Transactions Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Magic Sign Channing Frye

July 14th, 2014 at 3:33pm CST by Zachary Links

JULY 14TH: The deal is official, the team announced via press release

“Channing’s character, competiveness, veteran experience, and leadership ability are valuable additions to our developing team,” Magic GM Rob Hennigan said in the team’s statement. “His ability to stretch the floor and play sound team defense are also ways in which we envision Channing helping our team moving forward.”

JULY 9TH, 9:35pm Frye’s deal will be front-loaded and team-friendly in its latter years, a source with knowledge of the agreement tells Joshua Robbins of The Orlando Sentinel. The deal will see decreases of 4.5% each season–the most allowable under the CBA–which projects to salaries of $8,560,707, $8,175,476, $7,807,579, and $7,456,238 for each year.

JULY 7TH, 5:04pm: The Magic have reached agreement on a deal with Channing Frye, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The deal will be for four years and $32MM (link).

While Frye has been garnering interest from around the league, the Magic weren’t seen as a likely destination and weren’t really mentioned as a possibility. The incumbent Suns wanted to re-sign him, the Warriors and Cavs were ready and waiting when Frye opted out of his deal with Phoenix, and there was mutual interest between the big man and the Blazers.

The 31-year-old missed all of 2012/13 with an enlarged heart but wound up playing and starting in all 82 of the Suns’ regular season games last season. Frye averaged 11.1 PPG with 5.1 RPG and 0.8 BPG in 28.2 minutes per contest. He’s had slightly better marks in those categories and in PER, but he was nonetheless a bright spot for the Suns last season.

In a league that is falling more and more in love with the idea of a stretch four every day, Frye is a hot commodity. The 6-foot-11 can consistently connect from the outside and owns a career 38.5% mark on three-pointers.

Orlando has upgraded their power forward situation in a big way this offseason. Frye will presumably be the starter with No. 4 overall pick Aaron Gordon in reserve.

Heat Re-Sign Mario Chalmers

July 14th, 2014 at 2:00pm CST by Zachary Links

MONDAY, 2:00pm: The deal is official, the Heat announced.

“It’s great to have Mario back,” team president Pat Riley said in the team’s statement. “We’re happy that he wants to continue his career in Miami, he’s one of our core players, and I believe he will have a great season.”

SUNDAY, 10:50pm: It’s a two-year, $8MM+ deal, according to ESPN.com’s Marc Stein (via Twitter).

5:11pm: The Heat will re-sign Mario Chalmers to a two-year deal, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Terms of the deal are not yet known for the Sam Goldfeder client.

LeBron James, who affectionately referred to Chalmers as “‘Rio”, is gone, but the Heat appear to be on their way to keeping the rest of their core in place. Chalmers is back on a two-year deal, Bosh will re-sign on a max deal, and Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem are close to new contracts in Miami.

The Heat were said to be considering sign-and-trade possibilities for Chalmers last week. The 28-year-old struggled mightily in the playoffs, averaging only 6.4 points per contest, and was benched for the team’s final postseason game. It was the first time he didn’t start for the Heat in the past three seasons, and he recorded a career-high 14.0 PER this past year during the regular season. He tied his career mark with 4.9 assists per game, and his 9.8 PPG approached his best, too.

Hornets Send Scotty Hopson To Pelicans

July 14th, 2014 at 7:24am CST by Chuck Myron

The Hornets have traded Scotty Hopson to the Pelicans, both teams announced via press release late Sunday. Charlotte had just acquired Hopson from the Cavs on Saturday. The Hornets receive cash in return.

It’s perhaps only fitting that Hopson has been in two trades in as many days, since his contract was largely designed to be swapped. The Cavs signed him on the last day of March this past season for the rest of the 2013/14, and they tacked on a non-guaranteed 2014/15. Cavs GM David Griffin used the mid-level exception in an apparent attempt to make Hopson’s non-guaranteed salary larger, and thus more useful for salary matching purposes in trades. Griffin nonetheless could have signed a veteran of 10 or more seasons to the minimum salary and created an even larger non-guaranteed 2014/15 salary while spending much less in prorated guaranteed salary last season.

Hopson played all of seven minutes at the end of last season for Cleveland, and it seems doubtful he’ll add to that total for New Orleans. The 6’7″ swingman has played primarily overseas since going undrafted out of the University of Tennessee in 2011, and if he so much as makes it to training camp this fall, it’ll be a first for the one-time McDonald’s All-American.

Chandler Parsons To Join Mavericks

July 13th, 2014 at 8:00pm CST by Zachary Links

8:00pm: Sign-and-trade talks between the two sides have ended without a deal, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com (on Twitter).

6:25pm: The Rockets and Mavericks have expressed a willingness to try and hammer out a sign-and-trade deal, but it’s not clear if the league will allow them to do so, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com.

4:59pm: The Rockets have decided not to match the offer sheet Chandler Parsons signed with the Mavericks, tweets Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. Parsons will now earn more than $46,084,500 over the next three seasons with Dallas, a figure slightly less than the maximum he could have received in an offer sheet over that timeframe.

The Rockets were hoping to land free agent Chris Bosh and also match the Mavs’ offer sheet for Parsons. However, when Bosh surprised Houston by returning to Miami, the Rockets decided to spend their money elsewhere.

Parsons will earn $14.7MM next season, $15.36MM in 2015/16 and $16.02MM in 2016/17 for a total of $46.08MM over three years. The third and final year of the deal includes a player option.

Houston chose to decline the extremely reasonable $960K team option for Parsons this season in a move that preserved their right to match offers for the third-year forward in restricted free agency rather than see him become an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Lakers Sign Julius Randle

July 13th, 2014 at 3:47pm CST by Zachary Links

3:47pm: The signing is official, the team announced.

3:09pm: The Lakers have signed top pick Julius Randle, according to Bill Oram of the Orange Country Register (on Twitter). He’ll likely receive more than $2.997MM this season, as our chart of salaries for 2014 first-round picks shows.

The Lakers got a bit of good news earlier this month when they learned that Randle won’t require surgery on his right foot. The big man, who was once in consideration for the No. 1 pick, could prove to be a tremendous value for the Lakers, who selected him at No. 7.

In his one year at Kentucky, Randle averaged 15.0 PPG and 10.4 RPG with 0.8 blocks per contest in 30.8 minutes a game.

Lakers Acquire Jeremy Lin

July 13th, 2014 at 12:22pm CST by Chuck Myron

SUNDAY, 12:22pm: The trade is now official the Lakers have announced via their website. Los Angeles will receive Lin, plus Houston’s first-round pick in 2015, and the 2015 second-round pick that the Rockets had acquired from the Clippers. The Rockets in turn receive the rights to Sergei Lishchuk.

FRIDAY, 1:59pm: The Rockets and Lakers have reached agreement on a deal that sends Jeremy Lin to the Lakers, reports Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported earlier that the teams were finalizing such a deal, while Marc Stein of ESPN.com broke the story about the talks. A future first-round pick is also headed to the Lakers, Goodman confirms, while Wojnarowski’s previous reporting indicated other draft considerations will go from Houston to the Lakers, too. The Lakers will send out cash and the rights to a draft-and-stash prospect who’s playing overseas, Wojnarowski also reported, but no salary will go Houston’s way, helping clear room for Chris Bosh, who’s nearing a commitment to the Rockets.

The first-rounder headed to the Lakers is Houston’s 2015 pick, tweets Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times. It’ll include protections, and the Rockets will also send a second-rounder the Lakers’ way, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle (Twitter link).

The deal indicates that the Lakers are ready to move forward and focus on next summer’s free agent group, since they’re committing nearly $8.4MM of their cap space to Lin. They missed out on LeBron James, and while Carmelo Anthony reportedly hasn’t told the Lakers they’re out of the running for him, another report indicates that ‘Melo has narrowed his choice to the Knicks and Bulls.

Clippers Sign C.J. Wilcox

July 12th, 2014 at 9:21pm CST by Chuck Myron

9:21pm: The Clippers officially announced the signing in a team release (H/T Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times).

12:07am: The Clippers have signed No. 28 overall pick C.J. Wilcox to his rookie scale contract, tweets Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. He’ll receive more than $1.1MM next season if he signs for the standard 120% of the scale amount, as our table of salaries for 2014 first-round picks shows, though 120% of scale isn’t a given for players picked near the end of the first round.

The 6’5″ shooting guard was No. 35 in Chad Ford’s ESPN.com rankings and No. 38 with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress, so it was a mild surprise to see him sneak into the first round. He improved steadily in four seasons at the University of Washington, averaging 18.3 points with 39.1% three-point shooting in 34.9 minutes per game as a senior this year.

Wilcox is set to compete for minutes with Reggie Bullock, who was last year’s first-round pick for the Clippers, in a crowded situation on the wing, where the team also has J.J. Redick, Jamal Crawford, Matt Barnes and Jared Dudley all under contract for 2014/15.

LeBron James Signs With Cavs

July 12th, 2014 at 8:07pm CST by Chuck Myron

8:07pm: The Cavaliers have made the signing official in a team release. “We could not be happier to welcome LeBron James home,” Cleveland GM David Griffin said in the accompanying statement. “Yesterday, LeBron, through his essay, told us he wasn’t going anywhere except Cleveland and that ‘Cleveland is where he always believed he would finish his career.’ These words and commitment put all of us, including LeBron, in the best position to build our franchise the right way and achieve the kind of goals we all know are possible. Expectations will be at the highest levels but no one should expect immediate and automatic success.”

SATURDAY, 5:12pm: James’ contract with the Cavs has been finalized, sources tell Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. It’s a two-year, $42.1MM deal with a player option for the second season. While the deal doesn’t lock James in for the long term run he vowed to fulfill in his announcement, it is designed with an eye toward expected jumps in league revenue and increased earning potential for the game’s best player. Renewed TV deals and an opportunity for the player’s union to renegotiate the CBA in the coming years could lead to significantly higher max contract values. James, who had never been the highest paid player on his own team before signing this time with Cleveland, will look to cash in if those opportunities materialize.

FRIDAY, 11:20am: LeBron James has made his decision, and he’ll sign with the Cavaliers, as he tells Sports Illustrated’s Lee Jenkins.

“Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio,” the Akron native writes in the first paragraph of his as-told-to cover story in Sports Illustrated. “It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up. I sometimes feel like I’m their son. Their passion can be overwhelming. But it drives me. I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can. My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now.”

James said his primary reason for leaving the Heat after four years, four NBA Finals appearances, and two championships isn’t because he didn’t have faith that the front office could put the right team together, but that he wants to bring a title to Cleveland. He always believed he’d return to finish his career in Cleveland, but he just didn’t know when he would come back, he writes. The reaction of owner Dan Gilbert and fans in Cleveland to his 2010 departure for Miami weighed on him, but he said he’s talked the matter out with Gilbert “face-to-face, man-to-man.”

Presumably, it’ll be a max contract worth $20.6444MM in the first season for the four-time MVP, who won his first two such trophies with the Cavs, for whom he played from 2003-10. The Cavs aggressively sought the cap flexibility necessary to create max room, completing a three-team trade with the Nets and Celtics on Thursday that gave them the ability to open cap space for James.

Agent Rich Paul took meetings with the Cavs, Mavs, Suns and Lakers last week while the Heat were the only team with whom James met personally. Paul, who was also in that Heat meeting, was reportedly determined to get his client to return to Cleveland. Heat owner Micky Arison took to Twitter to express that he’s “shocked and disappointed” by the news but thanked James for the memories and wrote that he’d never forget what James brought to the Heat the past four seasons. It’s a far cry from Gilbert’s sharply worded response in 2010, which reportedly had been on James’ mind in the hours leading up to this year’s choice.

The move opens the gates to a number of other decisions around the league, with the free agency of Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh, the fate of trade candidate Kevin Love, and a slew of other important matters still unresolved. The Cavs have reportedly been set to pursue Love contingent on their acquisition of James, though they appear unwilling to give up No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins to facilitate such a deal.

Kings Sign Darren Collison

July 12th, 2014 at 7:21pm CST by Chuck Myron

JULY 12TH, 7:21pm: The Kings have made the signing official in a team release.

1:26pm: The deal is worth $15MM, rather than $16MM, as Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times hears (Twitter link). Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports also has it as $15MM. That would make it for slightly less than the value of the $5.305MM mid-level exception.

11:17am: Sacramento intends to waive a player and use the stretch provision to accommodate Collison’s deal, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. The Kings wouldn’t have to do that to fit underneath the tax line as it stands, so perhaps Sacramento is thinking about adding salary via trade or saving room to re-sign Thomas to a significant deal, though that’s just my speculation (Twitter link). In any case, Collison agreed to the deal under the impression that he will start, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick (on Twitter).

JULY 3RD, 10:45am: The Kings will sign Darren Collison to a three-year, $16MM deal, reports Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). It’s a fully guaranteed deal, Turner adds (on Twitter). Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype first reported that the sides were engaging in talks (Twitter link).

“The Kings were the most aggressive team by far in the free agency, and I respected that on all levels,” Collison said, according to Turner (Twitter link).

Sacramento made its desire to add a pass-first point guard clear, even as it seeks to re-sign restricted free agent Isaiah Thomas. Collison rehabilitated his career during his one-year stint with the Clippers, proving an effective backup to Chris Paul and a capable replacement for the superstar when he went down with injury.

It was difficult for the BDA Sports Management client to leave the Clippers, Turner tweets, and Doc Rivers said he would make re-signing Collison his top offseason priority. Collison told Turner that he didn’t feel that was the case, however (Twitter links).

Collison was reportedly leaning toward returning when he opted out of his deal late last month. Still, the capped-out Clippers were in a tough spot, since they had only the Non-Bird exception to give Collison a 20% raise on his $1.9MM salary without dipping into the mid-level exception.

Instead it’s the Kings using their mid-level to convince Collison to move north. The amount for which Collison signed is what the Kings had wanted to pay Thomas, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee, and while the Collison agreement doesn’t necessarily forestall the return of Thomas, it casts further doubt on the future of Thomas in Sacramento.

Raptors Re-Sign Patrick Patterson

July 12th, 2014 at 5:33pm CST by Chuck Myron

JULY 12TH: The signing is official, per a team release.

JULY 4TH: The Raptors and Patrick Patterson have reached agreement on a three-year, $18MM deal, reports Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Toronto will use Bird Rights to retain the restricted free agent, keeping him away from other suitors before he could sign an offer sheet.

The Suns and Magic were reportedly in pursuit of the power forward. The Raptors apparently feared that some of the above-market deals around the league early in free agency would price them out of the ability to re-sign Patterson and fellow restricted free agent Greivis Vasquez.

The Patterson deal takes care of one part of that equation for the team, but with the club’s trade for Lou Williams shortly before the July moratorium, it’ll be a tight squeeze beneath the projected luxury tax line to sign Vasquez with the hope of adding anyone else. Still, the club appeared to place a priority on Patterson once it secured Kyle Lowry, as worries about the ability of Amir Johnson to stay healthy apparently fueled their desire for a strong backup power forward.

A $6MM average annual value is somewhat high for a bench player, but the capped-out Raptors wouldn’t have had the cap flexibility to shell out quite as much to anyone else had the Sam Goldfeder client ended up elsewhere. Patterson played a critical role in the rotation after coming over from Sacramento in the Rudy Gay trade, averaging 9.1 points and 5.1 rebounds in 23.3 minutes per game with a 16.2 PER for Toronto.