Bucks Lose 2022 Second-Round Pick For Early Pursuit Of Bogdanovic
The NBA has determined that the Bucks violated league rules in their offseason pursuit of Bogdan Bogdanovic, and will rescind Milwaukee’s 2022 second-round pick as a result, the league announced today.
According to the press release, the NBA investigated whether the Bucks had discussions with Bogdanovic and/or his agent prior to the start of the free agency period in November, and concluded that early discussions did, in fact, take place.
The league said that the decision to strip the Bucks of their 2022 second-round pick took into account the club’s cooperation with the investigation, the absence of any evidence of an early contract agreement between Bogdanovic and the Bucks, and the fact that he didn’t ultimately sign with the team. In other words, the franchise could have faced an even more severe penalty if the NBA had found proof of an early agreement or if Bogdanovic had ended up joining the Bucks.
A few days before the free agent period officially began last month, word broke that the Kings and Bucks had reached an agreement that would send Bogdanovic – a restricted free agent – and Justin James to Milwaukee for Donte DiVincenzo, D.J. Wilson, and Ersan Ilyasova. Such a deal would have required a new contract for Bogdanovic with the Bucks.
Two days after it was first reported, that deal fell apart amid rumors that Bogdanovic himself hadn’t agreed to sign with Milwaukee, and the league opened its investigation into the matter. Bogdanovic eventually signed an offer sheet with Atlanta and is now a member of the Hawks after the Kings opted not to match that offer.
The Bucks’ second-round pick in 2022 had been the next second-rounder the team had available. Milwaukee previously traded away its 2021 second-rounder in a 2018 deal for George Hill.
Contract, Roster Deadlines Loom For NBA Teams
We’re one day away from the start of the NBA’s 2020/21 regular season, making Monday the last day of the 2020 offseason. Today serves as the deadline for a number of contract- and roster-related decisions around the league. Here are the most important ones:
Rookie Scale Extensions
A total of 24 players entered the offseason eligible for rookie scale extensions. Five of those players – Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, De’Aaron Fox, and Kyle Kuzma – have already signed new deals. That leaves the following 19 players eligible to sign rookie scale extensions on Monday:
- Jarrett Allen (Nets)
- OG Anunoby (Raptors)
- Lonzo Ball (Pelicans)
- Tony Bradley (Sixers)
- John Collins (Hawks)
- Zach Collins (Trail Blazers)
- Terrance Ferguson (Sixers)
- Markelle Fultz (Magic)
- Josh Hart (Pelicans)
- Jonathan Isaac (Magic)
- Justin Jackson (Thunder)
- Luke Kennard (Clippers)
- T.J. Leaf (Thunder)
- Lauri Markkanen (Bulls)
- Malik Monk (Hornets)
- Frank Ntilikina (Knicks)
- Dennis Smith Jr. (Knicks)
- Derrick White (Spurs)
- D.J. Wilson (Bucks)
Most of these players won’t sign new deals until the 2021 offseason, when they’re eligible for restricted free agency. But it would be a surprise if at least one or two more players from this list don’t finalize rookie scale extensions today, With Allen, Anunoby, Ball, John Collins, Fultz, and White among the most viable candidates.
The deadline for rookie scale extensions is at 5:00pm central time, ESPN’s Bobby Marks confirms (via Twitter).
Certain Veteran Contract Extensions
A veteran player who signed his current contract at least two years ago (or three years ago if it was a five-year deal) is eligible to sign an extension. That means that many veterans around the NBA are eligible to sign contract extensions today, but that number will significantly drop as of tomorrow.
Once the regular season begins, only veterans in the final year of their contracts can sign extensions — a player that has multiple years remaining is no longer extension-eligible until the following offseason.
[RELATED: Hoops Rumors Glossary: Veteran Contract Extension]
In other words, players like Stephen Curry or T.J. Warren, who are under contract through 2021/22, could sign an extension today that covers up to three additional seasons. However, starting on Tuesday, they’ll be ineligible to sign an extension until the 2021 offseason.
An extension candidate like Jrue Holiday, who has a player option for 2021/22, could still sign a new deal during the season, but he’d have to eliminate that option to do so. Picking it up would make him ineligible to complete an extension until the 2021 offseason after today.
The deadline for veteran extensions for players on non-expiring contracts is at 10:59pm CT tonight.
Regular Season Rosters
Most teams around the NBA finalized their roster cuts on Saturday for financial reasons, as we explained over the weekend. However, the deadline to reduce offseason rosters to the regular season limit of 15 players on standard contracts (plus two on two-way contracts) arrives tonight.
Typically, the regular season roster deadline would fall at 4:00pm CT. This year, as Marks tweets, it’s at 10:00pm CT. The NBA adjusted the waiver deadline for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in order to accommodate the preseason games that took place on Saturday night — teams that participated in those games were still able to cut players afterward and have those players clear waivers tonight.
While it’s certainly possible that there will be some additional roster shuffling today as teams tweak their back-end roster spots or fill two-way openings, only two teams – the Thunder and Kings – absolutely have to make cuts, as we detailed on Sunday.
The final day of the offseason is also the last day for teams to convert Exhibit 10 contracts into two-way deals. However, after Yuta Watanabe, Brodric Thomas, Reggie Perry, Marques Bolden, and Max Strus had their Exhibit 10 deals converted into two-ways over the weekend, I don’t think there are any candidates left for this maneuver.
Finally, Monday is the last day for a free agent to be signed-and-traded. There has been no indication that any potential sign-and-trades are in the works though.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Lakers Sign Kyle Kuzma To Three-Year Extension
4:46pm: Kuzma has officially signed his extension with the Lakers, the team announced on social media (Twitter link).
3:56pm: The Lakers and forward Kyle Kuzma have agreed to terms on a three-year contract extension worth $40MM, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link). The deal will include a third-year player option for the 2023/24 season, Wojnarowski reports.
Kuzma, 25, is the latest in a line of Lakers players that have agreed to lucrative new contracts this offseason. LeBron James and Anthony Davis signed maximum-salary deals that will keep them under team control through 2023 and 2024, respectively, while Kentavious Caldwell-Pope signed a contract similar to Kuzma’s, though the final year of KCP’s three-year, $39MM pact isn’t fully guaranteed.
Those multiyear commitments to other key players likely helped open the door for a rookie scale extension for Kuzma in advance of Monday’s deadline, since the Lakers no longer had to consider whether to try to carve out cap room during the next couple offseasons.
Kuzma, who averaged a career-high 18.7 PPG in 2018/19, played a reduced role last season following the arrival of Davis. His 12.8 PPG, 4.5 RPG, .436 FG%, and 25.0 MPG were all career-lows, as he struggled at times to establish a clear-cut role for the eventual champions.
However, the Lakers clearly still believe in the fourth-year forward, as exhibited by their willingness to lock in a deal that will guaranteed him $13MM+ per year once his current contract expires in 2021. Kuzma, the 27th overall pick in the 2017 draft, will earn $3.56MM in the final year of his rookie deal this season.
Kuzma is the fifth player to agree to a rookie scale extension so far this offseason, joining Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, and De’Aaron Fox.
While Kuzma didn’t get a maximum-salary commitment like those stars, he becomes the first player to receive a player option on a non-max rookie extension, according to Wojnarowski (via Twitter). That option will allow Kuzma to enter the unrestricted free agent market at age 28 if he outperforms his new deal.
As Bobby Marks of ESPN notes (via Twitter), Kuzma won’t become ineligible to be traded this season as a result of his new extension. However, the poison pill provision would apply in a hypothetical deal, complicating salary matching and reducing the odds that he’ll be moved anytime soon.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Warriors Still Eyeing Lin For Santa Cruz Affiliate
The Warriors continue to eye point guard Jeremy Lin for their G League affiliate, the Santa Cruz Warriors, Marc Stein of the New York Times tweets.
Lin did not receive a FIBA Letter of Clearance from China, where he played for the Beijing Ducks last season, in time for Golden State to sign and release him in time before yesterday’s waiver deadline. The team had hoped to sign the nine-year NBA veteran to a non-guaranteed Exhibit 10 deal and waive him to lock up Lin’s G League rights.
Golden State could still sign Lin to an Exhibit 10 contract and waive him before Monday’s regular season roster deadline if that Letter of Clearance arrives, but doing so on Monday would mean paying the veteran guard for two days of NBA service and increasing the club’s already-substantial projected tax bill.
According to Stein (Twitter link), the Warriors intend to “explore all avenues” for getting Lin’s G League rights if he remains open to pursuing an NBA return via the NBAGL. The Santa Cruz Warriors could theoretically claim Lin off waivers directly if he signs a G League contract, but there’s no guarantee a team higher in the waiver order wouldn’t poach him in that scenario.
Lin started his NBA career with the Warriors after going undrafted out of Harvard. The 6’3″ guard played in 29 games for Golden State during the 2010/11 season, averaging 9.8 MPG. Lin also impressed in the G League (then the D-League) that year, averaging 18.0 PPG, 5.8 RPG, 4.4 APG, and 2.1 SPG in 20 games for the Warriors’ then-affiliate club, the Reno Bighorns. The next season, he caught on in a big way with the Knicks, going on an exciting run in Madison Square Garden that was dubbed “Linsanity.”
During the 2019/20 Chinese Basketball Association season, Lin averaged 22.3 PPG, 5.7 RPG, and 5.6 APG for the Ducks. He was a starter in the CBA All-Star game and a finalist for 2019/20 CBA Defensive Player of the Year honors.
Rudy Gobert Signs Five-Year Extension With Jazz
11:00am: Gobert’s extension is official, the Jazz announced in a press release.
“Rudy is such a special player,” new team owner Ryan Smith said in a statement. “He makes everyone on the court better. We couldn’t be more excited about his commitment to this team, to Utah, and most importantly, to keeping this unique culture together.”
9:13am: Rudy Gobert has reached an agreement on a five-year, $205MM extension with the Jazz, reports Tim MacMahon of ESPN. The final year of the deal will be a player option, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
“It means that they believe in me,” Gobert told MacMahon, confirming the agreement. “They believe in what we’ve been building over the years with this whole organization, with coach (Quin Snyder) and all the guys. For me, it’s an incredible blessing. It’s a very motivating feeling to know that we all share the same vision and we all share this goal for this state and for this franchise.”
The 28-year-old center was eligible to receive a super-max deal that would have been worth up to $228MM. He opted to take a little less so that Utah could have some financial flexibility to build the team around him and Donovan Mitchell, who also signed a five-year extension last month. There were reports of tension between Gobert and Mitchell after both players contracted COVID-19 in March, but they have now committed to a long-term future with the franchise.
Gobert’s new deal is the third-largest in NBA history, MacMahon notes. The only bigger contracts are the new $228MM super-max deal for Giannis Antetokounmpo and the five-year, $206.8MM super-max that the Thunder gave Russell Westbrook in 2017.
Gobert is currently in the final season of a four-year, $102MM arrangement, and Utah has some flexibility with the parameters of his new contract, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN. The Jazz could start the deal at $35.3MM for 2020/21, which is $4MM below 35% of the salary cap, with 8% raises each year. They could also opt to give him the full 35% at the beginning, which translates to a $39.3MM salary with 2.2% annual raises.
Gobert, who faced a Monday deadline to get a five-year extension finalized, has become one of the best centers in the league during his seven seasons in Utah. He won Defensive Player of the Year honors in 2017/18 and 2018/19 and has been an All-NBA selection in three of the past four years. The only thing missing from his resume is a long playoff run, which he believes the Jazz can accomplish soon.
“I want to win, and I feel like leaving this money on the table for the team just to be able to have better talent around me and Donovan was really important,” Gobert said. “I want to win, and I believe in this group and I believe in this organization, and I was willing to leave that money on the table for them.”
Gobert’s new contract is the latest in a long line of lucrative extensions signed since the new league year began last month. Only three players – Anthony Davis, Brandon Ingram, and Gordon Hayward – signed free agent contracts worth more than $100MM this offseason, but Gobert is the seventh player to finalize an extension worth $160MM or more, as our tracker shows.
The deal also takes another marquee free agent off the market for 2021. Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, and Paul George are among the other stars who will no longer reach free agency next summer after signing extensions this year.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
No Letter Of Clearance, No Warriors Deal For Jeremy Lin
9:55pm: Lin’s Letter of Clearance didn’t arrive in time for the Warriors to sign and release him by today’s waiver deadline, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Having failed to do so by today, it sounds like Golden State won’t sign and waive Lin after all, having turned to undrafted rookie Elijah Pemberton instead.
8:23pm: The Warriors would like to have Jeremy Lin under contract by 11pm Eastern today, but it may be hard to obtain the paperwork in time, tweets Marc Stein of The New York Times.
Lin and the team have reached an agreement, but are waiting for a FIBA Letter of Clearance from China. That type of document can be difficult to obtain on a weekend because international offices are closed, Stein adds.
Golden State was hoping to sign Lin and waive him before tonight’s waiver deadline so they can ensure they’ll have his G League rights (Twitter link). However, the transaction cannot be completed without the letter from FIBA.
The cost of waiting an extra day or two could be significant because the team is so far into the luxury tax, Stein notes. If the Warriors execute the move on Sunday rather than today, it would cost an extra $74,925 in tax penalties. Waiting until Monday would mean an extra $127,650 (Twitter link).
Lin, 32, has been working out in California recently with the G League Ignite, an NBAGL select team of top prospects and NBA veterans.
Rockets Waive Gerald Green, Others
9:30pm: All the roster moves detailed below are now official, per the Rockets and RealGM’s transactions log.
11:46am: Veteran swingman and Houston native Gerald Green will be among the players waived by the Rockets today as they ready their roster for the regular season, reports Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle.
Green has spent most of the last three years with the Rockets, though he was unable to play at all during the 2019/20 season due to a broken foot. He signed a non-guaranteed deal with Houston prior to training camp and was a candidate to make the roster, but cap constraints will make it impossible for now.
The Rockets only have enough room under their hard cap to carry 14 players for the time being, and Chris Clemons will be one of those players since his salary will now be guaranteed due to his season-ending Achilles tear. Houston still had some flexibility to cut a non-guaranteed player besides Green, but the team – unsurprisingly – will hang onto DeMarcus Cousins, Jae’Sean Tate, and Bruno Caboclo ahead of the 34-year-old wing.
The Rockets are open to bringing back Green later in the season if other roster moves make it possible, a source tells Feigen.
Meanwhile, Houston will also waive Trey Mourning and William McDowell-White, according to Feigen. McDowell-White just signed a two-way contract this week, but the plan is for Brodric Thomas to fill that two-way slot — he’ll have his Exhibit 10 deal converted into a two-way contract, says Feigen.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Knicks Waive Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Two Others
8:36pm: The Knicks have confirmed that Kidd-Gilchrist has been waived, along with guards Bryce Brown and Myles Powell (Twitter link). Brown and Powell both had Exhibit 10 contracts and are likely to play for the team’s G League affiliate in Westchester.
New York is now at the roster limit for the season, with 15 guaranteed contracts and a pair of two-way players.
7:29pm: The Knicks will place veteran forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist on waivers, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Kidd-Gilchrist was in a difficult position because New York had 15 other players with guaranteed contracts for the upcoming season. An illness slowed him throughout training camp, and he didn’t appear in any preseason games. Kidd-Gilchrist had an Exhibit 10 deal, which would have paid him the minimum salary for one year if he had made the team.
The Knicks believed it was worth gambling on the 27-year-old, who was the second overall choice in the 2012 draft. His career has sputtered in recent years, and he played a combined 25 games last season for the Hornets and Mavericks.
New York still has to trim two more players off its roster before Monday’s deadline.
Draymond Green To Miss Season Opener
The Warriors will begin the season Tuesday night without Draymond Green, according to Nick Friedell of ESPN. Green injured his foot during a scrimmage this week and is dealing with a mild muscle strain. Coach Steve Kerr has decided to be careful with the veteran forward, who missed most of training camp after an apparent bout with COVID-19.
“Draymond did not practice, so he’s doubtful for Tuesday,” Kerr said today. “He tweaked his foot in the scrimmage two days ago. Didn’t really know (how severe) until the next morning when he woke up; it was a little sore … he got an MRI. It’s clear. But we’re trying to be very, very careful … It’s not a long-term thing. We feel very confident that if he doesn’t play Tuesday or Christmas Day, he’ll be on the trip and we think he’ll be available pretty quickly.”
Kerr had better news about rookie center James Wiseman, who also sat out most of training camp. Wiseman was a full participant in today’s practice and is expected to be ready for the first game at Brooklyn, possibly as part of the starting lineup.
“James is going to be our starting center before too long,” Kerr said. “It might happen Tuesday, but clearly he is our long-term starting center. And when we feel he’s ready for that, then we’ll put him out there and then it’s a matter of minutes and how long he can play. And for me as a coach, for my staff, it’s let’s give him the experience of seeing the different pictures that are going to be in front of him.”
NBA Has Adjusted Waiver Deadline For Saturday, Sunday, Monday
The NBA’s daily waiver deadline typically falls at 4:00pm central time — a player released by that time will clear waivers two days later at 4:00pm CT, while players who are cut later in the evening won’t clear waivers until three days later.
However, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link), the NBA has adjusted its waiver deadline for today, tomorrow, and Monday, pushing it back to 10:00pm CT. That tweak will be crucial as teams set their rosters for the start of the regular season on Tuesday.
The change was made as a result of the three preseason games being played on Saturday night, Marks notes (via Twitter). By adjusting the waiver deadline, the league will allow a team like the Hornets to play its final preseason game tonight and still make cut players on non-guaranteed contract before today’s waiver deadline.
As we explained earlier today, most teams make their roster cuts on Saturday, since players on non-guaranteed contracts must clear waivers before the first day of the regular season in order for teams to avoid carrying any dead money on their cap for those players. Players on non-guaranteed contracts who don’t clear waivers until Tuesday or Wednesday will be paid for one or two days of service.
Teams must adhere to regular season roster limits (no more than 15 players on standard contracts and two on two-way deals) by Monday.