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Pelicans-Jazz Begins NBA Restart On July 30

June 26th, 2020 at 6:33pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Pelicans and rookie star Zion Williamson will face the Jazz on July 30 at 6:30 p.m. ET in the first game of the NBA’s restart, the league announced on Friday.

There will be 88 “seeding” games from July 30 to August 14 prior to the postseason.

The Clippers will square off against the Lakers in the second game on July 30 at 9 p.m. ET. The first two games will be broadcast by TNT.

It will get very busy the next day with six games scheduled, highlighted by Celtics vs. Bucks and Rockets vs. Mavericks. There will be a maximum of seven games per day, with start times ranging from 12-9 p.m.

At the conclusion of the seeding games, the seven teams in each conference with the highest combined winning percentages across regular-season games and seeding games will be the first through seventh seeds for the conference playoffs.  If the team with the eighth-best combined winning percentage (regular-season games and seeding games) in a conference is more than four games ahead of the team with the ninth-best combined winning percentage in the same conference, then the team with the eighth-best winning percentage would be the No. 8 seed.

If the team with the eighth-best combined winning percentage in a conference is four games or fewer ahead of the team with the ninth-best combined winning percentage in the same conference, then those two teams would compete in a play-in tournament to determine the No. 8 playoff seed in the conference.  The play-in tournament will be double elimination for the eighth-place team and single elimination for the ninth-place team.

Much of the intrigue regarding the seeding games concerns the final Western Conference spot. The Grizzlies, currently eighth, hold a 3 1/2-game lead over the Trail Blazers, Pelicans and Kings, a four-game lead over the Spurs and a six-game advantage on the Suns.

Memphis will face the Blazers, Spurs, Pelicans, Jazz, Thunder, Raptors, Celtics and Bucks during the seeding round. Among the Grizzlies’ pursuers, the Pelicans appear to have the weakest schedule. After opening against the Jazz, they’ll face the Clippers, Grizzlies, Kings (twice), Wizards, Spurs and Magic.

The Nets and Magic need only to hold off the Wizards in the East to claim the final two spots in their conference. Washington trails Brooklyn by six games and Orlando by 5 1/2 games.

The breakdown of each team’s seeding schedule can be found here. The day-by-day schedule and national TV schedule can be found here.

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Loss Of Cauley-Stein Affects Center Depth For Mavericks

June 25th, 2020 at 9:09pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum
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Mavs To Seek Reinforcements Following Lee’s Calf Injury

June 22nd, 2020 at 6:43pm CST by Luke Adams

6:43pm: The team has confirmed Lee’s left calf injury in a press release and adds that he won’t be available when it resumes workouts on July 1. There is no timetable for his return.

4:16pm: The Mavericks will be on the lookout for possible roster reinforcements once the NBA’s transactions window opens on Tuesday, reports Marc Stein of The New York Times (Twitter link).

Already missing Dwight Powell, who tore his Achilles in January, and Jalen Brunson, who underwent shoulder surgery in March, Dallas will now be without Courtney Lee as well. According to Stein, Lee suffered a calf injury during the hiatus that required surgery. Confirming Stein’s report, Tim MacMahon of ESPN tweets that Lee suffered the injury in a “freak accident.”

Although neither Stein nor Lee provides a specific recovery timetable for Lee, MacMahon refers to the injury as “significant,” which makes it sound as if the veteran swingman probably won’t be available this summer.

As ESPN’s Bobby Marks notes (via Twitter), injured players aren’t eligible to be replaced by substitute players, so Dallas wouldn’t be able to simply add three players to its Orlando roster in place of Powell, Brunson, and Lee without making corresponding moves to open up spots. Lee is on an expiring contract, so if his season is over, he would be the most logical candidate to be released.

Although Lee wasn’t a regular contributor for the Mavericks throughout the entirety of the 2019/20 campaign, he emerged as part of the rotation in the month leading up to the league’s hiatus. The 34-year-old started five of seven games in March, averaging 6.6 PPG on .500/.467/1.000 shooting in 22.8 minutes per contest.

It remains unclear which free agents the Mavs may be targeting this week, or even which position they may focus on — with Powell, Brunson, and Lee on the shelf, the club is missing a player in its backcourt, on the wing, and in the frontcourt.

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Jamahl Mosley Will Interview For Knicks’ Head Coaching Job

June 19th, 2020 at 9:50am CST by Arthur Hill

Add Mavericks assistant Jamahl Mosley to the list of candidates for the Knicks‘ coaching job. Mosley has received permission to interview for the post, tweets ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Mosley is in his sixth season in Dallas and has been the team’s defensive coordinator for the past two years. He also interviewed for the Cavaliers’ head coaching job last year, Wojnarowski notes. Mosley is especially good at building relationships with players and has helped to develop Luka Doncic, including working with him on his pregame routine, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPN (Twitter link).

Before coming to Dallas, Mosley spent four seasons as an assistant with the Cavs and five seasons with the Nuggets. He has served as head coach of the Mavericks’ Summer League team and was an assistant to Gregg Popovich at the USA Basketball minicamp in 2018.

Mosley joins a growing list of candidates in New York that already includes Tom Thibodeau, Kenny Atkinson, Mike Woodson, Ime Udoka, Pat Delany, Chris Fleming and Will Hardy, along with interim head coach Mike Miller.

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Doncic, Porzingis Returning To Dallas Soon

June 18th, 2020 at 9:14pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum
  • Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has indicated that team stars Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis are set to return to Dallas within the week, according to Marc Stein of the New York Times (Twitter link). Doncic, a second-year guard, has been having a breakout season in Dallas. Voted an All-Star starter in the competitive West, Doncic is averaging 28.7 PPG, 9.3 RPG, and 8.7 APG on the 40-27 Mavericks.
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Hollinger: Finney-Smith's Contract Among Most Team-Friendly

June 15th, 2020 at 2:34pm CST by Luke Adams
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NBA To Prorate Bonus, Incentive Criteria Using March 11 As End Of Season

June 15th, 2020 at 11:28am CST by Luke Adams

A number of players with performance incentives and bonus clauses in their contracts didn’t get the opportunity to earn those bonuses in 2019/20 due to the suspension of the NBA season and the league’s subsequent hiatus.

However, according to Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the NBA and NBPA have reached an agreement on how to handle performance incentives in ’19/20. The criteria for those bonuses will be prorated, using March 11 as the end of the regular season, so stats accumulated during the eight “seeding games” this summer won’t count toward those incentives.

[RELATED: Hoops Rumors Glossary: Proration]

For instance, Tyus Jones‘ contract with the Grizzlies includes an $858K bonus in the event that Memphis wins 33 games. Prior to the hiatus, the Grizzlies had 32 victories. Rather than needing the Grizzlies win one more game when play resumes, Jones will already be assured of his bonus, since a 32-33 record prorated over a full 82-game season would work out to 40 wins.

Similarly, Raptors guard Kyle Lowry has a series of bonuses related to his All-Star berth and his team’s postseason success that require him to play at least 65 games. When the season went on hiatus, Lowry had appeared in 52 of Toronto’s 64 games. Prorated over an 82-game season, that would work out to approximately 67 of 82 games, so Lowry will be considered to have met that 65-game threshold. He’ll receive his $200K All-Star bonus and could earn up to another $1.5MM, depending on how far the Raptors advance in the playoffs.

ESPN’s Bobby Marks broke down a number of these bonuses and incentives in an earlier Insider-only story. Another important one, noted by Shelburne and Wojnarowski, affects Sixers center Joel Embiid.

The final three years of Embiid’s maximum-salary contract, through 2022/23, had previously only been conditionally guaranteed, with the 76ers retaining the ability to gain salary relief if the veteran center suffered a career-threatening injury related to his back or feet. In order to fully guarantee those salaries, Embiid had to log 1,650 minutes this season.

When the season was suspended, Embiid was only at 1,329 minutes played. However, Philadelphia had only played 65 of 82 games. Prorated over a full season, Embiid’s average number of minutes per Sixers game (approximately 20.45) would work out to 1,677, surpassing the 1,650-minute threshold and ensuring his upcoming salaries are fully guaranteed.

Players whose bonuses and incentives rely on a percentage are unaffected by proration. For example, Mavericks forward Maxi Kleber would receive a $75K bonus for an 80% free-throw rate and another $150K for a 40% three-point average. His percentages are currently 86.3% and 37.4%, respectively, so he’ll receive the first bonus — but not the second. The same would have been true if he had finished at 80.1% and 39.9%.

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Western Notes: D’Antoni, Jazz, Doncic, Thunder

June 9th, 2020 at 7:07pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni, who has traditionally played a short rotation in meaningful games, sounds like he’s going to experiment with playing more guys once the NBA returns from hiatus.

“With (GM) Daryl (Morey) and data, with how we think gives us the best chance to win, it probably comes down to nine guys. Now, who those nine are they could change, and maybe early we experiment, practice and watch,” D’Antoni tells Kelly Iko of The Athletic.

D’Antoni acknowledged that many of the players won’t be in peak regular-season form, adding that “it’s something that you have to play through.”

Here’s more from the Western Conference:

  • Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert have had numerous conversations since the pair tested positive for COVID-19 and team sources are “adamant” that the two will be able to coexist without issue, Tim MacMahon writes in a collaborate piece with other writers on ESPN.com. Jazz GM Dennis Lindsay previously said that the two players were ready to put it behind them.
  • The time off has allowed Luka Doncic‘s thumb, wrist and ankles to heal and while there were rumors that he gained some weight during the hiatus, sources tell MacMahon (same piece) that the Mavericks star has been working out diligently in Slovenia.
  • The Thunder‘s biggest concern coming back from the hiatus could be their chemistry, ESPN’s Royce Young contends in the same piece. OKC compiled a 34-13 record since Thanksgiving, which was second in the league over that span. However, the club needed the first month of the season to get its three-guard lineup in sync.
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Nets, Mavs Among Candidates For Multiple Injury Replacements

June 9th, 2020 at 11:11am CST by Luke Adams
  • With a transaction window expected to open around June 22, Bobby Marks of ESPN (Insider link) examines all 22 teams headed to Orlando this summer and speculates about what sort of roster tweaks they might make during that last week in June. As Marks notes, teams like the Nets (Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving) and Mavericks (Dwight Powell, Jalen Brunson) are candidates to sign multiple injury replacements at that time.
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Jalen Brunson Unlikely To Return This Summer

June 8th, 2020 at 8:44pm CST by Dana Gauruder
  • The Mavericks still don’t plan on guard Jalen Brunson returning this season, Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News tweets. Brunson underwent right shoulder surgery this same week that play was halted. He hasn’t played since February 22.
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