Brooklyn Nets Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Nets Notes: B. Brown, J. Green, Simmons, M. Brown, Bridges

March 20th, 2023 at 8:49am CST by Arthur Hill

Two former Nets who returned to Brooklyn Sunday as members of the Nuggets weren’t surprised to see the end of the Kevin Durant–Kyrie Irving era, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. Bruce Brown, who spent two seasons with the Nets before signing with Denver last summer, said there were issues behind the scenes that went beyond the turmoil the public saw.

“Once the summer (trade request from Durant occurred), it could happen. They started off playing really well, and then when the Ky situation came about you knew they were going to move him,” Brown said. “So, end of an era.”

Lewis points out that the “Ky situation” could refer to his contentious contract talks last June, his online promotion of an antisemitic film or his trade demand in February after being dissatisfied with the team’s extension offer. Jeff Green, who played for Brooklyn in 2020/21, also indicated that there were forces pulling the team apart.

“I don’t know if I’m surprised,” Green said. “But at the end of the day, we realize that it as a business. It was stuff that both sides couldn’t really control, and it ran its course.”

There’s more on the Nets:

Continued soreness in his left knee and back caused Ben Simmons to miss his 13th straight game Sunday, and coach Jacque Vaughn isn’t sure if he’ll be able to return before the season ends, Lewis states in the same story. “Not really a timeline or update,” Vaughn said of Simmons, who has only been available for 42 games. “Again, what I can give you is no setback which is good and he continues to progress on court.”
Moses Brown wasn’t used in his first game since joining the Nets, but Vaughn promised he’ll get a chance to play before his 10-day contract expires, Lewis adds. “(We) still have Day’Ron (Sharpe) and his ability to play for us,” Vaughn said. “But the way I coach, at some point you will see Moses and we’ll see him during the stretch of the next 10 days for sure.”
Mikal Bridges, who has emerged as a star since being acquired in the Durant trade, blamed himself for Sunday’s loss, saying his defensive effort wasn’t up to par, Lewis notes in another New York Post story. “Personally I take a lot of blame, because I was just poor on the defensive end,” Bridges said. “Obviously I was missing shots early, but that comes with the game. Just missing, that’s just part of it; but I can control playing defense. So that’s what messed me up right now, and that’s on me. I’ve just got to be more locked in on that side of the ball.”

Brown Happy To Be "Home"

March 19th, 2023 at 5:27pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Center Moses Brown attended high school at New York’s Archbishop Malloy. He’s thrilled that the Nets signed him to a 10-day contract, Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post writes. “I’ve been on a lot of teams all over the country, and it’s just cool to be home,” he said. “Every time we would drive throughout Brooklyn, I would watch the Barclays Center’s progress every year (while it was being constructed). That was the new team. I remember, growing up, just liking the colors, the uniforms, everything.”

New York Notes: Robinson, Brunson, Nets’ Small Ball, Simmons

March 18th, 2023 at 9:32am CST by Dana Gauruder

After Mitchell Robinson vented about his role on social media, coach Tom Thibodeau and guard Jalen Brunson spoke to the Knicks center privately, according to Fred Katz of The Athletic.

Another of the Knicks’ big men — Isaiah Hartenstein — said Robinson hasn’t allowed his frustration to seep into the locker room and onto the court. “It’s not like he’s coming into practice b—-ing,” Hartenstein said. “He’s always there. He’s always interactive. He’s always been a good teammate.”

We have more on the New York teams:

Speaking of Brunson, he hasn’t played since March 9 due to what the team describes as a sore left foot. However, Brunson himself calls it a bone bruise, Katz tweets. Brunson went through a full practice on Friday and is listed as questionable against Denver on Saturday.
The Nets have gotten stellar results from their small lineup, Brian Lewis of the New York Post notes. Lacking a backup big, Dorian Finney-Smith has been playing center with Royce O’Neale at power forward when Nic Claxton rests. That small-ball unit has produced a plus-13.5 net rating. “It allows us to fly around,” coach Jacque Vaughn said. “If you don’t cover for each other, we’ll get punished: We’ll get punished on the glass, we’ll get punished just by overall strength and the size of dudes that you have to guard. So (you’ve seen) us fly around, cover for each other, really have a tight shell and be in the right spots.”
Klutch Sports negotiated Ben Simmons‘ five-year, $177MM extension in 2019 before he was traded to the Nets. Now, the agency and Simmons are parting ways, Ramona Shelburne of ESPN tweets. The enigmatic Simmons is expected to hire veteran agent Bernie Lee, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic tweets. Simmons hasn’t played since Feb. 15 due to a knee injury.

Nets Still Expect Simmons To Return; Brown Won't Be Playoff-Eligible

March 17th, 2023 at 11:43am CST by Luke Adams

Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn said at the end of February that there had been no discussion about shutting down Ben Simmons for the rest of the season due to his back and knee soreness. Vaughn reiterated that stance on Thursday when asked about the former No. 1 overall pick, according to Dan Martin of The New York Post. “There is zero discussion about him not playing (again this season),” Vaughn said, adding that Simmons hasn’t experienced any setbacks in his recovery process. “We expect him to be back, we’re waiting for him to be back.”
In case you missed it, the Nets officially signed center Moses Brown to a 10-day contract earlier today. While Brown could stick around beyond the next 10 days if he impresses Brooklyn, it’s worth clarifying that he won’t be playoff-eligible, since he was waived from a two-way contract by New York after the March 1 deadline.

Nets Sign Moses Brown To 10-Day Deal

March 17th, 2023 at 8:51am CST by Luke Adams

MARCH 17: The Nets have officially signed Brown to a 10-day contract, the team announced in a press release. The deal will run through March 26, covering Brooklyn’s next five games, and will pay Brown $109,318.

MARCH 16: The Nets are working toward a contract agreement with free agent center Moses Brown, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). Brown will be receiving a 10-day contract from the Nets, reports Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (via Twitter).

Brooklyn has an open spot on its 15-man roster following the expiration of Nerlens Noel‘s 10-day contract on Wednesday night. Brian Lewis of The New York Post reported that the Nets don’t intend to re-sign Noel to a second 10-day deal.

Brown began this season on a two-way deal with the Clippers, appearing in 34 games as a backup center behind Ivica Zubac, averaging 4.6 points and 4.1 rebounds in just 8.5 minutes per night. He wasn’t always a part of the team’s rotation and slid further down the depth chart following L.A.’s trade-deadline acquisition of Mason Plumlee, eventually leading to his release when he reached the two-way limit of 50 active games.

Brown subsequently signed a two-way contract with the Knicks last week, but was waived just four days later and became an unrestricted free agent again this Tuesday. Now he’s on track to move from one New York borough to another and join a Nets team that has been on the lookout for reliable frontcourt depth behind center Nic Claxton for much of the season.

The Nets will be Brown’s eighth NBA team since 2019, though he has appeared in regular season games for just five of those clubs.

Nets Won't Sign Noel To Another 10-Day Deal

March 15th, 2023 at 9:01pm CST by Rory Maher

Veteran center Nerlens Noel averaged 14.3 minutes in his three games with the Brooklyn, but a source tells Brian Lewis of The New York Post that the Nets will not bring him back for a second 10-day contract (Twitter link). Noel’s initial deal expires on Wednesday, Lewis notes. Head coach Jacque Vaughn previously suggested that he expected Noel to stick around.

New York Notes: Brunson, Hartenstein, Nets’ Defense, O’Neale

March 13th, 2023 at 5:41pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Jalen Brunson seems likely to miss the Knicks’ game on Tuesday in Portland. He was spotting wearing a walking boot on Sunday night, according to Peter Botte of the New York Post.

“Just continue to do his treatments and we’ll see where he is. When he’s ready to go, he’s ready to go,” coach Tom Thibodeau said of the Knicks’ star guard. “It’s not Jalen by himself. It’s Jalen with the medical. So he’s got a say in it, but the medical has to clear him. So there’s a number of people involved in a decision. We’re not going to put him in harm’s way.”

Brunson said the boot isn’t as ominous as it might appear. He wore it during the Lakers game as a protective measure in case it got kicked or stepped on and isn’t wearing it away from the court, Fred Katz of The Athletic tweets.

We have more from the New York teams:

Knicks center Isaiah Hartenstein earned a $350K bonus by hitting his minutes requirement for the season, Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets. He needed to play at least 1,350 minutes to earn the bonus and surpassed that in the win over the Lakers. Hartenstein reached another $350K bonus threshold with the Knicks winning their 40th game on Sunday, New York Basketball tweets. He can collect one more $350K bonus in his contract if the Knicks make the playoffs.
The Nets have won five of their last six games, thanks to an improved defense, Brian Lewis of The New York Post writes. “We had to challenge that group to shift the mentality of not thinking you have to score but to first of all let’s be a defensive-oriented team,” coach Jacque Vaughn said. “I think we’ve responded, started to form an identity with this group and hopefully they realize that.”
In another Lewis story, The Post’s beat writer notes that Royce O’Neale has exceeded the franchise’s expectations after acquiring him from Utah. He’s averaging career highs in points (9.0) and assists (3.7) per game while playing superior defense. “Whether I’m starting or coming off the bench, no matter how many minutes I’m playing, I’m going to play as hard as I can, do things that I got to do for us to win the game, and just be myself,” O’Neale said. His $9.5MM contract for next season is partially guaranteed for $2.5MM.

Nets Notes: Simmons, Dinwiddie, Bridges, Chemistry

March 13th, 2023 at 12:00pm CST by Arthur Hill

Ben Simmons has been sidelined since the All-Star break and Nets coach Jacque Vaughn isn’t sure if he’ll play again this season, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. Simmons missed his 10th straight game and his 26th of the season on Sunday, and the team doesn’t have a prognosis for when he might return.

“He’s still managing his back and knee soreness,” Vaughn told reporters before the game in Denver. “He’s back home in Brooklyn. We’ll get a chance to kind of see where he’s at when we get back home after this trip.”

During the break, Simmons had fluid in his left knee drained and took a platelet-rich plasma injection. However, when the team put his knee on a strengthening program, Simmons’ back pain started to flare up. He missed all of last season with a herniated disc in his back and had a microdiscectomy in May.

Lewis notes that Simmons is averaging career lows this season at 6.9 points, 6.3 rebounds and 6.1 assists per game, along with a 43.9% success rate on free throws. He’s owed more than $78MM over the next two seasons.

There’s more on the Nets:

Spencer Dinwiddie set a career high in assists with 16 in Sunday’s win over the Nuggets, which is the most by a Brooklyn player this season, Lewis adds. Dinwiddie has excelled since taking over the lead guard role after being acquired from Dallas in the Kyrie Irving trade. “Every night he’s producing for us, he’s learning how to play with this group,” Vaughn said. “He’s learning when to be aggressive, when to get to the rim, how to manage this group.”
Beating the Nuggets was a significant achievement for a team that rebuilt itself by trading Irving and Kevin Durant last month, Lewis notes in another Post story. Mikal Bridges said he and the other players who arrived in those deals quickly formed a bond. “We were all confident when we all came here and we were put together and just kind of had that mentality, ‘OK, a lot of us got traded so you feel some type of way, and you just want to go out there and hoop,’” Bridges said.
The Nets no longer appear in danger of falling into the play-in tournament after winning five of their last six games, per Alex Schiffer of The Athletic. Brooklyn has moved on from the drama that defined the Irving-Durant era and has now boasts chemistry as one of its strengths, Schiffer observes.

Checking In On Active, Expired 10-Day Contracts

March 12th, 2023 at 12:00pm CST by Luke Adams

Lester Quinones‘ 10-day contract with the Warriors expired after Saturday’s game, opening up a spot on Golden State’s 15-man roster.

Quinones remained with the Santa Cruz Warriors in the G League for most of the 10 days he spent under contract with Golden State. He was recalled to the NBA on Saturday and was technically active for last night’s game vs. Milwaukee, but didn’t play at all and has yet to make his NBA debut.

As we outlined when Quinones first signed his 10-day deal, his addition to the 15-man roster allowed the Warriors to continue using both of their two-way players, Anthony Lamb and Ty Jerome. Lamb has since reached his limit of 50 games on the active roster, while Jerome is now at 47 games and will be ineligible to play his final three unless Golden State fills its 15th roster spot again.

It will be interesting to see how the Warriors manage their two-way contracts and their 15-man roster going forward. Promoting Lamb to the standard roster would make him eligible to play in the rest of the team’s regular season games and in any postseason contests, in addition to freeing up Jerome for three more games. However, it would limit Golden State’s roster flexibility going forward and would force the club to waive a player on a guaranteed contract in order to sign anyone else before the end of the season.

Quinones is one of two players whose 10-day contract expired this week, joining Willie Cauley-Stein of the Rockets. Houston is now carrying just 13 players on standard deals and must add a 14th man (Cauley-Stein again or someone else) by March 23 to meet the NBA’s minimum roster requirements.

Three more players on 10-day contracts will see their deals expire tonight, while two others will expire on Monday night. Here’s the breakdown of the 10-day contracts currently active around the NBA:

Jamaree Bouyea, Wizards (runs through 3/12)
Sam Merrill, Cavaliers (3/12)
Eugene Omoruyi, Pistons (3/12)
Kris Dunn, Jazz (3/13) *^
Meyers Leonard, Bucks (3/13) *
DaQuan Jeffries, Knicks (3/14) ^
Nerlens Noel, Nets (3/15)

Players marked with an asterisk (*) are on their second 10-day deals with their respective teams. That means Dunn and Leonard would have to be signed for the rest of the season if their clubs want to retain them beyond Monday night, since they aren’t permitted to sign three standard 10-day contracts with the same team.

Players marked with a caret (^) are on clubs that don’t currently have full 15-man rosters. The Jazz are actually currently carrying just 13 players and will need to get back up to at least 14 by March 18. So even if they lock up Dunn to a full-season contract, they’ll need to sign one more player before next Saturday.

The Knicks, meanwhile, would be at 13 players on their standard roster if they don’t re-sign Jeffries to a second 10-day deal and would have up to two weeks to add a new 14th man.

Free Agent Stock Watch: Atlantic Division

March 11th, 2023 at 1:02pm CST by Rory Maher

For the rest of the regular season and postseason, Hoops Rumors is taking a closer look at players who will be free agents or could become free agents during the 2023 offseason. We consider whether their stock is rising or falling due to their performance and other factors. Today, we’re focusing on a handful of Atlantic players.

James Harden, G, Sixers

2022/23: $33MM
2023/24: $35.64MM player option
Stock: Up

Harden started to look a little old and out of shape in 2021/22, never quite recovering from a reoccurring hamstring injury originally sustained in late ‘20/21.

His counting stats were still excellent (22.0 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 10.3 APG, 1.3 SPG), but he lacked burst when driving and shot the ball poorly for his standards, posting a .410/.330/.877 shooting line (58.3% true shooting percentage). 33.0% was a career-low from three, and his FG% and TS% were his lowest marks since his rookie year back in ‘09/10.

Harden wound up taking a “pay cut” in free agency last summer to allow the Sixers to sign P.J. Tucker and Danuel House. However, the contract was only a one-plus-one, so he can opt out of his player option and become a free agent again this summer.

He seemed to be in great shape to open ‘22/23, but unfortunately sustained a foot injury which caused him to miss 14 games. He has looked very good since he returned.

The 33-year-old may no longer be at his peak form, when he led the league in scoring for three straight years from 2017-20, but he’s not far from it. Harden has acclimated nicely to being more of a distributor alongside Joel Embiid, averaging 21.9 PPG, 6.3 RPG, a league-leading 10.8 APG and 1.1 SPG on a .448/.397/.874 shooting line (62.2 TS%) through 49 games (36.9 MPG).

39.7% from deep is a career-high for the former league MVP, as is his 3.19-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Advanced stats say he has been among the top 10 or 15 players in the league.

I know many people think the rumors about Harden potentially going back to Houston in the offseason are a negotiating ploy to increase the value of his next deal. I could very well be wrong, but I’m not in that group.

I realize Harden will be 34 in the summer, and the Rockets have a team full of young players. But I really believe he might opt out and sign a four-year, maximum-salary contract with his former team, regardless of how the Sixers do in the playoffs. He just seemed happier there, and the Rockets are motivated to improve because they don’t control their own pick in 2024. We’ll see what happens.

Dewayne Dedmon, C, Sixers

2022/23: Details below
2023/24: UFA
Stock: Down

Dedmon’s financial situation is a little complicated. The Pistons used the stretch provision on his contract back in 2020 after acquiring him from Atlanta, so he will continue to be paid $2.87MM each season by Detroit through 2024/25.

The veteran center had a falling out with Miami and was suspended for a game after knocking a piece of medical equipment onto the court following an argument with the coaching staff. He only played one more game for the Heat before he was moved to San Antonio in a salary dump.

The Spurs subsequently waived Dedmon’s $4.7MM contract, and he signed a rest-of-season deal with Philadelphia for the veteran’s minimum. However, he has yet to appear in a game with his new club after initially being sidelined with hip soreness.

Dedmon posted an abysmal minus-10.4 net rating with the Heat, and his effectiveness was clearly diminished in part due to plantar fasciitis in his foot. If he hopes to find a deal for more than the minimum this summer, the 33-year-old will have to prove he’s healthy and can still contribute at a high level — he’s running out of time to do so.

Jakob Poeltl, C, Raptors

2022/23: $9.4MM
2023/24: UFA
Stock: Up

Acquired in a deadline deal with San Antonio, Poeltl has gotten off to a great start in his second stint with Toronto, looking very motivated in averaging 14.9 PPG, 9.2 RPG, 2.5 APG, 1.8 SPG and 1.7 BPG while shooting 69% from the floor and 56.1% from the free throw line through 12 games (28.4 MPG).

The 7’1” big man has provided a jolt in some much-needed areas. He has been particularly adept at finishing on offense and protecting the paint at the other end. Poeltl is also a strong screener and passer, which helps compensate for his lack of shooting.

The 27-year-old is expected to command a salary in the range of $15-20MM per year in free agency this summer. If Poeltl keeps playing at this level, the high end of that range could be within reach, similar to what Jarrett Allen signed a couple years ago with the Cavs (five years, $100MM).

Seth Curry, G, Nets

2022/23: $8.5MM
2023/24: UFA
Stock: Down

The younger Curry brother has been one of the league’s top shooters since he started getting semi-regular minutes back in 2015/16, holding a career slash line of .475/.435/.865 in 426 games (206 starts, 24.7 MPG). However, he got off to a slow start in ‘22/23 following offseason ankle surgery, and is having a down year by his standards.

Curry has appeared in 49 of 67 games for the Nets with averages of 9.9 PPG, 1.8 RPG and 1.9 APG in 21.4 MPG. He’s averaging his fewest points, rebounds and minutes per game since ‘18/19, when he was with Portland.

He’s also shooting a career-worst 39.6% from three. It feels very weird saying that’s a low mark, but Curry had never previously shot below 42.2% from deep.

The 32-year-old has always been a poor defensive player, but this is the first time in several years where it feels like his deficiencies on that end have outweighed what he brings on offense – the Nets have statistically been worse on both ends when he’s on the court, with Curry posting a minus-2.8 net rating. The fit hasn’t been ideal either, as they have a few too many players with similar skill sets.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Curry gets a slight raise on his current deal if it’s only for a year or two, but I would be a little surprised if he gets a raise and a three- or four-year contract. As a very undersized shooting guard (6’1″, 185 pounds), he’s probably best suited for a bench role given his distinct strengths and weaknesses.