Transactions Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Cavs Acquire Three In Swap With Jazz

July 22nd, 2014 at 7:21pm CST by Ryan Raroque

7:21pm: The Cavaliers have officially announced the deal, per a team press release.

7:16pm: Out of the three players heading to Cleveland, Minnesota actually had some interest in Murphy after he was waived by the Bulls last season, tweets Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune.

7:03pm: The pick that Utah will receive in the deal will be a 2015 second rounder from Cleveland, tweets Aaron Falk of the Salt Lake Tribune.

6:21pm: According to one Cavs source, Cleveland likes Lucas, Thomas, and Murphy and doesn’t necessarily view them as stepping stones to a bigger deal, tweets Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal.

6:00pm: The Jazz are expected to trade the non-guaranteed contracts of John Lucas III, Malcolm Thomas, and Erik Murphy to the Cavaliers for Carrick Felix, a future second rounder, and $1MM, a source tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports. Felix’s contract is guaranteed for $816K in 2014/15, whereas Lucas III, Thomas, and Murphy combined for roughly $3.3MM in non-guaranteed deals for the upcoming season. Wojnarowski adds that Cleveland had been looking to make this type of deal recently in order to help facilitate a trade for Timberwolves star Kevin Love (Twitter links).

Minnesota has been determined to unload Kevin Martin and J.J. Barea in a deal involving Love, says Wojnarowski, who also notes that the Cavs would have to find a third team in order to make it work. Nonetheless, whether Lucas, Thomas, and Murphy’s contracts are used to bring the former UCLA big man to Ohio or are included in a separate trade, this deal at the very least has given Cleveland some “buying power” (Twitter links).

Bulls Sign Aaron Brooks

July 22nd, 2014 at 2:47pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Bulls have signed point guard Aaron Brooks, the team announced on its website. Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported a few days ago that the sides were close to a deal, not long after Aggrey Sam of CSNChicago.com indentified mutual interest. It’ll have to be a minimum-salary arrangement, since the Bulls are capped out and already spent their room exception on Kirk Hinrich, and K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune wrote last week that it would be for the minimum.

The Creative Artists Agency client split last season between the Rockets and Nuggets, turning in a strong performance for an injury-ravaged Denver team down the stretch. He averaged 11.9 points. 5.2 assists and 2.3 turnovers in 29.0 minutes per game over 29 appearances.

Brooks, 29, will vie with Kirk Hinrich to become the primary backup to Derrick Rose, with former Bulls point guard D.J. Augustin having signed with the Pistons for three years and $6MM. The six-year veteran Brooks started all 82 games for the Rockets in 2009/10, so he gives the Bulls a trusty insurance policy at a low cost should Rose once more be injured.

Bulls Sign Doug McDermott

July 22nd, 2014 at 2:36pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Bulls have signed No. 11 overall pick Doug McDermott, the team announced via press release. The sharpshooting forward from Creighton will likely receive a salary of nearly $2.278MM this season, as our table of salaries for 2014 first-round picks shows.

Chicago acquired the rights to McDermott on draft night in a trade with the Nuggets. McDermott was a consensus All-American during each of his final three seasons with the Blue Jays, and he averaged 26.7 points and 7.0 rebounds with 44.9% three-point shooting from behind the arc this past season. His defense is a concern, but his ability to stretch the floor with his shot certainly isn’t, as Cray Allred of Hoops Rumors examined when he compiled McDermott’s Prospect Profile.

The timing of the announcement is somewhat curious, since McDermott’s name surfaced in a report earlier today as a player the Wolves are high on as the Bulls make another run at trading for Kevin Love. The Bulls will have to wait 30 days to trade McDermott after having signed him, but they could have traded his rights immediately had they held off on officially coming to terms.

Nets Sign Bojan Bogdanovic

July 22nd, 2014 at 2:33pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Nets have signed draft-and-stash prospect Bojan Bogdanovic, the team announced via press release. It’s a three-year, $10.1MM deal, a source tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link), so it’s likely the team is signing him for the full value of the taxpayer’s mid-level exception. That’s the framework that Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.com outlined when it appeared, as Tim Bontemps of the New York Post reported, that the sides were close to a deal. Youngmisuk also said the deal would include a player option, though it’s not entirely clear if that’s indeed a part of the arrangement.

Bogdanovic has spent the past three seasons playing for Fenerbahce Ulker in Turkey after he became the 31st overall pick of the 2011 draft. The Nets acquired his rights on draft night, and struck a deal to sign him a year ago. Complications regarding his buyout from Fenerbahce caused that agreement to come apart, but this time, the Nets were able to make it official.

The 25-year-old Bogdanovic averaged 13.4 points and 35.0% three-point shooting this past season in Turkey. He’s not to be confused with Bogdan Bogdanovic, whom the Suns drafted 27th overall in June, and who signed with the same Turkish team earlier this month.

Warriors Sign Brandon Rush

July 22nd, 2014 at 1:34pm CST by Chuck Myron

JULY 22ND: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.

JULY 16TH: The Warriors and Brandon Rush have reached agreement on a two-year deal with a player option for the final season, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter links). It’ll be worth a total of $2.5MM, a source tells Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link), a number that Woj confirms in his full story. It would nonetheless seem logical that the precise value is $2,416,649, which would be his minimum salary for this coming season and 2015/16, since capped-out Golden State is without its biannual exception this year and already committed nearly all of its mid-level to Shaun Livingston.

Rush is coming off a two-year deal worth $8MM that he signed with the Warriors in 2012, after shooting 45.2% from three-point range off the bench in 2011/12 for Golden State. He only appeared in two games the following season, suffering a torn ACL, and the Warriors shipped him to the Jazz for this past season, a year in which he saw a career-low 11.0 minutes per game.

The Mark Bartelstein client seemed on his way out of Utah late last season, and the Jazz recently renounced his rights. Warriors GM Bob Myers spoke highly of Rush in advance of a workout he staged for multiple NBA teams, and it appears the Golden State brass saw enough to convince them to bring the 29-year-old back to the Bay.

Emmanuel Mudiay To Play In China

July 22nd, 2014 at 9:32am CST by Chuck Myron

9:32am: Mudiay’s one-year deal is worth $1.2MM, a source tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). He’s nonetheless carrying a significant amount of insurance to hedge against future NBA earnings, which stand to be much greater, Wojnarowski also tweets.

8:50am: Highly touted 2015 NBA draft prospect Emmanuel Mudiay will spend the 2014/15 season in China after signing with Guangdong of the Chinese Basketball Association, the team announced (translation via Evan Wang of Hupu.com on Twitter). Mudiay recently decided to forgo what would have been his freshman season at Southern Methodist University to pursue professional opportunities abroad.

The 6’5″ point guard is the No. 2 prospect for next year’s draft in Chad Ford’s ESPN.com rankings, and he’s No. 3 in the 2015 mock draft that Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress put together. He’ll follow a path that Brandon Jennings and others have traveled as premiere high school prospects who played international pro ball rather than attend college. Mudiay can’t play in the NBA this season because the league requires that players from the U.S. be at least one year removed from high school.

The move shows the growing influence of the Chinese league, which is rivaling Europe, long the primary hub of basketball outside North America, as a draw for the top international talent. Several NBA veterans have dotted Chinese rosters in recent years, so it seems as though Mudiay will get a taste of the competition to come once he heads to the NBA.

Lakers Sign Ryan Kelly

July 21st, 2014 at 4:12pm CST by Cray Allred

MONDAY, 4:12pm: Kelly’s deal is now official, according to a tweet from the Lakers’ official account.

FRIDAY, 10:40pm: Mark Medina of Los Angeles Daily News tweets that the deal is for two years with no options.

9:37pm: The Lakers have reached an agreement with Ryan Kelly, tweets Mike Bresnahan of The Los Angeles Times. Terms of the deal are unknown, and Bresnahan guesses it’s a one or two year arrangement in a separate tweet. Kelly was a restricted agent, and the team was reportedly working on a deal aside from the $1MM qualifying offer extended to him at the beginning of free agency.

Kelly will join Wesley Johnson and Xavier Henry in returning to Los Angeles as probable reserves that saw heavy minutes for an injury-depleted Lakers squad last season. Kelly was selected by the Lakers with the 48th pick in the 2013 draft, and excelled in the D-League before getting the opportunity to play NBA minutes as a rotation piece, even starting 25 games.

The Octagon Sports client hoped to return to the Lakers, and believed the interest to be mutual. The 23-year-old averaged 8.0 PPG and 3.7 RPG with a slash line of .423/.338/.815 as a rookie stretch-four.

Lakers Re-Sign Nick Young

July 21st, 2014 at 3:45pm CST by Chuck Myron

JULY 21ST: Young and the Lakers have made the deal official, the team announced via Twitter.

JULY 12TH, 1:04pm: The Lakers will refrain from signing Young until after the sign-and-trade for Pau Gasol is completed, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com.

JULY 11TH, 4:40pm: Free agent Nick Young has agreed to re-sign with the Lakers, reports Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link). It’ll be a four-year, $21.5MM deal with a player option in the fourth season, according to Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter links).

The deal seems like a strong indication that the Lakers have abandoned hope of signing Carmelo Anthony, since they’ll have to use cap space on Young. They had Young’s Non-Bird rights, which only provided for a 20% raise on last year’s salary of slightly more than $1.1MM.

In spite of the hefty raise, agent Mark Bartelstein says Young passed on more lucrative offers to re-sign, as he tells Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Jazz Sign Trevor Booker

July 21st, 2014 at 3:23pm CST by Chuck Myron

JULY 21ST: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.

JULY 16TH, 11:18am: The second year of Booker’s contract won’t be fully guaranteed, tweets Jody Genessy of the Deseret News.

TUESDAY, 12:28pm: The Jazz will sign power forward Trevor Booker, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Booker had been eligible for restricted free agency, but the Wizards elected not to tender a qualifying offer, making him unrestricted, so there’s no chance for Washington to match Utah’s deal and snatch him back. Booker’s contract will be worth $10MM over two years, Wojnarowski adds in a second tweet.

The Heat, Wolves, Nets, Knicks and Magic joined the Jazz and Wizards in pursuit of Booker this month. He’s coming off a season in which he started a career-high 45 games as Nene battled injuries, and that volume of starts triggered a higher value for his qualifying offer, as I explained, perhaps dissuading the Wizards from making him a restricted free agent.

The move will likely exhaust Utah’s cap space once it becomes final, leaving the team’s $2.732MM room exception as its only tool other than the minimum salary to sign free agents. Booker’s presence figures to apply pressure on fellow big manEnes Kanter as he enters the final season of his rookie deal, observes Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune (on Twitter).

Hornets Sign Marvin Williams

July 21st, 2014 at 2:11pm CST by Cray Allred

JULY 21ST: Williams and the Hornets have made the deal official, the team announced via press release.

“He will be a key piece of our frontcourt rotation with his versatility and ability to play both forward positions,” Hornets GM Rich Cho said.

JULY 12TH: Marvin Williams has agreed to a two-year, $14MM deal with the Hornets, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. The team had shown steady interest in the forward throughout free agency, but negotiations were paused while the team awaited Utah’s decision to match their offer for restricted free agent Gordon Hayward. The contract doesn’t represent a raise from Williams’ five-year, $37.5MM deal that just expired in Utah, but he did fair better than the $3MM-$6MM range we gauged from similar players in our Free Agent Stock Watch profile of Williams.

Williams had drawn interest from several teams, and the Jazz were reportedly looking to bring him back to Utah. The Jazz valued the 28-year-old enough to reject a trade that offered a first round pick in exchange for the veteran this past season. The veteran will land with his third NBA team in his tenth season, replacing Charlotte’s starting power forward Josh McRoberts, who left for Miami as a free agent.

The Tandem Sports & Entertainment client performed at or below his career averages in scoring, rebounding, assists, and steals last season, but made a career-high 1.3 three-pointers per game at a 35.9% rate. The No. 2 pick from the 2005 draft hasn’t lived up to expectations since turning pro, but has established himself as a solid contributor across multiple categories. He will look to experience more team success with a Charlotte club that made the playoffs last season, something the Jazz haven’t accomplished since acquiring Williams from the Hawks in 2012.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.