- The buyout market signing of Kris Humphries has returned the big man to a traditional inside role after the Wizards tried to make him into a stretch four earlier this season, and the arrangement has been beneficial for the Hawks, coach/executive Mike Budenholzer said, notes Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post. Humphries goes back on the free agent market July 1st. “He’s fit in really well,” Budenholzer said. “I’d just say rebounding is an area where we need to be better and he’s kind of come in and given a little life. He tracks offensive boards, goes to the offensive boards. And I’m hoping he’ll be more of an influence on our other guys even though it’s not something we prioritize. He brings a little bit of a physicality, a little bit of a toughness. And then he can make shots, he can spread the court. Shoot threes, make threes. And his personality, he’s added a little personality to our locker room, too, so it’s just been a really good fit.”
- Kent Bazemore is a lock to get overpaid this summer when he hits free agency, contends Zach Lowe of ESPN.com. The question is whether it’ll be Atlanta footing the bloated bill, as Lowe examines amid a larger piece on the Hawks. The team could open nearly $20MM in cap room if it lets Bazemore walk, but the Hawks speak highly of the value of continuity, Lowe writes.
Executive Director of the NBPA Michele Roberts is working to shift the perception that players make too much money, something that will likely be expressed once negotiations begin with team owners over their respective stakes in the league’s basketball related income, as she tells Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports on his podcast (h/t RealGM Wiretap). Roberts believes the amount of money owners make is not being discussed enough.
“We read just recently that the value of these teams, thank you Donald Sterling, we know what a team can make on the open market,” Roberts said. ” If the reality is that as the game is growing financial, owners are holding onto those teams for a reason. There is a great deal of value. And there’s a long line of folks that would love to buy a basketball team.”
Here’s more from around the league:
- Jeremy Lin has thrived with the Hornets in his role off the bench, but if he declines his player option for next season, which is worth $2.1MM, it may be difficult for Charlotte to bring him back, Bobby Marks of the Vertical on Yahoo Sports writes. Lin is one of many players with looming contract decisions, as Chuck Myron of Hoops Rumors details.
- The Erie BayHawks of the D-League have waived Magic camp invitee Melvin Ejim, Chris Reichert of Upside Motor tweets. Ejim will sign with Reyer Venezia in Italy, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando.
- The Clippers have recalled C.J. Wilcox from the Canton Charge, according to the Clippers website.
The Celtics, who are among many teams dreaming of signing Kevin Durant this summer, would have taken the Texas product first overall in the 2007 draft if the pingpong balls had bounced their way, writes Chris Forsberg of ESPN.com. Instead, Portland landed the top pick and selected Ohio State center Greg Oden, with Durant falling to the Thunder at No. 2. “I was in the draft room, and they would have taken Durant,” said Austin Ainge, son of Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge. “I did have some inside information there.” Team co-owner Wyc Grousbeck has verified that claim, according to Forsberg.
Boston may be able to make its pitch to Durant more appealing by acquiring another high-level talent first. Forsberg suggested the Celtics may pursue Hawks free agent center/power forward Al Horford, who is also headed toward free agency and whom they reportedly targeted prior to last month’s trade deadline. Boston will have about $34MM in guaranteed salary for next season if it elects not to hang on to Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko. If the salary cap tops $90MM, as some estimates have suggested, the Celtics could have enough room for two elite free agents.
There’s more on the Atlantic Division:
- Durant, who will face the Celtics in Boston tonight for the first time since 2012, had plenty of good things to say about the city, according to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. “I like the city a lot,” Durant told reporters this morning. “It’s cold, but they love sports here. It’s a family atmosphere I feel when I walk around the city, so yeah, I like it a lot.”
- The Nets are hoping they might have “the next Manu Ginobili” in second-round pick Juan Pablo Vaulet, according to NetsDaily. Playing in Argentina, Vaulet missed 19 games with an early-season stress fracture in his ankle, but he is starting to show why Brooklyn and other observers were so high on him during the draft. That includes new Nets GM Sean Marks, who was watching Vaulet closely when he was still with the Spurs’ front office.
- The Raptors‘ D-League affiliate has announced that Ronald Roberts Jr. will miss the rest of the season with a right knee injury, tweets Chris Reichert of Upside & Motor. Three NBA teams had considered signing Roberts to a 10-day contract before the injury, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo (Twitter link).
The Hawks‘ patience with Tim Hardaway Jr. is beginning to pay off, with the player finally rounding into shape after a wrist injury he suffered last season derailed his offseason program, David Aldridge of NBA.com writes. The swingman’s progress is due to the team being more concerned about getting him healthy than getting him on the court early in order to justify sacrificing a 2015 first-rounder in order to acquire him, Aldridge adds. Hardaway admitted it was difficult for him when told he wasn’t going to begin the season in the rotation, but coach/executive Mike Budenholzer‘s willingness to communicate assuaged any doubts he may have had, the scribe relays.
“I knew what was at stake,” Hardaway said. “I know what coach wanted me to do. When the coaches are able to talk to the players one on one, it makes life a lot easier, just to know what they want out of that player. It was great to have coach Bud just talk to me one on one, consistently, and not have me worry about it. He hears the positives I’m doing. And that helped me out tremendously.”
Here’s more out of the Southeast Division:
- The Heat are hoping the addition of Joe Johnson and their newfound offensive versatility will allow them to be a factor in the playoffs, Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel writes. “I think we’re an unpredictable team as far as who’s going to score the basketball,” Johnson said. “We’re not predictable in who’s going to have a big night. We’ve got a lot of guys that are very versatile, who make plays offensively and defensively. So I think it takes pressure off of everybody.” Miami has a 6-2 mark since signing Johnson, who agreed to a buyout with the Nets in order to join a playoff contender, Winderman notes.
- The Magic are a long shot to make the playoffs this season, with coach Scott Skiles pointing to the team’s lack of consistency throughout the campaign as a major contributing factor to its woes, Josh Robbins of The Orlando Sentinel relays. “My ego would be crazy big if I thought it was having an effect right now,” Skiles said regarding his rallying cry for the team to make a postseason push. “We just came out and laid an egg. The rallying cry’s been the rallying cry. But you’re not eliminated ’til you’re mathematically eliminated. That’s just the way it goes. But the fact that we haven’t been able to consistently do the things that we need to do is not a good sign. But at any point we could do them. We just haven’t gotten it done.” Orlando is currently 4.5 games behind Chicago for the eighth and final playoff slot in the East.
The Hawks have increased their use of analytics and technology in how they help players recover from injuries and maintain their bodies, David Aldridge of NBA.com notes. The use of new and nontraditional techniques is one change that Mike Budenholzer implemented when he took over as the team’s president of basketball operations, Aldridge adds. “We wanted to have all of the groups, everybody within the organization that had a great synergy and worked well together, and had a passion,” Budenholzer told the scribe. “Keke Lyles, [trainer] Art Horne and [strength and conditioning coach] Mike Roncarati and [Athletic Performance Coach] Chris Chase and [assistant trainer] Scottie Parker have a passion for athletic performance, keeping our guys, pushing the envelope for them being the best they can be. You could feel that when we interviewed them and talked with them.”
Lyles, who is Atlanta’s director of player performance, told Aldridge of the team’s approach, “I think the biggest thing is, [Budenholzer] has a certain vision about the court, and what the players are doing. And he wanted that to carry over into what guys did as prep. Obviously, our field is not his area of expertise, but he knew the value of it, and how important it is. And so I think he saw the opportunity to bring a group in that was kind of on the same page, and thought the same way, and had very specific goals that we wanted to accomplish in treatment.” Budenholzer credits Lyles with helping Kyle Korver and Tim Hardaway Jr. return to form after their respective surgeries, Aldridge also notes.
Here’s more from around the league:
- Elfrid Payton has yet to establish himself as the Magic‘s point guard of the future despite making small strides in improving his scoring average and shooting numbers, Brian Schmitz of The Orlando Sentinel writes. “I don’t want to single a spot out. We’re 9-24 since the first of the year. So all of our our spots…we’re not playing well enough in general,” coach Scott Skiles responded when asked about the play of the team’s playmakers. When asked specifically about Payton, the coach said, “Again, I just don’t think it’s fair….I’m not trying to duck the question. If we were having a more consistent season, I’d feel a little bit more comfortable answering that. Again, our troubles are at many spots.“
- The Pistons have an available roster spot after not electing to sign Justin Harper for the remainder of the season after his second 10-day deal came to an end, but Detroit has no immediate plans to bring in another player, Keith Langlois of NBA.com tweets.
- The Pacers have recalled center Shayne Whittington from their D-League affiliate, the team announced. This was the big man’s fifth stint with the Mad Ants on the season.
Trail Blazers GM Neil Olshey is unsurprisingly a major fan of soon-to-be free agent big man Al Horford, as Jason Quick of CSNNW.com tweets. Horford will reportedly prioritize the fifth year that the Hawks, and no one else, can offer him in a new contract this summer, but he hasn’t made any commitments despite his fondness for Atlanta, and he reportedly has a degree of interest in the Magic. Portland wouldn’t offer the geographical advantage of no state income tax and proximity to his college home of the University of Florida that the Magic could, but the Blazers have an intriguing backcourt of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum to showcase to Horford and other free agents this summer, when the team will have only about $47MM in guaranteed salary on the books against a salary cap expected to be twice that amount. See more from around the league:
- Rockets GM Daryl Morey was mum when ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan asked him whether he planned to re-sign Dwight Howard this summer, as Matt Dollinger of SI.com notes in a roundup of last week’s MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Agent David Falk regards Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf as the toughest negotiator he’s ever gone against, Dollinger notes in the same piece.
- Positional versatility and a strong overall package make Michigan swingman Caris LeVert an intriguing prospect, but he looks ill-suited to become a go-to guy, and his history of injuries is a concern, write Josh Riddell and Mike Schmitz of DraftExpress.
- Sean Deveney of The Sporting News sides with LSU combo forward Ben Simmons in the debate over whether Simmons or Duke small forward Brandon Ingram is the top prospect in this year’s draft, listing Simmons atop his first mock draft. Ingram follows, with European power forward Dragan Bender at No. 3.
The trade deadline underwhelmed this season, but a robust buyout market followed, and the effects of the changes linger. Hoops Rumors has taken a team-by-team look at the financial ramifications of all the movement. We examined the Southwest, Pacific, Central, Northwest and Atlantic divisions earlier, and we’ll conclude with the Southeast Division:
Hawks
Atlanta didn’t make the sort of landmark trade involving Jeff Teague, Al Horford of Dennis Schröder that reports suggested the Hawks might, but they made a swap that saved a bit for this season and next and later put the savings toward a buyout market signing of Kris Humphries. The Hawks shed a combined $384,601 in money against the cap when they sent out Justin Holiday and Shelvin Mack for Kirk Hinrich, and even though Chicago took responsibility for Hinrich’s $141,068 trade bonus, Atlanta’s real savings came to less than that $384,601 figure, since the players involved had already received the majority of their paychecks from the teams that had them before the deadline. The swap was more about moving off Holiday’s $1,015,696 guaranteed salary for next season. That gives the Hawks slightly more cap flexibility, reducing their commitments to about $51.7MM for 2016/17, but it also provided funding for Humphries’ $1MM salary, an above-minimum amount that came via a prorated portion of the room exception.
Heat
Perhaps no team had a wilder financial ride through the deadline and buyout season than the Heat did, ducking the tax line with three salary–shedding trades, going back over to sign Joe Johnson, and finally slipping back beneath the tax threshold when they worked a buyout with the injured Beno Udrih, an arrangement that raised eyebrows. Miami began $5,627,059 above the tax threshold as deadline week got underway. Two days before the deadline, the Heat artfully constructed a three-team deal that allowed them to exchange Chris Andersen‘s $5MM salary for Brian Roberts‘ $2,854,940 pay without having Memphis or Charlotte take back too much incoming salary for matching purposes. That still left them millions into the tax, so they pulled off the Jarnell Stokes deal with the Pelicans on the day of the deadline, sending out one of the vestiges of the early-season Mario Chalmers trade along with $721,300 cash for a phantom second-round pick. That cash was essentially the fee that New Orleans charged for agreeing to pay Stokes’ remaining salary, and it represented all the money the Heat had left to trade, by rule. Miami had already spent the rest of its $3.4MM allotment in the Zoran Dragic and Shabazz Napier deals, meaning the Heat had to find another way to pull off their second deadline-day trade.
Fortunately for them, the Trail Blazers valued Roberts as someone worth having on their roster, and his contract helps them toward the salary floor. So, they were willing to give up $75K for Roberts, an amount of cash less than the financial benefit of absorbing his contract for salary-floor purposes, and the Heat kicked in their 2021 second-rounder. That left Miami $218K below the tax, and it seemed the Heat could declare victory after a season-long effort to avoid repeat-offender penalties. All they had to do was wait until March 6th to sign anyone, and they’d be OK.
Miami was not content to sit out the buyout market, however. The Heat scored the prize of buyout season on February 27th, signing Joe Johnson that day to a prorated minimum salary contract and sending themselves back over the tax by $136,106. Thus, it was time for team president Pat Riley to once more work his magic.
It remains unclear what convinced Udrih to forfeit $90K of his salary in a buyout deal when the right foot injury expected to sideline him until late May made it unlikely he’d recoup that money through signing with another team. It’s conceivable that Riley made Udrih promises about a new contract later on, though that would be against the rules, and it’s likely the reason why teams around the league scrutinized the Udrih buyout. Still, the Heat didn’t get all that they might have wanted, since the failure of the Sixers or Blazers to claim Udrih off waivers, a move that would have helped them toward the salary floor, left Miami just $46,106 under the tax. That’s not enough to sign anyone until next month, short-circuiting the apparent mutual interest between the Heat and Marcus Thornton, who went to the Wizards instead, as we touch on below.
Hornets
Somewhat remarkably, all of the four players involved in the three-team trade that brought Courtney Lee to Charlotte are on expiring contracts. The Hornets simply absorbed an extra $1,618,620 in cap hits for this season, the equivalent of the difference between Lee’s salary and the combined salaries of Brian Roberts and P.J. Hairston, and the $542,714 cash Charlotte received in the deal essentially wipes out the real monetary cost, since Memphis already gave Lee most of his paychecks. Charlotte has since poured a little more money into this season, signing Jorge Gutierrez to a pair of 10-day contracts and a subsequent contract that Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders confirms is a prorated minimum-salary deal for just the rest of this season. The total expenditure on Gutierrez, with his 10-day contracts and rest-of-season deal put together, is a paltry $300,899, a figure that, like the trade, doesn’t touch the team’s cap flexibility for the summer ahead.
Magic
The primary asset Orlando scored at the deadline was cap flexibility for this summer, sloughing off $23,793,029 from next season’s guaranteed salary commitments, a chunk almost large enough to represent a middle-tier max slot by itself. Less widely noted was the team’s creation of a $8,193,029 trade exception for Channing Frye‘s salary, the league’s second largest such exception behind only Cleveland’s newly created $9,638,554 Anderson Varejao trade exception. It would disappear should the Magic officially open cap room this summer, as expected, but it remains a valuable tool that Orlando can use to accommodate trades around the draft. It appears the Magic already used a small portion of it to claim Chris Copeland‘s $1.15MM salary off waivers last month in a move that helped them reach the salary floor.
Wizards
Markieff Morris could ultimately prove a bargain, given a contract that’s below the market value his production from previous seasons would suggest, but this season was a disaster for him in Phoenix, and Washington paid dearly to trade for him, adding salary for both the present and the future while also relinquishing a protected first-round pick. The $1.37MM difference between the salary for Morris and the combined salaries of DeJuan Blair and Kris Humphries doesn’t matter much because all three already received most of their pay from the teams they were with before the trade. The greater concern is the $24MM over the next three years that’s coming Morris’ way, and particularly the $7.4MM he’ll see next season, when the Wizards would love to have Kevin Durant playing alongside him. The salary Morris makes for next season is not enough to knock Washington out of the projected cap flexibility necessary to afford a max contract for Durant, even with Bradley Beal‘s cap hold, but the trade is still a long-term bet on a player who regressed disconcertingly this year amid constant trade rumors.
Washington wasn’t done spending, scoring J.J. Hickson in the buyout market on a prorated minimum-salary deal and later doing the same with Marcus Thornton, who serves as an injury replacement for the waived Gary Neal. That’s an extra $473,638 for this season. Still, the Wizards elected not to spend their disabled player exception left over from Martell Webster‘s injury, allowing it to expire last week. That’s no surprise, since the Wizards are only $448,438 shy of the tax line after their recent spree.
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Kings center DeMarcus Cousins took another verbal swipe at coach George Karl, tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports. After being suspended for Friday’s game following a tirade directed at Karl, Cousins remained combative following tonight’s loss to the Jazz. “That wasn’t a suspension from the organization,” Cousins said. “That was a suspension from the head coach.” Their ongoing battle has led many to speculate that neither will be in Sacramento next season.
There’s more tonight from around the basketball world:
- Veteran guard Kirk Hinrich is probably looking at a short stay with the Hawks, tweets Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Coach Mike Budenholzer said Dennis Schröder will be the backup point guard, and it’s not in the “plans” to use Hinrich in that role any more. The 35-year-old soon-to-be free agent to be has appeared in just three games since coming to Atlanta from the Bulls in a deadline-day trade.
- Josh Richardson is shaping up as a major bargain for the Heat, writes Ethan Skolnick of The Miami Herald. He has settled into Miami’s rotation and now trails only the Sixers‘ Richaun Holmes in minutes played among 2015 second-round picks. Richardson is signed through 2017/18 and will make a little less than $875K next season.
- Anderson Varejao is still adjusting to the idea of not being with the Cavaliers, writes Jason Lloyd of The Akron Beacon-Journal. After 12 years in Cleveland, Varejao was shipped to the Blazers in a deadline-day trade, and he signed with the Warriors after Portland released him. “If you told me at the start of the season I’d be here, I never would’ve believed it,” he said. “With my contract, how could anyone have predicted this?”
- The Warriors were honored as the“Best Analytics Organization” at this year’s MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. The Chicago Blackhawks, Houston Astros and FC Midtjylland, a Danish soccer team, were the other finalists for the award.
- The Hornets have assigned rookie guard Aaron Harrison to Erie of the D-League. Harrison is averaging just 4.3 minutes in 16 games with Charlotte, along with 0.8 points and 0.6 rebounds.
The Mavericks haven’t been a real contender for a few seasons, but owner Mark Cuban isn’t ready to shift gears and begin the rebuilding process, writes Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com. Dallas lost Saturday to the Pacers to drop to .500 and just two games up in the loss column on ninth-place Utah.
“We’ll always be opportunistic,” Cuban said. “It takes a little bit of luck. I don’t care who it is. Then you look at the teams that said, ‘OK, let’s just blow it up.’ Who’s it worked for lately?”
The Mavericks are nonetheless stuck on the mediocrity treadmill, having no clear path to becoming legitimate contenders, MacMahon contends in the same piece. MacMahon examines the team’s decisions since winning the title in 2011 and doubts that Dallas can attract marquee free agents during the upcoming summer due to the plethora of teams set for ample cap flexibility. See more on the Mavs amid news from the Lone Star state.
- Kevin Martin was linked to the Mavs, Rockets, Cavaliers, Hawks, Heat and Thunder as he worked a buyout with the Timberwolves a couple of weeks ago, but he said the Spurs were his choice all along, according to The Oklahoman’s Anthony Slater (Twitter link). “There was only one team I’d do a buyout for and it was here [San Antonio],” Martin said.
- Andrew Goudelock believes he significantly expanded his game in the nearly three years that passed between the end of his time with the Lakers in 2013 and his signing with the Rockets this week, observes Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. “My basketball IQ has grown,” Goudelock said. “I’ve seen a lot of different things. I’m able to read offenses and defenses better. I’m able to handle the ball a lot better. I’m able to play both guard positions. I’m able to see things on the floor I wasn’t able to see before. I was just a scorer. That’s all I brought to the game. Now, I’m passing the ball and defensively I’ve gotten a lot better. I’ve come a long way defensively. That was one of the knocks on me. I’m a pretty decent defender now.”
- Critics could argue that Peter Holt, who transferred control of the Spurs to his wife this past week, simply rode the wave of success that coach/president Gregg Popovich built, but Holt’s faith in Popovich amid difficulty early in his coaching tenure shows that the outgoing owner deserves credit, opines Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post.
Chris Crouse contributed to this post.