Hoops Rumors Originals
This week’s original analysis generated by the Hoops Rumors staff..
- Once, Jeff Green was to have been one of the anchors of a fast-rising Thunder team full of youthful talent. Now, he’s a trade candidate for the Celtics, as Chuck Myron writes.
- Eddie Scarito ran down the playing time that this year’s second-rounders are getting.
- Eddie gave us the 2015/16 salary rankings for shooting guards and point guards.
- Wondering how the Corey Brewer trade worked financially? Chuck has you covered.
- Here’s how you can follow specific players on Hoops Rumors.
- Chuck hosted the live chat on Christmas Eve.
- More than 30% of you felt that Josh Smith‘s best fit was in Houston.
- Look back on all of the trades that have gone down so far this season.
Trade Candidate: Jeff Green
Once, Jeff Green was to have been one of the anchors of a fast-rising Thunder team full of youthful talent. The then-SuperSonics acquired Green the same night that the Celtics took him fifth overall in the 2007 draft, and Seattle paired the 6’9″ combo forward with No. 2 overall pick Kevin Durant. Soon, Russell Westbrook and James Harden followed, but the Thunder traded Green back to the Celtics in 2011. The deal doesn’t receive the caustic criticism that Oklahoma City’s subsequent Harden trade does, but Green has proven an eminently more valuable commodity than Kendrick Perkins, the principal figure headed the other way in that swap.
Green has never blossomed into the sort of star that Durant, Westbrook and Harden are, as maddening inconsistency has plagued much of his time in Boston. That issue cropped up again this week, as he scored a season-low four points against the Magic on Tuesday before notching 22 points on Friday. Still, Tuesday marked the first time all season that Green had scored in single digits, compared to 14 such occasions last season. His 18.8 points per game are a career high, and they make him far and away Boston’s leading scorer, as he outpaces Jared Sullinger, the team’s No. 2 scorer, by 5.5 PPG. Green is putting up that number on almost precisely as many shot attempts per night as he saw last season, when he scored 16.9 PPG. It’s an improvement that seems chiefly the result of career bests in free throws attempted per game (4.7) and 83.5% free-throw shooting percentage, plus, as Basketball-Reference shooting data shows, similar gains in his mid-range shooting. He’s shooting more three-pointers than ever while making only 32.6%, so correction in that area would only enhance his best season to date.
The Celtics are looking for him to create offense now more than ever, and his productive response to that responsibility adds up to fortunate timing for the David Falk client, who can hit free agency at season’s end if he turns down a $9.2MM player option. That decision isn’t necessarily a slam dunk even if Green keeps playing as well as he is, since executives with rosters that aren’t quite as barren as the one the Celtics have will no doubt have reservations about whether Green can produce at the same efficiency without the ball in his hands as much. This season’s 15.8 PER is his best figure to date, and it’s the only time his PER has been better than 15.0, the mark of an average player. Those same executives who’ll have those questions if he hits free agency this summer are surely asking them now as Green appears the next most likely pillar to go via trade in Boston’s reconstruction.
The Lakers reportedly made an offer to the Celtics that would have sent Green as well as Rajon Rondo to L.A., and the Clippers, Pelicans and Grizzlies have apparently asked the C’s about their willingness to trade Green. The report about that trio of teams, which said Boston wasn’t interested in moving Green, conflicts with an earlier dispatch indicating that the Celtics were shopping him in hopes of landing a first-round pick. It’s reminiscent of the mixed messages that emanated from Boston for more than a year leading up to the Rondo trade, as president of basketball operations Danny Ainge batted down persistent Rondo rumors until one of them finally came true. Green seems an odd fit for the Celtics in the long term, since he’s 28 and he’ll have the chance to leave as a free agent years before the team figures to have a reasonable shot at contending again. There’s reason for loyalty to come into play, as the Celtics lavished him with a four-year, $36.24MM deal the summer after he missed the entire 2011/12 with a heart ailment, and Green has spoken of his affection for the team in refuting rumors that he wanted out. Still, Falk is not known to advise his clients to make concessions to any team.
The Celtics can capitalize on Green’s sterling performance this season with a trade that adds to their stockpile of draft picks or with a swap that packages Green and some of those picks for a star. It seems as though the route of acquiring additional picks would be easier for Boston to pursue, given Ainge’s inability to find a star to pair with Rondo, but the Celtics, in line to make as many as 11 extra picks between now and 2018, aren’t hurting for draft assets.
An alternative path, which would involve the Celtics receiving recent draft picks on team-friendly contracts rather than future picks, would be tough to swing with the Clippers, Grizzlies or Pelicans. There’s little budding talent on any of those rosters, save for Anthony Davis, whom New Orleans won’t be giving up. The Lakers have Julius Randle, this year’s No. 7 overall pick, and perhaps it would be somewhat fitting if Ainge gave up Green in a deal that brought back another player with a medical question mark, as Randle is expected to miss the season with a broken leg. Yet the Lakers apparently refused to part with Randle in a Rondo trade, so it would be tough to see the Lakers giving him up for Green.
Green is chiefly playing small forward these days, and there’s no shortage of teams that need a starting-caliber solution at that position, just as there’s no shortage of small forwards in Boston, where James Young, this year’s 17th overall pick, is buried on the bench. The Suns, Hawks, Nets, Hornets, Bulls, Pistons and Sixers, as well as the teams mentioned above, would all probably count Green as an upgrade over the players they have at the position now. Ultimately, there’s a strong chance that where he ends up this season will come down to the willingness of one of those teams to part with a first-round pick, and a reasonably attractive one at that. Teams have shown a reluctance to part with first-rounders at the trade deadline the past couple of years, but given the seller’s market at Green’s position and his performance this season, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see one change hands in exchange for him soon.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Playing Time For 2014 Second-Rounders
The stock value of the highly-touted 2014 NBA draft class has taken a dip thanks to numerous injuries and the overall underwhelming play of the group. Hoops Rumors’ Chuck Myron previously looked at the playing time that the first round draft picks were receiving as rookies, which saw only five out of the 30 opening-round selections logging more than 20 minutes on a nightly basis.
This lack of playing time holds true for the men selected in the second round of the draft as well. Only one player, K.J. McDaniels, is logging more than 20 minutes per contest, but in all fairness he is doing so for the Sixers, who are more about rebuilding through the draft than they are about trying to snag a playoff berth this season. But the early-season success of McDaniels doesn’t necessarily represent a huge surprise, and is something that I predicted in his pre-draft prospect profile. If McDaniels’ solid play continues he will likely make the Sixers regret only inking him to a one-year deal, setting the rookie up to become a hot commodity as a restricted free agent after the season.
McDaniels’ agent Mark Bartelstein will also be able to cash in on the decision to pass on Philadelphia’s original four-year offer. In regards to his client signing a one-year deal, Bartelstein had said, “The 76ers have a philosophy that they’re adhering to, and we totally respect that, but it doesn’t fit for K.J. and us. I just totally disagree with the idea of doing a four-year deal that includes a structure of two non-guaranteed years. We think K.J. is going to be a good player, and it came down to doing a one-year deal and letting the market determine his value. There’s no hard feelings. The Sixers’ philosophy has worked for them. It just doesn’t work for us.”
Out of the 30 second-rounders chosen this year, 13 of them either didn’t sign NBA contracts or make it out of training camp on an NBA roster. Though there are some players like Thanasis Antetokounmpo and Semaj Christon who opted to head to the D-League, and others such as Louis Labeyrie and Vasilije Micic are considered “draft and stash” prospects who will play overseas for the time being. A number of the others will pin their NBA hopes on potentially snagging a 10-day contract after January 5th when the league begins allowing such arrangements, though most will more than likely have to wait until the Summer League begins to try and rekindle any NBA interest in their services.
Here’s a look at how many minutes each second-round pick is playing, ranked by minutes per game, with their respective draft positions in parentheses and additional notes where appropriate:
More than 20 minutes per game
- K.J. McDaniels, Sixers (No. 32) — 25.2: Has appeared in 26 games
Between 15-20 minutes per game
- No players
Between 10-15 minutes per game
- Spencer Dinwiddie, Pistons (No. 38) — 12.4: Has only appeared in seven games
- Jerami Grant, Sixers (No. 39) — 12.3: Has appeared in 12 games
- Nick Johnson, Rockets (No. 42) — 11.1: Has appeared in 15 games
- Jordan Clarkson, Lakers (No. 46) — 11.0: Has appeared in 15 games
- Cory Jefferson, Nets (No. 60) — 10.4: Has appeared in 14 games
- Joe Harris, Cavs (No. 33) — 10.3: Has appeared in 23 games
Between 5-10 minutes per game
- Cameron Bairstow, Bulls (No. 49) — 10.4: Has only appeared in seven games
- Johnny O’Bryant III, Bucks (No. 36) — 8.5: Has only appeared in four games
- Cleanthony Early, Knicks (No. 34) — 7.7: Has only appeared in seven games, Out for at least a month due to injury
- Russ Smith, Pelicans (No. 47) — 6.5: Has only appeared in four games
- Markel Brown, Nets (No. 44) — 5.4: Has only appeared in seven games
Fewer than 5 minutes per game
- Glenn Robinson III, Wolves (No. 40) — 4.3: Has appeared in 12 games
- Jarnell Stokes, Grizzlies (No. 35) — 3.9: Has appeared in 10 games
- Dwight Powell, Mavs (No. 45) — 1.7: Has appeared in only 6 games, recently traded to Dallas
- Devyn Marble, Magic (No. 56) — 1.0: Has played in only five games
Haven’t appeared in an NBA game yet
- Damien Inglis, Bucks (No. 31) — Out indefinitely with a broken right foot
Not on an NBA roster
- Thanasis Antetokounmpo (No. 51)
- Alec Brown (No. 50)
- Semaj Christon, (No. 55)
- Nemanja Dangubic (No. 54)
- DeAndre Daniels (No. 37)
- Alessandro Gentile (No. 53)
- Nikola Jokic (No. 41)
- Louis Labeyrie (No. 57)
- Jordan McRae (No. 58)
- Vasilije Micic (No. 52)
- Lamar Patterson (No. 48)
- Walter Tavares (No. 43)
- Xavier Thames (No. 59)
2015/16 Salary Rankings: Shooting Guards
Hoops Rumors is in the process of ranking the cap hit for each NBA player by position. I previously ran down the point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center salaries for the 2014/15 season. I’ve also begun looking ahead to the 2015/16 campaign with a rundown of the cap hits for the point guards. Next on the agenda will be a look forward at the salaries for shooting guards already inked to deals for next season.
All told, NBA teams have committed a total of $305,799,701 in cap hits so far for next season to the men charged with lighting up the scoreboards around the league. The average hit for the two spot so far for 2015/16 is a respectable $4,853,964, with Kobe Bryant of the Lakers topping the list with an impressive $25MM coming his way. Though it should be noted that the list and rankings will change greatly depending on how the free agent market develops next summer.
I also should add that teams won’t necessarily pay out every dollar listed here. There are quite a few players who have non-guaranteed or partially guaranteed contracts. Some of those players will be sweating it out until the January 2015 deadline. That’s when teams must waive players with no specific guarantee date written into their contracts to avoid having to guarantee their salaries for the rest of that season.
Most salaries align with cap hits, but that’s not the case for players like Jeremy Lin , who’s receiving close to $15MM from the Lakers during the 2014/15 season even though his cap hit was little more than half that amount, because of the contract he signed through the Gilbert Arenas Provision. In addition, incentive clauses that a player either triggers or fails to meet can leave a player with more or less money than his cap hit reflects. Still, the purpose of this list is to show the relative pay scale by position, which is why all contracts are included in this post.
The league’s shooting guards are listed below, in descending order of cap hit for next season:
- Kobe Bryant (Lakers) $25,000,000
- Dwyane Wade (Heat) $16,125,000 [Player Option]
- James Harden (Rockets) $15,756,438
- Eric Gordon (Pelicans) $15,514,031 [Player Option]
- Klay Thompson (Warriors) $15,501,000
- Andre Iguodala (Warriors) $11,710,456
- DeMar DeRozan (Raptors) $10.1MM
- Alec Burks (Jazz) $9,463,484
- Lance Stephenson (Hornets) $9MM
- Monta Ellis (Mavs) $8,720,000
- O.J. Mayo (Bucks) $8MM
- Avery Bradley (Celtics) $7,730,337
- Arron Afflalo (Nuggets) $7.5MM [Player Option]
- Kevin Martin (Wolves) $7,085,000
- J.J. Redick (Clippers) $7,085,000
- J.R. Smith (Knicks) $6,399,750 [Player Option]
- Jodie Meeks (Pistons) $6,270,000
- Kyle Korver (Hawks) $5,746,479
- Bradley Beal (Wizards) $5,694,674
- Courtney Lee (Grizzlies) $5,675,000
- Victor Oladipo (Magic) $5,192,520
- Tony Allen (Grizzles) $5,168,539
- Dion Waiters (Cavs) $5,138,430
- Corey Brewer (Rockets) $4,905,000 [Player Option]
- Ben Gordon (Magic) $4.5MM
- C.J. Miles (Pacers) $4,392,225
- Jared Dudley (Bucks) $4,250,000 [Early Termination Option]
- Vince Carter (Grizzlies) $4,088,019
- Bojan Bogdanovic (Nets) $3,425,510
- Evan Turner (Celtics) $3,425,510
- Quincy Pondexter (Grizzlies) $3,382,023
- Anthony Morrow (Thunder) $3,344,000
- Ben McLemore (Kings) $3,156,600
- Randy Foye (Nuggets) $3,135,000
- Jeremy Lamb (Thunder) $3,034,356
- Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Pistons) $2,891,760
- Nik Stauskas (Kings) $2,869,440
- C.J. McCollum (Blazers) $2,525,160
- Evan Fournier (Magic) $2,288,205
- Tony Wroten (Sixers) $2,179,353
- Kent Bazemore (Hawks) $2MM
- Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks) $1,953,960
- James Young (Celtics) $1,749,840
- Zoran Dragic (Suns) $1,706,250
- Gary Harris (Nuggets) $1,587,480
- Jordan Adams (Grizzles) $1,404,600
- Alan Anderson (Nets) $1,333,484 [Player Option]
- Brandon Rush (Warriors) $1,270,964 [Player Option]
- Reggie Bullock (Clippers) $1,252,440
- Andre Roberson (Thunder) $1,210,800
- P.J. Hairston (Hornets) $1,201,440
- Archie Goodwin (Suns) $1,160,160
- C.J. Wilcox (Clippers) $1,159,680
- Garrett Temple (Wizards) $1,100,602
- E’Twaun Moore (Bulls) $1,015,421
- Toure’ Murry (Jazz) $1MM
- Allen Crabbe (Blazers) $947,276
- Troy Daniels (Rockets) $947,276
- Ricky Ledo (Mavs) $947,276
- Hollis Thompson (Sixers) $947,276
- Markel Brown (Nets) $845,059
- Joe Harris (Cavs) $845,059
- Nick Johnson (Rockets) $845,059
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Following Specific Players On Hoops Rumors
The majority of players who were signed this past offseason became eligible to be traded on December 15th. This will pave the way for numerous potential deals between now and the February trade deadline. In addition to methods of keeping track of your favorite teams as they continue to mold their rosters, Hoops Rumors also provides ways to easily follow the latest on all of your favorite players. If you want to stay up to date on Ray Allen‘s or Jermaine O’Neal‘s continued free agency, you can find Allen’s page right here and O’Neal’s here. For intel on where a potential trade candidate like Deron Williams might end up, go here.
Every player we’ve written about has his own rumors page. You can find any player by using our search box (located in the right sidebar); by clicking his tag at the bottom of a post in which he’s discussed; or, by simply typing his name in your address bar after hoopsrumors.com, substituting dashes for spaces. For example, Allen’s page is hoopsrumors.com/ray-allen.
You can also set up an RSS feed for any of our player pages by adding /feed to the end of the page URL, like this: hoopsrumors.com/ray-allen/feed. Entering that URL into the reader of your choice should enable you to get updates whenever we write about Allen. It works for teams, too. If you’re a Mavericks fan, you can enter hoopsrumors.com/dallas-mavericks/feed into your reader and stay on top of all the latest from Dallas.
In addition to players and teams, there are a number of other subjects you can track by clicking on the tags that we use at the bottom of posts. You can keep tabs on news related to next year’s draft right here. Items related to the NBA D-League, including assignments and recalls, can be found on this rumors page or in our tracker as well. Any news that has to do with potential rises in the salary cap for next year and beyond can be found here. Again, you can set up a feed with any of these pages by adding /feed to the end of the URL.
You can also follow any specific player or team by using the free Trade Rumors app for iOS and Android devices. The Trade Rumors app brings together content from our three sites: MLB Trade Rumors, Hoops Rumors, and Pro Football Rumors. You can easily scroll left to right and click on the image of the article you want to read. The Trade Rumors app is highly customizable. You can add feeds for any of the 92 MLB, NBA, and NFL teams, as well as for any of the thousands of players in our archives, by using the settings icon up top for iOS and the pencil icon up top for Android. You can create a multi-sport experience tailored to your specific interests, or you can limit your app entirely to one sport by removing the others.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
2015/16 Salary Rankings: Point Guards
Hoops Rumors is in the process of ranking the cap hit for each NBA player by position. I previously ran down the point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center salaries for the 2014/15 season. Next on the agenda will be a look forward at the salaries for point guards for the 2015/16 campaign.
All told, NBA teams have committed a total of $364,309,784 in cap hits so far for next season to the men who facilitate the offenses around the league. The average hit for the one spot so far for next season is a respectable $6,281,203, with Chris Paul of the Clippers topping the list for the second straight year with an impressive $21,468,696 coming his way. Though it should be noted that the list and rankings will change greatly depending on how the free agent market develops next summer.
It should also be noted that teams won’t necessarily pay out every dollar listed here. There are quite a few players who have non-guaranteed or partially guaranteed contracts. Some of those players will be sweating it out until the January 2015 deadline. That’s when teams must waive players with no specific guarantee date written into their contracts to avoid having to guarantee their salaries for the rest of that season.
Most salaries align with cap hits, but that’s not the case for players like Jeremy Lin , who’s receiving close to $15MM from the Lakers during the 2014/15 season even though his cap hit was little more than half that amount, because of the contract he signed through the Gilbert Arenas Provision. In addition, incentive clauses that a player either triggers or fails to meet can leave a player with more or less money than his cap hit reflects. Still, the purpose of this list is to show the relative pay scale by position, which is why all contracts are included in this post.
The league’s point guards are listed below, in descending order of cap hit for next season:
- Chris Paul (Clippers) $21,468,696
- Deron Williams (Nets) $21,042,800
- Derrick Rose (Bulls) $20,093,064
- Russell Westbrook (Thunder) $16,744,218
- Kyrie Irving (Cavs) $15,856,500
- John Wall (Wizards) $15,851,950
- Eric Bledsoe (Suns) $13,500,000
- Tony Parker (Spurs) $13,437,500
- Ricky Rubio (Wolves) $12.7MM
- Ty Lawson (Nuggets) $12,404,595
- Kyle Lowry (Raptors) $12MM
- Kemba Walker (Hornets) $12MM
- Stephen Curry (Warriors) $11,370,786
- Jrue Holiday (Pelicans) $10,595,507
- Mike Conley (Grizzlies) $9,388,426
- Brandon Jennings (Pistons) $8,344,479
- George Hill (Pacers) $8MM
- Jeff Teague (Hawks) $8MM
- Goran Dragic (Suns) $7,500,000 [Player Option]
- Jose Calderon (Knicks) $7,402,812
- Isaiah Thomas (Suns) $6,912,869
- Greivis Vasquez (Raptors) $6.6MM
- Jarrett Jack (Nets) $6.3MM
- Shaun Livingston (Warriors) $5,543,725
- Darren Collison (Kings) $5,013,559
- Mario Chalmers (Heat) $4.3MM
- Damian Lillard (Blazers) $4,236,287
- Devin Harris (Mavs) $4,053,446
- Raymond Felton (Mavs) $3,950,313 [Player Option]
- Dante Exum (Jazz) $3,777,720
- Patrick Mills (Spurs) $3,578,947
- Marcus Smart (Celtics) $3,431,040
- D.J. Augustin (Pistons) $3MM
- Jerryd Bayless (Bucks) $3MM
- Kirk Hinrich (Bulls) $2,854,940 [Player Option]
- Brian Roberts (Hornets) $2,854,940
- Luke Ridnour (Magic) $2,750,000
- Trey Burke (Jazz) $2,658,240
- Elfrid Payton (Magic) $2,505,720
- Shelvin Mack (Hawks) $2,433,333
- Michael Carter-Williams (Sixers) $2,399,040
- Steve Blake (Blazers) $2,170,465 [Player Option]
- Jordan Farmar (Clippers) $2,170,465 [Player Option]
- Ramon Sessions (Kings) $2,170,465
- Beno Udrih (Grizzlies) $2,170,465
- Zach LaVine (Wolves) $2,148,360
- Dennis Schröder (Hawks) $1,763,400
- Pablo Prigioni (Knicks) $1,734,572
- Tyler Ennis (Suns) $1,662,360
- Shabazz Napier (Heat) $1,294,440
- Isaiah Canaan (Rockets) $947,276
- Ray McCallum (Kings) $947,276
- Phil Pressey (Celtics) $947,276
- Nate Wolters (Bucks) $947,276
- Jordan Clarkson (Lakers) $845,059
- Spencer Dinwiddie (Pistons) $845,059
- Erick Green (Nuggets) $845,059
- Russ Smith (Pelicans) $845,059
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Poll: Best Fit For Josh Smith?
Pistons coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy pulled quite a stunner on Monday when he waived Josh Smith. Smith won’t come off waivers until Wednesday, but it’s likely that he won’t be without a team for long. Numerous franchises have reportedly expressed interest in signing Smith, including the Clippers, Rockets, Mavericks, Heat, Lakers, Grizzlies, and Kings. While Houston is currently rumored to be the favorite to obtain Smith’s services, the veteran forward is apparently in high demand despite only averaging 13.1 points on 39.1% shooting this season, with both numbers being below his career averages of 15.4 PPG and 45.6%.
The competition to ink Smith is most certainly due to the price tag he can be had for, which will be more than likely for the league-minimum salary, or not much more than that, which is all that most of the teams linked to Smith have to offer the big man. Detroit had garnered little to no interest in its efforts to deal Smith prior to its decision to release him, when his price tag would have been $13.5MM for this season, and whose contract ran for two more seasons at the same rate.
While Smith was clearly not performing up to his contract this year, which according to Hoops Rumors’ 2014/15 Salary Rankings, was good for the ninth highest cap hit amongst small forwards in the league, he’ll be a bargain at around the league-minimum for whichever franchise signs him. But which team would be the best fit for Smith?
One of the biggest issues with Smith’s production in Detroit was its insistence on trying to make him a small forward in an oversize frontcourt, a spot that Smith clearly was not suited to play. On his next team, if his coaches are wise, he’ll more than likely go back to his natural power forward position, though he can also provide some minutes at the three as well in a pinch.
Smith has been a starter for 758 of the 781 career games that he has appeared in, though this trend isn’t necessarily going to continue with his next team. Here’s a quick rundown of the starting power forwards on the teams reported to be in the hunt for Smith:
- Clippers: Blake Griffin [23.1 PPG, 7.7 RPG]
- Lakers: Carlos Boozer [12.8 PPG, 7.3 RPG]
- Heat: Chris Andersen [3.3 PPG, 4.1 RPG] or Udonis Haslem [4.1 PPG, 4.0 PPG]
- Grizzlies: Zach Randolph [16.1 PPG, 11.4 RPG]
- Rockets: Donatas Motiejunas [10.6 PPG, 6.1 RPG]
- Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki [18.5 PPG, 5.8 RPG]
- Kings: Jason Thompson [5.4 PPG, 6.7 RPG]
The quandaries for Smith when making the decision on which team to sign with is how to best market himself for next season and which circumstance would allow him to best rebuild his value. Does he try and chase a ring with a contending team? Or does he try to maximize his playing time, as well as have the best opportunity to put up numbers? Out of the teams listed, Smith would only be a clear upgrade as a starter for the Kings, Heat, and Lakers. Miami is the only one of those three that has a realistic shot at the playoffs, mainly because the Heat reside in the much weaker Eastern Conference, which should give Pat Riley‘s squad the edge amongst that group if Smith chooses the playing time route.
If Smith wants to join a contending team, as has been mentioned as being one of his criteria, then relocating to Texas may be his wisest decision. Smith is close friends with Dwight Howard and Rajon Rondo, who have each campaigned for their respective teams to ink the veteran, and joining the Rockets or the Mavs would certainly be appealing for him as a result of those relationships. Both of those franchises have realistic shots to go deep into the playoffs, but Houston would also offer Smith a much better opportunity to log significant minutes with Motiejunas currently penciled in as the starter.
So where do you think the best fit for Smith to land would be? Cast your votes and sound off below in the comments section to expand on why you believe this would be the best situation for Smith.
Which Team Is The Best Fit For Josh Smith?
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Rockets 30% (695)
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Lakers 20% (454)
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Mavericks 17% (385)
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Heat 14% (326)
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Kings 7% (173)
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Another Team 6% (133)
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Clippers 4% (97)
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Grizzlies 3% (59)
Total votes: 2,322
2014/15 NBA Trades
The 2014/15 regular season saw three trades go down within the first two months. More will surely follow, and as the movement continues and the details stack up, we’ll track it all in this post. As we did with the trades from this past offseason and the 2013/14 season, we’ll log all NBA trades as they become official, updating this post with each move.
This post is a simple, easy-to-digest account of the assets that each team acquired in every swap this season, with a link to a full story on each trade embedded in the date. For up-to-the-minute news on trades as well as other roster moves as the offseason continues, follow our transactions-only feeds via RSS and Twitter.
Bookmark this page and refer to it throughout the season, or find it anytime on the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features.” The trades are listed in reverse chronological order, with the latest on top:
- The Celtics get Isaiah Thomas.
- The Suns get Marcus Thornton and Cleveland’s 2016 first-round pick (top-10 protected).
- The Rockets get K.J. McDaniels.
- The Sixers get Isaiah Canaan and the less favorable of Minnesota’s and Denver’s 2015 second-round picks.
- The Suns get Brandon Knight and Kendall Marshall.
- The Bucks get Michael Carter-Williams, Tyler Ennis and Miles Plumlee.
- The Sixers get the Lakers’ 2015 first-round pick (top-five protected).
- The Rockets get Pablo Prigioni.
- The Knicks get Alexey Shved, Houston’s 2017 second-round pick and Houston’s 2019 second-round pick.
- The Timberwolves get Kevin Garnett.
- The Nets get Thaddeus Young.
- The Pelicans get Ish Smith, the rights to Latavious Williams, Philadelphia’s 2015 second-round pick (top-55 protected) and $801K cash.
- The Thunder get the less favorable of Sacramento’s 2016 second-round pick (top-55 protected) and New Orleans’ 2016 second-round pick.
- The Pistons get Tayshaun Prince.
- The Celtics get Gigi Datome and Jonas Jerebko.
- The Heat get Goran Dragic and Zoran Dragic.
- The Pelicans get Norris Cole, Shawne Williams, Justin Hamilton and $369K cash (from Miami).
- The Suns get John Salmons, Danny Granger, Miami’s 2017 first-round pick (top seven protected), Miami’s unprotected 2021 first-round pick, and $2.2MM cash (from Miami).
- The Pistons get Reggie Jackson.
- The Thunder get Enes Kanter, Steve Novak, D.J. Augustin, Kyle Singler and Detroit’s 2019 second-round pick.
- The Jazz get Kendrick Perkins, Grant Jerrett, the rights to Tibor Pleiss, Oklahoma City’s 2017 first-round pick (top-14 protected) and Detroit’s 2017 second-round pick.
- The Wizards get Ramon Sessions.
- The Kings get Andre Miller and $839K cash.
- The Sixers get JaVale McGee, the rights to Chu Chu Maduabum and Oklahoma City’s 2015 first-round pick (top-18 protected).
- The Nuggets get Cenk Akyol.
- The Trail Blazers get Arron Afflalo and Alonzo Gee.
- The Nuggets get Will Barton, Victor Claver, Thomas Robinson, and a 2016 first-round pick (top-14 protected).
- The Timberwolves get Adreian Payne.
- The Hawks get Minnesota’s 2017 first-round pick (top-14 protected).
- The Hornets get Mo Williams, Troy Daniels and $344,462 cash.
- The Timberwolves get Gary Neal and Miami’s 2019 second-round pick.
- The Clippers get Austin Rivers.
- The Celtics get Shavlik Randolph, Chris Douglas-Roberts and the Clippers’ 2017 second-round pick.
- The Suns get Reggie Bullock.
- The Nuggets get Jameer Nelson.
- The Celtics get Nate Robinson.
- The Grizzlies get Jeff Green and Russ Smith.
- The Celtics get Tayshaun Prince, Austin Rivers, $1,319,236 cash (from the Grizzlies), and Memphis’ 2017 first-round pick (top-10 protected).
- The Pelicans get Quincy Pondexter and Memphis’ 2015 second-round pick.
- The Suns get Brandan Wright.
- The Celtics get Minnesota’s 2015 first-round pick (top-12 protected).
- The Sixers get Jared Cunningham, $300K cash and the rights to Cenk Akyol.
- The Clippers get the rights to Serhiy Lishchuk.
- The Cavaliers get Timofey Mozgov and the less favorable of Chicago’s 2015 second-round pick and Portland’s 2015 second-round pick.
- The Nuggets get Memphis’ 2015 first-round pick if it falls anywhere from No. 6 to No. 14 and Oklahoma City’s 2015 first-round pick (top-18 protected).
- The Thunder get Dion Waiters.
- The Cavaliers get Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith and Oklahoma City’s 2015 first-round pick (top-18 protected).
- The Knicks get Lance Thomas, Lou Amundson, Alex Kirk and Cleveland’s 2019 second-round pick.
- The Pistons get Anthony Tolliver.
- The Suns get Tony Mitchell.
- The Rockets get Corey Brewer and Alexey Shved.
- The Timberwolves get Troy Daniels, Sacramento’s 2015 second-round pick as long as it’s within the top 49 picks (via Rockets), Houston’s 2016 second-round pick (top-45 protected), and $1MM cash (via Rockets).
- The Sixers get Ronny Turiaf, Houston’s 2015 second-round pick, and the rights to Serhiy Lishchuk.
- The Mavericks get Rajon Rondo and Dwight Powell.
- The Celtics get Brandan Wright, Jameer Nelson, Jae Crowder, Dallas’ 2015 first-round pick if it falls anywhere from No. 4 to No. 14, and the move favorable of Dallas’ 2016 second-round pick and Memphis’ 2016 second-round pick.
- The Sixers get Andrei Kirilenko, Jorge Gutierrez, Brooklyn’s 2020 second-round pick, the right to swap Cleveland’s 2018 second-round pick with Brooklyn’s 2018 second-round pick, and $1MM cash.
- The Nets get Brandon Davies.
Trade archives:
How The Corey Brewer Trade Worked Financially
The Rockets, Wolves and Sixers appear to have pulled off a rare feat with their trade Friday night. Most NBA teams spend the majority of the season over the cap, so swaps that involve as many as three teams, as Friday’s trade did, usually need to have at least part of the transaction fall within the matching guidelines the NBA sets forth for “simultaneous” trades. Occasionally, as with the Rajon Rondo trade, some elements of deals are “non-simultaneous,” allowing teams to use and create trade exceptions, as the Celtics did last week. But ordinarily at least some salary matching has to come into play. Not so with the Corey Brewer trade.
Friday’s trade allowed the teams to use trade exceptions, the minimum-salary exception, and cap space to avoid salary matching. The trade exception that gained the most notoriety was the one the Rockets used to absorb Brewer. Houston had reportedly been targeting Brewer for several weeks as a player that it wanted to absorb into that exception, which GM Daryl Morey and his staff appeared eager to use. It was an asset left over from the Jeremy Lin trade that allowed the team to trade for a player, or players, who made up to $100K more than Lin’s $8,374,646 cap hit this season. The Rockets had until the one-year anniversary of the Lin trade to use it, but they chose not to hesitate quite so long.
Brewer’s $4,702,500 salary fit within that exception, but it left a sizable chunk. The deadline for the remainder of the exception didn’t change; Houston could have saved it up until the Lin trade anniversary. However, using the rest of it before the end of December 19th meant the team could flip not just Brewer, but another player in a trade at the league’s February 19th deadline that aggregates their salaries, since there’s a two-month window following a trade in which teams may not aggregate the salaries of the newly acquired players in a subsequent trade. Aggregating player salaries is similar to but not quite the same as packaging players in a trade, and there are ways to package players without aggregating their salaries. However, it’s complicated and often difficult to do so, so Morey and company decided to avert that potential stumbling block.
The Sixers under GM Sam Hinkie have proven willing participants when other teams need help making a transaction, as long as Hinkie and company can reap at least one second-round pick from the affair, as they did in this trade. Morey, Hinkie’s former boss, found a player on his protege’s roster who both fit within the remainder of the Lin exception and gives the Rockets another option at backup point guard, the role Lin had played for the team prior to the trade that allowed the Rockets to create the exception in the first place. Hinkie allowed Morey to fold Alexey Shved‘s $3,282,057 salary into the exception along with Brewer, leaving but a $390,089 stub that’s worth less than the rookie minimum-salary, meaning the Rockets have, for all practical purposes, used up the exception.
In so doing, Hinkie also helped facilitate another three-way trade that involved the Timberwolves, just as he did when Minnesota sent Kevin Love to Cleveland, which happened to have been the deal that brought Shved to Philadelphia. This time, the Sixers took in Ronny Turiaf, who’s out for the season and whom the team reportedly intends to waive. His $1.5MM salary represented a sunk cost for the Timberwolves, since he’s on an expiring contract and isn’t expected to be healthy enough to play until his contract expires at season’s end. However, he comes as a savings to Philadelphia, since he makes less than half of what Shved does. So, the deal represents a net gain of cap space for the Sixers, even though that might be a wash if Philadelphia falls short of the league’s $56.759MM team salary floor and has to distribute the difference among the players on its roster at season’s end. It matters not for salary matching purposes that Shved’s pay is so much greater than Turiaf’s, nor that the Sixers didn’t have any trade exceptions. Salary matching and trade exceptions are the concern of teams over the cap, a threshold that Philadelphia is nowhere near.
The Timberwolves wound up the beneficiary of Philadelphia’s cap space and Houston’s trade exceptions in that they allowed Minnesota to create new trade exceptions for Brewer and Turiaf, each one equivalent to their respective salaries. Wolves coach/president of basketball operations Flip Saunders couldn’t otherwise have shed so much salary while taking in only the $816,482 one-year veteran’s minimum salary of Troy Daniels, whom Minnesota can accommodate via the minimum-salary exception. Conversely, the Rockets created a new trade exception equal to the salary for Daniels. It’s not nearly as valuable as the Lin exception that Houston employed, but it’s an asset nonetheless.
Saunders also accomplished another order of business in this trade. The team had been carrying 16 players based on a hardship exception to the 15-man regular season roster limit that the league granted because of the prolonged absences of Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic, Kevin Martin and Turiaf. The Wolves had used the ability to add a 16th player to sign Jeff Adrien. Relinquishing Turiaf meant that the team would no longer be eligible for that extra roster spot, which requires that no fewer than four players be expected to miss a significant amount of time. So the trade, in which the Wolves gave up two players and acquired one, allowed Saunders to remove Turiaf’s contract, which he was otherwise prepared to waive, without Turiaf’s salary sticking on Minnesota’s books and without having to relinquish Adrien, who rebounded at an impressive rate in nine games prior to the trade, racking up 4.6 boards in just 11.6 minutes per game. That translates to 14.2 rebounds per 36 minutes.
The deal didn’t work perfectly for the Rockets, who wound up having to release Francisco Garcia to satisfy the 15-man limit. Garcia apparently refused to go to the Wolves, as was his right, since he held a de facto no-trade clause by virtue of having re-signed with the Rockets to a one-year contract in the offseason. Agreeing to the trade would have nixed his Bird rights, but those are gone anyway, since the right to veto a trade didn’t give him the right to block Houston from waiving him. His departure completes a trifecta of sorts for the Rockets, who handed out three fully guaranteed one-year contracts for the minimum salary in the offseason only to waive all three. Those deals were with Ish Smith, who’s now a member of the Thunder, Adrien, whom Houston let go at the end of the preseason, and Garcia.
Plenty was familiar about the Brewer trade, which involved former Rockets cohorts Morey and Hinkie, and Saunders, who’s twice involved the Sixers in three-team deals in the space of four months. Yet this was an unusual trade that required flexibility and creativity on all sides. Now, it’s up to Morey to see whether Brewer and Shved work better as complements to Houston’s rotation or as fodder for the acquisition of a third star player, Saunders to use his new trade exceptions in a way that furthers Minnesota’s rebuilding efforts, and Hinkie to continue to seek ways to maximize Philly’s league-leading cap space and turn his stockpile of second-round picks into better than second-rate assets.
Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ and the Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Hoops Rumors Originals
Here’s a look at the original analysis generated by the Hoops Rumors staff this week..
- Chuck Myron explained how the Rajon Rondo trade worked financially.
- Chris Crouse asked Hoops Rumors readers if they believe the Mavs will win a title with Rondo.
- Here are the NBA players that can’t be traded this season.
- We featured the best of your comments in this week’s edition of Hoops Rumors Featured Feedback.
- Most of you say the Pacers would be the best fit for Lance Stephenson right now, according to Alex Lee’s poll.
- Chuck ran down the players on de facto non-guaranteed deals.
- If you missed out on this week’s chat, check out the transcript here.
- Here’s how you can follow your favorite team on Facebook, Twitter, and your RSS feed.