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And-Ones: World Cup, Ayon, Budenholzer, Hill

September 15th, 2014 at 3:28pm CST by Chuck Myron

Support is growing stronger to make both the Olympics and the World Cup of Basketball solely for players age 22 and under, one NBA GM tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, who bemoans an existing system that he believes to primarily benefit Mike Krzyzewski. The change would take effect for 2018 World Cup, Wojnarowski writes. SB Nation’s Tom Ziller argues that while the NBA could work with FIBA to implement an age limit, FIBA has shown hesitancy to cooperate, and that the players union would have a case that any league-imposed restriction should be collectively bargained. Nonetheless, it seems there’s a decent chance that even without so many A-level stars, this year’s World Cup champion Team USA squad will be significantly more talented than the next American entry into the competition. Here’s more from around the NBA:

Shandong of China has jumped into the race for Gustavo Ayon as his European rights remain up in the air, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. The Spurs are reportedly still in the mix, with Ayon needing to come up with $376K to pay FC Barcelona, which holds his European rights, if he’s to put pen to paper on a deal with Spanish rival Real Madrid.
Mike Budenholzer has never held an NBA front-office job, but he played as much of a role in talent acquisition for the Spurs as anyone outside of Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford during his time in San Antonio, writes TNT’s David Aldridge amid his Morning Tip column for NBA.com. Budenholzer is in charge of player personnel for the Hawks while GM Danny Ferry is on indefinite leave.
A group that included Grant Hill as well as billionaires Tony Ressler and Bruce Karsh made a strong impression on the league when they put up a $1.2 billion bid to purchase the Clippers this spring, Aldridge writes in the same piece. The TNT scribe speculates that they could resurface as contenders for the Hawks.

And-Ones: Rubio, Ayon, Garnett, Karasev

September 14th, 2014 at 10:07pm CST by Zachary Links

Wolves guard Ricky Rubio told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports that he never tried to talk Kevin Love out of asking for a trade. “If he wanted to leave, there’s no reason to talk to him about it,” Rubio said. “I really liked playing with him, but I’ll play with the players who want to be there. Kevin wants to win. That’s normal. He’s been there six years without the playoffs. I understand. If I was in the same situation – being one of the best players in the league – and not being able to be in the playoffs, I’d have a lot of frustration, too.” When asked about his own future, Rubio said that he is “loyal” and wants to give back to the organization. The guard can be a restricted free agent next summer if he doesn’t sign an extension. Here’s tonight’s look around the Association..

The Spurs continue to eye center Gustavo Ayon, tweets Nikos Varlas of Eurohoops.net. Ayon is reportedly on his way to play for Spain’s Real Madrid, but no deal with the team can become official until he comes up with the equivalent of about $376K to pay off Spanish rival FC Barcelona, which holds his European rights, according to Javier Maestro of Encestando (translation via HoopsHype).
There has been some retirement speculation surrounding Kevin Garnett but the veteran has been one of “about ten” players who have already been working out at the Nets‘ East Rutherford, New Jersey practice facility, team insiders tell Robert Windrem of Nets Daily.
Anthony Puccio of Nets Daily ran down the best pickups made by the Nets this offseason. Trade acquisitions Sergey Karasev and Jarrett Jack make the list as well as 2011 first-round pick Bojan Bogdanovic. Bogdanovic, 25, may be an NBA rookie but he comes with seven seasons of international experience and should be ready to hit the ground running.
According to his Pistons preview, Adi Joseph of USA TODAY has the franchise improving their win total slightly, but still missing the playoffs.

Latest On Zoran Dragic

September 12th, 2014 at 8:36pm CST by Chuck Myron

FRIDAY, 8:36pm: Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic adds the Cavs to the list of teams interested in Dragic, and reports that Dragic’s current salary is approximately $1.4MM. It would take upwards of $2MM in annual salary to pry the younger Dragic guard from his current club in Coro’s estimation, considering the earnings and covered living expenses provided by his current team. The Arizona Republic scribe pegs Dragic’s NBA escape clause at $1.1MM, which lines up with an earlier report that the buyout exceeds $971K.

WEDNESDAY, 7:49am: The Suns, Pacers and Kings are the teams most aggressively going after Dragic, Stein tweets, expanding on his report about Phoenix’s heavy pursuit from a few days ago. Talks are expected to intensity now that Dragic’s World Cup obligations are over, Stein adds (Twitter links). Phoenix, Indiana and Sacramento all have the capacity to exceed the minimum salary.

TUESDAY, 4:51pm: The Heat, Magic, Spurs and Mavs are maintaining dialogues with Spanish-league shooting guard Zoran Dragic, reports Shams Charania of RealGM. Marc Stein of ESPN.com wrote earlier this week that the Suns were one of the three teams with the most interest in signing the 25-year-old, but it’s not clear if they remain in the running. The Pacers, too, have appeared to be in pursuit of Dragic of late, while the Rockets were reportedly the leading contender for him in May.

Several NBA teams scouted Dragic in the World Cup the past couple of weeks, Charania writes, a run that ended when his Slovenian team lost this afternoon to Team USA. New teams are inquiring about him with each passing day, the RealGM scribe adds. Dragic is the younger brother of Goran Dragic, who appears poised to opt out his deal next summer and hit free agency, and teams are already lining up to try to poach Goran from the Suns.

Zoran Dragic averaged 10.6 points in 20.3 minutes per game for Unicaja Malaga this past season but he reportedly possesses a strong desire to come to the NBA. He’d have to sign with an NBA team by Oct. 5th, according to Charania, and cover a buyout greater than the equivalent of $971K to break free from Unicaja Malaga this year, as Stein wrote in his report this week. That would appear to give the Spurs and Magic an edge on the Heat and Mavs, since Miami and Dallas can’t exceed the minimum salary and thus can’t give him more than the Excluded International Player Payment Amount of $600K toward his buyout.

Gustavo Ayon To Play In Spain

September 9th, 2014 at 10:43am CST by Chuck Myron

TUESDAY, 10:43am: The contract will cover three seasons, Pick hears (Twitter link).

MONDAY, 3:09pm: It’s a multiyear deal, a source tells David Pick of Eurobasket.com. There will be several outs in the contract, Pick hears, though it’s unclear whether any of them pertain to the NBA (Twitter links).

10:02am: Free agent center Gustavo Ayon has agreed to play for Real Madrid in Spain, reports Igor Minteguia of Solobasket.com (translation via HoopsHype). It’s not immediately clear just how lucrative the deal is or just what sort of escape clauses the contract will contain to allow him to return to the NBA sometime soon.

The Spurs had reportedly been interested in him, among other potential free agent targets, but overseas options had reportedly been proving more lucrative than any stateside offers for the Emilio Duran client. Ayon spent the past three seasons in the NBA after signing a three-year, $4.5MM deal with New Orleans shortly after the lockout. He averaged 5.9 points and 4.9 rebounds in 20.2 minutes per game as a rookie but didn’t match those numbers in either of his next two seasons. It appeared he had an opportunity to head to China before Real Madrid gave him the chance to return to Spain, where he played before entering the NBA.

Former Raptors point guard Dwight Buycks, who signed with Valencia, also jumped to Spain this summer after having played in the NBA this past season. The 29-year-old Ayon will join fellow NBA veterans Andres Nocioni, Rudy Fernandez, Sergio Rodriguez among the notable names on Madrid’s roster for the coming season.

Eastern Notes: Monroe, Celtics, Saric

September 7th, 2014 at 12:33pm CST by Eddie Scarito

There are two remote possibilities for the Pistons to keep Greg Monroe past this season, Perry A. Farrell of the Detroit Free Press writes. The first way would be for Detroit to offer Monroe a max contract, something they have been unwilling to do thus far, Farrell notes. The second would be for coach Stan Van Gundy to convince Monroe that his future would be best served by staying with the Pistons, something that can only happen if Detroit starts winning, opines Farrell.

Here’s more from the east:

Sixers coach Brett Brown was in Spain to check out Dario Saric, the No. 12 overall draft pick that Philadelphia acquired from the Magic in a draft night trade, Rigas Dardalis of Eurohoops.net reports. Saric won’t play in the NBA this season, but when asked what he thought of Saric’s potential, Brown said, “I think he can play [in the NBA] now! I think that in Philadelphia we are about development and about opportunity. He would look around and see a lot of fellow young players that just want a chance to play. Our whole emphasis in Philadelphia is about development and help our players. We are trying to be as good as we can be in sport science and growing up players physically and from a skill perceptive. He is an other one of our young lottery picks that we hope to grow the program with”.
Celtics team president Rich Gotham is excited for the potential of Boston’s two first-rounders, Marcus Smart and James Young, Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com writes. “I’ve been loving Marcus Smart’s play, because he’s just tough. He goes out there and he competes. I saw James Young for the first time the other day, and I saw him stroke a couple of lefty 3-pointers from a couple feet beyond the arc and I was like, Hmmm, we could use that.”
One single play may have led to David Blatt becoming the first European coach to make the jump to being an NBA head coach with the Cavs, and Ettore Messina becoming an assistant with the Spurs, Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News writes.
The crew over at Basketball Insiders ran down their predictions for the Sixers 2014/15 season, and the consensus was that Philadelphia would finish fifth in the Atlantic Division and miss the playoffs yet again.

Ryan Hollins Meets With Heat

September 6th, 2014 at 10:51pm CST by Cray Allred

Ryan Hollins met with the Heat yesterday, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. The veteran center is also generating interest from the Kings, Bulls, and Spurs, according to the Yahoo! scribe.

These are the first rumblings we’ve heard since Hollins hit the open market, as evidenced by his sparse Hoops Rumors player page. The 7-footer played out a one-year minimum contract with the Clippers last season, and isn’t likely to fetch any more than that this summer. The Heat and Bulls would only be able to extend a minimum offer, and the Kings don’t figure to dip into their bi-annual exception considering their ongoing efforts to remain under the luxury tax line. The Spurs have both a bi-annual and mid-level exception at their disposal, and have more wiggle room beneath the tax line, but San Antonio likely wouldn’t splurge for Hollins considering their interest in some of the market’s remaining high-profile free agents.

Hollins has played for six teams in his seven-year career, averaging 3.8 PPG and 2.2 RPG. The Stealth Sports client played just 7.9 minutes a contest for Los Angeles last year, as both DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin made a leap in the frontcourt, reducing the team’s need for Hollins to shore up the interior defense off the bench.

Western Notes: Rivers, Cousins, Ayon

September 6th, 2014 at 12:45pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Austin Rivers believes this coming season will be his breakout year, John Reid of the Times Picayune writes. The Pelicans guard said, “I was constantly working the entire summer. I gained 10 pounds and I’ve got stronger in my upper body. This is my year. But I think at the end of the day, I think we all now understand we can only control what we can control. At the end of the day, we let all of the guys in the front office do their jobs. We just stick to what we do. We play.” Rivers has career averages of 7.0 PPG, 1.8 RPG, and 2.2 APG. His career slash line is .390/.346/.601.

Here’s more from the west:

DeMarcus Cousins tells Chris Kudialis of The Sacramento Bee that he hopes Team USA experience for him and Rudy Gay will pay dividends for the Kings this coming season. “My thing is just taking in as much as I can from this experience and taking it back home,” Cousins said. “I’m being led by some of the best players in the league here, and I want to use everything I learn to make myself better.”
With the Warriors signing GM Bob Myers to an extension recently, Lang Greene of Basketball Insiders looks back at Myers’ biggest moves since arriving in Golden State.
Gustavo Ayon prefers to play in the NBA next season, but the offers he has received from European teams have been more lucrative to this point, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports (Twitter links). Stein believes that Ayon, whom the Spurs recently expressed interest in, will head overseas unless the offers improve. Ayon played in 26 games for the Hawks last season, averaging 4.3 PPG, 4.8 RPG, and 1.1 APG.

Cray Allred contributed to this post.

Several NBA Teams Eye Julyan Stone

September 5th, 2014 at 11:06am CST by Chuck Myron

Free agent Julyan Stone has workouts scheduled with the Lakers, Cavs, Clippers and Heat, and the Kings are in the mix for the point guard as well, reports Shams Charania of RealGM. The Lakers audition will be his second with the team, Charania notes via Twitter. Stone had been set to work out for the Spurs, and he did so this week, while two Chinese teams have floated lucrative offers for the 25-year-old, as Charania details.

The market seems to have quickly accelerated for the Giovanni Funiciello client who’s been without a deal for nearly two months after the Raptors let him go in July, shortly before his minimum-salary contract was to have become fully guaranteed. It appeared at the time that there was a decent chance the Raptors would sign him back on a new deal, as Charania reported then, but Toronto doesn’t appear to be in the hunt at this point.

Each of the four clubs that Charania links to Stone in his most recent report appear to have the roster flexibility necessary to provide a clear path to the opening night roster. The Heat have only 11 fully guaranteed deals, and the Cavs do as well, although Shawn Marion will presumably have a full guarantee on his contract once he signs, and one of Cleveland’s partially guaranteed contracts belongs to Anderson Varejao. The Kings have 12 fully guaranteed deals, but they’ve agreed to trade Jason Terry, who has one of them, to the Rockets, likely for non-guaranteed salary in return. The Clippers and Lakers have 13 full guarantees apiece. The Spurs have 14 full guarantees and three partial guarantees, but they can offer more money than any of the other clubs, since they still have their $5.305MM non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception available. The Kings have their $2.077MM biannual exception, while Stone’s remaining suitors are limited to the minimum salary.

Spurs Audition Earl Clark

September 2nd, 2014 at 1:15pm CST by Chuck Myron

Free agent forward Earl Clark is in San Antonio to work out for the Spurs this week, a source tells Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. He’ll join Hakim Warrick and Julyan Stone, both of whom have reportedly been set to audition for the defending champs.

There hasn’t been much chatter surrounding Clark this offseason, and he said in late July that while he’d heard from a few times, it seemed as though his free agency was “going in slow motion.” Clark has been out of the NBA since the second of back-to-back 10-day deals with the Knicks expired in March during a comedown season for the 14th overall pick from 2009. Agent Kevin Bradbury helped him snag a two-year, $8.5MM deal with the Cavs last summer, but Clark failed to duplicate a hot stretch he enjoyed with the Lakers the year before, prompting Cleveland to trade him to the Sixers. Philadelphia waived him the next day, eating the remaining guaranteed salary on his contract.

San Antonio has also cast its eyes toward Ray Allen and Gustavo Ayon of late, even as the team continues to pursue a new deal with Aron Baynes, a restricted free agent. The Spurs already have 14 fully guaranteed pacts and three that include partial guarantees, as our roster counts show, so space is getting tight, and Clark would have to beat out a wide array of competition to make it to opening night with the team.

And-Ones: Mavs, Koponen, Chandler

September 1st, 2014 at 9:53pm CST by Zachary Links

Two games into FIBA World Cup pool play, Bulls star Derrick Rose is pain free, writes Joe Cowley of the Sun Times. Rose didn’t light up the scoreboard against Turkey on Sunday as he scored just two points, but he looked sharp as he scored 12 points in 22 minutes against Finland on Saturday. Here’s more from around the league..

Finnish point guard Petteri Koponen, whose rights are owned by the Mavericks, hopes to be playing in the NBA by the 2015/16 season, writes Marc Stein of ESPN.com. “I always said my dream is to play in the NBA,” Koponen said. “Every summer we talk a little bit with Dallas to see what the situation is and what they think. I’ve got one more year left on my contract in Russia and then of course I would like to come over. I hope I get some options to go there and show I can play at that level.” Team sources tell Stein that the Mavs have not ruled out importing Koponen themselves in the future, but there was no talk of doing that this season with four point guards already on the roster. Of course, they could also deal his rights to another team.
Even though he only played just one season for the Mavs, Tyson Chandler says his heart was always in Dallas, says Dwain Price of the Star-Telegram. “I enjoyed my entire time with the Mavericks and it was a sad process for me and my family leaving Dallas, especially after the amazing experience and amazing run that we had,’’ said Chandler, who was shipped back to Dallas this summer. “As I left I told those guys, ‘You know, I love you and I’ll love you forever and I love everything you have done for me and did for me.’ I understand the (NBA) business and I guess it wasn’t meant for me. But I guess it is meant for me to be back now.’’
The Spurs kept the band together after winning the championship but not every defending champion has been so lucky. Joel Brigham of Basketball Insiders looks at some of the worst defending champs in NBA history.
According to Italian basketball exec Gianmaria Vacirca, Thanasis Antetokounmpo had an agreement to play with Pallacanestro Varese before deciding to stay in America to play for the Knicks D-League affiliate, as Emiliano Carchia of Sportando writes.