- A source with knowledge of the Rockets‘ talks tells Sam Amick of The Athletic that about 70% of the league has inquired on P.J. Tucker. The Nuggets, who are seeking a forward capable of guarding multiple positions, are no longer believed to be in the mix for Tucker, since the asking price is so high — Amick says Houston has sought a young impact player and a first-round pick. The club would be doing well to acquire one or the other for the 35-year-old.
- Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. will be eligible for a rookie scale extension during the 2021 offseason, and ESPN’s Zach Lowe (Insider link) says he’d be shocked if Porter’s representatives don’t open negotiations with a “max or nothing” stance. That looming payday is one reason why Denver may be wary of taking on much long-term salary in trades, Lowe notes.
Nuggets guard Will Barton is among the players the Sixers have inquired on as they seek another play-making wing, a source tells Jason Dumas of Bleacher Report.
Dumas also names Delon Wright, George Hill, and P.J. Tucker as potential trade targets for Philadelphia. He has previously reported on the 76ers’ inquiries into Wright and Hill, while the club’s interest in Tucker has been mentioned repeatedly elsewhere, including on Tuesday by Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer.
Barton, 30, is a key rotation player in Denver, averaging 11.6 PPG, 4.1 RPG, and 3.1 APG on .442/.388/.755 shooting in 33 games (29.9 MPG). However, as Dumas observes, the veteran wing has seen his role cut back a little due to the ongoing emergence of Michael Porter Jr. Barton’s 18.3% usage rate is the lowest mark of his career.
Still, it may be hard for two teams in win-now mode to work out a trade that would benefit both clubs in the short term.
While Danny Green‘s expiring $15.4MM contract would match up well with Barton’s $13.7MM deal, it’s not clear if the Nuggets would have any interest in the 33-year-old sharpshooter, since they have no shortage of floor-spacers — nine of their 10 most-used players are shooting 36% or higher on three-pointers with at least one make per game (Gary Harris, at 32.0%, is the lone exception). And while Green is a solid defender, he lacks Barton’s play-making ability.
Whether or not they can strike a deal for Barton, the 76ers seem more focused on adding a complementary player than on making a splashier move for a star like Kyle Lowry, according to Dumas, who says that landing the Raptors‘ guard is considered “far-fetched.”
The Celtics aren’t the only team that has Magic center Nikola Vucevic high on its wish list. The Heat, Spurs, and Hornets have also expressed “significant” interest in the All-Star big man, sources tell Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer.
Miami, San Antonio, and Charlotte would all be intriguing landing spots for Vucevic. The Heat presumably envision him playing alongside Bam Adebayo up front; the Spurs have seen LaMarcus Aldridge‘s production decline this season and may view Vucevic as an eventual replacement for the veteran; and the Hornets could use an impact player at the five to complement primary play-makers LaMelo Ball and Gordon Hayward.
However, O’Connor cautions that front office executives around the NBA are skeptical that the Magic will move Vucevic at this month’s trade deadline, since he still has multiple years left on his contract. After earning $26MM this season, the 30-year-old will make $24MM in 2021/22 and $22MM in ’22/23.
Even if the Magic are open to considering a Vucevic trade, they’d seek a substantial return, according to O’Connor. Shams Charania of The Athletic conveyed a similar sentiment last week, writing that Orlando would want a “massive” package for its All-Star center.
While the Magic seem unlikely to deal Vucevic, there are other solid veterans on their roster whom they could be more open to moving. O’Connor reports that the club is receiving calls on guards Evan Fournier and Terrence Ross, with the Hornets among the clubs inquiring on Fournier, while the Nuggets have asked about Ross.
Aaron Gordon is viewed as a possible trade candidate too, and the Magic have some lower-priced veterans who could appeal to contenders as depth pieces. However, Orlando hasn’t shown much enthusiasm for making major trades in recent years, so it would be a bit of a surprise if the team goes into full-fledged fire-sale mode, despite its record (13-23) and place in the Eastern Conference standings (14th).
- The play of Nuggets All-Star Nikola Jokic has taken another leap this season, in part thanks to his newly-improved fitness discipline, according to Mike Singer of The Denver Post.
- Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN assesses All-Star Nuggets center Nikola Jokic‘s atypical path to MVP candidacy. Youngmisuk tracks Jokic’s rise from overlooked No. 41 pick in the 2014 draft to one of the best-passing big men in the history of the NBA. Fellow MVP contender LeBron James recently praised the center’s court vision. “The guy has an unbelievable talent of seeing the floor and seeing plays happen before they happen,” James said.
- In an extensive Nuggets mailbag, Mike Singer of the Denver Post examines a variety of trade options for Denver ahead of the March 25 deadline. The fits of Rockets vets Victor Oladipo and P.J. Tucker, plus Kings forward Nemanja Bjelica, are assessed.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the pared-down nature of the NBA’s 2021 All-Star weekend, a Rising Stars Game showcasing the league’s top rookies and sophomores won’t be played this year.
However, the league has still announced the rosters for the event, via NBA Top Shot, naming the 20 players who would have been selected to participate if the game was taking place. Here are those rosters:
U.S. Team:
- LaMelo Ball (Hornets)
- Anthony Edwards (Timberwolves)
- Tyrese Haliburton (Kings)
- Tyler Herro (Heat)
- De’Andre Hunter (Hawks)
- Keldon Johnson (Spurs)
- Ja Morant (Grizzlies)
- Michael Porter Jr. (Nuggets)
- Zion Williamson (Pelicans)
- James Wiseman (Warriors)
World Team:
- Precious Achiuwa (Heat) 🇳🇬
- Nickeil Alexander-Walker (Pelicans) 🇨🇦
- Deni Avdija (Wizards) 🇮🇱
- RJ Barrett (Knicks) 🇨🇦
- Facundo Campazzo (Nuggets) 🇦🇷
- Brandon Clarke (Grizzlies) 🇨🇦
- Luguentz Dort (Thunder) 🇨🇦
- Rui Hachimura (Wizards) 🇯🇵
- Theo Maledon (Thunder) 🇫🇷
- Mychal Mulder (Warriors) 🇨🇦
The 20-man group includes eight rookies and 11 sophomores. The 20th player, Porter, made the cut as a sophomore since he missed his entire rookie season in 2018/19 due to an injury — this is technically his third year of NBA service.
A pair of Western Conference playoff contenders are potential suitors for J.J. Redick, according to Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer, who said in an episode of The Mismatch podcast that the Mavericks and Nuggets have “some level of interest” in the Pelicans‘ sharpshooter (hat tip to Sportando).
When Redick’s name first surfaced in trade rumors in January, a handful of Atlantic teams were identified as his most likely landing spots, with the Nets, Knicks, Celtics, and Sixers all named as possibilities. The thinking was that the 36-year-old would prefer to be closer to his family in Brooklyn.
While the Pelicans would like to do right by Redick, they presumably won’t just send him to an Atlantic team for nothing if a Western club like the Mavs or Nuggets makes a stronger offer. Redick and Eric Bledsoe were said earlier this week to still be very much available.
Redick, who has a $13MM expiring contract, got off to a very slow start this season, but has shot the ball well since falling out of the rotation for three games at the end of January. In his last 14 games, Redick has averaged 8.7 points in 16.3 MPG and has knocked down 49.0% of his 3-point attempts.
Dallas and Denver each have a handful of salaries in the range of Redick’s on their books, though some of those players wouldn’t be expendable. James Johnson‘s $16MM expiring contract would be the Mavs’ most logical outgoing piece, while the Nuggets may prefer to move Gary Harris, who is still owed a $20.9MM guaranteed salary in 2021/22.
- Nuggets backup guard Facundo Campazzo and rookie Markus Howard have been added to the team’s injury report due to contact tracing, according to Mike Singer of The Denver Post. Both players are likely out through the All-Star break, though the Nuggets could appeal. Campazzo is doubtful to play against Chicago on Monday. He’s averaging 5.5 PPG and 2.3 APG in 16.3 MPG in his first NBA season.
- Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. is establishing himself as part of a Big Three with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, Singer writes in a separate story. The young forward is averaging 16.0 PPG and 7.8 RPG over the last six games and is focusing on trying to become a more complete player.
The Designated Veteran Extension, as we explain our glossary entry on the subject, is a relatively new addition to the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. It allows players with 7-9 years of experience, who would normally qualify for a maximum starting salary of 30% of the cap, to qualify for a “super-max” contract that starts at 35% of the cap, a level normally reserved players with 10+ years of experience.
A player who has seven or eight years of NBA service with one or two years left on his contract becomes eligible for a Designated Veteran Extension if he meets the required performance criteria and hasn’t been traded since his first four years in the league. A Designated Veteran contract can also be signed by a player who is technically a free agent if he has eight or nine years of service and meets the required criteria.
The performance criteria is as follows (only one of the following must be true):
- The player was named to an All-NBA team and/or was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year in the most recent season, or in two of the last three seasons.
- The player was named the NBA MVP in any of the three most recent seasons.
Technically, players like Gary Harris and Evan Fournier meet the criteria related to years of service with one team and could theoretically become eligible to sign a super-max extension this year, but they’re obviously not viable candidates to make an All-NBA team in 2021.
There are, however, a few players who are more realistic candidates to qualify for a super-max veteran contract based on their All-NBA candidacy. Let’s dive in and examine a few of those cases…
Joel Embiid (Sixers)
When Embiid first signed his five-year, maximum-salary contract with the Sixers back in 2017, he had appeared in just 31 games over the course of his first three NBA seasons, making the investment a risky one. The deal included some injury protection for Philadelphia, giving the team the ability to waive Embiid without fully guaranteeing the salaries in later years of the deal if one of the injuries he experienced early in his career became a recurring issue.
The idea of the Sixers waiving Embiid seems absurd now. While the former third overall pick hasn’t exactly been an iron man since the start of the 2017/18 season, there are no longer any concerns about his career being derailed by health issues before it could really get off the ground.
Embiid will have seven years of NBA service under his belt at the end of the 2020/21 campaign and if he earns a spot on an All-NBA team, he’d have done so twice in the last three years, having made the Second Team in 2019.
For now, he looks like an awfully safe All-NBA bet — his 30.0 PPG, 11.3 RPG, .519/.415/.858 shooting line, and solid defense have made him a legit MVP candidate. Health is always the wild card for Embiid, but as long as he stays on the court for most of the second half, an All-NBA spot should be a lock. That would make the big man eligible to sign a super-max extension with the Sixers this offseason.
Embiid remains under contract through 2023, with a $31.6MM salary in ’21/22 and a $33.6MM figure for ’22/23. A super-max extension would tack on four years to those two seasons and would start at 35% of the ’23/24 cap.
It’s too early to know exactly where the cap will end up in 2023/24, but if we use a conservative estimate and assume it will rise by 3% annually in each of the next three summers, that would result in a four-year total of up to $187MM on a new Embiid deal that runs through 2027. It will be fascinating to see how eager the 76ers would be to put that extension – which would cover Embiid’s age-29 to age-32 seasons – on the table.
Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)
Like Embiid, Jokic has played like an MVP candidate and is a lock for an All-NBA spot, barring an injury or another unexpected development. Jokic, who was the All-NBA Second Team center in 2020, is making a case for a First Team spot this season, averaging 26.7 PPG, 10.9 RPG, and 8.5 APG on .564/.421/.879 shooting through 33 games for the Nuggets.
Unlike Embiid, however, Jokic will only have six years of NBA experience at the end of the 2020/21 season. That means that even though he can technically gain super-max eligibility by earning an All-NBA nod for the second straight season, Jokic wouldn’t officially be able to sign a new extension with Denver until 2022, once he has his seven years of service.
This is the same situation Giannis Antetokounmpo found himself in last year — he gained super-max eligibility following the 2018/19 season based on his multiple All-NBA spots and his MVP award, but wasn’t able to actually sign that super-max contract until the 2020 offseason, once he had seven years of service. The Bucks, of course, planned all along to offer him the super-max as soon as they could, and it’s probably safe to assume the Nuggets will do the same for Jokic.
Jokic’s current contract is virtually identical to Embiid’s, with matching $31.6MM and $33.6MM cap hits for the next two seasons after ’20/21. Because Jokic wouldn’t be able to sign a super-max until 2022 though, he could get a five-year extension at that point — if we once again assume annual 3% cap increases, that deal could be worth up to an eye-popping $242MM.
Zach LaVine (Bulls)
While Embiid and Jokic have clear paths to All-NBA spots in 2021, LaVine is a longer shot to get there. The Bulls guard is having the best year of his career and currently ranks sixth in the NBA with 28.7 points per game, but he’s not a strong defender and Chicago’s place in the standings is unlikely to do him any favors with All-NBA voters.
Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, Luka Doncic, and James Harden look like the top contenders to fill the guard spots on the first two teams, which means LaVine would be competing with stars like Bradley Beal, Kyrie Irving, Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, Ben Simmons, and Jaylen Brown, among others, for a Third Team spot.
LaVine’s current deal pays him well below the max, at just $19.5MM annually, so earning an All-NBA spot would make him eligible for a massive raise. If we once again count on annual 3% salary cap increases, a super-max extension for LaVine would could be worth up to $235MM over five years, starting in 2022/23.
Even if he beats the odds and earns an All-NBA spot, LaVine seems unlikely to receive that sort of offer from the Bulls, who traded Jimmy Butler to Minnesota when his super-max eligibility loomed a few years ago. But the super-max wrinkle would further complicate LaVine’s contract situation, which should be very interesting to monitor even if he falls short of an All-NBA team.
Because he’s earning just $19.5MM next season, LaVine would typically only be eligible for a four-year, $104.8MM veteran extension — the Bulls would almost certainly put that offer on the table, but LaVine would probably pass, since he’d be eligible for a far higher salary as a free agent in 2022.
It’s worth considering, however, that Chicago projects to have a significant chunk of cap room available during the 2021 offseason, giving the team the option of renegotiating the final year of LaVine’s contract to give him a raise and a more lucrative extension. That may be the most likely outcome for the first-time All-Star, who is a super-max long shot but is still likely to command more than the $26MM annual salary the Bulls can offer without a renegotiation.
Luka Doncic (Mavericks)
To be clear, Doncic will not be eligible for a starting salary worth 35% of the salary cap on his next contract. But the Mavericks star is being mentioned here because he’ll likely become eligible for a lesser form of the “super-max” contract.
When a former first-round pick is entering the fourth and final year of his rookie contract, he’s eligible to sign a rookie scale extension that starts at 25% of the cap. But if that player has met the super-max performance criteria listed at the top of this story (based on MVP, DPOY, or All-NBA honors), his rookie scale extension can instead start at 30% of the cap.
Most of the time, a player who signs a rookie scale extension that can start at 30% of the cap does so conditionally — for instance, Jayson Tatum was on the 2019/20 All-NBA Third Team, then signed a rookie scale extension prior to the ’20/21 season. Because his extension will go into effect next season, Tatum still has to earn an All-NBA spot again this season to meet the super-max criteria (an All-NBA spot in the most recent season, or in two of the past three seasons) and to qualify for that 30% starting salary.
Doncic, on the other hand, has a chance to pull off a rare feat. Because he was named to the All-NBA First Team in just his second season, he’ll become eligible for a 30% starting salary if he earns All-NBA honors again this year, in his third season. It wouldn’t matter whether or not he’s an All-NBA player again in 2022, because he would have already met the necessary benchmark — two All-NBA berths in three years.
Assuming Doncic earns an All-NBA spot this season, which looks like a safe bet, he’d be eligible to sign a five-year rookie scale extension worth a projected $201.5MM, which would begin during the 2022/23 season.
Like Tatum, Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, and De’Aaron Fox all signed rookie scale extensions in 2020 that will increase in value if they meet certain performance criteria, so they’re worth keeping an eye on this season too.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.