Cavs Sign Alex Kirk
2:52pm: It’s a partially guaranteed arrangement that covers more than one season, sources tell Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link).
2:30pm: The Cavs have signed Alex Kirk, who went undrafted this summer out of New Mexico, the team announced. The 6’11” Kirk was part of Cleveland’s summer league team last month. The terms of the deal aren’t immediately clear, but it’s not likely to carry much, if any, guaranteed salary. It’s almost certainly for no more than the minimum salary, since that’s all the Cavs can offer.
Kirk is a rim protector, as his 2.7 blocks per game this past season for the Lobos show. The Cavs have been sniffing around for someone who can play that role, reportedly offering a first-round pick for Timofey Mozgov, though Kirk will likely have to beat out a veteran or two to serve in that capacity for significant minutes in wine-and-gold this year.
The 22-year-old also averaged 13.3 points and 8.7 rebounds in 32.0 minutes per game in his junior year this past season at New Mexico. Kirk managed only 0.4 blocks per contest over 15.4 MPG across five summer league appearances, but Cleveland is seemingly confident that the larger sample size of his college performance is a better indicator. Kirk joins 15 others who have a contract or an agreement with the Cavs, though only 10 of them are known to have fully guaranteed deals, as our roster counts show.
Al Harrington Signs In China
MONDAY, 8:42am: The chairman of the Sturgeons confirmed the signing to reporters, as Sina Sports notes.
SATURDAY, 10:57pm: Al Harrington has signed with Chinese team Fujian Sturgeons, per Jared Zwerling of Bleacher Report (on Twitter). Zwerling reports that an announcement will make the one-year deal official on Monday.
The news is a surprise, as the forward was interested in playing another year in the NBA, and had an open door to do so with the Wizards. Assuming Washington’s welcoming stance hadn’t changed, I would guess that the Chinese team offered more than the veteran’s minimum, which is likely all the Wizards would or could have offered.
Zwerling adds that Harrington plans to coach for the Wizards when his playing career comes to a close. The 16-year veteran has averaged 13.5 PPG and 5.6 RPG for his career, with a slash line of .444/.352/.727. The last two seasons have been his least productive since his first few years in the league, as his health has limited him to just 44 appearances in stints with the Magic and Wizards.
Suns Sign Tyler Ennis
The Suns have signed 2014 No. 18 pick Tyler Ennis, the team announced in conjunction with confirmation of its deal with 14th overall selection T.J. Warren. Ennis will likely make slightly more than $1.59MM this season, as our table of salaries for 2014 first-round picks shows.
The point guard from Syracuse made a run at becoming a top-10 pick before falling back. Still, the Raptors appeared to covet Ennis, a native of Ontario, eyeing him before the draft as well as after the Suns took him. Toronto has since re-signed Kyle Lowry and Greivis Vasquez, so it appears unlikely that they’ll continue to pursue him. The Suns have no shortage of point guards, either, but coach Jeff Hornacek frequently employs lineups that feature two point guards.
Ennis displayed efficent ball-handling in his lone season with the Orange, averaging 5.5 assists against only 1.7 turnovers per game, a ratio of better than 3-to-1. He also tallied 12.9 points in 35.7 minutes per contest. He was more turnover prone in the small sample size of his five-game summer league stint with the Suns, averaging 3.2 assists against 2.6 turnovers per game.
Eddie Scarito of Hoops Rumors was among those who thought Ennis would become a top-10 pick, citing the 19-year-old’s intangibles in his Prospect Profile, while our Alex Lee had him going to the Raptors at No. 20 in the latest version of the Hoops Rumors Mock Draft.
Suns Sign T.J. Warren
AUGUST 8TH: Phoenix finally made the signing official, as the Suns announced the news on their website.
JULY 13TH: The Suns have signed T.J. Warren, according to Mark Deeks of ShamSports (on Twitter). Phoenix nabbed Warren with the No. 14 overall pick in June’s draft. Warren will earn $1.95MM as shown in Hoops Rumors’ chart for 2014 first-round picks.
Last season, the NC State star led the ACC in scoring and averaged 24.9 points per game. Warren likely would have been a first round pick in the 2013 draft as well, but he stayed in school and still wound up as a lottery choice in the talent-rich 2014 class.
Warren made his Summer League debut on Saturday night for the Suns and scored 22 points off of 10-of-16 shooting.
MarShon Brooks Signs To Play In Italy
FRIDAY, 7:54am: The deal is official, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia).
THURSDAY, 4:19pm: Free agent swingman MarShon Brooks has reached agreement to join Olimpia Milano of Italy, Sportando’s Enea Trapani reports. Trapani earlier reported the deal was likely after Shams Charania of RealGM first broke news of the talks. The terms aren’t immediately clear, but it figures to be a fairly lucrative arrangement, since the Pacers, Kings and a title-contending team from the NBA’s Eastern Conference were all in pursuit, according to a separate report from Charania earlier this week.
Brooks finished last season with the Lakers, but it appeared unlikely he would remain in purple-and-gold as free agency began. A report in late June indicated that he was the only one of the team’s plethora of free agents who was certain not to return, and a dispatch on the third day of free agency noted that he was the only Lakers free agent to whom the team hadn’t reached out. The Lakers renounced his rights in mid-July, and Brooks changed agents, hiring Wallace Prather, who reportedly tried to sell the Heat on his new client, though it’s unclear if Miami reciprocated the interest.
The Nets made heavy use of Brooks in his rookie season, putting the 25th overall pick from the 2011 draft on the floor for 29.4 minutes per game and watching him pile up 12.6 points per contest in spite of inefficiency that resulted in a 12.9 PER. A more veteran-laden roster pushed Brooks into the background the following season, and after the Nets shipped him to Boston in last summer’s Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett blockbuster, the Celtics declined the fourth-year option on his rookie scale contract. That set Brooks up for his unrestricted free agency this summer, even though his 15.5 PER this past season represented his second consecutive improvement in that category. Brooks was traded twice this season, spending a brief spell with the Warriors before ending up with the Lakers.
Pistons Hire Quentin Richardson For Staff
5:18pm: The hiring is now official, the team announced via press release.
10:20am: Pistons president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy plans to hire Quentin Richardson for a role that would include player development and mentorship duties, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Presumably, the job would mark the end of Richardson’s 13-year NBA playing career.
The former McDonald’s All-American emerged as a valuable swingman for the Clippers in the early 2000s, setting a career high with 17.2 points per game in 2003/04. He led the NBA in three-pointers made the next season as a member of the Suns. He averaged 10.3 points and 35.5% three-point shooting during his time in the league that also included stops with the Knicks, Heat and Magic. He played in just one regular season game and five playoff contests during 2012/13, his final season in the NBA, when the Knicks signed him shortly before the postseason. They shipped him to Toronto as part of the Andrea Bargnani deal the next summer, and the Raptors released him before training camp this past fall.
That swap was the sixth trade in which Richardson had been involved during his career, the most notable of which was the one that briefly sent him back to the Clippers in 2009 and allowed the Grizzlies to acquire Zach Randolph. He made more than $63MM as an NBA player, according to Basketball-Reference.
Heat Sign Tyler Johnson
THURSDAY, 11:37am: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
WEDNESDAY, 2:48pm: It will be a two-year contract, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald (on Twitter).
9:13am: The Heat and former Fresno State guard Tyler Johnson have struck a deal, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Hoops Rumors reported last week that Johnson had been drawing interest from multiple NBA teams who were impressed with his showing on Miami’s summer league roster. The terms of the deal aren’t immediately clear, though the Heat can hand out no more than a two-year contract for the minimum salary.
Johnson averaged 12.5 points in 22.7 minutes per game across 10 summer league appearances after going undrafted this past June. He notched 15.9 PPG in 33.6 MPG with 43.2% shooting from behind the three-point line this past season as a senior with the Bulldogs.
The Heat will surely make more additions between now and the start of camp, but as it stands, the client of agent Pedro Power seems to have a decent chance of making the opening-night roster, since Miami only has contracts or agreements with 13 other players. Only 11 of them have fully guaranteed deals.
Spurs Sign JaMychal Green
The Spurs have signed forward JaMychal Green per a team announcement. The 24-year-old has been under the radar since signing in France last year, as evidenced by his sparse Hoops Rumors player page.
The deal is partially guaranteed, and runs for two years, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. San Antonio has 14 guaranteed contracts already on the books for 2014/15, and restricted free agent Aron Baynes and summer signee Bryce Cotton have potential to take the last spot. Cotton’s signing is relevant in considering Green’s arrangement, as the former will receive only $50K in guaranteed money if he fails to make the Spurs’ opening night roster. The Spurs extended a qualifying offer to Baynes and are interested in bringing him back.
Green went undrafted in 2012 and spent all of 2012/13 in the D-League. He spent training camp with the Clippers last year, but was cut before the season. He averaged 12.3 PPG and 8.1 RPG on .496 shooting in the D-League.
Knicks Acquire Quincy Acy, Travis Outlaw
4:29pm: The Knicks and Kings have officially announced the trade. Prigioni isn’t involved, so Acy, Outlaw, Ellington and Tyler are the only players changing teams. Sacramento’s statement confirms that New York removed all protection on the 2016 second-round pick going to the Kings.
4:12pm: The Kings have yet to make a final decision about waiving Ellington, according to the latest version of Amick’s story.
3:52pm: New York will guarantee Acy’s minimum salary as part of the deal, Amick tweets.
3:40pm: The Knicks will remove the protection on their own 2016 second-rounder that they already owed to Sacramento rather than send a separate second-round pick to the Kings, as Amick clarifies via Twitter. New York was to have kept the pick if it fell between Nos. 31 and 37, but it’s now entirely unprotected.
3:34pm: Frank Isola of the New York Daily News hears indications that the Knicks will part with Prigioni, too (Twitter link).
3:16pm: The Knicks and Kings have reached agreement on a deal that will send Quincy Acy and Travis Outlaw to New York for Wayne Ellington and Jeremy Tyler, reports Sam Amick of USA Today. Other players will likely be involved in the deal, too. The Kings are expected to waive Ellington and Tyler to clear space beneath the luxury tax line, according to Amick. They can clear Tyler’s minimum salary with ease since it’s non-guaranteed, but they’d use the stretch provision to help clear Ellington’s pay of more than $2.771MM from their books, as Amick points out. Sacramento will also pick up a 2016 second-round pick from New York, Amick writes.
The Knicks had reportedly been trying to trade Wayne Ellington and were open to deals involving Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith and Shane Larkin as they sought to clear a logjam in the backcourt, and specifically at shooting guard. The team had also been mulling whether to include Pablo Prigioni in a deal involving Ellington.
Sacramento has been only about $61K beneath the luxury tax threshold after striking a deal to sign Omri Casspi, and they negotiated with Acy to move the date his minimum-salary contract becomes fully guaranteed from July 25th to August 15th. The raw swap of salaries in the structure of the deal as it stands would give the Kings a net savings of only about $200K, but stretching Ellington’s salary will give Sacramento more breathing room.
Ellington is on an expiring contract, so the Kings would have to waive him prior to September, when the stretch provision would no longer allow the team to reduce his salary for the coming season. Providing they waive him this month, Ellington’s salary would be spread in equal amounts over the next three seasons. So, the Kings would be responsible for close to $924K for him each season through 2016/17, and the move would give them more than $1.8MM in additional space beneath the tax line for this year.
Acy carved out a role in the rotation for the Kings this past season after coming over in the midseason Rudy Gay swap. He averaged 2.7 points and 3.6 rebounds in 14.0 minutes per contest for Sacramento. That works out to a rate of 9.2 rebounds per 36 minutes, demonstrating proficient board work for a player listed at 6’7″. Outlaw saw slightly more playing time, notching 5.4 PPG in 16.9 MPG, sometimes filling in at shooting guard for a depleted Kings backcourt down the stretch of the season. He’ll be on New York’s books for a guaranteed $3MM this season in the final year of a five-year, $35MM deal that the Nets amnestied in 2011. Sacramento put in a partial claim that year, leaving Brooklyn to pay $4MM to Outlaw each year until the contract expires next summer.
Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images.
Xavier Thames Signs With Spanish Team
The 59th pick in this year’s NBA draft is headed overseas, as Xavier Thames has inked a deal with Baloncesto Sevilla of Spain, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). It’s not clear how long the contract is for or whether there’s a buyout involved that would allow him to join the Nets, who acquired his NBA rights in a draft-night trade with the Raptors.
The 6’3″ shooting guard had a breakout year as a senior at San Diego State, upping his scoring from 9.5 points per game to 17.6 PPG. It was nonetheless a mild surprise to see Thames sneak into the back end of the draft, since Chad Ford of ESPN.com ranked him as only the 76th-best prospect while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress pegged him 85th.
The 23-year-old is the only one of Brooklyn’s three second-rounders not to sign with the Nets this summer. Markel Brown, the 44th overall pick, and No. 60 selection Cory Jefferson are set to play with the Nets come fall, as our table of draft pick signings shows. Thames will team with potential 2015 top-10 pick Kristaps Porzingis on Sevilla, as well as head coach Scott Roth, who was an assistant for the Pistons this past season.