Gobert, Mitchell Work On Repairing Relationship
A report last Friday from The Athletic indicated that a rift still exists between Jazz stars Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, stemming from their positive coronavirus tests last month and the cavalier attitude Gobert reportedly showed with teammates and their belongings in the days leading up to his diagnosis.
One source who spoke to The Athletic even went so far as to say that the relationship between Mitchell and Gobert “doesn’t appear salvageable,” but the two All-Stars spoke on the phone on Saturday, sources tell Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). According to Haynes, the conversation went well and represented the first step toward repairing that relationship.
Prior to Haynes’ report, Gobert himself revealed that conversation with Mitchell during an Instagram Live interview with Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report on Sunday.
“It is true that we didn’t speak for a while, a few days, but we did speak a few days ago and we’re both ready to go out there and try to win a championship for this team,” Gobert told Rooks (video link). “It’s all about being a professional. Everyone’s got different relationships, it’s never perfect — people that are married, it’s never perfect. So me and my teammates, it’s far from perfect. But at the end of the day, we both want the same thing — and it’s winning. We’re both grown men, we’re both gonna do what it takes to win.”
There has been a perception over the last few weeks that Mitchell has been the one angry at Gobert for not taking COVID-19 seriously before testing positive. However, a source tells Haynes (Twitter link) that both players had issues with one another. The Saturday phone call between the two teammates was a good first step, though there’s still work to be done to fully mend fences, Haynes adds.
Speaking to Rooks, Gobert expressed confidence that he and Mitchell will patch things up and suggested that their rough patch shouldn’t be atop anyone’s list of concerns when it comes to the effects of coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s not really about me and Donovan — this little fight is no fight,” Gobert said, per Eric Walden of The Salt Lake Tribune. “It’s about thousands of people are dying every day, and it’s all about, ‘What can we do to help? What can we do to bring some positive?’ And at the end of the day, that’s really what my focus is on right now.”
Kosta Koufos Expected To Leave CSKA Moscow
Former NBA center Kosta Koufos will likely leave CSKA Moscow, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. Koufos’ departure was hastened by the addition of Nikola Milutinov, whose rights are owned by the Spurs.
Koufos became the highest-paid American player in Europe when he signed with the Russian team last summer, making $6MM over two years. The contract included an escape clause in case he wanted to return to the NBA next season.
However, injuries have limited Koufos’ productivity. He averaged just 3.7 points and 2.8 rebounds per game in the EuroLeague and 8.4 PPG and 5.2 RPG in the VTB League.
Koufos, 31, played for five teams over 11 NBA seasons and spent the last four years with the Kings before leaving for Europe. He averaged 3.7 PPG and 4.2 RPG in 42 games as a reserve during the 2018/19 season.
Players Need Month To Prepare For Action?
Providing teams and players with two weeks notice won’t be nearly enough to resume the season, ESPN’s Baxter Holmes reports.
Many team officials believe players will need at least a month to get ready for action after such a long layoff. A shorter period of training, workouts and practice could lead to a host of injuries, according to athletic training staff members and executives interviewed by Holmes.
The time required for player to get their bodies into “basketball shape” is one of the major hurdles the league must clear in order to finish the 2019-20 season.
Training facilities around the league have been closed for several weeks. Teams have provided players with workout programs and equipment but some of them don’t even have access to a basket.
With financial losses piling up during the suspension of play, there could be a greater sense of urgency to get teams back on the court. That could limit the gap between preparations and games.
If the league decides to cancel the remainder of the regular season and go straight to the playoffs, the players’ bodies would need an even longer time to adjust.
“I need these guys pushing their bodies for at least 30 days prior to the first meaningful basketball game,” an unnamed GM told Holmes. “And by meaningful basketball game, I mean a postseason game.”
The league, the Players’ Association and health officials would have to agree on a timeline that serves all parties, Holmes adds.
Joe Lacob Unsure How Hiatus Will Impact Warriors’ Future Spending
The Warriors, who wouldn’t have hosted any playoff games this spring if the NBA season had played out as scheduled, may not be the team hit hardest by the league’s indefinite suspension. However, owner Joe Lacob admitted that the lost revenue as a result of the hiatus and its potential impact on the salary cap going forward have created uncertainty about Golden State’s future spending ability.
Appearing on The TK Show with Tim Kawakami of The Athletic, Lacob was asked whether the Warriors still plan to go full-steam ahead next season, using their $17MM trade exception and full taxpayer mid-level exception to bolster their roster. As Drew Shiller of NBC Sports Bay Area relays, Lacob has adjusted his stance a little since declaring last February that the franchise can “do whatever we want” financially.
“We’re looking obviously at all of those questions and the possible answers,” Lacob said. “But I don’t really have a good sense yet because I really have no idea how this is gonna shake out. We don’t know what the salary cap is going to be, we don’t know what the luxury tax is going to be, so we don’t really know what we can plan on at this point. We just have to look at a lot of different scenarios, and that’s what we’re doing right now. (The NBA’s stoppage) could make a huge difference and it might make no difference.”
When Kawakami pointed out that the Warriors may have a limited window of opportunity to continue competing for championships, given that Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green are all now in their 30s, Lacob acknowledged that the team still wants to take advantage of that window as best it can.
“That was our plan and still – until further notice – is our plan for next year and the next few years,” he said. “However, a lot of things could change. And we’re going to have to adjust, just like every other team’s going to have to adjust, to whatever the new world order is, to whatever the new situation is in the NBA.”
During his half-hour conversation with Kawakami, Lacob addressed a few other topics of interest. Here are a few of the highlights from the discussion, which is worth checking out in full for Warriors fans:
On the Warriors’ draft plans:
“We’ve never spent more time as a group on the draft as we have this year. Obviously we have a lot more time to do it, we all do. I have watched videos of probably all the top players at this point. I’ve watched interviews, I’ve watched high school highlights, AAU highlights, like everybody else. … I think there’s enough information out there and enough work that’s being put in our side that we’ll be able to make a good decision and try to help our team.
“We’re going to look at all scenarios. … We’re going to look at drafting someone at our position, we’re going to look at maybe we trade down. I’m not saying that’s preferred or not preferred, I’m just saying it’s something we have to look at. We’re going to look at all options and we’re going to figure out a way to have our team be the best possible team that it could be for this year, but still with an eye toward building for the future.”
On signing D’Angelo Russell to a four-year contract and trading him seven months later:
“We thought (acquiring Russell in a sign-and-trade) was a great opportunity to be able to get a player in the wake of losing a Kevin Durant. To get anything of that quality was just an advantage, whether it worked out or not. We did not do it just for that reason, but we did it because we thought he could potentially be a part of what we were building for the future.
“That wasn’t without risk. We all understood that he was another guard, so we had to wait and see how it all worked out. I think as time went on we obviously began to take a little bit different look at the whole thing in terms of the fit, and even though he’s a good guy and really performed quite well for us, I think we all made the decision that perhaps there was a better fit out there than that. … Maybe it could have worked out, but we made the decision – right or wrong, we’ll find out – that (Andrew) Wiggins would be the better fit for us. And we think it’s a great fit, actually.”
On finding the silver lining in Durant’s decision to leave Golden State:
“He wouldn’t have played this last year, he was injured. We would have had a huge payroll as a team. So I think maybe this is the best thing. We’re able to start a rebuild a little bit earlier than we otherwise might have, and maybe it’ll prove to be the right thing in the long run that that occurred. I’m an optimist, I always look at things for what’s the positive in the situation. Yes, he left, that’s negative, but the positive is we got a chance to move forward quicker and to move into the next phase of what we’re doing.”
On NBA teams reducing certain employees’ salaries and/or furloughing staffers:
“There are no plans like that with us. … I think at this point in time, knowing what we know… our view is that we need and value all of our employees. We spent a lot of time hiring these people and training them and building up this organization to be a really good one, and I don’t want to tear it down unless for some reason we really had to, if there was economic calamity.”
Arizona’s Josh Green Entering 2020 NBA Draft
Arizona freshman swingman Josh Green is entering his name into the 2020 NBA draft pool, he confirmed today to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony.
Green is the third Wildcats underclassman to declare for the draft, joining teammates Nico Mannion and Zeke Nnaji. All three project to be possible first-round picks. Coming in at No. 21 overall on ESPN’s big board, Green slots in between Mannion (No. 14) and Nnaji (No. 34).
In 30 games (30.9 MPG) as a freshman, Green averaged 12.0 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 2.6 APG, and 1.5 SPG with a .424/.361/.780 shooting line.
In his scouting report, Mike Schmitz of ESPN notes that Green doesn’t have an elite skill on the offensive end, but is a versatile defender and improved shooter who has an ideal physical profile for an NBA wing.
Green is the second potential first-round pick to declare today for the draft, joining Duke’s Vernon Carey Jr. Carey’s father confirmed that his son has officially declared for the draft and will sign with agent Jeff Wechsler for representation, tweets Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports.
NBA Teams Want To Delay Draft Until At Least August 1
A number of NBA teams are united in their hopes of convincing the league to delay its June 25 draft until at least August 1, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski and Jonathan Givony of ESPN.
As Wojnarowski and Givony explain, top team executives around the NBA want to postpone the draft since it would increase the possibility of salvaging certain aspects of the pre-draft process, including in-person workouts, interviews, and medical evaluations. The coronavirus pandemic makes those in-person meetings impossible for the time being.
The NBA recently sent out guidelines to its teams for the pre-draft process, prohibiting clubs from watching live video workouts or from conducting more than four total hours of virtual meetings – including up to two in a single week – with a single prospect.
Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports notes (via Twitter) that teams also aren’t permitted to request or watch any videos of player workouts that took place after April 6. Essentially, teams are limited to studying film of games and practices that occurred before the NBA and NCAA shut down play last month.
While delaying the draft is certainly an idea the NBA has discussed, commissioner Adam Silver has said the league won’t make any major decisions on its calendar until at least May 1, and the NBA is sticking to that timeline for now, as Woj and Givony report.
Wojnarowski and Givony also point out that a tentative draft-date change from June 25 to August 1 could give the NBA additional flexibility as it gets more clarity in the coming months. If the remainder of the 2019/20 season is canceled, the draft could continue as planned on August 1. If the league is able to resume play, the event could be pushed back further, perhaps even to September.
Essentially, teams don’t want a situation where the draft takes place before the 2019/20 season is officially over, since it would prevent clubs from making any trades that involve players. Team officials around the league believe the draft and free agency should “stay connected,” taking place after the season formally ends, per ESPN’s report.
As for the impact that a postponed draft might have on the NCAA, Jeremy Woo of SI.com writes that college programs are already facing a series of new challenges during this year’s recruiting period due to the coronavirus pandemic. Pushing back the draft would only exacerbate the roster-building process for college coaches.
Givony acknowledges in a pair of tweets that a draft delay would complicate things for college coaches — especially those whose underclassmen are testing the draft waters. However, Givony adds that he has spoken to several prospects who like the idea of a postponement, particularly if it increases the chances of restoring part of the pre-draft process and ensuring there’s some form of Summer League.
NBA, NBPA Extend Transaction Moratorium Indefinitely
The NBA’s freeze on transactions, which has now been active for nearly a month due to the coronavirus pandemic, will continue for the foreseeable future, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic, who reports (via Twitter) that the league and the players’ union have agreed to extend the moratorium indefinitely.
The moratorium prevents NBA teams from making any sort of roster move, including signings, trades, and the exercising of player or team options.
The league’s regular season had originally been scheduled to end on April 15, which also would have been the last day for teams to sign free agents to their 2019/20 rosters or promote two-way players. For example, April 15 would have been the last day for the Thunder to sign two-way player Luguentz Dort to a standard contract to make him playoff-eligible.
If the NBA is able to resume its ’19/20 season, there will almost certainly be a window when those transactions will be permitted again so that teams can prepare their rosters for an abridged postseason. It’s not clear how the league would handle that lost window if the season is canceled.
The NBA and the NBPA also figure to negotiate a new timeline for the player and team option decision deadlines and salary guarantee dates that will be delayed by the current moratorium and the indefinite suspension of the season. Depending on how the coming months play out, more significant dates like the draft and the start of the free agent period could also be pushed back.
Rift Still Exists Between Jazz Stars Mitchell, Gobert
In the wake of his positive test for COVID-19 last month, Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell was said to be frustrated with teammate Rudy Gobert. The All-Star center, who had tested positive for the coronavirus a day earlier, had reportedly shown a cavalier attitude toward teammates and their belongings in the locker room before finding out he was affected by COVID-19.
While both of Utah’s stars have now been cleared of the coronavirus for approximately two weeks, sources tell Shams Charania, Sam Amick, and Tony Jones of The Athletic that the Mitchell/Gobert relationship remains tense.
According to The Athletic’s report, the Jazz have begun to work on repairing that relationship, but Mitchell has been reluctant to mend fences, with one source with knowledge of the situation going so far as to say that the relationship “doesn’t appear salvageable.”
The Jazz remain hopeful that things will improve over time, a stance that teammate Joe Ingles also took when he recently spoke to The Athletic.
“I’m confident our team is going to be totally fine,” Ingles said. “I heard Donovan’s response (on Good Morning America), or whatever it was, to that question, and a part of that is on Donovan and Rudy to sort out if he’s frustrated with him or whatever. But I have no doubt when we go back to training, or when our season starts again, our team is going to be what we have been and what we are. … I’m confident our team will be completely fine. The chemistry will be fine.”
According to Charania, Amick, and Jones, the Jazz have attempted to impart to Mitchell that there’s no way of knowing whether he contracted the virus from Gobert or vice versa — or whether the two players got it from separate sources.
However, The Athletic’s report notes that Utah management and the club’s coaching staff were ahead of the curve in educating Jazz players about the virus, discussing it for the first time in a team meeting on February 25, several days before the NBA sent out its first league-wide memo about the subject. As such, it makes sense that Mitchell would be frustrated by Gobert continuing to downplay the issue on March 9, the day the big man jokingly touched several reporters’ microphones during a media session.
As The Athletic’s reporters point out, with no end to the NBA’s hiatus in sight, there should still be plenty of time for Mitchell and Gobert to sort things out before they take the court together.
Bulls’ Jim Boylen Confident He’ll Be Retained?
4:00pm: Despite his concern about his job security, Boylen remains confident that he’ll get to start next season as the Bulls’ head coach, a source close to the situation tells Cowley.
9:42am: As the Bulls prepare to officially hire Arturas Karnisovas and revamp their front office, head coach Jim Boylen is concerned that he won’t be given the opportunity to return to the team in 2020/21, a source told Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times on Thursday morning.
According to Cowley, Boylen is hoping he’ll get the chance to “sit down with his new bosses” and discuss the season-and-a-half he has spent as Chicago’s head coach.
Longtime Bulls executive VP of basketball operations John Paxson, COO Michael Reinsdorf, and team owner Jerry Reinsdorf have remained supporters of Boylen throughout his tenure with the team, despite the fact that the on-court results were lacking. Boylen has led the Bulls to a 39-84 record (.317) since taking over for Fred Hoiberg early in the 2018/19 season.
With Paxson expected to shift into a background role, Cowley suggests that the Reinsdorfs “won’t be throwing a life preserver” to Boylen if Karnisovas decides he wants to make a change.
Although the Bulls moved forward with their front office search during the NBA’s coronavirus-related hiatus, it’s not clear if the same level of urgency will be applied to a head coaching search, especially with the possible resumption of the 2019/20 season still up in the air.
Teams like the Nets and Knicks, who were expected to be in the market for a permanent head coach this spring, aren’t actively conducting their searches right now and may wait until the actual offseason to do so — if Chicago follows suit, that would give Karnisovas plenty of time to evaluate Boylen before making any final decisions.
NBA Players To Receive Full April 15 Pay Checks
NBA teams will send full pay checks to players on the league’s next payment date, April 15, according to reports from Shams Charania of The Athletic and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter links).
The league had previously proposed to the National Basketball Players Association that players accept a 50% pay check reduction beginning on April 15 due to the suspension of the season, with the NBPA counter-proposing that players take a 25% reduction beginning in mid-May. Today’s news doesn’t mean the union’s proposal won out, but – as Wojnarowski tweets – it does suggest that May 1 will be the next payment date to watch as negotiations between the two sides continue.
The NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement calls for approximately a 50/50 revenue split between the teams and players. For now, team owners are bearing the brunt of the NBA’s lost revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic, but that dynamic will have to shift at some point.
As cap guru Albert Nahmad and others have explained, in the event that regular-season and/or playoff games are canceled, the “force majeure” clause in the CBA would allow the NBA to recoup a portion of players’ salaries — approximately 1% per canceled game. However, as long as the remainder of the 2019/20 season is considered to be “postponed” rather than canceled, the league has little leverage to withhold players’ pay for the time being.
If they continue to receive their pay checks in full, players will likely put themselves in a position where they have to return some of that money to the NBA down the road – if and when games are canceled – to balance the revenue split. That’s especially true for players who only receive their annual salaries in 12 installments through May 1 instead of 24 installments through November 1, since those players have nearly been paid in full already for 2019/20.
Not all players will necessarily have to return money to the NBA in the coming weeks or months, even if games are canceled. Jabari Young of CNBC, who wrote earlier in the week about this issue, suggested that for players whose deals run beyond the current season, team owners may instead recoup a portion of their salaries over the length of those contracts.