Latest On Glen Davis
The Clippers remain interested in signing unrestricted free agent Glen Davis, Brad Turner of The Los Angeles Times relays (Twitter links). Team coach and executive Doc Rivers spoke with Davis’ representatives this week, but no deal has been struck just yet, according to Turner’s sources. The two sides have reportedly been circling each other since early July. Los Angeles currently has a roster count of 15 players, 14 of whom possess fully guaranteed deals.
The Mavericks have also contacted Davis’ representatives recently to discuss a potential deal, and playing overseas in China or Europe also remain possibilities for the veteran, Turner adds. The Bucks were also mentioned as potential suitors early in free agency, but the signing of Chris Copeland effectively removed Milwaukee from the mix for Davis’ services.
Davis said recently that he expects to sign by month’s end and wants to play for a contender, and he is hopeful that he’ll return to the Clippers, as he told the Gio & Jones show on CBS Sports Radio. “I would love to go back,” Davis said. “Doc and his system works for me. He needs a guy to set picks and do the dirty work and stuff like that. I feel at home there. It’s just about getting [a deal] done.” Rivers had reached out to Davis on the opening day of free agency, and they share a lengthy history dating back to their time with the Celtics.
The 29-year-old appeared in 74 contests for the Clippers during the 2014/15 campaign and averaged 4.0 points and 2.3 rebounds in 12.2 minutes of action per night. His career numbers through eight NBA seasons are 8.0 PPG, 4.4 RPG, and 0.9 APG with a slash line of .447/.182/.700.
Pacific Notes: Jordan, World Peace, Barnes
The violation of NBA rules against third-party endorsement offers in a pitch the Clippers made to DeAndre Jordan this summer was unintentional, owner Steve Ballmer wrote in an internal memo he sent to members of the Clippers organization that Dan Woike of the Orange County Register obtained. The league fined the Clippers $250K, reportedly for offering Jordan a endorsement deal with Lexus that would pay the center $200K annually.
“As I shared with everyone on day one of purchasing the Team, being part of the Clippers family means operating with the highest integrity,” Ballmer wrote in part. “We believed we were doing this the right way, and any circumvention was inadvertent. In our effort to support our players in every way possible, we as an organization must be diligent in complying with the CBA.”
See more from around the Pacific Division:
- Metta World Peace told TMZ Sports that he’s unaware if the Lakers are thinking about signing him, as reports indicate. The 15-year NBA veteran who turns 36 in November nonetheless expressed interest in joining the team.
- The four-year, $52MM extension deal Michael Kidd-Gilchrist reportedly has with the Hornets will affect extension negotiations between the Warriors and Harrison Barnes, opines Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group. Kidd-Gilchrist has a decent chance to prove more valuable than Barnes in the long run, but the playoff success and durability of Barnes leads Kawakami to second the belief of TNT’s David Aldridge that Barnes and agent Jeff Wechsler will target salaries of at least $15MM (Twitter link). Kawakami suggests $14MM a year as a settling point but believes the threat of a $17-18MM offer sheet from another team looms if the Warriors let him enter restricted free agency next summer.
- Kawakami suggests in the same piece that market price for Festus Ezeli would be between $9-11MM. GM Bob Myers recently told Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com that the Warriors would consider the idea of an extension for the backup center, and the team would indeed sign Ezeli to an extension if he’s willing to do so at an agreeable price, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders reported this week.
Latest On Potential Heat Trades, Mario Chalmers
The Heat expect to keep Mario Chalmers until at least the start of training camp, and owner Micky Arison has made no demand that the team shed salary, reports Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. The prospect of trading for Jamal Crawford, an idea the Heat reportedly raised in talks with the Clippers nearly two months ago, “can’t be ruled out,” but Miami is satisfied with its depth on the perimeter, Jackson writes. The Heat are still willing to trade Chris Andersen, but the market for him has been soft, Jackson hears from a higher-up who’s been in contact with the Heat, and no evidence suggests the Clippers are interested in him as part of a swap involving Crawford, Jackson adds.
The Heat would still prefer to offload salary and haven’t ruled out trading Chalmers, set to make a guaranteed $4.3MM in the final season of his contract this year, as soon as October, according to Jackson. The point guard hasn’t given indications that he’s expecting to be traded, and team president Pat Riley denied reports around draft time indicating that the team was shopping Chalmers and Andersen. Grantland’s Zach Lowe nonetheless heard a couple of weeks later that Chalmers and Andersen were available “for nothing.” Andersen didn’t seem concerned about the rumors when he made a public appearance earlier this week, as Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel chronicles.
An opposing GM told Jackson in mid-July that Chalmers and Shabazz Napier were the players the Heat were shopping the most aggressively, and Miami dealt Napier to the Magic later that month for no salary in return. That, plus the swap that sent Zoran Dragic to the Celtics with no other salary involved, helped Miami lower its payroll, though the Heat still have about $90.4MM in guaranteed salary, which puts them about $5.66MM above the $84.74MM luxury tax threshold. The Heat would have to pay repeat-offender tax penalties if they’re still above the tax line on the final day of the regular season. Miami only has 12 players on fully guaranteed deals, and if they keep Hassan Whiteside on his partially guaranteed contract but get rid of everyone else, they’d have a tax bill of roughly $16.3MM. Jackson estimates the tax bill at around $23MM, though that appears to include some of the non-guaranteed contracts.
Do you think the Heat will move below the luxury tax line this season? If so, how do you think they’ll manage to do it? Leave a comment to tell us.
Clippers Fined For Pitch To DeAndre Jordan
2:59pm: The Clippers offered Jordan an endorsement deal with Lexus for $200K a year, and that’s apparently what prompted the fine, a source tells Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link).
12:47pm: The NBA has fined the Clippers $250K for violating the league’s rules against circumventing the salary cap in their pitch to DeAndre Jordan last month, the league announced via press release (Twitter link via Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports). The Clippers presented Jordan with a potential third-party endorsement opportunity during their meeting with him on July 2nd. That was before Jordan gave his commitment to the Mavericks, one that came undone when he later expressed second thoughts to the Clippers, who convinced him to re-sign.
The league’s investigation concluded that the violation didn’t influence Jordan’s ultimate decision to return to the team. However, the NBA is imposing the fine anyway, since rules prohibit teams from arranging compensation for players outside of the salary set forth via the contractual terms allowed under the collective bargaining agreement.
The fine will ultimately have little impact, since it doesn’t have any bearing on the team’s salary cap, and owner Steve Ballmer, who paid $2 billion to purchase the franchise last year, probably won’t feel much of a pinch over losing $250K. That the violation took part during the Clippers’ initial efforts to sign him, and not during the scramble that took place as he reneged on his decision to sign with the Mavs, further diminishes the effect. Still, it’s an odd coda to the already extraordinary story of Jordan’s free agency this summer.
What part of the Jordan storyline sticks out the most in your mind? Leave a comment to tell us.
Pacific Notes: Weems, Bryant, Griffin
Matt Petersen of NBA.com chronicles Sonny Weems’ path back to the NBA after playing in the D-League and overseas. Weems was traded to the Nuggets during the 2008 draft and ending up playing most of his minutes in the D-League. In less than a year, the guard was traded twice. Once he received meaningful minutes for Toronto, he showed he belonged in the NBA. Then the lockout happened. Like quite a few NBA players, he signed overseas, but his contract was the only one not to contain an “out” clause. Once his contract expired, he signed a two-year contract with CSKA, but this time he made sure to secure an “out” clause. The Arkansas product was shooting better than 40% from behind the arc and he knew he would generate enough interest to use it.
The Suns signed Weems this offseason to help aid their bench unit and the 29-year-old couldn’t be happier. “Every basketball player growing up, their dream is to play in the NBA,” Weems said. “Now I’m back.”
Here’s more from the Pacific Division:
- Kobe Bryant is back on the court practicing shooting drills for the first time since tearing the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, Eric Pincus of The Los Angeles Times writes. Bryant is in the last year of his current deal, which will pay him $25MM.
- The Clippers were able to improve their bench unit this summer with the additions of Lance Stephenson, Wesley Johnson and Josh Smith. The new arrivals should allow the team’s starters to get more rest during the regular season, which is something Blake Griffin sees as a huge advantage in the long run, Rowan Kavner of NBA.com writes. “It’ll help a lot,” Griffin said. “My third season in the league when we had that unbelievable bench, I think I dropped to like 32 minutes a game in the regular season…You definitely feel fresher toward the end, but you have to find that right balance of not holding back too much, being able to give everything. Having an elite bench is going to help us tremendously, especially come playoff time.”
Western Notes: Crawford, Dejean-Jones, Prince
There are reportedly multiple teams, including the Knicks, Heat, and Cavaliers, that are interested in swinging a deal with the Clippers to acquire sixth man Jamal Crawford. But Los Angeles isn’t currently motivated to give up Crawford without garnering a useful return, Dan Woike of The Orange County Register relays in a series of tweets. It wouldn’t be a wise move to deal Crawford, who is extremely valuable as a bench piece, for a backup caliber point guard or center, Woike opines. The Orange County Register scribe believes that the smarter move for the Clippers would be to hold onto Crawford and see how the team’s roster shakes out in training camp to better assess what the team’s needs are before making a decision.
Here’s what else is happening around the Western Conference:
- The Pelicans dipped into their mid-level exception to sign undrafted shooting guard Bryce Dejean-Jones, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets. The pact includes a partial guarantee of $50K for the 2015/16 campaign, while the other two seasons of the deal are non-guaranteed, Pincus adds.
- According to league sources, the Jazz have yet to contact other teams or free agents regarding adding another point guard in the wake of Dante Exum‘s season-ending knee injury, Andy Larsen of KSL.com relays (Twitter links). Utah appears content to begin the season with Trey Burke, Bryce Cotton, and Raul Neto, and will potentially look to acquire additional help later in the season if needed, Larsen adds. There were reports that the Jazz had interest in acquiring Garrett Temple from the Wizards, but Washington reportedly isn’t anxious to to move Temple, and he wouldn’t come cheaply if they were so inclined.
- Tayshaun Prince‘s minimum salary arrangement with the Timberwolves for the 2015/16 season is fully guaranteed, Pincus tweets. The addition of Prince gives Minnesota 16 fully guaranteed pacts, according to our roster count for the team.
Atlantic Notes: Embiid, Johnson, Crawford
Sixers center Joel Embiid underwent a second surgical procedure on his injured right foot this week, and he is expected to miss the entire 2015/16 campaign as a result. While the news that the 2014 No. 3 overall pick will miss his second consecutive campaign is bad enough, there’s also a strong chance that Embiid will also miss the beginning of the 2016/17 season, according to Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer (video link), with a hat tip to Chris Walder of TheScore.com.
“Talking to my sources, they want to see him return around October – not this October, but the next October, for that season,” Pompey said. “And he may not even return for the start of that season. He may miss a couple games. But that’s their goal.”
Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- The Raptors will miss Amir Johnson ‘s intangibles and hustle this season, with the forward having signed a two-year, $24MM pact with the Celtics this offseason, writes A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com. “He went from a role player to a very big piece of what we were doing,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said of his former player. “He became the core of what we were doing in Toronto. We went from a young, up and coming team to grow. We’ll miss his leadership, his toughness. He has a quiet toughness about him that we will miss with our team.”
- The Knicks reportedly have interest in acquiring Jamal Crawford from the Clippers, and Lang Greene of Basketball Insiders believes that landing Crawford would take additional pressure off of Carmelo Anthony on the perimeter and also provide good spacing for the entire Knicks offense overall. Greene also notes that trading for the guard wouldn’t have a negative impact on the Knicks’ salary cap since Crawford is in the final season of his current deal.
Latest On Carlos Boozer
7:54am: The Shandong Lions, another Chinese team, are also going after Boozer, as Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia indicates via Twitter.
12:26am: The Sichuan Blue Whales and other Chinese teams are expressing interest in Carlos Boozer, and while the Rob Pelinka client is intrigued, he’s still pursuing NBA deals, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter links). News regarding the 33-year-old has been scarce since a late-July report indicated that the Knicks, Rockets and Mavericks were eyeing him. The 33-year-old has lingered in free agency since July, when the lucrative five-year deal he signed with the Bulls expired. He made $16.8MM last season as a member of the Lakers, though Chicago paid all but the $3.251MM figure the Lakers bid when they claimed him via amnesty waivers.
Few NBA teams have more than the $2.814MM room exception to spend at this point. The Mavs have that amount available, though they already have deals with 20 players, the offseason maximum. The Knicks spent the room exception on Kevin Seraphin and have only the minimum to offer. The Rockets have about $2.274MM worth of their mid-level that they could spend, though doing so would leave the team hard-capped and without the means to give No. 32 pick Montrezl Harrell a market-value contract. Boozer and the Clippers reportedly had mutual interest in July, but they only have the minimum to spend, and while the Spurs, Raptors, Pelicans, Nuggets, Nets, Lakers and Heat have all apparently had interest over the course of the summer, it’s unclear if that’s the case now. Thus, I’d speculate that Boozer is only receiving minimum-salary offers from NBA teams at this point.
Andray Blatche signed a three-year, $7.5MM deal with China’s Xinjiang Flying Tigers this past spring, and a few weeks ago Shavlik Randolph inked a contract for at least $4.5MM over three years, numbers that suggest that Boozer, if he went to China, stands a decent chance to top the $1,499,187 he’d see on an NBA minimum deal. Still, Metta World Peace wound up with less than that in his deal with Sichuan last summer. A Chinese team would nonetheless offer Boozer a chance to double-dip, since the Chinese Basketball Association ends well in advance of the NBA season, giving players an opportunity to latch on with NBA teams at prorated salaries for the stretch run.
Will Joseph of Hoops Rumors examined Boozer’s free agent stock in depth earlier this month.
Where do you think Boozer ends up? Comment to tell us.
And-Ones: Morris, Richardson, Draft
Darius Morris, who was waived by the Nets at the end of June, has received contract offers from NBA teams and clubs overseas, but thanks to a foot injury suffered during training, he’ll be out of action for a few months, Morris’ agent, Brian Dyke, told international journalist David Pick (Twitter link). The 24-year-old made 38 appearances for Brooklyn during the 2014/15 campaign, logging averages of 2.2 points, 0.7 rebounds, and 1.3 assists in 7.9 minutes per contest.
Here’s more from around the league:
- Joel Brigham of Basketball Insiders tabs new L.A. arrivals Roy Hibbert and Lance Stephenson as two of six players who appear likely to benefit from having changed teams this summer.
- Jason Richardson‘s deal with the Hawks is a one-year minimum-salary arrangement and is without any guaranteed money, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). It has limited injury protection, Pincus also says, so it appears to be an Exhibit 9 contract. Richardson will see $1,499,187 if he sticks for the entire season, but since the deal only covers one season, it would cost the Hawks no more than $947,276, the equivalent of the two-year veteran’s minimum. The league picks up the rest of the tab.
- Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress peered into his crystal ball and released his first mock draft for 2017’s big event. The current top three players on Givony’s draft board are forwards Harry Giles and Jayson Tatum, with point guard Dennis Smith rounding out the top-ranked trio.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Trade Candidate: Jamal Crawford
Jamal Crawford apparently wishes he were a free agent, as he said on Twitter earlier this summer, but he still has one more season left on his contract. However, if he wants to leave the Clippers, he seems to stand a decent chance of having that happen for him before next July. The Clippers aren’t eager to trade the two-time Sixth Man of the Year award winner, but they reportedly explored the idea around draft time, and they’ve spent the summer upgrading on the wing, with newcomers Lance Stephenson, Paul Pierce and Wesley Johnson. The Knicks have expressed interest, as Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reported Tuesday, and the Heat and Cavs were apparently interested as of earlier this summer. Crawford is 35 years old and coming off his fewest minutes per game since the 2002/03 season, but it appears there’s still a market for him.
The Heat called the Clippers about Crawford in early July, as Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com reported then, but as Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel points out, that was before Miami signed Gerald Green. Bringing in Crawford and his $5.675MM salary would likely commit the team to paying repeat-offender tax penalties this season, Winderman also asserts, though that would probably depend on the nature of the trade they’d make. The Clippers, like the Heat and the Cavs, are above the tax threshold for now, and that would complicate any move, since the salary-matching constraints are stricter for tax teams.
The Knicks are well outside of tax territory, for a change, but they face other challenges. The Knicks don’t have any trade exceptions, so they’d have to send players to the Clippers to make a trade work. Only four Knicks players — Carmelo Anthony, Jose Calderon, Langston Galloway and Cleanthony Early — are currently eligible for inclusion in trades. First-round picks Kristaps Porzingis and Jerian Grant join them later this month, but that’s still not much to choose from. Calderon seems like the most logical candidate, given that the Clippers would be somewhat short on backup point guard options if Crawford weren’t there anymore, but the Clips would have to send additional salary to New York to make that a match. Porzingis would be an intriguing option for a Clippers team that doesn’t have much young talent coming up the pipeline, but the Knicks would be ill-advised to trade this year’s No. 4 overall pick for a 35-year-old who’s a year away from free agency. As Isola suggested, the involvement of a third team might be necessary if the Knicks are to somehow end up with Crawford.
The Cavaliers also only have four players eligible to be traded — Kyrie Irving, Anderson Varejao, Timofey Mozgov and Joe Harris — but they have a trade exception worth $10,522,500 that they can use to take in Crawford without giving up a player in return. That trade exception is a vestige of the Brendan Haywood contract that the Cavs were thinking about sending to the Clips when Cleveland looked into trading for Crawford in early July, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported then. The exception makes it easier for the teams to facilitate a deal, since the Clippers would have had to include additional salary along with Crawford to take in Haywood’s contract. Still, it would be difficult for the Clippers to give up Crawford without receiving a player who can help them in their quest for a championship this year. Teams only get so many legitimate cracks at a title, and the Clips would surely be loath to downgrade their talent just as they seem as close as they’ve ever been to the Larry O’Brien trophy.
That’s ostensibly why the Clippers aren’t anxious to trade Crawford in the first place. They’re probably not going to do a deal unless it benefits them on the court, and while Crawford could always pout or become a disruptive force in the locker room, he has yet to air his grievances beyond relatively innocuous social media interaction. The Clippers could nonetheless use some size behind DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin. They added Cole Aldrich through free agency, but Aldrich hasn’t proven to be the sort of player who could fill in as the starter for a championship-level team if Jordan or Griffin is injured for any significant stretch of time. That would make Varejao, despite injury concerns of his own, intriguing for the Clippers. It’s unclear just what sort of role a healthy Varejao would play for the Cavs this season, especially with Tristan Thompson‘s free agency still unresolved, but if Thompson comes back, Varejao would be relatively expendable. Of course, the Brazilian is also tight with LeBron James, and the Cavs would have to question the wisdom of sending one of LeBron’s friends to a contending team in a major market with warm weather. The Clips would also have to send additional salary to Cleveland to make a Varejao deal work.
Josh McRoberts and Chris Andersen offer no such salary-matching concerns, and they, like Varejao, would help deepen the Clippers up front. The Heat have no shortage of big men, with McRoberts, Andersen, Chris Bosh, Hassan Whiteside, Amar’e Stoudemire and Udonis Haslem all on the roster, so it would seem fertile ground for a trade is there. I’d contend that if the Heat were to trade McRoberts or Andersen for Crawford, they’d be no more committed to paying the tax than they otherwise would be, since it would entail an almost even exchange of salaries, and Crawford would appear to be a more intriguing trade chip to offer around the league if the Heat can’t find another way to slip under the tax line before the trade deadline. Crawford would give the Heat a strong alternative at shooting guard on the nights that Dwyane Wade can’t go. The addition of Crawford would make it easier for the team to play more small-ball lineups and for Miami to trade Mario Chalmers, currently Miami’s only proven option at the point behind Goran Dragic.
Regardless, it’s a seller’s market for Crawford. The Clippers wield the power, and if they want to mend fences with him, they can always pursue extension talks, as I pointed out earlier. Teams like the Heat, Cavs and Knicks will have to come to Clips coach/executive Doc Rivers, and not the other way around.
What do you think a good trade idea for Crawford might be? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.