Los Angeles Lakers Rumors | Hoops Rumors

And-Ones: Cherry, Jones, O’Quinn, Hibbert

August 29th, 2015 at 10:55pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Will Cherry is expected to sign with Germany Alba Berlin, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports tweets. An official for the club told international journalist David Pick, who first reported the team’s interest, that the signing will indeed take place (Twitter links). Cherry played in Lithuania last season after being waived by the Cavs. The point guard saw action in eight games with Cleveland early last season and averaged 1.9 points, 1.0 assists and 0.8 steals in 8.6 minutes per game.

Here are some notes from around the league:

A. Sherrod Blakely of CSSNE.com names Rockets forward Terrence Jones as a “glue guy” to watch this season. Jones is eligible for a rookie scale extension and will make slightly under $2.5MM in the last season of his current deal.
Blakely also names Kyle O’Quinn as a player to watch this season. The Knicks acquired O’Quinn via sign-and-trade with the Magic. The 25-year-old’s contract is worth $16MM over four years.
Fran Blinebury of NBA.com examines possible nominees for the 2015/16 Comeback Player of the Year Award. Some notable players on the list are Kevin Durant, Paul George, Kobe Bryant and Chris Bosh. Blinebury also includes Roy Hibbert and Lance Stephenson as candidates to improve upon their 2014/15 performances. Both players changed area codes this offseason. Hibbert was sent to the Lakers in exchange for a second round pick. Stephenson was traded to the Clippers in exchange for Spencer Hawes and Matt Barnes.

Carlos Boozer Unlikely To Sign Before Season Starts

August 28th, 2015 at 1:40pm CST by Chuck Myron

Carlos Boozer is likely to remain unsigned for the rest of the offseason and instead seek a deal with a playoff contender after the season starts, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Thus, it appears as though the 13-year veteran simply isn’t seeing an offer that he likes for now, though it casts doubt on the idea that he would bite on apparent interest from the Chinese league, an option that had reportedly intrigued him earlier this month.

Boozer, who turns 34 in November, made $16.8MM combined last season from the Bulls, who waived him via the amnesty clause in July 2014, and the Lakers, who submitted a partial claim of $3.251MM to snag him off waivers. He’d be hard-pressed to make even the amount of that amnesty claim on an NBA contract this season, simply because most teams have no more than the $2.814MM room exception to spend. The Mavericks, one of the latest three NBA teams reported to have interest in him, have only the room exception to use, while the Knicks, another of those interested parties, are limited to the minimum. The Rockets have more than $2.274MM left of their mid-level exception, but using it would impose a hard cap on them, and they still have yet to sign No. 32 overall pick Montrezl Harrell. The Spurs, Raptors, Pelicans, Nuggets, Nets, Lakers and Heat were reportedly interested in the Rob Pelinka client earlier this summer, but none of them have the capacity to give him as much as the Lakers paid for him last year. The Lakers renounced their Bird rights to him last month.

The two-time All-Star put up 16.2 points and 9.8 rebounds per game in 2012/13, but his numbers have declined in each of the two seasons since, and his 6.8 boards and 23.8 minutes per contest last season were career lows. Former Nets executive Bobby Marks wouldn’t be surprised if Boozer waited until Christmas to sign (Twitter link). I’d speculate that a decent chance exists that he stays on the market even longer. Ray Allen and Jermaine O’Neal, two other aging former All-Stars, chose to carry on as free agents into the season last year but never wound up signing.

What do you think Boozer will end up doing? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Pacific Notes: Kobe, Buss, Casspi, Suns

August 28th, 2015 at 8:59am CST by Chuck Myron

Lakers Executive VP of basketball operations Jim Buss believes Kobe Bryant is worth his league-high $25MM salary this season after all he’s done for the franchise and said that while the team is operating on the premise that Bryant will retire at season’s end, he’d welcome him back with open arms if he’s willing to accept a role that fits his age and ability. Buss made his comments as part of an interview with Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times, adding that he “feels like we’ve righted the ship” with coach Byron Scott and a new cast of key players, even if the team didn’t sign a star free agent this summer.

“It’s just that it takes time to build a core that guys want to play with,” Buss said to Pincus. “I understand a superstar doesn’t want to come in and say, ‘Oh, we still have two or three years of rebuilding.’ I think with Jordan Clarkson, [D’Angelo] Russell, [Julius] Randle, even [Roy] Hibbert … we’re getting a core of seven or eight players.”

See more on the Lakers amid the latest from around the Pacific Division:

Buss, also a part-owner of the team, has no regrets about pledging in April 2014 to resign from his basketball operations position if he couldn’t restore the Lakers to contention in three or four years, as he said to Pincus for the same piece. Buss’ sister Jeanie, the primary owner of the franchise, has said she’ll hold him to that pledge if the Lakers aren’t back in the Western Conference Finals by the spring of 2017. Still, the top goal for this season, Jim Buss said to Pincus, is identifying core players for the future, and not necessarily making the playoffs.
Omri Casspi cited DeMarcus Cousins, calling him the best center in the league in an interview with James Herbert of CBSSports.com, among the reasons why he decided to re-sign with the Kings this summer.
The Suns officially named Chris Jent the head coach of their one-to-one D-League affiliate, the franchise announced Thursday. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported earlier this month that the sides were finalizing a deal. Jent had been Michael Malone‘s lead assistant with the Kings.

Pacific Notes: Jordan, D-League, Suns

August 27th, 2015 at 9:16pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer stressed that the team’s sale pitch to DeAndre Jordan which included an endorsement deal with Lexus for $200K a year, and subsequently garnered the organization a $250K fine from the league, played no part in the center’s decision to spurn Dallas and return to Los Angeles, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders writes. “Today, the NBA announced it has fined the team for violating NBA rules in our presentation to DeAndre Jordan on July 2nd,” Ballmer relayed in an internal team memo (hat tip to Dan Woike of the Orange County Register). “The League’s investigation concluded that the presentation of a potential third-party opportunity had no impact on DeAndre’s decision to re-sign, and having been a part of the process, I can attest to this fact. As we, and the basketball world, observed DJ ultimately chose to stay with the Clippers because he felt it was his best opportunity to win a championship, and because of his desire to remain part of the Clippers family.”

Here’s more out of the Pacific Division:

The L.A. D-Fenders, the Lakers‘ D-League affiliate, filled out head coach Casey Owens‘ staff with Paul Woolpert, Brian Walsh, Jermaine Byrd, and Will Scott, who were all named as assistants, tweets Mark Medina of The Los Angeles Daily News.
The one-year, minimum salary training camp deals that Henry Sims, Deonte Burton, and Cory Jefferson inked with the Suns include no guaranteed salary, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders notes (via Twitter).
Lakers 2015 first-rounder D’Angelo Russell believes that he and 2014 second round pick Jordan Clarkson can be an effective tandem playing together in the backcourt, as he told ESPN 710’s Mychal Thompson and Mike Trudell during a radio appearance. “I feel like we’re dangerous for our team,” Russell said of he and Clarkson. “We both rebound. We both can push the break, and we both can run the wing. So if he gets it and I’m running the wing, he can set up the offense or make the right decisions and vice versa with me. I feel like it’s dangerous, and we can play together easily. I think it will just take some time.“

Pacific Notes: Jordan, World Peace, Barnes

August 26th, 2015 at 10:24am CST by Chuck Myron

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.

Lakers Sign Michael Frazier

August 25th, 2015 at 1:22pm CST by Arthur Hill

AUGUST 25TH, 1:22pm: The deal is official, the team announced.

AUGUST 16TH, 4:33pm: The Lakers have reached a contract agreement with Florida’s Michael Frazier, agent Matt Ramker told Adam Silverstein of OnlyGators.com. Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders is hearing it is a two-year, minimum-salary deal with a partial guarantee for $50K (Twitter link).

Frazier weighed his options with the Jazz and Sixers before deciding on the deal with the Lakers, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders tweets.

The team signed Jonathan Holmes to a similar deal on Thursday. In addition, Tarik Black, Jabari Brown and Robert Upshaw are expected to battle for two to three open roster spots, tweets former Nets executive Bobby Marks.

The 6’4″ Frazier, who left school as a junior, was not selected in June’s draft. As a sophomore, he set a school record with 118 3-pointers in a season as the Gators reached the Final Four, but missed part of his junior season with a high ankle sprain.

Hoops Rumors Community Shootaround 8/24/15

August 24th, 2015 at 11:00pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks have been among the NBA’s most glamorous franchises for decades. They play in two of the country’s biggest cities with large media followings and passionate fan bases.

The Lakers have also been the league’s most successful franchise outside of the Celtics, collecting 11 championships since moving from Minneapolis in 1961. Knicks fans have been thirsting for a title since New York beat the Lakers in the Finals twice in the early ’70s, though they made two trips to the Finals in the ’90s.

It’s hard to believe that a franchise with a winning tradition like the Lakers and a team with the advantage of playing in storied Madison Square Garden like the Knicks could fall on such hard times the past two seasons. Los Angeles won 27 games in 2013/14 and, thanks to Kobe Bryant’s torn rotator cuff, plunged even further into the abyss with a 21-61 mark last season. The Knicks also went from bad to worse, finishing eight games under .500 two seasons ago and then winning just 17 games in last season’s painful campaign marred by Carmelo Anthony’s knee issues, which limited him to a career-low 40 games.

Things appear to be looking up on both Coasts, thanks to trips to the lottery, trades, free agent signings and improving health. The Lakers drafted D’Angelo Russell to be their floor leader, signed free agents Brandon Bass and Louis Williams and traded for center Roy Hibbert. They’ll also have last year’s lottery selection, Julius Randle, back in action after a season-long injury and Bryant on the comeback trail.

The Knicks drafted European big man Kristaps Porzingis, signed free agents Arron Afflalo and Robin Lopez to fill starting roles and retooled their bench. They’ll also have Anthony back to lead the offensive attack while playing in a division that had just one team finish above .500.

Neither club is expected to make the postseason but with the upgrades, they should be much more competitive or, at the very least, watchable. So our question of the day is as follows: Which team will win more games this season, the Lakers or the Knicks?

Take to the comments section below to sound off with your thoughts and opinions. We look forward to what you have to say.

Note: Since these Shootarounds are meant to be guided by you the reader, we certainly welcome your input on the topics we present. If there is something you’d like to see pop up here for a discussion, shoot us a message at hoopsrumorsmailbag@gmail.com.

Hawks, Pelicans To Work Out Sean Kilpatrick

August 24th, 2015 at 2:30pm CST by Chuck Myron

Former Timberwolves shooting guard Sean Kilpatrick will be a participant in workouts that the Hawks and Pelicans are set to conduct soon, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). The Lakers and Spurs previously worked him out, as Wolfson notes. The 25-year-old averaged 5.5 points in 17.9 minutes per game across four appearances while on a 10-day contract with Minnesota this past season.

Geography had a significant influence in on Minnesota’s decision to sign the former University of Cincinnati standout, since he was close to New York, where the Wolves were set to play the Knicks without the minimum eight healthy players. Still, he saw plenty of playing time during the 10-day stint and seems to be attracting no shortage of attention from other NBA clubs now. He was on the Bucks summer league squad last month and spent time with the D-League affiliates of the Warriors and Sixers this past season.

The Lakers and Hawks have the $2.814MM room exception to spend, while the Pelicans have their $2.139MM biannual exception and the Spurs are limited to paying no more than the minimum. An all-out bidding war for Kilpatrick seems unlikely, though it wouldn’t be surprising if the interest from multiple teams results in a guaranteed deal of some kind, though that’s just my speculation.

Which team do you think would make the most sense for Kilpatrick? Leave a comment to tell us.

And-Ones: Lakers, Celtics, Lee

August 23rd, 2015 at 10:30pm CST by Will Joseph

The Lakers have promoted Ryan West to director of player personnel, Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times reports. West was formerly the team’s assistant director of scouting. West is the son of Lakers legend Jerry West. An official announcement won’t be made until September, according to Pincus.

Here’s more from around the league:

The Celtics have been hesitant to make long-term investments to secure cap space, but Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe speculates that the team might look to extend Tyler Zeller. The team could agree to what Washburn writes would be a modest extension. The center averaged 10.2 points per game and 5.7 rebounds per game last season. A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com, in a recent report, wrote that Zeller has a better chance than Celtics teammates Jared Sullinger and Perry Jones III to receive a contract extension before the start of the regular season.
David Lee is in a good situation now that he is with the Celtics, Joel Brigham of Basketball Insiders writes. While Boston likely won’t make as deep a playoff run as the Warriors, the Celtics should be a pretty good young team and Lee should find himself in a starting role, Brigham adds. The Celtics acquired Lee in a deal with the Warriors in July.

Pacific Notes: Weems, Bryant, Griffin

August 23rd, 2015 at 8:59am CST by ChrisCrouse

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.”