Heat Sign Briante Weber, Waive Corey Hawkins
The Heat have signed Briante Weber and waived Corey Hawkins, the team announced. Weber, an undrafted combo guard from VCU, struck a deal to join the Heat in September but was unable to pass a physical as he continued to recover from tears in the ACL, MCL and meniscus in his right knee suffered January 31st, scuttling the agreement. Hawkins was with the Heat on a non-guaranteed deal. The moves keep the Heat at a full 20-man roster. Miami has been carrying 13 fully guaranteed salaries, as our roster count shows.
Weber, 22, reportedly met with the Pacers this summer amid interest from half the league, but it appeared when his initial deal with Miami fell apart that he preferred to play with the Heat organization, whether it was in the D-League or as part of the NBA roster. Miami wouldn’t have been able to keep him out of the October 31st D-League draft unless it signed him to an NBA contract first, so it’s possible that the Heat are making today’s move primarily with the D-League in mind.
Indeed, it’s expected that Weber and Hawkins will both end up with the Heat’s D-League team, writes Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. Hawkins, a 24-year-old shooting guard who went undrafted out of UC Davis this summer, scored six points in 14 total minutes of action across two preseason appearances.
Earlier today I examined the decisions facing the Heat as they fill out the end of their regular season roster. Weber joins Keith Benson, James Ennis, Tyler Johnson, Tre Kelley, John Lucas III and Greg Whittington among those ostensibly in the mix for as many as two spots for opening night.
Who do you think the Heat will keep for the start of the regular season? Leave a comment to let us know.
Magic Waive Keith Appling, Jordan Sibert
The Magic have waived Keith Appling and Jordan Sibert, the team announced via press release. Both will join the team’s D-League affiliate assuming they clear waivers, the Magic also said. Appling and Sibert have matching $100K partial guarantees, so Orlando would be on the hook for those if they indeed clear waivers. The move leaves the team with 17 players, 13 of whom have full guarantees.
Appling, a point guard from Michigan State, scored six points in about 43 total minutes of play in five appearances in the preseason, while Sibert, a shooting guard from Dayton, totaled three points in approximately 30 minutes of play across five preseason games. Both are 23, though Sibert went undrafted this summer while Appling is in his second season as a pro, having spent last season with the D-League affiliates of the Lakers and Magic after a short time on the Lakers NBA roster prior to opening night last fall.
Teams can keep the D-League rights to as many as four players they waive, providing they clear waivers and agree to join the D-League, though the Magic already had Appling’s rights from his time with their affiliate last season. Centers Nnanna Egwu and Greg Stiemsma, small forward Melvin Ejim and shooting guard Devyn Marble are the remaining Magic players without fully guaranteed salaries. Ejim is the only one with a partial guarantee. He’s assured of $150K, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.
Who do you think will get the final two regular season roster spots on the Magic, assuming they carry 15 players? Leave a comment to let us know.
Jazz Exercise Options On Four Players
The Jazz have exercised third-year options on Dante Exum and Rodney Hood and fourth-year options on Trey Burke and Rudy Gobert, the team announced today. All four options are for the 2016/17 season.
The 20-year-old Exum will receive slightly more than $3.94MM. He is expected to miss the upcoming season after damaging the ACL in his left knee while playing for the Australian National Team. He appeared in all 82 games during his rookie season in Utah, averaging 4.8 points, 1.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists. Exum was part of the 2015 Rising Stars Challenge during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend.
Hood, 22, will earn a little over $1.4MM. He averaged 8.7 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.7 assists during his rookie campaign and was named Western Conference Rookie of the Month during the final month of last season.
The 22-year-old Burke will make nearly $3.39MM. He has started 111 games during his first two NBA seasons and has averages of 12.8 points 2.8 rebounds and 5.0 assists. He was an All-Rookie First Team selection in 2013/14 and has been part of the Rising Stars Challenge the past two seasons.
Gobert, 23, will make more than $2.1MM. He sparked the Jazz to a 22-15 record after moving into the starting lineup in the middle of last season. Gobert finished fifth in the Defensive Player of the Year voting and became the third player in Utah history to top 180 blocked shots in a season. He has career averages of 6.2 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game.
Cavs Sign Jack Cooley, Waive Chris Johnson
11:10am: The Cavs made it official and have announced that Cooley has been signed and Johnson has been waived.
9:15am: The Cavaliers have reached a deal with unrestricted free agent power forward Jack Cooley, Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports reports (Twitter link). The details of the agreement are not yet known, but Cleveland is over the luxury tax line and limited to offering just the league minimum. The Cavs currently have 20 players on their roster, and Cleveland will waive Chris Johnson to clear room to ink Cooley, Chris Haynes of The Northeast Ohio Media Group tweets.
Cooley, 24, was in training camp with the Jazz on a non-guaranteed deal, but Utah waived him on Tuesday. The forward made 16 regular season appearances last season for the Jazz, averaging 1.7 points and 1.6 rebounds in 5.4 minutes of action per night. While Cooley provides additional frontcourt depth, Cleveland could be bringing him in as insurance in the event Tristan Thompson‘s holdout is a prolonged one, though that is merely my speculation.
Johnson, 30, went undrafted out of LSU back in 2009, and is not to be confused with swingman Chris Johnson out of Dayton. The Johnson whom the Cavs are cutting last appeared on an NBA regular season roster back in 2012/13, when he made 30 appearances for Minnesota. His career NBA averages are 2.9 points, 1.9 rebounds, and 0.6 blocks to accompany a slash line of .562/.000/.699. He spent the 2014/15 campaign playing in China.
Pelicans Waive Jerome Jordan
The Pelicans continue to shuffle their preseason roster, announcing today that they have waived center Jerome Jordan. Jordan’s minimum salary arrangement was non-guaranteed, so New Orleans won’t be responsible for any money as a result of parting ways with the player. The Pelicans’ roster count now sits at 19 players, which includes the recently signed Nate Robinson and Bo McCalebb.
Jordan was signed in an attempt to add depth at the center position after the Pelicans revealed that starting center Omer Asik is set to miss three weeks with a right calf strain, and the team is also without backup center Alexis Ajinca for about four to six weeks as he recovers from a strained right hamstring. New Orleans had reached an agreement with four-year NBA veteran Greg Smith, but he reportedly failed his physical, so his deal was called off. The team also released center Mirza Begić earlier today just two days after signing him.
The 29-year-old Jordan appeared in 44 contests for the Nets last season, averaging 3.1 points and 2.4 rebounds in 8.7 minutes per game. His slash line was .532/.000/.864.
Pelicans Sign Nate Robinson
10:36am: It’s a non-guaranteed contract, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).
FRIDAY, 10:31am: The deal is official, the team announced.
THURSDAY, 4:15pm: The Pelicans are set to sign unrestricted free agent combo guard Nate Robinson, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports (Twitter links). The deal will be for one year, and is for the veteran’s minimum, Stein adds, though the level of guarantee on his salary is unclear. The Pelicans already have 20 players on their roster, which is the preseason maximum, so a corresponding move will need to be made prior to inking Robinson.
Robinson had reportedly been considering an offer from the Sichuan Blue Whales in the Chinese league, according to international journalist David Pick. The 31-year-old began last season with the Nuggets and appeared in 33 games before he was traded to the Celtics in January for Jameer Nelson. Robinson then reached a buyout agreement and was waived by Boston in mid-January. The veteran also played for the Clippers last season on a pair of 10-day contracts but they opted not to sign him for the rest of the campaign because of a left knee injury. The Clippers wound up re-signing Lester Hudson heading into the playoffs because of lingering concerns over Robinson’s sore knee. Robinson appeared in a total of nine games for the Clippers, averaging 5.1 points and 2.2 assists in 14.0 minutes.
New Orleans is in need of backcourt depth in the wake of injuries to Jrue Holiday, who is playing on a minutes restriction until January according to coach Alvin Gentry, and Norris Cole, who is expected to miss up to six weeks with a high ankle sprain. The team also added Bo McCalebb on a partially guaranteed deal to bolster its backcourt ranks.
Pelicans Waive Mirza Begić
The Pelicans have released center Mirza Begić just two days after signing him, the team announced. The 30-year-old practiced with the team, but New Orleans didn’t play any preseason games during his brief tenure. The move reduces the Pelicans roster to 19 players, 13 of whom have full guarantees, and it opens a spot beneath the 20-man preseason roster limit for New Orleans to formalize a deal with Nate Robinson, with whom the team reportedly has an agreement.
Begić, a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been with some of Europe’s most prominent teams, including Laboral Kuxta and Real Madrid of Spain and Olympiakos of Greece, but he’d never played with an NBA team before. He went undrafted when he was eligible in 2007.
New Orleans has made more roster moves than any other team in the past week as they deal with injuries to Omer Asik, Alexis Ajinca, Norris Cole and now Luke Babbitt, who’s out indefinitely with a left hamstring strain, as the team announced Thursday. The Pelicans signed Greg Smith and voided the contract after he failed a physical, signed Jerome Jordan, waived Corey Webster and signed Bo McCalebb in addition to their moves with Begić and Robinson.
Warriors Cut Juwan Staten
Golden State waived point guard Juwan Staten at the end of their preseason win over the Rockets late Thursday, the Warriors announced. The undrafted rookie from West Virginia was in camp on a non-guaranteed deal and made his preseason debut in that game against the Rockets, scoring two points in 10 minutes of action. The move drops the Warriors roster to 17 players, 13 of whom have fully guaranteed pacts.
Staten, 23, was one of many in Warriors camp with strong outside shooting capability, as he made three-pointers with 37% accuracy over the final two years of his college career. That covered a fairly small sample size of only 73 attempts, however. Many of his numbers fell from his junior season to his senior year. He put up 12.1 points, 5.8 assists and 2.1 turnovers in 37.3 minutes per game as a junior and 14.2 PPG, 4.6 APG and 2.0 TOPG in 31.3 MPG this past season.
The Warriors still have a few more decisions to make before opening night. They’re a taxpaying team and under no obligation to carry more than 13 players to start the season, though every team started last season with at least 14 players last year. Coach Steve Kerr likes James Michael McAdoo, who has a $100K partial guarantee, so he seems in strong position to stick. Ian Clark, Chris Babb and Jarell Eddie are the Warriors with non-guaranteed contracts.
Who do you think will get the last spot on the Warriors regular season roster, assuming they start the season with 15 players? Leave a comment to tell us.
Hornets Sign Damien Wilkins
OCTOBER 16TH, 8:24am: The deal is finally official, the team announced. That brings Charlotte’s roster to 19 players.
OCTOBER 6TH, 8:42am: The contract will be non-guaranteed, Wilkins says on his personal blog (hat tip to Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk). The blog entry recounts the events leading up to the Hornets deal for Wilkins, who very nearly left on a plane to join his Venezuelan team, and Wilkins notes that he had already signed a contract with the Venezuelan club, which evidently allowed him to break the pact.
1:43pm: Charlotte does plan to sign Wilkins, as Bonnell makes clear in a full story.
9:49am: The Hornets are indeed bringing in Wilkins for a “preseason look,” tweets Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer. That presumably confirms that the team intends to sign him.
OCTOBER 5TH, 8:22am: Nine-year NBA veteran Damien Wilkins is headed to Charlotte for a chance to return to the league, as indicated by quotes attributed to him on the Twitter feed of the Venezuelan team Guaros de Lara (hat tip to Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com). Wilkins said he wouldn’t be joining Guaros de Lara as planned after receiving word of an opportunity with Charlotte (All five Twitter links here, in Spanish). Other tweets from the Venezuelan team indicate the same, so it would appear that the Hornets are either going to work him out, sign him, or both. It seems part of an effort to offset the loss of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who has a dislocated right shoulder. The Hornets have yet to release any timetable, but it’s an injury that typically costs players three to 12 weeks, according to Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer.
Wilkins, 35, was last on an NBA contract two years ago, when the Hawks brought him to camp and waived him before the start of the regular season. He’d spent 2012/13 season with the Sixers, for whom he put up 6.4 points in 18.0 minutes per game with 33.3% shooting in 61 appearances, numbers close to his NBA career averages. Wilkins has played overseas and in the D-League since, notching 20.2 PPG and 5.7 RPG in 37.8 MPG with 33.1% three-point shooting across 50 contests with the D-League affiliate of the Grizzlies this past season.
Kidd-Gilchrist and Wilkins are both perimeter players, lending credence to the idea that Kidd-Gilchrist’s injury precipitated Wilkins’ trip to Charlotte. The Hornets have been carrying 18 players, as our roster count shows. Coach Steve Clifford has opposed the idea of adding more, but that’s a stance that’s likely changed with the injury. Charlotte has its entire $5.464MM mid-level exception at its disposal, though few players receive more than the minimum this time of year. A more significant question likely involves how much, if any, guaranteed money Wilkins would receive. Charlotte already has 14 full guarantees.
Do you think Wilkins can help the Hornets? Leave a comment to tell us.
Kings Waive Marshall Henderson, Vince Hunter
The Kings have waived point guard Marshall Henderson and combo forward Vince Hunter, the team announced. Both players were signed to partially guaranteed deals, so Sacramento will be on the hook to each for $35K this season if they clear waivers. These moves reduce the Kings’ roster count to 16 players.
Henderson, 24, went undrafted out of Mississippi in 2014 after a number of incidents involving narcotics, the string of which began during his Senior year of high school. During his final season at Mississippi back in 2013/14, Henderson averaged 19.0 points, 1.9 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 31.1 minutes per contest. His slash line was .353/.342/.817. The 6’2″ guard played overseas last season for both Al Rayyan of the Qatari Basketball League and the Iraqi club Nift Al-Janoub.
The 21-year old Hunter made 33 appearances for UTEP during the 2014/15 campaign, averaging 14.9 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 1.7 assists in 28.5 minutes per contest, and he owned a slash line of .526/.400/.602. Hunter played for the Sixers’ squad in the Las Vegas Summer League, logging averages of 7.0 PPG and 5.5 RPG in four appearances after going undrafted this year.