Danny Green

Southwest Notes: Green, Barea, Ellis, Demps

Danny Green hopes to re-sign with the Spurs this summer, though he’s bitter about the lost opportunity to win another championship this year with 13 of the 15 players left over from last season’s title-winning squad, as he tells Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet, but this is a special group,” Green said. “That’s why it sucks so bad, especially for Timmy [Duncan] and Manu [Ginobili]. We had an opportunity to do something special for them. All I can do is hope and pray for another group like that in the future, but I have a feeling some of those guys will be back. [GM] R.C. [Buford] and [coach/president Gregg Popovich] do a great job of bringing in new guys.”

Here’s more from the two other Southwest Division teams that failed to make it out of the first round:

  • J.J. Barea has said he’d like to re-sign with the Mavs and that it’ll be easier for the team to keep him than when he left for a four-year, $18MM deal in 2011, but he’s looking for about $3MM a year for the next two or three years, a source told Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com. That would exceed the amount the Mavs can spend using his Non-Bird rights and force the team to dip into cap space or another exception to retain him.

Earlier updates:

  • The Mavericks carried the second-fewest number players from 2013/14 into the start of 2014/15, and December’s Rajon Rondo trade meant even more turnover. Plenty of changes are likely on their way again this year, as I examined, but Devin Harris believes the upheaval from the past 12 months presented a challenge for this season’s Mavs, notes Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com. “It was a trying year,” Harris said. “With all the new guys we had coming into the season and making an in-season trade while trying to get guys adjusted, it was just kind of an uphill battle all year long. We were trying to get everybody to play to their strengths, and it was tough.
  • Mavs coach Rick Carlisle credited Monta Ellis for “two terrific years” in Dallas and Dirk Nowitzki made it clear he’d like the shooting guard to return as Ellis ponders an $8.72MM player option that Sneed, writing in the same piece, suggests he’s likely to decline.
  • Pelicans GM Dell Demps deserves a passing grade for his midseason moves this year, but he’s made his share of miscues in the past, including the decisions that leave New Orleans once more bereft of a first-round draft pick this year, opines Jimmy Smith of The Times-Picayune.

Western Notes: Leonard, Aldridge, Green

Kawhi Leonard could sign an offer sheet that allows him to become an unrestricted free agent in three years or a qualifying offer that takes him to unrestricted free agency in 2016, but the Spurs are confident he’ll remain in San Antonio for the long term, Grantland’s Zach Lowe writes. “I don’t know that I’m worried about [the cap],” GM R.C. Buford said. “It is what it is. We’ll deal with the guidelines. I hope that Kawhi is with us for a long time, and I know that’s no secret to Kawhi or his family.”

Here’s more from the Western Conference:

  • Lowe continues to hear talk among sources who say that the Spurs might get to have a meeting with LaMarcus Aldridge, as Lowe writes in the same piece. That echoes a report from January in which Lowe wrote that he’d spoken with a half-dozen executives from four different teams who raised the possibility that Aldridge would sign with San Antonio.
  • Plenty of executives would point to the notion that Danny Green would be much more successful within the Spurs‘ system than out of it, and they’d be hesitant to shell out $10MM a year for him, Lowe surmises. The Grantland scribe nonetheless stumps for Green’s value based on “elite” defense and his status as a legitimate “3-and-D” player. An executive who spoke with Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops said that he wouldn’t mind paying a $6MM annual salary for the swingman.
  • Matt Petersen of NBA.com looked back on Suns guard Eric Bledsoe‘s 2014/15 campaign, his first after inking a five-year, $70MM deal with the team. The 25-year-old appeared in all 81 games for Phoenix this past season, averaging 17.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 6.1 assists.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

And-Ones: Drummond, Price, Afflalo

Pistons owner Tom Gores gave Andre Drummond a vote of confidence during tonight’s contest against the Knicks, calling the big man a “max player,” David Mayo of MLive.com relays (Twitter link). Drummond, who is set to earn $3,272,091 next season, is eligible to ink an extension this summer, but this doesn’t necessarily mean the Pistons will offer him one, since the team would have the right to match any offer sheet the big man were to sign as a restricted free agent in 2016. Detroit could be wary of taking that chance given how the team is likely to lose Greg Monroe, who reportedly declined to ink an extension of his own with the club, as a free agent this summer, though that is merely my speculation.

Here’s more from around the league:

  • Arron Afflalo will let his playoff performance dictate whether he picks up his $7.75MM player option for next season with the Blazers, as a source close to the swingman tells Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops that he’ll opt out if he plays well.
  • One executive who spoke with Scotto for the same piece pegged Danny Green‘s value at $6MM a year. The Spurs swingman is an unrestricted free agent this summer.
  • Ronnie Price indicated that his desire is to remain with the Lakers, even if it is as a third-string guard, Mark Medina of The Los Angeles Daily News writes. “I enjoyed being a voice in the locker room. I enjoyed being able to help younger guys. I helped great veterans that can help me. I’d be selfish not to extend that knowledge to players that are younger than me,” Price said. “Of course you want to play. That’s why we do what we do. You want to play. You never know what’s ahead. Whatever role is my role, I’ll embrace it whether it’s being here or the third guard.” Price will become an unrestricted free agent at season’s end.
  • Suns forward Markieff Morris believes that the team needs to add players with more experience to its roster, Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic tweets. “Veteran leadership for sure,” Morris responded when asked about Phoenix’s needs. “We have to have more older guys around so we can keep this thing intact.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Odds & Ends: Warriors, Spurs, Allen, Flynn

At 2-1, the Warriors have started off what  many believe to be a promising season on the right foot, despite losing Brandon Rush to a torn ACL on Friday night.  Because it is so early in the season, the Warriors have the good fortune of having some options if they want to replace him, writes Matt Steinmetz of CSN Bay Area.

One reason they may not need personnel reinforcements has the been the surprising play of Carl Landry, who has provided scoring (20 points per game) and toughness off the bench in the team’s first three games, writes Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group.

Let’s take a look at what else is going on in the NBA on the first Sunday night of November:

Western Notes: Eyenga, Harden, Green, Karl

The Lakers liked Christian Eyenga, who they acquired last year from the Cavaliers, and after the third-year swingman was waived by the Magic earlier today, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports wondered (via Twitter) if Los Angeles could try to get him back. However, because Eyenga was traded by the Lakers to Orlando in August, L.A. is ineligible to either claim him off waivers or sign him before his contract expires next July, so Eyenga will have to find work elsewhere.

Here are a few more late-morning notes out of the Western Conference:

  • There's no question that the Suns would love to get a chance to sign James Harden and would likely make him an aggressive offer if he reaches restricted free agency, says Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. However, Coro wonders if it might be as futile an endeavor as Phoenix's pursuit of Eric Gordon was this past summer.
  • Having signed a three-year contract with the Spurs this summer, Danny Green is excited about having some security this season, says Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld. "It’s very nice," Green said. "Obviously, it allows me to play a little bit more comfortably, to know that this organization is behind me and they want me here…. Even though I got that security, I’m still taking that time to approach the game like I did before without the contract."
  • Coby Karl hasn't officially been cut from the Trail Blazers' roster, but he's expecting that to happen soon, as he tells CSNNW.com.
  • Even with the Mavericks hopeful that Dirk Nowitzki could return from knee surgery by mid-November, Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com wonders how the team's chemistry will be affected by his absence.
  • Agent Andrew Vye tells Mark Berman of FOX 26 Houston that his client Royce White has a plan in place for traveling to games that everyone is on board with, "including the league, the union, the Rockets, and Royce and us."

Popovich On Leonard, Mills, Team Goals

About to enter his 17th season with the Spurs, Gregg Popovich has already amassed four NBA championships and two "Coach of the Year" awards, with his last and only losing season having occurred during 1996-97 as a first-year head coach. After falling just two wins short of an NBA Finals berth in June, Popovich appears determined to regroup for next season. Here are a few noteworthy tidbits from his Q&A with fans on Spurs.com:   

Regarding Kawhi Leonard and his future in the NBA: 

"I think he’s going to be a star. And as time goes on, he’ll be the face of the Spurs I think. At both ends of the court, he is really a special player. And what makes me be so confident about him is that he wants it so badly. He wants to be a good player, I mean a great player. He comes early, he stays late, and he’s coachable, he’s just like a sponge. When you consider he’s only had one year of college and no training camp yet, you can see that he’s going to be something else."

When asked about Patty Mills' role on the Spurs after his performance in the Olympics: 

"Well, I didn’t need to see his Olympic performance to know what he can bring, it’s just that he came to us so late last year it was really hard to incorporate him into what we were doing. But he’s an aggressive, fiery, offensive player. He can shoot the three and really score, and that’s what he looks to do when he comes in the game. So he’ll be a game-changer in that sense, at the offensive end. And defensively he’s kind of like a pest—he’s not very big but he’s really a game. He’s got great courage and he gets into people, trying to really bother them and get them off their game. So his competitiveness and offensive skills are what we’re looking forward to mostly."

On defense as a priority for upcoming training camp and how he plans to adjust against teams that have remarkably improved: 

"You know (defense is) always a priority with us, but you know we’re never going to reach the level that we were at five, six years ago defensively. It’s just impossible to do that for a variety of reasons. But it still has to be an emphasis, we can get better and we have to if we want to compete with these guys that, as you said, added so many players to their team…What other teams do is not in our control, so we'll worry about, as I said, incorporating Kawhi into the program more since he wasn’t here very long. Boris, Patty Mills, look for improvement in Danny Green, work our big guys. Tiago and DeJuan Blair I think are going to have very good seasons for us. So we’ll concentrate on that and what we need to do as a group, and we’ll see how we stack up."

Contract Details: Duncan, Green, De Colo, Diaw

With the early-July flurry of activity having died down, we have the opportunity now to look back at many of the free agent deals signed earlier this month and see how exactly they'll affect teams' caps for the next few seasons. Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News has the salary details for the handful of contracts signed by the Spurs this month, so let's take a look at what San Antonio will be paying its recent signees….

  • Tim Duncan will be paid about $9.64MM this season and $10.36MM in year two, with a $10MM player option for 2014/15. As Mark Deeks of ShamSports points out, the salary decrease for the player option seems to violate CBA rules, so depending on how the league views the deal, Duncan could be in line for a pay bump in year three.
  • Danny Green's deal starts at $3.5MM in year one, with 7.5% annual raises for the next two seasons, for a total of $11,287,500. As we heard from Deeks previously, this contract is fully guaranteed, with no options.
  • The Spurs signed 2009 draft pick Nando De Colo to a two-year contract worth about $1.4MM in year one and $1.46MM in year two. Since this is larger than a minimum salary, San Antonio presumably used its bi-annual exception to complete the deal.
  • Boris Diaw will earn $4.5MM in 2012/13 and $4.69MM in 2013/14, bringing the two-year total of his contract to about $9.19MM.
  • The salary details for Patty Mills, who will earn $1,085,120 this season, were already known, but according to Monroe, Mills' second year (at about $1.13MM) is a team option. Deeks had reported that it was a player option, so hopefully we'll get some clarification on the matter one way or the other.
  • According to Monroe, the Spurs' total commitments for 2012/13 amount to about $69.13MM, just below the luxury tax threshold.

Contract Details: Novak, Green, Miller, Thompson

While most players' contracts include annual raises, or at the very least, identical annual salaries, Steve Novak's new contract with the Knicks is a little different, as Mark Deeks of ShamSports explains (Twitter link). Novak's deal starts at a little over $4MM, dips to below $3.5MM by 2014/15, then rises back up to $3.75MM for 2015/16. The unusual structure of the deal provides the Knicks a small amount of savings in the years when the rest of the team's roster will get extremely expensive.

Deeks shared a number of other contract details from around the league, via Twitter, so let's round them up….

  • The Spurs' deal with Danny Green is for three fully-guaranteed years and $11,287,500, with no options.
  • Andre Miller will earn $5MM in each of the next two seasons with the Nuggets. The third year of his deal is partially guaranteed for $2MM of $4.625MM.

Earlier updates:

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Spurs Re-Sign Danny Green

WEDNESDAY, 5:55pm: The signing is now official, the team has announced.

MONDAY, 7:22pm: Free agent Danny Green has agreed to return to the Spurs on a three-year, $12MM deal, a source tells Sam Amick of Sports Illustrated (via Twitter).  The pact is completely guaranteed, a source tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).

Agent Billy Duffy told Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News (via Twitter) that while there were other suitors for the forward, he didn't pursue them strongly as his client wanted to return to the Spurs.  The 25-year-old started in 38 games for San Antonio last season, averaging 9.1 PPG and 3.5 RPG.

Danny Green, Roger Mason Interested In Jazz

The Jazz are expected to seek an outside shooting threat at the wing position in free agency this year, and two such players are interested in filling that role, reports Brian T. Smith of The Salt Lake Tribune. Danny Green and Roger Mason have interest in signing with Utah, Smith says, and a source close to Green says the Jazz could be a "perfect fit."

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