Ike Diogu To Join Knicks For Camp
The Knicks will add veteran forward Ike Diogu to their training camp roster, according to Al Iannazzone of Newsday (Twitter link). Diogu will occupy one of the three remaining open spots on New York's offseason roster.
Diogu, 30, was one of several free agents who worked out for the Knicks last week in the hopes of landing a camp invitation. New York is also expected to bring another one of the participants in that audition, Josh Powell, to camp, as we heard over the weekend.
Diogu was drafted ninth overall in 2005 by the Warriors and had a solid rookie season, including 7.0 PPG and a 15.8 PER. However, early in his second NBA season, he was sent to Indiana in an eight-player swap that landed Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson in Golden State. Diogu was traded twice more in the next two years, and never had another season as productive as his rookie year. He last appeared in two games for the Spurs during the 2011/12 campaign.
With Diogu on board, the Knicks will have six players on partially guaranteed or non-guaranteed deals, to go along with their 12 guaranteed contracts. C.J. Leslie, who has a $200K guarantee, figures to be a lock for a regular-season roster spot, while Diogu, Powell, Chris Smith, Toure Murry, and Jeremy Tyler will compete for the last two openings.
Knicks Invite Powell To Training Camp
The Knicks will sign Josh Powell to a non-guaranteed training camp deal, according to a tweet from Bleacher Report's Jared Zwerling, who reports that the six-year NBA veteran has agreed to a deal with the team.
Powell worked out with the team last week, and has also recently auditioned for the Pelicans. The 30-year-old Powell has been out of the NBA for the past two seasons, and in 2011 he played for the Hawks.
Holding a career scoring average of 3.9PPG, Powell is best known for being a member of two championship winning Lakers teams in 2009 and 2010. He was waived by the Spurs last October, but didn't play a game for the team.
Josh Childress To Join Wizards For Training Camp
The Wizards have landed 30-year-old swingman Josh Childress, who'll be with the team in camp, tweets Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype. Presumably it'll be a standard non-guaranteed camp deal for the Chris Emens client who appeared in just 14 NBA games last season before the Nets waived him in December.
This summer the former sixth overall pick turned down a lucrative offer from Olympiacos of Greece, the team that lured him away from a sixth-man role with the Hawks in 2008. The Cavs, Spurs and Pelicans all auditioned Childress over the past couple of months, and the Knicks were among several teams with which he had talks.
Childress is the first player the Wizards have invited to this year's camp outside of their exisiting 15 guaranteed contracts. He could push for playing time at small forward with Chris Singleton sidelined six to eight weeks with foot surgery. Still, Washington already has Martell Webster and rookies Otto Porter and Glen Rice Jr. at the position, so Childress figures to have an uphill battle to make the opening-night roster.
Lakers Sign Ryan Kelly
5:49pm: It'll be a non-guaranteed one-year contract for Kelly, tweets Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times. That means he's essentially no more than a training camp invitee.
3:20pm: The Lakers have officially signed second-round pick Ryan Kelly to a contract, the team announced today in a press release. Kelly had been dealing with foot issues and it was unclear if he'd be healthy enough to join the team this fall, but it looks like he'll get a camp audition, at the very least.
Kelly, the 48th overall pick in this June's draft, played his senior year at Duke in 2012/13, averaging 12.9 PPG and 5.3 RPG in 23 contests. Since the Lakers only have 11 players on fully guaranteed contracts, the 6'11" forward should have a good chance to earn a regular-season roster spot, depending on his health and production in October. In addition to those 11 guys and Kelly, Los Angeles is also bringing Shawne Williams, Marcus Landry, Xavier Henry, and Elias Harris to camp.
Details of Kelly's deal with the Lakers aren't known, but since the team is into tax territory and has used its mid-level exception, it'll have to be a minimum salary contract of some sort for the rookie. It can be for either one or two years, and will likely only have a small partial guarantee.
Dominique Jones, Jonny Flynn To Play In China
With NBA opportunites drying up, two former first-round picks are set to play in China for the coming season. Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld reports (via Twitter) that Dominique Jones has decided to sign with a Chinese team, while Jonny Flynn's high school coach tells Mike Waters of The Post-Standard that the point guard will play for the Sichuan Blue Whales.
Jones spent three seasons with the Mavericks after being drafted 25th overall in 2010. The 24-year-old never saw significant minutes in Dallas, appearing in just 80 total games and averaging 3.1 PPG and 1.8 APG. Jones recorded a decent 11.9 PER for his career, but seemingly didn't show enough in his first three seasons to draw strong interest among NBA teams this summer.
Flynn, meanwhile, played for the Melbourne Tigers in Australia last season, and was reportedly hoping to break camp with an NBA team this fall. It's not clear if interest didn't materialize, or whether he simply received a more lucrative offer from Sichuan, but it seems he'll be spending the year in China, just four years removed from being selected sixth overall by the T-Wolves.
As our international player movement tracker shows, Jones will join a handful of other players who spent 2012/13 with an NBA team and have signed to play in China for '13/14. Donte Greene, Ivan Johnson, and Johan Petro are the others.
76ers To Sign Vander Blue
According to Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, the 76ers have agreed to sign undrafted guard Vander Blue to a partially guaranteed contract (Twitter link). The 6'4" guard participated in both the Orlando and Las Vegas Summer League this year, averaging 23.5 MPG, 11.5 PPG and 5.5 RPG in two games for Houston and 21.2 MPG, 11.0 PPG, 3.7 RPG, and 37.5% shooting from long distance in 6 games for the Grizzlies respectively.
Philadelphia's roster now stands at 17, though several of those players will be on partially guaranteed or non-guaranteed deals. Only 10 Sixers currently have fully guaranteed deals, though that number will increase by one when Michael Carter-Williams officially signs.
In addition to Blue, the 76ers have added a handful of guards this offseason (including Tony Wroten, James Anderson, Khalif Wyatt, and Darius Morris to name a few), which should make for an interesting and competitive camp as far as the back court is concerned. Also, Blue's partial guarantee might not be much of a surprise, as we discussed earlier today why it'd be in the team's best interests to find a way to remain above the salary cap this season.
Hawks Sign James Johnson
According to a congratulatory tweet from sports agency firm Priority Sports, James Johnson has signed a contract with the Hawks. Though the terms of the deal were not mentioned, the pact could likely be a training camp invitation or a partially guaranteed deal. In 54 games and 11 starts for the Kings last season, the 6'9 power forward averaged 5.1 PPG, 2.7 RPG, and shot 41.3% from the field in 16.3 MPG. With the addition of Johnson, Atlanta currently has a total of 19 players heading into training camp.
Drafted 16th overall by the Bulls in 2009, Johnson hasn't lasted more than two seasons with an NBA team since then, splitting his first four years in the league between Chicago and Toronto before landing with Sacramento in 2012/13. To date, the Wake Forest product's best season was arguably with the Raptors in 2011/12, where he played a total of 62 games with 40 starts, averaging 9.1 PPG, 4.7 RPG, and 1.4 BPG in 25.2 MPG.
Magic Inviting Five Players To Camp
The Magic currently have 14 players on their roster, but will take advantage of increased offseason roster limits to bring five more players to camp, according to Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel. Schmitz reports (via Twitter) that Solomon Jones, Kris Joseph, Manny Harris, and Micheal Eric will be in camp with Orlando. The team is also bringing second-rounder Romero Osby to camp, though the two sides are still negotiating a contract, says Schmitz (Twitter link).
Although Jones and Joseph each saw NBA action in 2012/13, neither played extensive minutes. Jones, a big man who has spent time with five NBA teams, appeared in two games for the Knicks last season. Meanwhile, Joseph shuffled back and forth between the Nets and Celtics, and was included in the summer's Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce blockbuster before he was waived by Boston. The 24-year-old forward was said to have a deal with a Chinese team, but it appears he'll try to earn an NBA roster spot before exploring options overseas.
Harris and Eric both have some history with the Cavaliers, though Harris is the only one of the two that has NBA experience. Harris, 23, appeared in 80 games for the Cavs from 2010 to 2012, averaging 6.2 PPG in 17.4 minutes per contest. He spent last season playing in the Ukraine, as our international tracker shows. As for Eric, he participated in camp with Cleveland last fall before joining the club's D-League affiliate in Canton.
While the five additions to the camp roster will bring Orlando's roster count to 19, only 12 players have fully guaranteed contracts. Kyle O'Quinn's deal won't become guaranteed until opening night, and Schmitz tweets that the club continues to negotiate a buyout with Hedo Turkoglu, whose $12MM salary is only 50% guaranteed. Assuming O'Quinn is ticketed for the regular-season roster and Turkoglu isn't, there should be one or two spots up for grabs in camp.
Raptors Sign Stone, Wright, Morais
SEPTEMBER 19TH: The Raptors have officially confirmed the signings of Stone and Wright, via a press release. The release also includes confirmation of Carlos Morais' deal, which we heard about over the weekend.
SEPTEMBER 13TH: The Raptors have 14 players currently on guaranteed contracts, but figure to have at least 17 players in camp next month, according to Doug Smith of the Toronto Star (via Twitter). Smith identifies two of the team's camp invitees as Julyan Stone and Chris Wright.
Stone agreed to terms with the Raptors earlier in the offseason, but that deal fell through when the 24-year-old failed a physical with the club. A report last month indicated that the two sides had remained in touch, and the new arrangement suggests that the Raps still have interest in bringing Stone to camp if little or no guaranteed money is involved. As I noted when Toronto first reached an agreement with the guard, the presence of new GM Masai Ujiri in the team's front office was likely a significant factor in the signing the former Nugget.
As for the Raptors' other invitee, there are two Chris Wrights with NBA experience, so we'll have to wait for further word from Smith or confirmation from the team to be 100% sure which one is heading to Toronto. But I'm assuming the Wright in question is the forward from Dayton, rather than the guard from Georgetown. The Dayton product participated in camp with the Raps a year ago, so it makes sense that the team would bring him back for another look, and perhaps to give him another shot at a regular-season roster spot.
Sixers Sign Nerlens Noel
Over two and a half months after drafting him, the Sixers have officially signed Nerlens Noel to a rookie-scale contract, according to Mark Deeks of ShamSports.com (via Twitter). As our chart of rookie salaries shows, that should put Noel in line for a first-year salary worth about $3.17MM.
Noel, 19, played 24 games for the Wildcats in his freshman year at Kentucky before a torn ACL sidelined him for the remainder of the season. Before the injury, he averaged 10.5 PPG, 9.5 RPG, and 4.4 BPG, and was viewed as the frontrunner to be the No. 1 pick. However, on draft night, he fell to the Pelicans at sixth overall, and was immediately sent to Philadelphia in a trade for Jrue Holiday.
While Noel has signed, there's still no word on whether Michael Carter-Williams, Philadelphia's other lottery pick has officially inked his deal yet.