Draft Notes: Okafor, BDA Sports, Vaughn
Approximately 150 NBA executives and scouts are expected to be in attendance at BDA Sports Management’s pro day, which is being held today in Santa Barbara, Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress reports (Twitter link). Displaying their wares for the various league personnel will be 19 draft hopefuls, including Frank Kaminsky, Kelly Oubre, Robert Upshaw, and Stanley Johnson, Givony notes. There will also be six free agents performing, including Andre Dawkins, Al Thornton, and Drew Gordon, the DraftExpress scribe adds.
Here’s more draft related news:
- Jahlil Okafor downplayed the recent reports that he doesn’t want to play for the Timberwolves, Andy Greder of The Pioneer Press relays. “Just for clarification I made this comment prior to the lottery,” Okafor tweeted. “I’ve never been the type to talk myself up.”
- Givony released his full prospect profile and video breakdown for UNLV shooting guard Rashad Vaughn, whom DraftExpress ranks as the 45th best prospect in the 2015 NBA Draft. Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) thinks a bit more highly of the 18-year-old, slotting him as the No. 23 overall player.
- With the NBA Draft lottery now complete teams will now focus on determining which players are worthy of being selected within the top 14 picks. Jared Zwerling of Bleacher Report breaks down each of the players expected to be off the board by pick No. 15.
- Sixers GM Sam Hinkie noted that he never expected to receive the Lakers‘ 2015 first-rounder, which would have conveyed to Philadelphia if it fell outside of the top five, Baxter Holmes of ESPNLosAngeles.com writes. “I said the day we traded for the Lakers pick, we anticipated they’d get a top-three pick. And they did. Good for them. … We never anticipated we’d get the Lakers’ pick this year. We all get to a night like this and we can all dream about our 17 percent, but we never anticipated we’d get the Lakers pick this year,” said Hinkie.
Lakers, Celtics, Pistons Eye DeMarre Carroll
The Lakers have major interest in soon-to-be free agent DeMarre Carroll, a source tells Sean Deveney of The Sporting News, who adds the Celtics and the Pistons to the list of teams interested in the vastly improved small forward. Carroll went down with a left knee injury Wednesday during Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, but an MRI revealed only a sprain, the team announced via press release, listing him as questionable for Game 2.
An executive who spoke recently with Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops estimated Carroll’s next annual salary will be around $8-9MM, a giant leap from his pay of little more than $2.442MM this season. The Hawks would like to re-sign Carroll, Deveney writes, but they only have Early Bird rights on him, meaning they’d have to use cap space to give him a starting salary of any more than about $6MM. Atlanta has the cap flexibility to pay him $8-9MM next year, as do the Lakers, Celtics and Pistons, but the Hawks won’t have the chance to give him a five-year contract or 7.5% raises as they could with full Bird rights, which would have given Atlanta a leg up on other teams.
Carroll, when prompted last month, said he’d be interested in the Knicks, though more recently he made it clear that he places a high value on player development, a strength of the Hawks franchise. The former 27th overall pick bounced around to four teams in his first four NBA seasons before becoming a standout three-point shooter with the Hawks. He nailed 39.5% of his attempts from behind the arc this season, a career high.
Pacific Notes: Lakers, Divac, Draft, Warriors
The Lakers will look at D’Angelo Russell for the No. 2 overall pick, but preliminary indications are that they’ll take either Jahlil Okafor and Karl-Anthony Towns, depending on which one of those two is left after the Timberwolves pick, as Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times hears. Trading the pick is also an option, GM Mitch Kupchak says, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News tweets. In any case, the choices at No. 2 are a bit better than the Lakers would have had if the lottery had gone according to form and the team had ended up with the fourth pick. Here’s more from around the Pacific Division:
- Kings president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac said his team should be open to trading its draft pick, but in comments that Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee relays, he distanced himself from the mechanics of any such move. “I’m leaving that to my basketball people,” Divac said. It’s an odd statement from the team’s top basketball executive. In any case, Chad Ford of ESPN.com identified the Kings, who pick sixth, among the teams most likely to trade their top-10 pick, along with the Magic, Pistons, Heat and Hornets, as Ford wrote in a chat with readers.
- The Kings and the Pacers are the teams with the most interest in Willie Cauley-Stein, Ford adds in the same piece.
- Andrew Bogut is a fan of the way Steve Kerr handles his assistant coaches, as the big man tells Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group a year after assistant coaches were squarely in the spotlight for Golden State. The departures of assistants Brian Scalabrine and Darren Erman from the Warriors bench last year were symbolic of the tumult near the end of Mark Jackson‘s time as Warriors coach. “In their own way, they all have free reign,” Bogut said of Kerr’s staff. “You see them talk to the media, which is something that wasn’t happening with us the last couple of years. There’s no agendas where a coach thinks, ‘Oh, he’s doing extra workouts with this guy, he’s trying to take my job, or vice-versa, or he’s trying to get himself a head-coaching job.’ We don’t have any of that. We have guys that say something when they need to say something and to be professional throughout.”
Draft Notes: Okafor, Upshaw, Vezenkov
Duke center Jahlil Okafor is more concerned about finding the right fit than what draft spot he is selected at, Ian Begley of ESPN.com relays. “I don’t know that I should go No. 1,” Okafor said to SI Now’s Maggie Gray. “I don’t care. I just want to go to the right environment for me and the right team. I think the hype about No. 1 is more for the fans.” With the recent report that Okafor prefers to go to the Lakers rather than the Wolves, Okafor’s statement could potentially be construed as the player angling to be bypassed by Minnesota in June’s draft in favor of Los Angeles, who holds the No. 2 overall pick, though that is merely my speculation.
Here’s the latest regarding the 2015 NBA Draft:
- Big man Robert Upshaw has a wealth of potential, but him having been dismissed from two college teams due to substance abuse issues has put a damper on his draft stock, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders writes in his profile of the player. Upshaw is currently ranked as the No. 29 overall prospect by Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress and Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) places him 38th.
- Early second-round prospect Aleksandar Vezenkov, who is expected to withdraw from this year’s draft, is garnering interest from a number of European teams, Vezenkov’s agent Nick Lotsos told Sportal.bg (translation by Emiliano Carchia of Sportando). “So far some teams showed interest in Vezenkov but there are no concrete proposals yet. We are not in a hurry to decide the future. We’ll consider carefully what is the best for him to develop as a player. Barcelona? It is one of the teams interested and Aleksandar is interested as well, but as I’ve said it is too early,” Lotsos relayed.
- A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com looked at a number of players, including Jerian Grant, Kristaps Porzingis, and Willie Cauley-Stein, who have improved their draft stock over the past year.
- Draft prospect George Lucas, who is also known as George de Paula, said the hardest part of the draft combine was the interviews since he is still learning English, Kennedy writes in his profile of the player. “The language is the most hard,” Lucas said. “I’m trying to learn English the best that I can, so it’s a long process for me and I’m trying to communicate with other people. I’ve always had an English class since high school, but I haven’t had a lot of conversations with other people.”
Pacific Notes: Hill, Kings, Kerr, Lakers
The Lakers landing the No. 2 overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft lottery could spell the end for center Jordan Hill in Los Angeles, Eric Pincus of The Los Angeles Times writes. With the Lakers expected to select either Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor, coupled with Hill’s team option for 2015/16 worth $9MM, the franchise could find the veteran big man expendable, especially if it wishes to land a max level free agent this offseason, Pincus adds. The 27-year-old appeared in 70 games this past season, averaging 12.0 points and 7.9 rebounds in 26.8 minutes per contest.
Here’s more out of the Pacific Division:
- Despite the Kings not moving up in the draft lottery, team executive Vlade Divac believes the team can turn the No. 6 overall pick into an asset, Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee writes. “We have some options,” Divac said. “I think this class of rookies are very strong. We should be able to get someone who can help us next year.” This could also include the team dealing the pick, Jones adds. “I think we should be very open,” Divac said regarding a potential trade. “Our goal is we want to improve next year. We want to be much, much better.”
- Warriors coach Steve Kerr downplayed his role in the team winning a franchise best 67 games, and said that he simply joined the organization at the best possible time, Brian T. Smith of The Houston Chronicle writes. “I can’t say I expected it but I knew it was a possibility,” said Kerr, referring to the team’s success this season. “It was one of the reasons I took the job. The team has great talent; they were on the rise already. And I felt like we could make improvement and that we would be right in the thick of it in the West. … I probably took over the team at the ideal time. They were good but very hungry.”
- The Lakers securing the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s draft has made the franchise much more attractive to free agents who are on the market this summer, writes Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. “I think it is something that helps out their sales pitch in a big, big way,” one agent told Deveney. “The past couple of years, their pitch has sort of been, ‘Come play for us because we’re the Lakers and the weather is nice.’ That’s not enough. You’ve seen that. They have not had a direction, and that’s why players don’t want to go there.”
Northwest Notes: Okafor, Towns, Thunder, Gee
Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities believes Jahlil Okafor is the guy at No. 1 for the Timberwolves (Twitter link), who won last night’s lottery, though he cautions that nothing is set in stone. That jibes with the feeling Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune had as of a week ago, when he said he thought the Wolves would go with the Duke center. However Chad Ford of ESPN.com and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress top their mock drafts with the Wolves picking Kentucky big man Karl-Anthony Towns instead. Wolves coach/executive Flip Saunders played coy Tuesday night, not even deigning to narrow the field to those two, Zgoda notes.
“It’s not that simple,” Saunders said. “We have an idea but there are a lot of different directions we can go. … We have to rely on our ability to select the right players. This will give us great flexibility. Every spot you move up in the draft, you have more control over what’s going to happen and you have more people talking to you.”
Saunders did make it clear that the team almost certainly won’t trade the pick, as Zgoda relays. Here’s more from the Northwest:
- Persistent rumors indicate that Jahlil Okafor has his heart set on becoming a Laker, according to Givony, who wonders if agent Bill Duffy, who also represents Andrew Wiggins and who is college buddies with Saunders, will let Okafor work out for the Wolves.
- Thunder GM Sam Presti is pleased with the depth of the draft and said that while he’ll have exploratory talks about trading the team’s pick, at No. 14 overall, with all sorts of teams, he’d probably wait until draft night to make a move if he indeed makes one. Presti made those comments and many others to Royce Young of Daily Thunder, who provides a full transcript of their conversation.
- Alonzo Gee has been on the roster of a half dozen NBA teams in the past 12 months, but Joe Freeman of The Oregonian will be surprised if he sticks in Portland with a tumultuous summer ahead for the Blazers, as Freeman writes in a roundtable piece examining Gee’s future. Gee becomes an unrestricted free agent in July.
Mavs, Others Prepping Offers For Marc Gasol
The Mavs, Spurs, Knicks and Lakers are putting together proposals to make to Marc Gasol when free agency opens July 1st, multiple league sources tell Michael Wallace of ESPN.com. Not as much has been said about Dallas and Gasol as with the other apparent suitors, though it stands to reason that the Mavs, already linked to Aldridge and DeAndre Jordan, would cast their lot with another marquee free agent. The Spurs have long been identified as a team in the mix for the 30-year-old, though it appears the team will first make a pitch to LaMarcus Aldridge, who’s widely seen as more obtainable, before doing so with Gasol, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported Monday. The Knicks became pessimistic about their prospects of landing the Spanish center late last year, a notion that former Knick and current Gasol teammate Beno Udrih recently reinforced, though it appears that they, like the Lakers, will give it a try.
Gasol has been mum on his plans, though he’s made his affection for the city of Memphis clear while not ruling out any other potential destination. The Grizzlies fear the Spurs more than any other team in the hunt, according to Stein, but the majority of Gasol’s teammates believe he will re-sign, Wallace writes, and Memphis coach Dave Joerger thinks he’s largely made the decision already, as Wallace relays.
“He’s the best player at his position in the league,” Joerger said. “You make preparations if it goes in a direction you’re not happy about. You’re not going to lose sleep at night. It’s not going to do any good. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. Not in the next two weeks are we going to send him a big thing of flowers and it’s going to change his mind. [By then], the cement is dry. We’ll make our last, ‘Hey, this is what’s important to us. What’s important to you?’ Things of that nature. But I’ve got to think his mind is 99% made up.”
Dallas has about $28MM in guaranteed salary against a projected $67.1MM salary cap for next season, but Raymond Felton is reportedly opting in for more than $3.95MM and Monta Ellis can pick up an $8.72MM player option, too. That would still leave flexibility for an estimated $19MM max starting salary for Gasol, a seven-year veteran, but it wouldn’t leave much room for the team to address the point guard position, where Rajon Rondo is unlikely to return.
And-Ones: Payne, Lakers, Jaiteh
The Pacers are intrigued by Murray State guard Cameron Payne, Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star reports. Payne, who worked out for Indiana on Monday, has zoomed up to No. 11 — where the Pacers are currently slotted — on Chad Ford’s ESPN Insider Big Board. He’s No. 20 on Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress prospect list. “We followed him all year,” Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird told Buckner. “We know he can shoot it, he can drive it. He’s a playmaker. His size is against him a little bit but he’s a nice little player. He didn’t play against top schools but that doesn’t mean he can’t play.” Jerian Grant (Notre Dame), Olivier Hanlan (Boston College), Joseph Young (Oregon) Rakeem Christmas (Syracuse) and Richaun Holmes (Bowling Green) also worked out for the Pacers on Monday, according to Buckner. Payne hopes to jump into the top 10 in the draft, as he recently told Hoops Rumors’ Zach Links in a Q&A session.
In other news around the league:
- Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak does not anticipate having three rookies on his roster next season, even if the team retains its lottery pick, Bill Oram of the Orange County Register reports. The Lakers must stay in the top five when the lottery results are announced or they will have to convey their first-rounder to the Sixers. They also have the No. 27 and No. 34 overall picks but Kupchak may trade at least one of them. “It may be a little much to add three more young players,” Kupchak told the team’s beat reporters. Kupchak added that the team could bring in as many as 80 players for workouts, Oram adds.
- New Jersey native and top prospect Karl-Anthony Towns would be thrilled to be drafted by the Knicks since he grew up as a fan of the team, he told Steve Serby of the New York Post in a Q&A session. “It would be an honor, not only as a player, but as a Knicks fan, to be able to play for that organization,” Towns said. “It’s gonna be, I guess a childhood dream — rooting for the Knicks all this time, and the next thing you know, you hear an organization call your name to go out there and give it your best shot. I think it would very cool, and really very honored and blessed to be able to play for them.”
- International prospect Mouhammadou Jaiteh made a strong impression at the draft combine, NetsDaily.com tweets. The 6’11” center has moved up to the No. 34 on Ford’s board and No. 35 spot on Givony’s list.
Wiggins, Mirotic, Noel Lead All-Rookie Teams
Andrew Wiggins was a unanimous All-Rookie First-Team selection, the league announced as it revealed the media voting results for the honors. Nikola Mirotic was the second-leading vote-getter, followed by Nerlens Noel, Elfrid Payton and Jordan Clarkson, all of whom comprise the first team. Marcus Smart, Zach LaVine, Bojan Bogdanovic, Jusuf Nurkic and Langston Galloway make up the second team.
Wiggins far outpaced all other contenders for Rookie of the Year honors after averaging 16.9 points in 36.2 minutes per game this season for the Timberwolves, who acquired the 2014 No. 1 overall pick in the Kevin Love trade. Minnesota, which finished with the league’s worst record this season and has a 25% chance to win the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, is the only team to place two players on the All-Rookie teams, with LaVine on the second team despite having garnered 22 first-team votes. Every member of the second team received at least three first-team votes.
Payton, the 10th overall selection, is the only first-round pick from 2014 to appear on the first team. Mirotic was a draft-and-stash selection from 2011, Noel was the sixth overall pick in 2013 but qualified as a rookie this season because he sat out all of 2013/14 with injury, and Clarkson was the 46th pick last year, having gone overlooked through all of the first round and half of the second.
Galloway made the second team despite having gone undrafted and not having made his debut until January 7th, after he had signed a 10-day contract with the Knicks. New York followed up with another 10-day deal and finally a multiyear pact for the surprisingly effective point guard.
Clippers Interested In Wesley Johnson
The Lakers would love to lure DeAndre Jordan across Staples Center from the Clippers this summer, not surprisingly, according to Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com, and the Clips meanwhile have their eyes on convincing a Laker to switch sides. The Clippers, who are reportedly expected to float a max offer to try to retain Jordan, are also interested in swingman and soon-to-be unrestricted free agent Wesley Johnson, sources tell Shelburne.
Johnson, the fourth overall pick in 2010, has expressed a desire to remain with the Lakers, but he’s made it clear he’s seeking a multiyear deal as he hits free agency for the third year in a row. The Lakers are reportedly intrigued with his potential, but Johnson has struggled with inconsistency that Byron Scott has attributed to an issue “between the ears.” Johnson chalks up that inconsistency to a whirlwind of changing roles during his NBA career, but the Lakers are on the fence about retaining the 27-year-old who’s made 121 starts for the purple-and-gold over the past two seasons, as Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News reported.
The Octagon client averaged a career-high 9.9 points this past season, but even that demonstrates that Johnson has yet to live up to his lofty draft position. The Clippers aren’t set for significant cap room regardless of whether Jordan re-signs, and if the center does come back, the Clips would likely be limited to the $3.376MM taxpayer mid-level exception to sign anyone for more than the minimum. Johnson has made the minimum in each of his two seasons with the Lakers. The taxpayer mid-level limits teams to handing out three-year deals, while the Clips can’t give anyone more than a two-year deal with the minimum-salary exception.
The Clippers aren’t going to bring in another maximum-salary player, as coach/executive Doc Rivers acknowledged, according to Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com, but the Lakers certainly can, and they no doubt aim to do so. They’ve been linked to a laundry list of marquee names, from Kevin Love to LaMarcus Aldridge to Goran Dragic to Rajon Rondo, and it’s not clear exactly where Jordan would fall in the hierarchy of their priorities. Still, it seems as though the market will be strong for the third-place finisher in Defensive Player of the Year voting, whom the Mavs also reportedly plan to pursue.