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Sixers Notes: Embiid, Scott, Butler, Harris

April 27th, 2019 at 7:05pm CST by Arthur Hill

Sixers star Joel Embiid expects to play more minutes in the conference semifinals, even though he is still bothered by tendinitis in his left knee, writes Dave McMenamin of ESPN. Embiid averaged just 24.8 minutes in five first-round games against the Nets and was often a literal game-time decision. The limited minutes make his line for the series – 24.8 points, 13.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.8 blocks per night – look even more impressive.

“It’s still not there. It’s still trying to get better,” Embiid said at today’s shootaround. “But that’s an issue that’s going to be there at least all playoffs until I actually get some real time to get some rest and work on myself. … But, we did a good job managing it. Obviously I only averaged about 24 minutes last series, so this one I’m definitely going to need way more than that.”

Embiid isn’t on the injured list as the series begins, so the Sixers are confident about his prospects. He has been dealing with knee issues for the past two months, missing 14 of 24 games regular season games after the All-Star break.

“It’s hard because I’m known for playing through anything and pushing, pushing it,” Embiid said. “And in some situations like Game 3, I couldn’t go because it was too much. But like I said, I just got to keep managing it and see how I feel and then go from there.”

There’s more from Philadelphia:

  • The Sixers have another injury concern in forward Mike Scott, McMenamin notes in the same story. Scott was wearing a walking boot today because of a heel contusion and plantar fasciitis in his right foot. Coach Brett Brown indicated that rookie Zhaire Smith may have an expanded role while Scott is sidelined.
  • Representatives for Jimmy Butler met with Sixers GM Elton Brand before and after a November deal that brought him from Minnesota to express his interest in a long-term contract, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. Butler is expected to opt out of a $19.8MM salary for next season and test the free agent market.
  • The Nets will target Sixers forward Tobias Harris in free agency, but a report Friday indicates that the competition for his services will be intense, relays Brian Lewis of The New York Post. The Grizzlies, Jazz and Mavericks will all consider pursuing the Long Island native, and the Sixers will have his Bird rights, meaning they can offer more years and higher raises than any other team. Lewis adds that Harris’ performance against the Nets in their playoff series increased Brooklyn’s desire to sign him.
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Tobias Harris Will Draw Plenty Of Interest In Free Agency

April 26th, 2019 at 5:21pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Tobias Harris bet on himself by turning down a four-year, $80MM contract extension from the Clippers last summer. That decision will pay off in the open market in July, as Shams Charania of The Athletic names several teams likely to show interest in the Sixers forward.

League executives expect the Grizzlies, Jazz, Mavericks and Nets to explore making a run at Harris, Charania hears. Harris has already indicated that he’d strongly consider remaining put, as he told Charania last month.

“It would be selfish of me to not come into this situation with an open mind to make this work for the long term,” he said. “That’s where my mindset is at. I’m a loyal guy to where I am, and if I feel that loyalty back, that is how I operate.”

Philadelphia, of course, can pay Harris more than any other team. He will be eligible to sign a five-year, $189.7MM contract with the Sixers or a four-year, $140.6MM deal with another franchise. Harris is averaging 17.6 PPG, 9.0 RPG and 4.2 APG thus far in the postseason.

The most surprising team on Charania’s list is the rebuilding Grizzlies, though adding Harris to a team with Mike Conley, Jaren Jackson Jr. and another high draft pick might be enough to get them back to the postseason.

Utah’s brass knows it has to make changes after another early-round exit. Adding Harris to a mix that already includes Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert would give the Jazz a much-needed offensive boost.

It’s no secret that the Mavericks want to add another big piece to complement Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, while the Nets have plenty of cap space and want to bring in top-shelf free agents.

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O’Connor’s Latest: Durant, Clippers, Kawhi, Gallinari

April 25th, 2019 at 1:56pm CST by Luke Adams

As we’ve mentioned multiple times throughout the 2018/19 NBA league year, there’s a widespread belief among people around the NBA that Kevin Durant will leave the Warriors for the Knicks in free agency. However, uncertainty about Durant’s future has increased in recent months, Kevin O’Connor writes in his latest article for The Ringer.

As O’Connor explains, Durant seems more likely to go to the Knicks if Kyrie Irving goes with him, and there’s no guarantee that Irving will leave the Celtics, given how well things have gone in Boston over the last several weeks. LeBron James‘ struggles during his first year as a Laker could also serve as a cautionary tale for Durant.

One front office executive who spoke to O’Connor suggests that everything should be considered on the table for Durant, since the Warriors forward has proven to be unpredictable in the past.

O’Connor’s piece, which focuses primarily on the Clippers, features a few more items of note, so let’s round them up…

  • The Clippers continue to be viewed as the more likely destination than the Lakers if Kawhi Leonard decides to return home to Southern California, though O’Connor writes that it would be “foolish” to rule out the Lakers.
  • The odds of both Durant and Leonard joining the Clippers are slim, but the team could theoretically make it happen based on its cap situation. As O’Connor details, if the Clippers trade Danilo Gallinari and renounce all their free agents except Ivica Zubac, they’d have more than enough room for two max contracts, and would be able to go over the cap to re-sign Zubac.
  • Of course, in that scenario, the Clippers wouldn’t be able to take money back for Gallinari, which would limit their potential trade partners. Still, O’Connor has spoken to front office executives who don’t think it’d be too challenging to find a deal for Gallinari, especially if the Clips are willing to attach a future pick. O’Connor cites the Nets, Mavericks, Hawks, Jazz, and Pacers as a few teams that might be fits for the veteran forward in that scenario.
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Knicks Notes: Draft Picks, Ntilikina, Dotson, Dolan

April 21st, 2019 at 12:59pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Knicks will miss out on a valuable pick in this year’s draft because of a trade former team president Phil Jackson made nearly five years ago, according to Marc Berman of The New York Post. New York would own the 31st pick, which is coveted because it offers a chance at a potential first-round talent without a guaranteed salary, if Jackson hadn’t traded it to the Sixers.

The Knicks wanted to unload Travis Outlaw‘s salary after training camp in 2014. Philadelphia was willing to offer Arnett Moultrie in a deal that trimmed roughly $4MM off New York’s luxury tax bill, but the Knicks had to throw in a future second-rounder. Both players were waived shortly after the trade was completed.

The 31st pick now belongs to the Nets, who acquired it last season as part of the price for taking Jahlil Okafor from the Sixers. Berman states that the Knicks would like to trade back into the early part of the second round and speculates that they might be willing to part with Frank Ntilikina to get there.

There’s more from New York:

  • Knicks management views the two first-rounders the team received from the Mavericks in the Kristaps Porzingis deal as trade chips, Berman adds. If Dallas moves into the top five in this year’s lottery, the picks would convey no earlier than 2022 and 2024, with the later one having top-10 protection. If the Mavs stay at No. 9, this year’s selection will go to Atlanta, and New York will be on track to get Dallas’ picks in 2021 and 2023.
  • The development of a few young players kept this season from being a total loss, writes Steve Popper of Newsday. In addition to the rookie trio of Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson and Allonzo Trier, GM Scott Perry singled out Emmanuel Mudiay, Noah Vonleh and Damyean Dotson during a news conference this week. “We have a guy like Damyean Dotson,” Perry told reporters. “Lance Thomas said in his exit, ‘Hey, he’s going to be a leader on your team. When he talks the guys on the team all listen to him.’”
  • With a high lottery pick guaranteed and enough cap room to offer two max contracts, the future appears bright in New York, but owner James Dolan’s poor reputation around the league could be the biggest obstacle toward rebuilding, according to David Waldstein and Kelly Whiteside of The New York Times.
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Mavericks Set To Enter Pivotal Offseason

April 20th, 2019 at 1:30pm CST by JD Shaw
  • The Mavericks are now heading into a pivotal offseason for the organization, Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News writes. Dallas struck a major trade to acquire Kristaps Porzingis, a restricted free agent this July, in a shocking deal before the trade deadline. “It’s going to be a very interesting and opportunistic summer,” Mavs president Donnie Nelson said, according to Townsend. “We certainly are positioned to make some noise… We’re ridin’ the Luka wave and the Kristaps wave and trying to surround these guys with the right young core.”
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Tim Hardaway Jr. Undergoes Surgery On Leg

April 18th, 2019 at 8:54pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Tim Hardaway Jr. underwent surgery on his left tibia today, according to a Mavericks team press release. He had been dealing with a stress injury and he’s expected to resume basketball activities before the start of training camp.

Hardaway Jr. was sent to Dallas as part of the Kristaps Porzingis deal at this year’s trade deadline. He’s set to make approximately $20MM next season, which is currently the highest figure for any player on the Mavs. Dallas has under $46MM in guaranteed salary on the books for the 2019/20 campaign against a projected $109MM salary cap (though with cap holds and Dwight Powell‘s player option, available space could be capped around $30MM).

The franchise will look to use its cap space to put talent around Porzingis and rookie phenomenon Luka Doncic this summer. Hardaway, who has two seasons left on his deal, including a player option of $18.76MM for 2020/21, appears likely to remain with the team regardless of any additions due to his rehabilitation timeline and cumbersome contract.

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2019 NBA Offseason Salary Cap Digest: Dallas Mavericks

April 17th, 2019 at 4:58pm CST by Luke Adams

Dirk Nowitzki‘s 21-year career with the Mavericks came to an end this season, signaling the end of an era in Dallas. But after a pair of trades – one on 2018’s draft night and one leading up to the 2019 deadline – the Mavs believe they’ve identified a pair of young building blocks capable of leading the franchise for years to come. In addition to Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, the Mavs are also armed with some cap flexibility entering the 2019 offseason.

Here’s where things currently stand for the Mavericks financially, as we continue our Offseason Salary Cap Digest series for 2019:

Guaranteed Salary

Player Options

Team Options

  • None

Non-Guaranteed Salary

Restricted Free Agents

Unrestricted Free Agents / Other Cap Holds

Projected Salary Cap: $109,000,000
Projected Tax Line: $132,000,000

Offseason Cap Outlook

  • Realistic cap room projection: $29.33MM. This scenario would see the Mavericks retain all their players on guaranteed contracts, including Powell (if he opts in), along with the cap holds for Porzingis, Finney-Smith, and Kleber. Once they use up their space, they could go over the cap to re-sign their three RFAs.
  • The Mavs could potentially clear a little more cap room if they agree to a longer-term deal with Powell that lowers his cap hit for 2019/20. Stretching Lee would also be an option to create about $7.6MM in extra space, but in order to seriously consider such a move, the team would need to have a clear, pressing need for that space.
  • Max cap room scenario: $48.26MM. This would be achieved by Powell opting out, followed by the Mavs renouncing all of their non-Porzingis free agents, waiving all their non-guaranteed salaries, and stretching Lee. It’s probably not a realistic outcome.

Cap Exceptions Available

  • Trade exception: $1,233,152 (expires 1/31/20) 4
  • Trade exception: $21,299,378 (expires 2/7/20) 4
  • Room exception: $4,760,000 5

Footnotes

  1. The salaries for two-way players don’t count against a team’s cap.
  2. Broekhoff’s salary becomes fully guaranteed after June 29.
  3. The Mavericks have a 26.2% chance of moving up into the top four in the draft lottery and keeping their first-round pick. In that scenario, a cap hold for the pick would be added to this list.
  4. The Mavericks will lose these exceptions if they go under the cap to use room.
  5. This is a projected value. In the event that the Mavericks remain over the cap, they’d instead gain access to the mid-level exception ($9,246,000) and bi-annual exception ($3,619,000).

Note: Minimum-salary and rookie-scale cap holds are estimates based on salary cap projections and could increase or decrease depending on where the cap lands.

Salary information from Basketball Insiders and RealGM was used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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NBA Teams That Can’t Trade/Acquire Cash Until July

April 17th, 2019 at 12:25pm CST by Luke Adams

During each NBA league year, teams face limits on the amount of cash they can send out and receive in trades. Once they reach those limits, they’re no longer permitted to include cash in a deal until the following league year.

For the 2018/19 NBA season, the limit is $5,243,000. The limits on sending and receiving cash are separate and aren’t dependent on one another, so if a team has sent out $5,243,000 in trades and also received $5,243,000 in separate deals, they don’t have a clean slate — they’ve reached both limits for the season.

Thanks to reporting by cap experts like Bobby Marks, Eric Pincus, and Albert Nahmad, we’ve been able to keep tabs on the cash sent and received in trades by teams during the 2018/19 NBA league year, so we have a pretty clear idea of each club’s flexibility heading into the draft.

Being able to send or receive cash on draft day is particularly useful, since it can provide a simple means of acquiring – or moving – a second-round pick. A year ago, five of the trades agreed upon in June that featured 2018 draft picks included cash.

Of course, three of those five trades weren’t actually completed until July, which highlights a simple way to work around these restrictions. A team that can’t send or receive cash at this year’s draft could still technically agree to a deal involving cash, then officially finalize it sometime after July 1, when the cash limits reset for the 2019/20 league year.

Still, the 2018/19 restrictions are worth noting, since in some cases a player’s changing cap figure or contract status can make it impossible to wait until July to make a trade official.

With that in mind, here are some of the limitations facing teams until July 1:

Ineligible to receive cash:

  • Charlotte Hornets
  • Chicago Bulls
  • Toronto Raptors

The Hornets reached their limit less than a week until the 2018/19 league year, having received $5MM from the Nets in their Dwight Howard trade and $243K from the Thunder in a deal involving Hamidou Diallo.

As for the Bulls, they reached their yearly limit in three separate transactions, acquiring approximately $2.63MM in a pair of swaps with the Rockets involving Michael Carter-Williams and Carmelo Anthony. Chicago then received another $2.61MM from the Thunder in a Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot salary dump.

Based on the reported figures for the Raptors ($5MM from the Spurs in the Kawhi Leonard blockbuster, plus $110K apiece from the Sixers and Nets in deadline deals), they could technically acquire another $23K. However, $110K is the minimum amount of cash a team can include in a trade this season, so Toronto can’t actually acquire any more.

Outside of these three teams, every NBA club is eligible to acquire at least $2MM before July. The Magic ($2,226,778), Sixers ($2,743,000), Mavericks ($3,148,049), and Hawks ($3,187,090) are most limited.

Ineligible to send cash:

  • None

No NBA teams have reached their limits for sending out cash this season, though some are close.

The Nets ($243,000) and Spurs ($243,000) can barely trade any cash after sending out $5MM in deals last July. The Thunder ($411,294) and Rockets ($565,513) are also nearly tapped out, having made a handful of moves aimed at reducing – or in Houston’s case, eliminating – their luxury tax bills.

The Wizards ($2,365,456), Grizzlies ($2,660,069), and Celtics ($2,737,090) are also somewhat limited in their ability to trade cash, but no other teams have less than $3MM available.

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Cavs To Interview Juwan Howard, Jamahl Mosley, Others

April 14th, 2019 at 12:55pm CST by Arthur Hill

1:32pm: The Cavs also plan to interview Utah’s Alex Jensen and Portland’s David Vanterpool when their teams are done with the playoffs, Wojnarowski adds (Twitter link).

12:55pm: Heat assistant Juwan Howard and Mavericks assistant Jamahl Mosley will be the first two candidates to interview for the Cavaliers‘ head coaching job, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. Both interviews are expected this week.

Cavs GM Koby Altman plans to go through a long list of candidates before hiring a replacement for Larry Drew, Woj adds. The team will start with assistant coaches on teams that didn’t reach the playoffs.

Howard has been part of Erik Spoelstra’s staff in Miami since retiring from the NBA in 2013. Mosley was an assistant in Cleveland for four seasons before leaving for Denver in 2014.

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Cavs Notes: Smith, Coaching Search, Expiring Deals, Draft

April 14th, 2019 at 12:03pm CST by Arthur Hill

Cavaliers GM Koby Altman told reporters Friday that he has already been contacted by a team interested in trading for J.R. Smith, relays Joe Vardon of The Athletic. The interest isn’t so much in Smith as a player – he parted ways with the team in November and only appeared in 11 games this season – but in his contract, which is valued at $14.72MM but carries only a $3.87MM guarantee.

[RELATED: Why J.R. Smith May (Or May Not) Be A Valuable Offseason Trade Chip]

A team looking to unload salary could deal for Smith and be on the hook for just $1.29MM annually if he is waived and stretched over three seasons. The Cavaliers showed a willingness this year to take on unwanted contracts in exchange for draft picks, trading for Brandon Knight, Marquese Chriss, Matthew Dellavedova and Nik Stauskas.

“We are actually the only team in the NBA that can provide guaranteed cap relief from teams or salary relief until July 1,” Altman said. “We can guarantee that right now and we actually had a phone call yesterday on that (Smith) trade chip, so, we’re going to keep on being aggressive adding those assets because we do eventually want to consolidate and be really good at some point.”

There’s more from Cleveland, all courtesy of Vardon:

  • Altman promised an “open-minded” approach to the team’s coaching search and brought up the possibility of making history by hiring a woman for the job. Though he couldn’t mention her by name because she’s under contract, Spurs assistant Becky Hammon is an obvious candidate if Altman wants a female coach. Hammon interviewed for the Bucks’ head-coaching job last year, ran the Spurs’ summer league team and has a player development background, which Vardon states is important to the Cavaliers.
  • Other coaching possibilities that Cavs players mentioned to Vardon include the Nets’ Bret Brielmaier, the Mavericks’ Jamahl Mosley and the Trail Blazers’ Nate Tibbetts. All three have previous experience in Cleveland. Altman said interviews will begin soon with candidates whose teams aren’t in the playoffs.
  • The Cavaliers believe their expiring contracts for next season might generate some interest on the trade market this summer. Knight and Dellavedova will both be free agents in 2020, along with John Henson, Jordan Clarkson and Tristan Thompson.
  • Cleveland won a tiebreaker with the Suns for second place in the draft order heading into next month’s lottery. If they Cavs do wind up with the No. 2 pick, Vardon notes, their view of what type of player Collin Sexton will develop into may determine whether they opt for a point guard in Ja Morant or a wing player in R.J. Barrett.
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