- The Mavericks had a solid offseason with the addition of Klay Thompson in a sign-and-trade with Golden State. They also signed free agents Naji Marshall and Spencer Dinwiddie and acquired Quentin Grimes in a trade. Eddie Sefko of Mavs.com takes a closer look at what each player could bring to the defending Western Conference champions.
A handful of NBA teams are making contingency plans for local broadcasting deals during the upcoming season. If Diamond Sports Group emerges from bankruptcy in the coming weeks or months, the company has discussed eliminating the RSN contracts for as many as five of its NBA teams — the Pelicans, Thunder, Grizzlies, Mavericks and Pistons, Tom Friend of the Sports Business Journal reports.
The decision is fluid, Friend adds, who hears the number could drop to three teams. Those five franchises are aware of the situation and most likely will offer their games over-the-air for free, if necessary. They would also each add a direct-to-consumer digital product.
We have more news from around the basketball world:
- The USA’s 3×3 team in the Olympics failed to challenge for medal contention at the Paris Olympics. Adding injury to insult, its most prominent member — former NBA guard Jimmer Fredette — suffered an adductor tear that will require a six-month recovery period, Eurohoops.net relays. Fredette revealed the injury on social media. “I had an injury that took place in the beginning minutes of our second game against Poland,” he wrote. “I tore two different ligaments completely in my adductor, which prevented me from being able to compete. This will lead me to have a recovery of around six months.”
- Another former NBA player, Chase Budinger, had his dreams of an Olympic medal dashed on Monday. Budinger and his beach volleyball partner, Miles Evans, won their first match against a duo from France but then lost to the Netherlands and Spain before falling to Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum, the defending gold medalists from Tokyo. Budinger will still cherish the memories, per ESPN News Services. “Playing in the Olympics, playing in this venue, will definitely be up there with some of my greatest basketball moments, for sure,” Budinger said.
- Will the Kyle Anderson and Isaiah Hartenstein additions prove disappointing to the Warriors and Thunder, respectively? Will Tyus Jones and Chris Paul end up as the biggest bargains in free agency? The Athletic’s Josh Robbins, Kelly Iko and Darnell Mayberry provide their insights and opinions on the free agent moves and trades made during this offseason.
The Mavericks have officially signed veteran point guard Spencer Dinwiddie to a one-year contract, according to a team press release. The agreement was previously reported on July 22.
“We welcome having Spencer back with us in Dallas,” Mavericks GM Nico Harrison said in a statement. “Spencer is an experienced teammate, who understands what we are trying to accomplish. His energy, versatility, and playmaking from the guard position adds invaluable depth to our roster and leaves us well positioned going into next season.”
The terms of the Mavs’ agreement with Dinwiddie have yet to be reported. While Dallas could technically offer more than the veteran’s minimum using the mid-level or bi-annual exception, the team doesn’t have a ton of wiggle room below the first tax apron, so a minimum-salary deal seems more likely.
Dinwiddie, 31, was previously a Maverick from 2022-23 for almost exactly one year. He was traded from Washington to Dallas at the trade deadline in February 2022 as part of the return for Kristaps Porzingis, then was sent to Brooklyn at the 2023 deadline as part of the package for Kyrie Irving.
Dinwiddie played well during his first stint in Dallas, averaging 17.1 points, 4.9 assists, and 3.1 rebounds in 32.3 minutes per game across 76 outings (60 starts). He posted a shooting line of .466/.404/.788 during that time — those field goal and three-point percentages are well above his career marks.
The veteran guard was less effective in 2023/24 across 76 appearances (52 starts) for the Nets and Lakers, posting averages of 10.5 PPG, 4.7 APG, and 2.7 RPG in 28.3 MPG while shooting .392/.337/.805.
The hope is that a return to Dallas will help fuel a bounce-back season for Dinwiddie, who still has a home in Texas and whose partner is from the state, according to Brian Lewis of The New York Post (Twitter link). The move also reunites Dinwiddie with Irving — the two guards played together in Brooklyn from 2019-21.
Assuming Dinwiddie’s salary is fully guaranteed, he’d be the 14th Maverick on a guaranteed contract for 2024/25. A.J. Lawson, the 15th man, has a non-guaranteed deal and would need to be waived in order to make room on the regular season roster for veteran forward Markieff Morris, whose return is considered likely.
AUGUST 3: The signing is official, according to a team press release.
AUGUST 2: Former Mississippi center Jamarion Sharp has agreed to a one-year contract with the Mavericks, agent Scott Nichols of Rize Management tells Chris Haynes of TNT and Bleacher Report (Twitter link).
Sharp, the tallest player in college basketball at 7’5″, was a part-time starter with the Rebels last season, averaging 3.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.4 blocks in 31 games while playing 15.8 minutes per night. He spent the previous two seasons at Western Kentucky, where he blocked 4.4 shots per game and was named Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year in both 2022 and 2023.
Sharp, 22, played for Dallas in the Las Vegas Summer League, averaging 2.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.6 blocks in five games.
The Mavericks already have 13 fully guaranteed contracts, along with A.J. Lawson on a non-guaranteed deal and the expected signing of Spencer Dinwiddie, so Sharp will be a long shot to make the roster in training camp. Assuming his contract contains Exhibit 10 language, he will have the opportunity to earn a bonus worth up to $77.5K by staying with Dallas’s G League affiliate for at least 60 days.
- The Mavericks signed former Pelicans wing Naji Marshall to a three-year deal in free agency. Marshall told Eddie Sefko of Mavs.com that defense will remain his calling card. “They (the Pelicans) gave me that kind of role and I just ran with it,” he said. “I know my game. And the people we have on this team, they’re going to make me better. And I know I can make them better. So I’m just excited to get this going.”
While Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic remain trade candidates, it appears increasingly likely that both players will open the 2024/25 season as Bulls, Marc Stein writes in his latest Substack story.
League sources tell Stein that the Bulls are “resigned” to the fact that they’re unlikely to find a deal they like for LaVine before opening night and may have to try to help him rebuild some trade value early in the season.
As for Vucevic, his contract (two years for about $41MM) should be easier to move than LaVine’s, but the expectation is that it will be easier for Chicago to find a deal sometime after the season begins than before that, Stein explains.
Here are a few more items from within Stein’s latest look around the NBA:
- According to Stein’s sources, Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard was only willing to accept a three-year extension from Indiana rather than a four-year deal. The contract will put Nembhard in position to sign his next contract in 2028 when he’s 28 and presumably right in his prime.
- The Mavericks remain committed to re-signing forward Markieff Morris, even after filling their 15-man roster by adding Spencer Dinwiddie, Stein reports. As Stein observes, A.J. Lawson is the most vulnerable of the 15 players on standard contracts, since his 2024/25 salary is non-guaranteed.
- Former NBA guard Carlik Jones, a key member of the South Sudan Olympic team, is committed to playing for KK Partizan next season after not exercising his NBA out by the July 25 deadline, according to Stein, who notes that Donta Hall‘s new two-year contract with Baskonia has an NBA out after the 2024/25 season.
- Evan Fournier and Patty Mills, who finished last season on NBA rosters but don’t have contracts for 2024/25, are among the notable free agents to watch at the Olympics, according to Stein. Stein is also curious about whether a strong showing from Nets guard Dennis Schröder in Paris could help boost his trade value as the German enters a contract year.
Free agent forward Kessler Edwards has agreed to a sign a two-way contract with the Mavericks, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Edwards, who will turn 24 in August, spent the last season-and-a-half in Sacramento and appeared in 54 games for the Kings last season. However, his role was extremely limited. He averaged just 5.1 minutes per game off the bench, often seeing action in garbage time.
The 6’8″ forward had his best season in the NBA as a rookie in 2022/23, when he averaged 5.9 points and 3.6 rebounds in 20.6 minutes per game across 48 outings (23 starts) for the Nets. He posted a .412/.353/.842 shooting line that season.
Edwards was eligible for restricted free agency this summer, but the Kings opted not to issue him a qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent.
A former Pepperdine standout, Edwards will join Alex Fudge and Brandon Williams as Dallas’ players on two-way contracts.
Of the 58 players who were selected in last month’s draft, 48 have signed their first NBA contracts since the start of July. As our tracker shows, the breakdown is as follows:
- First-round picks signed using the rookie scale exception: 30
- Second-round picks signed using the second-round pick exception: 13
- Second-round picks signed to two-way contracts: 5
That leaves 10 players from the 2024 draft class who have yet to sign with their respective NBA teams. Here are those players:
- Utah Jazz: Kyle Filipowski, F/C, Duke
- San Antonio Spurs: Juan Nunez, G, Ratiopharm Ulm
- Atlanta Hawks: Nikola Djurisic, G, Mega Basket
- San Antonio Spurs: Harrison Ingram, F, UNC
- Indiana Pacers: Tristen Newton, G, UConn
- Indiana Pacers: Enrique Freeman, F, Akron
- Dallas Mavericks: Melvin Ajinca, G, Saint-Quentin
- Golden State Warriors: Quinten Post, C, Boston College
- Boston Celtics: Anton Watson, F, Gonzaga
- New York Knicks: Kevin McCullar, G/F, Kansas
Of these 10 players, one has already signed a non-NBA contract — French team ASVEL Basket announced earlier this week that it has added Ajinca to its roster, so it appears he’ll become a draft-and-stash prospect, spending at least one season overseas before joining the Mavericks.
That’s likely the path Nunez will follow as well. While nothing is official yet, a report earlier this month stated that the Spanish point guard is expected to sign with Barcelona on a deal that will give him an NBA out during the 2025 offseason. The Spurs haven’t been operating as if they expect Nunez to be on their roster next season, having filled their 15-man roster with players on standard contracts.
Djurisic is the other international prospect in this group and his plans for 2024/25 remain unclear. He fractured his left foot during Summer League play and the injury is expected to sideline him until at least late September, putting him behind schedule in his offseason workouts.
The Hawks don’t appear to have room on their 15-man roster for Djurisic at this point (they have 15 players on guaranteed deals, plus Bruno Fernando on a non-guaranteed contract), though they do have a two-way slot open. We’ll see if the plan is to have Djurisic take that spot or if he’ll continue playing overseas for another season.
The Jazz have space on their 15-man roster for Filipowski and I expect him to sign a three- or four-year contract sooner or later. Completing that move would cut into Utah’s cap room a little, so the club will likely handle its other offseason business to make sure it doesn’t need that room for other purposes — Filipowski can be signed using the second-round exception whether team salary is over or under the cap. The Jazz also have yet to formally finalize reported deals with Drew Eubanks and Johnny Juzang, which is another sign they’re keeping all options open with their cap room.
The other six unsigned second-rounders – Ingram, Newton, Freeman, Post, Watson, and McCullar – all look to me like obvious candidates for two-way contracts. As we detailed on Tuesday, the Spurs, Pacers, and Knicks each have multiple open two-way slots, while the Celtics have one open spot, so there’s nothing standing in the way of their draftees filling those openings.
It’s worth noting that Indiana has two-way qualifying offers on the table for two players (Quenton Jackson and Oscar Tshiebwe), so there won’t be room for those two guys and Newton and Freeman on two-way deals. With 14 players on standard contracts, the Pacers could give one of those four players a 15-man spot if they want to retain all of them.
The Warriors, meanwhile, don’t currently have an open two-way slot for Post. One of their two-way players – Pat Spencer – is a carry-over from last season, so his grip on a two-way spot might be weaker than more recent signees like Reece Beekman and Daeqwon Plowden, but Spencer had a strong Summer League showing, so I’m not necessarily assuming Post will take his spot.
For what it’s worth, Post was born and raised in the Netherlands before playing college basketball in the U.S., so spending a season in Europe wouldn’t be a total curveball for him. Still, at age 24, he’s probably NBA-ready. A standard contract isn’t an option for Post for now, since the Warriors are right up against their first-apron hard cap and can’t afford to sign a 15th man. That could change if they make a trade, but for now, his best hope of opening the season with Golden State would be for the team to waive one of its two-way players.
While it’s rare for U.S.-born players to be stashed overseas, it’s not unheard of, so that’s also a possibility for some of the other unsigned players from the back half of the second round.
Another potential option would be signing a G League contract that allows the player’s NBA team to retain his rights while not dedicating an 18-man regular season roster spot to him. There’s often at least one player per draft class who takes that route. Mojave King did it in 2023, Gui Santos did it in 2022, and two Nets draftees (RaiQuan Gray and Marcus Zegarowski) did it in 2021. McCullar, a late pick who is still recovering from a knee injury he sustained at Kansas, might be a candidate for this path.
Melvin Ajinca, who was selected with the No. 51 overall pick in last month’s draft, won’t be immediately joining the Mavericks. The 6’8″ forward has signed a one-year contract with ASVEL Basket, according to an announcement from the French team.
A native of France, Ajinca has spent the last several years playing in his home country, including the past two seasons with Saint-Quentin. The club played in LNB Pro B (France’s second-tier league) in 2022/23, then earned a promotion to LNB Elite (the top league in the country) for the ’23/24 season.
In 28 games for Saint-Quentin last season, Ajinca averaged 9.3 points and 3.3 rebounds in 24.6 minutes per contest. The 20-year-old struggled to score efficiently, however, making just 37.5% of his shot attempts from the floor, including 30.9% of his three-pointers. That trend continued this month at the Las Vegas Summer League, where he made just 13-of-44 (29.5%) shot attempts across five games for the Mavs and went 5-of-25 (20.0%) from beyond the arc.
Dallas traded up during the second round of last month’s draft in order to nab Ajinca. The Mavs sent the No. 58 pick and $1MM in cash – along with the draft rights to Petteri Koponen – to the Knicks in exchange for the No. 51 pick, which they used on Ajinca.
There was never likely to be room on the Mavs’ 15-man roster for Ajinca though. Dallas currently has 13 players on guaranteed contracts, with Spencer Dinwiddie set to sign a one-year deal and Markieff Morris widely expected to return to fill out the roster.
Ajinca looked like a possible two-way candidate, but now that he’ll remain overseas for at least one more season, the Mavs will have the flexibility to fill that third two-way slot with another player. Alex Fudge and Brandon Williams are currently on two-way contracts with the club, leaving one opening.
Veteran point guard Spencer Dinwiddie is returning to Dallas, having agreed to a one-year contract with the Mavericks, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Dinwiddie, 31, was previously a Maverick from 2022-23 for almost exactly one year. He was traded from Washington to Dallas at the trade deadline in February 2022 as part of the return for Kristaps Porzingis, then was sent to Brooklyn at the 2023 deadline as part of the package for Kyrie Irving.
Dinwiddie played well during his first stint in Dallas, averaging 17.1 points, 4.9 assists, and 3.1 rebounds in 32.3 minutes per game across 76 outings (60 starts). He posted a shooting line of .466/.404/.788 during that time — those field goal and three-point percentages are well above his career marks.
The veteran guard was less effective in 2023/24 across 76 appearances (52 starts) for the Nets and Lakers, posting averages of 10.5 PPG, 4.7 APG, and 2.7 RPG in 28.3 MPG while shooting .392/.337/.805.
The hope is that a return to Dallas will help fuel a bounce-back season for Dinwiddie, who still has a home in Texas and whose partner is from the state, according to Brian Lewis of The New York Post (Twitter link). As Lewis observes, the move also reunites Dinwiddie with Irving — the two guards played together in Brooklyn from 2019-21.
The Mavericks’ interest in Dinwiddie was reported earlier this month by Michael Scotto of HoopsHype and was reiterated over the weekend by Marc Stein.
The terms of the Mavs’ agreement with Dinwiddie have yet to be reported. While Dallas could technically offer more than the veteran’s minimum using the mid-level or bi-annual exception, the team doesn’t have a ton of wiggle room below the first tax apron, so a minimum-salary deal seems more likely.
Assuming Dinwiddie’s salary is fully guaranteed, he’d be the 14th Maverick on a guaranteed contract for 2024/25. A.J. Lawson, the 15th man, has a non-guaranteed deal and would need to be waived in order to make room for the club to re-sign veteran forward Markieff Morris, whose return is considered likely.