Lakers To Unveil Pat Riley Statue On Feb. 22
The Lakers will honor legendary former coach Pat Riley with a statue that will be unveiled on February 22 against longtime rival Boston, according to a report from The Associated Press.
Riley spent five-plus seasons with the Lakers during his nine-year playing career, winning a championship as a role player during the 1971/72 campaign, the same season in which Los Angeles set the NBA record for longest winning streak at 33 consecutive games. After his playing days ended, he became a broadcaster for the Lakers and an assistant coach prior to becoming head coach in 1981/82.
Riley’s head coaching stint with the Lakers — which covered nine seasons and ended in ’89/90 — was one of the most successful runs of any coach in league history. During the “Showtime” era under Riley, the Lakers won four championships and made seven total NBA Finals appearances. Los Angeles won at least 50 games every year with Riley at the helm, crossing the 60-win threshold five times.
Overall, Riley compiled a 533-194 regular season record (.733 winning percentage) as the Lakers’ coach and went 102-47 (.685) during the playoffs.
Riley, who added another head coaching ring to his collection with Miami in 2006, has been the Heat‘s president and top basketball executive for the past 30 years. The Heat named their home court after the 80-year-old last October.
Riley will be the eighth Lakers legend to be honored with a statue outside the team’s arena, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Shaquille O’Neal and broadcaster Chick Hearn.
Western Notes: Wolves, Hyland, Dundon, Durant, Suns
Due to their proximity to the second tax apron, the Timberwolves may only carry 14 players on standard contracts to open the 2025/26 season, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic writes. While Minnesota has checked in on several free agent guards, including Cameron Payne, Malcolm Brogdon and Landry Shamet, all signs point to Bones Hyland being the frontrunner for the 14th spot, Krawczynski reports.
Hyland signed a two-way contract with the Wolves last season, appearing in four games. As Krawczynski notes, Hyland was a former first-round pick by president of basketball operations Tim Connelly.
While breaking down the roster, Krawczynski writes that Johnny Juzang — who agreed to a training camp deal with the Wolves — is a long shot to make the cut but that Luka Garza forced his way onto the team with similar odds last year. Young players like Jaylen Clark, Rob Dillingham and Terrence Shannon Jr. are expected to have larger roles this season, Krawczynski adds.
We have more from the Western Conference:
- A group led by the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon reached an agreement on Wednesday to buy the Trail Blazers. That group includes Sheel Tyle, co-CEO of Collective Global who is married to Dr. Sejal Hathi, the head of Oregon Health Authority, Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report writes (Substack subscriber link). The group’s local connection through Tyle is one of a few reasons why it stood out among the bidders, per Highkin.
- After suggesting in a recent podcast that the Rockets might be reluctant to sign Kevin Durant to a maximum-salary extension, Tim MacMahon said on an NBA Today appearance that there isn’t any urgency to complete a multiyear agreement. MacMahon said the Rockets have other matters to attend to, including an extension for Tari Eason. “Kevin Durant is their best player, he’s not necessarily their priority,” MacMahon said. “That’s not an insult to him, their priority is making sure they have as long of a runway as possible while trying to cash in on this window that they created by getting Kevin Durant.“
- Plenty of “ifs” stand in the way of the Suns making the playoffs, Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports writes. While they could be a surprise team if things break the right way, Bourguet has them just on the outside looking in of the Western Conference playoff picture for next season, sitting at No. 11 in his conference power rankings. The Suns basically remade their depth after trading away Durant and waiving Bradley Beal, adding the likes of Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks and Mark Williams via trades.
2025/26 NBA Schedules By Team
The NBA announced its complete 2025/26 regular season schedule on Thursday.
The 80th NBA regular season tips off on October 21 with matchups between the Thunder and Rockets, and Warriors and Lakers. The regular season concludes on April 12.
The play-in tournament will take place on April 14, 15 and 17. Meanwhile, each team has two unassigned games due to the in-season tournament, the Emirates NBA Cup 2025, with those games to be played between Dec. 9-15.
Listed below are the links to every team’s full 2025/26 schedule, organized by conference and division. The full team-by-team schedules can be viewed in a single document here, and here is a link to the full schedule sorted by date.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Atlantic Division
Central Division
Southeast Division
WESTERN CONFERENCE
Northwest Division
Pacific Division
Southwest Division
And-Ones: Free Agents, 2026 Draft, Next Summer, 2024 Re-Draft
While most of the top free agents of the summer class of 2025 have either re-signed or joined new teams, there are still some potential impact role players on the market outside of the well-reported restricted free agent group.
Al Horford, Russell Westbrook and Amir Coffey sit atop Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report‘s list of best-available low-cost free agents. Horford has been heavily linked to the Warriors (as have Pincus’s fifth- and sixth-ranked free agents in Gary Payton II and De’Anthony Melton) and reporting has strongly suggested he’ll ultimately end up there once the Jonathan Kuminga situation is resolved.
Westbrook and the Kings have been frequently connected too, but reporting has suggested Sacramento might not have a spot for the former MVP if Malik Monk and/or Devin Carter aren’t traded, so it’s unclear where Westbrook would end up if the Kings decide they don’t have room in their backcourt.
As for Coffey and Pincus’s No. 4-ranked player Ben Simmons, there have been fewer definitive reports linking them to one team or another. Simmons has been connected to the Kings, Suns, Knicks and Celtics, but there hasn’t been much media traction involving Coffey.
We have more from around the basketball world:
- Ahead of the 2025/26 collegiate season, the 2026 NBA draft class looks top-heavy, with three players in A.J. Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer and Darryn Peterson who are in contention to be selected No. 1 overall, Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report writes. Karim Lopez of the NBL’s New Zealand Breakers is Wasserman’s highest-ranked international prospect in the August update of his top-50 list, while Jayden Quaintance of Kentucky is the highest-ranked returning player (No. 4 overall) after he started 24 games for Arizona State in his age-17 season.
- Looking ahead to next offseason, ESPN’s Bobby Marks details the headlines that should dominate the news cycle, including the futures of LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo. James will be an unrestricted free agent next year, and it’s unclear whether he will finish his career with the Lakers. Meanwhile, Curry, Jokic and Antetokounmpo could all be free agents in 2027 if they don’t sign extensions before then.
- One year removed from the 2024 draft, Sam Vecenie of The Athletic re-drafted his top 20 from last year’s rookies. Zaccharie Risacher had a strong rookie season, but slipped from No. 1 to 2 in Vecenie’s re-draft, with 2024/25 Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle overtaking him for the top slot. Jared McCain (from No. 16 to No. 3) and Jaylen Wells (from No. 39 to No. 9) are the biggest risers in the top 10, while Ajay Mitchell jumped from No. 38 to No. 12.
Hoops Rumors Chat Transcript: 8/14/2025
Hoops Rumors hosted a live chat today at 1:00 pm Central time (2:00 pm Eastern).
Details On Qualifying Offers For Remaining RFAs
When we’ve talked about restricted free agency in recent weeks, we’ve focused primarily on the four 2021 first-round picks who remain unsigned: Josh Giddey, Jonathan Kuminga, Quentin Grimes, and Cam Thomas.
However, there are technically several more restricted free agents on the market. Those players are coming off two-way contracts though, so their free agencies typically play out without much fanfare. Two-way restricted free agents essentially never sign offer sheets or change teams, and many of them just end up accepting their qualifying offers and playing on another two-way deal.
Restricted free agents have until October 1 to decide whether or not to accept their qualifying offers, assuming their teams don’t agree to push back that deadline. Here are the qualifying offers on the table for this year’s RFAs:
- Josh Giddey (Bulls): $11,142,058
- Quentin Grimes (Sixers): $8,741,210
- Jonathan Kuminga (Warriors): $7,976,830
- Cam Thomas (Nets): $5,993,172
- Dru Smith (Heat): $2,378,870 *
- Taran Armstrong (Warriors): Two-way ^
- N’Faly Dante (Rockets): Two-way ^
- Kevin McCullar Jr. (Knicks): Two-way ^
- Oscar Tshiebwe (Jazz): Two-way ^
Note: Qualifying offers marked with an asterisk (*) are partially guaranteed for $102,300; QOs marked with a caret (^) are partially guaranteed for $85,300.
For former first-round picks, qualifying offer amounts are generally based on their draft position, but they can fluctuate depending on whether or not a player met the starter criteria. That’s why Grimes, 2021’s No. 25 overall pick, has a higher qualifying offer than No. 7 pick Kuminga. All four of those players have fully guaranteed qualifying offers and would reach unrestricted free agency in 2026 if they were to accept their QOs.
Smith, meanwhile, is coming off a two-way contract, but is no longer eligible to sign another two-way deal with the Heat because he has spent parts of three separate seasons on two-way contracts with the team. So his qualifying offer is worth his minimum salary, with a small partial guarantee.
While it’s very common for two-way players to accept their qualifying offers, it happens far less frequently with former first-round picks.
As Bobby Marks of ESPN observed earlier this offseason (via Twitter), just five former first-round picks have signed their qualifying offers as restricted free agents since 2017. Here are how those five players fared in unrestricted free agency a year after signing their QOs:
- Alex Len: Accepted $4.19MM qualifying offer in 2017; signed two-year, $8.51MM contract in 2018.
- Nerlens Noel: Accepted $4.19MM qualifying offer in 2017; signed two-year, minimum-salary contract in 2018.
- Rodney Hood: Accepted $3.47MM qualifying offer in 2018; signed two-year, $11.72MM contract in 2019.
- Denzel Valentine: Accepted $4.64MM qualifying offer in 2020; signed two-year, minimum-salary contract in 2021 (partial guarantee in year one, non-guaranteed in year two).
- Miles Bridges: Accepted $7.92MM qualifying offer in 2023 (after sitting out all of 2022/23); signed three-year, $75MM contract in 2024.
Bridges was a unique case, since he faced charges of domestic violence just as he was about to hit restricted free agency for the first time in 2022. If not for his off-court legal issues, he almost certainly wouldn’t have had to settle for his qualifying offer — his eventual three-year, $75MM deal was a more accurate reflection of his on-court value.
As for the other players on this list, Len, Noel, Hood, and Valentine weren’t exactly marquee free agents when they finished up their rookie contracts, so it’s not a huge surprise that they weren’t able to secure the sort of lucrative multiyear deals they hoped for, nor is it a shock that they didn’t end up getting big paydays in unrestricted free agency a year later.
Giddey, Kuminga, Grimes, and Thomas have shown enough in their first four seasons to warrant multiyear investments worth at least the full mid-level exception (or well above that, in at least one or two cases), and players of that caliber generally don’t accept qualifying offers. So I think we’re still headed toward these four guys eventually working out new deals.
But if one or more of them does accept a qualifying offer, it will be a fascinating storyline to track going forward. Recent history shows a handful of underwhelming follow-up deals for former first-rounders who signed their qualifying offers, so an RFA who accepts his QO this season would be looking to buck that trend.
Killian Hayes Focused On Remaining In NBA
Former lottery pick Killian Hayes has drawn interest from teams in Europe this offseason, but is focused on earning another NBA opportunity, according to a report from Gabriel Pantel-Jouve of BeBasket (hat tip to Eurohoops).
ASVEL Basket in France made Hayes a strong offer, per Pantel-Jouve, who says Real Madrid in Spain and Anadolu Efes in Turkey also registered some interest in the free agent point guard. All three clubs compete in the EuroLeague.
However, Hayes is hoping to stick in the NBA after appearing in 216 regular season games across the past five seasons. The seventh overall pick in the 2020 draft, he struggled to adjust to the NBA game in Detroit, where he made just 38.2% of his field goal attempts and 27.7% of his outside shots across four seasons from 2020-24.
Still, Hayes is just 24 years old and played well in a very small sample with Brooklyn last season, averaging 9.0 points, 5.2 assists, and 3.0 rebounds in 27.0 minutes per game and making 38.1% of his three-point tries in six appearances (five starts). The 6’5″ Frenchman spent most of 2024/25 playing for the Long Island Nets in the G League, where he put up 17.3 PPG, 7.4 APG, and 5.4 RPG on .463/.371/.689 shooting in 33 outings (32.9 MPG).
Hayes is no longer eligible for a two-way contract, so if he hopes to make an NBA roster this fall, he’d have to do it by earning a standard 15-man spot.
Heat Sign Ethan Thompson To Exhibit 10 Contract
The Heat have signed free agent guard Ethan Thompson to an Exhibit 10 contract, according to Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel (subscription required).
While Thompson has yet to appear in an NBA regular season game, he has now signed five NBA contracts since going undrafted out of Oregon State in 2021 and spent the last two-plus months of the 2024/25 season on a two-way deal with the Magic.
A G League veteran, the 6’5″ shooting guard has played in between 43 and 49 NBAGL games in each of the past four seasons, spending time with the Windy City Bulls, Mexico City Capitanes, and Osceola Magic. In 47 outings for Orlando’s G League team last season, he averaged 17.8 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 1.1 steals in 33.4 minutes per game, posting a shooting line of .415/.396/.805. He knocked down a career-high 3.3 three-pointers per contest.
An Exhibit 10 contract can be converted to a two-way deal before the regular season begins, and Miami does have an open two-way slot. However, it appears likely that the Heat are signing Thompson with an eye toward having him join their G League affiliate as a returning rights player — the Sioux Falls Skyforce made a trade with Osceola on Wednesday to acquire Thompson’s rights (Twitter link).
If Thompson is waived before the regular season begins and then spends at least 60 days with the Skyforce, he’d earn an Exhibit 10 bonus worth up to $85,300 on top of his standard NBAGL salary.
The Heat now have 17 players officially under contract, including 14 on fully or partially guaranteed standard deals, one on an Exhibit 10, and a pair on two-ways. They also still have a qualifying offer on the table for restricted free agent Dru Smith.
Lakers Notes: LeBron, Hachimura, Thiero, Trade Prospects
LeBron James may have been offering a hint about his future, or he could have been trolling fans, the media and Lakers management. Either way, it seems newsworthy that he and former teammate Anthony Davis both posted the same message to their Instagram accounts on Tuesday (hat tip to Ricky O’Donnell of Yahoo Sports).
It’s a quote from entrepreneur and life coach Jay Shetty that reads, “Becoming the best version of yourself comes with a lot of goodbyes.”
James’ future with the Lakers has been up in the air since he picked up his $52.6MM player option in late June. The online message could mean he’s contemplating saying goodbye to Los Angeles, either at some point this season or when he becomes an unrestricted free agent next summer.
The Mavericks have been mentioned as a possible next team for James, so Davis’ involvement could be significant. Going to Dallas would also reunite James with former Cleveland teammate Kyrie Irving and possibly turn the Mavs into legitimate title contenders again.
There’s more on the Lakers:
- Rui Hachimura is also a year away from free agency and has the chance to earn a long-term deal with L.A. by putting together another strong season, Dan Woike of The Athletic writes in a mailbag column. Even though the Lakers are preserving cap space for the summer of 2027, they may decide Hachimura is worth the investment. He has shot better than 50% from the field and 40% from three-point range in both of his full seasons in L.A., and he showed improvement on defense last season. Woike also views him as a player who’ll benefit from spending a full season with Luka Doncic.
- Second-round pick Adou Thiero, who missed all of Summer League while recovering from a knee injury he suffered in college, has been working out in the Lakers’ facility and is expected to be ready for training camp, Woike states in the same piece. The 21-year-old power forward was selected with the 36th pick in this year’s draft and was part of the seven-team deal that sent Kevin Durant from Phoenix to Houston. Woike notes that Thiero faces a crowded path to get playing time, but adds that he has the defensive skills to give himself a chance.
- With 14 players holding standard contracts, Woike doesn’t expect the Lakers to make any more trades before the start of the season. They have an available first-rounder, a second-rounder and some swaps to offer, but Woike believes it’s more likely they’ll save those assets for a potential deal later on.
Michael Porter Jr. Warns Of Risks Associated With Increased Gambling
Appearing this week on the “One Night With Steiny” podcast (YouTube link), Nets forward Michael Porter Jr. warned that the growth of sports gambling is changing the experience of watching games for NBA fans, relays David Purdum of ESPN.
“The enjoyment of the game isn’t for the game anymore,” Porter told the hosts. “It’s so that people can make money. In reality, way more people are losing money than making money.”
Porter’s younger brother, Jontay Porter, made headlines last year for his participation in a gambling scheme. He was banned from the NBA in April 2024 after admitting in court testimony that he took himself out of two games during the 2023/24 season so associates who took the under on prop bets could cash in. He added that the arrangement was his way of paying off gambling debts.
Michael Porter Jr. alluded to his brother’s case on the podcast, saying he understands how players who “come from nothing” could be tempted by the opportunity to make big money for themselves and their friends by manipulating the gambling process.
“Think about it, if you could get all your homies rich by telling them, ‘Yo, bet $10,000 on my under this one game. I’m going to act like I’ve got an injury, and I’m going sit out. I’m going to come out after three minutes,'” Porter said. “And they all get a little bag because you did it one game. That is so not OK, but some people probably think like that. They come from nothing, and all their homies have nothing.”
Porter also stated that players are constantly the target of anger from bettors because they’re always “messing up” either the over or under on prop bets, which allow gamblers to predict whether they’ll have more or less than a certain number of points, rebounds, assists and other statistics.
“We really do get death threats,” Porter said, bringing up the topic of how the league would react if an irate bettor ever decided to physically attack a player.
Porter also decried the growth of online gambling, saying sports in general would be better off if bets could only be placed in person at Las Vegas casinos.