Los Angeles Clippers Rumors | Hoops Rumors

And-Ones: Maxiell, Clippers, Thunder, Brooks

October 2nd, 2014 at 2:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

Jason Maxiell agreed to join the Hornets knowing that the team envisions him in a capacity more similar to the reduced role he played for the Magic last year than to the 71-start campaign he had with the Pistons in 2012/13, as Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer examines.

“It’s both maturing in life and maturing in basketball,” Maxiell said. “Respect your coach, your owner and your teammates, and help the other guys to understand this is a career. It’s not just playing basketball, it’s getting to a place where you can do other things after basketball.”

The pressure’s on the 31-year-old to make an impression this month, since he has a non-guaranteed deal. Here’s more from around the league:

Doc Rivers admits that the Clippers have a greater need at point guard, a position that Jared Cunningham can play, than at the forwards, Joe Ingles‘ positions, but Rivers insists that he won’t necessarily make a decision on the final regular season roster based on that. Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times has the details.
The contracts of Thunder camp invitees Lance Thomas, Michael Jenkins, Richard Solomon and Talib Zanna are all non-guaranteed for the minimum salary and cover just one season, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). All four fit the criteria for Exhibit 9 Contracts that would keep the Thunder from paying them if they’re injured during camp, but it’s unclear whether any of them agreed to such a deal.
Championship dreams led Aaron Brooks to sign for just the minimum salary when he joined the Bulls, as he tells Joel Brigham of Basketball Insiders. Former Bulls and fellow Seattle natives Nate Robinson and Jamal Crawford gave Brooks full-throated endorsements of the organization, as Brooks says to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune (Twitter link).
Agent Charles Briscoe is joining forces with NFL agent Joby Branion to form Vanguard Sports Group, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. Our Agency Database shows that Briscoe, who formerly operated through Briscoe Sports Management, represents Archie Goodwin and Joe Jackson of the Suns, Xavier Silas of the Wizards, and Junior Cadougan, who was briefly with the Bucks last fall.

Western Notes: Beasley, Allen, Kings

October 1st, 2014 at 7:31pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace says Michael Beasley is one of six guys in training camp with a chance to show the team they deserve to snag the last regular-season roster spot, Teresa M. Walker of The Associated Press writes. “It’s up to him to show us, make the case for himself then we’ll see where this goes,” Wallace said. “We’re just at the beginning of it with training camp started, and obviously he’s someone that’s very talented … His career hasn’t gone the way he would’ve liked but this is the perfect place for him to rebound.”

Here’s more from out west:

Clippers coach Doc Rivers said that free agent Ray Allen was not a candidate to take the team’s final roster spot since Los Angeles has a glut of shooting guards already, Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times reports (Twitter link). Allen hasn’t announced if he will play this season or retire despite numerous teams having interest in his services.
Rivers also added that Joe Ingles and Jared Cunningham are candidates for the team’s final regular-season roster spot, tweets Bolch. Both players are in training camp on non-guaranteed deals.
In his season preview for the Kings, Sam Amico of FOX Sports Ohio predicts a 40-win season and Sacramento missing out on the playoffs. Amico believes that the Kings are still one star player away from becoming a factor in the west.

Pacific Rumors: Morrises, Liggins, Gay, Kobe

September 30th, 2014 at 12:39pm CST by Chuck Myron

Marcus Morris says he thinks Markieff Morris should have received a greater share of the four-year, $52MM combined total of the extensions that agent Leon Rose negotiated for the twins, as he told reporters, including Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. Markieff said it would be OK if he and his brother ended up on different teams, but he added that there was no reason for them to walk away from what the Suns had to offer.

“It’s a dream come true,” Markieff said. “We feel like we’re home together. When they offer us great money to stay together, why not take it instead of going through free agency? We’re both going to have great seasons. … The game is more fun together. It means more. We’re definitely past that point of not being able to play apart, but another four years definitely won’t hurt anything.”

Here’s more from around the Pacific:

DeAndre Liggins doesn’t appear on the training camp roster the Clippers released today, so it looks like he won’t be joining the team after all. There were conflicting reports about whether he had a deal to do so.
Rudy Gay said he briefly began extension talks with the Kings over the summer, but he put them on hold when he joined Team USA, notes Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. Still, Gay’s not opposed to having his agents at Octagon Sports resume talks, Jones adds.
Kobe Bryant isn’t ruling out the idea of playing beyond his contract, which ends in the summer of 2016, shortly before his 38th birthday, observes Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. “Whether I do or not, we’ll have to see that two years from now,” Bryant said. “I don’t know, but I could [play longer]. Physically, I don’t see an end to the tunnel.”
Confidence in the continued development of the team’s young players made the Warriors hesitate to trade for Kevin Love, as GM Bob Myers told NBA TV, while Klay Thompson, in his NBA TV appearance, expressed appreciation for Steve Kerr‘s role in forestalling a swap. Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group provides a transcription. “If it is the truth, it’s awesome,” Thompson said of Kerr’s opposition to a move. “I appreciate Steve for that. It just makes me want to play even harder for him if he really did believe that, so it gives me a new sense of confidence, really.”

Clippers Sign Joe Ingles

September 30th, 2014 at 11:38am CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 30TH: The deal is official, the team announced, listing Ingles on the preseason roster.

SEPTEMBER 25TH, 10:47pm: The signing has taken place, according to the RealGM transactions log.

2:32pm: Dan Woike of the Orange County Register hears the deal is non-guaranteed, contradicting the earlier report (Twitter link). Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times also has it as a non-guaranteed deal, and he confirms it’s for the minimum (on Twitter).

12:16pm: Ingles’ representatives at Priority Sports confirmed the deal, via Twitter.

11:35am: The deal is guaranteed, Pick tweets.

SEPTEMBER 16TH, 8:45pm: The Clippers and Australian swingman Joe Ingles have agreed to a one-year deal, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. It’s almost certainly for the minimum, since that’s all the Clippers can hand out. It’s unclear whether the pact is guaranteed, as Stein wrote earlier this month that Ingles would likely land a guaranteed deal with an NBA team, while Ingles told Boty Nagy of The Courier Mail, a Queensland-based newspaper in Australia, that he wouldn’t be receiving any guaranteed money.

Stein referred to Ingles a couple of weeks ago as a “virtual lock” to sign in the NBA, with seven or eight teams in pursuit as he put on a strong showing in the FIBA World Cup. The Grizzlies and Sixers were among those clubs, though Stein said Ingles was unlikely to end up in Philadelphia, even given his ties to former Australian national team coach and current Sixers bench boss Brett Brown. The guaranteed salaries on the books for Memphis put them only about $1.2MM shy of the luxury tax line, and Stein cites that as reason why the Grizzlies didn’t make as hard a push for Ingles this season as they did last year, when he rejected a two-year offer from the team. Still, the minimum salary that Ingles is in line to receive from the Clippers wouldn’t have put the Grizzlies into the tax, and Marc Gasol, who can become a free agent next summer, supported the idea of bringing his former Spanish-league teammate to Memphis. The Hawks, Jazz, Pacers and Bucks are the other NBA clubs to have been linked to Ingles over the past two offseasons.

The 6’8″ Ingles, who turns 27 next month, spent last season playing for new Cavs coach David Blatt with Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel, averaging 6.0 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 21.2 minutes per game as a part-time starter. His numbers were better in the World Cup, as he put up 11.4 PPG, 3.2 RPG and 3.4 APG in nearly 31.0 MPG. Ingles had a tough time generating interest on the European professional circuit before his World Cup performance, according to David Pick of Eurobasket.com, yet he turned down private workout invitations from NBA teams during summer league in July, Pick tweets.

The Clippers have been carrying 14 fully guaranteed pacts plus a deal with DeAndre Liggins that’s presumably no more than partially guaranteed. The team has kept fewer than 15 players on the opening-night roster in recent years, but perhaps new owner Steve Ballmer is willing to change that.

Clippers Sign Jared Cunningham

September 30th, 2014 at 11:37am CST by Eddie Scarito

SEPTEMBER 30TH: The deal is official, the team announced, listing Cunningham on the preseason roster.

SEPTEMBER 22ND: Cunningham’s deal is in fact non-guaranteed, as Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times reveals in his updated Basketball Insiders salary page for the Clippers.

SEPTEMBER 20TH: The Clippers have signed Jared Cunningham, according to the RealGM transactions log. No official announcement from the team has been made yet, and details of the contract are not yet known. It is most likely a non-guaranteed training camp deal for the 22-year-old shooting guard out of Oregon State. This signing ups the Clippers’ preseason roster count to 18, with 15 of those deals being fully guaranteed.

Cunningham has appeared in a total of 21 games over two seasons in the league, and his most recent action came with the Kings last season when he parlayed a 10-day contract into a deal that covered the remainder of the 2013/14 season. His career numbers are 2.0 PPG, 0.4 RPG, and 0.4 APG. His career slash line is .343/.300/.833.

Los Angeles already has J.J. Redick, C.J. Wilcox, and Jamal Crawford on the roster at the shooting guard position, which makes it a real longshot for Cunningham to remain on the roster for opening night.

Pacific Rumors: Clippers, Lee, Thompson

September 29th, 2014 at 7:50pm CST by Cray Allred

Forbes revealed its list of the 400 wealthiest Americans today, and new Clippers owner Steve Ballmer ranks as the richest NBA owner at number 18 overall. Here’s more from around the Pacific Division:

The Clippers announced the additions of Sam Cassell, Lawrence Frank, and Mike Woodson to their assistant coaching staff in a team release.
David Lee told reporters including Diamond Leung of Bay Area News Group that he’s not upset with Warriors brass, who floated his name for much of the summer in trade talks for Kevin Love that never came to fruition. “There was no hard feelings,” Lee said. “There can’t be. Our front office is trying to improve the team, and Kevin Love is a great player. It happened, and I’m not mad at anybody. I don’t feel bad. It’s just this is a business.”
Warriors point guard Steph Curry backed up Klay Thompson‘s insistence that the Love trade talks, which also heavily involved Thompson’s name, did not anger him as reported. “[Thompson] showed me the little link on his phone and then started laughing,” Curry said, as quoted by Leung on Twitter.

Pacific Notes: O’Neal, Clippers, Warriors

September 25th, 2014 at 5:11pm CST by Eddie Scarito

According to Warriors GM Bob Myers, it doesn’t appear that Jermaine O’Neal will be returning to Golden State, Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle notes (Twitter link). When discussing the bigs on his roster, Myers said the team would be sticking with Andrew Bogut, Festus Ezeli, Ognjen Kuzmic for training camp. O’Neal had been giving some thought to retirement but there was talk that the Warriors had interest in bringing back the 35 year-old center.

Here’s the latest out of the Pacific Division:

Longtime Clippers executive Andy Roser, who’d been on an indefinite leave of absence since May, will not return to the team, a source tells Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times. Roeser was briefly in charge of the franchise after commissioner Adam Silver banned former owner Donald Sterling for life.
The team president that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is seeking to run the team’s day-to-day operations would oversee the business side, as Bolch clarifies. So, that ostensibly means the hire wouldn’t dabble in the basketball operations department that’s the domain of coach/executive Doc Rivers. Roeser, who had previously occupied the team presidency, was part of a triumvirate of executives in charge of player personnel before Rivers came aboard last year.
Having David Lee back on the court might not be the best thing for the Warriors, Jonathan Tjarks of RealGM opines. Former coach Mark Jackson was forced to get creative when Lee was injured during the playoffs in 2013, and the changes he made maximized the team’s strengths, Tjarks notes.
One thing that Ballmer should do is to find a way to welcome Elgin Baylor back to the organization in some capacity, Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com opines. Baylor lost his wrongful termination suit against the franchise, but recent events certainly seem to add credence to his claims that racism played a part in his firing by the team.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Nets, Lawrence Frank Reach Buyout Deal

September 25th, 2014 at 9:45am CST by Chuck Myron

The Nets and former assistant coach Lawrence Frank have reached a deal on a buyout that will allow the sides to part ways after a contentious one-year stint, reports Chris Mannix of SI.com (Twitter link). Frank appears headed to the Clippers, as the team is expected to name him one of its assistant coaches in the coming days, according to Dan Woike of the Orange County Register (on Twitter). Brooklyn reassigned Frank in December into a role in which he filed daily reports for the club, in spite of a contract that had called for him to make more than $1MM a year for six seasons as an assistant coach under coaching neophyte Jason Kidd.

The buyout is no surprise, since Frank had reportedly hired “high-powered” attorney David Cornwell to try to negotiate a way out of his deal shortly after his reassignment late last year. It’s unclear whether that sort of legal counsel was ultimately involved in the buyout, but this summer’s departure of Kidd, with whom Frank apparently clashed, didn’t seem to repair the relationship between Frank and the team. Nets GM Billy King said in April that it was his decision, and not Kidd’s, to strip Frank of his coaching duties.

The Clippers have been eyeing Frank for a while, as A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com reported earlier this summer that they were considering him for their staff, and Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com wrote earlier this month that Frank was expected to join the team. Clippers head coach/executive Doc Rivers had reportedly sought Frank as an assistant coach in the summer of 2013, too. Frank served as an assistant under Rivers for the 2010/11 season on the Celtics bench.

The 44-year-old Frank’s greatest success in coaching came in his first stint with the Nets, when he guided the team to the playoffs four straight years as head coach. He also served as a head for the Pistons, and is 279-335 in parts of nine seasons as an NBA head man.

Western Notes: Thunder, Clippers, Bledsoe

September 24th, 2014 at 8:31pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Thunder revealed that the name for their new D-League team will be the Oklahoma City Blue in a press release they issued earlier today. As for why that name was chosen, Brian Byrnes, the Thunder’s senior vice president of Sales and Marketing said, “Blue is one of our primary Thunder colors, but it has become more than just a color for us. It has come to represent the passion, loyalty and unity of our fans and our community in their support for our team. Our players wear it proudly on their uniforms, our fans sport Thunder blue shirts, Thunder blue flags fly across Oklahoma and our statewide Blue Alliance fan groups show their connection to our team and what it stands for.”

Here’s more from out west:

Clippers president and head coach Doc Rivers praised the offseason addition of Spencer Hawes, and said the center turned down larger offers to come to Los Angeles, Dan Woike of the Orange County Register writes. Rivers said, “I thought he was a great fit. Because of salary and where we’re at, I didn’t think we could get him.” The coach also noted in the article that the franchise getting to the point where players will take less money to play there is a positive sign.
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer hopes to have a team president who will handle day-to-day operations of the team in place soon, Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times reports (Twitter link).
Ballmer also announced that Eric Miller, former owner Donald Sterling’s son-in-law, has left his position as director of basketball administration, Dan Woike of the Orange County Register tweets.
The Suns are reportedly set to re-sign Eric Bledsoe to a five-year, $70MM extension, and Steve Kyler and Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders debate whether it was a mistake on Phoenix’s part.
Shareef Abdur-Rahim is no longer with the Kings, Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee reports. Abdur-Rahim was the director of player personnel and GM of of the Reno Bighorns, the Kings’ NBA D-League team.

Wizards Sign Daniel Orton For Camp

September 23rd, 2014 at 8:50pm CST by Cray Allred

SEPTEMBER 29TH: The deal is official, the team announced.

SEPTEMBER 23RD: The Wizards are close to signing Daniel Orton for training camp, reports J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. Orton is expected to sign a summer contract within the next few days, and it will be non-guaranteed.

Michael reports that Orton also worked out for the Pistons and Lakers, and canceled another workout with the Clippers once they signed Ekpe Udoh. Orton’s conditioning is better than it was during summer league, and Washington was the best fit for the third-year center because they covet frontcourt pieces more than his other suitors, Michael tweets.

The Vartanian/Simmons Sports Management client has played a total of 50 games in parts of the last three seasons with the Magic, Thunder, and Sixers. The big man has averaged 2.8 points and 2.5 rebounds per game for his career.