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Grizzlies Re-Sign Kalin Lucas, Hassan Whiteside

November 19th, 2014 at 5:59pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Grizzlies have re-signed Kalin Lucas and Hassan Whiteside, the team announced in a press release. The additions of Lucas and Whiteside today bring the Grizzlies’ roster count to 16 players, an allowance likely made because of the 20-game suspension that Nick Calathes is serving. The length and terms of the deals were not disclosed, though they are likely non-guaranteed, minimum salary arrangements.

This marks Lucas’ third stint with the Grizzlies this season, as he was with the Grizzlies during the summer league and the preseason before the franchise cut him a few days shy of opening night. Lucas was then re-signed to provide depth behind starting point Mike Conley, who had been nursing a tender ankle. He was waived for the second time on November 9th.

Lucas has not made a regular season appearance for Memphis after playing in all eight of the team’s preseason games, averaging 3.1 points and 1.0 assists in 8.0 minutes per contest. He contributed 17.0 PPG and 3.4 APG in 33.4 MPG during his senior year with the Michigan State Spartans in 2010/11 before logging time in Turkey, Greece and the D-League over the first three years of his pro career.

This will be Whiteside’s second deal with the Grizzlies this season. He was originally signed on September 25th and he appeared in five preseason games averaging 3.4 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 1.0 blocks before being waived on October 22nd.

The league may grant hardship exceptions to the 15-man roster limit when a player goes down with an injury or illness after at least three players have already missed at least three games with injuries or illnesses of their own, as long as all four are expected to continue to miss time. A virus has sidelined Tony Allen, Kosta Koufos, Courtney Lee, Jon Leuer and Beno Udrih for the Grizzlies tonight, though none have missed as many as three games yet.

That means it’s most likely that the allowance for a 16th roster spot springs from the team’s ability to transfer Calathes to the Suspended List. Teams may do so once a player suspended by the league has sat out for five games. Calathes, who received the suspension in April, has already served 18 games, spanning last season’s playoffs and the start of the 2014/15 regular season, and his placement on the Suspended List allows the Grizzlies to add an extra player in his stead.

No Deal For Scotty Hopson, Turkish Team

November 19th, 2014 at 5:56pm CST by Chuck Myron

5:56pm: Hopson has decided against signing the deal, agent Eric Fleisher tells David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link).

11:09am: Small forward Scotty Hopson is close to putting pen to paper on a deal with Galatasaray of Turkey, Ismail Senol of NTV Spor reports (Twitter link; translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). A follow-up tweet from Carchia indicates that the sides have already reached agreement and that Hopson is likely to make his debut for the team this weekend. The arrangement only covers a month and a half, though Hopson will have an option to extend it through the end of the season, according to Senol. It’s unclear how much the 25-year-old stands to earn through the pact.

Hopson spent the summer as NBA trade fodder, going from the Cavs, who signed him late last season, to the Hornets, to the Pelicans, to the Rockets, and finally to the Kings, who waived him the week before training camps began. Hopson had a non-guaranteed salary of more than $1.45MM that teams found useful to help them match salaries thanks to Cleveland’s decision to use its prorated room exception to ink him at the end of March. The Cavs would have been able to create an even larger non-guaranteed salary, and thus a more attractive trade chip, had they signed a veteran to a minimum-salary deal, but Hopson came aboard without NBA experience, having played overseas since going undrafted out of Tennessee in 2011. He was with Turkey’s Anadolu Efes when Cleveland came calling last season.

Reports shortly before Sacramento waived Hopson indicated that he was moving close to a deal with Italy’s Enel Brindisi, though the Italian team denied that there were talks, and the sides never wound up coming to terms. The former McDonald’s All-American had his best pro season in 2012/13, when he put up 17.7 points and 5.2 rebounds in 32.3 minutes per game for Hapoel Eilat of Israel. He appeared in only two games for a total of less than seven minutes during his stint with the Cavs last season.

Kings Sign Rudy Gay To Extension

November 19th, 2014 at 3:55pm CST by Zachary Links

Rudy Gay has signed a three-year, $40MM contract extension with the Kings, the team announced. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported the deal on Sunday. The extension begins with the 2015/16 campaign and includes a player option on the third year (2017/18).

“I am very excited to announce that Rudy Gay will be a part of the Kings for the long term,” owner Vivek Ranadivé said. “He is an immensely talented player who is critical to our team on and off the court, and he is a significant reason why things are changing in Sacramento. Players as talented as Rudy have their choice on where to play. He is committed to making the Kings great again and we are committed to his success. I am looking forward to seeing a sea of No. 8 jerseys filling the seats of the new arena.”

As Wojnarowski rightly notes, the ability to get out of the deal after 2016/17 gives Gay a chance to hit the open market in the summer of 2017, when there should be an opportunity to cash in thanks to the league’s new $24 billion television deal. The forward will only be 31 years old at that point, so he should be able to secure another multiyear deal if he continues to play at his current level.

It was only in recent days that Gay decided to really work toward an agreement with Sacramento rather than letting the open market dictate his value next summer, and re-energized talks led to the two sides shaking hands on a deal Saturday night, Wojnarowski writes. In late September, Gay said that he briefly began extension talks with the Kings over the summer but put them on hold when he joined Team USA. Since then, we hadn’t heard a ton of buzz regarding an extension prior to Wojnarowski’s report.

Gay is just the sixth player to sign a veteran extension since the current collective bargaining agreement took hold for the 2011/12 season, joining Andrew Bogut, Kobe Bryant, Tony Parker, Zach Randolph and Anderson Varejao. Randolph, Parker and Varejao all signed their extensions within the past five months.

“I feel blessed to be in this situation,” Gay said in the team’s statement. I’m grateful for the confidence the Kings have shown in my abilities and appreciate the way Sacramento and its passionate fans have embraced me and my family from day one. The future is bright for this franchise, and I’m thrilled to play a role in helping the organization succeed on the court and in the community.”

The client of Octagon Sports agents Alex Saratsis and Jeff Austin will make more than $19.3MM this season in what was to have been the final year of his contract. The Kings are barred from trading Gay for the next six months because he signed an extension that tacks three additional seasons onto his deal.

For his career, Gay has averaged 18.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game across eight NBA seasons with the Grizzlies, Raptors, and Kings. So far in 2014/15, the 28-year-old is averaging 21.8 PPG, 6.5 RPG, and 3.6 APG for Sacramento. Prior to the start of the season, our own Chuck Myron looked at Gay as an extension candidate.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Jason Collins Retires

November 19th, 2014 at 8:47am CST by Chuck Myron

Jason Collins has decided to retire, detailing his thoughts in a first-person account for Sports Illustrated. Collins made history last season as the first openly gay athlete to play in either the NBA, National Football League or Major League Baseball. The 35-year-old veteran of 13 NBA seasons will make a formal announcement today at the Barclays Center, as he writes in his essay for the magazine.

Collins spent the second half of last season with the Nets, who signed him in February to the first of a pair of 10-day contracts before inking him on March 15th for the rest of the season. The 7’0″ center cites the support of Jason Kidd as key to his tenure, as he writes in Sports Illustrated, and Collins presumably chose to make his announcement today in Brooklyn to coincide with Kidd’s return there for the first time as Bucks coach after he coached the Nets last year.

Kidd put Collins into 22 games last year, including one start, but he saw just 7.8 minutes per appearance, and he didn’t make it into any of Brooklyn’s postseason contests. Collins said in May that he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue his playing career, and an August report indicated that he would likely walk away from the professional game.

Collins came out as a homosexual after the 2012/13 season, one in which he played 38 games split between the Celtics and Wizards. He languished as a free agent throughout the summer and well into the season as speculation swirled about whether any team would sign him and invite the media attention that would follow. Such worries turned out to be unfounded as his presence on the Nets largely became an afterthought soon after the team signed him, as Collins details in a longer piece on his retirement for The Players’ Tribune.

He was never a household name throughout the majority of his playing career despite having played a prominent role on back-to-back Eastern Conference championship teams with the Nets in 2001/02 and 2002/03. Collins didn’t make it back to the Finals after doing so the first two years of his career, but he became well-known to NBA front offices as a rugged defender capable of going toe-to-toe with the league’s elite inside scorers. He played for the Grizzlies, Timberwolves and Hawks in addition to his time with the Nets, Celtics and Wizards, averaging 3.6 points and 3.7 rebounds in 20.4 minutes per game over his 13 seasons, numbers that belied his work on the defensive end. The Arn Tellem client collected nearly $34.2MM in salary as an NBA player, according to Basketball-Reference.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Sixers Sign Robert Covington, Waive Johnson

November 15th, 2014 at 2:35pm CST by Eddie Scarito

2:35pm: The deal with Covington is official, the team announced in a press release. Johnson has also been waived, the team relayed in the same announcement.

SATURDAY, 11:50am: The Sixers are going to waive Chris Johnson to make room for Covington, who is expected to join the team today, Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer reports (Twitter link).

12:27pm: Covington will make $1MM this year, Pick writes in a full piece for Basketball Insiders.

THURSDAY, 12:17pm: The value of the contract will be $4.2MM, Pick tweets. That’s slightly more than the $3,925,706 that a four-year minimum-salary contract would entail for the one-year veteran if he signed today.

WEDNESDAY, 8:19am: It’ll be a four-year pact, reports David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link).

TUESDAY, 7:08pm: The Sixers are intending to sign free agent Robert Covington this week, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link). Covington came close to inking a deal with the Sixers earlier, but decided to take the D-League route to begin the season. He was selected first overall by the Grand Rapids Drive in this year’s NBA D-League draft.

Covington spent much of last season with Houston’s D-League affiliate despite being on the team’s NBA roster the entire year. He earned himself a trip to the D-League’s All-Star game by averaging 23.2 PPG and 9.2 RPG in 34.1 minutes per game in 42 D-League appearances. He spent the preseason on Houston’s roster, though he was away from the team for weeks mulling offers to play in Europe before being waived.

Philadelphia had recently waived the injured Malcolm Thomas in order to clear a roster slot to ink Drew Gordon to a multi-year deal. With the Sixers current roster count sitting at the regular season maximum of 15 players, a corresponding move would need to be made in order to accommodate the addition of Covington. It’s unclear who the odd man out will be, but one of the non-guaranteed deals for Brandon Davies, Chris Johnson, Henry Sims, or Hollis Thompson seem likely candidates, though that is just my speculation.

Nemanja Nedovic Signs With Valencia

November 14th, 2014 at 8:06am CST by Eddie Scarito

FRIDAY, 8:06am: The deal is official, the team announced (Twitter link). The pact runs through June 2016, according to the club. It’s unclear whether there are any NBA escape clauses involved.

THURSDAY, 5:01pm: Nemanja Nedovic has cleared waivers after being released by the Warriors and has signed a deal with Valencia of Spain, Emiliano Carchia of Sportando reports (Twitter link). The length and terms of the deal have not been released. Nedovic was also reportedly being pursued by Efes, Laboral Kuxta, and Fenerbahce Ulker.

Valencia had shown interest in Nedovic prior to his release from Golden State after the Warriors had declined his rookie scale team option for 2015/16. Golden State is still on the hook for Nedovic’s 2014/15 guaranteed salary, worth more than $1.1MM, though set-off rights could allow the Warriors to reduce that amount, depending on how much Nedovic makes in Europe this season.

Nedovic, 23, appeared in 24 games with the Warriors last season as a rookie, averaging 1.1 points in 5.9 minutes per contest. He didn’t see any regular season action this year after averaging 9.2 points, 2.6 assists and in 15.9 minutes in the preseason.

Dionte Christmas Signs To Play In France

November 12th, 2014 at 10:19am CST by Chuck Myron

Former Suns guard Dionte Christmas has signed with Paris-Levallois of France, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). Christmas was in training camp with the Pelicans last month, but he didn’t make the opening-night roster. The terms of the new deal for the 28-year-old are unclear.

Christmas was on Phoenix’s roster all season last year even though he played sparingly. He made it into 31 games and averaged 2.3 points in 6.4 minutes per contest. The Pelicans only used him in one preseason game for a little more than four minutes. It was nonetheless the third consecutive October he’s spent with an NBA team, following a camp stint with the Celtics in 2012 and the Suns the next year.

The former Temple standout has managed to stay on the radar of NBA front offices despite never having played in the D-League. He’s made stops in Israel, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Greece, Russia and Italy since going undrafted in 2009.

Warriors Waive Nemanja Nedovic

November 11th, 2014 at 4:40pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Warriors have waived guard Nemanja Nedovic, the team announced via a press release. This comes on the heels of a report from Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group that relayed the team was in talks with Nedovic about a way to allow him to move on from the team. According to Leung, the Warriors were interested in a buyout or possible trade rather than an outright release. It is not yet clear if the two sides reached an agreement on a buyout prior to Nedovic being waived.

Unless Nedovic is claimed off waivers, which is unlikely, Golden State is on the hook for Nedovic’s $1.1MM salary for this season, and this move reduces the team’s roster count to 14 players. It was apparent that the point guard wasn’t in their long-term plans after the team declined to pick up their third-year team option for Nedovic last month. For his part, Nedovic has seemingly been the subject of attention from overseas. Valencia of Spain has targeted Nedovic as a replacement for Dwight Buycks, who reached a buyout arrangement with the Spanish club last week, according to PlazaDeportiva.com (Translation via HoopsHype).

Nedovic, 23, appeared in 24 games with the Warriors last season as a rookie, averaging 1.1 points in 5.9 minutes per contest. He hasn’t seen any regular season action this year after averaging 9.2 points, 2.6 assists and in 15.9 minutes in the preseason.

Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.

Sixers Re-Sign Gordon, Waive Malcolm Thomas

November 10th, 2014 at 1:39pm CST by Chuck Myron

1:39pm: The team has officially re-signed Gordon, and in so doing, the Sixers have released Thomas, the team announced. That $474K partial guarantee for Thomas will remain on Philadelphia’s books for the rest of the season.

11:24am: The Sixers are set to bring back camp invitee Drew Gordon on a new deal, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). That means a corresponding move is on the way, since Philadelphia has been carrying the maximum 15 players, as our roster counts show. The 24-year-old has been playing for the Sixers D-League affiliate since Philly kept his D-League rights following his release from the NBA roster last month.

Gordon has played primarily overseas after going undrafted out of New Mexico in 2012. The power forward split last season between Italy and Turkey, showing efficiency on the boards in putting up 8.5 points and 5.2 rebounds in 17.6 minutes per contest. He carried that sort of production over to the preseason this year, as he notched 6.7 PPG and 6.0 RPG in 20.3 MPG across six appearances. He’s the older brother of the Magic’s Aaron Gordon, the fourth overall pick from this past June.

It’s not easy to see who’ll be the Sixer to go, since they have five players on non-guaranteed contracts and another two with partial guarantees. All five of the non-guaranteed players have made at least one start for the team so far, with the exception of K.J. McDaniels, this year’s 32nd overall pick, who’d seem a most unlikely cut. JaKarr Sampson has made a pair of starts on his partially guaranteed deal, and while Malcolm Thomas has yet to make a start and is dealing with fluid in his left knee, his minimum salary is partially guaranteed for $474K, a larger guarantee than several of his teammates have.

Grizzlies Waive Kalin Lucas

November 9th, 2014 at 4:37pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Grizzlies have waived guard Kalin Lucas, the team announced in a press release. This is now the second time this season that Lucas has been let go by Memphis. The 25-year-old was with the Grizzlies during the summer league and the preseason before the franchise cut him a few days shy of opening night.

Memphis later re-signed Lucas to provide depth behind starting point Mike Conley, who had been nursing a tender ankle. His latest deal was non-guaranteed, so the franchise isn’t on the hook for any additional funds as a result of letting Lucas go. This move reduces the Grizzlies’ roster count to 14 players, one shy of the league maximum. It is unclear if the team intends to sign another player to fill the now vacant slot. With Nick Calathes set to return from his drug-related suspension shortly, it’s possible the team deemed Lucas expendable and intends to keep the slot open in case of an injury, which has been an unfortunate trend in the league this season.

Lucas has not made a regular season appearance for Memphis after playing in all eight of the team’s preseason games, averaging 3.1 points and 1.0 assists in 8.0 minutes per contest. He contributed 17.0 PPG and 3.4 APG in 33.4 MPG during his senior year with the Michigan State Spartans in 2010/11 before logging time in Turkey, Greece and the D-League over the first three years of his pro career.