenneth Faried, Hickson and Darrell Arthur, but that didn’t stop the team from investing heavily in Faried. The dreadlocked former 22nd overall pick made noticeable strides in his game last season and over the summer with Team USA. Connelly and company reportedly gauged the trade market for Faried about a year ago, but nothing came of early season rumors connecting him to the Knicks and Iman Shumpert, and the Nuggets reaped the benefits of Faried’s improvement.

Still, a report this week suggested that Denver isn’t as thrilled with his on-court performance as his four-year, $50MM extension would indicate, further asserting that the PR benefits of the deal played into the team’s thinking. Failing to extend Faried would have left some unanswered questions about the franchise’s future, but it also would have given the team a greater degree of flexibility. As it is, the Nuggets have about $58.2MM in commitments against a 2015/16 salary cap that’s likely to check in around $66-68MM. Some combination of Afflalo’s player option and non-guaranteed salary for Wilson Chandler and Foye could eat up whatever modest cap room Denver would otherwise be able to clear.

Perhaps leaving some questions unanswered and taking Faried to restricted free agency might have been the wisest move, particularly if Denver’s front office still has doubts about his game. The Nuggets have in the post-Carmelo Anthony era treaded the perilous waters of mediocrity, in true contention neither for the title nor the No. 1 overall pick. The team’s early season struggles have it lower in the standings than usual, but that’ll probably change once Denver’s coterie of players returning from injury get their legs back. It’s difficult to see just what the Nuggets are planning for the future even though they’ve invested in Faried as a major part of it.

Connelly’s ultimate aim appears to be packaging the team’s multitude of steady contributors in a trade for a star, as this summer’s talks involving Love suggest. Doing the Carmelo trade in reverse seemed to have been Ujiri’s end game, too, but as difficult as it can be to trade a superstar, it’s much harder to obtain one. For now, it’s a waiting game, and for Denver, it’s possible that over time Faried, Nurkic and maybe others will continue their development and become stars in their own right. It’s probably more likely that they fall short of that level, as most do. All of it leaves Denver in a position that’s not particularly appealing, one with which the Nuggets have become all too familiar.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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Poll: Reggie Jackson’s Future In OKC

November 17th, 2014 at 10:53pm CST by Alex Lee

A week ago, our own Chuck Myron unveiled our 2015 Free Agent Power Rankings, a list that profiles the top 10 targets for next summer and also lists the next 10 best. Absent from that compilation is restricted free agent-to-be Reggie Jackson, who has been on a mission over the past week to keep the Thunder afloat while Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook heal up. The fourth year point guard — whose extension talks with Oklahoma City fell apart in October — is averaging 21.5 points, 7.6 assists and 4.9 rebounds in the team’s first 11 games. All of a sudden, the Boston College product seems destined for quite the payday come summertime.

With the Rockets in town yesterday, Jackson’s recent play led Houston’s James Harden to weigh in on the backup point guard’s situation. Harden is uniquely qualified to comment, as the Rockets’ superstar was once the tertiary option himself in Oklahoma City. After he played a major role in the Thunder’s 2011/12 Finals appearance, Harden was shipped to Houston once it became clear the two sides couldn’t agree to an extension. He immediately emerged as a superstar in Houston, averaging over 25 points since in 161 career games with the Rockets.

Sitting at 3-8 with their two megastars on the shelf, the Thunder are feeling the ramifications of that trade at this very moment. Some think small-market OKC didn’t want to pay the luxury tax, which would have been inevitable had they ponied up the necessary money for a Harden extension. Others say the Thunder, already armed with Durant, Westbrook and Serge Ibaka, thought that the package of Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb and two first round picks was enough to ensure long-term success.

More than two years and zero additional Finals appearances later, it’s safe to say the decision to move Harden was a bust. The question is, what does that mean for Jackson? He might not possess the All-NBA potential of Harden, but Jackson has showed so far this season that he can fill up a box score with the best of them. Have the Thunder learned their lesson? Jackson is sure to get lucrative offers next summer from teams hoping to pry him from OKC. What do you think the Thunder should do?

What Should Thunder Do With Reggie Jackson?
Don't match anything over $12MM per year 41.42% (239 votes)
They should have traded him, he doesn't fit with Westbrook 31.37% (181 votes)
Match any offer less than the max (which is projected to start at $15.5MM) 15.25% (88 votes)
With the Durant uncertainty, they must match any offer 11.96% (69 votes)
Total Votes: 577
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Offseason In Review: Brooklyn Nets

November 17th, 2014 at 10:01am CST by Zachary Links

Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees, and more will be covered, as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.

Signings

Extensions

  • None

Trades

Waiver Claims

  • None

Draft Picks

  • Markel Brown (Round 2, 44th overall). Signed via minimum-salary exception for two years. Second year is non-guaranteed.
  • Xavier Thames (Round 2, 59th overall). Playing in Spain.
  • Cory Jefferson (Round 2, 60th overall). Signed via minimum-salary exception for two years. First year is $75K guaranteed. Second year is non-guaranteed.

Camp Invitees

  • Willie Reed

Departing Players

Rookie Contract Option Decisions

When the Nets hired Jason Kidd as head coach in the summer of 2013, many wondered how quickly he could make himself comfortable in his new role immediately after finishing his playing career.  One year later, Kidd made a power play and when ownership wouldn’t give him control over basketball operations, he forced a trade to Milwaukee.  His attempted coup came soon after he tried to convince Billy King & Co. to trade Brook Lopez and Mirza Teletovic to the Bucks for Larry Sanders and Ersan Ilyasova. It’s safe to say that he figured out this coaching thing pretty quickly.

NBA: Brooklyn Nets at Phoenix SunsKidd has since been replaced with savvy veteran coach Lionel Hollins, and that was far from the only major change for Brooklyn this summer. The Kidd saga may have been the most shocking storyline of the offseason, but Brooklyn’s biggest loss on the court was the departure of Paul Pierce.  Losing the 37-year-old stings not just because of the sticker price the Nets paid for him (and Kevin Garnett) in June of 2013, but because of what he brought to the court, even at his advanced age.  The Nets, as you’ll recall, actually took off after Lopez’s unfortunate season-ending injury and that was thanks to their small-ball lineup with Pierce at the four.  Pierce was in the midst of a wonderful second act to his career in black-and-white, but he was as surprised as the rest of us to see it all abruptly come to an end.

“It just happened so fast,” Pierce told reporters about a month ago. “I had a chance to talk to [Kidd] and he has his reasons, the way things went down. But like I said, the business — you’ve got to understand the business aspect of it. He moved on. The Nets moved on and people went their different directions. You see that a lot in this business.”

Pierce wound up signing with the Wizards on a two-year, $10.849MM contract and The Truth swears that the Nets let him go without a real fight or even an offer.  Pierce says the Nets conveyed to him that they didn’t feel that they could contend in 2014/15 and wanted to cut costs.  That’s a sad reality for Nets fans who expected that the money would never stop flowing from their free-spending, heli-skiing billionaire owner.  Looking back on the way the rest of the offseason played out, it’s hard to doubt the veracity of Pierce’s claims.

Shaun Livingston was another wonderful revelation for the Nets in 2013/14.  There’s simply no way the Nets could have survived missing Deron Williams for a quarter of the season (he really wasn’t all that sharp when he was on the floor, either) without the brilliant play of the former No. 4 overall pick.  Teams circled the wagons around Livingston as he was poised to hit the open market and while the Nets considered the guard to be their No. 1 priority heading into the summer, they were too outmatched and fiscally handcuffed to retain him.  Holding only Livingston’s Non-Bird rights, the Nets couldn’t do better than using their taxpayer’s mid-level exception, which would allow for a starting salary of $3.278MM and a total of nearly $10.3MM over the course of a three-year deal.  Instead, Livingston returned to California by signing a three-year deal with a starting salary at the full $5.305MM mid-level exception with the Warriors.  When considering the considerable pay difference, the Nets’ outlook for this season, and the blustery weather in Brooklyn, it’s hard to blame him.

Andray Blatche, who looked to be having a resurgence with the Nets not long ago, will also be out of the picture this season.  Despite his size, athleticism, and metrics that still cast him as an eminently worthwhile reserve player, there was little interest from the Nets or the NBA’s other 29 teams.  Blatche will take his talents (and his poor conditioning and his off-court issues) overseas this year to China.  We can expect to see him back after the CBA season is finished, but it would be a surprise to see him pull a Colin Quinn and go back to Brooklyn.

So, who’s replacing these guys?  This year, the Nets are finally welcoming draft-and-stash prospect Bojan Bogdanovic.  Brooklyn inked the swingman to a three-year, $10.1MM pact a year after they failed to shake him loose from his Turkish team, Fenerbahce Ulker, for a similar deal.  It’s (very) early in the season, but Bogdanovic has been one of the most impressive rookies so far in 2014/15, and that’s saying a lot given the hype surrounding this year’s class.

Meanwhile, to fill the void left by Livingston’s departure, the Nets completed a three-team deal with the Cavs and the Celtics to land guard Jarrett Jack.  It wasn’t easy to give up Marcus Thornton, who had some strong performances for the Nets after his midseason arrival, but Livingston’s play from last season underscored the importance of having a strong backcourt option both alongside and in support of Williams.  The swap also brought forward Sergey Karasev to the Nets’ second unit.  Of course, the C’s picked up some nice assets from the deal and the trade gave the Cavs enough cap flexibility to bring LeBron James back home.

Andrei Kirilenko, who raised suspicions with his bargain signing last season, exercised his player option for $3.3MM this season. The Nets rounded out their roster with a few other moves, like re-signing Alan Anderson to a two-year, $2.61MM deal, adding big man Jerome Jordan on a minimum salary pact, and buying their way into the later part of the draft.  The Nets had no picks heading into draft night, but they wound up acquiring three second-round choices that became Markel Brown (No. 44), Xavier Thames (No. 59), and Cory Jefferson (No. 60).  Thames will get some seasoning in Europe, but both Brown and Jefferson are with the team for 2014/15.

Reporters spent a great deal of ink discussing whether Garnett would return to the Nets for the final season of his deal or retire, but the 38-year-old confirmed the general assumption that he would be back when he showed up at camp for his 20th NBA season.  While KG’s best years are behind him, it always seemed as though KG was the key to retaining Pierce.  As it turns out, the Nets let Pierce walk and wound up on the hook for Garnett’s $12MM this season.  The Nets insist that Garnett can still be a contributor on limited minutes, but it remains to be seen how he’ll hold up between now and April, or possibly beyond.

Ultimately, much of the Nets’ success this season will come down to the health of stars Williams and Lopez.  Williams spent a large chunk of the offseason recovering from double ankle surgery and Lopez had to bounce back from the fracture in his foot that cost him all but 17 games last year.  The Nets played well despite Williams much of the time last season and as a whole were at their best without the services of Lopez, but the play of these two high-priced assets will dictate how far the Nets can go.  They won’t be in the contender conversation this season, but there’s no reason why they can’t be in the playoff mix.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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Poll: Rudy Gay’s Extension With Kings

November 16th, 2014 at 9:01pm CST by Zachary Links

Earlier today, we learned that the Kings and Rudy Gay agreed to a three-year, $40MM extension that includes a player option after year two.  On the surface, it’s significant money to be spent on a player whose game has endured sharp criticism from the analytics community over the last few years.  However, when considering Gay’s age, the short length of the pact, and Sacramento’s position as a free agent destination, one could argue that the deal is something of a good value for the Kings.

As Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated writes, the deal actually appears to be something of a head-scratcher from Gay’s perspective.  The forward was set to hit the open market this upcoming summer and would have had a good amount of leverage behind him.  No, Gay isn’t regarded as the type of guy that can be a No. 1 player for a contending team, but he’s still on the right side of 30 and the incumbent Kings likely would have been just as hungry to retain him then, if not more so.  Meanwhile, the $13.3MM average annual value won’t leave Gay starving, but it’s a step back from the $16.4MM AAV on his previous deal.

On the flipside, the Kings have signed on for at least two additional seasons for a player who has been widely panned for his offensive inefficiency in recent seasons.  In 75 games for the Grizzlies and Raptors in 2012-13, Gay recorded a combined PER of 15.6, putting him in the same range as guys like Ivan Johnson, DeMarre Carroll, and Matt Barnes.  Since then, Gay has set new career highs in PER in each of the last two seasons (18.3 and 22.0, respectively), but the forward is not far removed from his pattern of dreadful offensive decisions and ill-advised long-range shots.  The Grizzlies didn’t fade after trading Gay to Toronto and the Raptors actually improved after dealing Gay to the Kings, so it’s certainly fair for one to wonder exactly how valuable the 28-year-old really is.

Gay traded in the chance to earn a bit more this summer for the security of a new deal with the Kings, albeit with an escape hatch that can allow him to collect some of that sweet, sweet TV money in the summer of 2017.  Putting aside the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the deal from Gay’s perspective, what do you think of the extension from the Kings’ side of things?

Is The Gay Extension A Smart Deal For The Kings?
Yes 79.11% (625 votes)
No 20.89% (165 votes)
Total Votes: 790
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Hoops Rumors Originals

November 16th, 2014 at 3:32pm CST by Zachary Links

Here’s a look back at the original analysis generated by the Hoops Rumors staff this week…

  • If the Wizards can reach the Eastern Conference Finals this year, they could establish themselves as a real contender for Kevin Durant in 2016, writes Chuck Myron.
  • The Channing Frye overpay didn’t make a ton of sense, but the Magic do have an exciting young core to build around, Eddie Scarito writes.
  • Alex Lee asked you to predict how many games the 76ers will win.  Only a small percentage of Hoops Rumors readers see them clearing 20 wins.
  • Here’s a list of every entry in Eddie’s Trade Retrospective series.
  • Chuck reflected on the Cavs’ wild offseason.
  • Chuck looked at the 76ers’ strange situation.
  • The 2015 Free Agent Power Rankings have a pair of Cavs at the top.
  • Roughly 41% of you say that Greg Monroe is the most likely 2015 free agent to sign elsewhere.
  • Eddie looked back on the Bucks’ offseason, including the surprise hiring of Jason Kidd.
  • Read up on how D-League assignments work here.  We’ll also be keeping track of this year’s assignments and recalls in this running post.
  • Eddie recapped the Pistons’ offseason.
  • If you missed out on this week’s chat, check out the transcript here.
  • Here’s how you can follow specific players on Hoops Rumors.
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Trade Retrospective Series

November 15th, 2014 at 10:45am CST by Eddie Scarito

It’s an extremely risky undertaking when you trade away a star player in the NBA. Top-tier talent is tough to recoup equal value for, and the franchise dealing away the star rarely improves its situation as a result of the transaction.

This past summer’s biggest trade was the Timberwolves shipping Kevin Love to Cleveland for Anthony Bennett, Andrew Wiggins, and a first-rounder, which in turn went to the Sixers for Thaddeus Young. In addition to the draft pick, Philadelphia also received Luc Mbah a Moute and Alexey Shved.

This was the second time in the last seven years that Minnesota was forced to deal away its franchise player, having traded Kevin Garnett to Boston back in 2007. In light of the Love deal, which dominated the league news for a good portion of the summer, I’ve been taking a look back at past blockbuster trades and how they worked out for all the sides involved.

Here’s the list of the deals that I’ve checked out so far:

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Offseason In Review: Milwaukee Bucks

November 14th, 2014 at 6:52pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees, and more will be covered, as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.

Signings

Extensions

  • None

Trades

  • Acquired a 2015 second-round pick from the Hawks in exchange for 2014 pick No. 48.
  • Acquired Jared Dudley and the Clippers’ 2017 first-round pick (top-14 protected) from the Clippers in exchange for Carlos Delfino, Miroslav Raduljica and the Clippers’ 2015 second-round pick that they’d given up in a previous trade (as long as it falls between picks 31-50).

Waiver Claims

Draft Picks

  • Jabari Parker (Round 1, 2nd overall). Signed via rookie scale exception to rookie scale contract.
  • Damien Inglis (Round 2, 31th overall). Signed via cap room for three years, $2.65MM. Third year is non-guaranteed.
  • Johnny O’Bryant (Round 2, 36th overall). Signed via cap room for three years, $2.425MM. Third year is non-guaranteed.

Camp Invitees

  • Micheal Eric
  • Elijah Millsap

Departing Players

Rookie Contract Option Decisions

When your NBA franchise has only had one winning season out of the last 10 and your city isn’t quite the draw for free agents that a warm weather locale is, nor is seen as a major mecca such as New York or Chicago, turning your fortunes around isn’t quite so simple. This is the position that Bucks GM John Hammond finds himself in while attempting to bring winning basketball to Milwaukee.

NBA: Oklahoma City Thunder at Milwaukee BucksThe Bucks had a rather quiet offseason for a team that only won 15 games a season ago. Only one free agent was inked, and while I’m a fan of Jerryd Bayless‘ game, he’s not a transformative sort of player for the franchise. He also plays the same position as the team’s only other veteran addition, Kendall Marshall, who was claimed off waivers after being let go by the Lakers, who could sure use his services this season, and the Bucks’ current leading scorer, Brandon Knight.

Generally speaking, teams that lose 67 games have much greater issues than filling up the bottom tiers of their point guard depth chart, though both Bayless and Marshall were solid, inexpensive additions. Still, if an NBA title is going to come to Wisconsin, it’s going to take quite a bit more to make that happen.

But just because the team didn’t throw money at a number of veterans this year, it doesn’t mean the Bucks aren’t headed in the right direction. This is a franchise that will need to build itself up through player development and the NBA draft, and that plan, while not likely to fully pay off this season despite the team’s 4-4 start, is well underway.

The biggest addition this summer arrived in the form of No. 2 overall pick Jabari Parker, one of the most intriguing talents in the draft. While Parker may not have the above-the-rim athleticism of Andrew Wiggins, nor the sky-high potential of Dante Exum or a healthy Joel Embiid, Parker is arguably the most NBA-ready of the entire 2014 draft class.

Parker’s NBA position isn’t quite defined yet, and he’ll rotate between both forward positions for the time being. He’s a bit of a tweener and may not be athletic enough to guard some of the league’s more dynamic small forwards, and he isn’t strong enough yet to play with the big boys down in the paint. But Parker is a talent, and talent will always find a place in this league. I can see Parker being used eventually like Carmelo Anthony is in New York when the Knicks go to their smaller lineups and ‘Melo mans the four spot. Parker isn’t in Anthony’s class as a scorer, nor do I think he’ll ever be, but he has the potential to be a multidimensional stat-sheet filler for the Bucks, and was a great addition to the franchise.

The most important cog in the Bucks’ future already resided on their roster heading into the offseason in the 6’11” form of Giannis Antetokounmpo, bane of arena announcers and basketball writers across the league. The “Greek Freak” is a major work in progress whose physical ability and highlight-reel plays far outdo his current level of production. Antetokounmpo has all the tools to be a major star in the league for years to come, but will need more than the 23.8 minutes per game he currently receives to get there.

One obstacle that worries me in regard to the Bucks’ handling of Antetokounmpo is the team’s preseason experiment with him at point guard. While he may have the physical tools to play the position, and while it would be amazing to watch a near seven-footer man the one-spot on a nightly basis, this could derail his development. Point guard is by far the most difficult position to learn, and doing so at the NBA level against the ridiculous talent that exists in the league at that position is no easy task. There are enough fundamental holes in Antetokounmpo’s current game that he doesn’t need the added level of difficulty that a position switch would bring about.

Milwaukee wisely exercised exercised both Antetokounmpo’s and John Henson‘s rookie options this offseason, but the team passed on working out an extension with Brandon Knight. Knight isn’t a pure point guard and is much more comfortable as a scorer than as a ball-distributor. His turnover rate is extremely high this season at 4.0 per game, up from his career average of 2.7, but he’s only 22 years old, and is a dynamic offensive player. If Knight keeps up his averages of 17.4 PPG, 6.1 RPG, and 6.9 APG, he’ll definitely garner interest when he becomes a restricted free agent next summer and could be costly for the Bucks to retain.

Thanks to their young, exciting core of players, the Bucks’ outlook is quite positive. A number of player-friendly contracts on the books will nonetheless hamper the franchise’s ability to improve over the next few seasons. Milwaukee has $46,849,680 in guaranteed salaries already committed for the 2015/16 season, and this doesn’t include a new deal for Knight, nor the $4.25MM salary for Jared Dudley, who has an early termination option for next season.

The Bucks agreed to tether themselves to Dudley’s 2015/16 salary in a trade that sent out Carlos Delfino and Miroslav Raduljica, both of whom had non-guaranteed salary for that season. It signaled a willingness to take some pains in the near future for the rare opportunity to net a first-round pick, the price the Clippers paid to facilitate the deal. The lottery-protected selection won’t come until 2017 at the earliest, and it will probably fall in the 20s barring an unlikely decline in Clipper fortunes over the next few years. It’s still quite a valuable asset to receive for some short-term cap burden, a future second-round pick and two players who weren’t contributing much. It’s a signal that new Bucks majority owners Wesley Edens, Marc Lasry and Jamie Dinan are much more willing to focus on the future than longtime former owner Herb Kohl, who always seemed committed to competing in the near term, even if it mired the franchise in mediocrity.

Center Larry Sanders‘ $11MM annual salary is the most significant blight on the team’s balance sheet, and he is in no way worth that amount of money. The best hope the franchise has is if he can return to form and build up his trade value, though with Sanders averaging 5.9 points on 38.2% shooting, a horrid number for a 6’11” inside player, it will be extremely difficult to obtain anything of value for him.

The $16MM that the Bucks owe to O.J. Mayo between now and the end of 2015/16 isn’t helping the team, either. Mayo’s 12.1 PPG average isn’t setting the league on fire, and at 27 he’s not likely to break out anytime soon. The less-than-stellar contracts of Ersan Ilyasova ($7.9MM per year) and Zaza Pachulia ($5.2MM per year) are additional albatrosses the team will have to deal with through next season. Neither of those two big men are worth that chunk of cap space on a young rebuilding squad like the Bucks.

Another change worth noting for the Bucks this past offseason was the hiring of Jason Kidd as the new head coach after a courtship that took place while Larry Drew was still employed in the position. Bringing in Kidd cost Milwaukee 2015 and 2019 second-round draft picks, which were sent to Brooklyn as compensation. Kidd’s lone season in Brooklyn was anything but smooth, with the Nets organization seemingly all for parting ways despite the team making it to to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in seven years. Kidd was reportedly pushing for more front office control in Brooklyn, something the team apparently wasn’t too keen on granting. Add that to the reports of locker room strife and it remains to be seen how Kidd will fare switching from a veteran-dominated team to a much younger squad. It is a much different task to develop players while losing than to step in and take over a team that was built with the intent to challenge for an NBA title.

Fortunes in Milwaukee aren’t likely to turn around this season, but the groundwork has been laid for incremental gains, and if the team continues to draft well and the young talent reaches its potential, Bucks fans will have more to cheer about in the coming years. It will nonetheless continue to be difficult to lure upper-tier free agent talent to the city, and the Bucks will need to rid themselves of a number of bloated contracts to make themselves more competitive for the second-level free agents that hit the market. But for now, Milwaukee can enjoy watching the development of Antetokounmpo and Parker. The team must pin its hopes on being able to sign them for the long term when their rookie deals are up, and that years of losing basketball don’t take a toll on their pair of gems in the meantime.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post. Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

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Offseason In Review: Detroit Pistons

November 13th, 2014 at 6:39pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees, and more will be covered, as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.

Signings

Extensions

  • None

Trades

Waiver Claims

  • None

Draft Picks

Camp Invitees

Departing Players

Rookie Contract Option Decisions

Detroit entered this past offseason fresh off of their second consecutive 29-win campaign and with a roster still filled with a number of ill-fitting parts, but there is reason for hope in the Motor City with the arrival of new team president and head coach Stan Van Gundy. Both Van Gundy and the organization realize that any turnaround will take some time, but after seven consecutive seasons of under .500 basketball, any positive development is cause for celebration.

NBA: New York Knicks at Detroit PistonsIt’s been over 16 months since Josh Smith inked his four-year, $54MM contract, and the franchise is still trying to figure out how to best utilize him. I’m sure that in theory, forming a frontcourt that featured a trio of talented big men seemed like an intriguing premise, but the results have been quite disappointing thus far. Smith’s field goal percentage has plummeted and it might be time for both the 28-year-old and the team to acknowledge that he isn’t suited to play small forward, nor is it in the best interests of either for him to keep firing away with ill-advised three-pointers.

The Pistons were supposedly shopping Smith during the offseason, and there was talk that the Kings were interested in acquiring the 28-year-old forward, but no deal came to fruition. Unloading Smith would present a challenge, as there aren’t many teams eager to shell out $13.5MM per year for a limited offensive player on the downswing of his career. Smith even at his best is not a true No. 1 option on a contending club, but rather a talented complementary piece.

While Smith is arguably the biggest name on the roster, the storyline that dominated Detroit’s sports pages all offseason were the talks between the team and Greg Monroe. Monroe showed little interest in signing a long-term deal with the Pistons, and he and agent David Falk reportedly sought sign-and-trade deals rather than offer sheets with the fear that the Pistons would match, keeping him in Detroit for the long-term. Instead, Monroe took an unusual and riskier path, signing his qualifying offer, worth only about $5.48MM for one season, setting himself up to become an unrestricted free agent next summer.

By signing the team’s qualifying offer Monroe all but assured two things: He’ll be on the Pistons roster for the entire season, and he’ll be wearing a different team’s jersey the next one. Theoretically Monroe can still be dealt during the season, but because he signed the qualifying offer, he can veto any trade, and unless things truly become untenable for him in Detroit, he would most likely do just that, since any team that traded for him wouldn’t have his Bird rights. The Pistons would also only get pennies on the dollar for him at this point, since other teams wouldn’t give up the farm for a player who would essentially be a rental, so there would be little incentive at this point to try and deal Monroe.

Monroe hasn’t completely ruled out re-signing in Motown, but if he truly wanted to stay, the ink from his signature would have dried on a new deal already. Of course, things can always change, and if the franchise has a strong season, or if Van Gundy can convince Monroe during the year that the Pistons are truly the right team for him, then it’s possible Monroe could have a change of heart.

The 24-year-old will likely seek max money in his new deal, something I quite frankly don’t feel that he is worth. He’s a young, productive big man whose best seasons are still likely to come, but with the league moving further and further away from being a post-up league, Monroe’s limited offensive game and less-than-stellar defense do not warrant that large of a financial commitment. The Pistons could just look to Roy Hibbert‘s deal with the Pacers as a cautionary tale in this regard. For his part, Monroe is playing like he’s in a walk-year thus far, logging 17.3 points and 11.0 rebounds a night.

Van Gundy was quite busy this offseason in the free agent market, and he made a number of moves to address the team’s lack of outside shooting. I’m a big fan of signing Caron Butler, whose professionalism and work-ethic are fantastic, and just what a younger team like Detroit needs. The lack of a guarantee on the second year also mitigates the franchise’s financial liability greatly, which was a shrewd move. I also like the deal that Van Gundy gave to D.J. Augustin, a solid backup at the point whose two-year pact is quite reasonable.

The move I have an issue with is signing Jodie Meeks to a three-year, $18.81MM contract. This is one that I believe will stain Detroit’s balance sheet for its duration. As I mentioned, the Pistons desperately needed outside shooters to spread the floor so that Monroe, Smith, and Andre Drummond could have more room to operate down low. But Meeks is a complementary rotation piece at best, and his career-high 15.7 PPG last season was grossly inflated by playing for the Lakers, who needed someone to take those shots in the absence of Kobe Bryant. Plus, with the rise of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Meeks should prove to be even more of an unnecessary acquisition. I firmly believe that Meeks is more likely to be the player who had a career 7.4 PPG average heading into the 2013/14 campaign than a true game-changer when he returns from the back injury that has kept him out of action thus far.

The Pistons were also limited in what they would be able to garner on draft night, thanks to the first-round pick they had to surrender to the Hornets when the lottery slotted them just one spot shy of the protected range on the selection they owed from the Corey Maggette/Ben Gordon deal. But Van Gundy did very well to maximize the value of his lone second-rounder when he chose Spencer Dinwiddie, a player who would have been a likely mid-to-late first rounder if he had not been injured during his final season at Colorado. It will take him some time to regain his form, but for the long-term, he was a steal.

Detroit has a number of roster issues to address as it moves onto its next chapter. With only $39,479,553 in guaranteed money committed for 2015/16, Van Gundy will have a great opportunity to reshape the roster. But by next season, Monroe will likely be playing elsewhere, Smith will probably still be taking up a large chunk of cap space, and Brandon Jennings, who continues to try to prove that he can be a successful floor general, will still likely be on the books for $8,344,497. Thankfully, the Pistons have Drummond, who is one of the most intriguing big men in the league, to build around. But with the rise of the Cavs and the continued excellence of the Bulls in the Central Division, the franchise is still a ways from being a contender.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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Offseason In Review: Cleveland Cavaliers

November 13th, 2014 at 1:30pm CST by Chuck Myron

Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees, and more will be covered, as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.

Signings

Extensions

Trades

  • Acquired Boston’s 2015 second-round pick (top-55 protected) and the rights to Ilkan Karaman and Edin Bavcic in a three-team trade with the Celtics and Nets in exchange for Jarrett Jack, Sergey Karasev, Tyler Zeller and Cleveland’s 2016 first-round pick (top-10 protected).
  • Acquired the Clippers’ 2016 second-round pick (top-55 protected) from the Pelicans in exchange for Alonzo Gee.
  • Acquired Brendan Haywood and the rights to Dwight Powell from the Hornets in exchange for Scotty Hopson and cash.
  • Acquired John Lucas III, Malcolm Thomas and Erik Murphy from the Jazz in exchange for Carrick Felix, Cleveland’s 2015 second-round pick, and $1.3MM cash.
  • Acquired Kevin Love in a three-team trade with the Timberwolves and Sixers in exchange for Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and Miami’s 2015 first-round pick (top-10 protected).
  • Acquired Keith Bogans, Sacramento’s 2015 second-round pick (top-55 protected) and Sacramento’s 2017 second-round pick (top-55 protected) from the Celtics in exchange for Dwight Powell, Erik Murphy, Malcolm Thomas, John Lucas III, Cleveland’s 2016 second-round pick and Cleveland’s 2017 second-round pick.
  • Acquired Philadelphia’s 2015 second-round pick (if it falls from pick No. 51 through No. 55, as long as the Sixers don’t have to send it to the Celtics to satisfy an obligation from previous trades) from the Sixers in exchange for Keith Bogans and Cleveland’s 2018 second-round pick.

Waiver Claims

  • None

Draft Picks

  • Andrew Wiggins (Round 1, 1st overall). Signed via rookie exception to rookie scale contract. Subsequently traded.
  • Joe Harris (Round 2, 33rd overall). Signed via cap room for three years, $2.710MM. Third year is non-guaranteed.
  • Dwight Powell (Round 2, 45th overall). Signed via minimum-salary exception for two years. Subsequently traded.

Camp Invitees

Departing Players

Rookie Contract Option Decisions

Cleveland has endured countless tough breaks over the years, but ever since the Cavs lucked out and grabbed the No. 1 overall pick in the lottery this year, fortune has shined on northeast Ohio. LeBron James reversed course from four years ago and returned home from Miami, and three of his former Heat teammates joined him in flocking to Cleveland. The four-time MVP’s magnetism was most impactful in swaying Kevin Love, the best player available on the trade market, to accept a deal that sent him to Cleveland, a prospect Love reportedly otherwise wouldn’t have considered. We may never know if LeBron would still have chosen to sign with the Cavs if they hadn’t emerged from the lottery with the top pick, but it was clear that possessing Andrew Wiggins, whom the Cavs took with that No. 1 overall selection, was crucial to the Love trade.

NBA: New Orleans Pelicans at Cleveland CavaliersThe presence of Wiggins allowed GM David Griffin to beat out a field that included nearly half the league in a heated derby to win over Timberwolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders, who held out on the Cavs until they were willing to surrender the former Kansas swingman. It was an early test of mettle for Griffin, who took over the GM duties on an interim basis shortly before the trade deadline last season and saw the team remove the interim tag a few months later. Regardless of whether James intentionally left Wiggins’ name out when he discussed his teammates in the public letter announcing his return, any trade involving a first overall pick is fraught with historical consequences. That’s doubly so when a team trades not one but two former No. 1 picks, as was the case with Anthony Bennett heading to Minnesota along with Wiggins. Bennett certainly didn’t live up to having been the top pick as a rookie, but he nonetheless has plenty of potential, and the addition of a future draft choice in the deal made it clear that priorities have shifted in Cleveland. The Cavs aren’t going to waste precious years of LeBron’s prime slowly building toward a championship. They want to make it happen this year.

Still, it’s not as if Griffin cleaned out all of his team’s young talent. The Cavs have taken five players within the top four picks in the last four drafts, and three of them remain. None is as prominent as Kyrie Irving, who quickly shushed rumors that he was looking to escape Cleveland, signing a five-year max extension that makes him the team’s Designated Player. Irving didn’t receive all of what he might have wanted in the extension, since he agreed to take approximately 27.5% of the salary cap as a starting salary, rather than the roughly 30% to which he’d be entitled if he triggers the Derrick Rose Rule this year. There’s a decent chance he’ll do so, since the Rose Rule would kick in for him if he repeats his selection as an All-Star starter from a year ago. Those extra millions of dollars will matter in seasons to come as Cleveland strains to carry three maximum-salary players, but in the context of this past summer, the extension was one of many hallmarks of the changing fortunes surrounding the Cavs. Irving committed to the extension before LeBron decided to return, hitching himself to a franchise that still dealt with more questions than answers. Few players would ever turn down a five-year max deal, but securing Irving’s agreement on the first day of free agency surely didn’t hurt the Cavs’ case as LeBron weighed his choices in July.

The dynamics surrounding the team’s negotiations with its other player eligible for a rookie scale extension were much different. Tristan Thompson‘s alliance with Klutch Sports, the same agency that counts LeBron as its founding client, seemingly gave the former No. 4 overall pick an inside track to a lucrative deal with the Cavs. Thompson reportedly sought salaries of around $12MM a year, and the Cavs apparently exceeded that figure in their final offer, but the sides fell short of a deal in talks that went right up until the final hour before the 11:00pm Central deadline on October 31st. That negotiations carried on nearly as long as they possibly could seems to indicate that there’s common ground that they could revisit when Thompson hits restricted free agency in the summer. Still, Cleveland’s veteran extension for Anderson Varejao creates complications.

Varejao has close ties to LeBron, too, as he’s the only member of the Cavs who remains from the four-time MVP’s first go-around in wine-and-gold, and the two have remained close friends. Still, there’s significant risk involved in committing $30MM over three years to a 32-year-old so beset by injuries that he’s averaged fewer than 37 games played over the last four seasons. The Brazilian is healthy now, and he beat out Thompson for a starting spot on opening night, but even when he’s in the lineup, there are issues. Neither Thompson, Varejao nor Love, the three most prominent big men on the Cavs roster, is a strong rim-protector. Even if one of them were, the Cavs would be hard-pressed to start all three of them, and if Cleveland re-signs Love at a sum anywhere close to market value and gives a new deal to Thompson at the terms he’s seeking, all three will be making eight figures apiece annually. That would be a steep price to pay for a talented but flawed frontcourt, even with the salary cap poised to rise dramatically.

The lack of an extension for Thompson leaves the Cavs with flexibility for the future, which Griffin has strived to maintain even as he makes a hard push to ready the team to win now. A three-for-one trade with the Jazz that he pulled off in late July turned out to provide the fuel for the acquisition and subsequent flipping of Keith Bogans, a set of maneuvers that netted the Cavs a $5,285,816 trade exception that they can use anytime between now and the end of next September. That trio of swaps, seemingly a precursor to a fourth trade, is demonstrative of Griffin’s dexterity at swinging deals. He had already put that on display over the summer when he engineered a three-team trade with the Nets and Celtics to unload Jarrett Jack‘s $6.3MM salary and open cap room necessary to sign LeBron to a max deal.

Still, for all the superstar acquisitions and intricate trades that took place for the Cavs this past offseason, the team’s boldest move came when it hired David Blatt as head coach. It’s the first time an NBA team has ever hired a head coach whose prior experience came exclusively overseas, and while Blatt left a trail of success at his many stops around the globe, there’s no league like the NBA. Lead assistant Tyronn Lue, upon whom the team bestowed a record four-year, $6.5MM deal, is entering only his sixth season as a coach following the end of his playing career in 2009. Granted, that’s a wealth of experience compared to the wave of neophytes who’ve taken over head coaching jobs in the NBA, like Derek Fisher, Steve Kerr and Jason Kidd, but Blatt and Lue are under immediate pressure to succeed. There’s little to suggest whether they will or they won’t, casting perhaps the most significant cloud of uncertainty over a team that returns a league-low five players from last season.

The victories piled up for Cleveland in the offseason, from LeBron to Love to Irving to Shawn Marion, who could have commanded higher salaries and more minutes elsewhere as he lingered into August as perhaps the most significant unsigned free agent. Miller, too, was a sought-after commodity after he showed off his health with the Grizzlies last season, when he appeared in all 82 games. There’s still a chance that Ray Allen, still undecided on retirement, will choose not only to play but to do so with a few of his old Heat teammates in Cleveland. None of it will matter unless all of the new faces in Cleveland can quickly coalesce and live up to the lofty expectations surrounding them. It took LeBron two years to win a championship in Miami, but the noise and pressure surrounding the team didn’t stop until he did. That will likely be the case in Cleveland, too.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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