New Orleans Pelicans Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Russ Smith To Play For Sixers D-League Affiliate

January 13th, 2016 at 11:14am CST by Chuck Myron

WEDNESDAY, 11:14am: The affiliate of the Sixers has claimed Smith’s D-League rights, so he’ll play for the Delaware 87ers, Reichert hears (Twitter link).

TUESDAY, 10:50am: Former Grizzlies and Pelicans point guard Russ Smith has signed with the D-League, a league source tells Chris Reichert of Upside & Motor (Twitter link). The 24-year-old has spent plenty of time on D-League assignment during his season and half in the pros, but this is the first time he has a D-League contract instead of an NBA deal, so the D-League waiver system will determine which affiliate he plays for. He’ll remain eligible to sign with any NBA team regardless.

Memphis waived Smith on December 29th, despite the existence of a full guarantee on his minimum salary, to clear room for Ryan Hollins, whom the Grizzlies released about a week later. Still, the team filled the roster spot with Elliot Williams on a 10-day contract instead of re-signing Smith. The Grizzlies reportedly believed as of early this season that Smith wasn’t ready to ascend to the role of primary backup behind Mike Conley, which helped precipitate the Mario Chalmers trade. Smith saw playing time in only 21 NBA games for Memphis in between the time it acquired him from the Pelicans in the Jeff Green trade a year ago today and the time of his release. He made it into only six games for New Orleans prior to that deal.

Still, he was a consensus First Team All-American in his senior season at Louisville in 2013/14, when he averaged 18.2 points, 4.6 assists and 2.8 turnovers in 29.3 minutes per game. The Sixers drafted him 47th overall in 2014 and dealt his rights to the Pelicans shortly thereafter.

Do you think we’ll see Smith back in the NBA this season? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Pelicans Eye Millsap, Johnson, Dejean-Jones

January 11th, 2016 at 6:29pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Pelicans are expected to consider several wing players for 10-day contracts now that Quincy Pondexter is set to miss the entire season, reports Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports, who mentions free agents Elijah Millsap, Orlando Johnson and Bryce Dejean-Jones by name. New Orleans has been carrying an open roster spot since trading Ish Smith to the Sixers last month.

Millsap cleared waivers last week from the Jazz, who cut him rather than guarantee his contract for the rest of the season. The 28-year-old brother of Paul Millsap had seen his minutes dwindle this season, to 8.6 per contest in 20 appearances, after he averaged 19.7 minutes a night in 47 games with Utah last year.

Johnson, who was the 36th overall pick in 2012, has been playing for the D-League affiliate of the Spurs for the past month, averaging 15.5 points in 32.3 minutes per game, with sizzling 50.7% shooting on 73 attempts from 3-point range. The 26-year-old last appeared in the NBA during the 2013/14 season with the Pacers and Kings.

Dejean-Jones signed with the Pelicans in August as an undrafted free agent after winning a spot on the New Orleans summer league team. He averaged 8.8 points in 18.2 minutes per game during the preseason, but a rash of injuries at other positions helped persuade the Pelicans to cut him before opening night. He’s since joined the Jazz affiliate in the D-League and has posted 18.5 points in 31.5 minutes per contest across six appearances.

Which player makes the most sense for the Pelicans, or is there another name they should consider? Share your thoughts with a comment.

Quincy Pondexter Needs Season-Ending Surgery

January 11th, 2016 at 6:13pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Pelicans small forward Quincy Pondexter will undergo season-ending surgery on his left knee in New York on January 20th, Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports reports. Pondexter has not played this season. New Orleans is eligible to apply for a disabled player exception worth $1,691,012, which is half of Pondexter’s salary, though the application deadline is Friday. The Pelicans are expected to consider signing wing players to 10-day contracts using their open roster spot, as Charania also writes and as we cover in more detail here.

He underwent surgery to repair damage in the same knee in May but it obviously didn’t heal as sufficiently as hoped. Pondexter was acquired by New Orleans in January as part of a three-team trade with the Celtics and Grizzlies.

The news comes as a surprise, considering the team recently announced a one-to-two week timetable for his return, Charania continues. He was expected to boost the team’s perimeter defense and provide toughness and stability in that area, Charania adds. The team has been using Tyreke Evans extensively at small forward in his absence.

Pondexter, who averaged 8.9 points and 3.1 rebounds while shooting 43.3% from 3-point range in 45 games for New Orleans last season, remains on a four-year contract extension that he signed in 2013 with the Grizzlies. He’s making approximately $3.38MM this season and has guarantees of $3.618MM next season and $3.854MM the following year.

Nets Eye Monty Williams?

January 11th, 2016 at 4:26pm CST by Chuck Myron

Former Pelicans coach and current Thunder assistant coach Monty Williams is among the names in contention for the freshly opened Nets vacancy, as NetsDaily has been told (Twitter link). Much of the attention has surrounded long-ago Nets coach John Calipari, but he reportedly wants a dual coach/executive role, and Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov said in a press conference today that he’d prefer to have a separate coach and GM. Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPNNewYork.com heard that the Nets could consider St. John’s coach Chris Mullin, but it’s unclear whether his source was merely speculating.

Williams has quickly built a strong bond with soon-to-be free agent Kevin Durant since joining the Thunder staff in the offseason, which certainly won’t hurt the coach’s candidacy for any NBA vacancy. He’s also close with Anthony Davis, his former Pelicans player, but Davis just signed a five-year extension with New Orleans this past summer, shortly after the team canned Williams.

New Orleans experienced an 11-win improvement last year in its final season under Williams, going 45-37 and grabbing the final playoff spot in the Western Conference before falling to the Warriors in a first-round sweep. It was the first time New Orleans had gone to the playoffs since the 2010/11 season, Williams’ first year as coach, when the then-Hornets lost in six games to the Lakers. The New Orleans job is his only NBA head coaching gig to date, though he spent five seasons as a Trail Blazers assistant before he took it, and he’s also served as an assistant coach for Team USA.

Do you think Williams would make sense for the Nets? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Latest On Pelicans Front Office

January 11th, 2016 at 1:54pm CST by Chuck Myron

An increasing volume of chatter indicates that it’s “only a matter of time” before the Pelicans hire former Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars to run their front office, writes Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. Executive vice president of basketball operations Mickey Loomis, who also oversees the NFL’s Saints, has exerted greater control of the team lately in his role, which puts him above GM Dell Demps, but rival executives say that’s only temporary, with one exec calling him a football guy, not a basketball guy, according to Berger.

Dumars, a Louisiana native, has a close relationship with Pelicans owner Tom Benson, Berger notes. Loomis and other Pelicans officials reportedly met multiple times with Dumars in the fall of 2014, though the team said in May that it hadn’t had talks with Dumars about any potential job. Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders wrote shortly thereafter that people around the league had believed for a while that Dumars would eventually replace Loomis atop the Pelicans basketball hierarchy, and Zach Lowe of ESPN.com wrote in early May that Dumars was in play for a role that would place him above Demps in the organization. Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher said a year ago that Benson was eyeing Dumars as a possible future hire. Demps said this spring, on the day that the team fired coach Monty Williams, that Loomis had told him the rumors about Dumars were untrue.

The Pelicans are enduring a nightmare season after a rash of October injuries laid waste to many of new coach Alvin Gentry‘s plans. New Orleans is 11-25, though the team appears to be resisting the notion of trading soon-to-be free agent Ryan Anderson, despite reports of talks with the Suns that involved Anderson and Markieff Morris. The Pelicans, who have an open roster spot, reportedly expressed interest in trading for Solomon Hill, though that was more than a month ago. The team has since traded Ish Smith to the Sixers for a pair of second-round picks.

Dumars had high-profile hits and misses in his nearly 14-year tenure in charge of the Pistons, constructing the 2004 NBA champions and drafting Darko Milicic. He stepped down from atop the team’s front office in April 2014.

To find out more about Loomis and his future with the Saints, check out the rumors pages dedicated to Loomis and the Saints on our sister site, Pro Football Rumors, and follow @pfrumors on Twitter.

Western Notes: Evans, Clippers, Mavericks

January 9th, 2016 at 8:03pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Tyreke Evans is still having difficulty adapting to the offensive system of first year coach Alvin Gentry, John Reid of The Times Picayune writes. Reid notes that Gentry’s system requires quick ball movements and at times, Evans is holding onto the ball too long instead of making quick passes. New Orleans is averaging 98.8 points per 48 minutes as a team, but with Evans in the game, the pace drops to 95.6 points per 48 minutes. Evans missed the first 17 games of the season while he was recovering from knee surgery, and the team understands it’s going to take time for him to pick up the system.

”He didn’t have the luxury of even being in training camp or playing in any preseason games,” Gentry said. ”It’s still fairly new to him. It’s not like he doesn’t want to do it. He played a style of basketball we got to try and convert to another style. That’s not easy to do on his part either. I know he wants to do it, I don’t have any doubt about that. We just got to keep working on it. I think we also have to do as coaches adjust and put him in situations also where he’s comfortable.”’

The Pelicans are 11-24 on the season, but they remain only four games back of the Jazz for the eighth seed in the Western Conference. Here are some notes from a few teams above them in the playoff race:

The Clippers could use a small forward upgrade and they should look to the trade market to find it, Lang Greene of Basketball Insiders argues. The team has won eight straight, but if Los Angeles is going to compete with the upper echelon of the Western Conference, it needs to add another play-maker on the wing. The scribe names Lance Stephenson, Jamal Crawford and Josh Smith as realistic trade assets.
The Mavericks could also use small forward help with Chandler Parsons struggling to find his mid-season form, Greene opines in the same piece. Aside from Parsons, Dallas doesn’t have a true small forward on the roster and Greene adds that it could realistically dangle Devin Harris or Raymond Felton in order to find some wing depth.
Coach Rick Carlisle believes that Parsons, who could become a free agent this offseason if he declines his player option, is making progress on the court, Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News writes. “I liked his aggression [in New Orleans],” Carlisle said of Parsons’ 21 point performance against the Pelicans on Wednesday. “It’s another step along the way. I said it’s probably going to be late December, early January before you can start keeping stats on him with any accuracy because of the comeback and rehab and conditioning. I feel now that it’s going to be the All-Star break before he really has his legs under him. There are going to be some ups and downs, but we’re seeing a lot more ups than downs.”

Southwest Notes: Adams, Pachulia, D-League

January 8th, 2016 at 6:06pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Grizzlies shooting guard Jordan Adams is scheduled to undergo surgery on his right knee this Tuesday and there is currently no timetable for his return to action, the team announced. The procedure Adams will undergo is similar to the one big man Brandan Wright had back in December, and Wright was given a timetable of six to eight weeks for his recovery, Chris Herrington of The Commercial Appeal notes (via Twitter). The team also relayed in the press release that power forward Jarell Martin sustained a bone bruise in his left foot while on assignment to the Grizzlies’ D-League affiliate in Iowa and his condition will be re-evaluated in seven to 10 days.

Here’s more from the Southwest Division:

Mavericks center Zaza Pachulia is currently in his 13th season in the NBA and he appreciates all the opportunities that he has been given throughout his career, the big man told Rainer Saban of The Dallas Morning News. “I wouldn’t change anything, honestly. I would just keep everything because there is a reason why I am here at this point,” Pachulia said. “As you know, the average career for an NBA player is 4.5 years, 5 years. I doubled it so I must be doing something right — not only being out here, but I am enjoying playing basketball and I have great teammates, I am in a great organization with a great coaching staff. And we’re winning the games. I am fortunate to be in this situation. I wouldn’t change anything, obviously.“
The Pelicans have been attempting to replicate the fast-paced offense of the Warriors but have experienced mixed results thus far, Brett Dawson of The New Orleans Advocate writes. “I think it’s been OK,” said coach Alvin Gentry, who was the lead assistant for the Warriors last year. “At the end of the day, we still want to play with more pace than we’re playing with.” The Pelicans are currently ranked 10th in the NBA in pace, averaging 98.8 possessions per 48 minutes, Dawson notes.
The Grizzlies have recalled James Ennis and Martin from their D-League affiliate in Iowa, the team announced. Ennis is averaging 20.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.0 steal in 38.1 minutes per game for the Energy this season.

Western Notes: Davis, McDaniels, Lawson

January 7th, 2016 at 10:24pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Anthony Davis‘ maximum salary extension kicks in next season, and the Pelicans will have five years to show the power forward that New Orleans can be a championship contender, though the organization doesn’t feel like it is “on the clock” with its star player, Sean Deveney of The Sporting News writes. “If you look at a situation like that where it is five years,” coach Alvin Gentry said when asked if he feels pressure regarding Davis, “and you’ve got five years to make something happen and keep a guy here — the one thing that [GM] Dell Demps and [team executive] Mickey Loomis have done is that they’ve taken Anthony and surrounded him with really good people, really good players. There is an opportunity for us. When we get everybody healthy, we feel like we can compete with everyone. There is time to get things right.”

Though the team has downplayed the notion that Ryan Anderson will be traded prior to February’s deadline, NBA executives believe that if New Orleans is to make any personnel moves this season it will involve the power forward, Deveney relays. “He is really the only one that has value if you’re a playoff team,” one NBA executive said of Anderson. “I wouldn’t say they’re shopping him, as far as I know, but I would say they’re listening [to offers].”

Here’s the latest from out West:

The NBA has suspended Rockets point guard Ty Lawson three games for the second of his two DUI arrests last year, Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle relays. The league previously suspended Lawson for two games after he pleaded guilty to driving while impaired in Denver last January, and this latest suspension stems from a DUI arrest last June in Los Angeles.
The Timberwolves continue to suffer from a lack of outside shooting and youthful mistakes and interim coach Sam Mitchell has until the end of the season to turn around these deficiencies if he hopes to be named head coach on a permanent basis, writes Michael Rand of The Star Tribune. Mitchell needs to prove to team management that he is indeed the person best suited to develop the franchise’s young talent, Rand adds.
The Rockets have assigned swingman K.J. McDaniels to their D-League affiliate, Feigen notes (via Twitter). This will be McDaniels’ fourth trek to Rio Grande Valley on the season.

Pelicans To Retain Toney Douglas

January 7th, 2016 at 3:42pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Pelicans intend to retain combo guard Toney Douglas past 4:00pm Central today, when his partially guaranteed contract would become fully guaranteed, league sources told Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops (on Twitter). That means his full $1,164,858 salary will remain on New Orleans’ books, unless the team trades him between now and the February 18th trade deadline.

New Orleans signed the 29-year-old guard back in October after it had waived Nate Robinson. Douglas is currently in his second stint with the Pelicans after signing two 10-day contracts and a multiyear deal with the team last season. The Pelicans had waived him back in July to avoid guaranteeing his salary for this season. Douglas had also spent time during the preseason this year with the Pacers prior to catching on with New Orleans.

Douglas has made 19 appearances for the Pelicans this season and is averaging 6.2 points, 1.2 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 14.7 minutes per night. His career numbers through seven NBA campaigns are 7.6 points, 2.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists to go along with a slash line of .406/.354/.824.

Western Notes: Anderson, Gentry, Morris, Butler

January 7th, 2016 at 10:30am CST by Chuck Myron

The Pelicans are unlikely to trade Ryan Anderson this season, according to coach Alvin Gentry, as John Reid of The Times Picayune writes. Reid reiterates his earlier report that Anderson’s name was involved in preliminary talks with the Suns about a Markieff Morris trade, though nothing has materialized on that front, Reid says.

”Everyone knows that Ryan’s name is going to be out there,” Gentry said. ”We have made not one call about trading Ryan, nor will we. So those are the kind of things that’s going to happen that people are going to inquire about. Once you’ve been in the league for a couple of years, everyone knows that’s part of it.”

New Orleans has listened to teams that have inquired about Anderson, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported last month, so while the Pelicans might not be making calls, it seems they’ve at least taken them. In any case, see more from New Orleans amid the latest from the Western Conference:

Any trade the Pelicans make will come via mutual consent between Gentry and GM Dell Demps, Gentry also said, as Reid notes in the same post.
Suns GM Ryan McDonough thinks the talent on his roster is better than the team’s record indicates, though he feels some change is necessary, as he said Wednesday on the “Burns and Gambo” show on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM and as Adam Green of ArizonaSports.com transcribes. McDonough said a Morris trade wasn’t necessarily close but otherwise gave few hints in that regard. “Look, we’re not going to sit here and put our head in the sand and act like everything’s OK and we’re doing everything fine,” McDonough said. “We obviously need to make some changes and we’ll explore those things as aggressively as we usually do.”
Doc Rivers confirmed Wednesday that the Clippers will keep Luc Mbah a Moute and his non-guaranteed contract on the roster past the close of business today, the last day NBA teams have to waive players without guaranteed salary for this season before it becomes guaranteed, notes Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). Rivers said a few weeks ago that it was “probably safe” to assume the team would keep Mbah a Moute for the rest of the season. The 29-year-old, who’s making the minimum salary, has been in the Clippers starting lineup since late November.
Jabari Young of the San Antonio News-Express gets the feeling that the Spurs will keep Rasual Butler‘s non-guaranteed contract past today, thus guaranteeing his minimum salary (Twitter link).