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Contract Details: Inglis, Heat, Jazz, Hamilton

August 24th, 2014 at 10:54am CST by Chuck Myron

The pace of signings is slow this time of year, but teams continue to add to their rosters. Eric Pincus reveals some previously unreported details about a handful of these signings within his latest updates to the salary pages at Basketball Insiders, so we’ll pass along the news here:

  • The Bucks are giving 31st overall pick Damien Inglis guaranteed salaries of $820K this season and $855K for 2015/16, both amounts that are more than the minimum, as Pincus notes (Twitter link). It’s a three-year deal in all that features a non-guaranteed season at the minimum salary in the contract’s final year. Milwaukee used part of its cap space to accommodate the signing.
  • Tyler Johnson‘s minimum salary with the Heat this season is guaranteed for $75K, while his minimum salary for next season is without a guarantee, according to Pincus. Reggie Williams is receiving a non-guaranteed minimum salary in his pact with the Heat this year, as Pincus also reveals.
  • The Jazz gave Dee Bost a $65K guarantee this season, while the other two years of his three-year contract for the minimum salary are non-guaranteed, Pincus reports. Pincus also notes that the team gave Jack Cooley a three-year deal for the minimum, though it remains unclear whether any of Cooley’s pay is guaranteed. Utah used cap space rather than the minimum-salary exception on Bost and Cooley, since the minimum-salary exception only allows for two-year deals.
  • The Raptors have the means to shell out more than the minimum salary, but they didn’t give Jordan Hamilton any more than that, as Pincus documents. Hamilton’s deal is reportedly partially guaranteed, but just how much he’s guaranteed remains unknown.
  • Darius Morris is on a one-year deal with the Blazers, Pincus shows.
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Western Notes: Aldridge, Asik, Lakers

August 14th, 2014 at 2:10pm CST by Zachary Links

Earlier today, Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders looked at the best free agents in the 2015 class.  Among the top names potentially in the group is Blazers big man LaMarcus Aldridge.  Two seasons ago it seemed like a foregone conclusion that LaMarcus would be leaving Portland. Today it seems unlikely that he won’t be back on a new long term deal in July.  Here’s more out of the West…

  • One might think that Omer Asik has some hard feelings towards the Rockets, but he says that’s not the case at all, writes Jenny Dial Creech of the Houston Chronicle.  Asik, now with the Pelicans, was quite vocal about wanting a trade when Houston acquired big man Dwight Howard, relegating him to the bench.  “I just really want to thank all the fans and all the support I had in Houston,” he said. “I want to thank everyone in the organization and especially my teammates. I really enjoyed my time in Houston.”
  • Eddie Johnson of USA Today Sports (video link) says the Lakers need to stop trying to cover up their holes with band-aids and instead make substantive changes.
  • Lakers coach Byron Scott told Mike Trudell of Lakers.com (on Twitter) that he expects to have his coaching staff filled out by the end of the week.
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And-Ones: Parsons, Heat, Southerland, Pistons

August 8th, 2014 at 2:01pm CST by Chuck Myron

Chandler Parsons was an all-around contributor for the Rockets, averaging 16.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists this past season, but that sort of production isn’t why the Mavs gave him a near-max offer sheet that Houston declined to match. They’re confident he can be a “far better” player than he was with the Rockets, as owner Mark Cuban said, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com. While we wait to see whether Parsons proves worthy of Cuban’s investment, here’s more from around the league:

  • The Heat will likely sign a center for the reserve role that Greg Oden played last season, writes Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Andray Blatche is available, but the Heat have shied away from him in the past because they’ve disliked his maturity level and behavior, according to Jackson, who seconds the notion that the Heat are unlikely to re-sign Oden following Oden’s arrest Thursday.
  • The contract that James Southerland signed Thursday with the Blazers is a one-year, non-guaranteed pact, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. That means it’s a summer contract, as I speculated. It also fits the stipulations required to make it an Exhibit 9 contract, though it’s not necessarily one.
  • Former NBA players Tim Hardaway Sr. and Malik Allen will serve as assistant coaches for the Pistons next season, the team announced. The Pistons also announced the hiring of former Knicks executive Jeff Nix as assistant general manager. He’ll serve alongside fellow assistant GM Brian Wright underneath president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy and GM Jeff Bower.
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Western Notes: Cousins, Gasol, Nurkic, Blazers

August 4th, 2014 at 2:45pm CST by Chuck Myron

DeMarcus Cousins feels like he’s behind in his career because of Sacramento’s inability over the years to find a team that fits around him, but he’s nonetheless ecstatic about what the Kings have done this offseason, as he tells Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee.

“I love what we’re doing. Love what we’re doing. [GM] Pete [D’Alessandro], he’s real aggressive, going after stuff, trying for players we probably have no chance at getting. One of these times we’re going to get lucky, and in the past we wouldn’t do that. Do you know how good that feels? Since [owner] Vivek [Ranadive], Pete, [coach] Michael [Malone], Mullie [team adviser Chris Mullin], [director of pro personnel] Mitch [Richmond] and those guys walked through the [expletive] door, things have been on the rise. I am totally behind it. Michael is like me; he sees everything in black-and-white. I love the fact Pete keeps trying stuff. I am totally behind all this. Rudy [Gay], the [Darren] Collison move, thinking Omri [Casspi] can stretch the floor. And the rookie, that kid [Nik] Stauskas can really play. He makes the game easy and has an impact even when he’s not scoring. I am so happy to be a part of this, of what we’re doing.”

Here’s more from around the West:

  • Marc Gasol can hit free agency next summer, but Grizzlies owner Robert Pera said Friday that the team is determined to keep him around for the rest of his career, observes Zach McMillin of The Commercial Appeal. Pera added that convincing Gasol that he can win a title in Memphis will be key, notes fellow Commercial Appeal scribe Michael Cohen.
  • No. 16 overall pick Jusuf Nurkic didn’t receive the standard 120% of the rookie scale when he signed with the Nuggets last month, and it’s believed that he’s the most highly drafted player ever to take such a discount, reports Mark Deeks of ShamSports. That’s especially surprising given that Nurkic has to pick up a portion of his buyout from Croatian team KK Cedevita. He’ll receive 108% of the scale amount this year and 107% in the second season, while the pair of team option years on his rookie scale contract are at the usual 120%, according to Deeks.
  • The Blazers don’t mind Damian Lillard‘s participation in Team USA activities this summer as much as they would take issue with players who compete for other nations, as The Oregonian’s Mike Tokito explains. That’s because Team USA doesn’t expect heavy minutes and practice time out of its players the way some countries do.
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Northwest Notes: Durant, Westbrook, Williams

July 30th, 2014 at 10:30am CST by Chuck Myron

Kevin Love has been the hottest name in rumors of late, but Tuesday, another Northwest Division star began to generate some buzz. Kevin Durant spoke openly of the possibility that he’ll sign with his hometown Wizards when he becomes a free agent in 2016. He also chalked up his decision not to negotiate an opt-out clause into his current five-year deal to a mixture of naivete and his love for Oklahoma City, as The Oklahoman’s Darnell Mayberry notes. Durant said it would “definitely be tough” to leave if the Thunder were to win a pair of championships in the two years remaining before he can hit free agency, as USA Today’s Sam Amick observes. With the onus on GM Sam Presti to put his team over the top, there’s more on the Thunder and their stars amid the latest from the Northwest:

  • The general assumption is that Russell Westbrook will look to leave the Thunder when he becomes a free agent in 2017, but that’s no certainty, as Durant impressed upon reporters Tuesday, including Amick, who shares the tidbit in the same piece.
  • John Wall is already expressing support for the idea of Durant joining the Wizards in two years, calling him “like an older brother” and saying, “It’d be great to have him back home,” as Amick notes.
  • Had the Trail Blazers wanted to re-sign Mo Williams this summer, “in all retrospect, they could have,” Williams said in a pair of tweets. The guard has instead agreed to a deal with the Timberwolves.
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Western Notes: Bledsoe, Jazz, Barton, Scott

July 26th, 2014 at 4:31pm CST by Charlie Adams

Eric Bledsoe made his first public comments regarding his free agency status to Fox TV Birmingham, saying he feels the Suns are “using rules against me” (hat tip to Jude LaCava of Fox 10 Phoenix, Twitter link), Bledsoe’s remark further indicates a seemingly sour feeling between the two camps. Here’s a look at the latest from all three of the Western Conference’s divisions:

  • The Jazz are set to hire Patrick Beilein to work as an assistant coach on Quin Snyder‘s staff, reveals Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Beilein is the son of University of Michigan head coach John Beilein.
  • Will Barton‘s $900K deal with the Blazers is now fully guaranteed, reports Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com. Portland had until July 25th to waive Barton without being on the hook for his entire salary but chose to keep the combo guard on their roster.
  • Jabari Davis of Basketball Insiders recaps the path that the Lakers took en route to negotiating terms with Byron Scott on a head coaching gig. Davis also examines how Scott’s coaching style might mesh with the current state of Los Angeles’ roster.
  • While former Mavs forward Shawn Marion would like to secure a deal with a team for the upcoming season, he doesn’t want to force the issue and land in an undesirable situation, passes along Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News. “If I see something really comfortable, then I’ll do it,” Marion told Sefko. “Right now, I’m just staying with my [newborn] son and relaxing. It’s only July, man. We got two more months. We’ll just wait and see how it works out.”
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Teams With Hard Caps For 2014/15

July 24th, 2014 at 2:29pm CST by Chuck Myron

The NBA’s salary cap is really a misnomer of sorts, since it doesn’t truly cap salaries. Look no further than last year’s Nets for confirmation of that. They doled out nearly $103MM in salaries, incurring more than $90.57MM in luxury taxes and smashing the record for the greatest expenditure on a single roster in NBA history.

The NBA’s salary cap is commonly referred to as a “soft cap,” but there are still ways that teams can impose a “hard cap” upon themselves and set a finite limit to their spending. If a team’s salary exceeds the luxury tax threshold ($76,829,000) by more than $4MM, that team is not permitted to acquire a player via sign-and-trade, or to use the non-taxpayer’s mid-level or biannual exceptions. The only exceptions available to such a team are the taxpayer’s mid-level of $3,278,000, the minimum-salary exception, and whatever form of Bird rights they have on their own free agents. As soon as a team completes a sign-and-trade deal, uses its BAE, or uses more than $3,278,000 of its MLE to sign a player, that club becomes hard-capped at $80,829,000 for the 2014/15 season. In other words, team salary can’t exceed that amount at any point between now and June 30th, 2015.

For some clubs, that hard cap isn’t a major concern. For instance, the Suns still have about $18MM in breathing room below the hard cap, so they have plenty of flexibility to re-sign restricted free agent Eric Bledsoe to a max contract if need be. On the other hand, the Clippers are only about $1MM below the hard cap, so any trades or signings they make for the rest of the season will have to be constructed to ensure their team salary doesn’t surpass that $80.829MM cutoff.

More clubs may trigger hard caps as the offseason wears on, but here are the teams that are now locked into a hard cap for the 2014/15 season, along with an estimation (via Basketball Insiders) of their current team salaries and the reason(s) why the hard cap was created:

Hawks
Hard cap created: Acquired Thabo Sefolosha via sign-and-trade
Estimated team salary: $60,975,564

Rockets
Hard cap created: Acquired Trevor Ariza via sign-and-trade
Estimated team salary: $68,125,942

Wizards
Hard cap created: Acquired Kris Humphries via sign-and-trade; acquired DeJuan Blair via sign-and-trade; signed Paul Pierce via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated team salary: $76,646,603

Suns
Hard cap created: Acquired Isaiah Thomas via sign-and-trade
Estimated team salary: $51,805,537

Warriors
Hard cap created: Signed Shaun Livingston via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated team salary: $72,232,245

Pacers
Hard cap created: Signed C.J. Miles and Damjan Rudez via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated team salary: $74,798,942

Clippers
Hard cap created: Signed Spencer Hawes via non-taxpayer MLE; signed Jordan Farmar via biannual exception
Estimated team salary: $79,679,772

Grizzlies
Hard cap created: Signed Vince Carter via non-taxpayer MLE; signed Beno Udrih via biannual exception
Estimated team salary: $75,529,943

Trail Blazers
Hard cap created: Signed Chris Kaman via non-taxpayer MLE; signed Steve Blake via biannual exception
Estimated team salary: $69,322,824

Kings
Hard cap created: Signed Darren Collison via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated team salary: $75,852,705

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Latest On Josh Smith

July 22nd, 2014 at 8:21am CST by Chuck Myron

TUESDAY, 8:21am: The Smith talks were serious between the Kings and Pistons, according to Grantland’s Zach Lowe, contradicting part of Wojnarowski’s report. Lowe also suggests there’s a decent chance that they pick up again at some point.

MONDAY, 1:05pm: Van Gundy has told Smith that reports about trade talk with the Kings have been inaccurate and assured him that he’ll begin this coming season with the Pistons, barring an unexpected turn of events, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The Kings had called about Smith, but Detroit never heard an offer it liked, and the discussion never reached a serious stage, sources tell Wojnarowski. Smith likes the idea of remaining with the Pistons, Wojnarowski also hears.

SATURDAY, 2:49pm: A source tells Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press that there are “no legs” to reports suggesting that the Kings and Pistons are discussing a deal involving Smith.

THURSDAY, 8:59am: The idea of a Smith deal didn’t intrigue Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro, tweets Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News, who says it seems like coach Mike Malone is the catalyst for the talks. Stein noted Malone’s fondness for defense in story, one in which Stein also points to Smith’s defensive capabilities as one of the reasons the Kings are pursuing him. Pistons president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy didn’t give Smith any promise that he wouldn’t trade him when they met recently, but while Van Gundy is open to trading the forward, he wants value in return, Goodwill also tweets.

8:14am: The Pistons and Kings are once more discussing trade scenarios involving Josh Smith and are on the hunt for a third team to make a deal work, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Sacramento remains interested in the 28-year-old forward, as the Kings brass is fond of his defensive capabilities and intrigued by the idea of acquiring a player of his talent without giving up a piece of the team’s core, Stein hears.

The teams reportedly had talks last month before the Pistons put a stop to them, and the framework involved then would have seen Jason Thompson and either Derrick Williams or Jason Terry off to Detroit, Stein adds. It’s unclear whether any of that trio are subjects of the latest conversations, but Terry is seemingly agitating for an exit for Sacramento, having spoken of his fondness for the Mavericks and criticized Kings teammates DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay in a recent interview. The Kings would rather trade Terry than let him buy his way out of his contract, according to Stein.

Smith signed a four-year, $54MM contract with the Pistons a year ago, but the team’s decision to line him up next to Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond was ill-fated, and it’s left the club with a dilemma involving Monroe’s restricted free agency. The Pistons had serious talks with the Blazers about a sign-and-trade that would have sent Monroe to Portland, but the Blazers dropped out of the running for Monroe when they struck a deal with free agent Chris Kaman, Stein reports.

Smith has appeal to the Kings based on his relationship with Rajon Rondo, whom the team has long coveted, as Stein points out. Smith would love to play with Rondo, having called him “my best friend” in an interview this spring in which Smith said he and Rondo have had multiple conversations about the possibility of becoming teammates. The Celtics point guard is poised to become a free agent next summer.

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Thunder Re-Sign Grant Jerrett

July 16th, 2014 at 8:22pm CST by Eddie Scarito

WEDNESDAY, 8:22pm: The signing is official, per a team release.

“Grant had an excellent and productive season with the Tulsa 66ers,” Thunder GM Sam Presti said.  “We are excited to see him move forward within our program.” 

MONDAY, 5:01pm: Free agent Grant Jerrett has reached agreement on a multi-year deal to re-sign with the  Thunder, reports Shams Charania of RealGm (Twitter link). Contract length and details haven’t been announced yet.

Jerrett was originally selected 40th overall by the Trail Blazers in the 2013 NBA Draft. His rights were then traded to the Thunder on draft night for cash considerations. He then spent the bulk of the 2013/14 season with the Tulsa 66ers of the NBA D-League where he appeared in 27 games and averaged 15.1 PPG and 6.1 RPG in 29.3 minutes per game. He was signed by the Thunder for the remainder of the season on April 7th, 2014. Jerrett did not make an appearance for the team.

Back on June 30th, the Thunder declined Jerrett‘s $816K option while also extending him a $1.16MM qualifying offer. In that same article, Hoops Rumors’ Chuck Myron predicted that Jerrett would re-sign with Oklahoma City on a multi-year deal for the amount of his qualifying offer that includes at least a partial guarantee in year two to entice him to take a multi-year deal rather than just signing the QO.

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Western Notes: Blazers, Parsons, Cunningham

July 14th, 2014 at 12:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

Agent Mark Bartelstein told Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com last week that there remained a chance that Mo Williams would re-sign with the Blazers, but the door is largely closed to that possibility, leaving a disappointed Damian Lillard, as Haynes writes.

“He’s someone who I can say will be a friend forever,” Lillard said. “We got that close in a year. He’s was the one guy I wanted back the most but that’s not in my power and I understand that. We still talk and plan to link up down the road but it’s tough to know he’s not coming back.”

Still, Lillard added that he likes Portland’s additions of Chris Kaman and Steve Blake. Here’s more from around the West:

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