SUNDAY, 9:34am: The Sixers officially announced the moves, via Twitter.
SATURDAY, 2:49pm: The Sixers have let go of Rodney Williams and Gani Lawal, a source tells Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News (Twitterlinks). The team will absorb Lawal’s $100K partial guarantee and the $35K partial guarantee on Williams’ contract. Their subtraction leaves the Sixers with 14 players, one under the regular season max and one more than the minimum.
Williams and Lawal appeared to be the most vulnerable among the team’s remaining non-guaranteed players, and Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer predicted yesterday that the last roster spot would come down to one of them (Twitter link). That assumed Philly would carry 15 players, but the team apparently will go with fewer. Cooney speculates on Twitter that Kwame Brown could be next to go, though he’s on a fully guaranteed deal for nearly $3MM and would likely have to agree to a buyout.
Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer believes Nerlens Noel must grow physically and emotionally if he’s to live up to his expectations in the NBA, so, according to the Inquirer scribe, he’d be better off not returning from his left knee injury at any point this season. Coach Brett Brown this week attempted to dispel the notion that any decisions had been made about when Noel would play again, after making it seem on Monday as though Noel was likely to miss the season. The Sixers hoped injured center Andrew Bynum would come back to lead them deep into the playoffs last year, but there’s not much on the line this time around for Philly’s ragtag bunch. Here’s more from the Atlantic:
Former Suns GM Steve Kerr doesn’t say whether he was interested in Brad Stevens, but he does tell Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe that several GMs around the league had wanted to hire Stevens before the Celtics did.
Isiah Thomas last coached in the NBA with the Knicks in 2007/08, but he explains to Washburn that he hasn’t closed the door on a return to the bench.
Only three players who remained unsigned this month started more games for their team last year than the 32 that Jamaal Tinsley started for the Jazz, who finally re-signed him to a minimum-salary contract this week. The point guard still didn’t get anxious as he stayed at home without a contract this fall.
“Not at all,” Tinsley said to Steve Luhm of The Salt Lake Tribune. “I’ve been through way tougher things in my life than this. I’m blessed to get the opportunity to play basketball. I’d do this for free. I’ve been running up and down the court the last four (or) five months without a job. … So it wasn’t frustrating.”
Here’s more from around the league:
Marc Stein of ESPN.com wrote this week that the Thunder“would be wise not to relax” about Durant’s willingness to remain in OKC when his contract ends in 2016, and Durant tells Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman that he’s not sure what his future holds.
Thaddeus Young hopes he remains with the Sixers, the only NBA team he’s ever played for, but he understands the team is in flux and could trade him or teammates Evan Turner and Spencer Hawes this season, as Tom Moore of The Intelligencer observes. “There definitely is some talk,” Young said. “At the end of the day, it’s a business. If they see fit to trade one of us, two of us or all three of us, we have to pack up and go. It’s still a job. We have to remain calm and we can’t be mad.”
Whether or not Young stays, the Sixers roster will almost certainly change during the season, writes Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. GM Sam Hinkie acknowledges that plenty of work remains to turn the team into an elite organization.
Kevin Pelton figures Andrew Bogut will be healthy for most of the three years of his extension, but he still thinks the Warriors absorb more financial risk than Bogut does, arguing in an Insider piece for ESPN.com that the team should have waited until he hit free agency to do a deal.
Pelton mentions the Mavericks as a potential suitor for Bogut had he become a free agent, and Warriors brass indeed perceived the Mavs as a threat, just as they saw the Bobcats as a rival for Stephen Curry, tweets Marcus Thompson II of the Bay Area News Group.
Phil Jackson said this week that it’s unlikely he’ll ever coach in the NBA again, and he reiterated that point and touched on many others in a conversation with Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times. He has spoken with owners of teams around the league about a front office role, and he told Bresnahan he envisions serving as more of a consultant than a GM. Wherever he winds up, he made it clear that it won’t be with the Lakers, even though his comments suggest at least some of his blood runs purple-and-gold, perhaps a nod to his fiancee and Lakers co-owner Jeanie Buss. The entire piece is worth reading, especially for Lakers fans, but we’ll share a few highlights here:
On returning to the Lakers in any capacity:
“At the present time I don’t see how that would work out with the way the organization is set up right now. There would have to be some seismic shift.”
On the Lakers’ flirtation with him during last year’s coaching search:
“I know it was difficult for Jeanie because I wasn’t putting my hat in the ring and they asked me to come and interview for the job, of which I think they had no intention of actually following through. I think those things stuck at the core of Laker die-hard fans.”
On his feelings toward the Lakers:
“I want people to know that I really want to support the Lakers and I’m here to support Jeanie in her effort to keep this franchise vital and vibrant. I have every intention of trying to help them move forward.”
Perhaps the most high-profile roster cut this week was the Sixers’ decision to let go of Royce White, the 16th pick from the 2012 draft. White’s psychological disorders have been well-documented since his time playing college ball at Iowa State, where he excelled as a versatile 6’8″ force. There were doubts about his mental health leading up to the draft, but his abilities on the basketball court made him a top-five talent, as far as Rockets GM Daryl Morey was concerned. Morey, who had three first-round picks last year, figured he would use one on the high-risk, high-reward White.
Alas, Morey’s gamble went bust. White and the Rockets engaged in a back-and-forth all season long about language that White wanted to have inserted into his contract to provide for his mental health. The Rockets countered that the league’s collective bargaining agreement wouldn’t allow them to put special provisions in his standard rookie-scale deal, and White went the entire regular season without appearing in an NBA game, only hitting the court during preseason and for 16 games with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, Houston’s D-League affiliate.
Morey decided to write off his loss halfway through the two-year guaranteed portion of White’s contract, trading him to the Sixers for Philadelphia’s 2014 second-round pick. Morey sweetened the deal for his former assistant, newly minted Sixers GM Sam Hinkie, adding the rights to Turkish prospect Furkan Aldemir and, as we learned yesterday, enough cash to cover White’s 2013/14 salary.
White’s brief tenure in Philadelphia was a quiet one. He made few headlines, and the story that he didn’t accompany the team for its exhibition games in Europe was somewhat overblown, since the Sixers left other players on their roster home, too. White appeared in five preseason games this month and even started one, averaging 5.0 points and 4.4 rebounds in 18.1 minutes per contest. He seemed mentally and physically prepared to play.
Still, Hinkie and the Sixers decided that it wasn’t worth keeping White around, even though they have a roster that’s roundly expected to finish with the league’s worst record this season. That leaves more questions than answers surrounding the future of a player whom Morey, and likely other league executives, considered better than most lottery picks based on talent alone less than a year and a half ago.
White’s future might not include the NBA. He’s never played in a regular season game, so, officially, he has yet to make his debut. Let us know whether you think he ever will, and leave a comment to explain your thinking.
It wasn’t exactly 2012’s James Harden blockbuster, but the Wizards‘ acquisition of Marcin Gortat last night, just days before the season gets underway, was a bold and surprising move by Washington. Our latest round of Southeast items has some more info on that deal, as well as other notes from around the division….
The Suns and Wizards had been talking about making a deal for a few weeks, and the major holdup involved wrangling over the amount of protection on the first-rounder going from Washington to Phoenix, according to Michael Lee of the Washington Post. J. Michael of CSNWashington.com adds that the swap was fast-tracked over the past few days when it became increasingly clear to the Wizards that Emeka Okafor would miss a significant portion of the season.
Wizards GM Ernie Grunfeld left the door open for his team to open a max player next summer, tweets Lee.
After being cut by the Heat, Eric Griffin is considering playing in China, according to Joseph Goodman of the Miami Herald (Twitter link).
Eric Dawson, who was released by the Hawks today, will sign with the Austin Toros of the D-League, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.com.
Mike Miller‘s attorney told Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald that his client is planning to sue the Heat after the club allegedly introduced him to a con man who pocketed his investment money. Meanwhile, Miller told Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press that he did not authorize his lawyer to give out that information and wrote, via text, that he is grateful for the way he and his family were treated by the club.
Just over two weeks ago, I wrote that we could expect in the neighborhood of 100 roster cuts by NBA teams before opening night. At that point, 538 players were on NBA rosters. Today, just 443 players remain under contract. If you’ve been following Hoops Rumors closely, you know which players are currently on the waiver wire and which new names on the free agent market. If not, you can browse through our transactions log for the highlights.
While most teams have made their cuts, there are still a couple clubs with moves on the way. As our roster count page shows, the Wizards and Rockets are still carrying 18 and 17 players, respectively, so those two teams will have to trim down to 15 (or less) by Monday at 4:00 pm central time.
It appears likely that the Wizards will release three players they acquired yesterday, in Shannon Brown, Kendall Marshall, and Malcolm Lee. All 18 players on Washington’s roster are on fully guaranteed contracts, so unless the team can find a creative trade in the next day or two, it will eat a good chunk of salary.
The Rockets, meanwhile, don’t have two obvious candidates to be released. Patrick Beverley and Greg Smith are on non-guaranteed deals, but both players figure to be part of Houston’s rotation this season. Perhaps Ronnie Brewer and Reggie Williams, who are both on partially guaranteed contracts, will be the odd men out, but we shouldn’t rule out a last-minute trade either. After all, it was on the Saturday night before the regular season a year ago that DarylMorey landed James Harden.
Even after the Wizards and Rockets make their cuts, there will still be plenty of players around the league on non-guaranteed deals, as our complete list shows. Not all of those players will last the full season — the majority of their contracts will become fully guaranteed on January 10th, so many will be released before then, saving their teams some money. Our schedule of guarantee dates reveals the handful of players whose contracts are set to become guaranteed before January, including a few guys who will be in line for full guarantees after lasting until opening night.
Although nearly all of the players waived this week will clear waivers, it’s still worth keeping an eye on teams who may make claims. As Chuck Myron outlined earlier this month, waiver claims can be a part of preseason strategy, so it’s possible we’ll see one or two October standouts snatched up by a rival club. As we explain in our glossary, teams who have sufficient cap space or big enough trade exceptions can claim players. Players who were signed using the minimum salary exception can also be claimed by any team using that same minimum salary exception.
The Raptors have released Carlos Morais and Chris Wright, the team announced today in a press release. That will leave Julyan Stone as Toronto’s 15th man, and the only non-guaranteed player on the roster.
Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun had reported (via Twitter) that Stone was expected to survive this weekend’s roster cuts. The former Nuggets guard reached an agreement with Toronto earlier this summer, which was nixed when he failed a physical. It seems the team, and new GM Masai Ujiri, still liked him enough to offer a non-guaranteed contract and a regular season roster spot.
It appears the Celtics, Nets, and Knicks are all ready to get the regular season underway, having reduced their rosters to 14, 15, and 15 players respectively. The Sixers are also down to 14 players, though GM Sam Hinkie has been active enough in his first offseason that there’s no guarantee the roster is set in stone yet.
Only the Raptors still have to make their cuts — the team is currently carrying 17 players, so at least two players will need to be released. Carlos Morais, Julyan Stone, and Chris Wright are all on non-guaranteed deals, and according to Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun (via Twitter), Stone looks like the one most likely to survive until Monday and beyond.
Here are a few more notes from around the Atlantic:
Rodney Williams, whom the Sixers waived today, will play for the Delaware 87ers, the team’s D-League affiliate, according to Dei Lynam of CSNPhilly.com (Twitter link).
The Knicks have hired Idan Ravin, the personal trainer for Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith, as a player development coach, according to Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com (via Twitter). It could be an effort by the Knicks to earn brownie points with their star player as he enters the final year of his contract.
According to Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News, it’s hard to argue the Sixers will be tanking this season, since there isn’t much talent on the roster to begin with. I’d call that a question of semantics.
The Mavs have released camp invitee Mickey McConnell, the team announced via press release. The move, which had been expected, reduces Dallas’ roster count to 15, so no further cuts will be required before opening night.
McConnell, 24, spent last season playing for Tezenis Verona in Italy, averaging 13.6 PPG, 3.5 RPG and 2.7 APG in 32 games. He appeared in five contests for the Mavs during the preseason, but was on a non-guaranteed contract, on a club which already had 15 players on guaranteed deals. As such, he was a long shot to make the NBA roster, but could end up with Dallas’ D-League affiliate, the Texas Legends.