2015 January | Hoops Rumors

Celtics Rumors: Picks, Bass, Thornton, Green

January 13th, 2015 at 1:46pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Celtics stand to make at least six extra first-round draft picks in the years ahead after acquiring yet another in Monday’s Jeff Green trade. President of basketball operations Danny Ainge believes a team can never have too many picks, as Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald notes.

“No, because draft picks are always tradeable; players are not [always tradeable]. Draft picks are always assets,” Ainge said. “Until sometimes they’re drafted. Until they become players. Or until they become paid.”

The tear-down continues in Boston, and we’ll pass along the latest on the team’s next moves:

There is interest around the league in Brandon Bass, but the Celtics have yet to draw any serious offers for him on the trade market, league sources tell Bulpett for the same piece.
The C’s have talked about coming to buyout deals with Marcus Thornton, Jameer Nelson and Tayshaun Prince, but no decisions have been made, tweets Michael Scotto of Sheridan Hoops.
Boston’s concern that Green would opt out and sign with another team this summer helped fuel the deal that sent him to the Grizzlies, as A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com explains. Ainge parted with Green but said he believes the forward still hasn’t hit his prime, Blakely notes.

Mikhail Prokhorov Puts Nets Up For Sale

January 13th, 2015 at 1:36pm CST by Chuck Myron

1:36pm: Broussard’s sources also corroborate the story that the Nets are for sale (Twitter link).

1:23pm: Sources confirm Soshnick’s report to Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck, who hears the troubled Russian economy is a catalyst (Twitter link).

1:20pm: Nets CEO Brett Yormark, GM Billy King and chief communications officer Barry Baum are denying the report that Prokhorov has put the team on the market, tweets Chris Broussard of ESPN.com.

12:47pm: The Nets aren’t actively looking to sell the club, according to Tim Bontemps of the New York Post, who adds that nothing appears to have changed, echoing the Prokhorov spokesperson’s statement (Twitter link). Bontemps doesn’t believe there’s any chance the Nets sell before the Hawks do (Twitter link). Still, as Shelburne points out (on Twitter), the spokesperson didn’t explicitly deny Soshnick’s report.

12:29am: A spokesperson for Prokhorov said the owner remains open to listening to offers, but the spokesperson added that no sale is imminent, reports Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com (Twitter links).

11:46am: Mikhail Prokhorov has put the Nets up for sale and hired the investment banking firm Evercore to help facilitate the transaction, two sources tell Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg.com. The Nets were reportedly in talks with the Guggenheim group on what would have been essentially a merger of assets late last year, but those conversations stalled. Chris Mannix of SI.com reported during the Nets-Guggenheim talks that Prokhorov was actively looking to cash out, though other reports maintained that Prokhorov, who owns 80% of the franchise, was intent on retaining control of the club even if Guggenheim bought a piece of the team. It’s unclear at this point what, if any, role Prokhorov wants to play with the Nets going forward. The Barclays Center arena, of which Prokhorov owns 45%, isn’t part of the sale, according to Soshnick.

Nets minority owner Bruce Ratner, who owns the majority of the arena, hired Evercore last year to help with the sale of his 20% stake in the franchise, but they found no takers, as Soshnick points out. The ability to control the team through ownership of a majority stake would no doubt make the franchise more attractive, and a valuations expert tells Soshnick the franchise is worth $1.3 billion. Earlier reports indicated that the Nets and Guggenheim were working off a valuation of between $1.2 billion and $1.7 billion, while a later dispatch indicated that the Nets wanted to negotiate off of a $1.8 billion valuation.

In June, Prokhorov denied a report indicating that he was listening to offers for the club, saying he has “no interest in selling the team.” Still, another report shortly thereafter indicated that the owner had pledged to curb his team’s record spending to help Ratner find a taker for his share. Prokhorov and Ratner were reportedly seeking a $1 billion valuation at that point, and Prokhorov said he planned to take the club below the NBA’s luxury tax line by 2015/16. The Nets spent more than $190MM in payroll and luxury taxes in 2013/14, and the team was reportedly projected to have lost a league-high $144MM, both figures far outdistancing any other NBA team.

Brooklyn’s payroll is lower this year, at nearly $90.7MM, though the team would owe roughly $26MM in taxes on top of that unless the Nets further cut spending before the end of the regular season. The Nets are reportedly willing to trade Joe Johnson, Deron Williams and Brook Lopez, their three most highly paid players.

Tyrus Thomas To Join Grizzlies D-League Team

January 13th, 2015 at 12:33pm CST by Eddie Scarito

TUESDAY, 12:33pm: The Iowa Energy, the D-League affiliate of the Grizzlies, has claimed Thomas, sources tell Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The club has yet to make an official announcement. Thomas will remain free to sign with any NBA team no matter the D-League club he plays for.

FRIDAY, 6:11pm: Former lottery pick Tyrus Thomas is set to enter the NBA D-League, Gino Pilato of D-League Digest reports (Twitter link). Thomas has been out of the NBA since the Hornets (then the Bobcats) put him on amnesty waivers back in July of 2013. The 28-year-old will go through the D-League’s waiver process to determine which team he will play for. The 6’10” forward out of LSU is trying to work his way back to the NBA, and had reportedly worked out for the Grizzlies and the Lakers back in November, but failed to generate a contract offer from either franchise.

Thomas has gone through some tough times since he was last in the NBA, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders writes. In addition to losing his job in the league, Thomas also went through a divorce and what could have been a career-ending surgery to remove a cyst from his back, Kennedy notes. “I can’t begin to tell you what was going through my mind,” Thomas told Kennedy. “It all felt overwhelming – being released, going through a divorce and then the injury that led to me ultimately having to have surgery. I would wake up, pick my basketball up off the floor, bounce it around the house and say, ‘I want to play. I have something to prove to everyone who believed in me. I have something to prove to myself. I can do this. Then, I’d wake up the next day not feeling good physically and I’d think, ‘This surgery isn’t worth it.’ I had good days and I had bad days.”

The big man had his share of maturity issues during his career, something that he is eager to show is behind him, Kennedy writes. “I was 19 years old when I first entered the NBA; it’s no excuse and I’ve owned my mistakes, but whew have I grown a lot,” Thomas said. “Over the last two years, I’ve grown not only as a player but as a person. I now realize the opportunities that, at times, I took for granted. I look back now and I was just a poor kid from South Baton Rouge. I didn’t understand then what I understand now. Everything happened at once: getting amnestied, going through a divorce and making the decision if I wanted to come back and play basketball because of the severity of the surgery. Going through all of that, I definitely grew up.”

In 400 career games, Thomas has averaged 7.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks. His career slash line is .438/.235/.732.

And-Ones: Cavs, Prince, Ferry, Draft, Taylor

January 13th, 2015 at 11:31am CST by Chuck Myron

David Blatt believes his comment questioning whether Kevin Love is a max player was “misunderstood or misconstrued” by many, but Love says he and the Cavs coach are on the same page, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group relays.

“Kevin Love for me is a player of the highest order,” Blatt said. “Whether you want to define that by max contract or any other thing, he’s one of the best players in the NBA and that’s the way we value him.”

Love can hit free agency this summer if he turns down his player option, but tonight he’ll hit the floor against the Suns and seek to help Cleveland avoid dipping below .500. There’s more on the Cavs amid the latest from around the league:

The Cavs would be interested in Tayshaun Prince if he and the Celtics strike a buyout deal, tweets Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. Cleveland apparently had interest in trading for Prince prior to Monday’s swap that sent him to Boston. Prince and Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge are set to discuss the forward’s situation, and a buyout is on the table, as Chris Mannix of SI.com reported Monday.
Al Horford would welcome Hawks GM Danny Ferry back from his leave of absence, as the center tells Chris Mannix of SI.com (Twitter link). Ferry has appeared unlikely to return in the wake of racially charged comments he made about Luol Deng.
Fringe first-round draft prospect Chris McCullough will miss the rest of the season for Syracuse after tearing the ACL in his right knee, the school announced Monday (Twitter link). The freshman power forward is No. 29 in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress prospect rankings and comes in 31st with Chad Ford of ESPN.com. NBA teams saw him as a long-term project even before the injury, Givony tweets.
Russia’s Dynamo Moscow has let go of former Nets point guard Tyshawn Taylor, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). Taylor appeared in 23 games for Brooklyn last season, making three starts, but has been out of the NBA since the Pelicans waived him shortly after the Nets traded him to New Orleans nearly a year ago.

Magic Make No Promise About Job For Vaughn

January 13th, 2015 at 10:33am CST by Chuck Myron

Magic GM Rob Hennigan didn’t directly answer a question from Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel today about whether coach Jacque Vaughn‘s job is safe for the balance of the season, though Hennigan described Vaughn’s performance as “solid.” Hennigan echoed Robbins’ report from Monday that the team is delving deep for answers to its continued struggles.

“Look, we’re clearly in a rut and we need to find our way out of it together,” Hennigan said in response to Robbins’ question about his job security. “The buck starts and stops with me. I’m responsible for the team and its performance, plain and simple. I’m constantly evaluating myself and ways in which I can do a better job for our team, and that will continue to be the case, and I’ll continue to make sure I’m evaluating every inch of the organization. It’s my job to make sure that we’re constantly evaluating every aspect of the organization from top to bottom. So, to your question, I’d say that everyone and everything is being evaluated right now. I wouldn’t be doing my job if that weren’t the case. I’ll also say that there’s not one isolated problem or issue and that we need to collectively be part of generating the solution.”

The Magic are coming off Monday’s upset win over the Bulls and sit just three and a half games out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, but their 14-27 record doesn’t otherwise indicate progress. It’s the third season for Hennigan and Vaughn, who came aboard the same offseason that the team traded Dwight Howard and began a rebuilding effort. Hennigan told Robbins that he believes the team has experienced more frustration than encouraging signs this year. Orlando exercised its team options for 2015/16 on both Hennigan and Vaughn during the past offseason, and Vaughn said recently that he’s not concerned about his job, as Robbins wrote in Monday’s report. Several players say Vaughn isn’t to blame, as Robbins also noted.

“I think Jacque has done a solid job. I think there are certainly areas that we can improve as a team,” Hennigan said when Robbins asked for his thoughts on Vaughn’s performance. “But it’s not our nature to rush to judgment on things. I think we understand there’s a lot of emotion, and we certainly acknowledge that. But as we evaluate anything, it’s our job to kind of eliminate that emotion. I’ve said that quite a few times, but I really do mean that when I say it’s our job to eliminate the emotion as much as we can, especially when it comes to evaluating the team and the staff and especially when we’re trying to troubleshoot challenges that we’re having.”

The Magic brought back only seven players from last season, and while Hennigan told Robbins he believes the turnover on the roster is “a little bit of a factor” in the team’s performance, he doesn’t see it as an excuse. He said that marquee offseason signee Channing Frye “will be just fine” in spite of his sharp decline in scoring this season in the first year of a four-year, $32MM contract, as Robbins relays.

Latest On Clippers, Celtics Austin Rivers Talks

January 13th, 2015 at 8:30am CST by Chuck Myron

TUESDAY, 8:30am: Clippers officials have begun conversations with other teams about sending them Jordan Farmar, sources tell Chris Mannix of SI.com (Twitter link), as the Clips hunt for an expiring deal to send to Boston. A third team may not be required to pull off the Rivers trade, and the Clippers may pull off a separate transaction to acquire the assets the Celtics are looking for, according to USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt (on Twitter), who hears the chances are “really good” that Rivers ends up with the Clips. Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge acknowledged some uncertainty surrounding Rivers and said the Celtics are engaged in a dialogue with him, as Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald relays.

MONDAY, 1:59pm: The Clippers are “very confident” they’ll reach an agreement to acquire Austin Rivers this week, a source tells Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Rivers didn’t travel with the Pelicans, who officially traded him to the Celtics today, on their flight to Boston, where the Pels and Celtics will play tonight, notes Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald. It’s expected the Celtics will eventually convey Rivers to the Clippers, where his father Doc Rivers is both coach and president of basketball operations, with a second-round pick likely to head to Boston, Murphy writes. The Clippers have been working to find a third team that would send an expiring contract to Boston, too, since the Celtics don’t want to take back salary that runs past this season, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports wrote this past weekend.

The Clips are less than $2MM shy of a hard cap they triggered when they used the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception on Spencer Hawes and the biannual exception on Jordan Farmar this summer, so they can’t take on Austin’s salary, worth nearly $2.44MM, without giving up salary in return. DeAndre Jordan, Glen Davis, Ekpe Udoh, Hedo Turkoglu and Chris Douglas-Roberts are the Clips without any guaranteed salary beyond this season, though it would be a shock to see the Clippers part with Jordan. Should the Clippers acquire Austin, whose deal expires at season’s end, they couldn’t re-sign him for a salary greater than the nearly $3.111MM rookie scale team option the Pelicans declined for 2015/16.

Clippers GM Dave Wohl and assistant coaches Lawrence Frank and Mike Woodson are encouraging Doc to overcome fears about the perceptions that would surround a father trading for and coaching his son, as Wojnarowski also reported Sunday. Doc said to reporters on Saturday that he’s more open to the idea of coaching Austin than he had been in the past, Wojnarowski noted.

Western Notes: Curry, Jackson, Green

January 12th, 2015 at 10:15pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Stephen Curry is a legit contender to win the 2014/15 most valuable player award, opines Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group. The Warriors have the league’s best record at 29-5 and Curry’s player efficiency rating is 27.13, which ranks fourth best in the league. With those numbers, Curry belongs in the conversation for this season’s MVP award, along with James Harden, Anthony Davis and LeBron James, whose candidacy I briefly wrote about on Sunday.

Here’s more from the Warriors as well as another contender in the Western Conference:

The arrival of Dion Waiters might mean a further diminished role for Reggie Jackson, writes Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman. Jackson will be a restricted free agent in the offseason and Mayberry speculates that Jackson will garner a contract worth upwards of $12MM annually. For that price, the Thunder might be interested to see if they can get similar production off their bench from Waiters for a fraction of the cost.
The Warriors are constructed to contend for a championship this season, opines Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group. Golden State is the top ranked team in defensive efficiency this season. However, the window for the team to contend as currently constructed might be closing as key piece Draymond Green is set to become a restricted free agent. The team already has $82.6MM in salary commitments for next season and it will likely be forced to make a move if it wants to re-sign Green.
Warriors center Andrew Bogut says he has no relationship with former coach Mark Jackson, as Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group writes. “I haven’t heard from him since [his firing]. I know he keeps in touch with some guys on the team, but I’m kind of in a different crowd I think.” The Australian big man has played well this season under new coach Steve Kerr. He is averaging 2.0 blocks per game and sports a player efficiency rating of 16.87.

New York Notes: Knicks, Nets, Melo, Howard

January 12th, 2015 at 8:22pm CST by ChrisCrouse

The Knicks own a record of 5-35, which is good for first place in our reverse order rankings. After the trade last week that sent J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to the Cavs, the team clearly won’t be buyers at the trade deadline this season. It’s early in the season for most other teams hovering around .500 to make that kind of decision but Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles (Twitter link) has put the Nets in the conversation about potential sellers in the NBA marketplace.

Here’s more from the Empire State:

Carmelo Anthony wants to be involved in recruiting players to the Knicks, tweets Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork. “This is why I wanted to come back, to be a part of the plan,” Anthony says. New York is projected to have room for the addition of at least one maximum level contract, although the exact amount of cap room will be unknown until the salary cap is calculated during July’s moratorium.
Dwight Howard will play in Brooklyn for the first time tonight and he reminisces on what could have been if he would have been traded to the Nets, as Mike Mazzeo of ESPNNewYork writes. “Like I said, everything happens for a reason. There was a point in time where I thought this [Brooklyn] was the best place for me to play basketball. I guess things didn’t happen the way I wanted them to,” Howard said. The Nets were once on the shortlist of teams that the center preferred to be traded to when he was still with the Magic.
Jason Terry will also return to Brooklyn for the first time since being traded from the team last season. The 15-year veteran thought the Nets were going to achieve more over the last few seasons. “I’m surprised a lot,” Terry told reporters, including Tim Bontemps of The New York Post. “For me, when I came here it looked like they were going to put something together a big run for two or three years down the line. But when there’s that much pressure on you to win, and it doesn’t happen, they’re gonna make changes.” As a member of the Rockets, most would consider Terry to now be in a better position to win another NBA title.

Andre Dawkins To Play For Heat’s D-League Team

January 12th, 2015 at 6:35pm CST by Chuck Myron

Andre Dawkins has signed with the Sioux Falls Skyforce, the D-League affliate of the Heat, according to the team’s website. The Duke product signed with Miami back in September but was waived last week.

Dawkins previously played eight games with the Skyforce while on assignment from the team. The shooting guard averaged 23.5 points per game and 3.1 rebounds per game while in Sioux Falls.

In the NBA, Dawkins hasn’t really had the opportunity to capture success. He played in four games for the Heat and shot 1-6 from the field; all of his shots being three-pointers.

Lakers Ask Pistons About Monroe, Jennings

January 12th, 2015 at 5:52pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Lakers have asked the Pistons about Greg Monroe and Brandon Jennings in the past month, reports Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com (Twitter link). They also inquired about Dion Waiters, Shelburne adds, presumably indicating that the Lakers contacted Cleveland before the Cavs shipped him to Oklahoma City a week ago.

Monroe has a de facto no-trade clause because he signed his qualifying offer from the Pistons this past offseason, and he and agent David Falk have let it be known they don’t want a trade this year. The big man would forfeit his Bird rights if he were to approve a trade, but the Lakers, with only about $35.1MM in cap flexibility for 2015/16, are set to have enough cap flexibility to sign him using cap space. The Lakers were reportedly uninterested in signing Monroe this past summer.

There have been conflicting reports about whether the Pistons were shopping Jennings, though the most recent dispatch indicates that Detroit is at least open to the idea of letting him go. Jennings makes $8MM this year and nearly $8.345MM in 2015/16, but his contract comes off the books in advance of the heavily anticipated summer of 2016, when the salary cap is set to surge. Monroe’s qualifying offer gives him almost $5.48MM this season, a bargain price, but he’s due for a significant raise in unrestricted free agency this coming summer.

Waiters is on a rookie scale contract and will be extension-eligible this summer before the deal runs out after next season. Still, it seems unlikely the Thunder would part with him so quickly after his acquisition. The Pistons, 8-1 since waiving Josh Smith, probably aren’t inclined to make a move right now, either, but the interest from the Lakers signals that L.A. isn’t content to languish at the bottom of the standings to protect its draft position. The team owes its first-round draft pick to the Suns if it doesn’t fall within the top five selections, and the Lakers are currently fourth in the Reverse Standings.

Month: November 2024