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Pelicans Sign Jimmer Fredette

November 10th, 2015 at 12:20pm CST by Chuck Myron

12:20pm: It’s a non-guaranteed contract, according to Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com (Twitter link).

TUESDAY, 11:39am: The signing is official, the Pelicans announced via press release, adding that they indeed received league approval for a 16th roster spot.

2:39pm: The team has submitted its application for a hardship provision, Reid writes in a full story. Coach Alvin Gentry said uncertainty remains until the league grants approval for the 16th roster spot, adding that the Pelicans hold Fredette in high regard, but Reid hears from sources who confirm that the Pelicans will indeed sign Fredette, pending NBA approval, which could come as early as Tuesday.

11:43am: The team is in the process of applying for the hardship provision, as John Reid of The Times Picayune hears (Twitter link), so it would appear the signing has still yet to occur.

MONDAY, 10:23am: The Pelicans are signing Jimmer Fredette using the hardship provision for a 16th roster spot, reports Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). The team hasn’t made an announcement, but Charania indicates the move has already taken place. The former college star and 10th overall pick had started the season in the D-League with the Knicks affiliate shortly after the Spurs released him from their training camp roster last month. New Orleans, the team for which Fredette played last year, has been dealing with a rash of injuries for several weeks, and Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported Friday that Kendrick Perkins is expected to miss the next three months.

Fredette, who made his reputation at BYU as a dead-eye shooter from behind the arc, made just 18.8% of his 3-point attempts for the Pelicans last season, and he didn’t impress during the small sample size of San Antonio’s preseason, going 2 for 10 from the floor and 0 for 3 from 3-point range. Still, New Orleans is in need of healthy players, with Perkins joining Norris Cole, Tyreke Evans and Quincy Pondexter among those currently shelved with long-term injuries. Omer Asik is questionable for Tuesday’s game. Teams need four players who are expected to miss at least two weeks to qualify for the extra roster spot via hardship, so New Orleans fits the bill.

The Pelicans are set to become the second team to use a hardship provision this season. The Sixers last week signed Phil Pressey to become their 16th man. It’s temporary relief, as both the Pelicans and Sixers would have to apply for another hardship provision after 10 days. If the league denies them, the teams would have to cut back to 15 men, though they could elect to keep Fredette and Pressey and offload other players instead. It’s unclear if Fredette is receiving any guaranteed money on his deal.

Fredette is also joining Pressey as the second D-League call-up of the season. New York’s D-League team picked Fredette second overall in the D-League draft on November 1st, after the Jazz affiliate took Jeff Ayres. Fredette, the once-heralded prospect, said recently that he hadn’t heard from Knicks team president Phil Jackson or coach Derek Fisher about joining New York’s NBA roster, which includes an open spot.

Do you think Fredette will stick with the Pelicans for this season, or will he be gone as soon as the team returns to health? Leave a comment to tell us.

Rockets Waive Chuck Hayes

November 8th, 2015 at 7:30pm CST by Will Joseph

7:30pm: The move is official, the team announced (Twitter link).

5:02pm: Hayes’ agent Calvin Andrews confirmed the move to Mark Berman of Fox 26 (Twitter link).

4:43pm: The Rockets are waiving Chuck Hayes, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter). The team has yet to make an announcement, though Wojnarowski indicates that it has already taken place. Hayes’ time with Houston was expected to be short, Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle tweets, as he was filling in while the team had some injuries. Feigen also tweets that power forward Terrence Jones will likely return soon from an injury.

The deal the Rockets signed with Hayes last weekend covered one year at the prorated minimum salary and was non-guaranteed. Hayes was reportedly going to sign with the Rockets over the summer, but a deal fell through in late August. He received assistant coaching interest from several teams, including the Rockets, but wanted to continue his playing career.

Hayes agreed to a one-year deal with the Clippers, but lost a training camp battle with Luc Mbah a Moute for their final roster spot. The 32-year-old began his NBA career with the Rockets in 2005/06 and spent six seasons in Houston. He played last season in Toronto, averaging 1.7 points and 1.8 rebounds in 29 games.

Henry Walker Signs Overseas Deal

November 6th, 2015 at 4:33pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Five-year NBA veteran Henry Walker has signed with Cedevita Zagreb of the Croatian League, international journalist David Pick reports (Twitter link). The deal covers the 2015/16 campaign, and the contract does include an NBA out clause, Pick notes.

Walker, 28, appeared in 24 games with the Heat last season, averaging 7.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.2 assists in 26.2 minutes per contest. His career numbers are 6.0 PPG and 2.2 RPG to accompany a slash line of .446/.369/.760. The swingman had joined Miami on a pair of 10-day contracts that led to a deal for the rest of the 2014/15 season, with a non-guaranteed salary for the 2015/16 campaign included in that pact. Miami released him back in July, and it was reported that the Blazers had interest in Walker, but no NBA deal materialized for the player.

The small forward had agreed to a deal to join the fledgling Amerileague back in October, but that was before the league’s CEO, Cerruti Brown, was outed for using a fictitious name and was revealed to be Glendon Alexander, a former McDonald’s All-American with multiple fraud convictions.

Mavs Sign Rick Carlisle To Extension

November 5th, 2015 at 4:55pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

4:55pm: The extension is official, the Mavericks announced via press release. “We are excited to retain Coach Carlisle in the Mavericks family,” Cuban said. “He is a championship-caliber coach that has made this organization better on and off the court.”

The coach was equally excited about remaining with Dallas. “Mark Cuban, Donnie Nelson and Dirk Nowitzki are the reason an extension like this is possible,” Carlisle said. “I have the best owner and general manager in sports, and one of the greatest players in NBA history to thank for this opportunity. There is much work to be done as we move forward.”

3:59pm: The Mavericks and head coach Rick Carlisle have reached an agreement on a five-year, $35MM contract extension, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports (Twitter links). Carlisle will finish out his current deal covering both this season as well as 2016/17, which is a team option, and his extension will run through the 2021/22 campaign, Stein notes. Stein first reported that the two sides were close to reaching an agreement last month.

Carlisle signed a four-year deal before the 2012/13 season, and team owner Mark Cuban had said a few weeks ago that he and Carlisle shared interest in continuing their partnership for the long term. Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson also said this past spring that Carlisle could remain with Dallas as long as he wished.

The 56-year-old is the president of the NBA Coaches Association and is widely respected around the league. Carlisle led the Mavs to the NBA title in 2011 and has been with the franchise since May 2008, making him the third longest-tenured head coach in the NBA. He won Coach of the Year honors for the Pistons back in 2002, which was his first season as an NBA head coach. Carlisle led Detroit to back-to-back 50-win seasons before beginning a four-year tenure with the Pacers. He’s 619-431 over 13 full seasons as an NBA head coach, and he owns a 57-58 postseason record. For Dallas, he’s gone 338-220 in the regular season and 27-26 in the playoffs.

Nuggets Re-Sign Papanikolaou, Waive Green

November 5th, 2015 at 11:42am CST by Chuck Myron

11:42am: The moves are official, the team announced via press release.

10:10am: The Nuggets are waiving Erick Green to clear the way for the return of Kostas Papanikolaou, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reports (Twitter link). Christopher Dempsey of the Denver Post confirms the team is indeed expected to re-sign Papanikolaou, whom Denver cut before the season (Twitter link). The Nuggets are thin in the frontcourt with injuries to Wilson Chandler, Jusuf Nurkic, Joffrey Lauvergne and Nikola Jokic, as Wojnarowski and Dempsey point out (Twitter link), so Papanikolaou, a 6’8″ combo forward, can shore up that part of the team. Green, a point guard, was on a deal partially guaranteed for $100K, so the Nuggets will owe him that amount if he clears waivers.

It’s possible that Lauvergne and Jokic will play tonight, according to Dempsey (Twitter link), so the Nuggets don’t qualify for a hardship provision of a 16th roster spot, which would require them to have four players who are expected to be sidelined for at least two weeks. Thus, Denver, which has been carrying the maximum 15 players, has to drop a player in order to add one.

Papanikolaou, a 25-year-old native of Greece, averaged 4.2 points and 2.7 rebounds in 18.5 minutes per game across 43 appearances with the Rockets last season, his first in the NBA. He didn’t live up to his contract, worth more than $9MM over two years, and they traded him to the Nuggets in the Ty Lawson deal. Denver released Papanikolaou before his nearly $4.798MM salary for this season would have become guaranteed, and that was no surprise after he averaged just 1.8 points per game for the Greek national team at this summer’s Eurobasket tournament.

It’s a quick turn of fortunes for Green, whom the Nuggets kept instead of Nick Johnson when they had to trim their roster at the end of the preseason. Johnson, another player who came to Denver in the Lawson trade, had $1.825MM worth of guaranteed salary remaining over two seasons on his contract. Still, Green, the 46th pick in the 2013 draft, had yet to score in only about seven minutes of action so far this season.

Do you think the Nuggets are making a wise move? Leave a comment to let us know.

Sixers Sign Phil Pressey

November 4th, 2015 at 6:22pm CST by Chuck Myron

6:22pm: The signing is official, the Sixers announced in a press release.

1:31pm: The Sixers will sign point guard Phil Pressey using a hardship provision for a 16th roster spot, a source tells Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News (Twitter link). Coach Brett Brown expressed a preference for the team to add a point guard as he spoke with reporters today, notes Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Big man Furkan Aldemir was reportedly a likely addition, but he’s close to signing a deal to play in Turkey. The Sixers qualify to petition the league for the right to add a 16th player, one more than the regular season limit, because Joel Embiid, Carl Landry, Kendall Marshall and Tony Wroten are all expected to miss at least the next two weeks. Robert Covington, who aggravated a sprained right MCL in practice Tuesday, will also likely miss the next two weeks, Pompey wrote today in a separate piece.

Pressey, 24, had just joined the roster of the Idaho Stampede, the the Jazz’s D-League team, after Utah had designated him as an affiliate player. Thus, Pressey is poised to become the first D-League call-up of the year, notes Chris Reichert of Upside & Motor (on Twitter). The Jazz briefly had him on their NBA roster after snagging him off waivers from the Trail Blazers, for whom he played in training camp. Pressey lost a training camp battle for the third point guard job in Portland to Tim Frazier, a former Sixers point guard.

The Celtics, who released Pressey this summer, remain the only NBA team for which he’s ever seen regular season action. He impressed as a rookie in 2013/14, posting a 3.2-to-1.2 assists-to-turnovers ratio in 15.1 minutes per game for Boston.

Hardship provisions had been rare before last season, when the league granted them to a handful of injury-hit teams. The Sixers will have a 10-day window to keep a 16-man roster before they must reapply to the NBA. They can keep Pressey if they wish once their other players return to health and the extra roster spot is no longer available to them, but they would have to offload someone else to do it. The Sixers nonetheless have a wealth of cap flexibility, with only 10 fully guaranteed deals among the 15 players already on the roster. The team is also about $4MM below the league’s $63MM minimum team salary.

Do you think Pressey is the right pickup for the Sixers? Leave a comment to let us know.

Raptors Ink Terrence Ross To Three-Year Extension

November 2nd, 2015 at 11:17pm CST by Dana Gauruder

NBA: Preseason-Los Angeles Clippers at Toronto Raptors

Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

The Raptors and swingman Terrence Ross have reached an extension deal for three years and nearly $33MM, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports tweets. It comes closer to $10.5MM than $11MM, according to Sportsnet’s Michael Grange (on Twitter). In any case, Sam Amick of USA Today confirms the agreement (Twitter link) and the team’s media relations department later tweeted the extension was formally signed.

Raptors GM Masai Ujiri believes Ross is developing into a core player, Wojnarowski adds in a subsequent post. He started 61 games last year, averaging 9.8 points, and had a 21-point game against the Celtics on Friday.

Ross is currently serving as a backup to All-Star DeMar DeRozan and DeMarre Carroll. Ross is the second Raptors player to sign a rookie extension before the deadline, Wojnarowski notes, joining center Jonas Valanciunas, who signed a four-year, $64MM extension during the offseason.

The Raptors made a business decision to extend Ross and Valanciunas because they would have had to spend as much or more in summer to retain them, Josh Lewenberg of TSN Sports tweets.

Ross, the eighth overall pick in the 2012 draft, said this weekend that it would be “an honor” to receive an extension. The Raptors planned in July to pursue the idea, and they began talks over the summer, as Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun reported.

Projecting that Ross’ salary for 2016/17 will be in the range of $10.5MM, Toronto now has more than $70MM in salary committed against a projected $89MM cap, though some executives and agents reportedly think the cap will go up to $95MM.

Is this deal better for the Raptors, better for Ross, or did they arrive at a fair number for both sides? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Blazers, Meyers Leonard Fail To Reach Extension

November 2nd, 2015 at 10:55pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Trail Blazers and center Meyers Leonard have failed to reach an extension agreement, Jason Quick of CSNNW.com tweets. Leonard can become a restricted free agent in July. Leonard hopes to pump up his value with a strong season, Quick adds in a separate tweet. “I’m betting on myself,” he told Quick.

That appears to be a sound strategy, considering that several teams have been quietly rooting for Leonard to enter the free agent market, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Leonard’s salary for this season is $3,075,880. The team has until the end of June to extend the qualifying offer of $4,210,880 that would make Leonard a restricted free agent.

Neil Olshey, the Blazers’ president of basketball operations, delayed the negotiation process because he wanted to avoid drawn-out negotiations with Leonard’s agent Aaron Mintz, Quick reported in late October. The Blazers wanted to preserve cap space for next summer by putting off the extension, Quick pointed out, because the first year of his salary would have counted against the cap if they had signed him before the deadline.

Leonard is averaging 7.0 points and 4.0 rebounds through the team’s first three games after averaging 5.9 points and 4.5 rebounds during his third NBA season.

Sixers Decide Against Extension For Tony Wroten

November 2nd, 2015 at 6:31pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Sixers will not give fourth-year combo guard Tony Wroten an extension prior to the midnight deadline on Monday night, a source told Derek Bodner of Phillymag.com (Twitter link). That reiterates what Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported over the weekend.

Wroten, who was originally drafted by the Grizzlies, averaged 16.9 points and 5.2 assists with Philadelphia last season before a knee injury ended his season last January. He is still rehabbing the injury and isn’t expected to return until next month.

The Sixers have until June 30th to extend their qualifying offer of approximately $3.2MM to Wroten, which would make him a restricted free agent in July. He is making $2,179,353 this season. By deciding against an extension for Wroten, the Sixers still have just $24.5MM in guaranteed salary commitments for the 2016/17 season.

Hornets Opt In With Zeller, But Not With Hairston

November 2nd, 2015 at 4:31pm CST by Chuck Myron

4:31pm: The team isn’t planning to pick up Hairston’s option barring an 11th-hour change of heart, a league source told Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer (Twitter link). If so, the Hornets couldn’t re-sign Hairston next summer for more than the value of his option.

3:16pm: The Hornets have exercised their 2016/17 rookie scale team option on Cody Zeller, the team announced (on Twitter). The team has yet to announce its intentions regarding P.J. Hairston, who also has a pending rookie scale team option, seemingly a signal that Charlotte will decline that option. The Hornets face a deadline of 11pm Central tonight to opt in with Hairston. Zeller’s option is worth more than $5.318MM, while Hairston’s is in excess of $1.253MM.

“We are excited to keep Cody Zeller as a part of our core for another season,” Cho said as part of a press release from the team. “We have been very pleased with Cody’s development on both ends of the floor and look forward to him continuing to expand his game as a member of our roster.”

Zeller, the fourth overall pick in the 2013 draft, started about half the season for Charlotte last year, though his 7.6 points and 5.8 rebounds in 24.0 minutes per game from 2014/15 hardly justify his draft position. The 23-year-old’s scoring is off but his rebounding is up so far this season. He’s come off the bench in all three of Charlotte’s regular season games.

Hairston was the 26th overall pick in 2014, but unlike the more highly drafted Zeller, he’s started all three of Charlotte’s games this season, in part because of the absence of the injured Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. The 22-year-old Hairston has put up only 4.3 points in 19.3 minutes per game so far this year, a slight uptick from the 15.3 minutes per game he averaged as a rookie last season.

The addition of Zeller’s option gives the Hornets only about $39MM in salary commitments for 2016/17, not counting the team’s three-year, $21MM extension with Jeremy Lamb. Agents and executives around the league reportedly believe the salary cap will go up to $95MM this summer. Charlotte’s cap figure for next year doesn’t include any money for Al Jefferson and Nicolas Batum, who come off the books at the end of this season, though it would still be somewhat surprising if Charlotte indeed elects not to pick up Hairston’s option. I considered both options as generally likely to be exercised when I took a leaguewide look at options in September.