- Seth Curry, who had left ankle surgery in May, apparently won’t be ready for the season opener. Nets coach Steve Nash said Curry still has some hurdles to clear but has been getting some individual work in, Nick Friedell of ESPN tweets.
- Nets guard Kyrie Irving admits he has some regrets about the way last season played out, he told Friedell in a Q&A session. “I think we all think about times we could have made better decisions, and times we wish we could have done things differently and I feel the same way at times throughout my life. … I legitimately just want to play the long game and not put too much pressure on myself or the people that I’m around,” he said.
In a pair of unrelated moves, the Nets have waived Donovan Williams (Twitter link via Chris Milholen of NetsDaily), while the Heat are signing Jon Elmore to an Exhibit 10 contract, reports Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald (via Twitter).
Williams, who was also on an Exhibit 10 deal, went undrafted this year out of UNLV. The 6’6” wing averaged 12.7 PPG and 3.3 RPG as a junior at UNLV last season, knocking down 43.6% of his 3-point attempts. If he goes unclaimed, he’ll be eligible for a $50K bonus if he spends at least 60 days with the Long Island Nets, Brooklyn’s G League affiliate.
Elmore, 26, went undrafted in 2019 after a standout college career at Marshall. He’s played professionally for European clubs in Italy, Hungary, Greece and Lithuania over the past three years.
According to Chiang, Elmore will report to Miami’s practice on Saturday prior to being waived, with the 6’3″ guard heading to the Heat’s G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce. If he spends at least 60 days with the Skyforce, Elmore would receive a bonus worth up to $50K.
In an interview with Nick Friedell of ESPN, Ben Simmons said it felt “surreal” to be back on the court with the Nets this preseason after 16 months away from the game. After dealing with both physical and mental health issues, Simmons said he finally got to return to a place where he’s “comfortable.”
Simmons addressed several topics in the discussion, including the negative public perception of him, his future in Brooklyn and everything that went wrong with the Sixers. He said he’s looking forward to his first game in front of Philadelphia fans on November 22.
“I can’t wait to go there, yeah. But for me, everything’s an experience and a learning situation,” Simmons said. “So for me I’m able to learn something that I’ve never been through before. I’ve never been traded and played against a team that I got traded from. (Kevin Durant) has, (Kyrie Irving) has, a lot of guys have, but I’ve never been in that situation so — you have to go through it. Ky went back to Boston, and he didn’t play well, but it’s a lot. We’re people, too. We want to go out there and prove everyone wrong.”
There’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey acquired four former Rockets players during the offseason, but the one-time Houston general manager says he didn’t deliberately try to put the team back together, per Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Morey signed P.J. Tucker, Danuel House and Montrezl Harrell and traded for De’Anthony Melton, reuniting them with ex-Rockets star James Harden. “If you have had a player, whether it be with [coach Doc Rivers] or myself, it can lower the risk,” Morey said. “Because you don’t really know a player until you’ve worked directly with them on your team. So I do think there’s an information advantage when you’ve worked with them before. … It all sort of fell, and it’s created a pretty interesting and, I think, positive dynamic because there is a lot of familiarity, both with the players together and also the coaching staff.”
- After playing for three teams last season, House knows what he needs to do to earn consistent minutes with the Sixers. “My role is just to be energy,” he said (video link). “Be the guy to make stuff happen. Make plays happen, make a shot, knock down a shot, get a rebound, pass the ball, set the play up, run the play, set the screen, whatever the team needs pretty much. I’m just here to give away myself. Like I said earlier, I’m not really worried about accolades. As long as we win, I feel like that’s my biggest accolade.”
- Peter Botte of The New York Post (subscription required) identifies Julius Randle, Jalen Brunson and Derrick Rose as the most pivotal players for the Knicks‘ upcoming season. Botte also notes this will be an important year for coach Tom Thibodeau and team president Leon Rose after last year’s disappointment.
OCTOBER 12: The Nets have officially signed Williams, tweets Brian Lewis of The New York Post.
JUNE 24: Donovan Williams has agreed to a contract with the Nets, Jake Weingarten of Stockrisers.com tweets. It’s an Exhibit 10 deal, JD Shaw of Hoops Rumors reports (Twitter link).
The 6’6” wing averaged 12.7 PPG and 3.3 RPG as a junior at UNLV last season, knocking down 43.6% of his 3-point attempts. Williams played his first two college seasons with Texas.
An Exhibit 10 is a one-year, non-guaranteed minimum-salary contract that counts toward a team’s 20-man offseason roster limit, but doesn’t count against the cap unless the player makes the regular season roster.
A player on an Exhibit 10 contract can earn a bonus of up to $50K if he’s waived and then joins his team’s G League affiliate.
Ben Simmons understands that it doesn’t take much for him to become a target on social media, writes Nick Friedell of ESPN. The latest example was a video of an airball he shot Sunday during the Nets‘ annual outdoor practice at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
“Meanwhile, like 10 guys airballed multiple shots,” Simmons told Friedell. “So it’s like people will find one clip and try to make that everything — like Ben can’t do (this or that). Like come on man, you think I’m just airballing every shot? It’s not true. But it comes with it, and you got to have tough skin and I realize that, but nah, I can’t take everything personally. It’s social media.”
Simmons’ shooting woes with the Sixers, especially from the foul line, made him a target for derision from Philadelphia fans long before his public battle with the team. He hopes to change the narrative about his game this season, and he believes he’s in a more uplifting environment.
“I got support from all these guys, the coaching staff, the organization, so it’s up to me to go out there to do my job now and work. But you know, (Kevin Durant), (Kyrie Irving) have been great to me. Royce (O’Neale) has been phenomenal. It feels like home. It feels normal to be here and come to work. Besides that, we just need to put that work in and build some chemistry.”
There’s more on the Nets:
- The team is willing to be patient as Simmons works his way back from a 16-month absence, Friedell adds in a separate story. Simmons had a combined nine assists and eight turnovers in his first two preseason games, and he’s been reluctant to shoot from any sort of distance. “I think for Ben a lot of it is not just the understanding, it’s the reps,” coach Steve Nash said. “He hasn’t played for a long time. He’s coming off of back surgery, so I think there’s some periods of indecision and confidence that he has to gain from playing. All of us do. We can’t take that much time off, join a new group and just figure it out Day 1, so he needs time.”
- Durant appeared to get worn down last season and the Nets are hoping to reduce his workload, according to Ethan Sears of The New York Post. Durant averaged 37.2 minutes per game, which was the most he’s played since 2013/14. “Every coach that I play for wants to keep my minutes down,” he said. “But when the game’s tight or you’re not playing well, you’re not gonna look over and say, ‘Well, I wanna keep his minutes down tonight.’ He’s gonna throw me in the game. We’re playing well, my minutes will be down. If we’re not, I’ll play more.”
- Foot soreness has limited Joe Harris to one preseason game, but he’s optimistic that he’ll be ready for the season opener, Friedell tweets.
OCTOBER 12: The Nets have waived Kirkwood, tweets Brian Lewis of The New York Post.
OCTOBER 8: The Nets signed rookie swingman Noah Kirkwood, Alex Schiffer of The Athletic tweets.
While terms weren’t disclosed, Kirkwood’s contract is almost assuredly an Exhibit 10 deal and he’ll wind up with the Long Island Nets after getting waived. He’ll be eligible for a $50K bonus if he stays 60 days with the G League club.
The 22-year-old out of Harvard appeared in four summer league games with Brooklyn. He went undrafted this year after giving up his last year of eligibility.
He averaged 17.7 points, 5.7 rebounds and 3.0 assists in 32.8 minutes per game during his final season with Harvard in 26 starts.
The Pistons will find out the extent of Marvin Bagley III‘s right knee injury when he undergoes an MRI on Wednesday, Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports tweets.
Bagley suffered a non-contact injury when he slipped during the opening quarter of the Pistons’ preseason game against the Thunder on Tuesday. He had to be helped off the court. Detroit re-signed Bagley on a three-year, $37MM contract this summer.
Another Pistons forward, Bojan Bogdanovic, acquired from the Jazz last month, is nursing a calf strain, James Edwards III of The Athletic tweets.
We have more injury-related info:
- Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley is making good progress in his recovery from a right ankle sprain and could appear in a preseason game, Chris Fedor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes. Mobley underwent a lengthy workout after Tuesday’s practice. “We’re hopeful. We haven’t ruled it out,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “It’s always about tomorrow and how it responded the day before. But we have not ruled him out from playing in a preseason game.”
- Nets guard Seth Curry will not play in the remaining two preseason games and his status for opening night is questionable, Nick Friedell of ESPN tweets. Curry is still working his way back from left ankle surgery in May.
- The Celtics’ Danilo Gallinari, who is expected to miss the season due to a torn left ACL, started walking a few days ago and is receiving physical therapy on his knee, Jared Weiss of The Athletic tweets.
New Nets forward Royce O’Neale has a chance to enter the starting lineup, according to Brian Lewis of The New York Post, who thinks the decision for the final spot on Brooklyn’s starting five will come down to O’Neale vs. Joe Harris.
Since Harris is coming off a pair of ankle surgeries and has missed a little time this preseason with a sore foot, there could be an opportunity for O’Neale to claim that spot, Lewis writes. Harris is traveling with the Nets for Wednesday’s preseason contest against Milwaukee, but won’t play in that game, tweets Lewis.
Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons, and Nic Claxton are the Nets’ other projected starters.
Here’s more on the NBA’s two New York-based teams:
- Veteran NBA executive Jeff Bower, a former general manager in New Orleans and Detroit, has been hired by the Nets in a scouting role, league sources tell Marc Stein (Twitter link). Bower most recently worked in Phoenix’s front office, but parted ways with the team in 2021.
- John Hollinger of The Athletic liked the Knicks‘ decision not to go all-in for Donovan Mitchell this offseason, even if it means the team will likely spend another season in “NBA purgatory.” After breaking down New York’s offseason moves, Hollinger projects the club to go 39-43 and finish 10th in the Eastern Conference.
- Quentin Grimes won’t be the Knicks‘ starting shooting guard to open the season, but he has earned Tom Thibodeau‘s trust and respect, writes Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News. “No one’s close to putting the amount of work that he puts in,” the head coach said of Grimes, per Fred Katz of The Athletic. Thibodeau’s fondness for Grimes is presumably one reason why the team has been reluctant to discuss the second-year wing in trade talks. “My name was in the trade rumors last year at the trade deadline, they called me and were like, ‘Thibs love you. …We love your work ethic,'” Grimes said, per Bondy.
Thursday’s 29-point loss to the Heat brought back a familiar concern that the Nets might not have enough toughness to succeed against the NBA’s best teams, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. It’s a point that was raised recently by free agent addition Markieff Morris, who played for Miami last season and said Heat players considered Brooklyn to be “soft.”
Getting tougher with opponents was stressed during this week’s film sessions, and Saturday’s practice ran noticeably longer than usual, Lewis adds. The Nets have assembled a talented roster and they don’t want a perceived lack of grit to be their downfall.
“Yeah, the low-hanging fruit that we could honestly all agree on is sometimes in possessions we’re not playing hard enough,” Kyrie Irving said. “You saw it against Miami the other night. They were really physical, and we don’t want that to be our stigma or M.O. in the league. … The most physical teams usually win ballgames, especially down the stretch. So we’ve got to be tougher. Like Markieff said, we’ve got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable at times. We’re going to mess up things, but we don’t want it to carry over to the next possession. That’s what our [message] has been in practice: on to the next play. Regardless what the ref’s doing [or] our opponent is doing, we want to focus on us.”
There’s more from Brooklyn:
- After not playing for 16 months, Ben Simmons knows it will take a while to get comfortable again on the court, Lewis adds in a separate story. The Nets want Simmons to attack the basket more frequently, but he took just three shots against the Heat while committing six turnovers. Still, he remains confident that he’ll work things out. “Obviously, having back surgery and rehabbing, there’s a lot of things that physically I want to do that I’m not doing right now: getting to the rim, getting hit, things like that, and hitting other people,” Simmons said. “But that’s all going to come. We’ve got time. So in due time, it’ll come.”
- General manager Sean Marks discussed Kevin Durant‘s offseason trade demand with Alex Chapman of the New Zealand-based NewsHub, explaining that none of Durant’s suitors was willing to offer enough to get a deal done. “I think, at the end of the day, other teams realized they don’t have the assets to give up to acquire arguably the top one-two-three player in the world, who’s on a contract for four years,” Marks said. “If they’d had to give away their treasure chest, their goals may be reduced.”
- Foot soreness prevented Joe Harris from playing against Miami, according to a NetsDaily story. The team is being cautious with Harris, who has undergone two ankle surgeries over the past year.
The Nets are hoping to move past a chaotic offseason, but they looked completely out of sync in Thursday’s 29-point loss to the Heat, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. “I didn’t like anything,” Kevin Durant said after Brooklyn committed 26 turnovers while shooting 39.2% from the field and 5-of-28 from three-point range. Coach Steve Nash agreed, saying a lot of improvement is needed before the regular season begins.
“We were second best in every category,” Nash said. “The mentality Miami brought, as we know they play physical, they’re going to get into you, and we allowed them to win that battle. All those little battles: Space, time, poise, screening, not screening, getting cut, no vision, not boxing out, not getting loose balls. You can go down the list, but really it starts with the mentality. They showed it and we’ve got to try to match that going forward.”
Ben Simmons struggled with playmaking duties in his second game after sitting out all of last season. Nash wants him to be more aggressive in attacking the basket, particularly against smaller defenders, but he managed just four points and four assists Thursday while turning the ball over six times.
“Get them out of the way now. Gotta get them out now. So that’s something I can be conscious of it and fix that I’m not too worried about that. I mean, it’s just the second game back in like a year,” Simmons said. “… I can’t be turning the ball over. I’m the point guard, so I’ve got to take responsibility in terms of that. But I’d rather figure out my angles and time the passes now and then in the regular season.”
There’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- The Nets were on the brink of disaster this summer, but they still haven’t gone over the edge, John Hollinger of the Athletic states in his preview of the team. Although there was high drama involving Durant and Kyrie Irving, Hollinger points out that Brooklyn didn’t make an offseason roster move involving anyone earning more than $10MM.
- Sixers guard Furkan Korkmaz blames nerve damage in his right arm for what he calls a “horrible” 2021/22 season, per Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The injury affected his shot and Korkmaz fell out of the team’s rotation after hitting a career-low 28.9% on three-pointers. “I want to show the people again what I’m capable of,” he said. “Because, at the end of the day, whatever you do, people remember the end (of the season).”
- After signing a non-guaranteed deal with the Raptors this summer, Josh Jackson is making a strong bid for a roster spot, according to Doug Smith of The Toronto Star.