Newsstand Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Wizards Sign Kyle Kuzma To Four-Year Contract

July 8th, 2023 at 12:21pm CST by Luke Adams

JULY 8: The Wizards have officially re-signed Kuzma, per Josh Robbins and Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).

According to The Athletic’s duo, Kuzma’s four-year deal will actually be worth $90MM guaranteed, with $6MM in unlikely incentives tied to team performance. It won’t contain any team or player options, but it will feature a 15% trade kicker, Robbins and Charania add (via Twitter). It will also have a descending structure, starting at $25.6MM and eventually dipping to $19.4MM by year four.

JUNE 30: The Wizards and forward Kyle Kuzma have agreed to a four-year, $102MM deal that will keep him in Washington, agent Austin Brown tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).

Kuzma is coming off a career year, averaging 21.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists on .448/.333/.730 shooting in 64 games last season (35.0 minutes). His points, assists and minutes per game all represented career highs.

A former late first-round pick (27th overall in 2017), Kuzma won a championship with the Lakers in 2019/20, having spent his first four seasons in Los Angeles. He was sent to the Wizards in the summer of 2021 as part of the Russell Westbrook trade.

It’s an interesting transaction for both Kuzma and the Wizards, who have drastically remade their roster after trading Bradley Beal (to Phoenix) and Kristaps Porzingis (to Boston). Kuzma was looking for a major payday after declining his $13MM player option for 2023/24, and he found a nine-figure deal to remain with Washington.

Kuzma, alongside former Warriors guard Jordan Poole (whom the team acquired for Chris Paul), figures to be a major part of the Wizards’ offense in ’23/24. When engaged, he’s also a solid defensive player, and is still developing in other areas.

Still, it remains to be seen whether or not Kuzma will be in Washington’s long-term plans. The team’s front office — led by president Michael Winger — was completely revamped, so time will tell how they’ll choose to build out the roster.

Rory Maher contributed to this story.

Paul Reed Receives Offer Sheet From Jazz

July 8th, 2023 at 10:32am CST by Arthur Hill

Restricted free agent Paul Reed has signed an offer sheet with the Jazz worth $23MM over three years, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The Sixers will have until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday to match the offer if they want to keep Reed.

Sources tell Wojnarowski that the offer contains a unique provision that guarantees the first season of the new contract, while the other two will only become guaranteed if his team reaches the conference semifinals in 2023/24. That would total $15.7MM over two years, and Wojnarowski points out that Philadelphia is much more likely than Utah to advance in the playoffs during the upcoming season.

Woj also notes that the Sixers will exceed the $165MM luxury tax threshold if they match Reed’s offer, which would cost them an estimated $14MM in tax penalties. Reed would have the option to veto trades for a year if he stays with Philadelphia.

The Jazz will use their $7.7MM room exception to complete Reed’s offer sheet, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN. He points out that Utah used its cap space in its trade for John Collins and its renegotiation-and-extension with Jordan Clarkson, whose salary for 2023/24 rose from $14.3MM to $23.5MM.

Reed saw his role expand in his third NBA season as he averaged 4.2 points and 3.8 rebounds in 69 games. He emerged as the primary backup to Joel Embiid as the season wore on and appeared in all 11 playoff contests.

The Sixers are re-signing Montrezl Harrell and are adding free agent center Mohamed Bamba, so Reed’s role might not be as secure if he stays in Philadelphia for another season.

Blazers Match Mavericks’ Offer For Matisse Thybulle

July 8th, 2023 at 5:35am CST by Arthur Hill

JULY 8: NBA teams were notified on Friday night that the Blazers officially matched the Mavs’ offer sheet for Thybulle, reports Marc Stein (via Twitter).

JULY 6: The Trail Blazers have elected to match the three-year, $33MM offer sheet that Matisse Thybulle received from the Mavericks, tweets ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The offer sheet was signed and submitted to Portland Thursday morning, according to Wojnarowski (Twitter link). The new Collective Bargaining Agreement gives teams just one day to decide whether to match offer sheets if they’re received before noon.

Thybulle’s new deal contains an $11.5MM player option for the third season, per Wojnarowski. It also features a 15% trade kicker, tweets Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report.

The Blazers will keep the 26-year-old swingman, who was acquired in a February trade with the Sixers. Thybulle was a restricted free agent after not working out a contract extension with Philadelphia last summer.

Thybulle is a defensive standout, with two appearances on the All-Defensive team in his first four seasons. He struggled to score with the Sixers, although his numbers improved after coming to Portland, where he became a full-time starter and averaged 7.4 PPG in 22 games while shooting 43.8% from the field and 38.8% from three-point range.

As ESPN’s Bobby Marks details (via Twitter), Thybulle will have the right to veto any trade for the next year and cannot be dealt to the Mavs during that time. He will become trade-eligible on January 15.

According to Marks, the Blazers are $3.4MM below the luxury tax line with 13 players under standard contract, while the Mavs are $9MM below the tax and still have access to the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, which starts at $12.4MM in 2023/24.

The move is a setback for Dallas, which is hoping to remake its supporting cast around Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. The Mavericks are acquiring Grant Williams from the Celtics in a sign-and-trade deal and may search for another defensive-minded wing on the free agent market now that Thybulle is unavailable.

Mavericks Re-Sign Kyrie Irving To Three-Year Contract

July 7th, 2023 at 10:34pm CST by Luke Adams

JULY 7: Irving’s new contract with the Mavericks is official, the team announced (via Twitter).

JUNE 30: The Mavericks and star guard Kyrie Irving have reached an agreement on a new contract within the first hour of free agency, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).

According to Charania, Irving will sign a three-year, $126MM contract that will include a player option in the final season. That’s an average of $42MM annually, which is a little below Irving’s 2023/24 maximum of $47.6MM.

While Irving is certainly enigmatic and has missed an alarming amount of games over the past four seasons, there’s no question that he’s an elite scorer and ball-handler when he’s on the court, having averaged 27.1 PPG, 5.8 APG, 4.9 RPG and 1.3 SPG on .491/.395/.914 shooting in 163 games (36.0 MPG) over that span.

Dallas acquired Irving in February after he requested a trade ahead of the deadline. Considering the Mavs gave up two solid role players (Spencer Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith) as well as an unprotected 2029 first-round pick to land the 31-year-old, they were always viewed as the frontrunner to re-sign the veteran guard.

A former first overall pick, Irving has earned numerous accolades during his career, including eight All-Star nods, three All-NBA appearances, a Rookie of the Year award, and a championship trophy with the Cavs in 2016.

It will be interesting to see how the Mavs build out the rest of their roster around Luka Doncic and Irving, two incredible offensive talents who don’t always put forth much effort defensively.

Rory Maher contributed to this story.

Blazers’ Scoot Henderson To Undergo MRI On Right Shoulder

July 7th, 2023 at 8:40pm CST by Rory Maher

8:40pm: Henderson will undergo an MRI, sources tell Chris Haynes of TNT and Bleacher Report (Twitter link). Haynes hears there’s optimism the shoulder isn’t dislocated.

8:01pm: Guard Scoot Henderson, the No. 3 overall pick in last month’s draft, exited his Summer League debut with the Trail Blazers due to a right shoulder injury, the team announced (via Twitter).

Henderson had a great start, accumulating 13 points in the first quarter against Houston. He finished with 15 points, six assists, five rebounds and a steal in 21 minutes of action, shooting 5-of-13 from the floor (1-of-3 from three, 4-of-4 from the line).

It’s unclear at this time how severe the injury is. It’s not unusual for top prospects to be limited to a game or two during Summer League action, so the Trail Blazers might just be exercising caution. Still, it’s obviously unfortunate that the 19-year-old was injured in his debut with Portland, and hopefully it’s nothing serious.

Hawks Trade John Collins To Jazz For Rudy Gay, Second-Rounder

July 7th, 2023 at 7:37pm CST by Rory Maher

July 7: The trade is official, both teams announced. The second-rounder heading to Atlanta is conditional. It will be Memphis’ 2026 pick and will only convey if it lands between 31 and 42.

June 26: The Hawks are trading forward John Collins to the Jazz in exchange for forward Rudy Gay and a second-round pick, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Gay had a $6.48MM player option for 2023/24 that he exercised as part of the deal, his agent Sam Permut of Roc Nation Sports tells Wojnarowski (via Twitter).

Collins had been in trade rumors for multiple seasons, and now he’s finally on the move. Utah will be acquiring Collins using cap room, so the deal can’t be officially completed until July 6.

It’s essentially a salary-dump move to dip under the luxury tax line for Atlanta, much like the Kevin Huerter trade last offseason (the Hawks did get a protected first-rounder for Huerter, but it was mostly to avoid the luxury tax). Collins is owed $78MM over the next three seasons, including a $26.58MM player option in ’25/26.

In addition to significant financial flexibility, the Hawks will also generate a $25.34MM trade exception — equivalent to Collins’ salary for ’23/24 — as part of the deal, Wojnarowski reports. That will be the league’s new largest trade exception, surpassing the $18.1MM TPE the Nets created as part of the Kevin Durant deal in February.

Bobby Marks of ESPN clarifies (via Twitter) that the Collins TPE will be created by Atlanta absorbing Gay’s salary into an existing trade exception, worth $6.29MM. As Anil Gogna of Thread Sports Management tweets, the new CBA has a $250K allowance for TPEs (as opposed to $100K in the old CBA), which is enough to accommodate Gay’s deal.

It’s an interesting buy-low acquisition for the Jazz, who already have Lauri Markkanen, Walker Kessler, Kelly Olynyk and first-round pick Taylor Hendricks in their frontcourt.

Collins had a down season in ’22/23, averaging 13.1 PPG and 6.5 RPG on .508/.292/.803 shooting in 71 games (30.0 MPG). Still, he’s only 25 years old and holds career averages of 15.8 PPG and 8.0 RPG on .551/.356/.783 shooting across 364 games (29.2 MPG). The Jazz will be hoping he can rebuild his value under head coach Will Hardy.

According to Wojnarowski, the two teams have discussed “numerous iterations” of a Collins trade for “over a year,” but Atlanta finally decided to move on due to a salary-cap crunch. The Hawks are expected to remain active in trade conversations and GM Landry Fields has ownership’s permission to go above the tax threshold if it improves the roster, says Woj.

Atlanta’s newfound financial flexibility could be used to negotiate long-term extensions for Dejounte Murray, Onyeka Okongwu and Saddiq Bey, whom Wojnarowski refers to as “core players.”

Gay was a very good player for a long time, but age and injuries seemed to catch up with him last season. He posted career lows in points (5.2), rebounds (2.9) and minutes (14.6) per game in 56 appearances. He’s about to enter his 18th season and will turn 37 in August.

Jazz Renegotiate, Extend Jordan Clarkson’s Contract

July 7th, 2023 at 5:56pm CST by Luke Adams

JULY 7: Clarkson’s renegotiated and extended contract is now official, per the Jazz.

JULY 2: After picking up his 2023/24 option last week to remain in Utah, Jordan Clarkson will commit to the team for a couple more seasons, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).

Clarkson and the Jazz are finalizing a renegotiation and extension that will give him a raise in 2023/24 and will add two new years to his current contract, his agents at Klutch Sports tell Charania.

The deal will be worth $55MM, Charania adds. Based on the wording of his report, it’s unclear if that $55MM is all new money or if it includes Clarkson’s preexisting $14.3MM salary for 2023/24 — I’d assume the latter unless we hear otherwise, since agents leaking word of an agreement typically frame it in the most flattering light.

As we outlined on Saturday when Domantas Sabonis completed a similar deal with the Kings, contract renegotiations in the NBA are rare, since they can only be completed when a team has cap space and intends to increase a player’s salary rather than reducing it. Like Sacramento with Sabonis, Utah has the cap room necessary to give Clarkson’s current-year salary a bump and negotiate an extension off that new cap hit.

Interestingly, without a renegotiation, the maximum two-year extension Utah could give Clarkson would be worth about $41.5MM — when added to his current $14.3MM salary, that would also work out to just over $55MM.

By forgoing a traditional ascending extension structure and renegotiating his current-year salary to give him an immediate raise, the Jazz may end up paying the veteran guard the same amount of money overall while applying more of it to the 2023/24 cap in order to maximize future flexibility. An extension signed signed as part of a renegotiation can decline by as much as 40% in the first season.

Clarkson, 31, entered Utah’s starting lineup in 2022/23 after coming off the bench as a microwave scorer for most of his nine-year NBA career. In 61 games (32.6 MPG) in 2022/23, he averaged 20.8 points, 4.4 assists, and 4.0 rebounds with a shooting line of .444/.338/.816.

The Jazz, who are acquiring John Collins into their cap room in a trade with Atlanta, still projected to have nearly $15MM in cap room available after completing that deal, per Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter link). Whether or not they have more room to operate after the Clarkson renegotiation will depend on how much money they add to his 2023/24 salary, as well as the team’s plans for players on non-guaranteed contracts like Luka Samanic and Vernon Carey.

Clarkson is the third player to agree to renegotiate his contract in 2023, joining Sabonis and Pacers center Myles Turner. Prior to Turner, no player had renegotiated a deal since Robert Covington in 2017.

Wolves’ Mike Conley Wins 2022/23 Sportsmanship Award

July 7th, 2023 at 5:50pm CST by Rory Maher

Timberwolves point guard Mike Conley has won the Sportsmanship Award for the 2022/23 season, the NBA announced in a press release.

According to the NBA, each of the league’s 30 teams nominated one of its players for the award. It was then narrowed down to six finalists — one from each division — by a panel of league executives. Finally, current players voted for the winner.

As the full voting results show, Conley narrowly edged Boban Marjanovic for his fourth award, which is the most in league history — he had previously been tied with Grant Hill at three apiece. The annual award is “designed to honor a player who best represents the ideals of sportsmanship on the court,” per the NBA.

The other four finalists, listed in order of the voting results, were Darius Garland, Bam Adebayo, Harrison Barnes and Jalen Brunson.

Conley, 35, appeared in 67 games for Utah and Minnesota in ’22/23, having been traded in February. The steady veteran averaged a combined 11.9 PPG, 6.7 APG, 2.7 RPG and 1.1 SPG on .428/.385/.834 shooting in 30.3 MPG.

The Sportsmanship Award trophy is named after Joe Dumars, the Hall-of-Fame guard who won the inaugural award back in ’95/96.

Miles Bridges Signs Hornets’ Qualifying Offer

July 7th, 2023 at 3:17pm CST by Rory Maher

JULY 7: In a press release confirming that Bridges has signed his qualifying offer to return with the Hornets, president of basketball operations Mitch Kupchak and Bridges himself both put out statements.

“Throughout this process, we have taken a measured and serious approach,” Kupchak said. “Several factors played a part in our decision to bring Miles back, including the conclusion of the legal process, the results of the NBA’s investigation and Miles’ commitment to counseling and community service. Our five-year relationship with Miles has allowed for open and honest dialogue. He has shown remorse, indicated that he has learned from this situation and expressed that it will not happen again. We look forward to Miles rejoining our team.”

Bridges statement reads as follows:

“I sincerely apologize for the pain, embarrassment and disappointment that last year’s incident caused so many people. Time away from the game allowed me to reflect, immerse myself in therapy and prioritize becoming a better person – someone my family and peers can be proud of. I’m grateful to the Hornets and the NBA community for giving me a second chance – most people don’t ever get one and I understand those questioning whether I deserve one. I will do everything I can to earn back the trust and confidence of my teammates, coaches, the Hornets organization and staff, fans, and the Charlotte community. I’m ready to return to work and can’t wait to rejoin my Hornets teammates.”

JULY 2: Restricted free agent Miles Bridges hasn’t been receiving the types of contract offers he was hoping for from the Hornets, so has signed his $7,921,300 qualifying offer in order to become an unrestricted free agent next year, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter links).

As ESPN’s Bobby Marks tweets, signing the one-year qualifying offer would give Bridges the power to veto trades. However, if he were to approve a trade, the team that acquires him would lose his Bird rights.

Shams Charania of The Athletic hears (via Twitter) that a final contract offer was presented on Sunday before talks broke down, but he doesn’t clarify whether that offer came from Charlotte or Bridges’ camp — or perhaps both.

The 25-year-old forward sat out the entire 2022/23 season 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.

Leading into free agency, it was impossible to know exactly how the Hornets and the rest of the NBA would value the former lottery pick, who was selected 12th overall in the 2018 draft. As valuable as Bridges can be on the court, the repugnant behavior he was accused of away from it likely gave potential suitors pause about pursuing him to represent their franchise.

Clearly, the Hornets had the leverage in contract negotiations after Bridges missed the entire season, which made him ineligible to be signed-and-traded. None of the teams with cap room decided to pursue him, but maybe that will change in 2024 if he has a strong season without further legal trouble.

Bridges was No. 8 on our list of 2023’s top 50 free agents.

Knicks Trade Obi Toppin To Pacers

July 7th, 2023 at 2:32pm CST by Luke Adams

JULY 7: The trade is official, the Knicks announced today in a press release (Twitter link). Toppin has been traded into the Pacers’ cap room in exchange for the two second-round picks described below.

JULY 6: The Knicks will receive either the Suns’ or Pacers’ 2028 second-round pick (whichever is least favorable) and either the Pacers’ or Wizards’ 2029 second-round pick (whichever is least favorable) for Toppin, reports Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star (Twitter link).

JULY 1: The Knicks and Pacers are finalizing a trade that will send forward Obi Toppin to Indiana, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).

According to Wojnarowski, the Knicks will acquire a pair of second-round picks in exchange for Toppin, who was the eighth overall pick in the 2020 draft.

Marc Stein and Ian Begley of SNY.tv reported prior to free agency that the Pacers were talking to the Knicks about Toppin and had emerged as the leading candidate to land him. It’s a logical fit, since Indiana has the cap room necessary to acquire the 25-year-old’s $6.8MM expiring contract without sending out any salary and has been in the market for another power forward.

While lottery pick Jarace Walker figures to see minutes for the Pacers as a rookie, Toppin should have an opportunity to play a bigger role in Indiana than he did in New York, where he spent the majority of his first three NBA seasons backing up Julius Randle.

In 139 games for the Knicks since the start of 2021/22, Toppin has averaged 8.2 PPG and 3.3 RPG on .491/.329/.772 shooting in 139 games (16.4 MPG). He’ll be eligible for a rookie scale extension this offseason, or restricted free agency in 2024 if he doesn’t sign a new deal before then.

It’s a somewhat disappointing outcome for the Knicks, whose lottery pick from three years ago will now turn into a pair of second-rounders. However, the move will help create some additional spending flexibility below the tax apron for the club, potentially opening up the full mid-level exception. It’ll also generate a $6.8MM trade exception and contribute a couple more draft assets to New York’s ever-growing stash.