Transactions Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Gustavo Ayon To Play In Spain

September 9th, 2014 at 10:43am CST by Chuck Myron

TUESDAY, 10:43am: The contract will cover three seasons, Pick hears (Twitter link).

MONDAY, 3:09pm: It’s a multiyear deal, a source tells David Pick of Eurobasket.com. There will be several outs in the contract, Pick hears, though it’s unclear whether any of them pertain to the NBA (Twitter links).

10:02am: Free agent center Gustavo Ayon has agreed to play for Real Madrid in Spain, reports Igor Minteguia of Solobasket.com (translation via HoopsHype). It’s not immediately clear just how lucrative the deal is or just what sort of escape clauses the contract will contain to allow him to return to the NBA sometime soon.

The Spurs had reportedly been interested in him, among other potential free agent targets, but overseas options had reportedly been proving more lucrative than any stateside offers for the Emilio Duran client. Ayon spent the past three seasons in the NBA after signing a three-year, $4.5MM deal with New Orleans shortly after the lockout. He averaged 5.9 points and 4.9 rebounds in 20.2 minutes per game as a rookie but didn’t match those numbers in either of his next two seasons. It appeared he had an opportunity to head to China before Real Madrid gave him the chance to return to Spain, where he played before entering the NBA.

Former Raptors point guard Dwight Buycks, who signed with Valencia, also jumped to Spain this summer after having played in the NBA this past season. The 29-year-old Ayon will join fellow NBA veterans Andres Nocioni, Rudy Fernandez, Sergio Rodriguez among the notable names on Madrid’s roster for the coming season.

Warriors Sign Justin Holiday

September 8th, 2014 at 4:16pm CST by Zachary Links

The Warriors have added Las Vegas standout Justin Holiday to their training camp roster, the team announced. He’ll join 17 others, including 16 who are known to have at least a partial guarantee on their deals, as our roster counts show.

The Warriors D-League affiliate, the Santa Cruz Warriors, traded Scott Machado to the Blazers’ affiliate in exchange for the rights to Holiday back in February. Golden State then got a closer look at Holiday in summer league action where he averaged 14.8 PPG and 5.0 RPG across five games. That performance was enough to make the team want to see even more of the Tony Dutt client this offseason.

Holiday’s lone NBA experience came on a 10-day deal with the 76ers back in 2012/13 where he averaged 4.7 PPG, 1.7 APG, 1.6 RPG, and 15.8 minutes per contest across nine games. After spending time in the D-League, the Adriatic League, and playing for multiple summer league teams in recent years, Holiday will now look to carve out an NBA home for 2014/15.

Greg Monroe Signs Pistons Qualifying Offer

September 8th, 2014 at 2:09pm CST by Cray Allred

MONDAY, 2:09pm: The Pistons followed up with a formal announcement today, via press release.

“I have said from day one that we have great respect for Greg as a person and like what he brings to this team as a player,” Van Gundy said in the team’s statement. “We have had good dialogue with Greg throughout the offseason with the understanding that there were multiple options for both parties involved, and we respect his decision. We look forward to a great year from Greg as we continue to build our team moving forward.”

FRIDAY, 8:29pm: Monroe actually signed the qualifying offer on Wednesday, but the news simply hadn’t broken before today, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.

5:25pm: Greg Monroe has signed the one-year qualifying offer Detroit extended in June, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The big man will play for close to $5.48MM in 2014/15, and become an unrestricted agent next summer. The decision is historic, as Monroe will become the biggest name to have signed a qualifying offer, one of just 18 players ever to do so.

Wojnarowski tweets that the Pistons and Monroe were unable to reach an agreement on a new long-term deal, although it’s unclear if there were any renewed negotiations since Monroe initially signaled his plans of signing the offer. Monroe denied a report that the Pistons had offered a deal worth five years and $60MM, one that was reportedly upped to a more lucrative offer by Detroit in early August. Regardless of what deal was on the table for the fifth-year big, the one-year pact will pay him well below the annual salary he would have fetched from Detroit or any other team on a long-term deal. While the contract is still a raise from what he earned on the final year of his rookie contract, he is taking it with eyes toward a much more lucrative deal next offseason. Monroe immediately becomes one of the more attractive free agents in the 2015 class.

At some point, Monroe apparently soured on the team that drafted him No. 7 in the 2010 draft. Monroe “wanted out” of Detroit, according to Wojnarowski, who adds that the Pistons were unwilling to pay him as a top NBA forward. Rather than pursuing offer sheets from other teams that the Pistons could match, he was seeking sign-and-trade agreements that would land him in a new city. However, Monroe was never dead set against remaining a Piston, and saw new coach and president Stan Van Gundy as a positive presence. Monroe’s wariness of a long-term future in Detroit may have stemmed from the team’s decision to sign Josh Smith to play alongside Monroe and Andre Drummond before the 2013/14 season. The ultra-big experiment was a disaster on the court, and Monroe was reportedly cool to Van Gundy’s optimism that the three bigs could coexist within a winning system.

When our own Chuck Myron ranked Monroe No. 5 in the Hoops Rumors Free Agent Power Rankings for the year, the possibility that Monroe wouldn’t sign a long-term contract this summer seemed faint. In fact, Chuck found it likely that Monroe would agree to a max deal in his Free Agent Stock Watch piece for the 24-year-old, a much more predictable outcome for such a young and productive interior player.

The qualifying offer, which a team must extend in order to preserve the right to match other offers for a restricted free agent, is typically a placeholder until the player signs an offer sheet elsewhere or comes to a separate agreement with his incumbent team. It is rare for a player to re-sign with a team after playing out the single year on an accepted qualifying offer. Spencer Hawes did so when he inked a two-year deal with the Sixers in 2012 after taking their qualifying offer the year before, but he’s the only one, and Monroe doesn’t appear poised to follow in his footsteps. As Vincent Goodwill of the Detroit News points out (on Twitter), Monroe can only be traded to a team of his choosing this season, a factor that would limit any attempt of Detroit’s to deal him away for value before losing him for nothing in unrestricted free agency next summer. The Thunder, Pelicans, Hawks, Cavs, Blazers, and Magic have all been connected to Monroe, but like Eric Bledsoe‘s situation in Phoenix, Detroit’s willingness to match offer sheets iced his prospects with clubs around the league. Wojnarowski writes that Detroit sought multiple sign-and-trade options for Monroe, most notably serious discussions with Portland.

The David Falk client has career averages of 14.0 PPG and 9.0 RPG, and has been the starting center or power forward for Detroit in 277 of 312 games in his four years with the team. The signing will leave the Pistons with approximately $13.3MM in cap space for the season, though it gives them 16 fully guaranteed deals, as our roster counts show.

Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images.

Kings Waive Jeremy Tyler

September 6th, 2014 at 5:27pm CST by Cray Allred

The Kings have waived Jeremy Tyler, the team announced. The move was expected, as Sacramento has planned to waive the big man since acquiring him in a trade with the Knicks earlier this month.

Tyler’s $948K contract was scheduled to become partially guaranteed at $100K if the Kings had not waived him by September 15. The move will help Sacramento’s efforts to creep beneath the luxury tax line. The Kings have yet to execute an in-place agreement to deal away Jason Terry to Houston for non-guaranteed contracts. As soon as that transpires, the Kings stand to have approximately $74-75MM in salary slated for 2014/15, including both guaranteed and non-guaranteed arrangements. The team will have to either add guaranteed money or retain some of its non-guaranteed training camp invites, since only 11 of the minimum 13 roster spots are fully guaranteed, not including Terry’s deal.

The Full Court Sports client has split time between the NBA and D-League the last three seasons, seeing action for the Warriors, Hawks, and Knicks. The 6’10” center has averaged 3.6 PPG and 2.7 RPG for his career, with a .451/.000/.557 slash line.

Pacers Sign Adonis Thomas For Camp

September 5th, 2014 at 10:24am CST by Alex Lee

SEPTEMBER 5TH: The Pacers have followed up with a formal announcement, so the deal is official.

SEPTEMBER 3RD: The signing has taken place, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the team has yet to make a formal announcement.

AUGUST 22ND, 8:32am: It’s indeed a non-guaranteed deal, a source tells Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link).

AUGUST 21ST, 9:32pm: Adonis Thomas will attend training camp with the Pacers this fall, the Memphis product tweeted on Thursday night. Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders was the first reporter to pass along the news (via Twitter). We haven’t heard anything official from the team yet, though it appears that the sides have come to an agreement based on Thomas’ tweet.

After going undrafted last June, Thomas spent most of the 2013/14 season in the D-League with the now-defunct Springfield Armor. The 6-foot-7 guard averaged 16.6 points and 4.3 rebounds in 34 games for Springfield, shooting an unconscious 46.6 percent from beyond the arc. His D-League play earned him two 10-day contracts with the Magic and one with the Sixers, with whom he closed out the regular season.

In all Thomas appeared in only six NBA games as a rookie, averaging 2.3 points in 6.2 minutes per game. The 21-year-old spent two years at Memphis, where he played 27.5 minutes per game for the Tigers and was the second leading scorer on a team that earned a six seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament.

Pacers Sign Chris Singleton For Camp

September 5th, 2014 at 10:22am CST by Chuck Myron

FRIDAY, 10:22am: The signing is official, the team announced.

MONDAY, 2:00pm: It’s a summer contract, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM, so that means it’s a completely non-guaranteed camp deal.

11:02am: The Pacers have reached an agreement to sign Chris Singleton, reports David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter link). Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports wrote several weeks ago of Indiana’s apparent interest in the 24-year-old combo forward, more recently following up with a dispatch indicating that Singleton would be working out in front of NBA team officials. The terms aren’t immediately clear, and while the Pacers have a $5.305MM disabled player exception from Paul George‘s injury to hand out, they can only spend about $2MM without going over the tax line, which they’ve long maintained they won’t do.

Spears identified the Heat as another team eyeing Singleton last month when he reported Indiana’s interest, though it seemed as though Miami had moved on to other targets. The 18th overall pick from 2011 fell out of favor rather quickly in Washington, and the Wizards declined their fourth-year option on him before last season, setting him up for unrestricted free agency this summer. It appeared about a month ago that Washington abandoned its pursuit of re-signing Singleton, though he had turned down an offer from overseas to continue his search for an NBA job. He also changed agents, going from Bill Duffy of BDA Sports to Todd Ramasar of Stealth Sports, as J. Michael of CSNWashington reported last month.

Indiana has been fairly active on the market in seeking a replacement for George, reportedly coming to terms on camp deals with small forwards C.J. Fair and Adonis Thomas, though Singleton appears to be the team’s most significant addition toward that end. The Pacers had been carrying 17 players, though only 13 are on fully guaranteed deals, so it appears Singleton has a decent shot to make the opening-night roster.

Pacers Sign Arinze Onuaku For Camp

September 5th, 2014 at 10:20am CST by Eddie Scarito

FRIDAY, 10:20am: The Pacers have confirmed the signing with a formal announcement.

THURSDAY, 1:01pm: It’s indeed a non-guaranteed deal, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.

WEDNESDAY, 11:10pm: Arinze Onuaku has signed with the Pacers according to the RealGM.com Transactions log. The length or terms of the deal are unclear, but it’s most likely a non-guaranteed camp deal. After their recent agreement with Chris Singleton, the Pacers had been carrying 18 players on their preseason roster, with 13 of those deals guaranteed.

The 6’9″, 27 year-old appeared in a total of five games last season, split between the Pelicans and the Cavaliers. Onuaku averaged 0.6 PPG, 1.6 RPG, and 0.6 APG. His slash line was .200/.000/.500.

Onuaku will compete for a roster spot in what is currently a crowded Indiana frontcourt. Ahead of him on the depth chart are David West, Roy Hibbert, Luis Scola, Ian Mahinmi, and Lavoy Allen.

Pacers Sign C.J. Fair For Camp

September 5th, 2014 at 10:19am CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 5TH: The deal is official, the team announced.

SEPTEMBER 3RD: The signing has taken place, as the RealGM transactions log shows, though the Pacers still haven’t announced the move.

AUGUST 25TH: The Pacers and C.J. Fair have agreed to a non-guaranteed deal that will bring him to camp, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). The news is right on the heels of a report from Mike Waters of The Post-Standard that Fair was set to work out for the team next month, so apparently Indiana is willing to make a camp commitment to the undrafted forward even without the audition. It’s almost certainly a minimum-salary arrangement, though that’s not entirely clear just yet.

That Fair agreed to a non-guaranteed arrangement is surprising, since it appeared as though he was holding out for guaranteed money when he reportedly turned down camp invitations from the Mavs and other NBA teams earlier this summer. He played for the Mavs’ summer league team, making it curious that he didn’t wind up joining Dallas instead of Indiana for camp, though the Mavs have 14 fully guaranteed deals while Indiana is carrying only 13.

He was a fringe second-round prospect heading into the draft who displayed streaky shooting over the final two seasons of his four-year career at Syracuse, as I noted earlier. He’s a combo forward who would perhaps help make up for the loss of injured starting small forward Paul George.

Raptors Sign Greg Stiemsma

September 4th, 2014 at 12:16pm CST by Chuck Myron

12:16pm: The deal is believed to be partially guaranteed, according to Josh Lewenberg of TSN 1050 Toronto (Twitter link).

11:25am: It’s a one-year, $1MM deal, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com hears (Twitter link). He’s likely rounding up from $981,084, the minimum for Stiemsma, a four-year veteran. If that’s the case, it would only count on the Raptors books for the two-year veteran’s minimum of $915,243, since it’s just a one-year contract. The league would pay the rest.

11:08am: The Raptors have signed Greg Stiemsma, the team announced via press release. The terms aren’t immediately clear, but it’s likely a minimum-salary camp invitation, perhaps with a partial guarantee thrown in.

The center, who turns 29 this month, had been a free agent ever since the Pelicans cut him loose just a few days before the end of the regular season this year in a move designed to enhance the team’s flexibility for trades. The Mark Bartelstein client recently worked out for the Lakers, but chatter about his next destination had otherwise been scarce, even though his 20 starts last season were the sixth most for any player still without an NBA deal as of Wednesday, as I noted.

Stiemsma had to wait more than three years after he went undrafted out of the University of Wisconsin in 2008 for his first NBA regular season action, which came with the Celtics in 2011/12, when he averaged 2.9 points and 2.3 rebounds in 13.9 minutes per game. He made close to $2.6MM the next season with the Timberwolves and signed another deal that gave him almost $2.7MM from the Pelicans last season, but he appears in line for a pay cut this year.

The Raptors had been carrying 13 guaranteed deals and three with partial guarantees, as our roster counts show, so there’s a reasonable chance that Stiemsma will make the opening-night roster. Still, he had a run-in last season with Jonas Valanciunas, whom he’d presumably back up, as Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun notes (Twitter links).

Mavs Re-Sign Bernard James

September 3rd, 2014 at 6:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

6:00pm: The deal is official, the team announced.

4:20pm: The Mavs have re-signed Bernard James, Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com announced (on Twitter). Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported a couple of weeks ago that the team was finalizing a one-year deal for the minimum salary with the two-year veteran center. It’s likely a fully guaranteed arrangement, as Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com wrote.

James saw reduced playing time this past season after seeing nearly 10 minutes a game as a rookie. He averaged less than a point in 4.9 minutes per contest in 2013/14, though he was an effective rebounder when he did see the floor, grabbing 10.4 boards per 36 minutes. The 33rd pick from the 2012 draft was a U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant before finishing his college career at Florida State.

The addition of the Happy Walters client gives Dallas 17 players, 15 of whom have guaranteed deals, presuming James’s contract is guaranteed. That spells trouble for Eric Griffin and Ivan Johnson, both of whom have only partial guarantees on their minimum-salary pacts.