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And-Ones: Gasol, Barnes, Garnett, Horford

February 3rd, 2016 at 2:40pm CST by Chuck Myron

Two executives from other teams aren’t sold on the idea that the Bulls are done gauging the trade market for Pau Gasol in the wake of injuries to Joakim Noah and Nikola Mirotic, reports K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, who adds that the Bulls want to re-sign Gasol this summer but at a limited price. Gasol said today that he doesn’t view a trade as likely but wouldn’t be completely shocked if the Bulls dealt him, adding that he wished he had a no-trade clause in his contract, notes Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com (ESPN Now link). Gasol also expressed a desire for a no-trade provision in his next contract, which he could only get if he signs with the Grizzlies or Lakers or re-signs with the Bulls on a one-year deal. Formal no-trade clauses are only available to veterans of eight or more years (Gasol qualifies there) who sign with teams they’ve spent at least four seasons with. Gasol is in just year No. 2 with Chicago, but anyone who re-signs with his team on a one-year deal, or a two-year deal with a player option, can veto trades. See more from around the league:

  • Harrison Barnes has fans within the Timberwolves organization, as Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities says in a podcast, though it’s not entirely certain that Minnesota will pursue the soon-to-be restricted free agent. Barnes engendered an “undercurrent of disenchantment” within the Warriors when he stayed for as long as he did with a sprained ankle that prompted him to miss 16 games this season, as Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com reported earlier. Wolves GM Milt Newton has no guarantee of running the team’s front office beyond this season after inheriting the authority from the late Flip Saunders.
  • Kevin Garnett is “no lock” to play next season, as many people close to him aren’t sure whether or not he intends to do so, Wolfson says in the same podcast. In July, Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune raised the specter of Garnett moving into a front office position with the Timberwolves next season if he’s not healthy enough to play. Garnett, who turns 40 in May, has appeared in 38 of Minnesota’s 50 games this year and is set to make $8MM in 2016/17 on the two-year contract he signed this past summer.
  • Soon-to-be free agent Al Horford said he feels like Atlanta is home and added that he isn’t focused on trade talk as the February 18th deadline looms, observes Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That echoes the mostly glowing remarks Horford made about Atlanta and the Hawks organization to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports, and though the Hawks want to-resign him, it’s unclear whether they’re willing to shell out the max contract he’ll be seeking, according to Spears. Horford also said to Spears that other cities probably offer more business and marketing opportunities than Atlanta does, and the Hawks are expected to listen to offers for Horford out of concern that he might walk in free agency this summer, Spears reports.
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Spurs, Clippers, Thunder Eye Adreian Payne

February 3rd, 2016 at 10:30am CST by Chuck Myron

The Spurs, Clippers and Thunder have “fringe” trade interest in Adreian Payne, as Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities says in his latest edition of “The Scoop” podcast. The No. 15 pick from the 2014 draft has seen spotty playing time this season but this week returned earlier than planned from a D-League assignment because of injuries to other Minnesota frontcourt players, Wolfson adds. Wolfson casts doubt on the notion of a trade involving Payne before the February 18th deadline, suggesting instead that the idea might resurface in the summer.

Payne, who turns 25 the day after the trade deadline, is making close to $1.939MM this year in the second season of his rookie scale contract. Minnesota picked up its team option of more than $2.022MM for next season. The former Michigan State stalwart enjoyed significant playing time down the stretch last season on a banged-up Timberwolves team, making 22 starts in 29 games and averaging 7.2 points and 5.4 boards in 24.8 minutes per contest. That came after a February 2015 trade in which Minnesota sent a conditional future first-round pick to Atlanta to free Payne from the Hawks, for whom he saw action in only three games.

The Clippers have a hole at power forward with Blake Griffin out, but they reportedly want a small forward, with Rudy Gay among their targets. The Thunder are also apparently focusing on the wing, lending credence to the notion that the interest in Payne is muted. It’s unclear what the Spurs are looking for, though losses to the Warriors and Cavaliers last week exposed San Antonio’s flaws after a sterling 38-6 beginning to the season.

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Western Notes: Garnett, Gay, Kilpatrick

February 2nd, 2016 at 5:04pm CST by Chuck Myron

Kevin Garnett gave reporters a pointed endorsement of interim coach Sam Mitchell, as well expressed his approval of the direction that the Timberwolves are headed as a franchise, Jerry Zgoda of The Star Tribune relays. “I feel real good about the progression of this team since Day 1 and I think it needs to be said and needs to be understood that I’m endorsing Sam Mitchell and our coaching staff and this organization,” Garnett said. “More importantly, I’m excited about our future. I’m excited about our young players. I feel like we’re getting better. These last 10, 15 games, we’ve gotten better. You see it and I think that needs to be said. I think you all need to understand we’re supportive around here.”

The veteran had raised some eyebrows with his previous silence regarding Mitchell, Zgoda notes. “Just because I haven’t done a lot of interviews and voiced my opinion on a lot of things,” Garnett continued, “I want you guys to understand that not only do I endorse Sam Mitchell, but the other players do, too. We believe not only in him, but the system and what we’re trying to do here. I think everybody needs to understand that. The transformation and what we’re trying to do here is build something for the future and these are the first steps of that. I don’t really come to you guys a lot and say two weeks, but I just want you guys to know that needs to be heard and said.”

Here’s the latest from out West:

  • The Clippers are looking for a small forward and have interest in Rudy Gay, but their interest isn’t strong enough to obtain him, ESPN’s Chris Broussard says in a video report. Gay has been linked to the Clippers previously, as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee wrote in January, but it wasn’t clear just how they viewed him. Dana Gauruder of Hoops Rumors profiled the trade candidacy of the Kings combo forward Monday.
  • Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook don’t have any trouble seeing eye-to-eye, sources tell Zach Lowe of ESPN.com as part of a larger piece on the Thunder. The team has been scanning the market for wing players but hasn’t made any serious pursuits, several league sources said to Lowe, who also hears that new coach Billy Donovan has been better at holding the team’s stars accountable during film sessions than predecessor Scott Brooks was.
  • The Nuggets don’t intend to sign Sean Kilpatrick for the remainder of the season, Nate Timmons of BSNDenver.com tweets. Kilpatrick’s second 10-day pact expired on Monday.
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D-League Notes: Dunleavy, Dinwiddie, Harrison

February 1st, 2016 at 10:28pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Bulls have assigned veteran small forward Mike Dunleavy to the D-League’s Santa Cruz Warriors as he continues to rehab from a back injury that has kept him out all season, the club announced on Monday. Dunleavy will practice there during the Bulls’ West Coast swing but will not appear in a game, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports tweets. The most prominent player to appear in a D-League game this season was Pistons point guard Brandon Jennings, who played one game with the team’s affiliate in Grand Rapids in December while rehabbing from an Achilles tendon injury.

In more news involving the D-League:

  • Pistons point guard Spencer Dinwiddie has averaged 16.7 points and 6.1 assists in 10 games since he was assigned to Grand Rapids on January 7th. But coach Stan Van Gundy has no plans to bring him back to Detroit in the near future. “Right now, with three healthy point guards, there’s not much reason to bring him back here and sit in street clothes out there,” Van Gundy told the assembled media over the weekend, including Hoops Rumors. “I think it’s better for his development that he gets a chance to play and practice every day.”
  • The Hornets reassigned rookie point guard Aaron Harrison to the D-League’s Oklahoma City Blue on Monday, the NBA club announced on its website. Harrison, who played one game with the Blue in January, has appeared in 13 games for Charlotte. The Hornets do not have their own D-League affiliate.
  • Hawks center Edy Tavares has returned from his D-League stint with the Austin Spurs, Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets. Tavares was assigned to Austin on January 27th.
  • The Spurs recalled point guard Ray McCallum from Austin, the team tweets. McCallum has appeared in 20 games with San Antonio this season and seven with its D-League affiliate.
  • The Timberwolves recalled power forward Adreian Payne from the D-League’s Erie BayHawks, according to Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Twitter link).  The team’s PR department later confirmed the move. Payne has appeared in 30 games with the Timberwolves and three with the BayHawks this season.
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Western Notes: Pierce, Martin, Bass, Batum

February 1st, 2016 at 4:45pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Clippers signed Paul Pierce to a three-year deal in the offseason, but the 38-year-old has shown the ravages of age this season, and coach/executive Doc Rivers admits the team’s maintenance plan for him isn’t foolproof, as Dan Woike of the Orange County Register examines. Pierce hasn’t ruled out retirement after the season.

“It has to be [hard for him],” Rivers said. “You could see he didn’t have great rhythm tonight and he didn’t practice and he takes the days off. Again, it’s an imperfect science. I think at the end of the year it will be great for him because now the rhythm will start and he’ll start playing, but I really don’t know. I’m just trying to do the best with him so we can preserve him.”

Here’s more from the Western Conference:

  • Some teams with interest in trading with the Timberwolves for Kevin Martin would prefer that he picks up his player option worth nearly $7.378MM for next season, but a larger and more seriously intrigued bunch of teams wants him to turn down the option, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders hears. The same is true among suitors for Lakers power forward Brandon Bass, who has a $3.135MM player option, Kyler adds.
  • Soon-to-be free agent Nicolas Batum said after Friday’s game that he “loved” playing for the Trail Blazers, but Portland’s victory over the Hornets, in which Batum struggled, was in large measure about the Blazers moving past Batum and the other players the team didn’t bring back from last season, as The Oregonian’s Joe Freeman details. The Charlotte swingman was the last of the four former Blazers starters to play a game with his new team in Portland.
  • The Rockets have recalled Donatas Motiejunas and K.J. McDaniels from the D-League, the team announced (Twitter link). Motiejunas, set for restricted free agency at season’s end, gave his consent to the D-League trip as a rehab assignment, and he said he’ll again join Houston’s affiliate later in the week, notes Mark Berman of Fox 26 Houston (on Twitter). Motiejunas has three previous years of experience, so the Rockets need his permission as well as the union’s to send him to the D-League.
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Western Notes: Gay, Martin, Motiejunas

January 29th, 2016 at 9:05pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Kings are holding out for a “quality young player” or someone whose contract runs beyond this season in return for Rudy Gay as they entertain offers for the combo forward, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com. James Ham of CSNBayArea.com relayed earlier this evening that there is significant interest around the league regarding multiple players on Sacramento’s roster, including Gay and Marco Belinelli. While we await more trade rumblings, here are the latest happenings from out West:

  • The Timberwolves are demanding more in a Kevin Martin trade than a simple offloading of salary, Stein notes in the same piece. The Bucks, Mavericks, Bulls, Grizzlies and Kings have all reportedly expressed interest in Martin to some degree, as Hoops Rumors’ Chuck Myron noted when he examined the shooting guard’s trade candidacy.
  • Rockets power forward Donatas Motiejunas is slated to join the team’s D-League affiliate this weekend to continue rehabbing his injured back, Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle writes. As a fourth-year player, both Motiejunas and the NBPA needed to give their permission for the big man to head to Rio Grande Valley, Feigen notes, something Motiejunas was more than willing to do. “I’m excited,” Motiejunas said about joining the Vipers. “I know that I need to go there. I know that’s what I want. For catching a rhythm, that’s the thing that I will like to go, catch my rhythm back, catch my game flow, get back into shape. I’m happy with it and just to go play, get my confidence back, is a really good decision by me and my agent to go there. I asked them to send me. I know it’s going to be much harder for me if I don’t go there and not get reps. Then I have to work into the rotation somehow and maintain my condition. I really think it’s the best solution for me to go to the D-League, check on my body, get high minutes, get in a rhythm, get in a game shape and be ready to play.”

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

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Northwest Notes: Batum, Malone, Singler

January 29th, 2016 at 2:01pm CST by Chuck Myron

Nicolas Batum‘s former Trail Blazers teammates Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum have fond memories of the small forward whom Portland traded to the Hornets this past summer, and Batum admits it will be “weird” Friday when Charlotte plays at Portland, The Oregonian’s Joe Freeman observes. Batum is a free agent at season’s end, and the Blazers will have plenty of cap space this summer, but there’s been no talk of a reunion.

“He was a really good teammate,” Lillard said. “I always remember my rookie year and my second year, when it would get to five minutes or less in the game, he would always come tap me on my back and be like, ‘Dame, it’s your time. Take over the game.’ Just being so young and having somebody who’s been a part of this team come to me and have that much confidence, that always meant a lot to me. He was always that type of person. He was unselfish. Just a good dude to play with.”

See more from the Northwest Division:

  • Michael Malone still stings from having been fired from the Kings in 2014, but he’s fully engaged with the Nuggets and he and former Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro, who was Malone’s boss at the time of the firing and is now in the Nuggets front office, don’t feel any “angst or hate” toward one another, Malone tells Michael Lee of Yahoo Sports.
  • Thunder coach Billy Donovan has said repeatedly that he’s a fan of what Kyle Singler can do on defense with his 6’8″ body, and the absence of the injured Andre Roberson will challenge Singler to live up to the five-year, $24.3MM deal he signed this past summer, observes Erik Horne of The Oklahoman.
  • Tyus Jones hasn’t played in 12 consecutive games for the Timberwolves, but he’s not complaining, and he prefers sitting on the bench and getting practice reps with his NBA teammates to playing on D-League assignment, as Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune details. The rookie spent much of December with the Jazz D-League affiliate.
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Grizzlies Test Market For Jeff Green, Courtney Lee

January 29th, 2016 at 8:41am CST by Chuck Myron

The Grizzlies are gauging the trade market for soon-to-be free agents Jeff Green and Courtney Lee, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com, who cautions that the team isn’t shopping them. Rather, they’re doing what they’re “supposed to do” with players on expiring deals and seeing what they could get in return before they have the chance to walk away in the summer, Stein writes. Still, it appears the team has more willingness to trade Green and Lee than fellow veterans Zach Randolph and Tony Allen, whom they have no interest in sending away, according to Stein.

The 29-year-old Green, who makes $9.45MM, doesn’t appear to be the most popular teammate in Memphis, where one prominent Grizzlies player “wanted to wring his neck” after a loss two weeks ago, expressing profound frustration with the combo forward, as Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal reported. Green’s attitude hasn’t been stellar, either, according to Tillery. His play has left much to be desired, as his 11.4 points per game are his fewest since he posted 10.5 as a rookie in 2007/08. Coach Dave Joerger recently removed him from the starting lineup.

Memphis reportedly turned away entreaties from the Timberwolves about a swap of Lee for Kevin Martin, so it doesn’t appear that Lee will come cheaply. The 30-year-old who’s a career 38.2% 3-point shooter started the season in a troublesome slump from behind the arc, canning just 22.0% of his treys through November, but since then, he’s nailed 44.4% of them. He’s seeing a $5.675MM salary this year.

Complicating matters for the Grizzlies is that they’re only about $2MM shy of the luxury tax threshold. They sit fifth in the Western Conference at 27-20 following early-season questions about Joerger’s future. It’s not entirely clear what sort of offers they’d find most enticing in exchange for Green and Lee, though it doesn’t seem the club is ready for a tear-down.

What do you think the Grizzlies would be able to get for Green and Lee? Leave a comment to give your input.

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And-Ones: Snyder, Wiggins, Parsons

January 28th, 2016 at 10:28pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Jazz coach Quin Snyder isn’t focused on trade talk regarding his team and is instead concentrating on winning games, Jody Genessy of The Deseret Times relays (Twitter links). “I really like our group so much, so it’s easy for me to stay focused on the present,” Snyder told Genessy. The coach also noted that he’s “not in that world” where trade talk occurs, Genessy adds. “I’m more concerned about the guys we have,” the coach relayed. Utah has been “poking around” the trade market for a point guard recently, according to a recent report by Zach Lowe of ESPN.com.

Here’s more from around the league:

  • Wolves camp cut Nick Wiggins, who is the older brother of Andrew Wiggins, has signed with the Canterbury Rams of Australia’s National Basketball League for the remainder of the season, the team has announced (h/t to Sportando). Wiggins had been playing for the Raptors‘ D-League affiliate and averaged 4.0 points and 1.7 rebounds in 10 appearances before the team waived him about a month ago.
  • Mavericks small forward Chandler Parsons can opt out of his current deal at the end of the season and become an unrestricted free agent, a move that Parsons is likely to make. Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com (Twitter link) predicts that Parsons will end up re-signing with Dallas on a four-year, approximately $80MM deal. The value of Parsons’ player option for 2016/17 is $16.023MM.
  • Joe Johnson has looked like a rejuvenated player under Nets interim coach Tony Brown, Brian Lewis of The New York Post notes. “I enjoy the game of basketball, period,” Johnson said. “In the heat of the battle, in the game, we have our frustrations in the moment; but I enjoy playing. I love the game. I hate to lose, but unfortunately we’re in a tough situation. We’ve got to play, and make do with what we’ve got. If we put it all out there on the line, we can live with the results.’’
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Dead Money: Northwest Division

January 28th, 2016 at 4:21pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Not every dollar of each team’s payroll shows up on the court, as franchises often dish out funds to players who are no longer on their rosters. Players with guaranteed money who are waived, either through a standard waiver release, use of the stretch provision, or when a buyout arrangement is reached, still count against a team’s cap figure for the duration of their contracts, or the amount of time specified by the collective bargaining agreement for when a player’s salary is stretched.

There are even situations that arise, like the one with JaVale McGee and the Sixers, where these players are actually the highest-paid on the team. McGee is set to collect $12MM from Philly, and he won’t score one point or collect one rebound for the franchise this season. The next highest-paid athlete for the Sixers is Gerald Wallace, who was also waived, and he is scheduled to earn $10,105,855 for the 2015/16 campaign. In fact, the total payroll for the Sixers’ entire active roster this season is $32,203,553, which is merely $3,709,857 more than the amount being paid to players no longer on the team!

Listed below are the names and cap hits associated with players who are no longer on the rosters of teams in the Northwest Division, with the exception of those who had 10-day contracts that ran to term:

Denver Nuggets

Total= $2,550,480

Minnesota Timberwolves

Total= $3,725,000

Oklahoma City Thunder

  • None

Portland Trail Blazers

Total= $3,083,181

Utah Jazz

Total= $1,527,476

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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