Magic Sign Luke Ridnour
JULY 25TH: The deal is official, the team announced.
JULY 16TH: 7:16pm: Ridnour’s deal will amount to $5.5MM over the two years, tweets David Aldridge of NBA.com.
6:28pm: The agreement is for a two-year contract, with the second year being non-guaranteed, tweets Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com. Haynes adds that minor details are still being worked out, and it is still unknown what Ridnour’s annual salary will be.
1:13pm: The Magic will sign guard Luke Ridnour, reports Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops (on Twitter). It’ll be the latest deal with a veteran for Orlando, which already has agreements with Channing Frye and Ben Gordon so far this month. The terms are unclear, but given the team’s willingness to overpay for Frye and Gordon, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an above-market arrangement for the 33-year-old Jim Tanner client.
Ridnour split last season between the Bucks and Bobcats, averaging a career-low 5.0 points per game. The Wizards and Kings were among the teams that reportedly called the Bucks in the lead-up to the trade deadline, but Charlotte wound up nabbing him instead. He played 15.1 minutes per game down the stretch for the then-Bobcats, a rate that dropped to 9.0 in the team’s four-game loss to the Heat in the first round of the playoffs. Charlotte renounced his Bird rights to clear cap space last week.
Orlando largely emphasized young players during the first two seasons of its post-Dwight Howard rebuilding project, but this summer appears to be a departure from that. The team still has ample cap space, so it appears that Ridnour will be receiving a chunk of that.
Hawks Sign Adreian Payne
The Hawks have signed No. 15 overall pick Adreian Payne, the team announced via Twitter. He’ll likely receive more than $1.855MM this season, as our table of salaries for 2014 first-round draft picks shows.
Payne, a 6’10” power forward, showed steady improvement over his four years at Michigan State, gradually expanding his shooting range and averaging 16.4 points and 7.3 rebounds with 42.3% accuracy from behind the three-point line as a senior. The 23-year-old’s age appeared to be a concern for some teams, but the Hawks drafted him more highly than it seemed he’d go, as Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress listed him as the 19th-best prospect and Chad Ford of ESPN.com pegged him 22nd.
Atlanta struggled with injuries in its frontcourt this past season, and the presence of Payne will help the team add to its depth. Two Hawks big men who played key roles last season, Pero Antic and Mike Scott, remain unsigned.
Hornets Sign Noah Vonleh
The Hornets have signed Noah Vonleh, the No. 9 overall pick in last month’s draft, the team announced via press release. He’ll likely receive a salary of more than $2.5MM this year, as our table of salaries for 2014 first-round draft picks shows.
Vonleh quickly showed an acumen for rebounding in his lone season at Indiana University, grabbing 9.0 boards in just 26.5 minutes per game. He also averaged 11.3 points and 1.4 blocks per contest, and while he ventured outside the three-point arc for only 1.1 shots per game, he nailed 48.5% of them. Chad Ford of ESPN.com ranked him as the fifth best prospect, though Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress had the raw 18-year-old down at No. 10.
It’ll probably take a while for Vonleh to show his full potential in the NBA, as Eddie Scarito of Hoops Rumors wrote when he examined the power forward’s prospect profile, but his upside appears high. The departure of Josh McRoberts in free agency this summer could open up some more playing time for Vonleh this year, though he’s still expected to be a reserve.
Charlotte has yet to sign No. 26 overall pick P.J. Hairston, whose rights the Hornets obtained in a draft night trade with Miami, though that might have to do with Hairston having hired an agent who wasn’t certified.
Hornets Re-Sign Jannero Pargo
JULY 25TH: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.
JULY 18TH: The Hornets and point guard Jannero Pargo have struck a deal, according to Pargo’s agents at Priority Sports & Entertainment (Twitter link; hat tip to Marc Stein of ESPN.com). The Mark Bartelstein client returns to Charlotte presumably to reprise his role as the team’s third point guard after the Hornets agreed to a deal with Brian Roberts to replace Luke Ridnour, who’s off to Orlando, as the primary backup to Kemba Walker. It’s a fully guaranteed one-year deal for $1.5MM, a source tells Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). That figure is closely aligned with his minimum salary, which would be $1,448,490, so presumably it’s a deal for that minimum.
Charlotte had renounced its rights to the 34-year-old earlier this month as it cleared cap room, but while that move meant the team gave up its Early Bird rights to him, it didn’t necessarily preclude a new deal. He saw just 8.3 minutes per game in 29 appearances this past season, but apparently the Hornets like having the 10-year veteran around. This year’s deal is a slight upgrade on the one-year contract that Pargo signed last year with the team, since that arrangement was only partially guaranteed.
Pargo made the most of his meager playing time last season, averaging 4.7 points per game and draining a career-high 40% of his three-pointers on 2.1 attempts per contest. His 18.9 PER was also a career-best.
Grizzlies Sign Patrick Christopher For Camp
SEPTEMBER 25TH: The deal is official, the team announced.
JULY 25TH: Free agent shooting guard Patrick Christopher has agreed to a non-guaranteed deal with the Grizzlies, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). It appears it’ll be a summer contract that will allow the former University of California standout to go to training camp in October with a chance of making the opening night roster.
Christopher had a similar arrangement with the Bulls last year, but he was one of the team’s first cuts, in early October, and he didn’t appear in a preseason game. He wound up joining the D-League’s Iowa Energy, averaging 13.6 points in 33.4 minutes per contest and swishing 44.6% of his three-point attempts.
The 26-year-old will join a fairly crowded roster in Memphis, which has 14 players on guaranteed contracts. That doesn’t include Jarnell Stokes, this year’s 35th overall pick, who remains unsigned. Memphis can carry up to 20 players into camp, but it appears there’s just one spot up for grabs on the team’s regular season roster, which can have no more than 15 players.
Pelicans Re-Sign Darius Miller
JULY 25TH: The deal is official, the team announced.
JULY 18TH: Shortly after adding free agent Jimmer Fredette to their backcourt, the Pelicans have struck a deal with small forward Darius Miller, reports John Reid of the New Orleans Times-Picayune (via Twitter). After being selected by the Pelicans in the second round of the 2012 NBA Draft, Miller averaged 3.3 points in 14.6 minutes per contest over two seasons in New Orleans. However, in June the team opted not to extend the Kentucky product a qualifying offer that would have been worth $1.15MM for next season. The terms of this deal are not yet known.
The 6-foot-8 Doug Neustadt client was the sixth Wildcat taken in the 2012 draft, including Miller’s current and former teammate Anthony Davis, who the Pelicans took No. 1 overall. In his senior year, Miller helped lead the Wildcats to a national title, averaging 9.9 PPG on .474/.376/.797 shooting.
Miller figures to provide depth on the wing for the Pelicans, who possess a talented roster but don’t really have any small forwards with Miller’s height or length. A year after adding Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans to a roster that already contained a budding superstar in Davis, the Pelicans added Omer Asik, Jimmer Fredette and have now brought back Miller this offseason.
Buycks Spurns NBA Offers To Play In Spain
Former Raptors point guard Dwight Buycks has signed with Valencia of Spain, the Spanish ACB league’s website announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). It’s a one-year deal, as Euroleague.net reveals. The Lakers and Clippers extended non-guaranteed invitations to Buycks for preseason camp, according to David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link), and he was close to signing with the Nuggets before they instead came to terms with Erick Green, as Pick tells Hoops Rumors. The Suns were also reportedly interested in him.
The Relativity Sports client drew offers from multiple teams overseas, but Valencia bid highest among those clubs, Pick reports (All Twitter links). It’s likely he’s receiving guaranteed salary to play in Spain, which would explain why he’s passing up a shot at continuing his NBA career. Toronto waived him this past weekend rather than guarantee his NBA minimum salary for the coming season.
Buycks saw action in just 14 games this past season, his first official NBA experience. He averaged 3.1 points and 0.7 assists in 10.4 minutes per contest for Toronto.
Sixers Sign Pierre Jackson
6:28pm: Jackson has announced his signing on his personal Instagram account (H/T Dwain Price of Fort Worth Star-Telegram via Twitter).
4:50pm: Jackson’s rookie minimum salary of $507,336 is guaranteed for $400K, Deeks tweets.
3:23pm: The Sixers have signed point guard Pierre Jackson to a partially guaranteed one-year deal, reports Mark Deeks of ShamSports (All Twitter links). It completes an unusual odyssey to an NBA contract for last year’s 42nd overall pick, who put on a dazzling performance in the D-League but failed to come to terms with the Pelicans, the team that held his NBA rights until trading them to Philadelphia last month.
Jackson, 22, averaged 29.1 points, 6.2 assists and 4.0 turnovers in 41.5 minutes per game for the D-League’s Idaho Stampede last season after he went unsigned through last summer. The numbers helped drive up his value, and once it became clear the Pelicans and agent Colin Bryant couldn’t agree on an NBA deal, New Orleans allowed Bryant to reach out to other teams to see if they’d be interested in trading for Jackson’s NBA rights. The Wizards, Cavs and Nuggets were among those who were reportedly in the mix, but Jackson fled to Turkey after no deal materialized, signing with European powerhouse Fenerbahce Ulker.
The overseas experiment didn’t go so well, as the 5’10” Jackson averaged just 4.3 points in 10.3 minutes for Fenerbahce. Jackson joined the Sixers for summer league after the trade, but he ruptured his achilles tendon, an injury that threatens to knock him out for the entire season. It’s therefore somewhat odd that the Sixers would sign him to a one-year deal. It’s conceivable that Jackson merely signed the required one-year tender that Philadelphia had to make to keep his draft rights, but the fact that the deal is partially guaranteed makes that a remote possibility, as Deeks notes.
Pelicans Sign Jimmer Fredette
JULY 24TH, 5:44pm: Fredette’s signing with New Orleans is official, per a team release.
JULY 18TH, 8:06am: Fredette will make the minimum salary, according to Reid’s full story.
JULY 17TH, 11:33pm: The Pelicans have reached agreement with Jimmer Fredette on a one-year deal, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). New Orleans targeted shooting help after losing Anthony Morrow to the Thunder this past weekend, and moved quickly to add the sharpshooting Fredette, Stein adds (via Twitter). John Reid of the New Orleans Times-Picayune was the first to confirm Stein’s report (via Twitter). The financial terms of the deal are not yet known.
The 25-year-old was bought out by the Kings in Feburary approximately two-and-a-half years after Sacramento made him the 10th pick in the 2011 NBA Draft. Fredette, an Octagon Sports client, signed in early March with a Bulls team desperate for offense, though he only averaged seven minutes of burn in eight games once arriving in Chicago. There hasn’t been much buzz around the BYU product leading up to this news, however Panathinaikos of Greece reportedly expressed some interest a month ago.
Fredette will presumably compete for backcourt minutes with Austin Rivers, Russ Smith and John Salmons behind starters Jrue Holiday and the often-injured Eric Gordon. While he probably lacks the size and defensive ability to be an impact guard, Fredette has knocked down three pointers at a 40.1 percent clip for his career. He will likely assume that type of specialist role in New Orleans.
Pelicans Sign Patric Young
THURSDAY, 5:42pm: The signing has been officially announced by New Orleans in a team release.
SUNDAY, 8:38am: The Pelicans have signed rookie free agent Patric Young to a two-year deal, reports Adam Silverstein of OnlyGators.com. The signing was confirmed by Young via his Twitter account. In the tweet, Young wrote, “It’s a blessing to announce that I signed a contract with the New Orleans Pelicans. Thank you to everyone that supported me!!!” The terms of the deal were not disclosed but it is likely for the NBA rookie minimum. Young joins a crowded frontcourt in New Orleans that already features Anthony Davis, Ryan Anderson, Omer Asik, and Jeff Withey.
The 6’9″ power forward/center went undrafted out of Florida this year and impressed over the last two weeks in the Las Vegas Summer League, averaging 7.4 PPG and 8.0 RPG in five games.
In four seasons with the Gators, Young averaged 8.7 PPG, 5.7 RPG, and 1.1 BPG while playing 24.3 minutes per contest. His career slash line was .577/.000/.569.