New York Knicks Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Atlantic Notes: Sullinger, Crowder, Amundson

April 3rd, 2015 at 2:25pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Celtics received an unexpected boost to their playoff hopes today, as the stress fracture in Jared Sullinger‘s left foot that was to have kept him out for the rest of the season has healed so that he can return to game action, at least on a limited basis, beginning tonight, the team announced. The surprising news helps Sullinger, who’s up for a rookie scale extension this coming offseason, as well as his team, which is tied with the Heat for the final postseason berth in the Eastern Conference. Here’s more from around the Atlantic Division:

Jae Crowder is grateful to the Celtics for giving him a more prominent role than he had in Dallas before the Mavs sent him out in the Rajon Rondo trade, as he tells Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald. The swingman is content in Boston as restricted free agency looms this summer, Bulpett details, arguing that the swingman has done enough to warrant as long of a commitment as possible from the Celtics.
Knicks team president Phil Jackson praised Lou Amundson and Lance Thomas on Thursday amid his comments about the future to season ticket holders, as Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com points out (Twitter link). The pair will be free agents this summer, and Amundson has said he’d like to re-sign.
Trading for Thaddeus Young and putting rookie Markel Brown in the starting lineup have combined to help Deron Williams play better since the All-Star break, Nets coach Lionel Hollins asserted in an appearance with Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts on WFAN-AM (transcription via NetsDaily).

Cavs Notes: LeBron, Shumpert, Blatt, Harris

April 3rd, 2015 at 11:35am CST by Chuck Myron

LeBron James wouldn’t mind seeing the Heat in the first round of the playoffs, as he made clear before Thursday’s Cavs-Heat game, notes Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. Cleveland is more or less locked into the second spot in the Eastern Conference, while the Heat are a half-game out of the seventh seed. It would be an odd coda to two of the most momentous free agency decisions in NBA history, the ones that bookended LeBron’s tenure with Miami. James can once more hit free agency again this summer, though unlike the last two times, it seems he’ll almost certainly stay put. Here’s more from Cleveland:

Knicks team president Phil Jackson said he’s disappointed with how it turned out with Iman Shumpert, also saying that the numerous injuries in the swingman’s past played a role in the decision to trade him to the Cavs, according to Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com (Twitter links). Shumpert is set for restricted free agency this summer.
David Blatt hadn’t held an NBA job of any kind when the Cavs hired him, and he came under pressure earlier this season, but he’s shown growth in his first year in charge of the team, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group examines. James as well as soon-to-be restricted free agent Tristan Thompson are among those who praise Blatt, as Haynes relays.
The Cavs have assigned Joe Harris to the D-League, the team announced. It’s the ninth assignment for the rookie, who has a guaranteed minimum salary next season, and all of his trips to the D-League have come since Cleveland’s pair of midseason trades netted Shumpert, J.R. Smith and Timofey Mozgov.

Knicks Notes: Draft, Chandler, Free Agency

April 3rd, 2015 at 8:59am CST by Chuck Myron

Knicks president Phil Jackson told a gathering of the team’s season ticket holders Thursday that he knows whom he would select with the No. 1 overall pick if New York wins the lottery, notes Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. He offered hints that it would be either Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor, who are locked in a tight race atop most draft projections, and he tipped his hand when he pointed to defense as a key for a team’s big man, since Towns has the better defensive reputation, as Begley observes. Surprisingly, he cited Tyson Chandler, whom the Knicks traded away last summer and who’ll hit free agency in the offseason, as the sort of defender the team needs. We already passed along some more of what Jackson and GM Steve Mills had to say at the event, and we’ll cover the rest of the relevant news here, as Begley, Marc Berman of the New York Post, Peter Botte of the New York Daily News and Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv relay:

Mills and Jackson indicated a willingness to listen to offers for their pick, though Jackson cautioned that part of his job is “shepherding the whole organization so that you don’t get caught in giving away draft picks, you don’t get caught without a future aspect.”
Jackson said he’d like to sign one or two starting-caliber players in free agency, but he and Mills downplayed the idea of chasing stars. “It’s a different approach than in the past — we won’t go after the biggest name out there, we’ll go after players who fit in system and style,” Mills said. “It may in fact be a big-name player but it’s going to be who fits system-wise.”
The Knicks fell well short of Jackson’s initial expectation of the playoffs, but the opportunity to rebuild “may be a godsend,” the Zen Master argues. “I commiserate for the people who put a lot of money out there, who have season tickets who sit and watch the game. I empathize with that part of it. To rebuild this team, we knew we were going to have to take the team apart to get where we have to. I can make the argument we had to go through it. [Expletive] happens and this season it did happen to us.”
Jackson once more defended the Chandler trade, saying he made it because Chandler would be a free agent this summer and because of the risk involved with the now 32-year-old’s age and history of injuries. Still, Chandler has missed only six games for the Mavs this year.

And-Ones: Jianlian, McCullough, Draft

April 2nd, 2015 at 10:35pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Chris McCullough plans to enter this year’s draft despite tearing his ACL in January, but the player is confident he can sell NBA teams on his commitment to rehabilitating the injury, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports writes. “This is the kind of injury that players come back strong from all the time in basketball now, and the process has gone good so far,” McCullough told Wojnarowski. “I’m working hard at the rehab, trying to eat the right foods. I’ll be back on the court later this year.” In 16 games for Syracuse this season, McCullough averaged 9.3 points and 6.9 rebounds in 28.1 minutes per contest.

Here’s more from around the league:

Wizards guard Will Bynum thinks that 2007 Bucks lottery pick Yi Jianlian has improved his game and could play in the NBA once again, Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post tweets. Bynum played with the big man in China this season. Jianlian’s last NBA action came during the 2011/12 season when he appeared in 30 games for the Mavs. His career stats are 7.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 0.7 blocks in 22.2 minutes per night.
Kentucky could lose as many as seven players to the NBA draft this season, an NBA scout tells Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv. “I think all seven leave,” the scout said to Zagoria. “If they win it all, there’s no doubt in my mind all seven of them leave. No doubt. The only ones who would stay [if they lose] would be a Trey Lyles, maybe a Devin Booker. The rest of them are all going, I don’t care if they win or lose. I think if they lose there’s maybe a moment [of pause] by Lyles or Booker. Those are the only two that I think may pause at all.” The other five players whom the scout believes will declare for the draft are Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Dakari Johnson, Andrew Harrison, and Aaron Harrison.
Knicks GM Steve Mills says that the franchise has already received calls from two opposing teams that are interested in obtaining New York’s first round draft pick, Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com tweets. The Ted Stepien Rule prevents the Knicks from trading this year’s pick, but New York could make the selection for another franchise and trade the player’s rights after the draft.
Team president Phil Jackson says the Knicks won’t solicit offers for their first-rounder, but admitted that they would “sit back and see what comes to them,” Begley adds in another tweet.

Eastern Notes: Knicks, Brown, Pistons

April 2nd, 2015 at 4:16pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Knicks have thought about trading their first-round pick, but they haven’t given it much consideration, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News hears. New York has canvassed other teams about their feelings on the strength of this year’s draft, as most front offices do, but that’s the extent of it, according to Deveney, who adds that teams rarely give much thought to trading lottery picks until the lottery takes place.

Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:

Knicks president Phil Jackson is expected to prioritize young free agents this summer, as Deveney writes in the same piece, figuring the Knicks will make Brandon Knight among their targets.
Nets rookie Markel Brown‘s improved play has gained him coach Lionel Hollins‘ confidence, as well as cut into the playing time of teammate Bojan Bogdanovic, Tim Bontemps of The New York Post writes. “When you start leaving Markel out there, the minutes have to be skewed for somebody,” Hollins said. “It’s nothing more than that. I have to kind of manage the game as I see it in that moment. It’s all a part of utilizing the group we have. It’s nothing personal. It doesn’t have to do with anybody playing poorly. It’s the way I see it. It’s part of my job, and I have to be the final decision on it.” Brown, the No. 44 overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft, is averaging 4.7 points and 2.2 rebounds in 15.5 minutes per contest.
The Pistons are pleased with how their relationship has gone this first year with the Grand Rapids Drive, their new D-League affiliate, Peter J. Wallner of MLive.com writes. “Every year will be different,” said Detroit GM Jeff Bower. “The makeup of your Pistons roster will dictate how much crossover we’ll have. The younger the team, the more the need for minutes with the Drive. Having gone through it the first year now, we have a baseline sense of it and it is only going help us with our planning in the future. I thought that was a strength going into the year, and it’s a strength as we wrap up. Our comfort level with knowing what, for example, Quincy Miller would find when he got here [Grand Rapids] was very high.“

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Atlantic Notes: Sixers, Knicks, Amundson

April 1st, 2015 at 11:27am CST by Chuck Myron

Nerlens Noel raised some eyebrows Monday when he complimented Ish Smith seemingly at the expense of former teammate Michael Carter-Williams. The Sixers big man appeared to double down on that Tuesday when Tom Moore of Calkins Media asked him whether he thought the departure of Carter-Williams helped him develop.

“I think there’s a lot more fluidity in the game,” Noel said. “I think there’s more balance. Guys are getting more shots. The ball’s not sticking and guys are having fun playing. When you’re out there having fun, you feel like you can do anything on both ends of the court. … Even when we need a basket, guys know they can get a shot because the ball’s not going to stick, he said. If they’re wide open, it’s going to be given [to them]. When you know you have an opportunity to be a part of the offense and just all-around, it’s just a lot more fun.

Noel has called for the Sixers to re-sign Smith, but while he may have cemented a role as a backup, Smith is an unrealistic option as the team’s point guard of the future, writes Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News. Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:

Members of the Knicks front office expect team president Phil Jackson to make changes among their ranks as soon as the coming offseason, and that feeling predates the team’s D-League coaching move, as Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com hears.
Journeyman Louis Amundson had started seven games in his career before he joined the Knicks, who’ve given him 31 starts in 33 appearances. Unsurprisingly, Amundson tells Jonah Ballow of Knicks.com (video link) that he wants to re-sign with the team when his contract expires this summer. “I think Phil knows, we’ve talked a bit about it, I really appreciate the opportunity they gave me here, and I would love to be here,” Amundson said. “I would love to be a Knick next season. I know they have a lot of decision-making to do, so I’m going to leave that to them, but I think they know that I would love to be here.”
The lack of a one-to-one D-League affiliate for the Raptors has, at least to a degree, slowed the development of Bruno Caboclo and Lucas Nogueira, argues Doug Smith of the Toronto Star. Still, GM Masai Ujiri is working on establishing one that he’d prefer to be close to Toronto, Smith notes, adding that it would cost the Raptors about $6MM to set up the arrangement.

2015/16 Salary Commitments: Knicks

March 31st, 2015 at 6:39pm CST by Eddie Scarito

With the NBA trade deadline passed, teams are focusing on locking down playoff spots or vying for a better chance in the draft lottery. Outside of the players who are added on 10-day deals, or those lucky enough to turn those auditions into long-term contracts, teams’ rosters are relatively set for the remainder of the season.

We at Hoops Rumors are in the process of taking a look ahead at each franchise’s salary cap situation heading into the summer, and the free agent frenzy that occurs every offseason. While the exact amount of the 2015/16 salary cap won’t be announced until July, the cap is projected to come in somewhere around $67.4MM, with the luxury tax threshold projected at approximately $81MM. This year’s $63.065MM cap represented an increase of 7.7% over 2013/14, which was well above the league’s projected annual increase of 4.5%.

We’ll continue onward by taking a look at the Knicks’ cap outlook for 2015/16…

Here are the players with guaranteed contracts:

Carmelo Anthony — $22,875,000
Jose Calderon — $7,402,812
Cleanthony Early — $845,059
Tim Hardaway Jr. — $1,304,520

Here are the players with non-guaranteed contracts:

Langston Galloway — $845,059

Players with options:

None

The Knicks’ Cap Summary for 2015/16:

Guaranteed Salary: $32,427,391
Options/Non-Guaranteed Salary: $845,059
Total: $33,272,450

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

Eastern Notes: LeBron, Irving, Stevens, Shved

March 31st, 2015 at 10:58am CST by Chuck Myron

The relationship between LeBron James and Kyrie Irving was “rocky” at points earlier this season, Irving admits, but it’s grown into a bond that appears much stronger than the one between James and Kevin Love, as Joe Vardon of the Northeast Ohio Media Group details. Love and James say it doesn’t matter whether they become as tight as Irving and James are as long as they can develop a greater on-court connection, Vardon writes.

“People get so infatuated with the best of friends, things of that nature,” James said. “First of all, I’ve got three very good friends in this league, and that’s Carmelo [Anthony], and that’s C.P. [Chris Paul], and that’s [Dwyane Wade] Wade. And after that I have a bunch of teammates. I have guys I ride for every day. But Kyrie is a guy I understand how important he is to this team, how important he is. And the same with Kev as well.”

James and Love can opt out to hit free agency this summer, while Irving will enter year one of his five-year extension next season. Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:

Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated and CBS hears “some Brad Stevens chatter” in connection to the University of Texas coaching job (Twitter link). It’s unclear whether there’s interest on either side, though Texas athletics director Steve Patterson has spoken with NBA coaching agents of late, tweets Chris Mannix of SI.com. Davis identifies Avery Johnson as a possible sleeper for the job. Stevens is just finishing up the second season of a six-year, $22MM deal and there have been no indications that he wants to leave the Celtics. Further, the Celtics would probably deny him permission to go, as Ben Rohrbach of WEEI.com surmises (Twitter link).
Alexey Shved loves playing for coach Derek Fisher and is open to re-signing with New York after his contract expires this summer, sources tell Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com (Twitter link). The Knicks can make Shved a restricted free agent if they tender a qualifying offer of nearly $4.103MM.
The Cavs have assigned Joe Harris to the D-League, the team announced. It’s the eighth time Cleveland has sent last year’s 33rd overall pick to its affiliate, though none of the seven previous assignments have lasted as long as a week, as our leaguewide assignments/recalls log shows.

Atlantic Notes: Bradley, Thomas, Ish Smith

March 31st, 2015 at 8:59am CST by Chuck Myron

Multiple executives from other teams around the league are impressed with all of the trades that the Celtics have made the last two years, but there’s no grand design behind it, president of basketball operations Danny Ainge tells Grantland’s Zach Lowe.

“We don’t have any master plan,” Ainge says. “You just hope you have the assets when a deal comes along.”

Ainge pledges an active run in free agency this summer, though he believes some of the team’s existing players could grow into the sort of star-level performers who usually are among the top three players on a contender, as Lowe details. The Celtics love Marcus Smart, last year’s No. 6 overall pick, Lowe writes, and while multiple teams offered expiring deals and picks toward the back end of the first round for Avery Bradley, Ainge turned them away, several league sources tell Lowe. There’s more on the Celtics amid the latest from the Atlantic Division:

The Celtics think Isaiah Thomas is a better asset to trade than the protected 2016 first-round pick from Cleveland that they gave up to get him from the Suns at the deadline, according to Lowe. The C’s talked about waiting to do the Thomas deal to avoid winning too many games down the stretch this year, but decided against that, with Ainge informing coach Brad Stevens, whom he normally keeps in the loop, of the deal just an hour before it happened, as Lowe examines. “Ideally, he might have been someone you pick up in the summer,” Ainge said. “But someone else might trade for him. You might be in a bidding war. You have to move while the iron is hot.”
Nerlens Noel on Monday called Ish Smith “the first real point guard I’ve ever played with” and expressed a desire that Smith, a free agent at season’s end, return to the Sixers, notes Tom Moore of Calkins Media. Of course, Noel spent the first half of the season with reigning Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams at the point. In any case, Noel’s development has taken off since Smith arrived shortly after the deadline trade that sent Carter-Williams out, notes Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News, who refers to the big man’s growth as the team’s most important mission this season.
Marc Berman of the New York Post wonders just what the Knicks‘ D-League coaching change Monday means for the future of assistant GM Allan Houston, once seemingly a GM-in-training. Houston’s duties with the NBA team had already been curtailed under Phil Jackson, Berman writes.

Eastern Notes: Mirotic, Deng, Knicks, Pistons

March 30th, 2015 at 9:23pm CST by Charlie Adams

Unsurprisingly, Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau thinks Nikola Mirotic deserves to win Rookie of the Year over Andrew Wiggins and Nerlens Noel, as Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald reveals. Mirotic is second among rookies in points per game since the All-Star break behind only Wiggins, and his contributions on a contending team could ultimately help his case for the award. While we continue to see how the race for top Rookie honors shapes up, we’ll round up more from out east..

Luol Deng has seen heavy time on the court throughout his career, twice leading the NBA in minutes played per night, and the 30 year old admits all the burn has definitely had an effect on him, as Jessica Camerato of Basketball Insiders details. “I feel 45,” Deng said. “I feel old… You’ve got to be smart and realize how your body feels.” The 11th-year veteran has sought advice about playing into his 30’s from Steve Nash and Richard Hamilton, according to Camerato.
Fred Kerber of the New York Post opines that if the Knicks can find a way to finish with even just a .500 record next season, it would mark one of the greatest one-year turnarounds in NBA history. Landing Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor in the draft this June would certainly help New York’s chances, Kerber believes.
Andre Drummond‘s offensive game is expanding, and that could help the Pistons offset the likely loss of unrestricted free agent Greg Monroe, David Mayo of MLive.com writes. Drummond has mostly relied on lob dunks and putbacks for his offensive contributions during his three-year career but has shown improved postup moves in recent games, including five made hook shots against the Heat on Sunday, Mayo adds. That is a welcome development, Mayo opines, considering that Monroe — the team’s main post threat — signed a qualifying offer last summer as a restricted free agent so that he could become unrestricted this summer.

Dana Gauruder contributed to this post.