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Celtics Sign James Young

July 10th, 2014 at 9:25pm CST by Alex Lee

JULY 10TH: The Celtics have announced the signing of James Young via a team release. They confirmed the signing of fellow first round pick Marcus Smart in the same communication. Boston nabbed Young out of Kentucky with the No. 17 pick in June’s draft after securing Smart with the sixth selection. The athletic sharpshooter is likely to receive a salary worth a tick above $1.674MM, as our chart of salaries for first-round picks shows.

Young scored a team-high 20 points in a losing effort for the Wildcats in the National Championship game against Connecticut. He was also named second team All-SEC as a freshman. On a Celtics team with a dearth of wing players, Young figures to get playing time right away. Some draftniks expected him to flirt with the top ten, which might bode well for Boston considering their recent draft history. Celtics GM Danny Ainge has landed players like Al Jefferson, Rajon Rondo, Avery Bradley and Jared Sullinger at similar stages of previous drafts. Young’s athleticism and polished jumper could make him a steal at 17.

Our Eddie Scarito took a look at Young a few months ago in our Prospect Profile series.

Celtics Sign Marcus Smart

July 10th, 2014 at 9:24pm CST by Chuck Myron

JULY 10TH: The Celtics have made the signing of Smart official in a team release. Whether he received the full 120% rookie scale salary has yet to be revealed, but presumably that’s the case.

JULY 8TH: The signing took place three days ago, according to Deeks, who adds that an official announcement might not ever take place. The Bulls made no announcement when they signed Derrick Rose to his rookie deal, as Deeks points out (Twitter links).

7:49am: The Celtics have signed Marcus Smart, tweets Mark Deeks of ShamSports. There’s been no public announcement from the team, but Smart has been playing in summer league for the club. As the No. 6 pick from this year’s draft, he’ll likely receive a salary worth slightly more than $3.283MM this year, as our chart of salaries for first-round picks shows.

The 6’3″ Smart finally joins the NBA after a surprising decision to sit out the 2013 draft and return for his sophomore season at Oklahoma State. An incident in which he shoved a fan during a game caused a stir, but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on his draft stock, as he was only the second point guard to come off the board. The Celtics already have Rajon Rondo and Avery Bradley in the backcourt, but president of basketball operations Danny Ainge has expressed confidence that Smart can co-exist on the floor with both of them.

Smart, 20, averaged 18.0 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 32.7 minutes per game this past season. He drained just 29.9% of his three-point attempts, prompting Eddie Scarito of Hoops Rumors, who examined Smart’s Prospect Profile, to point to the improvement of his outside shooting as a key bellwether for his career.

Rockets Receive Mavs Offer Sheet For Parsons

July 10th, 2014 at 6:03pm CST by Cray Allred

6:03pm: The three-day clock on the Parsons offer sheet will begin tonight at 11pm CDT, reports Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star Telegram (Twitter link), giving the Rockets until Sunday at that time to match. In a separate tweet, Price reports that the deal will pay Parsons $14.7MM next season, $15.36MM in 2015/16 and $16.02MM in 2016/17 for a total of $46.08MM over three years. Price also confirms the third year is a player option.

1:59pm: The Rockets have received the signed offer sheet from the Mavs, USA Today’s Sam Amick reports, so the possibility of a sign-and-trade is out and Houston’s three-day window to match will begin (Twitter link).

1:24pm: Parsons indeed signed the offer sheet, Wojnarowski clarifies, but it simply hasn’t been delivered to the Rockets, meaning it’s not official yet, and the clubs can continue to work toward a sign-and-trade (Twitter link).

12:55pm: Dallas and Houston are indeed in talks about a sign-and-trade involving Parsons, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Wojnarowski also says Parsons has yet to sign an offer sheet, repeating what Nelson told reporters earlier today. That’s in spite of the earlier report to the contrary and photos of Parsons signing paperwork that Mavs owner Cuban posted to a social media site, as Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News observed.

11:57pm: Nelson told reporters that the plan is to submit the offer sheet by the end of the night, notes Jeff Caplan of NBA.com (on Twitter), so it appears that’s the deadline for working out a sign-and-trade.

11:52pm: A possible sign-and-trade is in play for the Mavs and Rockets regarding Parsons, which is why Dallas is hesitating to submit the offer sheet, tweets Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News.

11:36am: Mavs GM Donnie Nelson said the team hasn’t submitted any offer sheets, tweets Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com. That suggests that while Parsons may have indeed signed the offer sheet, the Mavs haven’t officially given the Rockets notice, as required, to begin the three-day matching period.

10:37am: If the Rockets sign Bosh, they intend to match the offer sheet for Parsons if they can before their time to do so runs out, a source tells Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle (Twitter link). If they don’t sign Bosh, Houston is undecided on matching, Feigen adds.

THURSDAY, 8:04am: Parsons has signed the offer sheet, as Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com writes, but there’s been no announcement from the Mavs, so it’s unclear whether the Rockets have been officially notified and their three-day window to match the offer sheet has begun. The value of the trade kicker is the maximum 15%, according to Spears (Twitter link).

WEDNESDAY, 8:06pm: The deal includes a trade kicker, tweets Spears.

5:56pm: The Mavs and Chandler Parsons have reached an agreement on an offer sheet for three years and approximately $46MM. The third year is a player option, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. Marc Stein of ESPN.com was the first to report the agreement (on Twitter), and Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports has confirmed the pending deal (via Twitter). The max salary for a player of Parsons’ status on a three-year deal would be $46,228,710, as we learned earlier today, so Dallas has offered the max or close to it to the small forward.

Parsons will sign the offer sheet when the league moratorium is lifted at 12:01am EDT, a source tells Spears (Twitter link), and the Rockets will have three days to match the deal for their restricted free agent. Houston will be faced with a 72-hour window to resolve its pursuit of Chris Bosh if they want to retain both Parsons and add the Heat veteran, as Parsons currently minuscule cap hold will turn into a massive amount of salary if they match Dallas’ offer. The Rockets would no longer have room to sign Bosh at the max level in that scenario.

Houston chose to decline the slender $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. Houston has planned on retaining Parsons through this process, although the outcome of their respective pursuits of Carmelo Anthony, Bosh, and LeBron James could have altered those plans. GM Daryl Morey has been in contact with the agents for Trevor Ariza, Luol Deng, and Paul Pierce today, tweets Wojnarowski and Sam Amick of USA Today, three small forwards that would make sense as contingency plans in the event Houston doesn’t match Dallas’ offer. As it stands, Houston hasn’t been notified that they are out of the running on Anthony or James, but don’t appear to be front runners for either star.

Blazers Sign Steve Blake

July 10th, 2014 at 5:38pm CST by Chuck Myron

5:38pm: The deal is official, the team announced.

11:39am: The Blazers have struck a deal with Steve Blake, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). It’ll be a two-year deal for the biannual exception with a player option for the second season, according to Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com (on Twitter). The contract will be worth $4.2MM, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com, so assuming that’s an estimate, it appears the point guard is getting the full $4,247,465 value of the biannual.

Blake, a client of Joel Bell, was reportedly enamored with the idea of returning to play in Portland, where he spent parts of four seasons with the Blazers over two separate stints. The Lakers, Heat, Wolves and Knicks have all shown interest in the 34-year-old over the course of the offseason, though Minnesota wasn’t as high on him by the time free agency started, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities. While Blake spoke of his affection for the Lakers and Warriors, the two teams with which he spent last season, he’s headed back to Portland instead.

The Blazers appear to be using most of their mid-level to sign Chris Kaman, so that’s likely the extent of their free agent spending beyond the minimum salary, unless they can convince Mo Williams to sign for a salary of just 20% more than the roughly $2.77MM he earned last season. That’s the most they can give Williams, with whom the Blazers have only Non-Bird rights.

Renounced Players: Thursday

July 10th, 2014 at 4:53pm CST by Chuck Myron

Many of the agreements signed during the July moratorium were contingent on teams clearing cap space to accommodate them, and to do so, teams must sometimes renounce their Non-Bird, Early Bird or full Bird rights to their own free agents to erase their cap holds from the books. Teams that renounce those rights no longer have the ability to exceed the cap to re-sign those players unless they use an exception like the mid-level or the biannual. The end of the moratorium usually brings about a fair number of renouncements, so we’ll track today’s here, with the latest on top:

The Mavs have renounced Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion and Vince Carter, according to Mark Deeks of ShamSports (Twitter link). That doesn’t mean the Mavs don’t intend to re-sign Nowitzki, as they already agreed to do. Teams that sign players to offer sheets are permitted to rescind their renouncements if the original club matches the offer sheet. In this case, the Mavs will rescind their renouncement of Nowitzki if the Rockets match the offer sheet for Chandler Parsons, and they’ll use cap space to re-sign Nowitzki if Houston doesn’t match.
The Jazz renounced their rights to Richard Jefferson and Brandon Rush, according to Deeks tweets.
The Hornets renounced Jannero Pargo, Anthony Tolliver, DJ White, Luke Ridnour, Josh McRoberts and Chris Douglas-Roberts, Deeks notes in the same tweet. Just like the Mavs, the Hornets may rescind these renouncement if the Jazz, as they reportedly intend to do, match Charlotte’s offer sheet for Gordon Hayward.

Jazz Acquire Steve Novak

July 10th, 2014 at 12:14pm CST by Chuck Myron

JULY 10TH: The trade is official, the Jazz announce via press release. The second-round pick going to Utah is New York’s 2017 selection that the Raptors acquired in a previous trade.

JULY 4TH: The Raptors and Jazz have struck an agreement on a trade that sends Steve Novak and a second-round pick to Utah, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Utah is giving up Diante Garrett, but Toronto plans to waive Garrett and his non-guaranteed minimum salary after the trade is official following the July moratorium, which runs through Wednesday, Wojnarowski adds.

Toronto appears to be making the move to clear room beneath the projected $77MM luxury tax line to accommodate a deal for Greivis Vasquez and perhaps other signings, with space tight following the team’s agreements with Kyle Lowry and Patrick Patterson. The team is reportedly closing in on a deal with Vasquez, but it only has roughly $7.5MM in flexibility beneath the tax threshold.

Novak was little-used in Toronto this past season after having been an integral part of the Knicks rotation the previous two years. He averaged just 10.0 minutes per game, but as usual, he was stellar from behind the arc, nailing 42.6% of his three-point attempts. He led the league with a 47.2% three-point percentage in 2011/12, and that summer he signed a four-year, $15MM deal that made him a pricey luxury at the end of the bench this past season for the Raptors.

Utah uses its ample cap flexibility to pick up one of the league’s premier three-point shooting specialists. Novak will make nearly $3.446MM this coming season and $3.75MM in 2015/16, but it seems like Utah is OK with the commitment as it slowly rebuilds.

Nets Acquire Jarrett Jack In Deal With Cavs, Celts

July 10th, 2014 at 10:06am CST by Chuck Myron

10:06am: The second-rounder going from the Celtics to the Cavs is for 2015, according to Cleveland’s official announcement on the trade. It’s top-55 protected, and if it doesn’t fall within the final five picks of the second round, Boston’s obligation regarding the pick will be extinguished.

THURSDAY, 9:21am: The trade is official, the Nets announce.

“Jarrett is a proven NBA veteran who will add versatility to our backcourt,” Nets GM Billy King said in the team’s statement. “The team had a need in that area and we are excited that we were able to secure Jarrett to fill that role. Sergey is a player who we have followed closely for several years. He is a versatile forward and will be a welcome addition to our roster.”

WEDNESDAY, 10:02am: The Cavs will receive the draft rights to Ilkan Karaman, Christian Drejer and Edin Bavcic from the Nets, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. They were second-round picks in 2012, 2004 and 2006, respectively. The first-rounder going from Cleveland to Boston is top-10 protected in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and becomes unprotected for 2019, Wojnarowski adds (Twitter link).

9:46am: The Cavs, Nets and Celtics will complete a three-team trade that sends Jarrett Jack to the Nets and opens up the cap flexibility necessary for Cleveland to give LeBron James a max contract, as Baxter Holmes of The Boston Globe confirms (Twitter link). Marc Stein of ESPN.com first reported that the clubs were on the verge of a deal. Sergey Karasev will go to the Nets as well, while Marcus Thornton, Tyler Zeller, and a first-round pick are headed to Boston. The first-rounder the Celtics are getting is for 2016, as Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com reported, and Holmes says that pick is coming from the Cavs (Twitter link). The Celtics send a future second-round pick to the Cavs, Holmes tweets.

It appears as though the Celtics will slip Thornton, who’s set to make $8.575MM next season, and Zeller, set for slightly more than $1.5MM, into the nearly $10.3MM trade exception left over from last year’s Paul Pierce trade, as Goodman pointed out. The Cavs No. 1 option is using the max-level cap flexibility the deal creates to chase LeBron, but if not, they’ll reportedly go after second-tier free agents, with Trevor Ariza apparently among their targets.

Cleveland and the Nets were reportedly working for weeks on a trade involving Jack and Thornton, but with the Cavs uninterested in taking back Thornton’s salary, the involvement of a third team became necessary. The Hawks were among the teams the Cavs were reaching out to, but the idea of acquiring Thornton was apparently a turn-off for them. Enter the Celtics, who’ve been looking to acquire assets necessary to enhance their standing for a Kevin Love trade.

The Nets end up with a backup point guard to replace Shaun Livingston, who signed with the Warriors. They also receive Karasev, just a year removed from having been the 19th overall pick in the 2013 draft, to help inject youth into a veteran-laded team. The Nets believe Jack could even start next to Deron Williams, as Livingston did for much of last season, while they were eyeing Karasev during the draft last year, TNT’s David Aldridge tweets.

Hornets Sign Gordon Hayward To Offer Sheet

July 10th, 2014 at 7:58am CST by Ryan Raroque

THURSDAY, 7:58am: Hayward has officially signed the offer sheet, the Hornets announced via press release, starting the three-day matching period. The Jazz will likely wait all three days to match, tweets Jody Genessy of the Deseret News (Twitter link).

WEDNESDAY, 7:05am: It’ll be an offer sheet for the max that runs four years with a player option for the final season, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. It’ll also include a 15% trade kicker, Wojnarowski adds. The option and the trade kicker appear to be designed to dissuade the Jazz from matching, but the Jazz have been adamant that they will match, according to Wojnarowski.

Indeed, Utah has been so intent on matching any such deal that the Jazz consider the offer sheet a “non-issue,” a source tells Jody Genessy of the Deseret News (Twitter link). Several teams called the Jazz about a sign-and-trade for Hayward to see if there was some way of preventing them from matching, but the Hornets never did, Wojnarowski writes, and there’s no chance Charlotte and Utah will arrange a sign-and-trade at this point, Genessy tweets.

TUESDAY, 11:36pm: Gordon Hayward has agreed to a major offer sheet with the Hornets, tweets Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer. Terms of the agreement haven’t been disclosed, although it’s highly likely that Charlotte is offering more than the four-year, $48MM deal that Hayward turned down from the Jazz last fall. As we noted earlier, the Hornets were content with their meeting with Hayward; however, Utah is expected to match any offer for the 6’8 forward.

Aaron Falk of the Salt Lake Tribune (via Twitter) notes that Hayward can’t officially sign anything until July 10th; at that point, the Jazz would have three days to match the offer, and Falk maintains that all indications so far is that they will.

Clippers Sign Jordan Farmar

July 9th, 2014 at 11:28pm CST by Zachary Links

WEDNESDAY, 11:28pm: Farmar has signed the deal, per a team release.

SUNDAY, 5:40pm: The Clippers and free agent Jordan Farmar have agreed to a two-year, $4.2MM deal, according to Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times (on Twitter). The Clippers will likely be using their biannual exception in the deal, according to Turner. The biannual only provides for a maximum of $4.154MM over two seasons, so presumably Turner is rounding up.

The former Lakers guard will be changing hallways in the Staples Center to help replace the departed Darren Collison. The Clippers have been cited as the frontrunners for Farmar’s services and long viewed as a viable Plan B in the event that Collison took his services elsewhere.

At the conclusion of the Lakers’ season, Farmer made it known that he wanted to stay in purple and gold, despite all of the uncertainty surrounding the club.

“I want to be a Laker,” Farmar said. “I like playing for Mike. Whether it’s Phil Jackson, Mike D’Antoni or whoever else coaches this team, that won’t deter me from wanting to be a Laker.”

Things didn’t work out with Farmar and the Lakers, but with today’s agreement, he at least knows he won’t have to go house hunting. And, unless the Lakers make major upgrades this summer, he’ll have a better chance at winning a championship.

Hawes Signs With Clippers

July 9th, 2014 at 11:26pm CST by Eddie Scarito

JULY 9th, 11:26pm: The team announced that Hawes has officially signed the contract. No mention of a sign-and-trade was mentioned in the release.

7:27pm: Doc Rivers is trying to arrange a sign-and-trade with the Cavaliers for Hawes, which would preserve the Clippers midlevel exception which the team would then use to target Paul Pierce, tweets Wojnarowski.

JULY 4th, 6:26pm: Free agent Spencer Hawes has reached agreement with the Los Angeles Clippers, league sources have told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). The deal is for four-years, $23MM, according to Wojnarowski’s tweet. Hawes was one of the more desirable big men on the market after a season that saw him average 13.2 PPG, 8.3 RPG, and 1.2 BPG while splitting time between the Cavaliers and the Sixers.

According to Wojnarowski’s article, Hawes was determined to sign with a contender, and he had visited seriously with the Suns and Trail Blazers before settling on the Clippers offer.

The Clippers had recruited Hawes hard for the full midlevel exception and worked with his agent, Greg Lawrence of Wasserman Media Group, on a deal that includes a player option for the fourth year and a 15 percent trade kicker, sources told Wojnarowski.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.