- Incoming first-round pick Robert Williams hasn’t made a great impression on the Celtics but an Associated Press report suggests that the big man won’t face any discipline for missing several team commitments less than a week into his NBA career. Not formal discipline, at least. “They discipline you with words,” the 20-year-old said. “More than you may know.“
- Dante Exum‘s new contract with the Jazz may complicate the Celtics‘ negotiations with Marcus Smart, tweets Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. Although he believes it’s “highly likely” that Smart returns to Boston, the news that Exum received $33MM over three seasons could make contract talks more difficult. They were drafted back-to-back in 2014, but Smart has played 99 more games and his career scoring average is more than four points higher.
There have been plenty of huge NBA headlines during the first few days of July, with LeBron James agreeing to become a Laker, Paul George deciding not to become a Laker, and DeMarcus Cousins lining up a deal with the defending-champion Warriors, among others.
However, for the most part, all has been quiet on the Kawhi Leonard front.
After Leonard’s camp made a public trade request earlier in mid-June, the Spurs forward seemed likely to dominate the offseason rumor mill, but for now, the primary suitors for the two-time Defensive Player of the Year may be playing it safe.
As Jordan Schultz of Yahoo Sports tweets, the Celtics and Sixers appear to be “playing the long game” on the Leonard front, not wanting to do anything rash with their rosters in great shape and LeBron finally out of their conference.
As for James’ new team in Los Angeles, the Lakers‘ other deals this offseason have suggested the club is retaining flexibility for the 2019 offseason, leaving the door open for Leonard to sign as a free agent and for the Lakers to keep all their young players and picks.
While the Lakers – wary of being too patient after what happened with George – may increase their efforts to land Leonard in a trade at some point, they “aren’t keen” on giving up Brandon Ingram, tweets Schultz. Meanwhile, the Celtics won’t give up Jayson Tatum and aren’t enthusiastic about moving Jaylen Brown, and the Sixers prefer to keep Markelle Fultz, Schultz adds.
While Schultz believes Leonard – who is unhappy in San Antonio and reportedly wants to play in Los Angeles – will be dealt eventually, he’s not sure where the star forward will end up. So we’re opening up that question to you.
What team to do you expect Leonard to be with to start the 2018/19 season? Will he get his wish to join the Lakers? Can the Spurs convince him to stick around a little longer? Will a budding Eastern powerhouse like the Celtics or Sixers go all-in for him? Could L.A.’s other team, the Clippers make a surprise play to land him? Or will a wild-card suitor enter the fray and steal him away?
Vote below in our poll and jump into the comment section to share your thoughts!
Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.
All-Stars and former USA Basketball teammates Jimmy Butler and Kyrie Irving are interested in figuring out a way to play together, a league source close to the situation tells Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times.
Both Butler and Irving were dealt to new teams in 2017 and thrived in those new homes during the 2017/18 season, so neither player is viewed as a trade candidate for the time being. However, both veterans hold player options for the 2019/20 season, meaning they could opt out and reach free agency at the same time a year from now.
Both Irving and Butler are eligible for contract extensions this summer, but are unlikely to sign them. A June report indicated that Irving won’t consider a new deal this offseason, since it wouldn’t make financial sense for the Celtics point guard to do so. Butler is in a similar boat for the Timberwolves, as he has the ability to make significantly more money if he waits for free agency.
Additionally, a league source tells Cowley that Butler has been “all but fed up with the nonchalant attitude of his younger teammates” in Minnesota. Cowley singles out Karl-Anthony Towns as a player who isn’t on the same page as the veteran forward, hinting that Butler’s end-of-season comments to the Sun-Times could have been aimed at KAT and other young teammates.
Butler said in late April that he doesn’t understand “how or why you all don’t love to get better the way that I do” and that he gets “lost in how everybody is not built the way that I’m built.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about unease in Minnesota related to the team’s three stars, Butler, Towns, and Andrew Wiggins. While there’s no indication that the Timberwolves need to take immediate steps to address any tension by moving one of those three players, the frequency of these reports is making it harder to envision them all staying with the franchise long term.
- Introduced by the Celtics today after signing a minimum-salary deal with the team, Brad Wanamaker said he has been looking for an opportunity to come to the NBA for the last couple years. “It’s a dream come true to play in the NBA and with a team like Boston,” the EuroLeague standout said, per Chris Forsberg of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
- Celtics rookie Robert Williams, who slipped to No. 27 in the draft in part due to reported character concerns, hasn’t exactly been making a great impression to start his NBA career. After sleeping through an introductory conference call on the day after the draft, Williams missed his flight to Boston for the start of Summer League practices over the weekend, tweets ESPN’s Chris Forsberg.
In a conversation with Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, DeMarcus Cousins explains that he chose to pursue a deal with the Warriors – calling GM Bob Myers himself – because he hadn’t received any offers from other teams, adding that Pelicans GM Dell Demps said New Orleans didn’t plan to re-sign him.
Recognizing that he wasn’t going to get a maximum-salary deal, Cousins opted to play for a title contender for one year, aiming to rebuild his value in advance of 2019’s free agent period. “This was my ace of spades. This was my chess move,” Cousins told Spears.
It’s somewhat hard to believe that no team was willing to offer Cousins a contract before he accepted the Warriors’ $5.3MM offer, and that’s especially true of the Pelicans, who had insisted all along that they wanted to re-sign the star center.
According to Will Guillory of NOLA.com (Twitter link), Cousins never formally met with the Pelicans during free agency and may not have officially made an offer, but general numbers had been discussed and there was an “understanding of what each side was looking for.” It’s not true to say the Pels didn’t want Cousins, Guillory adds.
Still, it’s certainly fair to say that NBA-wide interest in Cousins wasn’t as strong as many observers expected. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (video link), Cousins’ Achilles injury and a lack of cap space around the league were factors, and so was his image. “There were teams with [cap] space who did not want him in their locker room and didn’t want him in their organization,” Wojnarowski said.
Here’s more on free agency’s most shocking contract agreement:
- The Pelicans had a tentative meeting with Cousins scheduled for the coming days, but that meeting obviously won’t happen now, sources tell ESPN’s Zach Lowe.
- Lowe’s piece includes several other tidbits of note — he confirms Woj’s report that a number of teams had a “No Cousins policy,” and hears from sources that Cousins’ people were calling around on Monday and pitching deals to various teams. The big man’s camp proposed a one-year, $15MM deal to one club, but clearly there wasn’t a ton of interest, Lowe adds. For what it’s worth, Lowe is skeptical that Cousins’ deal with the Warriors will merit the kind of “hype” or “anguish” that it’s received so far, since his health and fit are still question marks.
- While a previous report indicated Cousins narrowed his choices to the Warriors and Celtics, Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe (Twitter link) hears from a league source that the Celtics didn’t get a chance to make a formal offer. The C’s heard Cousins might have interest in coming to Boston, but by the time they began looking into it, his deal with Golden State was done, says Himmelsbach.
- Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer takes a look at the NBA system that allowed the Warriors to add Cousins to their super-team, exploring whether the idea of a hard cap could gain momentum or stop this sort of move in the future.
- We rounded up several more Cousins-related notes on Monday night.
- While Marcus Smart‘s free agency could linger due to his restricted status, retaining him remains the Celtics‘ top offseason priority, tweets Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe.
Before DeMarcus Cousins agreed to join the defending-champion Warriors on a one-year, $5.3MM contract, the Trail Blazers and Pelicans discussed the possibility of a sign-and-trade deal that would have sent the star center to Portland, reports Chris Haynes of ESPN.com (Twitter link). However, according to Haynes, the fact that Cousins and Jusuf Nurkic share the same agent was one roadblock in those talks.
Even if not for that issue, it would have been tricky for the Pelicans and Blazers to reach a deal that worked for both sides. Acquiring a player via sign-and-trade would have hard-capped the Blazers, who were already well over the cap, so they likely would have had to send at least one or two players to New Orleans. It’s not clear if talks progressed to the point where the two sides were discussing specific players.
Here’s more on the free agency decision that has practically made LeBron James‘ move to Los Angeles an afterthought tonight:
- Cousins had narrowed down his choices to Golden State and Boston before opting for the Warriors, according to Haynes (Twitter link). The Celtics could have comfortably matched Golden State’s offer and would have been a fascinating destination for Cousins — with LeBron out of the East, the C’s already look like a favorite to represent the conference in the Finals in 2019, so the team’s status as the frontrunner would have been cemented with Cousins in the mix.
- Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports takes a look at the Warriors‘ recruitment of Cousins, which was led by his USA Basketball teammates Draymond Green and Kevin Durant, along with GM Bob Myers. Cousins also had “positive phone calls” with head coach Steve Kerr, league sources tell Charania.
- The Warriors were initially reluctant to believe in Cousins’ interest, according to Charania, who adds that the big man also received interest from the Pelicans, Mavericks, and Wizards. Golden State’s agreement with Cousins came together so quickly that some members of the organization were “stunned” when word of the deal broke, tweets ESPN’s Zach Lowe.
- Speaking to Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated (Twitter links), Cousins called his decision to join the Warriors the “smartest move ever,” and said he’s still hoping to return from his Achilles injury for training camp. Reports tonight suggested the Dubs may be eyeing a December or January return to action for their latest acquisition.
- Cousins also told Spears that he received no significant contract offers when free agency began, but was prepared for that possibility due to his Achilles injury (Twitter link).
- While it’s not impossible that Cousins could end up hurting the Warriors more than he helps, the addition – combined with the Rockets’ loss of Trevor Ariza – appears to have further widened the gap between Golden State and the rest of the NBA, writes Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com in his breakdown of the deal.
JULY 2, 4:03pm: The Celtics have officially signed Wanamaker, the team announced today in a press release. Because it’s a minimum salary contract, it can be finalized during the July moratorium.
JUNE 26, 5:59pm: Wanamaker and the Celtics have agreed on a guaranteed one-year, minimum salary deal worth approximately $831K, per international basketball journalist David Pick.
Per Pick, Wanamaker left $3.8MM on the table in Europe to get his shot in the NBA.
JUNE 25, 3:04pm: The Celtics are in the process of finalizing a deal with EuroLeague guard Brad Wanamaker, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter).
According to Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe (via Twitter), Boston would like to sign Wanamaker to a two-year contract, while Wanamaker would prefer one year, but it appears the two sides will work out an agreement. The Celtics would be able to officially finalize the signing once the new NBA league year begins in July.
Wanamaker, who played his college ball at Pittsburgh, went undrafted in 2011 and has bounced around various leagues since then, playing in the G League and overseas. The 6’4″ combo guard has emerged as one of the more effective players in Europe, earning an All-EuroLeague Second Team nod in 2017 and winning the MVP award for the Turkish League Finals this year. In 2017/18, he averaged a team-high 11.8 PPG and made 40.2% of his three-pointers in 31 Turkish League games for EuroLeague powerhouse Fenerbahce.
This will be the second straight offseason that the Celtics have dipped into the international ranks to fill out their roster. A year ago, the club brought Shane Larkin back from Europe and also signed Daniel Theis out of the German League. Wanamaker and Theis played together for Brose Bamberg in Germany from 2014 to 2016.
International basketball journalist David Pick first reported earlier this month that the Celtics were giving “strong consideration” to signing Wanamaker. The Magic, Nets, Sixers, and Heat were also said to have interest.
The Sixers have their eyes on free agent forward James Ennis, tweets ESPN’s Ian Begley, but landing him won’t be easy. Detroit owns Early Bird rights on Ennis and has made re-signing him a priority.
Ennis, 28, came to the Pistons at the trade deadline after beginning the season in Memphis. He was a part-time starter in Detroit and averaged 7.5 points per game. He earned a little more than $3MM this season.
The Rockets and Nets have also expressed interest in Ennis, according to Begley. The Pelicans would also like to sign him, but the growing interest may push him outside their price range, adds Scott Kushner of The Advocate (Twitter link). Ennis played nine games in New Orleans at the end of the 2015/16 season.
There’s more from Philadelphia on the first day of free agency:
- The Sixers talked to veteran forward Ersan Ilyasova about a return before he signed a three-year, $21MM deal with the Bucks, according to Gery Woelful of The Racine Journal Times (Twitter link). The Lakers, Timberwolves and Raptors were other options for Ilyasova.
- The Sixers are among the teams showing interest in Celtics shooting guard Jabari Bird, tweets Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe, who adds that the Wolves are also considering an offer. Bird was a two-way player for Boston this season, appearing in 13 NBA games and averaging 3.0 points in 8.0 minutes per night. He was a big scorer for the Celtics’ G League affiliate in Maine, posting a 19.3/5.8/2.7 line in 20 games. Boston submitted a qualifying offer this week, making Bird a restricted free agent.
- Second-round pick Shake Milton will be held out of summer league play because of a stress fracture in his back, reports Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The team plans to re-evaluate him in three weeks. His injury occurred during pre-draft workouts.
- Justin Anderson had surgery on his left leg due to recurring tibial stress syndrome, the team announced on its website. He will be re-evaluated in two weeks, then again in six to eight weeks. Anderson has spent the past season and a half in Philadelphia and appeared in 38 games this year.