Transactions Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Nets Sign Willie Reed For Camp

September 25th, 2014 at 8:47am CST by Chuck Myron

THURSDAY, 8:47am: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.

TUESDAY, 6:17pm: It’s a one-year, non-guaranteed pact, reports Zach Links of Hoops Rumors (Twitter link).

MONDAY, 12:03pm: The Nets will make Willie Reed their final addition for training camp, tweets Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News. It’ll almost certainly be a minimum salary arrangement, since the Nets can’t give him any more, though it’s conceivable that the deal might cover multiple seasons and include a nominal guarantee. The client of Bell Management International had been a free agent since the Kings cut him loose in June.

Reed, a 6’9″ power forward, has twice signed during the regular season with NBA teams, but he’s never made an appearance in an official NBA game. The Grizzlies signed him just before the end of the 2012/13 season, and the Kings did the same as this past season came to a close. Both contracts included non-guaranteed salary for the following year, but Memphis waived him in training camp last fall, while the Kings released him just before this summer’s leaguewide free agency rush. Reed put up 9.2 points and 5.6 rebounds in 20.0 minutes per game for the Pacers in summer league play this year, while he averaged 14.7 PPG and 9.9 RPG in 31.1 MPG in the D-League this past season.

The 24-year-old will seemingly compete against fellow big men Jerome Jordan and Cory Jefferson for a spot on the Nets opening-night roster, with Brooklyn already carrying 13 fully guaranteed deals. Jefferson’s contract is partially guaranteed for $75K while Jordan has a non-guaranteed arrangement. Point guard Jorge Gutierrez‘s non-guaranteed deal becomes guaranteed for $25K if he makes it past Friday with the club, and while it appeared during the summer that shooting guard Michael Jenkins would camp with Brooklyn, it’s starting to sound as if the Nets won’t be signing him after all, if Reed is truly the final addition. Brooklyn was also set to bring Hamady Ndiaye to camp, but he failed his physical and the Nets voided his contract.

Eric Bledsoe Re-Signs With Suns

September 24th, 2014 at 10:48pm CST by Eddie Scarito

10:48pm: The deal is official, the team has announced.

10:45pm: Bledsoe’s first-year salary starts at $13MM and the deal has annual raises of $500K, Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic tweets. Coro also adds that the agreement contains no trade kickers or early termination options, and confirms the earlier information that there are no player or team options.

4:49pm: The Suns and Eric Bledsoe have come to terms on a five-year, $70MM deal, Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link). The deal is fully-guaranteed and contains no options, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports notes. The max that the Suns could have given Bledsoe over five seasons is $84,789,500, so it appears he’s taking significantly less than that, given the reported $70MM figure. Still, it’s more total money than the $62,965,420 over four years that Bledsoe could have received in an offer sheet from another team, so Bledsoe can claim that victory.

This will conclude a Summer-long impasse that began when Bledsoe balked at Phoenix’s initial four-year, $48MM offer, and relayed his unwillingness to re-sign for anything less than superstar money. The former first-rounder out of Kentucky had expressed a willingness to sign the Suns’ $3.7MM qualifying offer rather than settle on a contract below the max. This would have been a dangerous gamble by the Rich Paul client given that he is coming off of a serious knee injury that limited him to 43 games last season.

Bledsoe reportedly hasn’t been in Phoenix since the season ended in April, and team management had relayed that there had not been much direct communication between the player and the team since then. There were concerns that the relationship between the two parties had fractured and the point guard’s departure after this season would be almost assured. This signing puts those concerns to bed, but now Bledsoe has to live up to the figures he will be paid.

The 24-year old was enjoying a breakout season before injuring his meniscus, averaging 17.7 PPG, 4.7 RPG, and 5.5 APG. His slash line was .477/.357/.772. But this was such a small sample size that it’s difficult to predict what Phoenix can expect out of Bledsoe the next five years seeing as his previous best was 8.5 PPG for the Clippers during the 2012/13 season when he was Chris Paul‘s backup.

Teams were reluctant to sign Bledsoe to an offer sheet, especially at max money. As the Summer wore on and most teams had used most if not all of their available cap space, the player’s options seemed extremely limited, which makes this signing a coup for Bledsoe’s camp. The Timberwolves were the only team to go on record as being willing to offer Bledsoe max money in a sign-and-trade deal, though Phoenix indicated they had no interest in letting Bledsoe go for anything less than a star player. With Kevin Love already departed for Cleveland, this left the Wolves with little to offer the Suns outside newly acquired Andrew Wiggins, who wouldn’t have made much sense for Minnesota to deal after their marketing campaign for the upcoming season centered around the No. 1 overall pick’s presence on the roster.

The hope in Phoenix is that Bledsoe’s performance wasn’t a contract-year fluke, and that he will regain his pre-injury form that made the starting backcourt of he and Goran Dragic so explosive. Phoenix is stacked in the backcourt with Bledsoe, Dragic, the recently signed Isaiah Thomas, and first-round draftee Tyler Ennis, so Bledsoe’s minutes and production may decline as a result.

Blazers Sign James Southerland

September 24th, 2014 at 10:45pm CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 24TH, 10:45pm: The deal is official, the team announced.

AUGUST 8TH, 12:33pm: The Blazers have signed free agent small forward James Southerland, according to the RealGM transactions page. The team has made no formal announcement, but the move took place Thursday, according to RealGM. The 24-year-old was briefly with Charlotte and New Orleans last season after going undrafted out of Syracuse in 2013. Terms of the deal are unclear, but it’s likely a summer contract that’ll give Southerland the chance to make the opening night roster out of training camp.

The Spurs had interest in making Southerland the 58th pick of the draft last year if he’d agree to play overseas, but he declined and wound up signing a non-guaranteed deal with the then-Bobcats. He made the team out of camp, though he appeared in only one regular season game before injuries to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Jeffery Taylor prompted the club to give Southerland’s roster spot to the more experienced Chris Douglas-Roberts.

The Cavs, Bulls, Thunder and Hawks eyed Southerland once Charlotte cut him loose, but he remained out of the league until the Pelicans inked him in the season’s final week. A spate of injuries worked in Southerland’s favor on that occasion, as he became the 16th player on the New Orleans roster at the mercy of the league, which granted the Pelicans permission to go over the 15-man regular season roster limit so they’d have enough healthy bodies. It might take another unusual set of circumstances for Southerland to remain on Portland’s roster come opening night, since the Blazers already have 15 guaranteed deals, as our roster counts show.

Still, Southerland appeared in just four NBA games last season. He spent the majority of his time with the D-League affiliate of the Lakers, averaging 14.7 points and 6.5 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per game across 42 contests for the L.A. D-Fenders.

Darius Morris To Join Blazers For Camp

September 24th, 2014 at 10:43pm CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 24TH, 10:43pm: The deal is official, the team announced.

AUGUST 22ND, 1:13pm: The team has yet to make an official announcement, but Morris has signed his contract, according to the RealGM transactions log.

AUGUST 21ST, 2:29pm: The Blazers and point guard Darius Morris have reached agreement on a non-guaranteed deal that will bring the three-year veteran to training camp, reports Joe Freeman of The Oregonian (Twitter link). He’ll join Diante Garrett and James Southerland, who inked non-guaranteed contracts with Portland earlier this month. Morris is surely receiving a deal for the minimum salary, since the Blazers are limited to paying no more than that.

Morris reportedly turned down an offer from a Serbian team earlier this summer, and that seemed to suggest that NBA teams were interested. Still, there hasn’t been much chatter surrounding the 23-year-old, who had stints with the Sixers, Clippers and Grizzlies last season but didn’t sign another NBA contract after his 10-day deal with Memphis expired in February. He’s nonetheless been one of the top ball distributors remaining on the market, as I noted earlier today, and he also made his way onto our list of the top available free agent scorers.

Morris, like Garrett and Southerland, faces long odds of making the opening-night roster in Portland, since the Blazers have 15 players with guaranteed deals. The Blazers dropped their one-to-one D-League affiliation with the Idaho Stampede this offseason, so even if Portland cuts Morris after camp but elects to retain his D-League rights, the Blazers wouldn’t be able to exert much influence over his continued development.

Pistons Sign Hasheem Thabeet For Camp

September 24th, 2014 at 10:40pm CST by Eddie Scarito

THURSDAY, 12:13pm: The team has followed up with an official announcement, via press release.

WEDNESDAY, 10:40pm: The contract has been signed, according to the RealGM transactions log.

3:45pm: The Pistons have signed Hasheem Thabeet, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link). The deal is non-guaranteed according to Stein, though the length and terms have not been disclosed yet. Thabeet’s signing brings Detroit’s preseason roster count to 19, with 16 of those players on fully-guaranteed contracts. With the Pistons’ glut of bigs on the roster Thabeet would seem to be a real long shot to stick past training camp.

Thabeet was traded from the Thunder to the Sixers in a roster clearing move back in August. Philadelphia had no intention of keeping Thabeet, and they waived him on the final day before his non-guaranteed $1.25MM salary for this coming season was to have become fully guaranteed.

The former second-overall draft pick out of UConn never came close to living up to his draft position. In five seasons Thabeet has averaged just 2.2 PPG and 2.7 RPG. His career shooting numbers are .567/.000/.568.

Diante Garrett To Join Blazers For Camp

September 24th, 2014 at 10:38pm CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 24TH, 10:38pm: The deal is official, the team announced.

AUGUST 12TH, 8:12am: The RealGM transactions log indicates the signing is official, although the team has yet to make an official announcement.

AUGUST 11TH, 1:30pm: It’ll be a two-year contract, Freeman writes. That means it won’t be an Exhibit 9, and Portland would be on the hook for his salary should he be injured while performing for the team.

1:06pm: The Blazers have reached agreement on a deal that will bring free agent guard Diante Garrett to camp, a source tells Joe Freeman of The Oregonian (Twitter link). It’s a non-guaranteed pact, Freeman hears, so it’ll be a summer contract. It’ll almost certainly be for the minimum salary, since the Blazers can’t give out anything more.

The Raptors waived their non-guaranteed contract with Garrett last month shortly after acquiring him from the Jazz in the Steve Novak trade. He was on the fringes of the rotation for Utah this past season, averaging 3.5 points and shooting 37.5% from three-point range in 14.8 minutes per game. That followed a year in which he spent the entire season on the Suns roster but only appeared in 19 contests.

The 25-year-old Wasserman Media Group client will join James Southerland, who signed last week, in a fight to unseat one of the 15 Trail Blazers known to have guaranteed deals. It works in Garrett’s favor that the two Blazers with the cheapest contracts are fellow guards Will Barton and Allen Crabbe. Portland would only have to eat less than $1MM if the team were to keep Garrett instead of Barton or Crabbe.

Lakers Sign Ronnie Price

September 24th, 2014 at 9:27pm CST by Chuck Myron

9:27pm: Price’s deal is non-guaranteed, Sam Amick of USA Today reports (Twitter link).

2:59pm: The Lakers have signed point guard Ronnie Price, the team announced. Sam Amick of USA Today reported the deal minutes before the team sent out its release. The contract covers one year at the minimum salary, according to Amick, but it’s unclear whether it contains any guaranteed money for the nine-year veteran.

Price is the third player among the handful who worked out for the Lakers earlier this month to come to terms with the club, joining former Kings Jeremy Tyler and Wayne Ellington. The 31-year-old Price had been a free agent since early July, shortly after the Magic waived him rather than guarantee his minimum salary. The Mike Higgins client put up his lowest scoring average since his rookie year this past season, but he matched a career high with 2.1 assists per game. Price has spent his NBA career as a backup, never seeing more than 14.4 minutes per contest in a single season.

Only 13 Lakers are known to have fully guaranteed deals, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to envision Price on the regular season roster. He’ll compete against Ellington, Tyler, and rookies Keith Appling, Jabari Brown and Roscoe Smith to make it to opening night.

No Deal For Sixers, Malcolm Lee

September 24th, 2014 at 3:22pm CST by Eddie Scarito

SEPTEMBER 29TH: Lee is not among the players listed on the preseason roster the team sent via press release, so presumably the deal is off.

SEPTEMBER 24TH: The Sixers have reached agreement with Malcolm Lee, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports (Twitter link). Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it’s likely a standard non-guaranteed camp deal for the 24 year-old out of UCLA. This brings Philadelphia’s preseason roster count to 18, with eight of those players having fully-guaranteed contracts, and four whose deals carry partial guarantees.

The 6’5″ shooting guard worked out for the Lakers and the Nets during the Summer, and his most recent appearance in the league was with the Timberwolves during the 2012/13 campaign. In 35 career games, including 12 starts, Lee has averaged 4.0 PPG, 1.9 RPG, and 1.5 APG. His career slash line is .385/.294/.703.

Lee will get a look in camp at the the wing as a potential backup to projected starter Tony Wroten, and with the Sixers expected to challenge the league record for losses in a season, the roster is wide open for Lee to stick around through opening night.

Kings Waive Scotty Hopson

September 24th, 2014 at 2:24pm CST by Chuck Myron

WEDNESDAY, 2:24pm: The move is official, the team announced.

TUESDAY, 11:15pm: The Kings have waived swingman Scotty Hopson, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the team has yet to make an official announcement. His nearly $1.451MM salary is non-guaranteed, so it won’t stick on Sacramento’s books. Reports on Monday indicated that the Alberto Ebanks client was moving close to a deal with Italy’s Enel Brindisi even as he remained on the Kings roster, but representatives from the Italian team denied that they were pursuing him. In any case, Hopson will have to wait at least another two days to sign to play in Italy or anywhere else, since he’ll need to clear waivers first.

The 25-year-old former University of Tennessee standout has two games of NBA experience, but he’s already been with five NBA teams after signing with the Cavs at the end of March. Cleveland appeared to add Hopson chiefly to use him as a trade chip, and he was involved in four swaps this summer, passing through the Hornets, Pelicans and Rockets on his way to Sacramento. He’s spent most of his pro career overseas since going undrafted in 2011, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him return to international ball.

Sacramento has deals with 18 players following Hopson’s departure, leaving the Kings with two open preseason roster spots to fill if they choose. It would make sense if Sacramento were to also release Alonzo Gee, the other player the team acquired in the Jason Terry trade, though that’s just my speculation. Gee’s $3MM salary is also non-guaranteed.

Wizards Sign Xavier Silas

September 23rd, 2014 at 11:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 29TH: The deal is official, the team announced.

SEPTEMBER 23RD: While the team hasn’t announced Silas’ deal, it has been signed, as the RealGM transaction log shows.

SEPTEMBER 15TH, 2:03pm: Silas has put pen to paper on a contract with the Wizards, as he tells Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link), though there’s been no official announcement from the team yet.

1:03pm: Xavier Silas has committed to a camp deal with the Wizards, reports J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. Washington is also close to an agreement that would bring Damion James to camp, Michael adds. Silas is almost certainly getting the minimum salary, and James assuredly would, too, since the Wizards can’t give out any more than that. It’s unclear whether either is in line for any sort of guaranteed salary.

Silas, a 6’5″ shooting guard, is joining the Wizards for the second straight preseason. Washington cut him before opening night last year, and he went on to play in Israel and Argentina. The 26-year-old’s only official NBA experience came in a pair of regular season games and a pair of playoff games for the Sixers in 2011/12.

James has a more extensive NBA track record, having been the 24th pick in the 2010 draft out of Texas. Still, the 6’7″ small forward made it into only 34 games in his first three NBA seasons, all with the Nets. James inked a 10-day contract followed by a deal for the rest of the season with the Spurs in April of this year, but he played in just five regular season games and didn’t appear in the postseason for San Antonio as the team made its championship run.

The Wizards are carrying 13 guaranteed deals plus a $400K partial guarantee on their contract with Glen Rice Jr., so it appears as though Silas and perhaps James would have decent chances to make it to opening night. Washington, which like so many teams is in the Ray Allen sweepstakes, would ideally round out the regular season roster with a wing player, but there’s a strong chance the Wizards will carry fewer than the maximum of 15 players when the regular season begins, according to Michael.