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Atlantic Notes: Knicks, Porzingis, Sixers

May 22nd, 2015 at 10:31pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Lakers aren’t necessarily set on selecting a big man with the No. 2 overall pick in the draft, which could potentially allow either Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor to slip to the Knicks, who pick fourth, Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com writes. This unlikely scenario would also depend on the Sixers selecting D’Angelo Russell or Emmanuel Mudiay, instead of adding another big to go alongside Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid, Begley adds.

Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:

The Knicks could also look to select forward Kristaps Porzingis, whom ESPN’s Kevin Pelton believes is a better fit for the team than Mudiay, who many mock drafts have linked to New York, Begley adds. “Having succeeded against far tougher competition in Spain, [Porzingis] figures to have more immediate impact, and he’s only seven months older than Mudiay. Also, I have some concerns about how well Mudiay — a poor shooter whose best attribute will probably be running the pick-and-roll — will fit in the triangle offense. There’s flexibility there, but a pick-and-roll-heavy style isn’t what [team president] Phil Jackson and [coach] Derek Fisher ideally want to play. I would take Porzingis,” Pelton opines.
The Sixers are comfortable with having the No. 3 overall pick, and believe that they can land an impact player, Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes. “If you look at [GM] Sam Hinkie‘s draft record, you have to feel pretty good,” said Philly’s CEO Scott O’Neil. “You look at guys around the league who were drafted around there. We’ve got [Embiid] coming back. We’ve got a really improved Noel. Next year, we’ve got four first-round picks and [Dario] Saric. So you’ve got a pretty exciting story here.” Speaking of Hinkie’s draft record, you can see a full rundown of all of his past selections here.
Despite all of the mock drafts predicting that the Sixers will select Russell, Hinkie said the team hasn’t targeted any specific player yet, Pompey notes. “I think it’s too early now,” Hinkie said. “This time of year, everyone gets away to what one mock draft or another says. And other times, that doesn’t appear to be true very much. Let’s sort of see how things go.”

And-Ones: Max Players, Clippers, Bulls, Payrolls

May 22nd, 2015 at 3:33pm CST by Chuck Myron

The benefits to this summer’s max-level free agents of signing a short-term deal to re-enter free agency when the cap surges in the next couple of years outweigh the risks, argues Louis Roxin of RealGM. A couple of executives who spoke to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders take the opposite viewpoint, arguing that the specter of a decline in production, a major injury, or both make it too difficult to pass up a four- or five-year deal (Twitter links). Of course, team executives probably want to avoid paying a premium if they can avoid it, but how it all plays out this summer will be fascinating to watch. Here’s more from around the league:

Clippers reserve Dahntay Jones insists there’s no rift between DeAndre Jordan and Chris Paul, as had been reported, telling TMZ that everyone on the team is united in their desire for Jordan to re-sign in free agency this summer. “Those guys are brothers, man,” Jones said of Jordan and Paul. “They sit with each other on the plane, on the bus. If you don’t like a guy you stay away from him.”
The Bulls front office was miffed when Tom Thibodeau left his last contract extension unsigned for months and think he hasn’t given them enough credit for building the roster, while some in the organization feel the coach wants more power, as Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com hears. Friedell provides a timeline of the breakdown in the relationship between the coach and the Chicago brass.
The Nets have the highest 2014/15 payroll, but their paltry $351K in money to the waived Brandon Davies pales in comparison to the $24.8MM the crosstown Knicks spent on six players no longer on the roster, including Amar’e Stoudemire, as Pincus examines.

Atlantic Notes: Thomas, Crowder, Sixers

May 21st, 2015 at 5:15pm CST by Eddie Scarito

James Dolan’s hire of Isiah Thomas as team president and a minority owner of the New York Liberty hasn’t reportedly sat well with Knicks president Phil Jackson. When Thomas was asked if he wanted to return to the NBA someday, the former coach and executive didn’t rule it out, Marc Berman of The New York Post writes. “You never know where life takes you,’’ Thomas said. “I don’t think there’s anyone in this room who can say three years from now I’ll be here. I live in the present. This is where I’m at today. I’ll do the best job I can possibly do here. You never know where you’re going to end up.’’

Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:

Thanks to some unkind ping-pong balls, the Sixers only walked away from the NBA Draft lottery with one of three potential 2015 first round picks. Philly’s GM Sam Hinkie believes the results were simple mathematics, and not bad luck, Bob Ford of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes. “It was a good night for us. Even better than we anticipated,” Hinkie said. “We spent a lot of time looking at the odds and the most likely outcome was that we would get the fourth pick alone, and the next most likely outcome was we would get the third pick alone. We had a 77% chance of only getting our pick.“
Celtics president Rich Gotham confirmed that the team intends to re-sign Jae Crowder this offseason, Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe relays (via Twitter). “Jae is definitely a priority,” said Himmelsbach. “He added toughness, energy and confidence. I think he gave our guys a swagger.” This echoes the sentiments that Danny Ainge, Boston’s president of basketball operations, relayed last month regarding Crowder, who can become a restricted free agent this summer if the team tenders him a qualifying offer worth $1,181,348.
The Celtics will work out LSU big man Jordan Mickey, who sat down for an interview with the team while at the draft combine, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com writes. “It was a great conversation,” Mickey told Blakely. “The guys that interviewed me, I felt like they enjoyed having me in there. I felt it was a good interview.”

Lakers, Celtics, Pistons Eye DeMarre Carroll

May 21st, 2015 at 1:59pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Lakers have major interest in soon-to-be free agent DeMarre Carroll, a source tells Sean Deveney of The Sporting News, who adds the Celtics and the Pistons to the list of teams interested in the vastly improved small forward. Carroll went down with a left knee injury Wednesday during Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, but an MRI revealed only a sprain, the team announced via press release, listing him as questionable for Game 2.

An executive who spoke recently with Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops estimated Carroll’s next annual salary will be around $8-9MM, a giant leap from his pay of little more than $2.442MM this season. The Hawks would like to re-sign Carroll, Deveney writes, but they only have Early Bird rights on him, meaning they’d have to use cap space to give him a starting salary of any more than about $6MM. Atlanta has the cap flexibility to pay him $8-9MM next year, as do the Lakers, Celtics and Pistons, but the Hawks won’t have the chance to give him a five-year contract or 7.5% raises as they could with full Bird rights, which would have given Atlanta a leg up on other teams.

Carroll, when prompted last month, said he’d be interested in the Knicks, though more recently he made it clear that he places a high value on player development, a strength of the Hawks franchise. The former 27th overall pick bounced around to four teams in his first four NBA seasons before becoming a standout three-point shooter with the Hawks. He nailed 39.5% of his attempts from behind the arc this season, a career high.

Knicks Notes: Cauley-Stein, Russell, Mudiay

May 21st, 2015 at 1:22pm CST by Chuck Myron

The consensus among executives, agents and scouts around the league is that the Knicks will actively seek to trade the No. 4 overall pick for a veteran, reports Frank Isola of the New York Daily News. Still, Marc Berman of the New York Post finds consensus among execs who say the Knicks will ultimately decide to keep it. One of those execs who spoke with Berman described the notion of the Knicks talking to other teams about trading the pick as a matter of due diligence. Team sources tell Berman that the Knicks don’t consider trading down a priority, but if they do move to a lower pick, they’d like to receive a 2016 first-rounder in return, Berman adds. Here’s more from New York:

Isola sees signs that point to Willie Cauley-Stein as the team’s target, noting Cauley-Stein fits the description of sort of defender team president Phil Jackson wants and that Jackson has told confidants that he likes the Kentucky center. Some people within the Knicks “absolutely love” D’Angelo Russell, a league source told Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com, but the Sixers, who pick third, also seem enamored with him, leaving Emmanuel Mudiay as the next best choice, many scouts and draft experts say, as Begley writes.
Mudiay’s ability to get to the line would help the Knicks, who ranked last in the league in free throw rate this past season, but his tendency to ball-watch on defense is a trait some Knicks already share, as Chris Herring of The Wall-Street Journal examines.
GM Steve Mills said after the lottery that whomever the Knicks draft will have a “big impact” on the free agents the team targets, Begley observes in a separate piece. Mills also made a remark indicating that the team’s belief about which free agents will be most obtainable will affect the club’s draft decision, as Begley relays. “We’ll look at what kind of guys we think are going to move in free agency and have our draft plans accordingly,” Mills said.

Atlantic Notes: Mudiay, Sixers, Celtics

May 20th, 2015 at 7:01pm CST by Eddie Scarito

While at the draft lottery, Sixers GM Sam Hinkie was asked if the team looked at Joel Embiid and Nerlens Noel as franchise cornerstones, and how he sold the midseason trade of Michael Carter-Williams to the two big men, Zach Lowe of Grantland relays. “If your question is more about a particular trade we made, and how that might make [Noel and Embiid] feel, I called them immediately as we traded that person. Immediately,” said Hinkie. “I explained to them about how they should think about things — how some things spill over into others, and some don’t. That they shouldn’t read too much into these things. And I talked to them in exit interviews about what kind of program we were trying to build, and where they might fit in. And how the way they might fit has as much to do with them as it does with any grand design — with how they step into a particular void. Sometimes those voids — voids of leadership, of who the best player is, or voids in play — don’t stay open very long. Someone steps into it. They’ll have the first two chances at that, but there are gonna be maybe six more guys right behind them that will be looking to get theirs, too.”

Here’s more out of the Atlantic Division:

Many insiders around the NBA believe that it is a foregone conclusion that the Sixers will select Ohio State guard D’Angelo Russell with the No. 3 overall pick this June, Derek Bodner of DraftExpress tweets.
With the Knicks being the only team in the draft lottery to fall to a lower than projected pick, New York will likely be in line to select Emmanuel Mudiay this June, Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv writes. Knicks GM Steve Mills already spoke with the young guard while at the NBA Draft lottery, Zagoria notes. “Mudiay is potentially a good player,” Mills said. “We haven’t worked him out yet, but he’s a guy that we think will obviously be in the mix, but we will look at all of our options and we will feel good about whoever we end up selecting.”
The Celtics have workouts scheduled today with Aaron Thomas (Florida State), Anthony Brown (Stanford), Dez Wells (Maryland), Malcolm Miller (Holy Cross), Julian Washburn (UTEP), SirDominic Pointer (St. John’s), Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com relays (Twitter link).

And-Ones: Calipari, Wolves, Knicks

May 19th, 2015 at 10:36pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Knicks were the only team to fall in the draft lottery, sliding to the No. 4 overall pick. GM Steve Mills said that the team could still nab a good player at that spot, but also noted the team would listen to trade offers for the pick, Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com relays (Twitter links). Mills also said that the team would likely select a guard or a wing in the draft, which will cause New York to target big men via the free agent market, Begley adds.

Here’s more from around the league:

South Korean prospect Jong-Hyun Lee will remain in the 2015 NBA draft, his agent Mike Naiditch told Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype (Twitter links). Lee is completing his military service and will be available for workouts after June 13th, Sierra adds. The 21-year-old isn’t currently projected to be selected in June’s draft, and he is the No. 47 ranked international prospect according to Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.
There were conflicting reports earlier today regarding Kentucky coach John Calipari‘s desire to make the jump to the NBA with the Pelicans. Calipari issued a statement denying his interest, and Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link) notes that while Coach Cal is a master of putting a spin on news reports, the ESPN scribe doesn’t believe he’ll end up in New Orleans next season.
Wolves coach/executive Flip Saunders said that winning the No. 1 overall pick in the draft lottery will give the team flexibility, but the franchise won’t trade the pick, Andy Greder of the St. Paul Pioneer Press tweets.
The Thunder are still high on their domestic draft-and-stash pick Josh Huestis, who made a D-League arrangement with the franchise prior to having been selected with the No. 29 pick in last year’s NBA draft, Darnell Mayberry of the Oklahoman relays (Twitter links). When asked if Huestis would be on the team’s roster next season, GM Sam Presti said, “He’s someone that we think very highly of. We think he has a future with the team. He could be [on the roster] as early as next season.“

Atlantic Notes: Towns, Marks, Qualls

May 19th, 2015 at 5:35pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Kentucky big man Karl-Anthony Towns said that playing for the Knicks would be a childhood dream come true if the franchise selects him in the NBA Draft, Ian Begley of ESPN.com writes. “It would be an honor, not only as a player, but as a Knicks fan, to be able to play for that organization,” Towns said. “It’s gonna be, I guess a childhood dream — rooting for the Knicks all this time, and the next thing you know, you hear an organization call your name to go out there and give it your best shot. I think it would very cool, and really very honored and blessed to be able to play for them.” You can view our full prospect profile on Towns here.

Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:

Towns also indicated that he’s more than willing to learn the triangle offense if he becomes a member of the Knicks, Begley adds. “It’s a system that works. If you don’t believe it then say it to Phil Jackson’s rings,” Towns said. “I just feel like anyone going into the offense, it takes time. It’s a very complicated offense and you also have to be able to make stuff happen out of it. It just takes time. It would be an honor and blessing to play in that offense and I’d try my best at it.“
Nets assistant GM Bobby Marks‘ contract option for 2015/16 wasn’t picked up by the team, and Brooklyn has now given Marks permission to explore other opportunities, Mike Mazzeo of ESPN.com tweets.
Arkansas junior guard Michael Qualls, a projected second-rounder this June, believes he could make an impact on the Sixers next season if the team drafts him, Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes. “I feel like I can help right now,” Qualls said. “I can be a force right away to help change that atmosphere and [turn] that program around.“
The Knicks‘ front office is torn over whom to select in the draft should the team not snag one of the top two picks in June, Begley writes in a separate piece. “As of today, it looks like Jahlil Okafor would be the second choice. While he doesn’t have the defensive skills of Towns, his ability to play right away and his dominance on the offensive end will make him difficult to pass. After that, the Emmanuel Mudiay and D’Angelo Russell battle rages in the Knicks’ front office the same way it’s raging in front offices around the NBA,” ESPN Insider Chad Ford told Begley.

Mavs, Others Prepping Offers For Marc Gasol

May 19th, 2015 at 2:20pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Mavs, Spurs, Knicks and Lakers are putting together proposals to make to Marc Gasol when free agency opens July 1st, multiple league sources tell Michael Wallace of ESPN.com. Not as much has been said about Dallas and Gasol as with the other apparent suitors, though it stands to reason that the Mavs, already linked to Aldridge and DeAndre Jordan, would cast their lot with another marquee free agent. The Spurs have long been identified as a team in the mix for the 30-year-old, though it appears the team will first make a pitch to LaMarcus Aldridge, who’s widely seen as more obtainable, before doing so with Gasol, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported Monday. The Knicks became pessimistic about their prospects of landing the Spanish center late last year, a notion that former Knick and current Gasol teammate Beno Udrih recently reinforced, though it appears that they, like the Lakers, will give it a try.

Gasol has been mum on his plans, though he’s made his affection for the city of Memphis clear while not ruling out any other potential destination. The Grizzlies fear the Spurs more than any other team in the hunt, according to Stein, but the majority of Gasol’s teammates believe he will re-sign, Wallace writes, and Memphis coach Dave Joerger thinks he’s largely made the decision already, as Wallace relays.

“He’s the best player at his position in the league,” Joerger said. “You make preparations if it goes in a direction you’re not happy about. You’re not going to lose sleep at night. It’s not going to do any good. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. Not in the next two weeks are we going to send him a big thing of flowers and it’s going to change his mind. [By then], the cement is dry. We’ll make our last, ‘Hey, this is what’s important to us. What’s important to you?’ Things of that nature. But I’ve got to think his mind is 99% made up.”

Dallas has about $28MM in guaranteed salary against a projected $67.1MM salary cap for next season, but Raymond Felton is reportedly opting in for more than $3.95MM and Monta Ellis can pick up an $8.72MM player option, too. That would still leave flexibility for an estimated $19MM max starting salary for Gasol, a seven-year veteran, but it wouldn’t leave much room for the team to address the point guard position, where Rajon Rondo is unlikely to return.

And-Ones: Payne, Lakers, Jaiteh

May 18th, 2015 at 10:48pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Pacers are intrigued by Murray State guard Cameron Payne, Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star reports. Payne, who worked out for Indiana on Monday, has zoomed up to No. 11 — where the Pacers are currently slotted — on Chad Ford’s ESPN Insider Big Board. He’s No. 20 on Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress prospect list. “We followed him all year,” Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird told Buckner. “We know he can shoot it, he can drive it. He’s a playmaker. His size is against him a little bit but he’s a nice little player. He didn’t play against top schools but that doesn’t mean he can’t play.” Jerian Grant (Notre Dame), Olivier Hanlan (Boston College), Joseph Young (Oregon) Rakeem Christmas (Syracuse) and Richaun Holmes (Bowling Green) also worked out for the Pacers on Monday, according to Buckner. Payne hopes to jump into the top 10 in the draft, as he recently told Hoops Rumors’ Zach Links in a Q&A session.

In other news around the league:

Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak does not anticipate having three rookies on his roster next season, even if the team retains its lottery pick, Bill Oram of the Orange County Register reports. The Lakers must stay in the top five when the lottery results are announced or they will have to convey their first-rounder to the Sixers. They also have the No. 27 and No. 34 overall picks but Kupchak may trade at least one of them. “It may be a little much to add three more young players,” Kupchak told the team’s beat reporters. Kupchak added that the team could bring in as many as 80 players for workouts, Oram adds.
New Jersey native and top prospect Karl-Anthony Towns would be thrilled to be drafted by the Knicks since he grew up as a fan of the team, he told Steve Serby of the New York Post in a Q&A session. “It would be an honor, not only as a player, but as a Knicks fan, to be able to play for that organization,” Towns said. “It’s gonna be, I guess a childhood dream — rooting for the Knicks all this time, and the next thing you know, you hear an organization call your name to go out there and give it your best shot. I think it would very cool, and really very honored and blessed to be able to play for them.”
International prospect Mouhammadou Jaiteh made a strong impression at the draft combine, NetsDaily.com tweets. The 6’11” center has moved up to the No. 34 on Ford’s board and No. 35 spot on Givony’s list.