- Suns interim coach Earl Watson credits his time spent in the Spurs organization as a D-League assistant with preparing him for the challenge of leading Phoenix, Mike Sorensen of The Deseret News writes. Watson also offered thanks to San Antonio assistant GM Scott Layden, who provided him with his first coaching opportunity, Sorensen adds. “Coach Layden is why I ended up in San Antonio,” Watson said. “It’s amazing how people you meet along the way, how they give you opportunities later in life and it can turn out to be the greatest opportunity ever. If I don’t go to San Antonio with coach Layden I don’t know if I become a coach that quickly. I learned a lot in San Antonio from coach Layden bringing me in.”
- The Lakers and Suns have been out of the playoff race for a long time, but their game tonight is still important, writes Mark Medina of The Los Angeles Daily News. L.A. is four and a half games ahead of Phoenix for second place in the latest reverse standings. Draft position is especially important for the Lakers, who need their pick to fall in the top three to avoid having it sent to the Sixers. Even so, coach Byron Scott gives no thought to losing. “We’re not in a weird position,” he said. “We play Phoenix and we’re trying to win the game.”
The Suns have signed forward/center Alan Williams to a multiyear contract, the team announced today. Williams inked a 10-day deal with Phoenix on March 8th and saw his first action in Thursday’s game at Utah.
A Phoenix native and UC Santa Barbara product, Williams wasn’t taken in last year’s NBA draft. He went to China, where he posted averages of 20.8 points and 15.4 rebounds for Qingdao, becoming the top rebounder in the Chinese Basketball Association. He’s also the top rebounder and second-leading scorer in UC Santa Barbara history.
Williams played for the Rockets’ entry in the 2015 Summer League, earning All-NBA Summer League Second Team honors. He averaged 20.5 points and 11.8 rebounds in four games in the Las Vegas league.
- Rookie shooting guard Devin Booker is being groomed as the Suns‘ go-to player at the end of games, according to Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. Interim head coach Earl Watson is putting the ball in his hands during those situations to see how he responds, as Watson relayed to Coro. “Devin has to learn how to finish games at the elbow like Kobe Bryant,” Watson said. “He knows that. We talked about that. That’s the progression of him finishing games.”
Despite the Suns‘ struggles this season, center Tyson Chandler believes the franchise is heading in the right direction and credits the leadership of interim coach Earl Watson for changing the locker room culture, Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic writes. “I’m excited with the direction we’re going,” Chandler said. “Of late, it’s showing in the win column but I just like what we’re doing. I like the mentality. I like the culture. I think things are really changing around here. It puts a little pep in your step. It’s amazing what the mind can do to you. When you’re carrying so much weight, you don’t have the pep in your step and the excitement that you normally play with. Once you’re able to release some of that stuff and the team starts playing the right way, it’s amazing how much better you feel.”
THURSDAY, 8:22am: The signing is official, the team announced via press release.
TUESDAY, 2:11pm: The Nets plan to sign Henry Sims to a 10-day contract, reports Shams Charania of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The former Cavs and Sixers big man has been out of the NBA since the Suns cut him in the preseason, having joined the D-League affiliate of the Pistons this year. The contract will pay $57,726, with the Nets responsible for $55,722 while the league office picks up the rest for the three-year veteran.
Brooklyn already has Sean Kilpatrick on a 10-day contract, which expires at the end of Saturday, but he’s one of just 14 players on the Nets roster, so the team can make Sims its 15th man without offloading anybody. New Nets GM Sean Marks has said he wants to use 10-day contracts to discover players who can be a part of next season’s roster, and like Kilpatrick, Sims holds promise. The 25-year-old started 32 games for the Sixers last season, averaging 8.0 points and 4.9 rebounds in 19.2 minutes per contest across 73 appearances overall.
Sims put up 15.7 points and 8.9 rebounds in 30.0 minutes per game for D-League Grand Rapids this season after limited preseason court time with Phoenix. It was somewhat surprising to see him linger in free agency this summer before he signed his non-guaranteed training camp contract with the Suns in September, and while he drew attention as one of the top prospects in the D-League, it was just as perplexing to see him without an NBA job for most of the season.
The Kings will listen to offers for DeMarcus Cousins this summer, but it’s unlikely that a trade occurs until they lower their asking price, Sam Amick of USA Today writes.
Last June, Sacramento reportedly wanted Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson, the No. 2 pick in the 2015 draft and other draft considerations in exchange for Cousins. Some rival executives believed Sacramento’s demands were outrageous, Amick hears, while other executives viewed the proposal differently, speculating that the Kings didn’t value either the draft picks or unproven prospects as enough for Cousins by themselves because they wanted to win immediately.
The Kings are likely to soften their stance on a Cousins trade if the situation doesn’t improve leading up to the 2017 trade deadline, the scribe adds. Cousins is signed through the 2017/18 season, and he’ll make slightly over $35MM during the two seasons that follow this one.
Here’s more from the Pacific Division
- The Kings would like to mend their relationship with Cousins, and some within the organization hope that it could be fixed with a coaching change in the offseason, Amick writes in the same piece.
- Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak was in attendance for Maccabi Tel Aviv’s practice in Israel today, presumably to watch Dragan Bender, Jake Fischer of SI Now reports (Twitter link).
- The acquisition of Brandon Knight hasn’t worked out for the Suns, and the team would be foolish not to consider trading him, Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post opines. Bontemps argues that Knight’s five-year, $70MM deal is movable, and that with the emergence of Devin Booker, the team can afford to make a move in the backcourt.
A theory going around the league suggests Byron Scott isn’t necessarily in his last season as Lakers coach, as Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck relays (Twitter links). The idea suggests the Lakers will keep Scott for one more year, delaying the appointment of his successor in case Knicks team president Phil Jackson exercises the opt-out that’s in his contract for the summer of 2017, moves to the Lakers, and wants to handpick a coach, according to Beck. The Bleacher Report scribe cautions that it’s just a theory. Sources close to Jackson and the Lakers tell Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com that the Zen Master is unlikely to return to the franchise that fiancee Jeanie Buss owns, with Jackson loving life in New York and perhaps thinking of coaching the Knicks on a part-time basis, as we rounded up earlier amid a slew of other coaching rumors. There’s news on the Lakers there, and more on other Pacific Division teams here:
- Earl Watson has an interim tag on his title as Suns coach, but he’s already dreaming of ways to combine the talents of guards Eric Bledsoe, Brandon Knight and Devin Booker next season when Bledsoe returns from the torn meniscus in his left knee, observes Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. Booker has been seeing time at point guard, but his 6’6″ length means the situation is distinct from Phoenix’s failed experiment of having Bledsoe, Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas on the same team, Coro writes.
- Watson is a believer in the internal growth of the the team, pointing to the emergence of Booker and Alex Len, as Coro relays in the same piece. “We enhanced bench production without a trade,” Watson said. “How many teams can say they did that without paying a guy to come in? So when you go into free agency, you have six guys who can give you 30 [points] at any time. The creativity is how do you build around it? As a full program, we can throw a lot of things on the board and we don’t have to say, ‘We need to bring in a scoring player,’ that’s going to command most of our money in free agency. Now we can be really crafty.”
- Kings coach George Karl plans to increase playing time for Willie Cauley-Stein and Seth Curry down the stretch, notes Sean Cunningham of KXTV-TV in Sacramento (Twitter link). Cauley-Stein recently described Karl’s explanation for not giving him more minutes as “kind of flimsy,” while Curry has expressed mild frustration about his lack of burn.
The Clippers did not seem to miss power forward Blake Griffin during the initial aftermath of the quadriceps tendon tear he suffered on Christmas, but that has changed, Andrew Han of ESPN.com writes. Point guard Chris Paul told Han and other reporters after the Clippers lost to the Cavs by 24 points on Sunday that Griffin’s extended absence is taking a toll. “[Playing without him] gets real tough,” Paul said. “They have three, four guys out there that [with a] low shot clock can bail you out. Just all that tension that he brings opens it up for all of us.” The Clippers won their first nine games without Griffin but have stumbled recently, losing by double digits in three of their last five games. Griffin’s hand, which he fractured in a January 23rd fight with assistant equipment manager Matias Testi, has healed faster than his quad. Once he is cleared for game action, Griffin still faces a four-game team-imposed suspension for that incident.
In other news around the Pacific Division:
- The Clippers are likely to keep their superstar trio of Paul, Griffin and center DeAndre Jordan intact this summer, a panel of ESPN Insider experts opines. As Jeremias Engelmann points out, superstars rarely get dealt unless they request a trade. A majority of the panel also believes the Clippers will be better off when Griffin returns from his injuries and suspension.
- Rookie shooting guard Devin Booker is often initiating the Suns’ half-court offense, even with the return of point guard Brandon Knight from a sports hernia, Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic reports. Booker recorded 11 assists against the Warriors on Saturday. “Both of us can bring the ball up the floor, so you get the rest,” Booker told Coro. “If you have to bring it up every time, it’s tough on a team.”
- Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge was instrumental in the Warriors hiring Bob Myers as their assistant GM in 2011, as owner Joe Lacob discusses at length in an interview with Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News. Myers was promoted to GM the following year.
- The Warriors recalled power forward Kevon Looney from their D-League affiliate in Santa Cruz, according to the team’s website. Looney has appeared in 12 games with Santa Cruz this season, including two games during his latest assignment.
Many teams use 10-day contracts as tryouts of sorts for players they’re interested in signing for the rest of the season and beyond. That evidently hasn’t been the case for the Suns this year, who’ve cycled through six players on 10-day contracts this year without signing any of them for the balance of the season. It remains to be seen what they end up doing with Alan Williams, who’s on a 10-day deal that expires after Thursday’s game against the Jazz, but the five other Phoenix 10-day signees have since moved on.
Two of them — Jordan McRae and Orlando Johnson — are with other NBA teams. The Cavs took a much different approach with McRae, signing him to a deal that covers the rest of this season and next after he completed just one 10-day contract, dispensing with the conventional practice of doing a pair of 10-day deals before committing for a longer stretch.
Injuries have surely played into Phoenix’s strategy, as the Suns are missing Eric Bledsoe and T.J. Warren, and they’ve been without Brandon Knight and others for significant stretches of the season. Still, it’s unusual to see a team go through this many 10-day contracts without keeping at least one of the players. Here’s a look at what has happened with each of the players the Suns have had on 10-day deals, with an assist from our 10-Day Contract Tracker:
- Lorenzo Brown, two 10-day contracts (January 8th, January 19th) — What happened next: Returned to the D-League affiliate of the Pistons on February 2nd.
- Cory Jefferson, one 10-day contract (January 21st) — What happened next: Returned to the D-League affiliate of the Suns on February 2nd.
- Jordan McRae, two 10-day contracts (January 29th, February 8th) — What happened next: Returned to the D-League affiliate of the Sixers on February 23rd. Signed a 10-day contract with the Cavaliers on February 28th. Signed two-year deal with the Cavaliers on March 9th.
- Orlando Johnson, one 10-day contract (February 5th) — What happened next: Returned to the D-League affiliate of the Spurs on February 20th. Signed a 10-day contract with the Pelicans on March 9th.
- Phil Pressey, two 10-day contracts (February 20th, March 1st) — What happened next: Reportedly plans to rejoin the D-League affiliate of the Jazz.
- Alan Williams, one 10-day contract (March 8th) — Still with the Suns. Contract expires after Thursday’s game.
RealGM was used in the creation of this post.