Transactions Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Clippers Waive Miroslav Raduljica

August 29th, 2014 at 1:09pm CST by Charlie Adams

FRIDAY, 1:09pm: The move is official, the team announced. It takes place in time for the team to use the stretch provision on Raduljica’s salary, a strategy the team indeed has been planning to pursue, as a report from today on the team’s waiver of Delfino indicates.

THURSDAY, 10:27pm: The Clippers are set to waive Miroslav Raduljica on Friday morning, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (on Twitter). Los Angeles received Raduljica and Carlos Delfino in the trade that sent Jared Dudley packing to the Bucks. Sam Amick of USA Today indicated on Tuesday that the Clips were likely to waive the duo, and the team appears poised to follow through with at least part of that move tomorrow morning.

Raduljica, 26, spent his sole NBA season with Milwaukee last year but didn’t get to spend much time on the floor. In 48 contests with the Bucks, the big man averaged 3.8 points and 2.3 rebounds over just 9.7 minutes per night. The Clippers will be on the hook for the $1,500,000 he’s owed this season, but won’t need to pay his non-guaranteed second year worth $1,567,500.

Waiving Raduljica will put the Clips at 12 guaranteed contracts. Should they choose to cut ties with Delfino as well, the team will roster only 11 players, two short of the league minimum. Los Angeles is reportedly likely to use the stretch provision to shed the injured Delfino’s contract. It’s not entirely clear whether or not they intend to use the same provision when they waive Raduljica, but that will presumably be the case, given the team’s proximity to its hard cap.

By moving Dudley and using the stretch provision on one or both of former the Bucks they acquired, the Clippers will distance themselves far enough away from the hard cap to be able bring aboard a veteran to fill out their roster. The team was recently linked to free agent big man Ekpe Udoh, as well as swingman Chris Douglas-Roberts.

Jordan McRae To Play In Australia

August 29th, 2014 at 8:48am CST by Chuck Myron

Sixers second-round draftee Jordan McRae has signed with CTI Melbourne United of Australia, the team announced (hat tip to Sportando’s Orazio Cauchi). The terms aren’t immediately clear, but it looks like this year’s 58th overall pick is set to spend the season overseas rather than with Philadelphia, which acquired his NBA rights in a draft-night swap with the Spurs.

The 23-year-old shooting guard gradually emerged as a scoring force over his time at the University of Tennessee, averaging 18.7 points per game as a senior this past season, 10.1 more than he’d poured in as a sophomore. McRae led the Volunteers in scoring this year, outpacing 35th overall pick Jarnell Stokes, and he also possesses a 7’0.5″ wingspan, according to DraftExpress, to aid him defensively. McRae prides himself on his versatility and is confident he can play point guard, too, as he told Zach Links of Hoops Rumors prior to the draft for our Prospect Profile Series. McRae will have a chance to refine his skills in Australia, where he’ll play for former Bulls and Mavericks center Chris Anstey, the CTI Melbourne United head coach.

Philadelphia was among the teams to have McRae in for a predraft workout, as McRae also informed Zach. The patiently rebuilding Sixers will wait to bring him stateside, just as they’re doing with No. 12 overall pick Dario Saric and 52nd overall pick Vasilije Micic, two others among the six 2014 draftees whose rights the team possesses. McRae will join fellow second-round pick DeAndre Daniels, whose NBA rights belong to the Raptors, in Australia this season.

Jazz Sign Toure’ Murry

August 28th, 2014 at 1:05pm CST by Chuck Myron

THURSDAY, 1:05pm: The deal is official, the team announced.

WEDNESDAY, 12:53pm: The Jazz have yet to make an official announcement, but the signing has taken place, according to the RealGM transactions log.

TUESDAY, 5:05pm: Murry’s deal includes a $250K guarantee for this season, and is non-guaranteed for 2015/16, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link).

2:42pm: The Jazz and Toure’ Murry have finalized a deal, reports Chris Herring of The Wall Street Journal (Twitter link). Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported earlier this month that the sides were close to a two-year, $2MM arrangement.

The Knicks elected not to tender Murry a qualifying offer this summer, making him an unrestricted free agent after his first NBA season, though they were among the teams reportedly interested in re-signing him. The Clippers, Heat and Lakers were also apparently in the mix.

Utah appears to be using cap space to sign the Bernie Lee client to a deal for more than the minimum. It’s somewhat surprising that he’d receive that, since Murry averaged just 7.3 minutes per game in 51 appearances last season. He played for the Rockets D-League affiliate in 2012/13 after going undrafted out of Wichita State two years ago.

Sixers Sign Joel Embiid

August 28th, 2014 at 8:48am CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 29TH: The team finally acknowledged the signing, including Embiid on its preseason roster.

AUGUST 28TH: The Sixers still haven’t made an official announcement, but the appearance of the move on the RealGM transactions log provides further confirmation that the signing has taken place.

AUGUST 26TH: No. 3 overall pick Joel Embiid has signed his rookie scale contract with the Sixers, according to his verified Twitter account. The team has yet to make an official announcement, but it appears as though the last remaining first-round pick from this June who had yet to sign with his NBA team or agree to play elsewhere has inked his deal. He’ll make nearly $3.69MM, as our table of salaries for this year’s first-rounders shows.

Embiid was a strong contender, if not the front-runner, to become the No. 1 overall pick until he suffered a broken foot shortly before the draft. The most recent estimate has him out anywhere from between November and February, though it appears as though he’s in line to see action at some point this season for Philadelphia. A back injury that forced him to miss the final six games of his college career at Kansas sparked concern for much of the spring, but ultimately that didn’t seem to depress his draft stock nearly as much as his foot did.

Whenever he’s healthy enough to play, he’ll look to build upon last season’s breakout campaign, one in which he came to join college teammate Andrew Wiggins, a far more heralded prospect coming out of high school, and Jabari Parker as contenders for the top pick. The 7’0″ center only began playing basketball in 2011, so his skills are raw, but with a game that shows shades of Hakeem Olajuwon, his upside is vast, as Zach Links of Hoops Rumors examined this past April in his Prospect Profile of Embiid.

He’ll join fellow Cameroonian native and mentor Luc Mbah a Moute on the Sixers, and Mbah a Moute’s close ties to Embiid appeared to be one of the reasons Philadelphia acquired the veteran forward as part of its participation in the Kevin Love trade. The 20-year-old Embiid won’t encounter much in the way of immediate expectations in Philadelphia, which is in a long-term rebuilding effort, and while Embiid is a centerpiece of that project, the Sixers appear willing to wait for his skills to more fully develop.

The Sixers had been carrying 16 players after Tuesday’s acquisition of Hasheem Thabeet and before Embiid’s signing, though Philadelphia appears poised to waive Thabeet. Embiid is one of just eight players with fully guaranteed deals on Philadelphia’s roster.

Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.

Rockets Sign Tarik Black

August 27th, 2014 at 6:50pm CST by Alex Lee

6:50pm: The signing is official, the team announced.

6:33pm: Black’s deal with the Rockets is for two years and is partially guaranteed, according to Shams Charania of RealGM (via Twitter).

6:02pm: The Rockets have come to an agreement with Tarik Black, reports Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle (via Twitter). After going undrafted in June out of Kansas, Black played 13 games with Houston this summer between Las Vegas and Orlando. He was particularly impressive over five games in Orlando, averaging 10 points and 6 rebounds on 60 percent shooting in 20 minutes per contest.

Black, a 6’9″ forward, is probably a long shot to make a Rockets team that has 14 guaranteed contracts on the books, not to mention a handful of non-guaranteed ones. However, as Feigen notes, Black might be a good bet to end up on the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, Houston’s D-League affiliate. The 22-year-old Black was a heralded recruit coming out of high school, playing three years at Memphis before graduating early and transferring to Kansas for his senior season to play alongside Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid. Black averaged 5.5 points on 69.2 percent shooting in his lone season in Lawrence.

Heat Sign Shannon Brown

August 27th, 2014 at 5:15pm CST by Chuck Myron

5:15pm: The signing is official, the team announced.

3:10pm: The Heat and Shannon Brown have come to terms, according to the Priority Sports agency that represents the free agent shooting guard (Twitter link; hat tip to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today). Sam Amick of USA Today hears it’s a one-year, $1.3MM deal (Twitter link), so that appears to be rounded down from the $1,310,286 minimum salary for a veteran of eight years, as Brown is. That stands to reason, since Miami is limited to handing out only the minimum.

A report from about a week ago indicated that finding a shooting guard was a priority for the Heat, though Brown wasn’t among the players linked to the team. The rumor mill surrounding the 28-year-old has been quiet since the Knicks waived him rather than guaranteeing his contract last month. It remains to be seen whether the Heat are including any sort of guarantee in their pact with the Mark Bartelstein client.

Brown, a former 25th overall pick, spent the first half of last season out of the league after the Wizards let him go following the Marcin Gortat trade that brought him from Phoenix, where he’d put up back-to-back career highs in minutes per game. The Spurs brought him in on a pair of 10-day contracts in February, and the Knicks later did the same before signing him to a deal that covered the rest of the season with a non-guaranteed 2014/15 salary tacked on.

The Heat had been carrying just 14 deals with any guaranteed money, as our roster counts show, so Brown appears to have a strong chance to remain with the team come opening night.

Murphy, Bost To Join Jazz For Training Camp

August 27th, 2014 at 4:09pm CST by Zachary Links

AUGUST 27TH: Murphy’s deal is official, too, the team announced.

AUGUST 25TH: The team hasn’t announced Murphy’s signing, but it has occured according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (on Twitter). Pincus reports that both players’ deals are partially guaranteed at $65K, and Murphy’s total salary is set at $840K. Bost’s total salary was already reported to be at the minimum for three seasons (none of which are fully guaranteed).

AUGUST 15TH: The Jazz officially announced the signing of Bost, tweets Aaron Falk of The Salt Lake Tribune.

AUGUST 14TH: Kevin Murphy and Dee Bost will join the Jazz for training camp, according to Gino Pilato of D-League Digest (on Twitter). Both players spent last season with the Idaho Stampede of the D-League.

Bost, 25 in October, signed a non-guaranteed deal with the Blazers last fall before being waived in October. The guard went undrafted out of Mississippi State in 2012 and spent the following season overseas with Budućnost Podgorica in Montenegro, averaging 8.3 PPG, 1.8 APG, and 1.3 turnovers in 21.5 minutes per contest. In 50 games for Idaho last season, Bost averaged 15.2 PPG and 6.1 RPG in 40.5 minutes per night.

Murphy auditioned for the 76ers in March in hopes of securing a 10-day deal and also worked out for the Nets earlier this offseason.

Clippers, Doc Rivers Agree To New Deal

August 27th, 2014 at 2:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

2:00pm: The deal is worth more than $50MM over the next five seasons, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link).

1:43pm: It’s an entirely new contract rather than an extension for Rivers, tweets Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times. That indicates that the terms of Rivers’ original pact with the team, which wasn’t set to expire until the summer of 2016, no longer apply.

11:07am: The Clippers and Doc Rivers have reached a deal that will keep him under contract with the team through the 2018/19 season, the team announced. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported a couple of weeks ago that Rivers, who serves as coach and president of basketball operations, was set for extension talks with the team just as new owner Steve Ballmer formally took control of the franchise. The terms of the new deal aren’t immediately clear, but Rivers signed a three-year, $21MM contract when he joined the Clippers last summer.

“This is an important day for this organization,” Ballmer said in the team’s statement. “I am excited to work with Doc for a long time as we build a championship culture that will deliver results both on and off the court. Not only is Doc one of the best coaches and executives in the game, but he continually embodies the hard core, committed and resilient character and winning culture that the Clippers represent. It was one of my top priorities to ensure that he was firmly in place as the long-term leader of this team.”

The extension announcement comes just a day after Rivers and his front office staff pulled off a trade that sent Jared Dudley to the Bucks and provides some long-term salary flexibility for the Clippers. Rivers has had a busy and tumultuous past several months, and the saga involving former owner Donald Sterling was at the center of it.

Rivers helped guide the team through the playoffs this spring just after the scandal burst into the headlines, but it was weeks before he shushed rumors that he would leave if the Sterling mess weren’t quickly remedied. Doubts about Rivers’ future resurfaced when interim CEO Dick Parsons testified in Sterling’s probate trial that Rivers had told him he didn’t think he would continue with the team if Sterling remained the owner. Ballmer’s formal acquisition of the club earlier this month seemed to stabilize that situation, and Rivers spoke of his admiration for the new owner and enthusiasm for a long-term future with the club as part of the team’s statement today.

Ballmer several days ago stopped short of acknowledging extension talks, but he called Rivers “phenomenal” and made it clear that he wanted to keep Rivers around. The former Microsoft CEO paid $2 billion to buy the team, a record price, but with a net worth of $18 billion, according to Forbes.com, there’s little reason to suspect he was unwilling to pony up for Rivers, particularly given the speed with which they reached agreement.

Rivers, 52, has only more than a year of experience as an executive but has served as a head coach for at least part of each of the last 15 seasons, compiling a 644-498 record. He won the 2008 title with the Celtics, but that was one of just three postseasons in which the teams that Rivers coached won more playoff games than they lost.

Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images.

Bucks Sign Damien Inglis

August 26th, 2014 at 6:03pm CST by Chuck Myron

AUGUST 26TH, 6:03pm: The signing is official, the team announced.

AUGUST 20TH, 8:05pm: The Bucks have signed 31st overall pick Damien Inglis, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The team has yet to make an official announcement, but the move took place Tuesday, as the RealGM transactions log shows. It’s a multiyear deal, according to RealGM. Inglis probably received a three-year deal worth a shade under $1MM this season and the minimum salary in the final two seasons if he’s like many of his peers from the top of the 2014 second round, including 36th overall pick and new Bucks teammate Johnny O’Bryant.

Inglis is a native of French Guiana who spent last season playing for Chorale Roanne in France. He had a decent chance to end up as a first-round pick, since he ranked 26th in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress prospect listings and 30th with Chad Ford of ESPN.com. The 6’8″ small forward is nonetheless a raw prospect, having averaged just 4.6 points and 3.6 rebounds in 15.3 minutes per game in France this year.

The signing creates a logjam of sorts in Milwaukee, particularly if Inglis’ contract is guaranteed, as is likely the case. The team already had 14 guaranteed deals, as our roster counts show, not including Kendall Marshall, who figures to be a part of the rotation on his minimum-salary pact after averaging 8.8 assists per game for the Lakers last season. The Bucks also renounced their rights to free agent Ramon Sessions, as Pincus and RealGM report, and while that doesn’t clear an additional roster spot, it’s a signal that the club is done with free agent signings this summer, save for perhaps a few training camp invitations.

Thunder Trade Hasheem Thabeet To Sixers

August 26th, 2014 at 5:07pm CST by Chuck Myron

5:07pm: The trade is official, the Thunder have announced via press release. It’s Thabeet and cash headed to Philadelphia with a protected 2015 second-rounder going to Oklahoma City. That pick will probably never change hands, as Slater reported.

4:57pm: Oklahoma City is receiving a second-round pick, but it’s conditional and so heavily protected that Philadelphia is unlikely to ever have to convey it, reports Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman.

3:55pm: The Thunder will deal Hasheem Thabeet to the Sixers, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (on Twitter). The Sixers will likely waive Thabeet after the trade becomes official, Stein also hears (Twitter link). Philadelphia will also receive cash, and the Thunder won’t be taking back any salary, so they can create a trade exception worth Thabeet’s $1.25MM salary, Stein adds (via Twitter).

Thabeet’s salary is non-guaranteed, but it’s set to become fully guaranteed by the end of this coming Monday, which helps explain the timing of the move. Thabeet, the No. 2 pick in the 2009 draft, fell out of Oklahoma City’s rotation this past season amid the emergence of rookie Steven Adams. The 27-year-old Thabeet saw action in just 23 games with an average of 8.3 minutes per appearance.

It’d be a little surprising to see Philadelphia wind up with only cash from the transaction, especially given how much Sixers GM Sam Hinkie covets draft picks, so perhaps there’s more to the transaction than is being reported, though that’s just my speculation. Oklahoma City will have to net an asset of some sort in the trade, too. In any case, the move is set to take Oklahoma City down to 15 players, including 14 guaranteed deals and Lance Thomas, who has a non-guaranteed pact.

The 7’3″ Thabeet has never found solid footing in the league after spending three years at the University of Connecticut. The Grizzlies sent him on D-League assignment in his rookie season, a rarity for a player taken so highly in the draft, and they traded him to the Rockets midway through his second season. Houston swapped him to the Blazers a year later, and he signed with the Thunder the following summer. He spent his first season with Oklahoma City as the primary backup center behind Kendrick Perkins, but he lost that job in 2013/14.