New Orleans Pelicans Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Heat Rumors: Stokes, Johnson, Whiteside

February 27th, 2016 at 3:53pm CST by Arthur Hill

Jarnell Stokes, who was traded from Miami to New Orleans at the deadline and then waived by the Pelicans, has rejoined the Heat’s D-League affiliate, tweets Chris Reichert of Upside & Motor. Despite the trade, Sioux Falls retained the rights to Stokes under a D-League provision because he appeared in more than 10 games for the Skyforce this season. (Twitter link). The 6’9″ center/power forward has played five games for Miami, scoring 7 points in 14 minutes. Stokes is not eligible to rejoin the Heat this season, notes Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel, as traded players cannot go back to the team that dealt them away.

There’s more news out of Miami:

Tyler Johnson, who hasn’t played since undergoing surgery on his left shoulder February 3rd, hopes to be back on the court by the end of the season, Winderman writes in the same story. The Heat haven’t set a timetable for the backup guard’s return, which was initially estimated at three months. However, Johnson is encouraged by how much he has recovered so far. “I feel like I’m progressing really well,” Johnson said. “I’m going to shoot to get back. Even if it was possible, it would probably be in April.”
Former Net Joe Johnson, who is rumored to be signing with Miami this weekend, is the best talent available in this year’s buyout market, according to Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post. Johnson, who was waived by Brooklyn on Thursday after agreeing to a buyout, has been a durable player who was the focus of the offense with both the Nets and Hawks, Bontemps writes.
One way for free-agent-to-be Hassan Whiteside to increase his value is to improve his free-throw shooting, and Jason Lieser of The Palm Beach Post suggests he is doing that. The 7’0″ center recently changed his approach at the line and is hitting 67.9 percent over his last six games. He averages 53 percent for his career and 56.4 percent for the season. “You know that feeling when you get under the covers in the bed and you snuggle up? You know that comfortable feeling?” Whiteside said in explaining his improved performance. “I feel that. I feel comfortable.”

Southwest Notes: Howard, Motiejunas, Joseph

February 27th, 2016 at 2:35pm CST by Arthur Hill

Rockets center Dwight Howard offered little explanation about his motive for firing agent Dan Fegan in comments to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. Howard, who seems virtually certain to opt out of the final year of his contract this summer, announced Friday that he was severing ties with Fegan and Relativity Sports. “It was nothing against my agent,” Howard said. “It wasn’t anything bad that he did to me. Sometimes, change is good. I just made a decision based on what I feel I needed to change. I always respect him and love him. We still talk now. But as far as him being my representation, I decided to go other ways.” Howard said he hasn’t thought about choosing a new agent or his possible free agency, but said he has been considering how to improve his “situation” since the All-Star break.

There’s more from the Southwest Division:

The Rockets‘ Donatas Motiejunas, whose trade to the Pistons was voided Monday due to health reasons, has received medical clearance to start playing again, Feigen writes in a separate story. The Lithuanian big man was able to participate in the Rockets’ shootaround this morning. Back troubles have limited Motiejunas to 14 games this season, and he hasn’t played for Houston since December. “All the doctors that I consult are one of the best in the United States for back injuries and none of them saw any change or anything,” he said. “I’m ready to go. I played four games in the D-League. I practiced already with the team. I practiced by myself. I feel great lately.”
Cory Joseph, who signed with the Raptors in free agency last summer, credits the four years he spent with the Spurs with making his a better player, according to Chris O’Leary of The Toronto Star. “I went to two finals, I went to the Western Conference finals, and was knocked out in the first round of the playoffs last year,” Joseph said. “You play a lot of big games and you get the full experience.” Joseph, who received about $30MM over four years, is averaging 9.1 points per game as a reserve in his first season in Toronto.
The loss of Bryce Dejean-Jones less than a week after signing a three-year contract continues a three-year string of injuries for the Pelicans, writes Justin Verrier of ESPN.com. Dejean-Jones is expected to miss six to eight weeks after breaking his right wrist.

Bryce Dejean-Jones Out For Season

February 26th, 2016 at 2:39pm CST by Chuck Myron

Bryce Dejean-Jones will miss the rest of the season for the Pelicans after surgery this morning on his broken right wrist, the team announced. Scott Kushner of The New Orleans Advocate reported Thursday that the former 10-day signee who’d ascended to the starting lineup would likely miss six to eight weeks, a timetable that put his return in serious jeopardy. The team re-signed him just last week to a three-year deal that includes a partial guarantee for next season.

Dejean-Jones started in 11 of the 14 appearances he made with the Pelicans after signing the first of two-day contracts January 21st. The 23-year-old shooting guard who went undrafted this past spring out of Iowa State averaged 5.6 points in 19.9 minutes per game and shot 12 for 32 from 3-point range.

Tyreke Evans and Quincy Pondexter have also suffered season-ending injuries, while Omer Asik is out for up to two weeks, as John Reid of The Times Picayune tweeted on Tuesday. The Pelicans already have a disabled player exception worth $1,691,012 for Pondexter, and while an another such exception isn’t a possibility, the Pelicans would qualify for a 16th roster spot via hardship if doctors determine Asik is likely to be out any longer, or if another long-term injury surfaces. Coach Alvin Gentry said Eric Gordon will return from his injury Saturday, as The Associated Press notes.

Southwest Notes: Dwight, Harden, Conley, Gasol

February 26th, 2016 at 11:09am CST by Chuck Myron

Dwight Howard said he’s OK with his role as a secondary offensive option behind James Harden, and while Howard described his relationship with his fellow Rockets star as a work in progress, the center said he has no issues with the shooting guard, relays Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. Howard made his comments before the latest rumors of discord between him and Harden surfaced.

“People will say what they want to say. There’s no need for me and him to worry about that,” Howard said. “Our job is to grow and get better as a team and get better as individuals. I think me and James had a really good talk before the [All-Star] break. We’re more on the same page than we’ve ever been. I’m always going to have his back; pretty sure he’s always going to have my back. The biggest thing, which is always true in any situation, you always have to put your ego to the side and focus on what’s best for the team. When things don’t go well, it’s easy to point to the two guys that are leaders of the team. That’s understandable. We have to take the good with the bad. We have to come together to lead this team.”

See more from the Southwest Division:

Grizzlies executive VP of player personnel Ed Stefanski expressed confidence about the team’s ability to re-sign Mike Conley, said the team thinks Marc Gasol will have recovered from his broken foot in time for training camp and explained that the team’s belief that Courtney Lee would leave via free agency led the Grizzlies to trade him. Stefanski made his comments in an appearance on SiriusXM NBA Radio’s “The Starting Lineup” show (transcription in three Twitter links).
The question of whether the Grizzlies should pick up their $9.405MM team option on Lance Stephenson for next season doesn’t have an obvious answer, since he offers promise but doesn’t have a lengthy track record suggesting he’s worth that money, as Geoff Calkins, Ronald Tillery, Chris Herrington and David Williams of The Commercial Appeal debate.
Pelicans GM Dell Demps erred when he invested in ball-dominant guards and traditional centers instead of players equipped for the modern ball-movement game while shifting focus too far away from the draft and using the back end of the roster on journeymen instead of prospects, argues Christopher Reina of RealGM.

Western Notes: Dejean-Jones, D-League, Walton

February 25th, 2016 at 7:16pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Bryce Dejean-Jones, whom the Pelicans recently inked to a three-year pact, has been diagnosed with a fractured right wrist after having an MRI today and he will undergo surgery on Friday morning to repair the damage, the team announced. No official timetable has been announced for Dejean-Jones’ recovery, but Scott Kushner of The New Orleans Advocate relays that the guard will likely miss six to eight weeks of action as a result of the injury (Twitter link). Dejean-Jones has appeared in 14 games for the Pelicans this season and is averaging 5.6 points and 3.4 rebounds in 19.9 minutes per contest.

Here’s more from out West:

While Warriors assistant coach Luke Walton will certainly be a hot name this offseason for any potential coaching vacancies, a number of GMs around the league have expressed trepidation at the prospect of giving Walton a head coaching position, Sean Deveney of The Sporting News writes. “I think Luke has a chance to be a good coach; he knows the game, but I would be worried that he’s not ready for that job yet,” a league executive told Deveney. “You’d have to worried about that. The thing is, if your owner has been hearing Warriors, Warriors, Warriors for the last two years, and he sees Luke Walton setting records, you’re probably going to hear something like, ‘Why can’t we get a coach like that?’ And so you wind up taking a chance even if he does not have the experience level you’re looking for.”
The Grizzlies assigned power forward Jarell Martin to their D-League affiliate, the team announced. This will be Martin’s sixth trek to Iowa this season. He is averaging 13.6 points and 6.3 rebounds in 30.6 minutes over seven D-League contests.
Power forward Duje Dukan has been assigned by the Kings to their D-League affiliate, the team announced. This marks Dukan’s sixth sojourn of the season to Reno.

Financial Impact Of Deadline, Buyouts: Southwest

February 24th, 2016 at 12:17pm CST by Chuck Myron

The effects of the trade deadline are still being felt around the NBA as teams work buyout deals, negotiate with new free agents and fill open roster spots. Hoops Rumors will be taking a team-by-team look at the financial ramifications not just of the deadline itself but of the post-deadline moves. We’ll start this series of posts today with the Southwest Division:

Grizzlies

Memphis gave up Courtney Lee, Jeff Green and $542,714 cash in two separate trades to bring back Lance Stephenson, P.J. Hairston, Chris Andersen and five future draft picks. None of the players they relinquished nor any they acquired have guaranteed salary for next season, so the deals don’t affect the ledger for 2016/17 at all, beyond the opportunity to pick up a $9.405MM team option on Stephenson. The net effect on this season’s payroll was the addition of a miniscule $76,440, which still leaves the Grizzlies about $2MM shy of the tax line, enough breathing room to make minimum-salary signings if they want. Memphis also gained a $450K trade exception from the difference between Green’s $9.45MM salary and Stephenson’s $9MM pay. The cash they sent to the Hornets in the Lee trade compromises their flexibility to a slight degree come draft time, when many teams swap cash for second-rounders. They’ll have $2,857,286 instead of $3.4MM to send out in those sorts of trades, though the picks they acquired last week give the team plenty of draft assets.

Mavericks

The Mavs didn’t make a trade, but they dabbled in the buyout market, signing David Lee the day after he came off waivers from the Celtics. Dallas reportedly used the prorated room exception on Lee, so assuming he gets the full amount left on the exception, Lee is making $2,085,671. The exception, originally worth $2.814MM, prorates by 1/170th each day starting January 10th. Dallas waived John Jenkins to make room for Lee on the roster, but the Suns claimed him and his guaranteed minimum salary of $981,349 off waivers. Jenkins has non-guaranteed salaries on his contract for next season and 2017/18, so even if Jenkins had cleared waivers, it wouldn’t have affected the Mavs’ long-term accounting. Instead, they merely hike this season’s payroll by the amount of Lee’s salary, minus Jenkins’ $981,349 pay, but since they were only at about $72MM anyway, well shy of the $84.74MM tax threshold, the team is in no financial danger.

Pelicans

New Orleans essentially converted a trade exception into cash that they used to fund a partial guarantee for next season in their new contract with Bryce Dejean-Jones. As Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders pointed out, the Pelicans used the $947,276 trade exception they created when they traded Ish Smith to the Sixers in December to accommodate Jarnell Stokes, whom the Heat dealt Thursday to New Orleans. The Pelicans also received $721,300 cash from Miami in the Stokes trade, Pincus notes, and the only asset New Orleans relinquished was a top-55 protected second-round pick that will likely never change hands, making it the virtual equivalent of a phony asset. New Orleans waived Stokes shortly after the trade to reopen the roster spot that Dejean-Jones had been in while he was on his pair of 10-day contracts. Dejean-Jones apparently had talks with at least five other NBA teams before the Pelicans lured him back with the partial guarantee he was reportedly seeking. It’s unclear just how much that guarantee is worth, but it goes on next season’s ledger, while Jones’ salary for the rest of this season and Stokes’ full-season pay of $845,059 is on the cap for New Orleans this year, even though the Pelicans will actually pay only a prorated percentage of what Stokes is making. The Pelicans are still about $4MM shy of the tax line, which leaves plenty of room.

Rockets

The Rockets would have escaped the luxury tax, added about $3.2MM of room beneath their hard cap and created a pair of trade exceptions if their three-team trade with the Pistons and Grizzlies had gone through. The voiding of the deal leaves Houston with none of that. The team’s net cost of the trade falling through is about $8MM in payroll and projected tax obligations combined.

Spurs

San Antonio stood pat, not surprising given their record, which is now 47-9.

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

Eastern Notes: Morris, Teague, Middleton, ‘Melo

February 22nd, 2016 at 12:31pm CST by Chuck Myron

Ex-Suns coach Jeff Hornacek gave one of the most positive reviews about Markieff Morris that the Wizards encountered when they asked around the league about Markieff Morris prior to last week’s trade, sources told TNT’s David Aldridge, who writes in his Morning Tip for NBA.com. Wizards coach Randy Wittman said he only heard “rave reviews,” while Marcin Gortat and Jared Dudley, former teammates of Morris who are now on the Wizards, told the front office that Morris wouldn’t be a problem, as Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post details. See more from the Eastern Conference as the ramifications of the trade deadline continue:

The Bucks reportedly had at least passing interest in Jeff Teague, but they weren’t willing to part with Khris Middleton to get a deal done, league sources told Aldridge for the same piece. Milwaukee reportedly held tight to Middleton in talks about Ricky Rubio, too. The Hawks were trying to score both a starter and a first-round pick in would-be trades involving Teague, sources told USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt last week (Twitter link).
Meanwhile, the Pelicans were the team that clung to one of their players in their talks with the Bucks, as the conversation between those teams involving Greg Monroe fell apart when New Orleans refused to give up Jrue Holiday, according to Sean Deveney of The Sporting News.
Several teams think that if the Knicks don’t make much progress in their rebuilding by the middle of July, Carmelo Anthony would be willing to waive his no-trade clause, Deveney writes in the same piece. The Knicks spoke with the Rockets about Ty Lawson before the trade deadline, according to Marc Berman of the New York Post.
The retention of Dwyane Wade and Hassan Whiteside this summer would almost assuredly mean the end to Luol Deng‘s time with the Heat, observes Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel, who writes in his mailbag column. Front office executives around the league were led to believe that Deng was available on the trade market before last week’s deadline, as USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt noted (on Twitter).

Western Notes: Lee, Davis, Stepheson, Nuggets

February 20th, 2016 at 10:50pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Mavericks will need more than just David Lee to start moving in the right direction, contends Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News. Dallas is considered a heavy favorite to sign Lee once he clears waivers at 3 pm Central Time on Sunday, and Sefko says the Mavericks are believed to have a deal ready to present to him. Lee, who was waived Friday by the Celtics after falling out of their rotation, hasn’t played since January 10th. Sefko warns that Lee has lost some of the skills that made him a two-time All-Star and says other players will have to step up their games to keep the Mavericks from falling out of the playoff picture.

There’s more from the Western Conference:

Jeremy Evans and Justin Anderson have been sent to the Mavericks‘ D-League affiliate, the team announced today. Evans has played in 29 games for Dallas, averaging 2.3 points and 1.9 rebounds, while Anderson has been in 34 games, averaging 2.6 points and 1.6 rebounds.
Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry laughed at a report that the organization had trade talks with the Celtics about Anthony Davis, writes John Reid of The Times-Picayune. New Orleans gave Davis an extension last summer that will amount to the richest contract in league history, five years at $145MM.
Alex Stepheson, who signed a 10-day contract with the Clippers earlier today, can’t wait to play in his first NBA game, according to Robert Morales of The Long Beach Press-Telegram. The 28-year-old was the D-League’s leading rebounder with the Iowa Energy, the affiliate of the Grizzlies. “I’m excited,” Stepheson said. “I’m a little bit nervous. I think basketball-wise, I kind of know what I can do and can’t do, so I don’t think I’m going to be too nervous on the basketball court. Just being out there playing for the Clippers and stuff like that, man, it’s pretty big.”
The Nuggets created a tiny trade exception worth $135K from Thursday’s trade, notes Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). It’s of such diminutive value that it’s virtually unusable, but nonetheless, it comes via the difference between Randy Foye‘s $3.135MM salary and D.J. Augustin‘s $3MM pay. Denver took Steve Novak‘s $3,750,001 salary into its disabled player exception for Wilson Chandler, as I noted here and as Pincus confirms (on Twitter). The disabled player exception is thus extinguished, Pincus adds.

Western Notes: Green, Cole, Collison, Suns

February 20th, 2016 at 2:49pm CST by ChrisCrouse

The Grizzlies offered Jeff Green to the Clippers earlier in the week and after Los Angeles turned them down, they expected to keep the combo forward on the roster, Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal reports (Twitter link). The Clippers then contacted the team right before the deadline to rekindle talks and the sides were able to come to an agreement, Tillery adds.

Here’s more from the Western Conference:

Norris Cole and Darren Collison were among the point guards available for trades before Thursday’s deadline, a league source told Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. Ellis heard the same about D.J. Augustin, whom the Thunder traded to the Nuggets.
The Suns will not bring back Orlando Johnson, Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic writes. Johnson’s 10-day contract with Phoenix expired earlier this week and the team signed Phil Pressey to a 10-day deal earlier today.
P.J. Tucker drew interest from other teams at the deadline, but Suns GM Ryan McDonough believes that it was the right move to keep the veteran, Coro writes in a separate piece. “He’s one guy we look at as an example for how hard you should play every night and the kind of toughness and edge you should bring to the game,” McDonough said. With Markieff Morris leaving town, Tucker is now the Suns’ longest-tenured player.

Pelicans Waive Jarnell Stokes

February 19th, 2016 at 10:14am CST by Chuck Myron

The Pelicans have waived the freshly acquired Jarnell Stokes to make room on the roster for their new contract with Bryce Dejean-Jones, the team announced via press release. Stokes had just come via trade from the Heat on Thursday, though Scott Kushner of The New Orleans Advocate reported then that the Pelicans were thinking about releasing him. New Orleans also received cash in the deal for Stokes, which totals a little more than $700K, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com, and Kushner indicates that will go toward funding the partial guarantee for next season in the Dejean-Jones deal (Twitter link).

The Pelicans are also going to pay the remainder of Stokes’ guaranteed salary of $845,059 for this season if he clears waivers, which would come to about $273K, according to Bobby Marks of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports (on Twitter). His contract carries a non-guaranteed minimum salary of $980,431 for next season.

Stokes, 22, is only about a year and a half removed from having become the 35th pick in the 2014 draft. However, he’s made it into only 26 NBA games, fewer than the 39 D-League contests he’s played while on assignment from the Grizzlies and Heat. The power forward is averaging 20.6 points and 10.2 rebounds in 30.9 minutes per game across 16 D-League appearances this season.

New Orleans still has 15 players on its roster in the wake of the Stokes release and the Dejean-Jones signing. All 15 are signed through at least the end of the season.