- Veteran guard Jamal Crawford recently spoke with Alex Kennedy of HoopsHype about the trade rumors that popped up with his name in them prior to the trade deadline. “It was a little bit frustrating. You hate to hear it, and this time was a little bit different since I had just re-signed [with the Clippers on a three-year contract] this past summer. […] For me, I’m just glad it’s over with and we’re just moving forward.“
Clippers coach and team president Doc Rivers indicated there’s a 50-50 chance he’ll bring in another player in the near future, Bill Oram of the Orange County Register reports. The player could come from the D League or from the buyout market, Oram continues, and would require the club to waive someone from the current 15-man roster. Forward Omri Casspi, who was bought out by the Pelicans, isn’t a likely target despite a recent report that the Clippers had an interest in him, Oram adds.“We’re looking at everything,” Rivers told Oram.
Here are Tuesday’s D-League assignments and recalls from around the NBA:
10:12 pm:
- The Cavaliers have assigned Larry Sanders to the Canton Charge, according to the D-League Digest (Twitter link). Cleveland signed Sanders on Monday.
- The Hawks have assigned DeAndre’ Bembry to the Salt Lake City Stars, according to the team’s website. Atlanta doesn’t have its own D-League affiliate, so the rookie will play for Utah’s affiliate, per the league’s flex assignment rule.
5:32pm:
- The Cavaliers have assigned rookie guard Kay Felder to the Canton Charge, the D-League affiliate wrote in a press release on its official website. Felder has appeared in 9 games for Canton already this season.
3:58pm:
- The Clippers announced they have recalled Brice Johnson from the Salt Lake City Stars (press release). Johnson, the 25th overall pick in the 2016 draft, has largely been inactive this season due to a herniated disk in his back.
- The Pistons have recalled Henry Ellenson from the D-League, according to the team.
Less than three weeks after breaking his right thumb, Omri Casspi has received medical clearance to “resume basketball activities,” tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com.
Casspi suffered the injury in his first game with the Pelicans after being traded from the Kings as part of the DeMarcus Cousins deal. New Orleans waived Casspi to open a roster spot rather than wait for him to heal. Casspi’s original prognosis put his recovery time at four to six weeks.
Now a free agent, Casspi has been contacted by several contending teams, according to Stein, who names the Clippers and Grizzlies among them (Twitter link). Memphis may need to find a replacement for Chandler Parsons, who could be shut down for the rest of the season with a partial meniscus tear in his left knee.
Casspi played just 22 games with Sacramento before the deal, averaging 5.9 points and 4.1 rebounds per night. He missed more than a month in January and February with a strained plantaris tendon in his right calf.
Here are Monday’s D-League assignments and recalls from around the NBA:
- The Nuggets recalled Malik Beasley from the Siux Falls Skyforce, the team announced on its official website (link). Beasley’s most recent NBA action came against Golden State on February 13, going scoreless through seven minutes.
- The Raptors recalled Bruno Caboclo from Raptors 905, the team announced via Twitter (link). Caboclo has averaged 9.9 points over 31 games in the D-League this season.
- The Clippers recalled Brice Johnson from the Salt Lake City Stars, the team announced via Twitter (link). Johnson, who has been sidelined with a herniated disk in his back for much of the season, has averaged nine points over three games in the D-League.
By default, NBA players who hold player options for the following season generally don’t have to make an official decision on those options until June 29, just two days before the new league year gets underway. However, that date can be altered on a contract-by-contract basis, which is why many of the 25 players who have player options or early termination options for 2017/18 will be making their decisions prior to June 29 this year.
Several of those player option decisions are due either on a specific date or a certain number of days following a team’s final regular season game. For instance, Rudy Gay‘s player option calls for him to make a decision either on June 10, or five days after the Kings’ last game — whichever comes later. Kyle Lowry, meanwhile, has to make a decision on his player option by June 19, or within seven days of the Raptors’ last game — whichever comes earlier.
Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders has done an excellent job keeping tabs on these early player option decision dates, so we’ll use his data to break down the schedule of upcoming decision dates. If a player who holds a 2017/18 player option isn’t listed here, that means his decision is due on June 29, or his decision date hasn’t been reported.
Here’s the list of early decision dates for 2017/18 player options:
Potentially dependent on when team’s season ends:
- June 10 (or five days after team’s last game): Rudy Gay (Kings)
- June 19 (or seven days after team’s last game): Kyle Lowry (Raptors)
- June 20 (or two days after team’s last game): Aron Baynes (Pistons), C.J. Miles (Pacers)
The rest:
- June 21: Dante Cunningham (Pelicans), Nick Young (Lakers)
- June 22: Greg Monroe (Bucks)
- June 23: Paul Millsap (Hawks)
- June 24: Langston Galloway (Kings)
- June 26: Spencer Hawes (Bucks)
- June 28: Blake Griffin (Clippers) (early termination option)
For details on how much these player options are worth, check out our list of 2017 free agents by position or by team.
Here are the D-League transactions from today:
- The Cavaliers have assigned guard Kay Felder to their D-League affiliate, according to a press release on the team’s official website. The rookie has averaged 30.6 points per game in seven matchups with the Canton Charge so far this season.
- The Clippers have assigned rookie Brice Johnson to the D-League for the first time this season, Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times tweets. Johnson has seen action in only one NBA game this season.
- It has been an eventful season for Chris Paul, who played an instrumental role in helping the Players’ Association negotiate a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NBA. Michael Lee of The Vertical takes a closer look at how Paul has been able to balance his role in the NBPA with his day job as the Clippers‘ star point guard.
- Though he’ll turn 37 years old this week, Clippers guard Jamal Crawford would like to play three or four more seasons, K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune reports. Crawford is averaging 12.3 points per game in his 17th season.
- The return of Chris Paul has thrown the Clippers bench into disarray, writes Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times. With Paul back in the starting five, Austin Rivers has had to slide back into the second unit. “Things like this happen,” backup center Marreese Speights said, “But we still got time to get it right before the playoffs. We’ll be all right.”
Now that the 2017 trade deadline is behind us, team salaries around the NBA shouldn’t fluctuate too drastically between now and the end of the season. Teams will continue to make minor roster changes, but as of today, a rest-of-season contract worth the minimum salary would count for no more than $237K on a club’s books. That’s a drop in the bucket when the salary cap is over $94MM.
The relative stability of team payrolls ensures that we can start looking ahead to assess which teams around the NBA will end up in luxury tax territory at season’s end. As it did in free agency last summer, the huge spike in the league’s salary cap continues to have an impact when it comes to taxpayers. Typically, at least a handful of teams pays the tax every year — last season, seven teams did. This season, however, since going into tax territory requires spending more than $113MM on team salary, only two clubs have crossed that threshold.
It’s possible that could change by the end of the 2016/17 season. The Trail Blazers, for instance, are only about $434K below the tax line, so if they need to make some roster changes in the coming weeks, they could get dangerously close to going over the threshold. But at this point, I don’t think Portland will be eager to sign anyone new to replace an injured player or two, since it’s simply not worth it for a club with a 25-35 record to risk becoming a taxpayer this late in the season.
No team besides Portland is all that close to going into the tax. The Mavericks had been about $1MM away prior to the trade deadline, but dumping Andrew Bogut‘s salary in the Nerlens Noel swap with Philadelphia didn’t just help the Sixers reach the salary floor — it also helped Dallas move comfortably away from tax territory.
So which two teams are likely to be the NBA’s only taxpayers this season? Well, the first one comes as no surprise…
Cleveland Cavaliers
- Team salary for tax purposes: $127,262,331
- Amount above the luxury tax line: $13,975,331
- Projected tax bill: $26,188,328
The Cavaliers actually project to go even further into the tax this weekend, once Derrick Williams‘ second 10-day contract expires and the team locks him up to a rest-of-season deal. However, it could be worse. Cleveland’s January trade that sent Mo Williams and Mike Dunleavy to Atlanta in exchange for Kyle Korver actually reduced the team’s salary and tax bill noticeably.
Prior to that move, the Cavs had been more than $15MM above the tax line, meaning they were a tier-four taxpayer, accruing $3.25 in taxes for every dollar spent. Now that they’re back in the third tier, their tax bill is slightly more manageable.
Los Angeles Clippers
- Team salary for tax purposes: $114,740,032
- Amount above the luxury tax line: $1,453,032
- Projected tax bill: $3,632,580
The Clippers were always close enough to the luxury tax line that it seemed plausible they could duck below it at some point this season by dumping a little salary in a trade. However, doing so almost certainly would have meant parting with a rotation player, and Doc Rivers has seemed perfectly content to stand pat — the Clippers haven’t made a single signing or cut all season.
While the Clippers won’t be on the hook for nearly as big a tax bill as Cleveland, the fact that the team remains in the tax isn’t great news. It’ll be the fourth consecutive year that Steve Ballmer‘s club has been a taxpayer, and with lucrative new contracts for Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and J.J. Redick potentially on tap this summer, the Clippers likely won’t be cutting costs in 2017/18. If they’re in the tax again next season, the Clips will continue to fact the more punitive penalties for repeat taxpayers.
Salary data in this post is based on our own math, plus contract figures from The Vertical and Basketball Insiders.