Pacific Notes: Jackson, Kings, Cap Space
Both Tim Kawakami of Bay Area News Group and Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report believe the Warriors players and coaches made a statement of support for coach Mark Jackson with their effort and emotion in a win against the Grizzlies last night, with both Andrew Bogut and David Lee injured (Twitter links). Here’s more from the Pacific Division:
- After the game, Warriors forward Draymond Green told Kawakami that the team is in fact unified behind Jackson. “Coach is a guy we fight for and we’re going to continue to fight for,” said Green. “He’s given his all to us and we’re going to continue to give our all to him.”
- Marcus Thompson of Bay Area News Group thinks that the Warriors would be more at risk by parting ways with Jackson than the coach would be (Twitter link). Thompson says that Jackson would land another job, but the team might not find a suitable replacement as easily.
- The Kings don’t plan to use their open roster spot on a guard yet as they monitor the health of injured Isaiah Thomas, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. The roster spot remains vacant after the team opted not to sign Royce White for the rest of the year following his second 10-day contract with Sacramento.
- The Kings struggled in a loss to the Thunder while Thomas sat another game, but Jones finds a bright side to the situation: opportunity and development for Sacramento’s rookie backcourt pairing of Ben McLemore and Ray McCallum. Both players said they were excited to see more minutes. “I’ll take all the minutes I can get,” McCallum said. “I’ve been waiting for the opportunity all year and getting a good opportunity to go out here and get some good experience and go out there and play.”
- Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders takes a look at the projected cap space for teams in the Pacific, and how each team might use its cap space this summer.
- We looked at the latest with the Lakers in an earlier roundup.
Western Notes: Scalabrine, D’Antoni, McLemore
Brandon Rush says he’s still not 100% after tearing his ACL a year and a half ago, and he expects to have to work out in front of executives from interested teams this summer when he’s a free agent, tweets Aaron Falk of The Salt Lake Tribune. In any case, Jody Genessy of the Deseret News can’t envision the swingman re-signing with the Jazz (Twitter link).
More from the Western Conference:
- Brian Scalabrine is serving as the player development coach for the Santa Cruz Warriors following Golden State’s decision to reassign its former assistant coach, according to Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group.
- There’s reportedly mutual interest between Mike D’Antoni and Marshall University, and if he takes that job, it would represent a cratering of his stock, as Will Leitch of Sports on Earth examines.
- The trade that sent Marcus Thornton to the Nets at the deadline opened the starting Kings shooting guard position for Ben McLemore, and he’s responded with strong performances, observes Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee.
Ranadive On Gay, Malone, D’Alessandro, Cousins
Jared Dubin of ESPN.com’s TrueHoop Network scored a one-on-one interview with Kings owner Vivek Ranadive, who shared a broad range of insight on the team he bought nearly a year ago. The technology magnate makes no bones about his enthusiasm for analytics, and told Dubin about the way extra layers of data convinced the team to trade for Rudy Gay, upon whom advanced metrics have often shed an unflattering light.
“What we did is, we looked at all six years of data, we looked at spatial data, we looked at what happened with a big guy, and what would happen if he was the second or the third option,” Ranadive said. “We concluded that his efficiency would go up dramatically, and sure enough, it’s gone up 20 percentage points.”
It’s not quite clear how Ranadive is measuring efficiency in this context, but most measures demonstrate that Gay has indeed performed better in Sacramento than he had with the Raptors. Dubin’s entire piece is worth your attention, particularly if you’re a Kings fan, but we’ll share some of the highlights here:
On hiring coach Michael Malone:
“He was the 21st century kind of coach that I wanted. The style of play — we want to be like the Spurs, but exciting. We want to create a winning franchise that is a perennial contender, and we also want a strong defense, combined with up-tempo play. Malone is a coach’s son, and there was high demand for him. I knew that I wanted him, so I made a deal with him that once I bought a team, he would be my coach.”
On hiring GM Pete D’Alessandro:
“When I spoke to Pete, I told him, ‘I’ve got three other candidates that are finalists for this job, and it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get job. I will interview you, and most likely it will be for an assistant GM [position]. If you want to come out, come out, but the chances of you getting it are 1%.’ He came out, and the night before I gave him a call and said, ‘There are just five questions I have for you,’ and then he just absolutely blew me away. Blew me away. He was the kind of 21st century GM that I was looking for. Looking at that, we don’t hold the fact that you haven’t done something against you. Mark Zuckerberg was 21 when he invented Facebook. That’s just how we think.”
On signing DeMarcus Cousins to a maximum-salary extension:
“He plays really hard. I know that he’s had issues with his temper and so on, but when I took over the franchise, the first thing I did was I texted him and I said, ‘Hey, my friend Steve Jobs likes to say ‘Let’s go to the end of the universe.’ So let’s do that in the NBA.’ And just like one of my kids, he sent me a three-word text back just saying, ‘Sounds good, boss.’ That was the start of my relationship with him and his mom. Before we gave him the contract, it was over the summertime, and I said, ‘Look, I just want one thing from you. I want you to be the first guy in and the last guy out. As long as you do that, we’re good.’ And he did. He lost a bunch of weight; he was the hardest-working guy in practice. The coaches have done a great job with him, and his numbers reflect it. He’s had amazing numbers. There’s still more work to be done, but I am very pleased with where he is.”
On his plan for changing the draft lottery, which he dubs the “V Plan.”
“There’s two parts to it. Part one is that you freeze the draft order at the time of the All-Star break. Then, everything [pertaining to the current lottery system] remains the same, but it’s frozen based on the standings at the All-Star break. Then there’s no gain in not playing at the highest level for the remainder of the season. That’s part one. Part two is that at the end of the season, the top seven teams from the Eastern Conference and the top seven teams from the Western Conference make the playoffs. Then for the eighth playoff spot, the remaining eight teams have a sudden-death, college-style playoff in a neutral venue, like Vegas in the West and Kansas or Louisville in the East.”
Kings Sign Willie Reed
FRIDAY, 11:26am: The Kings have signed Reed to a deal for the rest of the season, the team announced. The team’s statement doesn’t make mention of it being a multiyear arrangement, as had previously been reported, so perhaps it only covers the balance of 2013/14. In any case, the team has also assigned Reed to the D-League, as Pilato reported they would.
THURSDAY, 6:24pm: The move was made in part to help the Reno Bighorns (Sacramento’s NBDL affiliate) as they make a late season push for the playoffs, reports Gino Pilato of DLeagueDigest. As Pilato explains, there is a rule that states that if an NBA team assigns any player called up within 21 days of the end of the NBA regular season or at any subsequent point during the NBDL regular season or playoffs, the player will return to the D-League team that he was previously playing for.
The Kings barely made the deadline to sign Reed with the option of sending him to their own affiliate, and that’s exactly what the team plans on doing, a source tells Pilato.
9:08am: The Kings are signing D-Leaguer Willie Reed for the rest of the season, agent Joel Bell tells Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). The team has yet to make an official announcement. Charania’s full story indicates that the deal includes a team option for 2014/15, though I suspect that’s simply a non-guaranteed season, since team options are rare outside of rookie scale contracts.
Reed also inked a multiyear deal with Memphis in mid-April last year, but he never made it into a game, and the Grizzlies cut him and his non-guaranteed contract in training camp this past autumn. Reed appears to represent Plan B for the Kings, who were reportedly set to sign Chris Johnson on Wednesday before the deal fell through.
The 6’9″ Reed has been playing with the D-League affiliate of the Nets this season, averaging 14.8 points and 10.1 rebounds in 31.8 minutes per contest. Rebounding is his most significant area of improvement over last year, when he averaged 7.8 per contest in similar minutes for the same D-League club.
The Kings gave Reed his first NBA contract in 2012, but he failed to make the team out of camp. Still, Sacramento is high on his activity and athleticism, Charania notes, though most of the team’s management has changed since Reed’s first stint with the Kings.
Kings Hold Off On Re-Signing Royce White
The Kings have no immediate plans to re-sign Royce White for the rest of season, notes Jonathan Santiago of Cowbell Kingdom (hat tip to James Ham of Cowbell Kingdom). Earlier today, we noted that the team had been debating on whether or not to give the 6’8 forward a new contract once his second 10-day deal expired today. With that being said, head coach Michael Malone wouldn’t rule out an eventual return for White in the future:
“The door is not closed…The 10-day has ended, but that doesn’t mean that the relationship has ended for good…I think for him and his future and his career, he has to start amending some of the things that have happened in the past…Everybody here can only speak positively about our time with Royce and as we just mentioned, it doesn’t mean that his time here is over. For right now it is, but I appreciate his hard work.”
Santiago adds that White’s potential future in Sacramento will be up to GM Pete D’Alessandro, who is currently in New York attending personal matters. Malone – who continued to be complimentary in describing White’s stay in Sacramento when speaking with the media – expects D’Alessandro to meet with White and his representation once he returns from that trip.
Though originally drafted by the Rockets in 2012, White hadn’t appeared in an official NBA game until this year with the Kings. The 22-year-old Minneapolis native is yet to register his first career basket as a pro and logged a total of nine minutes over his twenty-day stint in Sacramento.
Pacific Notes: Young, Meeks, Hornacek, Kings
It appears likely that Nick Young will opt out of his contract, writes Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times, though there’s mutual interest in keeping him in purple-and-gold. The team also likes soon-to-be free agent Jodie Meeks, Bresnahan adds, and while Meeks has spoken of his desire to remain a Laker, the Times scribe believes the shooting guard will probably command a tidy raise from his $1.55MM salary this season. Here’s more from the Pacific Division:
- Within a story noting that Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg must pay the school $500K if he accepts an NBA head coaching or GM job, Randy Peterson of the Des Moines Register reveals that Jeff Hornacek is making $2MM as coach of the Suns this year. Hornacek reportedly has a four-year deal with a club option in the final season.
- The Kings are debating whether to re-sign Royce White for the season, and they’re enamored with his play, professionalism and the way he’s meshed with teammates, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. White’s second 10-day contract with Sacramento expires tonight.
- Sean Cunningham of News 10 Sacramento hears it was a failed physical that derailed Chris Johnson‘s deal with the Kings (Twitter link). The team is reportedly adding Willie Reed instead.
Coaching Rumors: Jackson, Adelman, Fisher
The drama in Golden State continues to unfold, with more speculation about Warriors coach Mark Jackson reaching the media. Golden State’s All-Star point guard Steph Curry spoke up on behalf of Jackson today, telling reporters including Marcus Thompson of Bay Area News Group, “I love coach and everything he’s about.” Curry also said he wanted management to consult with him before deciding what to do with Jackson in the future.
- Some players have told Thompson that they were dismayed over Jackson’s treatment by management, and think he should be supported considering the team’s success over the last two years.
- Players also told Thompson they could see Jackson leaving after the season, either by his own decision or management’s.
- One possible source of the reported friction between Jackson and newly re-assigned, former assistant coach Brian Scalabrine was Scalabrine’s willingness to talk too specifically during an in-game interview about the Warriors‘ defensive strategy, opines Ethan Strauss of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
- The Wolves can expect to have some clarity on coach Rick Adelman within two weeks of the end of the season, since that’s the deadline for both sides on their mutual option for next season, as Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune notes.
- There’s been speculation that Derek Fisher will be the next head coach of the Knicks, and some of his Thunder teammates say he’d make a fine coach, but the 39-year-old has said he has no interest in coaching, notes Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Kings, Chris Johnson Call Off Deal
WEDNESDAY, 12:45pm: The deal has come apart, and the Kings no longer plan to sign Johnson, Deeks reports (Twitter link).
TUESDAY, 7:20pm: The Kings are set to sign Chris Johnson tomorrow, reports Mark Deeks of ShamSports,com. The big man out of LSU is not to be confused with the Celtics player of the same name. We heard that the Bobcats worked out Johnson a couple of weeks ago, but Charlotte ended up signing DJ White to a 10-day contract instead, leaving the opportunity for the Kings to swoop in and ink the athletic center.
Johnson, 28, has been playing in China since November. He’s averaged impressive numbers of 20 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2 blocks per night in 29 games for Zhejiang Guangsha Lions. During his most recent stint in the NBA, Johnson played 30 contests for for the Timberwolves and averaged 3.9 points per game while posting an impressive 18.9 PER.
It’s not clear whether Sacramento is giving Johnson a 10-day deal or signing him for the rest of the season and possibly beyond, writes Deeks. The Kings have an open roster spot after waiving Jimmer Fredette and opting not to retain Orlando Johnson, who signed a pair of 10-day contracts with the club. The acquisition of Johnson will now put the Kings’ roster at an NBA maximum of 15 players.
Pacific Notes: White, Kelly, Lakers
Gregg Popovich has long been in Kings coach Michael Malone‘s corner, explaining to The Sacramento Bee’s Jason Jones why he endorsed Malone when Malone sought his first NBA head coaching gig. “In an NBA season, there’s all kinds of ups and downs, and you have to be able to roll with all of them,” Popovich said. “I just thought he had that edge, that toughness and the obvious sense for the game and that he could be successful. That’s why I went to bat for him.” More from the Pacific:
- After playing his first minute of NBA action last night, Royce White tells Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com that he plans to attend every game with the Kings as long as he’s under contract, including road games requiring flying. White is optimistic about his stay in Sacramento working out better than his time with the Rockets, who drafted him and eventually traded him after failing to resolve issues surrounding his mental health. “In all fairness to Houston, they were in a much different position. A lot of things, they couldn’t make a ruling on themselves as much as the league. They had to wait on a lot of OKs and things from people. It was a real complex situation. But [this] feels very different.” said White. “I’m definitely feeling more comfortable with the ability to have a successful career in this league.”
- Rookie Ryan Kelly is trying to prove that he deserves to remain with the Lakers next season, he tells Ben Bolch of The Los Angeles Times. “I’ve seen it as an opportunity to let not only the Lakers organization know but the rest of the league know that I deserve a spot in this league,” Kelly said. Kelly will be a restricted free agent this summer if the Lakers extend a qualifying offer of just over $1MM.
- Lakers owner Jeanie Buss doesn’t believe Phil Jackson‘s presence in New York will hurt her team’s appeal for free agents, she said in an interview with ESPN 710 (transcription via Mike Bresnahan and Eric Pincus of The Los Angeles Times). “I think the Lakers are a legacy franchise. Players know when they come here this is the ultimate platform… I’m not worried about that in any way, shape or form,” said Buss.
- Buss added that the Lakers‘ struggles don’t effect the Buss family’s long-term commitment to keep and run the team.
Western Notes: Buss, White, Mekel
The Lakers ownership and decision making has been complicated since the passing of Jerry Buss, but Jeanie Buss has stated emphatically that she’s the “boss”, writes Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com. In an interview on the “Mason and Ireland”show, Buss said, “I am responsible ultimately for anything with the team and decisions that are made. In my position, I empower people that are in positions to do their jobs. [Executive vice president of player personnel] Jim Buss and [general manager] Mitch Kupchak are responsible for all basketball decisions. They are empowered to do that. My job is to make sure, as a boss, that I provide them the tools to do the job successfully. But it’s up to them to make the day-to-day decisions on how they operate their area of the business.”
More from out west:
- Royce White may finally achieve his dream of playing in the NBA tonight when the Kings take on the Spurs, writes Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. White has had a tumultuous career since being taken 16th overall by the Rockets in the 2012 NBA Draft. Mental health issues have taken their toll and kept him off the court. In regards to those issues, White said, “I think (the issues) kind of resolved themselves over time. Just me being in the league for a year and a half and having things be on the table with the league and the union and discussing it put this organization in a better position to handle things. It’s been so good we haven’t even had a discussion about anything. That’s exciting.”
- The Mavericks have recalled Gal Mekel from the NBA D-League, the team announced. In 31 appearances for the Mavs, Mekel has averaged 2.4 PPG, 0.9 RPG, and 2.0 APG in 9.4 minutes per game.
- The Warriors have assigned Ognjen Kuzmic to Santa Cruz in the D-League, the team announced. Kuzmic has compiled averages of 6.1 PPG, 10.2 RPG in 21.4 minutes per game over nine games for Santa Cruz this season.