Free agent guard Kyle Guy, the 55th pick of the 2019 draft, is closing in on a deal with Spanish club Joventut, tweets Spanish basketball reporter Gerard Solé (hat tip to Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops).
Guy spent his first two NBA seasons with the Kings on a two-way contract, appearing in 34 total games with modest averages of 2.7 PPG and 1.1 RPG in 7.2 MPG. He signed an Exhibit 10 deal with the Cavaliers prior to last season, was waived, and then spent time with the team’s G League affiliate, the Canton Charge.
Last December, during the league’s COVID-19 outbreak, Guy caught on with the Heat, signing a couple of 10-day hardship deals and then a two-way contract. He appeared in 19 games for Miami, averaging 3.9 PPG and 0.9 RPG in 9.8 MPG. He was waived in March and rejoined the Charge for the remainder of 2021/22.
Guy participated in a free agent workout with the Lakers a few weeks ago, but evidently nothing came of it. If he finalizes the deal with Joventut, he’ll be playing in the top league in Spain, Liga ACB.
Here’s more from around the basketball world:
- Guard Darius Johnson-Odom, who appeared in seven NBA games with the Lakers and Sixers from 2012-14, has signed with Romanian club Rapid Bucharest, the team announced on Facebook (hat tip to Dario Skerletic of Sportando). The well-traveled veteran has made international stops in Russia, China, Turkey, Greece, Italy and most recently in France with Le Mans of the LNB Pro A league last season.
- Agents like Mark Bartelstein are anticipating a big salary cap increase in 2025, when the NBA’s new media rights deal will kick in. The new deal should be much more lucrative than 2016, when the cap increased by 34%. “I think there’s going to be a huge jump,” Bartelstein told Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic. “The NBA is as hot as can be and everybody wants a piece of it. People can’t get enough of it.” Vorkunov wonders if cap smoothing might be considered by the Players Association this time around after it was rejected in 2015. Smoothing, as the name implies, would artificially lower the salary cap and phase in the increase over several years in order to prevent a big single-year spike.
- With the caveat that it’s Summer League and thus should be taken with a grain of salt, John Hollinger of The Athletic provides his takeaways from Las Vegas. According to Hollinger, all of the top six picks of last month’s draft looked outstanding, a few first-rounders struggled (Johnny Davis, Jake LaRavia and Peyton Watson), while a couple late second-rounders stood out for good reasons (Jabari Walker and JD Davison).
You can add Zoran Dragic, brother of Goran Dragic, who played 16 games in Nba in 2014-2015 resigned with Slovenian club Olimpija Cedevita. He hope playing with his brother in Eurobasket where Slovenia will defend championship from win in Istanbul in 2017.Slovenia is the longest winner of Eurobasket.
I don’t think the PA is going to vote for cap smoothing. The immediate benefits they would gain for a cap spike outweigh the long term benefits (for the players) of a cap smoothing. A large cap spike means big contracts for big name free agents/extension candidates that will see some trickle down to some mid tier players getting overpaid because teams have leftover cap space after missing on the big names or teams need to reach the cap floor. I could definitely be overlooking something but imo, the only benefit to be gained by the players for cap smoothing is that the teams can’t blame bad contracts and a flat cap as reasons for them not spending in the following offseasons. Avoiding a flat cap should be a big reason for the players, but I don’t think it outweighs the large sudden influx of money that will be given out to the players in the first 2-3 years of the media deal.
NBAPA will almost certainly not repeat their mistake from 2016, and the sides have plenty of time to get it right. Players get the same $$ overall either way; they have the main interest in seeing that 2025 FAs don’t get the entire increment.