Eastern Notes: Beal, Love, Rondo, Smith
The Wizards’ Bradley Beal is expected to practice Monday and could be back in the lineup by Friday, reports Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post. The high-scoring guard, who hasn’t played since fracturing his left wrist October 10th, went through a dribbling and shooting drill on Saturday. Last month, the Wizards exercised Beal’s fourth-year contract option worth $5.7MM. Here’s more from around the Eastern Conference:
- Even though Kevin Love is likely to become a free agent this summer, the Cavaliers don’t believe he will leave Cleveland, writes Jason Lloyd of The Akron Beacon Journal. A rumor emerged last week that Love would consider opting out of his current contract at season’s end and to sign with the Lakers. Lloyd cautioned that many more rumors are likely regarding the six-year veteran before the season ends, but the Cavs are confident in his commitment to Cleveland.
- The Celtics‘ Rajon Rondo cites improved health as the reason for his fast start, according to Mark Murphy of The Boston Herald. ACL surgery limited Rondo to just 29 games last season, and the eight-year veteran said he never felt comfortable after his return. “I can get to the paint a lot easier now,” said Rondo, who will be an unrestricted free agent in the summer. “Last year I was pretty slow, and now I’m a step faster.”
- The Knicks‘ J.R. Smith remains on the trading block, tweets Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. Begley notes that the team is having ongoing internal discussions about dealing Smith, and has been since July. The 10-year veteran is being paid close to $6MM this year and has a player option for nearly $6.4MM next season.
Eastern Notes: Bucks, Heat, Knicks
After finishing last season with the worst record in the NBA, the Bucks are benefiting from a change in culture, writes Mary Stevens of Basketball Insiders. New coach Jason Kidd has received praise from many players, including center Larry Sanders. “He’s a great coach. As good as a player he was, I think he’s a better coach,” Sanders said. “He really knows how to run a team. He’s putting all of us in a position to be successful.” Sanders, who last year signed an extension to remain in Milwaukee through the 2017/18 season, has helped the Bucks rank third in scoring defense (93.6 points per game allowed) through nine games.
Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:
- The Heat’s new additions have yet to gel and the lack of defensive cohesion is upsetting the team, writes Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. “This defensive system is built on trust, and we’re not there yet,” center Chris Bosh said. “I think that’s obvious. But guys have to take their positions, guys have to know their rotations. They have to know exactly what they’re doing when the ball goes to a certain place.” Despite their decline, the Heat are only giving up 97.8 PPG, which is the 12th-best mark in the league.
- Knicks coach Derek Fisher believes the team’s current hardship will help the club down the road, writes Barbara Barker of Newsday.com. “Oftentimes it takes humbling experiences and adversity to soften the environment enough for guys to really grow. I think we have a lot of that going on in our group right now and it’ll pay off in the long run. Right now, we’re not getting the wins that we would like, but it’s gonna pay off,” said Fisher. The Knicks have started the season with a 2-8 record.
- Even though the Knicks are struggling, finger-pointing within the locker room is no longer an issue, writes Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. Guard Iman Shumpert believes the team’s chemistry is better this season. “I know it was a problem last year. This year, [there’s] a confidence in the system and confidence in one another,” Shumpert said. “I think everybody trusted [each other] once we came to training camp; we could see that everybody worked their [butts] off this summer.”
Knicks Notes: Hardaway Jr., Kerr, Shumpert
The Knicks may be hampering the development of one of their brightest young assets by not giving Tim Hardaway Jr. enough minutes, Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv opines. Hardway has thrived when playing over 20 minutes per game, and with the team struggling it would make sense to see what Hardaway can do in a larger role, adds Zagoria.
Here’s more out of New York:
- Steve Kerr came as close to being the head coach of the Knicks as one can without actually signing a contract, Tim Bontemps of The New York Post writes. But Kerr hasn’t wondered what might have been, notes Bontemps, and the Warriors head man said, “I’ve been so busy, and I’m so happy here [in Golden State] that I don’t give it much thought. At the time, I knew my heart was here, in Golden State and in California.” With New York off to a 2-8 start to the year and Golden State sitting at 6-2, it would appear that Kerr made a wise decision.
- The man who took the job that Kerr left on the table, Derek Fisher, is trying to distance himself as much as possible from the issues the team had with former coach Mike Woodson, writes Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. “I think in the past, there have been issues with more finger-pointing out as opposed to finger-pointing in,” Fisher said. “We are now having a locker room of guys that are pointing to themselves about how they can help us get better.”
- Shooting guard Iman Shumpert has seemingly turned a corner offensively this season, averaging a career-high 12.4 points on 50.5 percent shooting through the first 10 games, Chris Herring of The Wall Street Journal writes. But this new focus on offense is also taking away from Shumpert’s true value as a defensive stopper thanks to foul troubles that are plaguing him thus far, Herring adds. “His fouls are impacting us more than we would like, because we’re having to finish games with Shumpert on the bench,” Fisher said. “We have to find a way to work together to see if we can break that habit.” Shumpert has fouled out of two games already this season after having done so only three times in his first three seasons combined.
Eastern Notes: World Peace, Sixers, Humphries
Metta World Peace believes it was a post-game locker room confrontation with J.R. Smith last year that led to him not being re-signed by the Knicks this season despite his familiarity with the triangle offense, Marc Berman of The New York Post writes. “I don’t understand why they didn’t [sign] me,’’ World Peace said. “But then again, I’m very direct. I think I was too direct in the locker room, too direct to J.R. Smith. It wasn’t from a bad place. If someone is not playing defense or not giving effort, that’s my specialty. I don’t hold back on my words. Nobody wants to talk direct to them. We don’t give it to them straight. I said some things directly to J.R. Smith in the locker room and he challenged me back, said some direct things to me. But he understood where we came from.”
Here’s more from the east:
- As the Sixers‘ losses continue to mount, head coach Brett Brown still feels pride in what the franchise is working for and constantly reminds the players of the team’s plan, Jenny Dial Creech of The Houston Chronicle writes. “It is hard, but it it’s something you remind yourself – why did you take the job?” Brown said. “What are the true realities of the roster we have? What’s the possible outcomes if we can navigate through the first few years we have to face? Sometimes its hard with the personnel that we have. I gotta coach them. I gotta remind them every single day that they have to be focused on the process, not the result.”
- Raptors big man Jonas Valanciunas‘ production has been under a higher level of scrutiny this season but head coach Dwane Casey is quick to defend his young player, Mike Ganter of The Toronto Sun writes. “He’s a young kid and his curse is two years ago when he got here everybody said he was the second coming,” Casey said. “Everybody was expecting that sort of impact. As a staff, all we expect is he’s going to grow at the right time, at the right pace and [eventually] he’ll get there. But everybody is waiting for him or wanting him to be more than what he is ready to be right now. He’s right where we need him to be.”
- Sign-and-trade acquisition Kris Humphries has added a needed level of toughness and physicality to the Wizards‘ frontcourt, Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post writes.
Eastern Notes: Labor, J.R. Smith, Butler, Cavs
The collective bargaining agreement is in place at least until 2017, but LeBron James wants to see constructive labor negotiations start sooner rather than later in the wake of sharp remarks this week from union executive director Michele Roberts and commissioner Adam Silver. Joe Vardon of the Northeast Ohio Media Group has the details.
“At some point we would like to start conversations, because you don’t want to get to a point to where the deadline happens and now we’re scrambling,” James said. “Our game is too good, it’s too popular, everyone loves our game all across the world and we don’t want to get to a point where there’s another lockout.”
While we wait to see if LeBron can help bring the sides to the table, here’s the latest on his rivals from the Eastern Conference:
- The Knicks continue to have internal discussions about ways to trade J.R. Smith, just as they have since July, tweets Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. A report early this month indicated that New York and the Pacers had engaged in talks about a Smith trade, and while a follow-up cast doubt on that notion, the most recent dispatch indicates that the Pacers do have interest in the volatile shooting guard.
- An anonymous executive suggests to fellow ESPNNewYork.com scribe Ian O’Connor that Smith continues to be a viable trade asset in the proper circumstances. “J.R. has had a lot of issues but he can be a big-time scorer when he’s doing the right things,” the executive said. “There’s always a team out there willing to take a chance on somebody if they feel he can put them over the top, and there’s no doubt J.R. can play. People are going to be concerned about chemistry issues in the locker room, so it would have to be a strong leadership and coaching staff that take him in.”
- Randy Wittman was the driving force behind the Wizards‘ decision to sign Rasual Butler, as the coach prevailed upon the team to invite the 35-year-old to camp, according to J. Michael of CSNWashington.com, who writes in his mailbag column. The move has paid off, as Butler made the opening-night roster and is averaging 8.8 points in 17.6 minutes per game.
- The Cavs have assigned rookie Alex Kirk to the D-League, the team announced. Kirk has only seen three minutes of regular season action thus far for Cleveland.
Atlantic Notes: Rondo, Livingston, Knicks
A plurality of Hoops Rumors readers said that they thought the Sixers would win between 10 and 15 games when we asked earlier this week, but it’s worth wondering whether the “Less than 10” wins option might have garnered a few more votes if the poll had appeared this morning. The season debut of Michael Carter-Williams Thursday was a 53-point loss to the Mavericks as the pain continues in Philadelphia. Here’s more from around the Atlantic Division:
- An Eastern Conference executive isn’t sold on Rajon Rondo‘s worthiness of a maximum-salary contract and believes the point guard’s impending free agency is a drag on his trade value, as the exec tells Chris Mannix of SI.com.
- The Nets and Shaun Livingston had mutual interest heading into the offseason, but he made it a priority to seek as lucrative a contract as possible after he missed out on higher paydays earlier in his career, as Tim Bontemps of the New York Post details. The Nets could only offer the mini mid-level, and Livingston exceeded those salaries in his new contract with the Warriors. “At the end of the day, everything I’ve been through as a player in this league, was about putting myself in the best position, one, to win, and also to get the value as a player, your market value,” Livingston said. “I think that was my case last [summer].”
- The mere presence of Phil Jackson boosts the public perception of the struggling Knicks, who can sell hope based on the championship coaching experience of the newly minted executive, opines Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News.
And-Ones: Silver, Harris, Bryant, Celtics
Commissioner Adam Silver fired back at union executive director Michele Roberts, who held up players as the linchpins of the league while calling the salary cap “incredibly un-American.” The NBA sent remarks from Silver to media, including John Schuhmann of NBA.com, just hours after Roberts made her comments, “We couldn’t disagree more with these statements,” Silver said. “The NBA’s success is based on the collective efforts and investments of all of the team owners, the thousands of employees at our teams and arenas, and our extraordinarily talented players. No single group could accomplish this on its own. Nor is there anything unusual or ‘un-American’ in a unionized industry to have a collective system for paying employees – in fact, that’s the norm.”
Here’s more from around the league:
- Tobias Harris says his first choice would be to remain with the Magic in restricted free agency this summer, according to John Denton of Magic.com. A report Wednesday indicated that Harris has strong interest in signing with the Knicks, so perhaps New York is Plan B.
- Kobe Bryant has the same amount of championship rings as Tim Duncan (five), but that doesn’t stop the Lakers star from being envious of how the Spurs have kept their core together for so many years, Dan McCarney of The San Antonio Express-News writes. Bryant told Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times, “I’m extremely jealous of that. I don’t know if I can express to you how jealous I am of the fact that Tim [Duncan], Tony [Parker], Manu [Ginobili] and Pop [Gregg Popovich] have been together for all those years. Like, I can’t even. It would be like if me, Pau [Gasol], L.O. [Lamar Odom] and Phil [ Jackson], if we were all here still. It’s crazy.”
- The Celtics were one of the teams reportedly interested in acquiring Kevin Love this past summer, but Boston wasn’t able to entice the Wolves into making a deal. Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com believes that with the way the franchise’s young core is performing it may end up being a blessing that no trade came to pass. Forsberg does add that the team still needs another star player to pair alongside Rajon Rondo, and Love would have certainly fit that bill.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Atlantic Notes: J.R. Smith, Knicks, Rondo
The Pacers do have at least some level of interest in J.R. Smith, according to Marc Berman of the New York Post, who reported earlier this month that Indiana discussed Smith in conversations with the Knicks about a potential deal involving Chris Copeland. The Knicks are confident about the market for the former Sixth Man of the Year and aren’t merely looking to swap him for an expiring contract, a source tells Berman. While we wait to see how the Knicks proceed, there’s more from New York amid the latest from the Atlantic Division:
- Derek Fisher isn’t sure about the timetable that Phil Jackson has suggested for making judgments about the players on the Knicks roster, as Berman relays in the same piece. “I don’t know if it’s a fair assessment or not,’’ Fisher said. “[Phil] obviously knows a lot about his offense, but I think it’s more than just a guy is going to get it. Each player and person has different learning curves. I don’t know if there’s a date. It’s more where our team is from a management standpoint. For me, I don’t have a date on when I would assume a guy should or shouldn’t have it. I’m going to coach him until he’s here or isn’t here. Those won’t be my decisions.’’
- Rajon Rondo told reporters that he didn’t disagree with Kendrick Perkins, who said earlier Wednesday that Rondo, set for free agency at season’s end, would like to remain with the Celtics, observes Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald. “It’s about accurate,” Rondo said. “I mean, from media day in the beginning, that’s what I said initially. So regardless of what’s going on in the season, my perspective hasn’t changed. I love being a Celtic.”
- Perkins, who’s also poised to become a free agent in the summer, is open to returning to the Celtics, saying it would be up to Boston’s brass to bring him back if they want him, Bulpett notes. The 30-year-old Thunder center sees Boston as increasingly attractive for free agents, as he told reporters, including Bulpett.
- The Sixers are a long way from respectability, but tonight’s season debut for Michael Carter-Williams, who’s back from shoulder surgery, will pair him with Nerlens Noel for the first time. Having two building blocks on the floor at once will represent a landmark moment in Philly’s rebuilding, opines John Smallwood of the Philadelphia Daily News.
And-Ones: Griffin, Lakers, Draft, Harris
Clippers star forward Blake Griffin was officially charged with a misdemeanor count of battery today stemming from an October incident at a Las Vegas night club, reports Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times. We’re sure to hear more on this in the very near future. For now, though, let’s take a look at what else is happening around the league:
- Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times provides some additional detail around the disabled player exception the Lakers were granted for Julius Randle on Monday, including a list of players that the team could pursue within the guidelines of the exception. In addition to the 15 players they could target via trade, Pincus also mentions Ray Allen, Emeka Okafor and Quincy Miller as free agents worth considering. Meanwhile, though it’s not Laker-specific, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders has compiled his own list of notable players that are still unsigned.
- The crop of freshman talent in the 2015 draft class pales in comparison to last year’s group, as Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports hears. Utilizing opinions collected from various NBA scouts, Spears compiles his own top 10 prospect list which is topped by Duke’s Jahlil Okafor, Kentucky’s Karl Towns and Texas’ Myles Turner.
- Orlando forward Tobias Harris reiterated his commitment to the Magic tonight when asked about the New York Post report from earlier today that indicated he’d have interest in joining the Knicks this offseason, reports John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com (via Twitter). Harris will be a restricted free agent next summer.
Atlantic Notes: Rondo, McDaniels, Fisher
With tip off for the Celtics and Knicks only a few minutes away, let’s take a look at some of the news and notes coming out of the Atlantic division:
- Rajon Rondo would like to stay in Boston, according to close friend and former teammate Kendrick Perkins, who spoke to a number of Celtics reporters, including Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe, before Wednesday night’s Thunder-Celtics game (via Twitter). Rondo will be an unrestricted free agent this summer and we recently heard the Lakers might pursue him.
- The impressive play of Sixers’ second round pick K.J. McDaniels has many in Philly wondering how long it will be before the rookie cracks the starting lineup, writes Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. While starting for the downtrodden Sixers is hardly remarkable — even for a rookie — McDaniels’ success is noteworthy because the Clemson product opted to gamble on himself with a one-year deal earlier this fall rather than sign the team’s four-year offer.
- Knicks head coach Derek Fisher said he would currently be suiting up for his 19th season had the opportunity to hop right into coaching not come up this offseason, according to Chris Herring of the Wall Street Journal (via Twitter). Fisher, of course, spent the past two-plus seasons in the Oklahoma City backcourt rotation.