2014 November | Hoops Rumors

And-Ones: Martin, Mavs, Ledo, Ennis

November 24th, 2014 at 10:05pm CST by Charlie Adams

Kevin Martin will undergo surgery tomorrow after breaking his wrist during a 37-point performance against the Knicks last week, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (on Twitter). The operation will knock the sharp shooting guard out for six to eight weeks, according to Wolfson, further depleting a Wolves‘ team that’s struggled to stay healthy this season. While Minnesota plans for Martin’s forthcoming absence, we’ll round up the latest from around the NBA..

The Mavs have been impressed with the recent work put in by Ricky Ledo, tweets Dwain Price of the Star-Telegram. Ledo, a second-year guard, was recalled from his two game D-League assignment earlier today after averaging 12.5 points per night for the Texas Legends.
Tyler Ennis is working to find out how he fits on the Suns’ guard-heavy roster, as Lori Ewing of the Candian Press examines. Despite struggling to find consistent minutes in Phoenix, the coaches have been high on the court vision and play-making abilities demonstrated by the rookie guard, Ewing notes.
Cody Taylor of Basketball Insiders provides a rundown of trade candidates in the Eastern Conference. Taylor opines that the Hornets’ slow start to the season might mean they try to acquire a veteran talent by shipping out a young piece like Noah Vonleh or P.J. Hairston.

Heat Sign Hassan Whiteside, Cut Shannon Brown

November 24th, 2014 at 8:40pm CST by Chuck Myron

8:40pm: Miami has officially signed Whiteside, the team announced in a press release, which also reveals the team has cut ties with Brown and his non-guaranteed deal to make room for the newly acquired center. Brown inked his deal with the Heat in late August but didn’t see much burn during his tenure in Miami. He averaged 17.8 minutes per night across just five contests during his time in South Beach.

8:44am: The Heat will sign D-League center Hassan Whiteside, a source tells Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel (Twitter link), which confirms a Sunday report from Marc Stein of ESPN.com that the team was lining up the move. There will have to be a corresponding transaction, since the Heat are at the 15-man roster limit. Miami has non-guaranteed contracts with Shannon Brown and Andre Dawkins and more than $408K in partially guaranteed salary out to Justin Hamilton, whose partial guarantee jumps to about $612K if he’s on the roster through next Monday. Still, it’s unclear if any of those three are the players that Miami will cut to make the Whiteside signing official.

Whiteside hasn’t played in an NBA regular season game since the 2011/12 season, when he was with the Kings, but he was on the Grizzlies roster for a day last week as Memphis sought a temporary fill-in for five players who were out with stomach viruses. He’s otherwise been with the Grizzlies D-League affiliate, putting up impressive totals of 22.0 points, 15.7 rebounds and 5.3 blocks in 28.7 minutes per game across a small sample size of three D-League contests. The 7’0″ center has spent extensive time in the D-League during his five years as a pro as well as parts of two seasons in Lebanon. The former 33rd overall pick out of Marshall has averaged just 1.5 PPG, 2.1 RPG and 0.8 BPG in 5.8 MPG in 19 NBA appearances.

Miami is limited to giving just the minimum salary, though it’s unclear if the deal involves any guaranteed money. Ten-day contracts don’t start until January, but deals don’t have to be guaranteed for the season until around the same time.

Western Notes: Dragic, Silver, Nash, Johnson

November 24th, 2014 at 7:59pm CST by Arthur Hill

Goran Dragic may have a lot of influence in Phoenix, but he tells Joel Brigham of Basketball Insiders that he didn’t use that power to get the Suns to sign his brother. Zoran Dragic inked a two-year guaranteed deal in September.

“To be honest I never mentioned my brother (to GM Ryan McDonough),” Goran said. “This summer when we played the World Cup, Ryan was in Barcelona and he called me. He wanted to take me to dinner and asked if I could bring my brother, so I didn’t know anything. I thought he was being polite. When we went to the restaurant he started asking questions to Zoran and I was like, what is going on? Then I heard all the rumors coming out on the Internet, and I started thinking maybe this could happen.”

There’s more news from the Western Conference:

Commissioner Adam Silver discussed his decision-making regarding former Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s ouster and identified a harder salary cap as the first change he would make happen if he could do so unilaterally as he spoke with Chuck Klosterman for GQ.com. “I still think it’s unhealthy for the league when a team like Brooklyn goes out and pays an exorbitant luxury tax in order to give themselves a better chance to win,” Silver said. “From a league-office standpoint, the ideal league would be for all thirty teams to compete based on the skill of their management and players, as opposed to one team paying more to get better talent. So creating a more even system would be at the top of my list.”
Steve Nash may be out for the season, but the Lakers are hoping he can help them in another way, writes Kevin Ding of Bleacher Report. He says L.A. is hoping future free agents — specifically the Thunder’s Kevin Durant — notice the loyalty the Lakers displayed by not stretching Nash’s contract or trying to get him to accept a reduced buyout.
The Rockets recalled Nick Johnson from Rio Grand Valley of the D-League, the team announced. Johnson, the 42nd pick in this year’s NBA draft, has seen little action for Houston, with just two points and one rebound in 11 minutes of court time.

Eastern Notes: Love, Kirk, George, Sixers

November 24th, 2014 at 7:12pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Cavaliers are confident Kevin Love will be in Cleveland for the long run, but rival GMs aren’t so sure, writes Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. Berger notes that when the Heat formed their “Big Three” four years ago, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all signed six-year deals that contained opt-outs after four. But under the new CBA, there’s a disincentive for a player to accept an extension before becoming an unrestricted free agent. Love has a $16.7MM player option for next season. There’s more on the Cavs amid the latest from the Eastern Conference:

The Cavs are actively seeking immediate help in the frontcourt, tweets Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. Cleveland would love to pry Timofey Mozgov from the Nuggets, but so far those efforts have been fruitless.
Cleveland made a roster move Monday, recalling center Alex Kirk from the D-League’s Canton Charge, the Cavs announced. Kirk has played two games for the Cavaliers this season and three games for the Charge.
The Pacers have begun to lose hope that Paul George‘s broken leg will heal in time for him to play this season, a source tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports, who writes amid his weekly power rankings.
A source suggested to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv that the Sixers would probably trade one of their existing big men if they had a chance to draft top prospect Jahlil Okafor this summer. A “bidding war” for Joel Embiid and Nerlens Noel would ensue if the Sixers wind up with the No. 1 pick this year, writes Sam Smith of Bulls.com. Smith has nonetheless heard opposing GMs say they’re reluctant to trade for any Sixers because of the losing environment those players have been a part of.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Atlantic Notes: ‘Melo, Green, Raptors, D-League

November 24th, 2014 at 4:58pm CST by Chuck Myron

Carmelo Anthony admits the warm weather and the lack of a state income tax in Texas were factors he considered as he thought about signing with the Rockets this summer, but he has no regrets about his decision to return to the Knicks, as he told reporters today. Marc Berman of the New York Post has the details, including Anthony’s acknowledgment of a conversation with Dwight Howard.

“We had some great dialogue back and forth,’’ Anthony said. “I talked to him. We talked about some things. Ultimately it came down to what I really felt and really wanted at that moment. We had some contact and conversations. He tried. He tried extremely hard. It didn’t have anything to do with Dwight or James [Harden]. It came down to my own personal decision.’’

The Rockets appear none the worse for losing out on ‘Melo, having started 10-3, while the Knicks are but 4-10. Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:

Jeff Green stressed to reporters Sunday that he didn’t mean to imply that he wanted the Celtics to trade him when he expressed his frustration with the team’s losing, notes Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com. “I want to stay here,” said Green, who can opt out of his contract this coming summer “I love this team. I love being here.”
The Raptors rejected a draft-night offer from the Suns that would have given Toronto the draft rights to Tyler Ennis, whom the Raptors coveted, in return for 2014’s 20th overall pick and the 2016 first-rounder that the Knicks owe Toronto, according to Sportsnet’s Michael Grange.
The Celtics have recalled James Young from the D-League, the team announced. It was a one-day excursion for this year’s 17th overall pick, who put up 22 points and eight rebounds Sunday for Boston’s affiliate.
Rookie JaKarr Sampson is back from his three-day D-League assignment, the Sixers announced. The undrafted small forward averaged 15.0 points and 4.5 rebounds in two D-League games.

Cavs, Wizards, Bulls, Spurs Still Eyeing Ray Allen

November 24th, 2014 at 4:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

4:00pm: The Cavs remain the “undisputed favorites” to sign Allen, providing he decides to play again, writes Ken Berger of CBSSports.com.

3:35pm: The Wizards haven’t checked in on Allen recently, but that doesn’t mean the team isn’t still interested in him, reports Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post (Twitter link).

12:59pm: The Cavs, Wizards, Bulls and Spurs are among a group of seven teams that maintain interest in signing free agent Ray Allen, tweets Chris Broussard of ESPN.com. Allen has been spending time in Miami and continuing to stay in shape, Broussard adds, but while it’s not entirely clear whether the Heat are one of those seven, the 39-year-old sharpshooter has reportedly ruled out a return to the franchise with which he’s spent the past two seasons.

The four teams Broussard identifies in his latest dispatch have all been linked to Allen over the past several months, with Cleveland most frequently mentioned in connection with the Jim Tanner client. A report earlier this month indicated that the Bulls remained in contact with Allen’s representatives, and Cavs GM David Griffin was reportedly speaking with Allen’s camp in early October, with the Cavs still seemingly the front-runners at that point. The Cavs maintained belief as late as mid-September that Allen would eventually sign with them, but Tanner denied a couple of weeks later that a deal between Cleveland and his client was imminent. That was one of several occasions since the start of free agency that Allen’s camp has shushed rumors, and whether Allen even wants to continue playing at all is still unknown.

The Spurs have the most flexibility to pay Allen among the teams Broussard lists, since San Antonio still has a $3.228MM slice of its mid-level exception left after using part of it to re-sign Aron Baynes. The Spurs would nonetheless need to unload a player on a fully guaranteed contract to sign Allen. The Wizards, Bulls and Cavs are limited to the minimum salary, but they all possess players on non-guaranteed contracts, and Chicago has an open roster spot, as our roster counts show.

Latest On Danny Ferry, Hawks

November 24th, 2014 at 3:31pm CST by Chuck Myron

Hawks GM Danny Ferry doesn’t believe it’s possible that he’d return to his job under new ownership, sources tell TNT’s David Aldridge, who writes in his Morning Tip column for NBA.com. Ferry has been on an indefinite leave of absence since September, shortly after controlling owner Bruce Levenson announced plans to sell the team that stemmed from a racially insensitive email that he wrote in 2012. The scandal enveloped Ferry when the racially charged remarks he read about Luol Deng during a conference call in June became public.

Completion of a sale is still several months away, Aldridge writes, and that jibes with a report from a month ago that indicated that the sale process was slow-going, with the size of the portion of the team up for sale still unclear. Regardless of who owns the franchise, the chance that Ferry returns at any point to his job is “microscopic,” Aldridge writes, echoing similar verbiage from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.

Ferry has nonetheless picked up widespread support around the league, with Al Horford the latest to defend the executive’s character, as Aldridge details. Aldridge also heard from Kyle Korver, who reiterated his faith in the Hawks and Ferry. Still, the public pressure is on, and the Rev. Markel Hutchins, an Atlanta civil rights leader who served as the spokesman for a dozen civil rights groups that met with the Hawks earlier this year in the wake of the incident, told Aldridge that he’d be “extremely disappointed” if Ferry returned.

Coach Mike Budenholzer has been serving in a dual role as acting GM since Ferry took his leave, with help, as Aldridge points out, from assistant GM Wes Wilcox and senior adviser Rick Sund, who preceded Ferry as Hawks GM.

Southwest Notes: Grizzlies, Anderson, Ledo

November 24th, 2014 at 12:36pm CST by Chuck Myron

Anthony Davis is way out in front in the MVP race, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News sees it. There’s certainly a compelling argument to be made, as Davis is averaging 26.3 points, 11.4 rebounds and a league-high 3.5 blocks so far this season. The Brow will be eligible for a rookie scale extension in the summer to come, and surely the Pelicans will jump at the chance to secure him for the long term. Here’s more from around the Southwest Division.

Chris Herrington of The Commercial Appeal takes a Grizzlies-centric look at the market for small forwards who can become free agents in 2015. Memphis passed on a deal that would have sent Jerryd Bayless to the Suns for Gerald Green, one of those 2015 free agents, and the Grizzlies have had interest in the past in Dorell Wright, another player on an expiring deal, Herrington writes. The Grizzlies have had internal discussions about whether Thaddeus Young is more of a small forward or a power forward, though coach Dave Joerger told Herrington recently that Young is probably best suited as a four, as Herrington adds in his subscription-only piece.
The Spurs have recalled Kyle Anderson from the D-League, the team announced. Anderson, the 30th overall pick in this year’s NBA draft, put up 18 points and 11 rebounds on Sunday, the same day that San Antonio sent him down.
Mavs guard Ricky Ledo is back from his D-League assignment, tweets Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com. Ledo averaged 12.5 points and shot 42.9% from three-point range during his two-game D-League stint.
The Grizzlies have hired Glynn Cyprien as a basketball operations assistant and a scout, the team announced. Cyprien has spent much of his career as a high-level college assistant coach, most recently at Texas A&M.

Aldemir Leaves Turkish Team, In Play For 76ers

November 24th, 2014 at 11:33am CST by Chuck Myron

11:33am: Aldemir confirmed that he is leaving Galatasaray and has decided to come stateside in a message on his Facebook page, as passed along by Emiliano Carchia of Sportando (translation via Ahmet Melik Subaşi).

“Playing in the NBA is one of my greatest dreams, just like all the basketball players,” Aldemir wrote in part. “I had some positive conditions to realize this dream in last couple of days. We have considered those conditions with my family and my agent, and we have decided that an experience in USA will be much [more] efficient for my personal career and development.

9:54am: Sixers draft-and-stash prospect Furkan Aldemir has ended his contract with Galatasaray of Turkey and is headed to the Sixers, agent Misko Raznatovic tells Cem Pelister of CNNTurk.com (translation via Can Pelister of Trendbasket, on Twitter). It’s not entirely clear whether there’s a deal in place with Philadelphia, since details are often lost in translation. Aldemir, a 6’9″ power forward, was the 53rd overall pick in 2012, and the Sixers acquired his NBA rights during the summer of 2013 as part of the Royce White trade with the Rockets.

Aldemir signed a new three-year, $5.3MM deal with Galatasaray this past offseason, though it sounds like the club is behind on its payments to him, as Emiliano Carchia of Sportando tweets. The 23-year-old was averaging 8.1 points and 9.1 rebounds in 22.7 minutes per game across 11 appearances so far this season, demonstrating his skill on the boards. Still, he saw fewer than seven minutes a game in six appearances for the Turkish national team in the FIBA World Cup this summer.

The Sixers would have to cut a player to accommodate a deal with Aldemir, since they have 15 players already, as our roster counts show. Still, Philadelphia has plenty of flexibility, since only eight of those players have fully guaranteed salary.

Lakers Notes: Lowry, Thomas, DPE

November 24th, 2014 at 11:05am CST by Chuck Myron

The Lakers appear to be holding off on making any moves after setting up workouts with a flurry of players last week. None of the prospective Lakers seemed to offer the club much hope of major improvement to its 3-11 record, one that would be the worst mark in the Western Conference were it not for the injury-hit Thunder. Here’s more on the struggling purple-and-gold:

The Lakers reportedly reached out to Kyle Lowry this summer, but they told the point guard and agent Andy Miller that they wouldn’t make him an offer until they heard from LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony first, Grantland’s Zach Lowe reports. Lowry agreed on the second day of free agency to re-sign with the Raptors, well ahead of the time that James and Anthony made their respective decisions.
Isaiah Thomas told Lowe last month that they were interested in him over the summer, but Lowe writes in his latest piece that the Lakers didn’t have any interest. Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak has a general policy against signing restricted free agents from other teams to offer sheets because he doesn’t like to tie up his team’s cap room during the three-day period in which the other club can match, sources tell Lowe.
The application for a nearly $4.851MM Disabled Player Exception for Steve Nash that the Lakers submitted to the league is still pending, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter links). An NBA-designated physician must determine that Nash is significantly more likely to miss the rest of the season than not before the league grants the exception, as Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ makes clear.

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