Mavs Sign Yuki Togashi
OCTOBER 15TH: Dallas has followed up with a formal announcement of the signing, via press release.
OCTOBER 7TH: The Mavs have signed undrafted point guard Yuki Togashi, according to the RealGM transactions log. The team has yet to make an official announcement, but Togashi’s agents with Cloud9 confirmed the deal to Ed Odeven of The Japan Times. Dallas is limited to handing out minimum-salary deals, but it’s unclear if there’s any guaranteed money involved for the 21-year-old.
The 5’7″ Togashi had been playing professionally in Japan for the Akita Northern Happinets since February 2013. He joined the Mavs summer league team in July, and Dallas apparently remains intrigued by the Japanese native who came to the U.S. and attended the same Maryland high school where Kevin Durant matriculated. Dean Murray, an assistant for the Mavs D-League affiliate, praised Togashi’s on-court decision-making but expressed concerns about his defense to Odeven after summer league ended in July.
It would seem the Mavs signed Togashi with the D-League in mind, since they’d already been carrying 15 fully guaranteed contracts. The move brings Dallas to the 20-man preseason roster limit, but the Mavs can retain the D-League rights to up to four of the players they cut before opening night, and it seems likely they’ll do so with Togashi.
DeAndre Liggins Signs To Play In Russia
WEDNESDAY, 8:44am: The deal is official, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia).
TUESDAY, 9:53am: DeAndre Liggins has agreed to a one-year deal with Krasny Oktyabr of Russia, reports David Pick of Eurobasket.com (Twitter links). The contract will be without an NBA escape clause, Pick adds. The three-year NBA veteran reportedly had a deal last month to join the Clippers for camp, but a later dispatch threw cold water on that idea, and the Clippers wound up leaving him off their camp roster.
The Henry Thomas client signed a pair of 10-day contracts with the Heat last season, but he only appeared in one game for one minute with Miami. Liggins spent most of 2013/14 in the D-League, which named him its Defensive Player of the Year. The swingman averaged 13.4 points and 7.1 rebounds in 38.1 minutes per contest with 35.4% three-point shooting in 61 games split between the affiliates of the Heat and the Thunder.
The 26-year-old spent his first two pro seasons with Oklahoma City and Orlando after the Magic made him the 53rd overall pick in 2011. Liggins will join NBA veterans Marcus Cousin and D.J. Kennedy on the Krasny Oktyabr roster.
Wizards Pick Up Options On Beal, Porter
The Wizards have announced that they have exercised their options on Bradley Beal and Otto Porter, which will keep them under their rookie scale contracts for 2015/16, the team announced in a press release. “Bradley and Otto are both big pieces of the core group of players that we will build around as we continue to improve our team,” said team president Ernie Grunfeld. “We look forward to them playing significant roles in our success both now and in the future.”
The moves are not unexpected, as Beal is an integral part of Washington’s offense and one of the team’s building blocks moving forward, despite suffering a broken wrist that will sideline him for a minimum of six to eight weeks. Porter is also part of the Wizards’ future, and is only one season removed from being a lottery pick. The team option was for the fourth year of Beal’s deal, and he is slotted to make $5,694,674 in 2015/16. Porter’s option was a third-year one, and Porter is on the books for $4,662,960 next season.
Beal ended last season second on the team in scoring at 17.5 PPG, and added 3.7 RPG, and 3.3 APG. He shot 41.9% overall, and 40% from long range Beal was selected third overall by Washington back in the 2012 NBA Draft. The team is expected to try to work out a long-term extension with Beal next summer, and with the new TV deal on the horizon it will be interesting to see how much he commands.
Porter was selected third overall by Washington in the 2013 NBA Draft. He was a disappointment in his first year, averaging 2.1PPG and 1.5 RPG in 37 games contests last season. Porter showed some flashes this summer when he was named to the 2014 All-NBA Summer League First Team after logging 19.0 PPG, 5.8 RPG and 1.8 APG. With the arrival of Paul Pierce, Porter won’t see huge minutes this season, but he has the opportunity to be a rotation contributor.
Suns Waive Jackson, Prather, Wilson
The Suns have waived Joe Jackson, Casey Prather and Jamil Wilson, the team announced in a press release. All three players were in camp on non-guaranteed deals, so Phoenix isn’t on the hook for any salary as they begin paring down their roster in anticipation of opening night. The three rookies initially signed with the Suns at the end of September, and all were longshots to make the regular season roster. These moves leave the Suns’ preseason roster count at 16, with Earl Barron being the lone player left whose deal isn’t fully guaranteed.
Prather played in the summer league for the Hawks before catching Phoenix’s eye after a predraft workout. The small forward out of Florida averaged 13.8 points in 27.9 minutes per game represented the first double-digit scoring average of his college career.
The 6’7″ Wilson went undrafted this year out of Marquette despite being projected as a possible late second-round pick by some. His college numbers, which include his freshman season at Oregon, are 8.5 PPG, 4.6 RPG, and 1.6 APG. His college shooting statistics were .447/.336/.708.
Jackson worked out for the Wolves, Kings, Suns, Knicks, Rockets, Mavs, Grizzlies, and the Jazz prior to the 2014 Draft, but didn’t hear his name called that evening. He was able to catch the Suns’ eye during a June workout, which led to him joining Phoenix for training camp.
James Southerland To Play In France
2:58pm: Limoges has announced the deal (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). Southerland will have to clear NBA waivers first before he can play overseas, but that’s likely a mere formality.
1:27pm: Recent Blazers camp invitee James Southerland has a deal with Limoges CSP of France, tweets David Pick of Eurobasket.com. Portland announced Monday that it had waived the small forward, and while no signing can become official until Southerland clears NBA waivers, Pick indicates that Southerland has already put pen to paper.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports originally reported that Southerland had a European deal and that the Blazers would release him, but the identity of the overseas team had been unknown. It remains unclear whether the pact includes an NBA escape clause.
Southerland was with Charlotte and New Orleans last season after going undrafted out of Syracuse in 2013, but he saw action in only four NBA games. He spent the bulk of last year playing with the Lakers D-League affiliate, averaging 14.7 points and 6.5 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per game, though he made only 32.3% of the 4.8 three-pointers he shot per contest. Still, his performance landed him on the D-League’s All-Rookie Second Team.
Raptors Pick Up Options On Valanciunas, Ross
The Raptors have exercised their options to keep Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross under their rookie scale contracts for 2015/16, the team announced via press release. The moves were expected, as both are mainstays of a team on the rise in the Eastern Conference. Valanciunas will make more than $4.660MM and Ross nearly $3.554MM, respectively, in 2015/16, which will be the fourth pro season for each of them, as our Rookie Scale Team Option Tracker shows.
Valanciunas played overseas for a year after the Raptors drafted him fifth overall in 2011, but Toronto wasted little time in giving him a prominent role during his rookie season, when he started in all but five of his 62 appearances. The native of Lithuania started all 81 games he played this past season, averaging 11.3 points and 8.8 rebounds in 28.2 minutes per contest. Ross was a reserve for Toronto the season after the team picked him eighth overall in 2012, but he blossomed last year, when the Rudy Gay trade opened the starting small forward position for him. Ross put up 10.9 PPG in 26.7 MPG and raised his three-point shooting to 39.5% from the 33.2% mark he posted as a rookie.
The exercised options give the Raptors about $49MM in commitments for 2015/16, or about 17.5MM beneath the projected $66.5MM salary cap. That would give Toronto a chance to go after a restricted free agent with an offer at or near the maximum salary, but next summer is still a ways off, and many moves are yet to come.
Blazers Waive James Southerland
The Blazers have placed James Southerland on waivers, the team announced (on Twitter). Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, who was the first to report the the move, tweets that the swingman will ink a new deal overseas now that he’s officially been waived. Wojnarowski doesn’t specify where Southerland intends to sign, but he writes that the new pact will cover the length of the NBA season.
Southerland agreed to join Portland for camp on a non-guaranteed deal in August after the Pelicans opted not to bring him back for the 2014/15 season. The 24-year-old out of Syracuse saw limited action in his first NBA campaign last year, playing in a total of just 30 minutes across four games between time for the then-Bobcats and Pelicans. He didn’t appear in any of the Blazers’ first three preseason games.
It seemed like a long shot that Southerland would stick around long enough to make the opening night roster, given that Portland is already carrying the league maximum of 15 guaranteed contracts, as our list of roster counts shows. Darius Morris and Diante Garrett now stand as the only players left on the Blazers without guaranteed deals, and they seem to like strong candidates to be cut before the season as well.
Grizzlies Waive Luke Hancock
5:03pm: The move is official, the team announced via press release.
4:32pm: The Grizzlies are releasing swingman Luke Hancock, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders hears (Twitter link). The team has yet to make an official announcement, though Pincus indicates that the move has already taken place. The 24-year-old out of Louisville was on a non-guaranteed contract, so Memphis won’t be stuck paying him any salary. The move would reduce the Memphis roster to 18 players.
Hancock appeared in only one of the team’s three preseason games so far, making the only basket he attempted while coming up with three steals in nine minutes. He was a part-time starter at Louisville this past season before going undrafted in June, and he was with the Magic and Rockets in summer league this past July.
Memphis, which has a one-to-one D-League affiliation with the Iowa Energy this year, can keep the D-League rights to as many as four of the players it cuts before opening night, so it’s conceivable that it’ll do so with Hancock. Should the team formally let Hancock go, Patrick Christopher, Earl Clark, Kalin Lucas and Hassan Whiteside would be the lone remaining non-guaranteed contracts on the team’s books.
Spurs Release John Holland
The Spurs have waived camp invitee John Holland, the team announced via press release. San Antonio will be stuck with the $20K partial guarantee it committed to him in the likely event that he clears waivers. The former Boston University shooting guard is reportedly close to signing with Besiktas of Turkey, so it appears the Spurs are accommodating that move.
The 6’5″ Holland didn’t appear in either of the preseason games that San Antonio’s played so far, and he faced long odds to remain on the roster come opening night, since the Spurs have 15 fully guaranteed contracts. Holland, who turns 26 next month, appears poised to return to European basketball, where he’s pursued his career since going undrafted in 2011.
Holland’s release leaves the Spurs with 18 players, all of whom have at least partially guaranteed salaries. Still, Bryce Cotton, Josh Davis and JaMychal Green have only $130K in guaranteed salary split between the three of them, so they seem to be the Spurs most likely to hit waivers between now and the October 27th deadline for teams to set their opening-night rosters.
Heat Waive Chris Johnson, Reggie Williams
The Heat have waived the non-guaranteed contracts of Chris Johnson and Reggie Williams, the team announced. The moves take Miami’s roster down to 18 players, with three players still to be shed before the deadline to set opening-night rosters two weeks from today.
Johnson, not to be confused with the Sixers swingman of the same name, was bidding to return to the NBA after spending the 2013/14 with Zhejiang Guangsha of China. The 29-year-old center from LSU went scoreless in his only preseason appearance this month for the Heat. Williams spent much of last season in the D-League as well as with the San Miguel Beermen of the Philippines, though he did ink a pair of 10-day contracts with the Thunder. The Heat didn’t put Williams on the floor in any of the three preseason games they played while the 28-year-old swingman was on the roster.
The Heat still have much to decide before the regular season, with only 11 players under guaranteed contracts. Shannon Brown, Andre Dawkins and Shawn Jones, all of whom have non-guaranteed deals, are trying to beat out Khem Birch, James Ennis, Justin Hamilton and Tyler Johnson, who have partial guarantees.