The Celtics agreed to terms with Jason Terry last week, but they'd "love" to turn the deal into a sign-and-trade with the Mavericks in order to free their mid-level exception to pursue Courtney Lee, according to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe. Sources told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that the Mavericks and Celtics discussed a sign-and-trade for Terry earlier in the process, but the Mavs are no longer open to such a move (Twitter link). Jeff Caplan of ESPNDallas.com hears the only way a sign-and-trade happens is if a third team gets involved.
JULY 14, 1:57pm: The team has announced the move is official, tweets Keith Langlois of Pistons.com.
JULY 2, 9:54am: The Pistons will sign Viacheslav Kravtsov when the moratorium period ends, according to agent Jeff Schwartz (link via ESPN.com's Marc Stein). Pistons president Joe Dumars confirmed the agreement in a statement.
The Wolves' courtship of Nicolas Batum took another unusual turn last night, when Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com reported that the league has ruled the offer sheet he signed with the team is invalid, since the Wolves don't have enough cap space to accommodate the four-year, $46.5MM deal. Minnesota moved to clear cap space Friday by waiving Martell Webster and trading Brad Miller to the Hawks. They also renounced the rights to free agents Anthony Tolliver and Anthony Randolph, as fellow CSNNW.com scribe Dwight Jaynes reported. But, as Jaynes noted, Webster won't clear waivers until Sunday at 4:00pm Central, at which time the Wolves can finally submit a new signed offer sheet from Batum. That's not the only news from the Northwest, and we've got the rest here:
JULY 14, 1:08pm: The move is now official, the Celtics have announced.
JUNE 30, 9:24am: The Celtics will re-sign Garnett to a three-year deal worth $34MM, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (via Twitter).
JULY 14, 1:05pm: The signing is now official, according to the team.
JULY 5, 7:38pm: Bass' deal with the Celtics is worth $20MM, writes Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald.
The Knicks’ deadline to match Landry Fields’ 3-year, $18.7MM offer sheet from the Raptors is tonight at 11pm CDT. If they match Lin and Fields, the Knicks will have roughly $86MM committed to those two plus Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire, and Tyson Chandler for the 2014-15 season, tweets Al Iannazzone of Newsday. Include Jason Kidd and Steve Novak and it’s more than $92MM committed to seven players. The luxury tax penalties really start to get stiff in 2013/14 and that could make the Knicks' decision on Fields a difficult one. Here's more from around the Association..
Yesterday, the Rockets officially used their amnesty clause to release forward Luis Scola. It's possible that the big man will clear waivers and become an unrestricted free agent, but there are interested teams out there, including one out of the Central division..
Earlier this week, the Nets backed out of the Dwight Howard sweepstakes and instead opted to re-sign restricted free agent Brook Lopez. General Manager Billy King told reporters, including Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News, that it was clearly time to walk away from the talks and focus on the pieces that are already in Brooklyn. “At some point, you have to decide that you’ve got a young center who is pretty good,” King said of Lopez. “It was about getting him under contract and getting him focused, and getting our team focused." Here's more out of the Atlantic..
We're at the midway point of summer and – surprise, surprise – our long national Dwightmare continues. The Rockets and Magic have had some serious dialogue about a trade, but the two sides still have a long way to go. This week's installment of Hoops Links has a couple of items on Dwight Howard but a healthy dose of non-DH blog pieces as well.
If you have a blog item that you feel should be a part of Hoops Links for next week, send me an email at HoopsLinks@gmail.com. Here's this week's look around the web..