Sixers Sign Furkan Aldemir
MONDAY, 11:35am: The deal is official, team spokesperson Michael Preston announced (on Twitter).
SUNDAY, 3:18pm: Furkan Aldemir has agreed to a four-year deal in the $12MM range with the Sixers, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com (via Twitter). The first two years of Aldemir’s deal will be guaranteed. David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link) reported earlier today that the big man received his visa, allowing him to officially make his transfer to the Sixers.
The Sixers first reached agreement with the draft-and-stash prospect back in November. Since then, however, there have been a series of roadblocks and hurdles that delayed the union between Aldemir and Philadelphia. Now, however, Aldemir ostensibly has obtained FIBA clearance and the blessing of his Turkish club, Galatasaray, paving the way for him to pursue his NBA dream.
The Sixers obtained the NBA rights to the 6’9″ power forward in the 2013 Royce White trade with the Rockets. Aldemir, said to be a decent rebounder, reportedly wasn’t being paid in a timely fashion for his hard work as Galatasaray was behind on paying off his three-year, $5.3MM deal. The 23-year-old has played exclusively overseas since entering the draft in 2012, when the Clippers made him the 53rd overall pick before sending him to the Rockets the next day.
The deal marks one of the first attempts that Philadelphia has made to cash in on its store of overseas talent that includes the rights to No. 12 overall pick Dario Saric and two other 2014 draftees. As Hoops Rumors’ roster counts show, the 76ers are at the maximum of 15 and will have to make room for Aldemir before adding him to the roster. Aldemir is represented by agent Misko Raznatovic.
Quincy Miller Signs With D-League
FRIDAY, 3:03pm: The affiliate of the Kings has been awarded Miller off waivers, a source tells Pilato (Twitter link).
THURSDAY, 3:34pm: The Reno Bighorns, the Kings’ D-League affiliate, have issued a waiver claim for Miller, Gino Pilato of D-League Digest reports (Twitter link). The player is not expected to fall past them, Pilato adds.
WEDNESDAY. 8:13pm: Free agent forward Quincy Miller has signed a contract with the NBA D-League, Shams Charania of RealGM reports. Miller will be subject to the D-League waiver system, so it’s not yet clear which D-League team he’ll play for. Miller’s agent, Jared Karnes, confirmed to Charania that Miller was entering the D-League with the hope he’ll earn a call-up to the NBA.
Miller worked out for the Lakers last month and was one of the candidates considered to earn a roster spot on an injury-riddled Los Angeles squad. The 22-year-old was in training camp with the Nuggets before being waived back in October.
In two NBA seasons, Miller has averaged 4.5 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 0.5 assists. His career slash line is .366/.316/.702.
Sixers Sign Ronald Roberts Jr., Waive Gutierrez
The Sixers have signed Ronald Roberts Jr. and waived Jorge Gutierrez, team spokesperson Michael Preston announced via Twitter. Philadelphia had acquired Gutierrez as part of the Andrei Kirilenko trade Thursday, though coach Brett Brown hinted today that the point guard’s situation with the team was “fluid.” Kirilenko nonetheless remains on the Sixers roster in spite of reports from prior to the trade indicating that Philadelphia intended to let him go, as the Sixers are apparently interested in keeping him as a potential trade chip for later this season. Gutierrez had a $25K partial guarantee on his contract, but he’d already earned more than that his season, so the portion of his minimum salary that he’d collected so far this season will remain on Philly’s books. It’s unclear what sort of contract Roberts is getting.
Roberts, 23, is well-known to the Sixers, having spent training camp with the team in October after going undrafted out of St. Joseph’s this past June. Philadelphia gave the Adam Pensack client a partial guarantee of $35K when it signed him for camp and retained his D-League rights after waiving him before opening night. The 6’8″ power forward has put up 17.5 points and 11.8 rebounds in 31.8 minutes per game for the D-League affiliate of the Sixers so far this season.
Gutierrez inked a pair of 10-day contracts late last season with the Nets before signing a contract that covered the rest of the season with a non-guaranteed salary for 2014/15 tacked on. Gutierrez earned his partial guarantee when the Nets declined to waive him before training camp, but he saw only 4.4 MPG in 10 appearances this season, much less playing time than the 16.3 MPG he saw in 15 games with Brooklyn last season.
Philly’s roster count remains at 15 players in the wake of today’s move. The team is as flexible as ever, with only nine fully guaranteed contracts.
Nets Sign Darius Morris
The Nets have signed Darius Morris, the team announced. The point guard had been a free agent since shortly after the Blazers waived him at the end of the preseason. Multiple reports had indicated that the Nets had a player they were ready to sign once the completion of today’s Andrei Kirilenko trade opened a roster spot, so it appears that was Morris. It’s a non-guaranteed deal for the minimum salary, reports Reed Wallach of NetsDaily (Twitter link). It’s not clear whether it runs only for this season or if it includes 2015/16 as well, but the Nets are limited to using only the minimum-salary exception to sign players, so the deal for Morris can’t cover more than two seasons.
The 23-year-old Morris has been on an NBA regular season roster every season since the Lakers drafted him 41st overall out of the University of Michigan in 2011. He started 17 games for the Lakers in 2012/13, but he averaged only 14.2 minutes per game over the course of that season, one in which the team sent him on multiple D-League assignments. The Brian Dyke client saw 16.1 MPG over a 12-game stretch with the Sixers last year, but Philadelphia let him go less than a month into the season, and he later surfaced on 10-day contracts with the Clippers and Grizzlies.
The addition of Morris restores Brooklyn to a full 15-man roster, though only 11 of the team’s contracts are fully guaranteed. Brandon Davies, acquired in the Kirilenko trade, is on a non-guaranteed pact, while Cory Jefferson and Jerome Jordan are on partially guaranteed arrangements that are de facto non-guaranteed deals, since they’ve already earned more than the amounts of their guarantees.
Sixers Waive Malcolm Lee
The Sixers have waived Malcolm Lee, the team announced in the same press release in which it confirmed its acquisition of Andrei Kirilenko. The move is a bit surprising, since reports indicated that Philadelphia would instead waive Kirilenko upon the completion of the trade. However, John Gonzalez of CSNPhilly.com reported late Wednesday that the Sixers had interest in keeping Kirilenko in hopes of using him in a subsequent trade near the deadline. Lee, whom the Sixers re-signed just last week, is instead the roster casualty as Philadelphia needed to cut a player to accommodate its trade with Brooklyn. The Sixers, who had been carrying the maximum 15 players prior to the trade, acquired two players and gave up one in that move, so the team had to let go of someone.
Lee was on a four-year non-guaranteed contract with a team option on the fourth year, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The 24-year-old shooting guard appeared in just one game for a total of two minutes during his latest stint with the Sixers, missing his only shot attempt. He was with Philadelphia during the preseason and received a $50K partial guarantee on his initial contract, one the Sixers waived before opening night. Lee was the 43rd overall pick in the 2011 draft and spent the following two seasons in Minnesota, but he was without an NBA contract last season when he sat out following a series of injuries.
Philadelphia remains at 15 players after today’s moves. Nine have fully guaranteed deals, while another three are on partially guaranteed contracts, leaving plenty of flexibility for more in-season movement, one of the staples of GM Sam Hinkie‘s tenure.
Sixers Acquire Andrei Kirilenko
12:40pm: The Sixers also receive cash, as Philadelphia announced in its press release. The 2018 second-rounder that the Sixers would send to Brooklyn if the teams swapped second-round picks that year would be Cleveland’s pick, the Sixers also note.
THURSDAY, 12:28pm: The trade is official, the Nets announced via press release. The Sixers get Kirilenko, Gutierrez, Brooklyn’s 2020 second-round pick and the right to swap 2018 second-rounders. The Nets receive Davies, and Brooklyn’s statement also confirms the creation of a pair of trade exceptions. The statement values them at $3.4MM and $916K, respectively, but it would appear as though they’re actually worth precisely $3,326,235 and $816,482, the equivalents of the salaries for Kirilenko and Gutierrez, respectively. The Nets can use them to trade for players with salaries of up to $100K more than those amounts any time between now and a year from today.
WEDNESDAY, 8:18pm: The Sixers and Nets have agreed to a trade that would send Andrei Kirilenko to Philadelphia, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports. Also heading to the Sixers is the Nets’ 2020 second round pick, the right to swap second-rounders in 2018, and cash. In return the Nets will receive Brandon Davies. The deal is expected to be finalized on Thursday, and Brooklyn is also likely to send another minor player to the Sixers as well, Wojnarowski notes in a separate tweet. That player might be Jorge Gutierrez, Robert Windrem of NetsDaily reports (Twitter link).
Philadelphia is expected to waive Kirilenko and his guaranteed salary, worth more than $3.3MM. The Nets will save themselves nearly $12MM in salary and tax payments as a result of the deal, not counting Davies’ non-guaranteed salary of $816,482. Brooklyn isn’t planning on waiving him immediately, and will give Davies a look, reports Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News (Twitter links). The Nets are also working on signing a free agent wing player in addition to this trade, Bondy adds.
The 33-year-old Russian’s future is unclear, since Kirilenko has been dealing with undisclosed family issues that kept him away from the Nets, as well as clouded the trade talk surrounding him since it was unclear if he would be willing and able to report to any team that acquired him. The Jazz have been mentioned as potential suitors, though today’s signing of Patrick Christopher increased Utah’s roster count to the league-maximum fifteen players, which means the team would need to make a roster move to accommodate Kirilenko if it was still interested in his services. Wojnarowski’s article also lists the Cavs and the Clippers as teams that may be interested in signing Kirilenko.
In 12 NBA seasons, Kirilenko has averaged 11.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 2.7 assists. His career slash line is .474/.310/.754. He appeared in just seven games for Brooklyn this season, logging just 0.4 points in 5.1 minutes per contest.
The 23-year-old Davies is in his second season in the NBA after going undrafted out of BYU in 2013. His career numbers are 3.8 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 0.8 assists per game. His shooting numbers are .417/.225/.640.
Jazz Sign Patrick Christopher
1:13pm: The deal is official, the team announced. Utah didn’t cut anyone, so the roster is now at 15 players.
8:52am: The Jazz are set to bring aboard Grizzlies camp cut Patrick Christopher, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Utah has an open roster spot, so no corresponding move is required. It’s unclear just what sort of terms the shooting guard will see on his deal, or whether any salary will be guaranteed, but it’s likely a prorated minimum-salary arrangement, even though the Jazz have the capacity to give more.
Christopher, 26, has been with the Grizzlies’ D-League affiliate since shortly after Memphis waived his non-guaranteed NBA contract at the end of the preseason. It was the second straight year that Christopher had signed a deal for camp with an NBA team, though Chicago cut him on just the second day of camp in 2013 after having used his presence on the roster to facilitate the addition of others on Exhibit 9 contracts that limited the team’s liability in case of injury. He spent last season in the D-League, racking up 13.6 points in 33.5 minutes per game on sizzling 44.6% three-point shooting. Christopher has made only 39.0% of his attempts from behind the arc in a limited sample size of seven D-League games this year, but his scoring is up to 15.0 PPG in increased playing time of 36.4 MPG. He was a D-League All-Defensive Second Team selection last year, and before going undrafted in 2010, he was twice an All-Pac-10 First Team selection at the University of California.
The Jazz have only 12 fully guaranteed contracts on their roster. Toure’ Murry, who hasn’t played for Utah yet this season, has already earned more salary than his $250K partial guarantee, so he’s on a de facto non-guaranteed contract. It’s conceivable that the Jazz would let him go to sign Christopher and maintain an open roster spot, though there’s no indication that they’ll actually do so. Joe Ingles has a non-guaranteed pact, but he’s averaging 17.6 minutes per game as part of the Jazz’s rotation.
Will Cherry To Play In Lithuania
SUNDAY, 2:00pm: Zalgiris Kaunas confirmed the deal via Twitter.
FRIDAY, 4:55pm: Free agent Will Cherry is finalizing a deal to join the Lithuanian team Zalgiris Kaunas, David Pick of Eurobasket reports (Twitter link). Cherry was waived on November 30th by the Cavs in order to clear a roster spot so that Cleveland could claim A.J. Price off waivers. Gino Pilato of D-League Digest reported earlier today that Cherry was headed overseas rather than intending to rejoin the D-League.
Pick also tweets that the deal isn’t likely to be completed until Monday, which is when Cherry would clear D-League waivers, which he is expected to do. The point guard had signed a D-League deal with the affiliate of the Cavs shortly after the Raptors let him go at the end of the preseason and before Cleveland signed him for the big club in the first week of the regular season. The Cavs affiliate rescinded its rights to Cherry so that he wouldn’t have to pay a buyout to head overseas, according to Pilato (Twitter link).
The 6’1″, 23-year-old Cherry appeared in eight games for the Cavs this year, averaging 1.9 points and logging 8.6 minutes per night. Cherry had notched 12.8 PPG and 4.0 RPG while playing 25.3 minutes per contest in five games for the Cavs Summer League team in Las Vegas. He had also played for the Cavs’ D-League affiliate last season, when he provided 11.6 PPG, 3.7 RPG, and 4.5 APG in 30.4 MPG.
Pelicans Sign Gal Mekel
The Pelicans have signed free agent Gal Mekel, the team announced in a press release. Roey Gladstone of Israeli Channel 5 TV was the first to report the news. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Gladstone tweets that it is a two-year deal which contains a team option for the second season, and Marc Stein of ESPN.com adds (Twitter link) that the contract is non-guaranteed. This signing will increase New Orleans’ roster count to the league-maximum 15 players.
New Orleans had one open roster spot available after waiving Patric Young and Darius Miller on Sunday and inking Dante Cunningham to a deal yesterday. Mekel will add depth at the point guard position behind Jrue Holiday.
The 26-year-old guard joined the Mavs in 2013 after putting up 13.3 points, 5.4 assists and 2.5 turnovers in 32.3 minutes per game during 2012/13 for Maccabi Haifa in his native Israel. He inked a fully guaranteed three-year contract for the minimum salary to come stateside, but Dallas instead chose to eat the salaries for the final two years to instead sign J.J. Barea shortly after opening night.
Sixers Sign Malcolm Lee, Waive Drew Gordon
4:12pm: The signing of Lee is official, the Sixers announced in a press release. The team also confirmed that Gordon has been waived in the same announcement.
3:03pm: The Sixers are signing Malcolm Lee and waiving Drew Gordon to make room, reports Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link). Pompey’s tweet indicates that the move has already taken place, though the team has yet to make an official announcement. Philadelphia wanted to add a point guard with both Tony Wroten and Alexey Shved out with injuries for tonight’s game against Oklahoma City, Pompey adds (on Twitter). Gordon signed a four-year non-guaranteed deal for the minimum salary nearly a month ago, while Lee returns to the team after having spent the preseason with Philadelphia.
Lee, a two-year NBA veteran, has been playing with the Sixers D-League affiliate since Philly kept his D-League rights when it waived him in October. The 24-year-old was averaging just 6.0 points, 4.0 assists and 2.0 turnovers in 22.5 minutes per game in four D-League appearances this season. His production in the minor league is relatively similar to the numbers he put up in 35 NBA games over two seasons with the Timberwolves, for whom he averaged 4.0 PPG, 1.4 APG, 0.8 TPG in 15.2 MPG.
Gordon has been in his second stint with the Sixers, who brought him to camp and originally released him at the same time they made identical moves with Lee. The power forward, who’s also 24 years old, saw little playing time in nine games with Philadelphia over the past few weeks, putting up 1.9 PPG and 2.0 rebounds per game in 7.9 MPG. He’s the brother of Magic rookie Aaron Gordon, this year’s No. 4 overall pick.
The Sixers will continue to carry 15 players in the wake of this move, though only eight have full guarantees and two more have partially guaranteed pacts. Philadelphia also appears to be close to adding draft-and-stash prospect Furkan Aldemir, a 6’9″ rebounding ace who plays Gordon’s position of power forward.