The Wolves' courtship of Nicolas Batum took another unusual turn last night, when Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com reported that the league has ruled the offer sheet he signed with the team is invalid, since the Wolves don't have enough cap space to accommodate the four-year, $46.5MM deal. Minnesota moved to clear cap space Friday by waiving Martell Webster and trading Brad Miller to the Hawks. They also renounced the rights to free agents Anthony Tolliver and Anthony Randolph, as fellow CSNNW.com scribe Dwight Jaynes reported. But, as Jaynes noted, Webster won't clear waivers until Sunday at 4:00pm Central, at which time the Wolves can finally submit a new signed offer sheet from Batum. That's not the only news from the Northwest, and we've got the rest here:
The Knicks’ deadline to match Landry Fields’ 3-year, $18.7MM offer sheet from the Raptors is tonight at 11pm CDT. If they match Lin and Fields, the Knicks will have roughly $86MM committed to those two plus Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire, and Tyson Chandler for the 2014-15 season, tweets Al Iannazzone of Newsday. Include Jason Kidd and Steve Novak and it’s more than $92MM committed to seven players. The luxury tax penalties really start to get stiff in 2013/14 and that could make the Knicks' decision on Fields a difficult one. Here's more from around the Association..
Rick Bonnell from the Charlotte Observer tweets that the Nets may have offered Kris Humphries either a two-year, $20MM or a three-year, $26MM contract.
As summer league kicks off tonight in Las Vegas, here's some more news from around the league.
We heard yesterday that Jerry Sloan withdrew his name from consideration for the Trail Blazers' head coach opening. Today, GM Neil Olshey revealed that Sloan was more seriously considered than we originally thought. Olshey told reporters, including Mike Tokito of the Oregonian, that he offered Sloan the job, but the former Jazz coach declined the offer after sleeping on it (Twitter links). Here are a few more Blazers updates, primarily involving the team's coaching search….
FRIDAY, 2:53pm: The Trail Blazers have officially signed Hickson, the team announced today (Twitter link).
WEDNESDAY, 8:48pm: A source tells Sam Amick of SI.com that Hickson's deal is worth about $4MM, which is pretty close to what he would have made with his qualifying offer (Twitter link). That would be something of an about-face for the Blazers, possibly triggered by Indiana's apparent willingness to either match an offer sheet or re-sign Roy Hibbert.
8:03pm: J.J. Hickson and the Blazers have agreed to a one-year deal, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). The team elected not to give Hickson a qualifying offer which would have been close to $4.4MM, making him an unrestricted free agent, so presumably the deal is for less than that amount.
FRIDAY, 2:01pm: The Pacers have officially re-signed Hibbert, the team announced in a press release. Since the Blazers never signed Hibbert to an offer sheet, Indiana may have added an extra year or a little more money to its offer, but for now we'll assume the big man's deal is for four years and about $58.37MM.
MONDAY, 2:21pm: It sounds as if the Pacers will sign Hibbert outright to the same terms he would've received from Portland, rather than matching an offer sheet, tweets TNT's David Aldridge. If Hibbert doesn't officially sign the Blazers' offer sheet, that could give the Pacers more than three days to keep Hibbert's smaller cap hold on their books before making his new deal official.
As NBA teams continue to agree to contracts and officially sign this year's free agents, you can keep tabs on all the activity by checking out Hoops Rumors' 2012 Free Agent Tracker. We're continuously updating our database to reflect the latest contract agreements, adding details on years and salaries as they become available. But there are still plenty of unsigned players left on the market, so we'll track today's rumors on those guys right here:
- TNT's David Aldridge (via Twitter) cites league sources that believe Kris Humphries would be more inclined to remain with the Nets than leave for the Bobcats. Marc Stein tweeted that the Nets could be involved no matter what Humphries decides to do, and could end up offering to negotiate a sign-and-trade if he chose Charlotte.
- The Timberwolves are waiting for Portland to make a decision on Nicolas Batum before they extend an offer sheet to Greg Stiemsma, according to A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com.
Earlier updates:
Nearly a day after interviewing for Portland's coaching position with GM Neil Olshey, Jerry Sloan decided to remove himself from the Trail Blazers' list of coaching candidates (Chris Tomasson of FOX Sports Florida reports). Although he declined to give reasons why the job no longer interested him, Sloan conceded that "it just didn't work out on my part" during a phone interview.
The winner among teams that place a bid on recently-amnestied forward Elton Brand will be announced on Friday after 4:00pm CST (Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas reports). Only teams below the salary cap have the opportunity to bid. The Mavericks are expected to be "aggressive" suitors for the 13-year-veteran, who have high hopes of paring Brand with Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman. Other teams with cap space, such as the Suns and Trail Blazers, also have a chance to vie for Brand's services.
In the unlikely situation that no team places a bid, Brand would become an unrestricted free agent and could then sign with any team.
It's been another busy day of NBA free agency, and no team has been busier than the Nets, who've either signed, re-signed, acquired or traded 13 players today, according to the count of New York Times reporter Howard Beck (Twitter link). Many of those moves came as the team finalized earlier deals, like the swap for Joe Johnson, but some of the news was fresh, like the four-year extension for Brook Lopez. It doesn't appear GM Billy King and company are finished, either, as they're reportedly discussing a sign-and-trade deal for Antawn Jamison. We have plenty more on the moves to come here: