Yesterday, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported that the Spurs were in the "process of" withdrawing their qualifying offer to Gary Neal. The RealGM transactions log indicates that the move indeed took place, and if that's so, the timing is key. Yesterday was the deadline for teams to unilaterally withdraw qualifying offers without having to get the player's consent. Teams that pull QOs after the deadline also automatically lose Bird rights to those players. So, the Spurs have not only saved themselves the trouble of getting Neal's permission by presumably withdrawing his QO yesterday, but they've also given themselves more flexibility to re-sign him, if they choose. Here's more on Neal and other notes involving Southwest Division clubs:
- It's been a couple weeks since Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times mentioned that the Bucks were among the teams interested in Gary Neal, but today Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio indicates that Milwaukee remains in the running (Twitter link).
- It appears that this year's 42nd overall pick will play in France. Pierre Jackson, whom the Pelicans acquired as part of the Jrue Holiday/Nerlens Noel trade, has agreed to sign with ASVEL Villeurbanne of France, according to Gabriel Pantel-Jouve of Catch-and-Shoot (translation via Emiliano Carchia of Sportando).
- Now that the Mavs' signings of Monta Ellis and Samuel Dalembert are official, Mark Deeks has provided contract details for them on the Mavs page at ShamSports. Ellis has a three-year, $25.08MM deal with a player option in the final season, and Dalembert gets two years and $7,568,030, with only a $1.8MM guarantee in year two. Dalembert also has a 15% trade kicker.
- Chandler Parsons believes that he had a critical influence on Dwight Howard's decision to sign with the Rockets, as the big man's new teammate tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.