- After missing his entire rookie season due to an ACL tear, E.J. Liddell was thrilled to get a promotion from his two-way deal to the Pelicans‘ standard roster, as he tells William Guillory of The Athletic. “They told me how happy they were about my approach during the recovery process, and that meant everything to me,” said Liddell, whom New Orleans signed using a small slice of the mid-level exception. “I’m just going to keep embracing this opportunity. Keep showing up and doing what I’ve got to do everyday. I’ve just got to keep being me, and it’s great to know they appreciate me for being me. It means the world.”
The Spurs’ prized 2023 draft pick, power forward Victor Wembanyama, may not be a superstar immediately when his rookie year begins, but San Antonio will need to give him a long leash, notes Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports.
The 7’4″ big man submitted a middling first Summer League game against the Hornets, scoring nine points on 2-of-13 shooting from the floor and pulling down eight boards. Fischer notes that Wembanyama will be playing against veteran pros who could weigh as much as 60 pounds more than him. Adding muscle and improving his jump shooting could be the keys to his long-term growth.
There’s more out of the Southwest Division:
- Wembanyama recently received some advice from one of the other most highly-touted NBA prospects ever, Hall of Fame Bucks and Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, at the first ever NBA Con in Las Vegas, writes Jeff Maillet of The Athletic. “We were overcoached,” Abdul-Jabbar opined about his own era of players. “I wanted to bring the ball up (like Wembanyama did in his summer-league opener) but wasn’t allowed to. If I did, I would’ve had splinters in my ass (from sitting on the bench).” The first-year Spurs big man will certainly have the option of running more plays himself than Abdul-Jabbar did in his era.
- Signing Grizzlies shooting guard Desmond Bane to a five-year, $200MM+ contract extension was a fairly straightforward choice for the Memphis front office brain trust, writes Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal. “He is what we’re about and what we’re pushing for together,” team president Zach Kleiman said. “We want people who are wired like Des driving us to get there, so [not] the most complicated decision on our end.”
- The Pelicans are kicking off a crucial 2023/24 run without huge personnel adjustments, writes Christian Clark of NOLA.com. Clark notes that, though the Pelicans potentially had the assets to trade up for the draft rights to now-Trail Blazers point guard Scoot Henderson, the team reportedly never made an offer. Clark observes that, under team president David Griffin‘s guidance for the past four years, the team has never had better than the ninth-best record in the West. The team did make the playoffs in 2022 thanks to a strong play-in contest showing, but the health issues of stars Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram seem to have impeded the club’s growth.
- Within that same story, Clark reports that the Pelicans extended Griffin’s contract in the spring.
The NBA has announced the five-team groups that will used for the league’s first-ever in-season tournament, writes Tim Bontemps of ESPN. The unveiling took place Saturday during a special episode of ESPN’s “NBA Today” held at “NBA Con” in Las Vegas.
The groups were determined in a draw similar to what is used in soccer’s World Cup. There are six groups — three each from the Eastern Conference and Western Conference — and each conference was split into five pots based on last season’s standings. One team was randomly selected from each of the pots to determine the opening-round matchups.
The results are:
- Group 1: Sixers, Cavaliers, Hawks, Pacers and Pistons.
- Group 2: Bucks, Knicks, Heat, Wizards and Hornets.
- Group 3: Celtics, Nets, Raptors, Bulls and Magic.
- Group 4: Grizzlies, Suns, Lakers, Jazz and Trail Blazers.
- Group 5: Nuggets, Clippers, Pelicans, Mavericks and Rockets.
- Group 6: Kings, Warriors, Timberwolves, Thunder and Spurs.
The tournament will start with group play, which will match each team with the other four in its grouping. Those games will take place on Nov. 3, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24 and 28.
The winner of each group will advance to a knockout round, joined by the team with the best record in each conference among those who didn’t win a group. Quarterfinal games will be played Dec. 4 and 5, hosted by the higher-seeded teams. The four winners in that round will move on to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for the Dec. 7 semifinals and the Dec. 9 championship game.
Bontemps points out that all teams will play within their conference until the last game, which guarantees an East vs. West matchup, just like the NBA Finals.
“Everybody’s not going to buy in right away,” admitted Joe Dumars, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball operations. “So that can’t be the goal that everybody’s going to buy in from day one. These things take time. And I think, as time goes on, I think you can build this up and people can really get into it.”
The championship trophy will be called the NBA Cup, and players will receive $500K each for winning it. Other prize money includes $200K for second place, $100K for losing in the semifinals and $50K for losing in the quarterfinals. The league opted not to provide other incentives, such as a guaranteed playoff spot, for the tournament winner.
We passed along more details on the in-season tournament right here.
Christian Wood and Dario Saric are two of the top unrestricted free agents who have yet to find new teams. There’s a good reason for that, according to Marc Stein at Substack: Both big men have only received contract offers for the veteran’s minimum thus far and are presumably looking for more money.
Stein says Saric will likely land with the Warriors if he’s unable to find a higher-paying offer. The Croatian big man is reportedly Golden State’s top remaining target.
Here’s more from Stein:
- The Magic released Bol Bol on Tuesday and he cleared the waiver wire despite having a relatively modest $2.2MM salary. The Suns have a “level of interest” in the 7’2″ big man, according to Stein. John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 FM said on Thursday (via Twitter) that he believed Phoenix might “take a hard look” at potentially signing Bol. Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports reported when Bol was waived that the Suns contemplated trading for him on the night of last month’s draft.
- The Mavericks aren’t done reshaping their roster this offseason, Stein reports. Dallas is expected to trade Tim Hardaway Jr. at some point, with JaVale McGee another candidate to be on the move, whether it’s via trade or being waived. Stein also hears Theo Pinson‘s time with the Mavs is likely over. The veteran guard remains an unrestricted free agent.
- The Pelicans are just above the luxury tax threshold and have reportedly been active in trade talks for weeks. Like Fischer, Stein hears New Orleans is shopping guard Kira Lewis Jr. and center Jonas Valanciunas, with Lewis’ name surfacing more frequently in recent days. The Pelicans also unsuccessfully attempted to pry Jarrett Allen away from the Cavaliers, according to Stein.
- There hasn’t been much buzz about possible offer sheets for restricted free agent Paul Reed, but Stein writes that the Jazz are worth monitoring. However, the Sixers are reportedly keen on retaining Reed, so it’s unclear if that might work out for Utah. The Jazz also already have several frontcourt players, so Reed would be a bit of an odd fit from a roster standpoint.
Longtime NBA center Dwight Howard was out of the league during the 2022/23 season, which he spent in Taiwan. However, he still believes he can be a productive player in an NBA rotation, he said during a wide-ranging interview with Zion Olojede of Complex.com.
“I know that there’s at least 15 to 20 teams that I could play for,” Howard said. “And I know there’s teams that got great starting centers, but I know I could be a great backup center. I know I can provide a team with 25 minutes of dominant basketball. And that’s not even scoring, that’s just playing defense, locking people up, protecting the paint, rebounding, and finishing around the basket. I’ve had my fun in the game. I just want to go out like a champ like I’m supposed to.”
Referencing a June interview in which Howard said he’d love to join the Kings, Olojede asked the three-time Defensive Player of the Year which five teams he believes would be good matches for him.
“Okay, you got Miami Heat. You got obviously, the Lakers. The Warriors,” Howard said. “The Kings. But the Kings, I would say the Kings got a couple centers so they probably wouldn’t. But the Kings. The Hawks. I’m from Atlanta, go back home with the Hawks.”
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Discussing his roster for the upcoming FIBA World Cup for the first time on Friday, Team USA head coach Steve Kerr said he plans to lean heavily on Knicks guard Jalen Brunson and Nets forward Mikal Bridges. As Joe Vardon of The Athletic writes, Kerr envisions Brunson having “a pretty big role” and intends to rely on Bridges defensively to match up against opponents’ high-scoring wings.
- Veteran NBA guard Frank Jackson, who had a brief stint with the Jazz this past season, will continue his career overseas, having signed a deal with French team ASVEL, per a press release. Jackson had appeared in 214 career regular season NBA games since being drafted in 2017.
- Rocco Zikarsky, a 7’3″ Australian big man, has decided to forgo a move to the NCAA in favor of joining the Brisbane Bullets as part of the National Basketball League’s Next Stars program, he tells Jonathan Givony of ESPN. Zikarsky, who will turn 17 next week, won’t be draft-eligible until at least 2025, but is considered one of the world’s best basketball prospects, per Givony.
- John Hollinger of The Athletic doesn’t want to go so far as to call them the “losers” of free agency, but has questions about the offseason moves made so far by the Raptors, Pelicans, Kings, Trail Blazers, and Nuggets.
After spending the last seven seasons in the NBA, Willy Hernangomez is expected to head back home to continue his playing career. FC Barcelona has submitted an offer sheet for the Spanish big man, per a press release from Spain’s ACB league.
Although Real Madrid – Hernangomez’s former team before he arrived in the NBA – has the right to match Barcelona’s offer, Madrid doesn’t intend to take advantage of its opportunity to do so, reports Stavros Barbarousis of Eurohoops.net. That will clear a path for Hernangomez to end up in Barcelona.
The 35th overall pick in the 2015 draft, Hernangomez arrived in the NBA with the Knicks in 2016. He spent a season-and-a-half in New York before moving onto Charlotte and then New Orleans, where he has played for the last three seasons.
A backup center for the Pelicans, Hernangomez appeared in 135 games across three seasons, averaging 8.0 points and 6.3 rebounds in 15.9 minutes per contest. New Orleans declined its $2.6MM team option for the 2023/24 season on the 29-year-old’s contract last month, putting him on track to return to Europe.
It’s possible Hernangomez will reunite with his brother Juancho Hernangomez in Barcelona. According to Barbarousis, the team has made an offer to Juancho, who spent part of last season with the Raptors before being waived in February.
5:59pm: The signing is now official, according to NBA’s transactions log.
5:37pm: The Pelicans are signing forward E.J. Liddell to a new three-year, $6,224,049, with a team option in the third season, Shams Charania of Stadium and The Athletic tweets.
Liddell is having his two-way contract converted to a standard one. He suffered a torn right ACL in summer league last summer.
Liddell, a 6’6” forward, was the 41st pick in the 2022 draft out of Ohio State. Liddell occupied one of the Pelicans’ two-way slots last season despite his inability to play.
As The Athletic’s John Hollinger points out (Twitter link), handing Liddell a standard contract actually helps New Orleans in terms of the luxury tax. It’s cheaper for the Pelicans to give Liddell a minimum deal than signing another player on a veteran’s minimum to fill their 14th roster spot.
Liddell will return to action on Friday night when he returns to Las Vegas for the New Orleans Pelicans’ summer league opener, Rod Walker of the New Orleans Times Picayune reports.
“Wooh, lot of nerves,” Liddell said. “If you see me smiling, a lot of nerves. But just know (I’m) super excited to be out there.”
During a 2021/22 NCAA season in which he was named a Third Team All-American, an All-Big Ten First Teamer, and a Big Ten All-Defensive Team honoree, Liddell averaged 19.4 PPG, 7.9 RPG, 2.5 BPG and 2.5 APG for the Buckeyes.
Prior to signing his $7.9MM qualifying offer, Miles Bridges was seeking around $25MM per year in talks with the Hornets, sources tell Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports. However, Charlotte was unwilling to approach that figure, which is why Bridges’ representatives quickly opted for unrestricted free agency in 2024.
Bridges was ineligible to be included in a sign-and-trade because he wasn’t on the team’s roster last season, having missed all of 2022/23 after facing a felony domestic violence charge. He agreed to a plea deal and was subsequently suspended by the NBA, who will require him to sit out the first 10 games of ’23/24.
Prior to that incident, Bridges was viewed as one of the top free agents of the 2022 class, having averaged 20.2 PPG, 7.0 RPG, and 3.8 APG on 49.1% shooting in 80 games (35.5 MPG) in ’21/22. There was talk of him receiving $30MM annually in an offer sheet last year, according to Fischer, with the Pacers, Pistons and Grizzlies all linked to the 25-year-old forward.
Here’s more from Fischer’s latest story for Yahoo Sports:
- Hornets restricted free agent forward P.J. Washington might have to wait a while in order to find the type of contract he’s seeking, and it might have to come via sign-and-trade. Marc Stein first reported that the former first-round pick is seeking around $18MM annually. According to Fischer, Washington is looking for $80MM over four years. Fischer writes that several agents seem to be pointing to Keldon Johnson‘s rookie scale extension with the Spurs as a benchmark of sorts in negotiations.
- The Pelicans continue to gauge the trade market for reserve guard Kira Lewis Jr. and starting center Jonas Valanciunas, sources tell Fischer. Lewis is entering the final year of his rookie scale contract and could become a restricted free agent next summer, while Valanciunas’ $15.4MM deal is expiring.
- Fischer hears the recent conversations between the Hawks and Raptors haven’t been very productive when it comes to a potential Pascal Siakam deal. On an unrelated note, Fischer also reports there’s optimism within Atlanta’s organization that the team will be able to extend Dejounte Murray.
- The Raptors have expressed interest in Bulls guard Ayo Dosunmu, Fischer reports. However, it’s unclear if they’ll try to make a run at the restricted free agent via an offer sheet or sign-and-trade.
- Like other reporters, Fischer has heard there’s mutual interest in a reunion between the Sixers and restricted free agent big man Paul Reed.
4:57pm: Temple has officially been released, per NBA.com’s transactions log.
4:19pm: The Pelicans plan to waive Garrett Temple before his $5.4MM salary for 2023/24 becomes guaranteed, reports Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
As our list of early salary guarantee dates for next season shows, Temple’s salary would have been fully guaranteed on July 7. As of right now, it is fully non-guaranteed — New Orleans won’t incur a cap hit for releasing him.
While I’m sure the Pelicans valued Temple’s locker-room presence, his on-court production was quite limited in ’22/23, so the move isn’t surprising. Despite the team dealing with significant injuries throughout last season, the veteran wing only appeared in 25 games for a total of 162 minutes.
Temple, 37, has played for 11 NBA teams over his 13 seasons. He had been with New Orleans since 2021. He holds career averages of 6.2 PPG, 2.3 RPG and 1.7 APG on .402/.345/.740 shooting across 716 regular season appearances (288 starts, 20.9 MPG).
Assuming he clears waivers in a couple days, which seems highly likely given his prior salary, Temple will become an unrestricted free agent and able to sign with any team.
Reports over the weekend indicated that the Trail Blazers are “open for business everywhere in the league” when it comes to Damian Lillard trade talks and are casting a wide net in an effort to get the best possible return.
However, the star guard has been “unwavering” in his desire to join the Heat, according to Barry Jackson and Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald, who say that Lillard has conveyed to the Blazers that Miami is the only place he wants to play.
Chris Haynes essentially said the same thing in the latest episode of his #thisleague UNCUT podcast with Marc Stein. Asked by Stein if Lillard could be talked into another landing spot or if he’s dead-set on ending up with the Heat, Haynes simply replied, “Miami. Miami, Stein, Miami.”
Shams Charania of The Athletic also says that Lillard’s sole focus is on the Heat, acknowledging that the Blazers are exploring other scenarios but suggesting that there’s a “strong belief” around the league that Miami will be 32-year-old’s ultimate destination.
The two sides both appear at this point to be using media leaks to exercise as much leverage as possible. The Blazers’ discussions with other teams can be viewed as an effort to extract as much value out of the Heat as possible, whereas Lillard’s insistence on being sent to Miami may make other suitors wary of surrendering their top assets to acquire him, knowing that he’d be dissatisfied with the outcome, as Jackson, Chiang, and Charania write.
Here’s more on Lillard:
- In the #thisleague UNCUT podcast, Stein suggested that there’s a widespread belief around the NBA that Sixers guard James Harden will end up being traded to the Clippers. Haynes responded by noting that the Clippers have also been in touch with the Trail Blazers to inquire on Lillard, though he adds that L.A. seems unlikely to acquire Dame.
- The Timberwolves, Pelicans, and Celtics are among the other teams who “reached out to see what it would take” to land Lillard, Haynes reports. A deal with Minnesota would have had to involve Karl-Anthony Towns, according to Haynes, who says that idea was “quickly eliminated.”
- Haynes also spoke on the podcast about the timeline that led to Lillard’s Saturday trade request, explaining that after Portland landed the No. 3 overall pick in the draft lottery, the longtime Blazer was told the team would look into trading it for win-now help. However, GM Joe Cronin called him two days before the draft to let him know Portland would likely keep its pick. In Lillard’s meeting with the Blazers this past Monday, he expressed his feeling that “promises weren’t kept,” per Haynes, but vowed to give the team a little more time to see if it could upgrade the roster on the trade market when free agency opened. When that didn’t happen right away, Lillard submitted his trade request to ensure that teams interested in acquiring him – such as the Heat – didn’t make other moves in free agency that would preclude such a deal.
- According to Haynes, Lillard first entertained the idea of requesting a trade out of Portland in 2021. One of the reasons he decided against it at the time was because the Blazers hired Chauncey Billups, whom Dame greatly respects, as their head coach that summer. As Haynes details, Lillard didn’t want to put Billups in a position like Stephen Silas in Houston — Harden and Russell Westbrook requested trades shortly after Silas was hired in 2020, which derailed the veteran assistant’s first head coaching opportunity.
- In case you missed it, we passed along a couple notes on the Lillard sweepstakes in a trade rumors round-up earlier today.