Donovan Mitchell Angry At Jazz For Sitting Him In Game 1
As we detailed in a pair of earlier stories, the Jazz made the decision to hold Donovan Mitchell out of Game 1 of the team’s series vs. Memphis on Sunday, despite the fact that the All-Star guard believed he was ready to return from his ankle sprain.
Head coach Quin Snyder acknowledged to reporters before the game that Mitchell didn’t love the decision, but it sounds like Snyder may have been understating the 24-year-old’s feelings on the matter. Sources tell Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon of ESPN that Mitchell was “incensed” by the decision and that it “deepened (his) tensions” with the team.
According to Windhorst and MacMahon, after Mitchell made slow progress during the early stages of his recovery, he began to work with his personal training staff – rather than Jazz trainers – on his rehab. Of course, it was the team’s training staff that made the call to hold him out on Sunday, after all signs had pointed toward him returning. ESPN’s duo notes that Utah has a history of being cautious with player injuries.
Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune suggests (via Twitter) that a power struggle of sorts seems to be taking place between the two training staffs – Mitchell’s and the team’s – over who makes the decisions on his recovery and availability.
Some “easing of frustrations” may need to take place this week behind the scenes, according to Windhorst and MacMahon, who say that new Jazz minority stakeholder Dwyane Wade could play a part in that process. Mitchell and Wade are close, and Wade has plenty of personal experience with managing injuries during the postseason.
While the Jazz and Mitchell don’t appear to be in a good spot in the short term, particularly since Utah lost Game 1, it’s unlikely to impact the guard’s long-term future with the franchise. Mitchell was originally on track to become a restricted free agent this summer, but signed a five-year extension last offseason that will keep him under contract with the Jazz through at least 2024/25.
NBA Remains Interested In Midseason Tournament
After the new play-in tournament proved to be something of a ratings bonanza this week, the NBA appears hopeful that it can come to an agreement with the National Basketball Players’ Association about creating a midseason tournament, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
Woj reports that NBA commissioner Adam Silver thinks the league will be able to convince the rest of the Board of Governors (comprising Silver, the owners of all 30 teams, and their representatives) to bring the concept to a vote down the road. The midseason tournament idea had previously not made it to the voting stage when it was considered before the pandemic.
Two-thirds of team owners would need to support the measure for it to be enacted. The earliest a midseason tournament could be implemented now would be the 2022/23 season.
Silver believes a midseason tournament will be able to help keep fans invested during a lengthy regular season that has sometimes struggled to maintain interest ahead of the playoffs. The original proposal also included a pitch to reduce the NBA regular season from 82 games to 78 in order to accommodate a midseason competition.
Previously, the league had been looking to model its midseason tournament around the structure that European football currently uses. The NBA was considering an eight-game single-elimination competition. Each player on the victorious squad would be rewarded with a $1MM payout, under this original proposal.
Victor Oladipo Could Return In November
Unrestricted free agent Victor Oladipo could return to full contact basketball as soon as November, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reports.
Oladipo underwent surgery on May 13 to repair his right quadriceps tendon. It’s the same tendon that he injured in January 2019, which ended his season in 36 games that year and limited him to 19 games last season.
This could positively impact Oladipo’s free agent status, if teams are confident the prognosis is correct. Oladipo would have certainly been one of the hottest names on the market had he not re-injured the quad.
The Heat looked at Oladipo as a key cog for another deep playoff run. Oladipo was also nagged by a right knee injury that caused him to miss several games.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jonathan Glashow, who performed the latest surgery, told Wojnarowski that he was surprised Oladipo had been playing NBA basketball due to the condition of the tendon. Oladipo appeared in just four games after Houston traded him to the Heat.
Miami dealt Avery Bradley and Kelly Olynyk, and also agreed to a 2022 first-round draft-pick swap, for Oladipo. He turned down a two-year, $42.5MM extension offer from the Rockets in February.
“The quad wasn’t really hooked up. It was torn, and I re-attached it,” Glashow said. “I was amazed he was playing with what he had. I’m very optimistic that I could clear him in six months, by November. … I’m confident he’ll play next year.”
The Heat and Oladipo will hold discussions about his potential future in Miami, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald tweets.
Oladipo would “love” to return and Miami hasn’t ruled out that possibility, Jackson adds. He will rehab the injury under the supervision of the Heat medical staff and Dr. Glashow, per Wojnarowski.
LeBron James Violates Protocols, Will Not Face Suspension
Lakers superstar LeBron James violated the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols by attending an event promoting his tequila brand, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reports.
James was reportedly one of several big-name guests at the event, which included rapper Drake and actor Michael B. Jordan, per McMenamin. Attendees were required to provide proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test.
“It’s a violation of the agreed upon protocols, and, as we have in other comparable instances around the league, it has been addressed with the team,” an NBA spokesman said to ESPN.
Despite the violation, James will not be suspended, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link). James’ attendance at the event did not rise to “a threat level of virus spread” and he will be available for the team’s first-round series against the Suns, which tips off on Sunday.
As McMenamin notes, James has declined to outright state whether or not he has yet to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Teammate Dennis Schröder recently told German outlet N-TV last month that he and James both had not been vaccinated, but later amended that statement, telling reporters, “I’m the only guy that didn’t get vaccinated. I’ll just leave it at that.”
The Lakers as a team have yet to reach the 85% threshold for fully vaccinated players and personnel, which would loosen several health and safety protocols.
“We have not reached it yet, but we’re still hopeful,” head coach Frank Vogel said recently. “And I think there’s obvious benefits from the standpoint of us being able to do more things with each other in the cities that we’re going to. Something that’s been absent leaguewide in terms of team building and team bonding for all of us. “
Scoot Henderson To Play For G League Ignite
Another top high school prospect has committed to the G League Ignite, as five-star recruit Scoot Henderson announced today that he’ll reclassify from the class of 2022 to the class of 2021 and will join the NBAGL’s developmental team, writes Adam Zagoria of Forbes. The G League has confirmed Henderson’s commitment.
Henderson is a 6’3″ point guard who attended Kell High School in Marietta, Georgia. He had been ranked by ESPN as the No. 7 overall prospect in the 2022 recruiting class.
According to Zagoria, Henderson decided to go the G League route rather than attending a college such as Auburn or Georgia. He also received an offer from the Overtime Elite league.
“You know how every kid has their own path?” Henderson told Jonathan Abrams of The New York Times. “My main goal was just to get to the NBA and be there for a very long time. The fact that I have an opportunity to go there and I’m one step away from it, it’s just huge. And I took that opportunity.”
Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter links), who says the 17-year-old is believed to be the youngest professional player in American basketball history, hears from sources that Henderson’s G League deal will be worth $1MM — the contract will cover two years, since Henderson still won’t be draft-eligible until 2023.
Henderson will join an Ignite squad that has also received commitments from guard Jalen Hardy, forward Michael Foster Jr., and China’s top prospect, center Fanbo Zeng.
Towns Says He’d Like To Spend NBA Career “With One Team”
Teams around the NBA are constantly monitoring superstars on lottery teams in case they become disgruntled and request a change of scenery. One player whose situation has drawn some attention in that regard is Karl-Anthony Towns, whose Timberwolves have made the postseason just once since he was drafted in 2015.
However, speaking to reporters this week, Towns said that he’d like to follow in the footsteps of players like Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, who spent their entire NBA careers with a single franchise.
“I hope to have a career like Kobe, with one team,” Towns said, per Shahbaz Khan of of Timberwolves.com. “Like Tim and Kobe, where it’s one team and try to bring as many championships as possible.”
Towns, who averaged 24.8 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in 50 contests (33.8 MPG) in 2020/21, acknowledged that there have been plenty of “rocky” patches during his six years in Minnesota, both on and off the court. However, he gave no indication that he’d like to move on from the team that selected him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 draft.
“I just really am happy that I’m able to still be here playing for this amazing city and state and be able to stay here and affect change in the community,” Towns said. “I’m just so happy that I’ve been given a chance to play here in Minnesota all these years.”
Towns still has three guaranteed years on his maximum-salary deal beyond 2020/21. As such, president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas still has some time to work on building a team capable of contending before the 25-year-old has to make a decision on his next contract. However, with the Wolves set to lose their first-round pick either in 2021 (top-three protected) or 2022 (unprotected), Rosas will have to get creative as he considers possible avenues to upgrade the roster.
Nate McMillan Fined By NBA For Comments About Knicks
Hawks head coach Nate McMillan has been fined $25K by the NBA for “detrimental public comments asserting bias,” the league announced today in a press release.
As Chris Kirschner of The Athletic relays, McMillan was fined for comments he made during his session with reporters on Wednesday, when he was asked about national media members picking the Knicks to defeat the Hawks in round one of the playoffs.
“I’ve talked about that to the team a lot,” McMillan said. “I’ve gone as far as saying, ‘The league wants this. They need this.’ New York is a big market. It’s a big market for the league. New York has been out of the playoffs for a number of years. This is a team that our league — they want to see. … I think the NBA is excited about them being back in the playoffs.”
McMillan was essentially just reiterating a widely-held belief that the NBA prefers to see teams in large market with huge fanbases succeed, as he went on to liken the Knicks to the Lakers and Celtics.
While McMillan’s comments seem relatively harmless, it’s understandable that the NBA didn’t appreciate the implication that the league might make an effort to push the Knicks past the Hawks — especially when that implication came from Atlanta’s head coach.
Vegas Summer League Will Take Place August 8-17
6:40pm: The NBA has officially confirmed that the NBA Las Vegas Summer League will run from August 8-17 this season (Twitter link). Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets that all 30 NBA teams will participate, playing five games apiece, with a championship game on August 17.
4:01pm: After being canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the NBA Las Vegas Summer League will be held from August 8-17 this year, a source tells Sam Gordon of The Las Vegas Review-Journal (Twitter link).
While the NBA has yet to officially confirm Gordon’s report, it lines up with what we heard in February, when ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe stated that the league was aiming to hold its Vegas Summer League sometime in early- to mid-August.
Those dates also make sense in relation to the rest of the NBA’s offseason calendar — two years ago, when the NBA’s 2019/20 league year began on July 1, Vegas Summer League took place from July 5-15. The ’21/22 league year will begin on August 3.
The NBA has typically held smaller Summer Leagues in other cities, including Salt Lake City and Sacramento in 2019, but Vegas is the summer’s main event. In 2019, all 30 NBA franchises fielded teams, with clubs representing China and Croatia joining the mix to make it a 32-team pool.
The Vegas Summer League gives young players, newly-drafted rookies, and undrafted free agents a chance to play big minutes and turn heads in advance of fall training camps.
Jeremy Lin Disappointed Not To Get NBA Call-Up
Veteran guard Jeremy Lin published an Instagram post on Tuesday evening expressing disappointment that he was unable to earn a call-up to the NBA following a successful stint in the G League earlier this season.
Lin, who last played in the NBA in 2019 with the Raptors, decided to play in the G League rather than spending another year in China, since he believed the NBAGL represented his best shot at getting back to the NBA — especially given the restrictions on international travel and scouting in place during the coronavirus pandemic.
The 32-year-old averaged 19.8 PPG on .505/.426/.879 shooting in nine G League contests for the Santa Cruz Warriors. While his age worked against him, it’s worth noting Lin was the only player among the NBAGL’s top 14 scorers who didn’t spend any time with an NBA team during the 2020/21 season. Twelve of those players finished the season on an NBA roster, while one (Henry Ellenson) received a 10-day deal in March.
“For months, I saw others get contracts, chances, opportunities,” Lin wrote on Instagram. “I told myself I just need ONE ten-day contract, one chance to get back on the floor and I would blow it out the water. After all that’s how my entire career started – off one chance to prove myself. For reasons I’ll never fully know, that chance never materialized. But I proved I’m better than ever and an NBA player.”
Although Lin’s post isn’t a retirement announcement, it reads as something of a farewell to the NBA, as Kurt Helin of NBC Sports observes. Lin referred to having taken a year to “chase a dream” and called May 16 the “final deadline” for an NBA call-up. He also addressed the next generation of Asian-American NBA hopefuls, telling them, “You guys got next.”
Those comments don’t mean Lin is giving up on the NBA in future seasons. However, they suggest that when he resumes his career, he may be more inclined to consider other options, including possibly a return to China, where he could play a starring role.
“I didn’t get it done, but I have no regrets,” Lin wrote. “I gave my ALL and hold my head high. As for what’s next, I trust what God has in store for me.”
Hawks Guard Goodwin To Miss Postseason
Hawks guard Brandon Goodwin has been diagnosed with a minor respiratory condition that will keep him out the remainder of the season, the team tweets.
Goodwin has appeared in 47 games, including five starts, this season. He averaged 4.9 PPG and 2.0 APG in 13.2 MPG during the regular season.
Goodwin’s playing time fluctuated, depending on how many backcourt injuries the team had at any given time. The 25-year-old point guard wasn’t expected to be part of the playoff rotation — he only made two brief appearances in games this month. Veteran Lou Williams is the primary backup to Trae Young.
Goodwin, who was undrafted out of Florida Gulf Coast, played on a $1.7MM contract this season. The front office would need to extend him a $2.1MM qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent this summer.