Cavs To Work Out Julyan Stone
The Cavaliers are bringing in free agent Julyan Stone for workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday, Chris Haynes of the Plain Dealer reports (Twitter link). Stone has also worked out twice for the Lakers, and has drawn interest from the Clippers, Heat, and Kings, plus has reportedly received two offers to play in China. The market has recently taken shape for Stone, who’s been without a deal for roughly two months after the Raptors let him go in July, shortly before his minimum-salary contract was to have become fully guaranteed.
The Cavs currently have 17 players on their preseason roster, with twelve of those deals being guaranteed, assuming Shawn Marion‘s pact is one of them. If Stone is signed he will compete for minutes backing up Kyrie Irving with John Lucas III and Matthew Dellavedova.
The 6’6″, 25 year-old has been in the league for three seasons after going undrafted out of UTEP. Stone’s career averages are 1.3 PPG, 1.0 RPG, and 1.1 APG. His career slash line is .440/.211/.722.
Atlantic Rumors: ‘Melo, Durant, Raptors, Nets
Carmelo Anthony‘s new contract worth $124.065MM is the most lucrative deal signed this offseason, and although ‘Melo will have the chance to opt out and enter free agency before entering its fifth and final year, the All-Star forward says he intends to end his career as a member of the Knicks, according to Fred Kerber of the New York Post. A lot can change between now and then, but for the time being, it seems Anthony is happy working toward a title with Phil Jackson and company. More on from the Atlantic..
- Kevin Durant will likely be the biggest name to hit the free agent market in two years, as our list of 2016 free agent shows. The reigning MVP is sure to have no shortage of suitors, and Brian Keefe’s presence as an assistant on Derek Fisher‘s coaching staff certainly will help the Knicks’ chances at landing him, as Marc Berman of the New York Post details.
- Raptors assistant Bill Bayno spoke to Jorge Sierra of Hoopshype and called the trade that sent Rudy Gay to the Kings “unbelievable,” explaining that the move was key in bolstering the club’s struggling bench.
- Untimely injuries to Brook Lopez and Kevin Garnett gave Mason Plumlee a chance to put his skills on display for the Nets, and A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com puts the Duke product among a group of big men he expects to have a breakout season.
Eastern Notes: Williams, Heat, Bucks
Lou Williams has a renewed sense of purpose this season after being traded to the Raptors, Holly MacKenzie of NBA.com writes. On joining Toronto, Williams said, “I think one of the best benefits of it is being in a position where you feel wanted. When they traded for me and had the conversation, they want me here. It wasn’t a money thing. It wasn’t just something to do. They felt they had a void they needed to fill coming off the bench and I’m excited to help. I feel wanted. I feel like I have a responsibility with this basketball team and that’s the best way I can operate.”
Here’s more from around the east:
- The Heat announced that former head coach and longtime assistant coach Ron Rothstein has retired from coaching. Miami also announced that assistant coach Bob McAdoo will become a scout for the team as well as a community liaison. “Both Ron and Bob were instrumental in the success of the Heat and their contributions to our three championships cannot be overstated,” said team President Pat Riley. “They are Heat lifers and I’m happy that they will continue to be an important part of the organization as they evolve into their new roles within the Heat family.”
- Howard Eisley will be joining coach Randy Wittman‘s staff with the Wizards, the team announced. Eisley has spent the last four seasons as an assistant for the Clippers.
- Marc Lasry, the co-owner of the Bucks, thinks that it will take three to five years to turn around the franchise’s fortunes, Don Walker of the Journal-Sentinel writes.
Raptors Sign Greg Stiemsma
12:16pm: The deal is believed to be partially guaranteed, according to Josh Lewenberg of TSN 1050 Toronto (Twitter link).
11:25am: It’s a one-year, $1MM deal, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com hears (Twitter link). He’s likely rounding up from $981,084, the minimum for Stiemsma, a four-year veteran. If that’s the case, it would only count on the Raptors books for the two-year veteran’s minimum of $915,243, since it’s just a one-year contract. The league would pay the rest.
11:08am: The Raptors have signed Greg Stiemsma, the team announced via press release. The terms aren’t immediately clear, but it’s likely a minimum-salary camp invitation, perhaps with a partial guarantee thrown in.
The center, who turns 29 this month, had been a free agent ever since the Pelicans cut him loose just a few days before the end of the regular season this year in a move designed to enhance the team’s flexibility for trades. The Mark Bartelstein client recently worked out for the Lakers, but chatter about his next destination had otherwise been scarce, even though his 20 starts last season were the sixth most for any player still without an NBA deal as of Wednesday, as I noted.
Stiemsma had to wait more than three years after he went undrafted out of the University of Wisconsin in 2008 for his first NBA regular season action, which came with the Celtics in 2011/12, when he averaged 2.9 points and 2.3 rebounds in 13.9 minutes per game. He made close to $2.6MM the next season with the Timberwolves and signed another deal that gave him almost $2.7MM from the Pelicans last season, but he appears in line for a pay cut this year.
The Raptors had been carrying 13 guaranteed deals and three with partial guarantees, as our roster counts show, so there’s a reasonable chance that Stiemsma will make the opening-night roster. Still, he had a run-in last season with Jonas Valanciunas, whom he’d presumably back up, as Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun notes (Twitter links).
Poll: Which 2013/14 Trade Will Have Greatest Impact?
When you look through last season’s trades, you’ll quickly notice that many of the deals revolved around players on the last years of their contracts, second-round draft picks, and other low-impact assets. A good amount of the players traded last year have already moved on from the team that acquired them, and many of the moving pieces failed to significantly help or hinder the fate of the teams involved for 2013/14.
Still, any given trade’s legacy can drag on for many years and in unexpected ways, as Eddie Scarito’s Hoops Rumors Trade Retrospective series has shown. I’ve gathered some of last year’s trades with loose ends and/or ramifications that have already stretched beyond last season.
- Kings and Raptors swap Rudy Gay, Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson, and other pieces. While Quincy Acy, Aaron Gray, and John Salmons are no longer a part of either franchise, Gay, Vasquez, and Patterson are all on the same rosters through at least 2014/15. Toronto became a playoff team after this trade, and Gay played some of the best basketball of his career as a King. Each franchise hopes to have cemented part of its future core with this deal.
- Cavaliers and Bulls swap Luol Deng, Andrew Bynum, and picks. Deng is now a member of the Heat, and Bynum is an unsigned free agent. The Bulls are still owed Sacramento’s first-round pick, which is top-10 protected through 2017, along with a handful of others from this deal. Chicago also avoided the tax by waiving Bynum’s partially guaranteed contract, and this deal marked the beginning of a strategy to chisel out enough cap flexibility acquire a marquee talent this summer. The team aimed for Carmelo Anthony, but ultimately signed Pau Gasol.
- Sixers and Pacers swap Danny Granger, Evan Turner, and more. The Sixers still own the Warriors second-round pick for 2015, and Indiana re-signed Lavoy Allen after receiving him in this trade. The bigger names in Granger and Turner have both landed in Miami and Boston, respectively. The Sixers bought out Granger after the deal, and the remaining hole at shooting guard plays into Philadelphia’s plans to remain less than competitive for the coming season. Granger was no longer a high-impact player for the Pacers at the time of the deal, although the team struggled mightily after his departure and is now without Paul George and Lance Stephenson for 2014/15, offensive talents that made Granger expendable at the time.
A team’s track record of draft success and player development, combined with the deal’s timeliness, all factor into our expectations. Which trade do you expect to look back on as more than a wrinkle in the NBA landscape?
Which 2013/14 Trade Will Have The Greatest Impact?
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Kings and Raptors 61% (596)
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Cavaliers and Bulls 30% (294)
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Sixers and Pacers 9% (92)
Total votes: 982
Contract Details: Clarkson, Young, Powell
Eric Pincus has once more updated his Basketball Insiders salary pages, and included in his changes are a few tidbits of previously unreported news on players who’ve signed this summer. We’ll pass along those items here:
- The two-year deal that Jerrelle Benimon signed with the Nuggets is for the minimum salary and is partially guaranteed for $35K this season, while his 2015/16 salary is non-guaranteed, Pincus reports (Twitter link).
- The Blazers gave Diante Garrett a $30K guarantee in the first year of his two-year minimum salary deal, but the second year is non-guaranteed, Pincus notes on Twitter.
- Patric Young‘s two-year deal with the Pelicans is a minimum-salary arrangement that’s partially guaranteed for $55K this season, but it’s otherwise non-guaranteed, Pincus notes (Twitter link). Darius Miller‘s deal with the team is partially guaranteed for $400K this year but otherwise non-guaranteed, Pincus adds.
- Both Will Cherry‘s and Jordan Hamilton‘s salaries are guaranteed for $25K for the 2014/15 season, Pincus tweets, adding that Hamilton’s pact is for the minimum. The Raptors signed Cherry to a two-year minimum salary deal, and Hamilton to a one-year arrangement. Cherry’s salary for 2015/16 is non-guaranteed, Pincus adds.
- Dwight Powell‘s deal with the Cavaliers is fully guaranteed for the first season, with the second year non-guaranteed, Pincus reports (Twitter link). The contract covers just those two seasons, as Pincus notes.
- The Spurs‘ two-year deal with JaMychal Green is for the minimum salary and has a $60K guarantee for this coming season, Pincus reports (Twitter link). It’s non-guaranteed for 2015/16, according to Pincus.
- Sim Bhullar‘s deal is for one year and comes with a guarantee of $35K, while Eric Moreland‘s three-year contract is guaranteed for $200K this coming season and is otherwise non-guaranteed, Pincus notes (Twitter link). Both players are with the Kings, and, according to Pincus, make the minimum.
- The two-year, minimum-salary deal that Jordan Clarkson signed with the Lakers is fully guaranteed for this coming season, but the 2015/16 season is non-guaranteed, Pincus reports (Twitter link).
Contract Details: Inglis, Heat, Jazz, Hamilton
The pace of signings is slow this time of year, but teams continue to add to their rosters. Eric Pincus reveals some previously unreported details about a handful of these signings within his latest updates to the salary pages at Basketball Insiders, so we’ll pass along the news here:
- The Bucks are giving 31st overall pick Damien Inglis guaranteed salaries of $820K this season and $855K for 2015/16, both amounts that are more than the minimum, as Pincus notes (Twitter link). It’s a three-year deal in all that features a non-guaranteed season at the minimum salary in the contract’s final year. Milwaukee used part of its cap space to accommodate the signing.
- Tyler Johnson‘s minimum salary with the Heat this season is guaranteed for $75K, while his minimum salary for next season is without a guarantee, according to Pincus. Reggie Williams is receiving a non-guaranteed minimum salary in his pact with the Heat this year, as Pincus also reveals.
- The Jazz gave Dee Bost a $65K guarantee this season, while the other two years of his three-year contract for the minimum salary are non-guaranteed, Pincus reports. Pincus also notes that the team gave Jack Cooley a three-year deal for the minimum, though it remains unclear whether any of Cooley’s pay is guaranteed. Utah used cap space rather than the minimum-salary exception on Bost and Cooley, since the minimum-salary exception only allows for two-year deals.
- The Raptors have the means to shell out more than the minimum salary, but they didn’t give Jordan Hamilton any more than that, as Pincus documents. Hamilton’s deal is reportedly partially guaranteed, but just how much he’s guaranteed remains unknown.
- Darius Morris is on a one-year deal with the Blazers, Pincus shows.
Eastern Rumors: Love, Cavs, Raptors
Cavs coach David Blatt is waiting to comment on Cleveland’s acquisition of Kevin Love until the star forward has passed his physical, tweets David Pick of Eurobasket.com. The deal is official, but Blatt is apparently wary of counting on the most recent of his too-good-to-be-true roster additions until it’s cemented. Since being hired for the head coaching job on a 33-49 team, Blatt’s squad has ballooned with incoming talent including Love, LeBron James, Shawn Marion, and Mike Miller. Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:
- While the Cavs have already become a title contender, Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal thinks the team is well-positioned to accumulate even more talent in the coming years. Lloyd notes that Cleveland has retained most of its first-round draft picks, and also holds a trade asset in Brendan Haywood‘s contract.
- Tim Leiweke and Masai Ujiri insisted to Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun that the Raptors won’t take a step back when Leiweke steps down as CEO on or before June 30 of next year. “[The next CEO] hopefully will not only be as supportive, but hopefully, better, smarter than I was in getting Masai the support he needs,” said Leiweke. “They should know the future of the Raptors is ultimately about Masai and they should feel extremely comfortable. My job was to find a good leader and I did. I will leave behind that great leader and he’s the guy who will take them to the next heights.”
- Ujiri acknowledged to Wolstat that Leiweke’s departure will affect him, despite his confidence in Toronto’s direction. “It’s unfortunate and it affects me because of my relationship with Tim. It affects me because of chemistry, of how we worked here,” Ujiri said. “It was phenomenal. It was great. We had ways of getting through everything, whether it was good or bad. Tim always figured out how to make it better for us.”
Atlantic Notes: Bennett, Leiweke, J.R. Smith
The Celtics are the only Atlantic Division team to make it to the NBA Finals in the past decade, and that will probably continue to be the case for at least another year. All five of the clubs in the division are taking divergent approaches to changing that, from New York’s commitment to building around superstar Carmelo Anthony to Philadelphia’s scorched-earth rebuilding plan. Here’s more on a few of the Atlantic teams trying to climb the ladder:
- The Sixers attempted to find a way to end up with Anthony Bennett, but the Wolves were set on keeping him as part of the Kevin Love deal, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com writes. There was never any agreement that would have sent Bennett to Philadelphia, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, in spite of reports from a few weeks ago that indicated the 2013 No. 1 overall pick was on his way to the Sixers.
- Raptors GM Masai Ujiri was effusive Thursday in his praise of Tim Leiweke, the departing CEO of the company that controls the team, as the GM spoke to Doug Smith of the Toronto Star. Leiweke is set to leave his post no later than June 30th, 2015, though Smith presumes the CEO’s exit will happen long before that date.
- J.R. Smith‘s disappointing 2013/14 season led to trade rumors that persisted into this summer, but Smith is confident that his improved health will lead to a bounceback performance this year, as he tells Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. Smith spoke of a desire to take on more of a leadership role and seems to fully expect that he’ll continue to be a part of the Knicks roster.
And-Ones: Melo, Thompson, Lee, Lowry
Speaking at a charity event on Thursday night at the Barclays Center, Carmelo Anthony indicated he’s that he was close to leaving the Knicks this offseason, writes Ian Begley of ESPN New York. Melo did add that he’s optimistic about the new-look roster built under Phil Jackson‘s direction, though he acknowledged that the Eastern Conference improved this summer.
Here are some other notes from around the league:
- Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report cites a source close to Klay Thompson that says the Warriors‘ guard is angry that he was dangled as trade bait for Kevin Love over the summer. In his piece, Bucher examines the idea that Golden State alienated Thompson and David Lee, though he was unable reach Lee or sources close to him.
- Looking towards the 2014/15 version of the Raptors, Moke Hamilton of Basketball Insiders likens Kyle Lowry to Rajon Rondo, comparing the the four-year, $48MM deal that Lowry signed with Toronto this summer to the five-year, $55MM deal that Rondo inked in 2009. The common thread, Hamilton writes, is that both lucrative pacts, while based off small samples, were awarded to point guards that had the potential to justify them.