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Hawks Sign Kent Bazemore

September 23rd, 2014 at 3:33pm CST by Eddie Scarito

SEPTEMBER 23RD: The deal is at last official, the team announced via press release.

SEPTEMBER 11TH: The Hawks and Bazemore finally put pen to paper Wednesday, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The team has yet to make an official announcement. It’s likely that the signing took so long to complete because Atlanta wanted to preserve cap space, though that’s just my speculation. The Hawks could have used cap space to acquire other players and circled back to sign Bazemore using the room exception. As it stands, they’re using cap space to ink Bazemore.

JULY 11TH: 9:50pm: Bazemore’s agent, Austin Walton, confirmed the deal and that it is fully guaranteed, tweets Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops.

9:31pm: Kent Bazemore has reached an agreement to join the Hawks, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The deal is for two years and $4MM, according to Stein. Shams Charania of RealGM tweets that the deal is fully guaranteed, and contains no options.

The shooting guard was traded along with MarShon Brooks from the Warriors to the Lakers in the Steve Blake deal on February 19th of this year. Bazemore’s career numbers are 4.1 PPG, 1.1 RPG, and 0.9 APG.

The 25 year old who originally went undrafted out of Old Dominion also received interest from the Hornets, Lakers, Rockets, Spurs, Warriors and Celtics.

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Heat Sign Shawn Jones For Camp

September 23rd, 2014 at 3:06pm CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 23RD: The signing is finally official, as the team has followed up with a formal announcement.

AUGUST 7TH: The Heat have reached a non-guaranteed deal with undrafted power forward Shawn Jones, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). It appears it’ll be a summer contract for the former Middle Tennessee State Blue Raider, giving him a chance to make the club out of training camp. It’ll almost certainly be a minimum-salary arrangement, especially since the Heat are limited to handing out no more than that.

Jones, 22, was the 99th-best draft prospect this year in the rankings that Chad Ford of ESPN.com compiled, and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress didn’t list him within his top 100, pegging him as only the 81st-best senior in the 2014 draft class. The 6’8″ Jones was nonetheless impressive on the boards at the Portsmouth Invitational, a seniors-only predraft showcase, averaging 11.7 rebounds in 31.0 minutes per game in three contests. He pulled down 5.2 RPG in 14.6 MPG in summer league action with the Clippers.

Miami has been active in recent days, striking deals with Shawne Williams and Tyler Johnson. The addition of Jones gives the team agreements with 15 players, though only 11 are known to have fully guaranteed salaries, as our roster counts show.

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Heat Sign Andre Dawkins For Camp

September 23rd, 2014 at 3:05pm CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 23RD: The signing is official, the team announced.

SEPTEMBER 2ND, 2:32pm: The pact is non-guaranteed, agent John Spencer confirms to Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. There were about a dozen teams in pursuit of Dawkins, who turned down guaranteed salary from overseas clubs, Spencer adds.

12:35pm: The Heat and undrafted shooting guard Andre Dawkins have reached agreement on a deal for training camp, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). That suggests it’s a non-guaranteed arrangement for the former Duke Blue Devil, though it’s conceivable that he’ll have some sort of partial guarantee. It’ll almost certainly be a minimum-salary contract, since the Heat are limited to giving out no more than that.

The 6’4″ Dawkins played a reserve role at Duke, averaging 7.9 points in 13.7 minutes per contest this season, but his 42.1% three-point accuracy on 4.6 attempts from behind the arc each game surely helped him earn a few predraft workouts with NBA teams. He joined the Heat and the Rockets in summer league, showing efficient scoring pop with 12.3 PPG in just 19.3 MPG in four appearances with Miami’s squad.

The Heat had been carrying 17 players, though only 11 have full guarantees, as our roster counts show. That would appear to give the 22-year-old Dawkins a decent chance to make the opening-night roster if he impresses during camp and preseason action next month.

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Mavs Sign Charlie Villanueva For Camp

September 23rd, 2014 at 2:53pm CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 23RD: The deal is official, as Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com confirms (Twitter link).

SEPTEMBER 8TH: 3:58pm: It will be a one-year contract, Charania tweets.

3:05pm: The Mavericks will sign Charlie Villanueva to a non-guaranteed deal, a source tells Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com (Twitter link). It’s almost certainly for the minimum salary, since that’s all Dallas can give, and Shams Charania of RealGM reported this morning that Villanueva was choosing between minimum-salary offers from the Clippers and Mavs.

It’ll be a healthy drop in salary from the $8.58MM he saw last season in the final year of a player-friendly five-year, $37.7MM contract with the Pistons. The Excel Sports Management client reportedly worked out for multiple teams earlier this summer, but there didn’t appear to be much of a market for Villanueva until the Mavs and Clippers became involved. The nine-year veteran averaged career lows in just about every category last season as he saw just 9.0 minutes per contest across 20 appearances.

The 30-year-old’s choice of Dallas over L.A. is somewhat curious, since the Mavs already have 15 guaranteed deals, while the Clippers only have 13, as our roster counts show. To make the opening-night roster, Villanueva would also have to beat out Ivan Johnson and Eric Griffin, who both possess partial guarantees on their deals and who both can play at power forward, Villanueva’s position.

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Where 2013/14 10-Day Signees Are Today

September 23rd, 2014 at 2:04pm CST by Chuck Myron

More players signed 10-day contracts last season than in any of the past eight seasons, the span covered in the Hoops Rumors 10-Day Tracker. Slightly more than half of those 41 players are poised to go to NBA training camps this fall, but that leaves quite a few whose brief auditions with NBA teams in 2013/14 haven’t led to continued employment in the Association as 2014/15 is set to begin.

The Heat currently have more players who signed 10-day contracts last season than any other NBA team, though none of the four signed their 10-days with the Heat. The only player Miami inked to a 10-day deal last season is DeAndre Liggins, and while it appeared that he was set to join the Clippers for camp this year, the latest report indicates that he’s still without a deal.

Each of last season’s 10-day signees is listed below and broken down into categories, along with information on their whereabouts.

Still with the team that last signed them to a 10-day contract (8)

Joined a different NBA team (13)

Heading overseas (7)

Free agents (13)

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Rockets Sign Kostas Papanikolaou

September 23rd, 2014 at 1:08pm CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 23RD: The deal is official, the team announced via press release.

AUGUST 11TH, 8:06am: George Sferopoulos, the agent for Papanikolaou, posted a photo on Twitter of what appears to be Papanikolaou signing his Rockets contract (hat tip to Sportando). The team has yet to make an official announcement.

AUGUST 8TH, 7:01pm: The Rockets will pay FC Barcelona the maximum Excluded International Player Payment Amount of $600K to bring Papanikolaou to the states this season, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (via Twitter). As was reported last month, the total of the buyout is $1.5MM, meaning that Pananikolaou will be responsible for the difference of about $900K.

5:05pm: The first season is worth $4.8MM, tweets Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle, and the second year is a team option. That figure is likely rounded up from $4,797,664, which is what the Rockets had left on their mid-level. The second season’s salary will be $4.6MM, Wojnarowski reports (Twitter link).

4:54pm: The Rockets and draft-and-stash prospect Kostas Papanikolaou have struck a deal that will bring the Greek small forward to Houston this season, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. It appears to be more than a minimum-salary deal, since Stein adds that the Rockets are using part of their mid-level exception (Twitter links). It’ll be a two-year arrangement, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (on Twitter).

Papanikolaou and the Rockets had reportedly stopped talking last month after the 24-year-old turned down an apparent two-year, $4MM offer. It seems the two sides circled back to the idea, however, and the 48th pick of the 2012 draft will suit up for Houston this coming season. Papanikolaou was initially selected by the Knicks in 2012 before his draft rights were traded to the Blazers a few weeks later. Last summer, his rights went to Houston as a part of the deal for Thomas Robinson.

The 6-foot-7 forward played in Spain last year for FC Barcelona, where he averaged 6.8 points on just over 47 percent shooting in 24.2 minutes per game. But it was the prior campaign in which he made a name for himself, shooting over 46 percent from three and 53 percent from the field for Greece’s Olympiacos en route to being named the Euroleague Rising Star for the 2012/13 season.

The signing of Papanikolaou is the latest manuever in what has to be considered a disappointing offseason in Houston for GM Daryl Morey. After striking out on Chris Bosh, the Rockets lost Chandler Parsons, Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin from a team that won 54 games. They managed to offset some of that bad fortune by adding Trevor Ariza, Jeff Adrien, Joey Dorsey and Ishmael Smith, though that foursome would be hard-pressed to duplicate the contributions of the group that departed. Depending on how NBA-ready he looks in preseason, Papanikolaou could be in the mix at both forward positions.

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Lloyd’s Latest: Thompson, Allen, Deng

September 23rd, 2014 at 12:39pm CST by Chuck Myron

LeBron James is set to play a game in a Cavs uniform less than two weeks from now for the first time in more than four years, but that’s far from the only storyline surrounding the team as it prepares for training camp. Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal shares 23 mostly Cavs-related thoughts in honor of James’ No. 23 jersey, and the entire piece is a must-read for wine-and-gold faithful. We’ll pass along three highlights here:

  • The Cavs and Tristan Thompson‘s representatives with Klutch Sports have yet to talk numbers in a potential extension for the former No. 4 overall pick, a source tells Lloyd. Still, the Beacon Journal scribe believes agent Rich Paul will ask for a deal in the neighborhood of the four-year, $44MM extension the Bucks gave Larry Sanders and the four-year, $48MM extension the Jazz granted Derrick Favors.
  • Cleveland’s brass maintains belief that Ray Allen will sign with the team, as Lloyd wrote Monday, but they anticipate starting camp without him, as their full 20-man roster indicates, Lloyd explains in his latest piece.
  • The NBA and the Cavs are fairly certain that the racially derogatory remarks in the infamous Luol Deng scouting report that seemed to come from someone with ties to the Cavs emanated from someone who’s no longer with Cleveland, according to Lloyd. Instead, many around the league are directing their ire toward the Hawks for their handling of the situation, Lloyd writes.
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Latest On Rajon Rondo

September 23rd, 2014 at 12:21pm CST by Chuck Myron

12:21pm: Ainge says Rondo has given him the indication that he loves Boston and wants to stay there, adding that “very credible people have made things up” in regard to Rondo trade rumors, as Holmes passes along (Twitter links).

10:58am: Celtics coach Brad Stevens rejects the notion that Rondo is difficult to coach, as Baxter Holmes of the Boston Globe tweets. “He’s been around, he works hard and he’s a guy that I’ve really enjoyed coaching,” Stevens said.

9:59am: Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge left himself plenty of wiggle room in his comments over the weekend, saying that a Rajon Rondo trade is unlikely to happen but refusing to rule it out. Co-owner Wyc Grousbeck took it a step further with full-scale mixed messages, calling Rondo “super stubborn” while also pointing to the All-Star’s generosity and love for Boston, as Adam Kaufman of Boston.com details.

“I know if you ask [former head coach] Doc [Rivers], ‘Was he the most coachable guy, or in the top half, 50%?’ he’d say, ‘No, he’s in the bottom 50% of being coachable.’ It’s hard with him,” Grousbeck said Sunday on WBZ-TV, as Kaufman transcribes.

Still, in the same interview, Grousbeck said he “absolutely” wants to keep Rondo, who can become a free agent next summer, for the long haul.

“It’s intangible,” he said. “You just watch him. He played through sort of a broken elbow, a ripped knee. He’s a gamer, he’s a competitor, and he’s got world-class talent.”

Ainge said that he expects to keep Rondo long-term, tweets Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe, and Ainge denied today that the team has fielded trade calls about its point guard, as Ben Rohrbach of WEEI.com notes (on Twitter). Both Ainge and Grousbeck hinted in their interviews that the Celtics recently had the opportunity to make a significant deal, but not one that would have helped the team accomplish its ultimate goals, Rohrbach observes via Twitter. Ainge also dismissed the notion that free agents don’t want to play with Rondo, according to Rohrbach (Twitter link).

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And-Ones: Cap, Walker, Bledsoe, Rubio, Wiggins

September 23rd, 2014 at 11:43am CST by Chuck Myron

Some teams think the salary cap will jump above $70MM for next season, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe reports, though Lowe’s dispatch from a week ago indicated that the league has told clubs not to get carried away with their projections for the time being. Clarity on the matter will be important, especially for clubs with players up for extensions to their rookie-scale contracts before the October 31st deadline. Lowe’s latest piece centers on one such case, as the Hornets face a decision about whether to extend Kemba Walker, whom rival executives often say isn’t a “championship point guard,” according to Lowe. We’ll pass along another tidbit from the Grantland scribe amid the latest from around the league:

  • The Suns haven’t shown much interest in sign-and-trades involving Eric Bledsoe, Lowe hears, advancing Friday’s report from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports that threw cold water on the idea that Bledsoe would end up with the Wolves.
  • The Wolves and Ricky Rubio‘s camp remain in a stalemate in extension negotiations in part because agents Dan Fegan and Jarinn Akana know that the Knicks and Lakers can open cap space next summer, writes Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter links).
  • Rumors as late as the eve of the draft suggested that the Cavs were conflicted about whom to take No. 1 overall, but coach David Blatt insists the team had settled on Andrew Wiggins long before making him the top pick, as Blatt tells Terry Pluto of the Plain Dealer. Cleveland didn’t hold on to Wiggins for long, of course, shipping him to the Wolves in the Kevin Love trade.
  • Nazr Mohammed‘s contract with the Bulls is non-guaranteed for the minimum salary and covers just one season, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link).
  • Clippers signee Jared Cunningham rejected a deal from Serbia’s KK Partizan to instead try his hand at making the opening-night roster in L.A. on his non-guaranteed contract, tweets David Pick of Eurobasket.com.
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Scotty Hopson In Talks To Play In Italy?

September 23rd, 2014 at 10:16am CST by Chuck Myron

TUESDAY, 10:16am: Representatives from Enel Brindisi deny that they’re moving toward a deal with Hopson, Carchia tweets.

MONDAY, 11:39am: Scotty Hopson is finalizing a deal with Italy’s Enel Brindisi, sources tell Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia. Hopson is still under contract with the Kings, who officially acquired him in the Jason Terry trade last week, but it seems unlikely that Sacramento would carry his non-guaranteed salary of nearly $1.451MM into the season. Italian outlets Mismatchbrindisi and La Gazzetta dello Sport were the first to report the talks, according to Carchia, who provided a translation of the original dispatches.

Hopson was averaging 10.9 points in 24.9 minutes per game for Turkey’s Anadolu Efes last season when Cleveland signed him at the end of March to a deal that covered the rest of the season, with non-guaranteed salary included for 2014/15. The Cavs used their room exception to make the deal more lucrative and thus more valuable for matching salaries in a trade, though they could have created a more valuable trade chip and saved money at the same if they’d signed a 10-plus-year veteran to a minimum-salary deal. Still, Hopson played out the season and Cleveland indeed shipped him out, sending him to Charlotte, which flipped him to New Orleans less than 48 hours later. The Pelicans sent him along to Houston in the Omer Asik trade less than 48 hours after that, and the Rockets held on to him for two months so they could aggregate his salary with Alonzo Gee‘s in the Terry swap.

A deal overseas would presumably give Hopson some degree of certainty about where he’ll play the coming season after a whirlwind summer, though it’s unclear whether it would contain an NBA escape clause. The 25-year-old swingman saw action in only two games for less than seven minutes combined during his stint with the Cavs, so he didn’t have much of a chance to prove his worth in the Association.

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