Heat Sign Larry Drew II
TUESDAY, 5:01pm: Drew’s deal with Miami is for the minimum but includes only $25K of guaranteed salary, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (via Twitter).
MONDAY, 12:41pm: The Heat have signed Larry Drew II, the team announced. Miami is limited to giving out the minimum salary, but it’s not clear if there’s any guaranteed money involved for the 24-year-old. The timing of the move is odd, as most teams are paring down their rosters rather than adding to them, and Drew played for the Heat’s affiliate in the D-League last season, which means the team wouldn’t have to sign him to the NBA roster just to gain his D-League rights.
The 6’0″ point guard averaged 11.4 points and 7.0 assists in 35.5 minutes a game across 41 appearances with Miami’s D-League affiliate last year. Drew spent training camp on the Heat’s NBA roster last fall after going undrafted out of UCLA.
The move gives the Heat 19 players. Miami had been carrying only 11 fully guaranteed contracts and partially guaranteed arrangements with four others. Drew is the son of former Hawks and Bucks head coach and current Cavs assistant coach Larry Drew.
Hawks Release Dexter Pittman, Jarell Eddie
12:16pm: The moves are official, the team announced via press release and on Twitter.
12:07pm: The Hawks are waiving Dexter Pittman and Jarell Eddie, reports Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Twitter link). Vivlamore indicates the moves have already taken place, though the team has yet to make a public acknowledgement. Each has been on a non-guaranteed contract. Letting them go would leave Atlanta with 15 players, which means the team wouldn’t need to make any more cuts.
Pittman has been on his second stint with the Hawks after having joined the club on a 10-day contract in February. The center briefly spent time on the Rockets roster at the end of the 2013/14 season, but his only two appearances in regular season games last year came with Atlanta. The former 32nd overall pick has struggled with weight issues and has never averaged more than 8.6 minutes per game in any of his four NBA seasons.
Eddie went undrafted this summer out of Virginia Tech and joined the Wizards for summer league before hooking up with the Hawks this fall. He averaged 2.7 points in 13.1 minutes per game in the preseason, but nonetheless made a positive impression on Atlanta’s brass. That suggests the team envisions retaining the D-League rights to the 6’7″ small forward forward, though that’s just my speculation.
The moves leave the Hawks with 14 fully guaranteed contracts plus a partial guarantee of about $408K with Mike Muscala. In a twist of fate, the Hawks released Pittman from his 10-day contract before the 10 days were up last season to accommodate the signing of Muscala, who remains on the same deal.
Mavs Waive Yuki Togashi
The Mavs have released point guard Yuki Togashi, the team announced via press release. The move was expected, as GM Donnie Nelson admitted last week that Togashi’s immediate future was with the team’s D-League affiliate. Dallas will presumably retain the D-League rights to the 21-year-old Japanese native, which would allow him to sign directly with the Mavs affiliate rather than enter the D-League draft, providing he clears NBA waivers first. Togashi’s NBA contract was non-guaranteed, so Dallas isn’t on the hook for any dead money.
Togashi, 21, attended the same high school as Kevin Durant before returning to his native Japan to play professionally. Still, he caught the eye of the Mavs, who brought him stateside for summer league this year. He totaled 16 points in more than 36 total minutes of play in four summer league games, grabbing six rebounds, too, in spite of his 5’7″ height.
Dallas still has more cuts to make before Monday’s deadline to set its opening-night roster, and the team would reportedly like to carry fewer than 15 players to start the regular season. The team has 15 fully guaranteed pacts, and a partial guarantee with Ivan Johnson, while Charlie Villanueva has impressed on his non-guaranteed contract. Doron Lamb is with Dallas on a non-guaranteed deal, too.
Wizards Sign John Lucas III
11:10am: The deal is official, the team announced.
9:21am: The contract will be non-guaranteed, according to J. Michael of CSNWashington.com.
8:04am: The Wizards are close to signing John Lucas III, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Washington’s interest is related to shooting guard Bradley Beal‘s injury, Stein suggests, though Lucas plays point guard. Still, Lucas would help provide depth that would allow Andre Miller and Garrett Temple to shift to the two-guard position. The Wizards are limited to giving the minimum salary to Lucas, who turns 32 next month, but it’s not clear whether there’ll be any guaranteed money involved.
The seven-year veteran became a free agent last month after the Celtics waived him shortly following their acquisition of him from the Cavs via trade. It was the second trade of the offseason for Lucas, who went from the Jazz to Cleveland in July. His non-guaranteed contract called for him to make $1.6MM for 2014/15, not much more than the minimum, but enough to help two teams view him more as trade ballast than as a potential contributor. He saw 14.1 minutes per game for Utah last season, nearly setting a career high, but his scoring and assists per contest declined for the second year in a row.
Washington has been carrying 17 players, as our roster counts show, and the addition of Lucas would be an ominous sign for Rasual Butler, Damion James and Xavier Silas, each of whom has a non-guaranteed salary. The Wizards have 13 full guarantees plus a partial guarantee with Glen Rice Jr.
Mavs Release Eric Griffin
TUESDAY, 11:07am: The move is official, the team announced via press release.
MONDAY, 11:29pm: The Mavs have waived swingman Eric Griffin, reports Shams Charania of Real GM (on Twitter). Griffin was on a partially guaranteed, thee-year deal worth $150K, so he won’t be walking away from Dallas completely empty handed. The 24-year-old has yet to appear in an NBA game after going undrafted out of Campbell in 2012.
Griffin appeared to be a long-shot to make the Mavs out of camp, given that the team has 15 guaranteed deals on their books as well as an apparent fondness for Charlie Villanueva, who’s with Dallas on a partially guaranteed arrangement.
Once the Mavs officially cut ties with Griffin, their roster will feature four players with partially or non-guaranteed pacts. As the October 27th deadline to trim rosters down to 15 players continues to approach, it seems unlikely any of them stick around for opening night.
Lakers Waive Keith Appling
4:54pm: Appling suffered a shoulder subluxation while in camp with the Lakers and remains injured, so he’ll receive $6K from the Lakers under the stipulations of his Exhibit 9 contract, Pincus reports (Twitter links). He’d have drawn paychecks based on his entire minimum salary as long as he was hurt if the Lakers had signed him to a conventional contract.
4:48pm: The move is official, the team announced.
4:35pm: The Lakers are cutting Keith Appling, reports Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). Pincus indicates that the team has already placed the point guard on waivers, though the team has yet to make an announcement. The 22-year-old’s contract is non-guaranteed, so it won’t cost the Lakers any dead money to part ways with him.
Appling went undrafted out of Michigan State this year and spent summer league with the Blazers before joining the purple-and-gold. He’s appeared in two preseason games for the Lakers but has totaled only two points and two assists in nearly 20 minutes. The 2010 McDonald’s All-American didn’t put up flashy numbers with the Spartans, either, but he was a mainstay of coach Tom Izzo‘s teams for four years.
The move would take the Lakers down to 17 players, 13 of whom have full guarantees. Ronnie Price appears a strong bet to make it to opening night on his non-guaranteed deal, leaving Jabari Brown, Wayne Ellington and Roscoe Smith to fight it out for the last spot, if the Lakers elect to carry the maximum 15 players to start the regular season.
Lakers Waive Jeremy Tyler
MONDAY, 4:47pm: The move is official, the team announced.
SUNDAY, 6:26pm: The Lakers will waive Jeremy Tyler so that he can sign a deal in China, league sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter). Wojnarowski adds that the forward will not dress for tonight’s preseason game.
Tyler, 23, has spent time with the Warriors, Hawks and Knicks since being drafted by Charlotte in the second round of the 2011 Draft. Over 104 games, Tyler owns career averages of 3.6 points and 2.6 boards over 104 games in his NBA career.
With Tyler out of the picture, the Lakers now have an 18-man roster with 13 guaranteed deals. Keith Appling, Jabari Brown, Wayne Ellington, Ronnie Price, and Roscoe Smith have non-guaranteed pacts and are vying for the last spots on the final roster.
Timberwolves Release Kyrylo Fesenko
The Wolves have waived center Kyrylo Fesenko, the team announced via press release. The five-year veteran was on a non-guaranteed contract, so Minnesota won’t be on the hook for what would have been a minimum salary. That leaves Brady Heslip as the only player with a non-guaranteed pact among the 17 players remaining on the team.
Fesenko was attempting to see his first regular season NBA action since the 2011/12 season, and he parlayed a summer league stint with the Wolves this year into a training camp invitation. Still, he faced long odds from the beginning of making it to opening night with Minnesota, which has 15 fully guaranteed deals, and the 27-year-old appeared in only one preseason game this month.
Wolves coach/executive Flip Saunders still must deal with a roster logjam if he wants to keep Glenn Robinson III, who’s with the team on a partially guaranteed arrangement. Saunders has denied rumors that the team is shopping Chase Budinger and insists there’s still a role on the team for J.J. Barea, another apparent trade candidate.
Jamil Wilson To Sign With D-League
Jamil Wilson is set to sign with the Bakersfield Jam of the D-League, tweets Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times. Bakersfield is Phoenix’s D-League affiliate, so that suggests that the Suns have retained the D-League rights to the former Marquette forward who was on a non-guaranteed deal with Phoenix before the team waived him last week. Otherwise, Wilson would be subject to the D-League draft.
Wilson, who turns 24 next month, appeared in two preseason games for a shade under nine minutes while with the Suns after joining the Wizards for summer league. His 11.7 points per game in his senior year at Marquette gave him his lone double-digit scoring season in college, but the Suns, Jazz, Wizards, Raptors, Timberwolves, Mavs, Pacers, Spurs and Pistons all reportedly worked him out this spring prior the draft. Still, he didn’t hear his name called on draft night.
NBA teams can retain the D-League rights to as many as four of players they cut during the preseason, up from three last year. It’s unclear if Phoenix will do so with Joe Jackson and Casey Prather, whom the Suns also let go when they released Wilson.
Pistons Waive Thabeet, Cook, Bostic, Brown
The Pistons have waived Hasheem Thabeet, Brian Cook, Lorenzo Brown and Josh Bostic, the team announced via press release. That means the team has cut ties with all four of the players it had on non-guaranteed contracts, leaving only 16 fully guaranteed deals.
Thabeet was hoping to rehabilitate a foundering career after the Sixers waived him in September, shortly after the Thunder sent him to Philadelphia in a cost-cutting trade. Still, Joel Anthony‘s arrival in the swap the Pistons made Friday with the Celtics gave Detroit another backup center and made Thabeet’s long-shot chances of making it to opening night with the club even worse. Cook was hoping to turn an appearance in Pistons summer league into his first NBA regular season action since 2011/12. Brown wound up in Pistons camp after a failed physical prompted Italy’s Reyer Venezia to call off their deal earlier in the summer, while Bostic is a veteran of the overseas circuit, having spent much of his pro career in international leagues since going undrafted in 2009.
None of the four saw significant playing time in preseason games this month. The Pistons and the agents for Bostic and Brown have discussed an arrangement in which Detroit would keep the D-League rights to the pair, who would sign to play for the team’s new one-to-one affiliate in Grand Rapids. Detroit can keep the D-League rights to as many as four of its preseason cuts.