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Lakers, Jazz Interested In Mindaugas Kuzminskas

January 8th, 2015 at 4:29pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Multiple NBA teams, including the Lakers and the Jazz, have expressed interest in Lithuanian small forward Mindaugas Kuzminskas, David Pick of Basketball Insiders reports. Kuzminskas, 25, wasn’t selected in the 2011 NBA draft, but has caught the attention of NBA scouts this season with his play for Unicaja Malaga of the Spanish League, Pick notes. The 6’9″ swingman is set to become a restricted free agent next summer, but according to Kuzminskas’ agent, Tadas Bulotas, the Spanish club may decide against re-signing the player, Pick adds.

“Kuzminskas has been very productive this season and there is NBA interest for sure. Teams have spoken with Malaga, but nothing is imminent at the moment,” Bulotas told Pick. “Kuzminskas could leave Malaga, but there is a heavy NBA buyout and [an] even higher Euroleague buyout. If Malaga [does] well in the ACB and the Euroleague, it might be worth it for the club to lower the buyout and sell Mindaugas. Otherwise, Kuzminskas could leave after next season [2015/16] for free.”

The Lithuanian is open to testing the NBA waters in this year’s Summer League showcase in Las Vegas, Pick notes. Bulotas confirmed this, saying: “We’re thinking about sending him, the Summer League came up in discussions.” Kuzminskas, who also spoke to Pick, said, “I’d like to get a chance to move to the NBA. I feel like I matched up against Team USA pretty well. USA have a lot of talent and great players, but they’re humans, not robots. I’m not thinking too much about the NBA because I have a contract with Malaga for next season. I’m trying to help the team win in the Euroleague Top 16, and to be consistent and improve in order to think about what is next.”

Kuzminskas is currently averaging 10.2 points and 3.9 rebounds in 21.6 minutes per game in the Euroleague, and 9.6 PPG and 4.1 RPG per contest while shooting over 38% from beyond the arc in Spanish League competition.

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Blazers Ink GM Neil Olshey To Extension

January 8th, 2015 at 3:21pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Trail Blazers have signed GM Neil Olshey to a three-year contract extension, the team has announced. David Aldridge of NBA.com (Twitter link) was the first to report the deal. Olshey has also been named President of Basketball Operations as a part of the arrangement. The deal is fully guaranteed for three years and contains a team option for a fourth season, Sam Amick of USA Today reports (Twitter link).

The 49-year-old Olshey is Portland’s 10th GM in the franchise’s history, and has been with the team since June 4th, 2012. Olshey came to the Blazers from the Clippers, where he served as the team’s Vice President of Basketball Operations for two seasons, and was with Los Angeles for a total of nine years.

“Our team has made great strides under Neil’s leadership, and I am excited to extend his contract,” team owner Paul Allen said. “Neil has done an outstanding job as General Manager by quickly rebuilding our team into a playoff contender. The franchise is clearly on the upswing, and I hope to see further improvements in the years to come.”

“This extension is a validation of the efforts of the entire Trail Blazers front office and an endorsement of the level of commitment expected of us by our owner Paul Allen,” said Olshey. “The level of passion for this franchise by our owner, season ticket holders and fans, drives us to build a team that this community can be proud of.”

In Olshey’s first season in Portland the team went 33-49, but last season the team improved markedly, posting a record of 54-28, which was the largest season-to-season improvement in franchise history and Portland’s sixth-best record all-time.

Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images.

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10-Day Contract Tracker

January 8th, 2015 at 3:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

Teams were allowed to start signing players to 10-day contracts starting Monday, and so far, there has been plenty of activity. The Jazz inked 10-day deals with Elijah Millsap and Elliot Williams, while the Knicks did so with Langston Galloway. The Bucks are reportedly set to do the same with Kenyon Martin.

The bulk of the signings that take place in the NBA between now and April will be of the 10-day variety, and we’ll keep on top of all of them. Hoops Rumors has created a database that allows you to track every 10-day signing all season long. The 10-Day Contract Tracker includes information on all 10-day contracts signed from the 2006/07 season on, giving you a chance to identify trends regarding your favorite teams and players. The search filters in the database make it easy to sort by team, player and year. You can even see whether a player and team signed a second 10-day contract, and if the short-term deals led to an agreement that covered the rest of the season.

For instance, if you want to see how many 10-day deals recently waived Lou Amundson has signed over the course of his career, you can find that information here. Similarly, if you want to see all the 10-day contracts the Knicks have signed in recent years, you can do so here.

A link to our 10-Day Contract Tracker can be found at any time in the Tools menu at the top of the page, or in the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features.” We’ll be keeping it up to date for the rest of the season, so be sure to check back to keep tabs on the latest signings as they become official.

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Sixers Release Jared Cunningham

January 8th, 2015 at 2:56pm CST by Chuck Myron

2:56pm: Sixers coach Brett Brown said that the Sixers were able to trade for Cunningham without clearing a roster spot beforehand “because of [Andrei] Kirilenko’s absence, it’s allowed for us to have a flexible spot,” notes Tom Moore of Calkins Media. It remains unclear if that “flexible spot” came about via hardship or another means. Kirilenko hasn’t reported to the Sixers since last month’s trade, and the Sixers are reportedly pushing him to do so. Teams and the NBA both have the ability to suspend players who fail to report following trades, and if the suspension is long enough, clubs can clear an extra roster spot by placing the suspended player on the Suspended List. Still, there’s been no report indicating that the NBA or the Sixers have suspended Kirilenko.

8:32am: The Sixers waived Jared Cunningham as expected Wednesday, according to the RealGM transactions log. The team has yet to make an official announcement. Philadelphia acquired him from the Clippers via trade and quickly released him so that his non-guaranteed contract will have cleared waivers in advance of the leaguewide guarantee date on Saturday. The approximately $388K in salary that Cunningham earned this season while with the Clippers will count against Philadelphia’s cap figure unless another team claims him off waivers, though that matters little to the Sixers, who are still far beneath the $56.759MM minimum team salary.

It’s the second straight year that the 24th overall pick in the 2012 draft has found himself on waivers, after the Hawks let him go shortly after the trade deadline last season. The shooting guard resurfaced on a pair of 10-day contracts with the Kings, who ended up signing him to a contract that covered the rest of the 2013/14 season, so it’s conceivable that he travels that path again. Cunningham beat out sought-after overseas prospect Joe Ingles for an opening-night roster spot on the Clippers but saw just 4.7 minutes per game during the regular season.

Philadelphia’s roster is a bit of a mystery, as the Sixers had 15 players before the Cunningham trade, and teams can’t trade for more players than they give up if they don’t have roster room to do so, even if they intend to waive their new acquisitions immediately. The Sixers still haven’t formally announced the Cunningham trade, though the Clippers did, confirming that they didn’t send any active players to Philadelphia to balance the deal, in spite of rumors surrounding Tony Wroten.

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Bryan Colangelo, Grant Hill, Others Eye Hawks

January 8th, 2015 at 2:39pm CST by Chuck Myron

2:39pm: Itzler is teaming with brokerage firm founder Steven Starker and has “extreme interest,” though he cautioned that it’s just preliminary, as he told Scott Soshnick and Zeke Faux of Bloomberg.com. Vivlamore reported Wednesday (below) that Itzler was seeking only a minority share.

2:22pm: Bryan Colangelo is part of the group with Hill and Bridgeman, Aldridge clarifies (on Twitter).

THURSDAY, 2:19pm: Hill and fellow former player Junior Bridgeman are teaming up to try to purchase the Hawks, with Jerry Colangelo, Bryan’s father, acting a “senior advisor” to them, TNT’s David Aldridge reports (Twitter link). It’s unclear if Bryan is a part of the Hill-Bridgeman group. The Hawks officially put the entire team as well as Phillips Arena up for sale today, the club announced via press release.

WEDNESDAY, 10:29am: Former Suns and Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo, Grizzlies minority owner Steve Kaplan and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson are some of those who’ve expressed interest in purchasing the Hawks, reports Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Grant Hill is also in the mix, Vivlamore hears, confirming earlier speculation. The owners of Atlanta’s WNBA team, Kelly Loeffler and Mary Brock, also hold a level of interest in bidding for the Hawks, along with their husbands, Jeffrey Sprecher and John Brock, as they recently told Maria Saporta of the Atlanta Business Chronicle for a subscription-only piece (hat tip to Vivlamore).

Colangelo appeared to be linked to a group of Chicago-based investors who came up short in a bid for the Bucks last year, and he was also reportedly a candidate for Cavs and Pistons front office jobs in the spring. Hawks GM Danny Ferry is on an indefinite leave of absence. Kaplan’s role within the Grizzlies hierarchy reportedly shrunk during the team’s reorganization this past offseason.

Jesse Itzler, whom Grantland’s Bill Simmons identified Monday as a “name to watch” in regard to the sale of the Hawks, is currently interested only in a minority share, sources tell Vivlamore. Simmons also reported that investors Chris Hansen and Thomas Tull are mounting separate bids to buy the team and move it to Seattle, but it appears unlikely they’ll be allowed to relocate the franchise. The NBA’s stance has been that it will only consider moving a team if the market has essentially given up on the club, and that’s not the case in Atlanta, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders points out via Twitter.

Former players Dominique Wilkins, Dikembe Mutombo and Chris Webber, former Grizzlies CEO Jason Levien and attorney Doug Davis are others who reportedly have interest in purchasing the Hawks, though some would probably have to find partners to have control over a majority stake. The three ownership groups who currently own the Hawks have all agreed to sell, and the team is set to officially go on the market in a matter of days, according to Vivlamore. The purchase price is likely to end up on the low end of a range between $750MM and $1 billion, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe reported last week.

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Celtics Notes: Green, Nelson, Crowder

January 8th, 2015 at 1:28pm CST by Chuck Myron

There’s a belief around the league that the Celtics will indeed part with Jeff Green before the trade deadline, as Ronald Tillery of The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal writes within a subscription-only piece. The discussions the Grizzlies are having regarding Green, as well as Luol Deng, are internal, a source tells Tillery, though the earlier report from Marc Stein of ESPN.com indicates that Memphis is active on both fronts. The talk had president of basketball operations Danny Ainge suggesting that Green has succeeded Rajon Rondo as the most frequent subject of Celtics trade rumors, as Ainge said this morning to Fred Toucher and Rich Shertenlieb on 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston, notes A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com. While we wait to see just what happens with Green, here’s more from Boston:

  • Ainge would like to clear the team’s logjam of big men, USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt tweets, though it’s unknown which of the frontcourt players are most likely to go.
  • Jameer Nelson insists that he and coach Brad Stevens are on the same page, but the point guard sat out Wednesday’s game and is upset about the playing time he’s seen since arriving in the Rondo trade, as Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald observes. Nelson, who has a player option worth nearly $2.855MM for next season, is averaging 20.2 minutes per game, which would be a career low if extrapolated over an entire season.
  • Jae Crowder was the only one of the three players the Celtics acquired in the Rondo trade who played Wednesday, and analytics show he’s been a boon for the team so far, as Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com examines.
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Cavs GM On Trades, Future, Waiters, More

January 8th, 2015 at 12:15pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Nuggets got an “unbelievably good” return in the Timofey Mozgov trade, Cavs GM David Griffin told reporters, including Bleacher Report’s Ethan Skolnick, after giving up a pair of first-round picks to net the rim protector the team had sorely lacked. Still, Griffin is confident that he hasn’t given up on the future at the expense of the present, as he explained amid his chat with the media in the wake of the team’s second major trade in two days. Griffin spoke shortly before the trades, too, as we passed along, so it’s interesting to compare his remarks then to what he’s saying now. Skolnick as well as Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com and Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group round up Griffin’s post-trade comments, and we’ll share a few highlights here:

On balancing the present with the future:

“What I’m most proud of, and our front office staff is most excited about, is that we’ve put together a team that we believe can compete at the highest level. And we feel like we’ve done it without completely mortgaging the future. People look at the number of picks we’ve given away and everybody thinks, ‘Oh, my goodness, they’ve given away the farm!’ Well, we had an unbelievable farm, so we were putting it to work and we’re really pleased with where we are now. We’re going to make a first-round pick this year and we feel good about the situation we’re in.”

On the timing of the moves:

“We would have done all of these things much sooner if we could’ve. We’re fortunate that 35 games in for us, and 30-40 in for everybody else, people have now gotten to the point where they recognize the team they’re going to be. If we could have done this in training camp, we would have done the same thing.”

On relinquishing Dion Waiters to the Thunder:

“We liked Dion a great deal. I think what ended up happening for us is we got to a point where the fit of all the pieces we had, in terms of ball dominance, wasn’t as good as what we hope this trio can be. And moving forward, the fit of this group that we just got paired with what we had should be good enough, in terms of how they meld together.”

On his expectations in the wake of the trades:

“We want to win games. Nobody in this organization is satisfied with not winning. When I come up here and preach patience, I’m not saying let’s accept losing. That’s absolutely not what we’re doing. But in terms of being the best team we’re going to be, we have to acknowledge that it’s going to take some time for all of those things to jell and to be the best we can be. But we better be a [expletive] sight better than we’ve been right out of the chute. That’s what we expect to be. We’re not here to get to say we played. We’re here to win games. But to say that’s it’s got to look like a certain thing by a certain time, it’s just not fair.”

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Players Whose Salaries Became Guaranteed

January 7th, 2015 at 10:30pm CST by Eddie Scarito

This Saturday is the leaguewide guarantee date, upon which any player still on an NBA roster will have the remainder of his salary for the season become fully guaranteed. But Wednesday was the effective deadline for teams, since they had to release any players whose deals they did not want to be on the hook for over the course of the rest of the season. This is because of the waiver process, which takes two days. So, if a team wished to have a player clear waivers and be off of its books prior to Saturday, it would have had to waive that player by 4:00pm Central time Wednesday.

We saw a number of players released over the last few days because of this, but there were quite a few who survived the leaguewide purge and now have fully guaranteed deals for the remainder of the season as a result. Some of these players may yet be waived prior to the end of the season, but now they would at least walk away with their paychecks intact.

Here is the complete roster of players whose financial outlooks became a bit more secure today, along with their 2014/15 salaries:

76ers

Bucks

  • None

Bulls

Cavs

  • None

Celtics

  • None

Clippers

  • None

Grizzlies

  • None

Hawks

Heat

Hornets

Jazz

Kings

  • Eric Moreland [$507,336/$200K Partially Guaranteed] — Moreland’s deal was already effectively guaranteed, since he’s set to miss the rest of the season with injury, and the Kings are responsible for paying him until he’s healthy.

Knicks

Lakers

Magic

Mavericks

Nets

Nuggets

Pacers

Pelicans

Pistons

  • None

Raptors

Rockets

Spurs

  • None

Suns

  • None

Thunder

Timberwolves

Trail Blazers

  • None

Warriors

Wizards

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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Western Notes: Thunder, Lakers, Buss

January 7th, 2015 at 9:25pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Thunder sent $550K in cash to the Hawks in the Thabo Sefolosha sign-and-trade this past summer, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. That helped convince Atlanta to make the deal a sign-and-trade instead of a straight signing, a move that allowed Oklahoma City to create the trade exception it used for Dion Waiters, as Pincus confirms and as Chuck Myron of Hoops Rumors explained earlier this week. The Thunder also created a $915,243 trade exception for Lance Thomas, Pincus notes (Twitter link).

Here’s more from the Western Conference:

  • Despite the Lakers‘ struggles this season, team president Jeanie Buss is satisfied with the job that coach Byron Scott is doing, Mark Medina of The Los Angeles Daily News writes. “Our record doesn’t show what we’d like it to be. But I like what coach Byron Scott is doing and establishing,” Buss said. “I believe in what he’s trying to do and I see improvement all the time. I support our front office. I support our coach. I support our players.”
  • Buss also believes that the Lakers will be contending in three years time, something that her brother, vice president of basketball operations Jim Buss, predicted, Medina notes. “By three years, we will be where we should be in terms of the Western Conference,” Buss added. “That’s a challenge he [Jim Buss] presented to himself. Given all the resources that we have, our legacy and who our head coach is and who our front office is, I don’t see any problem progressing to where we need to be. We’ll be in the Western Conference finals in three years. As long as you have Kobe Bryant on your team, anything can happen in the playoffs.”
  • Now that the trade market has ramped up, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders continues his look at players who might be dealt prior to the February trade deadline. Some of the players whom Kennedy opines may be on the move include Reggie Jackson [Thunder], Jordan Hill [Lakers], Kosta Koufos [Grizzlies], and Jason Thompson [Kings].

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

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Atlantic Notes: Jackson, Galloway, Celtics

January 7th, 2015 at 8:00pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Knicks still have an interest in acquiring Reggie Jackson from the Thunder, but New York likely lacks the assets to entice Oklahoma City into dealing the guard, who will become a restricted free agent at season’s end, Jon Hamm of The Oklahoman writes. The only Knicks players that the Thunder may be interested in, Pablo Prigioni and Jose Calderon, offer significant downsides, Hamm notes. Calderon’s contract is unappealing, and Prigioni’s age (37), make any deal for them with OKC unlikely, adds Hamm.

Here’s the latest out of the Atlantic Division:

  • Newly-signed Langston Galloway had two things going for him that the Knicks liked: He’s well-versed in the triangle and he completed his college career, Marc Berman of The New York Post writes. “Langston is mature for a young player, gone to school for four years,’’ coach Derek Fisher said. “Not being afraid of the moment as a young guy was really impressive over the summer. He’s done some good things in Westchester [D-League] so far that tell us he is a guy who can develop into a good pro player. We’re excited to have him here for a short period. He’s going to try to make the most of it.’’
  • Knicks team president Phil Jackson hasn’t given up on Calderon, in spite of speculation that he’ll be the next player the team trades, so it’s more likely the Knicks would let go of backup Prigioni instead, Berman writes in a separate piece.
  • One of the Celtics‘ remaining trade assets who could be in demand is veteran forward Jeff Green. Jesse Blancarte of Basketball Insiders runs down a number of possible deals that Boston can make should it decide to trade Green. Hoops Rumors’ Chuck Myron also looked at Green’s market in our Trade Candidate series.
  • The $490K that remained from the $2.09MM trade exception that the Celtics had created last January from the Courtney Lee to Memphis trade expired today. Also expiring is the $884,293 trade exception that the Thunder created from the same deal for sending Ryan Gomes to Boston.
  • Tony Wroten was rumored to be a part of the Sixers’ deal with the Clippers for Jared Cunningham, but for now, Wroten remains in Philadelphia. But Los Angeles is still interested in acquiring the guard, and the teams are having preliminary discussions regarding a possible trade, John Gonzalez of CSNPhilly.com reports. Wroten said that he’d like to remain in Philly, but he’s flattered that other teams are interested in him, Gonzalez adds. “I’m auditioning for everybody,” Wroten said. “But I was blessed and fortunate enough, with a few guys, who got to stay on this team. It’s like you feel wanted. I continue to play for the lovely fans and the lovely community and see where it takes us.”
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