George has spent the first three weeks of the regular season recovering from a pair of shoulder surgeries he underwent in the spring after the Thunder’s season came to an end.
There was an expectation that he’d miss about 10 games to start the season before targeting this week’s back-to-back set in Houston (Wednesday) and New Orleans (Thursday) for his return. Barring a setback, the plan is for him to sit out the game against the Rockets before suiting up vs. the Pelicans, says Haynes.
George’s return is great news for a Clippers team that may be without Landry Shamet, who is undergoing an MRI today on his sprained left ankle. If Shamet misses time, the rest of the Clippers should play similar minutes with George back in the lineup. Once the roster is fully healthy, some of those players figure to have their roles adjusted.
Kawhi Leonard, who is on a load-management plan, will likely sit out one game of the Clippers’ back-to-back set, but it’s unclear at this point whether that will happen Wednesday or Thursday.
November 11th, 2019 at 6:37pm CST by Dana Gauruder
Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry finds himself with a similar predicament, as NBA.com relays. Gentry has used nine players in the lineup through the first nine games. New Orleans won just its second game of the season on Saturday. “Well, we can do one of two things, and we’ve changed a little bit schematically what we are trying to do. The next step is we have to find somebody that will do it,” he said. “We will start playing different combinations of guys, like we did (Saturday). That’s not a threat, it’s just what you’ve got to do as a coach.”
With Zion Williamson sidelined, Brandon Ingram has emerged as the No. 1 Pelicans‘ scoring option ahead of Jrue Holiday, Scott Kushner of the New Orleans Times Picayune notes. Ingram is averaging 25.9 PPG and 3.9 APG. He’ll be a restricted free agent next summer and if he maintains this level of play, the Pelicans will have to offer or match a maximum contract for him, Kushner adds.
Pelicans fans anxiously awaiting Zion Williamson‘s debut will almost certainly have to wait until at least December, as head coach Alvin Gentry recently confirmed that a November return date would be “ambitious” (Twitter link via Andrew Lopez of ESPN). Williamson, who is recovering from meniscus surgery, said last week that his knee is “getting stronger day by day” and is confident he’ll still have plenty of opportunities to contribute over the course of the 82-game season, writes Jim Eichenhofer of Pelicans.com.
With the NCAA season getting underway this week, Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz of ESPN (Insider link) are providing some early scouting reports on top prospects for the 2020 draft, writing that Kentucky’s Tyrese Maxey “stole the show” and looked like a potential top-10 pick in a win over Michigan State on Tuesday.
While Givony and Schmitz are keeping a close eye on several top NCAA prospects, R.J. Hampton – another projected top-10 pick for 2020 – is halfway around the world, playing for the New Zealand Breakers in Australia’s National Basketball League. In a fascinating feature for The Athletic, Dana O’Neil takes a look at how Hampton has adjusted to playing professional ball.
Although Hampton doesn’t necessarily regret choosing to spend the year in Auckland, he admits that it’s “a little weird” watching the NCAA season tip off this week. “I can envision myself in a Kansas jersey,” Hampton told O’Neil, referencing a Jayhawks team whose roster features his best friend Jalen Wilson.
Meanwhile, the top prospect for the 2021 draft class will be remaining stateside rather than following in Hampton’s footsteps by heading overseas. As Givony relays (via Twitter), 6’7″ point guard Cade Cunningham announced this week that he has committed to Oklahoma State for his freshman year in 2020/21. Cunningham claimed the No. 1 spot in ESPN’s very-early mock draft for ’21.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
Former NBA point guard Greivis Vasquez is taking a leave of absence from his job as the associate head coach of the Erie BayHawks, the Pelicans‘ G League affiliate, the team announced today in a press release. “After taking some time to consider what is best for the team and my health, I have decided to step away from coaching to focus on rehabbing my ankle,” Vasquez said in a statement.
In the wake of the NBA/China controversy that dominated headlines during the preseason, NBPA executive director Michele Roberts tells Ben Tolliver of The Washington Post that the union hasn’t done enough to help educate players on international issues. With the NBA frequently making trips to countries like China, India, and others, Roberts wants to help raise players’ awareness on those issues.
Tom Ziller of SB Nation argues that head coaching jobs are more stable now than they have been in past years, generally speaking. As Ziller writes, the average tenure for an NBA coach right now is 3.7 years, which is the highest mark in at least a decade.
In a conversation with Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram spoke about his contract situation, being the subject of trade rumors last season, his reaction to being dealt, and his first impressions of New Orleans, among other topics.
On Tuesday, we published a poll asking which of the NBA’s four remaining undefeated teams would be the last to lose. The Nuggets received nearly 40% of the vote, making them the top choice, then promptly lost their first game about 12 hours later.
Today, we’ll shift our focus to the NBA’s three winless teams and see if we have more success forecasting their short-term futures. After eight days, there are three teams around the league that have yet to win a game. The Pelicans and Kings each have 0-4 records while the Pacers are 0-3.
The Pelicans were a popular dark horse playoff pick during the preseason, but they’ve been hit with injuries early on this year — they’re playing without star rookie Zion Williamson, and key veterans Jrue Holiday and Derrick Favors have missed time as well. Still, it’s not as if they’ve been blown off the floor in the first week. Despite a pretty tough schedule, New Orleans hasn’t lost by more than 11 points.
The same can’t be said of the Kings, who have been disastrous on the road so far, losing by 29 points in Phoenix and 32 in Utah. They’ve also dropped home games to the Blazers and Nuggets, digging an early hole for themselves as they look to improve upon last year’s 39-43 record and compete for a postseason spot.
De’Aaron Fox (.392 FG%), Buddy Hield (.351), and Bogdan Bogdanovic (.275) haven’t been making shots so far, and the team has missed Marvin Bagley III, who suffered a thumb fracture on opening night. The Kings have too much talent to be this bad, but so far they have the NBA’s worst net rating by a substantial margin, ranking in the bottom five on both offense and defense.
The Pacers, meanwhile, are trying to adjust to having four new players in their starting lineup and are without star guard Victor Oladipo. They can’t blame their schedule for their slow start, as they’ve dropped two games to a Pistons squad without Blake Griffin and one to the Cavaliers. Indiana also hasn’t shown yet that it has the firepower necessary to fight back from a defect, ranking 29th in the NBA in pace and dead last in made three-pointers per game.
These three teams have the following games on tap as they look to get in the win column:
Pelicans: vs. Den (10/31), @ OKC (11/2), @ Bkn (11/4), vs. Tor (11/8), @ Cha (11/9)
Kings: vs. Cha (10/30), vs. Utah (11/1), @ NYK (11/3), @ Tor (11/6), @ Atl (11/8)
Pacers: @ Bkn (10/30), vs. Cle (11/1), vs. Chi (11/3), @ Cha (11/5), vs. Wsh (11/6)
New Orleans probably has the most challenging short-term schedule, and would become this season’s last winless team by default if Sacramento and Indiana both win tonight. But the Pels have arguably looked the best of the three teams so far, and Holiday and Favors appear close to returning.
What do you think? Which of the NBA’s three winless teams will be the last to earn a victory?
Vote in our poll, then head to comment section below to weigh in!
A disabled player exception can be granted when an NBA team has a player go down with an injury deemed to be season-ending. The exception gives the club some additional spending flexibility, functioning almost as a cross between a traded player exception and a mid-level exception.
We go into more detail on who qualifies for disabled player exceptions and how exactly they work in our glossary entry on the subject. But essentially, a DPE gives a team the opportunity to add an injury replacement by either signing a player to a one-year contract, trading for a player in the final year of his contract, or placing a waiver claim on a player in the final year of his contract.
Because the rules related to disable player exceptions are somewhat restrictive and the exceptions themselves often aren’t worth a lot, they often simply expire without being used. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on which disabled player exceptions have been granted, just in case.
We’ll use this space to break down the teams with DPEs available for the 2019/20 league year, updating it as the season progresses. Teams have until January 15 to apply for a disabled player exception and until March 10 to actually use them.
Teams that have been granted disabled player exceptions:
Many of the teams that have been granted disabled player exceptions have full 15-man rosters, so they would have to open up a roster spot in order to use their DPEs.
So far, only the Lakers and Wizards have used their disabled player exceptions. Now that the trade deadline has passed, the remaining exceptions are less likely to be used, since teams like the Pistons, Magic, Pelicans, Trail Blazers, Cavaliers, and Nets are unlikely to be in the market for free agents who require more than minimum-salary investments.
Teams/players ineligible for disabled player exceptions:
The Wizardsapplied for a disabled player exception for Wall during the first week of the 2019/20 league year. Word that the NBA had denied that request didn’t surface until October, but the league’s decision makes sense. After all, Wall underwent Achilles surgery all the way back in February.
In order for a DPE to be approved, the injured player must be considered substantially more likely than not to be sidelined through June 15 of that league year. Recovery from Achilles surgery is generally viewed as an 11-15 month process, whereas June 15 would’ve been more than 16 months since Wall underwent that procedure.
The Magic are in the same boat with Isaac. His knee injury apparently isn’t serious enough that the NBA is willing to count on him being sidelined through June 15, so Orlando’s DPE request was denied.
With Zion Williamson out to start the season, new Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram is prepared to carry more of the offensive burden, as he tells Mark Medina of USA Today. Ingram also views New Orleans as a better fit for him than the Lakers were. “I would say this is a better environment,” he said. “There are a lot of genuine people here that are pretty solid. No shame to the Lakers because they are a high-class organization. They do everything well and have a good fan base. But I like this spot.”
Trevon Duval has signed a G League contract and is eligible for this Saturday’s draft, Adam Johnson of 2 Ways & 10 Days tweets. Duval was a two-way player for the Rockets last season and became a free agent when the team didn’t give him a qualifying offer this summer. He was claimed by Houston in March after the Bucks waived him. The former Duke guard made three cameo appearances with Milwaukee.
We have more from around the basketball world:
Journeyman center Hasheem Thabeet, former Lakers guard Vander Blue, and forward Trey Mourning, son of Alonzo Mourning, are some of the more interesting names on the list of players eligible for the G League draft, according to a league press release. The Northern Arizona Suns have the first pick.
There are 108 international players from 38 countries and territories on current NBA rosters, according to a league press release. The most-represented countries among the 108 international players on opening-night rosters are Canada (16 players), Australia (nine players), France (eight players), Croatia (seven players) and Serbia (six players). The Mavericks lead the league with seven international players.
Zion Williamson‘s knee injury created disappointment for the NBA’s TV partners, as Joe Vardon of The Athletic explains. TNT and ESPN wanted nationally-televised games featuring the Pelicans during the opening week of the season to showcase Williamson. They were stuck showing the Pelicans without the top pick in the draft on the court because it was too late to make a change. Vardon goes in-depth on how the national TV schedule is designed and notes that the Lakers play 21 of their 30 nationally -televised games after New Year’s Day because the networks wanted to feature LeBron James and Anthony Davis during the team’s playoff push.
Amida Brimah, the former UConn center who was in training camp with the Pacers, has suffered a torn right ACL, Scott Agness of The Athletic tweets. He was slated to join Indiana’s G League team, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. Brimah will undergo surgery next week, Agness adds.
OCTOBER 25: The Pelicans officially exercised their 2020/21 options on Ball and Hart on Friday morning, a source tells Lopez (Twitter link).
OCTOBER 22: The Pelicans are expected to exercise their team options for the 2020/21 season on Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart, tweets Andrew Lopez of ESPN. The moves will likely become official soon, Lopez adds.
Ball, who will turn 22 on Sunday, was one of the key pieces in the blockbuster trade that sent Anthony Davis to Los Angeles this summer. In two seasons with the Lakers, Ball averaged 10.0 PPG, 6.4 APG, and 6.2 RPG, but shot poorly (.380/.315/.437) and battled injuries, appearing in just 99 games.
He’ll get a chance at a fresh start in New Orleans this season, and the Pelicans are prepared to lock in his $11,003,782 cap hit for 2020/21. The move will make Ball eligible for a rookie scale extension during the 2020 offseason. He’ll reach restricted free agency in 2021 if he doesn’t sign a new deal next year.
Hart also arrived in New Orleans as a result of the Davis trade. Like Ball, he was a first-round pick in 2017 and is entering his third season. He saw his shooting numbers dip to .407./.336/.688 last season after posting a .469/.396/.702 line as a rookie, but will be counted on to help the Pelicans space the floor. His fourth-year option for 2020/21 is worth $3,491,159.
We’re tracking all of this year’s rookie scale option decisions for ’20/21 right here.
