Transactions Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Nets Sign Earl Clark To Two-Year Deal

April 6th, 2015 at 9:32am CST by Will Joseph

9:32am: The signing is official, the team announced via press release.

MONDAY, 7:54am: Clark’s salary for next season is non-guaranteed, a league source tells NetsDaily (Twitter link). It’s a minimum-salary deal, since that’s all the Nets can hand out.

7:19pm: The Nets and Earl Clark have reached an agreement on a two-year deal, with a team option for 2015/16, Shams Charania of RealGM tweets citing league sources.

SUNDAY, 5:56pm: The Nets will likely re-sign combo forward Earl Clark after his 10-day contract with the team expires today, Tim Bontemps of the New York Post tweets. Clark has played in five of the Nets’ six games since the team signed him on March 27th. His best game was Saturday against the Hawks when he scored 11 points and grabbed seven rebounds. With guard Alan Anderson battling an ankle injury, Clark provides decent insurance off the bench.

The 27-year-old had been a free agent following a stint with China’s Shandong Lions before inking the prior 10-day deal with Brooklyn. The five-year veteran has seemingly seized the opportunity with the Nets after struggling to find work in the NBA this season. Clark had so much trouble that he told Rod Boone of Newsday he was surprised he landed with the Nets.

The Grizzlies cut ties with him after they signed him to a non-guaranteed contract for training camp. He was later grabbed off waivers in late October by the Rockets, only to be released by the team just a few days later. He played in six games for Houston’s D-League affiliate this year and averaged 26.2 points and 8.0 rebounds in 34.3 minutes. Clark bounced to China in mid-December and produced 26.4 PPG and 10.3 RPG in 32.6 MPG for Shandong.

His last NBA action before joining the Nets came last season with the Knicks after he signed a pair of 10-day contracts. His best season was the 2012/13 campaign with the Lakers when he scored 7.3 PPG in 23.1 MPG. That season netted him a two-year, $8.5MM deal with the Cavs, who traded him midway through the first year of that contract to the Sixers, who quickly waived him right after.

Atlantic Rumors: Anthony, Hardaway, Sixers

April 4th, 2015 at 8:45pm CST by Arthur Hill

Unable to take the court because of knee surgery, the Knicks‘ Carmelo Anthony is doing a little front office work, according to Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. Anthony is offering his input into free agents he would like to see the team pursue with projected cap space of at least $25MM. “He is very much a part of the process of trying to understand what we’re looking for, how we’re going about it,” New York GM Steve Mills said of Anthony’s role in the process.

There’s more from the Atlantic Division:

The Knicks‘ Tim Hardaway Jr. is hoping to salvage what he can from a disappointing season, Begley writes in a separate story. Even though he has a wrist injury that hasn’t fully healed, Hardaway plans to be active for the team’s final six games. He offered a blunt assessment of his performance. “I’m not going to sugarcoat anything,” Hardaway said of his second season in the league. “It wasn’t the year I wanted to have. I know that, and I know the guys on my team know that, as well.” Still on his rookie deal, he is one of just five Knicks with guaranteed money for next season. He has been surrounded by trade speculation, as he is one of the few valuable trade pieces the Knicks have on their roster.
The Sixers will have a difficult decision if they wind up with the second pick in the draft, writes Tom Moore of Calkins Media. While centers Jahlil Okafor of Duke and Karl-Anthony Towns of Kentucky are considered the top two prospects, Philadelphia seems to be set in the frontcourt with Nerlens Noel, injured rookie Joel Embiid and the rights to Dario Saric, who is expected to join the team in 2016. With a need for backcourt help, the Sixers could opt for Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell or international point guard Emmanuel Mudiay, or they could look to trade the pick.
Malcolm Thomas, who was waived by the Sixers earlier this season, has signed with Piratas de Quebradillas in Puerto Rico, the team announced via Twitter (translation via Emiliano Carchia of Sportando). Thomas averaged 2.6 points and 3.3 rebounds in 17 games with Philadelphia this season.

Hawks Sign Austin Daye To Two-Year Deal

April 4th, 2015 at 9:44am CST by Chuck Myron

SATURDAY, 9:44am: The signing is official, the Hawks announced in a press release.

1:55pm: Next year’s salary will be non-guaranteed, according to Vivlamore (Twitter link).

12:53pm: Daye’s new contract will cover next season as well, Vivlamore also reports (on Twitter).

12:22pm: The Hawks will indeed sign Daye, Vivlamore confirms (Twitter link).

12:05pm: Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer didn’t confirm that the team would sign Daye for the season, but he dropped a hint, saying, “I would say he’s in a good place,” as Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution relays.

FRIDAY, 11:42am: The Hawks are expected to sign Austin Daye through at least the end of the season, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Daye’s second 10-day contract with the team expires overnight tonight.

Daye’s playing time has been sparse during his time with Atlanta, as he’s averaged 3.0 points in 6.6 minutes per game across five appearances. He saw 10.3 MPG in 26 games with San Antonio earlier this season, but the last time he averaged double figures in that category was 2012/13, the season the Pistons traded him to the Grizzlies. That ended a tenure with Detroit that began when the team made him the 15th overall pick in 2009. The veteran small forward won’t offer the Hawks much in the way of playoff experience, since he’s only played a total of 26 postseason minutes.

Atlanta’s other 14 players already have contracts that carry through the end of this season or beyond, but the team has retained flexibility with its other roster spot since trading Adreian Payne, the No. 15 pick from 2014, to the Timberwolves in early February. It originally seemed as though the club had made the trade in part to clear room on the roster to ink sought-after free agent Ray Allen, but he decided against playing in the NBA this season. The Hawks have cycled through 10-day contracts with Daye and Jarell Eddie instead, as our 10-Day Contract Tracker shows, but now it appears they’ve settled on Daye.

Lakers Sign Dwight Buycks To 10-Day Contract

April 3rd, 2015 at 7:54pm CST by Chuck Myron

7:54pm: The Lakers have officially signed Buycks, the team announced.

1:47pm: Scott specified that it’s a D-Leaguer the team is close to signing, as Medina notes in a full story. So that’s seemingly further indication that Buycks is the guy, though it appears we’ll soon find out definitively one way or the other.

FRIDAY, 1:41pm: The Lakers are close to signing a player, according to coach Byron Scott, though he didn’t say who, Medina tweets. The Lakers announced Thursday that Ellington will miss the remainder of the season, so that’ll help the team’s case for a hardship exception.

THURSDAY, 2:05pm: The Lakers are waiting for approval from the NBA for a hardship exception, according to Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times, who argues that it should be an open-and-shut case with Bryant, Randle, Young and Price all out of action (Twitter link). Wayne Ellington was also scheduled to undergo an MRI on his right shoulder, to which he suffered a mild separation during Wednesday’s game, according to Pincus and Medina (Twitter links).

12:46pm: There’s “nothing definitive” about any potential Lakers signing, according to Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News (Twitter link).

11:21am: The Lakers are signing point guard Dwight Buycks to a 10-day contract, a league source tells Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Charania’s tweet indicates that the signing has already taken place, though the team has yet to make a formal announcement. The team already has 15 players under contract, but there’s a chance the Lakers won’t have to clear another player to sign Buycks thanks to the hardship provision. The league had earlier granted the team an extra roster spot via hardship to carry Jabari Brown on a pair of 10-day deals. The Lakers couldn’t use that temporary roster relief to sign Brown to his two-year deal Wednesday, so the team waived Steve Nash to make room. Even without Nash, the Lakers have four players who’ve been out at least three games and who are seemingly expected to miss significantly more time, so the hardship remains a possibility.

Kobe Bryant and Julius Randle are done for the season, and there’s a decent chance that’s the case for Ronnie Price, too. Nick Young hasn’t played since February 22nd with a small fracture on his left kneecap. The Lakers are thin at the point with Jordan Clarkson and Jeremy Lin the team’s only healthy players at the position.

Buycks has been on the Lakers’ radar for the while, having reportedly worked out for the team in November in a head-to-head audition with Gal Mekel. The 26-year-old Buycks has since played for China’s Tianjin Steel and has been with the Thunder’s D-League affiliate for the past month. He’s a one-year NBA veteran thanks to having spent last season with the Raptors, though he played in only 14 games for Toronto, averaging 3.1 points and 0.7 assists in 10.4 minutes per contest. The 6’3″ Buycks, who went undrafted out of Marquette in 2011, has shown an all-around game in the D-League the past few weeks, adding 6.8 rebounds per game to go with averages of 18.2 PPG and 6.2 APG in 34.4 MPG. He was a scoring force in China, producing 26.9 PPG, 5.4 RPG and 5.1 APG in 37.4 MPG.

Kings Sign Sim Bhullar To 10-Day Contract

April 2nd, 2015 at 11:01am CST by Chuck Myron

THURSDAY, 11:01am: The deal is official, the Kings announced.

WEDNESDAY, 1:23pm: The Kings are about to sign Sim Bhullar to a 10-day contract, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). He’ll be the first NBA player from India, as Stein points out, and he’ll play for a team with the league’s first Indian owner, Vivek Ranadive. The Kings have been hoping that the massive 7’5″ center’s conditioning would improve so that they could see fit to bring him aboard, as Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee recently wrote. Sacramento has a full 15-man roster, but David Wear is on the last day of his 10-day contract.

Bhullar, like Wear, was with Sacramento during the preseason, and they both spent most of the year with Sacramento’s D-League affiliate. Bhullar has averaged 10.1 points and 8.6 rebounds in 25.5 minutes per game. He’s seen only 6.0 field goal attempts per game in the D-League team’s go-go offense, which helps explain a scoring output that’s below what most NBA-level prospects put up against D-League competition.

Scoring wasn’t his strong point in college, as the 22-year-old went undrafted out of New Mexico State last year, but he used his size to his advantage, recording 3.4 blocks per game for the Aggies last season. He’s swatted even more shots during his time in the D-League, averaging 3.8 BPG.

Suns Sign Jerel McNeal To 10-Day Contract

April 1st, 2015 at 2:38pm CST by Eddie Scarito

WEDNESDAY, 2:38pm: The deal is official, the team announced.

TUESDAY, 7:07pm: The Suns intend to sign Jerel McNeal to a 10-day contract, and they will not re-sign A.J. Price, Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic reports (Twitter link). Price’s first 10-day deal with Phoenix expired last night. The Suns’ roster count will move back to 15 players once McNeal is officially signed.

McNeal is a 6’3″ shooting guard who went unselected back in the 2009 NBA draft. The 27-year-old had been playing for the Bakersfield Jam, the Suns’ D-League affiliate. In 27 games for the Jam, McNeal averaged 18.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 4.6 assists in 32.6 minutes per contest. He has previously had NBA training camp stints with the Clippers, Raptors and Rockets. The Pelicans and Jazz have briefly carried him on regular season rosters in the past, but he didn’t see action during either stint, so he’s technically a two-year veteran even though he has yet to make his official NBA debut.

Price had also played for the Pacers and Cavaliers this season. He appeared in 10 games with Indiana, averaging 10.5 points, 2.7 assists and 19.3 minutes, before the club waived him in late November. Cleveland then claimed him off waivers and he appeared in 11 games with the Cavs, averaging just 2.0 points, 1.2 assists and 7.9 minutes, until they waived him in early January. In five appearances for the Suns, Price notched 1.2 PPG and 1.2 APG in 8.8 minutes per contest.

Lakers Waive Steve Nash, Re-Sign Jabari Brown

April 1st, 2015 at 12:55pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Lakers have waived Steve Nash and re-signed Jabari Brown, the team announced via press release. The team refers to its contract with Brown as a multiyear deal. Brown had been with the Lakers on two 10-day contracts thanks to the hardship provision, which allowed the Lakers to carry him even though they already had 15 players. The league hands out an extra roster spot for only 10 days at a time, and with the team unable to sign Brown to anymore 10-day deals, the Lakers are clearing Nash, who’s already announced his retirement, from the roster.

The team will still pay out Nash’s $9.701MM salary for this season, barring the thoroughly unlikely outcome that another team claims him off waivers. However, there’s little added cost with Brown’s deal, since it has to be merely a prorated minimum-salary arrangement. The lack of any other way aside from the minimum-salary exception to sign Brown means it’s a two-year deal for him, as Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times points out (Twitter link). Next season’s salary is non-guaranteed, according to fellow Times scribe Mike Bresnahan (on Twitter).

Nash hasn’t played the entire season because of nerve issues that resurfaced during the preseason, and 41-year-old has said that the only reason he delayed his announcement, which didn’t take place until last month, was so the Lakers could use his contract as a trade chip. The team didn’t end up trading him, even though the Lakers reportedly offered him to the Celtics as part of a Rajon Rondo package, and the two-time MVP drew scorn from Lakers fans as he was an infrequent presence around the team during the first half of the season. He also lost fans when he said he was sticking around this season in large measure just so he could collect his salary. Nash was a landmark acquisition for the Lakers in 2012, but his body failed to allow him to live up to his three-year deal worth more than $27.9MM.

Brown, a college teammate of fellow Laker Jordan Clarkson, was with the Lakers during the preseason and spent most of 2014/15 with L.A.’s D-League affiliate. The 22-year-old Brown performed well on his 10-day deals, averaging 9.4 points in 24.5 minutes per game across 10 appearances, and he made 11 out of 24 total three-point attempts.

Blazers Sign Tim Frazier For Rest Of Season

March 30th, 2015 at 8:34pm CST by Chuck Myron

8:34pm: Portland has officially inked Frazier for the remainder of the season, the team announced.

4:14pm: The Blazers are planning to sign point guard Tim Frazier to a deal that covers the rest of the season, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Portland has an open roster spot, so a corresponding move wouldn’t be necessary. The D-League just named Frazier its Player of the Week for his performance with the Celtics affiliate.

The 24-year-old was with Boston’s NBA club for the preseason on a non-guaranteed contract, but the Celtics let him go before opening night. The idea was to secure his D-League rights, but the Blazers appear poised to become the second team other than the Celtics to bring him back to the NBA this season. The Sixers gave Frazier a pair of 10-day contracts in February, but they terminated the last one before it ended to accommodate their waiver claim of former Blazer Thomas Robinson. That was in spite of Frazier’s 7.2 assists in 28.6 minutes per game over six appearances, three of them starts, for the Sixers.

Frazier went back to the D-League after Philadelphia let him go, and the first-year pro who went undrafted out of Penn State this past summer continued toward averages of 16.1 points, 9.5 assists and 3.3 turnovers in 35.6 minutes per game for the Maine Red Claws. He doesn’t appear in line for much playing time in Portland, where Damian Lillard and Steve Blake man the point, unless the team is planning on resting Lillard down the stretch of the regular season. I’d imagine there’s a non-guaranteed or partially guaranteed salary for next season included as part of the arrangement, but that’s just my speculation.

Knicks Sign Ricky Ledo To Second 10-Day

March 29th, 2015 at 2:24pm CST by Zachary Links

The Knicks announced that they have signed Ricky Ledo to another 10-day pact, as Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv tweets. Ledo signed his first 10-day with New York on March 19th.

Ledo was waived by the Mavs around the trade deadline to make room for Amar’e Stoudemire. He only appeared in five games with Dallas this season, spending the lion’s share of his time with the Texas Legends, the club’s D-League affiliate. The 22-year-old guard has seen 18.6 minutes per game with the Knicks across his five contests in New York, averaging 7.2 PPG and 2.2 RPG.

As Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com (on Twitter) pointed out when Ledo was signed to his first 10-day pact, the guard’s presence decreases the likelihood of Thanasis Antetokounmpo being added to the Knicks’ roster in 2014/15. The athletic prospect has been playing for the team’s D-League affiliate in Westchester and has yet to be called up to the main roster, even though the Knicks are clearly playing with the future in mind.

Clippers Sign Lester Hudson To 10-Day Deal

March 29th, 2015 at 12:35pm CST by Arthur Hill

12:35pm: The signing is official, Woike tweets.

8:56am: Guard Lester Hudson will sign a 10-day contract with the Clippers today, tweets Dan Woike of The Orange County Register. Hudson, who had been playing with the Liaoning Flying Leopards in China, will be available for today’s game with the Celtics.

He has spent parts of three seasons in the NBA with the Celtics, Grizzlies, Wizards and Cavaliers, with his last NBA action coming in 2012. His career averages are 4.8 points, 1.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game in 10.3 minutes of playing time.

Hudson gained fame in college when he recorded a quadruple-double at Tennessee-Martin. He was twice named Player of the Year in the Ohio Valley Conference before being drafted 58th overall in 2009 by the Celtics.

The signing probably means that Nate Robinson won’t be issued another 10-day contract. Robinson’s balky knee had limited his playing time, and his first deal expired March 16th. It also raises questions about the availability of Jamal Crawford for the rest of the season.