Stoudemire Declines Early Termination Option
As expected, Amar’e Stoudemire has declined his early termination option for the 2014/15 season, a league source tells Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com. Stoudemire will play out the final year of his five-year, $100MM contract with the Knicks. Stoudemire, the highest paid player on New York’s roster, will make $23.4MM, much more than he would have fetched on the open market had he opted to become a free agent.
After a standout first season with the Knicks in which the former All-Star averaged over 25 points and eight rebounds a game, injuries have curtailed his playing time and effectiveness every year since. He just turned in his least productive season since missing nearly all of the 2005/06 campaign, putting up just 11.9 points in 22.6 minutes a contest. Stoudemire did play better down the stretch, averaging over 16 points a game as the Knicks made an unsuccessful playoff push over the last 23 games of the season.
Had the Relativity Sports client exercised his early termination clause, it would have given the Knicks some much needed cap relief sooner than expected. Stoudemire’s contract combines with those of Andrea Bargnani, Tyson Chandler, and J.R. Smith in preventing New York from making any significant roster improvements as they try to convince Carmelo Anthony to stay in town. Stoudemire has been anxious to see his role increased since getting clearance from his doctors earlier this season, and he might get his wish next year, especially if Anthony bolts to join a contender.
Rod Higgins Resigns From Hornets
SATURDAY, 8:29am: Jordan tells Bonnell that his contract offer to Higgins was not technically a demotion, but that he did propose moving some of Higgins’ responsibilities over to Cho. Higgins viewed the arrangement as a practical demotion, and was given the choice of immediately stepping down or waiting until after the draft to do so, and he chose the latter.
“Rod’s strong points are working with the coaches and the trainers, traveling with the team,” Jordan said. “He was my buffer zone with the coaches. I didn’t want to overwhelm them with ideas, so I’d work with Rod on that. One of (Higgins’) strong points is not negotiating, leveraging teams. Sometimes when teams would call [proposing trades], they’d bypass Rod to get to Rich… [That arrangement caused] confusion over who reported to whom. It created a contentious environment where I had to step in.”
Jordan said that Cho will step into running basketball operations in place of Higgins, and that the Hornets will hire an assistant GM moving forward.
FRIDAY, 10:56am: Higgins turned down a new contract from the Hornets that would have kept him with the organization, a source tells Bonnell. It’s not clear whether the deal would have kept him as president of basketball ops or shifted him to a different role.
8:51am: Hornets president of basketball operations Rod Higgins has stepped down from his post, the team announced. The move puts GM Rich Cho exclusively in charge of the team’s player personnel. He’ll report to owner Michael Jordan and vice chairman Curtis Polk, who handles the team’s business affairs.
“I would like to thank Rod for his seven years of dedication to this organization,” Jordan said in the team’s statement. “Rod has been a consummate professional throughout his time with the team. Thanks to his hard work and commitment, we have an improved roster and we are poised for success in the future. Rod was of great help to me as I navigated my first four years as majority owner of this franchise. I wish him all the best.”
The announcement, which came shortly after midnight Charlotte time, is oddly timed, and not just because of the overnight hour. The draft is 13 days away, and free agency starts in less than three weeks. The Hornets hold the ninth, 24th and 45th picks in the draft, and they’re poised to be one of the most active teams on the free agent market, with only about $41MM in commitments, not counting their pair of first-rounders. Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer called the timing of Higgins’ departure “bizarre” and took the Hornets to task for what he deems a “dysfunctional” move (Twitter links). Still, it’s unclear whether Higgins left entirely of his own volition or whether the team had any influence on his decision.
The amount of control Higgins asserted in the front office following the hiring of Cho in 2011 has also been difficult to ascertain. Higgins had held the GM title for the club prior to that move, having assumed that role in 2007, before Jordan bought the majority stake in the team. Still, Higgins was one of the team’s first hires after Jordan purchased a minority share in 2006, having worked under Jordan when he owned part of the Wizards and having been a teammate of Jordan’s on the Bulls. Higgins played a key role in the signing of Al Jefferson last summer, Bonnell writes.
Cho is familiar with oddly timed front office changes from his time in Portland. He became Blazers GM in July 2010, replacing Kevin Pritchard, whom the team had fired on draft night that year. Portland dismissed Cho less than a year later, in May 2011.
Mavs Exercise Team Option On Jae Crowder
The Mavericks have exercised their team option on Jae Crowder, according to the RealGM Transaction log. The 6’6″, 23 year-old swingman’s salary for the 2014/15 season will be $915, 243, which is a small increase over this season’s salary of $788,872.
This move gives the Mavs eight players with guaranteed contracts, and increases their guaranteed salary commitments for next season from $28,267,575 to $29,182,818. If the team declined his option Crowder’s qualifying offer and cap hold would have been $1,115,243, unless the team decided to non-tender him.
Crowder has been a regular part of the Mavs’ rotation the last two seasons, and with a salary under $1MM, is a relative bargain. The only negative for the team is they lose some cap flexibility in the event they wish to pursue big ticket free agents.
Crowder, in his second season with the Mavs, averaged 4.6 PPG, 2.5 RPG, and 0.8 APG in 16.1 minutes per night. He appeared in 78 games this season, eight as a starter. His slash line was .439/.331/.754.
Joel Anthony Opts In, Will Remain With Celtics
JUNE 12TH: Anthony has indeed opted in, according to the RealGM transactions log.
APRIL 17TH: Joel Anthony intends to exercise his $3.8MM player option to return to the Celtics next season, a source tells Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com. The news comes as no surprise, though Haynes hears Anthony “isn’t too thrilled” playing for a rebuilding team in Boston after having spent the past few years on a championship squad in Miami. Still, the guaranteed salary is simply too much for the 31-year-old center to pass up, the source tells Haynes.
The seventh-year veteran saw a career-low 5.6 minutes per game this season, though he logged somewhat more frequent playing time after arriving in Boston in a January trade. Anthony was an integral part of the Heat’s championship team in 2011/12, starting 51 games and averaging a career-high 21.1 MPG, but he came off the bench for most of the playoffs, and he increasingly became an afterthought from then on.
The C’s have slightly more than $44.7MM in commitments for next season, so Anthony’s option will bring that number past $48.5MM. The figure doesn’t include the cap hold for Boston’s own first-round pick, as well as the Nets’ pick the Celtics are receiving via previous trades. Those selections should add close to $5MM to Boston’s books for 2014/15.
Jason Richardson Opts In To Remain With Sixers
Sixers swingman Jason Richardson has opted in to the final year of his contract, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The move was thoroughly expected, as it enables him to collect slightly more than $6.6MM next season in spite of a troublesome left knee that hasn’t allowed him to play since January 2013.
Richardson has appeared in only 33 games for the Sixers since he came to Philadelphia as part of the four-team Dwight Howard trade in August 2012. He averaged a career low 10.5 points per game in his lone season of action with the Sixers, well off his scoring average of 17.3 PPG over the course of 12 years in the NBA.
The Sixers still have plenty of cap flexibility this summer, as Richardson’s contract becomes part of only about $26MM in commitments for 2014/15, not counting their pair of first-round picks. It’s unlikely that Philadelphia embarks on a free agent spending spree, but the ability to open plenty of cap space gives the club a mechanism to absorb salary in an unbalanced trade.
Flip Saunders To Coach Timberwolves
FRIDAY, 1:10pm: The Wolves officially announced that Saunders will serve as their head coach and held an afternoon press conference.
THURSDAY, 11:19am: The move doesn’t affect Love’s thought process regarding an exit from the Wolves, sources tell Stein, largely echoing an earlier report from Holmes, as we passed along below (Twitter link).
11:05am: The coaching agreement between Saunders and Taylor is “open-ended” in terms of length, meaning Saunders will have the opportunity to revisit a search for someone else to coach the team in the future, Zgoda writes.
10:41am: Sources tell Baxter Holmes of The Boston Globe that they strongly doubt Saunders’ decision to coach the team himself will convince Love to stay in Minnesota (Twitter link).
10:23am: Mitchell and Sidney Lowe are expected to become assistant coaches under Saunders, according to Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune. There doesn’t appear to be a timetable for Saunders to coach, and neither Mitchell nor Lowe is a “coach in waiting,” Zgoda adds via Twitter. It’s unclear whether Billups will be a part of the staff, Zgoda also tweets, noting that he’s heard that Billups would prefer a basketball executive job, which falls in line with the guard’s assertion in March that several teams had gauged his interest in joining their front offices.
10:08am: Saunders has confirmed the news to Stein, and Saunders will continue to have the ultimate authority in the front office and work in concert with GM Milt Newton, Krawczynski hears (Twitter links).
9:54am: Wolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders will coach the team next season, reports Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press (Twitter link). The news comes just minutes after Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported that Saunders was strongly considering the move. The team failed to gain traction with several other coaching candidates, and while the prospect of Saunders returning to the team’s bench has been in play since before former coach Rick Adelman retired at season’s end, it never appeared to be the team’s first choice.
Saunders is likely to target Chauncey Billups for an assistant coaching position, even though Billups remains under contract as a player with the Pistons. Detroit has a $2.5MM team option on Billups for next season, but he’s indicated that he’s thinking about retiring. Saunders will also reach out to Israeli league coach David Blatt and one-time Wolves head coaching candidate Sam Mitchell for jobs on his staff, Krawczynski hears (Twitter link).
Saunders’ decision to coach is met with excitement from Ricky Rubio‘s camp, according to Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities, pointing out that negotiations over Rubio’s rookie scale extension will begin soon (Twitter link). Perhaps of greater concern to the Wolves and teams around the league is how Kevin Love will receive the move. The team had reportedly been holding off on trading Love, who appears to want out of Minnesota, until they named a new coach, ostensibly to allow the team to have its house in order before it lobbies a strong effort to convince Love to stay.
The Wolves had interviewed Mitchell, Scott Skiles, Vinny Del Negro and Lionel Hollins in addition to Dave Joerger, who seemed to come within a hair’s breadth of becoming the team’s coach before he patched up his relationship with the Grizzlies and signed an extension to stay in Memphis. The Wolves also reportedly went after high profile college coaches Fred Hoiberg, Billy Donovan and Tom Izzo, but apparently had no luck prying them from campus. The team also appeared to have interest in Stan Van Gundy, but it wasn’t mutual, and he wound up taking a dual front office/coaching role with the Pistons much like the one Saunders is embracing in Minnesota.
Saunders said “never say never” on multiple occasions this spring when asked about the prospect of coaching the team himself, though he had publicly downplayed the possibility. There were mixed messages about whether Saunders wanted to coach and whether owner Glen Taylor was on board with the idea, but Wolfson says Taylor was always going to proceed with whatever plan Saunders had in mind (Twitter link). Saunders returns to the role in which he took the Wolves to all eight of their postseason appearances during his tenure on the team’s bench from 1995-2005. He went on to coach the Pistons and Wizards before taking over the Wolves front office last year, and is 638-526 in parts of 16 seasons as an NBA head coach.
Anthony Morrow Still Mulling Player Option
9:40pm: While Reid doesn’t foresee Morrow agreeing to the minimum salary, he does believe that the free agent will give the Pelicans the first shot at signing him. (Twitter link)
JUNE 4TH 4:05pm: Morrow has yet to decide what to do about his player option, as his agent, Wallace Prather, tells John Reid of The Times Picayune. The Pelicans likely would attempt to retain Morrow with a more lucrative deal than his existing minimum-salary arrangement, Reid writes.
”We haven’t specifically sat down and discussed it with (Pelicans GM) Dell Demps yet, so we don’t have anything to say about it right now,” Prather said.
MAY 29TH: Sharpshooter Anthony Morrow will turn down his player option with the Pelicans and become a free agent this summer, a source tells Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype. The 28-year-old was set to earn nearly $1.146MM next season, but a bounce-back year behind the arc apparently has him confident he can earn more.
The six-year veteran hit 45.1% of his three-point looks this past season, more in line with the 44.7% accuracy from behind the arc that he displayed over his first three seasons. He only hit 37.1% of his long-range attempts in 2011/12 and 2012/13, leading the Perennial Sports & Entertainment client to sign two-year a minimum-salary contract with New Orleans last summer. The deal included clauses that would have made part of his salary non-guaranteed if he missed time because of back and hip injuries, but he played in a career-high 76 games this past season.
The Pelicans have about $54MM in commitments for next season, so Morrow’s decision preserves the team’s full flexibility beneath a projected $63.2MM salary cap. They can attempt to re-sign him using Non-Bird rights that would allow for a starting salary worth 120% of what he made this past season. I’d be surprised if Morrow doesn’t have his eyes on a larger raise than that, one which would force New Orleans to use cap space or another exception.
Pistons Hire Jeff Bower As GM
The Pistons have formally named Jeff Bower their next General Manager, the team announced. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported Monday that Detroit was on the verge of making the deal final. Bower will serve as day-to-day help for president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy, who doubles as the team’s coach.
“Jeff brings great basketball knowledge and NBA experience to our organization and he’s enjoyed success in building teams,” Van Gundy said as part of the team’s statement. “He’s a great evaluator of talent and Jeff will bring solid leadership to our front office.”
Pistons management had to wait until Bower was formally released from his contract at Marist College to make the announcement. Before serving as Marist’s head coach, Bower was in the New Orleans organization for 15 years including a run as GM from 2005-10. He also served as coach of the then-Hornets for the final 73 games of the 2009/10 season, going 34-39.
His record as the primary front office decision-maker in New Orleans had its share of both hits and misses. He acquired a young Tyson Chandler in 2006 for P.J. Brown and J.R. Smith, then traded Chandler for Emeka Okafor in a regrettable 2009 deal. The team unearthed Darren Collison with the 21st overall pick in 2009, helping make up for the selection of Julian Wright at No. 13 in 2007.
Still, Bower will serve a secondary role to Van Gundy in the Pistons basketball operations department, having beaten out former Magic GM Otis Smith, with whom Van Gundy had worked in Orlando. Stu Jackson also interviewed for the position, while Spurs assistant GM Scott Layden and former Heat GM Randy Pfund were also reportedly candidates. Bower had been in the running for GM jobs with the Sixers and Magic the past two summers. Those jobs, unlike the one he wound up with in Detroit, would have given him full control over player personnel.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Wizards Sign Randy Wittman To Extension
2:41pm: The deal is official, according to the team, which made the announcement on its website.
“We are pleased with the progress the team has made on the court and with the culture we have been able to build with Randy as our head coach,” GM Ernie Grunfeld said. “We will look to continue that momentum with him deservedly leading this group of dedicated and hard-working players.”
12:47pm: The Wizards and Randy Wittman have agreed on a three-year extension that will give the coach about $3MM per season through 2016/17, reports Michael Lee of The Washington Post. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported the sides were close to a deal last week. The third season will be a team option, Lee writes.
Wittman’s contract had been set to expire at the end of the month after he led the Wizards closer to the conference finals than they’ve been since 1979, the last time they won multiple games in the second round. Washington also made a 15-game improvement in the regular season, but the coach’s job apparently still remained in jeopardy until the Wizards dispatched the Bulls in the first round of the playoffs.
Washington is 91-122 in parts of three seasons under Wittman, who’s 191-329 overall as an NBA head coach, having also spent time with the Cavs and Timberwolves. This season was the first time Wittman’s coached a team to a record of better than .500, so perhaps that explains the Wizards’ reported hesitance to commit to him before he’d proven himself in the playoffs. Still, Washington is on the rise, and up-and-coming stars John Wall and Bradley Beal endorsed the coach at season’s end.
Darren Collison To Opt Out, Become Free Agent
Clippers point guard Darren Collison has decided to turn down the nearly $1.986MM player option on his contract and hit free agency this summer, a source tells Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com. The move has been widely expected after a season in which Collison turned around his career, proving his worth as an ace reserve after failing as a starter the past two seasons.
The client of BDA Sports Management has a strong preference for the Clippers, though he won’t rule out signing with another team, according to Haynes. The Donald Sterling saga clouds the future of the Clippers franchise, and agents have suggested that players will avoid signing with the team this summer. However, the fiasco surrounding the banned owner’s racist comments strengthened the bond between the players in the locker room, and it’s what has Collison leaning toward returning, Haynes hears.
The 26-year-old averaged 11.4 points in a career-low 25.9 minutes per game this past season. Most of his appearances were as a bench player, but he still made 35 starts as the team compensated for injuries to Chris Paul and J.J. Redick. His 3.7 assists per game were well below his career average of 4.9, but much of that had to do with the presence of Paul, the NBA’s leader in assists per game this season. Collison shot 37.6% from behind the arc this past season, his best mark since he was a rookie in 2009/10.
The Clippers were in serious talks about a trade that would have sent him to the Knicks at the deadline, but L.A. pulled out of discussions before they bore fruit. Clippers coach and front office chief Doc Rivers spoke highly of Collison during the season, suggesting he was reluctant to give up such a reliable member of his bench.
He’ll be able to command a raise on the open market, and the capped-out Clippers only have his Non-Bird rights. The most they’ll be able to pay him without dipping into other exceptions would be 120% of his salary from this past season, which probably won’t be enough to keep him. The team has more than $66MM in commitments for next season, though that doesn’t include nearly $4MM in non-guaranteed salary on Jamal Crawford‘s salary that the Clippers will almost certainly pick up. The rise in the projected tax line to $77MM will probably allow the team to use the full $5.305MM non-taxpayer’s mid-level to re-sign Collison or chase another free agent.