Chimezie Metu Suffers Ruptured Achilles In EuroLeague Game
Former NBA forward Chimezie Metu suffered a rupture of the Achilles tendon in his right leg during a EuroLeague game, Alessandro Maggi of Sportando relays. The FC Barcelona forward, who turned 28 on Saturday, was playing against Bayern Munich.
Metu signed with Barcelona on a one-year contract in July. In 45 games with Barcelona, Metu was averaging 11.7 points and 4.4 rebounds in 20.2 minutes per contest.
A second-round pick out of USC in 2018, Metu has logged 260 NBA games. He started his career with two seasons in San Antonio, then played the next three seasons with Sacramento. He moved on to Phoenix prior to last season on a one-year, minimum-salary deal.
Metu played a total of 51 games, including 12 starts, with the Suns and Pistons last season. Phoenix traded him to Memphis, which waived him.
Metu finished the season on a two-way contract with Detroit but the Pistons declined their minimum-salary team option on him for 2024/25, making him an unrestricted free agent.
He averaged 5.9 points and 3.5 rebounds in 13.7 minutes per game during his NBA career.
Warriors Notes: Butler, Green, Curry, Wiggins
Jimmy Butler initially wanted to go to Phoenix when he requested a trade from the Heat. Butler said he had nothing against the Warriors organization but was more familiar with the Suns’ core players — Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Tyus Jones, his former teammate.
Butler wasn’t worried about getting an extension — he knew he’d get that once the blockbuster deal was finalized. Butler received a two-year, $111MM extension.
“I wasn’t skeptical of coming here,” Butler told Anthony Slater of The Athletic in a wide-ranging interview. “I just didn’t talk to anybody. … I knew I was going to get this contract no matter what. The people keep talking about it being about the money. How can it be about the money when any team that traded for me, what were they going to do? I just want to win. Where can I go to win?”
Butler has been impressed by the Warriors’ player-friendly approach.
“It’s all about whatever you need,” Butler said. “You would think that every organization is like that: Whatever you need to make you happy, to make you healthy and to make you go out there and compete at an extremely high level. You need your days off. You need the chef. You need the driver. You need to work out. You need the rest. You need your family to travel. How can we keep you happy? How can we get you everything you possibly need to be successful and help us get a banner and a trophy?”
We have more on the Warriors:
- Butler and Draymond Green have quickly forged a bond, Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN reports. While they’re two of the more volatile players in the league, Butler says there’s no concerns about them pulling the team apart. “Two winners that would do anything to win,” Butler said. “He could care less about personal success. He’s just trying to win a championship. I just want to win. I don’t give a (bleep) about nothing else. We ain’t going to never butt no (bleeping) heads. … That’s what people keep overlooking. They think like we going to get in fist fights. No we not. Because all we want to do is win.”
- Stephen Curry won’t play tonight in Miami, Slater tweets. Curry worked out on Monday and didn’t quite feel ready to return from his pelvic injury. He suffered a contusion while taking a hard fall against Toronto on Thursday. The Warriors will have two days off prior to Friday’s game in New Orleans.
- While Butler going to back to Miami is the big storyline tonight, Andrew Wiggins will also be facing his former teammates after winning a title with Golden State. His former coach is eager to see him. “We’re all thrilled to see Wiggs,” Steve Kerr said, per Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald. “Wiggs is one of my favorite guys. I wish we still had [to play] Miami in the Bay. So that will have to wait until next year. But Wiggs will get an enormous standing ovation when he returns to the Bay in front of our fans, both for his contributions and just for his humanity, who he is, what kind of person he is. He’s beloved in our locker room and throughout the Bay.”
Community Shootaround: The NBA’s Tanking Problem
Late-season tanking is a perennial issue for the NBA, but it has been particularly bad so far in 2025, with teams who have their eye on the draft lottery employing new strategies in an apparent effort to get around the league’s player participation policies.
As Tom Haberstroh of Yahoo Sports and John Hollinger of The Athletic write, one approach that multiple teams have used this month is to hold key players out of crunch-time situations. Haberstroh refers to it as “quiet quitting.”
For instance, while Raptors forward Scottie Barnes has only missed one game this month, he has played more than 30 minutes in just three of 11 outings after averaging 34.7 MPG in 46 pre-March contests. Barnes and other Raptors starters have been on the bench in the fourth quarter of multiple games.
Because players like Barnes and Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen qualify as “stars” under the NBA’s player participation policy, holding them out of games entirely without a valid reason could prompt a league investigation — Utah has already faced one $100K fine for its usage (or lack thereof) of Markkanen.
However, that policy only explicitly applies to players who have made an All-Star or All-NBA team over the past three seasons. That means that the Nets, for instance, were able to hold a “non-star” like Cameron Johnson out of last Thursday’s game for “rest” even though Johnson was healthy and Brooklyn didn’t play on either Wednesday or Friday, Haberstroh observes.
When the NBA flattened its lottery odds several years ago, the goal was to reduce the incentives for losing games. But those changes haven’t been as effective as hoped in part because the league hasn’t incentivized winning for lottery-bound teams, Hollinger argues.
As Hollinger explains, even if losses didn’t improve a team’s lottery odds and draft position, a club like Toronto or Utah may not be incentivized to compete hard for wins at this point of the season, since there’s little reason to push a franchise player like Barnes or Markkanen, who are on lucrative long-term contracts, too hard in games that essentially don’t matter. “Asking a team to put meaningful players at risk in meaningless games is inherently a contradiction,” Hollinger writes.
So what could be done to address the issue? Tim Bontemps and Kevin Pelton of ESPN spoke to sources around the NBA about that subject and came up with a few possible ideas, some more viable than others.
Flattening the lottery odds even further was one of the ideas mentioned. Another was determining the odds based on how the lottery teams fare against one another during the season. However, both suggestions are complicated by the fact that a borderline playoff team may decide that having a viable shot at the No. 1 pick is a better outcome than eking out a playoff spot and being on the receiving end of a first-round beatdown from a top seed.
There would also likely be resistance to any proposal that significantly reduced the odds of the league’s very worst teams having a shot at top draft picks, since the NBA still wants to encourage competitive balance and avoid miring a club in a rebuild that it can’t find its way out of.
Multiple sources suggested to ESPN that removing mid-lottery pick protections on traded draft picks could be one step in the right direction. For instance, one of the most egregious cases of tanking in recent years saw the 2023 Mavericks rest players at the end of the season in an effort to hang onto their top-10 protected pick, even though they still had a shot at the play-in tournament. Allowing a pick to be top-four protected or top-14 protected, without any options in between, could eliminate that kind of scenario.
Another idea posed by sources who spoke to Bontemps and Pelton would be to count team wins instead of losses after the All-Star break for the sake of determining the draft lottery order.
For example, if a team posted a 19-35 record before the All-Star break, then went 18-10 the rest of the way, its “lottery record” would be 29-53, with its pre-All-Star wins added to its post-All-Star losses. If a second team that was also 19-35 at the break went 10-18 after the All-Star game, its “lottery record” would be 37-45, resulting in less favorable odds than the club that performed better down the stretch.
We want to know what you think. Does the NBA need to take steps to address its tanking problem? If so, what approach makes the most sense?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!
Knicks Notes: Brunson, Dolan, McBride, Kolek, Hart
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson is making “really good progress” in his recovery from a sprained right ankle, head coach Tom Thibodeau said on Monday, according to Ian Begley of SNY.tv.
Brunson is feeling “a lot better” and has been able to do more rehab work every day, per Thibodeau, who referred to his point guard as “day-to-day, basically.” The team announced on Saturday that Brunson was expected to remain sidelined at least one more week.
“(He’s) doing a lot of shooting, working the pool, working the bike. Stuff like that. “So his conditioning is pretty good actually,” Thibodeau said, adding that getting clearance to take part in practice is “probably” the next step in Brunson’s recovery process.
While Begley has heard that Brunson’s rehab is moving faster than initially expected, he stresses that the Knicks have no intention of bringing back the 28-year-old until he’s 100% healthy. Still, according to Begley, there has been no consideration that Brunson will remain out for the rest of the regular season.
Here’s more on the Knicks:
- In an in-depth story for The Athletic, Mike Vorkunov digs into the adversarial relationship that Knicks owner James Dolan has established with the NBA. Dolan’s long list of grievances with the league include the way in which the new media deals devalue teams’ regional sports networks (including Dolan’s MSG Networks) and the NBA’s revenue sharing system. “Dolan hates the idea of giving money on revenue sharing,” one former team owner told Vorkunov. “He’s been totally against it from the beginning.”
- With Miles McBride ruled out for a second straight game on Tuesday vs. Dallas due to a left groin contusion/strain, rookie Tyler Kolek may be in line for a rotation role again after registering eight assists in 18 minutes in Saturday’s win over Washington. Thibodeau believes the first-year guard is up to the task, referring to him as a “gym rat” who’s getting better every day, as Bridget Reilly of The New York Post details. “He’s worked hard all year. The things that he needed to do, he did,” Thibodeau said. “He works, he’s a tireless worker. Performed well in the G League. So when the opportunity came, he was ready. And there’s still obviously a lot of work to be done but he keeps getting better and better and that’s a good sign.”
- Knicks forward Josh Hart is averaging just 9.9 points per game on 40.8% shooting during Brunson’s absence, compared to 14.5 PPG on 54.7% shooting up until that point of the season. He spoke to reporters on Monday on how his role changes with Brunson – and now McBride – not on the floor. Reilly has the story and the quotes for The New York Post.
NBA Still Projecting 10% Cap Increase For 2025/26
The NBA has provided teams with an updated salary cap projection for the 2025/26 season, reports Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link).
According to Marks, the NBA’s latest projection remains exactly in line with its estimate from last summer. The league is still calling for a 10% cap increase for ’25/26, which is the maximum increase permitted in any single season under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.
This season’s salary cap line is $140,588,000, so the projection for next season remains at $154,647,000. That’s the figure we’ve used to project minimum salaries, maximum salaries, and mid-level and bi-annual amounts for 2025/26.
As Marks details, a 10% cap increase would also cause the luxury tax line and the first and second tax aprons to rise by the same amount. They would be as follows:
- Luxury tax: $187.9MM
- First apron: $195.9MM
- Second apron: $207.8MM
The 2024/25 season represents the first year in which all of the new apron-related restrictions have been in place. Navigating those aprons has proven to be a challenge for many teams, in large part because the cap only rose by about 3.4% last offseason, as Marks observes (via Twitter).
A 10% increase in 2025 – and perhaps in the next couple seasons after that, aided by the league’s lucrative new media rights deal – will help push those apron numbers higher, creating a more manageable landscape for teams going forward.
Central Notes: Bulls, Vucevic, Giannis, Rivers, Bickerstaff
After trading DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso during the 2024 offseason and Zach LaVine at last month’s trade deadline, the Bulls – who had a 21-29 record at the time of the LaVine deal and had reacquired full control of their 2025 first-round pick – were considered likely to tank the rest of the season.
Instead, the club has played some of its best basketball of the season in recent weeks. Chicago has posted a .500 record (11-11) since the LaVine trade and has been especially hot as of late, winning eight of its last 10 games. That stretch includes road victories this past week over the Kings, Lakers, and Nuggets, as well as back-to-back Player of the Week awards for guard Coby White.
“I just think we kind of embraced the challenge and took pride in showing that people kind of wrote us off when Zach got traded,” Nikola Vucevic said on Monday, per Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. “I think we’ve really come together as a group. Our chemistry has been really good. When you lose someone, a player like (LaVine), it opens up opportunities for other players, and guys have really stepped up — Josh (Giddey), Coby, Tre (Jones) before he got hurt, Kevin (Huerter). Like, Kevin wasn’t playing much in (Sacramento), and he came here with a chip on his shoulder and showed he can still contribute at a high level, and he has been.”
Vucevic was widely expected to be on the move prior to the February 6 trade deadline and is now considered an offseason trade candidate. However, according to Cowley, the veteran center is buying into the new-look group and wouldn’t be opposed to finishing out the final year of his current contract in Chicago.
“Who knows what happens in the summer, but right now I’m focused on this group of guys,” Vucevic said. “I’ve really enjoyed playing with them. Guys with good character, guys that really want to win, they care. We play for each other, we compete, and that’s what you want.”
Here’s more from around the Central:
- In a wide-ranging interview with Sam Amick of The Athletic, Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo lauded Milwaukee’s role players, reiterated that he cares much more about winning another championship than another MVP award, and downplayed a recent post-game meeting involving him, Damian Lillard, and head coach Doc Rivers.
- Rivers ranks eighth all-time among NBA head coaches in regular season wins and will tie Phil Jackson at 1,155 with the Bucks‘ next victory. Rivers spoke to Marc J. Spears of Andscape about what it would mean to surpass Jackson on that list, as well as a handful of other topics, including what Milwaukee needs to do in order to have postseason success this spring. “No. 1 is health,” Rivers said. “But this team is an interesting team. We have proven on given points that we can beat anybody. They decided they were going to win the (NBA) Cup and no one was going to beat us. But then we go backwards.”
- Speaking to Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press, J.B. Bickerstaff explained why the Pistons‘ head coaching position appealed to him last spring when the team was coming off a 14-68 season and why his decision to accept the job was the right one. “I have 1,000% fallen in love with this group,” Bickerstaff said. “And all my focus goes into them and seeing them elevate and seeing them grow. That’s the thing that I find the most joy in.”
Hoops Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript: 3/25/2025
Hoops Rumors’ Arthur Hill held a live chat today exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Topics included whether the Pistons should go star hunting this summer, the potential of the young rosters in Washington and Portland, the Mavericks' chances of making another playoff run, the Celtics' ability to keep their expensive talent together and more! Use the link below to read the transcript.
Celtics Sale Notes: Chisholm, Financing, Valuation, More
Although William Chisholm has reached a tentative agreement to buy a controlling stake in the Celtics, the NBA’s Board of Governors vote to approve the sale isn’t expected to happen until June, according to Dan Primack of Axios (hat tip to Brian Robb of MassLive.com).
That will give Chisholm some time to recruit additional investors, since his bid for the franchise isn’t fully financed, Primack writes. A report from Kerry A. Dolan of Forbes seems to corroborate this point, noting that Chisholm offered another billionaire an opportunity to buy a stake in the Celtics last Thursday.
Primack suggests that Chisholm’s best route to secure additional financing may be to reach out to the other three groups who were involved in the bidding process. Those groups are headed by Dan Friedkin, Stan Middleman, and current Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca.
However, according to Primack, Friedkin may already be moving on to pursuing an NHL expansion team in Houston. As for Pagliuca, his group’s bid was fully financed, so he may prefer to hold firm as a potential Plan B if Chisholm’s bid falls through rather than joining Chisholm’s group himself.
Primack also notes that Middleman’s offer came in below Chisholm’s but above Pagliuca’s. There has been no indication that offer was fully financed.
Here’s more on the Celtics’ impending sale:
- While the initial valuation of the franchise is said to be $6.1 billion for the controlling stake, the agreement calls for the valuation to rise to about $7.3 billion by the time Chisholm’s group buys out the remaining shares in 2028, according to Primack, who adds that the weighted price would work out to approximately $6.7 billion.
- Wyc Grousbeck‘s desire to remain in place as the Celtics’ CEO and governor until 2028 was dropped as a mandatory requirement at some point during the sale process, but Chisholm “smartly recognized” the value of agreeing to that condition when he made his offer, writes Primack. According to Axios, the terms of Pagliuca’s fully financed bid didn’t include Grousbeck retaining his CEO position.
- Primack suggests that the high price tag for the Celtics may reduce the likelihood of the NBA expanding to cities like Seattle or Las Vegas in the near future. As he explains, with the Celtics sale resetting the market for franchise valuations, other team owners may be able to get an influx of cash by selling small stakes in their teams rather than relying on expansion fees. Adding one or more expansion franchises to the league would result in a substantial one-time payment for existing teams, but would dilute each club’s share of media rights revenue going forward.
Anthony Davis: ‘Never A Thought’ About Shutting Down For Season
It has been a rough few weeks for the Mavericks, who have found themselves beset by injuries, unable to make roster additions due to their hard cap, and rapidly losing ground in the postseason race in the Western Conference. But Monday’s contest in Brooklyn provided at least one reason for optimism in Dallas, as Anthony Davis made his long-awaited return from an adductor strain.
Davis, who had missed 18 straight games since making his Dallas debut on February 8, told reporters after the Mavs’ 19-point win over the Nets that shutting it down for the season and focusing on the 2025/26 campaign was never an option he considered.
“It was tough seeing these guys battling every single night. Winning close games. Losing close games. Blowing teams out. Getting blown out. They are laying it on the line,” Davis said, per ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. “For me, it was never a thought about if I was going to come back and play. Especially if I was healthy. We are undermanned. Guys are hurt. (Daniel) Gafford. (Dereck) Lively. Kyrie (Irving) goes out. It was tough. Guys were leaving it on the floor. Guys laying on the floor in the locker room afterwards just gassed — to the point of exhaustion.
“There was no doubt I was going to come back and play. That makes you want to come out and play with these guys. Leave it on the floor and battle each and every night. As one of the leaders of the team, I just wanted to go out there and give them a breather at least.”
Davis confirmed in his post-game media session that he’s on a minutes restriction for the time being, and it’s not as if the Mavericks’ injury woes are behind them now that they have the 10-time All-Star back in action. The team still had only 10 healthy players available on Monday and one of them – guard Brandon Williams – can only be active for three more games while on his two-way contract.
Still, having Davis make it through 27 minutes in his return without any setbacks was an encouraging sign for a Mavs team that remains firmly in the mix for a play-in spot as one of three teams from Nos. 9-11 in the West separated by a half-game.
“It was a positive experience,” head coach Jason Kidd said. “We tried to keep his run short. We tried to keep him under his minutes, and I thought he did an incredible job. I thought his rhythm was good. Sometimes when you get a player back like AD, you want to dump the ball to him every time. I thought the guys did a good job of being aggressive and letting the ball find him.”
Even if they claim a play-in spot, the Mavericks would almost certainly have to win a pair of play-in games to earn the No. 8 seed, which would line them up to play a dominant Thunder team in the first round of the playoffs. In other words, the odds are against them making a deep postseason run, especially without Irving, whose ACL tear Davis referred to on Monday as “devastating.”
Still, while the championship aspirations the front office had at the time it traded for Davis last month probably are no longer realistic for this season, that didn’t discourage the 32-year-old big man from trying to return to action as soon as he could.
“I stressed that to them,” Davis said. “Once I’m 100 percent, whenever that time was, and we have games left, I’m going to play. We all huddled up and got on the same page. Went through the rehab process and was able to play (Monday). There was never a moment in my mind — unless we ran out of games — that I wasn’t going to play.
“Seeing these guys playing with seven guys. Guys playing 38, 40 minutes. We just don’t have enough bodies. Kessler Edwards is playing the five. Naji (Marshall) is playing the five. Added a little bit more motivation for me. I was already motivated to get back. But it added a little bit more motivation seeing those guys battle each and every night.”
Jayson Tatum Appears To Have Avoided Significant Ankle Injury
The Celtics experienced a major injury scare in the third quarter of Monday’s win over Sacramento when star forward Jayson Tatum came down on Domantas Sabonis‘ foot after attempting a three-point shot, turning his left ankle as he landed (Twitter video link).
Tatum, who appeared to be in a great deal of pain as he grimaced and grabbed his ankle on the floor, exited the game after shooting a pair of free throws and didn’t return. However, as Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe and ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne report, there were indications in the locker room later in the night that the injury wasn’t a serious one.
According to Himmelsbach, Tatum wasn’t in a walking boot or using crutches, and he barely exhibited a limp when he eventually left the arena to board the team bus. The six-time All-Star was laughing and joking with teammates and didn’t receive any additional medical treatment while sitting at his locker for nearly an hour after the game, Himmelsbach adds.
Tatum declined to conduct a post-game media session, but told Shelburne that his ankle was “just sore,” acknowledging that the team is “going to be cautious.” Head coach Joe Mazzulla said the veteran forward “seems to be doing OK,” while teammate Kristaps Porzingis echoed that view, per Himmelsbach.
“I’m glad it’s nothing too bad, hopefully,” Porzingis said. “It’s a tough situation, tough to see him like that. You could tell he was in a lot of pain, but I’m glad he’s OK.”
The Celtics’ bench initially directed some ire toward Sabonis, who was assessed with a flagrant 1 foul for sliding under Tatum on his jump shot. The Kings star, who has dealt with a series of injuries in recent weeks and was playing in his first game back from a sprained ankle of his own, expressed remorse after the game.
“I feel horrible,” he said. “I’ve had a crazy month myself, personally, and you never want that to happen, so I apologize.”
Boston can afford to play it safe with Tatum, since there are just 10 games left in the season and the team is likely locked into its playoff position. The 53-19 Celtics remain 4.5 games behind the No. 1 Cavaliers and have an eight-game cushion on the No. 3 Knicks in the Eastern Conference standings.
Tatum’s injury occurred on the same night that the Celtics’ other star forward, Jaylen Brown, returned after missing three contests due to a bone bruise in his right knee. Brown, who also missed a pair of games earlier this month as a result of his knee issue, said he met with specialists, but his injury is believed to just be a result of wear and tear, according to Himmelsbach.
“It felt fine,” Brown said after scoring nine points on 4-of-8 shooting in 26 minutes. “I was being a little conservative. When you’ve been out for a while it’s a mental aspect, too, where you just try to keep your feet underneath you. As I gained more confidence I started extending out, being more athletic, and things I’m used to normally doing. Tonight was a good step though.”