Cavaliers Notes: Green, Shumpert, Lue, Patterson
After 10 seasons in the NBA, Jeff Green couldn’t pass up an opportunity to play for a championship contender, relays Joe Gabriele of NBA.com. Green took a substantial pay cut to join the Cavaliers, dropping his salary from $15MM last season to the veterans minimum of $2.3MM. He is also relegated to a reserve role, with LeBron James cemented as the team’s starting small forward, but Green said the shot at a ring makes the sacrifices worthwhile.
“That was what I was looking for and that’s what came to my sight – that there was an opportunity here,” said Green, who is with his sixth NBA team. “So I was thankful for it and I couldn’t pass it up; the opportunity was there and I jumped on it. It wasn’t a matter of timing or when it happened. It was just when I got the call and thought about it. And I didn’t have to think long. I wrote down the pros and cons of what I wanted. And this situation fit every ‘pro’ on that list.”
There’s more news out of Cleveland:
- Coach Tyronn Lue reassured Iman Shumpert about his future with the team following an offseason filled with trade rumors, writes Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. The Cavaliers came close to shipping Shumpert to Houston in early July, but the Rockets pulled out of the deal after signing P.J. Tucker. Cleveland continued to search for a trade, but the right partner never emerged. Shumpert was frustrated by the reports and shared that sentiment with Lue in a pre-camp meeting. He was also upset about the way his role diminished late in the season and into the playoffs. Shumpert has a player option on his $11MM salary for next season and could become an unrestricted free agent next summer.
- Shumpert needs to become more reliable on offense before the Cavs will trust him against the Warriors, according to Jason Lloyd of The Athletic. Shumpert was a non-factor as Cleveland’s season ended in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, getting off the bench for less than four minutes. He has vowed to contribute more on the offensive end of the court, but with a turnover rate of 19% in transition, Lloyd cautions that might not be best for the team.
- Andrae Patterson, formerly with Utah’s front office, will join the Cavaliers as director of basketball administration, relays Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com. The 41-year-old had a brief NBA career with the Timberwolves and played nine seasons in Europe.
NBA GMs: Rockets Had One Of Best Offseasons
- NBA general managers loved the Thunder‘s acquisition of Paul George. George received 59% of the vote for which offseason addition would make the biggest impact, easily beating out Jimmy Butler (17%), Chris Paul (10%), and Kyrie Irving (7%). Additionally, Oklahoma City was chosen as the team that made the best offseason moves, with 43% of the vote. The Celtics (25%), Timberwolves (14%), and Rockets (11%) were runners-up.
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29 Of 30 NBA Teams Made Trades In 2017 Offseason
The 2017 NBA offseason didn’t feature any stars like LeBron James or Kevin Durant signing with new teams in free agency, but it was still one of the most eventful summers in recent memory. Trades played a big part in the offseason excitement, with NBA teams completing a total of 39 swaps since the 2016/17 season ended.
Not all of those deals were blockbusters. The Rockets, for instance, made several moves that saw them pay cash to acquire players on non-guaranteed salaries in the hopes of flipping them in later trades — most of those players were ultimately waived.
Still, there was no shortage of big-name players on the move. Five Eastern Conference All-Stars changed teams in trades, with Kyrie Irving and Isaiah Thomas involved in the same deal, and Paul George, Jimmy Butler, and Carmelo Anthony all being sent to new homes in the West.
With opening night just two weeks away, 29 of 30 NBA teams have completed at least one trade this offseason, leaving the Spurs as the only club not to make a deal. Of those 29 teams that made a trade, most completed more than one — the Cavaliers, Heat, Suns, Warriors, and Wizards each finalized just one deal apiece, while the league’s 24 other teams made multiple trades.
Here’s the breakdown of the teams that made the most trades this offseason:
- Houston Rockets (8): Houston’s total was artificially inflated by those aforementioned deals involving non-guaranteed contracts. Six of their eight trades saw the Rockets trade cash or a draft pick for a player with a non-guaranteed salary. The team did complete one massive deal though, acquiring Chris Paul from the Clippers.
- Los Angeles Clippers (5): The CP3 swap was the Clippers’ biggest move, but it was hardly their only trade. The team also acquired Danilo Gallinari in a sign-and-trade and acquire multiple second-round picks on draft night.
- Philadelphia 76ers (5): Most of the Sixers’ trades were draft-night deals, though the biggest one happened a few days earlier, when Philadelphia acquired the first overall pick from Boston in order to snag Markelle Fultz.
- Atlanta Hawks (4): The rebuilding Hawks made a handful of trades with an eye toward the future, including taking on Jamal Crawford‘s contract to land a first-round pick, and getting rid of Dwight Howard and his $23MM+ annual salary.
- New Orleans Pelicans (4): The Pelicans essentially completed a pair of salary dumps when they traded Tim Frazier to Washington and Quincy Pondexter to Chicago, since the pick acquired for Frazier was later sold. The team’s most notable deal came on draft night, when New Orleans traded up to No. 31 to select Frank Jackson.
The other NBA teams that made the most trades this offseason are as follows
- Boston Celtics (3)
- Brooklyn Nets (3)
- Chicago Bulls (3)
- Dallas Mavericks (3)
- Indiana Pacers (3)
- Memphis Grizzlies (3)
- Orlando Magic (3)
- Portland Trail Blazers (3)
- Toronto Raptors (3)
- Utah Jazz (3)
- Charlotte Hornets (2)
- Denver Nuggets (2)
- Detroit Pistons (2)
- Los Angeles Lakers (2)
- Milwaukee Bucks (2)
- Minnesota Timberwolves (2)
- New York Knicks (2)
- Oklahoma City Thunder (2)
- Sacramento Kings (2)
Note: The Magic sending the Raptors a draft pick for the right to hire Jeff Weltman and the Knicks sending a pick to the Kings for the right to hire Scott Perry are both considered trades for our purposes.
Rookie Cam Oliver Undergoes Hand Surgery
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer had a feeling last spring that Chris Paul wanted to move on, he told Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times in a Q&A session. Ballmer’s feelings were confirmed shortly after the season but he didn’t get a final decision from Paul until a phone conversation while Ballmer was vacationing in the Greek Isles. Ballmer has stayed in touch with Paul since he was traded to the Rockets but doesn’t believe the team is necessarily worse off without the All-Star point guard, he told Turner. “Chris is an awesome player. But we’re such a different team,” he said. “We are younger. We are more athletic than we were. We are longer than we were. … But we’re different and we’ll see whether we’re different good or not.”
- Rockets rookie forward Cameron Oliver underwent surgery to repair a fractured right hand, the team tweets. Oliver, who went undrafted out of Nevada, will be re-evaluated in approximately 4-6 weeks, the team adds. Oliver signed a two-year minimum contract that includes a $300K guarantee.
Bobby Brown Talks About Recruiting Chris Paul
While James Harden and Trevor Ariza helped to recruit Chris Paul to Houston back in June, Bobby Brown‘s role in selling Paul on the Rockets shouldn’t be overlooked, as David Yapkowitz of Basketball Insiders outlines.
“That’s one of my good friends. We played together in New Orleans and we built a bond from then,” Brown said of his new Rockets teammate. “The basketball world is so small, once you build a bond with somebody that’s real cool and has a great personality, it’s almost like a no-brainer.”
Carmelo Anthony Confirms He Thought He’d Be Traded To Rockets
Carmelo Anthony‘s no-trade clause gave him the power to approve a deal to specific teams, and for most of the offseason, the only team on his wish list was the Rockets. In an appearance on SiriusXM NBA Radio (link via Ian Begley of ESPN), Anthony confirms that he believed earlier in the summer that a trade to Houston was all but finalized.
“A deal was done with Houston early, then for some reason – whatever happened behind the scenes – it didn’t go through, it fell through,” Anthony said. “Then we had to really start paying attention and thinking about other options.”
According to Carmelo, another deal – one that would have sent him to the Cavaliers – nearly got done on draft night, back when Phil Jackson was still running the Knicks (link via Begley). That proposed trade would have landed both Anthony and Paul George in Cleveland, Carmelo said today.
Based on various reports, it sounds like the Knicks and Rockets came closest to a deal right before New York hired Scott Perry as the team’s new general manager in July. At that point, the Knicks put trade talks on hold as Perry got acclimated to his new job and assessed the Anthony situation himself. Ultimately, the Knicks and Rockets never found common ground after that, and Anthony admits he had been preparing last week to show up for Media Day as a Knick.
“Me and my team sat down on Friday night and were like, ‘Man, we best prepare for going back to Media Day on Monday and training camp that week,'” Anthony said. “And then we got the call that said, ‘Would you open it up to OKC?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, at this point, yeah.’
“I don’t think it would have been beneficial for me to come back to Media Day after everything that was going on in the offseason,” Anthony continued. “For me to have to deal with that it would have been unfair for the organization, the Knicks, to have to deal with that. It would have been too much noise, too many questions to answer and I don’t think either party wanted to deal with that.”
While Anthony seems happy to have landed in Oklahoma City, it will be interesting to see whether the trade – and the non-trade to Houston – will have an impact on the Western Conference playoff picture next spring. The Thunder and Rockets faced each other in the postseason in 2017, and if they do so again next year, Anthony would be squaring off against the team he was all but certain he’d join.
Rockets Sign George De Paula
The Rockets have officially signed Brazilian guard George de Paula to their roster, the team announced today (via Twitter). The move brings Houston’s roster count back up to 20 players after the club parted ways with Shawn Long on Tuesday.
De Paula, 21, went undrafted in June and caught on with the Rockets’ Summer League team in July. ESPN’s Chris Haynes (Twitter link) first reported his agreement with the club.
While details of the agreement aren’t known, the newly-signed guard figures to receive little to no guaranteed money to join the Rockets for camp. De Paula is a good bet to ultimately land with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, Houston’s G League team, as an affiliate player.
Rockets Waive Shawn Long
The Rockets have formally waived big man Shawn Long, the team announced today (via Twitter). Long will clear waivers and become an unrestricted free agent on Thursday, assuming no other NBA team places a claim on him.
An undrafted free agent out of Louisiana-Lafayette, Long appeared in 18 games for the Sixers in his rookie season, and was productive in limited minutes. The 6’9″ center averaged 8.2 PPG and 4.7 RPG in just 13.0 minutes per contest. He was even better in the G League, averaging a double-double (20.2 PPG, 11.1 RPG) in 39 games for the Delaware 87ers.
Despite his solid rookie year, Long wasn’t viewed as part of Philadelphia’s long-term plans, and was sent to Houston in a June trade when the Rockets were collecting non-guaranteed salaries with an eye toward including them in a bigger deal.
Ultimately, the Rockets never found a use for Long in a trade, and are now waiving him before they’re committed to paying any of his 2017/18 salary — the 24-year-old would have seen his non-guaranteed contract become partially guaranteed for $50K if he had remained under contract beyond today.
Houston now has 19 players on its training camp roster.
Tucker Has Hamstring Issue
- The Rockets were never close to acquiring Carmelo Anthony before he was traded to the Thunder, according to a Houston Chronicle report. GM Daryl Morey said he wasn’t disappointed that he failed to work out something with the Knicks, the report adds. “We were involved in rumors in a situation he was very interested in coming here,” he said. “We had some interest if we could maybe work it out, but never did.”
- Small forward P.J. Tucker will miss some of training camp because of a hamstring injury, according to another Chronicle report. Tucker suffered the injury during a recent workout but it’s not considered a major issue, the report adds. Tucker signed a four-year contract with the Rockets as a free agent this summer.
Morey Bullish On Rockets; Anderson Happy Not To Be Dealt
- While some NBA observers have concerns about how Chris Paul and James Harden will mesh in Houston, Rockets president of basketball operations Daryl Morey isn’t worried, suggesting today that the club is “100% certain” it will work (Twitter link via Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle).
- Ryan Anderson was able to breathe a sigh of relief this weekend when New York sent Carmelo Anthony to a team besides the Rockets. Speaking today to reporters, including Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle (Twitter links), Anderson said he talked frequently to the Rockets’ brass and believed there was a “low probability” of being dealt, which he appreciated, since he and his family “love” Houston.