Clippers Rumors

Western Notes: Clippers, Lakers, Cook, Thunder, Nuggets

The Clippers would’ve benefited more from adding a new floor general this offseason instead of a new coach, LZ Granderson of the Los Angeles Times writes.

While multiple veteran guards remain unrestricted free agents, Los Angeles has yet to upgrade the position with training camps set to begin this week. The team promoted Tyronn Lue last month after firing longtime coach Doc Rivers, who first joined the franchise in 2013.

The Clippers lost a grueling seven-game series to the Nuggets in the playoffs last fall, failing to make the Western Conference Finals despite having two All-Stars and an impressive supporting cast. The team’s biggest free-agent acquisition was Serge Ibaka; L.A. also reached a deal with Nicolas Batum on Sunday.

There’s more from the Western Conference tonight:

  • The Lakers ultimately decided against stretching Quinn Cook‘s salary, according to Keith Smith of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Los Angeles will take a cap hit of $1MM for 2020/21 as a result of waiving the 27-year-old, who remains a free agent after playing just 44 games with the team last season.
  • Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman lists five questions for the Thunder ahead of training camp and the 2020-21 season, with the team recently completing a full rebuild after clinching a playoff berth in Orlando. Chris Paul (Suns), Danilo Gallinari (Hawks), Dennis Schroder (Lakers) and Steven Adams (Pelicans) all departed the franchise this month, with Gallinari being the only player to leave as a free agent.
  • Mike Singer of the Denver Post also examines a list of questions related to the Nuggets, a team with its sights set on contending this season. The franchise lost Jerami Grant, Mason Plumlee and Torrey Craig from last season, signing veteran JaMychal Green and bringing back Paul Millsap for frontcourt depth. The team also converted the two-way contract of Bol Bol and signed forward Greg Whittington to a two-way deal.

Nicolas Batum Waived By Hornets, Plans To Sign With Clippers

As expected, the Hornets have waived veteran forward Nicolas Batum, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). The team has officially confirmed the move in a press release.

Batum was excised from the Hornets’ rotation this past season, appearing in just 22 games (23.0 MPG) and playing poorly in his limited time, with 3.6 PPG, 4.5 RPG, and 3.0 APG on .346/.286/.900 shooting. However, he’s only entering his age-32 season and should look more appealing on a minimum-salary deal than he did on his five-year, $120MM contract.

The Clippers are willing to bet on a bounce-back season from Batum, with Charania reporting (via Twitter) that the forward intends to sign with L.A. once he clears waivers. The Clips only have 12 players on fully guaranteed salaries and could use some additional depth on the wing, so Batum should be a good fit on the roster.

According to Charania (via Twitter), the Clippers were one of multiple contending teams with interest in Batum once Charlotte made it clear he would be cut. Golden State, Toronto, Utah, and Milwaukee were previously cited as potential suitors.

A report back on November 21 first indicated that Charlotte planned to waive Batum and stretch his $27MM+ salary across three seasons, opening up the cap room necessary for the team to sign Gordon Hayward to his new four-year, $120MM contract.

Once the Celtics and Hornets began discussing the possibility of turning Charlotte’s Hayward acquisition into a sign-and-trade, there was some uncertainty about whether releasing Batum would be necessary. The Hornets were believed to be exploring the possibility of sending him to Boston or – more likely – another team as part of a Hayward deal.

Although that won’t happen, that doesn’t mean that Hayward can’t still be acquired via sign-and-trade. We continue to await word on that front, but a sign-and-trade agreement would benefit the Celtics, who could generate a massive traded player exception in such a deal.

Now that Batum has been waived, it will make little difference from the Hornets’ perspective whether they sign Hayward outright or acquire him via sign-and-trade. If they can extract a sweetener (ie. a second-round pick or two) from Boston, it would make sense for Charlotte to accommodate the C’s and turn it into a sign-and-trade. We should find out soon whether or not that’s in the cards.

[UPDATE: Hornets Add Gordon Hayward Via Sign-And-Trade With Celtics]

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Kings Among Teams Hoping To Sign Glenn Robinson III

The Kings are among a group of four teams that have expressed the most interest in adding Glenn Robinson III, according to Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee.

Sources tell Anderson that the Lakers, Clippers and Jazz are considered Sacramento’s main competition to sign the free agent forward. Sources also say new Kings general manager Monte McNair and assistant GM Wes Wilcox have been diligent in their pursuit of Robinson.

Sacramento could offer regular playing time to Robinson, who is one of the top free agents still left on the market. The Kings need wing depth after declining to match the offer sheet Bogdan Bogdanovic received from the Hawks, and Robinson would get an opportunity to compete for back-up minutes at small forward.

Robinson, 26, averaged 11.7 points and shot 39.1% from three-point range last season in a combined 62 games with the Warriors and Sixers. Philadelphia acquired him at the trade deadline to add bench depth, but his numbers declined after the deal and he was barely used in the playoffs.

A second-round pick in 2014, Robinson has also played for the Timberwolves, Pacers and Pistons.

Jae Crowder Signs Three-Year Deal With Suns

NOVEMBER 28, 3:37pm: Crowder has officially signed, per team press release.


NOVEMBER 21, 1:03pm: The Suns have reached an agreement to sign Jae Crowder to a three-year contract, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (via Twitter). The deal will be worth just shy of $30MM, tweets Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. Phoenix will use its full mid-level exception to complete the signing.

Crowder, who finished the season in Miami, reportedly explored a new deal with the Heat, but was seeking a guaranteed multiyear commitment that the Heat weren’t comfortable with, per Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald (Twitter link).

League sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link) that Crowder also drew interest from the Mavericks, Timberwolves, Clippers, and Hornets, but that Phoenix’s offer was ultimately too good to pass up.

Crowder, 30, provides value as a three-and-D player who has the size to guard bigger wings. He also played some of his best basketball at exactly the right time in his contract year.

After being traded from the Grizzlies to the Heat at last season’s deadline, the veteran forward made 44.5% of his threes for Miami in 20 games to finish the season, then started all 21 postseason contests as the Heat came within two wins of a title.

Having secured a commitment from Crowder and having traded for All-Star point guard Chris Paul earlier in the week, the Suns are looking like an intriguing playoff contender in the Western Conference this season. The team finished five games below .500 in 2019/20, but had an impressive 8-0 run in the Walt Disney World bubble, increasing expectations for ’20/21.

Paul and Crowder will join a promising group that includes star guard Devin Booker, former No. 1 pick Deandre Ayton, and young wings Mikal Bridges and Cameron Johnson, among others. The Suns also still hope to re-sign restricted free agent forward Dario Saric, per John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 (Twitter link).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Clippers Sign Second-Rounder Daniel Oturu

3:30pm: It’s a two-year, $2.4MM guaranteed contract, Greif adds in another tweet.


12:22 pm: The Clippers have officially signed second-round pick Daniel Oturu, Andrew Greif of the Los Angeles Times tweets.

The Clippers have already reportedly filled their two two-way slots, so it’s safe to assume Oturu signed a standard contract. It’s likely Oturu received a starting salary at or near the first-year minimum of $898,310, though terms were not disclosed.

Oturu was selected with the 33rd overall pick. As a sophomore at Minnesota, the 6’10” Oturu averaged 20.1 PPG, 11.3 RPG and 2.5 BPG in 33.9 MPG. He was also named to the Big Ten All-Defense team.

Contract Details: Rockets, Tatum, Ibaka, Craig, Patterson

Sterling Brown‘s new deal with the Rockets is a one-year, minimum-salary contract that is fully guaranteed, according to Keith Smith of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). That makes it one of the simpler, more straightforward deals Houston has finalized this week.

Newly-signed forwards Bruno Caboclo and Jae’Sean Tate, on the other hand, got multiyear contracts, but they both only have $50K guarantees for now, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link). Caboclo will have his 2020/21 salary fully guaranteed if he’s on the opening night roster, while Tate will get a $500K partial guarantee if he survives to the regular season opener, Marks writes.

While Caboclo has a two-year, minimum-salary deal, Tate’s three-year contract required the Rockets to dip into their mid-level exception and is worth more than the minimum in year one. As Smith details (via Twitter), Tate’s first-year salary will be $1,445,697 – typically the minimum for a player with one year of NBA experience – instead of the standard rookie minimum of $898,310.

Here are a few more new contract details:

  • Celtics forward Jayson Tatum got a 15% trade kicker on his new five-year, maximum-salary extension with Boston, while big man Serge Ibaka received a 15% trade kicker on his two-year contract with the Clippers, according to Keith Smith (Twitter links).
  • Torrey Craig‘s one-year deal with the Bucks is a guaranteed contract worth the veteran’s minimum, tweets Smith. That doesn’t come as a surprise, as Milwaukee had no exception money left besides the minimum for Craig.
  • Rather than re-signing him to a minimum-salary contract, the Clippers re-signed Patrick Patterson using his Non-Bird rights, giving him 20% more than the minimum, according to Bobby Marks (Twitter link). That means a one-year, $3.08MM contract for the veteran forward.

NBA Teams With Hard Caps For 2020/21

The NBA salary cap is somewhat malleable, with various exceptions allowing every team to surpass the $109,140,000 threshold once their room is used up. In some cases, teams blow past not only the cap limit, but the luxury-tax limit of $132,627,000 as well — the Warriors project to have a nine-figure tax bill this season as a result of their spending.

The NBA doesn’t have a “hard cap” by default, which allows a club like Golden State to build a significant payroll without violating CBA rules. However, there are certain scenarios in which teams can be hard-capped, as we explain in a glossary entry.

When a club uses the bi-annual exception, acquires a player via sign-and-trade, or uses more than the taxpayer portion ($5,718,000) 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 was set $6MM above the luxury tax line in 2017/18 (the first year of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement) and creeps up a little higher each time the cap increases. For the 2020/21 league year, the tax apron – and hard cap for certain clubs – is set at $138,928,000.

More than half the teams in the NBA have been willing to hard-cap themselves this offseason, and in some cases, it will significantly impact a team’s ability to add further reinforcements later in the league year. The Bucks and Lakers are among the teams right up against the hard cap, which may prevent them from being players in free agency during the season unless they can shed salary.

For other clubs, the hard cap is just a technicality that won’t affect their plans. The Hawks and Thunder are among the hard-capped clubs that will have zero practical concerns about reaching that threshold in 2020/21.

Listed below are the hard-capped teams for the 2020/21 league year, along with how they created a hard cap.


Atlanta Hawks

Boston Celtics

Charlotte Hornets

Dallas Mavericks

Denver Nuggets

Detroit Pistons

  • Acquired Jerami Grant from the Nuggets via sign-and-trade.

Houston Rockets

Los Angeles Clippers

  • Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Serge Ibaka.

Los Angeles Lakers

Miami Heat

Milwaukee Bucks

New York Knicks

Oklahoma City Thunder

Phoenix Suns

  • Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Jae Crowder.

Portland Trail Blazers

Toronto Raptors

Utah Jazz

Washington Wizards

  • Using non-taxpayer mid-level exception on Robin Lopez.

This list could continue to grow during the offseason if other teams acquire a player via sign-and-trade, use more than the taxpayer portion of their mid-level exception, or use their bi-annual exception.

Analyzing The Clippers' Offseason

Glenn Robinson III Receiving Interest From Lakers, Clippers, Others

Free agent swingman Glenn Robinson III has received interest from several playoff teams, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, who identifies the Lakers, Clippers, Rockets, Nets, and Jazz as the teams eyeing Robinson.

Robinson, who turns 27 in January, began last season with the Warriors and played some of the best basketball of his career in Golden State. In 48 games (all starts) for the Dubs, he averaged 12.9 PPG and 4.7 RPG on .481/.400/.851 shooting in 31.6 minutes per contest.

After being traded from Golden State to Philadelphia at February’s deadline, Robinson saw his role cut back significantly and his numbers dipped accordingly (7.7 PPG and 3.1 RPG in 19.3 MPG). He only logged 36 total minutes in the 76ers’ first-round playoff series, a four-game sweep at the hands of Boston.

While Robinson is unlikely to start for a playoff team in 2020/21, he’d offer solid depth on the wing for any of the potential suitors listed above. Not all of those clubs are limited only to minimum-salary offers, but it won’t be a surprise if the former Michigan Wolverine ends up signing for the minimum.

Central Notes: Pacers, Hayward, Kennard, Pistons, Bucks, Bulls

In a pair of stories, Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files and J. Michael of The Indianapolis Star (subscription required) provide a few additional details on the Pacers‘ pursuit of Gordon Hayward in free agency, confirming that the Celtics sought a second starting player in addition to Myles Turner in a potential Hayward sign-and-trade. That lines up with what Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe reported last week.

Agness says that Hayward and his family purchased a home in the Indianapolis area over a year ago and that his wife was excited about the possibility of moving back to Indiana. However, Ainge apparently drove a hard bargain in trade discussions — Michael reports that even an offer of Turner, a first-round pick, and a rotation player (possibly Doug McDermott, as Washburn reported) wasn’t enough to win over the Celtics.

It’s possible that the hard line drawn by Ainge wouldn’t have ultimately mattered — the Hornets‘ offer of four years and $120MM was about $15MM higher than the Pacers were willing to go, according to Agness. That difference certainly may have been enough to lure Hayward to Charlotte even if the Pacers and Celtics had agreed to trade terms.

Still, both Agness’ and Michael’s reports seem to suggest there was a window when the two teams’ inability to work out a sign-and-trade agreement may have been the only thing standing in the way of Hayward going to Indiana. According to Michael, once the Hornets put their $120MM offer on the table, Ainge wanted to go back to the Pacers to negotiate in “good faith,” but Hayward’s agent Mark Bartelstein “pulled the plug” on that as the veteran forward chose Charlotte.

Here’s more from around the Central:

  • It flew under the radar a little since it wasn’t reported as part of the initial agreement, but the Pistons gave up an eye-popping four second-round picks in their deal that sent Luke Kennard to the Clippers and landed them No. 19 pick Saddiq Bey. According to ESPN’s Zach Lowe (Insider link), those four second-rounders “appear to have been in part the cost of Kennard’s past knee issues.” However, Kennard’s camp is confident those issues are behind him, and it seems the Clippers are too, writes Lowe.
  • While the 2020 draft may not be packed with future stars, Pistons general manager Troy Weaver said his club “really liked” this year’s class, which was why the team traded for multiple extra picks. “We liked the players that were in it and we just felt there were quality young men that could help continue to build our program, we were aggressive,” Weaver said, per Rod Beard of The Detroit News. Referring to Bey, Killian Hayes, Isaiah Stewart, and Saben Lee, the Pistons’ GM added, “Hopefully, we can look back in time and call this our core four.”
  • The failed Bogdan Bogdanovic sign-and-trade was a bad look for the franchise, but Matt Velazquez of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (subscription required) contends there’s a case to be made that the Bucks will ultimately be better off with the moves they made instead. Not landing Bogdanovic allowed Milwaukee to offer more than the minimum to add role players like D.J. Augustin, Bobby Portis, and Bryn Forbes, and the team didn’t end up having to part with promising 23-year-old Donte DiVincenzo.
  • In his latest mailbag, K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago fields questions about the Bulls‘ surprising No. 4 draft pick and the club’s relatively quiet free agent period.