Hawks Re-Sign James Nunnally
WEDNESDAY, 9:06am: The deal is now official, the team announced.
TUESDAY, 9:30am: The Hawks will sign James Nunnally to a second 10-day contract on Wednesday, reports Shams Charania of RealGM.com. His first deal with the team expired last night, when it appeared Atlanta was still debating whether to keep the 23-year-old forward, according to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Twitter link). The Hawks will have to decide whether to keep Nunnally for the rest of the season when his second 10-day contract ends.
Nunnally hasn’t had a chance to make much of an impression during his time with the Hawks, who’ve put him on the court for a single eight-minute appearance so far. He’s done most of his work this season with the Bakersfield Jam of the D-League, averaging 18.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game. The Suns had him in training camp this fall, and he averaged 3.0 PPG in 10.5 minutes per game during the preseason.
Atlanta has 14 guaranteed contracts, so keeping Nunnally around for the rest of the season would make that 15, limiting the team’s flexibility. Even if the Hawks decide against keeping him, it sounds like he has plenty of other opportunities for NBA work. He was one of the most sought-after camp invitees, and he met with the Cavs, Bulls and Thunder before signing his first 10-day deal with the Hawks.
Daniel Orton To Join Celtics D-League Team
Free agent center Daniel Orton will sign with the D-League and play for the Maine Red Claws, the affiliate of the Celtics, USA Today’s Sam Amick reports (Twitter links). The Red Claws are acquiring his D-League rights via trade from the Tulsa 66ers, according to Amick. Orton had offers from Chinese teams, Amick adds, but he will instead showcase his skills within the range of most NBA observers.
The Sixers waived Orton earlier this month, just before his contract would have become guaranteed for the rest of the season. Philadelphia had picked him up during the preseason a few days after the Thunder cut him loose. The 6’10” Orton was the 29th overall pick of the 2010 draft out of the University of Kentucky, but he missed the 2010/11 season with injury and has yet to blossom. He’s appeared in a total of 51 NBA games so far, with career numbers of 3.0 points and 2.8 rebounds per game with a 10.6 PER.
He hasn’t fared too much better when his NBA teams have assigned him to the D-League, putting up 12.4 PPG and 7.8 RPG in 27.8 minutes per game over 31 contests. If he impresses this time around, the Celtics will have the flexibility to sign him to the big club, since they have only 13 guaranteed contracts. Orton will nonetheless remain eligible to sign with any NBA team.
Nets Swap Backup PGs With Pelicans, Bulls
The Nets have officially announced a pair of trades, acquiring Marquis Teague from the Bulls in a one-for-one swap for Tornike Shengelia, and sending Tyshawn Taylor and cash to the Pelicans in exchange for the draft rights to Edin Bavcic, a 29-year-old big man playing in Greece.
The moves won’t greatly impact any of the teams’ rotations, as none of the active players involved in the trade have averaged as much as 13 minutes per game this season, and each of them has seen multiple D-League assignments. Teague was a first-round pick in 2012, but he struggled to find minutes for Chicago. Shengelia doesn’t figure to be a critical piece for the Bulls, but he is a big body who can potentially provide frontcourt depth off the bench. Shams Charania of RealGM.com tweets the Bulls intend to give him a shot at some minutes. Bavcic was originally a second-round draft choice of the Raptors in 2006, but he’s never played in the NBA, so it appears he’s merely a throw-in.
Sending off Taylor will provide a bit of much-needed financial relief for Brooklyn, which is currently set to face about $80MM in luxury tax penalties in July. Shengelia and Taylor will both earn $788,872 this season, while Teague will make $1,074,720. The move will save the Nets from paying some extra tax dollars this season, but Teague’s contract runs through 2014/15, one year longer than the pacts Shengelia and Taylor are signed to.
Since the Pelicans had an open roster spot and Taylor is on a minimum-salary contract, they can absorb him without giving up a player. Brooklyn creates a vacancy on its roster with the moves, as the Nets had been carrying the maximum 15 players all season.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports was the first to report the trades, which were agreed upon Saturday (Twitter links). Originally, it appeared the Pelicans would send the Nets a heavily protected second-rounder, but it looks like the teams agreed on including Bavcic in the deal instead.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Bulls Re-Sign Cartier Martin
11:17am: The Bulls hope to sign Martin for the season once his second 10-day deal expires, according to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune (Twitter link).
10:30am: Martin’s deal with Chicago is official, the team has announced.
8:00am: The Bulls and Cartier Martin have agreed on a second 10-day contract, reports Shams Charania of RealGM.com. His first 10-day expired last night.
Martin appeared in three games for an average of 13.7 minutes on his first deal with Chicago, averaging 5.0 points per game with a 15.9 PER over that diminutive sample size. The 29-year-old small forward spent most of the season with the Hawks, for whom he averaged 6.6 PPG in 17.5 MPG, with a 10.1 PER. Atlanta waived him on the final day before his contract would have become guaranteed for the entire season.
The Bulls have only 12 other players, so they’d have had to bring on someone else within 14 days if they weren’t re-signing Martin. Teams can carry fewer than 13 players for no more than two weeks at a time. Martin says he had interest from other clubs before he initially signed with Chicago, so it behooves the Bulls to strike quickly to retain the ASM Sports client.
Suns Re-Sign Leandro Barbosa
JANUARY 18th, 12:30pm: The Suns have signed Barbosa to a second ten-day deal, according to Ken Berger of CBSSports.com (via Twitter). Barbosa, 31, has averaged 9.3 PPG, 2.5 RPG, and 2.3 APG in four games for Phoenix.
JANUARY 8th, 4:35pm: The Suns have officially signed Barbosa to a 10-day contract, the team announced today in a press release. Phoenix now has a full 15-man roster.
SUNDAY, 3:28pm: The Suns plan to sign Leandro Barbosa to a 10-day deal, according to Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic (via Twitter). Teams can start signing players to 10-day deals tomorrow.
Barbosa, 31, spent 41 games with the Celtics last season, averaging 5.2 PPG and 1.4 APG in 12.5 minutes per contest. The veteran was on the Lakers’ short list when they suffered a rash of injuries at the point guard position, a major need for the club before the recent emergence of Kendall Marshall.
The deal brings Barbosa back to the club where he spent his first seven NBA seasons and did his finest work. Barbosa suffered a torn ACL before the trade deadline last season but since then he’s been scorching the Brazilian league and appears fully recovered.
D-League Notes: Melo, Wright, Covington
The latest from the NBA Developmental League..
- A team source tells Gino Pilato of D-League Digest that Fab Melo has entered his name into the D-League player pool. Last season, Melo spent 33 games of his rookie season with the Maine Red Claws, Boston’s D-League affiliate. Melo, who bounced around a bit during his short professional career, is likely headed back to the NBADL with hopes of landing a ten-day contract
- Chris Wright, a current member of the Red Claws, is playing well and hopes to bag a ten-day deal with an NBA team, Pilato writes. On the season, Wright is averaging 21.2 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.0 steals, and 1.4 blocks per game. He’s also averaging 36.2 minutes in 20 games so far. A small forward from Dayton, he’s not to be confused with the former Georgetown shooting guard by the same name.
- Rockets rookie Robert Covington is back from the D-League as Houston wants to have plenty of bodies in practice this week, tweets Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. However, it’s not clear if this is a prelude to Covington officially getting recalled to the varsity squad.
Odds & Ends: Embiid, Bynum, Kings, Petro
Many talent evaluators around the NBA wish the talented but raw Joel Embiid would stay in school for another year, according to Chad Ford of ESPN.com, who debates the freshman Kansas center with fellow ESPN.com scribe Kevin Pelton for an Insider-only piece. NBA teams usually want to see intriguing collegians enter the draft, so the stance on Embiid is an unusual one, as Ford explains. The 19-year-old is the No. 1 prospect on Ford’s Big Board. Here’s more from the Association:
- Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star doesn’t get the sense that the Pacers will sign Bynum just to keep him away from the Heat, but Kravitz believes Indiana should take a low-risk flier on the big man regardless of where he might otherwise end up.
- An Eastern Conference scout didn’t think the trade that brought in Rudy Gay would go as well as it has for the Kings, telling Marc Stein of ESPN.com that the move has made the team “relevant again.”
- Johan Petro announced via Twitter that he’s left the Guangsha Lions of China, so it appears he’s free to sign with any team (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). The 27-year-old center spent each of the past eight seasons in the NBA.
- The Bulls had next season in mind when they signed D.J. Augustin, but it’s unclear whether the team or the point guard will want to continue their relationship beyond 2013/14, as Sam Smith of Bulls.com writes in his latest mailbag column.
- Former 11th overall pick Jerome Moiso has retired, reports L’Equipe (translation via Carchia). Moiso spent five seasons in the NBA after the Celtics drafted him in 2000. He finished last season with Piratas de Quebradillas in Puerto Rico.
- Louisiana-Lafayette point guard Elfrid Payton is a fast riser in the eyes of many NBA teams, tweets Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times. Ford has the 6’4″ junior at No. 54 in his ESPN.com rankings, while Payton is No. 64 for Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.
Lakers Sign Manny Harris To 10-Day Deal
4:42pm: The team has officially announced the deal, via Twitter.
11:29am: The Lakers will sign combo guard Manny Harris to a 10-day contract, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com. He’ll join them in Boston, where the team is set to play Friday night, McMenamin adds.
Harris had drawn interest from the Hawks as well as the Lakers, as Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio reported earlier this week, and USA Today’s Sam Amick revealed that Harris interviewed with the Thunder earlier this month. The 24-year-old was playing for the Lakers’ D-League affiliate, which acquired his D-League rights in December. He’s coming off back-to-back D-League Performer of the Week awards, and has averaged 43 points over his last three games, McMenamin notes via Twitter. He’s notched 30.6 points and 6.5 rebounds in 38.0 minutes per game overall for the L.A. D-Fenders this season.
The 6’5″ Harris wasn’t nearly as productive in two seasons with the Cavaliers, the only NBA team he’s played for. He put up 6.2 PPG in 17.4 MPG in his time with Cleveland. The Lakers have an open roster spot, so they don’t need to waive anybody to make room.
Clippers Sign Hedo Turkoglu, Release Wayns
12:18pm: The Clippers have officially announced the deal. The team’s press release adds that the Clippers have released Maalik Wayns, terminating his 10-day contract, which had been set to expire Friday. The release also announces a second 10-day deal for Darius Morris, but it doesn’t mention the length of Turkoglu’s contract, almost certainly signifying that agent Jim Tanner has secured a deal for the rest of the season for Turkoglu, as had been expected.
THURSDAY, 11:34am: Turkoglu tweets that the deal is official, though there’s been no announcement from the team (hat tip to Sportando).
WEDNESDAY, 9:50pm: The Clippers are set to sign Hedo Turkoglu on Thursday, reports Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com. Turkoglu was to undergo a physical today, and the team appeared ready to bring him aboard pending the results, as Ismail Senol of NTV Spor in Turkey reported earlier today. The deal will cover the rest of the season, according to Senol.
“He’s another shooter,” Clippers boss Doc Rivers said, according to Markazi. “Sometimes you don’t bring a guy in because a guy is not doing something. You bring a guy in because he does something our other guys do as well. He’s another shooter and can space the floor. He’s very skilled. We would like to take advantage of that.”
Turkoglu, 34, comes to the Clippers after the Magic waived him earlier this month, saving half of his $12MM salary this season before it became fully guaranteed. The Clippers can only offer the minimum salary, but it doesn’t appear they had much competition for the Jim Tanner client. The Lakers and Hawks registered interest in the forward while he was still with the Magic, but the Lakers decided against pursuing him in free agency, and Atlanta hasn’t been connected with him recently either.
The Clippers won’t have to make a roster move if the deal goes down Thursday, since their 10-day deal with Darius Morris will expire overnight. Another roster spot will open with the expiration of their 10-day contract with Maalik Wayns on Friday night, and Rivers indicated the team is still looking for other free agents to add, notes Markazi, who mentions Lamar Odom as a possibility. The team apparently still has interest in Sasha Vujacic, as well.
Clippers Re-Sign Darius Morris
12:15pm: Morris has officially signed his second 10-day deal, the Clippers announced. The team will have to decide whether to retain him for the balance of the season or let him go when the contract expires.
8:02am: The Clippers will ink Darius Morris to a second 10-day contract, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. His first 10-day deal expired last night. Wojnarowski doesn’t say when the move will happen, but if it goes down today, it’d be a little surprising, since Doc Rivers said the team will sign Hedo Turkoglu today. The Clippers would have to terminate their 10-day deal with Maalik Wayns a couple days early to accommodate both Morris and Turkoglu today, though the team wouldn’t be on the hook for any additional salary if it cuts Wayns before his deal ends Friday night.
Morris has played 27 minutes over a total of four games so far with the Clippers, scoring five points and dishing out four assists. The 23-year-old Brian Dyke client is in his third NBA season after the Lakers made him the 41st overall pick in 2011. The 6’4″ point guard is serving as a backup to Darren Collison, who’s set to start at the position for about another month or so as Chris Paul‘s injured shoulder heals.
The Clippers have used other ball-handlers at times during Morris’ stint, and Turkoglu has proven a capable leader of an offense during his career. Rivers, who’s in charge of the team’s front office, nonetheless seems to want to keep Morris around, perhaps as insurance. The Clippers have been linked to Lamar Odom and Sasha Vujacic, though it seems neither will join the club in the immediate future.