Klay Thompson, James Wiseman Making “Good Progress”
Injured Warriors Klay Thompson and James Wiseman have made “good progress” and are “on pace to return for the 2021/22 season,” the team’s PR department tweets.
Thompson, who underwent surgery on his torn right Achilles on November 25, is expected to participate in various controlled drills during training camp. His return to full practices will be determined at a later date.
There has been speculation that Thompson will return to action around Christmas if all goes well.
Wiseman, who underwent surgery for a right meniscal tear in mid-April, is expected to participate in individual shooting and other individual on-court activities during camp. His return to full practices will be determined after October 15, when he’s expected to begin full jumping on the surgically repaired knee.
Wiseman, the No. 2 pick in the 2020 draft, has seen his name thrown into trade rumors this offseason, particularly involving disgruntled Sixers star Ben Simmons.
Sixers Still Hope To Get Ben Simmons In Camp
The Sixers remain determined to convince Ben Simmons to report to training camp, Marc Stein of Substack tweets. It’s still expected that Simmons will not show up, Stein adds.
The Simmons saga has been one of the bigger storylines during the offseason. Reports surfaced three weeks ago that Simmons informed the team he wanted to be dealt and wouldn’t report to camp. He made his feelings known to team owner Josh Harris, president of basketball operations Daryl Morey, general manager Elton Brand, and head coach Doc Rivers in a meeting in Los Angeles.
Simmons has four years and nearly $147MM remaining on his contract. Philadelphia has reportedly engaged in talks with several potential suitors, including the Timberwolves, Raptors, Cavaliers, Pacers, Kings, Spurs, and Warriors. However, the Sixers have a high asking price and Simmons’ value has been diminished by his shooting woes, particularly on the perimeter and at the foul line.
Simmons, the top pick in the 2016 draft, posted career lows in scoring (14.3), rebounding (7.2), assists (6.9) and shot attempts (10.1) last season. Philadelphia is willing to work with Simmons to improve his offensive game but Simmons seems intent on a fresh start.
Avery Bradley, Quinn Cook Working Out For Warriors
The Warriors continue to work out free agent guards, according to Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, who reports (via Twitter) that Avery Bradley and Quinn Cook are among the veterans getting a look from the team this week.
Isaiah Thomas, whose workout with the team was reported last Thursday, will also be among the players auditioning for Golden State this week, and Spears says (via Twitter) the Warriors’ interest in Thomas is “sincere.” Spears adds that the sessions this week will include 5-on-5 games, with other free agents in attendance.
According to Spears, the Warriors – who currently have three openings on their 20-man roster – would ideally like to add one big man and two guards to their roster for training camp.
Golden State has 13 players on fully guaranteed contracts, with Damion Lee also expected to make the regular season roster. Barring additional roster moves, that would leave just one opening on the 15-man squad, with Gary Payton II and Mychal Mulder among the players vying for that spot.
The Warriors are well over the luxury tax line and could theoretically keep the 15th spot open to save some money, but they aren’t particularly deep at point guard and aren’t acting like a team that plans to carrying just 14 players. Darren Collison and Ryan Arcidiacono are among the other guards who have worked out for the club.
Bradley, considered a three-and-D guard, appeared in a total of 27 games for the Heat and Rockets in 2020/21. His scoring average dipped to 6.4 PPG on .374/.327/.800 shooting, his worst numbers since his rookie season.
A two-time champion with the Warriors and Lakers, Cook appeared in 107 games for the Warriors from 2017-19. He played in 23 games last season for the Lakers and Cavs, and has career averages of 6.4 PPG and 1.6 APG on .461/.408/.795 shooting.
Nets Opt Not To Retain Isaïa Cordinier
The Nets have decided to not retain the NBA rights of guard Isaïa Cordinier, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link), who reports that the team didn’t extend the required tender to Cordinier prior to this year’s deadline.
The French guard was drafted with the No. 44 pick in 2016 as a “draft-and-stash” selection by the Hawks, and has remained overseas in the ensuing seasons, though he did log time for Atlanta in the 2016 Summer League. In recent years, Cordinier has suited up for the French clubs Antibes Sharks and Nanterre 92. He was named to the All-EuroCup First Team this year.
Cordinier was sent from Atlanta to Brooklyn in a 2018 Jeremy Lin deal.
Earlier during the offseason, it was announced that Cordinier would travel from France to Brooklyn for a workout with the Nets. Cordinier’s reps may have hoped that he would showcase enough promise in such a workout to merit a training camp appearance, but apparently, given that the Nets house a roster packed with vets and appealing prospects, Brooklyn is opting to move in a different direction.
Woj notes that Cordinier, 24, will now be a free agent, able to sign a new deal with any NBA club. The 6’5″ shooting guard averaged 15.8 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 3.2 APG and 1.7 SPG across 33.9 MPG for Nanterre 92, with an impressive shooting line of .526/.449/.816.
Steve Ballmer Has Big Plans For Clippers’ New Arena
Optimism was the theme that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer emphasized as he talked about the team’s new arena project with Jabari Young of CNBC. A groundbreaking ceremony was held Friday for the $1.8 billion facility, which will be located in Inglewood and called the Intuit Dome. It will become the new home for the franchise in three years.
The Clippers are looking forward to establishing their own identity after years of sharing the Staples Center with the Lakers and the NHL’s Kings. Ballmer notes that it took a lot of faith to embark on the project, which the franchise started without any land to build on. The team had to pay $66.2MM to Inglewood for the site where the facility will be located and $400MM to purchase the nearby Forum from the Madison Square Garden Company.
“This stadium is about being optimistic about our team,” Ballmer said. “It’s about being optimistic about our fans. Get in the building, pump up, make energy. Your energy can feed our team to greater success.”
The 18,000-seat arena will include a lot of high-tech features as Ballmer hopes to create a unique experience for paying customers. It will have a halo-shaped video board with 44,000 square feet of LED lights, along with technology that will enable fans to purchase concessions from their seats without the need for cash or credit cards. The Clippers will also have four cabanas at courtside that Ballmer compares to end-zone suites in the NFL.
The arena won’t host hockey games, so it will be built with “basketball geometry” that’s tailored for the best NBA viewing experience. The team will move its business operations and its practice facility to the Intuit Dome, and Ballmer estimates that the arena will create $260MM in economic activity for Inglewood and will result in more than 7,000 new full-time and part-time jobs.
“It’s a big market,” Ballmer said. “There’s plenty of fans that can be fans of the Clippers and Lakers. But we want to tell you who we are. I think there are many folks in L.A. who identify with this notion of being the underdog, the person who strides. It’s almost two L.A.s. It’s not all showtime and movie business. Our fans are grinders.”
As a former CEO of Microsoft, Ballmer is still relatively new to the sports world, buying the Clippers in 2014 after former owner Donald Sterling was banned from the league. Along with having seasons affected by injuries, Ballmer said the most challenging thing about adapting to the sports environment is “judgment and understanding of where and how I should be involved on the basketball side.” Still, he has been able to take some of the lessons he learned from the business world and apply them to the NBA.
“You don’t blink,” he said. “We’re not blinking on the Clippers. We’re going to consistently invest and making our team as good as it can be. And in this new building, we’re going to invest.”
Jordan Bell May Sign With Italian Team
Virtus Bologna, the defending champion in the Italian league, is considering signing NBA center Jordan Bell, according to Ennio Terrasi Borghesan of Sportando. The news was first reported by the Italian newspaper Corriere di Bologna.
Bell, 26, finished last season with the Warriors after signing a two-way contract in mid-May. He appeared in just one game for Golden State and wasn’t used in either play-in game.
He also played for the Wizards last season, signing a pair of 10-day contracts in January and April. He got into five total games with Washington, averaging 2.8 points and 3.8 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per night.
Bell was the 38th pick in the 2017 draft and was acquired by the Warriors in a draft night trade. He played rotation minutes for the team during its championship season in 2017/18 and again in its trip to the finals the following year.
He signed with the Timberwolves as a free agent in 2019, but only played 27 games before being traded. He also had brief stops with the Rockets, Grizzlies, Cavaliers and Lakers.
Virtus Bologna has an opening after a potentially serious knee injury to another former NBA player, Ekpe Udoh, per a report from Eurohoops. Udoh was hurt when he slipped on an on-court sticker during the Italian SuperCup quarterfinals.
“The biggest concern is Udoh’s injury. It seems to be bad, he’s the center around whom our game revolves,” coach Sergio Scariolo said. “This story of the court stickers that players slip on is something to think about. It’s a very serious injury for the player and a serious one for the team. I hope it serves to make it clear that we need to have the utmost attention on these things. There are no stickers in the NBA.”
Joe Johnson Keeping Door Open For NBA Return
Coming off a second straight MVP season in the BIG3, Joe Johnson hasn’t given up on the idea of returning to the NBA. Johnson, who turned 40 in June, tells TMZ he still believes he can play at the highest level.
“No, I’m not done,” he said. “We’ll see what happens here … We’ll see, man. We’ll see. I don’t have nothing definite to tell you, to be honest with you. But, I’mma be out here to try to get things done.”
Johnson hasn’t been in the NBA since the 2017/18 season when he played a combined 55 games for the Jazz and Rockets. He was in training camp with the Pistons in 2019, but lost a battle for the team’s final roster spot and was waived before the season began.
Johnson had a workout with the Bucks in April, but Milwaukee opted not to sign him. He played for Team USA in February at the AmeriCup qualifiers in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
A seven-time All-Star, Johnson played 17 NBA seasons, averaging 16.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.9 assists in 1,276 career games.
Although it may be difficult for Johnson to get a training camp invitation with so many teams having full rosters, he told TMZ he continues to be motivated by the thrill of playing basketball long after most of his contemporaries have retired.
“I just love hooping,” he said.
Wolves Sign Leandro Bolmaro To Rookie Contract
SEPTEMBER 18: Bolmaro has officially signed his rookie deal, according to the NBA transactions log.
SEPTEMBER 14: Leandro Bolmaro, the No. 23 pick in the 2020 draft, will be signing his rookie scale contract with the Timberwolves this week, according to Dane Moore of Blue Wire (Twitter link). Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News adds (via Twitter) that the deal is expected to be completed in the next 24 hours.
The Wolves stashed Bolmaro overseas for a year after drafting him — he remained with Barcelona in Spain for another season in 2020/21 before coming stateside.
The 21-year-old guard won a Liga ACB championship and a Spanish Cup title with the team in 2021, and was named the ACB Most Spectacular Player (essentially an award for the player who shows up the most on the league’s highlight reel). He averaged 6.4 PPG, 1.8 APG, and 1.5 RPG on .500/.453/.867 shooting in 33 Liga ACB games (15.5 MPG).
As a No. 23 pick, Bolmaro will sign a rookie contract identical to the one signed by this year’s 23rd overall selection, Usman Garuba. That means he’ll earn about $2.35MM as a rookie and $11.8MM over four years, as our breakdown shows.
The Wolves, who also reached agreements with restricted free agents Jarred Vanderbilt and Jordan McLaughlin last week, are expected to formally announce those deals soon, per Wolfson. Once Vanderbilt, McLaughlin, and Bolmaro are locked up, Minnesota’s regular season roster looks set, barring a trade, according to Moore, who notes that the club would have to cross the luxury tax line in order to retain a 15th man.
The Wolves will have 12 players on guaranteed contracts, plus Naz Reid and Jaylen Nowell on non-guaranteed deals.
Rockets Sign Dante Exum, Waive Tyler Bey
The Rockets have officially re-signed guard Dante Exum and waived Tyler Bey to create a roster space for him, according to the NBA’s transactions log. Hoops Rumors’ JD Shaw was the first to report the Bey transaction (Twitter link).
The deal is expected to be for three years and could be worth up to $15MM, but it will be non-guaranteed and will be heavy on incentives, per ESPN’s Tim MacMahon (Twitter link). We’ll have to wait for more details on the agreement to get a sense of how much Exum will realistically earn if he makes the regular season roster.
With John Wall not expected to play for the team this season as it seeks to trade him, the Rockets were in the market for another point guard. The Rockets’ interest in Exum surfaced on Tuesday.
Exum’s career has been marred by major injuries since he was selected with the No. 5 overall pick by the Jazz in 2014. He was dealt to Cleveland in December 2019.
Exum ended up with the Rockets this past winter as part of the four-team James Harden trade, though injuries kept him on the bench for the entirety of his 2020/21 Houston tenure. He appeared in just six games for Cleveland last season.
Exum played a prominent role on Australia’s bronze medal-winning squad at the Tokyo Olympics, averaging 9.0 PPG and 2.8 APG.
Bey, a 6’7” forward, signed an Exhibit 10 contract with Houston on Aug. 25.
He was a high second-round selection in 2020 out of Colorado, taken with the 36th pick by the Sixers. He was included in the deal that sent Josh Richardson to the Mavericks for Seth Curry. Bey only played 18 games with the Mavs, and averaged just 3.9 minutes a game in those 18 contests, though he recorded 15.1 PPG and 9.2 RPG in the G League.
Nuggets Sign Petr Cornelie To Two-Way Deal
The Nuggets have signed forward Petr Cornelie to a two-way contract, according to a team press release.
The 6’11” Cornelie appeared in 34 games for Elan Bearnais of the French LNB Pro A league last season, averaging 14.4 PPG, 7.9 RPG and 1.5 APG while shooting 54.0% from the field and 44.2% from 3-point range in 28.9 MPG. The 26-year-old also helped France’s national team earn a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Cornelie, who has played professionally overseas since 2013, was a draft-and-stash selection by Denver as the 53rd pick in the 2016 draft. He has appeared in 14 games for three Nuggets summer league teams from 2016-18, averaging 5.7 PPG, 4.4 RPG and 1.0 APG in 16.8 MPG.
With guard Markus Howard holding the other spot, the Nuggets now have both two-way slots filled.