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Community Shootaround: Knicks Win-Loss Total

August 12th, 2018 at 8:45pm CST by Dana Gauruder

According to a prominent Las Vegas sportbook, the New York Knicks will have the third-worst record in the Eastern Conference during the upcoming season.

Westgate recently posted projected win-loss totals for each team and the Knicks were pegged at 29.5. The only Eastern teams with lower projected win totals were the Bulls (27.5) and Hawks (23.5).

Naturally, New York’s first-round pick begs to differ. Kevin Knox was asked by Marc Berman of the New York Post on Sunday if he saw those odds and Knox admitted it had caught his attention.

“I saw that,” Knox said. “People are sleeping on us with the 29 wins. I think we definitely can win at least 35 and get in that playoff talk. That’s my personal opinion. Everyone has their own opinion. But the whole team, I’m pretty confident we’re really good this year, that we have a chance to make the playoffs.”

If Knox had seen the Knicks play the last few years, he might have tempered his enthusiasm. The Knicks haven’t won more than 32 games over the last four seasons and had exactly 29 victories last year, though they surely would have won a few more if Kristaps Porzingis hadn’t suffered a season-ending knee injury.

Porzingis is expected to miss approximately two months of the season as he continues his rehab. The biggest reason for optimism in New York may be Knox himself. He averaged 21.3 PPG in four Las Vegas summer games despite some spotty shooting and could be a Day One starter.

The rest of the Knicks roster looks rather pedestrian. Their biggest offseason signing was Magic reclamation project Mario Hezonja. Their point guard situation is still a muddle with Trey Burke, Emmanuel Mudiay and Frank Ntilikina fighting for minutes. Enes Kanter returns at center and they also have two experienced wings in Tim Hardaway Jr. and Courtney Lee.

New York is also in the toughest division in the East and has a long way to go to catch up to the Celtics, Sixers and Raptors.

This leads to our question of the day: Do you think the Knicks will exceed their projected win-loss total of 29.5 or finish even worse than their current odds?

Please take to the comments section and provide your input on this topic. We look forward to what you have to say.

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Four 2018 NBA Draftees Remain Unsigned

August 12th, 2018 at 3:56pm CST by Luke Adams

With Thunder second-rounder Devon Hall set to spend the upcoming season playing in Australia, 56 of 60 players selected in the 2018 NBA draft have now made plans – in the NBA or elsewhere – for the 2018/19 campaign.

As our 2018 draft pick signing tracker shows, that leaves four players whose status for 2018/19 has yet to be reported or announced. Here’s what we know – or can deduce – about those four rookies:

  1. Justin Jackson (Magic): According to our roster counts, the Magic have used both of their two-way contract slots and have 16 players on NBA contracts. However, only 14 of those NBA deals are fully guaranteed, meaning there could be a path for Jackson to claim the 15th spot. Still, Isaiah Briscoe looks like he’ll have an opportunity to make the team despite not having a guaranteed salary. Josh Robbins of The Orlando Sentinel expects Jackson, who is coming off a major shoulder injury, to spend the 2018/19 season with the Lakeland Magic, so perhaps he’ll sign a G League contract with an eye toward joining Orlando’s 15-man squad in 2019.
  2. De’Anthony Melton (Rockets): The Rockets only have 10 players on fully guaranteed salaries, meaning there’s plenty of room for Melton to join the mix. It’s possible Houston is waiting to sign Melton in order to keep him trade-eligible — as soon as he signs, he can’t be dealt for one month, and the Rockets may want to keep their options open as they scour the market for a wing player. Assuming Melton remains with the Rockets, they’ll likely lock him up for at least three years using part of the taxpayer mid-level exception, like they did with Isaiah Hartenstein.
  3. Chimezie Metu (Spurs): The Spurs have a lone opening on their projected 15-man roster, with 14 players on guaranteed deals. It’s possible Metu could slot into that spot, but he’s not the only option. Former two-way player Darrun Hilliard is a candidate to be promoted to a standard NBA contract, and 2017 second-rounder Jaron Blossomgame could also be signed. The Spurs are very comfortable stashing draft picks, as they currently retain the NBA rights to 11 players who aren’t playing in the NBA. We’ll see if Metu becomes the 12th or if the Spurs held onto part of their mid-level exception this summer in order to sign him to a long-term deal.
  4. Kevin Hervey (Thunder): Hall’s move overseas looks like it could be good news for Hervey. The Thunder have 15 players on guaranteed contracts, leaving no clear path to OKC’s regular season roster, but the club only has Deonte Burton on a two-way deal. That leaves the Thunder’s other two-way contract slot open, and it would make sense for Hervey to fill it, as four other 2018 draftees in the 54-60 range have inked two-way deals so far this summer.
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Weekly Mailbag: 8/6/18 – 8/12/18

August 12th, 2018 at 2:56pm CST by Arthur Hill

We have an opportunity for you to hit us up with your questions in this, our weekly mailbag feature. Have a question regarding player movement, the salary cap or the NBA draft? Drop us a line at HoopsRumorsMailbag@Gmail.com.

With Coach of the Year Dwane Casey now coaching Detroit, do you think the Pistons perform better and will go deep in the playoffs with Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond ? — Greg Dizon

There’s no question it was time for a change in Detroit. The Pistons had stagnated under Stan Van Gundy, reaching the playoffs just once during his four seasons there. The addition of Casey, plus having Griffin for a full season, provides the feeling of a new era. LeBron James‘ departure from Cleveland could open up a playoff spot, and the Pistons will be among the best candidates to fill it. However, a deep postseason run doesn’t seem likely. With the Celtics, Sixers and Raptors looming as the best teams in the East, winning even one playoff series will be a challenge for Detroit.

How possible and how convenient would it be for the Knicks and the Lakers to swap Joakim Noah and Luol Deng? — Ray Reyes Fontana

It’s certainly possible. Noah will make $18.5MM this season and Deng is due $18MM, so salary matching wouldn’t be an issue. But would there be much of a point to a deal? The Lakers could use a veteran center, but it’s hard to see Noah filling that role after two disastrous seasons in New York. The Knicks would like another productive wing player, but Deng’s numbers weren’t good in 2016/17 before sitting out all but one game last season. Both teams will be focused on creating as much cap space as possible for next summer, so Noah and Deng will be stretch provision candidates regardless of which team they’re on.

Who are the top 10 HoopsRumors rookies from this year’s draft class? — Ferdinand Rivera, via Twitter

Rookies are unpredictable until the actual games start and we get a look at how they fare against NBA competition. Donovan Mitchell might have been a marginal top 10 pick if you had asked this question a year ago, and he wound up being the best player in his draft class. Luka Doncic will be a strong candidate for Rookie of the Year based on his performance in Europe and the Mavericks’ decision to give him control of their offense. The other top five picks — Deandre Ayton, Marvin Bagley, Jaren Jackson and Trae Young — should get plenty of playing time, while Wendell Carter, Collin Sexton and Kevin Knox all appear to be headed into good situations. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lonnie Walker may join the list as well, but a lot depends on how many minutes their coaches give them.

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Community Shootaround: Joakim Noah

August 11th, 2018 at 9:01pm CST by Arthur Hill

Of all the questionable contracts handed out during the free agent frenzy of 2016, Joakim Noah‘s has turned out to be the worst. Luol Deng may be wasting away on the end of the Lakers’ bench, but at least he’s doing it quietly. Noah has become not only a financial nightmare for the Knicks, but a problem in other ways as well.

He hasn’t been with the team since January, when he was suspended following a heated argument in practice with former coach Jeff Hornacek over playing time. That bookended a season that started with another suspension, this one imposed by the league for using a banned substance. In total, Noah played just 40 total minutes over seven games and collected $17.765MM. He still has two seasons and $37.8MM remaining on the $72MM deal that ex-team president Phil Jackson gave him two summers ago.

The Knicks would like to end their relationship with Noah and reportedly plan to use the stretch provision to officially cut ties sometime after September 1. By waiting until then, New York can lock in his $18.53MM salary for the upcoming season and stretch the final $19.295MM over three years. That will free up roughly $12.9MM for next summer, when the Knicks hope to make an impact on the free agent market.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using the stretch provision, as Philip Bondy of The New York Daily News detailed today. The Knicks are concerned that Noah might not be willing to stay away from the team and collect his checks for an entire season. If he’s still on the roster, Noah could take his case to the players’ union and force his way back into the locker room, where he could be a disruptive presence for new coach David Fizdale.

If that’s not a concern, there’s no rush to unload Noah’s contract. The stretch provision will be an available option all the way through next summer, and Noah might have some value as his contract gets closer to expiring. Bondy points out that the Nets were able to trade Timofey Mozgov, who has a deal similar to Noah’s, because the Hornets needed to unload Dwight Howard to escape the luxury tax.

We want to get your opinion on how the Knicks should handle Noah. Should they employ the stretch provision as quickly as possible or hang onto him in hopes of either finding a trade partner or convincing him to accept a buyout? Please leave your responses in the space below.

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Hoops Rumors Originals: 8/5/18 – 8/11/18

August 11th, 2018 at 3:17pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Every week, the writing team here at Hoops Rumors creates original content to complement our news feed. Here are our segments and features from the past seven days:

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Hoops Rumors’ 2018 NBA Free Agent Tracker

August 10th, 2018 at 2:59pm CST by Luke Adams

We’re over a month into 2018’s NBA free agent period, and with news of contract agreements and signings continuing to break, Hoops Rumors is here to help you keep track of which players are heading to which teams this offseason. To this end, we present our Free Agent Tracker, a feature we’ve had each year since our inception in 2012. Using our tracker, you can quickly look up deals, sorting by team, position, free agent type, and a handful of other variables.

A few notes on the tracker:

  • Some of the information you’ll find in the tracker will reflect tentative agreements, rather than finalized deals. As signings become official, we’ll continue to update and modify the data as needed.
  • Similarly, contract years and dollars will sometimes be based on what’s been reported to date, so those amounts could be approximations rather than official figures. Salaries aren’t necessarily fully guaranteed either.
  • A restricted free agent who signs an offer sheet won’t be included in the tracker right away. We’ll wait to hear whether the player’s original team will match or pass on that offer sheet before we update our tracker, in order to avoid confusion.
  • If you’re viewing the tracker on our mobile site, be sure to turn your phone sideways to see more details.

Our 2018 Free Agent Tracker can be found anytime on the right sidebar of our desktop site under “Hoops Rumors Features,” and it’s also under the “Tools” menu atop the site. On our mobile site, it can be found in our menu under “Free Agent Lists.”

The tracker will be updated throughout the offseason, so be sure to check back for the latest info. If you have any corrections, please let us know right here.

Our lists of free agents by position/type and by team break down the players who have yet to reach contract agreements.

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2018/19 NBA Roster Counts

August 10th, 2018 at 2:14pm CST by Luke Adams

While NBA teams are allowed to carry up to 20 players during the offseason, rosters are limited to 15 players during the regular season. Expanded offseason rosters allow clubs to bring in players on contracts that aren’t fully guaranteed, giving those players a chance to earn a regular season roster spot or getting a closer look at them before sending them to their G League affiliate.

In addition to the usual 15-man rosters, NBA teams are permitted to carry two players on two-way contracts. Two-way deals, which we describe in detail in our glossary, essentially give clubs the NBA rights to two extra players, though they’ll likely spend the majority of the season in the G League, rather than with the NBA team.

Here are the various categories you’ll find in our roster count list:

  • NBA: These players are officially on standard NBA contracts with a given team. The total number of players under contract is listed, with the number of players on fully guaranteed contracts noted in parentheses. So a team with 13 fully guaranteed contracts and a pair of 10-day deals is listed as “15 (13).”
  • Two-way: These are players signed to two-way contracts. Unless otherwise noted, these deals are official. You can find a specific team’s two-way players right here.
  • Total: A team’s total roster count, taking into account all of the above.

Here are 2018/19’s NBA roster counts, which we’ll continue to update through the offseason and into the regular season:

Updated 4-10-19 (10:53pm CT)

Atlanta Hawks

  • NBA: 15 (15)
  • Two-way: 1
  • Total: 16

Boston Celtics

  • NBA: 15 (15)
  • Two-way: 1
  • Total: 16

Brooklyn Nets

  • NBA: 15 (15)
  • Two-way: 1
  • Total: 16

Charlotte Hornets

  • NBA: 15 (15)
  • Two-way: 2
  • Total: 17

Chicago Bulls

  • NBA: 15 (15)
  • Two-way: 2
  • Total: 17

Cleveland Cavaliers

  • NBA: 15 (15)
  • Two-way: 2
  • Total: 17

Read more

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Poll: Will Wizards Be A Top-Four Team In East?

August 10th, 2018 at 9:56am CST by Luke Adams

With LeBron James out of the East for the first time since 2003, confidence is on the rise around the conference. Jaylen Brown essentially guaranteed that the Celtics will make it to the NBA Finals, while Brook Lopez has said the Bucks love their chances to come out of the East.

Wizards point guard John Wall joined the chorus this week, telling Michael Lee of Yahoo Sports that he feels like “we’re all equal” in the East. While the Wizards haven’t made it to the NBA Finals in recent years, neither have the Celtics, Raptors, Sixers, Pacers, or any other non-LeBron Eastern team, Wall points out.

“Y’all might have been to the Eastern Conference finals, where we haven’t been to, but none of y’all were going to the Finals. It was one guy going to the Finals,” Wall said. “Ain’t nobody separated from nothing. I know one guy that separated himself from the Eastern Conference every year and that was LeBron James and the Cavs. Other than that … if you lose in the second round, or the conference finals, you still didn’t get to your ultimate goal.”

Wall went on to say that “on paper” a handful of Eastern teams look strong, but he observed that there are still questions about how the Celtics will mesh with Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving returning, or how Kawhi Leonard will look with the Raptors. In Wall’s view, the top four or five teams in the East are all bunched together, and he’s willing to put the Wizards “right there” in that group.

This kind of talk is nothing new from the Wizards. Heading into the 2017/18 season, Bradley Beal called Washington the team to beat in the East, despite the fact that the club had been eliminated by Boston in the second round of the 2017 playoffs — multiple Wizards that year claimed publicly that they would’ve beaten the Cavaliers in the postseason if given the chance. This past spring, after losing as the No. 8 seed to the top-seeded Raptors, Markieff Morris told reporters that “sometimes the better teams don’t win.”

So far, the Wizards have done little to back up their big talk, and oddsmakers aren’t convinced they’ll do so this year either — the Wizards’ early over/under of 44.5 wins ranks sixth in the East, behind Boston, Toronto, Philadelphia, Indiana, and Milwaukee. Still, perhaps with LeBron out of the conference, this is the year that Washington makes its run.

What do you think? Are the Wizards a top-four team in the East? Will they claim home court advantage for the first round and/or win a first-round series in the spring?

Vote below in our poll and jump into the comment section to weigh in on the Wizards.

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.

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NBA Teams With Hard Caps For 2018/19

August 9th, 2018 at 2:57pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBA salary cap is somewhat malleable, with various exceptions allowing every team to surpass the $101.869MM threshold once that room is used up. In some cases, teams blow past not only the cap limit, but the luxury-tax limit as well, with clubs like the Warriors, Thunder, Rockets, Trail Blazers, Raptors, and Wizards going well beyond that tax line this year.

The NBA doesn’t have a “hard cap” by default, which allows those clubs to build significant payrolls without violating CBA rules. However, there are certain scenarios in which teams can be hard-capped.

When a club uses the bi-annual exception, acquires a player via sign-and-trade, or uses more than the taxpayer portion ($5.337MM) of the mid-level exception, that club will face a hard cap for the remainder of the league year.

When a team becomes hard-capped, it cannot exceed the “tax apron” at any point during the rest of the league year. The tax apron is set at a point approximately $6MM above the luxury tax line. For the 2018/19 league year, the tax apron – and hard cap for certain clubs – is set at $129.817MM.

So far this year, nine teams have imposed a hard cap on themselves by using the bi-annual exception, using the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, or acquiring a player via sign-and-trade. Listed below are those nine teams, along with how they created a hard cap.

Charlotte Hornets

Detroit Pistons

Los Angeles Clippers

Memphis Grizzlies

  • Used full mid-level exception ($8.641MM) to sign Kyle Anderson.

Milwaukee Bucks

Minnesota Timberwolves

New Orleans Pelicans

New York Knicks

San Antonio Spurs

Currently, none of the hard-capped teams listed above have team salaries within $5MM of the tax apron, so that hard cap shouldn’t be a real issue for most of these clubs during the 2018/19 league year. However, that could change if any of these teams – particularly the Hornets or Pistons – makes additional free agent signings or takes on extra money in a trade at some point.

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Poll: How Long Will Jabari Parker Be A Bull?

August 9th, 2018 at 2:20pm CST by Luke Adams

It wasn’t one of the most lucrative long-term deals of the summer, and it almost certainly won’t have any impact on the NBA championship in 2019, but the Bulls‘ two-year, $40MM deal with Jabari Parker was one of the most interesting free agent signings of 2018.

The contract, which is guaranteed for $20MM in year one with a $20MM team option for 2019/20, was one of the last big-money deals of July. At the same time the Bulls were finalizing their agreement with Parker, the Nets were using their remaining $20MM+ in cap room to absorb a pair of unwanted contract from the Nuggets, acquiring a pair of draft picks in the process. The Hawks were preparing for a similar deal with their leftover cap space, taking on Carmelo Anthony‘s $27MM+ salary in a trade that allowed them to add a future first-rounder and get out of their long-term commitment to Dennis Schroder.

For rebuilding teams with cap room to spare, moves like the ones made by the Nets and Hawks are common. It often makes more sense for those front offices to essentially rent out their cap space and net a young player or draft pick in the process than it would to use that space to sign a free agent of their own.

The Bulls could’ve taken a similar approach, but instead they opted to use their room on Parker, a former No. 2 overall pick whose NBA development has been slowed by a pair of ACL tears. The hope is that the 23-year-old Parker will bounce back and become a key part of Chicago’s core alongside the franchise’s other young building blocks.

Before his latest major knee injury in 2017, Parker had averaged 20.1 PPG, 6.2 RPG, and 2.8 APG with a .490/.365/.743 shooting line in 51 games during the 2016/17 season. Those are very promising numbers for a player who was still 21 years old at the time.

While Parker’s offensive upside is obvious, there are still plenty of questions about his game. He’s not a strong defender, and his decision-making on offense can sometimes leave something to be desired. Although it’s possible he’ll still evolve into a star, that looks far less certain than it did a few years ago. And it’s not clear how he’ll fit in with the Bulls, whose lineup already features another defensive liability on the wing (Zach LaVine), as well as several players who figure to dominate the ball on offense.

Parker’s short-term deal with the Bulls will give the club an exit ramp. If things don’t work out for the Chicago native, he likely won’t still be a Bull at this time next year, since the team will have the opportunity to decide on his second-year option.

On the other hand, there’s no guarantee that the former Duke forward will remain with the Bulls long-term even if he does excel in his hometown — his two-year pact will give him the opportunity to reach unrestricted free agency again in 2020, at which point he could sign with any team.

What do you think? How will the Bulls’ experiment with Parker play out? Will the former top-two pick be one-and-done in Chicago, or will his short-term contract eventually turn into a long-term stay?

Vote below in our poll and jump into the comment section to share your thoughts.

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.

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