International Rumors | Hoops Rumors

And-Ones: Potential Coaching Changes, Wembanyama, France, Draft Odds

May 19th, 2024 at 11:00am CST by Arthur Hill

Head coaches Taylor Jenkins, Willie Green and Chauncey Billups could all be in danger of losing their jobs next season, according to John Hollinger of The Athletic, who discussed the topic with league personnel at the draft combine. Hollinger cites a belief that the Grizzlies, Pelicans and Trail Blazers will consider coaching changes if they get off to slow starts.

Jenkins has been mostly successful during his time in Memphis, finishing second in the 2022 Coach of the Year race, but he’s coming off a 27-win season as the Grizzlies were overwhelmed by injuries. Hollinger notes that the organization fired most of his staff prior to the combine, which could be a sign of trouble.

Green posted 49 wins this season, but New Orleans wasn’t competitive while being swept out of the playoffs in the first round by Oklahoma City. There’s been more scrutiny on Green’s offensive philosophies and player usage, especially at center, Hollinger adds.

Billups seems most likely to be replaced as he’s entering the final year of his contract and is reporting to a general manager who didn’t hire him. Portland also made changes involving its assistant coaches, and Hollinger states that Billups seemed to be trying to position himself for the Suns job before they hired Mike Budenholzer. Everyone that Hollinger spoke with expects Billups to be replaced by next offseason.

There’s more from around the basketball world:

In addition to trying to win a gold medal for France, Victor Wembanyama hopes to use the 2024 Olympics as a learning experience, per Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops. “I am here to learn from some of the best players in the history of the national team,” Wembanyama said. “I am not here to explain anything to players with five, six or seven international campaigns under their belts. For sure, I will have responsibilities, but they will be realistic. I will have as many as necessary.”
Alexandre Sarr, who hopes to follow Wembanyama as the second French player to be drafted No. 1 overall, is part of a wave of NBA talent from the nation, Hollinger writes in a separate story. Zaccharie Risacher will also get consideration as the top pick, as four players from France may be taken in the first round. Wembanyama and Bilal Coulibaly both went in the lottery last year, and Hollinger notes that Nolan Traore is likely to be selected early in 2025. “I think we got so much talent, it’s exciting,” French native Rudy Gobert said. “You go (back) 20 years ago, we had a few guys like (Tony Parker) and Boris Diaw and (Nicolas) Batum, and now you look and there’s so much talent every year coming in. Credit the French clubs and the French federation for being able to develop some of this talent and allowing them to play to their abilities.”
HoopsHype has released its annual draft predictor, charting the most likely players to be selected by each team. The list starts with Sarr, who is considered to have an 87.9% chance to be drafted by Atlanta.

Olympic Notes: France, Australia, Germany, Brazil

May 17th, 2024 at 1:08pm CST by Luke Adams

Ahead of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, the host nation has announced its preliminary 19-man roster (Twitter link). As Eurohoops relays, the headliners on France’s squad are big men Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert, the top two finishers in this year’s Defensive Player of the Year vote.

However, there are several more notable NBA names on the list, including Nicolas Batum, Evan Fournier, Bilal Coulibaly, and Ousmane Dieng. Other recent NBAers who didn’t finish the 2023/24 season on a roster include Killian Hayes, Frank Ntilikina, and Theo Maledon.

One player not on France’s roster is veteran guard Mike James. The 2023/24 EuroLeague MVP is an American, but according to a report from L’Equipe (hat tip to BasketNews.com), the French Basketball Federation explored the possibility of getting a French passport for James, who has played for AS Monaco in France’s LNB Pro A since 2021. That effort didn’t make any real headway, however.

“We do not have the culture of other nations which use naturalized players in a systematic way,” an unnamed executive told L’Equipe. “But we have a duty to explore all possibilities. In this case, we were asked, we looked at it and quickly established that it was not a question.”

The French national team will have to make seven cuts and set a 12-man roster for this July’s event.

Here are a few more updates related to the 2024 Olympics:

The Australian national team has trimmed its preliminary Olympic roster from 22 players to 17, the Boomers announced in a press release. None of the NBA players on the roster – including Josh Giddey, Joe Ingles, Patty Mills, Dante Exum, Matisse Thybulle, and Dyson Daniels, among others – were among the cuts, but potential 2024 first-round pick Johnny Furphy was. The plan is for those 17 Australian players to attend training camp this summer before setting the final 12-man roster.
The German national team announced this week that head coach Gordon Herbert won’t continue on in that role after the conclusion of the Paris Olympics (hat tip to Sportando). The two sides are going their separate ways after a fruitful partnership that included a gold medal at the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
The Brazilian national team has announced its preliminary roster for this summer’s Olympic qualifying tournament in Latvia. The notable names include veteran point guard Raul Neto, former first-round pick Bruno Caboclo, Warriors rookie Gui Santos, and former NBA guard Didi Louzada. The Brazilians will need to win the six-team qualifier to earn a spot in the Olympic men’s basketball tournament.

Jack White Signs With Melbourne United

May 15th, 2024 at 9:00am CST by Luke Adams

Free agent forward Jack White, who finished the 2023/24 season with the Grizzlies, has signed a two-year contract with Melbourne United in Australia’s National Basketball League, the team announced. White’s new deal includes a second-year player option and an NBA-out clause.

An Australian native, White also played for Melbourne from 2020-22, winning an NBL title with the team in 2021. He subsequently made the leap to the NBA and was a member of the Nuggets during their championship season in 2022/23.

White signed with the Thunder last offseason, but was waived at the end of the preseason and spent most of the ’23/24 season in the G League. In 29 total appearances for the South Bay Lakers in the Showcase Cup and NBAGL regular season, the 26-year-old averaged 9.6 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 1.8 assists in 26.1 minutes per game on .442/.321/.595 shooting. He shot the ball much better with the Grand Rapids Gold – Denver’s affiliate – in ’22/23, posting a .438 3PT% and a .767 FT% in 26 contests.

White signed with the Grizzlies during the final days of the regular season, but because it was a hardship contract, it expired immediately after Memphis’ final regular season game and didn’t give the team any form of Bird rights on him. That allowed the forward to immediately return to the free agent market, clearing the path for him to sign with Melbourne.

According to Olgun Uluc of ESPN, White will have the ability to exercise the NBA out in his new deal if he’s offered a standard contract or a two-way deal.

Uluc goes on to posit that Melbourne United’s deal with White signals that the NBL team is preparing to be without forward Luke Travers for the 2024/25 season. Travers just finished the first season of his three-year contract with Melbourne, but his NBA rights are held by the Cavaliers, who drafted him in the second round in 2022, and there’s an expectation that he’ll make the move stateside this summer, Uluc notes, adding that White and Travers essentially play the same position.

Northwest Notes: Alexander-Walker, Nuggets/Wolves Series, Brogdon

May 11th, 2024 at 9:54am CST by Tristan Tucker

Timberwolves wing Nickeil Alexander-Walker injured his shoulder in Game 3 against the Nuggets, according to The Star Tribune’s Chris Hine (Twitter link). He appeared to have trouble taking off his jersey after the game.

“Right now, it hurts,” Alexander-Walker told reporters on Friday night. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow when I wake up and everything’s settled.”

Initially seen as something of a throw-in in the trade that sent Mike Conley to Minnesota, Alexander-Walker has emerged as one of the most important rotation pieces for the Wolves. In his fifth NBA season, Alexander-Walker is continuing to establish himself as a reliable defender and averaged 8.0 points and 2.5 assists per game off the bench this season. We’ll have to wait for more updates to get a sense of whether or not he’ll have to miss time.

We have more from the Northwest Division:

After looking out of sorts in the first two games of the series, the Nuggets stormed back to blow out the Timberwolves on Minnesota’s home court in Game 3. According to The Athletic’s John Hollinger, poor screening and offensive pace negatively affected their defense, allowing Denver to fall into a 2-0 hole. Behind Nikola Jokic‘s 24 points, 14 rebounds, nine assists, three blocks and three steals, the Nuggets have made the matchup a series once again.
Head coach Michael Malone tested the Nuggets‘ belief in themselves following their Game 2 blowout loss, The Athletic’s Tony Jones writes. After Monday’s blowout loss, Malone challenged his players to not run from what happened, but to confront why they lost — he also showed his team a series of video clips of NBA analysts declaring Denver’s season over. Additionally, Malone changed up the sets and the rotations, with Jokic and Jamal Murray playing nearly the entire game. Reserve wing Justin Holiday has become a key part of this series, hitting six three-pointers in his last two games. All of this culminated in the Nuggets‘ best performance this postseason.
The Timberwolves desperately need to find their identity again if they’re going to win the series against Denver, The Star Tribune’s Chip Scoggins writes. “We didn’t want to work very hard for our offense and got a little bit lazy and we missed those shots,” coach Chris Finch said. “We did miss a lot of layups early. Generally, when you’re doing that, you’re not playing in the right mindset.” Anthony Edwards said he would take the blame for the loss, but as The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski writes, there’s plenty Minnesota needs to address in the rest of the series. The Wolves allowed Jamal Murray to get hot in Game 3 and let Aaron Gordon get involved with Rudy Gobert sagging off him.
Trail Blazers guard Malcolm Brogdon has applied for Polish citizenship, according to BasketNews (Twitter link). The Rose Garden Report’s Sean Highkin explains that Brogdon’s wife’s father is Polish and that there’s been talk that Brogdon could play for Poland’s national team in the Olympic qualifying tournament in July (Twitter link). However, nothing is finalized at this moment.

And-Ones: Nunn, Ojeleye, Media Rights, Carter-Williams

May 8th, 2024 at 11:33am CST by Luke Adams

After making the move from the NBA to Europe in 2023, Kendrick Nunn has had a big year with Panathinaikos in Greece. In 45 total games in the Greek League and EuroLeague, the veteran guard has averaged 14.2 points, 3.4 assists, and 2.5 rebounds in 25.0 minutes per game, posting an impressive shooting line of .464/.421/.988. Nunn’s squad has won 21 of 22 Greek League games and ranks second in the EuroLeague with a 23-11 record.

Nunn’s impressive performance earned him a longer-term commitment from Panathinaikos, who have signed the former Heat, Lakers, and Wizards guard to a two-year extension through 2025/26.

The new deal, which was confirmed by Panathinaikos team owner Dimitris Giannakopoulos on Instagram, features NBA outs this year and next year, according to Stavros Barbarousis of Eurohoops, so Nunn will have a window to potentially return stateside if the right opportunity arises. Assuming he plays out the contract, he’ll earn about five million Euros across the next two seasons, per Barbarousis.

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

Another former NBA player, forward Semi Ojeleye, has finalized an extension with his European team, signing a new two-year deal with Valencia Basket, the Spanish team announced in a press release. Ojeleye, who appeared in 284 games for the Celtics, Bucks, and Clippers from 2017-22, played in Italy in 2022/23 before heading to Spain, where he has averaged 13.3 PPG and 4.4 RPG on .493/.471/.869 shooting in 27 EuroLeague contests for Valencia.
Andrew Marchand of The Athletic provides an update on the NBA’s media rights negotiations, reporting that ESPN/ABC is expected to pay $2.6 billion per season to retain its broadcast rights to the league, while Amazon Prime Video will buy in at a rate of about $1.8 billion per year. With NBC hoping to replace TNT as an NBA partner and aggressively pursuing a deal believed to be in the range of $2.5MM annually, the league’s total media deal could be worth nearly $7 billion per season, a significant leap from its previous agreement, which was worth about $2.7 billion per year.
Writing for The Players’ Tribune, veteran NBA guard Michael Carter-Williams explores the challenges that injuries, anxiety, and depression have posed thus far in his playing career and explains why he’s in a good place now, even though he has appeared in just four NBA games over the last three seasons.

Draft Notes: Wells, J. Davis, Armstrong, Castle, 2024 Class

May 6th, 2024 at 3:08pm CST by Luke Adams

After initially being invited to the G League Elite Camp, Washington State shooting guard Jaylen Wells has now been added to the list of invitees for the NBA’s draft combine, reports Jonathan Givony of ESPN (Twitter link). As Givony notes, 78 prospects received combine invitations, so it was a bit surprising that Wells – the No. 54 prospect on ESPN’s big board – didn’t make the cut.

Givony speculates (via Twitter) that the late invite for Wells might mean the NBA is concerned about not having the 40-to-44 players it needs for scrimmages at the combine. A total of 37 players declined to take part in the five-on-five sessions last year, according to Givony, who adds that the availability of 10 of this year’s combine invitees is up in the air — those prospects are either still playing in their respective leagues or will need to be cleared by the NBA’s Fitness to Play panel.

Here are a few more notes related to the 2024 NBA draft:

Johnell Davis, who is testing the NBA draft waters after spending the last four years at Florida Atlantic, will turn down his invitation to the G League Elite Camp and instead conduct private workouts with select teams in the coming weeks, a source tells Givony (Twitter link). If Davis opts to withdraw from the draft by the NCAA’s May 29 deadline, he’ll transfer to Arkansas to play his super-senior season under John Calipari.
Villanova sophomore guard Mark Armstrong, who initially announced he was testing the draft waters, has decided to forgo his remaining NCAA eligibility and go pro, per a press release from the program. Armstrong, who doesn’t show up on ESPN’s top-100 list, averaged 8.4 points, 2.4 assists, and 2.3 rebounds in 24.5 minutes per game across 34 contests (32 starts) in 2023/24.
Givony and ESPN colleague Jeremy Woo (ESPN Insider link) recently updated their prospect rankings for 2024. The top eight players on their board remain unchanged, but they’ve bumped UConn’s Stephon Castle up from No. 14 to No. 9.
Michael Scotto of HoopsHype has updated the site’s aggregate mock draft for 2024, speaking to a few sources about specific prospects and the draft class as a whole. “When you look at this draft, you have to drag down a lot of these players and think of them as 20-30 types of picks,” one NBA executive told Scotto. “The lottery guys in a normal draft would be 10-30. There are no real top-end lottery guys. If you’re thinking of getting a franchise-altering guy, I’d temper that and try to get a good role player. If you’re drafting at the top of the draft, you should try and get some value for that pick on the trade market.” HoopsHype’s aggregate mock has three international players – Alexandre Sarr, Zaccharie Risacher, and Matas Buzelis – coming off the board first.

And-Ones: MVP Race, Awards Announcements, Barton, Betting, Barkley

May 5th, 2024 at 8:38pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are the finalists for the Most Valuable Player award. ESPN’s Zach Lowe and Tim Bontemps take a closer look at the contenders and reveal the results of a straw poll. Jokic is the clear favorite to win the award for the third time, while Lowe gives Doncic the edge for second place due to his superior play-making.

We have more from around the basketball world:

Speaking of the MVP race, the league will announce the winner on Wednesday night, according to NBA Communications (Twitter link). The Rookie of the Year award will be announced on Monday and the Defensive Player of the Year will be revealed on Tuesday. Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert, respectively, are the favorites for those two awards.
Former NBA forward Will Barton has joined Cangrejeros de Santurce, a Puerto Rican team, according to Sportando. Bardon also had short stints wih CSKA Moscow and Granada this season. Barton played a total of 56 games for Washington and Toronto last season.
In the aftermath of Jontay Porter getting banned from the NBA for gambling-related offenses related to prop bets, the NBA and its partner sportsbooks are discussing changes to combat similar occurrences in the future, David Purdum of ESPN reports. Among the changes that have been discussed is prohibiting betting on players with two-way contracts. There have also been discussions on not allowing bets on the “under” on a player prop, though there are concerns that restricting wagers could push bettors into the unregulated betting market.
Charles Barkley stated on the Dan Patrick Show (Twitter link) that if TNT loses its NBA broadcasting rights, he’ll become a free agent. He’s unsure about “Inside the NBA” moving to another network because host Ernie Johnson said he wouldn’t leave Turner Sports. The NBA is in serious negotiations with NBC, Amazon and ESPN/ABC to split up the broadcasting rights, which could leave TNT out of the picture.

And-Ones: All-In Teams, Second Apron, Paris, Larkin

May 3rd, 2024 at 11:35am CST by Rory Maher

The Suns, Lakers and Heat have all mortgaged significant future assets and spent a lot of money to make themselves better in the present, yet none of the three won 50 games in the regular season and they combined to win just two playoff games before being eliminated in the first round, writes John Hollinger of The Athletic.

As Hollinger details, all three teams face difficult questions entering the offseason, with Phoenix’s long-term outlook particularly problematic. Still, the best course of action for all three might be making relatively minor moves instead of going even more all-in than they already are, says Hollinger.

In the short-term, Miami is probably in the worst position of the three teams from a talent perspective, according to Hollinger, but the Heat have better young players than Phoenix and L.A. and have proven adept at developing undrafted free agents.

Seven of the NBA’s 10 biggest spenders in 2023/24 have already been eliminated from championship contention, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks. Those teams are, in order, the Warriors (No. 1), Suns (No. 3), Bucks (No. 5), Heat (No. 7), Lakers (No. 8), Pelicans (No. 9) and Sixers (No. 10).

The Clippers, who had the league’s second-highest payroll this season, also trail their first-round series with Dallas, Marks observes. Only the Celtics (No. 4) and Nuggets (No. 6) have advanced to the second round.

Here’s more from around the basketball world:salary cap

Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports takes a closer look at the NBA’s second tax apron, a new addition to last year’s CBA. The most restrictive aspects of the second apron will kick in this offseason, Fischer notes.
The NBA confirmed in a press release that Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs will face Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers for a pair of regular season games in Paris next year. The games in France’s capital will be held on January 23 and January 25, 2025.
Guard Shane Larkin, who played four NBA seasons with Dallas, New York, Brooklyn and Boston from 2013-18, has signed a four-year extension with Turkey’s Anadolu Efes, the team announced in a press release (via Twitter). The 31-year-old has been one of the best players in Europe over the past several years, averaging 16.8 PPG, 5.1 APG, 2.9 RPG and 1.1 SPG on .464/.395/.912 shooting in 34 EuroLeague contests in ’23/24 (31.7 MPG).

And-Ones: Media Rights, Awards, Hall Of Fame, Lithuania, More

April 30th, 2024 at 3:52pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBC is making a strong play for the right to broadcast NBA games beginning in 2025/26, according to Joe Flint, Amol Sharma, and Isabella Simonetti of The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). People familiar with the situation tell the WSJ trio that Comcast’s NBCUniversal is prepared to pay $2.5 billion per year for a package of NBA games.

As we wrote last week, Amazon Prime Video is in strong position to become a broadcast partner for the NBA, with ESPN/ABC (Disney) also making good progress in talks.

After operating with just two partners (ESPN/ABC and TNT) in its current media rights deal, the NBA is looking to expand to at least three partners this time around. If Amazon and NBC were to join the mix with Disney, it could leave TNT (Warner Bros. Discovery) on the outside looking in, though the league reportedly hasn’t ruled out making four separate deals.

As Flint, Sharma, and Simonetti detail, TNT Sports paid about $1.2 billion per year for its NBA rights the previous media rights agreement, which will expire after the 2024/25 season. TNT remains involved in negotiations with the league and will have the right to match NBC’s offer, but would be looking at a substantial increase in cost.

If Comcast is able to reach a deal with the NBA, their package would include both regular season and playoff games on NBC and their streaming service Peacock, according to the WSJ report.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

After revealing its Executive of the Year winner on Tuesday, the NBA has two more minor award announcements on tap this week, per the league (Twitter link) — Teammate of the Year will be announced on Wednesday, with the Hustle Award to follow on Thursday.
The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame recently announced that its enshrinement ceremony for 2024 has been postponed from August to October, primarily for Olympic-related logistical reasons. Vince Carter and Chauncey Billups are among the headliners of the ’24 class, which was revealed earlier this month.
Eight years after being told by a Pistons doctor that he wouldn’t be able to play basketball again due to a back injury, Lithuanian big man Donatas Motiejunas remains active in the EuroLeague and has played in 123 consecutive games. In a conversation with Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews.com (subscription required), Motiejunas discussed how that incident – which resulted in a voided deadline-day trade – changed the trajectory of his professional career.
Speaking of Lithuanian big men, Kings center Domantas Sabonis and Pelicans center Jonas Valanciunas are both expected to suit up for Lithuania’s national team in their Olympic qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico this summer, according to head coach Kazys Maksvytis. Eurohoops has the story, via a report from Lithuanian outlet 15min.lt.
With LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Stephen Curry combining for a single playoff win, this spring feels like a passing-of-the-torch moment for the NBA, according to John Hollinger of The Athletic.

And-Ones: Paris Games, Ntilikina, Porter Jr., Broadcast Rights

April 29th, 2024 at 10:00am CST by Arthur Hill

Victor Wembanyama will return home next winter as the Spurs and Pacers meet for a pair of games in Paris, the NBA announced (via Twitter). The contests, which are scheduled for January 23 and 25, will mark the league’s first time playing two regular season games in the city in the same season.

“Playing in Paris has been an incredible experience for our organization in the past and we are thrilled for the opportunity to be a part of The NBA Paris Games 2025,” Spurs CEO RC Buford said in a press release. “Thanks to our deep international history, we are fortunate to have Spurs fans in France, across Europe and around the world. We are excited to continue to honor that legacy by purposefully connecting and engaging with our fans in France on and off the court.”

These will be the fourth and fifth games in France for the Spurs, who played in Paris in 2003 and 2006 and traveled to Lyon in 2006. In addition to Wembanyama, the team’s roster features 2023 draft pick Sidy Cissoko, a native of Saint-Maurice.

The games will mark the first trip to France for the Pacers, who also issued a press release about the event. They will be the second and third regular season games in Europe and the 10th and 11th international contests for Indiana.

“The Pacers enjoy tremendous support from fans globally, and we are excited about the opportunity to be a part of the NBA’s efforts to continue bringing the game to new generations of fans all around the world,” said Kevin Pritchard, the team’s president of basketball operations.

There’s more news from around the basketball world:

Former NBA guard Frank Ntilikina has resumed training with an eye on representing France in the Olympics, relays Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops. Ntilikina, who only appeared in five games for Charlotte before being waived in February, talked about his plans in an interview with SKWEEK. “Everything is going in the right direction,” he said. “We are all very confident about my form, two months before the start of the training camp.”
If he doesn’t get an NBA opportunity this summer, Kevin Porter Jr. is interested in spending another season with PAOK in Greece, Askounis adds in a separate story. After sitting out most of the year while dealing with an assault charge, Porter joined PAOK early this month and helped the team reach the playoffs in Greece’s top-tier division. “I am very grateful,” he said. “It is very family-oriented here. That is what I needed to get out of the shell I was in. So, I can’t see myself playing for any club overseas besides PAOK, no matter the league. If it is not the NBA, I will probably be here again.”
Andrew Marchand and Richard Deitsch of The Athletic examine the NBA’s new arrangement with Amazon Prime Video and speculate on whether it means the end of the league’s long-running relationship with TNT.