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Bucks Waive Nate Wolters

January 9th, 2015 at 9:56am CST by Chuck Myron

9:56am: Team has officially waived Wolters, the Bucks announced.

“We appreciate everything Nate gave to the Bucks both on and off the court,” Hammond said. “We know we will see him again in the NBA and wish him well in the future.”

9:21am: The Bucks have waived Wolters, a league source tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link), though the team has yet to make an announcement. A source has told Kennedy the same (Twitter link).

FRIDAY, 8:58am: Milwaukee is signing Martin and waiving Wolters this morning, tweets Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Bucks had trade talks with several teams Thursday but couldn’t strike a deal, Gardner writes in a full story. Jared Karnes, the agent for Wolters, hadn’t received confirmation that the guard would be waived but said that it wouldn’t surprise him if that indeed took place, as Karnes told Gardner on Thursday night.

THURSDAY, 7:12pm: The Bucks haven’t waived Wolters yet, and are trying to find a trade partner for him before taking that route, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders reports (Twitter links). There’s a belief that Wolters won’t clear waivers if cut, which is why teams may want to trade for him now to ensure that they get him, Kennedy adds.

10:34am: The Bucks are expected to waive Nate Wolters to accommodate their 10-day deal with Kenyon Martin, reports Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times (Twitter link). Milwaukee can’t sign Martin unless it offloads one of the 15 players it has on the roster, and it appears Wolters is the one to go, as I speculated, since his contract contains the least amount of guaranteed money among anyone on the Bucks. He’s making the one-year veteran’s minimum salary this year, but next year’s minimum salary is non-guaranteed.

Wolters has seen action in just 11 games so far this season, though he did receive only his second stint of 20 or more minutes since the season began in Wednesday’s blowout win over the Sixers. The 6’4″ combo guard played a much more prominent role last year, starting 31 games and averaging 7.2 points, 3.2 assists and 1.0 turnover in 22.6 minutes per game.

The now 23-year-old Wolters was the 38th overall pick in 2013, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see a team claim his deal off waivers, though that’s just my speculation. He’s on a contract that covers three seasons, so teams would need more than the minimum-salary exception to submit a claim.

Milwaukee is about $7.3MM shy of the salary cap, so if the Bucks are stuck with Wolters’ salary, which would happen if he clears waivers, they’ll still be left with plenty of flexibility. Their team salary as it stands is about $1MM shy of the minimum team salary, but because Milwaukee is still paying money to Drew Gooden, whom the team waived using the amnesty clause in 2013, the Bucks don’t have to make up that gap.

Wolves Ink Miroslav Raduljica To 10-Day Pact

January 8th, 2015 at 5:53pm CST by ChrisCrouse

JANUARY 8TH, 5:53pm: The Timberwolves have signed Miroslav Raduljica to a 10-day contract, the team has announced (Twitter link). The center will take the open roster spot the team had created by waiving Jeff Adrien on Wednesday.

JANUARY 2ND, 12:29pm: It looks like Raduljica will end up in Minnesota next week, Wolfson tweets. It’d be surprising if the team lets go of Jeff Adrien to make room on the roster, Wolfson asserts, though Adrien holds the team’s only contract without any guaranteed money.

DECEMBER 29TH: There’s no deal between Raduljica and the Wolves yet, and if it’s to happen, it probably won’t for at least a few more days, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities. Sunday, Wolfson cautioned that at least one hurdle remained but said that signs pointed toward a pact between Minnesota and the big man (Twitter link).

DECEMBER 28TH: Free agent center Miroslav Raduljica is finalizing a deal to play with Minnesota for the remainder of the season, according to Shams Charania of Real GM. The deal is reported to be fully guaranteed and while there is no salary reported, it is likely a minimum salary arrangement. The Wolves currently have a 15-man roster and will have to unload somebody, by release or by trade, to accommodate the signing.

Raduljica recently agreed upon a buyout with Shandong of the Chinese Basketball Association. The seven-footer played the 2013/14 season with Bucks and shot 54.0% from the field while averaging 3.8 points per game.

Last offseason, Raduljica was traded to the Clippers along with Carlos Delfino and was subsequently waived. The Bucks received Jared Dudley and a first-round draft pick in the deal.

Blazers Ink GM Neil Olshey To Extension

January 8th, 2015 at 3:21pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Trail Blazers have signed GM Neil Olshey to a three-year contract extension, the team has announced. David Aldridge of NBA.com (Twitter link) was the first to report the deal. Olshey has also been named President of Basketball Operations as a part of the arrangement. The deal is fully guaranteed for three years and contains a team option for a fourth season, Sam Amick of USA Today reports (Twitter link).

The 49-year-old Olshey is Portland’s 10th GM in the franchise’s history, and has been with the team since June 4th, 2012. Olshey came to the Blazers from the Clippers, where he served as the team’s Vice President of Basketball Operations for two seasons, and was with Los Angeles for a total of nine years.

“Our team has made great strides under Neil’s leadership, and I am excited to extend his contract,” team owner Paul Allen said. “Neil has done an outstanding job as General Manager by quickly rebuilding our team into a playoff contender. The franchise is clearly on the upswing, and I hope to see further improvements in the years to come.”

“This extension is a validation of the efforts of the entire Trail Blazers front office and an endorsement of the level of commitment expected of us by our owner Paul Allen,” said Olshey. “The level of passion for this franchise by our owner, season ticket holders and fans, drives us to build a team that this community can be proud of.”

In Olshey’s first season in Portland the team went 33-49, but last season the team improved markedly, posting a record of 54-28, which was the largest season-to-season improvement in franchise history and Portland’s sixth-best record all-time.

Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images.

Sixers Release Jared Cunningham

January 8th, 2015 at 2:56pm CST by Chuck Myron

2:56pm: Sixers coach Brett Brown said that the Sixers were able to trade for Cunningham without clearing a roster spot beforehand “because of [Andrei] Kirilenko’s absence, it’s allowed for us to have a flexible spot,” notes Tom Moore of Calkins Media. It remains unclear if that “flexible spot” came about via hardship or another means. Kirilenko hasn’t reported to the Sixers since last month’s trade, and the Sixers are reportedly pushing him to do so. Teams and the NBA both have the ability to suspend players who fail to report following trades, and if the suspension is long enough, clubs can clear an extra roster spot by placing the suspended player on the Suspended List. Still, there’s been no report indicating that the NBA or the Sixers have suspended Kirilenko.

8:32am: The Sixers waived Jared Cunningham as expected Wednesday, according to the RealGM transactions log. The team has yet to make an official announcement. Philadelphia acquired him from the Clippers via trade and quickly released him so that his non-guaranteed contract will have cleared waivers in advance of the leaguewide guarantee date on Saturday. The approximately $388K in salary that Cunningham earned this season while with the Clippers will count against Philadelphia’s cap figure unless another team claims him off waivers, though that matters little to the Sixers, who are still far beneath the $56.759MM minimum team salary.

It’s the second straight year that the 24th overall pick in the 2012 draft has found himself on waivers, after the Hawks let him go shortly after the trade deadline last season. The shooting guard resurfaced on a pair of 10-day contracts with the Kings, who ended up signing him to a contract that covered the rest of the 2013/14 season, so it’s conceivable that he travels that path again. Cunningham beat out sought-after overseas prospect Joe Ingles for an opening-night roster spot on the Clippers but saw just 4.7 minutes per game during the regular season.

Philadelphia’s roster is a bit of a mystery, as the Sixers had 15 players before the Cunningham trade, and teams can’t trade for more players than they give up if they don’t have roster room to do so, even if they intend to waive their new acquisitions immediately. The Sixers still haven’t formally announced the Cunningham trade, though the Clippers did, confirming that they didn’t send any active players to Philadelphia to balance the deal, in spite of rumors surrounding Tony Wroten.

Sixers Acquire Jared Cunningham

January 7th, 2015 at 6:58pm CST by Chuck Myron

6:58pm: The trade is official, the Clippers have announced. Los Angeles sent Cunningham, the draft rights to Akyol and cash considerations to the Sixers in exchange for the draft rights to Lishuk. The deal allows the Clippers to create a trade exception worth $915,243, the equivalent of Cunningham’s salary. Philadelphia has yet to make an announcement, and the Sixers couldn’t have traded for Cunningham without offloading someone, since they were carrying a 15-man roster, so it would seem there’s another part of the equation still to be revealed.

6:25pm: The Clippers will receive the rights to Serhiy Lishuk from the Sixers, and Philadelphia will acquire the rights to Cenk Akyol, Bolch reports (Twitter link). Akyol, 27, was selected in the second round of the 2005 NBA draft, and Lishuk, 32, was the No. 49 overall pick in the 2004 draft.

4:52pm: The Sixers and Clippers will also be swapping rights to draft picks as part of the deal, Ben Bolch of The Los Angeles Times tweets.

2:32pm: The Clippers have inquired about Wroten, but those are preliminary talks, according to John Gonzalez of CSNPhilly.com (Twitter link).

2:01pm: It’ll be cash going Philly’s way from the Clippers, and the Sixers will indeed waive Cunningham once they acquire him, Wojnarowski tweets.

1:59pm: The Clippers aren’t taking any players back in the deal, according to Wojnarowski (on Twitter). That means the Sixers would have to offload someone before the deal can become official.

1:56pm: Tony Wroten is the Clips’ target in the deal, according to Dan Woike of the Orange County Register (on Twitter). Wroten, who’s averaging 30.5 minutes per game for Philly, is on a guaranteed rookie-scale contract that would further tighten the squeeze under the team’s hard cap.

1:53pm: The Sixers are unlikely to keep Cunningham once they acquire him, according to Wojnarowski (Twitter link). Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times counters that the Clips are merely exploring a move that will affect whether or not they waive Cunningham (Twitter link).

1:38pm: The Clippers are trading Jared Cunningham to the Sixers, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Cunningham has a non-guaranteed deal and the Clippers were set to waive him in advance of today’s deadline to do so before his minimum salary would have become guaranteed for the balance of the season. Philadelphia has 15 players on its roster, so it’ll need to either send someone to L.A. or make a corresponding move. That’s true even if the Sixers don’t intend to keep Cunningham, as is often the case with the veterans the Sixers acquire via trade.

Trading Cunningham instead of releasing him would help the Clippers financially, since it would remove his entire salary from their books, notes Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The Clippers would be stuck with the money they had already paid to Cunningham this year counting against their hard cap if they were to waive him. The team is less than $1MM shy of its hard cap, a collective bargaining agreement feature it triggered when it gave out the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception to Spencer Hawes and the biannual exception to Jordan Farmar.

Cunningham, the 24th overall pick in the 2012 draft, has only played in 40 career NBA regular season games, 19 of which have come this season after he showed enough in the preseason to make the team out of training camp. Still, he’s averaged 1.8 points in just 4.7 minutes per game for the Clippers.

Cavs Acquire Timofey Mozgov

January 7th, 2015 at 6:42pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Nuggets have traded Timofey Mozgov to the Cavs, the teams officially announced. Mozgov heads to Cleveland in exchange for the Grizzlies’ 2015 first-round pick and the Thunder’s 2015 first-round pick, both of which carry protections. The Nuggets send Cleveland the less favorable of the Bulls’ 2015 second-round pick and the Blazers’ 2015 second-round pick. The Cavs are using the $5,285,816 Keith Bogans trade exception to absorb Mozgov’s $4.65MM salary. Cleveland had been carrying 14 players, so the Cavs won’t have to make a corresponding move.

Cleveland’s monthslong pursuit of the Nuggets center had lately progressed to “serious off-and-on” talks, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe wrote earlier this week. Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio heard recently that the Cavs were no longer receiving a “flat no” from Denver. Mozgov has a $4.95MM team option for next season, which gives whichever team holds his rights a degree of flexibility. The 28-year-old has started all 35 games for Denver this season, but the Nuggets had been drawing closer to the realization that they don’t have a true chance to make the playoffs this year, as Lowe also wrote this week.

The Cavs had also reportedly targeted Kosta Koufos, a backup center for the Grizzlies, but the need to acquire a starting-caliber pivot grew when Anderson Varejao was lost for the season with a torn Achilles tendon. Cleveland used the disabled player exception the league granted to compensate for that loss to accommodate Monday’s trade for J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert, leaving the Bogans trade exception available for the Cavs to nab Mozgov, as I explained. Cleveland also acquired the Thunder’s first-round pick in Monday’s trade and used it to strengthen the package for Mozgov, which was key in convincing Denver to make the move, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports writes. Denver can create a trade exception worth $4.65MM, the equivalent of Mozgov’s salary.

The Nuggets will get the Grizzlies’ first-rounder this year if it falls from pick No. 6 to pick No. 14. The same protection is in place for 2016, as Wojnarowski lays out in his story. The protection is only for the top five picks the following two years, and it’s unprotected for 2019, Wojnarowski adds. The Thunder’s pick is top-18 protected this year, top-15 protected in 2016 and 2017, and would become a pair of second-round selections if not conveyed by then, Wojnarowski notes.

Mozgov is in his first year as a full-time starter, averaging 8.5 points, a career-high 7.8 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks in 25.6 minutes per game. He’s not among the league leaders in any traditional category, including blocks per contest, but he gives the Cavs the serviceable rim-protector they’ve lacked since the start of the season. The Nuggets, who first acquired Mozgov in the 2011 Carmelo Anthony trade, receive two picks and the trade exception, assets the team can use to navigate the stacked Western Conference, where their 15-20 record has them in 11th place and five games out of a playoff spot. Teams have been reluctant to part with first-rounders, especially during the season, in recent years, so Nuggets GM Tim Connelly comes away with an unusual haul.

Wojnarowski reported in August that the Cavs and GM David Griffin had offered a first-round pick for the 7’1″ center, but the Nuggets resisted, seemingly hopeful that Mozgov would help them make a run to the postseason. The move clears space in Denver’s lineup for the team’s plentiful other big men, including this year’s first-round pick, Jusuf Nurkic, who’s seen only 13.4 MPG so far.

Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported the teams had reached an agreement in principle, while Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com reported earlier that the sides were in advanced discussions and on course to complete a deal today. Wojnarowski reported the Cavs would send out the Grizzlies’ 2015 first-rounder and the Thunder’s 2015 first-rounder (on Twitter), while Jason Lloyd of The Akron Beacon Journal reported that the Cavs would receive a second-round pick (Twitter link).

Cavs Waive A.J. Price

January 7th, 2015 at 4:40pm CST by Eddie Scarito

4:40pm: Price has officially been released, the Cavs have announced.

4:14pm: The Cavaliers have waived guard A.J. Price, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports (Twitter link). Price’s contract was non-guaranteed, but if he wasn’t released by today’s deadline then Cleveland would have been on the hook for the remainder of his $866,789 salary. The Cavs had 15 players on their roster after the deal to acquire Timofey Mozgov, but this move will leave them with one open spot. The Cavs could conceivably bring Price back on a 10-day contract, though that is merely my speculation.

Price was signed by the Cavs prior to training camp, but was waived so that Cleveland could ink Will Cherry to a contract. The 28-year-old guard then was signed by the Pacers and appeared in 10 contests before being released when Indiana’s hardship provision they used to ink him had expired. The Cavs then brought Price full-circle when they claimed him off of waivers and waived Cherry, in order to bring Price back to Cleveland.

In 256 career games, Price has averaged 5.9 points, 1.5 rebounds, and 2.2 assists. His career slash line is .382/.319/.742.

Wolves Waive Jeff Adrien

January 7th, 2015 at 4:05pm CST by Chuck Myron

4:05pm: Adrien has officially been waived, the team announced via Twitter.

2:04pm: The Timberwolves are set to release Jeff Adrien, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). Adrien is on a non-guaranteed contract, but if Minnesota fails to waive him by 4:00pm Central today, that minimum-salary deal becomes guaranteed for the balance of the season. He’s the only member of the Timberwolves without at least a partial guarantee, and the team has been carrying 15 players, as our roster counts show.

This move would free up a roster spot for Miroslav Raduljica, whom some reports say has a deal with Minnesota, and Wolfson suggests the team has Raduljica in mind as it prepares to cut ties with Adrien (Twitter link).

In 17 games with the Wolves this season, Adrien has averaged 3.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 0.9 assists while logging 12.6 minutes per contest. His career averages are 4.6 PPG, 4.3 RPG, and 0.7 APG. His career slash line is .474/.000/.628.

Wizards Waive Glen Rice Jr.

January 7th, 2015 at 3:10pm CST by Arthur Hill

WEDNESDAY, 3:10pm: Rice has officially been waived, the team has announced.

MONDAY, 12:27pm: The team has released Rice, according to Michael (Twitter link). There’s been no formal announcement from the Wizards, but they’re set to make one shortly, Michael adds.

SUNDAY, 11:01am: The Wizards are likely to cut second-year guard Glen Rice Jr. before Wednesday’s deadline to waive players with non-guaranteed salary, lest that salary become guaranteed for the season, reports J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. The team had been trying to find a trading partner, but a 48-hour window in which a deal might have been reached has passed, according to Michael.

Rice has been stuck in the D-League since November 20th, partly because of the play of 35-year-old veteran Rasual Butler, who was the last player to make the Wizards’ roster out of training camp. Butler will be retained by the team, Michael reports, and his minimum-salary contract, which was initially non-guaranteed, will be made fully guaranteed. Rice’s minimum-salary deal is only partially guaranteed for $400K this season.

Rice was a second round pick by the Sixers in 2013 and was shipped to Washington in a draft night trade. He appeared in just five games with the Wizards this season, averaging just 2.2 points in 8.5 minutes of play. He was named MVP of the Las Vegas Summer League in 2014 and put up huge numbers in the D-League, but inconsistent shooting at the NBA level combined with a poor attitude to doom his stay in Washington, Michael reports.

Knicks Sign Langston Galloway To 10-Day Deal

January 7th, 2015 at 1:43pm CST by Eddie Scarito

WEDNESDAY, 1:43pm: The signing is official, the Knicks announced (on Twitter).

TUESDAY, 4:43pm: The Knicks are set to sign Langston Galloway to a 10-day contract, Shams Charania of RealGM reports. Galloway was playing for the Westchester Knicks, New York’s D-League affiliate. The Knicks currently have 15 players on their roster, so a corresponding move will need to be made. It was reported that New York was likely to release at least two of the three players they acquired in the three-way trade with the Thunder and the Cavs Monday night.

New York had acquired Lance Thomas, Louis Amundson, and Alex Kirk in the deal that sent Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith to Cleveland, and the speculation was that Thomas would be the only one of the three to be retained. The Knicks have until 4pm central time on Wednesday to decide who they will keep, or else they will be on the hook for the remainder of the players’ salaries for the season.

Galloway has appeared in 19 games for Westchester this season, averaging 16.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 2.4 assists while logging 36.8 minutes per contest. His slash line in the D-League this season was .447/.358/.830. The 6’2″ guard was with the Knicks during the preseason after going undrafted out of St. Joseph’s.