Extension Candidate

Extension Candidate: John Henson

August 11th, 2015 at 10:29am CST by Chuck Myron

Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

The Bucks trudged through the muck of a 15-win season in 2013/14, and they watched the career of Larry Sanders, the breakout star of the 2013 playoff team, come apart at the seams. So, they deserve tons of credit for their fast ascent over the past 12 months, snagging the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference this past season and landing Greg Monroe, No. 7 on the June Hoops Rumors Free Agent Power Rankings. John Henson, Milwaukee’s lottery pick from 2012, has been there for all of it, and it seems like both sides want to continue their partnership for years to come, as they’re reportedly on track for a rookie scale extension before the October 31st deadline.

Still, Henson hasn’t exactly seemed the most likely candidate to become a franchise cornerstone. He’s never started more than 23 games in a season, and last year, he averaged just 18.3 minutes per game. Monroe’s presence makes it difficult to envision his role expanding, unless Milwaukee wants to play two traditional big men, the sort of arrangement that appeared to hasten Monroe’s departure from the Pistons. Besides, Jabari Parker looks like the team’s future at power forward, particularly with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton commanding spots on the wing. Henson may well start early in the season if Parker isn’t healthy, but the No. 2 overall pick will almost certainly reclaim his job before long.

Henson seems destined to become, at best, a sixth man if the Bucks keep their existing core together. Still, Milwaukee apparently sees him as a key part of that group, even though he seemed to be available, if only for a truly attractive return, at the trade deadline. Grantland’s Zach Lowe speculated last month that Henson would end up with salaries of $10MM or more, money that’s not altogether unwarranted for a 24-year-old center with a lottery pedigree who’s indeed been productive in his limited time on the floor. The perplexing part is that it’s the Bucks who appear ready to pay him.

The former 14th overall pick’s field goal percentage has risen each of the past two years from a subpar 48.6% as a rookie. He shot 56.6% this past season, a year in which he attempted a far greater percentage of his shots from 3 feet and in, according to Basketball-Reference data. Henson’s PER has held steady, and his 18.0 figure from 2014/15 matches his career mark. He’s a strong defender who did just fine inheriting the role of rim protector from Sanders, as he averaged an impressive 2.0 blocks per game in spite of his short minutes last season. Indeed, Basketball-Reference’s Defensive Box Plus Minus shows he made quite a leap this past season, though ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus Minus wasn’t quite as kind, ranking him as only the 31st-best center in that category. Still, the Bucks were a better defensive team with Henson on the floor by a measure of 2.5 points per 100 possessions, as NBA.com shows. Yet perhaps most noteworthy among the NBA.com data is that the Bucks were stronger overall when Henson wasn’t playing because of the disparity on offense. Milwaukee scored 102.4 points per 100 possessions when Henson sat and just 96.2 when he hit the court.

That’s a noisy stat, since it doesn’t account for the other personnel on the floor. Still, it highlights the notion that it would be a risky proposition to commit eight-figure salaries to a player who’s averaged only 8.1 points per game for his career.

The Bucks nonetheless have money to burn. They have only about $36MM committed for 2016/17, though that doesn’t include nearly $13.3MM in rookie scale team options for Parker and others that Milwaukee seems likely to exercise. Still, $49.3MM against a projected $89MM salary cap leaves plenty of flexibility, and the Bucks have to spend at least 90% of the salary cap anyway. Committing part of that money to an efficient, shot-blocking center who’s on the upswing probably wouldn’t constitute the worst move a team has ever made.

Most years, the smart play for the Bucks would entail waiting another year to see how they would find time and space for Henson amid the presence of Monroe, and whether Henson would take another step forward in his development. Next summer’s rising cap and relatively thin crop of 2016 free agents, after a few stars on the top, seems to be driving Milwaukee to the bargaining table now. The extension window provides for exclusive negotiating, so another team with even more cap space to play with, one that could offer Henson a starting job, can’t jump in with an eye-popping number and force the Bucks to match a player-friendly offer sheet, as might be the case in restricted free agency next summer.

The Jim Tanner client may jump at such an opportunity to cash in a year from now, but if the Bucks indeed come with an extension offer of $10MM or more per year, it would be exceedingly difficult for a player who didn’t see 20 minutes per game last season to pass that up. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the Alec Burks extension from last fall, though Burks had played 28.1 minutes per game the season before the Jazz bestowed a deal worth $42MM plus incentives over four years. Burks missed most of this past season with a shoulder injury, and it’s not a given that the Jazz would be so munificent if he were a restricted free agent this summer. An injury, and a team that performs well in his absence, just as the Jazz did without Burks down the stretch this year, might lead the Bucks to conclude that Henson is expendable.

So, I think the sides will indeed come to an extension, and while Lowe’s $10MM-plus prediction seems surprising on the surface, the circumstances suggest that it’s a reasonable expectation. At worst, a fairly priced Henson could become a valuable trade chip for the Bucks down the road.

Do you think the Bucks and Henson will do an extension, and if so, how much do you think he’ll get? Leave a comment to tell us.

Extension Candidate: Harrison Barnes

August 6th, 2015 at 9:58am CST by Chuck Myron

NBA: Golden State Warriors at Phoenix Suns

Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

The championship that the Warriors won this past season was in a way like a fancy dinner out. The meal could scarcely have been better, but now it’s time to pay the check. Golden State will still get off much more cheaply than it could have for this coming season and next, with MVP Stephen Curry tied to a discount contract through 2016/17. However, the fun of winning a title with starting forwards who combined to make less than $4MM is over. Draymond Green will cost $82MM over the next five years, and an extension during this offseason’s eligibility window for Harrison Barnes stands to be even pricier. Grantland’s Zach Lowe estimates that the Warriors and Barnes will negotiate within the space between DeMarre Carroll‘s new four-year, $58MM deal with the Raptors, an average annual value of $14.5MM, and the maximum, which for Barnes is projected to hit $20.4MM.

That’s a fairly wide range, and it epitomizes the back-and-forth career that Barnes has had. He was the top recruit coming out of high school in the 2010 Recruiting Services Consensus Index, but he slipped to the No. 7 overall pick after two years at North Carolina. He started as a rookie, but when the Warriors acquired Andre Iguodala the following summer, Barnes became a reserve, and his game stagnated. He was the subject of trade rumors in the middle of his second season, and his name surfaced in Golden State’s Kevin Love talks last summer, when it appeared that the Timberwolves weren’t as high on Barnes as the Warriors were. Enter new coach Steve Kerr, who made the tricky decision to start Barnes over Iguodala this past season. The gamble paid off and then some, with Barnes showing improved play and Iguodala performing so well as a sixth man that he became just the second bench player ever to win Finals MVP.

Of course, it’s not as if Barnes became a 20-point scorer or the sort of all-court force that traditionally commands eye-popping salaries. He barely managed to become a double-figure scorer for the first time in his career, averaging 10.1 points per game, and though he became more efficient, his 13.4 PER is still below the 15.0 mark of an average player. However, at age 22 for most of this past season, he was a plus defender, registering a positive Basketball-Reference Defensive Box Plus Minus, a victory for any wing player. The 6’7″ specimen with a 6’11” wingspan came in 12th among small forwards in ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus Minus, and he would have been ranked more highly if Green, rated No. 1, were listed as a power forward.

Kerr’s offense featured different shot selection for Barnes, giving him fewer mid-range looks and more from behind the three-point line and at the basket, as Basketball-Reference shows. The modernized distribution resulted in a sizable year-over-year leap in shooting percentage, from 39.9% to 48.2%. His 40.5% three-point shooting was the league’s 12th-most accurate mark in that category.

The Warriors, in a vacuum, would surely prefer to see if Barnes can keep it up rather than tethering themselves to a deal that would make him the latest Warrior to make more than Curry. Golden State does have the power to control the small forward’s destination beyond this coming season, but restricted free agency can be unpredictable, particularly if the Warriors have interest in limiting his cost. The prospect of unleashing Barnes into a market that yielded Carroll’s deal and $70MM over five years for Khris Middleton must surely be intriguing for agent Jeff Wechsler, particularly given the relative dearth of star free agents in next year’s class outside of Kevin Durant, Mike Conley, Al Horford and Joakim Noah.

Rookie scale extensions, particularly those that aren’t agreed upon in early July, tend to involve team-friendly terms and fall short of the max. So, even though the Warriors haven’t given out their Designated Player title to anyone yet, allowing them to sign Barnes to an extension of five years instead of four, it’s unlikely that weapon comes into play, since five-year extensions have to start at the maximum salary.

Golden State, under reigning Executive of the Year Bob Myers, has shown a preference for signing extensions rather than allowing key players to hit free agency, making preemptive strikes with Curry, Klay Thompson and Andrew Bogut. The Warriors used the timing of the extension to their advantage with Thompson, convincing him to agree to take a starting salary that was his projected maximum salary at the time, but no more. It was, in essence, a plausible max extension, but the max turned out to be about $900K greater than the October projection, a savings of more than $4MM over the life of the deal for Golden State.

The Warriors seem unlikely to dance so closely with the max for Barnes, but what happened with Thompson demonstrates the team’s willingness to get creative to forge a deal. Barnes has motivation to come to a deal while his improvements and contribution to a championship are still fresh in the team’s mind, and to hedge against any regression, be it in his own game or the team’s performance. He’d be betting against himself if he did so, of course.

Jimmy Butler is the archetype for a defensive-minded wing player who turned down an extension, blossomed as an offensive player in his fourth year, and wound up with handsome rewards. Golden State will have to be aggressive in its offer, but I suspect the team will be. I don’t think the Warriors want to approach $20MM a year, but a proposal of between $16-18MM per season that would make Barnes the highest-paid member of his team would probably be enough to convince him to jump on it. Such a number would also be far enough from the projected max to give the Warriors hope that they’ll once more see a bargain when they look back on the deal and take comfort in knowing the youngest starter from a 67-win championship team is committed for the long term.

How do you see extension talks between the Warriors and Barnes playing out? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Extension Candidate Series

October 17th, 2014 at 6:23pm CST by Chuck Myron

Time is running out for teams to sign eligible players to rookie scale extensions this year, as the October 31st deadline looms for players and front offices working to strike a deal and avoid next summer’s restricted free agency. The market for restricted free agents this past summer bore plenty of surprises, and while some players, agents and franchises are willing to gamble, others will surely opt for security. The allure of the known quantity has already led to rookie scale extensions for the Cavs and Kyrie Irving, the Nuggets and Kenneth Faried, and the Suns and twins Marcus and Markieff Morris.

We’ve been taking focused, in-depth looks at some of the most intriguing candidates for extensions over the past few months. We’ll continue to do the same if there’s a compelling case to be made for one of the players eligible for veteran extensions, as we’ve already done with Rudy Gay, though such deals are rare.

This list of our Extension Candidate posts can be found at any time under the “Hoops Rumors Features” menu on the right sidebar. Here, in alphabetical order, are the extension candidates we’ve previewed so far, including those who’ve already signed extensions:

Extension Candidate: Alec Burks

October 13th, 2014 at 2:46pm CST by Chuck Myron

Just as with teammate Enes Kanter, it was somewhat surprising to see that the Jazz are talking extension with Alec Burks. The shooting guard has made just a dozen career starts, and with this summer’s addition of No. 5 overall pick Dante Exum and retention of free agent Gordon Hayward, it doesn’t seem like there will be many starts to go around in the years to come, with Trey Burke already firmly entrenched. Still, Burks is a 23-year-old former 12th overall pick who’s coming off a season of noticeable improvement, and the Jazz have no shortage of financial flexibility for seasons to come.

The Andy Miller client was one of many young players on the Jazz who took on an expanded role last season, but his increase in production outstripped his increase in minutes. Burks set career-best per-36-minute marks of 17.9 points and 3.5 assists while recording a 15.8 PER, also a career high. He maintained strong three-point shooting, a part of his game that had been a question mark coming out of the University of Colorado, nailing 35.0% of his attempts from behind the arc, just a tick below the 35.9% he made in 2012/13. His markedly improved 45.7% field goal percentage overall was chiefly the result of better mid-range shooting, as Basketball-Reference shows he significantly increased his accuracy from 3 to 16 feet away from the basket. Burks has also defended well, as the Jazz have given up fewer points per possession when he’s been on the floor compared to when he’s sat in each of the past two seasons, according to NBA.com.

The Jazz only have about $36.5MM in commitments for 2015/16, a number that should swell to about $40MM once they pick up their team options on Burke and Rudy Gobert. That would give them max-level cap flexibility beneath the projected $66.5MM salary cap for that season. Extensions for Burks and Kanter that together add up to no more than $10MM in annual salaries would take Utah down to roughly the sort of cap room necessary to sign a restricted free agent to a max contract. The Jazz are much more likely to attract the sort of free agent who’d warrant the 25% max than a veteran who could make 30% or 35% of the salary cap, since star free agents have never clamored to go to Utah. Still, it will be quite difficult for the team to attract even a player befitting the lowest version of the NBA’s maximum salary, particularly if the Jazz end up in the lottery again this year, as expected.

The Jazz have instead used their cap space in more unconventional ways in recent years. They essentially rented it to the Warriors in 2013/14, as GM Dennis Lindsey agreed to take on the inflated contracts of Richard Jefferson, Andris Biedrins and Brandon Rush for a slew of draft picks. Lindsey and the Jazz did the same on a smaller scale this summer, garnering a pair of second-round draft picks in exchange for absorbing close to $4.3MM combined in guaranteed salary for Steve Novak and Carrick Felix. Eventually, Lindsey will have to decide whether securing the draftees the team has brought aboard over the last several years is more important than acquiring picks to bear fruit in years to come.

Utah isn’t at that point yet, and it probably won’t be until at least the summer of 2017, when the rookie deals of Burke and Gobert are set to expire and Hayward can opt out of his contract. An extension for Burks would almost certainly carry through that summer. No one knows just what the salary cap will look like at that point, but Lindsey and the Jazz have to be thinking ahead.

An extension that runs three seasons instead of the standard four would at least allow the Jazz to move on from Burks in the summer of 2018, when Derrick Favors is due to hit free agency. The same could be accomplished if the Jazz include non-guaranteed salary in the final season of a four-year extension for Burks, though all four of the seasons on the extension that Quincy Pondexter signed last year with the Grizzlies are guaranteed, a point that Miller would surely bring up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Jazz would counter with the idea of giving Burks more than the $14MM total that Pondexter is receiving in exchange for a non-guaranteed season. Utah would also be wise to try to frontload the salaries so that the majority of the cost comes while the team still has plenty of cap flexibility.

Lindsey and the Jazz seem willing to commit to their young talent if those players are willing to bet that their market value won’t escalate significantly in the years to come, and while that sort of agreement is elusive, it’s worthwhile for the Jazz to pursue it. Last year’s extension with Favors looks reasonably team-friendly compared to the max offer sheet that Hayward scored in restricted free agency, and surely Lindsey has that dichotomy in mind as he sits at the negotiating table with the agents for Burks and Kanter. It still seems unlikely, based on the history of rookie scale extensions, that the Jazz or any team would strike a deal with a player who doesn’t seem to have superstar potential, but Burks is on an upward arc, and Utah appears eager to keep him from free agency if it’s feasible. Other teams will surely be watching how these negotiations play out to gauge whether they, too, should consider granting rookie scale extensions to a wider range of eligible players.

Extension Candidate: Brandon Knight

October 3rd, 2014 at 4:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Bucks never seemed to have much of a chance to sign an extension the last time they were eligible to negotiate one with a point guard named Brandon who went in the top 10 picks in the draft, so perhaps it’s only logical that they’re reportedly anxious to reach a deal this time. Milwaukee appears motivated to come to terms with Brandon Knight rather than let him hit restricted free agency, as Brandon Jennings did in 2013, but there aren’t so many similarities beyond their names, pedigree and the position they play on the floor. There’s been no suggestion that Knight is eager to leave Milwaukee, as there was with Jennings. Even though Knight, the No. 8 overall selection in the 2011 draft, went two picks higher in the order than Jennings, the No. 10 choice from 2009, Knight doesn’t seem to have quite as much upside.

Knight’s agent, Arn Tellem, would probably dispute that last point, noting that Knight’s 17.9 points per game in his third NBA season this past year were more than Jennings has posted in all but one of his five seasons in the league. Knight has also proven a more effective three-point shooter over the course of his career, if only slightly so, and his 16.5 PER last season was better than Jennings’ mark of 15.6 for the Pistons. Still, even when Jennings put up the worst assists-to-turnovers ratio of his career, it was better than the one that Knight produced last year, when he recorded career bests in assists (4.9) and turnovers (2.6) per game.

Knight seems sensitive to criticism that he’s not cut out to play point guard, recently insisting to Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that it’s his best position. New coach Jason Kidd expressed confidence in Knight’s abilities but cautioned that he may still see time at shooting guard, as Gardner also noted. The Bucks have alternatives at the point, having claimed Kendall Marshall, who’s little more than two years removed from having been a lottery pick and who averaged 8.8 assists per game last season in 54 appearances with the Lakers. That number for Marshall reflects Mike D’Antoni‘s up-tempo scheme as well as the point guard’s own ability, but Marshall’s presence on the roster should serve to motivate Knight to either sign an extension, take command of the point guard position this season, or both. Marshall’s minimum-salary contract is up at the end of the season, and if he proves he can be a better point guard than Knight this year, it’s quite possible the Bucks would choose Marshall instead if they don’t already have Knight on a long-term deal. That threat is tempered somewhat because Milwaukee would have full Bird rights on Knight and only Early Bird rights on Marshall, but it still exists.

Moving to shooting guard would put Knight in a crowded mix on the wings that includes Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jabari Parker, O.J. Mayo, Khris Middleton, Jerryd Bayless, Jared Dudley and Damien Inglis, all of whom are either building blocks or have guaranteed salary on the books for 2015/16. It’s hard to see Knight beating out either Antetokounmpo or Parker for a starting spot long-term. The team’s desire to strike an extension clearly signals belief that Knight can handle the point, but the ability to negotiate from a position of strength no doubt fuels GM John Hammond‘s push for a deal. Fourth-year players who pass on extensions routinely bet on themselves, but in Knight’s case, there’s a lot to lose, particularly considering what happened on the restricted free agency market this summer.

Phoenix’s willingness to come up significantly on its four-year, $48MM offer to Eric Bledsoe, finally striking a five-year, $70MM arrangement, was a positive coda to a tense standoff that cast the market for point guards in a team-friendly light. There weren’t many front offices clamoring for free agents at the position Knight wants to prove he can play, in large measure because the league is flooded with quality point guards. Rajon Rondo is set to hit free agency next summer, and Ricky Rubio, Kemba Walker and Reggie Jackson are in line compete with Knight on the restricted market, contingent on whether they sign extensions.

Teams would probably be less anxious to pursue Knight if they instead see him more as an undersized shooting guard than as a point guard, even though smaller backcourts are more common than they used to be around the league. Knight’s wingspan of nearly 6’7″ helps him defensively against larger players, but it’s unclear if his defense is an asset. The Pistons were 7.3 points per 100 possessions better with Knight on the floor in 2012/13 compared to when he wasn’t, as NBA.com shows, but the Bucks were 4.0 points per 100 possessions worse with Knight in the lineup this past year.

The last point guard to sign an extension with an average annual value of less than $10MM was Mike Conley, and that deal has worked out remarkably well for the Grizzlies. Tellem surely doesn’t want a repeat of that situation, and so it only seems logical that he’d respond to the Bucks’ enthusiasm for an extension with proposals involving more than $10MM a year. It’s conceivable that the Bucks envision compromising with a deal similar to the four-year, $41MM arrangement the Sixers gave Jrue Holiday two years ago, an extension that proved tradeable even before it kicked in. Still, I think the Bucks would like to see whether doubts about his place on the roster and the market for point guards around the league lurk in the back of Knight’s mind and motivate him to sign a bargain deal for less than what Holiday received. I don’t think Tellem will let that happen, so it’s tough to see a path to a deal.

Extension Candidate: Rudy Gay

September 24th, 2014 at 1:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

Only four players have signed veteran extensions since the existing collective bargaining agreement took effect after the 2011 lockout. There’s little motivation for players who aren’t on rookie scale contracts to extend their deals rather than hit free agency, since the NBA places limits on the dollars and years allowed in an extension that aren’t there when a veteran hits the open market. Kobe Bryant, Zach Randolph and Andrew Bogut signed their veteran extensions likely knowing they’d entered the back stretch of their respective careers and would be unable to command max contracts in free agency. Still, their teams found them productive enough to bank on them at eight-figure salaries for a few more years. It’s a little harder to see Tony Parker‘s motivation for committing to three years and not quite $43.336MM when he could have garnered more as a free agent next summer, but the Spurs have a long history of convincing their best players to take less.

The Kings have no such track record, and Rudy Gay just turned 28 last month, putting him squarely in the prime of his career. He expressed supreme conflict about whether to pick up a player option worth $19.3MM for the coming season before ultimately deciding to do so. Still, Gay probably isn’t the sort of player who could command the maximum in free agency, or even a salary close to what he’ll make this year, even after having begun to repair a reputation that the harsh glare of advanced statistics had cast in an unflattering light. In his case, signing an extension wouldn’t reduce the value of the salaries he’d see, though it would only allow him to add three seasons onto his existing deal, which is set to expire in the summer. The client of Octagon Sports agents Jeff Austin and Alex Saratsis could instead re-sign with the Kings for as many as five more years if he waited until free agency to strike a deal.

Still, Kings owner Vivek Ranadive seems enamored with Gay, and it’s not the worst idea to negotiate when you’re receiving praise from the boss. Ranadive reportedly pursued Gay seemingly from the moment he bought the club last year, explaining after the December trade that brought him from the Raptors that not all the next-level metrics paint an unfavorable picture of the 6’8″ forward. GM Pete D’Alessandro has expressed a desire for a long-term future with Gay, and the team made a concerted effort to convince him to pick up his lucrative player option for this season. DeMarcus Cousins tried to ensure his teammate would stick around, too, a telling endorsement considering the long-term rookie scale extension that Cousins signed last summer, as well as the center’s temperamental nature.

That the Kings were willing to go to lengths to convince Gay to take up such a large chunk of space on their payroll this season says a lot about how they regard him. That’s especially true given that some NBA GMs told Grantland’s Zach Lowe last year that they didn’t think Gay was worth signing for the mid-level exception. Gay emerged from the team’s pitch meeting impressed, though when he made the call to opt in, he decided to hold off on extension talks until later in the summer. Gay quickly expressed contentment in Sacramento following last year’s trade and has said that he can envision a long-term future with the Kings, though he also made plain his desire to play for a winner. Still, Gay is a believer in the team’s talent and coach Michael Malone, and he reportedly feels confident about Ranadive’s commitment to turning around the team’s woeful fortunes.

Gay’s partial season in Sacramento was as successful a campaign as any he’s had in the NBA. Traditional stats like scoring, assists and shooting percentage went up, as did his PER and win shares per 48 minutes as he eschewed long-range looks for shots closer to the basket, as I detailed this spring. The Kings were more porous defensively in terms of points per possession when Gay was on the floor, as NBA.com shows, but he more than made up for that with his offensive contributions.

Ranadive and company weren’t the only ones to take notice. At the trade deadline, the Suns appeared to have interest in signing him this past summer if he were to opt out, and it seems reasonable to suspect that the GMs who would have hesitated to touch him for the mid-level have revised their evaluations. There would probably be a robust market for Gay if he were to hit free agency next summer, but considering that Sacramento clamored to keep Gay at more than $19MM this season, it’s unclear whether any team would be willing to meet what Sacramento offers. Still, there’s a strong chance that Gay would emerge as the most prominent small forward on the market. LeBron James and Luol Deng have player options for 2015/16, and Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler are on rookie scale contracts, meaning they’d only be restricted free agents if their respective teams don’t grant them extensions this fall. Aside from them, there are few inspiring names among the potential 2015 free agent small forwards.

There’s no October 31st deadline involved with veteran extensions as there is with rookie scale extensions, even though it would make sense for Gay and for the team to complete a deal before the start of the season if they are to do so. Gay is in a position of strength amid his revival in Sacramento. Barring a severe regression, he’ll probably have plenty of leverage next summer, too, when market competition figures to be scarce and teams like the Lakers and Knicks are poised to have money to burn beneath a salary cap that some teams reportedly project to exceed $70MM. Gay would also be able to lock in a longer-term deal, and thus more guaranteed paydays, if he and his agents dismiss the idea of an extension. It would certainly be reasonable for Gay to come to terms soon to capitalize on the enthusiasm the Kings have about him, but I still don’t expect him to join Bogut, Bryant, Randolph and Parker among the four other veteran extension signees.

Extension Candidate: Kemba Walker

September 15th, 2014 at 5:02pm CST by Chuck Myron

Kemba Walker rode quite a wave into the NBA three years ago, having been a consensus first-team All-American at Connecticut, which he led to the national championship as a senior. Charlotte spent its lottery pick on him, trusting that he could meet or exceed the expectations incumbent upon a ninth overall selection. The circumstances surrounding Walker quickly darkened, as he spent his rookie season in and out of the starting lineup for a Bobcats team that compiled the worst winning percentage in NBA history. Al Jefferson and coach Steve Clifford, deservedly, receive much of the credit for having turned the franchise around upon their arrival last year, leaving Walker a secondary figure of sorts as the October 31st deadline for an extension to his rookie scale contract looms. Still, Walker’s game has grown over his time in the league, and while he hasn’t become a star, GM Rich Cho must decide soon if the 24-year-old has shown enough to prove that he has what it takes to be the starting point guard on a championship-level team.

Charlotte’s addition of Lance Stephenson and an Eastern Conference that’s wide open beyond the Cavs and Bulls puts Walker in line to play in the sort of high-leverage games this year that would help the newly rechristened Hornets test his meddle. That won’t help Cho and his staff as they ponder an extension, given the early deadline, and while it ostensibly would give them reason to hesitate, since a golden opportunity for evaluation awaits in the months ahead, the Hornets won’t be the only team watching the Jeff Schwartz client. Allowing Walker to hit restricted free agency next summer would invite bidders to drive up the price to retain him if he puts up strong numbers and helps lead the Hornets deep into the playoffs. The Hornets are well aware of how the process works, having signed Gordon Hayward to a maximum-salary offer sheet this summer that forced the Jazz, who exercised their right to match, to pay him more than they’d offered during extension talks last year.

Walker’s most significant leap to date came in between his first and second seasons, when he grabbed the full-time starting role and set career highs virtually across the board. A few of those numbers stagnated or declined this past season even as Walker saw more minutes per game, as his scoring average held steady at 17.7 points per contest while his shooting percentage dropped from 42.3% to 39.3%. The 6’1″ Bronx native took three-pointers a bit more often and slightly improved his accuracy, from 32.2% to 33.3%, but what seemed to drive down his field goal percentage the most was an increase in his frequency of long two-point attempts and a decrease of his shots at the rim. He more frequently shot from 16 feet and out than he did from three feet and in, according to his Basketball-Reference page, after the inverse was true during his second season in the league.

Ball-distribution is the No. 1 assignment for many, if not most, point guards, and the data suggests Walker has shown consistent improvement in that part of the game. He dished out 6.1 assists against 2.3 turnovers per game last season, the best ratio of his career. His per-36-minute numbers in assists and turnovers were also the best he’s recorded to date. Still, those gains weren’t enough to offset his poor shot selection, as his PER declined from 18.8 in 2012/13 to 16.8 this past year.

Walker was fifth in the league with 2.0 steals per game in 2012/13, but last season saw that number cut nearly in half, to 1.2. The team seemed to benefit from his more conservative approach. The then-Bobcats gave up just 99.1 points per 100 possessions with Walker on the floor compared to 105.1 when he sat last season, according to NBA.com. The gap wasn’t nearly as profound the year before, when Walker’s lineups gave up 108.2 points per 100 possessions compared to the 110.7 points per 100 possessions the Cats surrendered without him. Charlotte was statistically better defensively with Walker on the floor even when he was a rookie, though his teammates weren’t exactly world-beaters.

John Wall was the only point guard to receive a rookie-scale extension last year, and Walker isn’t in his max-salary neighborhood. Three point guards received rookie-scale extensions the year before, with Ty Lawson and Jrue Holiday the closest comparisons. Walker’s ball-handling numbers closely mirror what Lawson put up the season before he signed his four-year, $48MM extension, and they exceed what Holiday put up right before his four-year, $41MM extension, even though Walker lags behind both Lawson and Holiday as a shooter. Neither deal comes off as a bargain for their respective teams two years later, but they aren’t especially player-friendly contracts, either.

The Hornets would probably be pleased to come away with an extension that committed them to Walker for four years and $40MM, as I predicted earlier in the offseason that they would. Schwartz would rightly hesitate to let his client go for such a number and instead target one in the $41-48MM range that Holiday and Lawson established. We’ll soon see just how high the Hornets are willing to go to keep their positive momentum of the past two offseasons rolling.

Extension Candidate: Nikola Vucevic

September 10th, 2014 at 10:44am CST by Chuck Myron

There’s a chance that one day the 2012 trade that sent Dwight Howard out of Orlando will be remembered equally as well for having brought another All-Star center to the Magic. Nikola Vucevic blossomed when coach Jacque Vaughn gave him a starting role and 33.2 minutes a night in 2012/13, the Swiss native’s first in Orlando after he spent his rookie season mostly on the bench in Philadelphia. He was a terror on the boards, averaging 11.9 per game, almost as many as Howard, who led the league that season. Vucevic averaged 13.1 points a night and ran up a 17.8 PER, and it seemed like the Magic had snagged a star in the making at the same time they parted with the franchise’s preeminent 21st century figure.

This past season tempered that sort of optimism as Vucevic’s numbers plateaued and the Magic slogged through another sub-25-win year. His scoring average was up to 14.2 PPG in slightly fewer minutes each night, but his shooting percentage was lower. His rebounding dropped to 11.0 RPG, a declined backed up by dips in his per-minute rebounding numbers and his total rebound percentage. The Magic gave up just as many points per possession when Vucevic was on the floor compared to when he sat in 2012/13, according to NBA.com, but the Magic were more porous when Vucevic played than when he sat last season. There were subtle signs of improvement last season, like his 18.8 PER, a point higher than the season before, but his steps backward in other categories seemed to cancel out those gains, at best. Vucevic turns 24 next month, and it’s worth wondering if he’s simply not going to get much better.

A report as early as January identified mutual interest between the Magic and Vucevic in a long-term future together, and a dispatch from earlier this summer indicated that talks would pick up sometime around Labor Day. We’ve come to that point on the calendar, and both sides must reckon with the trick that is determining whether the improvement between his first and second seasons is more indicative of the player he’ll become than what took place between years two and three.

Vucevic and his representatives at BDA Sports Management have the allure of size in their corner, even though Vucevic is somewhat short for a center at 6’10”. That helps explain why he’s never averaged more than a block per game and hasn’t shown signs of developing into a plus defender, never mind the elite stopper that Howard was during his time in Orlando. Still, defense is a strong suit of rookie power forward Aaron Gordon, and that fact surely wasn’t lost on Magic GM Rob Hennigan when he drafted Gordon at No. 4 in June and decided to address his team’s frontcourt before he did so with the backcourt. The chance to have both inside positions covered with promising young players for the foreseeable future is the dream of just about every GM, and it’s up to Hennigan to figure out just how promising Vucevic really is.

The Pistons have faced a similar dilemma over the past year with Greg Monroe, who has a track record of greater production than Vucevic has. Detroit has Andre Drummond to go with Monroe on the interior, but the team complicated that dynamic when it signed Josh Smith for four years and $54MM last summer. Still, the Pistons never seemed willing to meet Monroe’s demand for a max salary, and now he’s poised to slip away in unrestricted free agency next summer after signing his qualifying offer. There’s been no suggestion that Vucevic will similarly hold out for the max, but with the agent for Ricky Rubio having asked for it and the Warriors having budgeted for such a deal with Klay Thompson, it wouldn’t be shocking if Vucevic wants to test his worth on the market.

The Magic have more cap flexibility for the years ahead than the Pistons do, but Orlando also brought in a veteran on a fairly lucrative contract who plays Vucevic’s position, just as Detroit did with Monroe and Smith. Yet there are few other similarities between Smith, whose faulty three-point shooting makes him a focal point for criticism, and Channing Frye, a career 38.5% marksman from behind the arc. Frye is also on a four-year, $32MM deal that’s almost half as expensive as Smith’s, and Frye’s contract is frontloaded, making it less of a burden as years go by.

Still, the Magic must be careful when they hand out extensions, since Vucevic is one of eight Orlando players on rookie scale contracts. They’ll have to be especially judicious when it comes to handing out a five-year extension, which would trigger the Designated Player rule and keep the team from giving out an extension of that length to any of its other guys on rookie scale contracts. It’s unlikely that the Magic will be able to retain every one of those former first-round picks long-term, so tough choices loom.

I suspect that Orlando will pass on an extension for Tobias Harris this year, as I explained earlier. Conversely, I predicted that the Magic would go for a four-year, $48MM extension with Vucevic, similar to what the Jazz and Derrick Favors settled on last fall. There were more unknowns with Favors, who had yet to assume a full-time starting role when he signed that extension, but Utah was in a similar position, with plenty of young players poised to come up for new deals in the years ahead. If either side were to balk at such an arrangement, it would be Vucevic, who might be unwilling to tether himself to a contract that would have the potential to become a bargain even before it took effect if his game takes a leap this year. It’s tough to argue that a player who’s not a prolific scorer or a stout defender is worth more than $12MM a year, but it seems reasonable to think that Vucevic’s decision will come down to whether he’s willing to gamble that he can add at least one of those distinctions to his résumé in the near future.

Extension Candidate: Tobias Harris

September 4th, 2014 at 10:45am CST by Chuck Myron

No player among those I listed as long shots to receive rookie scale extensions by the October 31st deadline gave me pause as much as Tobias Harris did. He’s one of a coterie of up-and-comers on the Magic roster who flashed star potential in the months after Orlando acquired him in the J.J. Redick trade at the 2013 deadline. The combo forward became the focal point of the Magic’s offense down the stretch that season, attempting 14.7 shots per game, more than anyone else on that team took.

This past season, Arron Afflalo and Nikola Vucevic put up more shots each night than Harris did, and rookie Victor Oladipo took just as many. Harris was just a part-time starter, and entering this season, he figures to compete for playing time long-term against Maurice Harkless at small forward and No. 4 overall pick Aaron Gordon at power forward. That casts serious doubt on whether the Magic intend to commit themselves to Harris for years to come if the Henry Thomas client doesn’t make it worth their while with a significant financial sacrifice.

Harris wasn’t quite as efficient in 2013/14 as he was during his 27-game stint with the Magic the previous season after coming over via trade, with his PER dipping from 17.0 to 16.5. That’s not much of a drop, of course, and it seems reasonable to suspect that’s simply a regression to the mean that took place as a result of a larger sample size.

If there was any reason to suspect that Harris was less efficient this past season, it would probably have to do with his shot selection. He took fewer shots from inside 10 feet and more long two-pointers, according to his Basketball-Reference page. More than one out of every five of his field goal attempts came from between the three-point line and 16 feet from the basket, a virtual no man’s land given the degree of difficulty and lack of reward. Perhaps Harris chose those shots because he lacked confidence in his three-point stroke. He made just 25.4% of his three-point attempts last season, a rate lower than in either of his first two NBA seasons, but he made 40.9% of his long twos. His effective field goal percentage from his first half-season with the Magic was virtually identical to his mark from last season, so his shots were just as productive as they had been, even if there seems to be room for improvement.

Shooters often get better over time, and Harris is still quite young, having entered the draft the first year he was eligible to do so. He’s already a proficient rebounder, as this past season he was 14th in the league in rebounding rate among players his height (6’8″) or shorter who averaged 10 or more minutes per game. There’s reason to be concerned about his defense, as the Magic gave up more points per possession when he was on the floor than when he was off last season, according to NBA.com, and his 6’11” wingspan isn’t altogether remarkable, particularly if he plays power forward. His wide body suggests he’ll have increasing trouble keeping up with opposing small forwards as he ages. Still, technique and system have much to do with defensive performance, and few young players are quick to establish themselves as strong defenders in the NBA. He averaged only 11.5 minutes per game over 70 appearances in his first season and a half with Milwaukee prior to the trade, so this past year was his first full season as a rotation mainstay for an NBA team.

Harris is part of a rebuilding effort in Orlando, but GM Rob Hennigan isn’t mimicking Sixers GM Sam Hinkie‘s bare bones approach. Hennigan is unloading veterans, as he did with Afflalo, but he’s also signing them, as he did with Channing Frye, Ben Gordon and Luke Ridnour this summer. The two-year, $9MM Gordon deal was a head-scratcher, but it’s only guaranteed for the first season. The same is true of the two-year, $5.5MM contract the Magic gave Ridnour. Frye is the only long-term investment, at a fully guaranteed four years and $32MM, and he most directly affects Harris. The 31-year-old Frye figures to take up some minutes at power forward when he’s not playing center, and he occupies space on the team’s ledger for the years ahead, when more of the Magic’s crop of promising young players will be up for their next deals.

Frye’s contract is frontloaded, and Orlando only has about $15MM in commitments for 2015/16, the first year an extension for Harris would kick in. Still, that figure doesn’t count a slam-dunk team option for Oladipo that’s worth more than $5MM. Rookie scale team options for Harkless, Andrew Nicholson and Evan Fournier total more than $7.5MM, so the Magic will reasonably be looking at about $27.5MM in commitments for 2015/16, and that’s without an extension for Vucevic. I predicted that Vucevic would come away with four years and $48MM, so another $12MM for 2015/16 would bring Orlando to roughly $39.5MM, $27MM beneath the projected salary cap. That’d still give the team the chance to open plenty of cap room next summer, but an eight-figure salary for Harris would challenge the Magic’s ability to afford maximum-salary free agents not only in 2015, but in years ahead, when the rookie deals of Harkless, Fournier, and Oladipo will come to term.

NBA executives covet flexibility these days, and signing both Vucevic and Harris to lucrative long-term extensions would impinge upon the maneuvers the Magic could make in free agency as well as the trade market, since both would be subject to the Poison Pill Provision this year. It seems more likely that Hennigan would choose to secure Vucevic rather than Harris, given the scarcity of quality inside players like Vucevic around the league and the multitude of options the Magic have at the positions Harris plays. The Magic would still retain the ability to match offers for Harris in restricted free agency next summer if they pass on an extension. Even though this year’s restricted free agency has been difficult to predict, there’s no reason for Orlando to bet against itself for a player who still has much to prove.

Extension Candidate: Kenneth Faried

August 30th, 2014 at 6:45pm CST by Cray Allred

Kenneth Faried is spending the summer with Team USA, but agent Thad Foucher is surely spending his time angling for a rookie scale extension with the Nuggets. If the power forward makes the leap that some others have made after playing alongside the world’s elite players, it wouldn’t hurt his case. The Nuggets have presumably already met with Foucher about an extension, who are expected to seek at least $10-$11MM in annual salary for their client.

In his first three seasons, Faried’s game hasn’t changed much. A high-energy rebounding force out of college, “The Manimal” immediately demonstrated the hunger and athleticism that led Denver to select him in the first round of the 2011 draft despite his playing for an under the radar mid-major in Morehead State. His career averages of 12.1 PPG, 8.6 RPG on .554 shooting have made his selection at No. 22 in the draft very worthwhile.

Faried has been effective, if one-dimensional on offense, taking 82% of his shots inside the paint. Faried is always eager to rise up for an alley-oop or slip in a putback when the defense lets its guard down, but doesn’t look to score outside the lane. While Faried is one of only five players to shoot above .545 in each of the last three seasons, it came on a high volume of inside looks, where Faried was actually rather pedestrian (.586) compared to the league average.

While energy and effort are important characteristics for NBA players to demonstrate, it’s not ideal for a starter to rely solely on those traits for their production. Faried’s efficiency has generally gone up when he plays less minutes, and he’s never cracked 30 minutes a night for a full season. Hefty extensions aren’t typically handed out to players that haven’t been trusted with more than 28.1 minutes a night. In fact, in his first year with the team, head coach Brian Shaw cut Faried’s playing time a bit last season. Despite starting 77 of Denver’s games, Faried saw fewer minutes than many of the league’s bench players, including Kyle Singler, Martell Webster, Matt Barnes, and Nick Young, along with other more heralded sixth men.

Most of Faried’s shortcomings are on the defensive end of the floor. At 6’8″, Faried is often overmatched against the league’s bigger frontcourt players, and he doesn’t have the skillset to slide to the wing. While Faried held opponents to a respectable .494 field goal percentage when defending at the rim, he only challenged 5 attempts there per contest, an underwhelming number for an athlete like Faried in the interior. Worse, Faried came in at 148 out of 169 in defensive rating among players that played more than 25 minutes per game,

Faried’s lack of development likely concerns the Nuggets, especially considering the fact that he played four years in college and will be nearly 26 by the time the first year of an extension would kick in. However, the high-flying big showed polish and effectiveness in the post when given greater opportunity in the second half of last season, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe detailed, and he’s earned a starting role thus far for Team USA over the likes of DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay. If Denver believes in the promise he’s shown of late, waiting for him to bloom next year, likely the front end of his prime stretch, without locking him up could prove more costly than inking him while doubts remain.

In the Hoops Rumors Rookie Scale Extension Primer, our own Chuck Myron predicted the Wasserman Media Group client would receive a four-year, $44MM extension before the October 31 deadline. Both Shaw and GM Tim Connelly voiced their hopes that Faried would remain a Nugget for the future, although Denver floated Faried as a trade candidate for much of last season.

It wasn’t long ago when former Denver GM Masai Ujiri signed Nene to a five-year, $65MM contract that proved tradeable even when the big man didn’t factor into the Nuggets’ long-term plans. More recently, Denver inked JaVale McGee to a four-year pact at $12MM per season, with many more questions surrounding his game than Faried’s. Considering Faried’s floor seems to be established as an above-average frontcourt piece, I would expect Denver to be willing to sign him at or below the $11-$12MM range that Larry Sanders and Derrick Favors have received on their own rookie scale extensions. If his representatives push for a salary more in line with the league’s premier frontcourt players, I would imagine Denver will take their chances with restricted free agency, giving themselves this season to see whether his game has reached a level to merit such a contract.

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