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Atlantic Rumors: Sixers, Brown, Pierce, Knicks

August 11th, 2013 at 10:28am CST by Chuck Myron

The Sixers and Brett Brown are negotiating the terms of a deal that would end the team's nearly four-month search for a coach, as Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. That jibes with what Marc Stein tweeted Friday, when the ESPN.com scribe wondered if the Sixers would make their offer tempting enough to pry Brown away from his assistant coaching position with the Spurs. Here's more from Philly and the rest of the Atlantic Division:

Hinkie has been plain about his intentions, so no one should be shocked that the Sixers have waited so long to hire a coach, Pompey argues.
Paul Pierce tells Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe that he sensed he was headed out of Boston months prior to the trade that brought him to the Nets, so much so that he told his wife to start packing up their stuff even before this past regular season ended. Pierce still isn't certain of what lies ahead. "Who knows what’s going to happen after this year?" Pierce said to Washburn. "I don’t know what the future is going to bring. I don’t know if I’m going to be back with the Nets. I don’t know if I’m going to retire, you never know what’s going to happen. I feel like I have more in the tank but you never know with injuries, how your body feels. Sometimes those things tell you a lot quicker. Right now, I’ve been feeling good. My legs, my body feels strong."
Washburn had more from Pierce, who sympathizes with Celtics president of basketball ops Danny Ainge. "We were pretty much stuck on a treadmill as far as where we were and people don’t see the financial part of it," Pierce said. "That kind of straps a team from getting better. We were kind of in that position. How do we get better without spending money? So you have to determine if we want to stay right where we are, which is [a] four through eight seed? Or do we want to rebuild and hopefully get a player that can take us to that next level . . . This was pretty much almost inevitable."
David Lee takes a trip down memory lane with Marc Berman of the New York Post to ponder what might have been if Knicks brass had stuck with Lee and others from a fast-starting team five years ago.

No Timetable For Sixers, Brett Brown

August 10th, 2013 at 3:55pm CST by Zachary Links

3:55pm: Marc Stein of ESPN.com hears talk indicating that the Spurs are bracing for Brown to take the Sixers job sooner or later (Twitter link).

9:04am: The Sixers coaching search is now at 110 days and ticking, and even though there is a very clear frontrunner for the position, it's still impossible to say when a hire could be made. Spurs assistant Brett Brown has been offered the job, but there is no time frame for the team to expect an answer, a source tells Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News.

Even if Brown decides to take the position today, there likely won't be an announcement until Monday, though it would make sense for them to wait until the first business day of the week to make everything public. Meanwhile, people close to Brown are urging him to say no to GM Sam Hinkie & Co. since the 76ers project to be one of the worst teams in the NBA this season. Waiting for another head coaching job could be a risky proposition, but Spurs assistants are highly coveted throughout the league and it's likely that he would be among the top available coaching candidates again next summer.

Sixers Offer Coaching Job To Brett Brown

August 9th, 2013 at 5:22pm CST by Luke Adams

5:22pm: People close to Brown are urging him not to take the Sixers job, considering how inept the team team figures to be this season, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Turning down the gig would be a risk, but as Stein points out, coaches from the Gregg Popovich tree are in vogue around the league (Twitter links). If Philly doesn't come up with enough money to woo Brown, Curry is their fallback option, Stein adds, via Twitter, indicating that Curry could be something of a lame duck if he winds up with the job.

2:45pm: The 76ers have offered their head coaching job to Spurs assistant Brett Brown, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (via Twitter). Nothing is official yet, but the two sides are discussing a contract, according to Wojnarowski.

Brown was one of about 10 different candidates linked to the Sixers' coaching opening since the team parted ways with Doug Collins in April. As Alex Lee of Hoops Rumors indicated last night in his primer on the team's coaching search, Brown has long been considered one of the frontrunners for the position, with a rumor surfacing back on draft night that he was Philadelphia's choice.

If Brown accepts the job, he'll be taking over a Sixers team that looks headed for a top-five pick in 2014, and still needs to add more salary to reach the minimum payroll threshold. Sixers assistant Michael Curry, Celtics assistant Jay Larranaga, and Trail Blazers assistant David Vanterpool were among the other candidates believed to still be in the running for the vacancy.

Several Teams In Mix For Anthony Tolliver

August 9th, 2013 at 2:58pm CST by Luke Adams

FRIDAY, 2:58pm: Rather than narrowing down his list of suitors, Tolliver seems to be heading in the other direction. The Magic, Spurs, and Knicks are also interested in him, according to Tomasson (via Twitter). Still, Tolliver expects to make a decision next week.

THURSDAY, 3:16pm: The Lakers have entered the mix for Tolliver, writes Chris Tomasson of FOX Sports Florida (via Sulia). According to Tolliver, talks with the Lakers are still preliminary, but he's considering them alongside the Bobcats, Bulls, and Jazz. Tolliver added that he visited Charlotte on Monday and the team made him a minimum-salary contract offer.

WEDNESDAY, 1:08pm: Anthony Tolliver has narrowed his free agent decision down to three teams, and is expected to finalize a deal this weekend, according to Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype. Sierra reports that Tolliver will likely sign with either the Bobcats, Bulls, or Jazz.

Tolliver, 28, spent the 2012/13 season with the Hawks, averaging 4.1 PPG and 2.5 RPG in 62 contests (15.5 MPG). The last report we heard on Tolliver came nearly a month ago, and suggested that the 6'8" forward was in talks with five teams, including Atlanta.

Utah still has a little cap space left, along with its room exception, but Charlotte and Chicago appear to be capped out. As such, it looks like Tolliver will sign another minimum-salary deal, unless the Jazz outbid the other two finalists.

Greg Oden Signs With Heat

August 7th, 2013 at 12:40pm CST by Chuck Myron

AUGUST 7TH: The Heat have officially signed Oden, the team announced today (Twitter link).

AUGUST 2ND: Greg Oden will sign with the Heat, tweets Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com. It's a two-year deal with a player option for the final season, Goodman adds. The two sides agreed on a minimum-salary contract, according to fellow ESPN.com scribe Marc Stein, who adds that Oden will officially sign the pact on Monday (Twitter links).

The deal is a coup for Heat president Pat Riley, not only because Oden chose Miami over five other finalists, but because he consented to the minimum salary, tweets Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. That allows the Heat to preserve their mini mid-level exception should an enticing player come available at some point this season.

The Spurs and Mavs appeared as of last night to be Miami's primary competition, with the Pelicans next in line, followed by the Kings and the Hawks. Sources from three Western Conference teams among those spurned finalists told Stein minutes before news broke of Oden's decision that they were informed that they wouldn't be landing the former No. 1 overall pick, and that they believed he was headed to Miami (Twitter link).

Oden tells former Ohio State teammate Mark Titus of Grantland.com that the Heat became the front-runners for him when he visited Miami during the NBA Finals. Three months ago, Oden told Titus that he wanted to play in Cleveland because he liked playing in Ohio. About a year ago, Oden let Titus know that the plan was to reunite in Memphis with Mike Conley, another of their Buckeye teammates. Conley's father, Mike Conley Sr., is one of Oden's agents.

The 7'0" center has only played 82 games in his NBA career, but he was on the Blazers roster for five seasons, meaning he qualifies for a minimum salary of $1,027,424 this season, as Mark Deeks of ShamSports confirms (Twitter link).

Four Coaches To Get Second Interviews With 76ers

August 5th, 2013 at 3:40pm CST by Chuck Myron

Sixers owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer will meet this week in New York with Kenny Atkinson, Brett Brown, Adrian Griffin and Jay Larranaga, giving those four their second interviews for the team's head coaching vacancy, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Another candidate, David Vanterpool, may join them for what would be his second interview, as well. Sixers assistant coach Michael Curry also remains in the running for the job.

A report this weekend named Vanterpool, a Blazers assistant, the favorite to land the job, while many other recent dispatches put Brown, an assistant with the Spurs, in the lead. The Sixers have been without a coach since Harris confirmed in mid-April that Doug Collins won't be back on the sidelines. New GM Sam Hinkie put the coaching search on the backburner shortly after that, but he's been deliberate even as he's reached out to candidates.

Wojnarowski mentioned Vanterpool, Brown, Curry and Celtics assistant Larranaga among the contenders last week, while a report earlier in July suggested the team had narrowed its choices to Brown and Curry. Atkinson, an assistant with the Hawks, has largely been off the radar aside from the report last month that he would get his first interview. Griffin, a Bulls assistant, interviewed with the Pistons earlier in the offseason, a couple months before the Sixers showed interest.

Texas Notes: Mavericks, Dwight, Denmon

August 5th, 2013 at 12:14pm CST by Chuck Myron

Mark Cuban of the Mavericks and James Dolan of the Knicks are polar opposites when it comes to their willingness to talk about their teams, but both of them opened up this weekend. The loquacious Cuban went into a lengthy soliloquoy about his roster-building philosophy on his personal blog, as we passed along yesterday, while Dolan consented to a rare 90-minute interview with Shalini Ramachandran of the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). Dolan held forth on high finance, his Cablevision empire, and even his rock-star experience touring with The Eagles, but said nary a word about his Knicks. So, we'll focus on reflections from Cuban's comments instead, and round up the day's news out of Texas:

The Mavs have traded away their own first-round pick in every draft since 2007, and SB Nation's Tom Ziller wonders whether Cuban's tactic of unloading those picks just as other teams are so eager to scoop them up will catch on around the league.
Jonathan Tjarks of RealGM.com calls the Mavs inability to sign new Rockets star Dwight Howard a "death blow" to Cuban's plan, and opines that clearing cap space for a run at a superstar is an unreliable strategy.
Spurs 2012 second-round pick Marcus Denmon spent the past season playing for Chalon in France, and this year he'll play for Tofas Bursa in Turkey, as the Turkish outfit announced on its website (translation via Sportando's Emiliano Carchia).

Notes On Greg Oden

August 3rd, 2013 at 8:03pm CST by Michael Pina

In wake of his decision to sign with the Heat yesterday, here are a few more notes to pass along regarding Greg Oden.

Sam Amico from FoxSportsOhio.com writes that very few teams in the league had any actual interest in Oden's services, quoting a general manager who said, "If we got him, great…But if not, we sure weren’t gonna cry about it. I don’t think anyone is looking at him as anything more than an emergency backup. That’s nice to have, but it’s not like it’s impossible to find.”
USAToday offers several reasons why Miami's decision to sign Oden was a good one that'll pay off dividends in the future.
ESPN's play-by-play announcer Mark Jones tweets that after Miami, the Spurs and Mavericks were Oden's second and third choices.

Odds & Ends: Oden, Thunder, Clippers

August 1st, 2013 at 11:24pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Heat, Spurs and Mavs are the most likely to land Greg Oden when he makes his decision Friday, sources tell Jeff Goodman and Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Goodman and Stein are hearing conflicting information on whether the Pelicans, Kings and Hawks remain in the running, but it appears New Orleans has the best chance out of those three. The Cavs, Celtics and Grizzlies have also expressed interest, but they declined to make formal offers, the report also says. Here's more on Oden and others around the Association:

Whichever team signs Oden once he makes his decision tomorrow won't be committing more than a few million dollars, leading HoopsWorld's Alex Kennedy to argue that he's worth the risk. Taking such risks is what shrewd GM's do, SB Nation's Tom Ziller opines.
The league is reimbursing the Thunder $8MM, or roughly half of the difference between the money the team is shelling out for Kevin Durant and the smaller amount the Thunder agreed to pay when he signed his extension, Grantland's Zach Lowe tweets.
The ESPN.com staff is high on the Clippers, as Chad Ford gives them the only A+ among his Western Conference offseason grades (Insiders only), while the 5-on-5 crew lauds the team's acquisitions of coach Doc Rivers and sharpshooter Jared Dudley.
HoopsWorld's Nate Duncan profiles six players whom teams may have undervalued this summer.

Greg Oden To Make Decision On Friday

August 1st, 2013 at 11:07am CST by Luke Adams

Free agent big man Greg Oden will decide where he'll sign on Friday, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (via Twitter). The Heat, Kings, Hawks, Pelicans, Spurs, and Mavericks are the teams in the running for the former first overall pick.

Spears initially reported last Tuesday that a decision from Oden was expected to come this week, and has since suggested that the 25-year-old is most intrigued by the Heat and Pelicans. Miami has been linked to Oden for the better part of 2013, and have always looked to me like the frontrunner, though New Orleans and other clubs are making a late push.

Of Oden's suitors, the Pelicans and Kings have the $2.65MM room exception available to offer, while the Heat have their mini mid-level exception worth about $3.18MM. The Hawks could waive some non-guaranteed salaries to clear a chunk of cap space, and the Mavs and Spurs can only offer minimum-salary deals. Of course, just because a team like the Heat has the flexibility to outbid other teams, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll offer that full MLE.