Robert Covington prioritized a chance to win a title over maximizing his salary when he agreed to a two-year, $24MM extension with the Clippers in May, writes Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times. Covington might have been able to earn more on the open market, but he feels wanted in L.A. and likes the talent that’s surrounding him.
“I talked with my agent and he kind of picked my brain on everything on what I wanted to do and I basically told him that at this point in my career I want to win,” Covington explained. “I’ve had a big contract, but I wanted to be in a position where I can win and I can really contribute to a contending team. We’ve seen what we had here and everybody, even the team talked about, ‘We want you back, want you back,’ players, everybody talked about next year. Just the consistency and the commitment that even after my last day there everybody still was preaching me coming back and I took that into account. Everyone expressed how much they wanted me to come back.”
The expected return of Kawhi Leonard, who missed all of last season due to injury, and the addition of free agent guard John Wall give the Clippers possibly the most talent in the Western Conference. Their depth also makes it difficult to identify who will get consistent playing time, but Covington believes that will work itself out.
“I know what they brought me here for,” he said. “They brought me here to knock down shots, defend, make the game easy, disrupt as much as I can, that’s why they brought me back.”
There’s more from the Pacific Division:
- The Suns‘ media day will be an important event to watch in the wake of the Robert Sarver suspension, according to Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. General manager James Jones, head coach Monty Williams and all the players can set the tone for how much the incident will impact the season by how they respond on September 26. Chris Paul has already criticized Sarver’s actions on social media.
- James Ham of The Kings Beat examines the Kings‘ options at small forward heading into training camp. Harrison Barnes will likely see most of the minutes, though his expiring contract makes him a trade candidate. Ham doesn’t expect newcomers Kent Bazemore, KZ Okpala and Chima Moneke to all make the roster.
- The Lakers are engaged in ongoing trade talks with the Jazz, but the teams don’t appear to be close to a deal, per Tony Jones of The Athletic. L.A. has expressed interest in acquiring Bojan Bogdanovic.
Russ will be traded by this time next week.
Westbrook, not Wilson.
How many draft picks are the Lakers sending to the other team? No one wants Westbrook.
They have to send both, ainge would be able to get an unprotected first rounder for Bojan without taking back Westbrook, or LA could probably take Conley and Bojan and possibly maybe only have to give up 1 pick and swaps, but say that happens, what can the Lakers get with 1 first round pick? They should try the hield/turner trade as much as they can, pat bev hield lebron AD and Turner is actually a relatively respectable lineup
everyone is playing chicken. Indiana can wait, but Utah wants to tank and Lakers want to to unload Westbrook asap. NY has some bad deals and should get involved. They have the picks and need to get better. I like Bojan for NY, and Conley for LA.
Teams will probably wait until the deadline to trade for Russ so lakers must eat a big part of that $47 million. Once the season starts and the deal has only $30 million left on it that is when they will trade for Russ.
Russ is a great player on the right team! It’s just not on the Lakers. Before he joined the lakers he was averaging triple doubles so you can’t disregard that. On the jazz he can be that same player and help that young team depending on who they send our way
But it would stunt the growth of younger players like THT and Jared Butler.
Russ would get great stats on the right team. I’m not sure he would help too much any team though: bad teams don’t need an old, ball-dominant point guard and good teams… well, we all saw how it went in Houston and LA (or even in OKC with PG).
When pg put up his most points playing with him?
I feel like Utah would be a bad place just from his experience with fans there in the past.
It’s funny, people sometimes say the Jazz can’t attract free agents. However, seems like a long list of teams are coveting the free agent the Jazz signed to a multi-year deal, in Bojan.
Makes me wonder if these same people ever read or watch anything beyond their small focus of interests? I’d say not.
However, to be fair, there’s so much entertainment and information that it’s literally impossible for one person to be fully versed even on every NBA team. You’re going to miss out on the subtle differences between each city, fans, and team.
Still, the Jazz signing guys like Bojan as a free agent is pretty basic information. =)
You listed one white guy. Bennyboy you have blinders on.
Benboy brought up Connecticut trying to disprove that Utah is a small market and is now citing Bojan Bogdanovic as proof that the Jazz can attract big free agents. Your team is in the midst of a full blown rebuild my friend. It was a good run, but its over now.
You’ll have plenty of time to cope. Believe me, I’ve had 16 years.
One thing to note, Ainge was interviewed by Craig Bolerjack on the Utah Jazz YouTube channel/site. There’s also the press conference with both him and Justin Zanik, the GM. The hint was that there’d be moves done before training camp is over. It also sounded like they were completely fine with bringing these vets back as mentors.
In other words, based on what they said, if a deal isn’t done by the end of training camp, then you’ll likely see the Jazz vets stay on the team at least part of the season. Could even be longer. They did say the situation is fluid.
You said absolutely nothing here. You played both sides of the fence.
Of coarse Barnes is your Starting SF. There isn’t a true SF on this team other than him thats worth anything. They addressed every other position on this Roster, B U T, SF. Now Huerter is a combo player who can play both SG and SF. I’d rather they started Monk at SG and have Huerter be the backup to both positions. He’d get enough min per game that way also. He has the size to match up agains most other SF around the league.
Another Starting Rotation could be : (my Opinion)
—————————————————————————–
PF – 6-11 Sabonis, backup – Murray, Lyles, Metu
SF – 6-8 Barnes, backup – Huerter, Moneke, Okpala
C – 6-10 Holmes, backup – Sabonis, Len, Queta
SG – 6-5 Monk, backup – Heurter, Davis, Ellis
PG – 6-3 Fox, backup – Mitchell, Dellavedova, Cook