Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included the Celtics' tanking options, the Bulls' future plans at center, Victor Wembanyama's injury woes, whether the Clippers should trade for immediate help or future picks and more!
The Timberwolves were missing starting forward Jaden McDaniels on Wednesday, and Anthony Edwards‘ shooting slump continued — he made just 6-of-20 shots from the floor, including 1-of-8 three-pointers, and has now shot just 10% (3-of-30) from beyond the arc over his past four games.
Still, as Chris Hine of The Star Tribune writes, the Wolves built a 27-point lead against the lowly Wizards behind big-time production from forwards Julius Randle and Naz Reid, who signed lucrative new multiyear contracts with the team in free agency over the offseason. The duo combined for 60 points and 15 rebounds, though Minnesota’s lead dropped all the way to five points in the fourth quarter before the club put the game away.
“We got lucky, to be honest,” Randle said after the victory. “Really our edge and our activity and our aggressiveness — all that stuff, we kind of just left it in here at halftime. We’ve got to be better and more mature than that.”
Reid agreed with that assessment, responding, “Yes and no” when he was asked if he was happy with the win.
“Not like that,” Reid said. “It’s still an NBA team. Obviously, I don’t want to just roll over them. But we still got to hold ourselves to a higher standard. We know better than to put ourselves in that situation.”
Here’s more on the Wolves:
- Reid, whose five-year, $125MM deal was the most lucrative contract signed by any free agent this year, got off to a slow start, with averages of 10.8 PPG and 5.0 RPG on .421/.321/.647 shooting through his first 11 games. But he’s rounding into form (20.3 PPG, 8.8 RPG, .552/.483/.750 shooting in his past four games) and is showing why the Timberwolves value him so highly, according to Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. “He’s a starter coming off the bench for us. He’s one of the best bigs in the league,” teammate Donte DiVincenzo said. “The way he can space the floor, the way he can handle the ball, it gives us such a unique wrinkle to what we can do. We can play him with so many different guys.”
- McDaniels, who has a sprained left wrist, missed his first game in nearly two years on Wednesday, snapping a streak of 157 consecutive regular season appearances. There’s no “firm read” yet on the severity of that injury, tweets Krawczynski. Head coach Chris Finch told reporters that imaging on the injury came back relatively clean and that the team will be monitoring McDaniels to see how his wrist responds to treatment in the next few days.
- Timberwolves rookie big man Joan Beringer, who just turned 19 last Tuesday, has only seen garbage-time action in the NBA so far, logging 37 total minutes across nine appearances. According to Finch, the plan is to assign Beringer to the G League at some point in the near future so that he can get some run with the Iowa Wolves (Twitter link via Hine).
The Pacers intend to re-sign forward Jeremiah Robinson-Earl to a non-guaranteed contract as his second 10-day deal concludes, according to Shams Charania of ESPN, who reports (via Twitter) that the team will waive point guard Monte Morris in order to create room on its 15-man roster.
The Pacers were able to sign Robinson-Earl to a pair of 10-day deals because they qualified for a hardship exception, which allows a team to temporarily exceed the usual 15-man limit. The NBA awards a hardship exception to a club if it has at least four injured players who have missed three consecutive games and are projected to miss at least two more weeks.
Indiana may still have four players who meet that criteria, with Tyrese Haliburton (Achilles), Obi Toppin (foot), Aaron Nesmith (knee), and Kam Jones (back) all sidelined. However, a team can’t sign the same player to a third hardship contract, so the Pacers have to move Robinson-Earl to the standard roster in order to retain him beyond his current 10-day deal, which will expire on Thursday night.
Robinson-Earl, 25, has appeared in 10 games and made three starts since joining the Pacers, averaging 5.2 points and 6.2 rebounds in 20.3 minutes per contest. The fifth-year veteran is shooting just 36.4% from the floor and Indiana is being outscored by 15.7 points per 100 possessions during his time on the court, but the club likes what it has seen from the former Pelican enough to keep him around for at least a little while longer.
According to Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star (Twitter link), Robinson-Earl will sign a two-year, minimum-salary deal. His salary for this season would become fully guaranteed if he remains under contract beyond January 7, and he’ll have a non-guaranteed team option for 2026/27.
If Indiana still qualifies for a hardship exception, the team could sign a new player to a 10-day contract once Robinson-Earl has officially been moved to the standard roster. While Morris theoretically could be that player, he would have to clear waivers first and didn’t make much of an impact in his first six games with the Pacers, averaging 3.0 points and 1.5 assists in 10.8 minutes per night, with a .350/.250/.500 shooting line.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who has advocated in the past for shorter regular seasons, is beating that drum again this fall with soft tissue injuries on the rise around the NBA, writes Nick Friedell of ESPN. Kerr said he’s “very concerned” about the increase in injuries, pointing to an increased pace of play and a relentless schedule as two factors he believes are contributing to the trend.
“The pace difference is dramatic,” Kerr said after Tuesday’s game vs. Orlando. “This team tonight has really upped their pace compared to last year. I think across the league everybody understands now it’s just easier to score now if you can beat (the other team) down the floor, get out in transition. But when everybody’s doing that, the game’s are much faster paced, and everyone has to cover out to 25 feet because everyone can shoot threes.
“… We have all the data,” Kerr continued. “Players are running faster and further than ever before, so we’re trying to do the best we can to protect them, but basically have a game every other night and it’s not an easy thing to do … (The medical staff) believe that the wear and tear, the speed, the pace, the mileage, it’s all factoring into these injuries.”
Kerr said the NBA has done a commendable job of trying to reduce back-to-backs and instances of four games in five days, but points out that it has resulted in teams rarely getting more than one day off between games, which results in little recovery time and almost no opportunities for practices.
“We literally have not had a single practice on this road trip. Not one,” Kerr said after the fifth game of a six-game trip. “We’ve gone a week, or longer, eight days, not one practice. It’s just game, game, game. So not only is there no recovery time, there’s no practice time. What was different back in the day — you did have four in five nights, which was not great, but then you’d have four days before your next game. So you’d take a day off, and you’d actually have a couple good practices and scrimmage. So there’s no easy answer here.”
Kerr isn’t alone in believing that playing fewer regular season games would benefit the players — Knicks forward Josh Hart agreed with that sentiment on Thursday, as Stefan Bondy of The New York Post relays. However, both Kerr and Hart acknowledged that it would be very difficult to actually implement that change due to the loss of revenue that would occur..
“Do I think there’s too many games? Yeah,” Hart said. “Conversely, will (team owners) and the league and players take a pay cut to not do that? I don’t know. It’s easy to sit there and say that we play too many games — which we do — but conversely, we’re also blessed to be able to benefit greatly from it.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the NBA:
- In a pair of stories for The Athletic, Fred Katz takes a look at some of the NBA’s most improved players so far this season, while John Hollinger zeros in on several of the league’s breakout players. Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Pistons center Jalen Duren show up on both lists, with Hollinger suggesting Duren appears to be on track for max or near-max money when he reaches restricted free agency next summer.
- Previewing the salary cap landscape for the 2026 offseason, Keith Smith of Spotrac projects that six teams will operate with cap room, led by the Wizards with over $80MM in space. We conducted a similar exercise earlier this month, noting that the Wizards, Jazz, Nets, and Bulls are best positioned to go under the cap, while several other teams – like the Lakers and Clippers – are in the “maybe” category depending on what happens with certain free agents and player options.
- A panel of ESPN’s NBA insiders takes an early look at potential trade-deadline needs for eight NBA teams hoping to contend this season, including the Pistons, Lakers, Warriors, Timberwolves, and Knicks. In the view of Bobby Marks, the Pistons are better positioned than any other Eastern Conference playoff team to make an in-season move, given their cap flexibility, movable contracts, and extra draft picks.
Appearing at the Sports Business Journal Dealmakers conference, NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum spoke in more details about plans for the NBA’s European league, according to Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic and Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal.
Confirming previous comments from NBA Europe managing director George Aivazoglou, Tatum said the league expects to have permanent franchises based in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Greece. He also named some specific existing clubs that the NBA views as candidates to join the league, including Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and LDLC ASVEL.
“There’s nothing definitive yet,” Tatum told Vorkunov. “We’re having conversations with lots of potential investors in the ecosystem. Those were examples of potential teams. As I said, I think the mix will be an example of existing teams in the current top-tier league, some soccer teams that don’t have a basketball club and some teams from whole cloth.”
Tatum described the NBA’s vision as “almost like the Champions League of basketball in Europe,” per Friend.
“So brands like Real and Barca and Man City and PSG and AC Milan playing basketball,” Tatum said. “That’s pretty compelling. Not only premium live sports content that’s relevant in Europe, but it’s relevant globally. It’s relevant in Asia, it’s relevant in the United States and North America because some of the brands that we’re talking to have tremendous global followings.”
Tatum believes that many top European teams will have their licenses with the EuroLeague expire after the 2025/26 season, opening the door for those clubs to join the NBA’s league.
“My understanding is that those licenses are up at the end of next year,” he said, per Vorkunov. “As you know, I think, because it’s been reported, several teams have not signed that license (extension). So the ones that have, again, I’m not going to speak to their ability to get out of that license, but I know that there are several teams that have not signed that license. And so, I think as I understand it, when those licenses are up, they’re free to go play in whatever league they want to play in.”
NBA owners still haven’t formally approved plans for the European league, but it sounds like that’s viewed as a formality at this point — Tatum suggested that bidding for NBA Europe teams is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2026, as long as the league can get “everything signed off on by our owners and by FIBA.”
Here’s more from Tatum on the NBA Europe plans:
- While there’s momentum toward launching the league in the fall of 2027, that first season would likely feature fewer teams and would function as a “play-in” year, according to Vorkunov, with the first year of the full league occurring in 2028/29. “If you’re in Lithuania, if you’re in Serbia, if you’re in Croatia, other clubs in those markets, we want every team to have an opportunity to play into that top tier league,” Tatum said of the play-in process, per Friend.
- The NBA is hopeful that the new league will help slow down the trend of top European prospects coming to the U.S. to play college basketball, Tatum said, since it will give them the opportunity to develop their games and make good money closer to home.
- Tatum added that the clear goal for NBA Europe is to be the second-best league in the world. “It will be the best basketball in Europe,” he said, per Friend. “… If the NBA is players one through 450, [NBA] Europe is 451 through 900.”
- The league envisions NBA teams and NBA Europe clubs playing one another in preseason exhibitions, with the opportunity for the top European clubs to get involved in the in-season NBA Cup down the road. “In the immediate short term, you could see a competition, think about it as a preseason cup, where NBA teams go over and play against European league teams,” Tatum said. “And you’d create a little tournament around that, where the Knicks and the Lakers and the Bulls go over and play PSG, Real, and Man City. So that we could do year one, and I think that would be an exciting proposition. You award a cup at the end of that. Medium term – and I mean, you know, five to 10 years down the road – you could see a situation where the winners of the top two finishers in the European league, for example, get entered into the NBA Cup tournament. So now all of a sudden, you are having AC Milan and Barcelona playing in the NBA Cup tournament.”
- In the longer term, the NBA’s European league could open the door for European expansion teams in the NBA itself, Tatum suggested: “You saw the article about the supersonic travel. At some point – and again, I’m talking long term down the road – you could see a scenario where the quality of the basketball continues to rise. Where you now have world-class infrastructure in these major world-class cities, and where supersonic travel becomes a reality, you could see a situation down the road where there’s a division of the NBA.”
Tyler Herro is nearing his return from the ankle surgery that has kept him sidelined since September, and is targeting the Heat‘s matchup against the Mavericks on Monday for his season debut, reports Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press (via Twitter).
Herro returned to practice last Sunday for the first time since the season began. Both he and head coach Erik Spoelstra spoke previously about their confidence that the star shooting guard will be able to fit in smoothly with the team’s new offensive approach, which has dramatically de-emphasized pick-and-rolls in favor of quick drive-and-kick attacks.
Herro is coming off his first All-Star season with the Heat, as he averaged 23.9 points, 5.5 assists, and 5.2 rebounds per game while shooting 37.5% from three in 2024/25. He took on a large portion of the team’s ball-handling responsibility last season, and it will be interesting to see how he can adjust to the team’s new pace, as well as the acquisition of fellow shooting guard Norman Powell from the Clippers this Summer.
Powell, so far this season, has improved on last season’s career-best performance. In 11 games this season heading into Wednesday night, he has averaged 25.5 points while shooting a blistering 46.1% on three-point tries. While those numbers will likely drop as the season goes on, Powell has been an elite shooter throughout his NBA tenure, shooting 40.0% on 2,735 career three-point attempts over 11 seasons.
It’s unclear whether the overlap in Powell and Herro’s skill sets will result in one of them coming off the bench (Herro was the Sixth Man of the Year in the 2021/22 season), or if Davion Mitchell will be the one who ends up being moved to the second unit.
Mitchell has done a good job organizing the Heat’s offense this season, averaging 7.4 assists per game in 14 outings, all starts, while adding 10.8 points per night and playing tenacious on-ball defense, which isn’t a strength for Herro or Powell.
Ahead of the first matchup between the two teams this season, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd spoke about the Knicks‘ public desire to interview him for their head coach vacancy this summer, according to Christian Clark of The Athletic.
Kidd confirmed the summer reporting that Dallas denied the Knicks’ request to interview him, but added that it wouldn’t have mattered either way.
“I was never thinking about leaving Dallas,” Kidd said. “Understanding that we have a lot of work here to be done. I’m all in to be able to do that. I was drafted here. I have won here. I love the city. I love the fans. It never crossed my mind to leave Dallas.”
Reports during the Knicks’ coaching search suggested that there was mutual interest between Kidd and New York, which was the Hall of Fame point guard’s final stop in his playing career. However, that interest ultimately didn’t lead anywhere, as Kidd ended up signing a multi-year extension with the Mavs a month after the Knicks hired Mike Brown.
That’s not to say that Kidd didn’t appreciate the pursuit, though.
“I think it’s safe to say we all enjoy being wanted,” Kidd said. “That was a nice touch.”
This is the fifth season Kidd has spent as the head coach of the Mavs. He holds a record of 183-160 in that time, with a run to the NBA Finals in 2024 standing out as the high point of his tenure in Dallas.
Cavaliers’ head coach Kenny Atkinson had a strong reaction to the news that Cleveland had been fined $100K for violating the league’s player participation policy, Chris Fedor writes for Cleveland.com.
“I think my number one job is to continue to protect the health of our players,” Atkinson said. “So [it’s] kind of that simple. I think that Miami game, we came home at 3:30 in the morning, so you have to anticipate sometimes too, what the schedule looks like. We have those discussions, we make decisions. I’ll rock with that decision.”
The player participation policy was changed prior to the 2023/24 season in an attempt to address what the NBA felt was an issue of star players resting despite being otherwise healthy. Stars under the policy are defined as players who have made an All-Star or All-NBA game within the past three years.
[RELATED: NBA Stars Affected By Player Participation Policy In 2025/26]
The Cavaliers violated the policy last Wednesday by resting both Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley, though Atkinson disagrees with the message the NBA’s fine sends.
“We win that game too,” Atkinson said. “So, to me, you throw that on top of it and it’s like, wait a second, are you discrediting the guys that played that night? Is that a weird way to look at it? We’re in a competitive environment here. So, on top of it, we helped develop guys and we won the game and then we get penalized for it.”
Atkinson said that while he understands the policy, he doesn’t plan to change his approach moving forward.
We have more from around the Central Division:
- The Bucks have struggled to maintain leads with Giannis Antetokounmpo off the floor, a trend that will be put to the test with the news that the star forward will miss at least the next week or two, writes Eric Nehm for The Athletic. Nehm notes that the Bucks this season have outscored opponents by 7.6 points per 100 possessions with Antetokounmpo on the floor, but have been outscored by 12.8 points per 100 possessions when he’s not playing. According to Nehm, the team will have to lean heavily on early-season breakout guard Ryan Rollins, who has led Milwaukee in scoring in games Antetokounmpo has missed. “It doesn’t look good right now,” coach Doc Rivers said. “We got [Kevin Porter Jr.] out and Giannis out. That’s not great for our team, but we’re either going to find somebody or find something to run that will pay dividends later, and that’s the stretch we’re about to go through.”
- The news of Antetokounmpo’s injury is also a blow to the budding chemistry between the Bucks‘ newly formed partnership between the two-time MVP and Myles Turner. Grant Afseth of RG.org writes that the addition of Turner has given the Bucks a chance to bridge the past iterations of the team to its future. That connection started on the court, but extends to how they support each other in terms of the mental side of the game, which was evident when the team visited Indiana for the first time following Turner’s Pacers exit. “To be able to come here in Indiana, all-time leading block leader, to be booed… he might not say it, but it kind of hurt,” Antetokounmpo said. “We are here to pick him up, tell him how much we love him and respect him. We understand how much he gave for the team Indiana and how much he’s willing to give for Milwaukee.”
- As the Pistons have gotten off to one of the hottest starts in the league, head coach J.B. Bickerstaff has been particularly impressed by star Cade Cunningham‘s demeanor and relationships with his teammates, regardless of whether the team is having success or piling up losses like it did earlier in his career, writes The Athletic’s Hunter Patterson. “He could’ve been pissed off. He could’ve been frustrated. He could’ve blamed everybody else, but never once did you hear him do that. The only thing he ever did was put his head down, go to work and accept responsibility,” Bickerstaff said. “I marvel at a guy that age, who is able to handle his teammates the way he does. (He’s) a guy who very easily could separate himself from the group, but he never does. He’s always the one pulling people together. He doesn’t want to be treated any differently. He can eat without taking food off your plate. There’s nothing better than that from your superstar.”
Kevin Porter Jr. is ramping up his right knee meniscus rehabilitation and is on pace to hit the Bucks‘ previously reported timeline of early December, reports The Athletic’s Eric Nehm (Twitter link).
“Yeah, I think right on track,” head coach Doc Rivers said on Wednesday. “He looks good. He ran skeleton today and he looked good.”
Rivers said that Porter’s energy has been much improved since returning to the court, per Nehm (Twitter link). Porter, when informed of Rivers’ assessment, discussed the injury and its impact on him.
“This is my first surgery ever,” Porter said. “So, two weeks (ago), (on) Monday, that was when I woke up and everything like that, couldn’t walk. I was on crutches for the first time, so of course, I’m human, so my energy is going to be a little low. But being back, being able to walk, being able to sleep regular, just live by my daily routines again is definitely uplifting.”
Porter also spoke about the work he’s been doing as part of his ramp-up, as Nehm relays (via Twitter).
“Just stationary shots, moving shots,” he said. “I did a lot of moving today. Today was the best day, I would say, as far as movement and cardio and things like that, but I think now I’m at the place where I’m trying to get my body back active.”
After signing a new two-year, $10.5MM contract with Milwaukee over the summer, Porter has played just one game this season, scoring 10 points in nine minutes. The Bucks have gotten out to an 8-7 start to begin the year.
The Warriors provided an update on guard De’Anthony Melton on Wednesday, announcing in a press release that Melton has intensified his workouts and participated in practices and scrimmages with the Santa Cruz Warriors in the G League (Twitter link). According to the club, Melton will continue to be integrated in practices and scrimmages with the NBA team and will be reevaluated in 10 days.
Melton tore his ACL last November and underwent surgery to repair the tear on December 4, sidelining him for the rest of the 2024/25 season. He has continued to progress through the final stages of his recovery after rejoining Golden State on a minimum-salary deal prior to the season.
According to Anthony Slater of ESPN (Twitter link), December has been the “floating target” for Melton’s season debut, so he could be just a few weeks away from returning to action.
Here are a few more injury updates from around the NBA:
- Magic forward Paolo Banchero, who is dealing with a left groin strain, will remain out for a fourth straight game on Thursday vs. the Clippers, tweets Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel. It’s worth keeping a close eye on how much time Banchero misses, since his maximum-salary rookie scale extension includes Rose Rule language — he could earn a significant raise if he makes an All-NBA team this season, but he’d only be eligible if he appears in at least 65 games.
- Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels has been diagnosed with a sprained left wrist after exiting Monday’s game in the third quarter due to the injury, per The Associated Press. McDaniels will sit out on Wednesday vs. Washington, marking his first injury absence since December 8, 2023. The 25-year-old is off to a hot start, having averaged 17.5 points per contest with a 52.1% mark on three-pointers through 14 games.
- Cavaliers point guard Darius Garland will miss a fifth straight game on Wednesday after re-injuring his surgically repaired left great toe last week, but head coach Kenny Atkinson doesn’t anticipate Garland’s absence lasting much longer. “He is close,” Atkinson said (Twitter link via Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com). “Really close.”