Dallas Mavericks Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Southwest Notes: G. Williams, Curry, Zion, Green

July 15th, 2023 at 7:30pm CST by Arthur Hill

Grant Williams is excited about his new start with the Mavericks, but he didn’t enjoy the process that got him there, writes Eddie Sefko of Mavs.com. As a restricted free agent, he had to wait for offers while many of his peers got their new contracts right away. The sign-and-trade that sent Williams from Boston to Dallas didn’t become official until Wednesday.

“Very difficult. Restricted free agency is terrible,” Williams said. “Unrestricted, you have a good understanding of where you want to go, but restricted, you’re pretty much in a waiting game. You want to make sure you understand what the offers are, but also understand that teams might match or a team might be asking for more than another team is willing to give. It’s definitely an interesting process. I still think free agency is a little bit fun, but also a little bit nerve-wracking.”

Williams has been spending the last few days meeting his new coaches and teammates and getting an idea of what they expect from him this season. He’s close to getting the splint off his left hand after having surgery in June for a torn ligament.

“It’s going great,” he said of his recovery. “I should be out of it (the protective splint) in four days, five days. So pretty much back to the court and moving from then on.”

There’s more from the Southwest Division:

Seth Curry‘s new contract with the Mavericks is non-guaranteed in the second season, tweets Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. Dallas used its mid-level exception to sign Curry, who will have cap hits of $4MM in each season, instead of its $4.5MM bi-annual exception as originally anticipated, adds Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype (Twitter link). That leaves the Mavs with the bi-annual exception still intact and $5.4MM of their MLE remaining, according to Gozlan.
Zion Williamson‘s statements about accountability during a recent podcast appearance with Gilbert Arenas are an encouraging sign for the Pelicans, observes Rod Walker of NOLA. He notes that Williamson is only 23 and still has time to establish himself as a reliable player.
Jalen Green has been through a lot of losing during his first two years with the Rockets, but he believes the team is headed for a turnaround after its offseason moves, writes Michael Shapiro of The Houston Chronicle. Houston started the offseason with a coaching change, landed two projected lottery players in the draft and then upgraded its defense and experience with a series of moves in free agency. “I’m excited about what’s going to happen with us,” Green said. “We got Ime (Udoka), we got a whole bunch of vets, we got young talent. The sky’s the limit right now.”

Free Agent Rumors: Oubre, Jones, Brooks, Smith, Giles

July 15th, 2023 at 1:43pm CST by Rory Maher

The Mavericks are actively looking to improve their roster and have shown “exploratory interest in several free agent forwards,” including veterans Kelly Oubre and Derrick Jones Jr., league sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype.

Although Dallas technically still has a good chunk of its full mid-level exception available, the team has yet to sign first-rounder Olivier-Maxence Prosper, and once that occurs the Mavs will be pretty close to the luxury tax line. They do have an open standard roster spot and could offer a free agent more money than the veteran’s minimum, but not much more unless other moves are made.

On a related note, Scotto confirms that the Mavs continue to shop Tim Hardaway Jr. and JaVale McGee in trade talks. Recent rumors have indicated Dallas tried to package Hardaway and McGee to the Pistons for Bojan Bogdanovic and Killian Hayes.

Scotto hears Detroit was looking for “essentially two first-round picks” in exchange for Bogdanovic last season, though Hayes could available with a glut of guards on the Pistons’ roster.

Here are more free agent rumors from Scotto:

Free agent guard Armoni Brooks, who has been playing well for the Nets in Summer League, could be a candidate for a two-way deal from Brooklyn, according to Scotto. However, if that doesn’t transpire, the 25-year-old has also drawn interest from “multiple EuroLeague teams,” Scotto reports. Brooks holds two years of NBA experience with the Rockets and Raptors. He played for Atlanta’s G League affiliate, the College Park Skyhawks, in 2022/23.
League sources tell Scotto that the Hornets offered Dennis Smith Jr. more than the veteran’s minimum to return to Charlotte, but the Nets reached out to the point guard right after free agency opened and he saw an opportunity for more playing time in Brooklyn. The fact that he was a priority for the Nets also appealed to the former lottery pick, says Scotto.
The Pistons, Cavaliers, Knicks and Bucks were among the teams who watched Harry Giles‘ recent workout in Las Vegas, sources tell Scotto. Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News recently reported that members of the Timberwolves attended as well, which Scotto confirms. A former first-round pick, Giles has been out of the league the past two seasons after playing with the Kings and Trail Blazers from 2018-21. Still just 25 years old, Giles recently discussed his attempt to make it back into the NBA.

And-Ones: Team Canada, Ownership Stakes, Cap Room, Giles

July 15th, 2023 at 9:20am CST by Luke Adams

While a Team USA roster led by Jalen Brunson, Anthony Edwards, Brandon Ingram, and Mikal Bridges will enter the 2023 World Cup as the frontrunner next month, Team Canada’s initial 18-man group features some real star power.

The extended roster, announced this week by Canada Basketball, is headlined by Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder forward Luguentz Dort, Knicks forward RJ Barrett, and Rockets forward Dillon Brooks.

It also features five other players currently on NBA rosters: veteran big men Dwight Powell (Mavericks) and Kelly Olynyk (Jazz), guards Nickeil Alexander-Walker (Timberwolves) and Cory Joseph (Warriors), and forward Oshae Brissett (Celtics). Purdue’s star center Zach Edey is on the roster too.

Team Canada will have to make a few cuts to get down to 12 players for the World Cup, and it’s possible some of the more notable names will drop out in order to focus on the NBA season. However, league sources tell Joe Vardon of The Athletic that Murray has reaffirmed his commitment to the team despite a lengthy postseason run with the Nuggets this spring.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

The minimum stake that someone can own in an NBA franchise has been lowered, according to Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic, who says a minority shareholder can now control as little as 0.5% of a team, down from 1%.
A total of eight teams operated below the cap this offseason, having entered the league year with $277MM in combined cap room, per Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype. As Gozlan outlines, over half of that league-wide cap space was used to accommodate trades or contract negotiations rather than free agent signings.
Sean Cunningham of FOX40 in Sacramento (video link) caught up with free agent big man Harry Giles to talk about the 25-year-old’s efforts to make it back into the NBA, as well as the new rule related to two-way contracts that will unofficially be named after him.

Eight 2023 Draft Picks Have Yet To Sign NBA Contracts

July 15th, 2023 at 7:49am CST by Luke Adams

Of the 58 players who were selected in last month’s draft, 50 have signed their first NBA contracts during the first two weeks they’ve been permitted to do so.

As our tracker shows, the breakdown is as follows:

First-round picks signed using the rookie scale exception: 29
Second-round picks signed using the new second-round pick exception: 13
- Note: Of these 13 players, 12 received four-year contracts, while one (Rayan Rupert) signed a three-year deal.
Second-round picks signed to two-way contracts: 8

That leaves eight players from the 2023 draft class who have yet to sign with their respective NBA teams. Those players are as follows:

Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Mavericks
James Nnaji, Hornets
Tristan Vukcevic, Wizards
Sidy Cissoko, Spurs
G.G. Jackson, Grizzlies
Mojave King, Pacers
Jordan Miller, Clippers
Tarik Biberovic, Grizzlies

Not all of these players will sign an NBA contract in 2023/24. King and Biberovic are each expected to spend at least one season playing overseas before coming stateside. Vukcevic is another candidate to become a draft-and-stash prospect.

It’s also unclear whether the Hornets plan to sign Nnaji right away or let the 18-year-old big man continue developing his game in Europe. For now, Charlotte only has 12 players on guaranteed contracts for 2023/24, but depending on which restricted free agents (P.J. Washington, Theo Maledon) and players on non-guaranteed deals (JT Thor, Kobi Simmons) return, there might not be a spot for Nnaji, who remains under contract with FC Barcelona and – as a No. 31 overall pick who would require an international buyout – wouldn’t be a candidate for a two-way deal.

Prosper is the only unsigned first-rounder in this year’s class, but the delay doesn’t seem like anything to worry about. The Mavericks, who continued this past week to explore the trade market and consider how to fill out their roster, have taken their time getting around to signing a handful of players, with deals for free agents like Seth Curry and Dante Exum only becoming official on Friday. I’d expect Prosper’s contract to be finalized soon.

That leaves Cissoko, Jackson, and Miller, each of whom look like candidates to receive two-way contracts. Some of the other players drafted in their range, including No. 41 pick Amari Bailey and No. 46 pick Seth Lundy, have received two-way deals, and the Spurs, Grizzlies, and Clippers all have roster logjams, meaning there may not be room on their 15-man rosters for their unsigned second-rounders.

The Spurs will have 17 players on standard contracts once they officially re-sign Tre Jones and Sandro Mamukelashvili. The Grizzlies also have 17 players under contract and would have a full 15-man roster even if they trade or waive Josh Christopher and Isaiah Todd. The Clippers have 16 players on standard contracts (15 guaranteed). However, all three teams have at least one two-way slot available.

Mavericks Sign Mike Miles To Two-Way Deal

July 14th, 2023 at 9:57pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

JULY 14: Miles’ two-way deal with the Mavs is official, the team announced (via Twitter).

JUNE 23: The Mavericks have agreed to ink undrafted TCU point guard Mike Miles Jr. to a two-way deal, sources inform Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).

The 6’1″ Miles averaged 17.9 PPG, 2.7 APG, 2.7 RPG and 1.2 SPG during his third and final year with the Horned Frogs in 2022/23. He also posted an encouraging slash line of .497/.362/.749.

A two-time All-Big 12 Second Team selection, as well as a two-time All-Big 12 Tourney pick, Miles will be an interesting project on a guard-heavy Dallas club.

While still at TCU, Miles also played for gold-medal Team USA in the 2021 FIBA Under-19 World Cup in Latvia.

The Mavericks submitted an active draft night, trading the No. 10 pick and the contract of power forward Davis Bertans to the No. 12 pick to select Duke center Dereck Lively II, as well as acquiring big man Richaun Holmes and the rights to No. 24 pick Olivier-Maxence Prosper, out of Marquette, from the Kings.

Seth Curry Signs Two-Year Deal With Mavericks

July 14th, 2023 at 9:21pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

JULY 14: Curry’s contract with the Mavericks is now official, per the team (Twitter link).

JUNE 30: Former Nets combo guard Seth Curry is inking a new two-year contract to return to the Mavericks, CAA agent Austin Brown informs Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).

Per Tim MacMahon of ESPN, Curry will join Dallas’ roster via the team’s $4.5MM biannual exception.

It represents a reunion with the Duke alum’s former 2022/23 Brooklyn teammate All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving.

Across his 61 contests for Brooklyn last season, Curry – a 6’2″ combo guard – averaged 9.2 PPG on excellent .463/.405/.927 shooting splits, along with 1.6 RPG and 1.6 APG.

The 32-year-old, a career 43.5% three-point shooter, will help stretch the floor around Dallas’ All-Star backcourt of Irving and Luka Doncic.

This agreement with Curry will now hard-cap the Mavericks at the $172.3MM first tax apron, per Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype (via Twitter). The club is currently about $9MM below the luxury tax line and $16MM below that hard cap.

If Dallas, which finished as the No. 11 seed in the West last season, wants to use the full $12.4MM mid-level exception to sign another rotation player this summer, the team will need to shed a little salary, Gozlan adds.

This actually marks Curry’s third separate run with the Mavs. He previously played for the club in 2016/17, prior to Doncic’s arrival, and in 2019/20, alongside Doncic. In a journeyman decade-long NBA career thus far, Curry has also played for the Grizzlies, Cavaliers, Suns, Kings, Trail Blazers, and Sixers.

Contract Details: Exum, Vezenkov, Stevens

July 14th, 2023 at 4:02pm CST by Luke Adams

Dante Exum‘s new deal with the Mavericks was initially reported to be a one-year, minimum-salary agreement, but the terms were adjusted between July 1 – when the two sides struck a deal – and today, when it was made official.

According to Tim MacMahon of ESPN (Twitter link), Exum ended up signing a two-year, $6.15MM contract that is non-guaranteed for the second season. It will be worth $3MM in 2023/24 and $3.15MM in ’24/25, with this year’s salary coming out of the Mavericks’ mid-level exception.

Giving Exum a portion of the MLE wouldn’t have been possible if the Mavericks’ offer sheet for Matisse Thybulle had been successful, since Thybulle would have received $10.5MM of the $12.4MM mid-level. Once Portland matched Dallas’ offer for Thybulle, the Mavs’ MLE fully freed up, allowing the team to renegotiate its deal with Exum.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the Mavs also use a chunk of the mid-level to complete their reported agreement with Seth Curry, who was initially expected to be signed using the bi-annual exception. Signing Curry with the MLE would preserve the BAE for 2024/25.

Here are a couple more contract-related notes from around the NBA:

Sasha Vezenkov‘s three-year contract with the Kings comes in just below $20MM, Hoops Rumors has learned — its exact value is $19,975,609, including a $6,341,464 starting salary in 2023/24. As Michael Scotto of HoopsHype tweets, the first two years of Vezenkov’s deal are guaranteed, while the third is a team option (worth $6,975,609).
As part of the trade that sent him from Cleveland to the Spurs, Lamar Stevens had his minimum salary partially guaranteed for $400K, tweets Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype. Stevens also had his salary guarantee deadline moved up from January 7 to July 17, so San Antonio will have to decide in the coming days whether or not to fully guarantee the forward’s 2023/24 cap hit.
In case you missed it, we passed along contract details on a few other recently reported deals on Thursday.

Dante Exum Signs With Mavericks

July 14th, 2023 at 2:14pm CST by Rory Maher

JULY 14: Exum has officially signed with the Mavericks, the team announced today (via Twitter).

JULY 1: Free agent guard Dante Exum is signing a guaranteed contract with the Mavericks, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link). According to veteran NBA reporter Marc Stein (via Twitter), Exum will be receiving a one-year deal for the veteran’s minimum.

As Tim MacMahon of ESPN tweets, former Jazz GM and current Mavs front office adviser Dennis Lindsey drafted Exum No. 5 overall back in 2014.

Exum, who turns 28 in a couple weeks, battled major injuries during his NBA career and was limited to just 245 regular season appearances across seven years (2014-21) in Utah and Cleveland. He spent the past two seasons playing internationally after being cut by the Rockets in October 2021.

Known as a strong defensive player, Exum helped Australia win a bronze medal in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which actually took place in 2021 due to the pandemic. He struggled with his shot throughout his NBA career, posting a .407/.305/.764 slash line, but that has changed in Europe.

In 18 EuroLeague games with Spanish club Barcelona in 2021/22, Exum averaged 6.8 PPG and 2.6 RPG on .500/.526/.837 shooting in 17.8 MPG. He had a larger role this past season with Serbian squad Partizan, averaging 13.3 PPG, 2.8 APG and 2.4 RPG on .544/.424/.859 shooting in 33 EuroLeague contests (22.9 MPG).

Exum reportedly sustained a ruptured tendon in his toe in late April during the EuroLeague playoffs after being slammed to the court by ex-NBA player Guerschon Yabusele, who plays for Real Madrid. Yabusele received a five-game suspension. Partizan was up 2-0 in the best-of-five series, but wound up losing the next three games without Exum. Madrid went on to narrowly win the championship.

Presumably Exum has recovered by now. If he maintains his shooting turnaround, his defensive versatility could be a nice fit for Dallas if he can stay healthy.

Mavs Notes: Draft Picks, Bogdanovic, McGee, Centers

July 14th, 2023 at 7:54am CST by Luke Adams

The Mavericks‘ acquisition of Grant Williams in a three-team sign-and-trade agreement with Boston and San Antonio was initially reported on July 5, but wasn’t officially completed until a week later. According to Tim Cato of The Athletic, that delay was by design, as the three clubs agreed to keep the deal unofficial through Tuesday evening to give everyone a chance to explore expanding it further. No opportunities materialized, so the teams completed the trade as planned on Wednesday.

The Mavs were – and remain – willing to immediately flip the 2025 and 2028 second-rounders they acquired from San Antonio in order to further upgrade their roster, but they’ve been “incredibly cautious” about trading their own 2027 first-round pick, a team source tells Cato.

Because Dallas has already moved its 2029 first-rounder, it would be difficult to put any protections on its 2027 first-rounder due to the Stepien rule, which prohibits a team from leaving itself without a first-round selection in any two consecutive future drafts.

If the Mavs were to trade their 2027 pick, it would have to either be unprotected or turn into a second-rounder (or multiple second-rouders) if it were to fall into its protected range in ’27, since it couldn’t be rolled over to 2028. An unprotected pick would be an extremely valuable trade chip, whereas one that would become a second-rounder if not conveyed in 2027 would have more limited appeal to potential trade partners.

Here’s more on the Mavs:

Confirming an ESPN report, Cato says that the Mavericks and Pistons recently revisited conversations about a possible Bojan Bogdanovic trade. League sources tell The Athletic that the two teams discussed a framework that would’ve sent Bogdanovic and Killian Hayes to Dallas, with Tim Hardaway Jr. and JaVale McGee going to Detroit. It’s unclear what level of draft compensation the Pistons would’ve been seeking in such a deal or how far discussions advanced, says Cato.
As previously suggested during Tim MacMahon’s Howdy Partners podcast (YouTube link), the Mavericks are considered likely to trade or waive McGee before the 2023/24 regular season begins, according to Cato.
Assuming McGee is moved or let go, the Mavericks’ centers would be Richaun Holmes, Dwight Powell, and Dereck Lively. The team could still trade for another big man, but would be content to open the season with that trio, according to Cato. While Powell would be the favorite to start, Mavs staffers are optimistic about Holmes’ bounce-back potential, believing that he’ll be a better fit in the team’s “guard-based schemes” than he was in a Sacramento system centered around Domantas Sabonis, Cato adds.

Hardy Out For Rest Of Summer League With Shoulder Contusion

July 13th, 2023 at 3:59pm CST by Rory Maher

Another young guard, Jaden Hardy, has been ruled out for the rest of Summer League due to a left shoulder contusion, the Mavericks announced (via Twitter). The move was just precautionary and the injury isn’t considered serious, tweets Marc Stein. Hardy had a promising rookie season in 2022/23, averaging 8.8 points on .438/.404/.823 shooting in 48 games (14.8 MPG). He was the 37th overall pick of last year’s draft.