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How Salary Matching Affects Kevin Love Trade

August 8th, 2014 at 10:56am CST by Chuck Myron

The Kevin Love trade agreement seemed like a straightforward two-team swap Thursday, when Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported that the Wolves would send Love to the Cavs for Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and a protected 2015 first-round pick. That structure came as something of a surprise, since rumors had indicated that a third team would be involved. There will indeed be a third team in the mix, according Mark Perner of the Philadelphia Daily News, who wrote that Sixers will jump in the deal to send Thaddeus Young to the Wolves and that Bennett will be rerouted to Philadelphia. Still, fellow Daily News scribe Bob Cooney indicates that the Young-Bennett exchange will take place as a separate transaction after the Love deal is official, a report that leaves the precise structure of the Love trade in flux.

Regardless of where Love, Wiggins, Young and the rest end up, all the moves will have to meet the NBA’s salary-matching requirements. The Sixers are unbound by the rules, since they’re under the cap, but the Wolves and Cavs are over the cap, so they must adhere to them. The stipulations germane to the Love-related moves hold that teams under the tax but over the cap, like the Cavs and Wolves, can receive 150% plus 100K of the salary that they trade away, as long as the salary they part with adds up to no more than $9.8MM. Should the Cavs or Wolves trade away more than that, they can receive up to $5MM more than the salaries they give up. A further rule applies if either the Cavs or Wolves relinquish $19.6MM or more. In that case, they’d only be able to take back 125% plus $100K of what they give up, but this limit is unlikely to come into play.

The two-team deal in the form that Wojnarowski originally reported works because the salaries for Wiggins and Bennett add up to $11,074,560. That’s more than $9.8MM, so it triggers the $5MM rule for Cleveland. Love is set to make $15,719,063 this coming season, which is $4,644,503 more than Wiggins and Bennett will make put together. It’s a tight squeeze beneath $5MM, but it still fits.

The addition of the Sixers and Young would add a layer of complexity, but it would still make for a legal trade. The Wolves would be taking back Wiggins and Young, whose salaries add up to $14,921,509, simply moving them closer in line with the salary for Love that they’re relinquishing. The only salaries the Cavs would be giving up would be those of Wiggins and Bennett, and they’d be acquiring only Love. It doesn’t matter that Bennett would be going to a different team in this scenario, as long as it’s all part of the same transaction. The Cavs would still be taking back less than $5MM more than the amount they’re giving up, which exceeds $9.8MM, so it’s kosher. The Sixers would be reducing their salary with this trade structure, dropping them farther beneath the cap.

What wouldn’t work is if the Wolves and Sixers simply swap Young and Bennett after making the Love trade that Wojnarowski originally outlined. Bennett’s $5,563,920 salary is less than $9.8MM, so Minnesota could only trade for 150% plus $100K of what Bennett makes, which would come to $8,445,880. Young’s $9,410,869 salary exceeds that, so the Wolves and Sixers couldn’t make this deal.

Minnesota is hoping to trade J.J. Barea, Luc Mbah a Moute and Alexey Shved, as Wojnarowski added when he reported the Love agreement Thursday, and Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune said the Wolves would like to unload Barea and Mbah a Moute in a deal for Young. Still, NBA rules would prohibit the Wolves from packaging Bennett along with Barea, Mbah a Moute, Shved or anyone else on the roster for two months after acquiring Bennett from the Cavs. Capped-out teams like the Wolves can flip a player for whom they just traded, but only if they send the player out by himself. Since trading Bennett alone for Young wouldn’t work, either, the Cavs and Sixers would have to wait until the two months pass for Minnesota to add enough salary to the deal to make it work.

Any trade involving Wiggins can’t be complete until August 23rd because of the 30-day waiting period the Cavs must endure after signing him, as has been much publicized. So, a separate deal that sends Young to Minnesota and Bennett to Philadelphia couldn’t be consummated until late October, weeks after the start of training camp. That wouldn’t make it impossible, of course. But it would be less than ideal.

The Sixers and Wolves could try to split the Bennett-Young deal into parts, so that Bennett would go out on his own for a draft pick. If they attempt that, there’s a decent chance the league would object on the grounds that such a maneuver would be an attempt to circumvent the rules, as Tom Moore of Calkins Media explains.

If the Sixers would consent to taking Barea, Mbah a Moute, Shved or some combination of those players back in a deal that sends out Young and nets them Bennett, Minnesota and Philadelphia could more easily accomplish this as part of the Love trade. It wouldn’t muddy the salary-matching waters for the Wolves or Cavs, and the Sixers have enough room to give up Young and take Bennett and the entire trio of Barea, Mbah a Moute and Shved without going over the cap. The Sixers probably wouldn’t agree to taking all of them, but regardless of how many of them, or even if any of them, were involved, it would be much easier for Young to end up in Minnesota and Bennett to wind up with the Sixers if it happened as part of the Love trade. If the Wolves and Sixers have that aim, expect them to accomplish it at the same time Love heads to Cleveland.

ShamSports and Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ were used in the creation of this post.

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NBA Middle Class Deals

August 7th, 2014 at 3:56pm CST by Chuck Myron

The NBA’s middle class might not be vanishing, but it is not robust. There has been no evidence of drastic change in the willingness of teams to hand out middle class deals over the past few years, as team sources and former interim players union executive director Ron Klempner told Grantland’s Zach Lowe for a piece published in April. Lowe defined a middle class deal as one with annual salaries that fell between $5MM and $10MM. There have been 108 signings or agreements between free agents and NBA teams so far this summer, according to our Free Agent Tracker, and 20 of them fall with Lowe’s range. But the equation changes with a slight alteration to the definition of middle class.

The NBA’s non-taxpayer mid-level exception this season calls for a deal with a starting salary of up to $5.305MM. The most a player could receive through this exception is slightly more than $22.652MM over four years. That works out to an average annual value of about $5.663MM. That’s strikingly close to the league’s $5.632MM estimated average salary for 2014/15 season. The average annual value of a four-year mid-level deal would nonetheless likely end up beneath the NBA average salary over the full span of the contract, since average salaries have risen each season since the first one under the latest collective bargaining agreement. That equation isn’t different even for a player who signs a shorter mid-level contract, since the 4.5% annual raises involved in a mid-level deal boost the average annual value of longer such contracts. The average annual value of a two-year mid-level deal, for instance, is only about $5.425MM, beneath this year’s estimated average salary.

The exception is a tool that teams can use without opening cap space. If we remove the deals that would have fit within the parameters of the mid-level and instead define middle class deals as those that come in above the mid-level amount, only 12 of this year’s signings and agreements fit the middle class criteria. That means teams have been largely unwilling to commit cap space to players making more than the mid-level but less than eight-figure salaries.

There’s an even more profound dearth of pacts in the next bracket. Teams have handed out only three contracts with starting salaries of at least $10MM but less than $14.746MM, the maximum salary for a player with fewer than seven years of experience. This sort of “upper middle class” deal has been exceedingly difficult for players to find this year.

I’ve listed this year’s middle class deals here, grouped by tier and listed in descending order of average annual value. The salaries are rounded to the nearest $1K.

Upper middle class ($10MM or more but less than $14.746MM)

Above mid-level deals (More than mid-level exception, less than $10MM)

Mid-level and near-mid-level ($5MM to mid-level exception)

* — The salaries in Tucker’s deal descend over the life of the contract, so his first-year salary exceeds the amount of the mid-level, while the average annual value comes in at less than the mid-level.

ShamSports and Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ were used in the creation of this post.

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Free Agent Stock Watch: Ramon Sessions

August 6th, 2014 at 9:35pm CST by Cray Allred

One of the most productive free agents who still hasn’t found a team this summer is Ramon Sessions. In fact, of the 30 point guards who scored at least 10 points per game while averaging over 4 assists, Sessions is the only player without a contract. Sessions wasn’t far off his career PER average of 16.7 last season, a number that ranks with many of the league’s better rotation players. Perhaps Sessions’ situation will look less bleak in the coming days, but at the moment there are not a lot of landing spots where Sessions could sign for at or above the $5MM annual salary he just earned on his (expired) two-year deal. As our own Chuck Myron detailed in today’s Ray Allen Stock Watch piece, the teams with much more than the veteran’s minimum to offer are dwindling.

Sessions’ skill set is an odd mix for today’s NBA. In four of his first five seasons in the league, Sessions averaged over 7 assists per-36 minutes, but that rate slipped well below 6 per-36 over his last two seasons. The point guard position is evolving from a pass-first mold, however, with unconventional scoring guards becoming more accepted. Sessions’ most glaring weakness is his poor three-point shooting, which stands at 31.1% over his career, and 28.2% last season. As the league moves away from mid-range shots to emphasize the three-pointer, teams are increasingly unenthusiastic about perimeter players with no long distance range. In fact, Charlotte traded away Sessions last season in order to bring in shooting specialist Gary Neal as the Hornets geared up for the 2014 playoffs.

One of Sessions’ greatest strengths does fit the advanced team-building strategies in today’s NBA, however. Sessions has an elite free throw rate. At 6.6 free throw attempts per-36 minutes, Sessions ranked 12th in the league last year, behind only Ty Lawson at the point guard position. Teams increasingly value trips to the charity stripe as one of the most efficient elements of a strong offense; if Sessions could convince teams he could put up even mildly below average shooting averages to go with his ability to draw fouls, I can’t imagine he’d still be unsigned today.

Charlotte trading the veteran to the Bucks blindsided Sessions, but he was still open to reuniting with the Hornets as his free agency approached this summer. The Hornets sent mixed signals as to their own interest in a reunion, but eventually signed veteran backup Brian Roberts along with Lance Stephenson, a combo guard capable of running the point to complement starter Kemba Walker. In any case, Charllote was just one of many teams that had the point guard on their radar as free agency began. One of those teams was the Bulls, but they have since re-signed Kirk Hinrich alongside newcomers Pau Gasol, Nikola Mirotic, and Doug McDermott. Considering Derrick Rose‘s return, it would be surprising if they even wanted Sessions at the minimum now, considering the cap ramifications.

Some of the teams with cap flexibility might not be interested in upgrading their point guard slot. The Bucks haven’t been reported as interested in bringing Sessions back, and have already added the cheaper Kendall Marshall to a backcourt that includes Brandon Knight and Nate Wolters. The Jazz have two young point guards in Trey Burke and Dante Exum, but appear comfortable letting the raw Exum grow alongside Burke, rather than developing behind a veteran like Sessions. The Sixers have the most money available, and the thinnest roster, but have done nothing to bring in solid talent this offseason via free agency.

The Pacers haven’t been named as a Sessions suitor, but stand as a potential match. The team is seeking offense after losing Stephenson to free agency and Paul George to injury, and that is definitely Sessions’ strength. They are also applying for the disabled players exception, which would allow them over $5MM in signing ability if granted. The Rockets are another team without a reported connection to Sessions, but could theoretically be a good match for his talents. After trading away Jeremy Lin, Houston was left with Patrick Beverley as their only proven commodity at point guard. Beverley is a much better defender than Sessions with more success behind the arc, but Sessions has a longer track record than the likes of Ish Smith or Isaiah Canaan, Houston’s current bench pieces behind Beverley. Houston also has the flexibility to sign Sessions for significantly more than the minimum.

The Allegiant Athletic Agency client will hope that his strengths will eventually outshine his weaknesses in the eyes of a front office with money to spend. Just two years ago, the point guard was confident enough in his market value to decline a player option of over $4.5MM, and wound up getting a raise. It remains to be seen if the market will provide such a soft cushion this time around.

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Free Agent Stock Watch: Ray Allen

August 6th, 2014 at 10:58am CST by Chuck Myron

Ray Allen‘s offseason stands as a reminder that probable outcomes don’t always come true. A report in June indicated that he was leaning toward returning for another season and that he wanted to continue playing alongside LeBron James. That pointed to a return to the Heat, who kept the NBA’s all-time leading three-point maker in their plans. Once James bolted to the Cavs, it sent the league for a spin, and perhaps no player felt the dizzying effects as much as Allen did.

The Cavaliers reportedly began their pursuit of the 18-year veteran even before James made his choice to return to Cleveland. Mike Miller started recruiting Allen to come north as the Heat renounced their rights to Allen and used their cap space on others, leaving Miami only the minimum salary to offer. Multiple reports indicated that Allen had begun to lean toward the Cavs, but he put the brakes on that idea, dismissing not only the idea that he preferred Cleveland but raising doubt about whether he’d play at all this coming season.

That sort of back-and-forth suggests that Allen is torn about his next course of action. As he told Don Amore of the Hartford Courant this weekend, he has nothing left to prove after breaking the all-time record for three-pointers made and winning two NBA championships. He’s headed for the Hall-of-Fame sooner or later. He nonetheless remained a productive player this past season even as he stared down his 39th birthday, which took place last month. Returning for another season would allow Allen to put his three-point record further out of reach and chase one more ring, alluring draws for any competitor.

Allen’s 37.5% three-point accuracy fell below his career mark of 40% for the first time in four years this past season, but he shot just 36.3% from long range in 2009/10 and bounced back with new career highs in three-point percentage in each of the next two seasons. A more disconcerting stat from last season is his 12.8 PER, the sort of number that’s usually the domain of below-average NBA players. It was the worst PER that Allen had ever recorded, and teams considering him for more than the minimum salary might worry that his efficiency will suffer another decline.

The Jim Tanner client seemingly rebuffed the idea that he’s only worth the minimum at this point in his career during a conversation a few days ago with Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald. The Cavs and Heat can offer only the minimum, and Cleveland, with rookie head coach David Blatt, doesn’t appear to fit Allen’s preference for a veteran coach, unless he’s willing to count Blatt’s experience overseas.

A dozen NBA teams can give Allen no more than the minimum, as the Lakers have since joined those ranks since I compiled this list last month. The only teams that employ a coach with more than a season of NBA head coaching experience and have more than the minimum salary to spend are the Pistons, Rockets, Pelicans, Magic, Spurs, Raptors, Thunder and Timberwolves. Minnesota can offer just about $100K more than the minimum with the partial amount of its mid-level left over from its deal with Mo Williams, and the Thunder would be unlikely to spend more than the minimum on Allen since they’re bumping up against the luxury tax. The Raptors are flirting with the tax line, too, so they might be similarly hesitant.

That leaves just five teams capable of meeting Allen’s preferences, and only Houston and San Antonio among them are within hailing distance of a title. The Spurs could throw their entire $5.305MM mid-level exception at him if they see fit, while the Rockets could come within about $500K of matching that. Both teams have made three-point shooting a premium over the years, so Allen would fit that bill.

The Rockets would seemingly make more sense, stung as they are from an offseason that didn’t go as hoped and without a logical backup to James Harden. The Spurs have plenty of depth, but they’re closer to the title, a factor that Allen surely wouldn’t dismiss. The team-oriented culture of San Antonio might hold appeal as well, but Houston appears to be in a position of greater need and perhaps greater willingness to make a more lucrative offer, though that’s just my speculation.

Allen said to Murphy that it would take a “perfect storm scenario” for him to play this season, and while the conditions in Texas seem ripe for clouding his thoughts of retirement, the most likely outcome at the moment suggests that Allen has played his final game. But, as we’ve learned from following him this summer, there’s no safe bet.

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Trade Retrospective: Dwight Howard To Lakers

August 5th, 2014 at 9:17pm CST by Eddie Scarito

It’s an enormous gamble for franchises to trade away their superstars because there’s almost no way to get back equal value in return. Teams usually have to settle for quantity over quality, and have to bank on the returns panning out down the line, or being able to in turn, flip the acquired assets for another team’s star player in another deal. It’s a gamble either way you look at it, and might help in explaining the turnover rate of NBA GM’s.

The current Kevin Love situation playing out in Minnesota is a great example of this. Team president and coach Flip Saunders is still trying to decide whether or not to pull the trigger on the deal, and if he does, which package provides the best return? There’s no way to get equal value for a player of Love’s caliber, at least not for the coming season. If Saunders lands the right package it will benefit the Timberwolves more in the seasons to come, rather than during the 2014/15 campaign. This is true even if they do in fact land Andrew Wiggins, as most of the current rumors suggest.

Minnesota’s quandary made me want to take a look back at some other blockbuster trades where superstars changed hands, and to examine how the trades worked out for both sides. Since we’re discussing a big man, I decided to begin this series with a look back at the August 2012 deal that sent Dwight Howard from the Magic to the Lakers.

First let’s recap the trade, and all the assets and teams involved:

  1. The Lakers received Dwight Howard, Chris Duhon, and Earl Clark from the Magic.
  2. The Nuggets received Andre Iguodala from the Sixers.
  3. The Sixers received Andrew Bynum from the Lakers, and Jason Richardson from the Magic.
  4. The Magic received Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, a 2014 first rounder from Denver via the Knicks (traded to Sixers for the rights to Elfrid Payton) and a 2013 second-round pick (Romero Osby) from the Nuggets; Maurice Harkless and Nikola Vucevic from the Sixers; Josh McRoberts, Christian Eyenga, a top-five protected first rounder in 2017, and a conditional second-rounder in 2015 from the Lakers (protected for picks 31-40).

Looking back at the trade from the Lakers’ perspective, it’s not as bad a deal as one would have thought, considering Howard ended up being a one-year rental. During Howard’s lone season in Los Angeles, he averaged 17.1 PPG, 12.4 RPG, and 2.4 BPG in 76 appearances. His time was most notable for his displeasure with then coach Mike D’Antoni‘s offensive system, and the perception that Howard wasn’t satisfied with being the second biggest star on the team after Kobe Bryant.

Los Angeles went 45-37 in Howard’s only season, earning the seventh seed in the playoffs, where they were swept in the first round by the Spurs. Howard then left the Lakers to sign a four-year, $87.59MM contract with the Rockets.

In retrospect, the Lakers didn’t surrender all that much for their one season of Howard. At the time giving up Andrew Bynum, who was coming off of a season where he averaged 18.7 PPG, 11.8 RPG, and 1.9 BPG, seemed like a gamble, considering re-signing Howard wasn’t guaranteed, but Bynum ended up missing the entire 2012/13 season, and he’s only appeared in a total of 26 games since then.

Josh McRoberts has turned out to be a valuable bench contributor, but he’s not a player who would have significantly changed the fortunes of the purple-and-gold. McRoberts was subsequently traded by Orlando to the Hornets for Hakim Warrick midway through the 2012/13 season, and most recently signed a four-year, $22.65MM deal with the Heat.

The biggest loss from the trade could turn out to be the 2017 first-rounder that went to Orlando. It’s top-five protected, which gives Los Angeles some margin for error. But unless the Lakers make a splash in free agency the next two summers, the loss of the pick will cost them a much needed cog in the rebuilding process, and will negatively impact the franchise. I would say that setback wouldn’t be worth the single season of Howard they received. The record the Lakers have compiled since the trade is 72-92, hardly the result they intended when making the deal.

The Nuggets received a big boost from Iguodala in his one season with the team. He averaged 13.0 PPG, 5.3 RPG, and 5.4 APG while appearing in 80 contests. Denver went 57-25 that year, securing the third seed in the playoffs, before getting ousted by the Warriors in the first round.

Iguodala then left the Nuggets in a sign-and-trade deal with the Warriors that netted them Randy Foye. The Nuggets also swapped 2018 second-rounders with Golden State as part of that trade.

Foye had a decent season last year, averaging 13.2 PPG, 2.9 RPG, and 3.5 APG in Denver. He actually outperformed Iguodala’s totals in Golden State, thanks to Iguodala being slowed by injuries for much of the year. Still, in the long term, Iguodala is a much more valuable player, especially on the defensive end.

From Denver’s perspective this trade wasn’t a great success. The one season of Iguodala cost them two excellent years from Afflalo, who averaged 16.5 PPG, 3.7 RPG, and 3.2 APG in 2012/13, and 18.2 PPG, 3.6 RPG, and 3.4 APG during the 2013/14 season, numbers that surpassed anything that Iguodala has provided in Denver or Golden State. Afflalo was re-acquired by Denver this summer in a trade with Orlando which sent Evan Fournier and the No. 56 pick (Devyn Marble) to the Magic. Since the 2012 trade, the Nuggets record is 93-71.

From the Sixers’ perspective, this trade wasn’t a great deal–unless you are on board with their perceived tanking, and the assets they are gathering as a result. The acquisition of Bynum, which at the time was looked at as a win, turned out to be a disaster. Iguodala was a team leader, extremely popular in Philadelphia, and arguably the team’s best player at the time. Bynum had injury and motivation issues, and he ended up being far more trouble than he was worth during his brief stay in Philadelphia.

The loss of Harkless and Vucevic also doesn’t help the trade look any better from Philadelphia’s perspective. Harkless hasn’t set the league on fire, but he averaged 8.2 PPG and 4.4 RPG during the 2012/13 campaign, and 7.4 PPG and 3.3 RPG in 2013/14. He’s still only 21 years old and could develop into a valuable rotation piece down the line.

Vucevic, still only 23 years old, has turned out to be a very productive big man for Orlando. He put up 13.1 PPG and 11.9 RPG in 2012/13, and then 14.2 PPG and 11.0 RPG last season, far better numbers than anything from either Bynum or Richardson, who averaged 10.5 PPG and 3.8 RPG during his one healthy season in Philly.

The Sixers have gone 53-111 since the trade, a ghastly mark that stands in stark contrast to what they were envisioning when making the deal. They couldn’t have anticipated the injuries to Bynum, but that’s the risk a franchise takes with any transaction.

Finally, we come to the Magic. They were in a similar position to the one that Minnesota now finds itself in. They had a disgruntled superstar who wanted out, and they didn’t want to risk losing Howard for nothing if he left as a free agent. So, they made the difficult decision to deal away their franchise player.

After running through what the other teams received, and the minimal returns those assets provided, this might be one of the rare cases where the team trading away the best player actually came out on top.

As I’ve previously mentioned, Afflalo gave them two solid seasons, and Orlando probably should have retained him for another year, considering his talent level and affordable contract. Harkless has given Orlando decent production, and he hasn’t reached his full potential yet.

But the big prize was Vucevic. Productive big men are at a premium in the league, and he is still improving as a player. The problem will come after this season. Vucevic is eligible to sign an extension this summer, or he’ll become a restricted free agent in 2015. He won’t come cheap, and the Magic will have to decide if he’s worth the $10-15MM per season he will most likely seek in his new contract.

The final piece to this trade is Payton. If he can develop into a reliable starter, this trade will look better from Orlando’s perspective. Payton’s presence will allow Victor Oladipo to return to his natural position at shooting guard and reduce his ball-handling duties. The knock on Payton is his lack of a reliable jump shot, and with his questionable mechanics, it might not be a part of his game that will ever stand out. But if he can improve his defense, stay away from turnovers, and facilitate the offense effectively, he’ll be a valuable piece of the puzzle going forward.

Despite “winning” this trade, it hasn’t been reflected in the standings. Orlando has gone 43-121 since dealing away Howard. So, despite acquiring some intriguing building blocks, it also proves that one star player is far more valuable than a roster of good ones. Minnesota, take heed. You might have no choice but to trade Love, but no matter the return, your ranking in the Western Conference most likely won’t improve over the next few seasons.

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Free Agent Stock Watch: Michael Beasley

August 5th, 2014 at 7:16pm CST by Zachary Links

As teams look to make high-upside, low-risk pickups around this time of year, they could do a whole lot worse than adding a former No. 2 overall pick.  Forward Michael Beasley remains on the open market and it certainly stands to reason that he could be had for a minimum salary deal.  There has been interest out there for the talented but troubled 25-year-old but at this moment it’s not clear where he might wind up.

The Lakers, who are one of several teams that are limited to offering the minimum salary, auditioned Beasley late last month.  It would seem to be a logical pairing for a Lakers team that could probably use a boost in talent after losing Pau Gasol to free agency and whiffing on their top targets, including Carmelo Anthony.  However, since the July 30th tryout, the Lakers have added a couple of players – ex-Michigan State point guard Keith Appling and former UNLV and UConn forward Roscoe Smith – on training camp deals, so it’s not clear if B-Easy is truly in the plans in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, a return to Heat could still be a possibility even though it appeared to be a longshot at one point given his limited role in the postseason.  When asked if Beasley could get a new deal in Miami, team president Pat Riley responded, “He’s still a consideration, absolutely.”  It’s not hard to see why, even though he fell out of favor in Miami’s rotation when it counted the most.  Beasley still averaged 7.9 points and 3.1 rebounds in 15.1 minutes per game across 55 regular season appearances and his 16.8 PER, above the league average, was the second best of his six-year career.  However, the Heat recently added Shawne Williams, who would appear to be a replacement for Beasley off the bench. If Riley opened the door to a reunion on July 31st, the addition of Williams has closed it at least part of the way.

It’s hard to say where Beasley will end up since there are now roadblocks with the two clubs that have been publicly linked to him.  However, agent Jared Karnes maintained in late July that multiple teams aside from Miami have expressed interest, so there should be a place for him somewhere.

This is entirely speculative, but it’s conceivable that the Cavs, who are looking to add frontcourt depth, could be interested in Beasley.  The Cavs hosted Shawn Marion for a visit yesterday, but they’re not the only team looking to add him, so Beasley could be a Plan B if that doesn’t pan out.  One potential roadblock there could be LeBron James and his reported dissatisfaction with Beasley’s play and focus last season in Miami.  According to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe, James was furious with Beasley and his spacey antics in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.  Still, there could be a fit if Beasley can convince Cavs management and the club’s star player that he’s ready to zero in a bit more on the court.

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Five-Year Contracts Rare In Today’s NBA

August 5th, 2014 at 11:28am CST by Chuck Myron

One of the primary thrusts of the latest collective bargaining agreement is to limit contract length, and if the number of five-year deals handed out is any indication, it’s mission accomplished. Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Marcin Gortat are the only free agents to have received five-year deals this summer, and that’s an uptick from 2013, when teams combined to hand out only two such contracts. There have been two five-year rookie scale extensions signed in each of the previous two years, and only one player, Kyrie Irving, has inked a five-year rookie scale extension so far this offseason.

No deal under the current CBA is allowed to run more than five years, and a tight set of rules exist that keep most contracts from running longer than four seasons. Clubs can only sign their own free agents to five-year deals. That applies even for sign-and-trades, giving players no recourse but to stay with their teams should they insist on five-year commitments. Rookie scale extensions can run as long as five years, but a five-year extension triggers the Designated Player rule. That keeps teams from signing a player to a five-year rookie scale extension if they’ve already done so with another player on the roster. A Designated Player must receive the maximum salary in the first year of his deal, further dissuading teams from that sort of arrangement. Veteran extensions aren’t allowed to run for more than three seasons, as I noted Monday.

The first free agency and extension period under the current collective bargaining agreement took place in 2011, but it was condensed as the league scrambled to start the 2011/12 season after the lockout that year. So, the first full offseason under the existing set of rules took place in 2012, and even since then, the way teams hand out five-year deals has evolved. It’d be difficult to see guys like Jason Thompson and Ersan Ilyasova wind up with such lengthy contracts in today’s market, and even Brooklyn’s deal with Deron Williams, that summer’s marquee free agent signing, seems decidedly player-friendly two years later.

We’ve listed each of the five-year contracts signed since the 2012 offseason, grouping them by free agent deals and extensions. Click the year for more information on each deal.

Five-year free agent contracts

2012

2013

2014

Five-year rookie scale extensions

2012

2013

2014

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Players Eligible For Veteran Extensions

August 4th, 2014 at 11:55am CST by Chuck Myron

Tony Parker signed a veteran extension on Friday with the Spurs, but don’t expect a lot of others to follow his lead. Last week, we listed the fourth-year players who are eligible for contract extensions of up to five years. The criteria for those players are fairly simple: If you’re still playing on the rookie-scale deal you signed as a first-round draft pick and you’re entering the final year of that contract, you’re extension-eligible. Kyrie Irving became the first of those players to ink an extension with his current team when he re-upped with the Cavs.

For veteran players like Parker, the criteria are a bit more convoluted. As Larry Coon explains in his invaluable CBA FAQ, veteran contracts of less than four years cannot be extended. However, longer deals can be extended in the following scenarios:

  • If a player is on a four-, five-, or six-year deal, it can be extended three years after it was signed.
  • If a player previously signed a contract extension, his deal can be extended again three years after the extension was signed.
  • If a player previously renegotiated his contract, his deal can be extended three years after the renegotiation was signed, if his salary was increased by more than 10%.

There aren’t a lot of players are eligible for them in any given year, considering the specific circumstances required for a veteran extension. That’s especially true this time around, since the 2011 lockout pushed free agency into December that year. Thus, the work-stoppage also delayed the start of the three-year waiting period for players who signed new deals that year. There’s an unusually large group of players who’ll become extension-eligible in December and January this year, and that, too, is a product of the lockout.

Veteran extensions can be for no more than four years, which includes the current season, meaning a player in the final year of his deal could only add three new seasons. As such, top extension-eligible veterans such as Joakim Noah are far more likely to wait until free agency, where they can maximize their earnings. On the other hand, many other extension-eligible players like Joel Anthony and Travis Outlaw essentially have no chance of receiving new deals from their current teams, which are just waiting to clear those salaries.

Still, somewhere in the middle, there are a handful of players that we can reasonably expect to at least discuss the possibility of a contract extension with their respective teams at some point before next June. Here’s the list of veteran players currently eligible for veteran extensions:

In addition to the players listed above, several players will become eligible for veteran extensions sometime before next June. Here’s that list, along with the dates they become eligible to sign a new deal:

ShamSports and Storytellers Contracts were used in the creation of this list.

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Following Specific Players On Hoops Rumors

August 4th, 2014 at 8:59am CST by Chuck Myron

There are still a few storylines yet to unfold this summer, and in addition to methods of keeping track of your favorite teams, 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 all the news and rumors on Kevin Love as the Timberwolves move ever closer to trading him, you can visit this page. If you’re interested in how negotiations between the Suns and Eric Bledsoe are going, you can find Bledsoe’s page right here. For intel on where Greg Monroe 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, Love’s page is located at hoopsrumors.com/kevin-love.

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/kevin-love/feed. Entering that URL into the reader of your choice should enable you to get updates whenever we write about Love. It works for teams, too. If you’re a Bulls fan, you can enter hoopsrumors.com/chicago-bulls/feed into your reader and stay on top of all the latest from Chicago.

In addition to players and teams, there are a number of other subjects you can track by clicking on the tags 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 can be found on this rumors page. Any news that has to do with the National Basketball Players Association 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.

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Poll: Kevin Love And The Cavaliers

August 3rd, 2014 at 9:32pm CST by Zachary Links

Last time we asked you to pick where Kevin Love would start the 2014/15 season, there was a wide field of teams to choose from that did not include the Cavaliers.  Boy, how things have changed.  The Cavs brought LeBron James home to Cleveland and now Love badly wants to join his friend in Ohio.  Finally, months of denials from the T’Wolves organization, owner Glen Taylor finally confessed that he expects to trade the All-Star shortly after August 23rd.

August 23rd isn’t just some random date on the calendar, of course.  That’s the date when Andrew Wiggins‘ rookie contract with the Cavs can be moved.   It’s not exactly clear what a package for the pending free agent would look like, but it has been said that the Wolves will walk away with at least Wiggins, Anthony Bennett, and a future first-round selection.  It won’t be easy to replace Love, who turned in a ~27 PER which was good for third in the NBA behind James and Kevin Durant, but two consecutive No. 1 picks and a future first wouldn’t be a bad way to start the rebuilding process.

In the Love poll from two months ago, the Celtics were the leading vote getter followed by the Bulls and the T’Wolves.  The Warriors, Lakers, and pie-in-the-sky Kings were among the other clubs receiving votes, but at this stage, Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com hear that Wolves are no longer in serious talks about Love with any team other than Cleveland.  So, now we ask you to weigh the Cavs vs. the field.  Do you see Love starting the 2014/15 season with any team other than the Cavs?  And, yes, that includes the Timberwolves.

Where Will Kevin Love Start The 2014/15 Season?
Cleveland 85.62% (1,726 votes)
Somewhere else 14.38% (290 votes)
Total Votes: 2,016
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