Kings Re-Sign Jared Cunningham For Season
10:00pm: Cunningham has been signed for the remainder of the season, the team announced via official press release.
8:18am: Jared Cunningham‘s 10-day contract with the Kings expired Wednesday night, but the team plans on re-signing him for the rest of the season, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. The 24th overall pick in the 2012 draft joined the Kings on the final day in March after the Hawks waived him in late February.
Cunningham, a 22-year-old shooting guard, saw action in six games on his 10-day deal with Sacramento, averaging 3.0 points in 6.3 minutes per contest. Injuries have left the Kings thin in the backcourt, opening an opportunity for the Sam Goldfeder client. The 38 total minutes he’s seen in his brief time with the Kings represent more than 44% of the total minutes he’s played over his two-year NBA career, one in which he’s been an afterthought for both the Mavs and Hawks.
The plan to keep Cunningham signals that the Kings aren’t thinking of bringing Royce White back to the team this season, since Cunningham has been occupying the team’s final open roster spot. Sacramento had debated signing the power forward for the rest of the season after his second 10-day contract expired. Coach Michael Malone spoke glowingly of White’s time with the franchise, seeming to indicate that there had been no issues regarding the mental health struggles of the former Rocket and Sixer. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Kings sign White in the offseason.
Rockets Sign Dexter Pittman, Cut Greg Smith
4:56pm: The team has officially announced the moves on its website.
12:30pm: The Rockets will sign Dexter Pittman and waive Greg Smith to make room, tweets Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. Smith has been out since early January after undergoing right knee surgery. The Rockets will be on the hook for the rest of his contract if he clears waivers, but his deal was set to expire at season’s end. Houston didn’t have an open roster spot, necessitating the departure of Smith to accommodate Pittman, a fellow center who’ll provide depth for the team as it heads into the playoffs.
Pittman’s deal will cover next season with non-guaranteed salary, Feigen adds via Twitter. The former second-round pick has been out of the NBA this season aside from a five-day stint with the Hawks, who terminated his 10-day contract early to bring aboard Mike Muscala. The Bulls waived Pittman before opening night, and he’s spent most of the season with the D-League affiliate of the Spurs after having joined San Antonio for summer league action last year. Pittman has averaged 11.2 points and 6.8 rebounds in 20.5 minutes per contest for the D-League’s Austin Toros this season.
Even though the Hawks released Pittman after March 1st, he’s still eligible to play for Houston in the playoffs. The restriction against guys who were on one team after that date playing for another team in the postseason only applies if they’re placed on waivers, and 10-day signees don’t go on waivers when their teams let them go.
Mark Deeks of ShamSports suggests Smith is a candidate to be claimed off waivers (Twitter link). Houston’s move today indicates that he’s unlikely to be healthy enough to help in the postseason, but any team that claims him would be allowed to match offers for him in the summer, since he’d be a restricted free agent as long as his new team submits a qualifying offer. If he clears waivers, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent. A claiming team would also acquire his full Bird rights, since his contract with the Rockets was a three-year deal, as Deeks points out (on Twitter). Smith was a part of Houston’s rotation last season, averaging 6.0 PPG and 4.6 RPG in 15.9 MPG and making 10 starts.
Bulls Sign Lou Amundson
11:59am: The team has formally announced the signing on its website.
THURSDAY, 8:54am: It’ll be a straight rest-of-season contract, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM, indicating that it won’t extend into 2014/15. The signing will take place later today, Charania notes.
WEDNESDAY, 9:03pm: In addition to bringing on Mike James, the Bulls will fill out their roster by signing Lou Amundson in the near future, a league source tells Aggrey Sam of CSNChicago.com. Amundson will be signed for the remainder of the season, and will be available for the playoffs.
James’ signing is set for Thursday, but it is unclear yet when Amundson will sign. The eighth-year big was waived in December by the Pelicans, and hasn’t played in the NBA since, despite rumored interest from the Wizards. Amundson has career averages of 3.6 points and 3.5 rebounds per game.
If Admundson’s signing goes through, Chicago’s roster will be set for their postseason run. After waiving Erik Murphy and bringing in Jimmer Fredette, Ronnie Brewer, and now James and Amundson, the Bulls are set to reach the 15-man roster limit after spending part of the year under the 13-man minimum. It’s believed that the Bulls will avoid paying the luxury tax this season, regardless of whether Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson earn their potential salary bonuses. Trading away Luol Deng and having Murphy’s waived contract claimed by the Jazz dropped the team’s salary obligations enough to create room for the influx of new faces.
Bulls Sign Mike James
THURSDAY, 11:59am: The signing is official, the team announced.
WEDNESDAY, 7:56pm: The Bulls will sign veteran point guard Mike James tomorrow, per K.C. Johnson of The Chicago Tribune. The deal will cover the remainder of the season, making James eligible for Chicago’s postseason run. James, a favorite of coach Tom Thibodeau, was expected to sign with the Bulls once Chicago was freed of Erik Murphy‘s salary thanks to a waiver claim of Murphy by the Jazz.
James has played exclusively for the Bulls this season, having his non-guaranteed deal waived early on and, until now, not getting an opportunity to re-sign after a 10-day deal expired in January. James joins recent signings Jimmer Fredette and Ronnie Brewer to bring Chicago’s roster up to 14 players, one short of the league maximum. The Bulls could still add another player now that the team is more comfortably below the tax line for the year.
In his time with the Bulls this season, the Lee Basketball Services client has averaged 1.0 points and 1.5 assists in 7.0 minutes per game. For his career, the 38-year-old averages 9.9 points and 3.5 assists per contest.
Bobcats Re-Sign DJ White For Rest Of Season
The Bobcats have signed DJ White for the remainder of the season, the team announced via press release. The second 10-day contract he’d signed with the team this year expired Wednesday night. Charlotte’s statement only mentions this season, so it doesn’t sound like the team has tacked an additional season onto White’s deal, as the Celtics did when they signed the power forward for the rest of 2012/13.
White saw action in just one game on each 10-day contract, totaling 10 minutes. Still, the organization is familiar with him from his time with the Bobcats in 2010/11 and 2011/12, when he was a part of the team’s rotation. Since then, the Jeff Wechsler client has played mostly in the Chinese league, and this year he averaged 20.2 points and 8.5 rebounds for China’s Sichuan Blue Whales. He’s notched 5.9 PPG and 3.2 RPG in 15.3 minutes per contest over his NBA career, which spans six seasons.
The signing gives the Bobcats a full 15-man roster heading into the playoffs. They’d been one of a half-dozen teams with at least one open roster spot, as I noted earlier today. I’d expect more teams on that list to make additions in the days ahead.
Warriors Sign Armstrong For Rest of Season
The Warriors have signed Hilton Armstrong for the remainder of the season, per a team release. This will be Armstrong’s fourth contract with Golden State this season, as he has spent time with the team on a non-guaranteed deal and two 10-day contracts. He has appeared in 12 games for the Warriors, averaging 1.3 points and 3.1 rebounds in 5.3 minutes per contest.
It’s likely that the Warriors decided to ink the big man for the stretch run due to concerns over David Lee‘s health heading into the playoffs. Veteran centers Andrew Bogut and Jermaine O’Neal haven’t been very durable over the last few years, although Bogut has managed to play in over 80% of Golden State’s games this year. Rusty Simmons of The San Francisco Chronicle tweets that the team has no plans to call up Ognjen Kuzmic or Nemanja Nedovic from Golden State’s D-League affiliate, two players the Warriors brought up for depth earlier in the season.
The 29-year-old Armstrong had spent parts of five seasons with five other NBA franchises before not playing in the league for the entirety of the 2011/12 and 2012/13 seasons. The Warriors have kept tabs on him all season; in between stints with Golden State, he has played for their D-League affiliate in Santa Cruz.
Lakers Sign GM Mitch Kupchak To Extension
The Lakers have extended their contract with GM Mitch Kupchak, tweets Mike Trudell of Lakers.com, confirming a report from Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com. Kupchak’s contract was set to expire after 2014/15, but it’s a multiyear extension, according to Shelburne, which indicates that it will run through at least 2016/17. The terms and the precise length of the extension are unclear, though Shelburne notes that Kupchak has long been one of the highest-paid executives in the NBA (Twitter link).
The timing of the deal is odd, considering the Lakers have clinched their worst record since moving to Los Angeles, and they come off a summer in which Dwight Howard left the Lakers to sign with the Rockets in a rare case of a superstar spurning the purple-and-gold. That the Lakers made the move now shows the regard the Buss family, which owns the Lakers, has for Kupchak, and it’s essentially a vote of confidence in him, Shelburne writes. Kupchak first joined the Lakers front office in 1986 after spending the last five years of his playing career with the team.
Kupchak, one of the NBA’s longest-tenured GMs, has held his current job since the summer of 2000. That was the same offseason that Joe Dumars took over the Pistons front office, and a report Tuesday indicated that Dumars plans to resign soon. The Lakers have won four championships on Kupchak’s watch. Kupchak works in tandem with co-owner and executive vice president of player personnel Jim Buss, who has authority over the team’s basketball decisions.
Timberwolves Sign Othyus Jeffers
1:06pm: The team has formally announced the signing, via Twitter. It covers the rest of this season, according to the team, but there’s no mention of it extending into 2014/15.
11:17am: The signing should take place this afternoon, tweets Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune.
8:45am: The Timberwolves are close to signing Othyus Jeffers, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The 28-year-old has been playing with Minnesota’s shared D-League affiliate, the Iowa Energy. The Wolves appear set to bring aboard the shooting guard to fill the roster spot vacated when the team waived A.J. Price last week. Stein refers to the pending arrangement as a 10-day deal, though it would be tantamount to a signing for the rest of the 2013/14, since there are fewer than 10 days remaining in the regular season.
Jeffers was with Minnesota for the preseason before the team cut him prior to opening night. He had a brief stint with the Spurs on a 10-day contract in late January, appearing in four games and scoring seven points in a total of 34 minutes before San Antonio terminated his deal a couple of days early to bring in Shannon Brown. The 6’5″ rebounding ace has spent the lion’s share of his time this season with Iowa of the D-League, scoring 20.9 points and grabbing 9.9 boards in 37.6 minutes per game.
The timing of the Wolves’ move to waive Price was odd, and it was reportedly unrelated to the legal troubles of forward Dante Cunningham. I speculated at the time of the move that the Wolves had their eyes on a young prospect they would sign to a multiyear deal, but given Stein’s assertion that it’ll be just a short-term contract for Jeffers, it seems Minnesota is instead merely plugging gaps on its roster. Chase Budinger and Shabazz Muhammad will likely miss the final six games of the season, perhaps necessitating the addition of another healthy body.
Thunder Sign Grant Jerrett
The Thunder have signed Grant Jerrett for the remainder of the season, writes Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman. The club has confirmed the signing via press release.
Jerrett, the 40th overall pick in last year’s draft, has played the entire season in the NBA Development League with OKC’s affiliate, the Tulsa 66ers. In 27 games with the 66ers, Jerrett has averaged 15.1 points and 6.1 rebounds in 29.3 minutes. The 6-foot-10 power forward has shown some solid range with his shot and has hit 36.4 percent of his 3-pointers this season. The deal means that Jerrett will finish out the regular season with the Thunder and will also be with the club during the playoffs.
Mayberry notes that the Thunder have made similar late-season additions with Robert Vaden, a 2010 second-round pick who was signed in April 2011, and Mustafa Shakur in March 2010. While neither player saw minutes during those deals, the Thunder gave Shakur a 10-day deal earlier this year and gave him a bit of playing time.
Southwest Notes: Roberts, Hamilton, Machado
Here’s a look at the latest out of the Southwest Division..
- Brian Roberts achieved a key milestone Sunday, starting his 41st game for the Pelicans this season. That means he’s met the NBA’s starter criteria for restricted free agents, and the value of his qualifying offer surged from $1,115,243 to $3,450,156, as we detailed. It’ll be interesting to see if that prompts New Orleans to decline to make that qualifying offer for a player who’d likely return to a backup role behind a healthy Jrue Holiday next season. Without the qualifying offer, Roberts would become an unrestricted free agent.
- The Nuggets did not pick up the fourth-year option on Jordan Hamilton’s contract before the season, assuring he will be a free agent this summer, but he’s making the most of his situation now with the Rockets. “It’s a contract year, so I’m definitely auditioning for whoever,” Hamilton said, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. “I just have to come out every day and just play my ‘A’ game every chance I get when I’m out there. This is a great team, a great group of young guys. I’m young (24), as well. I think I would fit right in next year. I need to stay in shape and do all the little things they want me to do. This is a good situation.” Hamilton, who came to Houston in exchange for Aaron Brooks, went on to say complimentary things about coach Kevin McHale and the rest of the staff for helping him grow as a player.
- Former Rockets guard Scott Machado has signed in France with ASVEL Basket, according to a tweet from Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. The team has also confirmed the signing via press release (French link).
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.