Center Patrick Gardner agreed to an Exhibit 10 contract with the Nets last month. He’s expecting to end up in the G League this season but hopes to make a major impression during training camp.
“I was fortunate enough to get a training camp invite for the Nets, then depending how I do here and in general, hopefully I could just keep moving up from there. I think I’m gonna be with the G League team, but you never know what could happen, just got to be prepared for all options,” Gardner told FIBA.Basketball.
Gardner is playing for Egypt during the World Cup and was on the Heat’s summer league squad. The Nets reached an agreement with him shortly after he went undrafted out of Marist.
We have more from the Atlantic Division:
- Evan Fournier is confident he can still help the Knicks or another NBA club, he told Antonis Stroggylakis of Eurohoops.net. “Obviously, I want to play again. I want to have success. I know I can help. I know I can play, I know I can do many things,” said Fournier, who represented France during its disappointing World Cup run. Fournier’s career with the Knicks is in limbo as they seek a new home for him. He said last month he’d be “very surprised” if he played for them this season.
- With many NFL fantasy football managers drafting their teams this week, The Athletic’s Jared Weiss and Jay King conducted a mock draft of Celtics players. No surprise — Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were the first two players off the board.
- In case you missed it, the Nets’ Ben Simmons plans to come back with a vengeance during the upcoming season. Get the details here.
What are the odds that the Knicks actually pull the trigger on a trade?
Gobert, Siakam, OG, KAT, DeRozan, LaVine, Sexton, Harden all could be had for a combo of low value FRPs, Fournier, Quickley, and another contract depending on who you get.
Quickley is more than trade bait. I’m only including him in a swap for a true A-lister. Wait for Embiid or Doncic to ask out.
Maybe, just maybe could they get Sexton. That’s it from your list. No way they can get anyone else for the crap picks they have and salary filler. They would have to move RJ or Randle and their own future picks in say 28-30 to get any of these names, other than Sexton.
DeRozan is in the last year of his contract, ditto Siakam, Harden is on the outs with his team and has limited value *and* is in the last year of his contract, and OG isn’t worth nearly as much as Toronto wants everyone to believe. All of them are achievable if they Knicks add enough picks or another of their young players; Sims or McBride probably. Quickley is a fantastic young combo-guard who is a starter on plenty of teams. One bad playoff run isn’t enough to erase that.
If you’re a Knicks fan tho, are you prepared to give Quickley a large contract tho? He isn’t even a Top-75 player in the league. If I’m getting a Top-30 or Top50 player in return, it’s worth it.
That depends more on how the fit works out. There are certain guys mentioned here I wouldn’t trade for if I were the Knicks, Harden topping that list. And certainly not for a player of Quickley’s caliber.
I would be willing to give Quickley 4 for 90, maybe even 4 for 100. Not solely because of his ability and the likelihood of improvement (he’s only 24), but because he then becomes an easily tradeable contract along with it. Especially with the way the salary cap will spike each year, and the new rules specifying that every team has to use 90% of the cap. Is it an overpay? Somewhat, yeah, given his current ability. But I don’t think that he’s hit his ceiling yet, and you have to look at the future when signing a deal.
Fournier’s change in tone is likely due to his now seeing the writing on the wall, i.e., that he’ll be on the roster when the preseason starts, and that he’ll likely remain there until the deadline.
I always wanted Evan. And thought Thibs didn’t really use him well. But most of the fault here has to go to Fournier. He didn’t play D well enough. Then he sulked on offense at times. Then instead of improving his play. He took on Thibs. Fact is he can still score. Now he’ll have motivation to prove Knicks wrong. Imo he can help a team.
In the end he has no one to blame but himself. Wish him the best.
He couldn’t even help France.
Fournier was the only guy on that team that came to play. Dude led the team in scoring in their first two games and was second in scoring in game 3, on solid efficiency. Wasn’t his fault everyone else sucked.