- The Clippers signed Kris Dunn to a three-year, $16,279,200 contract which is non-guaranteed in the final year, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype tweets. The third year can become fully guaranteed if Dunn is named to the All-Defensive First or Second Team during either the 2024/25 or 2025/26 season — if he doesn’t earn All-Defensive honors, his guarantee date for the third-year salary would be June 30, 2026. Los Angeles acquired Dunn in a sign-and-trade with Utah.
Nets forward Jalen Wilson has been named the Most Valuable Player of the NBA’s Las Vegas Summer League, the league’s communications department tweets.
Wilson averaged 21.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.0 assists and 0.6 steals while shooting 47.3% from the field and 55.0% from 3-point range in five games in Vegas.
His performances should solidify his spot on the team’s roster this upcoming season. The 23-year-old has a $1.89MM minimum-salary contract for 2024/25 that is currently just partially guaranteed for $75K. It increases to a partial guarantee of $325K if he makes the opening night roster.
Oddly, Wilson was only named to the All-Summer League Second Team. The First Team included the Grizzlies‘ GG Jackson II and Scotty Pippen Jr,, the Clippers‘ Jordan Miller, the Rockets‘ Reed Sheppard and the Heat‘s Kel’el Ware.
The Grizzlies and Heat reached the Summer League championship game. Sheppard, the No. 3 pick in last month’s draft, averaged 20.0 points, 5.3 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 2.8 steals in four Las Vegas outings.
Along with Wilson, the Second Team included the Wizards‘ Carlton Carrington, the Trail Blazers‘ Donovan Clingan, the Heat‘s Jaime Jaquez Jr. and the Pacers‘ Jarace Walker (Twitter links).
Following a pair of promising Summer League outings, Lakers rookie point guard Bronny James sat out the team’s Las Vegas finale, a 107-81 blowout of the Bulls, writes Mark Anderson of The Associated Press.
Across his last two available games, the 6’2″ USC alum scored 25 points while shooting 10-of-21 from the floor, including going a respectable 3-of-8 on three-pointers after missing all 15 of his outside attempts prior to that.
“He had two pretty good games last two,” Summer League head coach Dane Johnson said. “I think it’s just going to help him going into the summer so we can work on different things with him. Just that confidence and knowing he can play at this level. It’s still going to take a lot of time and a lot of reps.”
There’s more out of California:
- After dealing with a leg injury, rookie Warriors big man Quinten Post had a stellar Summer League debut on Friday, writes Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. “We wanted to make sure he was healthy before he got on the floor, so he was on a minutes restriction, from 12 to 15,” assistant general manager Larry Harris told Poole. “The biggest thing we saw right away is that offensively he was what we’re hoping he can be… Moves well, can run up and down the floor and he can pass. He handles the ball for a big guy and, obviously, shoots the three well. The offensive side, we feel pretty good about.” The seven-footer was selected with the No. 52 pick out of Boston College. In a 90-83 win, Post notched 10 points while shooting 4-of-7 from the floor (2-of-4 from long range), three rebounds, one dime and one steal in just 14 minutes of action.
- Speaking to Chris Haynes on ESPN’s Summer League broadcast on Saturday (YouTube video link), rising second-year Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski discussed Klay Thompson‘s decision to depart the team for the Mavericks in free agency. “So for me, just appreciating his presence, appreciating everything he shared with me from an on-court and off-court perspective, and getting a call from him a couple days ago and just, him telling me I’ll always have a brother in him for life is pretty cool,” the All-Rookie First Teamer said.
- The Clippers will debut on owner Steve Ballmer‘s brand-new home court, the Intuit Dome, at the start of the 2024/25 season. Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN revealed details of the new $2 billion arena, which includes a state-of-the-art video halo called the “Halo Board.” Ballmer is looking forward to having far more scheduling flexibility than he had previously experienced while sharing space with the Lakers and the NHL’s L.A. Kings at Crypto.com Arena. “We got to build a place that is our house,” Ballmer said. “We got to put the energy in our house. We didn’t want to play too many Monday nights against Monday Night Football. We don’t want to play as many Saturday games.”
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer wasn’t thrilled to lose Paul George to the Sixers this offseason, but he was emphatic in his belief in the retooled roster when speaking to reporters on Friday, ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk writes.
“I love Paul,” Ballmer said. “Let’s start with Paul as a human being. Paul is a great human being, and I’ve really enjoyed my opportunity to get to know Paul’s family. So on a personal level, I hated it. I hated it.
“From a basketball perspective, Paul is a fantastic player, future Hall of Famer. But we knew we needed to continue to get better. And with the new CBA, what tools, what flexibility [can be restricted], we made Paul what I consider a great offer. But it was a great offer in terms of us thinking about how to win championships. It wasn’t what Paul wanted.”
George’s interest in a deal that matched or exceeded the three-year, $150MM deal Kawhi Leonard received has been well-covered. The Clippers declined to include a fourth year in any contract offer for George and opted not to give him the no-trade clause he sought on a three-year deal. George wound up accepting a four-year maximum-salary contract with Philadelphia.
After losing George, the Clippers turned their attention to replenishing their depth. The team re-signed James Harden before adding role players like Nicolas Batum, Derrick Jones Jr., and Kris Dunn, among others.
“I think we’re going to be a very, very good team,” Ballmer said. “We’re going to contend. We’ll see how far it takes us. There’s a lot of good teams in the West, let alone you’ve got the Celtics, etc. in the East. But there’s a lot of good teams. I think we are one of them, and if we stay healthy, if we play well, I think every team’s got to get a little bit of luck.
“Our two guys at the top are pretty good, and I’ll take our guys that we flank around them. Just take a look at Dallas. They rode the backs of two great players and a bunch of other very, very good players, and we certainly have that.”
Ballmer believes that sooner or later every team will be faced with a decision like the one the Clippers had to make in their negotiations with George.
“Guys like me who’ve been very willing to pay the luxury tax — it’s not about the luxury tax anymore,” Ballmer said. “It’s about the penalties in terms of how you get better. I’m not willing to sacrifice getting better. Still willing to pay the money. But it’s more than money now.“
Law Murray of The Athletic explores some offseason questions related to the Clippers, starting with the health of Kawhi Leonard.
The six-time All-Star and two-time Finals MVP was removed from Team USA ahead of the Paris Olympics, leading to speculation about the status of his right knee, which has caused him issues over the years, including battling inflammation in the playoffs. According to Murray, both Leonard and the Clips seem confident in the 33-year-old’s health, even if some reports suggested otherwise.
President of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said he and the Clippers were “very disappointed” in USA Basketball’s decision to replace Leonard.
“He wouldn’t be out there and we wouldn’t put him out there if we weren’t confident that he’d be able to go through the entire Olympic experience,” Frank said. “I get it from USAB’s perspective; no one has a crystal ball. … Ultimately, they decided after the third practice that they didn’t feel as confident as we felt. That’s their right. It’s their team.”
Here’s more from the Pacific:
- The Clippers are now 4-0 at the Las Vegas Summer League after dispatching the Jazz on Thursday, writes Janis Carr of The Orange County Register. Second-year players Kobe Brown (20 points, three rebounds, six assists) and Jordan Miller (19 points, five rebounds, four assists) were the top individual performers for the Clips, who have to wait until Friday’s games conclude to determine whether or not they’ll advance to the semifinals, Carr notes.
- DeMar DeRozan has been a veteran leader for the Bulls the past three seasons and he plans to continue that with the Kings, he told Hunter Patterson of The Athletic. “I take pride in that,” DeRozan said. “Just giving whatever experience in life that I’ve been through, sharing that and giving any type of gems that I can give to help avoid any type of pitfall that someone else could go through if they haven’t been through something. I’ve been through a lot on and off the court that I feel like I can share. Any experience that I can give, I’ll try to give it all because I want the best for anybody I work with or play with and I want them to thrive the best way they can.”
- Suns forward David Roddy has been hoisting up three-pointers during Summer League action, and he’ll likely need to show he can convert them at a high level if he wants to earn minutes under new head coach Mike Budenholzer, per Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. As Rankin notes, Budenholzer’s teams ranked between second and eighth in the NBA in three-point attempts from 2018-23, while former first-rounder Roddy has converted just 30.1% of his outside looks over his first two NBA seasons.
The NBA’s Board of Governors voted this week to make the in-game flopping penalty a permanent part of the league rules, according to a press release. The rule, which charges the offending player with a non-unsportsmanlike technical foul and gives the opposing team a free throw attempt, was adopted ahead of the 2023/24 season on a one-year trial basis and will remain in place going forward.
The Board of Governors also approved a tweak to the tiebreaker rules for the NBA Cup (in-season tournament), removing overtime scoring for the purposes of the point differential and total points scored tiebreakers.
There were scenarios last season in which it would have benefited the winning team to play for overtime – where it could build a bigger margin of victory – rather than trying to win in regulation by a smaller margin. That won’t be the case under the new rules, as an NBA Cup group-stage game that goes to overtime will result in a point differential of zero for both teams, regardless of how the extra period plays out.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Anthony Gill is drawing interest from a pair of EuroLeague teams, according to Alessandro Maggi of Sportando, who says that Barcelona and Anadolu Efes are eyeing the veteran free agent forward. Gill has spent the past four seasons with the Wizards, appearing in 179 regular season games during that time, almost exclusively as a reserve.
- Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports takes a closer look at how the NBA’s new tax apron rules are impacting teams’ decisions this offseason, suggesting that players whose contracts are heavy on unlikely incentives may become harder to trade going forward. Wizards guard Jordan Poole, Heat guard Tyler Herro, and Nets forward Cameron Johnson are a few of those players, Fischer writes — their deals each include between $2.5MM and $4.25MM in annual incentives. Whether or not they’re earned, those incentives are counted when determining where a team is operating relative to the aprons.
- ESPN’s Brian Windhorst recaps Team USA’s Wednesday win over Serbia, while Joe Vardon of The Athletic provides a handful of takeaways from the squad’s time in Abu Dhabi, which also included an exhibition victory over Australia. Kevin Durant (calf strain) didn’t practice with the club in Abu Dhabi, but is hoping to get on the court in London during Team USA’s final stop before heading to Paris, Vardon writes. The U.S. will face South Sudan on Saturday and Germany on Monday in its last pre-Olympic tune-up games.
- The Clippers sent $4.3MM to the Jazz in the Russell Westbrook/Kris Dunn trade, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link), more than covering Westbrook’s $4.03MM salary for the 2024/25 season.
New Warriors sharpshooter Buddy Hield, who ranks 22nd all-time among NBA players in career three-pointers, will be the de facto replacement for the player who ranks sixth on that all-time list (Klay Thompson). Asked this week if he feels pressure to replicate the production and the outside shooting that Thompson provided for years in Golden State, Hield downplayed that idea.
“There’s no pressure,” Hield said, per Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. “Just come and do my job. What Klay has done for this organization has been tremendous. I love Klay a lot. I’ve watched him over the years. He’s special. The way he can get hot and the way he can just change the game and be the two-way player that he is, and the champion that he is. So, I don’t look at it as pressure. I think it’s fun just being in that role and seeing if I can get the same looks he got.”
Hield has never been as effective an all-around player as Thompson was in his prime years, and he certainly can’t match the former Warriors’ postseason accomplishments, having appeared in a playoff game for the first time this spring. However, the two players’ career shooting numbers are quite similar — Thompson has made 3.1 of 7.6 three-pointers per game (41.3%) in 793 contests, while Hield has knocked down 3.0 of 7.6 per game (40.0%) in 632 outings.
Here’s more from around the Pacific:
- Dalton Knecht has been the best player on the Lakers‘ Summer League roster and already looks like a potential steal as the No. 17 pick in this year’s draft, according to Jovan Buha of The Athletic, who says the rookie forward projects to be in the top nine of L.A.’s rotation in the regular season. Entering Thursday’s contest, Knecht has averaged 22.0 PPG with a .412 3PT% in his first two games in Vegas.
- Bones Hyland saw more playing time for the Clippers during the final month-and-a-half of the 2023/24 season and won’t have Russell Westbrook ahead of him on the depth chart in ’24/25. However, with Kris Dunn and Kevin Porter Jr. now in the mix in a Los Angeles backcourt that also features James Harden, Norman Powell, and Terance Mann, there’s still no clear path to regular playing time for Hyland, who remains on the trade block, according to Law Murray of The Athletic (Twitter link).
- Although Drew Eubanks decided well ahead of his player option deadline to opt out of his deal and become a free agent, he wasn’t necessarily set on leaving the Suns, as Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic relays. “The interest was always there for me to return (to Phoenix),” said Eubanks, who ultimately agreed to a deal with Utah. “The notion of it being a ‘mutual split’ is just factually false. There were a lot of conversations about me coming back this next year from the moment the season ended and into free agency. At the end of the day, there were other opportunities and I had to make the best decision for myself and my family. Loved my year in Phoenix.”
- The Suns will hire John Little as the head coach of their new NBA G League affiliate, the Valley Suns, sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link). Little was previously part of G League coaching staffs with Maine and Wisconsin.
8:04pm: The trade is official, according to an announcement from the Jazz, who also acquired the draft rights to Balsa Koprivica (the No. 57 pick in 2021) in the deal.
1:33pm: The Clippers are sending Russell Westbrook, a second-round pick swap, and cash to the Jazz in order to acquire free agent guard Kris Dunn via sign-and-trade, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter links). The second-round swap will be for 2030, tweets Tony Jones of The Athletic.
Westbrook is expected to reach a buyout agreement with Utah and eventually sign with the Nuggets once he clears waivers, according to Wojnarowski.
Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report (Twitter link) hears that Dunn will sign a three-year, $17MM contract. The final season of Dunn’s deal with Los Angeles will be a team option, per Woj (Twitter link).
Strangely, this will be the second time that Westbrook will be traded to — and then waived by — Utah in 17 months, with the first instance coming in February 2023. In this case, the Jazz are acquiring a second-round swap and some cash in exchange for using a small chunk of their cap room to take Westbrook’s salary off L.A.’s books.
The 35-year-old will earn a little over $4MM this season, while the minimum salary for a player with his amount of experience will earn about $3.3MM. We’ll have to wait and see how much he gives up in the buyout, but it’s safe to assume he’ll be on a minimum-salary deal with the Nuggets — it’s all they can offer due to their financial situation.
Westbrook exercised his player option this summer but reports came out almost immediately saying the Clips were working with him on a trade. He has essentially only been linked to Denver, which has an opening at backup point guard after salary dumping Reggie Jackson to Charlotte.
Three-time MVP Nikola Jokic is reportedly a fan of Westbrook, who also received an endorsement from veteran center DeAndre Jordan. The nine-time All-Star and former MVP averaged 11.1 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.1 steals on .454/.273/.688 shooting in 68 games with the Clips last season (22.5 minutes per contest).
Haynes reported on July 1 that Dunn would sign with the Clippers, with Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports later stating that the two sides were working on sign-and-trade scenarios to open a wider salary range for the 30-year-old guard. It took a few weeks, but a deal has finally come to fruition.
The fifth overall pick in the 2016 draft, Dunn didn’t live up to his draft billing in Minnesota or Chicago during the early years of his career, but has evolved into a solid rotation piece in recent years. Dunn spent the past two seasons in Utah, where he provided solid, versatile defense in the Jazz’s backcourt and earned praise from head coach Will Hardy for his voice in the locker room.
In 88 total appearances (35 starts) across two seasons in Utah, Dunn averaged 7.4 points, 4.3 assists, and 3.3 rebounds in 20.6 minutes per game, with a shooting line of .497/.395/.741.
A report last week from Michael Scotto of HoopsHype indicated that the Clippers had sign-and-trade interest in free agent point guard Tyus Jones.
However, Law Murray of The Athletic (Twitter links here) has heard differently, stating the team was “never” focused on the 28-year-old, and with Kris Dunn coming aboard, L.A. is no longer viewed as even a long-shot destination for Jones. According to Murray, the Clips are not interested in Jones “in any capacity.”
As Murray explains, the Clippers always planned to acquire Dunn, it just took a few weeks to come together. Murray suggests the rumor may have come from Jones’ camp, as he’s still seeking a new contract nearly three weeks into free agency.
Here’s more from the Pacific:
- In part due to his strong play as a rookie and in part due to his team-friendly contract, which will pay him $3.5MM, $3.7MM and $5.7MM over the next three seasons, Brandin Podziemski holds more value to the Warriors than he would to most other teams, as Anthony Slater of The Athletic writes. “I think I can get (to an All-Star level),” Podziemski has said. “I’m never gonna just settle for being a role player.” Shams Charania of The Athletic recently reported that Podziemski’s potential inclusion in a deal for Lauri Markkanen has been a sticking point in negotiations between Golden State and Utah. According to Slater, Podziemski isn’t off limits in trade talks, but the Warriors place a high value on what he brings to the table, both in the short and long term.
- Former Nuggets guard Collin Gillespie landed with the Suns on a two-way deal this summer. He views Phoenix as a “really good opportunity” to earn minutes at point guard, he told Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. “I feel like I’m an elite shooter,” Gillespie said. “I can run the point guard position really well, get guys shots, especially the guys who I’ll be playing with (Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal). They’re elite scorers. Just find them in spots for them to score and have the best opportunity to help us win.”
- Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports takes an in-depth look at Gillespie’s game, exploring the 25-year-old’s strengths and weaknesses and discussing whether it’s reasonable to expect the former Villanova standout to play rotation minutes in 2024/25.
Appearing at the Las Vegas Summer League on Monday, Celtics wing Jaylen Brown was asked about his reaction to not making USA Basketball’s Olympic team, either as one of the initial 12 players or as a replacement for Kawhi Leonard. Brown made it clear that, despite his apparent frustration, he was proud of teammate Derrick White for taking Leonard’s spot.
“I called Derrick right away,” Brown said, per Souichi Terada of MassLive.com. “Just to make sure there’s no confusion, my love for you and all of that. He knew that, and he did. You don’t always gotta make everything public. Me and D-White are good.”
Still, Brown – who said he “wasn’t surprised” at being passed over for Team USA – reiterated that he believes Nike was involved in that decision. As Jared Weiss of The Athletic writes, Brown has criticized Nike over the years and isn’t sponsored by the company, whereas White is.
“I do for sure,” Brown replied when asked if he thinks Nike influenced the roster decision. “There will be more stuff to come with that. As of now, I’m not gonna comment on it.”
Here’s more on Team USA:
- As Joe Vardon of The Athletic relays, White told reporters in Abu Dhabi over the weekend that he was scheduled to be on vacation in Cabo San Lucas, but that he’d “much rather” be with Team USA. “I got the call and I was ready to go,” White said. “… I just had to talk to the family and try to figure out how we can make it work and as quickly as possible. I’m super thankful and grateful and excited to be here.”
- Team USA still wasn’t at its best in Monday’s exhibition game against Australia, but key contributions from Anthony Davis and Anthony Edwards helped the team secure a six-point victory, as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and The Athletic’s Vardon detail.
- With Joel Embiid still trying to round into form and Davis having been the team’s most effective big man through two exhibition contests, head coach Steve Kerr may face a tough decision when determining his starting center for the Olympics, Vardon writes in another story for The Athletic.
- Team USA is still playing NBA basketball, according to John Hollinger of The Athletic, who says the squad will need to adjust to better the international rules and style to ensure it wins gold in Paris.
- Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said on Monday that he and the Clippers were “very disappointed” with USA Basketball’s decision to replace Leonard on the Olympic roster, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. Frank’s comments are noteworthy, since even though Team USA managing director Grant Hill took responsibility for the move, reporting at the time indicated that Leonard’s camp and the Clippers were involved in making the decision, too. “No, it was USAB’s call and I was quite frankly very disappointed with the decision,” Frank said. “Kawhi wanted to play. We wanted him to play. I was there the first two practices, he looked very good. Was a full participant in everything that they did. I wasn’t there for the third practice where ultimately that was the point where they decided to go in a different direction (last Wednesday). I expressed to them I really wish that they would’ve given Kawhi more time.”