Los Angeles Clippers Rumors | Hoops Rumors

And-Ones: Boozer, Blair, Williams, Mavs

July 17th, 2014 at 7:48pm CST by Alex Lee

With the Bulls using their amnesty provision on Carlos Boozer on Tuesday, only seven NBA players remain amnesty-eligible as noted in our 2014 Amnesty Primer. But the five teams that haven’t used the provision will have to wait until next summer, as Wednesday marked the deadline for this offseason.

Boozer was snatched up by the Lakers earlier today for a manageable price of $3.25MM, though as ESPN’s Marc Stein reports (via Twitter), the Duke product had strong interest in the Rockets had he gone unclaimed and cleared waivers. Meanwhile, Eric Pincus of the L.A. Times speculates that Boozer’s presence might signal a more complimentary role for rookie Julius Randle unless the playoff-hungry Lakers consider June’s No. 7 pick a small forward (Twitter links are here).

Here’s more from around the league on Thursday night:

DeJuan Blair‘s starting salary in his new deal with the Wizards is $2MM, Hoops Rumors has learned, so that leaves just $16K on the Eric Maynor trade exception the team reportedly used to absorb him via sign-and-trade from the Wizards. That effectively exhausts the Maynor exception, which expires this coming February 20th, since the remaining $16K wouldn’t be enough to absorb another player.
Louis Williams left his exit interview with Hawks officials expecting to be traded, as he told Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who writes in a subscription-only piece. The instinct was correct, as the Hawks shipped Williams to the Raptors late last month, but Williams said he harbors no ill feelings toward the Atlanta brass.
Multiple reports have linked Mo Williams to Dallas in recent days, but a source tells Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com that the Mavericks are pursuing another free agent whom they would prefer to spend their room exception on.
The Mavs‘ deal with Devin Harris, which became official earlier tonight, is for four years and $16.55MM, reports Dwain Harris of the Fort Worth Star Telegram (via Twitter). Meanwhile Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News has the yearly breakdown, reporting that Harris will make $3.878MM next season, followed by $4.053MM in 2015/16, $4.228MM in 2016/17 and $4.403MM in what is a partially guaranteed fourth year in 2017/18.
Metta World Peace would love to play for the Lakers, Clippers or Knicks, as Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News hears, adding that it seems any conversation World Peace may have had about a return to the Lakers wasn’t too serious (Twitter link).

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Western Notes: Williams, Scott, Clippers

July 16th, 2014 at 8:10pm CST by Cray Allred

While the Eastern Conference might be in for some major re-shuffling next season, the contenders in the West are all fighting to maintain or improve their positioning for the 2014/15 playoffs. Here’s a rundown from the Western Conference:

The Mavs are still hoping to land a point guard, namely Mo Williams, tweets Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Dallas wasn’t overly optimistic the veteran would choose them over other what other teams could offer as of yesterday. Jeff Caplan of NBA.com tweets that Williams does have offers on the table exceeding the $2.73MM Dallas can offer from their room exception.
Caplan writes in a separate piece that Dallas could be a contender this season thanks to the reduced salary Dirk Nowitzki accepted to stay with the Mavs, which gave the team flexibility to add Chandler Parsons, among other moves.
As expected, the Lakers meeting with coaching candidate Byron Scott passed without a contract offer, reports Mark Medina of Los Angeles Daily News (Twitter links). Medina says that Los Angeles plans to fill out more of their roster before following up with Scott, and that no timetable is clear at this point.
The Clippers are largely done with their offseason moves, as coach and president of basketball operations Doc Rivers tells Eric Patten of Clippers.com. Rivers added that the club had begun researching guards during the latter part of this past season in anticipation of the departure of Darren Collison.
Commissioner Adam Silver and Shelly Sterling have talked about reducing Donald Sterling’s lifetime ban, and Silver said Tuesday that he’d be willing to listen to more discussion of the idea if Donald agreed to sell the Clippers, according to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe (Twitter link). Silver also said Tuesday that it’s possible, given Donald’s legal challenges to the league’s attempt to force him out, that he will continue to own the team at the start of next season, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.

Chuck Myron and Ryan Raroque contributed to this post.

Pacific Rumors: Warriors, Lakers, Clippers, Pierce

July 15th, 2014 at 10:45am CST by Chuck Myron

The Warriors have been closely linked to Kevin Love trade talk for several weeks, but Golden State GM Bob Myers doesn’t think his team needs a drastic upgrade, as he told Bob Fitzgerald Monday on KNBR radio. Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group has the transcription.

“What I think people often do and maybe sometimes make the mistake doing is pull the trigger quickly on your roster without giving it time to develop,” Myers said. “And we think we’ve got a lot of youth, and we do think we’ve got a higher ceiling than 51 [wins last season]. We like our roster. Obviously if you’re not good enough, you’ve got to make changes, but we think we’re good.”

Here’s more from the Pacific Division:

Perceived Lakers coaching front-runner Byron Scott has already interviewed for the job three times, but he’d likely need to go through another interview before he could be named coach, a source tells Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com. GM Mitch Kupchak said in an appearance Monday on NBA TV that he believes the team will make a hire in the next couple of weeks, as McMenamin notes.
Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers believes the franchise’s muddied ownership situation is taking its toll during free agency, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News details. “It has hurt us some this summer,” Rivers said. “You go in to talk to a free agent and most guys, teams will bring their owner. I go in, looking like this, by myself. I don’t know what effect that has had but that’s not been great for us.”
The Clippers fell short in their pursuit of a sign-and-trade for Paul Pierce, and while previous reports indicated that the Nets had no interest, Brooklyn would have been on board if a third team were involved to absorb players from the Clippers, tweets Chris Mannix of SI.com.
Darren Collison indeed received slightly less than the $5.305MM mid-level exception from the Kings, and his salary will be $4,797,664 for the coming season, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.

And-Ones: Davis, Pacers, Thunder, Miller

July 14th, 2014 at 11:21pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Baron Davis is preparing himself for a return to the NBA this fall, reports Jared Zwerling of Bleacher Report (Twitter links). When asked what offensive system he likes, Davis said the Clippers’ and the Warriors’. Davis feels like he can play 15-20 minutes per game next year, notes Zwerling.

Here’s more from around the league:

Mike Miller is leaning towards signing with the Cavaliers, but the Nuggets are still in play for the free agent’s services, tweets Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com.
With LeBron James headed back to Cleveland, and Pau Gasol on his way to Chicago, the Central Division has gotten much tougher for the Pacers, writes Michael Marot of The Star Tribune. This makes re-signing Lance Stephenson even more of a priority, opines Marot.
Thunder assistant coach Brian Keefe will join Derek Fisher‘s coaching staff in New York, reports Darnell Mayberry of the Oklahoman.
The Thunder have to keep building their roster through the draft because the franchise is continuing to have difficulty luring free agents to Oklahoma City, writes Jon Hamm of ESPN.com.
With many of the biggest names in free agency now spoken for, Fred Kerber of The New York Post runs down the winners and losers in free agency thus far.
The Mavericks aren’t done upgrading their roster, writes Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. President of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said, “We’re always looking for help in the backcourt, with an eye on 3-point shooting, and then kind of a rangy defender would be nice as well. We’re still in search of those, but those spots don’t necessarily need to be filled through free agency. Obviously there are trades and all kinds of other ways you can do that.”
The Warriors may be interested in free agent Brandon Rush, writes Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group. Rush averaged 9.7 PPG and 3.8 RPG in 67 games with Golden State before getting injured last season. GM Bob Myers said of Rush, “Rush was great. Everybody that’s been a fan saw how good he was for us, so if he’s healthy, and he can play, which we hear he can — we’ll go watch him and see — it’s a good addition if we could get him. You don’t know what the price would be, but we like Brandon.” The article also notes that Rush is scheduled to hold a workout for interested teams soon.

Clippers Sign C.J. Wilcox

July 12th, 2014 at 9:21pm CST by Chuck Myron

9:21pm: The Clippers officially announced the signing in a team release (H/T Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times).

12:07am: The Clippers have signed No. 28 overall pick C.J. Wilcox to his rookie scale contract, tweets Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. He’ll receive more than $1.1MM next season if he signs for the standard 120% of the scale amount, as our table of salaries for 2014 first-round picks shows, though 120% of scale isn’t a given for players picked near the end of the first round.

The 6’5″ shooting guard was No. 35 in Chad Ford’s ESPN.com rankings and No. 38 with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress, so it was a mild surprise to see him sneak into the first round. He improved steadily in four seasons at the University of Washington, averaging 18.3 points with 39.1% three-point shooting in 34.9 minutes per game as a senior this year.

Wilcox is set to compete for minutes with Reggie Bullock, who was last year’s first-round pick for the Clippers, in a crowded situation on the wing, where the team also has J.J. Redick, Jamal Crawford, Matt Barnes and Jared Dudley all under contract for 2014/15.

And-Ones: Wizards, Trade Exceptions, Booker

July 11th, 2014 at 11:42pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The NBA issued a memo this week establishing that teams that trade coaches or other non-playing personnel are not allowed to make any other trades for one calendar year or until the coach or executive’s contract would have expired, whichever is earlier, notes Mark Deeks of ShamSports. The memo also issues guidelines that make it more difficult for teams to dump salary in trades, as Deeks explains.

Western Notes: Clippers, Billups, Blazers

July 11th, 2014 at 10:09pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The judge in the trial to determine whether Shelly Sterling has the right to sell the Clippers to Steve Ballmer put the proceedings on hold until later this month at the request of Donald Sterling’s lawyers, as Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com details. Still, it’s likely that Ballmer will move back a July 15th deadline to finalize the sale, Markazi adds. Shelly Sterling said in testimony Thursday that her husband asked her to sell the team when it became apparent the league would seize control of it otherwise. Donald Sterling has said he has no intention of selling the team and has vowed a lifelong legal fight against the NBA.

And-Ones: LeBron, Novak, Hibbert, Butler

July 10th, 2014 at 11:53pm CST by Charlie Adams

The Heat and Cavs expect LeBron James to make his decision on where to sign before he gets on his flight to Brazil this weekend, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. It’s likely that any decision James makes will impact where Chris Bosh, Kevin Love, and Chandler Parsons find themselves next season as well. While much is seemingly tied to the four-time MVP’s choice, odds are low anything is decided tonight. Let’s catch up on the rest of the league while we wait on LeBron and the 2014 edition of “The Decision”:

The Raptors are finalizing a buyout with Lucas Nogueira‘s team in Spain, writes Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca (on Twitter). We had heard earlier this week that Toronto was likely to bring over Nogueira and Bruno Caboclo prior to the start of 2014/15.
The $9.8MM trade exception that the Warriors had created from the Richard Jefferson deal with the Jazz expired tonight, as David Aldridge of NBA.com observes (via Twitter).
The Steve Novak trade, which became official today, allows the Raptors to create a $3,445,947 trade exception equivalent to Novak’s salary. The three-teamer between the Nets, Cavs and Celtics that was also formalized today allows the Nets to create a diminutive $741,160 trade exception equal to the difference between Marcus Thornton’s salary and the sum of the salaries for Jarrett Jack and Sergey Karasev. The Cavs could end up with trade exceptions out of the deal, too, but they’re poised to open cap room, so those exceptions would disappear when they officially dip below the cap.
The Bucks and Pacers have had discussions for a trade including Roy Hibbert, writes Gery Woefel of the Racine Journal Times. Milwaukee is interested in acquiring Hibbert, says Woelfel, but it isn’t clear if Indiana is interested in any packages the Bucks could put together.
Nikola Vucevic and Tobias Harris‘ rookie deals expire after 2014/15, and as a result, the duo became extension eligible this summer. Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel hears discussions about new contracts between the Magic and the young big men will pick up some time around Labor Day.
Caron Butler is being pursued by the Clippers and Thunder, tweets Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated. Butler, of course, has spent time with both organizations.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Free Agent Rumors: ‘Melo, LeBron, Morrow, Blake

July 10th, 2014 at 8:53pm CST by Charlie Adams

Phil Jackson might be expecting Carmelo Anthony to rejoin the Knicks, but ‘Melo hasn’t ruled out the Bulls just quite yet, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. Meanwhile, the Heat expected to have had an answer from LeBron James by this point, according to Bleacher Report’s Ethan Skolnick. James was frustrated with some of coach Erik Spoelstra‘s strategy during the Finals this year and wasn’t impressed with team president Pat Riley‘s end-of-season press conference last month, Skolnick adds.

While the NBA world waits on the decisions of superstars like Anthony and James, let’s round up the latest from free agents all around the league..

Anthony Morrow has received interest from several teams, but it appears he’s deciding between joining the Clippers, Heat, Wizards, Raptors and Suns, reports David Aldridge of NBA.com, who adds that each of the teams Morrow is considering would be willing to use some or all of their mid-level exception to sign him (Twitter links). Given that the Clippers and Heat have both used up the full amount of their mid-level exceptions, signing Morrow would likely require a sign-and-trade to complete.
The Warriors took “another” look at DJ White today, notes Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group (on Twitter), thereby implying it’s at least the second time Golden State has looked at the big man. White had his rights renounced by Charlotte earlier today.
Other teams submitted much stronger bids for Steve Blake but he “desperately” wanted to play for the Blazers, as he agreed to do today, a source tells Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com (Twitter link). The Lakers weren’t among the teams making an aggressive play for the point guard, as they offered only the minimum salary, tweets Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times hears.
The Jazz, Pelicans, Rockets, and Nets are interested in Francisco Garcia, a source tells Haynes (Twitter link).
The Wolves are making an effort to sign Evan Turner to one-year deal, a source tells tells Darren Wolfson of 1500ESPN.com. Turner played poorly last season after being shipped to Indiana at the trade deadline.
The matter of whether Mike Miller will re-sign with the Grizzlies will likely come down to contract length rather than salary, according to Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal, who writes in subscription-only piece. Memphis wants him back on a two-year deal, but Miller is pushing for three or four seasons.
Rockets GM Daryl Morey has been in contact with Paul Pierce‘s representatives at Excel Sports Management, but it’s unlikely the veteran forward ends up in Houston, tweets Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle.

Alex Lee and Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Pacific Notes: Suns, Tucker, Sterling, Lakers

July 10th, 2014 at 4:01pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Suns are more likely to spend wisely this summer now that their chances of landing Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James are all but over, writes Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. Phoenix wasn’t expected to offer the max to Gordon Hayward if the team had the chance to meet with him, as was the plan before Hayward inked his offer sheet with the Hornets. Here’s more on the Suns and the rest of the Pacific Division:

Restricted free agent P.J. Tucker met Wednesday with Suns owner Robert Sarver and Jeff Hornacek, as Coro notes in the same piece, and Tucker’s reps at the Arete Sports Agency plan to continue the dialogue with the Suns today, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.
The Suns originally planned to let 50th overall pick Alec Brown sign overseas for this coming season, but that was before fellow stretch power forward Channing Frye agreed to a deal with the Magic, Phoenix GM Ryan McDonough said, as Coro observes. Brown is drawing interest from a team in Spain in case he doesn’t end up on the Suns this year, according to Coro.
Donald Sterling vowed never to sell the Clippers and threatened to maintain lawsuits against the NBA for the rest of his life, making those remarks during testimony Wednesday in probate court, as Linda Deutsch of The Associated Press details. The trial continues today to determine whether Sterling’s wife, Shelly, has the right to sell the team to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
Kobe Bryant said he would welcome former teammate Byron Scott as coach of the Lakers, citing their “tremendously close relationship” over the years, notes Sean Lewis of The Associated Press. Bryant also said that he was “extremely proud” of the team’s efforts to rebuild its roster, Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding observes.
The Lakers remain in contact with free agent Kent Bazemore, tweets Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops.