Rockets Sign Tarik Black
6:50pm: The signing is official, the team announced.
6:33pm: Black’s deal with the Rockets is for two years and is partially guaranteed, according to Shams Charania of RealGM (via Twitter).
6:02pm: The Rockets have come to an agreement with Tarik Black, reports Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle (via Twitter). After going undrafted in June out of Kansas, Black played 13 games with Houston this summer between Las Vegas and Orlando. He was particularly impressive over five games in Orlando, averaging 10 points and 6 rebounds on 60 percent shooting in 20 minutes per contest.
Black, a 6’9″ forward, is probably a long shot to make a Rockets team that has 14 guaranteed contracts on the books, not to mention a handful of non-guaranteed ones. However, as Feigen notes, Black might be a good bet to end up on the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, Houston’s D-League affiliate. The 22-year-old Black was a heralded recruit coming out of high school, playing three years at Memphis before graduating early and transferring to Kansas for his senior season to play alongside Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid. Black averaged 5.5 points on 69.2 percent shooting in his lone season in Lawrence.
Heat Sign Shannon Brown
5:15pm: The signing is official, the team announced.
3:10pm: The Heat and Shannon Brown have come to terms, according to the Priority Sports agency that represents the free agent shooting guard (Twitter link; hat tip to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today). Sam Amick of USA Today hears it’s a one-year, $1.3MM deal (Twitter link), so that appears to be rounded down from the $1,310,286 minimum salary for a veteran of eight years, as Brown is. That stands to reason, since Miami is limited to handing out only the minimum.
A report from about a week ago indicated that finding a shooting guard was a priority for the Heat, though Brown wasn’t among the players linked to the team. The rumor mill surrounding the 28-year-old has been quiet since the Knicks waived him rather than guaranteeing his contract last month. It remains to be seen whether the Heat are including any sort of guarantee in their pact with the Mark Bartelstein client.
Brown, a former 25th overall pick, spent the first half of last season out of the league after the Wizards let him go following the Marcin Gortat trade that brought him from Phoenix, where he’d put up back-to-back career highs in minutes per game. The Spurs brought him in on a pair of 10-day contracts in February, and the Knicks later did the same before signing him to a deal that covered the rest of the season with a non-guaranteed 2014/15 salary tacked on.
The Heat had been carrying just 14 deals with any guaranteed money, as our roster counts show, so Brown appears to have a strong chance to remain with the team come opening night.
Murphy, Bost To Join Jazz For Training Camp
AUGUST 27TH: Murphy’s deal is official, too, the team announced.
AUGUST 25TH: The team hasn’t announced Murphy’s signing, but it has occured according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (on Twitter). Pincus reports that both players’ deals are partially guaranteed at $65K, and Murphy’s total salary is set at $840K. Bost’s total salary was already reported to be at the minimum for three seasons (none of which are fully guaranteed).
AUGUST 15TH: The Jazz officially announced the signing of Bost, tweets Aaron Falk of The Salt Lake Tribune.
AUGUST 14TH: Kevin Murphy and Dee Bost will join the Jazz for training camp, according to Gino Pilato of D-League Digest (on Twitter). Both players spent last season with the Idaho Stampede of the D-League.
Bost, 25 in October, signed a non-guaranteed deal with the Blazers last fall before being waived in October. The guard went undrafted out of Mississippi State in 2012 and spent the following season overseas with Budućnost Podgorica in Montenegro, averaging 8.3 PPG, 1.8 APG, and 1.3 turnovers in 21.5 minutes per contest. In 50 games for Idaho last season, Bost averaged 15.2 PPG and 6.1 RPG in 40.5 minutes per night.
Murphy auditioned for the 76ers in March in hopes of securing a 10-day deal and also worked out for the Nets earlier this offseason.
Clippers, Doc Rivers Agree To New Deal
2:00pm: The deal is worth more than $50MM over the next five seasons, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link).
1:43pm: It’s an entirely new contract rather than an extension for Rivers, tweets Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times. That indicates that the terms of Rivers’ original pact with the team, which wasn’t set to expire until the summer of 2016, no longer apply.
11:07am: The Clippers and Doc Rivers have reached a deal that will keep him under contract with the team through the 2018/19 season, the team announced. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported a couple of weeks ago that Rivers, who serves as coach and president of basketball operations, was set for extension talks with the team just as new owner Steve Ballmer formally took control of the franchise. The terms of the new deal aren’t immediately clear, but Rivers signed a three-year, $21MM contract when he joined the Clippers last summer.
“This is an important day for this organization,” Ballmer said in the team’s statement. “I am excited to work with Doc for a long time as we build a championship culture that will deliver results both on and off the court. Not only is Doc one of the best coaches and executives in the game, but he continually embodies the hard core, committed and resilient character and winning culture that the Clippers represent. It was one of my top priorities to ensure that he was firmly in place as the long-term leader of this team.”
The extension announcement comes just a day after Rivers and his front office staff pulled off a trade that sent Jared Dudley to the Bucks and provides some long-term salary flexibility for the Clippers. Rivers has had a busy and tumultuous past several months, and the saga involving former owner Donald Sterling was at the center of it.
Rivers helped guide the team through the playoffs this spring just after the scandal burst into the headlines, but it was weeks before he shushed rumors that he would leave if the Sterling mess weren’t quickly remedied. Doubts about Rivers’ future resurfaced when interim CEO Dick Parsons testified in Sterling’s probate trial that Rivers had told him he didn’t think he would continue with the team if Sterling remained the owner. Ballmer’s formal acquisition of the club earlier this month seemed to stabilize that situation, and Rivers spoke of his admiration for the new owner and enthusiasm for a long-term future with the club as part of the team’s statement today.
Ballmer several days ago stopped short of acknowledging extension talks, but he called Rivers “phenomenal” and made it clear that he wanted to keep Rivers around. The former Microsoft CEO paid $2 billion to buy the team, a record price, but with a net worth of $18 billion, according to Forbes.com, there’s little reason to suspect he was unwilling to pony up for Rivers, particularly given the speed with which they reached agreement.
Rivers, 52, has only more than a year of experience as an executive but has served as a head coach for at least part of each of the last 15 seasons, compiling a 644-498 record. He won the 2008 title with the Celtics, but that was one of just three postseasons in which the teams that Rivers coached won more playoff games than they lost.
Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images.
Bucks Sign Damien Inglis
AUGUST 26TH, 6:03pm: The signing is official, the team announced.
AUGUST 20TH, 8:05pm: The Bucks have signed 31st overall pick Damien Inglis, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The team has yet to make an official announcement, but the move took place Tuesday, as the RealGM transactions log shows. It’s a multiyear deal, according to RealGM. Inglis probably received a three-year deal worth a shade under $1MM this season and the minimum salary in the final two seasons if he’s like many of his peers from the top of the 2014 second round, including 36th overall pick and new Bucks teammate Johnny O’Bryant.
Inglis is a native of French Guiana who spent last season playing for Chorale Roanne in France. He had a decent chance to end up as a first-round pick, since he ranked 26th in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress prospect listings and 30th with Chad Ford of ESPN.com. The 6’8″ small forward is nonetheless a raw prospect, having averaged just 4.6 points and 3.6 rebounds in 15.3 minutes per game in France this year.
The signing creates a logjam of sorts in Milwaukee, particularly if Inglis’ contract is guaranteed, as is likely the case. The team already had 14 guaranteed deals, as our roster counts show, not including Kendall Marshall, who figures to be a part of the rotation on his minimum-salary pact after averaging 8.8 assists per game for the Lakers last season. The Bucks also renounced their rights to free agent Ramon Sessions, as Pincus and RealGM report, and while that doesn’t clear an additional roster spot, it’s a signal that the club is done with free agent signings this summer, save for perhaps a few training camp invitations.
Thunder Trade Hasheem Thabeet To Sixers
5:07pm: The trade is official, the Thunder have announced via press release. It’s Thabeet and cash headed to Philadelphia with a protected 2015 second-rounder going to Oklahoma City. That pick will probably never change hands, as Slater reported.
4:57pm: Oklahoma City is receiving a second-round pick, but it’s conditional and so heavily protected that Philadelphia is unlikely to ever have to convey it, reports Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman.
3:55pm: The Thunder will deal Hasheem Thabeet to the Sixers, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (on Twitter). The Sixers will likely waive Thabeet after the trade becomes official, Stein also hears (Twitter link). Philadelphia will also receive cash, and the Thunder won’t be taking back any salary, so they can create a trade exception worth Thabeet’s $1.25MM salary, Stein adds (via Twitter).
Thabeet’s salary is non-guaranteed, but it’s set to become fully guaranteed by the end of this coming Monday, which helps explain the timing of the move. Thabeet, the No. 2 pick in the 2009 draft, fell out of Oklahoma City’s rotation this past season amid the emergence of rookie Steven Adams. The 27-year-old Thabeet saw action in just 23 games with an average of 8.3 minutes per appearance.
It’d be a little surprising to see Philadelphia wind up with only cash from the transaction, especially given how much Sixers GM Sam Hinkie covets draft picks, so perhaps there’s more to the transaction than is being reported, though that’s just my speculation. Oklahoma City will have to net an asset of some sort in the trade, too. In any case, the move is set to take Oklahoma City down to 15 players, including 14 guaranteed deals and Lance Thomas, who has a non-guaranteed pact.
The 7’3″ Thabeet has never found solid footing in the league after spending three years at the University of Connecticut. The Grizzlies sent him on D-League assignment in his rookie season, a rarity for a player taken so highly in the draft, and they traded him to the Rockets midway through his second season. Houston swapped him to the Blazers a year later, and he signed with the Thunder the following summer. He spent his first season with Oklahoma City as the primary backup center behind Kendrick Perkins, but he lost that job in 2013/14.
Bucks Acquire Jared Dudley
4:11pm: The deal is official, the Bucks announced. It’s Dudley and a 2017 first-rounder to the Bucks and Delfino, Raduljica and the Clippers’ own 2015 second-round pick, which Milwaukee acquired in a previous trade, going to the Clippers.
3:41pm: The 2017 first-round pick going from the Clippers to the Bucks will be lottery protected, a source indicates to Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Twitter link).
3:07pm: Delfino is only expected to miss part of the coming season, as Wojnarowski writes in his full story after deleting the tweet that indicated Delfino would likely miss the entire season.
2:33pm: The first-rounder headed Milwaukee’s way is a protected 2017 selection, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (on Twitter).
2:20pm: The Clippers will also receive their own 2015 second-round pick that Milwaukee had acquired through a previous trade, reports Sam Amick of USA Today (Twitter link).
1:59pm: The Clippers are sending Jared Dudley to the Bucks, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Carlos Delfino, Miroslav Raduljica head to L.A. while the Clippers also send Milwaukee a future first-round pick, Wojnarowski adds in a second tweet. Delfino, who missed all of last season because of injury, is likely to be out all of this year, too, according to Wojnarowski, making this trade purely about unloading Dudley’s salary from the Clippers’ perspective (Twitter link). Dudley is set to make $4.25MM this season and has an early termination option for the final season of his contract in 2015/16, which is also for $4.25MM.
Delfino originally hurt his right foot while with the Rockets in the 2013 playoffs, and while he signed a three-year, $9.75MM contract last summer with Milwaukee, he’ll never have taken the floor for the club while on that deal. The final season is non-guaranteed, so given L.A.’s apparent motivation to offload salary in the deal, it appears there’s a strong chance that Delfino will end up never having played at all under his contract.
Raduljica will make $1.5MM this season, but his salary for slightly more than that in 2015/16 is non-guaranteed, so the Clippers can cut ties with both he and Delfino next summer and pocket the savings. There was no guarantee that Dudley would have opted in, but the deal gives them greater cost control.
The move is a net gain in salary of $500K for the Clippers this year, moving them less than $1MM beneath their hard cap. The Clippers will end up with 13 players as a result of the transaction, so they won’t have to sign anyone else to meet the regular season roster minimum. The deal will leave the team with $649,228 to spend under the hard cap, according to the figures compiled by Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders, so that leaves only room for a prorated contract later in the season.
The Bucks had been carrying 15 guaranteed contracts plus two non-guaranteed deals, one of which is for Kendall Marshall, who’ll probably be part of the team’s rotation. So, the trade will allow the team to keep Marshall without having to unload a fully guaranteed contract.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Pelicans Sign John Salmons
AUGUST 26TH: The deal is official, the team announced.
AUGUST 25TH: The contract Salmons initially signed with the Pelicans wasn’t approved by the league, so the veteran re-signed a new contract with New Orleans for the same amount last Friday, reports Pincus (on Twitter). The reason for the league’s disapproval is unknown, but Pincus hypothesizes there could have been an issue with the deferral structure.
AUGUST 12TH: Salmons has finally signed his deal, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The team has yet to make an official announcement. It’s indeed for $2MM, all of which will count against the cap for the Pelicans this year, even though $500K of the payout is deferred, as Pincus adds in a second tweet.
JULY 14TH: The Pelicans will ink a deal with swingman John Salmons, whom the Hawks waived last week after acquiring him from the Raptors, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. New Orleans appears to be choosing a deal with him over Omri Casspi, whom the Pelicans are reportedly likely to release after the trade that brings him and Omer Asik to New Orleans is finalized. It’ll be a one-year, $2MM deal for Salmons, reports Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com (Twitter link). Presumably, it’ll come out of the team’s $2.732MM room exception.
The Joel Bell client split this past season between the Kings and Raptors, receiving a similar amount of playing time with both teams. He averaged 5.2 points in 22.1 minutes, but his 38.7% three-point shooting was a career high outside of his 41.7% mark in 2008/09.
The 34-year-old’s name was reportedly a part of predraft trade talks between the Raptors and Grizzlies, but Memphis apparently wasn’t too motivated to advance the discussion further. It seems like he’ll nonetheless stand a decent chance of starting at small forward for New Orleans, which renounced its rights to incumbent starter Al-Farouq Aminu and has little other means to acquire a replacement.
Jazz Sign Brock Motum
TUESDAY, 3:00pm: The deal is official, the team announced.
MONDAY, 8:34pm: The Jazz have agreed to terms with free agent Brock Motum in what is most likely a training camp arrangement, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The Sydney Morning Herald originally reported that Utah had extended a training camp invitation to Motum. Pincus suspects the deal will be non-guaranteed, which would line up with the latest moves out of Utah, as three players have been signed for training camp auditions at partially guaranteed salaries in Kevin Murphy, Dee Bost, and Jack Cooley.
The 6’10” Australian-born forward, who played alongside fellow Aussie Dante Exum for the Jazz in summer league, will face the daunting task of making Utah’s final roster. Motum becomes the 17th player on a team with 13 guaranteed contracts on the books for 2014/15. The Jazz have a blend of youth and veteran talent at the power forward position, with Derrick Favors, Trevor Booker, Jeremy Evans, and Steve Novak on the team. GM Dennis Lindsey indicated that Utah would keep one or two roster spots open below the 15-man minimum for training camp competition, which bodes well for Motum’s chances.
Motum went undrafted in 2013 after finishing his senior year as a Washington State Cougar, and didn’t get any NBA traction beyond draft workouts and a summer league stint with the Sixers. The forward spent last year playing professionally in Italy. In his final college season, he averaged 18.7 PPG and 6.3 RPG.
Hawks Re-Sign Mike Scott
AUGUST 26TH: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
AUGUST 25TH: Atlanta hasn’t announced the agreement, but Scott has signed his contract according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (via Twitter). Pincus reports that Scott’s salary is evenly distributed for a total of $10MM across the three years on the deal, and that the first two seasons of the contract are fully guaranteed. The final year is presumably partially guaranteed or completely non-guaranteed.
AUGUST 1ST: Restricted free agent forward Mike Scott has agreed to a three-year, $10MM deal to remain with the Hawks, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (via Twitter). Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has confirmed the report and indicated that the third year is a team option (via Twitter). Atlanta had been working on retaining Scott, though word spread a few days ago that the Aaron Mintz client was considering an offer from Russian powerhouse CSKA Moscow.
At 26 years old, Scott broke into the Hawks’ rotation this past season after playing sparingly in his 2012/13 rookie year. He played in 80 games for Atlanta, starting six and averaging 9.6 points and 3.6 boards in 18.5 minutes per contest. The Hawks selected Scott 43rd overall in 2012 out of Virginia. Scott said in the spring that he wanted to remain with the Hawks, but other NBA teams reportedly felt that they could pry him from Atlanta.
The Hawks also retained fellow restricted free agent Shelvin Mack last week while adding free agents Thabo Sefolosha and Kent Bazemore to a team that took the top-seeded Pacers to a seventh game in the first round of the NBA Playoffs without star center Al Horford. Scott figures to continue to get significant playing time behind starting power forward Paul Millsap, though he will have some tough competition in Adreian Payne, who the Hawks took with the No. 15 selection in June’s draft.