Nicolas Batum Likely To Retire After Next Season
Nicolas Batum anticipates that next season will the final one of his lengthy NBA career, Eurohoops.net relays.
Batum believes he’ll hang it up after finishing out his contract with the Clippers. Batum holds a $4.9MM option on his 2025/26 contract, which he must exercise by June 29.
“There’s a very, very good chance that the next season will be my last,” Batum said in an interview with BeinSports.
Batum remains a productive rotation player, appearing in 78 games this season, including eight starts. Batum posted averages of 4.0 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 17.5 minutes per game but he only attempted 3.1 shots per game, mostly beyond the three-point arc. He drained 43.3% of his long-range shots.
Batum, 36, has played in the NBA since the 2008/09 season, beginning his career with Portland. He also played five seasons in Charlotte and spent the majority of the 2023/24 campaign with Philadelphia. Otherwise, he has been with the Clippers since 2o2o. He returned to the organization on a two-year deal in July.
President of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said during his postseason press conference that he hopes Batum opts in for next season. “Yes, 1,000 percent, we hope that Nico comes back,” he said.
2025 NBA Offseason Preview: Charlotte Hornets
2024 was a year of change for the Hornets, who traded away veterans like Terry Rozier, P.J. Washington, and Gordon Hayward, hired a new head of basketball operations (Jeff Peterson), and brought aboard respected assistant Charles Lee to replace head coach Steve Clifford.
In the wake of those changes, there was plenty of chatter ahead of the 2024/25 season about how good the vibes in Charlotte were, leading to some speculation that the Hornets could be a dark-horse playoff (or at least play-in) contender in an Eastern Conference that didn't look all that competitive outside of its top few teams.
That may have been an overly optimistic outlook, but it's hard to say for sure, since we never really got a look at a fully healthy version of the Hornets in '24/25. Injuries decimated Charlotte's rotation over the course of the season, with starters like LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, and Mark Williams each missing weeks or months at a time and Grant Williams suffering a season-ending ACL tear in November.
After a passable 6-9 start, the Hornets went into a tailspin, losing 18 of their next 19 games to slip to 7-27. As discouraging as that stretch was, it made the team's approach to the rest of the season fairly straightforward -- Charlotte was once again in seller mode, sending out Nick Richards, Cody Martin, Vasilije Micic, and Mark Williams in three separate trades in January and February.
The Williams deal was ultimately voided by the Lakers due to concerns about his physical, but the fact that the Hornets were prepared to trade a 23-year-old big man for far-off draft assets (a 2030 pick swap and a 2031 first-rounder) was eye-opening. Maybe the Hornets have their own concerns about Williams; maybe they really like rookie forward Dalton Knecht, who would've ended up in Charlotte if that deal hadn't fallen through; maybe they just thought the offer was too good in terms of overall value to pass up.
Generally speaking though, the move suggested that Peterson is in no hurry to transition out of a rebuild and into win-now mode. It'll be interesting to see if that thinking carries over to the offseason or whether the Hornets begin acting with a little more urgency to end a nine-year playoff drought, the NBA's longest active streak.
Cavaliers’ Koby Altman On Roster: ‘I Love Our Foundation’
The Cavaliers had the second-best regular season in franchise history in 2024/25, winning 64 games en route to the No. 1 seed in the East. But injuries — including a toe sprain to Darius Garland — limited the team to some extent in the postseason, and Cleveland lost its second-round series against Indiana in five games.
At his end-of-season media session on Monday, president of basketball operations Koby Altman said that while the Cavaliers were frustrated by their playoff showing, there’s still an “internal belief” that the current roster — particularly the “core four” of Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen — has an opportunity to contend for championships going forward, per Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com.
“Obviously, we feel it. It’s raw for us. We’re disappointed how it ended. But it was a remarkable year on so many fronts and you guys were all invested in this. We’re not going to go anywhere. We’re going to keep fighting for that championship and this window is wide open, we believe.”
Here are a few more highlights from Altman’s presser, courtesy of Fedor.
On his confidence in the roster:
“I love our foundation. I love our core. Our starting lineup, the average age is 26.8. We have two All-Stars that are 25 (Garland) and 23 (Mobley), respectively, and they’re going through it, they’re going through these experiences, they’re going through these battles and we’re sustainable in a lot of ways, not just because guys are under contract, but our youth.
“Our belief in this group in a lot of ways, there’s a newness to this group as well in terms of our new head coach that’s been with us for one year. Us figuring out our offensive identity happened this year and so I’m really high on and optimistic about our future. That being said, it can’t just be 82 games. We have to figure out this next 16, we have to figure out how to get over the hump. But this group has shown they can play some of the best basketball in the world. It’s how do we do it on the highest stage and continue to keep pushing to get over that hump?”
On not overreacting to the playoff loss:
“If we were going to be reactionary, it would have been last year after everything that was written about that group, and all the rumors and all this and that and we stood pat and look what happened, right? I think the same thing now as you lean in even more to what we’re building, the culture that we have here, the internal growth, the youth, the sustainability of that.
“I think there’s a championship window that we have here that’s wide open and that’s one that we’re going to try to pursue next year and the year after and the year after and so forth. We’re not done by any stretch. But I would say if there was a time that we were going to crumble it potentially would’ve been last year, certainly not after what we’ve seen from this group this year is something where were we are going to break up a group that’s been together for three years and has accomplished what they’ve accomplished and is ready to take that next step. As disappointing as this ending was.”
On potentially re-signing backup guard Ty Jerome, who finished third in Sixth Man of the Year voting:
“Love to keep him. I mean, listen, we’re hopeful. I would say that I got to be careful ‘cause he’s going to be an unrestricted free agent, and he is ours, so we can talk about Ty in that vein. Part of (head coach Kenny Atkinson‘s) system, which is, again, we’re always going to be rooted in player development, which is great. And so when guys find that confidence in this system, their value gets driven up. Same thing with Sam Merrill. You want to call these guys end-of-bench players before that have become real rotational players and valuable within the ecosystem, not just us.
“I think the good news is those guys are going to be, they’re going to do really well for themselves. And the good news also is that we know because of our program, we’re going to be able to continue to develop our end-of-bench guys to become rotational guys. That’s going to be part of our evolution and also how we navigate some stiff penalty taxes. We have to continue to develop from within. And those two stories are incredible success stories from the development programs and putting them in a position to be successful. And so, yes, we’d love to keep Ty, but we’ll see what the marketplace holds.”
Altman said owner Dan Gilbert has given the front office “no restrictions in terms of going into the tax.” He added that Cleveland was willing to be a taxpayer and will operate over the second apron “if we need to go there” — the Cavs project to be over the second apron in 2025/26.
Altman also discussed how the Cavaliers can improve their individual and collective mental toughness, Gilbert’s “support” and “positivity,” why they’re likely to “run it back,” and defended Allen from the criticism he has faced for his poor showing at the end of the Pacers series.
Jazz Announce Dates For Salt Lake City Summer League
The 10th edition of the Salt Lake City Summer League will take place at the University of Utah’s Jon M. Huntsman Center on July 5, 6 and 8, the Jazz announced today in a press release. The Grizzlies, Thunder and Sixers will also participate in the six-game, round-robin event.
“Salt Lake City Summer League has become an annual summer staple in our community since its launch 10 years ago,” said Jonathan Rinehart, president of the Salt Lake City Stars and Salt Lake City Summer League. “While Delta Center undergoes renovations, we’re committed to preserving the tradition of the event and look forward to giving fans a first look at the highly anticipated 2025 draft class.”
The 2025 draft will occur over two days, June 25 and 26. Salt Lake City Summer League could feature several first- and second-round picks, with Philadelphia (Nos. 3 and 35) and Utah (Nos. 5, 21, 43 and 53) currently controlling the earliest selections. Oklahoma City owns Nos. 15, 24 and 44, while Memphis has Nos. 48 and 56.
SLC summer league is a prelude to the primary Las Vegas Summer League, which features all 30 teams and will take place from July 10-20.
And-Ones: Jokic, Malone, Spending Power, Jordan, Uniforms
After Sunday’s lopsided Game 7 loss to Oklahoma City, Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic was asked whether or not he intends to suit up for Serbia at the EuroBasket tournament this summer, as Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops relays. Jokic helped the Serbian national team win a bronze medal at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
“I think the Olympics made me even better. Playing for your country, with other rules, with different players,” he said. “I need to decide. … I need to talk with the coaches and some of the main players. And we will see. But for now, for the next couple of days, there will be a lot of beer probably.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Michael Malone, the former head coach of the Nuggets who was fired with three games left in the regular season, is joining ESPN for its coverage of the Western Conference Finals, according to The Associated Press. The series tips off on Tuesday, with top-seeded Oklahoma City hosting Minnesota. Malone will be featured on both the pregame and halftime shows.
- Which NBA teams will have the most spending power this offseason? Which will have the least? Danny Leroux of The Athletic breaks each team into categories, with the Nets having by far the most projected cap space at $58MM. The Spurs are among the group who project to have access to the full (aka non-taxpayer) mid-level exception, the Pacers could have the taxpayer MLE, and the Cavaliers are expected to be over the second tax apron. Leroux also gives a brief rundown of the types of moves each club could consider with respect to their financial situation.
- A uniform worn by Bulls legend Michael Jordan during the 1992/93 season was recently sold at auction for $2.6MM, per Dan Hajducky of ESPN.com. Jordan, who wore the red uniform during road games, led the league in scoring for the seventh straight time and led Chicago to its third consecutive title in ’92/93. The former Hornets owner is joining NBC Sports as a special contributor when the NBA returns to the network this fall.
- The NBA has informed teams that city edition uniforms will not be worn during the conference finals or finals, a league source tell Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star (Twitter link). The city edition uniforms were evidently only permitted for the first two rounds of the playoffs. Indiana faces New York in the Eastern final.
Poll: Who Will Win Western Conference Finals?
By blowing out Denver on Sunday in the lone Game 7 of the NBA postseason’s second round, Oklahoma City set up a showdown of Northwest rivals in the 2025 Western Conference Finals.
The Timberwolves went just 49-33 during the regular season, which was the 10th-best record in the league and was barely enough to earn a guaranteed playoff spot in the West — Minnesota moved into the conference’s No. 6 seed on the last day of the season. But the Wolves have looked more dangerous in the postseason than their regular season record would suggest, winning 10 of 12 games against star-studded Lakers and Warriors teams in the first two rounds.
Skeptics will argue that the Lakers were still adjusting to a midseason revamping of their roster and that the Warriors would’ve been a far more formidable opponent if Stephen Curry hadn’t strained his hamstring in Game 1 of the second round. Still, the Wolves beat the teams in front of them and looked good doing it — their 114.6 postseason offensive rating ranks fifth among 16 playoff teams, while their 106.8 defensive rating is second-best.
Anthony Edwards has proven to be an effective postseason closer, averaging 26.5 points per game in the first two rounds, while Julius Randle (23.9 PPG, 5.9 APG) has played some of his best basketball of the season in the playoffs.
Rudy Gobert wasn’t part of the Defensive Player of the Year conversation this year, but he has shown against L.A. and Golden State that he still deserves to be considered one of the league’s best rim protectors and defensive anchors. And the Wolves are getting necessary contributions from the rest of their eight-man rotation too, including Jaden McDaniels, Naz Reid, Donte DiVincenzo, Mike Conley, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker.
Still, Minnesota will enter the Western Finals as a significant underdog against the 68-14 Thunder. Despite the fact that it took Oklahoma City seven games to finish off Denver in round two, oddsmakers and bettors love the club’s chances of advancing to the NBA Finals — BetOnline.ag currently OKC listed as a -355 favorite.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads the way for Oklahoma City and has found his rhythm this spring following an up-and-down start to the postseason. After making just 18-of-68 shots from the field (26.5%) in his first three games against Memphis, Gilgeous-Alexander has put up 30.8 points per contest on 53.1% shooting in his last eight outings.
Jalen Williams (19.6 PPG on .440/.254/.750 shooting) hasn’t been as effective in the playoffs as he was in the regular season, but the Thunder’s depth has more than made up for it. Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, Luguentz Dort, Aaron Wiggins, Cason Wallace, and Isaiah Joe have all appeared in each of OKC’s 11 playoff contests and are averaging between 5.3 and 15.7 points per game.
The defense that ranked No. 1 in the NBA during the regular season hasn’t let up in the postseason either. The Thunder had the best first-round defensive rating (97.6) out of 16 teams and ranked first among eight clubs in the second round with a 103.9 mark. And even though it took seven games to get past Denver, Oklahoma City had the best second-round net rating (+9.9) of any team, outscoring the Nuggets by 64 points in the series.
Even though the Thunder finished 19 games ahead of the Timberwolves in the regular season standings and will have home-court advantage, this series could be a very competitive one. The two teams split their four regular season matchups this season, with one of those games going into overtime and two more decided by single digits. And the Timberwolves probably hold the slight edge in postseason experience, having been in the Western Finals last spring too.
We want to know what you think. Who will win this series and represent the Western Conference in the 2025 NBA Finals? Are you counting on the Thunder to come through or do you think the Wolves will pull off the upset? How many games do you figure it’ll take?
Vote in our poll and head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!
Who will win the Western Conference Finals?
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Oklahoma City Thunder 57% (739)
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Minnesota Timberwolves 43% (562)
Total votes: 1,301
Draft Notes: Raynaud, Coward, Combine, Chinyelu, Demary
In the wake of the NBA’s 2025 draft combine, ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo have updated their mock draft, taking into account which prospects saw their stock rise – or decline – as a result of their performances in Chicago.
While there weren’t any major changes at the top of ESPN’s latest mock, there were some movers further down the draft order. Stanford big man Maxime Raynaud, for instance, was considered one of the big winners of the combine due to his strong play during scrimmages. After coming in at No. 34 in ESPN’s mock draft last Monday, Raynaud has jumped to No. 24 in the newest version.
Forward Cedric Coward was another prospect who moved up from the second round (No. 35) in ESPN’s previous mock draft to the first round (No. 30) in today’s update. Although Coward has committed to transferring from Washington State to Duke, signs are pointing to him keeping his name in the draft and going pro, according to Woo.
Coward, whose 2024/25 season was cut short due to a shoulder injury, has limited reps against high-level competition despite spending four seasons in college, which is a concern for some NBA teams who are “hesitant about his surprising rise,” Woo adds.
Here are a few more draft-related notes:
- A panel of ESPN draft experts and analysts share their takeaways from last week’s combine, while Cyro Asseo de Choch of HoopsHype identifies his winners and losers from the event. His list of winners includes prospects like UNC’s Drake Powell, UConn’s Liam McNeeley, and Rasheer Fleming of St. Joseph’s, while Maryland’s Derik Queen, Michigan State’s Jase Richardson, and Michigan’s Vladislav Goldin are among his losers.
- John Hollinger of The Athletic has also shared his impressions from the combine, including the best and worst performers in scrimmages, as well as the player measurements that stood out for better (like Thomas Sorber‘s 7’6″ wingspan) or worse (Richardson’s height coming in below 6’1″).
- After declaring for the 2025 NBA draft as an early entrant, Florida center Rueben Chinyelu has decided to pull out and return to school for his junior season, per Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports (Twitter link). Chinyelu was a full-time starter for the national champions in 2024/25, averaging 6.0 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 0.9 blocks in 19.0 minutes per game across 40 outings.
- According to Rothstein (Twitter link), sophomore guard Silas Demary Jr. is also withdrawing from the draft after testing the waters as an early entrant. Demary, who is transferring to UConn for his junior year, spent his first two college seasons with Georgia, averaging 13.5 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and 1.7 steals per game in 33 starts for the team last season. He made just 39.6% of his shots from the floor, but had a solid 37.4% mark on three-pointers.
Nuggets Notes: Depth, Porter, Tenzer, Gordon, Westbrook
Through two rounds of the NBA playoffs, Nuggets starters Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic, Christian Braun, and Aaron Gordon ranked one through four in the NBA in total minutes played. To some extent, that was a byproduct of Denver being the only team to play two seven-game series, but those four Nuggets all averaged between 37.3 and 41.3 minutes per game during the postseason, reflecting the team’s lack of reliable depth.
“We definitely need to figure out a way to get more depth,” Jokic said the Nuggets’ Game 7 loss on Sunday, per Tony Jones and Sam Amick of The Athletic. “It seems like the teams that have longer rotations, the longer benches, are the ones winning. You look at Indiana and OKC and Minnesota, and they have been great examples of that.”
Adding depth won’t be the easy for the Nuggets, who are hamstrung to some extent by maximum-salary contracts for Jokic, Murray, and Michael Porter Jr. Denver projects to operate in tax apron territory next season, lacks appealing trade chips, and is the only team that doesn’t have a pick in this year’s draft.
As Jones and Amick observe, it would be logical for the Nuggets to explore trading Porter, who is the most expendable of the team’s highest-paid players. Troy Renck of The Denver Post comes to the same conclusion, lauding Porter for gutting it out through a shoulder injury in the postseason but arguing that his inconsistency has become a liability for the club.
An April report indicated that Nuggets ownership has a particular fondness for Porter because he played his college ball at Missouri, the same school Stan Kroenke and Josh Kroenke attended. However, the prospect of trading Porter at this year’s deadline was “very much in play,” according to Jones and Amick, who note that the Nuggets gave real consideration to including him in a package for Zach LaVine earlier in the season.
We have more on the Nuggets:
- It remains unclear who will be making the roster decisions in Denver this offseason, since the team fired general manager Calvin Booth near the end of the regular season. League sources tell Jones and Amick of The Athletic that the Nuggets haven’t moved forward with a search for a new general manager yet and there’s an expectation that interim GM Ben Tenzer has a chance to earn the position on a permanent basis, as Marc Stein and Jake Fischer previously reported.
- After playing through a hamstring strain in Game 7, Gordon told reporters, including Bennett Durando of The Denver Post, that he “knew the risks” of taking the court and acknowledged that he “couldn’t sprint,” but said he was determined to give the team all he had. “There was never a doubt in my mind that I was going to play,” he said. “The only thing that made me doubt playing was the MRI. The MRI told me something worse than what I was feeling.” Interim head coach David Adelman referred to Gordon’s effort as “one of the more incredible things I’ve ever seen,” tweets Vinny Benedetto of The Denver Gazette.
- Nuggets point guard Russell Westbrook was noncommittal when asked what he plans to do with his 2025/26 player option, as Benedetto relays in another tweet. Even if he wants to remain in Denver, it probably makes sense for Westbrook to turn down that $3.47MM option, since a new minimum deal would pay him $3.63MM.
- ESPN’s Bobby Marks has published his Nuggets offseason preview in the form of an ESPN.com article as well as a YouTube video. There are some key extension candidates to watch in Denver this summer, according to Marks, who identifies Jokic (veteran extension) and Braun (rookie scale extension) as two players who will be eligible to sign new deals.
- In case you missed it, Adelman is reportedly considered a strong candidate to have his interim tag removed and become the Nuggets’ full-time head coach.
Kings Hire Bobby Jackson As Assistant Coach
The Kings have added Bobby Jackson to Doug Christie‘s staff as an assistant coach, agent Andy Miller tells Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
Sean Cunningham of NBC Sacramento first reported earlier in May that Jackson was expected to return to the Kings as an assistant, with Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee following up to say that it wasn’t a done deal yet. Anderson, who now confirms that Jackson is joining Christie’s staff, reports that the two sides didn’t actually have any formal discussions until this past week.
An NBA guard from 1997-2009, Jackson had two separate stints in Sacramento as a player and was teammates with Christie from 2000-05. The Kings won five playoff series during that stretch, advancing to the Western Conference Finals in 2002.
Following his retirement as a player, Jackson transitioned to scouting and coaching and has once again had multiple stints with the Kings. He has held multiple titles in Sacramento, including assistant coach, regional and collegiate scout, and head coach of the Stockton Kings, in addition to spending one season as a player development coach for the Timberwolves.
After coaching Stockton from 2021-23, Jackson spent the past two seasons as an assistant under Nick Nurse in Philadelphia.
The Kings elected not to make another head coaching change at season’s end, instead naming Christie their permanent head coach, but they’re in the process of reshaping his supporting staff. Besides bringing back Jackson, Sacramento also hired Mike Woodson as Christie’s lead assistant.
Adelman Considered Strong Candidate To Remain Nuggets’ Head Coach
In the aftermath of the Nuggets’ blowout loss to the Thunder in Game 7 on Sunday, one of their core players made it clear he wants David Adelman to return as head coach.
“I love DA,” forward Aaron Gordon said, per Tim MacMahon of ESPN. “I hope he’s here next year. I hope he’s our next coach. I hope he gets an entire training camp and a whole offseason to figure out his philosophy. DA’s great. He was excellent for us, and I hope that he’s here next year.”
Adelman was elevated from his assistant coaching job with three games remaining in the season after Michael Malone was fired, along with general manager Calvin Booth, by the team’s ownership. Malone and Booth had a strained relationship due to differences in opinion over the team’s personnel and Malone’s rotation decisions.
Adelman is considered a strong candidate to have the interim tag removed, MacMahon reports. However, team governor Josh Kroenke declined to directly address the head coaching job.
The team’s superstar, Nikola Jokic, indicated that Adelman did an admirable job under trying circumstances.
“You had three games to change something,” Jokic said. “I think he changed energy. I think the guys were woken up a little. Guys had more energy. He made us believe something, and we played good. We played a seven-game series against the best team in the NBA. We had opportunity, we had chances. I think he did a really good job.”
Guard Jamal Murray told the Denver Post’s Bennett Durando that “I think (Adelman) did a great job” noting “the different schemes that we came up with.”
Adelman, who was an assistant with Minnesota and Orlando prior to be hired by Denver in 2017, wouldn’t lobby for the job after team’s 125-93 loss.
“Decision-makers will make that decision,” he said. “Obviously blessed to have this opportunity to take the helm and lead this team. If I’m not back next year, I’ll obviously never forget this. It’s been an incredible experience. To have the buy-in from the guys was really special for me.”