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Southwest Notes: Ryan, Murphy, Wembanyama, Lively, Bane

October 26th, 2023 at 3:55pm CST by Rory Maher

Matt Ryan, whose two-way contract was claimed off waivers by New Orleans after being released by Minnesota, had a strong debut with the Pelicans, writes Christian Clark of NOLA.com (subscriber link).

The 26-year-old forward converted a trio of three-pointers in under three minutes during the second quarter, shifting the momentum of the game. While he only played 14 minutes, Ryan was a game-high plus-20 in the Pelicans’ 111-104 victory over Memphis, Clark notes.

After the game, Ryan reflected on his experience as a DoorDash driver once his college career ended, which coincided with the NBA shutting down the season due to the pandemic in March 2020.

“I was kind of getting bored going from home to the gym,” Ryan said. “I wanted to do something that was easy to drop and go play right away. I had a car. Was capable of delivering food. I did that for a little bit. But I stayed in the gym. Stayed focused on my goals. When the opportunity came, I was ready.”

Ryan is now on his fourth team, having made previous stops with the Celtics, Lakers and Wolves. He remains steadfast in his belief that he’s an NBA player, and he should have more opportunities to showcase his long-range shooting with Trey Murphy sidelined, Clark adds.

“I truly believed I could play at this level,” Ryan said. “It would have been easy to stop or take a mid-level job in Europe. I wanted to play in the NBA. I always did. I believe that I can. I’m going to continue to try to show it.”

Here’s more from the Southwest:

Murphy’s return timeline is up in the air due to a torn meniscus in his left knee, which required surgery, but he already feels like an essential piece for the Pelicans, Clark writes in another subscriber-only story for NOLA.com. Murphy, who was the 17th pick of the 2021 draft, is now in his third season. In 2022/23, he averaged 14.5 PPG and 3.6 RPG in 31.0 MPG across 79 appearances (65 starts), posting an impressive shooting line of .484/.406/.905. The Pelicans exercised their ’24/25 team option on Murphy, making him eligible for a rookie scale extension next summer. Clark suggests the 6’9″ sharpshooter could land a nine-figure payday on his next contract.
While Spurs No. 1 overall pick Victor Wembanyama had some moments of brilliance against Dallas in his regular season debut, recording 15 points (on 6-of-9 shooting), five rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block, he also committed five turnovers was limited to just 23 minutes in the loss due to foul trouble, notes Jonathan Givony of ESPN.
In the same story, ESPN’s Tim MacMahon says Mavericks center Dereck Lively II, who was the No. 12 overall pick, was the more impactful big man, notching 16 points (7-of-8 shooting), 10 rebounds, a steal, a block and a game-high plus-20 in 31 minutes off the bench. “He played f—ing amazing,” Mavs superstar Luka Doncic said.
Desmond Bane is finding his voice as a leader of the Grizzlies, particularly with Ja Morant suspended and Steven Adams out for the year with a knee injury, as Kelly Iko of The Athletic relays. Not only has the fourth-year guard become more vocal, he leads by example as well — he has an “obsessive work ethic,” according to Iko. “He’s the one on the team who I call ‘Cap’ for captain,” said rookie GG Jackson. “You can tell from his vibe in practice or even around the facility that he’s the lead dog, the most mature professional on the team. I still try to act a little goofy to add positivity, but he always has his head on the straight and narrow. He’s very serious about his craft. When it’s time to get to it he’s locked in.”

CJ McCollum Discusses Expectations For Season, Zion, More

October 25th, 2023 at 7:50am CST by Luke Adams

Speaking to Sam Yip of HoopsHype, Pelicans guard CJ McCollum discussed his expectations for the upcoming season, his role as the NBPA president, and why he’s encouraged by what he’s seen from Zion Williamson entering the season.

Injury Updates: Alvarado, Booker, Beal, Mann, J. Allen

October 24th, 2023 at 1:20pm CST by Luke Adams

Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado suffered a setback in his rehab program following an offseason ankle sprain, the team announced in a press release on Tuesday.

According to the Pelicans, Alvarado – who was hoping to be back for the start of the regular season – felt discomfort in his injured right ankle and was reassessed on Monday. The plan is for him to continue his rehab and to be reevaluated again in two weeks, per the club.

Finding ways to keep their players healthy was reportedly something the Pelicans focused on this offseason, but the team is already banged up before the regular season tips off. In addition to missing Alvarado, New Orleans will be without Naji Marshall and Trey Murphy when the season gets underway in Memphis on Wednesday.

Here are a few more injury updates from around the NBA:

Ahead of the Suns‘ regular season opener on Tuesday night in Golden State, Devin Booker (left big toe soreness) tells Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic (Twitter link) that he’ll play after initially being listed as questionable. However, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link), Bradley Beal (lower back tightness) is unlikely to be available as Phoenix plays it safe with its major offseason addition.
Terance Mann earned a spot in the Clippers‘ starting lineup with a strong camp and preseason, but he won’t be available when the team opens its season on Wednesday vs. Portland, having sprained his left ankle in Monday’s practice (Twitter link via Mark Medina of Sportskeeda). Mann is considered day-to-day, per head coach Tyronn Lue, who didn’t reveal who will start in his place (Twitter link via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN).
Jarrett Allen‘s status for the Cavaliers‘ regular season opener on Wednesday in Brooklyn remains up in the air. According to Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com (Twitter link), head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said that on Monday that Allen didn’t practice and that he’ll need to go through at least one full practice before playing a game. Asked on Tuesday if Allen practiced today, Bickerstaff replied, “I don’t know. Good question” (Twitter link via Fedor).

Three Players On Exhibit 9 Contracts Make Opening Night Rosters

October 24th, 2023 at 8:04am CST by Luke Adams

As we explain in a glossary entry, Exhibit 9 contracts are generally handed out by NBA teams to players who will only be with the team during training camp and/or the preseason.

The Exhibit 9 clause protects the team in case the player suffers an injury before the season begins. In that scenario, the club wouldn’t have to pay him his full salary until he gets healthy enough to play — it would only have to pay a maximum lump sum of $15K when it waives the player.

While most Exhibit 9 signees were released in advance of the regular season, three NBA veterans who signed Exhibit 9 contracts survived the cut and made their respective teams’ regular season rosters. Here are those three players:

Ryan Arcidiacono (Knicks)
Harry Giles (Nets)
Lamar Stevens (Celtics)

Note: Hornets guard Edmond Sumner was initially included in this list, but Charlotte waived him on Tuesday ahead of its season opener.

These three players will now be on one-year, minimum-salary contracts that will remain non-guaranteed until January 10. In order to secure their full-season salaries, they’ll have to stay under contract beyond January 7 (a player cut on Jan. 8 or 9 wouldn’t clear waivers prior to the league-wide salary guarantee date of Jan. 10).

As our list of non-guaranteed contracts by team shows, Arcidiacono, Giles, and Stevens are three of the 31 players on standard deals whose salaries for the 2023/24 season aren’t fully guaranteed.

Several of these players will receive partial guarantees by remaining on rosters through the start of the regular season, and a few more have November or December trigger dates that will increase their guarantees. However, none of those 31 players will lock in their full salary until Jan. 10.

Here are a few more items of interest about the NBA’s opening night rosters for ’23/24, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link):

The Spurs have the NBA’s youngest roster, while the Clippers have the oldest.
Players are earning a combined total salary of $4.8 billion for the 2023/24 season. The Celtics, Nuggets, Warriors, Clippers, Lakers, Heat, Bucks, Pelicans, Sixers, and Suns are the biggest contributors to that pool, as they’re all currently over the luxury tax line.
As our roster counts page shows, there are 12 open spots on standard 15-man rosters around the NBA. Those openings belong to the Celtics, Bulls, Cavaliers, Pistons, Warriors (two), Lakers, Heat, Timberwolves, Pelicans, Trail Blazers, and Kings.
The Nets and the Suns are the only two teams that haven’t filled all three of their two-way slots, as our tracker shows. They’re each carrying a pair of two-way players, meaning 88 of the 90 spots around the league are occupied.

Time For Williamson To Stay Healthy

October 23rd, 2023 at 8:10pm CST by Dana Gauruder

It’s not looking like Jose Alvarado will be ready for the Pelicans’ opener. The spark-plug guard was unable to practice on Monday, Christian Clark of the New Orleans Times-Picayune tweets. Alvarado has been dealing with a right ankle sprain suffered during an offseason workout.
The Pelicans explored trading Zion Williamson over the summer, multiple executives told Clark, but there was never any serious traction on a deal. A better outcome would be for Williamson to stay healthy and fulfill his promise. Williamson is hopeful changes to the performance staff will help him reach that goal. “The Pelicans have put in a lot of things this offseason to not only prevent things like that, but to react to it in the best way possible,” Williamson said. “I think what the Pelicans have done, there is good structure.”

Maxey, Quickley, Williams Among Players Who Didn’t Sign Extensions

October 23rd, 2023 at 7:00pm CST by Dana Gauruder

An unusual number of players who were eligible to sign rookie scale extensions prior to Monday’s deadline inked new deals. A total of 14 players received rookie scale extensions in 2023, blowing away the previous single-year record of 11.

However, nearly half of the 27 eligible players didn’t sign a contract and thus will head to restricted free agency, if they are extended qualifying offers by their respective teams after the season. Otherwise, they’ll be unrestricted free agents next summer.

Perhaps the biggest name on the list is Sixers star guard Tyrese Maxey, though that comes with an asterisk. The Sixers front office and Maxey mutually agreed to put off an extension so that Philadelphia could maximize its cap room next summer.

Immanuel Quickley and Patrick Williams are two of the other big-time names on the list who didn’t reach agreements with their teams. While the Knicks and Quickley’s reps — as well as the Bulls and Williams’ reps — held extension talks as the deadline neared, they couldn’t come to terms on the numbers.

Precious Achiuwa and Malachi Flynn (Raptors), Saddiq Bey (Hawks), James Wiseman and Killian Hayes (Pistons), Kira Lewis (Pelicans), Chuma Okeke (Magic), Isaac Okoro (Cavaliers), Aleksej Pokusevski (Thunder) and Obi Toppin (Pacers) are the other eligible players who didn’t sign extensions.

A full list of the players who did, or did not, sign rookie scale extensions this offseason can be found here.

Pelicans Claim Matt Ryan Off Waivers

October 22nd, 2023 at 6:37pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

6:37pm: The acquisition of Ryan is now official, per a Pelicans tweet.

4:21pm: Swingman Matt Ryan has been claimed off waivers by the Pelicans, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).

Ryan, who went undrafted out of Chattanooga in 2020, split his 2022/23 season between the Lakers and Timberwolves. The 26-year-old managed to secure a standard roster spot to start the year with the Lakers, but was cut after appearing in just 12 contests with the club.

Ryan quickly agreed to a two-way deal with Minnesota, but played sparingly for the Timberwolves as well. At the NBA level last year, he averaged 3.6 PPG on . 370/.381/.833 shooting splits, 0.8 RPG and 0.5 APG in 34 total games.

Minnesota issued a two-way qualifying offer to Ryan in June, making him a restricted free agent, and he eventually signed that QO. However, he didn’t claim a regular season roster spot and was waived by the Wolves on Friday.

The Pelicans will take on Ryan’s one-year, two-way contract, and won’t have to make a corresponding roster move, since they had an open two-way slot. Ryan joins Dereon Seabron and Kaiser Gates as New Orleans’ two-way players.

Pelicans Waive Five Exhibit 10 Players

October 21st, 2023 at 5:26pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Pelicans have waived five players, according to the NBA.com transactions log.

Guards Izaiah Brockington, Jalen Crutcher and Tevian Jones, forward Malcolm Hill and center Trey Jemison all have Exhibit 10 contracts, so they’ll probably end up with the team’s G League affiliate, the Birmingham Squadron. They can earn bonuses worth up to $75K if they spend at least 60 days with the G League club.

Of the five, Jemison saw the most playing time during the preseason, appearing in four games and averaging 4.3 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.5 assists per night. Crutcher and Hill both got into two games, while Brockington and Jones saw limited time in one game.

The moves leave New Orleans with 13 players who have fully guaranteed contracts, plus Jose Alvarado‘s non-guaranteed deal. The Pelicans only have two of their three two-way slots filled.

And-Ones: Zagars, Media Rights, October Deadlines, More

October 21st, 2023 at 8:11am CST by Tristan Tucker

Latvian guard Arturs Zagars is out for at least five months due to a knee injury, Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews reports (Twitter link). As detailed in a piece from Eurohoops, Zagars suffered the injury on October 14 while playing in Lithuania’s top league.

Zagars received NBA interest through the summer following a standout FIBA World Cup performance for Latvia. The 23-year-old guard averaged 12.4 points, 7.4 assists and 2.4 rebounds per game and set a tournament record with 17 assists in his team’s final contest. He ultimately wound up signing a three-year deal with Turkey’s Fenerbahce in September and they loaned him to the BC Wolves of Lithuania, with whom he suffered the injury.

As confirmed by Eurohoops and Urbonas, Zagars suffered an MCL injury and will undergo surgery and continue rehab in Istanbul under Fenerbahce’s medical staff.

There are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

ESPN and TNT are considering signing new media rights deals with the NBA that include fewer games per season, according to The Wall Street Journal (hat tip to RealGM). Such an agreement would allow the league’s two main broadcasting partners to continue working together at an affordable amount. It would also put the NBA in position to explore creating a packge of games for one or more streaming services, with both Amazon and Apple already expressing interest.
The NBA’s extension and roster cut-down deadlines are looming, and ESPN’s Bobby Marks (ESPN+ link) broke down every rookie extension and veteran extension candidate, as well as all remaining roster decisions ahead of the season. Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey, Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels and Knicks guard Immanuel Quickley are the major rookie extension candidates to watch, Marks notes, though Maxey likely won’t get a new deal. Many of the veterans facing an October 23 deadline for a contract extension, such as the Bucks‘ Giannis Antetokounmpo, are also unlikely to extend because they can earn more money by waiting until the offseason.
In another piece exploring the NBA’s October deadlines, Danny Leroux of The Athletic further breaks down the upcoming dates to note. Leroux points out the deadline for decisions on third- and fourth-year team options on rookie contracts is also approaching on October 31.
With the tip of the NBA season just days away (October 24), Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype provided a team-by-team look at which players are the most likely to earn consideration for the league’s end-of-season awards. Raptors forward Scottie Barnes gunning for Most Improved Player and Kings guard Malik Monk in the running for Sixth Man of the Year are among Gozlan’s most intriguing picks. Interestingly, Gozlan believes the Pelicans‘ best chance at earning end-of-season recognition is if Zion Williamson enters the MVP conversation.

Southwest Notes: Osman, Doncic, Mavs, Eason, Pelicans

October 20th, 2023 at 7:25pm CST by Rory Maher

Veteran forward Cedi Osman had spent all six of his NBA seasons with the Cavaliers prior to the July trade that sent him to San Antonio. He says he’s thrilled he landed with the Spurs, writes Tom Orsborn of The San Antonio Express-News (subscription required).

“I was happy and celebrating that I would be here in San Antonio with this franchise,” Osman said. “When you step on the court and you see all those (championship) banners, you feel great. It’s another reason to work harder and do anything for this team.”

The 28-year-old, who is on an expiring $6.7MM contract, has impressed his head coach and teammates during training camp and preseason, according to Orsborn.

“He’s a pro,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “He’s a tough kid. He’s confident, a team player. He is just solid.”

Here’s more from the Southwest:

Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd told reporters on Friday that star guard Luka Doncic‘s recovery timeline remains to be determined, per Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News (Twitter links). Kidd added that Doncic, who has a mild left calf strain, has resumed light on-court activities. Marc Stein previously reported that the Mavs were optimistic about Doncic’s availability for next week’s regular season opener.
In a mailbag for The Athletic, Tim Cato writes that he’s more concerned about Doncic’s mysterious thigh injury than his mild calf strain. Cato also touches on a handful of other Mavericks-related topics, including which players he expects to close games.
Second-year Rockets forward Tari Eason missed his third straight preseason game on Friday vs. Miami due to a bruised lower left leg. He’ll be examined this evening to determine if he’ll miss additional time with the injury, head coach Ime Udoka said (Twitter links via Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle).
Christian Clark of NOLA.com (subscriber link) provides some takeaways from the Pelicans‘ 1-3 preseason, writing that the offense — which ranked last in the league over those four games — remains a work in progress. Turnovers and spacing have been particularly problematic, according to Clark, who says New Orleans will miss sharpshooter Trey Murphy, who is expected to be sidelined until at least November following meniscus surgery.