- Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic are considered stars under the NBA’s new Player Participation Policy, but the guidelines shouldn’t affect the Bulls very much, observes Julia Poe of the Chicago Tribune. She notes that the team doesn’t rely much on load management, with Vucevic and Patrick Williams both appearing in all 82 games last season, while LaVine played in 70 of the last 71 after working his way back from offseason knee surgery.
The Bulls have signed free agent swingman Henri Drell to a training camp contract, the team announced today (via Twitter).
Drell, 23, has spent the last two seasons playing for the Windy City Bulls, Chicago’s G League affiliate. He didn’t have a major role in 2021/22, but became a starter last season, averaging 11.9 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 2.6 assists in 31.3 minutes per night (29 regular season games). He posted a shooting line of .486/.341/.750.
Given that the Bulls specifically described Drell’s deal as a camp contract, he looks like a good bet to be waived prior to the regular season and return to the G League. In that scenario, assuming his agreement includes Exhibit 10 language, he’d be eligible to receive a bonus worth up to $75K if he spends at least 60 days with Windy City.
Chicago now has a full 21-man offseason roster. That group includes 15 players on standard contracts (13 guaranteed), three on Exhibit 10 deals, and three on two-way pacts.
In order to claim a player off waivers, an NBA team must be able to fit the player’s current-year salary into either cap room, a traded player exception, or – if the player is in the final year of his contract – a disabled player exception.
This rule doesn’t apply if the waived player is on a one- or two-year minimum-salary contract. In that case, any team can claim him using the minimum salary exception.
Waiver claims aren’t particularly common in the NBA, and claims involving players earning more than the minimum salary are even less frequent. Still, it’s worth knowing which teams have the most flexibility to make waiver claims in case an intriguing player on a reasonable contract hits the wire.
On Monday, for instance, the Spurs waived veteran point guard Cameron Payne, who is on an expiring $6.5MM deal. Payne has played well in Phoenix over the last four seasons, averaging 9.8 points and 4.2 assists in 20.2 minutes per game across 174 appearances, with a .434/.384/.833 shooting line. That’s pretty solid production for the price.
In all likelihood, Payne will pass through waivers unclaimed and sign for less than $6.5MM with a new team, but there will be teams around the NBA that at least consider making a claim. The Grizzlies should be one of them, in the view of John Hollinger of The Athletic (Twitter link), who notes that Memphis could use another point guard and has a trade exception large enough for the team to take on Payne’s salary without getting too close to the tax line.
Memphis is one of nine teams with the ability to claim Payne off waivers. Here’s the full list, along with the value of their biggest trade exception (unless otherwise noted):
- Atlanta Hawks: $23,019,560
- Brooklyn Nets: $19,928,571
- Washington Wizards: $12,354,400
- Chicago Bulls: $10,232,559
- Note: This is the amount of the Bulls’ disabled player exception, not a trade exception, so the team could only use it to claim a player on an expiring contract.
- Miami Heat: $9,450,000
- Portland Trail Blazers: $8,300,000
- Indiana Pacers: $7,493,593
- Note: This is the maximum amount of cap room the Pacers could create by renouncing the cap holds for their remaining free agents.
- Memphis Grizzlies: $7,492,540
- New York Knicks: $6,803,012
Many of these teams wouldn’t have interest in a point guard like Payne and wouldn’t necessarily be in position to add another $6.5MM in salary to their books. Claiming Payne would put the Bulls into luxury tax territory, for instance. These are simply the clubs capable of placing a claim if they so choose.
A total of 10 other teams have the ability to claim non-minimum players off waivers, but wouldn’t be able to take on Payne specifically:
- Phoenix Suns: $6,500,000
- Note: The Suns’ trade exception is technically large enough to take on Payne, but they’re ineligible to claim him after trading him to San Antonio.
- Boston Celtics: $6,202,500
- Orlando Magic: $5,056,771
- Note: This is the maximum amount of cap room the Magic could create by renouncing the cap holds for their remaining free agents.
- Dallas Mavericks: $4,953,980
- Minnesota Timberwolves: $3,688,117
- Los Angeles Lakers: $2,700,000
- Philadelphia 76ers: $2,448,846
- Golden State Warriors: $2,337,720
- Denver Nuggets: $2,201,520
- Charlotte Hornets: $1,930,681
Even though the Hornets‘ largest trade exception is less than the minimum salary for a two-year veteran ($2,019,706), it could still come in handy for claiming certain younger players on non-minimum deals.
For example, if the Thunder – facing a roster crunch – were to waive Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, who is earning $1.9MM in the third year of a four-year contract, Charlotte would be able to claim him using its trade exception. A club with only the minimum salary exception available wouldn’t be in position to place a claim on Robinson-Earl.
Here are the 11 teams without a TPE, DPE, or cap room available to claim a player earning more than the minimum:
- Cleveland Cavaliers
- Detroit Pistons
- Houston Rockets
- Los Angeles Clippers
- Milwaukee Bucks
- New Orleans Pelicans
- Oklahoma City Thunder
- Toronto Raptors
- Sacramento Kings
- San Antonio Spurs
- Utah Jazz
Harry Giles‘ one-year, non-guaranteed contract with the Nets includes an Exhibit 9 clause, but not an Exhibit 10, Hoops Rumors has learned. That means Giles likely won’t be a candidate to join the Long Island Nets in the G League if he’s waived by Brooklyn before the season, since he wouldn’t be eligible for an Exhibit 10 bonus (worth up to $75K). He also can’t have the deal converted into a two-way.
A former first-round pick (20th overall in 2017), Giles was once one of the highest-rated prospects in his class, but sustained a couple of serious knee injuries. The 25-year-old has been out of the league the past two seasons.
Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:
- Trade talks involving Sixers guard James Harden are reportedly on ice. The team failed to gain traction in negotiations with the Clippers — Harden’s preferred landing spot — and then took him off the market. Still, given his comments about president of basketball operations Daryl Morey, it seems inevitable that Harden will eventually be moved. Which teams might be motivated to pursue Harden if things go awry during the season? Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype cites the Bulls, Rockets, Mavericks and Lakers as possible destinations that could make some sense.
- Instead of prioritizing veterans like they have the past handful of seasons, the Bucks instead have filled out the back end of their roster with young players. Over at The Athletic, Eric Nehm spoke to draft expert Sam Vecenie to see how MarJon Beauchamp, Andre Jackson and Chris Livingston might fit with Milwaukee in 2023/24. Vecenie likes the defensive potential of second-year wing Beauchamp and 2023 second-rounder Jackson, but writes that both players will have to improve their jump shots to have a shot at regular minutes alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo. As for Livingston, who was the final pick of 2023, Vecenie believes the former Kentucky wing is a long-term developmental project who is unlikely to make much of an impact in the NBA, particularly early on.
- In part two of their conversation about the Bucks‘ youngsters, Vecenie says he’s high on TyTy Washington‘s offensive upside and believes the 21-year-old guard has a legitimate shot at being converted to a standard contract. A first-round pick last year, Washington was released by Oklahoma City in August after spending his rookie season with the Rockets, later signing a two-way deal with Milwaukee. Nehm and Vecenie also discuss the potential of second-year sharpshooter A.J. Green, who is on a standard deal, and rookie Omari Moore, who is on a two-way contract.
Luke Adams contributed to this post.
The Bulls have signed shooting guard Quenton Jackson and point guard Max Heidegger to Exhibit 10 contracts, the team announced today (via Twitter).
Jackson joined the Wizards for training camp last fall after going undrafted out of Texas A&M. He was waived before the start of the regular season, but rejoined the NBA club in February on a two-year, two-way contract. He finished the season with Washington, then was cut in July.
While he played a limited role in nine NBA games for the Wizards, Jackson had a solid rookie year in the G League, averaging 15.5 points, 4.2 assists, and 3.8 rebounds in 26.4 minutes per game across 29 regular season appearances for the Capital City Go-Go. He posted a shooting line of .535/.395/.775.
Heidegger, 26, has been playing professionally in Europe since going undrafted out of UC Santa Barbara in 2020, spending team with teams in Israel, Germany, Turkey, and Spain over the last three seasons. He was a lights-out three-point shooter during his college career, making 44.0% of 568 total attempts from beyond the arc, including 67-of-125 (53.6%) as a senior.
Chicago now has 20 players under contract, one away from the offseason limit. That total includes 13 players on guaranteed contracts, two on non-guaranteed deals, two on Exhibit 10 contracts, and three on two-way deals.
Jackson and Heidegger will likely end up playing for the Windy City Bulls, where they could earn Exhibit 10 bonuses worth up to $75K if they spend at least 60 days with Chicago’s G League affiliate.
Which team is the Nuggets’ biggest impediment to a second straight title? ESPN’s panel of experts believes the Bucks, Warriors, Suns and Celtics are all potential threats to a Denver repeat. As for just making the playoffs, the Mavericks, Bulls, Timberwolves and Pelicans are among a group of teams that can’t afford to fall short of postseason participation or else risk major rebuilds or superstar demands for trades.
We have more from around the basketball world:
- Former NBA guard Tyler Ennis has signed with Italy’s Gevi Napoli Basket, according to a team press release. A first-round pick in 2014, Ennis has not played in the NBA since the 2017/18 season, when he appeared in 54 Lakers games. In recent years, Ennis has played mainly in Turkey. He also had a stint with the Raptors’ G League team.
- The trade demands of James Harden and Damian Lillard, along with Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s future with the Bucks, are some of the storylines that will be closely followed this NBA season, The Athletic’s Sam Amick writes.
- Who are the top five coaches in the NBA? Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times tackles that subject, ranking the Heat‘s Erik Spoelstra and the Spurs‘ Gregg Popovich first and second. The third choice may surprise some people. Cowley rates the Knicks‘ Tom Thibodeau at that spot due to his ability to take downtrodden franchises and make them playoff teams.
All-Star Bulls small forward DeMar DeRozan is eligible for a four-year contract extension worth up to $179MM, prompting K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago to consider the case for Chicago’s retention of the 34-year-old wing.
Across his two seasons with the Bulls, DeRozan has posted impressive regular season averages of 26.2 PPG, 5.0 APG and 4.9 RPG. Chicago returned to the playoffs in one of those two seasons, falling in five quick games to the Bucks in 2022.
Johnson believes that the Bulls might want to consider keeping DeRozan on a deal closer to Khris Middleton‘s new three-year, $102MM agreement with Milwaukee, and wonders if the three-time All-NBA honoree and Chicago could come to terms on a new contract that would make both sides happy.
There’s more out of the East:
- Three-and-D Pacers center Myles Turner is hoping to elevate his shooting to an elite level this season. The 6’11” big man indicated in a new conversation with hosts Alex Golden and Michael Facci on their Setting The Pace podcast (h/t to Tony East of All Pacers for the transcription) that he wants to join the 50/40/90 shooting club, something few players in league history have ever done. “Working on multiple things,” Turner said. “Obviously, still improving my shot. Get my numbers up there. I really strive to be like a 50/40/90 guy… I think it’s possible… a lofty goal at that, but something I know I’m capable of doing.” In 2022/23, Turner averaged 18.0 PPG on .548/.373/.783 shooting splits, along with 7.5 RPG, 2.3 BPG, 1.4 APG and 0.6 SPG. He has never shot better than 80.9% from the charity stripe in a single season, or better than 38.8% on three-pointers.
- The revamped Nets are hoping that former All-Star point guard Ben Simmons can return to his winning ways. Simmons was out of the team’s rotation by the end of the year. Per Anthony Puccio of NetsDaily, a recent site survey shows that a majority of fans (62%) are optimistic Simmons will be the club’s starting point guard in April. 87% of Brooklyn fans are also convinced that the team will win more than 38 contests in 2023/24.
- Clippers reserve guard Norman Powell recently looked back on the 2021 trade that sent him from the Raptors to the Trail Blazers (Twitter video link via Basketball On X). “I didn’t want to leave Toronto,” Powell revealed. “I wanted to stay. The core that we had with Fred [VanVleet], Pascal [Siakam], OG [Anunoby], me, could’ve been what Boston Celtics are today.”
Appearing on The Comfortable Pod (YouTube link) with Marcus Bagley, Bulls center Andre Drummond was asked about the hiatus he took last season for mental health reasons and admitted that he has found it challenging to go from a franchise player in Detroit to a little-used reserve within the last few years.
While it sounds like the veteran big man has come to terms with his role in Chicago heading into 2023/24, the conversation led to a discussion about Drummond’s professional résumé and his place in NBA history. He was an All-Star in 2016 and 2018, made an All-NBA team in ’16, led the league in rebounds per game four times, is the NBA’s all-time leader in rebound percentage, and won a World Cup gold medal with Team USA in 2014.
“I used to play 40-plus minutes. I was a star — All-Star, All-NBA, I’ve done it. Hall of Fame candidate, best rebounder ever,” Drummond said (hat tip to NBC Sports). “… I’ve done great in my career. I think I have a chance to be a Hall of Fame player due to what I’ve done in my career. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m in the top 20 for being in the Hall of Fame, so I have a great chance.”
Asked where he’d rank himself compared to other centers in NBA history, Drummond replied, “I’d give myself top 30, top 20. I don’t see why not. I’ve done amazing things in my career.”
Given that Drummond – who is still just 30 years old – averaged a career-low 12.7 minutes per game for the Bulls last season, it may seem outlandish on the surface to consider him a Hall of Fame candidate. But his claim that he’s the best rebounder the NBA has ever seen isn’t without merit.
Drummond has averaged 12.7 rebounds in 28.2 minutes per game across 785 career appearances. Dennis Rodman, widely considered the NBA’s greatest rebounder, averaged 13.1 in 31.7 minutes per night (911 games). The two men rank first and second in league history in rebound percentage, with Drummond (24.85%) comfortably ahead of Rodman (23.44%), for now.
Of course, while he has always excelled as a rebounder, Drummond hasn’t necessarily been elite in other areas of the game. He’s a solid scorer and defender around the basket, but has seen his role reduced in recent years because he doesn’t stretch the floor on offense and isn’t particularly switchable on defense. He also doesn’t have the sort of postseason accolades that bolster a Hall of Fame case — his teams have won just two games in four playoff appearances.
In an earlier era, when NBA teams were built around traditional centers, Drummond would have been in a better position to enjoy a Hall of Fame career. He could still have several more seasons ahead of him to continue building his résumé, but his case will be harder to make in the modern-day game.
South Sudan’s national team is once again making history. After qualifying for the 2023 FIBA World Cup, the first World Cup berth in the team’s history, South Sudan will also represent Africa in the upcoming Olympics for the first time ever following a 101-78 victory over Angola on Saturday.
Per a release from the Olympics website, the 23-point victory meant South Sudan’s direct competition for an automatic Olympic spot, Egypt, needed to defeat New Zealand by 23 or more points. Egypt, however, fell 88-86 and thus, South Sudan is on to the Olympics.
It’s a massive victory for the world’s youngest country (2011) — the country’s basketball federation has been around for less than a decade, according to the Olympics release. As NBC Sports notes, South Sudan entered the World Cup ranked 62nd in the world but still managed to qualify for the 12-team Olympic tournament in Paris next year. With the win, South Sudan became the lowest-ranked team to qualify for an Olympic men’s tournament since 2004, per NBC.
The Bright Stars, South Sudan’s team name, were the lone African team (of five) to win three of five games.
Bulls guard Carlik Jones concluded a stellar World Cup run in Saturday’s victory, lighting up the stat sheet with 26 points and a record-tying 15 assists. Jones, the 2022/23 G League Player of the Year, averaged 20.4 points and 10.4 assists in five games and, according to the official FIBA World Cup Twitter (link), he’s the first player to register 10 or more assists in three separate games in a single tournament.
On Thursday, the 6’1″ guard was one rebound shy of the first triple-double in FIBA World Cup history in a win over the Philippines. Jones is under contract through 2025 with the Bulls, though both seasons of his contract are fully non-guaranteed.
Even though Jones is the only active NBA player on the roster, South Sudan has a bevy of connections to the league, starting with the president of the country’s basketball federation, 15-year NBA veteran Luol Deng.
When Deng took over in 2019, the Bright Stars were in a much different place.
“Three years ago, when Luol Deng took over, became the president of the South Sudan basketball federation, we were starting in Nairobi, literally playing on concrete floor,” team captain Kuany Kuany said to NBC Sports. “I never thought that we would be here.”
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst recently detailed South Sudan’s ascent, detailing how Deng personally funded the program and sought after players who had South Sudanese heritage. Deng’s own family fled South Sudan for Britain when he was a child, per Windhorst, and all these years later, the team is led by refugees and the children of refugees from a country that was subject to a series of civil wars.
“It’s an unbelievable story. It’s an underdog story that not just for the South Sudanese, not just for Africa, but for the rest of the world,” Deng said, according to Windhorst. “It’s a feel good story that [a] majority of people can relate to. It’s such a unique achievement because it’s beyond basketball.”
Deng tapped former NBA guard and current Rockets assistant Royal Ivey as head coach, and he led the team to an 11-1 record in the African qualifying tournament to reach the World Cup.
Jones’ record-tying performance in the win over Angola is just one of many impressive outings from members of the team. Forward Wenyen Gabriel, who played last season with the Lakers, put up a 15-point, 10-rebound double-double in the win. Former Sixers guard Marial Shayok scored 18 points while Nuni Omot, who spent last season’s training camp with the Knicks before playing in the G League, scored 17.
Additionally, 7’2″ 16-year-old Khaman Maluach – one of the top potential prospects in the 2025 NBA draft class, according to Windhorst – added five points and four rebounds.
Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports recently ranked 25 of the NBA’s top decision-makers in terms of how successful they’ve been at drafting, making trades, and signing free agents over the course of their respective careers. The other five lead executives were not evaluated due to a small sample size.
As Rohrbach writes, with how his system is set up, having a high score over a long career is more impressive than an executive who performed similarly with fewer years of experience. Still, there’s an obvious caveat: his evaluation process is subjective.
Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison is ranked No. 25, followed by Hornets president of basketball operations Mitch Kupchak and Bulls executive VP of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas. The top three executives in Rohrbach’s system are Jazz CEO Danny Ainge (No. 1), Raptors president Masai Ujiri, and Spurs GM Brian Wright.
Here’s more from around the basketball world:
- Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype created three all-contract-value teams comprised of players at each of the five positions. Players on rookie deals and those with maximum salaries were excluded from consideration. Gozlan’s first team features four members of the United States’ World Cup roster — Jalen Brunson, Austin Reaves, Mikal Bridges and Jaren Jackson Jr. Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen takes the final spot.
- Signing players to a Designated Veteran contract, also known as the “super-max,” is a polarizing topic among NBA executives, according to Steve Bulpett of Heavy.com. “Super-max isn’t a guarantee of the result you’re looking for,” one general manager told Heavy Sports. “Just because you qualify doesn’t make you that guy. Inflated contracts are even harder to move. The additional penalties in the new CBA should slow the roll of everybody giving out a super-max deal the first time a guy qualifies for it. Just because a guy qualifies for it doesn’t necessarily make him entitled to it. That’s become the issue in the league. If you’re going to call yourself a franchise-level player, which is what I think the super-max number says, you’ve got to have more than just putting up numbers.”
- ESPN.com lists some noteworthy milestones and anniversaries to watch for the 2023/24 season, noting that Lakers superstar LeBron James is on track to surpass 40,000 career points if he maintains his stellar production and stays healthy. James became the league’s all-time leading scorer last season.