The Warriors have inked 2019 first-round pick Jordan Poole to a rookie scale contract, per the NBA’s transactions log.
Selected 28th overall in this year’s draft, Poole will make approximately $1.96M in his first NBA season on a max rookie scale contract.
The Michigan product averaged 12.8 PPG and 3.0 RPG while shooting 36.9% from three-point range in his sophomore campaign.
After missing out on their top summer target when Jimmy Butler opted for Miami, the Rockets are looking at two former Warriors as they fill out their roster, writes Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle.
With a need for depth at the wing and in the middle, Houston is turning its attention to Andre Iguodala and JaVale McGee, according to Feigen. With the moratorium is lifted Saturday, Iguodala will be on his way to Memphis, part of a cost-cutting move that enables Golden State to trade for D’Angelo Russell without exceeding the tax apron.
Rockets GM Daryl Morey may be willing to send next year’s first-round pick to the Grizzlies as part of a package to acquire Iguodala, who will make $17,185,185 in the final year of his contract. Morey could hope for a buyout and try to get Iguodala at a better price, but he would risk losing him to another team, such as the Lakers, where Iguodala’s former agent, Rob Pelinka, serves as GM.
Houston pursued Iguodala when he was a free agent in 2017 and put on “the best recruiting presentation of all time,” a source told ESPN. Iguodala canceled his other meetings and was reportedly ready to sign with the Rockets before Golden State increased its offer.
Feigen notes that if a trade happens, Memphis will have pulled off the rare feat of getting one first-rounder for taking Iguodala and another for letting him go.
The Rockets met with McGee, who played for the Lakers this season, on Sunday in a session that two sources told Feigen “went really well.” Houston’s interest in McGee wasn’t just a hedge against a Clint Capela trade, he adds. The team is looking for more size on its reserve unit and likes McGee as a pick-and-roll partner for James Harden and Chris Paul.
Jimmer Fredette has left the Warriors‘ Summer League team to make sure he doesn’t get injured while he sifts through his options overseas, according to Mark Medina of The San Jose Mercury News.
Fredette, 30, accepted the Summer League opportunity with Golden State after playing six games for the Suns at the end of the season. He has been a star in China for the past three years, setting several scoring records and collecting a CBA International MVP award.
“He still can play. I think he should still play,” said Aaron Miles, the Warriors’ Summer League coach. “I should say this – I think he should do whatever he feels is best for him and his family. I know a lot of times as you get older, sometimes it’s more mental than physical. But I don’t know his situation. I don’t know what the reasoning behind it. But he definitely has a lot of basketball left.”
Fredette averaged 9.5 PPG and 20.5 minutes of playing time in two games in the California Classic League. However, the Warriors are more concerned with developing their draft picks, Jordan Poole, Eric Paschall and Alan Smailagic, along with second-year guard Jacob Evans and fourth-year center Damian Jones.
A source tells Medina that Fredette decided to leave the league after several foreign teams contacted his representatives about his availability.
A prolific scorer at BYU, Fredette had a journeyman NBA career after being selected with the 10th pick in the 2011 draft. After spending his first two and a half seasons with the Kings, he had short stays with the Bulls, Pelicans and Knicks before leaving the league in 2016.
DeMarcus Cousins has changed agents, according to Marc Stein of the New York Times (Twitter link). The center will be represented by Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports.
Cousins is arguably the second-best free agent left unsigned but the market for him hasn’t exactly been robust. Adrian Wojnarowski recently said that it’s possible that the big man will not find a deal worth more than the $5.34MM contract he signed last offseason.
The Warriors inked Cousins to the taxpayer’s mid-level last season and if he signed on with a team this season on a similar deal, he’d see a slight raise. This year’s taxpayer’s mid-level exception is $5.718MM, while the non-taxpayer is $9.258MM.
Cousins could find a team will cap room, though there are not many clubs left with significant available space. The Lakers stand out as a feasible option should they miss out on Kawhi Leonard. Los Angeles has just over $32MM in cap room available.
The Clippers are another team that will have cap room available if they miss out on Leonard. The Knicks were linked to Cousins before free agency as a fallback option but New York opted to spend its budget on Bobby Portis, Julius Randle and an assortment of veterans.
Shortly after having his draft rights renounced by the Sixers, 2017 first-round pick Anzejs Pasecniks has joined the Wizards‘ Summer League roster, tweets Michael Scotto of The Athletic.
Pasecniks, a 7’2″ center out of Latvia, has played professionally in Spain for the last few years, but is reportedly interested in making the move to the NBA this season. Since the 76ers didn’t want to carry his cap hold on their books, they made him an unrestricted free agent, giving him the ability to sign with another team. While it remains to be seen if the Wizards will be that team, it seems they’ll give him a look this month.
Here are more updates on a handful of NBA free agents:
The Warriors have withdrawn their qualifying offer to restricted free agent guard Quinn Cook, league sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
As a result of the move, Cook will become an unrestricted free agent. That means he’ll be able to sign outright with any team without any risk that Golden State would match an offer sheet.
Cook, 26, was a solid contributor off the bench for the Warriors in 2018/19, averaging 6.9 PPG, 2.1 RPG, and 1.6 APG with a .465/.405/.769 shooting line in 74 games (14.3 MPG).
However, the hard-capped Dubs have little flexibility to bring back all their free agents as a result of the D’Angelo Russell sign-and-trade deal that will hard-cap team salary at $138.9MM. It appears Cook will be one of the odd men out.
JULY 9: The Warriors have officially signed Robinson, per NBA.com’s transactions log.
JULY 2: The Warriors and free agent wing Glenn Robinson III have reached an agreement on a two-year deal with a second-year player option, agent Jelani Floyd tells Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
While terms of the deal aren’t yet known, a minimum-salary contract seems likely, given Golden State’s cap limitations. Even then, by giving Robinson a two-year deal, the Warriors would incur a 2019/20 cap hit of $1,882,867 rather than $1,620,564, pushing them ever so slightly toward their hard cap at the $138.9MM tax apron, as cap expert Albert Nahmad notes (via Twitter).
Robinson, 25, has spent time with the Timberwolves, Sixers, Pacers, and Pistons since entering the league in 2014 as a second-round pick. Last season, he averaged 4.2 PPG and 1.5 RPG in 47 games (13.0 MPG) in a disappointing season for Detroit.
The Pistons held a $4.3MM team option on Robinson for the 2019/20 season, but unsurprisingly decided to decline it.
While Robinson knocked down just 29.0% of his three-point attempts last season, the Warriors will be hoping he can recapture the form he showed with the Pacers in his previous three seasons, when he made 39.3% of his three-point tries in 137 games (albeit on just 1.4 attempts per contest).
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Nearly three weeks after he suffered a torn ACL in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, Warriors guard Klay Thompson has undergone successful surgery to repair the injury, a league source ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link). The procedure was performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles, per Wojnarowski.
A recovery timeline for Thompson has not yet been established, but agent Greg Lawrence told Wojnarowski (Twitter links) that he anticipates the process to take about five to seven months, though he later clarified that a five-month timeline may be aggressive.
“While we are optimistic on a return as quickly as possible, Klay and the team are committed to taking the necessary time with the process,” Lawrence said.
Mark Medina of The Mercury News (Twitter link) estimates a six-to-nine month timeline. Either way, Thompson should have a good chance to return before the end of the 2019/20 season.
Thompson and the Warriors agreed to terms this week on a five-year, maximum-salary contract that will run through the 2023/24 season, so the team figures to be patient with the sharpshooter’s recovery, with an eye toward keeping him healthy for the long term.
Despite some buzz on social media that Kawhi Leonard is leaning toward the Lakers, the reigning Finals MVP hasn’t reached a decision, tweets Cris Carter of Fox Sports 1. Carter – who has been an unexpectedly plugged-in source on Leonard since the forward’s days in San Antonio – adds that anyone thinking the Lakers have an edge on the Clippers or Raptors would be “wrong.”
Leonard is the last big star available in free agency, and his decision will have a long-lasting impact on all three franchises. Whichever club lands him will be a contender for the NBA title, while the other two teams will be scrambling to fill out their rosters. Leonard still hasn’t given any indication of when he plans to announce his choice.
Here are some more notes on the third day of free agency:
Warriors owner Joe Lacob has issued a statement on Kevin Durant‘s impending departure from the franchise, thanking the two-time Finals MVP for his contributions on the court and in the community. After wishing Durant well in the “next chapter” of his career, Lacob concludes his statement with a strong declaration on KD’s place in Warriors history.
“As long as I am Co-Chairman of this team, no player will ever wear No. 35 for the Warriors again,” Lacob said.
[RELATED: Kevin Durant to sign with the Nets]
Lacob’s announcement is a major sign of respect for Durant, and comes just hours after Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated published a story which suggested that a perceived lack of respect in Oakland may have helped push the former MVP to Brooklyn.
According to Spears, Durant’s friend Kendrick Perkins believes that KD had “one foot out the door” this past season because the Warriors made him feel underappreciated. A source close to Durant also told Spears that there were several things that happened over the past year that contributed to the forward’s decision to leave.
Spears points to an early-season, on-court altercation with Draymond Green – in which Green reportedly “called [Durant] out with an expletive” and made it clear that the Warriors had won in the past without him – as one of a negative incidents that occurred during the last year. An awkward joke by GM Bob Myers about Durant’s contract situation during the team’s 2018 championship celebration was another, Spears notes.
“All [of those negative incidents] showed a lack of respect for one of the greatest players to put that uniform on and the fact that he took all that abuse and still put his career on the line to help them win,” a source close to Durant told Spears.
“It was time for him to leave Golden State,” Perkins said of Durant, per Spears. “They were taking him for granted.”