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Clippers Waive Brandon Davies

October 21st, 2013 at 2:17pm CST by Luke Adams

The Clippers have officially released undrafted rookie Brandon Davies, the team announced today in a press release. Davies’ contract had included a partial guarantee worth $50K, so the team will be on the hook for that amount, unless he’s claimed on waivers.

Davies, a 21-year-old power forward, played four seasons at BYU, averaging 17.7 PPG and 8.0 RPG in 36 contests during his senior year. He was picked up by the Clips shortly after this June’s draft, playing for the club’s Summer League squad and appearing in five preseason games.

With Davies no longer on the roster, the Clips are down to 15 players, meaning they won’t necessarily have to cut anyone else before opening night. Maalik Wayns‘ knee injury will likely ensure that he remains on the roster, as we explained last week. Louis Amundson is the only other Clipper on a non-guaranteed contract.

Hawks Release James Johnson

October 21st, 2013 at 11:47am CST by Luke Adams

The Hawks have waived James Johnson, according to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (via Twitter). The move reduces the Hawks’ preseason roster to 17 players, so the team will still have to make at least two more cuts before next week.

Johnson reportedly chose a non-guaranteed camp invite from Atlanta over multiple overseas offers, so perhaps now he’ll reconsider one of those offers, assuming they’re still on the table. The 26-year-old has spent four NBA seasons with the Bulls, Raptors, and Kings since being selected 16th overall in the 2009 draft.

Of the 17 players on the Hawks’ roster, 12 have fully guaranteed contracts, making them solid bets to make the regular season roster. Mike Scott also has a small guarantee, while Shelvin Mack, Eric Dawson, Cartier Martin, and Royal Ivey have fully non-guaranteed deals, putting them in danger of being waived by opening night.

Heat Waive Varnado, Drew, Westbrook

October 21st, 2013 at 11:31am CST by Luke Adams

The Heat have parted ways with three players on non-guaranteed contracts, according to a release from the team. The club announced today that it has waived Jarvis Varnado, Larry Drew II, and Charlie Westbrook.

Varnado, 25, signed a deal with the Heat last season that included a non-guaranteed salary for 2013/14. He was set to receive a partial guarantee of $250K if he remained on the roster until opening night, but the likelihood of camp invitees Michael Beasley and Roger Mason Jr. making the team reduced Varnado’s chances. As for Drew and Westbrook, both players were on summer contracts, and could end up joining Miami’s D-League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

After releasing Varnado, Drew, and Westbrook, the Heat are now carrying 17 players. Eric Griffin and Justin Hamilton look like they’ll be the last two roster casualties, but the club still has a few more days to make its final decision.

Spurs Waive Courtney Fells And Dan Nwaelele

October 20th, 2013 at 4:53pm CST by Zachary Links

The Spurs announced this afternoon that they have waived guard/forward Courtney Fells and guard Dan Nwaelele. Neither player was on a guaranteed contract for San Antonio.

Fells appeared in three preseason games, averaging 4.7 points and 3.3 rebounds in 12.4 minutes of action. Nwaelele saw action in three preseason games, averaging 3.7 points and 1.7 rebounds in 12.3 minutes. Coach Gregg Popovich gave both players minutes during crunch time in preseason action.

The Spurs have now cut five players in five days after axing Corey Maggette, Myck Kabongo, and Marcus Cousin on October 15th. San Antonio now has 14 players on the roster and they’re all on guaranteed deals. GM R.C. Buford & Co. are reportedly comfortable with starting the year one man shy of the maximum roster size.

Cavs Waive Michael Lee

October 19th, 2013 at 10:41pm CST by Spencer Lund

The Cavs have waived forward Michael Lee, general manager Chris Grant reports.

The 6’9″ 207 lb. Lee went undrafted out of St. Bonaventure in 2008, and had spent the ensuing years playing internationally in the Ukraine, Serbia, Hungary, Croatia, and France. In three preseason games with the Cavs, Lee averaged 1.7 rebounds in 4.3 minutes per game.

As Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio tweets, and which Hoops Rumors mentioned earlier tonight, the Cavs roster now stands at 19 players, with four more to be cut before the season opens.

Bucks Exercise Options On Knight, Henson

October 19th, 2013 at 1:50pm CST by Chuck Myron

1:50pm: The Bucks have confirmed the moves via Twitter.

1:27pm: Milwaukee has decided to keep former first-round picks Brandon Knight and John Henson around a little longer, as the Bucks have picked up the 2014/15 team options on their rookie scale contracts, according to Matt Moore of CBSSports.com (Twitter link). Knight goes on to next year’s books for $3,553,917, as our rookie contract option tracker shows, while Henson will receive $1,987,320.

Neither of the moves comes as a surprise, and while I didn’t categorize the decisions on Knight and Henson as “no-brainers” when I examined at rookie scale options around the league last month, I wrote that they would probably have their options picked up. Knight, entering his third season, came to the Bucks this summer as part of the Brandon Jennings trade, and it’s clear that Milwaukee intends for him to occupy the starting point guard job for the foreseeable future. Henson’s path to the starting lineup is blocked by Larry Sanders and Ersan Ilyasova, both of whom are on long-term deals, but the Bucks deemed Henson off-limits while exploring trades at the deadline this past season.

Knight, whom the Pistons drafted eighth overall in 2011, and Henson, picked at No. 14 by the Bucks in 2012, are former lottery picks. Today’s option decisions push the total of Milwaukee’s guaranteed salaries for 2014/15 to more than $48MM.

Pistons Exercise Andre Drummond’s 2014/15 Option

October 19th, 2013 at 12:15pm CST by Zachary Links

The Pistons announced that they have exercised Andre Drummond‘s third-year option worth $2.5MM. The move was expected for the No. 9 overall pick in the 2012 draft.

Drummond, 20, averaged 7.9 PPG and 7.6 RPG in 20.7 minutes per game during his rookie season. The UConn center made ten starts on the year but mostly came off of the bench. Drummond also missed significant time around the midway point of the season with a stress fracture of the fifth lumbar vertebra in his back.

Drummond shows plenty of promise, but he also has a good deal to work on, including his free throw shooting. The big man shot just 37% from the charity stripe in 2012/13, a percentage low enough to make Chris Dudley wince.

Jazz Sign Derrick Favors To 4-Year Extension

October 19th, 2013 at 11:30am CST by Chuck Myron

SATURDAY, 11:30am: The Jazz confirmed the extension via press release.

FRIDAY, 9:18pm: The deal doesn’t contain any options, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.com.

8:11pm: The Jazz and Derrick Favors have agreed to a lucrative four-year extension to his rookie scale contract, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The base salary totals more than $49MM, and there are incentives that could carry the package well over $50MM, according to Wojnarowski. The deal could be a bargain, depending on the outcome of those incentives, since Woj hears from executives around the league that several teams would give him a $13MM annual salary if he were to hit restricted free agency next summer. Instead, it looks like the Wallace Prather client will be in Utah for quite some time, as the extension is set to run through 2017/18.

The Jazz placed a high value on Favors’ desire to remain with the team, as Wojnarowski writes. He becomes the fifth eligible player to strike a deal for a rookie scale extension this offseason, joining DeMarcus Cousins, Paul George, Larry Sanders and John Wall. Favors and Sanders are the only ones of that group to agree to annual salaries of less than the maximum, as the Bucks gave Sanders four years and $44MM. Utah’s deal for Favors resembles the extension Serge Ibaka and the Thunder signed last year. Ibaka’s getting $49.4MM in base salary, and he can earn an additional $100K each year in performance incentives that he’s likely to meet.

The 22-year-old, 6’10” Favors came to Utah in the middle of his rookie year as part of the Deron Williams trade after the Nets drafted him third overall in 2010. He’s yet to average 10 points per game in any NBA season, but he’s seen little playing time behind Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap in Utah. That figures to change this season, as both Jefferson and Millsap are gone, and Favors will have the chance to demonstrate whether his career per-36-minute rebounding average of 10.6 will hold up in starter’s minutes. He’s also played stellar defense, blocking 2.6 shots per 36 minutes in 2012/13.

My prediction in March of a four-year, $48MM extension for Favors was a lot closer to the mark than the revised view I took when I examined his extension candidacy in August and figured the two sides might do a deal for between $42MM and $44MM. Utah only has about $4.5MM in guaranteed money on the books for 2014/15, not including likely option pickups for Enes Kanter and Alec Burks, so this represents the first major commitment for the team after this summer’s retooling. There’s plenty of room for an extension to Gordon Hayward, the team’s other player entering the final season of a rookie scale contract, and I could see him striking a four-year, $40MM deal, as I wrote when I looked at his case for an extension. The team has been in negotiations with Favors and Hayward since August.

Cory Higgins Signs To Play In Russia

October 18th, 2013 at 9:13pm CST by Chuck Myron

Shooting guard Cory Higgins has begun the past two seasons in the NBA, but this time around, he’s headed to Russia. He’s signed a one-year deal with Triumph Lyubertsy, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. Higgins has 44 games of NBA regular season experience, all of them with Charlotte, where his father, Rod Higgins, is Bobcats president of basketball operations.

The younger Higgins averaged 9.0 points in 21.7 minutes per game for the Cavaliers summer league team, but though he earned mention from coach Mike Brown as a possible training camp invitee, no deal with Cleveland ever came about. Higgins had spent most of 2012/13 with the Erie BayHawks of the D-League after the Bobcats waived him in December, and he drew interest from a pair of Italian teams this summer.

Higgins joins Luke Babbitt, Mickael Gelabale and Jeremy Pargo among players who’ve signed with a Russian team after appearing in the NBA last season, as our International Player Movement Tracker shows.

Nets Sign Adonis Thomas

October 18th, 2013 at 1:01pm CST by Luke Adams

Four days after being cut by the Hawks, undrafted rookie Adonis Thomas has landed in Brooklyn. The Nets announced today in a press release that the team has signed Thomas to a contract, increasing their roster to 18 players.

Thomas, 20, was a surprising entry in this year’s draft, declaring his intent following his sophomore season at Memphis. In his last year with the Tigers, the 6’6″ forward averaged 11.7 PPG and 4.5 RPG, with a .405 FG%.

The Nets have 15 players on fully guaranteed contracts on their roster, so there’s a strong possibility that the team will retain Thomas’ rights for its D-League affiliate, the Springfield Armor. In addition to Thomas, non-guaranteed camp invitees Jorge Gutierrez and Chris Johnson also remain under contract with Brooklyn.