- Ethan Strauss of The Athletic identifies the wings in this year’s draft class that he thinks would fit best with the Warriors, including Isaac Okoro, Aaron Nesmith, and Saddiq Bey.
The Warriors will need to consider free agent backup point guard candidates during their upcoming offseason. Since Golden State will be stretched thin due to some exorbitant contracts to the team’s top four players, The Athletic’s Anthony Slater makes the case for 28-year-old injury-prone non-shooter Michael Carter-Williams, an unrestricted free agent, on a league minimum.
- Despite their historic five-year run, the Warriors‘ stars still feel like they have something to prove, Damion Lee said this week on the Runnin’ Plays podcast (hat tip to Kerith Burke of NBC Sports). “Steph (Curry) revolutionized the game,” Lee said. “But if you look at him, Klay (Thompson), Draymond (Green), a lot of guys on this team, we’re all guys that have a chip (on our shoulders).” He explained that all three players had doubters when they came into the league.
- Appearing this week on David Aldridge’s “Hoops, Adjacent” podcast at The Athletic, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr discussed a bevy of topics. Among them: His desire to conduct offseason team activities and the Warriors’ plan for Stephen Curry to make sure they’re “not wearing him out” going forward.
- Oubre, who will be an unrestricted free agent in the 2021/22 season, could be an appealing trade target for the Warriors, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Slater assesses the Suns forward’s fit with Golden State. The contracts would line up nicely: Oubre is owed $14.2MM in 2020/21, and the Warriors have a $17.2MM trade exception on their books as a result of their Andre Iguodala trade last summer.
- Appearing on the Envergure podcast (French video link), agent Yann Balikouzou indicated that his client Killian Hayes will interview with the Timberwolves and Warriors, but doesn’t expect to talk to the Cavaliers, since they’re unlikely to draft a guard (hat tip to Darren Wolfson).
- Arizona forward Zeke Nnaji had an interview with the Rockets and is meeting with the Warriors this week, tweets Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News.
4:14pm: Within her full ESPN.com story on the proposed Chicago campus, MacMullan writes that most of the bottom eight teams would prefer to hold mini-camps in their own markets, but commissioner Adam Silver and NBPA executive director Michele Roberts – who have repeatedly expressed that they believe the Orlando campus will be safer than teams’ own markets – want to create a similar environment for the non-Orlando teams before they approve group workouts and scrimmages.
Seven of the bottom eight teams – all except the Knicks – were on a call today with the NBA to discuss the issue, with the league seeking assurances that teams would send their players to Chicago, per MacMullan. There’s a belief that veterans like Stephen Curry and Blake Griffin may not travel to Chicago for the event, but that younger players would be more inclined to participate.
Participation would be voluntary and the cost of setting up the campus would be split among the NBA’s 30 clubs, sources tell ESPN. MacMullan notes that some of the bottom eight teams want to wait a couple weeks to see how the Orlando plan plays out, while others are in favor of moving forward with a plan as soon as possible, since they don’t believe there’s a ton of time to work out the details.
There’s still work to be done before the NBPA signs off on the plan, tweets K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago.
3:56pm: The NBA is close to signing off on creating a second campus location in Chicago for the league’s bottom eight teams who weren’t invited to Orlando, sources tell ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan (Twitter link via Adrian Wojnarowski).
As MacMullan reports – and Woj relays – the eight clubs not invited to Orlando would be permitted to hold mini-training camps and inter-squad games in Chicago. The goal would be for the event to take place in September.
The news comes as a bit of a surprise. Many of the clubs whose seasons are over have been pushing the NBA to allow some sort of offseason team activities along these lines, in the hopes of keeping their young players engaged and active during a nine-month gap between games. However, a report earlier this week suggested that the NBA wasn’t expected to approve mandatory OTAs, and there was skepticism that the league would go to the effort of creating another “bubble” without its massive TV deals – and its 2020 postseason – at stake.
We’ll have to wait for more details on the NBA’s Chicago plan, but it seems safe to assume there would be more player opt-outs among the bottom eight teams than there have been among the top 22. As Bobby Marks of ESPN points out (via Twitter) that approximately 40 players on the non-Orlando teams could reach free agency in October, limiting their incentive to participate in a September mini-camp for teams they may be leaving a month later.
The Warriors are the only team without any pending free agents on their roster, but Anthony Slater of The Athletic notes (via Twitter) that their preference has been to hold a controlled mini-camp in the Bay Area — not to participate in a de facto Summer League across the country.
The Warriors, Timberwolves, Hornets, Bulls, Hawks, Knicks, Cavaliers, and Pistons are the eight teams not playing in Orlando this summer who would be invited to the Chicago campus, assuming the NBA and NBPA finalize an agreement.
During a typical NBA league year, there’s a freeze on trades between the winter trade deadline and the end of a team’s season in the spring. Once the regular season ends, the 14 non-playoff teams are once again permitted to make trades, with other clubs regaining that ability as they’re eliminated from the postseason.
However, due to the unusual nature of the 2020 NBA calendar, things will look a little different this year. As Bobby Marks of ESPN explains, no teams are currently permitted to make trades, including the bottom eight teams who aren’t participating in the summer restart in Orlando. Even though the offseason has begun for those eight non-Orlando clubs (the Warriors, Timberwolves, Cavaliers, Pistons, Hawks, Knicks, Hornets, and Bulls), a transaction moratorium remains in place for them following last week’s brief transaction window.
According to Marks, the likely outcome is that the league and the players’ union will agree to lift the moratorium once the first round of the playoffs gets underway on August 17. At that point, non-playoff teams – including the six teams in Orlando that don’t make the postseason – would be allowed to make trades, waive players, and sign certain players to contract extensions.
Of course, while non-playoff teams are generally permitted to make trades and other roster moves as soon as the postseason gets underway, we usually don’t see the first trades of the offseason completed until around the time of the draft. So we shouldn’t expect a flurry of moves if the moratorium lifts in August — most of the offseason’s deals will still likely come in October, when the draft and free agent period take place.
For the time being, the only permissible NBA transaction is the signing of a substitute player. The 22 teams participating in the restart can sign a substitute to replace any player who voluntarily opts out or who contracts COVID-19. The player being replaced would subsequently become ineligible for the rest of the season.
The Trail Blazers have the highest luxury tax bill at $5.9MM, Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets. Team salaries are now frozen after the one-week transactions period that closed late Tuesday. The Heat ($2.9MM), Thunder ($2.5MM) and Timberwolves ($582K) are also over the luxury tax line but the projected $11.9MM total is the lowest since the luxury tax was introduced in 2002/03, Marks notes.
We have more from around the basketball world:
- Former Warriors scout Chris Thomas will become the head coach of Ukrainian club MBC Mykolaiv, according to a team press release (hat tip to Uros Vezonic of Sportando). Thomas, who also worked for the Bulls and Jazz organizations, coached Bambitious Nara in the Japanese B League last season.
- Luis Scola has officially signed with Italy’s Pallacanestro Varese, according to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia. The 40-year-old former NBA forward left Olimpia Milano last month. The Argentinian hopes to end his career at the Olympics next summer.
- Giannis Antetokounmpo belongs on the NBA’s All-Defensive First Team, according to a coaches poll conducted by The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski and Josh Robbins. The duo polled 33 head and assistant coaches under the condition of anonymity. Rudy Gobert, Marcus Smart, Kawhi Leonard and Ben Simmons rounded out the First Team selections.
The NBA’s week-long transaction window, which opened last Tuesday at noon eastern time, will close tonight at 11:59 pm ET, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks tweets.
A number of teams have taken advantage of the opportunity to sign, claim, and waive players within the last seven days, including the Thunder, who agreed to a new long-term deal with two-way player Luguentz Dort, the Knicks, who claimed Theo Pinson and Jared Harper while waiving Allonzo Trier, and many others. We’ll have a full recap of the week’s transactions on Wednesday morning.
Here’s what happens when this week’s transaction window closes:
- Teams can no longer sign a player to a contract (unless he’s a substitute player).
- Teams can no longer convert a two-way player to their standard roster.
- Luxury tax penalties are calculated based on team payrolls as of June 30.
I wouldn’t expect a huge flurry of last-minute moves today, but it’s worth noting that a few teams still have roster spots available, including the Suns, Trail Blazers, Hornets (two), Warriors (two), and Timberwolves. Some – but not all – of those clubs have luxury-tax concerns.
For the 22 teams headed to Orlando to participate in the NBA’s restart, there’s one exception to the roster freeze. Starting on July 1, teams will still be able to sign a substitute player to replace a player who voluntarily opts out, contracts COVID-19, or is ruled out due to being at higher risk of serious coronavirus symptoms.
So far, six players have opted out of the restart — they’ll be ineligible to return this season, but eligible to be replaced by substitute players. In most cases, those players’ teams have already lined up those substitutes and will be able to sign them as of noon ET on Sunday.
J.R. Smith will replace Avery Bradley for the Lakers; Jerian Grant will replace Davis Bertans for the Wizards; Jaylen Adams will replace Trevor Ariza for the Trail Blazers; Justin Anderson will replace Wilson Chandler for the Nets; and Trey Burke will replace Willie Cauley-Stein for the Mavericks. Brooklyn still needs to line up a second substitute player for DeAndre Jordan.
This form of substitute-player transaction is permitted through August 14. After that, teams can still sign a replacement for a player who contracts COVID-19, but the substitute must have no more than three years of NBA service, ruling out a number of veterans.