- Lakers coach Luke Walton applauded Jordan Clarkson‘s defense and he envisions the combo guard having a major role off the bench this season, Joey Ramirez of NBA.com writes. “I don’t look at [Clarkson’s role] as really coming off the bench as much as the way Lamar came off our bench but he was really a starter,” Walton said. “He played big minutes, played the end of ball games. Ginobili [also] did it for years in San Antonio.”
Metta World Peace is hoping to play professional basketball for 20 seasons, Mark Medina of The Orange County Register writes. “I want to finish off strong,” World Peace said. “It’s not about what it will mean to me. It’s about, ‘Can I get there?’”
World Peace faces stiff competition to make the Lakers’ opening night roster, but the veteran isn’t worried about his status on the team. “My concern is having a good time. There’s nothing to overcome,” World Peace said. “I’m a hell of a basketball player. That’s the hard part, becoming a good basketball player. Once you do that, you don’t have to worry about nothing else.”
The Lakers signed the 36-year-old to a one year, non-guaranteed deal last month. The forward similarly signed with the team late last summer and became a mentor to the team’s young talent over the course of the season. Despite the additions of several veterans, such as Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov, World Peace has a chance to carve out the same role. “We didn’t expect him to make the team last year and he made it,”GM Mitch Kupchak said. “The same thing can happen this year.” If he makes the team, the 2016/17 seasons will be World Peace’s 17th NBA season and 18th overall in his professional career.
Coach Luke Walton and rising star D’Angelo Russell both feel Metta World Peace is nothing like his reputation would suggest and believe the veteran is a great teammate, Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times relays (series of tweets). “Metta is very professional,” Walton said. “There’s a lot of help having him around and having him at camp.” Russell added that the forward took him under his wing last season.
The man formerly known as Ron Artest enjoys hearing the kind words, but understands the reason that he has the adverse reputation. “I used to be a bad teammate,” World Peace lamented.
Zach Auguste faces stiff competition to make the Lakers‘ roster, but the team is impressed the forward thus far in camp, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders writes. “Zach is relentless on the offensive glass,” Walton said. Auguste’s contract is only partially guaranteed for $60K and Walton admitted that players’ contracts are considered when determining playing time in camp. “We’re going to continue to give the guys who are under [fully guaranteed] contracts the first and second looks, so the reps aren’t always as high [for the non-guaranteed players],” Walton added.
- The Lakers have hired Lorena Martin as their Director of Sports Analytics, according to the team’s website. Los Angeles also added Jennifer Swanson as their Head Physical Therapist, Stacey Robinson as their Massage Therapist and Sean Light as an Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach.
Kobe Bryant‘s final season was one of the NBA’s top stories throughout the 2015/16 season, capped with a 60-point performance in the Lakers’ regular-season finale against the Jazz. However, Bryant wasn’t the only longtime NBA star who called it a career in 2016. Tim Duncan announced his retirement in the summer, and Kevin Garnett did the same this fall.
Bryant, Duncan, and Garnett are three of the most accomplished players of the last two decades, having combined for four MVP awards, 11 NBA titles, and an incredible 48 All-Star appearances. While they were hardly at their best in 2015/16, their career résumés prior to last season were strong enough to ensure they’ll become Hall-of-Famers as soon as they become eligible.
In a community roundtable, the basketball writers at SI.com look at the three retired stars and attempt to determine which one they’ll miss the most. The trio had very different styles of play, with Garnett defined by his intensity on the court, while Duncan was more of a steady, calm presence in San Antonio. As for Kobe, his production was more unpredictable than that of the two forwards, but he also had the ability to put up 50 points on any given night.
As we enter the first NBA season since 1994/95 in which none of these three players will take the court, which one will you miss the most? Bryant, Duncan, or Garnett? Take to the comments section below to weigh in and share your thoughts on the three retiring stars.
- Lakers center Timofey Mozgov insists he’s healthy after dealing with knee injuries last season and says he’s ready to assume a heavy workload for his new team, Mark Medina of The Los Angeles Daily News relays.
No-trade clauses are rare in the NBA, and they became even rarer this offseason, when several players with those clauses in their contracts either called it a career or signed new deals. Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett, who all opted for retirement, had no-trade clauses last season, and so did Dwyane Wade, who doesn’t have the same protection on his new contract with the Bulls.
Nonethless, while the list of players with explicit no-trade clauses may be dwindling, there are still several players each year who have the ability to veto trades. A player who re-signs with his previous team on a one-year contract – or a two-year contract with an option clause – is given no-trade protection, and so is a player who signs an offer sheet and has that offer matched by his previous team. Players who accept qualifying offers after their rookie deals expire can also block deals, though no restricted free agents signed their QOs this year.
Taking into account that list of criteria, here are the players who must give their consent if their teams want to trade them during the 2016/17 league year:
No-trade clauses
- Carmelo Anthony (Knicks)
- LeBron James (Cavaliers): Received no-trade clause on his new contract with Cavs.
- Dirk Nowitzki (Mavericks)
Players whose offer sheets were matched
- Allen Crabbe (Trail Blazers)
- Tyler Johnson (Heat)
Players accepting qualifying offers
- None
Players re-signing for one year (or two years including an option)
- Lou Amundson (Knicks) (waived)
- Elton Brand (Sixers) (retired)
- Ian Clark (Warriors)
- Alonzo Gee (Pelicans) (waived)
- Manu Ginobili (Spurs)
- Udonis Haslem (Heat)
- Kris Humphries (Hawks)
- Dahntay Jones (Cavaliers) (waived)
- James Jones (Cavaliers)
- James Michael McAdoo (Warriors)
- Steve Novak (Bucks)
- Marcus Thornton (Wizards)
- Beno Udrih (Pistons)
- Anderson Varejao (Warriors)
- Sasha Vujacic (Knicks)
- Metta World Peace (Lakers)
Information from Basketball Insiders and Yahoo! Sports was used in the creation of this post.
Friday’s injury to Ben Simmons has validated Brandon Ingram‘s decision to be careful about adding weight, writes Baxter Holmes of ESPN.com. Earlier this week, Simmons told reporters that he put on 33 pounds since leaving LSU. Ingram knows he needs to bulk up his 190-pound frame to handle the rigorous NBA game, but he prefers to do it slowly to reduce the risk of injury. The Lakers rookie has abandoned a 5,000-calorie-per-day program that he was practicing before the NBA draft. “As I’m going through the process, it’s as much good weight I can put on during the year,” he said. “Of course in the summer, you can go a different route and try to gain as much weight as you can. During the season, [I’m] just trying to maintain a weight.”
- The Lakers want to push Jordan Clarkson, who inked a four-year, $50MM deal this summer, to become a better defender, Mark Medina of The Orange County Register writes. The guard has embraced the challenge that new coach Luke Walton has given him for the season, Medina adds. “I was just terrible on that end, taking wrong angles, wasn’t there on tags and wasn’t there on late closeouts,” Clarkson said of his 2015/16 performance. “It got to the point where it was bad. We were a bad defensive team as a whole last year. But I take it upon myself really to improve on that.”
With training camps underway, teams have now officially finalized the contract agreements with various camp invitees that had been reported over the past several weeks, meaning we have plenty of contract details to round up. As usual, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders has been busy reporting those details, updating his salary pages for teams around the NBA.
Because we have so many updates to pass along from Pincus, we’ll divide them up by players who received some guaranteed money from their teams, and those who didn’t. All of the links below point to the Basketball Insiders team salary pages, so be sure to click through for additional information.
Here are the latest salary updates from across the league, via Pincus:
Players receiving guaranteed money:
These players aren’t necessarily assured of regular-season roster spots. In fact, many of them likely received guarantees as an incentive to accept a D-League assignment. Still, for some players, larger guarantees should increase their odds of making 15-man rosters.
- Thomas Walkup (Bulls): One year, minimum salary. $69.5K guaranteed.
- Keith Benson (Heat): Two years, minimum salary. $75K guaranteed.
- Henry Sims (Jazz): One year, minimum salary. $75K guaranteed.
- Alex Poythress (Pacers): One year, minimum salary. $35,381 guaranteed.
- Kevin Seraphin (Pacers): Two years, $3.681MM. First year ($1.8MM) guaranteed.
- Julyan Stone (Pacers): One year, minimum salary. $50K guaranteed.
- Gary Payton II (Rockets): Two years, minimum salary. First year ($543,471) guaranteed.
- Isaiah Taylor (Rockets): Two years, minimum salary. $50K guaranteed.
- Kyle Wiltjer (Rockets): Two years, minimum salary. $275K guaranteed.
- Cat Barber (Sixers): One year, minimum salary. $50K guaranteed.
- Elton Brand (Sixers): One year, minimum salary. $1MM guaranteed.
- Derrick Jones (Suns): Three years, minimum salary. $42.5K guaranteed.
- Alex Caruso (Thunder): One year, minimum salary. $50K guaranteed.
- Kaleb Tarczewski (Thunder): One year, minimum salary. $75K guaranteed.
- Chris Wright (Thunder): One year, minimum salary. $100K guaranteed.
Players receiving no guaranteed money:
The following players all signed one-year, minimum salary contracts with no guaranteed money. Many of these deals are “summer contracts,” which won’t count against a team’s cap unless the player earns a spot on the 15-man roster.
- Jabari Brown and Jaleel Roberts (Bucks)
- Markel Brown, Dahntay Jones, Cory Jefferson, Eric Moreland, John Holland, and Jonathan Holmes (Cavaliers)
- Dorell Wright (Clippers)
- Chris Crawford (Grizzlies)
- Ryan Kelly, Will Bynum, and Richard Solomon (Hawks)
- Perry Ellis (Hornets)
- Eric Dawson (Jazz)
- Julian Jacobs and Travis Wear (Lakers)
- Quinn Cook (Pelicans)
- Joel Anthony and Nicolas Laprovittola (Spurs)
- Gracin Bakumanya, Derek Cooke, and Shaquille Harrison (Suns)
- Rasual Butler (Timberwolves)
Back in 2014, top Lakers executive Jim Buss vowed in a statement to the Los Angeles Times that if the franchise didn’t return to Western Conference contention within three or four years, he would resign. However, as Bill Oram of The Orange County Register observes, comments made by Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak this week suggest a less aggressive timeline. While Kupchak said the team needs to improve on last year’s win total (17) by more than just “a game or two,” he stopped short of setting any specific goals related to win totals or playoff contention, and it sounds as if he’s in no rush to hurry along the rebuild. Whether Buss will continue to stick the contention timeline he established publicly two years ago remains to be seen.
Let’s round up a few more notes from out of Los Angeles…
- As he did a year ago, Metta World Peace will have to “earn his way” onto the Lakers‘ 15-man regular-season roster, Kupchak confirmed on Tuesday (Twitter links via Serena Winters of LakersNation.com). According to Kupchak, the veteran forward knows there’s a possibility he may not remain with the team when the regular season gets underway.
- As usual, the Clippers will head into the season without a standout player at the small forward position, prompting Doc Rivers to suggest that the competition for the starting spot is “wide open.” Dan Woike of The Orange County Register has the details and the quotes.
- In a separate piece for The Register, Woike notes that the Clippers significantly bolstered their basketball operations staff this year, having been “understaffed” in the past, per Rivers.
- The Clippers‘ title window remains open for now, but with Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and J.J. Redick eligible to reach the open market in 2017, Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times examines how much time the team will have before that window closes.