Every week, the Hoops Rumors writing team creates original content to complement our news feed. Here are our original segments and features from the past seven days:
If you missed any of this past week’s biggest headlines from around the NBA, we’ve got you covered with our Week in Review. Here are some of the most noteworthy stories from the last seven days:
The league has launched a tampering investigation due to early commitments in free agency. Suspicions were raised as some free agent deals were announced immediately upon the arrival of the negotiating period, which began at 6 p.m. Eastern Time on June 30. A few agreements were leaked ahead of that hour, prompting questions about the legality of the process. A number of options are being considered to prevent a repeat in future summers.
Tim Duncanwas named an assistant coach with the Spurs. The decision by the future Hall of Fame big man to take a spot on Gregg Popovich’s staff was a surprise to many people around the league. Popovich joked that it was only fitting that the perennial All-Star serve under him “after I served loyally for 19 years as Tim Duncan’s assistant.”
Pau Gasolsigned a one-year, veteran’s minimum contract with the Trail Blazers. The veteran big man finished last season with the Bucks, who let him go as an unrestricted free agent. Gasol, 39, underwent surgery in May to repair a navicular stress fracture in his left foot. He’s expected to make a full recovery in advance of training camp. He’ll provides insurance with Jusuf Nurkic recovering from a serious leg injury suffered in late March.
Reserve swingman Furkan Korkmazsigned a two-year deal with the Sixers after flirting the possibility of playing overseas. Philadelphia renounced its rights to Korkmaz earlier this month and it appeared he was headed overseas to play in Turkey. He ultimately decided to stay in the NBA and he’ll provide depth at the wings behind starters Tobias Harris and Josh Richardson. The Sixers now have 14 players with guaranteed contracts and a pair of two-way players.
The bi-annual exception is one of the tools available to NBA teams who are over the cap, giving those clubs the flexibility to offer free agents more than the minimum salary. In 2019/20, the bi-annual exception is worth $3,623,000, and can be used to offer a deal worth up to about $7,427,150 over two years.
However, the bi-annual exception isn’t available to every team. Clubs that go below the cap in order to use cap room lose access to the exception. Additionally, using the BAE imposes a hard cap of $138,928,000 (the tax apron) on a club. So if a team has surpassed the tax apron – or wants to retain the flexibility to do so – that team can’t use the bi-annual exception.
Finally, as its name suggests, the bi-annual exception can’t be used by a team in consecutive years. In 2018/19, four teams used the BAE — the Bucks (Brook Lopez), Pelicans (Elfrid Payton), Knicks (Allonzo Trier), and Spurs (Dante Cunningham). As such, the exception isn’t available to those clubs during the 2019/20 league year. They’ll be able to use it again next summer.
With all those factors in mind, here’s a breakdown of how teams are using – or not using – their respective bi-annual exceptions in 2019/20:
BAE Still Available:
Charlotte Hornets
Minnesota Timberwolves
Orlando Magic
Washington Wizards
The five clubs listed above are the ones who could most realistically still use their bi-annual exception at some point during the 2019/20 season.
All four of these teams have already hard-capped themselves by using more than the taxpayer portion of the mid-level exception or by acquiring a player via sign-and-trade, so they could theoretically use their BAEs without worrying about further restrictions.
So far, the Mavericks, Pistons, Grizzlies, and Raptors are the only teams that won’t have the bi-annual exception available to them during the 2020/21 league year after using it this season.
Went under cap:
Atlanta Hawks
Boston Celtics
Brooklyn Nets
Chicago Bulls
Indiana Pacers
Los Angeles Clippers
Los Angeles Lakers
Philadelphia 76ers
Phoenix Suns
Sacramento Kings
Utah Jazz
These 11 teams forfeited their right to the bi-annual exception when they went under the cap and used space this offseason.
Over or near tax apron:
Cleveland Cavaliers
Denver Nuggets
Golden State Warriors
Houston Rockets
Miami Heat
Oklahoma City Thunder
Portland Trail Blazers
Not all of these seven teams are over the tax apron, and some are still theoretically in position to use the bi-annual exception. However, teams like the Cavaliers and Nuggets still have their full mid-level exceptions available, so they’d be more likely to dip into those rather than using their BAEs. The Warriors and Heat are right up against hard caps, the Thunder are looking to sneak below the tax line, and the Blazers are above the tax apron.
Used last year:
Milwaukee Bucks
New Orleans Pelicans
New York Knicks
San Antonio Spurs
As noted in the intro, these are the four teams that used their bi-annual exceptions in 2018/19 and won’t have them again until 2020/21 as a result.
In addition to receiving approximately $109MM in cap room and being allowed to surpass that threshold in order to sign players using Bird Rights or the minimum salary exception, each NBA team also receives a mid-level exception. The value of this exception varies depending on a club’s total team salary.
A team that goes under the cap to use its available cap room, for instance, receives only a modest form of the MLE known as the room exception. An over-the-cap team receives the full mid-level exception, unless that team is also over the tax line, in which case it gets a taxpayer version of the MLE that falls in between the full MLE and the room exception. We detailed the exact values of each form of mid-level exception earlier this offseason, but here’s a quick breakdown:
Room exception: Can be used for contracts up to two years, with a starting salary worth up to $4,767,000.
Taxpayer mid-level exception: Can be used for contracts up to three years, with a starting salary worth up to $5,718,000.
Full mid-level exception: Can be used for contracts up to four years, with a starting salary worth up to $9,258,000.
Now that nearly all of the NBA’s teams have used up their cap space, it’s worth keeping an eye on which teams still have part or all of their mid-level exceptions available, which we’ll do in the space below. This list will be kept up to date throughout the 2019/20 league year.
Note: As of January 10, the value of the exceptions below began to prorate downward by 1/177th per day.
A year ago, many of the NBA’s top free agents decided to sign short-term contracts in order to reach the open market again in 2019.
As we noted last August, seven of the 15 players on our list of top 50 free agents of 2018 signed one-year contracts or two-year deals with options. All seven of those players, led by Kevin Durant, found themselves in search of new contracts this summer, with many of them opting for longer-term deals this time around.
By contrast, all 15 players in our list of 2019’s top 50 NBA free agents signed multiyear contracts this summer. Unless they’re unexpectedly released in a year, none of those players will hit the open market again in 2020.
Kawhi Leonard will have the ability to become a free agent again in 2021, since his new three-year contract with the Clippers has a third-year player option. However, the rest of this year’s top 15 free agents all signed four- or five-year contracts and won’t be free agents again before 2022.
It’s an interesting change in direction for top free agents after we’d become accustomed to superstars like Durant and LeBron James going year to year in order to maximize either their earnings, their flexibility, or both. A “one-plus-one” contract (a two-year deal with a second-year option) could have been a viable option for several stars this summer, but no top free agents chose to go that route.
In total, as our tracker shows, 20 NBA free agents signed long-term (four- or five-year) contracts this offseason. That figure doesn’t include Jalen Lecque, an undrafted free agent who signed a four-year deal with the Suns, since Lecque wasn’t a veteran free agent and his agreement more closely resembles a rookie contract. Our list also doesn’t include Nikola Mirotic, whose new three-plus-one deal is with Barcelona rather than an NBA franchise.
Still, that leaves 20 veteran NBA free agents who signed for four or five years this summer, a major jump from 2018, when just 11 players signed those long-term deals.
With free agency finally beginning to wind down, it’s time to look at which teams have the best chance of competing for an NBA championship entering the 2019/20 season.
We previously discussed which Eastern Conference teams could be in contention during a Community Shootaround earlier this month, including the Bucks, Nets, Sixers and more. The Western Conference appears to be slightly more crowded at the moment, however, with the Clippers, Jazz, Lakers, Nuggets and Rockets all made noticeable upgrades during the offseason.
Houston made a surprising splash this month for longtime Thunder star Russell Westbrook, who’s widely considered to be the most talented teammate James Harden has had during his seven years with the organization.
The Jazz also made some major moves this offseason, acquiring Mike Conleyfrom Memphis and signingBojan Bogdanovic (18 PPG in 2018/19) to a four-year contract. Utah plans to pair those players alongside stars Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.
Elsewhere in the West, Denver quickly re-signed guard Jamal Murrayto a five-year extension, exercised its $30MM team option on Paul Millsapand acquired athletic power forward Jerami Grant from Oklahoma City in a trade.
With all of this in mind, who do you believe is the current favorite to win the Western Conference this upcoming season? Is it one of the seven teams listed above, or is it a separate wild card team? Take to the comments section below to voice your opinion!
Say what you will about J.R. Smith, he always finds a way to keep things interesting. Whether he’s parading around without a shirt, throwing soup at an assistant coach or forgetting the score during the NBA Finals, there’s never a shortage of excitement when Smith is around.
His outrageous behavior was accepted while he was helping LeBron James pile up Eastern Conference championships, but he wore out his welcome quickly when the Cavaliers started rebuilding. Smith began last season embroiled in a dispute over playing veterans or young guys that got coach Tyronn Lue fired after six games. Smith was exiled after 11 games and had been on the roster in name only since November.
Even with a trade-friendly contract, the Cavs couldn’t find a taker for Smith and opted to waive him this week rather than giving him more money to further extend his guarantee date. The 33-year-old is now on the open market, where interest so far has been lukewarm.
He met Thursday with the Bucks, who were searching for another wing player to hit 3-pointers. There’s hasn’t been any word on how that meeting went, but Milwaukee reached an agreement with Kyle Korver this afternoon, which may eliminate any need for Smith.
The Lakers and a reunion with LeBron had been considered another possibility, but a report Monday seemed to quash that rumor. It’s not clear whether James wants Smith on his team again, and L.A. is well stocked at shooting guard with Danny Green, Avery Bradley, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Troy Daniels already on the roster.
There’s a limited market for Smith considering his age and eccentricities. He’ll have to find a contending team willing to give him a rotation role, but also one with strong leadership to keep him from disrupting the locker room. Smith will also likely have to be content with the veterans minimum, which is all that most contenders can offer at this point. The Sixers have been mentioned as a possibility, along with the Heat, Clippers, Rockets, Celtics and a few other teams.
We want to get your input on the best place for Smith to end up. Or has he outlived his usefulness in the NBA? Please leave your answers in the space below.
Every week, the Hoops Rumors writing team creates original content to complement our news feed. Here are our original segments and features from the past seven days:
In this week’s lone community shootaround post, we asked whether the Sixersmake the right decision by agreeing to a max-extension with Ben Simmons.
Luke Adams broke down the Exhibit 10 clause and its affects on certain contracts, commonly known as Exhibit 10 deals.
Luke Adams also took a look at the players selected in the 2019 NBA Draft who have yet to sign a contract with their new teams.
In our latest poll, we asked for your opinion on which newly-formed star duo you’d most want on your favorite team.
In fact, of the 30 longest-tenured players by NBA team on our 2018 list, just 14 remain with the same team now. Of those 14, Heat veteran Udonis Haslem and Warriors star Stephen Curry are the only players who have been with their current franchise for more than 10 years.
That means that the league’s other 16 teams have new longest-tenured players, and in some cases, those names may come as a bit of a shock. Cristiano Felicio, Ivan Rabb, and Frank Ntilikina are among the players on the list below.
Here are the NBA’s current longest-tenured players by team as of the 2019 offseason:
Note: Adams is technically the slightly longer-tenured member of the Thunder, having been drafted 12th overall, while Roberson was picked 26th overall.
New Orleans Pelicans: Jrue Holiday (trade), July 2013
Note: Darius Miller first joined the Pelicans (then the Hornets) in June 2012 and hasn’t played for an NBA team besides New Orleans since then, but he spent two seasons overseas from 2015-17.
Philadelphia 76ers: Joel Embiid (draft), June 2014
Note: Ntilikina is technically the slightly longer-tenured member of the Knicks, having been drafted eighth overall, while Dotson was picked 44th overall.
Note: Lance Thomas, who joined the Knicks via trade in January 2015, remains unsigned. It’s possible he’ll rejoin the team.
After NBA teams spent the last decade trying to emulate the 2010 Heat’s “Big Three” approach to roster-building, those clubs didn’t necessarily move away from that strategy during the 2019 offseason. However, when the Lakers came up short in their effort to add Kawhi Leonard to their roster to complement LeBron James and Anthony Davis, it helped create a new storyline.
Rather than teaming up in threes this offseason, many of the NBA’s star players joined up with just one other All-Star, creating a handful of new dynamic duos around the league.
The Lakers acquired Davis – a perennial MVP candidate going forward – to team up with a four-time MVP in James.
In rebuffing the Lakers’ advances, Leonard – a two-time Finals MVP – headed to the Clippers, who also acquired Paul George – third in MVP voting last season – in a trade with Oklahoma City.
The Nets cleared enough cap room for two maximum-salary free agents, and used those slots to land Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, who have combined for a total of 16 All-Star berths, 11 All-NBA nods, and three championships.
The Rockets reunited a pair of former MVP winners when they struck a deal to land triple-double machine Russell Westbrook from Oklahoma City, adding him to a backcourt that already featured the league’s leading scorer, James Harden.
Even the Warriors got into the act after losing Durant, acquiring All-Star guard D’Angelo Russell in a sign-and-trade to share the backcourt with two-time MVP Stephen Curry to start the 2019/20 season.
Today though, we’re focusing on newly-formed pairings, so we want to know which of the five star duos listed above you’d most like to have on your roster moving forward.
We’re looking at both the short- and long-term here, so injuries like Durant’s Achilles tear should be taken into account — the fact that KD will likely miss all of next season negatively impacts Brooklyn’s duo, but we want you to consider the next few years, rather than just 2019/20.
Players’ contract situations and injury histories matter too — maybe the Clippers’ duo is slightly less appealing due to the fact that both players are only guaranteed to be around for the next two seasons, or because George is coming off two shoulder surgeries. Age is also a factor, since there’s no guarantee how many more All-NBA seasons a 34-year-old like LeBron has left.
With all that in mind, which newly-formed star duo do you like best going forward? Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!
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