Kings Sign Luc Mbah a Moute
The Kings have signed Luc Mbah a Moute, the team announced (on Twitter). Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported overnight that they were close to a one-year deal, a day after Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported that the sides were making progress. It’s unclear just how much the Darren Matsubara client is getting, though Sacramento is in line for a $2.814MM room exception after clearing cap room this summer for a handful of other deals.
Mbah a Moute returns to Sacramento, where he played nine games at the start of the 2013/14 season before the Kings traded him to the Timberwolves for Derrick Williams, who left this month in free agency to sign with the Knicks. Thus, today’s move is something of an about-face on that deal, which came during the tenure of former Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro.
New Kings vice president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac brings Mbah a Moute from the Sixers, and the seven-year veteran forward had expressed interest in returning to Philadelphia. The Sixers under GM Sam Hinkie have nonetheless rarely signed veterans such as Mbah a Moute, who arrived in Philadelphia as part of the Kevin Love trade. Mbah a Moute made 61 starts this past season, but he also served as a mentor for Joel Embiid, who’s now likely to miss all of 2015/16 as he continues to recover from a broken foot.
Kings Re-Sign Omri Casspi
JULY 14TH, 2:33pm: The Kings haven’t made a formal announcement of a signing, but they acknowledged as much on Twitter.
JULY, 5TH, 9:24pm: he Kings are close to re-signing unrestricted free agent Omri Casspi to a two-year, $6MM deal, ESPN.com’s Marc Stein reports (Twitter link).
In 67 games this past season, including 19 as a starter, the swingman averaged 8.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.5 assists. Casspi indicated well before the summer that he would be very interested in remaining in Sacramento. Casspi, who is represented by agent Dan Fegan, expressed a desire back in March to play in coach George Karl‘s up-tempo offensive system. The offense now will also include Rajon Rondo, who agreed to a deal with the Kings on Friday.
“I want to come back here so badly. I love the community and I feel like the team is finally moving in the right direction,” Casspi said then. “George Karl’s system is great, and I’m not just saying that because I play for him, but because I really do believe this is the right way to play basketball. Spacing the floor. Moving, making extra passes, sharing the ball. Getting our hands on balls, deflections, then getting out and running. Unfortunately, coach Karl has not had a lot of time to teach us everything, but these last two games, you can see what we can become.”
In addition to Rondo, the Kings have also added Marco Belinelli and Kosta Koufos in free agency and drafted center Willie Cauley-Stein, which supports executive Vlade Divac‘s win-now mantra, Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee writes. Re-signing Casspi is another move that signals the Kings are serious about contending.
Pacers Sign Monta Ellis
JULY 14TH, 12:20pm: The signing is official, the team announced.
“He’ll be a great addition to our team,” president of basketball operations Larry Bird said. “And he fits our needs for how we want to play. We’re excited to have him. He adds another veteran in our lineup and we think he’ll be a great fit, complementing George Hill in the backcourt.”
Despite the earlier reports, it’s a straight signing, not a sign-and-trade.
2:06pm: The expectation is that if the Mavs don’t sign DeAndre Jordan, they’ll have talks with the Pacers about turning the Ellis deal into part of a sign-and-trade that would bring Roy Hibbert to Dallas, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com reported earlier that Hibbert is a consideration for the Mavs if Jordan is out of the picture.
JULY 2ND, 12:10pm: The Pacers and Monta Ellis have reached agreement on a four-year deal, reports Chris Broussard of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The contract will be worth $44MM with a player option after year three, Broussard adds (on Twitter). Ken Berger of CBSSports.com has the value of the deal at an estimated $45MM (Twitter link). The Pacers had reportedly offered a deal with similar terms over three years on Wednesday, when the sides met, so it appears the player option season has sprung up since then.
The client of Happy Walters and Jeff Fried turned down a four-year, $48MM offer from the Kings, sources tell Chris Broussard of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The Hawks, Nuggets, and Heat were also reportedly in pursuit, and the interest was seemingly mutual between Ellis and Miami. The Mavs didn’t rule out a return, but they had other priorities, as Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com reported, and they didn’t intend to give him a raise on the roughly $8MM salaries he’d seen with them.
Indiana proved more willing to give the 29-year-old the raises he sought as he turned down his $8.72MM player option to stay in Dallas. The Pacers will use the cap flexibility created when David West decided against picking up his $12.6MM player option to accommodate the shooting guard, who figures to rev up Indiana’s offense, filling the playmaker role that Lance Stephenson used to occupy, as Chris Crouse of Hoops Rumors examined when he looked at Ellis’ free agent stock. The Pacers have wanted a more up-tempo attack, as they made clear this past spring.
Kings Interested In Matt Bonner
Free agent Matt Bonner has become a subject of interest from the Kings, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The longtime Spur was reportedly thinking about retirement this spring, though he said last year that he wanted to play for several more seasons. Little chatter has surrounded the 35-year-old’s free agency this month, even though he made 19 starts this past season, the second most of his 11-year career.
Bonner made the minimum salary in 2014/15, and it would seem difficult for him to command more this time around. Sacramento is reportedly closing in on a deal with Luc Mbah a Moute that would be its sixth free agent agreement of the month, so Bonner is down the team’s list of priorities.
In spite of the Red Rocket’s appearances in the starting lineup, his play declined this past season. His 36.5% accuracy from behind the arc showed proficiency, but it was his first sub-40% three-point shooting season in five years. His 10.1 PER was a career low.
Kings Close To Deal With Luc Mbah a Moute
TUESDAY, 8:15am: The sides are close on what would be a one-year arrangement, and the Kings are committed to getting a deal done, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
MONDAY, 9:12am: The Kings are making progress as they negotiate a deal with Luc Mbah a Moute, league sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter). The former King spent this past season as a starter for the Sixers. The talks are the latest development in an active summer for Sacramento after the team saw Andrea Bargnani slip through their hands Sunday and strike a deal with the Nets.
Mbah a Moute had wanted to return to Philadelphia, where coach Brett Brown was a fan, but with fellow Cameroonian Joel Embiid‘s career reportedly in jeopardy, the call for Mbah a Moute’s veteran mentorship of the would-be star might not be as great as it was this past season. The 2014/15 season was nonetheless a career year for Mbah a Moute, who averaged 9.9 points and 4.9 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per game as the Sixers clearly saw him as more than just an asset for the locker room.
Sacramento still hasn’t officially signed the five free agents with which it has reached agreements this month, so it’s unclear just how much cap flexibility is left for Mbah a Moute. Regardless, the Kings appear to at least have the power to spend their $2.814MM room exception on him. That would still be quite a bit less than the nearly $4.383MM the Darren Matsubara client made this past season. Mbah a Moute was briefly a King during 2013/14 before heading to Minnesota in the Derrick Williams trade.
Kings Sign Marco Belinelli
July 13th, 9:58pm: The signing is official, according to the team’s Twitter feed.
July 3rd, 4:05pm: The deal wouldn’t fit within the mid-level exception, Stein notes via Twitter. That exception would only allow for a total of $17,129,640 over three years, and while it’s not uncommon for initial reported figures on deals to be off, this appears to be confirm that the contract will exceed the exception amount. That means the Kings will likely use cap room and lose the ability to create trade exceptions for the three players they’ve agreed to trade to Philadelphia, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders points out (on Twitter).
1:36pm: The Kings and Marco Belinelli have reached agreement on a deal worth $19MM over three years, reports Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The contract will include no option clauses, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. Sacramento will likely use part of the cap space it’s set to clear in the wake of its trade agreement with the Sixers, though the deal is cheap enough to fit within the $5.464MM mid-level exception if the Kings choose to operate as an over-the-cap team.
The Hornets had reportedly planned a strong pursuit, and the Warriors had interest, too. The Heat put in a call to express their interest in the client of Sam Goldfeder and Jeff Schwartz, reports Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald (Twitter link), but Miami, like the Warriors, is likely limited to no more than the $3.376MM taxpayer’s mid-level exception. The Bulls might have gone after him if they’d have failed to sign Mike Dunleavy, as K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune wrote, but they, too, would likely have been limited to the taxpayer’s mid-level.
Belinelli wanted to re-sign with the Spurs, as Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News heard (Twitter link). They were armed with Early Bird rights to bring him back on a deal comparable to the one he’s getting from the Kings, but they’re in hot pursuit of LaMarcus Aldridge, and may well have had to renounce Belinelli’s rights to squeeze Aldridge under the cap.
Sacramento moves on from having missed out on Monta Ellis and Wesley Matthews with a proven three-point marksman who’s nailed 39.2% of his attempts from behind the arc for his career. Still, outside of two seasons in New Orleans, he’s primarily been a reserve during his eight years in the NBA.
Kings Sign Kosta Koufos
July 13th, 9:58pm: The signing is official, according to the team’s Twitter feed.
July 4th, 10:01pm: The Kings will sign Kosta Koufos to a four-year deal worth $33MM, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The deal will include a player option after the third season that will allow him to return to free agency during the summer of 2018, Stein adds (Twitter link).
The center had previously received interest from the Mavs, Magic, Celtics and Lakers in addition to the Kings. Koufos is the second center the team has added this offseason. Sacramento drafted Willie Cauley-Stein with the No. 6 overall pick in this year’s draft. The moves seem to correspond with DeMarcus Cousins‘ insistence to play more minutes at the power forward position. The team now has the depth to accommodate such an arrangement. The signing also gives Sacramento a back-up plan if the Cousins-George Karl relationship is found to be unsalvageable and the team opts to trade the 24-year-old. Koufos previously played under coach Karl for two and a half seasons as a member of the Nuggets.
Koufos averaged 5.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 0.8 blocks per game last season. The 26-year-old was the ninth best center defensively, according to ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus/Minus.
Kings Sign Rajon Rondo
July 13th, 9:38pm: The signing is official, according to the team’s Twitter feed.
July 3rd, 6:17pm: The Kings and Rajon Rondo have reached an agreement to bring the point guard to Sacramento for the 2015/16 campaign, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reports (on Twitter). It is a one-year, $10MM pact, adds Spears. Rondo agreed to a short-term deal with the expectation to cash in on a major raise in salaries and the salary cap when the league’s new television deal kicks in next summer, Spears adds.
Sacramento forward Rudy Gay played an instrumental role in the Kings landing Rondo, who is a close friend of his, Spears notes (Twitter links). Rondo also played a part in the team’s signing of Marco Belinelli, having asked the team to land a shooter, the Yahoo! scribe adds. The team is planning on using Rondo and Darren Collison in the same backcourt at times, according to Spears’ sources.
Things turned sour quickly for Rondo last season after being acquired by the Mavs. He made 46 appearances for the team, averaging 9.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 6.5 assists in 28.7 minutes per contest, with a slash line of .436/.352/.452. His career numbers are 10.8 PPG, 4.7 RPG, and 8.3 APG, with a shooting line of .470/.263/.609.
It should be quite interesting to watch the relationship between Rondo and new Kings coach George Karl. Karl has had run-ins with star players before, including Kings center DeMarcus Cousins. Rondo, meanwhile, has had difficulties with virtually every coach he has played for in the league, including Mavs coach Rick Carlisle during the 2014/15 season, resulting in the point guard being benched in the playoffs.
Central Notes: Shumpert, LeBron, Monroe
Six teams offered a first-round pick to the Cavaliers for Iman Shumpert at the trade deadline this past February, and three of them had max-level cap flexibility this summer, reports Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group. That made Cleveland’s front office “incredibly nervous” as it sought to re-sign the swingman in restricted free agency, despite its ability to match competing offers for him. The Kings were one of the teams that thought about an offer before Shumpert, who’d made it a priority to remain with the Cavs, did just that and signed a new deal.
“We were thinking about it,” Kings Vice President of Basketball Operations Vlade Divac told Haynes, “but we had some other options that came up better for us.”
Haynes wonders just what those better options could have been, but the upshot is that Shumpert is staying put. Here’s more from around the Central Division:
- The Cavaliers certainly aren’t trading LeBron James, but if they did, they’d have to pay a 15% trade kicker as part of his new contract, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reports (Twitter link). The bonus would only take effect if he were to opt in for next season.
- The precise value of Mo Williams‘ two-year deal with the Cavs is $4,294,500, with $2.1MM coming this season and the rest set aside for the player option year in 2016/17, as Pincus shows on Basketball Insiders (Twitter link).
- The Bucks had been trying to trade Zaza Pachulia in the days after they struck a deal with Greg Monroe, sources told Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Milwaukee swapped Pachulia to the Mavs last week.
- Monroe told Scoop Jackson of ESPN.com that if the Pistons had put on the same sort of hard push that the Clippers made to convince DeAndre Jordan to renege on his deal with the Mavs, he might have stuck with Detroit. “I can’t lie, it probably would have made me think, maybe affected my decision a bit,” said Monroe, whose deal with the Bucks is official, so there’s no going back now. “I mean, I was there for five years, my whole NBA career to this point. I knew the people in the organization, I loved my teammates, so I mean, I can’t lie. I’m not saying if that had happened, I would have changed my mind, but I know that would have affected me, and I probably would have had to ponder a little bit more.”
Pacific Notes: Clippers, Suns, Kings
Austin Rivers did not take a “family discount” in agreeing to return to the Clippers and play for his father, Doc Rivers, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com reports. The two-year, $6.4MM deal, according to Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link), is comparable to what Rivers would have likely seen in terms of annual salary if he signed with another team, a league executive told Blakely.
Here’s more from the Pacific Division:
- By spending his summer in Phoenix instead of returning to his hometown of Birmingham, Eric Bledsoe is showing a full offseason commitment to the Suns, Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic writes. Bledsoe has been working out at US Airways Center, has attended draft workouts and was part of the Suns’ recruiting group that pitched to LaMarcus Aldridge, Coro points out. Bledsoe’s name swirled in trade rumors when the team agreed to re-sign Brandon Knight, but Suns coach Jeff Hornacek later denied any talks. Bledsoe is set to make $13.5MM next season in the second year of a five-year, $70MM deal.
- Vlade Divac, Kings vice president of basketball and franchise operations, acknowledged that the relationship between coach George Karl and center DeMarcus Cousins isn’t exactly great, but, while appearing on The Jim Rome Show on CBS Sports Radio, Divac said he expects both to be with Sacramento this season (story relayed by ESPN.com). “Well, I’ll be honest with you, it’s not pretty right now, but I’m focused on bringing a better team this year and I think I did a pretty good job in this free agency and now I’m going to be focused on the two of them,” Divac said.