Thabo Sefolosha Discusses Retirement
Veteran NBA wing Thabo Sefolosha, who last played for the Rockets in 2019/20, hasn’t officially announced his retirement as a player. However, in a recent appearance on the Fastbreak podcast, Sefolosha didn’t object to being characterized as retired by the hosts.
“It’s treating me good,” Sefolosha said, when asked how he has adjusted to retirement. “It’s a nice change of pace being back home with the family. It has been great.”
As Kevin Chouinard of Hawks.com relays (via Twitter), Sefolosha went on to explain that he has returned to his home country of Switzerland with his family and is enjoying spending more time with his wife and children. While he didn’t explicitly close the door on playing basketball again, the 36-year-old doesn’t sound like someone pursuing another NBA contract.
“We had already talked about it at the end of last season, coming back to Switzerland,” Sefolosha said. “We have kids that are growing up and it was important for us to be as a family together, spending more time together with myself being more involved and being able to spend more time with homework and all of this.
“After 14 years, I felt like it was kind of time for me to take a step back and spend the majority of my time doing something different now.”
Assuming Sefolosha has played in his last NBA game, he’ll call it a career after appearing in 869 regular season games and another 96 postseason contests. The former 13th overall pick averaged 5.7 PPG and 3.7 RPG in 21.9 minutes per game in the regular season, spending time with the Bulls, Thunder, Hawks, Jazz, and Rockets.
Sefolosha was also a strong perimeter defender, having earned a spot on the NBA’s All-Defensive Team in 2010. Although he didn’t win a championship, he played in the NBA Finals once, with the Thunder in 2012.
Sefolosha last appeared on the court on March 8, 2020, having opted out of the summer restart in Orlando.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Nets Sign Alize Johnson To Second 10-Day Contract
APRIL 1: The Nets have officially re-signed Johnson to a second 10-day deal, the team confirmed today in a press release. It’ll run through April 10, at which point Brooklyn will either have to let Johnson go or sign him to a rest-of-season contract.
MARCH 30: The Nets plan to sign forward Alize Johnson to a second 10-day contract, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweets.
Johnson made quite a splash in his Brooklyn debut, supplying 23 points, 15 rebounds and three assists in a loss to Utah on Wednesday. That was also his season debut.
His first 10-day deal is due to expire on Wednesday.
Johnson, 24, spent two seasons with the Pacers after being drafted 50th overall in 2018, but appeared in just 31 total games and played limited minutes, seeing more action with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants in the G League.
Johnson suited up for the Raptors 905 in the G League bubble this season, averaging 16.6 PPG and 13.5 RPG (second in the league) in 15 games (32.1 MPG).
With the Nets retaining Johnson, at least in the short team, they’ll remain at the league limit of 15 players (not counting two-ways). For the latest on roster openings, check out our update here.
Joel Embiid Could Return Saturday
The Sixers anticipate that they will have All-Star center Joel Embiid back in action as early as this Saturday against the Timberwolves, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets. The 27-year-old has been unavailable for Philadelphia since March 12, when he suffered a bone bruise in his left knee.
Embiid had been a frontrunner for 2020/21 season MVP honors before a knee injury waylaid him for three weeks. Across 31 games thus far with Philadelphia this year, the seven-footer out of Kansas is averaging 29.9 PPG (a career high), to go along with 11.5 RPG, 3.3 APG, 1.4 BPG and 1.2 SPG. His shooting has grown by leaps and bounds this season, as his slash line of .525/.422/.859 (all career-bests) reflects.
The Sixers have held their own in Embiid’s absence. Philadelphia boasts an 8-8 record across the games Embiid has missed thus far this season, thanks to his fellow All-Star Ben Simmons and the contributions of starters Tobias Harris, Danny Green and Seth Curry (though Curry, too, has missed time), plus intriguing young players like Tyrese Maxey and Shake Milton. The team also recently added sharpshooting veteran point guard George Hill to help shore up its backcourt depth.
At 32-15, Philadelphia is currently perched atop of the Eastern Conference. With a healthy Embiid in tow this spring, the Sixers could be a threat to make their first NBA Finals in 20 years.
Kyle Lowry Out At Least 7-10 Days With Toe Infection
Decorated starting Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry will be sidelined for the next 7-10 days as he deals with a toe infection on his right foot, Blake Murphy of The Athletic tweets. Head coach Nick Nurse was candid about Lowry’s recovery to this point. “It’s not going very well,” Nurse said, per Murphy (via Twitter).
The subject of significant trade deadline noise, Lowry was ultimately not moved by Raptors team president Masai Ujiri at the deadline last Thursday. The 35-year-old six-footer, a six-time All-Star in Toronto, will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
Losing Lowry tonight ahead of a matchup against the 19-27 Thunder could make Toronto’s March historically rough, as the 18-29 club is currently 1-12 in games played this month.
Lowry has not shown many signs of aging this season, averaging a stellar 17.0 PPG, 7.3 APG, and 5.4 RPG on a sparkling .436/.394/.881 shooting line.
Redick: Pelicans’ Front Office Didn’t Honor Their Word
Former Pelicans guard J.J. Redick asked New Orleans’ front office for a trade back in November around the time the team dealt Jrue Holiday to Milwaukee, Redick said today on the latest episode of his Old Man and the Three podcast (video link).
As Redick explains, the opportunity to play with Holiday was one of the main reasons he initially signed with the Pelicans in 2019. Holiday’s departure – and an expectation that his own playing time would be cut back under Stan Van Gundy – played a part in Redick’s decision to ask for a trade. The distance from his family in Brooklyn was also a major factor, since various league and local COVID-19 protocols prevented him from getting many opportunities to see them.
Redick, now with the Mavericks, said he had “transparent” conversations with Pelicans executive VP of basketball operations David Griffin and GM Trajan Langdon and felt as if they had reached an understanding.
“Griff basically says to me, ‘Come down for a month. If you still want to be traded, I give you my word, I’ll get you to a situation that you like,'” said Redick, who added that he had four conversations directly with Griffin after that point. “… Obviously he did not honor his word.”
Redick made it clear that his comments aren’t intended as a slight toward Dallas. He said he’s looking forward to bringing leadership and shooting to Dallasand playing alongside Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, adding that he told team owner Mark Cuban, “In any other year, I’d be thrilled to be traded to the Dallas Mavericks.” However, the Mavs weren’t one of the teams that Redick and the Pelicans had discussed as a potential landing spot.
According to Redick, he thought that if he wasn’t going to be traded by the “aggregate deadline” of February 2 (the last day a player could be traded and still have his salary aggregated in a second trade at the deadline), he was headed for a buyout agreement with New Orleans. That would allow him to sign with any team, and he suggested he would have considered a handful of teams in the northeast.
“(My understanding was) if I was going to be traded, it was going to be a team in the northeast where I was closer to home and I’d be able to see my family for the last two or three months of the season,” Redick said. “Obviously that didn’t happen.
“… I look at the buyout situation not as me just specifically being like, ‘Oh, I’m going to get bought out and go to Brooklyn,'” he added. “I just wanted to be able, on an off day, to go see my family and to be within sort of driving distance. … Geographically, you can sort of think of the teams where that’s the case.”
Although Redick said he had an “amazing” year-and-a-half with the Pelicans, he admitted that the way the relationship ended was far from ideal.
“I don’t think you’re going to get honesty from that front office. Just objectively speaking — that’s not an opinion, I just don’t think you’re going to get that,” Redick said. “I don’t think what happened with me is necessarily an isolated incident either. I do think across the league, front offices, they act in their own best interest. I get that, I understand that.
“Truthfully, and it’s hard for me to admit this, but I think I was a little naive in thinking that because I was in year 15 and I had at least attempted to do things right throughout my career and I honored my end of the bargain (that the Pelicans would reciprocate)… but in terms of this front office, it’s not something where I would expect certainly the agents who worked on this with me to ever trust that front office again.”
Redick will speak to reporters in a Zoom press conference on Thursday and expects to be with the Mavs on Friday, though he said he’s still rehabbing his heel issue and is likely “a little ways away” from returning to the court.
Latest On Dennis Schröder’s Contract Situation
3:54pm: Marc Stein of The New York Times hears from two sources that Schröder has turned down extension offers in the range of $80MM over four years.
1:54pm: Discussing his contract situation last week, Lakers guard Dennis Schröder strongly hinted that he intends to reach free agency rather than signing an in-season extension, noting that he wants to see his options on the open market. In today’s episode of his Hoop Collective podcast, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst confirmed that Schröder and the Lakers appear unlikely to agree to a deal prior to free agency.
“From what I understand, they’ve had contract talks and they couldn’t agree to an extension,” Windhorst said. “The maximum he can sign for (during the season) is four years, $84MM. … What I have been told – and this is rumor is pretty widely out there, so I doubt this is very surprising – is that the Lakers did indeed offer him that $84MM over four years.
“Now, this is where we get into gray area,” Windhorst continued. “Was it fully guaranteed? Was it partially guaranteed? Were there incentives? I don’t know. But I believe he was offered a contract in that realm and he said no to it.”
Windhorst’s caveats are important. If the Lakers’ offer to Schröder included a non-guaranteed final season or a significant amount of incentives, it’s not nearly as strong as that reported $84MM figure suggests.
Even if the Lakers’ offer was fully guaranteed, there are reasons to believe that Schröder would pass on it for now. Malcolm Brogdon and Fred VanVleet signed deals in the four-year, $84MM range in the last two years, and Schröder’s 2019/20 production compared favorably to what those players did in their contract years (his numbers have dipped a little in ’20/21). If the Lakers are prepared to offer his maximum in-season extension amount, it stands to reason they might be willing to go a little higher once he officially reaches free agency.
Additionally, since Schröder signed his current deal as a rookie scale extension with Atlanta in 2016, he has never gotten a chance to experience free agency. So even if he feels the Lakers’ offer is fair, his comments about wanting to explore his options indicate that he wants to go through the process at least once.
As Windhorst reiterated on the Hoop Collective podcast, the Lakers were readily offering Schröder in pre-deadline trade discussions for Kyle Lowry, an indication they aren’t necessarily locked into the 27-year-old as their long-term point guard. However, letting Schröder walk in free agency won’t open up any cap room for Los Angeles, so the team will be motivated to either get something done with him or get something back in a sign-and-trade.
Rockets’ GM Doesn’t Regret Return In James Harden Trade
Victor Oladipo, the only big-name player the Rockets got in return for James Harden, barely stayed in Houston for two months, but general manager Rafael Stone doesn’t regret making the deal with the Nets, writes Tim MacMahon of ESPN.
Oladipo was traded to Miami last week for a modest return of Kelly Olynyk, Avery Bradley, and a 2022 pick swap. As a result, the Rockets’ haul for Harden mostly consists of the collection of draft picks Stone received from the Nets (and Cavs) in the four-team blockbuster.
“I would for sure, 100 percent, do that deal again,” Stone said. “Again, you guys don’t have the advantages of knowing everything I know, but literally no part of me regrets doing that deal. I have not second-guessed it for a moment. A lot of what I said about being in a position maybe to not have to be bad (to rebuild), there’s some other things that we’ve done, too, but it’s primarily that deal that’s allowed us to say, ‘Hey, we want to compete on a slightly quicker time frame.’ We’re not going to go down this path of intentionally trying to lose games for years on end.”
The Rockets could have hung unto Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen in the Harden trade, but flipped LeVert to Indiana for Oladipo and sent Allen to Cleveland along with Taurean Prince for a future first-round pick.
After acquiring Oladipo, the Rockets determined he wasn’t a good fit alongside John Wall and a group of young players. Oladipo is headed for free agency this summer, and Houston wasn’t willing to make the financial commitment it would have taken to re-sign him. The team also wants to give more playing time to 20-year-old guard Kevin Porter Jr., who was acquired from the Cavaliers in January and played in the G League until early March.
The Harden trade could eventually pay huge dividends for the Rockets, who received draft capital from Brooklyn over the next seven years. Stone said critics need to be patient in examining what the team got in return for its superstar.
“One of your colleagues texted me the day after the trade and they said they would evaluate me in 2027,” Stone told McMahon. “And I told them that that was too early; they should do it in 2030. I think we felt at the time that we did the best deal for the franchise possible. Obviously, that’s my job, so I did it. Particularly given the types of things we got back, yeah, it feels like you can’t possibly know how you did for multiple years — like three, five, something like that. But I feel good about it. I do feel good about it.”
The Rockets have bottomed out since the Harden deal, losing 20 straight games at one point and falling into a tie for the league’s second-worst record. Stone said injuries played a part in the collapse, as well as the lack of a foundation after so many years of making short-term moves in pursuit of a title.
Stone has worked this year to build up a stockpile of draft picks, and he believes Houston can quickly rebuild around a “young core that we really like” made up of Porter, center Christian Wood and rookie forwards Jae’Sean Tate and KJ Martin.
“In terms of how we go from here, I feel pretty comfortable that we like where we are in the beginning stages,” Stone said. “We’re going to take constant bets. Everybody does that; it’s just the level you do it at. We’re going to do it — not all of them are going to work out. … I don’t think that we need to do like a wholesale tank strategy like some other teams have done in the past or maybe are doing now.”
Holmes, Drummond Among Hornets’ Potential Offseason Targets
The Hornets sought to upgrade their center at last week’s trade deadline, expressing interest in a number of big men on the trade market, according to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report.
As Fischer details, Charlotte was eyeing Andre Drummond, but couldn’t reach an agreement with the Cavaliers on a viable trade, then lost out to the Lakers on the buyout market. In addition to Drummond, the Hornets also expressed interest in veteran centers such as Myles Turner, Montrezl Harrell, and Richaun Holmes, sources tell Fischer.
A previous report indicated that the Pacers and Hornets discussed a trade involving Turner and P.J. Washington during the 2020 offseason, and Fischer says Charlotte revisited those talks at last week’s deadline, exploring a deal centered around Turner, Washington, and Cody Zeller‘s expiring contract. However, the team had no luck.
Having not addressed the center position via trade, the Hornets figure to be on the lookout for a big man this summer when Zeller’s and Bismack Biyombo‘s contracts expire, and Fischer identifies Holmes and Drummond as two players likely to be on Charlotte’s radar. Both players will be unrestricted free agents after the season.
Holmes is under contract at a bargain price ($5MM) for the rest of 2020/21, but could seek upwards of $20MM per year in free agency, according to Fischer. Meanwhile, league executives polled by Bleacher Report estimate that Drummond’s next deal could look something like Steven Adams‘ two-year, $35MM extension with New Orleans. The Hornets talked to Drummond following his buyout from Cleveland, and the 27-year-old was intrigued by the idea of playing with LaMelo Ball, says Fischer.
Charlotte has the ability to open up some cap room this offseason, though that space would be extremely limited if the team extends Malik Monk a qualifying offer and keeps his $16MM+ cap hold on its books. Monk is in the midst of a career year, but his name was involved in the trade conversations the Hornets had for Harrell and Holmes, per Fischer.
If it’s the simplest path to creating the room necessary to sign one of this summer’s top free agent centers, the Hornets could be willing to make Monk unrestricted. Re-signing him to a deal worth less than his cap hold would be another path to generating a little flexibility.
Jaden Springer Declares For Draft
Projected first-round pick Jaden Springer has declared for the draft and will sign with an agent, he said on his Twitter page.
“Playing in the NBA has always been my dream,” Springer said, in part.
The Tennessee point guard is currently rated No. 27 overall on ESPN’s Best Available list and No. 6 at his position. Sam Vecenie of The Athletic and Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer are higher on the 6’4” freshman, as both have Springer ranked as a late lottery pick.
Springer started 15 of 25 games with the Vols this season, posting averages of 12.5 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 2.9 APG and 1.2 SPG while making 43.5% of his 3-point attempts. He had a 30-point game against Georgia last month. He scored 12 points in Tennessee’s first-round loss to Oregon State in the NCAA Tournament.
Mitchell Robinson Undergoes Foot Surgery
Knicks center Mitchell Robinson underwent surgery on Monday to repair a fractured fifth metatarsal in his right foot, the team’s PR department tweets. There’s no timetable for a return this season.
The snakebit young big man was injured on Saturday during the first quarter in Milwaukee when he jumped and then landed awkwardly. Robinson was appearing in his fourth game after missing 15 with a broken right hand. He had a metal plate inserted into the hand to help stabilize it.
The 22-year-old has been limited to 30 games during his third NBA season, averaging 8.5 PPG, 8.4 RPG and 1.5 BPG.
The Knicks have cap room to use on the buyout market, but several big men have already committed to other teams.
Meanwhile, the Knicks hold a $1.8MM team option on Robinson for 2021/22. Picking up that option would put Robinson on track for unrestricted free agency in 2022, while turning it down would make him a restricted free agent this summer.
That’s not a straightforward decision — while exercising the option would lock up Robinson at a bargain price for another year, it would take away the Knicks’ ability to match any offer once he eventually reaches free agency.