Dionte Christmas

Central Notes: Butler, Christmas, Dinwiddie

The Bulls have gone 10-4 since Jimmy Butler made his controversial remarks about Fred Hoiberg‘s laid-back coaching style, and the team appears to have rallied together while playing some of its best basketball of the season, K.C. Johnson of The Chicago Tribune writes. “We’re just playing good basketball,” point guard Derrick Rose said. “On the offensive side the ball is moving. It seems like we know who is getting the ball at certain times. On the defensive side, it’s all about rebounding. If we rebound it’s like a 90-some percent chance we win the game. So it’s all about just communicating when we’re out there and getting rebounds.”

Rose, who has reportedly been at odds with Butler on occasion, was asked if the swingman was the most talented teammate he’s had since arriving in the NBA, to which Rose responded, “I think so, man. Who knows how good he can become? I just love his patience right now. He’s playing with unbelievable patience. He’s not rushing anything, he knows what he’s getting whenever he’s in the pick-and-roll or whenever he’s in the isolation. He’s reading everything the right way now.

Here’s more from out of the Central Division:

  • Free agent Dionte Christmas, whom the Cavaliers waived shortly before the season started, has signed with the Greek club AEK Athens, the team announced (h/t to international journalist David Pick). The 29-year-old shooting guard averaged 6.8 points in 19.9 minutes per game over four contests in the preseason for Cleveland.
  • The return of Brandon Jennings from injury has created a bit of a logjam at point guard for the Pistons, but according to coach/executive Stan Van Gundy, it’s far from the worst thing a team could be faced with, notes A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com. When asked if dividing minutes between Jennings and Reggie Jackson could become a problem for him, Van Gundy said, “It will become an issue I’m sure. Anytime you’re dealing with the issue of trying to get enough minutes for more good players, that’s a good issue to have.
  • The Pistons have assigned point guard Spencer Dinwiddie to their D-League affiliate, the team announced via press release. Dinwiddie has appeared in nine games for Detroit this season and is averaging 4.4 points, 1.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 12.3 minutes per game.

Cavs Notes: James, Mozgov, Harris

Judging by LeBron James‘ comment to Lee Jenkins of SI.com, it seems like the relationship between James and Heat president Pat Riley is slowly starting to improve,

Here’s more from Cleveland:

  • Timofey Mozgov‘s right knee is still bothering him after offseason surgery, and it’s affecting his play, as Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal details. The Cavs aren’t panicking, but they’re concerned, Lloyd writes. Mozgov is in the final year of his contract, but Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group and the Cleveland Plain Dealer suggests that pressure not from looming free agency but from the no-nonsense atmosphere that James has imposed on his teammates is also detracting from the big man’s performance.
  • Free agent Dionte Christmas, whom the Cavs waived shortly before the season started, is set to sign with Hapoel Holon in Israel, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The 29-year-old shooting guard averaged 6.8 points in 19.9 minutes per game over four contests in the preseason for the Cavs.
  • The Cavs assigned shooting guard Joe Harris to their D-League affiliate, the team announced in a press release. Harris has played in five games for the Cavs this season.

Chuck Myron contributed to this report.

Cavs Waive Cooley, Christmas, Daye, Stephens

The Cavs have released Jack Cooley, Dionte Christmas, Austin Daye and D.J. Stephens, the team announced. All were with the team on non-guaranteed deals. The moves leave Cleveland with 16 players, 14 of whom have full guarantees. Shooting guard and preseason sensation Jared Cunningham along with former Duke point guard Quinn Cook are the remaining non-guaranteed Cavs, though he Cavaliers have reportedly been planning to carry only 14 players for opening night.

Cooley, 24, was a late addition to the Cavs preseason roster after the Jazz cut him loose earlier this month. Cleveland signed him in part to compensate for the absence of Tristan Thompson, as Jake Fischer of SI Now tweeted, but with Thompson finally having re-signed this week, it’s no surprise to see Cooley go, in spite of his impressive rebounding. The big man averaged 4.5 points and 8.0 rebounds in just 12.1 minutes per game over two preseason appearances with the Cavs.

Christmas also signed after the preseason had already begun. The 29-year-old shooting guard nonetheless saw plenty of playing time, averaging 6.8 points in 19.9 minutes per game over four contests.

Daye agreed to join the Cavs last month in an effort to refresh a flagging NBA career. The 27-year-old former 15th overall pick averaged 5.0 points in 11.9 minutes per game in six preseason appearances.

Zach Links of Hoops Rumors reported in early September that Stephens would sign with the Cavs. The high-flying 24-year-old swingman put up 3.3 points in 7.3 minutes per game during his four preseason contests.

Cavs Notes: Roster, Christmas, Cunningham

The Cavaliers are planning to have only 14 players on opening night instead of the maximum 15, reports Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It would take an overwhelming performance from one of the players on the roster bubble to convince the team to carry a 15th man, Haynes hears. Jared Cunningham has a non-guaranteed deal, but he’s the team’s leading scorer in the preseason and “by far” the favorite to join 13 other players with full guarantees, according to Haynes. Cavs coach David Blatt said late Thursday that the team’s 14th spot would likely go to a guard because of point guard Kyrie Irving‘s injury, as Chris Fedor of the Northeast Ohio Media Group relays (Twitter link), and Cunningham plays shooting guard.

See more on the Cavaliers below:

  • The contract that Dionte Christmas, another shooting guard, signed with the Cavs last week is non-guaranteed for two years at the minimum salary, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter links).
  • The Cavs will likely release a few of their camp invitees after their preseason schedule ends Monday and briefly add replacements for practice purposes, Haynes adds in the same piece. Those replacements would only be on the roster for a few days, since they’ll have to be off the books by October 26th, the day the roster limit shrinks from 20 to 15. In any case, Cleveland intends to keep the roster at 20 players as long as possible, team sources tell Haynes.
  • Blatt wasn’t familiar with Cunningham’s game prior to this year’s training camp, but the coach is certainly a fan of the shooting guard’s game now, writes Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com. “Honestly, coming in I did not have direct experience with Jared,” Blatt said. “I hadn’t really seen him play in the league. I didn’t see him play in college. I know his history and looked into what he had done in the NBA and in the D-League. But this is the first time I’ve had a chance to work directly with him and see him on the floor, and he’d done nothing but acquit himself well in every way. He’s playing good basketball. He’s playing two-way basketball, and he’s making a serious run to try and make this team. He’s doing a good job.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Cavs Lead With 16 Free Agent Signings

The Cavaliers have drawn plenty of attention the past few months for a free agent they haven’t signed, but even though Tristan Thompson lingers in free agency, Cleveland has taken care of more free agent business than any other team in the league during the 2015 offseason. They signed 16 free agents, three more than the Spurs, the team that recorded the next most free agent signings. The Cavs just made their latest signing this weekend, replacing Michael Dunigan with Dionte Christmas on the camp roster.

It might be easy to presume a direct correlation between free agent activity and success, given the teams at the very top and bottom of the list below. The Cavs and Spurs are strong bets to win their respective conferences this season, while the Jazz, Timberwolves and Sixers are nowhere near the title picture. The presence of the Warriors and Thunder on the bottom half of the list and the Kings and Nets close to the top debunk that theory, however. It has more to do with the fact that the Cavs had only four players signed for 2015/16 when they ended last season, while the Jazz had 13. Cleveland simply had more jobs to hand out.

Still, other factors are at play, since free agent signings don’t encompass draft picks, draft-and-stash signings, trades or waiver claims. The Trail Blazers made significant changes to their roster, but they did much of their work via trade instead of free agency. The Rockets had 10 players under contract on July 1st, but they still wound up making 11 free agent signings.

Here’s a look at the number of free agent signings for each team. Click the team’s name to see the names of each of their signees via our 2015 Free Agent Tracker.

  1. Cavaliers, 16
  2. Mavericks, 13
  3. Spurs, 13
  4. Kings, 12
  5. Knicks, 12
  6. Nets, 12
  7. Pelicans, 12
  8. Rockets, 11
  9. Clippers, 10
  10. Grizzlies, 10
  11. Suns, 10
  12. Heat, 9
  13. Pacers, 9
  14. Raptors, 9
  15. Bulls, 8
  16. Hawks, 8
  17. Magic, 8
  18. Wizards, 8
  19. Bucks, 7
  20. Celtics, 7
  21. Hornets, 7
  22. Lakers, 7
  23. Nuggets, 7
  24. Warriors, 7
  25. Pistons, 6
  26. Thunder, 6
  27. Trail Blazers, 6
  28. 76ers, 5
  29. Timberwolves, 5
  30. Jazz, 4

Cavs Sign Dionte Christmas, Waive Dunigan

SATURDAY, 11:30am: The signing is official, the team announced.

THURSDAY, 10:24pm: The Cavaliers are close to signing shooting guard Dionte Christmas, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports reports (Twitter link). The deal is contingent on Christmas passing his physical, which will be administered on Friday, Spears adds. In order to clear a roster spot, the Cavs will release center Michael Dunigan, Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com reports (via Twitter). Cleveland currently has a roster count of 20 players, which is the preseason maximum.

Cleveland is limited to offering Christmas a minimum salary contract, and Spears termed the pending arrangement as a “make good deal,” which likely means that there will be no guaranteed money involved. Christmas, 29, last played in the NBA during the 2013/14 campaign when he made 31 appearances for the Suns, averaging 2.3 points and 1.2 rebounds in 6.4 minutes per contest. He spent last season with Paris-Levallois of France.

Dunigan, 26, was in training camp with the Grizzlies back in 2012, but he’s primarily played overseas since going undrafted in 2011. The Mike Naiditch client came to the U.S. to spend part of last season with Cleveland’s D-League affiliate, notching averages of 11.6 points and 7.1 rebounds in 30.4 minutes per game across 24 regular season appearances. It’s possible that the Cavs are eyeing Dunigan for a spot on the Canton Charge for 2015/16, though that is merely my speculation.

Dionte Christmas Signs To Play In France

Former Suns guard Dionte Christmas has signed with Paris-Levallois of France, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). Christmas was in training camp with the Pelicans last month, but he didn’t make the opening-night roster. The terms of the new deal for the 28-year-old are unclear.

Christmas was on Phoenix’s roster all season last year even though he played sparingly. He made it into 31 games and averaged 2.3 points in 6.4 minutes per contest. The Pelicans only used him in one preseason game for a little more than four minutes. It was nonetheless the third consecutive October he’s spent with an NBA team, following a camp stint with the Celtics in 2012 and the Suns the next year.

The former Temple standout has managed to stay on the radar of NBA front offices despite never having played in the D-League. He’s made stops in Israel, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Greece, Russia and Italy since going undrafted in 2009.

Pelicans Waive Dionte Christmas

The Pelicans have waived Dionte Christmas, the team announced. The one-year veteran came to training camp on a non-guaranteed contract, so New Orleans isn’t stuck paying him any salary. The move brings the team’s roster to 17, with at least two more subtractions to come in the 10 days before the October 27th deadline to set the opening-night roster.

Christmas appeared in just one preseason game for four minutes this month, and he didn’t see much playing time with the Suns last season, even though the favorite of GM Ryan McDonough stuck on the Phoenix roster for all of 2013/14. The 28-year-old swingman totaled just 198 minutes last year, though he recorded a 11.1 PER that’s not too shabby for a player at the end of a team’s bench.

New Orleans has 12 fully guaranteed deals plus partially guaranteed salary for three more. Darius Miller has the largest partial guarantee at $400K, but neither Luke Babbitt nor Patric Young is assured of more than $100K as they attempt to keep Kevin Jones and D.J. Stephens, who have non-guaranteed contracts, from grabbing their spots.

Pelicans Sign Dionte Christmas

SEPTEMBER 26TH, 5:09pm: The deal is official, the Pelicans announced via a press release.

SEPTEMBER 12TH, 10:06am: Christmas has inked his contract, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the Pelicans haven’t made a formal announcement.

SEPTEMBER 11TH, 9:39am: The deal covers one year, as Charania writes in his full story.

SEPTEMBER 10TH, 5:31pm: The Pelicans have reached an agreement with free agent guard Dionte Christmas, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (via Twitter). The Temple product was waived by the Suns in late July before his minimum salary for 2014/15 became fully guaranteed. Last season was the first in which Christmas saw any regular season NBA action, when he averaged 2.3 points and 6.4 minutes over 31 appearances with Phoenix.

Christmas, who turns 28 on September 15, played overseas for several seasons after going undrafted in 2009 but latched on with Phoenix after a strong summer league performance last season. The financial terms of this accord have yet to be disclosed, but it’s worth noting that Christmas has received more than the standard non-guaranteed training camp deal in each of the past two seasons, first with the Celtics in 2012 and again with the Suns last year.

The Pelicans have added Jimmer Fredette, Russ Smith, Darius Miller and John Salmons to their mix in the backcourt and on the wing this summer, all of whom Christmas figures to be competing with in training camp. Miller and Smith (and rookie big man Patric Young) are on partially guaranteed deals. New Orleans already has 12 players on fully guaranteed contracts for the 2014/15 season.

Contract Details: Barbosa, Turkoglu, Roberts Jr.

Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders is always diligent in keeping us informed of the nitty gritty details for all of the contracts around the league, and after his latest round of updates, he figures there are 493 contracts in place, 400 of which are guaranteed, and at least 43 of which will have to be cut before the regular season begins (Twitter links). We’ll link to his team salary sheets, noting specific player revelations where they apply:

  • Leandro Barbosa‘s one-year pact for the minimum with the Warriors is partially guaranteed at $150K.
  • Hedo Turkoglu‘s one-year minimum deal with the Clippers is fully guaranteed.
  • Ronald Roberts Jr.‘s deal with the Sixers is for four years at the minimum salary, including a team option for the final year. This season is partially guaranteed at $35K.
  • Chris Crawford‘s two-year contract with the Cavs is indeed for the minimum, with a partial guarantee of $20K this year, and a fully non-guaranteed 2015/16.
  • Jerome Jordan‘s camp deal with the Nets is for the minimum, as expected. The one-year agreement will become partially guaranteed at $150K if he remains with Brooklyn through October 25.
  • Dionte Christmas, Vernon Macklin, and Kevin Jones have identical one-year deals with the Pelicans, each of which are non-guaranteed.