- Luke Kennard missed a good chunk of last season with Detroit due to tendinitis in both knees. Now a key reserve for the Clippers, Kennard is grateful for all the rehab he last season, as he told Andrew Greif of the Los Angeles Times. “It helped so much more than I could have thought and now I’m feeling great, my body feels great and I’m moving well,” Kennard said. “I hated it at the time — didn’t hate it, but it just took a while. It was pretty hard. Looking back now, I’m grateful and thankful I went through it.” Kennard signed a four-year extension in December.
Clippers stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George have been cleared to play in tonight’s game against the Magic, tweets Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. Both players missed the past two games due to health and safety protocols.
Leonard and George didn’t accompany the Clippers on their current road trip, but were expected to join the team once they received medical clearance. Tonight is the third game of the six-game trip, which began with a loss in Atlanta and a win in Miami.
The Clippers still won’t have guard Patrick Beverley, who has missed the past two games with soreness in his right knee, Youngmisuk adds (via Twitter). Beverley also didn’t travel with the team, and no official timetable has been set for him to return.
“Mentally, they’re in a great place,” Clippers reserve point guard Reggie Jackson said of the two unavailable wings. “They are doing all they can to get back as soon as possible.”
The NBA and NBPA have reached a stalemate in their negotiations for the possible addition of an 18th roster spot for teams in 2020/21, reports Marc Stein of The New York Times (Twitter link).
Word broke nearly two weeks ago that the league and the players’ union were discussing the possibility of adding a third two-way contract slot. Currently, clubs are permitted to carry up to 15 players on standard contracts and two on two-way deals, for a total of 17.
The idea, which was previously said to be gaining some momentum, was broached at a time when a series of games were being postponed because teams didn’t have the required minimum of eight players available.
According to Stein (Twitter link), the league has maintained that if an 18th roster spot is added, it should be a third two-way slot only open to players with fewer than four years of NBA experience, as the other two-way slots are. The players’ union wants that 18th spot to be open to all veteran free agents.
Stein adds (via Twitter) that there’s some concern that adding an 18th roster spot open to any veteran free agent would give a competitive advantage to hard-capped teams (such as the Lakers, Clippers, and Bucks), allowing them to add another quality player despite their current financial constraints.
A player on a two-way contract this season is earning a $449K salary (half of the rookie minimum) and doesn’t count against his team’s salary cap.
Isaiah Thomas won’t be the only NBA veteran suiting up for Team USA at the AmeriCup qualifiers in San Juan, Puerto Rico next month. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter), seven-time All-Star Joe Johnson, who has been out of the league since 2018, will also represent the U.S. in games against The Bahamas and Mexico.
As G League expert Adam Johnson points out (via Twitter), with the NBAGL bubble taking place next month, there will be fewer G League veterans available to represent Team USA than there were at the earlier qualifiers. However, there are a number of former NBA players who weren’t selected in this month’s NBAGL draft who could look to join Thomas and Johnson on the U.S. roster to showcase themselves to NBA teams.
USA Basketball has already qualified for the 2022 AmeriCup tournament by going 4-0 in previous qualifying games, so the team won’t face any pressure in San Juan to win both its games.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Brian Shaw, the head coach of the G League Ignite, spoke to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype about the outlook for prospects like Jalen Green and Jonathan Kuminga, why other youngsters should consider the G League out of high school, and whether he has any desire to return to coaching in the NBA.
- Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated also checks in on the Ignite, passing along first impressions of Jalen Green and exploring the roles that the G League veterans on the Ignite’s roster are playing.
- The City of Inglewood intends to use eminent domain to acquire the land necessary for the Clippers‘ new arena, according to Jason Henry of The Pasadena Star-News, who provides an update on the plans and the timetable for the construction of that building.
- Veteran basketball analyst Sekou Smith (of NBA TV and NBA.com) passed away on Tuesday due to COVID-19, as Tim Bontemps of ESPN writes. The league and the players’ union both released statements mourning Smith. Our condolences go out to his family and friends.
The Clippers and Knicks are among the teams interested in Pistons point guard Derrick Rose, according to a report from Shams Charania of The Athletic.
There’s no indication of Detroit’s willingness to include Rose, 32, in a deal before the March 25 trade deadline, though the team did use its No. 7 pick to select guard Killian Hayes in last year’s NBA draft.
Hayes is expected to miss at least seven or eight more weeks due to right hip subluxation, but Rose continues to come off the bench for the Pistons. He missed Monday’s game with soreness, as starter Delon Wright finished with 28 points and nine assists.
Rose is in his second season with Detroit, coming off a campaign that saw him average 18.1 points and 5.6 assists per game in 50 contests. He shot a career-high 49% for the season, mostly playing off the bench in 26 minutes per game.
The Clippers could use another creator alongside Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, having failed to upgrade their point guard position during the offseason. The team did add veterans Nicolas Batum and Serge Ibaka to improve its creation, ball movement and floor-spacing. Rose met with the franchise in free agency after it traded away Chris Paul three-and-a-half years ago.
New York also has some familiarity with Rose, as the former Most Valuable Player spent a full season with the team in 2016/17. Head coach Tom Thibodeau also coached Rose with Chicago from 2010-16 and then again with Minnesota from 2017-19.
Clippers stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George will miss the team’s game in Atlanta on Tuesday after being placed on the league’s health and safety protocol list, the team’s PR department announced.
The superstar duo didn’t fly to Atlanta with the rest of the team, Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN tweets.
The Clippers, who are off to a 13-4 start, carry a seven-game winning streak into their six-game road trip. They’re also schedule to face Miami (Thursday), Orlando (Friday), New York (Sunday), Brooklyn (Tuesday, Feb. 2) and Cleveland (Wednesday, Feb. 3) before returning home to face Boston on Friday, Feb. 5.
It’s possible that Leonard and/or George will join the team at some point on its journey if they clear protocols, Youngmisuk adds.
Leonard and George are the latest big-name players to miss time due to COVID-19 protocols. Jimmy Butler, Karl-Anthony Towns, Kevin Durant and Jayson Tatum are among the top-level players who have been sidelined by the protocols in recent weeks.
Through lineup additions and subtractions, as well as new offensive sets implemented by their new coach, the Clippers are feeling more confident in their chemistry this season than they did during their disappointing 2019/20 run, according to Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.
“I feel like our energy is way better this season,” forward Marcus Morris said. “It’s a new season; it’s a new team.”
The Clippers have won four straight games, even with key rotational players missing. New additions Serge Ibaka and Luke Kennard have managed to fit in nicely.
“Hopefully, you guys see it, just how well we are meshing,” star forward Paul George said. “We are going to continue to build off of that; we like where we are at and like where we are heading, and we want to see this thing play all the way through.”
There’s more out of the Pacific Division:
- Adjusting to their not-insignificant roster turnover has yet to be an issue for the Lakers, says Rob Mahoney of The Ringer. The team has added four core new rotation players: new starters Dennis Schröder and Marc Gasol, plus key new bench additions Wesley Matthews and Montrezl Harrell.
- The slumping Kings are 5-10 despite an encouraging 3-1 season start, and James Ham of NBC Sports Bay Area opines that it may be time to infuse the starting lineup with new blood. The club is on a four-game losing streak, and has lost nine of its last 11 contests. “It sucks losing. You can never accept it, well, I can never accept it,” big man Marvin Bagley III said after a lopsided 115-96 loss to the Clippers on Wednesday.
- Clippers center Ivica Zubac, who started for the club last year, has looked more comfortable in his new role off the bench this season, according to Andrew Greif of the Los Angeles Times. The newly-signed veteran Ibaka has supplanted Zubac as the starter.
In his second year with the Clippers, reserve power forward Patrick Patterson is impressing his Los Angeles teammates and coaches with his preparation, according to Mirjam Swanson of the Orange County Register.
“Coming in every single day and getting (his) work in, condition-wise, shots, always putting in the extra time,” Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue said of Patterson’s prep work, despite a limited on-court rule thus far. “Pat Pat has been doing a good job of playing five-on-five with the young guys, and just keeping his flow.”
After the NBA’s transactions wire remained relatively quiet for the first few weeks of the 2020/21 season, teams have begun making moves with a little more frequency as of late.
While one recent transaction – the four-team trade that sent James Harden to Brooklyn – was clearly a higher-impact move than the rest, a number of clubs have made smaller changes to their rosters by waiving players this week. The Raptors and Wizards cut big men Alex Len and Anzejs Pasecniks from their 15-man rosters, while the Sixers opened up a two-way slot by releasing Dakota Mathias.
As a result, there are now 12 teams across the NBA that have at least one open 15-man roster spot. One of those teams – the Trail Blazers – also has an open two-way contract slot, as do two others, leaving just 16 clubs who are carrying the maximum of 17 players.
With so many clubs facing roster shortages recently and the NBA and NBPA discussing the possibility of adding a third two-way slot to rosters for the rest of the season, it’s a little surprising that more teams aren’t making use of all 17 available spots, but it will likely just be a matter of time before those many of those openings get filled.
Here’s the current breakdown of teams with open roster spots:
Teams with an open 15-man roster spot:
- Brooklyn Nets
- Note: The Nets have three open roster spots and will need to fill at least two of them within two weeks of completing the Harden trade.
- Charlotte Hornets
- Los Angeles Clippers *
- Los Angeles Lakers *
- Milwaukee Bucks *
- Minnesota Timberwolves
- New Orleans Pelicans
- Portland Trail Blazers
- San Antonio Spurs
- Toronto Raptors
- Utah Jazz
- Washington Wizards
Note: An asterisk (*) denotes that the team can’t currently sign a 15th man due to the hard cap.
Teams with an open two-way slot:
- Philadelphia 76ers
- Phoenix Suns
- Portland Trail Blazers