Trade Candidate: Jason Thompson
The Kings have been the most active team on the trade market so far this NBA season, having been involved in the only two deals consummated since opening night. Even after acquiring Derrick Williams from the Timberwolves and Rudy Gay from the Raptors, Sacramento may not be done making moves, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the franchise’s tumultuous 2013. After avoiding a move to Seattle, the Kings introduced a new coach, GM, and owner, and the club’s new leadership group is eager to give its loyal fans a winner on the court.
Typically, when a team’s front office undergoes changes, the new general manager and his basketball operations staff look forward to bringing in players they like, which might mean a change of scenery for favorites of the old regime. That’s what happened in Toronto, where new team president Masai Ujiri traded Gay to the Kings just a few months after former GM Bryan Colangelo had acquired him. And it looks like that’s what we’re seeing in Sacramento, where Pete D’Alessandro has already moved several players from the Geoff Petrie era, including pricey veterans John Salmons and Chuck Hayes. Next on the list of Petrie-era players to go may be Jason Thompson. Following the Kings’ trade with the Raptors, a report surfaced suggesting that Thompson was on the trade block.
Coming into the season, power forward looked like a position of depth for the Kings, and a spot where the team potentially had a trade chip or two. After acquiring Patrick Patterson late last season, the team went out and signed Carl Landry to a four-year contract, creating a logjam of power forwards that included Patterson, Landry, Hayes, and Thompson.
Landry suffered a hip injury that figures to keep him sidelined until January or February, and Patterson and Hayes are now Raptors, but even so, Thompson remains expendable. With the Kings employing more small-ball lineups that include Gay or Williams at the four, and Landry eventually on his way back, Thompson likely won’t receive enough playing time for Sacramento to justify paying him an annual salary in the neighborhood of $6MM.
When examining Thompson’s trade value, that contract is an important place to start. In the last two offseasons, only six free agents have signed five-year deals, and that group includes stars like Chris Paul and Deron Williams. Also among that group of six: Thompson, who inked a five-year, $30MM+ contract in July of 2012. While the final year of his deal is only partially guaranteed, he’s currently slated to remain under contract through 2017, which is a lifetime under the league’s new CBA.
Although that long-term contract may make Thompson tricky to trade, his yearly salaries are in the $5-7MM range over the life of the deal, so his price isn’t exorbitant. The 27-year-old’s upside also may be somewhat limited, but for a team that already has solid starters at the four and five, Thompson would make a solid third big man. Throwing out the numbers he’s accumulated in a reduced role and reduced minutes this season, the longtime King has career averages of 10.5 PPG and 7.1 RPG in 27.4 minutes per contest, to go along with 49.9% shooting. He’s also been extremely durable, only playing in fewer than 75 games once, when he appeared in 64 of 66 during the strike-shortened 2011/12 season.
Thompson’s skill-set and agency (CAA) would appeal to the Knicks, who have reportedly inquired. It’s hard not to mention the Rockets when a power forward hits the trade block, but Thompson isn’t quite the sort of stretch four Houston is seeking. Golden State could be a fit, if Marreese Speights continues to struggle, and the Clippers could use another reliable big. I could see the Heat, Nets, and Bobcats kicking the tires as well. And there are another handful of teams that are one frontcourt injury away from potentially having interest in a guy like Thompson.
Still, Thompson’s contract can’t be overlooked, and neither can his slow start this season. While he could be a useful piece on a contender, the former 12th overall pick doesn’t have a ton of trade value at the moment, which means that if the Kings want to a decent asset in return, they may need to pair him with a young player (perhaps Ray McCallum or Quincy Acy) or a future draft pick.
Having already completed a pair of noteworthy deals this season, the Kings likely aren’t done, and Thompson represents one of the team’s most logical remaining trade chips, along with Jimmer Fredette and Marcus Thornton. Despite being on a long-term contract, Thompson doesn’t look to be a part of the long-term plans for the new regime in Sacramento, so if the club can find a way to extract some value for him in a trade, it may benefit everyone involved.
Celtics Rumors: Asik, Rondo, Wallace, Crawford
The early returns on this morning’s Omer Asik poll suggest that Hoops Rumors readers believe Boston is the most likely landing spot for the Rockets center. If the Celtics to get involved in the eventual Asik deal, either as the club that acquires him or as a facilitator in a three-team trade, it’s worth keeping an eye on their salary situation, says ESPN.com’s Marc Stein. As Stein points out, Boston is barely below the luxury-tax threshold right now, which will factor into any move the team makes (Twitter links).
Here are a few more Tuesday morning updates on the C’s:
- Multiple league sources tell A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com that even if the Celtics are open to moving Rajon Rondo, the club won’t receive any “legitimate” offers until the All-Star point guard returns to game action.
- Unsurprisingly, the Celtics haven’t found much interest in Gerald Wallace, says Blakely.
- According to Blakely, when engaging in trade talks, the C’s figure to target a player on his rookie contract whose potential is greater than his present value. The CSNNE scribe hears from a source that Austin Rivers is a name worth keeping in mind, despite the fact that his father is now coaching in Los Angeles rather than Boston.
- Sam Amico of FOX Sports Ohio writes that Jordan Crawford is available, and notes that the Heat have been mentioned as a possible suitor. However, Miami isn’t the only potential destination for Crawford, according to Amico, who hears from an NBA exec that the Kings, Raptors, and Knicks could be in the mix as well.
Ford’s Latest: Bucks, Raptors, Kings, MKG
ESPN.com’s Chad Ford latest Tank Rank feature focuses on the teams that have the best chance of landing an impact player in the 2014 draft, but those clubs could also end up being the most intriguing sellers leading up to the ’14 trade deadline. As such, Ford’s piece includes a handful of notable tidbits on some of the 10 clubs on his list. Here are the highlights:
- The Bucks have been “steadfastly rejecting” trade offers for players who could help them in the short-term, such as Rudy Gay and Omer Asik. Ford interprets that as a sign that Milwaukee could be embracing the idea that “one bad season could lead to many, many good ones.”
- While Raptors GM Masai Ujiri seems open to moving Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, rival GMs are even more interested in trying to pry away Jonas Valanciunas and Amir Johnson. According to Ford, Valanciunas is “virtually untouchable,” and it would take a high draft pick to land Johnson.
- The Kings are in the market for a pass-first point guard, sources tell Ford. Sacramento just traded Greivis Vasquez to the Raptors in last week’s Rudy Gay deal, so presumably the team would like to replace Vasquez’s production at the point.
- The Cavaliers continue to be active in discussions on trades that would improve the current roster, while the Bobcats also appear to favor deals that improve the team’s 2013/14 outlook. Ford hears that Michael Kidd-Gilchrist could be made available when he gets healthy.
- Rival GMs are split on what Danny Ainge intends to do, and Ford suggests we may not know the Celtics‘ plans until February.
Pacific Notes: Kings, Lakers, Gay, Gasol
Tonight’s look at the Pacific Division, as the Warriors and Suns do battle..
- The Kings are being roasted by many for dealing for Rudy Gay, but James Ham of Cowbell Kingdom comes to Sacramento’s defense. The Kings didn’t mortgage their future by throwing a pick into the deal or taking on a Joe Johnson-type contract that could potentially cripple the franchise for four or five seasons. They took a stab with a talented, young, healthy athlete with a proven track record of success.
- As Ramon Sessions finishes out his two-year, $10MM deal with the Bobcats, he reflected on how things might have played out if he stayed with the Lakers. “I think about it at times,” Sessions said Saturday, according to Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times. “It’s one of those things that when I opted out, I wasn’t expecting to leave. I was expecting to work something out. But you know how the NBA business is.” Sessions turned down a one-year, $4.55MM player option with L.A. after the 2011/12 sesaon.
- Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com wonders if the Kobe Bryant–Pau Gasol narrative will end happily again. Many have speculated that Gasol’s future in L.A. could be in jeopardy once again as he is in his walk year and is butting heads with coach Mike D’Antoni.
Odds & Ends: Gasol, Knicks, Clippers
It seems high trading season has begun early this year, as this week has featured another Rudy Gay swap, plenty of rumors about Omer Asik and Kyle Lowry, and a flurry of roster moves. Sunday is December 15th, the day many players become eligible for inclusion in trades, so the week ahead doesn’t figure to be any slower. Here’s more from a busy Association:
- Kobe Bryant dismisses the notion that Pau Gasol and Mike D’Antoni are at odds, as Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com notes via Twitter. “That’s every year,” Bryant said. “They’re like an old couple. That’s every year. It’s not really anything new. It’s not a big deal.” Of course, D’Antoni and Gasol have only been together since last season.
- Every part of the Knicks franchise is in “complete chaos,” says Frank Isola of the New York Daily News (Twitter link). New York lost to the Celtics tonight for the second time in six days, but in contrast to Sunday’s 41-point blowout, this time it was only by four.
- Ongoing negotiations for a local TV deal helped motivate the Clippers to spend on Chris Paul and Doc Rivers, according to Bleacher Report’s Jared Zwerling.
- Many around the league see Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg as the top candidate for an NBA head coaching job among those currently leading college teams, tweets Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com.
- HoopsWorld’s Nate Duncan tries to identify the players who’ll stick around for the long-term on the Suns, Jazz and Kings as each team rebuilds.
Odds & Ends: Gay, Pau, Fisher, Jenkins
Rudy Gay spoke to Sam Amick of USA Today about being traded for the second time in the calendar year, and indicated that he had yet made up his mind about his 2014/15 player option. Gay suggested he’ll make his decision with championship contention in mind, adding, “It’s really not as much about the money as you’d think.” If that’s truly the case, his decision to opt into the final year of his contract won’t be the lock that many expect.
Here’s more from around the NBA, as another week nears its end:
- I appeared on the latest episode of The Baseline podcast to discuss the Kings‘ acquisition of Gay, along with a handful of other topics, including the Raptors‘ next move, Omer Asik trade rumors, and the Clippers‘ signing of Stephen Jackson. You can listen right here.
- We heard earlier that the Lakers have been listening to offers for Pau Gasol, in part because he and coach Mike D’Antoni aren’t seeing eye-to-eye, and D’Antoni’s remarks today likely didn’t help mend any fences. Responding to Pau’s recent comments about being frustrated by his role, D’Antoni said, “That’s a classic, ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’ Well, you don’t have trouble getting up to the paystub line. You know what you need to do to get your check. You know what to do. They will. They’ll figure it out.”
- Derek Fisher is planning to retire at season’s end, and isn’t sure what his post-playing career will bring, as he tells Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News: “I’m not going to want to necessarily just sit around the house, but I’ll take a step back from the grind of the NBA schedule and see where my heart and passion takes me.”
- Mark Deeks of ShamSports explains in a piece for SBNation.com why the window between December 15th and 19th could result in high trade activity.
- In a separate piece for The Score, Deeks examines a number of intriguing unsigned forwards who could help NBA teams this season. Deeks previously looked at guards and bigs.
- The Hawks recalled John Jenkins from the D-League, the team announced today in a press release. Since being assigned to the Bakersfield Jam a week ago, Jenkins appeared in four games, averaging 21.5 PPG and 6.3 RPG. He’ll be in uniform for Atlanta tonight against the Wizards.
Odds & Ends: Lakers, Pierce, Austin
Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak directly addressed questions about the team’s point guard situation and didn’t seem too confident about finding anyone on the free agent market who could play big rotation minutes immediately (Dave McMenamin of ESPN Los Angeles):
“I think for the time being we’re going to roll with what we’ve got…To find a player that doesn’t belong to somebody right now that can come in and play in front of (Kobe Bryant), in front of Xavier Henry), in front of (Jodie Meeks), it’s unlikely…But maybe there’s a player out there that we can take a look at…It’s a good time to perhaps look at a player, but I don’t think there’s somebody that we’re going to bring in and we’re going to start or is going to play big minutes.”
As it stands, the team doesn’t appear to have any immediate plans to add a point guard via trade, free agency, or D-League call up. Here’s more of tonight’s miscellaneous news and notes, including more from McMenamin’s piece:
- Ryan Lillis of the Sacramento Bee reports that mayor Kevin Johnson has launched a political campaign aimed at defeating a June ballot measure in Sacramento that would require voter approval of subsidies to sports arenas. The Kings are expected to play a role in the effort along with Johnson, although team president Chris Granger said the role hasn’t been decided yet.
- When specifically asked about Leandro Barbosa, as well as former Lakers Darius Morris and Chris Duhon, Kupchak said that they’re “all on the list” of players being considered.
- Whether or not the Lakers decide to make a move to address their backcourt issues, ESPN LA’s Ramona Shelburne gets the sense that they’ll look for the best available point guard and not necessarily put a priority on those with past familiarity of Mike D’Antoni’s system. She also makes note that the team still has luxury tax considerations to factor into their decision-making (All Twitter links).
- Clippers coach Doc Rivers weighed in on the Nets, saying he was disappointed in how the situation between Jason Kidd and Lawrence Frank developed, endorsed the idea that Paul Pierce would be willing to come off the bench, and suggested that Pierce still has plenty of basketball left in the tank beyond this season (All Twitter links).
- RealGM’s Jonathan Tjarks examines how Baylor center Isaiah Austin helped his draft stock after his 13-point/5-block performance against a highly touted Kentucky frontline that included Julius Randle, Willie Cauley-Stein, and Alex Poythress last week.
- ESPN’s J.A. Adande and Israel Gutierrez discuss ideas on how to correct competitive imbalance in the NBA.
Western Notes: Gay, Corbin, Aldridge, Jackson
The heavily discussed Kings/Raptors swap has spurred a discussion on advanced basketball metrics, mostly due to Rudy Gay. Some statheads have suggested Gay’s presence in Sacramento might stand to hurt Isaiah Thomas and DeMarcus Cousins‘ chemistry on the floor, but the latest piece from Alex Kennedy at HoopsWorld examines why numbers might not tell the whole story for Gay. Here are some tidbits on Gay and the Western Conference as a whole:
- In his piece, Kennedy suggests it’s not unthinkable that Gay might turn his efficiency numbers around, pointing to Monta Ellis as an example of a player who didn’t reach his full potential until a later stage of his career than most players.
- Conversely, Mark Deeks of ShamSports breaks down the reasons why he believes the Kings spent too much to acquire Gay in his piece at SB Nation. Among his list of reasons, Deeks believes Gay’s presence will add nothing to Sacramento that they didn’t already have besides another expensive contract.
- Richard Jefferson doesn’t blame the Jazz‘s lack of success on Tyrone Corbin, reports Jody Genessy of the Deseret News. The forward recently blasted critics who have tried to fault his coach for the team’s struggles : “As far as lashing out and putting pressure on a coach, that’s unfair… Everybody’s an armchair quarterback.”
- Jeff Zillgitt of USA TODAY Sports speculates that LaMarcus Aldridge probably won’t participate in the 2014 FIBA World Cup, based on his lack of history in international competition.
- The Clippers’ recent signing of Stephen Jackson will help bolster a squad that’s recently been bit by the injury bug. Losing J.J. Redick, Matt Barnes, and Reggie Bullock will be a challenging hurdle for Los Angeles to overcome, and Jovan Buha from ESPNLosAngeles.com examines how Jackson might fit in and help ease the club’s pain.
Kings/Raptors Notes: Gay, Acy, Arena
The Kings and Raptors hooked up on a seven-player deal this week, and neither club appears ready to stop trading. Every game is an audition of sorts for the players on the Raptors in the wake of this week’s trade, observes Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun.
“We’ve got a lot of young guys sitting in that room who have to take this opportunity and take their chance when their name is called to not only show us, but to show 29 other teams what they can do,” coach Dwane Casey said.
Here’s more on two teams that figure to be surrounded by rumors in advance of the February 20th trade deadline:
- Casey believes the trade was the right move, but says it shouldn’t been seen as an indictment of Rudy Gay‘s talent or Toronto’s decision to acquire him last season, Wolstat notes in a roundup from last night’s game.
- The Kings are enthusiastic about Gay’s game, and he’s excited to be with a team that believes in him, as Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee details.
- Jones, in a separate piece, looks at how the Kings are dismissing Gay’s shortcomings in advanced metrics, and Jeff Caplan of NBA.com crunches the numbers for a similar story.
- Quincy Acy tells Eric Koreen of the National Post that he was “kind of stunned” when he found out he was being traded, and the power forward fondly reflects on his time in Toronto.
- The Bee’s Dale Kasler has the latest on Sacramento’s efforts to build a new arena, noting that it will take weeks to determine whether opponents of the project have enough signatures to force a referendum.
West Notes: Augustin, Freeland, Asik, Kings
There are 16 teams in action tonight in what is largely an East Coast-based slate. We do have five Western Conference teams playing, however, including the Suns and Lakers later tonight. Let’s take a look at what else is going on out West on Tuesday night:
- The Timberwolves don’t appear to be targeting D.J. Augustin, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities. The Raptors waived Augustin to make way for yesterday’s trade, and the Bulls are the front runners to land him.
- Joel Freeland looks much tougher than he did last year, and Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com wonders if it stems from a fight he and Luke Babbitt had during practice late last season. For what it’s worth, Freeland has become a mainstay in the Blazers‘ rotation, and Babbitt is out of the league.
- The Rockets are targeting a proven veteran small forward in an Omer Asik trade, one of the many kinds of assets the team is looking for as it seeks to deal its backup center, as HoopsWorld’s Steve Kyler notes. Kyler also examines the Thunder’s approach to player development.
- Speaking of Asik, the Rockets center is changing agents, switching from Andy Miller to the high-powered Arn Tellem of Wasserman Media Group, reports Ken Berger of CBS Sports. As Berger details, Tellem must wait 10 days before his representation of Asik becomes official. Assuming the proper paperwork is submitted today, Tellem can take over for Asik on December 20th, which is a day after Houston’s original target trade date of the 19th. It is also worth noting that Miller has taken legal action in the past when his clients have been poached.
- Responding to news that the campaign for a vote on the Kings‘ arena subsidy has turned in up to 40,000 signatures for their cause, Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson cautioned the public that the group is “not folks who have Sacramento’s best interests in mind,” reports Ryan Lillis of the Sacramento Bee.