Daryl Morey Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Knicks Notes: Morris, Dolan, Front Office, Ntilikina

January 31st, 2020 at 4:00pm CST by Luke Adams

At least one team that has recently been in touch with the Knicks came away with the impression that Marcus Morris and New York have “strong mutual interest” in working out a new contract in the summer, sources tell Ian Begley of SNY.tv.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard the Knicks might prefer to keep Morris through the deadline and retain him long-term. As Begley notes, the team likes the influence the 30-year-old has had on the younger Knicks players and believe he’s the sort of veteran who can handle the scrutiny that comes with playing in New York.

Begley also rightly points out that if Morris strongly reciprocates the Knicks’ interest, it might not make sense for potential suitors to pursue a trade for him. New York’s asking price would likely be pretty high, and if Morris’ preference is to be a Knick, he could simply return to his old team in free agency at season’s end. A potential trade partner would presumably be more inclined to offer New York a first-round pick if that team believes it has decent odds to re-sign the veteran forward.

Here’s more on the Knicks:

For as much as the Knicks like Morris, they weren’t fans of the comments he made this week about Jae Crowder, when he referred to the Grizzlies forward as having “female tendencies” on the court. As Marc Berman of The New York Post relays, the Knicks said in a statement that Morris’ comments were “offensive and unacceptable” and “cannot be tolerated.” Morris apologized again for his remarks, per Peter Botte of The New York Post.
Within an article about Knicks owner James Dolan, Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News briefly addressed the team’s front office situation, noting that president Steve Mills and Scott Perry each have mutual options for 2020/21, meaning both the executive and the team would have to opt in. When listing possible front office candidates for the Knicks, Bondy mentioned in passing that he believes Rockets GM Daryl Morey will become a free agent due to the China controversy.
ESPN analyst Paul Pierce suggested during a Thursday appearance on The Jump that a change in ownership would help turn things around in New York. “I truly believe once they get new ownership you’ll see change,” Pierce said, per Greg Joyce of The New York Post. “You saw it with the Clippers. Look what happened with the Clippers. Now they’re a perennial playoff team, they got better ownership and they’re a championship-contending team now.”
After missing Wednesday’s game due to a groin injury, Frank Ntilikina will be listed as probable for Saturday’s game vs. Indiana, head coach Mike Miller said today (Twitter link via Mike Vornukov of The Athletic). Point guard Elfrid Payton will be suspended for that game, opening the door for a larger role for Ntilikina.
In case you missed it, RJ Barrett was named to the World Team’s Rising Stars roster earlier today.

NBA Revises Cap, Tax Projections For 2020/21

January 30th, 2020 at 3:15pm CST by Luke Adams

3:15pm: The NBA’s new projection is a $115MM salary cap and $139MM tax line, according to Wojnarowski (Twitter links). That’s not as significant a drop from the previous projection as some front offices feared, so it shouldn’t have a noticeable impact on teams’ plans at the deadline.

3:07pm: The NBA has informed teams that new projections for 2020/21’s salary cap and luxury tax threshold are on the way, according to Adrian Wojnarowski and Bobby Marks of ESPN. Those new numbers haven’t been revealed yet, but teams are expected to receive that info shortly in order to ensure they’re as informed as possible as they consider deadline trades.

When the NBA last updated its projection in September, it called for a $116MM cap and a $141MM tax line in 2020/21. Each of those numbers would represent a substantial jump up from the figures for 2019/20, which are $109.14MM (cap) and $132.627MM (tax).

However, those estimates were issued before Rockets general manager Daryl Morey published a tweet supporting protestors in Hong Kong. That tweet instigated a controversy between the NBA and China that cost the league sponsors and television partners. The ordeal is believed to have cost the NBA approximately $150-200MM, league sources told ESPN.

Although the cap is still expected to increase beyond this year’s figure, front office executives are preparing for a more modest jump, according to Wojnarowski and Marks, who hear that some teams believe the new projection could dip as far as $113MM. Tim MacMahon of ESPN tweets that some team executives have referred to the expected drop as the “Daryl Deduction.”

A smaller cap increase than expected may not have a massive impact in free agency, since most teams are expected to be over the cap anyway. Still, every dollar counts when it comes to creating cap flexibility and avoiding the tax. Wojnarowski and Marks point to the Celtics, Nets, Warriors, Rockets, and Sixers as teams that could be taxpayers in 2020/21 and would be on the hook for a larger bill if the tax threshold is a few million dollars lower than anticipated.

Players who have signed maximum-salary contract extensions that take effect for the 2020/21 season will also take note of the league’s new cap estimates, since it will have an impact on their projected earnings.

Sixers guard Ben Simmons and Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, for instance, signed maximum-salary extensions that will start at 25% of the cap next season, assuming neither player earns an All-NBA spot in 2019/20. When they signed those deals in July, the league was projecting a $117MM cap, which would have made them worth $169.65MM over five years. A $113MM cap would reduce their projected value to $163.85MM apiece.

Several other figures – including the rookie scale, mid-level exceptions, minimum salaries, and cash available in trades – are also linked to the percentage the salary cap increases from year to year and would be affected by an adjusted 2020/21 projection.

Rockets Being Aggressive On Trade Market

January 29th, 2020 at 7:57pm CST by Arthur Hill

It’s never surprising that Rockets general manager Daryl Morey is looking to make a deal, especially around the trade deadline, and Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle reports that a shortage of assets hasn’t prevented Morey has being as active as ever.

A source tells Feigen that the Rockets are hoping to trade their 2020 first-round pick for a player who can help right away. They haven’t targeted a specific position, but Feigen assumes point guard is off the table with Russell Westbrook and James Harden handling the playmaking duties.

Morey doesn’t seem to mind parting with a first-rounder, even though the team will be short on them in upcoming years. Houston sent first-round picks in 2024 and 2026 to the Thunder in the Westbrook deal, along with the option to switch picks in 2021 and 2025.

Feigen speculates that the team may be more interested in adding someone in the frontcourt rather than at the wing, where Rivers, Eric Gordon and Ben McLemore are all available and Thabo Sefolosha has been seeing an increase in playing time.

In addition to the first-rounder, Houston has Nene‘s contract, along with trade exceptions valued from $1.5MM to $3.6MM, as assets to try to get a deal done. Feigen notes that beyond the Rockets’ core, Austin Rivers and Gerald Green both have restrictions that enable them to veto any trade, while Chris Clemons can’t be moved because he just signed a three-year contract in late December.

Feigen adds that the Rockets also have a history of being aggressive on the buyout market and may have hopes of landing Andre Iguodala if they can’t find a deal they like.

Chris Paul Was “Shocked” By Trade To Thunder

December 4th, 2019 at 11:03am CST by Arthur Hill

Chris Paul tells Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated that he was “shocked” at the trade that sent him to Oklahoma City this summer and insists Rockets general manager Daryl Morey promised him it wouldn’t happen.

After being knocked out of the playoffs by the Warriors for a second straight year, Houston jumped at the chance to shake up its roster by acquiring Russell Westbrook from the Thunder. That meant shipping out Paul and a parcel of draft picks.

“My initial reaction?” Paul said. “I was shocked. Truth be told, I just talked to Daryl a couple days before the trade and he said he wasn’t going to trade me (to Oklahoma City). That’s funny because that is going to be the alert that pops up on everybody’s phone because nobody knows that. But what the hell, I just said it.”

Morey refused to respond to Paul’s comment, but sources close to the team told Spears that the GM informed Paul there was a “slim chance” he might be included in a Westbrook deal. Morey was hoping to make it a three-team trade and send Paul to a playoff contender such as the Heat, but no one else was willing to get involved. He also thanked Paul for his contributions to the franchise.

“Chris got us as close to winning a title as we’ve been since Hakeem Olajuwon,” Morey said. “He was a great Rocket. I wish him the best going forward. I am a big fan of Chris. I have nothing but love for him.”

Paul said his time in Houston marked two of the best seasons of his career. However, they ended in an apparent falling out with James Harden during last season’s playoffs that had many believing a breakup was coming. Paul admits he and Harden “haven’t really talked” since the trade was completed.

“It’s life. It happens,” Paul said. “It is what it is. But I wish him nothing but the best.”

The next question for Paul is how long he will be with the Thunder, who are off to an 8-11 start and appear ready to rebuild after trading Westbrook and Paul George. Although the market will open up December 15 when most of the free agents who signed this summer become eligible to be traded, Paul’s contract remains a major impediment. He makes $38.5MM this season at age 34 and is owed roughly $85.5MM over the following two seasons. Spears notes that many teams are already trying to save cap space for the next loaded free agent class in 2021.

“I try to control what I can control,” Paul said. “And for me, that is preparing to play every night. Doing my workout. Doing my training. Hooping.”

Latest On NBA/China Controversy

November 12th, 2019 at 11:13am CST by Luke Adams

The storyline that dominated NBA headlines during the preseason has fallen off the radar to some extent with the regular season underway, but that doesn’t mean league and team executives aren’t still concerned about the NBA’s relationship with China.

League sources tell Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com that NBA leadership is monitoring the trade negotiations between the United States and China in the hopes that a resolution on that front will help thaw the league’s relationships in its “most profitable foreign market.” Those relationships have been frosty since Rockets general manager Daryl Morey published a tweet supporting pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.

Tencent – the NBA’s streaming partner in China – has resumed broadcasting games, but still isn’t showing Rockets contests, as Arnovitz details. Meanwhile, China’s state-run network CCTV hasn’t shown any regular season games at all. While the NBA has remained in contact with CCTV officials, there’s no sense of when the impasse may be resolved.

Arnovitz’s full story at ESPN.com provides an exhaustive, in-depth look at where things stand between the NBA and China, and is worth reading in full. Here are a few more highlights from the report:

Terminated sponsorships with Chinese companies have affected teams around the NBA, not just the league itself, according to Arnovitz, who hears that one club immediately reduced its 2019/20 projections for revenue derived from Chinese sponsorships to zero. The Rockets have been hit particularly hard, having lost $7MM+ in cancelled sponsorship agreements for this season, and $20MM overall once multiyear deals are taken into account.
Beyond the financial ramifications, some NBA front offices have been “shaken by the turmoil” caused by the drama with China, league sources tell ESPN. As Arnovitz explains, the league has enjoyed increasing revenues and positive media coverage for years, but the China controversy has tested the idea that any issue can be managed.
Many team executives would like the league to establish guidelines for dealing with potentially sensitive political topics, since teams and players will likely have to answer those questions in the future — especially on trips to China and India, among other countries. League sources have acknowledged the need for those guidelines, Arnovitz says.
Rival executives don’t expect this controversy will impact Morey’s ability to do his job. However, sources close to the Rockets view the marriage of Morey and team owner Tilman Fertitta as a “tenuous fit,” according to Arnovitz. Fertitta has been more averse to paying the tax than his predecessor Leslie Alexander was, and quickly denounced Morey’s tweet last month, announcing that the GM’s views didn’t reflect that of the organization.

Rockets Notes: Morey, Offseason, D’Antoni

November 5th, 2019 at 5:47pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

The Rockets have certainly not been bereft of drama, on or off the hardwood. After subtracting Chris Paul and adding Russell Westbrook this summer to be James Harden‘s new backcourt mate, Houston has struggled. The club is currently 4-3, the eighth seed in a loaded Western Conference.

As Houston prepares for a Wednesday home bout against a Warriors team missing as many as five starters, let’s take a look at more Rockets notes:

Following a lopsided 129-100 defeat to the 5-1 Heat, the job security of Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni has been questioned, according to Sean Deveney of Heavy.com. “This is gonna stick with the FO (front office) for a while,” one coach texted Deveney during Sunday’s blowout. D’Antoni’s current contract with the Rockets expires at the end of the season.
Despite the Rockets’ rocky 4-3 start to the regular season, including that forgettable showing on Sunday, GM Daryl Morey considers the ceiling for the new-look Rockets to be extremely high, according to a conversation with The Athletic Houston’s Kelly Iko. “I really think we could be the best offense ever put on the floor,” Morey said. “Now we’ll see if we can back that up, but our transition has been really good. Obviously, last year, we were one of the best halfcourt teams ever. There have been times where we’ve combined those two things and looked really good. Sometimes our transition has fallen off, sometimes our half-court (offense). But if we pull it together like I think we can, I think we’ll be the best offense in the league and a top-10 defense. That’ll be a formula to win the title.”
In the same interview, Morey acknowledges a desire to improve the team’s defense. The team is currently ranked 28th in defensive efficiency, according to NBA.com. “We’re going to be a good defensive team. Obviously there’s been, you know, some things that don’t look good so far. But I have a lot of confidence that we’re going to be one of the top-10 defensive teams by the end of the year… To be a championship-caliber team, you gotta be a top-10 defense.”
Notably, Morey’s new Q&A with Iko doesn’t touch on the controversy stemming from the GM’s summer tweet supporting the Hong Kong protests against mainland China. That message prompted China to suspend all business ties with the Rockets. Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports thinks Morey needs to address what became the big story of the NBA preseason, as he notes in a recent opinion column.

Tilman Fertitta Never Considered Discipline For Daryl Morey

October 24th, 2019 at 9:58pm CST by clarkcrum

In the latest news on the NBA’s ongoing controversy with China, Sopan Deb of The New York Times writes that Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, despite publicly distancing himself and his franchise from the now-famous tweet by general manager Daryl Morey, never considered firing or even punishing Morey.

Interestingly, however, there was no explanation as to why Fertitta began liking posts on Instagram supportive of Morey’s firing then, but Fertitta did explain why he was – and still is – not okay with Morey’s tweet.

In a written explanation, Fertitta said that he needed to initially distance the Rockets from Morey because he “felt it was important to make the distinction between Daryl speaking as a private citizen and Daryl as a representative of the Houston Rockets… (and the Rockets) have never commented on another country’s foreign policy.”

Deb notes, however, that Fertitta himself has been willing to speak on politics before without distancing the Rockets from his views. Accordingly, Fertitta was asked whether he’d be comfortable with his employees publicly voicing their political views in the future. He declined to comment.

Chinese Television Lashes Out At Silver, Morey

October 19th, 2019 at 8:59pm CST by Arthur Hill

China has vowed “retribution” against NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for his role in last week’s standoff between the nation and the league, writes Catherine Wong of The South China Morning Post (hat tip to NBC Sports).

In a commentary that aired today, state-run CCTV claims Silver “crossed the bottom line” with his continued support of Rockets GM Daryl Morey, who set off the dispute with an Oct. 4 tweet supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

Silver said this week that Chinese officials had demanded that Morey be fired, but the commissioner refused to take any disciplinary action, citing the right to free speech. However, China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, disputed that claim yesterday.

“Silver has spared no effort to portray himself as a fighter for free speech and used freedom of speech as an excuse to cover for Morey, who voiced his support for the violent actors in Hong Kong,” CCTV said. “This has crossed the bottom line of the Chinese people.”

The broadcast also accused Silver of having “double standards” and charged that he “defamed” China in front of an international audience.

“To please some American politicians, Silver has fabricated lies out of nothing and has sought to paint China as unforgiving,” CCTV claimed. The network also accused Morey of having “problems in his character” and promised he “will receive retribution sooner or later.”

Adam Silver: China Wanted Daryl Morey Fired

October 18th, 2019 at 7:31am CST by Luke Adams

OCTOBER 18: Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang has said the Chinese government didn’t demand Morey’s firing, per an Associated Press report.

OCTOBER 17: Appearing on Thursday at the TIME 100 Health Summit (link via Sean Gregory of TIME), NBA commissioner Adam Silver told Robin Roberts that the Chinese government wanted Rockets general manager Daryl Morey fired in the wake of his tweet expressing support for protestors in Hong Kong. However, the league refused to entertain that idea.

“We made clear that we were being asked to fire him, by the Chinese government, by the parties we dealt with, government and business,” Silver said. “We said there’s no chance that’s happening. There’s no chance we’ll even discipline him.”

After Morey published and then deleted his tweet, Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta issued a statement saying that the GM didn’t speak for the franchise and that the Rockets aren’t a “political organization.” However, that was about as far as the team or the league went in denouncing Morey. Silver later made a statement saying that the NBA supported Morey’s freedom of expression, a point he reiterated during his conversation with Roberts.

“These American values — we are an American business — travel with us wherever we go,” Silver said. “And one of those values is free expression. We wanted to make sure that everyone understood we were supporting free expression.”

Silver also said last week that he and the NBA understand that freedom of expression doesn’t mean freedom from consequences, and the league has been feeling the financial consequences of the China controversy.

At the TIME event on Thursday, the NBA commissioner said the league is not only “willing” to cope with lost revenues from China, but that it already is coping with those losses, which have been “substantial.”

“I don’t know where we go from here,” Silver said. “The financial consequences have been and may continue to be fairly dramatic.”

NBA/China Notes: Lakers, Nets, Rockets

October 14th, 2019 at 4:00pm CST by Luke Adams

While a debate raged stateside last week over the NBA’s handling of a controversy fueled by a Daryl Morey tweet expressing support for Hong Kong protestors, Lakers and Nets players found themselves in the eye of the storm as they prepared to play a pair of exhibition games in China. As Shams Charania of The Athletic and ESPN’s Rachel Nichols report, those players met with commissioner Adam Silver to discuss potential next steps when he arrived in Shanghai last Wednesday.

Charania describes Silver as being “extremely thoughtful and transparent” in talks with Lakers and Nets players, coaches, and executives, while Nichols refers to the meeting as “tense.” Multiple sources tell Charania that LeBron James said he believed Silver and the NBA had a responsibility to talk to the media about the situation in more depth before asking the players to do so. Players also spoke about wanting to feel safe and protected during the China trip without being put into unfair positions, Charania notes.

“Being in China, where there was no way of knowing what the Chinese government was thinking or going to do next and the high stakes between the U.S. and China politically, it was almost impossible for these young players to manage through that situation,” a source with knowledge of the meeting told Charania. “Obviously, if they were in the United States or somewhere else, it would have been totally different and handled differently.”

The exhibition games in Shanghai and Shenzhen took place as scheduled, though there was some skepticism earlier in the week that they would happen at all. According to Charania, a “sizeable amount” of players on the Lakers and Nets felt as if it would be best to cancel those games due to the ongoing chaos.

With both teams now back in America, here’s the last on the NBA/China saga:

Sources told Charania that some Lakers and Nets players lost money over broken deals in Shanghai, since they ended up not making planned sponsorship appearances. Charania also reports that at least two Rockets players had sponsorship negotiations with Chinese companies hit an impasse in the wake of Morey’s tweet.
Several executive and ownership sources who spoke to Charania believe Silver will “regain a foothold” in the league’s relationship with China, but fear “irreparable losses” for the Rockets going forward. China’s response to Morey’s tweet may end up costing the Rockets approximately $25MM in sponsorship money this season, one source estimates to Marc Stein of The New York Times.
During last week’s meeting with Lakers and Nets players in Shanghai, Silver was asked directly whether anything would happen to Morey, per ESPN’s report. According to ESPN, multiple players said they thought that if a player cost the league millions of dollars with a tweet, there would be repercussions. Morey won’t face any discipline from the league, which seems like the right call, since his message ostensibly showed support for human rights and democracy.
Tom Ziller of SBNation explores the two potential paths the NBA/China controversy could take from here.