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Grizzlies Waive Mamadi Diakite

August 27th, 2024 at 11:24am CST by Luke Adams

11:24am: The move is official. The Grizzlies have formally announced that Diakite has been waived (Twitter link).

11:21am: After acquiring him from Brooklyn last month, the Grizzlies will waive big man Mamadi Diakite, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).

Diakite, 27, finished last season with the Knicks, then was traded to Brooklyn in the Mikal Bridges blockbuster last month. He was flipped from the Nets to the Grizzlies in a subsequent deal that sent Ziaire Williams to Brooklyn and allowed Memphis to re-sign Luke Kennard while staying out of luxury tax territory.

A 6’9″ forward/center who played his college ball at Virginia, Diakite has appeared in a total of 55 regular season games for the Bucks, Thunder, Cavaliers, Spurs, and Knicks since making his NBA debut in 2021. He holds career averages of 3.1 points and 2.3 rebounds in 9.6 minutes per contest.

Diakite has a $2,273,252 cap hit for the 2024/25 season, but only $1,392,150 is guaranteed, so the Grizzlies will be on the hook for that partial guarantee if he goes unclaimed on waivers. While they have the option of carrying the full amount on this season’s cap, they instead intend to stretch it across three seasons at a rate of $464,050 through 2026/27, according to Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian (Twitter link).

Using the stretch provision on Diakite’s partial guarantee will create a little extra spending flexibility below the luxury tax line, giving Memphis enough breathing room to sign a 15th man without becoming a taxpayer, as we recently noted in our look at the club’s offseason.

Once the move is official, the Grizzlies will have 17 players under contract — 14 on guaranteed standard salaries and three on two-way deals.

Bruno Caboclo Reportedly Working Out With Warriors

August 27th, 2024 at 7:50am CST by Luke Adams

Former NBA forward Bruno Caboclo is working out with the Warriors this week as he continues to seek a new opportunity in the league, agent Daniel Hazan told Sports Channel in Israel (hat tip to BasketNews.com).

“He will train with the Golden State Warriors until Thursday with the aim of signing a contract, and he believes he will succeed,” Hazan said of his client.

The 20th overall pick in the 2014 draft, Caboclo spent parts of seven seasons in the NBA, but appeared in just 105 total games for the Raptors, Kings, Grizzlies, and Rockets from 2014-21. He averaged 4.2 points and 2.6 rebounds in 12.3 minutes per contest.

Caboclo has been more effective on the international stage, winning a German League (BBL) title in 2023 with Ratiopharm Ulm and earning All-EuroCup Second Team honors that season. He also represented Brazil in this year’s Olympics, leading the national team with 17.3 points and 7.0 rebounds in 22.1 minutes per game across four outings.

Although Caboclo said during the Olympics that he expected to return to KK Partizan for another season after playing for the Serbian club in 2023/24, it now sounds like he may end up elsewhere.

The Warriors could offer him a potential path to a regular season roster spot, since they only have 12 players on guaranteed salaries, with Lindy Waters and Gui Santos (both on non-guaranteed deals) currently penciled in as the 13th and 14th men. Golden State doesn’t currently have enough room under its hard cap to carry a full 15-man roster into the regular season, but could replace Waters or Santos with Caboclo.

If he doesn’t receive an NBA offer, the 6’9″ forward may pursue a deal with Hapoel Tel Aviv. The Israeli team made him an offer earlier this month, and while reporting at the time suggested Caboclo had a small window to accept that offer, his agent told Sports Channel that Tel Aviv remains a possibility.

“We are in negotiations, we are making good progress,” Hazan said. “It’s definitely an option worth keeping.”

EuroLeague May Be An Option For Robin Lopez

August 25th, 2024 at 9:00am CST by Arthur Hill

Free agent Robin Lopez is willing to consider playing in Europe if he doesn’t get an offer from an NBA team, writes Cesare Milanti of Eurohoops. The 36-year-old center has been on the open market since the Kings acquired and waived him at last season’s trade deadline.

“I’d absolutely consider it,” Lopez responded when asked about the possibility of joining the EuroLeague. “I know how passionate the fans are and how high the level of basketball is.”

Lopez signed with the Bucks last summer to give them another big man off the bench and to join forces with his twin brother Brook Lopez. He saw limited playing time in 16 games before Milwaukee shipped him to Sacramento along with cash considerations on February 8 to open a roster spot and reduce its tax bill. The Kings released him the same day.

Lopez has turned into a journeyman late in his career, changing teams every offseason since 2019. He has played for nine teams since being selected with the 15th pick in the 2008 draft and has career averages of 8.4 points and 4.7 rebounds in 992 games.

Lopez spoke to reporters Saturday after participating in Goran Dragic‘s farewell game in Slovenia. They both started their NBA careers in Phoenix in 2008.

“We were rookies together, and he was somebody I could look to because he had been a professional before in Europe,” Lopez said. “Gogi was somebody I could always look up to and model myself after.”

After watching Dragic close out his career, Lopez acknowledged that retirement may not be far away for him as well.

“If it happens, it happens,” he said. “I’ve had a great career so far, not as good as Goran’s, but I’m thankful for everything I’ve been given.”

Chris Bosh Returns To Court In Goran Dragic’s Farewell Game

August 24th, 2024 at 10:44pm CST by Arthur Hill

Chris Bosh played competitive basketball today for the first time in eight years, making a brief appearance during Goran Dragic‘s retirement game to honor his former teammate. The Hall of Famer starred for Toronto and Miami during 13 NBA seasons before a blood clot issue brought his career to a premature end. After logging a couple of minutes in Saturday’s contest, Bosh spoke to Mindaugas Bertys of BasketNews about the medical condition that forced him to retire.

“It was very tough,” Bosh said. “It was the death of my career, to be honest. Any time dealing with loss and death and stuff like that, you go through grief. I had to do that for a few years. I got over it. I believe it made me stronger. It made me focus on being more of a father.”

Bosh and Dragic spent a season and a half as teammates with the Heat after Dragic was acquired at the 2015 trade deadline. Bosh won two championships in Miami and played in four NBA Finals after signing there along with LeBron James in the summer of 2010.

Bosh is an 11-time All-Star who averaged 19.2 points and 8.5 rebounds in 893 career games. He was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021.

Although Bosh would have preferred to play longer, he told Bertys that he has positive memories about his NBA career.

“It all went good,” he said. “A couple of championships. Got to meet some great people, have some great teammates, great stories, great locker rooms. I’m a lucky guy.”

Bosh revealed that he had an opportunity to play in Europe after the NBA refused to give him medical clearance, per Cesare Milanti of Eurohoops. However, he decided it was best to end his career and not take any health risks.

“I wasn’t in a position where I wanted to up and move my family. I had babies at the time,” Bosh said. “I took it as a sign and continued to move on. But I had a couple of offers. It wasn’t Greece. Spain, France. In the EuroLeague.”

Dragic’s team prevailed as he thrilled the Slovenian crowd with 21 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists, Milanti adds in a separate story. The star-studded contest featured Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Luis Scola, Dirk Nowitzki, Bogdan Bogdanovic and Steve Nash.

There was also a one-on-one game between Dragic and his brother Zoran with their parents serving as referee and scorekeeper.

Danilo Gallinari Seeking One Last NBA Opportunity

August 24th, 2024 at 7:32pm CST by Arthur Hill

Danilo Gallinari is hoping for one more NBA season before he retires. The 36-year-old forward, who spent time with three teams last season, discussed his basketball future in an interview with Italian news outlet La Repubblica (translation via BasketNews).

“A return to Italy? Not yet,” Gallinari responded when asked about the possibility of joining the EuroLeague. “There is still time for [me in] the market, anything can happen at any time. Miami? It’s not my time yet, there are other free agents and we’ll decide later. It could be anywhere, as long as it’s a competitive franchise.”

Gallinari was viewed as a major free agent addition when he signed with Boston two years ago. However, a torn ACL prevented him from playing during the 2022/23 season and the Celtics decided to move on from him last summer, sending him to Washington as part of the three-team deal for Kristaps Porzingis.

Gallinari appeared in 26 games for the Wizards before traded to Detroit in January. He played six games for the Pistons and was waived shortly after the trade deadline. He signed with the Bucks in mid-February, but had a limited role, averaging just 9.1 minutes per night in 17 games. Overall, Gallinari got into 49 games during the season, scoring a career-low 5.7 PPG while shooting 43.7% from the field and 32.3% from three-point range.

He continued playing after the season ended, earning MVP honors in the Trentino Basketball Cup with the Italian national team. He is currently training with Treviglio in Italy and is likely headed for his final season as an active player, whether it happens in the NBA or elsewhere.

Gallinari said in the interview that once he’s retired, he would like to become a front office executive, hopefully with an NBA team.

NBA Seeks To Dismiss Warner Bros. Discovery Lawsuit

August 24th, 2024 at 2:20pm CST by Luke Adams

AUGUST 24: Baxter Holmes of ESPN provides more details on the NBA’s motion for a dismissal, writing that the league is arguing Warner Bros. Discovery attempted to improperly rewrite the terms of Amazon’s offer and then accept those terms.

“(Turner Broadcasting System) chose not to match NBCUniversal’s offer, which would have enabled TBS to continue distributing games via its TNT linear cable network,” the league wrote in its filing. “Instead, TBS purported to match the less-expensive Amazon offer, but only after revising it to include traditional distribution rights and making numerous other substantive changes.

“… TBS made substantive revisions to eight of the Amazon offer’s 27 sections (including revisions to 22 different subsections), changed 11 defined terms that are collectively used roughly 100 separate times, struck nearly 300 words, and added over 270 new words, substantially altering the parties’ rights and obligations in the process.

“… Far from accepting each term of Amazon’s offer, TBS’s revisions constituted a counteroffer that the NBA was free to reject.”

The NBA is asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, which means it couldn’t be refiled in the future, according to Holmes. More information on the league’s arguments can be found within the full ESPN story.

AUGUST 23: The NBA filed a response to Warner Bros. Discovery’s lawsuit in New York’s Supreme Court on Friday, according to Brian Steinberg of Variety, who reports that the league has sought to dismiss the suit.

Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company of TNT Sports, the NBA’s longtime broadcast partner which didn’t reach an agreement with the league during the latest round of media rights negotiations, losing out to Disney (ESPN/ABC), NBC, and Amazon Prime Video. TNT sought to exercise its matching rights on Amazon’s offer but was rejected by the NBA.

In documents filed on Friday, the league reiterated its belief that WBD/TNT failed to match the terms of Amazon’s offer. According to Steinberg, the NBA specified several ways in which TNT’s offer differed from Amazon’s, including:

Amazon’s deal is for distribution via streaming only, whereas WBD’s bid would include games on both the TNT cable network and the Max streaming service.
Amazon agreed to establish a rights fee escrow account into which it will “deposit and maintain three seasons of rights fee payments on a rolling basis and from which rights fees would automatically be disbursed to the NBA on the agreed-upon payment schedule.” WBD, meanwhile, offered to provide the league with letters of credit as an alternative form of security and to only make them available if the company “failed to make a rights fee payment on a timely basis.” In other words, Amazon’s proposal provides more certainty that payments will be made on time, without the risk of delays.
Amazon has promised to promote NBA games during its widest-reaching sports broadcasts, including Thursday Night Football (NFL). WBD “substituted an obligation to promote the NBA in any major sporting league” distributed on TNT or Max — WBD defines “major sporting league” as including NASCAR and various college sporting events, making it a less valuable commitment than Amazon’s in the NBA’s view, Steinberg explains.

As Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic previously outlined, August 23 was the deadline for the NBA to file its initial response to the lawsuit. Warner Bros. Discovery now has until September 20 to file its opposition, then the league will have until October 2 to respond again.

According to Steinberg, the NBA said in Friday’s filing that it intends to move for dismissal at an October 4 hearing in New York City.

Previous reporting has noted that neither the NBA nor WBD likely wants an extended legal battle in which private conversations could be made public during the discovery process, so a settlement of some sort remains a possibility.

Pelicans Waive Matt Ryan

August 23rd, 2024 at 9:03pm CST by Rory Maher

9:03pm: The Pelicans officially waived Ryan on Friday, according to NBA.com’s transaction log.

1:19pm: The Pelicans plan to waive sharpshooter Matt Ryan, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (via Twitter).

Ryan, 27, appeared in 28 games for New Orleans in 2023/24, averaging 5.4 points and 1.4 rebounds while shooting 45.1% from three-point range in 13.9 minutes per contest. He missed several weeks of action last season due to a right calf strain and a right elbow injury, which required surgery in December.

New Orleans claimed Ryan off waivers last October, inheriting the two-way contract he signed with Minnesota shortly before the start of training camp. He also had brief stints with the Celtics and Lakers earlier in his career.

The Pelicans converted Ryan to a standard contract at the very end of last season, making him playoff-eligible. However, his three-year deal — which featured a significant end-of-season payday in ’23/24 — was non-guaranteed for the ’24/25 and ’25/26 seasons. That means the Pels won’t carry a dead-money cap hit by cutting Ryan loose.

Ryan’s salary for ’24/25 would have become guaranteed if he had remained under contract through the start of the regular season.

After officially signing Javonte Green, the Pelicans had 15 players on standard contracts, with 13 players on guaranteed salaries. They’re back down to 14 players now, with Jose Alvarado holding the lone non-guaranteed deal.

The Pelicans are still about $1.6MM over the luxury tax line after releasing Ryan, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks, with a tax distribution to non-taxpaying teams projected to be a record high of $18.2MM. 13 teams are presently over the tax threshold, Marks adds.

If Ryan clears waivers in a couple days, he will become an unrestricted free agent. As a three-year veteran, he remains eligible for a two-way contract covering one season.

Javonte Green Signs With Pelicans

August 22nd, 2024 at 5:35pm CST by Tristan Tucker

AUGUST 22: Green’s addition is now official, the Pelicans have announced (Twitter link).

AUGUST 20: The Pelicans are signing free agent Javonte Green, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). The 6’4″ wing with power forward versatility closed last season with the Bulls.

According to Charania, the deal is for one year. William Guillory of The Athletic adds that it will be a guaranteed minimum-salary contract (Twitter link). Since Green has five years of NBA service, his deal will pay him $2,425,403 while counting for $2,087,519 against the cap.

Green went undrafted in 2015 but caught on with the Celtics ahead of the 2019/20 season. He spent one-and-a-half years with Boston before being traded to the Bulls.

The Radford product was a key part of the 2021/22 Bulls, averaging 7.2 points and 4.2 rebounds in 65 games (45 starts). He wasn’t re-signed by the team after his contract expired in 2023 but he eventually caught back on with the organization last season when he signed a pair of deals with the Bulls to close out the year.

In his nine games last season, Green averaged a career-high 12.2 points and 7.4 rebounds. In 195 career games, he holds averages of 5.4 points and 3.1 boards while shooting a .541/.345/.754 line.

Once Green’s deal is official, the Pelicans will have a full 15-man roster of standard contract players, with 13 guaranteed salaries. All three of their two-way spots are also occupied.

With Jonas Valanciunas out of the fold, New Orleans added several bigs to their bench in Yves Missi, Karlo Matkovic and Daniel Theis. While Green doesn’t have the same size as those players, he provides another strong rebounding presence (6.8 rebounds per 36 minutes).

Hall Of Famer Al Attles Dies At Age 87

August 21st, 2024 at 12:03pm CST by Luke Adams

Former Warriors player and coach Al Attles passed away on Tuesday at the age of 87, the team has announced in a press release.

Drafted by the then-Philadelphia Warriors out of North Carolina A&T in 1960, Attles spent his 11-year career as an NBA player with the Warriors, who relocated to San Francisco in 1962.

The 6’0″ point guard appeared in a total of 711 games, averaging 8.9 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in 25.1 minutes per contest.

Attles, who was named an assistant coach in 1968, spent the final two years of his playing career as the Warriors’ head coach, a position he maintained well after his retirement as a player. He posted a 557-518 (.518) regular season record in that role, which he held until 1983, along with a 31-30 (.508) mark in the postseason.

Attles led the Warriors to an NBA championship in 1975, which was Golden State’s most recent title until the team began its dynastic run last decade by winning a championship in 2015. Attles still has the most regular season wins by a coach in franchise history, though Steve Kerr (519 career wins) could pass his total of 557 as soon as next season.

Following his stint as the Warriors’ head coach, Attles served as the team’s general manager for three seasons. He was an ambassador for the organization for many years after that, briefly returning in an official capacity as an assistant coach during the 1994/95 season.

Attles was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 and was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019, having been selected by the Hall’s Contributor Committee.

“Alvin Attles did not just epitomize what it meant to be a Warrior—he was Mr. Warrior,” the team said in a statement on Wednesday. “His tenacious playing style earned him the affectionate nickname of ‘The Destroyer’ on the court, but it was his gentle soul, grace and humility off the court that served as a guiding light for the organization for more than six decades.

“As a player, coach, general manager, ambassador, and most of all, as a person, Alvin set the standards of professionalism and class by which we all strive to achieve. He leaves behind a profound legacy within the game of basketball and the Bay Area community, but especially as a family man and humanitarian. We mourn his loss alongside his wife, Wilhelmina, son Alvin, and all who knew and loved him.”

We at Hoops Rumors send our condolences to Attles’ family and friends.

Wizards Waive Eugene Omoruyi

August 21st, 2024 at 12:00pm CST by Luke Adams

12:00pm: The Wizards have officially waived Omoruyi, the team announced today (via Twitter).

10:48am: The Wizards are expected to place forward Eugene Omoruyi on waivers on Wednesday, reports Josh Robbins of The Athletic (Twitter link).

Omoruyi is currently on an expiring $2,196,970 contract. However, his salary is fully non-guaranteed, so Washington wouldn’t be on the hook for any of that money once he’s been officially released.

Omoruyi signed a two-way contract with the Wizards last July after being waived by the Pistons. The former Oregon standout, who previously spent time with Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Detroit from 2021-23, appeared in a career-high 43 games last season for Washington, averaging 4.8 points, 2.0 rebounds, and 0.8 assists in 9.1 minutes per night.

The Wizards converted Omoruyi’s two-way deal to a standard two-year contract in March.

If he’s claimed off waivers, Omoruyi’s new team would be responsible for his $2.2MM salary for 2024/25, which becomes partially guaranteed for $1MM if he remains under contract through the start of the regular season. Should the 27-year-old go unclaimed, he’d become an unrestricted free agent and would be able to sign with any club.

Waiving Omoruyi is the first step for the Wizards to address their roster crunch ahead of the regular season. Entering the day, the team was carrying 17 players on standard contracts, including 15 players with guaranteed salaries.

Besides Omoruyi, Jared Butler is the other player without a fully guaranteed deal, so Washington could set its 15-man regular season roster by cutting Butler — or by waiving or trading a player on a guaranteed contract.