Pacers Sign Adonis Thomas For Camp
SEPTEMBER 5TH: The Pacers have followed up with a formal announcement, so the deal is official.
SEPTEMBER 3RD: The signing has taken place, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the team has yet to make a formal announcement.
AUGUST 22ND, 8:32am: It’s indeed a non-guaranteed deal, a source tells Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link).
AUGUST 21ST, 9:32pm: Adonis Thomas will attend training camp with the Pacers this fall, the Memphis product tweeted on Thursday night. Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders was the first reporter to pass along the news (via Twitter). We haven’t heard anything official from the team yet, though it appears that the sides have come to an agreement based on Thomas’ tweet.
After going undrafted last June, Thomas spent most of the 2013/14 season in the D-League with the now-defunct Springfield Armor. The 6-foot-7 guard averaged 16.6 points and 4.3 rebounds in 34 games for Springfield, shooting an unconscious 46.6 percent from beyond the arc. His D-League play earned him two 10-day contracts with the Magic and one with the Sixers, with whom he closed out the regular season.
In all Thomas appeared in only six NBA games as a rookie, averaging 2.3 points in 6.2 minutes per game. The 21-year-old spent two years at Memphis, where he played 27.5 minutes per game for the Tigers and was the second leading scorer on a team that earned a six seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament.
Pacers Sign Chris Singleton For Camp
FRIDAY, 10:22am: The signing is official, the team announced.
MONDAY, 2:00pm: It’s a summer contract, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM, so that means it’s a completely non-guaranteed camp deal.
11:02am: The Pacers have reached an agreement to sign Chris Singleton, reports David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports wrote several weeks ago of Indiana’s apparent interest in the 24-year-old combo forward, more recently following up with a dispatch indicating that Singleton would be working out in front of NBA team officials. The terms aren’t immediately clear, and while the Pacers have a $5.305MM disabled player exception from Paul George‘s injury to hand out, they can only spend about $2MM without going over the tax line, which they’ve long maintained they won’t do.
Spears identified the Heat as another team eyeing Singleton last month when he reported Indiana’s interest, though it seemed as though Miami had moved on to other targets. The 18th overall pick from 2011 fell out of favor rather quickly in Washington, and the Wizards declined their fourth-year option on him before last season, setting him up for unrestricted free agency this summer. It appeared about a month ago that Washington abandoned its pursuit of re-signing Singleton, though he had turned down an offer from overseas to continue his search for an NBA job. He also changed agents, going from Bill Duffy of BDA Sports to Todd Ramasar of Stealth Sports, as J. Michael of CSNWashington reported last month.
Indiana has been fairly active on the market in seeking a replacement for George, reportedly coming to terms on camp deals with small forwards C.J. Fair and Adonis Thomas, though Singleton appears to be the team’s most significant addition toward that end. The Pacers had been carrying 17 players, though only 13 are on fully guaranteed deals, so it appears Singleton has a decent shot to make the opening-night roster.
Pacers Sign Arinze Onuaku For Camp
FRIDAY, 10:20am: The Pacers have confirmed the signing with a formal announcement.
THURSDAY, 1:01pm: It’s indeed a non-guaranteed deal, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.
WEDNESDAY, 11:10pm: Arinze Onuaku has signed with the Pacers according to the RealGM.com Transactions log. The length or terms of the deal are unclear, but it’s most likely a non-guaranteed camp deal. After their recent agreement with Chris Singleton, the Pacers had been carrying 18 players on their preseason roster, with 13 of those deals guaranteed.
The 6’9″, 27 year-old appeared in a total of five games last season, split between the Pelicans and the Cavaliers. Onuaku averaged 0.6 PPG, 1.6 RPG, and 0.6 APG. His slash line was .200/.000/.500.
Onuaku will compete for a roster spot in what is currently a crowded Indiana frontcourt. Ahead of him on the depth chart are David West, Roy Hibbert, Luis Scola, Ian Mahinmi, and Lavoy Allen.
Pacers Sign C.J. Fair For Camp
SEPTEMBER 5TH: The deal is official, the team announced.
SEPTEMBER 3RD: The signing has taken place, as the RealGM transactions log shows, though the Pacers still haven’t announced the move.
AUGUST 25TH: The Pacers and C.J. Fair have agreed to a non-guaranteed deal that will bring him to camp, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). The news is right on the heels of a report from Mike Waters of The Post-Standard that Fair was set to work out for the team next month, so apparently Indiana is willing to make a camp commitment to the undrafted forward even without the audition. It’s almost certainly a minimum-salary arrangement, though that’s not entirely clear just yet.
That Fair agreed to a non-guaranteed arrangement is surprising, since it appeared as though he was holding out for guaranteed money when he reportedly turned down camp invitations from the Mavs and other NBA teams earlier this summer. He played for the Mavs’ summer league team, making it curious that he didn’t wind up joining Dallas instead of Indiana for camp, though the Mavs have 14 fully guaranteed deals while Indiana is carrying only 13.
He was a fringe second-round prospect heading into the draft who displayed streaky shooting over the final two seasons of his four-year career at Syracuse, as I noted earlier. He’s a combo forward who would perhaps help make up for the loss of injured starting small forward Paul George.
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).
Mavs Re-Sign Bernard James
6:00pm: The deal is official, the team announced.
4:20pm: The Mavs have re-signed Bernard James, Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com announced (on Twitter). Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported a couple of weeks ago that the team was finalizing a one-year deal for the minimum salary with the two-year veteran center. It’s likely a fully guaranteed arrangement, as Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com wrote.
James saw reduced playing time this past season after seeing nearly 10 minutes a game as a rookie. He averaged less than a point in 4.9 minutes per contest in 2013/14, though he was an effective rebounder when he did see the floor, grabbing 10.4 boards per 36 minutes. The 33rd pick from the 2012 draft was a U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant before finishing his college career at Florida State.
The addition of the Happy Walters client gives Dallas 17 players, 15 of whom have guaranteed deals, presuming James’s contract is guaranteed. That spells trouble for Eric Griffin and Ivan Johnson, both of whom have only partial guarantees on their minimum-salary pacts.
Kings Waive Wayne Ellington
4:40pm: The Kings have indeed waived Ellington, the team announced. Sacramento’s statement doesn’t make it clear whether the club officially made the move by Sunday’s stretch provision deadline, though presumably that’s the case.
WEDNESDAY, 8:28am: The RealGM transactions log confirms the move took place Sunday, though the team still has yet to make an official announcement.
MONDAY, 9:11am: The Kings waived Wayne Ellington on Sunday, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The team has made no formal announcement of the move, though it had to have taken place Sunday for the Kings to use the stretch provision to clear most of Ellington’s guaranteed salary of more than $2.771MM for the upcoming season, as Stein points out. USA Today’s Sam Amick reported last month in the immediate wake of the trade that brought Ellington to the Kings that Sacramento was expected to waive him, though Amick cautioned shortly thereafter that the team had yet to make its final decision.
It’s been a whirlwind summer for Ellington, who was involved in two trades. The Mavs sent him to the Knicks in June’s Tyson Chandler deal before New York flipped him to the Kings. He didn’t see much playing time last season after agent Arn Tellem helped him secure a two-year deal with the Mavericks for more than $5.423MM. That contract came on the heels of the most productive of his five NBA seasons, as he averaged 10.4 points and shot 37.1% from three-point range in 25.9 minutes per game for the Cavs after arriving in Cleveland via trade from the Grizzlies in January 2013. He upped his three-point percentage to 42.4% in a meager 8.7 MPG this past season, but teams have still played hot potato with the 26-year-old this summer.
Sacramento will pay out Ellington’s remaining salary in equal amounts of nearly $924K through the 2016/17 season, presuming the team indeed made use of the stretch provision. Before they reached Sunday’s agreement to trade Jason Terry to the Rockets, the Kings had been poised to sit less than $100K shy of the luxury tax threshold in guaranteed salaries once they formalized their deal with Omri Casspi, so waiving Ellington provides additional flexibility. Amick’s report from last month also indicated the team is expected to waive Jeremy Tyler, though his salary is non-guaranteed.
Clippers Sign Chris Douglas-Roberts
2:54pm: The Clippers made the signing official, making a formal announcement.
2:17pm: The deal has been expected to be for one year, writes Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com, and the same is true of the agreement that Turkoglu is nearing with the team. That’ll help the Clippers squeeze a 15th player onto their roster under their hard cap, since one-year deals for the minimum salary only go on the team’s books for $915,243, the equivalent of the two-year veteran’s minimum, even if the player has more years of service. The league pays the rest.
1:59pm: The Clippers will sign free agent swingman Chris Douglas-Roberts, tweets Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. Woike reported earlier this week that the sides were close to a deal, and last week USA Today’s Sam Amick identified the Clippers as an interested party. It’ll almost certainly be a minimum-salary arrangement, since that’s all the Clippers can give, though it would seem there’s a strong chance it’ll be fully guaranteed, like the deal the team reached today with Ekpe Udoh.
Douglas-Roberts reportedly worked out for the Heat, so that means the Clips have taken another player from Miami’s list of considerations after doing the same with Udoh. The Hornets didn’t appear too interested in re-signing Douglas-Roberts in spite of the extensive role he played for Charlotte after he signed in December as a midseason injury replacement. The Creative Artists Agency client averaged 6.9 points in 20.7 minutes per game and made a career-high 38.6% of his three-point attempts last season, his fifth on an NBA roster.
The move gives the Clippers agreements with 14 players, 13 of whom have guaranteed deals. The team has also apparently been close to signing Hedo Turkoglu over the past few days and has been linked to Ray Allen. In any case, the Clippers can afford to carry a full 15-man roster if they choose after having waived and stretched Carlos Delfino and Miroslav Raduljica last week.
Clippers Sign Ekpe Udoh
2:53pm: The deal is official, the team announced.
11:58am: The Clippers and free agent big man Ekpe Udoh have reached agreement on a one-year deal, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). It’ll be fully guaranteed for the minimum salary, a source tells Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). The four-year veteran’s $981,084 pay will count for the $915,243 two-year veteran’s minimum on the team’s books since the contract will only cover one season, and the league will pick up the rest.
Udoh met with the Clippers last week, as USA Today’s Sam Amick reported. His visit took place the same day the team sent Jared Dudley to Milwaukee for Miroslav Raduljica and Carlos Delfino, whose salaries could be more easily waived and stretched to create room under the hard cap for Udoh and others. The release of Dudley and Raduljica on Friday left the Clippers will 11 players, and Monday they added DeAndre Liggins on what’s presumably a non-guaranteed camp deal. The Clips are also apparently close to deals with Chris Douglas-Roberts and Hedo Turkoglu, and they have just enough cap flexibility and room on the roster to sign them both to guaranteed deals for the minimum. The club also seems to have interest in Ray Allen, but signing him would probably necessitate waiving Liggins, the only Clipper without a fully guaranteed deal, before opening night.
The Clippers appear to be circling back to Udoh after he was reportedly close to a deal with the team in July before Glen Davis re-signed. The Heat were also considering Udoh, a Chris Luchey client, but the Bucks seemed to have little interest in keeping him, declining to make a qualifying offer in June and renouncing his rights the next month. He was in and out of the lineup last season, averaging 19.1 minutes per game despite starting 14 contests. The 6’10” Udoh put up 3.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per appearance.
Sixers Waive Hasheem Thabeet
The Sixers waived Hasheem Thabeet on Monday, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the team has yet to formally announce the move. That means the club released him on the final day before his non-guaranteed $1.25MM salary for this coming season was to have become fully guaranteed, even though it initially appeared as though the Sixers missed that deadline. Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported last week that they were likely to release the former No. 2 overall pick after acquiring him via trade from the Thunder.
The move is the latest indignity yet for the once highly touted 7’3″ prospect whose NBA career started slowly, with a D-League assignment in his rookie season, and never reached its potential. Thabeet is set to become a free agent later today providing he clears waivers, a likely outcome even though his salary isn’t for too much more than the minimum. Teams can’t claim a player making any more than the minimum unless they have cap space, a trade exception, or a disabled player exception, and Thabeet probably isn’t tempting enough to entice a club to burn one of those resources. Still, providing he hits free agency, the timing of the move gives him a chance to sign with a team for training camp.
The trade that sent him to Philadelphia appeared to be chiefly about clearing his salary and creating a trade exception from Oklahoma City’s perspective, while the Sixers netted $100K in cash for their trouble. Thabeet’s release leaves the Sixers with 16 players, only half of whom have guaranteed deals for the coming season.