International Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Luis Scola Intends To Retire After 2021 Olympics In Tokyo

November 14th, 2020 at 10:33am CST by marksuleymanov

Former NBA big man Luis Scola has reiterated his intention to retire from basketball after the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, according to Sportweek (via Sportando).

“When will it end? In a year, after the Olympics. Only then I will decide what to do,” Scola said. “I could stay involved in basketball, but not as a coach: eventually, only for young players. I’m already receiving plenty of proposals, but no one of those has been just as exciting as the idea of playing.”

Scola, 40, has not suited up for an NBA team since the 2016/17 campaign but has nonetheless remained active overseas. Last season, Scola played for Olimpia Milano. The Argentinian averaged 11.2 PPG and 3.2 RPG in 15 Italian League games and 9.2 PPG and 4.4 RPG in 28 EuroLeague contests.

Across 743 regular season NBA games, Scola averaged 12.0 PPG and 6.7 RPG for the Rockets, Suns, Pacers, Raptors and Nets. In his prime with Houston, Scola was a durable player and an efficient scorer, averaging a career-best 18.3 PPG during the 2010/11 season.

Scola indicated earlier this year that he was weighing retirement but still wanted to represent Argentina on the worldwide stage. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the Olympics to move to 2021, which could mark the end of Scola’s career. However, he will look to add another medal to his mantle to join his gold and bronze medals from the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.

Draft Notes: Edwards, Okoro, Toppin, Haliburton, Hampton

November 11th, 2020 at 4:48pm CST by Luke Adams

Former Georgia guard Anthony Edwards has long been considered a strong bet to be one of the first three players off the board in the 2020 NBA draft, and his list of workouts confirms as much. Speaking today to reporters, including Mark Medina of USA Today (Twitter link), Edwards said he has worked out for the Timberwolves, Warriors, and Hornets, the teams that hold 2020’s top three picks.

That doesn’t necessarily guarantee that Edwards will be selected by one of those three teams, but he also said today that he hasn’t had any contact with the Bulls, who hold the No. 4 pick, per Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington (Twitter link). That’s a reasonably solid sign that Chicago doesn’t expect him to be available.

Here’s more on the draft:

Lottery prospects Isaac Okoro, Obi Toppin, and Tyrese Haliburton have only worked out so far for teams holding top-eight picks. Okoro has worked out for the Timberwolves, Warriors, and Cavaliers (Twitter link via Rod Beard of The Detroit News); Toppin has auditioned for the Wolves, Cavs, Hornets, and Knicks (Twitter link via Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com); and Haliburton has had workouts for the Wolves, Warriors, Bulls, and Pistons (Twitter link via Beard).
RJ Hampton has auditioned for a wider range of teams, telling reporters today that he worked out for the Cavaliers, Pistons, Wizards, Celtics, Magic, Nets, and Nuggets (Twitter link via Ian Begley of SNY.tv). While three of those clubs have top-10 picks, three are outside the lottery, including Denver at No. 22.
After announcing earlier this week that 86 early entrant prospects had remained in the 2020 draft pool, the NBA announced today that two of those prospects submitted their paperwork in time to withdraw. Spanish forwards Sergi Martinez and Joel Parra have pulled out of the draft, per the league, leaving 84 early entrants – including 13 international prospects – eligible to be picked next Wednesday.

And-Ones: Social Justice Board, Boatright, Jazz, Moore

November 9th, 2020 at 8:50pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Carmelo Anthony, Avery Bradley, Sterling Brown, Donovan Mitchell and Karl-Anthony Towns are the players chosen to serve on the league’s Social Justice Coalition Board, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania (Twitter links).

The NBA and NBPA agreed to create the group to advance equality and social justice after teams walked out of games in late August to protest a police shooting. Commissioner Adam Silver, deputy commissioner Mark Tatum and NBPA executive director Michele Roberts, as well as owners Micky Arison, Steve Ballmer, Clay Bennett, Marc Lasry and Vivek Randadive and coaches Lloyd Pierce and Doc Rivers.

We have more from around the basketball world:

Ryan Boatright has signed with Lithuanian club team BC Rytas Vilnius, the team tweets. Boatright, 28, played in Europe last season after spending time in the G League during the 2018/19 season. The former University of Connecticut guard also played in Italy, China and Turkey.
The sale price of the Jazz bodes well for the league’s franchise valuations, Bill Shea of The Athletic notes. The team, along with an arena and a couple of minor-league teams, were sold to Qualtrics founder Ryan Smith for $1.66 billion, and the league’s owners are expected to approve the sale. The valuation falls in line with expectations and doesn’t reflect any pandemic discount, Shea continues. It also reinforces the notion that team values keep going up.
Former Pacers forward Ben Moore has signed with South East Melbourne Phoenix of Australia’s NBL, according to the team. Moore is expected to join the club for preseason training next month. Moore, who also spent time in the Spurs organization, logged two games with Indiana during the 2017/18 season.

Draft Notes: International Prospects, Wolves, Suns, Lewis, Terry

November 9th, 2020 at 1:15pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBA’s deadline for early entrants to withdraw from this year’s draft has now passed, which means it should just be a matter of time before we get an updated official list from the league of the early entrants who have kept their names in this year’s pool.

In the meantime, updates on a handful of international prospects continue to trickle in. According to Nicola Lupo of Sportando, Estonian forward Henri Drell – who is currently playing for Pesaro in Italy – has withdrawn his name from the 2020 draft.

On the other hand, Isralie point guard Yam Madar, a member of Hapoel Tel Aviv, has elected to keep his name in the draft, per Barak Haklai of ynetsport (Twitter link). And after initially announcing that his client Marko Simonovic would be pulling out of the draft, agent Misko Raznatovic has clarified (via Twitter) that Simonovic will remain in the draft after all.

Here’s more on the 2020 NBA draft:

An NBA general manager who spoke to Jeff Goodman of Stadium (Twitter link) this morning said he doesn’t envy the Timberwolves and their efforts to maximize the value of the No. 1 pick. “The teams at the top are desperate to try and trade down, but there just isn’t much value with the top few picks this year,” the GM said.
Within a piece on Kira Lewis Jr., Mike Mazzeo of Forbes says the Timberwolves and Suns are among the teams that have watched the Alabama guard work out in person. Lewis also worked out in person for Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Orlando, as previously reported.
Few prospects have increased their stock in recent months as substantially as Stanford’s Tyrell Terry, according to Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer, who notes within a profile of Terry that the 20-year-old has interviewed virtually with all 30 NBA teams.
In an Insider-only article, Kevin Pelton of ESPN uses advanced stats to break down this year’s prospects into tiers. Pelton has LaMelo Ball on his own in tier one, followed by Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton in tier two, with Deni Avdija, Onyeka Okongwu, and James Wiseman in tier three.

And-Ones: G League, Acy, Mack, COVID-19

November 8th, 2020 at 6:20pm CST by JD Shaw

The NBA G League is discussing a number of options with its 28 teams for the 2020/21 season, one of which includes playing in a bubble environment, according to Harrison Feigen of SB Nation.

Teams were notified that the goal remains to play out a full season, Feigen reports, though exact details of the campaign remain unknown. The bubble environment could also exist in ‘regional bubbles’, rather than the Disney format used to finish the 2019/20 NBA season.

Besides the importance of developing young talent, another major push for the G League season to happen is the newly introduced Select Team, league sources told Hoops Rumors. The team acts as a one-year development program for NBA prospects fresh out of high school, with five-star recruits such as Jalen Green and Isaiah Todd set to play if a season is held.

Despite much about the G League campaign being unknown, the NBA and its players’ union have agreed to a start date for their season: December 22. The draft remains scheduled to be held on November 18, with free agency expected to commence shortly thereafter.

Here are some other odds and ends from around the basketball world:

Veteran forward Quincy Acy is in discussions on a new deal with Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel, according to Roi Cohen (as relayed by Sportando). Acy holds several years of NBA experience with the Raptors, Kings, Knicks, Mavericks, Nets and Suns, getting drafted No. 37 in 2012.
Free agent Shelvin Mack has signed in Greece with Panathinaikos, the team announced on social media. Mack, 30, also holds several years of NBA experience, making past stops with the Wizards, Sixers, Hawks, Jazz, Magic, Grizzlies and Hornets. He most recently played with Hapoel Jerusalem in Israel.
Patrick Reusse of The Star Tribune grades how different sports leagues adapted to COVID-19 this year. The NBA ranked in the “A” category, as the league successfully kept the virus away from its players in the Disney campus restart format.

Several International Players Pull Out Of Draft

November 7th, 2020 at 4:15pm CST by Arthur Hill

Sunday marks the deadline to withdraw from the NBA draft, and a handful of international players have reached their decisions. The date doesn’t affect college players because the NCAA set an Aug. 3 deadline for players to remove their names from the draft and retain their eligibility.

Lithuanian guard Arnas Velicka has decided to take his name out of the draft, tweets Nicola Lupo of Sportando. Velicka currently plays in France.
Belgian guard Joel Ekamba is skipping this year’s draft, a source tells Lupo. The 19-year-old also plays in France.
Brancou “Papi” Badio of Senegal has decided to withdraw, according to Lupo. The 21-year-old guard is playing his first season on the senior team for FC Barcelona.
Also removing his name from the draft is Greek guard Nikos Rogkavopoulos, Lupo adds. Rogkavopoulos is playing this season with AEK Athens.
Greek shooting guard Georgios Kalaitzakis is withdrawing, agent Marius Rutkauskas confirmed to Lithuanian basketball writer Donatas Urbonas (Twitter link). Kalaitzakis is ranked 90th on ESPN’s list of the top 100 prospects.
Lithuanian center Marek Blazevic is pulling out of the draft, sources tell Urbonas (Twitter link). He currently plays for Zalgiris Kaunas of the Lithuanian Basketball League.
Deciding to remain in the draft is Adrian Bogucki, a 20-year-old center from Poland, according to Lupo. The 7’1″ Bogucki is playing in Poland and has been part of the U16, U18 and U20 Polish national teams.

Draft Notes: Mouaha, Ebeling, Achiuwa, Knicks

November 6th, 2020 at 12:01pm CST by Luke Adams

The NCAA’s withdrawal deadline for the 2020 NBA draft has long since passed, but the NBA’s own deadline falls 10 days before the draft. That means that a number of international prospects – for whom the NCAA deadline didn’t apply – face final decisions on whether or not to keep their names in this year’s draft pool.

Cameroonian guard Aristide Mouaha and Italian forward Michele Ebeling are two international early entrants who have decided to pull out of the draft, according to a pair of reports from Nicola Lupo of Sportando. Both prospects are currently playing in Italy. Ebeling will become automatically draft-eligible in 2021, while Mouaha is on track to be draft-eligible in 2022 if he doesn’t re-enter his name next year.

As our tracker shows, we still have 34 international prospects listed as early entrants for 2020. It’s safe to assume that many more will withdraw before the November 8 deadline — I’d expect that list to be cut at least in half within the next couple days.

Here’s more on the 2020 NBA draft:

Former Memphis big man Precious Achiuwa worked out for the Wizards earlier this week and is working out for the Celtics on Friday, according to Adam Zagoria of Forbes (Twitter link). Achiuwa is the 12th overall prospect on ESPN’s big board, so both Washington at No. 9 and Boston at No. 14 could in play for him.
In a pair of Insider articles for ESPN.com, Jonathan Givony, Mike Schmitz, and Kevin Pelton discuss the best wings and big men of this year’s draft class. All three experts rate Deni Avdija as the top wing in the draft, with Givony and Schmitz placing Isaac Okoro second while Pelton takes Devin Vassell. In a bit of a surprise, both Givony and Schmitz pick Onyeka Okongwu over James Wiseman as the top big man prospect.
While the Knicks’ No. 8 pick has been the main focus, the team is working diligently on its options at No. 27 and 38 and is hoping to find a “diamond in the rough,” a source tells Marc Berman of The New York Post. Berman examines former Arizona shooting guard Josh Green and Duke center Vernon Carey Jr. as a couple potential late-first-round options for New York, citing one talent evaluator who says Green would be a “perfect fit” for the team.

And-Ones: Free Agents, Jersey Ads, Bubble, Europe

November 3rd, 2020 at 4:11pm CST by Luke Adams

John Hollinger of The Athletic, who invented the PER stat during his time at ESPN, has developed a new metric called BORD$ that estimates a player’s salary value for the upcoming season. After providing an in-depth explanation of how exactly the BORD$ formula works, Hollinger has applied it to this year’s class of free agent point guards and shooting guards in an attempt to determine which players warrant the biggest investments.

Hollinger’s point guard list doesn’t include a ton of surprises — Fred VanVleet is easily the most valuable free agent at the position, with Mike Conley and Goran Dragic topping the next two tiers. Shabazz Napier, Trey Burke, and Jordan McLaughlin are among the point guards whose projections are higher than you might expect.

Applied to this year’s free agent shooting guards, the results from Hollinger’s metric are more eyebrow-raising. Grizzlies RFA-to-be De’Anthony Melton is considered the top free agent at the position by BORD$, ahead of Bogdan Bogdanovic and Evan Fournier. A pair of Bulls guards, Kris Dunn and Shaquille Harrison, also rank in Hollinger’s top seven FA shooting guards due to their defensive prowess.

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

As the NBA considers potential new revenue streams to help offset the losses generated by the coronavirus pandemic, allowing a second advertisement patch on game jerseys is one idea being weighed, according to John Lombardo of SportsBusiness Journal.
David Aldridge of The Athletic takes an in-depth look at the lessons learned from the NBA’s summer bubble experiment and the takeaways that could carry over to the 2020/21 season. As Aldridge observes, while players and coaches aren’t eager to re-enter a bubble next year, the fact that it worked so well this time around will go a long way toward convincing them it’s worth doing again, if need be — even if it’s just for a short period in the postseason, like Major League Baseball did.
The coronavirus pandemic has continued to wreak havoc on European basketball leagues that have begun their 2020/21 seasons, as Ken Maguire of The Associated Press writes. Only half of the EuroLeague’s 18 clubs have played a full six-game schedule so far this season, as COVID-19 outbreaks have caused several last-minute postponements.

Devon Hall Signs With German Team

October 30th, 2020 at 8:00am CST by Luke Adams

OCTOBER 30: Brose Bamberg has published a tweet formally welcoming Hall to the team.

OCTOBER 29: Thunder guard Devon Hall is in the process of signing with German club Brose Bamberg, a source tells Emiliano Carchia of Sportando.

Hall, a 2018 second-round pick who was on a two-way deal with the Thunder early in the 2019/20 season, was waived last December, but remained with the team’s G League affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blue. In 30 total NBAGL games (31.4 MPG) this season, he averaged 15.6 PPG, 5.7 RPG, and 4.1 APG on .455/.360/.860 shooting.

Hall then rejoined the Thunder for the NBA’s summer restart, signing as a substitute player after the club had promoted Luguentz Dort to its 15-man roster. He played in six of Oklahoma City’s eight seeding games, though he was inactive for the playoffs. In total, he appeared in 11 NBA games as a rookie, averaging 1.8 PPG and 1.2 APG.

Two players who finished the 2019/20 season under contract with the Thunder have now lined up deals with teams in Europe — Hall follows the lead of Kevin Hervey, who signed with Russian club Lokomotiv Kuban last month.

And-Ones: McMillan, T. Lewis, J. Jones, Free Agency

October 29th, 2020 at 12:22pm CST by Luke Adams

After initially planning to sit out the 2020/21 season following his dismissal from the Pacers, Nate McMillan has had an apparent change of heart, writes Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files. Sources tell Agness that McMillan is hoping to be on an NBA coaching staff next season and has already heard from several teams.

While we don’t know all the clubs McMillan has talked to, it’s safe to assume Houston is one. After word broke on Wednesday that the Rockets were hiring Stephen Silas as their head coach, a report indicated that the team was looking to add a couple former head coaches – including McMillan – to Silas’ new staff.

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

In international basketball news, former Salt Lake City Stars guard Trey Lewis is signing with Israeli team Maccabi Rishon, per JD Shaw of Hoops Rumors (Twitter link), while former Capital City Go Go wing Jalen Jones is joining Italy’s Pallacanestro Varese, as Emiliano Carchia of Sportando relays. Lewis was in camp with the Jazz in 2018, while Jones appeared in 32 NBA games with three teams from 2017-19.
Earlier this week, the NBA sent teams its proposed game presentation protocols for 2020/21, assuming that few – or no – fans are permitted in arenas, per Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). Those protocols would include enhanced theatrical lighting and pre-recorded arena noise (possibly from NBA 2K).
In an Insider-only article for ESPN.com, Bobby Marks estimates the starting salaries for this year’s free agents, including Fred VanVleet ($18-20MM), Joe Harris ($14-16MM), and Danilo Gallinari ($14-16MM), among many others.
With an apparent divide between the NBA and NBPA on whether to start the season on December 22 and January 18, Ethan Strauss of The Athletic wonders if a staggered start that allows some well-rested teams to headline the Christmas Day slate might be a good compromise.