- Pistons head coach Dwayne Casey sees new addition Josh Jackson as a reclamation candidate a la power forward Christian Wood, per Keith Langlois of Pistons.com. “It’s the same thing,” Casey notes. “Everyone was saying, ‘Dwane, don’t mess with him. Leave him alone.’ I enjoy people who have a chip on their shoulder, who’ve been almost forgotten about as Josh has been.”
The Pistons have re-signed free agent forward Louis King to a new two-way contract, according to Keith Smith of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).
King, who went undrafted out of Oregon in 2019, spent his rookie season on a two-way deal with Detroit. He didn’t see much action at the NBA level, logging limited minutes in 10 games, but averaged 15.0 PPG, 5.4 RPG, and 2.8 APG in 31 games (28.5 MPG) for the Grand Rapids Drive, the Pistons’ G League affiliate.
King will occupy one of Detroit’s two-way contract slots alongside second-round pick Saben Lee.
The Pistons also officially finalized their previously–reported training camp deals with LiAngelo Ball and Anthony Lamb, according to Smith (Twitter link). The three signings give Detroit a full 20-man training camp roster.
The Pistons‘ two-year deal with Josh Jackson is worth the full room exception, according to Keith Smith of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). With no options on year two, Jackson is assured of earning about $9.77MM over the course of the deal, including $4.77MM in 2020/21.
Newly-signed big man Mason Plumlee, meanwhile, also has no options on the final season of his new contract with the club. The three-year deal, initially reported as being worth $25MM, technically has an overall value of $24.66MM, but it does feature a 10% trade kicker, per Smith (Twitter link).
Finally, Lithuanian journalist Donatas Urbonas (Twitter link) provides the details on Deividas Sirvydis‘ new contract. The 2019 second-round pick inked a three-year, minimum-salary deal that features full guarantees in years one and two, with a non-guaranteed salary in 2022/23.
Here’s more on the Pistons:
- In a conference call with reporters today, Pistons GM Troy Weaver said that Jerami Grant was the team’s top target in free agency and that he believes the forward has All-Defensive potential (Twitter links via Omari Sankofa II of The Detroit Free Press and Eric Woodyard of ESPN). “The Pistons had two iterations of great teams, and Jerami could have played on both teams,” Weaver said of Grant (Twitter link via James Edwards III of The Athletic).
- Weaver also said that both Grant and Josh Jackson were players the team wanted to pursue aggressively when free agency opened, per Keith Langlois of Pistons.com. “Both tremendous young men,” Weaver said. “Bring exactly what we needed for this team – long, versatile athletes that can play multiple positions. That’s today’s NBA.”
- While the Pistons will likely be cautious with Blake Griffin after he missed most of 2019/20 with a knee injury, the former All-NBA forward isn’t interested in minutes restrictions, head coach Dwane Casey said this week (Twitter link via Edwards). “He’s full-go,” Casey said. “… We’re a different team with him.”
- The Pistons announced today in a press release that their signing of veteran shooting guard Wayne Ellington is now official. His minimum-salary contract is fully guaranteed, tweets Keith Smith.
LiAngelo Ball, the younger brother of Lonzo Ball and the older brother of LaMelo Ball, has agreed to sign a one-year, non-guaranteed contract with the Pistons, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Ball’s deal will contain an Exhibit 10 clause, per Charania (Twitter link). He’s extremely unlikely to make the Pistons’ regular season roster, but will be eligible to receive a $50K bonus if he plays in the G League.
As NBAGL guru Adam Johnson notes (via Twitter), Detroit’s affiliate – the Grand Rapids Drive – would need to acquire Ball’s rights from the Oklahoma City Blue. The 22-year-old signed a G League contract to join the Thunder’s affiliate back in March, just before the league went on hiatus due to the coronavirus. Current Pistons general manager Troy Weaver worked in the Thunder’s front office at the time.
Ball, a 6’5″ swingman, isn’t considered to have the same upside as his brothers, but has some experience playing professional ball in Lithuania and earned Finals MVP honors for the Los Angeles Ballers of the Junior Basketball Association in 2018.
9:15pm: His contract with the Pistons is now official, the team announced in a press release.
9:47am: The Pistons have reached a three-year contract agreement with 2019 second-round pick Deividas Sirvydis, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN tweets.
This reported transaction adds to the Pistons’ flurry of activity this offseason under new GM Troy Weaver. The third year of the deal will not be guaranteed, James Edwards III of The Athletic tweets.
The 20-year-old Lithuanian swingman was selected with the 37th overall pick in the 2019 draft. The 6’8” Sirvydis signed a multi-year contract with Hapoel Jerusalem in May but departed Israel in November to join Detroit for training camp. The Israeli team will receive a buyout, Donatas Urbonas tweets.
The Pistons gave up three second-round picks to the Mavericks to move up in last year’s draft to snag Sirvydis. He played last season for Vilnius Rytas in Lithuania, averaging 6.6 PPG in 15.5 MPG while appearing in 16 EuroCup games.
The Pistons are hard-capped after acquiring forward Jerami Grant from the Nuggets in a sign-and-trade.
The Pistons have signed first-round picks Killian Hayes, Isaiah Stewart and Saddiq Bey, according to a team press release.
Hayes, a point guard from France, was the highest of those picks, going with the No. 7 selection. Assuming he received 120% of the rookie scale for his slot, Hayes will make $5,307,120 in his first season and can make $24,131,515 over the next four years if team options are exercised in the third and fourth seasons.
Stewart and Bey were acquired in draft night agreements. Stewart, a center, was chosen with the No. 16 pick. He’ll make $3,121,080 in his first year and can make $15,098,193 over the next four seasons.
Bey, a forward, was taken with the 19th selection. He’ll bring in $2,689,920 as a rookie and can make $13,030,303 over the next four seasons.
Guard Saben Lee, a second-round pick, was also inked. He will reportedly play on a two-way contract.
The Pistons have placed swingman Zhaire Smith on waivers, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets.
The transaction was expected, as Detroit’s plan to waive Smith was previously reported. The Pistons officially acquired Smith from the 76ers in exchange for center Tony Bradley a week ago.
Smith was due to make $3.2MM during the upcoming season but that was the only guarantee left on his rookie contract. His $4.915MM salary for the 2021/22 season includes a team option.
There’s a good chance Detroit will use the stretch provision on Smith’s contract. Only the guaranteed money would count, so if the Pistons stretch his contract for three years, the cap hit would be around $1MM per season.
Smith was drafted just outside the lottery with the No. 16 pick in the 2018 draft but his first two seasons were marred by injuries. He’s appeared in just 13 NBA games.
- Former Pistons guard Will Bynum, now a trainer and founder of The Grind Family skills academy for basketball players, recently discussed his experience training new Detroit point guard Killian Hayes, according to Omari Sankofa II of the Detroit Free Press Pistons. “His lateral footwork is really, really good,” Bynum said. “His hands are quick. And he has the patience to defend really, really good rhythm players offensively.”
NOVEMBER 27: The Thunder, Mavericks, and Pistons have officially finalized their three-team trade, according to press releases from the teams. As detailed below, Ariza and Jackson are headed to Oklahoma City, Johnson is going to Dallas, and Wright moves to Detroit.
The Thunder also acquired a 2023 second-round pick (the more favorable of Dallas’ and Miami’s picks) and the Mavs’ 2026 second-rounder in the deal.
NOVEMBER 21: The Thunder, Mavericks, and Pistons have agreed to a three-team trade, according to reports from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter links) and Marc Stein of The New York Times (Twitter links).
The move will send James Johnson from Oklahoma City to Dallas and Delon Wright from Dallas to Detroit. The Thunder will receive Trevor Ariza (from the Pistons), Justin Jackson (from the Mavericks), and – unsurprisingly – some form of draft compensation.
From the Mavericks’ perspective, the deal will allow them to open up a roster spot and add some veteran toughness, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPN, who tweets that Dallas intends to keep Johnson on its roster. Moving Wright, who had two years left on his contract, and taking back Johnson’s expiring $16MM deal also allows the Mavs to create some added cap flexibility for the summer of 2021.
The Pistons will reduce team salary for 2020/21 and will reunite Wright with his former coach in Toronto, Dwane Casey. Having signed a three-year deal in Dallas in 2019, Wright had a decent year off the bench, averaging 6.9 PPG, 3.8 RPG, and 3.3 APG in 73 games (21.5 MPG). But he became expendable when the club acquired Josh Richardson earlier this week.
As for the Thunder, I’d be surprised if they have big plans for Ariza or Jackson — they simply saw another opportunity to pick up an extra draft pick to add to Sam Presti‘s constantly-growing collection.
Ariza, who is still technically a member of the Blazers, has now been part of trade agreements that will send him to Houston, Detroit, and Oklahoma City within the last few days. Those deals will all be completed after the transaction moratorium lifts on Sunday.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
The NBA salary cap is somewhat malleable, with various exceptions allowing every team to surpass the $109,140,000 threshold once their room is used up. In some cases, teams blow past not only the cap limit, but the luxury-tax limit of $132,627,000 as well — the Warriors project to have a nine-figure tax bill this season as a result of their spending.
The NBA doesn’t have a “hard cap” by default, which allows a club like Golden State to build a significant payroll without violating CBA rules. However, there are certain scenarios in which teams can be hard-capped, as we explain in a glossary entry.
When a club uses the bi-annual exception, acquires a player via sign-and-trade, or uses more than the taxpayer portion ($5,718,000) of the mid-level exception, that club will face a hard cap for the remainder of the league year.
When a team becomes hard-capped, it cannot exceed the “tax apron” at any point during the rest of the league year. The tax apron was set $6MM above the luxury tax line in 2017/18 (the first year of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement) and creeps up a little higher each time the cap increases. For the 2020/21 league year, the tax apron – and hard cap for certain clubs – is set at $138,928,000.
More than half the teams in the NBA have been willing to hard-cap themselves this offseason, and in some cases, it will significantly impact a team’s ability to add further reinforcements later in the league year. The Bucks and Lakers are among the teams right up against the hard cap, which may prevent them from being players in free agency during the season unless they can shed salary.
For other clubs, the hard cap is just a technicality that won’t affect their plans. The Hawks and Thunder are among the hard-capped clubs that will have zero practical concerns about reaching that threshold in 2020/21.
Listed below are the hard-capped teams for the 2020/21 league year, along with how they created a hard cap.
Atlanta Hawks
- Acquired Danilo Gallinari from the Thunder via sign-and-trade.
Boston Celtics
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Tristan Thompson.
Charlotte Hornets
- Acquired Gordon Hayward from the Celtics via sign-and-trade.
Dallas Mavericks
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Willie Cauley-Stein and Trey Burke.
Denver Nuggets
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on JaMychal Green and Bol Bol.
- Using bi-annual exception on Facundo Campazzo.
Detroit Pistons
- Acquired Jerami Grant from the Nuggets via sign-and-trade.
Houston Rockets
- Acquired Christian Wood from the Pistons via sign-and-trade.
Los Angeles Clippers
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Serge Ibaka.
Los Angeles Lakers
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Montrezl Harrell.
- Using bi-annual exception on Wesley Matthews.
Miami Heat
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Avery Bradley and Maurice Harkless.
Milwaukee Bucks
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on D.J. Augustin and Bryn Forbes.
- Using bi-annual exception on Bobby Portis.
New York Knicks
- Acquired Austin Rivers from the Rockets via sign-and-trade.
Oklahoma City Thunder
- Acquired Kenrich Williams, Josh Gray, and Zylan Cheatham from the Pelicans via sign-and-trade.
Phoenix Suns
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Jae Crowder.
Portland Trail Blazers
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Derrick Jones.
Toronto Raptors
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Aron Baynes and Alex Len.
Utah Jazz
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Derrick Favors.
Washington Wizards
- Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Robin Lopez.
This list could continue to grow during the offseason if other teams acquire a player via sign-and-trade, use more than the taxpayer portion of their mid-level exception, or use their bi-annual exception.