- Charania wonders if the Grizzlies‘ decision to make Chandler Parsons a healthy inactive will eventually lead to a standoff between the player and the team.
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The Grizzlies are making forward Chandler Parsons a healthy-inactive for the foreseeable future, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. Parsons was cleared to play by the team’s medical staff and participated in a full five-on-five scrimmage Saturday, according to Charania, but wasn’t available for Sunday’s game against the Lakers.
Parsons, 30, has played just three contests with the Grizzlies this season. He’s been sidelined with right knee soreness since Oct. 24, undergoing an MRI that showed fluid build-up but no structural damage at the time.
The Grizzlies most recently listed Parsons as out with “return from injury management,” a term often used when essentially healthy players are sitting, according to David Cobb of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Memphis owns a 17-16 record this season, seeing strong production from multiple players around Mike Conley and Marc Gasol with Parsons out.
Parsons signed a four-year, maximum-salary contract with the Grizzlies in 2016 worth roughly $94MM, appearing in just 70 games during his first two seasons. He’s set to make $24.1MM this season and $25.1MM next season, allowing him to enter free agency in the summer of 2020.
Memphis has two days of rest before hosting the Cavaliers on Wednesday and Celtics on Saturday. The team will then travel to Houston to play the Rockets on the final day of 2018.
With the Joakim Noah era in New York over, front office brass is not only thrilled the oft-injured center is gone but giving second thoughts to signing him, Marc Berman of the New York Post writes. Knicks president Steve Mills discussed the divorce from Noah and his take on the original four-year, $72MM given to the former All-Star in the summer of 2016.
“Obviously I’m disappointed it worked out the way it worked out,” Mills said. “I don’t know that, had it been just my decision, I don’t know that I would have signed him.”
Mills was the Knicks’ general manager and worked underneath then-president Phil Jackson when Noah was brought onboard. The 33-year-old battled injuries in his first season with New York, appearing in 46 games. Noah played just seven more games last season before being suspended following an altercation with former New York coach Jeff Hornacek.
In a recent interview, Noah admitted that he partied too much while a member of the Knicks and that he was “too lit” for New York. The Knicks used the stretch provision on the remainder of his contract and waived the veteran before the start of the season.
Noah joined the Grizzlies — who he called the perfect fit at this stage in his career — and through eight games, is averaging 4.9 PPG and 3.4 RPG for Memphis off the bench.
“There was a reason why we thought that this was the best thing for the culture and the environment of our team,” Mills said. “When the speculation was why don’t we handle Joakim one way and we decided to handle it a different way, there was a reason why we handled it the way we decided to handle it.”
Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry believes LeBron James‘ comment that it would be “amazing” to play with Anthony Davis constitutes tampering, William Guillory of The Athletic tweets. An NBA statement on Friday indicated the James’ statement did not rise to the level of tampering. Gentry vehemently disagreed. “It’s tampering,” Gentry said. “Should we have AD say, ‘Why don’t we trade for LeBron?'” Gentry went on further to say, “I thought if you talked about a player under contract, it’s tampering. That’s just me. I’ve only been in the league for 31 years, so what would I know?”
We have more from around the Southwest Division:
- Rockets All-Star guard Chris Paul has a Grade 2 hamstring strain and will be reevaluated in two weeks, according to a team press release. Paul suffered the injury against Miami on Thursday.
- The Grizzlies are hopeful that forwards Chandler Parsons and Dillon Brooks will return to action soon, David Cobb of the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports. Parsons hasn’t played since the third game this season due to knee and back soreness but has ramped up his workouts lately. Brooks, who has not played since November 10th due to a Grade II MCL sprain, should return before the New Year. They could boost an offense that has reached 100 points just once the past 10 games, Cobb adds.
- On that same topic, Michael Wallace of the team’s website notes that rookie forward Jaren Jackson Jr. and veteran combo guard Shelvin Mack have slumped recently. Coach J.B. Bickerstaff believes confidence is a factor for the team in general. “We can come up with schemes and tricks and all that, but on the offensive end of the floor, we’ve got to take the shots that are available to us,” he said. “We’ve got to believe the shots are going in. Guys are working their tails off, taking their reps. We’ve got to get them those shots, and when they get them, they’ve got to take them and knock them down.”
- Mavericks guard Dennis Smith Jr. probably won’t play again until after Christmas, Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News reports. Smith has missed six of the last seven games due to a wrist injury. He’s unlikely to return until after the team’s road trip, which concludes Sunday. Their next home game is Wednesday against the Pelicans.
- Davis’ decision whether to sign a Designated Veteran extension with the Pelicans looms as one of this summer’s biggest stories, as Danny Leroux of The Athletic notes. Davis has no financial incentive to wait until potential free agency the following summer, so if he doesn’t sign it, that probably means he wants out of New Orleans, as Leroux details.
Former Celtics and Louisville head coach Rick Pitino is making a coaching comeback, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Agent Drew Rosenhaus tells Wojnarowski that Pitino has agreed to a deal to coach Greek club Panathinaikos for the rest of the 2018/19 season. He’s expected to make his debut on December 27.
Pitino’s lengthy stint at Louisville came to an abrupt end in 2017 as a result of the FBI’s probe into college basketball recruiting. He had spent most of the last two decades heading up the program, having previously coached the Celtics from 1997 to 2001. Since leaving Louisville, Pitino has been looking to re-enter the coaching ranks in the NBA, telling Wojnarowski earlier in the fall that he just wants to be “a part of an organization.”
“I want to develop young players,” Pitino said in October. “I want to be part of a team. I miss it terribly. I’m using this time to really study the NBA. If something opens up with a young basketball team, I’d have deep interest in it.”
While his new job isn’t an NBA position, Pitino is hoping that Panathinaikos can be a stepping stone back to the NBA, writes Wojnarowski. He’ll take over a club that ranks 10th in EuroLeague play so far, with a 6-7 record.
Former NBA players Nick Calathes, Georgios Papagiannis, and Keith Langford are among the players on Pitino’s new roster, along with Thanasis Antetokounmpo, the older brother of Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Here are a few more basketball odds and ends:
- Asked whether he’s ever had an issue like the Suns, Grizzlies, and Wizards did last week, when there was confusion over which “Brooks” was involved in a proposed trade, Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck told NBC Sports Boston that he has. “With the same team, by the way, that was involved [in last week’s failed three-team trade],” Grousbeck said. “That’s another story – that I’m not going to tell.” Grousbeck didn’t go into any more detail, so it’s not entirely clear which of the three teams he was referring to.
- In the wake of LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo openly recruiting Anthony Davis to their respective teams, Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report explores whether their comments constitute tampering, and whether commissioner Adam Silver is likely to step in.
- Speaking of Antetokounmpo and Davis, they’re the NBA’s two most valuable trade chips, in the view of Bill Simmons of The Ringer, who ranked his top 55 players in the league in terms of trade value.
- SI.com’s Jeremy Woo has published his latest 2019 mock draft, with Duke prospects holding the top three spots.
- The Grizzlies have assigned big man Ivan Rabb to the Memphis Hustle, the team’s G League affiliate, per a tweet from the the team’s communications department. Rabb, who was recently named the G League player of the week, has averaged 24.5 points and 11.0 rebounds per game for the Hustle so far this season.
3:15pm: Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian is now hearing that the Grizzlies won’t be signing Rivers after all. According to Herrington, the team discussed the idea, but doesn’t plan on pursuing a deal at this time.
2:43pm: Four or five teams are still expressing interest in Rivers, according to Charania, who notes (via Twitter) that there’s been no formal offer yet from Memphis, since Rivers is still a Sun. While the Grizzlies still appear to be the frontrunners for the veteran guard, it sounds like it may not be a sure thing quite yet.
1:20pm: Austin Rivers technically hasn’t been released yet by the Suns, but once he’s officially cut and clears waivers, he’s expected to finalize a new deal with the Grizzlies, league sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Reports on Monday night indicated that Phoenix would be parting ways with Rivers shortly after acquiring him from the Wizards. The 26-year-old was part of the package Washington sent to the Suns in exchange for Trevor Ariza. However, Kelly Oubre was the prize of that package for the Suns, who decided to let Rivers try to catch on with a contending team.
Rivers and his representatives wasted little time in lining up a new deal for the veteran guard, though some details will need to be ironed out before he officially joins the Grizzlies. For one, Memphis currently has a full roster of 15 players on guaranteed contracts. One of those players will need to be traded or released to make room for Rivers.
It will be interesting to see if the odd man out in Memphis is MarShon Brooks, whom the Grizzlies were ready to trade to Phoenix in a three-team Ariza deal on Friday before the trade fell apart because the Suns thought they were getting Dillon Brooks.
MarShon has played fairly regular minutes this season, but would overlap positionally with Rivers, and waiving him might allow the Grizzlies to avoid any lingering locker-room awkwardness after last week’s failed trade. Ivan Rabb and even Chandler Parsons could also be release candidates in Memphis.
Meanwhile, since the Suns haven’t officially waived Rivers yet, they may be in position to negotiate a small buyout with him. Players in Rivers’ situation are typically only open to buyouts if they have a new NBA home lined up — now that the Grizzlies are poised to sign him, perhaps Rivers would be willing to give back the equivalent of his prorated minimum salary, which he’d receive from Memphis on his new deal.
For what it’s worth, the Grizzlies can’t offer Rivers more than the minimum, since they used their full mid-level exception on Kyle Anderson and used their bi-annual exception last season on Tyreke Evans.
After enjoying a career year in Los Angeles last season for the Clippers, with 15.1 PPG, 4.0 APG, and a .378 3PT% in 61 games (33.7 MPG), Rivers has struggled so far in 2018/19. In 29 games (23.6 MPG) with the Wizards, the former Duke Blue Devil posted 7.2 PPG and 2.0 APG with a .392/.311/.543 shooting line. Assuming they’re able to finalize a deal, the Grizzlies will be hoping for a bounce-back performance from Rivers in Memphis.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Due to an unusual agreement with a pair of minority stakeholders in the Grizzlies, Robert Pera‘s position as the franchise’s controlling owner was tenuous up until April of this year. At that point, Pera reached a deal to buy out those minority owners – Steve Kaplan and Daniel Straus – to retain control of the team and to cement his status as the Grizzlies’ owner going forward.
As a result of his newly stable position, Pera became more involved with the team during the 2018 offseason, as he tells Geoff Calkins of The Daily Memphian in a wide-ranging Q&A. According to Pera, he was personally involved in “pretty much every single one” of Memphis’ offseason transactions, which included signing Kyle Anderson and drafting Jaren Jackson Jr.
Pera weighed in on the decision to draft Jackson and several other subjects, including whether Memphis fans should be worried about the threat of relocation. Let’s dive in and round up some of the highlights from the Grizzlies owner…
On drafting Jaren Jackson Jr.:
“One of the biggest reasons we drafted Jaren and also Jevon (Carter) is we did a really in-depth character background and he comes from very good upbringing. His mother is head of the Players Association of the WNBA. When you have players that have the physical attributes, a feel for the game, and they have solid character and solid upbringing, those are all characteristics of players who are some of the most special players in the league, like a Steph Curry.
On whether he’s confident Marc Gasol, who can reach free agency in 2019, will remain with the Grizzlies long-term:
“I can’t read his mind, but if it were up to me I certainly want him to retire as a Grizzly.”
On giving interim head coach J.B. Bickerstaff the permanent coaching job instead of conducting a full-fledged search in the spring:
“One of the things I preached to the front office, I wanted continuity. I always say to the front office, if you want to build a high-performance team, the guys in the locker room can’t see a new face every other week. Right? You need to build a continuity and a familiarity where people can depend on each other, they know who’s in the room and they know they are going to war with the same people every night. A lot of the players knew J.B., so there’s continuity. But on top of that, we have this selfless style of basketball and culture and he’s a very selfless guy. He has the team’s best interest in mind. He fits perfectly with the team.”
On his ongoing confidence in GM Chris Wallace:
“I obviously had my hands in a lot of the moves this offseason, but the way I look at it is, collectively you make some bad decisions, and we made some good decisions, but we don’t like to point at certain people. It’s a collective effort. Chris and the front office, I think this offseason we really surpassed a lot of expectations.”
On whether Memphis basketball fans should be at all worried about him moving the franchise somewhere like Seattle:
“I don’t want any part in relocation. I have my own career, I’m trying to focus on it, I want to keep distractions and chaos to the minimum. I’m committed to Memphis for the long term. And in the world today, it’s so virtual. I have 15 research and development offices around the world, I probably only spend a third of my time in the U.S. When I’m in the U.S., I’m in a bunch of different cities. My employees are in a bunch of different time zones. I keep track of everything virtually. To me it doesn’t matter where the team is located. Memphis is as convenient a place as any. So, yeah, there should be no concern.”
As bizarre as the circumstances were surrounding Friday’s failed three-team trade, it’s not the first time Grizzlies coach J.B. Bickerstaff has experienced that type of situation, writes Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. Bickerstaff was serving as interim coach of the Rockets in 2016 when the team traded Donatas Motiejunas to the Pistons, who later voided the deal because of injury concerns.
“The guy we brought back, D-Mo, was a high character kid so there wasn’t concern about him having a negative impact on the locker room or anything like that,” Bickerstaff said. “The emotion that they feel is more of a personal emotion. I don’t think it’s necessarily something that’s aimed at the team or a group of guys. But there’s thoughts in your mind that you go through.”
Bickerstaff offered an apology yesterday to Wayne Selden and MarShon Brooks, whom the organization intended to move to Phoenix in the deal. The trade collapsed over apparent confusion over whether the Suns were getting MarShon or Dillon Brooks.
“It’s a difficult situation for people to be put in,” Bickerstaff said. “Guys who have shown up and worked every day and did everything we asked them to do. Felt bad for them. From the coaching side, I thought the right thing to do was apologize and let them know we understand how it feels, how we appreciate in the last 24 hours how they handled it because they could have handled it in a much worse way.”
There’s more today from Memphis:
- MarShon Brooks’ mother learned of the trade on social media during Friday’s game and tried to tell her son about it from the crowd, tweets Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian. However, she was too far away for Brooks to figure out what she was saying. “I’m not frustrated with the situation,” Brooks said about the canceled deal. “It’s a business. I understand that. I will say this though: When guys like a Jimmy Butler or Kevin Durant go to different teams and want to play where they want to play, you see why. It’s a business, on both sides.” (Twitter link)
- Memphis may have found a gem in second-round pick Jevon Carter, Herrington writes in a full story. Carter had 11 points and two steals in his NBA debut Saturday and displayed the defensive prowess the Grizzlies were counting on when they drafted him. “It’s just a part of the game. It’s a process,” Carter said of starting his career in the G League. “Every day I come in here, I work, and I just wait. I just give my best effort — being a good teammate on the bench for these guys. I love these guys, so whatever I can do to help is what I’ll do.”
- Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace gave his thoughts on the trade fiasco last night, insisting his team wasn’t responsible for any confusion.
The Suns traded Trevor Ariza to the Wizards this morning without any involvement from the Grizzlies after last night’s three-team deal collapsed because of confusion over whether Dillon Brooks or MarShon Brooks was being sent to Phoenix.
Memphis GM Chris Wallace spoke to reporters today about the drama and denied that his team had any role in making the Suns think they were getting Dillon instead of MarShon, writes Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian.
“We were very clear about who was in the trade,” Wallace said. “Contrary to reports, it was not Dillon Brooks. It put us in a very difficult situation with our players when individuals from one or both of those teams leaked the deal while we were playing last night. That forced me to do something I’ve never done in 30 years in this league working for seven teams: To drag two players out of the locker room to tell them they’d been traded and then come back and tell them, no, you haven’t been traded.”
The proposed deal would have sent Ariza to Washington, Kelly Oubre to Memphis and Austin Rivers, Wayne Selden and Brooks — either Dillon or MarShon — to Phoenix. It’s obvious why the Suns would prefer the 22-year-old Dillon Brooks, who was a second-round draft pick in 2017 and is coming off a promising rookie season. MarShon Brooks, 29, is with his fifth NBA franchise and was out of the league for more than three years before Memphis signed him last season.
The trade was virtually finalized before the Grizzlies and Suns realized they were talking about different players, which Wallace admits was an unprecedented turn of events.
“”Fortunately MarShon and Wayne are pros and after I explained it to them they’re both OK with the situation and we’re all moving forward,” Wallace said. “But what happened last night was unfathomable. From our standpoint, and we made this very clear, it was not Dillon Brooks.”
Wallace believes much of the confusion came about because the Grizzlies and Wizards were both occupied with games. News of the deal leaked before those games concluded, which may help to explain the contradictory reports. Herrington notes that original reports had Dillon Brooks as part of the deal, so it’s unlikely they came from Memphis.
Wallace explained that the trade began to come together Thursday afternoon, but most of the work was done Friday through “multiple discussions” with Washington. He adds that the three teams could probably have worked out the confusion behind the scenes if news of the deal hadn’t been leaked. He also suggested that the incident may make him wary about future dealings with the Suns and Wizards.
“I don’t carry grudges, but I’m not happy about what happened last night,” he said. “We were put in a very difficult position with our players, a position we take great pains not to get into, and we were forced to talk to them (about a trade) right after a loss in the locker room. This should all have stayed in house, and it didn’t, and that started the avalanche going downhill.”