Rudy Gay

And-Ones: Kings, Allen, Lopez, Wolves

February 11th, 2015 at 10:33am CST by Chuck Myron

DeMarcus Cousins and Tyrone Corbin both called the latest round of Kings coaching upheaval a “distraction,” as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee relays (Twitter link). Cousins released a statement through his agency saying that he hadn’t been consulted when the team fired Michael Malone and isn’t being consulted now, expressing hope for a quick resolution and support for George Karl should the team choose to hire him. Still, Cousins decried the public chatter of a coaching move while Corbin remains in place. Rudy Gay, who’s hinted at dissatisfaction with Corbin in the past, instead expressed admiration Tuesday for the job Corbin’s done under trying circumstances, as Jones also notes in his story.

While we wait to see how it all plays out in Sacramento, here’s more from around the league:

A Nets source tells Windrem that no deal with the Hornets involving Lopez, Stephenson and Zeller was ever that close (Twitter link).

Earlier updates:

There’s no guarantee that Ray Allen makes his decision on whether or not he’ll return to the NBA this season within 10 days of All-Star Weekend, as Jim Tanner, Allen’s agent, tells Chris Broussard of ESPN (Twitter link). It was rumored that the 39-year-old sharpshooter was going to make a choice regarding his future shortly after the All-Star break.
The Hornets offered Lance Stephenson and Cody Zeller to the Nets last month and were ready to call the league office to finalize the trade, reports Robert Windrem of NetsDaily (All Twitter links). The sides were quite close to agreement, Windrem adds, and so close that people at the D-League Showcase, which was taking place at the time, thought it was a fait accompli, Grantland’s Zach Lowe tweets. It was the closest Brooklyn has come to trading Lopez, Joe Johnson or Deron Williams this year, according to the NetsDaily scribe.
The Wolves sent the Hornets $344,462 in cash Tuesday in the Mo Williams trade, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders shows on his Wolves salary page (Twitter link). Minnesota created two trade exceptions in that deal, one worth Troy Daniels‘ $816,482 salary and another worth the $500K difference between the salaries for Williams and Gary Neal, Pincus tweets.
That means the Wolves had to take Adreian Payne into one of their existing trade exceptions to make their trade with the Hawks work, and that’s just what Minnesota did. The Wolves absorbed Payne’s $1,855,320 salary into their $4,702,500 Corey Brewer exception, leaving the $6,308,193 Kevin Love exception untouched and reducing the Brewer exception to $2,847,180, as Pincus shows on the Basketball Insiders Wolves salary page.
The Hawks would wind up with Minnesota’s second-round picks for both 2020 and 2021 if the lottery-protected 2017 first-rounder the Wolves gave up in the Payne trade doesn’t convey to Atlanta by 2019 at the latest, Pincus also reports on that page.

Charlie Adams contributed to this post.

Kings Rumors: Cousins, Jackson, Karl, Gay

February 10th, 2015 at 3:07pm CST by Chuck Myron

DeMarcus Cousins made it clear that he didn’t want the Kings to fire former coach Michael Malone, but owner Vivek Ranadive told him that he had to do so because Malone clashed with GM Pete D’Alessandro and had missed a meeting, sources tell Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher. Cousins asked the team at that point to hire Mark Jackson, but as the Kings instead decided to stick with Tyrone Corbin, team officials promised they would consult him in the future, Bucher also hears. The team now is reportedly close to a deal with Karl, and plenty seems up in the air. Here’s the latest from California’s capital city:

Some close to Cousins weren’t sure if Karl’s personality and the intensity of Cousins would be a match, as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee writes. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports wrote Monday that Cousins’ agents. Dan Fegan and Jarinn Akana, have given their approval of Karl and were merely wary of the team’s swift coaching changes.
Cousins wasn’t alone among Kings disenchanted with the way the team ousted Malone, Jones adds in the same piece. Rudy Gay recently said he felt “lost” on the court, according to Jones. Gay signed his extension with the Kings in large measure because, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports originally wrote, he wanted to play for former coach Michael Malone,
Ranadive asked D’Alessandro to meet with Karl last week, Jones also writes in his piece. It seemed Monday, before the owner gave the GM the go-ahead to hire Karl if he wished, that Ranadive was hesitating while D’Alessandro pushed for a deal, though perhaps that wasn’t the case.
The Kings are expected to hire Vance Walberg as an assistant coach should the team complete a deal with Karl, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group hears (Twitter link). Walberg, currently a Sixers assistant who previously worked under Karl on the Nuggets, has made his mark on offense, Haynes notes.

Kings Coaching Rumors: Mullin, Jent, Malone

December 15th, 2014 at 5:28pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Kings’ head coaching job appears to be George Karl‘s if he wants it, and it seems like he does. Still, the job would be Chris Mullin‘s if he wanted to take it, an opposing GM tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link), and Mullin is indeed a possibility, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. Tyrone Corbin is expected to take the job on an interim basis once the Kings make their decision to fire Michael Malone official. Here’s more on a time of uncertainty in California’s capital:

5:28pm update:

Ranadive finds the prospect of Mullin coaching the team “very intriguing,” sources tell Wojnarowski (Twitter link).

4:48pm update:

It was a mutual parting of ways for Jent and the Kings, D’Alessandro told reporters, including Jones (Twitter link).

4:06pm updates:

Jent won’t be on the staff going forward, Corbin confirmed to reporters, as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee notes (on Twitter).
Cousins said the news of Malone’s departure, which he heard via Twitter, evoked an emotional reaction among the players and called the day’s rainy weather a fitting backdrop, as Amick and Jones relay (Twitter links).

4:00pm updates:

DeMarcus Cousins said the Kings didn’t consult him about the apparent coaching change, but he trusts the team to work it all out, as he told reporters today, including USA Today’s Sam Amick (Twitter link).
The Kings and assistant coach Chris Jent are expected to part ways, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com, who indicates that the team plans to make its decision to fire Malone official on Tuesday.
Sacramento’s front office didn’t believe Jent, who served last season as the team’s top assistant, was the right man for the job, so they interviewed Alvin Gentry and Kurt Rambis for the position, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports writes in a full piece. Malone suspected at the time that the team was trying to hire his successor, and so he pursued Corbin, who landed the assistant coaching job and has been loyal to Malone. Gentry was uncomfortable with the notion that the Kings were setting him up as a head-coach-in-waiting, sources tell Grantland’s Zach Lowe, who says the Kings deny that they had that in mind.
There’s more than $4MM that Malone is still to receive under the terms of his contract with the Kings, Wojnarowski writes in the same piece.
The falling out between Malone and Kings management began late last season when Malone wanted the team to add a point guard and the front office instead signed Royce White to a pair of 10-day contracts and pushed Malone to play him, as Wojnarowski details.
GM Pete D’Alessandro was merely the messenger in many cases as he passed along orders from Ranadive that Malone didn’t like, though D’Alessandro and Malone never formed any mutual trust, according to Wojnarowski.
People around the team believe the Kings were waiting for an opportunity to fire Malone and used the team’s struggles of late as an excuse to do so, in spite of the absence of Cousins during the team’s 2-7 stretch over the last nine games, Wojnarowski hears.
The presence of Malone was a major reason why Rudy Gay signed his three-year extension with the team last month, Wojnarowski also writes.

Pacific Notes: Gay, Clippers, Kerr

November 20th, 2014 at 11:59am CST by Chuck Myron

The Kings were in a position of power when DeMarcus Cousins signed his rookie scale extension last year, but Rudy Gay‘s decision to sign a veteran extension with the team this week is demonstrative of the strides the franchise has taken, as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee examines.

“Obviously, when my contract was ending, I thought about going into free agency and maybe seeing what happens, but why search it when you have what you want right here?” Gay said.

Owner Vivek Ranadive and GM Pete D’Alessandro convinced the forward that the Kings were no longer the disorganized club that he’d heard stories about, Gay said, adding that having spent the offseason with Cousins helped influence his decision, too, Jones tweets. A bond with new point guard Darren Collison and comfort with the Sacramento community were also factors, Gay acknowledged, as fellow Bee scribe Ailene Voisin notes (Twitter link). There’s more on the Gay extension amid the latest from the Pacific Division:

The Clippers planned to re-sign Willie Green after waiving him this summer, but the Magic stymied that when they claimed him off waivers, writes Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. “We were not very happy with the Magic on that one,” Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers said.. “We just assumed that no one would pick him up. Willie’s one of those guys you just want around.” Rivers also said that Green can serve as an assistant coach for him after he retires, Woike notes.
Turning down Knicks president Phil Jackson to take the Warriors job instead was “probably the hardest thing that I had to do professionally,” Steve Kerr tells Michael Lee of The Washington Post. “He basically made my career. From my experience in Chicago, that allowed me to have the success to sign as a free agent in San Antonio, where I had another incredible experience. My career path, started with Lute Olson [at Arizona] … but Phil’s the guy who got me rolling and gave me all the opportunities that I have in front of me right now.”
The Gay extension was a positive step for the Kings, and one the team had to make to move toward playoff contention, Voisin opines.

Western Notes: Nash, Len, Gay, Shaw

November 19th, 2014 at 10:26pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Steve Nash has finally touched base with Lakers coach Byron Scott, Mark Medina of The Los Angeles Daily News writes. Last week it was reported that Nash wasn’t returning his coach’s phone calls while he was away from the team nursing his injured back. Nash is expected to have a presence around the team and hopefully serve as a mentor for some of the franchise’s younger players, notes Medina.

Nash didn’t speak with Scott, but instead left a voicemail, Medina adds. “He [Nash] did say on his message that he’s definitely going to come back and see everybody,” Scott said. “He just needed some time, which we all understood. But he didn’t give me a set time. It was a very simple message: ‘I heard that you called me. I don’t check my voicemail, but I’m calling you back. Hope everything is well. Hang in there. See you guys soon.’ ”

Here’s more from the west:

With the Nuggets off to a 3-7 start to begin the season there has been some speculation about head coach Brian Shaw‘s job being in jeopardy. In his weekly mailbag Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post asserted that Shaw is unlikely to be fired during the season, though he also believes that Shaw needs to settle on a regular rotation as soon as possible.
Rudy Gay‘s contract extension with the Kings will pay him $12,403,101 for the 2015/16 season, $13,333,333 for 2016/17, and it includes a player option for 2017/18 worth $14,263,566, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reports (Twitter link).
Alex Len‘s improved play this season could serve as redemption for Suns GM Ryan McDonough‘s decision to draft Len over Nerlens Noel and Ben McLemore in 2013, Dan Bickley of The Arizona Republic writes. “I really felt bad for Alex a year ago,” McDonough said. “As people tend to do in our society, there was a rush to judgment way too quickly on who he was as a player and what he could become. He’s very mobile for his size, and now that he’s healthy, he has his agility back. And he’s gotten a lot stronger.”
Nuggets GM Tim Connelly is shouldering a healthy share of the blame for the team’s woes, but it is former GM Masai Ujiri who is actually responsible for most of Denver’s problematic contracts, Tom Ziller of SB Nation writes. Ziller cites the deals given to JaVale McGee, Wilson Chandler, and Danilo Gallinari as examples of burdensome holdovers from Ujiri’s tenure.

Kings Sign Rudy Gay To Extension

November 19th, 2014 at 3:55pm CST by Zachary Links

Rudy Gay has signed a three-year, $40MM contract extension with the Kings, the team announced. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported the deal on Sunday. The extension begins with the 2015/16 campaign and includes a player option on the third year (2017/18).

“I am very excited to announce that Rudy Gay will be a part of the Kings for the long term,” owner Vivek Ranadivé said. “He is an immensely talented player who is critical to our team on and off the court, and he is a significant reason why things are changing in Sacramento. Players as talented as Rudy have their choice on where to play. He is committed to making the Kings great again and we are committed to his success. I am looking forward to seeing a sea of No. 8 jerseys filling the seats of the new arena.”

As Wojnarowski rightly notes, the ability to get out of the deal after 2016/17 gives Gay a chance to hit the open market in the summer of 2017, when there should be an opportunity to cash in thanks to the league’s new $24 billion television deal. The forward will only be 31 years old at that point, so he should be able to secure another multiyear deal if he continues to play at his current level.

It was only in recent days that Gay decided to really work toward an agreement with Sacramento rather than letting the open market dictate his value next summer, and re-energized talks led to the two sides shaking hands on a deal Saturday night, Wojnarowski writes. In late September, Gay said that he briefly began extension talks with the Kings over the summer but put them on hold when he joined Team USA. Since then, we hadn’t heard a ton of buzz regarding an extension prior to Wojnarowski’s report.

Gay is just the sixth player to sign a veteran extension since the current collective bargaining agreement took hold for the 2011/12 season, joining Andrew Bogut, Kobe Bryant, Tony Parker, Zach Randolph and Anderson Varejao. Randolph, Parker and Varejao all signed their extensions within the past five months.

“I feel blessed to be in this situation,” Gay said in the team’s statement. I’m grateful for the confidence the Kings have shown in my abilities and appreciate the way Sacramento and its passionate fans have embraced me and my family from day one. The future is bright for this franchise, and I’m thrilled to play a role in helping the organization succeed on the court and in the community.”

The client of Octagon Sports agents Alex Saratsis and Jeff Austin will make more than $19.3MM this season in what was to have been the final year of his contract. The Kings are barred from trading Gay for the next six months because he signed an extension that tacks three additional seasons onto his deal.

For his career, Gay has averaged 18.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game across eight NBA seasons with the Grizzlies, Raptors, and Kings. So far in 2014/15, the 28-year-old is averaging 21.8 PPG, 6.5 RPG, and 3.6 APG for Sacramento. Prior to the start of the season, our own Chuck Myron looked at Gay as an extension candidate.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Pacific Notes: Gay, Clarkson, Barnes

November 17th, 2014 at 9:02am CST by Chuck Myron

The Warriors, Clippers and even the Kings would make the playoffs out of the Pacific Division if the postseason began today. Sacramento’s hot start may have played a role in Rudy Gay‘s decision to agree to a contract extension this weekend, as we detail amid the latest from the Pacific:

Extension talks between Gay and the Kings had seemingly been dormant for months before the sides picked up the conversation just days before their agreement this weekend. Still, he had always been open to staying in Sacramento if he saw indications that the team was improving, writes Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee.
Kobe Bryant is gunning away at a phenomenal rate, topping the NBA with 24.4 shot attempts per game, but it’s not as if he isn’t helping his Lakers teammates. Rookie Jordan Clarkson says Bryant has given him information aplenty to absorb, notes Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News. “I couldn’t even repeat everything he says,” Clarkson said. “I wish I had one of those tape recorders some days. I’ll keep it in my pocket when he talks to me. He’s so useful.”
Matt Barnes has started the final fully guaranteed season of his contract in a slump on the court as he deals with turmoil in his family life off of it, but the Clippers remain in his corner, as Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com examines.

Poll: Rudy Gay’s Extension With Kings

November 16th, 2014 at 9:01pm CST by Zachary Links

Earlier today, we learned that the Kings and Rudy Gay agreed to a three-year, $40MM extension that includes a player option after year two. On the surface, it’s significant money to be spent on a player whose game has endured sharp criticism from the analytics community over the last few years. However, when considering Gay’s age, the short length of the pact, and Sacramento’s position as a free agent destination, one could argue that the deal is something of a good value for the Kings.

As Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated writes, the deal actually appears to be something of a head-scratcher from Gay’s perspective. The forward was set to hit the open market this upcoming summer and would have had a good amount of leverage behind him. No, Gay isn’t regarded as the type of guy that can be a No. 1 player for a contending team, but he’s still on the right side of 30 and the incumbent Kings likely would have been just as hungry to retain him then, if not more so. Meanwhile, the $13.3MM average annual value won’t leave Gay starving, but it’s a step back from the $16.4MM AAV on his previous deal.

On the flipside, the Kings have signed on for at least two additional seasons for a player who has been widely panned for his offensive inefficiency in recent seasons. In 75 games for the Grizzlies and Raptors in 2012-13, Gay recorded a combined PER of 15.6, putting him in the same range as guys like Ivan Johnson, DeMarre Carroll, and Matt Barnes. Since then, Gay has set new career highs in PER in each of the last two seasons (18.3 and 22.0, respectively), but the forward is not far removed from his pattern of dreadful offensive decisions and ill-advised long-range shots. The Grizzlies didn’t fade after trading Gay to Toronto and the Raptors actually improved after dealing Gay to the Kings, so it’s certainly fair for one to wonder exactly how valuable the 28-year-old really is.

Gay traded in the chance to earn a bit more this summer for the security of a new deal with the Kings, albeit with an escape hatch that can allow him to collect some of that sweet, sweet TV money in the summer of 2017. Putting aside the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the deal from Gay’s perspective, what do you think of the extension from the Kings’ side of things?

Is The Gay Extension A Smart Deal For The Kings?

Yes 79.11% (625 votes)

No 20.89% (165 votes)

Total Votes: 790

Pacific Rumors: Morrises, Liggins, Gay, Kobe

September 30th, 2014 at 12:39pm CST by Chuck Myron

Marcus Morris says he thinks Markieff Morris should have received a greater share of the four-year, $52MM combined total of the extensions that agent Leon Rose negotiated for the twins, as he told reporters, including Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. Markieff said it would be OK if he and his brother ended up on different teams, but he added that there was no reason for them to walk away from what the Suns had to offer.

“It’s a dream come true,” Markieff said. “We feel like we’re home together. When they offer us great money to stay together, why not take it instead of going through free agency? We’re both going to have great seasons. … The game is more fun together. It means more. We’re definitely past that point of not being able to play apart, but another four years definitely won’t hurt anything.”

Here’s more from around the Pacific:

DeAndre Liggins doesn’t appear on the training camp roster the Clippers released today, so it looks like he won’t be joining the team after all. There were conflicting reports about whether he had a deal to do so.
Rudy Gay said he briefly began extension talks with the Kings over the summer, but he put them on hold when he joined Team USA, notes Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. Still, Gay’s not opposed to having his agents at Octagon Sports resume talks, Jones adds.
Kobe Bryant isn’t ruling out the idea of playing beyond his contract, which ends in the summer of 2016, shortly before his 38th birthday, observes Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. “Whether I do or not, we’ll have to see that two years from now,” Bryant said. “I don’t know, but I could [play longer]. Physically, I don’t see an end to the tunnel.”
Confidence in the continued development of the team’s young players made the Warriors hesitate to trade for Kevin Love, as GM Bob Myers told NBA TV, while Klay Thompson, in his NBA TV appearance, expressed appreciation for Steve Kerr‘s role in forestalling a swap. Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group provides a transcription. “If it is the truth, it’s awesome,” Thompson said of Kerr’s opposition to a move. “I appreciate Steve for that. It just makes me want to play even harder for him if he really did believe that, so it gives me a new sense of confidence, really.”

Extension Candidate: Rudy Gay

September 24th, 2014 at 1:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

Only four players have signed veteran extensions since the existing collective bargaining agreement took effect after the 2011 lockout. There’s little motivation for players who aren’t on rookie scale contracts to extend their deals rather than hit free agency, since the NBA places limits on the dollars and years allowed in an extension that aren’t there when a veteran hits the open market. Kobe Bryant, Zach Randolph and Andrew Bogut signed their veteran extensions likely knowing they’d entered the back stretch of their respective careers and would be unable to command max contracts in free agency. Still, their teams found them productive enough to bank on them at eight-figure salaries for a few more years. It’s a little harder to see Tony Parker‘s motivation for committing to three years and not quite $43.336MM when he could have garnered more as a free agent next summer, but the Spurs have a long history of convincing their best players to take less.

The Kings have no such track record, and Rudy Gay just turned 28 last month, putting him squarely in the prime of his career. He expressed supreme conflict about whether to pick up a player option worth $19.3MM for the coming season before ultimately deciding to do so. Still, Gay probably isn’t the sort of player who could command the maximum in free agency, or even a salary close to what he’ll make this year, even after having begun to repair a reputation that the harsh glare of advanced statistics had cast in an unflattering light. In his case, signing an extension wouldn’t reduce the value of the salaries he’d see, though it would only allow him to add three seasons onto his existing deal, which is set to expire in the summer. The client of Octagon Sports agents Jeff Austin and Alex Saratsis could instead re-sign with the Kings for as many as five more years if he waited until free agency to strike a deal.

Still, Kings owner Vivek Ranadive seems enamored with Gay, and it’s not the worst idea to negotiate when you’re receiving praise from the boss. Ranadive reportedly pursued Gay seemingly from the moment he bought the club last year, explaining after the December trade that brought him from the Raptors that not all the next-level metrics paint an unfavorable picture of the 6’8″ forward. GM Pete D’Alessandro has expressed a desire for a long-term future with Gay, and the team made a concerted effort to convince him to pick up his lucrative player option for this season. DeMarcus Cousins tried to ensure his teammate would stick around, too, a telling endorsement considering the long-term rookie scale extension that Cousins signed last summer, as well as the center’s temperamental nature.

That the Kings were willing to go to lengths to convince Gay to take up such a large chunk of space on their payroll this season says a lot about how they regard him. That’s especially true given that some NBA GMs told Grantland’s Zach Lowe last year that they didn’t think Gay was worth signing for the mid-level exception. Gay emerged from the team’s pitch meeting impressed, though when he made the call to opt in, he decided to hold off on extension talks until later in the summer. Gay quickly expressed contentment in Sacramento following last year’s trade and has said that he can envision a long-term future with the Kings, though he also made plain his desire to play for a winner. Still, Gay is a believer in the team’s talent and coach Michael Malone, and he reportedly feels confident about Ranadive’s commitment to turning around the team’s woeful fortunes.

Gay’s partial season in Sacramento was as successful a campaign as any he’s had in the NBA. Traditional stats like scoring, assists and shooting percentage went up, as did his PER and win shares per 48 minutes as he eschewed long-range looks for shots closer to the basket, as I detailed this spring. The Kings were more porous defensively in terms of points per possession when Gay was on the floor, as NBA.com shows, but he more than made up for that with his offensive contributions.

Ranadive and company weren’t the only ones to take notice. At the trade deadline, the Suns appeared to have interest in signing him this past summer if he were to opt out, and it seems reasonable to suspect that the GMs who would have hesitated to touch him for the mid-level have revised their evaluations. There would probably be a robust market for Gay if he were to hit free agency next summer, but considering that Sacramento clamored to keep Gay at more than $19MM this season, it’s unclear whether any team would be willing to meet what Sacramento offers. Still, there’s a strong chance that Gay would emerge as the most prominent small forward on the market. LeBron James and Luol Deng have player options for 2015/16, and Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler are on rookie scale contracts, meaning they’d only be restricted free agents if their respective teams don’t grant them extensions this fall. Aside from them, there are few inspiring names among the potential 2015 free agent small forwards.

There’s no October 31st deadline involved with veteran extensions as there is with rookie scale extensions, even though it would make sense for Gay and for the team to complete a deal before the start of the season if they are to do so. Gay is in a position of strength amid his revival in Sacramento. Barring a severe regression, he’ll probably have plenty of leverage next summer, too, when market competition figures to be scarce and teams like the Lakers and Knicks are poised to have money to burn beneath a salary cap that some teams reportedly project to exceed $70MM. Gay would also be able to lock in a longer-term deal, and thus more guaranteed paydays, if he and his agents dismiss the idea of an extension. It would certainly be reasonable for Gay to come to terms soon to capitalize on the enthusiasm the Kings have about him, but I still don’t expect him to join Bogut, Bryant, Randolph and Parker among the four other veteran extension signees.

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