Stacey Augmon To Join Bucks’ Coaching Staff
The Bucks are close to finalizing an agreement with former NBA swingman Stacey Augmon to join their coaching staff, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. According to Charles F. Gardner of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (via Twitter), Augmon will sign a deal with the team soon.
Augmon last played in the NBA during the 2005/06 season before joining the Nuggets as a player development coach. For the last several years, the former ninth overall pick – known as “Plastic Man” during his NBA career – has served as an assistant coach at his alma mater of UNLV. As Stein notes, Augmon expressed disappointment at being passed over for the head coaching job at UNLV earlier this year.
In addition to Augmon’s hiring in Milwaukee, there are a couple other minor coaching notes from around the NBA to pass along. Let’s round them up…
- The Cavaliers‘ D-League affiliate, the Canton Charge, is expected to promote assistant Nate Reinking to head coach for the upcoming season, league sources tell Adam Johnson of D-League Digest. Reinking has been on the club’s staff since the 2013/14 season.
- As Derek Bodner of PhillyMag.com tweets, the Sixers‘ D-League affiliate, the Delaware 87ers, also announced some coaching changes today. Former Villanova forward Curtis Sumpter is among the coaches on Delaware’s staff.
Bucks To Sign Orlando Johnson
The Bucks have reached an agreement with Orlando Johnson, tweets Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops. The 6’5″ shooting guard will join Milwaukee in time for training camp.
Johnson, 27, has been with four teams in four seasons after being drafted in the second round by the Kings in 2012. He signed two 10-day contracts last season, one with the Suns in February and one with the Pelicans in March. He appeared in two games with Phoenix and five with New Orleans.
Milwaukee, which recently added free agent Jason Terry and re-signed Steve Novak, has 15 players with guaranteed contracts. However, Scotto says the Bucks are still looking for ways to improve their depth at the wing position.
Novak Can Block Trades
- Steve Novak was given the power to block a trade when he re-signed with the Bucks on Monday, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The 33-year-old free agent accepted a one-year, $1,551,659 deal to return to Milwaukee, where he played just three games last season before suffering a sprained left MCL.
Bobby Marks On Bucks' Offseason
- In his recap of the Bucks‘ offseason, Bobby Marks of The Vertical gives the front office credit for “thinking outside of the box” when it comes to the Thon Maker draft pick, and suggests that Matthew Dellavedova and Mirza Teletovic are “blue-collar” additions.
Dellavedova Optimistic About Bucks: D-League Decision Looms
- Even though the Bucks finished 33-49 last season, Matthew Dellavedova believes he is joining a playoff team, relays ESPN’s Jake Michaels. Fresh off a championship season with the Cavaliers, the Australian point guard accepted a four-year, $38MM offer from Milwaukee and was sent there as part of a sign-and-trade deal. Dellavedova said he is looking forward to having a legendary point guard as his new coach. “To be able to learn from one of the greatest point guards of all time in Jason Kidd is going to be cool, and something I’m really excited about,” he said. “I cannot wait.”
- The Bucks should locate their new D-League franchise in Sheboygan, argues Adam Johnson of D-League Digest. Sheboygan is one of the finalists for the new team, along with Oshkosh and Racine. The Bucks’ new affiliate will start play in the 2017/18 season.
Bucks Notes: Novak, R. James, Sanders
After signing Jason Terry last week, the Bucks have continued to fill out their roster with veterans, announcing a deal for Steve Novak on Monday and reportedly reaching an agreement with Xavier Henry today. We’ve got more details and notes related to those signings, plus a couple more Bucks-related items, so let’s dive right in and round them up…
- Novak signed a one-year, minimum-salary contract with the Bucks, per Charles F. Gardner of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. For Novak, who has 10 years of NBA experience under his belt, that will mean a salary worth about $1.552MM, though it will count for just $980K against Milwaukee’s cap.
- Within that same piece, Gardner notes that Novak is healthy and won’t face any restrictions as a result of the MCL injury he suffered back in February. The veteran sharpshooter told Gardner that he’s excited to continue playing for his hometown team. “We really believe the Bucks are the best fit for me right now,” Novak said. “It’s a perfect storm. It just comes down to … we’d move every single year. It’s our way of life and we love it. But it’s great (to stay in Milwaukee).”
- The Bucks had interest in signing guard Ra’Shad James, who played for the team in Summer League, according to Gery Woelfel of The Racine Journal-Times (via Twitter). However, James opted to play in Croatia this season instead, presumably recognizing that he’d face long odds to earn a roster spot with the Bucks.
- Former Bucks forward Larry Sanders, who remains on the team’s cap through the 2021/22 season, has drawn NBA interest this summer and continues to contemplate a comeback, though some clubs have concerns about how much he really loves basketball, writes Mike Piellucci of Vice Sports. Piellucci’s piece goes into plenty of detail and provides greater context about Sanders’ life and his history with basketball, and is worth reading.
Bucks Re-Sign Steve Novak
The Bucks have re-signed unrestricted free agent Steve Novak, the team announced (via Twitter). The length and terms of the arrangement were not relayed, but with Milwaukee over the cap, it is likely for the veteran’s minimum. The team does still possess its Room Exception worth $2,898,000, but it would be surprising if it was used in this case. The team now has 15 players on its roster, which is the regular season maximum.
Novak had garnered some interest around the league from other teams, per his agent Mark Bartelstein, but the veteran had been holding off on making a decision because his clear preference was to remain in Milwaukee. “There have been a few teams that we’ve talked to; you always got to keep your doors open,’’ Bartelstein had said earlier this month. “But we’re still talking with the Bucks and, hopefully, we’ll make a deal with them. Steve would love to stay in Milwaukee. It’s a very special place for him.’’
The forward was the No. 32 overall pick in 2006. He has appeared in 459 career regular season games, averaging 4.7 points and 1.3 rebounds in 12.3 minutes per outing. He owns a career shooting line of .438/.431/.877. Novak will provide the team with veteran leadership and some outside shooting off the bench.
Terry Wanted Playing Time
A shot at playing time may have been what most attracted Jason Terry to the Bucks, according to Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times. Terry appeared in 72 games and averaged 17.5 minutes per night for the Rockets last season, and apparently he’s not ready for a reduced role, even with his 39th birthday looming next month. After missing out on free agent guards Kent Bazemore and Dwyane Wade, the Bucks turned to Terry, who ranks third on the list of most 3-pointers made in a career. “Whether he gets 40 minutes, four minutes or no minutes, he’ll accept it and be professional about it,’’ said Terry’s agent, Ryan N. Davis. “He’s excited to be with Milwaukee and help them.’’
- Former Bucks center Larry Sanders has no interest in signing a deal that is only guaranteed for training camp, tweets Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders. Sanders, who hasn’t played since leaving the NBA in December of 2014 because of anxiety and depression, is looking for a situation that offers a real opportunity to make a 15-man roster.
Details On Cash Used In 2016 Draft Trades
As our list of 2016 offseason trades shows, five of the deals agreed upon on draft night this year featured one team sending cash to the other. The NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement allows clubs to include cash payments, but only up to a certain amount.
In the 2016/17 league year, teams are allowed to receive a total of $3.5MM in trades, and can also send out $3.5MM in trades. Those limits are separate, so a team that sends $3.5MM in a deal and then later receives $3.5MM doesn’t get a fresh, new slate — that club is capped out for the league year. In 2014/15, the limit for cash sent and received in trades was $3.4MM.
Since the league year ends on June 30, teams that hadn’t taken advantage of those cash allowances earlier in the season will often use remaining cash during the draft to move up or to snag an extra pick. Many of the cash details on those draft-day deals for 2016 were previously reported. For instance, we already knew about the following payments:
- Warriors sent $2.4MM to Bucks to acquire No. 38 overall pick (Patrick McCaw).
- Trail Blazers sent $1.2MM (and a 2019 second-round pick) to Magic to acquire No. 47 overall pick (Jake Layman).
- Cavaliers sent approximately $2.5MM to Hawks to acquire No. 54 overall pick (Kay Felder).
Based on those numbers, it appears the Warriors got a much better deal from the Bucks than the Cavaliers did from the Hawks. Of course, if the Cavs badly wanted Felder, the cost to move into the draft was hardly exorbitant — Atlanta likely asked the Cavs for the maximum amount of money they could send, since Cleveland used over $900K in a separate trade earlier in the year.
In addition to those three swaps, two other draft-night deals featured money changing hands, and Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders has the details on those payments, along with several others from the 2015/16 league year. According to Pincus, these are the details on the other two draft trades involving cash:
- Nets sent $3MM (and the No. 55 overall pick) to Jazz to acquire No. 42 overall pick (Isaiah Whitehead).
- Thunder sent $730K to Nuggets to acquire No. 56 overall pick (Daniel Hamilton).
Once again, one of these deals looks far more favorable than the other, with the Thunder paying a fraction of what the Nets did for a second-round pick. But again, the available players and interested teams essentially set the market for these cash payments.
In the case of the Nets/Jazz deal, Brooklyn clearly wanted to make sure not to miss out on Whitehead, and the team was willing to pay a relatively significant amount to secure him. The Thunder, meanwhile, offered all their available remaining cash to the Nuggets for the 56th pick, and Denver likely had no better offer and no player targeted at that spot — so the Nuggets took what they could get.
Be sure to check out Pincus’ piece at Basketball Insiders for more thorough details of how teams spent and received cash in trades during the 2015/16 league year.
Jason Terry Talks Free Agency Process
Veteran guard Jason Terry recently inked a one-year contract with the Bucks, and while it’s only a minimum-salary deal, it’s fully guaranteed, which is something of a rarity at this point in the NBA offseason. In an interview on SiriusXM NBA Radio (SoundCloud link), Terry admitted that the free agency process can be tough at this late stage in his career (he’ll turn 39 next month). He also identified several of the teams he considered before landing in Milwaukee.
“I had a couple contenders that I was really seriously looking at. Two of them were in the Finals, so that tells you right there who they were,” Terry said, referring to the Cavaliers and Warriors. “I made a call to [Gregg Popovich]. San Antonio’s another one. They were my arch-enemy for eight years when I was in Dallas, but that’s another phone call — if they call, you pick up, there’s just no question about it. … I always thought about going back and trying to finish off where I started in Atlanta. I like what they did. And then I seriously considered Boston, though we did not have a conversation.”
Based on Terry’s comments, it’s not clear how many of those teams he reached out to, and how many reached out to him, so it’s possible that interest wasn’t mutual in all those scenarios. Terry also admitted that while he had some interest in the Lakers, that interest wasn’t reciprocated, since Los Angeles already had a good idea of what its 15-man roster would look like.
“I called my good friend Luke [Walton],” Terry said. “I told him if he needed any help — veteran leadership, in that capacity, with an ability to coach at the end of my deal, then that was something I would be looking forward to. He utterly declined, and I respect him for that.”
Although he’s not the scorer he was early in his career, Terry was still a solid contributor in Houston over the last two seasons, averaging 19.5 MPG in 149 regular-season contests, and averaging 6.5 PPG, 1.7 APG, and 0.8 SPG while shooting 37.5% on three-pointers. In both of his seasons with the Rockets, Terry received a bump in playing time during the postseason.