Sasha Pavlovic Signs To Play In Serbia
Sasha Pavlovic has signed with Partizan Belgrade, the team announced (translation via Sportando on Twitter). Novosti.rs first reported news of the agreement this weekend. The 30-year-old shooting guard has spent each of the past 10 seasons in the NBA, including last season with the Blazers. He didn’t attend camp with an NBA team this fall, and today’s announcement makes it unlikely he’ll play in an 11th straight NBA season.
Portland waived the Dan Fegan client over the summer a year after acquiring him in a sign-and-trade deal. He averaged 2.6 points in 13.5 minutes per game last season. In spite of his longevity in the NBA, he’s never averaged double-figures in points or started more than 45 games in a single season.
Pavlovic will likely serve as a mentor for Bogdan Bogdanovic, another Partizan Belgrade shooting guard. Bogdanovic is one of the top overseas prospects for the 2014 draft, checking in at No. 31 on the DraftExpress rankings and No. 52 at ESPN Insider.
Johan Petro Signs With French Team
MONDAY, 7:50am: Petro has announced his signing with the team via Twitter (translation via Emiliano Carchia of Sportando).
SATURDAY, 2:10pm: Johan Petro is likely to sign with the French club Limoges CSP, reports Gwenola Beriou of Limousin (translation via Emiliano Carchia of Sportando). There’s no official deal in place, but Carchia says the center is “close to signing.” Petro most recently played for the Guangsha Lions of China, but he parted ways with the club in January.
Petro played on four different NBA teams after being drafted in the first round in 2005. The big man didn’t see much success during his NBA tenure, putting up just 4.7 PPG in 473 career contests. He played in 31 games for the Hawks last season, but the club renounced his rights last summer, and he wasn’t able to secure a deal with another NBA squad.
Since the signing isn’t official yet, it’s not clear whether or not the contract will contain any sort of NBA opt-out clause. Hoops Rumors’ agency database lists Petro as a client of Excel Sports Management.
Pistons Fire Maurice Cheeks
1:21pm: The Pistons won’t conduct a search for their permanent coach right away, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.
1:04pm: John Loyer will take over as interim coach, tweets David Mayo of MLive.com.
11:07am: The Pistons have fired coach Maurice Cheeks, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.com. Despite back-to-back victories on the weekend, general manager Joe Dumars informed Cheeks of his dismissal on Sunday morning, Wojnarowski’s sources said. Wojnarowski writes that Cheeks was in the first season of a two-year deal, but reports when Cheeks was hired indicated that his contract was a four-year deal, with a team option for the final season.
In a season that has fallen short of his playoff expectations, Detroit owner Tom Gores has been pushing for changes. Detroit is 21-29 and a half-game behind Charlotte for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference playoff chase. Wojnarowski also suggests that Gores was behind the firing, while Joe Dumars advocated giving Cheeks more time.
This move comes on the heels of Cheeks’ sideline confrontation with Will Bynum, as well as his admission that he should be doing a better job at preparing the team to play. Cheeks’ firing also marks the first coaching change of the NBA this season.
No interim coach has been appointed for the team, but assistant John Loyer is expected to be frontrunner, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Celtics Sign Chris Johnson To 3-Year Contract
9:29pm: Steve Bulpett of The Boston Herald tweets that it is a three year deal that’s non-guaranteed after this season.
6:33pm: Chris Johnson‘s pro-rated salary for this year is at about $320K, according to a tweet from ESPN Boston’s Chris Forsberg. That would keep the Celtics shy of paying the luxury tax, which was a consideration factoring into their decision on whether to keep Johnson.
5:54pm: The Celtics have signed Chris Johnson to a multi-year deal, per a team press release. Per team policy, the terms of the deal were not announced, so it isn’t yet known how long the contract will run. The team was considering adding one additional year beyond this season as of yesterday, and that still seems to be the most likely contract length considering Johnson’s lack of leverage to demand more years. For the same reason, it’s also likely that the additional year(s) will be non-guaranteed, which is typical for mid-season, multi-year deals like this one.
The second year small forward had played on two consecutive 10-day contracts for Boston this season, averaging 7.6 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.3 assists in 21.6 minutes per game, about double the production he had in his eight games with the Grizzlies last year.
Johnson is a client of Pinnacle Management Corp., whose signing gives the Celtics their 14th guaranteed contract out of a maximum 15, a fact that could be significant heading towards the trade deadline. As is, the Celtics could only receive one extra player back as part of a hypothetical trade. That, in addition to their proximity to the tax line, limits their flexibility in working transactions. This would particularly curb deals where they might take a burdensome contract off another team’s books in exchange for draft picks, as they have done with Joel Anthony and the Heat, and last summer’s blockbuster when they absorbed the lengthy, expensive Gerald Wallace contract.
Lakers Re-Sign Shawne Williams To 10-Day Deal
4:27pm: The team has officially announced the signing.
3:11pm: The Lakers will re-sign Shawne Williams, tweets Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times. The news comes right after the Lakers announced that Nick Young will miss at least two weeks with a non-displaced patella fracture and a bone bruise (Twitter link). Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com speculated earlier this week that Williams, who’s been playing with the Lakers D-League affiliate, would get a look. It’ll be a 10-day contract, according to Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News, who says (on Twitter) that the 27-year-old forward will join the team tonight.
Williams was with the Lakers on a partially guaranteed deal until they let him go last month, shortly before the contract would have become fully guaranteed. The Happy Walters client averaged 5.2 points and 4.5 rebounds in 20.2 minutes per game in his first go-around with the Lakers this season.
Injuries have wreaked havoc on the Lakers, who had only five healthy players at the end of last night’s game, forcing them to evoke a rule that allowed Robert Sacre to remain in the contest even though he’d fouled out. Williams will fill the team’s open roster spot, but the Lakers are allowed to ask the league for permission to add a 16th man if they expect at least four of their injured players to continue to be unavailable.
The Lakers opted not to re-sign Manny Harris earlier this week after his pair of 10-day contracts had expired. Players can’t sign more than two 10-day contracts with a single team each season, so L.A. would have to sign him for the rest of the season if it brought him back. Adding Williams, who hasn’t been on a 10-day contract with the Lakers this year, gives the team greater flexibility.
Cavs Fire GM Chris Grant
The Cavaliers have officially announced the firing of GM Chris Grant. Cavs vice president of basketball operations David Griffin will replace Grant on an interim basis.
The news isn’t altogether shocking, given Cleveland’s 16-33 record and Kyrie Irving‘s reported discontent with the franchise, though the timing is a surprise, since it comes just two weeks shy of the trade deadline. A weekend report from Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News suggested the team was expected to fire Grant after the season, though it appears owner Dan Gilbert didn’t want to wait that long.
“There is no one in our entire organization who is satisfied with our performance, and to say that we are disappointed is an understatement,” Gilbert said in part, according to the team’s statement. “We all know the great potential of our young talent, seasoned veterans, as well as our recent all-star addition [Luol Deng]. We believe a change in leadership was necessary to establish the best possible culture and environment for our entire team to flourish.”
Cleveland has had numerous misfires of late, including last season’s No. 1 overall pick Anthony Bennett, who’s averaging just 3.3 points and 11.9 minutes per game. Gilbert had reportedly given the team a mandate to make the playoffs before Bennett was drafted, and his poor start, reflected in the team’s record, helped push the team into acquiring Deng last month, but Cleveland has gone just 4-10 with Deng in the lineup.
Last night’s loss to the banged-up Lakers was apparently the last straw. L.A. ended the game with only five healthy players and had to exploit a little-known NBA rule to keep Robert Sacre on the floor even though he had fouled out.
Grant, who first joined the club as assistant GM in 2005, took over as GM on June 4, 2010, about a month before LeBron James decided to sign with the Heat. That forced Grant into a rebuilding period, helped along by his shrewd trade of Mo Williams and Jamario Moon for Baron Davis and an unprotected draft pick that became the No. 1 overall selection in 2011. The Cavs used it to select Irving, and while Tristan Thompson, the No. 4 overall pick this year, has begun to show signs of development, Grant has had little other success in the draft. Dion Waiters, the No. 4 overall pick in 2012, has been relegated to a sixth-man role after starting for most of his rookie season, and Bennett and Sergey Karasev, last year’s first-rounders, have yet to make meaningful contributions.
The Cavs have relied chiefly on the draft during Grant’s tenure, but the club has also endured high-profile free agent misses. Cleveland committed a combined $29.65MM in guaranteed salary to Jarrett Jack, Earl Clark and the since-traded Andrew Bynum this past summer, none of whom have had the desired effect. The shortcomings of wing players Alonzo Gee and C.J. Miles, Cleveland’s most expensive gets of the summer of 2012, were part of the reason the club traded for Deng.
Grant changed coaches this past offseason, parting ways with Byron Scott and moving swiftly to re-hire Mike Brown, whom the club fired in 2010, shortly before Grant became GM. Brown, in the first year of a five-year contract, has so far failed to deliver winning results.
Griffin has earned respect around the league while serving under Grant in Cleveland’s front office the past three and a half years. He was a candidate for the Clippers GM job in 2012.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports was first to report the firing, as well as the news that Griffin was the favorite to be elevated in Grant’s place (Twitter link). Grantland’s Zach Lowe added detail about Griffin, on Twitter.
Celtics Re-Sign Chris Johnson
THURSDAY, 5:54pm: A multi-year contract with Johnson has been announced through a team press release.
WEDNESDAY, 12:29pm: Negotiations continue between the Celtics and Johnson, and Boston is considering attaching an extra season onto the deal, reports Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald. Johnson’s agent, Marc Cornstein, tells Murphy that other teams have shown interest in his client.
10:00am: The Celtics plan to give swingman Chris Johnson a deal for the rest of the season when his second 10-day contract expires after tonight, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Johnson has impressed the C’s during his stint with the club, but Boston was unsure about keeping him because of its proximity to the luxury tax.
The 23-year-old Pinnacle Management Corp. client jumped into Boston’s rotation in his first appearance after signing his initial 10-day deal, and averaged 7.6 points in 21.5 minutes per game while shooting 40.0% from three-point range. He had his shortest outing as a Celtic last night against the Sixers, playing slightly more than three minutes, but he’s apparently done enough to convince the team to keep him.
Boston is roughly $1MM away from the luxury tax threshold, and the addition of a minimum-salary deal for the rest of the season for Johnson would draw the team $353,717 closer to that $71.748MM line if the contract begins Friday. It would also give the C’s a 14th guaranteed contract, meaning they could only absorb one extra player in a deadline deal.
Othyus Jeffers To Rejoin D-League
Recent Spurs 10-day signee Othyus Jeffers will return to the D-League’s Iowa Energy, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.com. The Spurs terminated their deal with Jeffers a day early this past weekend so they could sign Shannon Brown. Jeffers has spent part of five of the last six seasons with the Energy, who retain his D-League rights.
The 28-year-old appeared in four games and even started one for injury-hit San Antonio, taking just five shots and scoring seven points in 34 total minutes. Jeffers has otherwise experienced his best season in the D-League this year, setting career highs of 22.8 points and 11.4 rebounds per game.
Charania suggests part of Jeffers’ motivation for heading back to the D-League is his desire to stay on the radar of NBA teams. Given his extensive D-League resume and lack of international experience, the move is no surprise.
Pelicans Sign Luke Babbitt
TUESDAY, 11:43am: The Pelicans have officially announced the signing.
SATURDAY, 12:28pm: The deal is for two years, according to Chris Haynes of Comcast SportsNet (via Twitter).
10:04am: The Pelicans have a “done deal” with Luke Babbitt, per a tweet from Serbian journalist Djordje Matic. The Pelicans were reportedly close to adding Babbitt earlier in the week, but Russian team BC Nizhny Novgorod was stifling the process.
Babbitt spent three years with the Portland Trail Blazers before heading to Russia this year in hopes of proving his game to the NBA by playing more minutes for an overseas team. The 24-year-old forward has never averaged more than 5.1 points or 13.4 minutes per game, being used almost exclusively as a three-point specialist. He shot a career-best .430 from deep in 2011/12 before taking a step back statistically last year with decreases in field goal percentage, free throw percentage, rebounds, and minutes.
Grizzlies Sign Darius Morris To 10-Day Deal
MONDAY, 11:10am: The Grizzlies have signed Morris to a 10-day contract, according to a press release from the team
SUNDAY, 9:29pm: Darius Morris is meeting with Grizzlies coaches tonight in Oklahoma City and is expected to sign a 10-day deal with Memphis tomorrow, according to Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal (via Twitter). Morris saw his second 10-day deal with the Clippers expire towards the end of January.
The Grizzlies worked Morris out in December after Quincy Pondexter was lost to injury so they have some level of familiarity with the guard. The 23-year-old appeared in 10 games for the Clippers averaging 5.4 MPG with 0.9 PPG and 0.5 APG.
If Morris puts pen to paper with the Grizzlies, it’ll be his fourth NBA stop in just two years. Morris has also seen stints with the Lakers and Sixers over the last two seasons.