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NBA, ESPN Announce Details Of H-O-R-S-E Competition

April 9th, 2020 at 9:00am CST by Luke Adams

As expected, Thunder guard Chris Paul, Hawks guard Trae Young, and Bulls guard Zach LaVine are among the players who will participate in the H-O-R-S-E competition being organized by the NBA, NBPA, and ESPN, per a press release.

According to the announcement, Jazz guard Mike Conley, former NBA stars Chauncey Billups and Paul Pierce, newly-elected Hall-of-Famer Tamika Catchings, and three-time WNBA All-Star Allie Quigley will fill out the eight-person field for the event.

The four quarterfinal matchups will air on Sunday evening (April 12), with Young facing Billups and Catchings facing Conley in group one, while LaVine goes up against Pierce and Paul squares off against Quigley in group two. The group one winners will face one another in the first semifinal next Thursday (April 16), with the group two winners competing in the second semifinal. The final will take place on the same night.

A coin toss will determine which player starts each matchup. Each player will be required to describe his or her shot attempt beforehand and dunking won’t be permitted. ESPN’s Mark Jones will serve as the event’s host, with each player attempting shots from his or her own home gym.

The event will raise more than $200K in support of coronavirus relief efforts.

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Paul, Young, LaVine Among Likely H-O-R-S-E Participants

April 8th, 2020 at 3:02pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBA and ESPN have nearly finalized a plan to televise a H-O-R-S-E competition to help sate fans’ appetite for basketball, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter).

While it’s unclear exactly when the event will take place, Wojnarowski says Thunder guard Chris Paul, Hawks guard Trae Young, and Bulls guard Zach LaVine are among the players expected to participate. The field will also include a couple of WNBA players and recent NBA players, according to Woj.

As we relayed over the weekend, the plan would be for players to remain in isolation, likely in home gyms, while putting up shots against competitors.

H-O-R-S-E is a popular playground game in which a player attempts a shot, and if it goes in, a competitor has to make the same shot from the same spot on the court. Each failure to do so results in a letter, and the first player to spell out H-O-R-S-E is eliminated.

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2020/21 Salary Cap Preview: Atlanta Hawks

April 2nd, 2020 at 3:49pm CST by Luke Adams

Hoops Rumors is looking ahead at the 2020/21 salary cap situations for all 30 NBA teams. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the NBA calendar, it’s impossible to know yet where the cap for 2020/21 will land. Given the league’s lost revenue, we’re assuming for now that it will stay the same as the ’19/20 cap, but it’s entirely possible it will end up higher or lower than that.

After adding two more young cornerstones – De’Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish – to their roster in the 2019 draft lottery, the Hawks looked like one of the Eastern Conference’s most exciting young teams entering the 2019/20 campaign.

However, despite a monster offensive season from Trae Young, the Hawks didn’t take a major step forward this year. The team didn’t have a whole lot of effective veteran depth and its young players weren’t fully ready to carry the load — a 25-game John Collins suspension didn’t help either. Atlanta will head into ’20/21 hoping for continued growth from its young core and with the cap flexibility necessary to continue adding talent.

Here’s where things stand for the Hawks financially in 2020/21, as we launch our Salary Cap Preview series:

Guaranteed Salary

Player Options

  • None

Team Options

  • None

Non-Guaranteed Salary

  • Brandon Goodwin ($1,601,593) 1
  • Total: $1,601,593

Restricted Free Agents

Unrestricted Free Agents / Other Cap Holds

Offseason Cap Outlook

Regardless of where the cap for the 2020/21 league year ends up, the Hawks are in a good spot and should have more room than virtually any other NBA team. If the cap remains the same as it was in ’19/20, Atlanta could still easily get to $44MM+ in space.

Although that would be more than enough cap room to make a play for a maximum-salary player, I’m skeptical that GM Travis Schlenk would want to go that route, even if team ownership is getting antsy to make a major splash.

Cap Exceptions Available

  • Room exception: $4,767,000 2

Footnotes

  1. Goodwin’s new salary guarantee date is unknown.
  2. This is a projected value.

Note: Minimum-salary and rookie-scale cap holds are based on the salary cap and could increase or decrease depending on where the cap lands.

Salary information from Basketball Insiders and Early Bird Rights was used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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NBA Plans To Launch Players-Only 2K Tournament

March 31st, 2020 at 12:07pm CST by Luke Adams

12:07pm: The Boardroom has provided a full list of the 16 participants in the tournament, along with the first-round matchups (Twitter link). Devin Booker (Suns), Trae Young (Hawks), and Zach LaVine (Bulls) are among the other stars set to take part in the event.

11:19am: With no NBA games expected to happen on the court anytime soon, the league is setting up a virtual tournament in an attempt to sate fans’ appetite for basketball, reports Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.

According to Haynes, the league intends to launch an NBA 2K tournament that will feature NBA players competing against one another. The goal is to begin the 10-day event this Friday, though the league is still working out and finalizing the details, sources tell Haynes. The tournament would be broadcast on ESPN.

Nets star Kevin Durant, Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell, Cavaliers center Andre Drummond, and free agent big man DeMarcus Cousins are among the 16 players expected to participate, per Haynes.

Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel had previously tweeted that Trail Blazers center Hassan Whiteside and Heat swingman Derrick Jones were among the players set to play in an NBA 2K20 Players Tournament in April. That info appears to be based on an announcement from the NBPA, which was quickly deleted. Jeff Garcia of Spurs Zone (via Twitter) shares the full list of participants the NBPA identified in that premature release.

According to Winderman, the tournament is expected to have a $100K prize for charity.

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Latest On Clint Capela

March 30th, 2020 at 8:55am CST by Luke Adams
  • In a mailbag for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sarah K. Spencer provides an injury update on Clint Capela, writing that the big man had been participating in half-court workouts before practices were shut down. If the season had played out normally, Spencer notes, there’s a chance Capela wouldn’t have returned at all or would have been on a strict minutes limit. If it ends up resuming in the summer, his odds of making his Hawks debut this season figure to increase.
  • Chris Kirschner and John Hollinger of The Athletic teamed up for a two-part look at the Hawks‘ future, exploring whether the team made positive strides in 2019/20 and what its outlook is going forward.
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Hawks All-Star Trae Young's Oklahoma Life In Hiatus

March 26th, 2020 at 8:02pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum
  • After the COVID-19 pandemic forced the NBA to postpone its season, All-Star Hawks point guard Trae Young returned from Atlanta to his offseason home near his family in Norman, Oklahoma, according to Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated.
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Alex Len Talks Hawks Experience, Confusion Over Being Traded

March 24th, 2020 at 6:47pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Alex Len, who inked a two-year deal with Hawks back in 2018, was traded to the Kings at this year’s deadline. Prior to getting dealt, Len expressed his interest in re-signing with Atlanta, telling Chris Kirschner of The Athletic this week that he cherished his time with the club.

“One-hundred percent — I wanted to stay,” Len told Kirschner. “I like the coaching staff. I liked my teammates. Everyone was cool. It really had a family feel to it. Last year, you could see the trajectory was going up…This season didn’t work out as planned, so they had to make changes. It’s a business, so I understood they had to do it.”

In the trade with the Kings, which also sent Jabari Parker to Sacramento, the Hawks received a pair of second-round picks and Dewayne Dedmon, who had left the team in free agency prior to the season. That, coupled with the team bringing in Clint Capela, left Len puzzled as to why Atlanta would trade him for another center.

“They didn’t want to pay [Dedmon] in the first place, so it didn’t make sense to me,” Len said. “If they wanted him, they could have just paid him. So they get him as a backup now and end up paying him anyway.”

Len admitted that he didn’t know what to expect when he was on his way to Sacramento. He called the experience of playing with the Kings this season a “pleasant surprise,” while adding that dynamics of the two franchises were different.

“There was a whole different mood and vibe around the team because we were going for the eighth spot,” Len said. “When I was (in Atlanta), it’s tough to play knowing you’re not making the playoffs. You go into the game, and guys are thinking about their points and themselves. (In Sacramento), it’s all about team and winning. Guys don’t care how many points they score; it’s all about winning. Everybody was playing a lot harder. We were playing all five guys on a string. It makes your job easier because everybody else is a lot better.”

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Hawks Rumors: Pierce, Bembry, FAs, Collins

March 20th, 2020 at 9:05am CST by Luke Adams

In a look at some of the offseason questions that the Hawks will have to address later this year, Chris Kirschner of The Athletic points to head coach Lloyd Pierce‘s job status as one of those unanswered questions. As Kirschner explains, Pierce has done a good job developing Atlanta’s young players, but there are other factors that could impact his job security.

For one, star guard Trae Young hasn’t always been on the same page with Pierce, according to Kirschner, who suggests the All-Star guard has disagreed with some coaching decisions and didn’t love Pierce’s comments about Young not being named a finalist for Team USA’s roster. Sources with knowledge of the Hawks star’s thinking “have confirmed that his relationship with Pierce isn’t strong,” Kirschner writes.

Some Hawks players have also questioned Pierce’s in-game decisions and rotations. According to Kirschner, one player even offered the following assessment when discussing those decisions: “It’s almost as if we actually are tanking on purpose.”

Here are some other subjects that Kirschner touches on in his story for The Athletic:

  • DeAndre’ Bembry has been a personal favorite of Pierce’s, but he may have played his last game for the Hawks, according to Kirschner, who hears from sources that the RFA-to-be was “readily available” leading up to the trade deadline.
  • Kirschner is also skeptical that Jeff Teague or Damian Jones, who will be free agents this offseason, will be back with Atlanta in 2020/21. However, he believes Skal Labissiere is a candidate to be re-signed, despite not yet playing a game for the Hawks, since the recently-acquired big man has long been a favorite of GM Travis Schlenk.
  • If the 2019/20 season doesn’t resume, the Hawks won’t get a chance to evaluate the on-court fit between Clint Capela and John Collins before the latter becomes extension-eligible, and Kirsher thinks it’ll be hard for the team to offer Collins a massive long-term deal without having seen whether that frontcourt pairing works.
  • Given the lack of a clear-cut hierarchy at the top of this year’s draft, Kirschner speculates that the Hawks would be open to trading down or trying to trade that pick for an impact player, even if they were to land the No. 1 selection. Schlenk showed a willingness to move down in 2018, passing on the chance to select Luka Doncic.
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Coronavirus Update: Thunder, Sixers, Nets, Testing

March 18th, 2020 at 5:47pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Thunder announced that their players and staff have tested negative for the coronavirus, writes Maddie Lee of The Oklahoman. Oklahoma City was set to host Utah last Wednesday, but the game was postponed after Rudy Gobert‘s positive test.

OKC officials said they followed recommendations of infectious disease experts that all players and staff members should get tested. Jazz players were tested on the night of the game, with Donovan Mitchell also revealed to have contracted the virus, but the Thunder’s tests didn’t come until later.

“Recognizing the stress on the state of Oklahoma’s medical system, the Thunder did not use state resources and chose an alternative path for testing of its personnel,” the team explained today in a press release.

There’s more COVID-19 news from around the league:

  • Sixers players underwent coronavirus tests Monday, multiple sources tell Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer. A week ago, Philadelphia hosted the Pistons with Christian Wood, who became the third player to test positive for the virus over the weekend. Sixers players and staff have been in self-quarantine since Thursday while waiting for the tests, according to Pompey, who adds that some staff members still haven’t been tested.
  • The Nets, who had four players test positive, issued a statement today stating that they had players and staff showing symptoms of the virus and obtained the tests from a private company, tweets Malika Andrews of ESPN. “As we learned NBA players on other teams had tested positive for COVID-19, we noticed that several of our players and staff had symptoms,” the statement reads. “Based on this information, and the judgment that all of our players are subject to high exposure due to the close physical nature of basketball, the communal nature of teams and the possibility of an accelerated spread from team to team, our medical experts advised that our players get tested. We sourced the tests through a private company and paid for them ourselves because we did not want to impact access to CDC’s public resources.”
  • The NBA has come under criticism with so many of its players receiving tests that aren’t easily available to the public, so league spokesman Mike Bass offered an explanation to Ramona Shelburne of ESPN (Twitter link). “Public health authorities and team doctors have been concerned that, given NBA players’ direct contact with each other and close interactions with the general public, in addition to their frequent travel, they could accelerate the spread of the virus,” Bass said. “… Hopefully, by these players choosing to make their test results public, they have drawn attention to critical need for young people to follow CDC recommendations in order to protect others, particularly those with underlying health conditions and the elderly.”
  • The Mavericks (Twitter link) and Hawks (Twitter link) both closed their practice facilities to players this week. Players are being told to stay home and engage in social distancing.
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