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Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard To Remain Out For Game 5

April 30th, 2024 at 1:14pm CST by Luke Adams

The Clippers won’t have Kawhi Leonard available when they take the court for Game 5 of their series vs. the Mavericks on Wednesday, head coach Tyronn Lue confirmed today (Twitter link via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN).

Leonard continues to be affected by right knee inflammation. He sat out Game 1, then returned for Games 2 and 3, but clearly wasn’t playing at 100%. He was ruled out for Game 4, with comments from team president Lawrence Frank at that time casting some doubt on the forward’s availability for the remainder of the first round.

While the Clippers would obviously prefer to have a fully healthy Leonard available as they look to get past the Mavericks and into round two, they actually looked better without him in Games 1 and 4 without him than they did in Games 2 and 3, when they struggled to find a rhythm while reincorporating the two-time Finals MVP.

Los Angeles won both games that Leonard missed and lost both of the contests he played, resulting in a 2-2 tie heading into Game 5. The Clippers have posted a -9.7 net rating in Kawhi’s 59 minutes of action during the series, compared to a +7.5 mark in the 133 minutes he hasn’t played.

As for the Clippers’ opponents, Mavericks star Luka Doncic will show up on the injury report due to a sprained knee, but he was able to do “everything” in practice on Tuesday and will be listed as probable, per head coach Jason Kidd (Twitter link via Tim MacMahon of ESPN).

The prognosis isn’t as positive for Doncic’s teammate Tim Hardaway Jr., who missed the past two games with an ankle sprain. He had a setback during a Tuesday scrimmage and will be considered questionable to play on Wednesday, according to Kidd (Twitter link via MacMahon).

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NBA Announces Initial Early Entrant List For 2024 Draft

April 30th, 2024 at 12:32pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBA has officially released the initial list of early entrants for the 2024 NBA draft, announcing in a press release that 195 players have filed as early entry candidates. Of those prospects, 138 are from colleges, 43 had been playing for teams internationally, and 14 were playing non-college ball stateside (ie. the G League or Overtime Elite).

While that early entrant total obviously far exceeds the number of players who will be selected in this year’s draft (58), it’s down significantly from the figures we’ve seen in recent years. A record 353 early entrants initially declared for the draft in 2021, but that number dropped to 283 in 2022 and 242 a year ago. The NCAA’s NIL policy, which allows college athletes to be paid based on their name, image, and likeness, has presumably been a major factor in that trend.

This year’s total of 195 early entrants figures to decline significantly by May 29 and again by June 16, the two deadlines for players to withdraw their names from the draft pool. But it’s still likely that the eventual number of early entrants will exceed 58 players. That group will join the college seniors with no remaining eligibility and other automatically eligible players in this year’s draft pool.

Our tracker of early entrants for the 2024 draft is fully up to date and can be found right here.

Here are the changes we made to our tracker today:

Newly added players

College players:

These players either didn’t publicly announce that they were entering the draft or we simply missed it when they did.

International players:

These players weren’t previously mentioned on our list of international early entrants. The country listed here indicates where they last played, not necessarily where they were born.

Other players:

  • Abdullah Ahmed, C, Westchester Knicks (born 2003)
  • Somto Cyril, C, Overtime Elite (born 2005)
  • Reynan Dos Santos, G, Overtime Elite (born 2004)
  • Djordjije Jovanovic, F, Ontario Clippers (born 2003)
  • Jalen Lewis, F/C, Overtime Elite (born 2005)
  • Malique Lewis, F, Mexico City Capitanes (born 2004)
  • Babacar Sane, F, G League Ignite (born 2003)

Players removed

Despite reports or announcements that the players below would declare for the draft, they didn’t show up on the NBA’s official list.

That could mean a number of things — they may have decided against entering the draft; they may have entered the draft, then withdrawn; they may have had no NCAA eligibility remaining, making them automatically draft-eligible; they may have incorrectly filed their paperwork; or the NBA may have accidentally omitted some names.

It seems that last possibility is a real one, as Jonathan Givony of ESPN tweets that a “miscommunication or mishap’ at the league office may result in a dozen or more additional names being added to the NBA’s early entrant list.

We’ve still removed the following names from our early entrant list for the time being, but it sounds like some could be re-added soon.

Note: Some of these players may also be transferring to new schools.

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Celtics’ Brad Stevens Named NBA’s Executive Of The Year

April 30th, 2024 at 10:59am CST by Luke Adams

Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens has been named the NBA’s Executive of the Year for the 2023/24 season, the league announced today (via Twitter).

In his third season as the Celtics’ head of basketball operations after eight years as the team’s head coach, Stevens put together a dominant Boston roster that posted a 64-18 record, easily the best mark in the NBA, along with a +11.7 net rating, the third-best mark in league history.

The Celtics were coming off a 57-win season in 2022/23, but Stevens shook up the roster drastically last summer, trading away longtime defensive stalwart Marcus Smart in a deal for Kristaps Porzingis, then moving key role players Malcolm Brogdon and Robert Williams in a a blockbuster for Jrue Holiday as training camps got underway.

Stevens also signed several Celtics players to contract extensions in the past 12 months, including Jaylen Brown, Payton Pritchard, and Holiday.

Unlike the NBA’s other major awards, the Executive of the Year is voted on by 29 team executives from around the league rather than 99 media members. Stevens received 16 of 29 potential first-place votes, along with six second-place votes and three third-place votes, for a total of 101 points (Twitter link).

The runner-up, Sam Presti of the Thunder, had 47 points, including four first-place votes. Tim Connelly of the Timberwolves also earned the top spot on four ballots en route to a third-place finish (29 points).

Knicks president Leon Rose (27 points; one first-place vote) was the only other executive to earn more than 11 points, though Nico Harrison (Mavericks) and Monte McNair (Kings) also received first-place votes, while Rockets general manager Rafael Stone earned a pair of them. A total of 13 executives showed up on at least one ballot.

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Wolves’ Finch To Undergo Knee Surgery; Availability For Game 1 TBD

April 30th, 2024 at 9:14am CST by Luke Adams

Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch, who sustained a torn right patellar tendon during a sideline collision with point guard Mike Conley in Sunday’s Game 4 victory over Phoenix, will undergo surgery on Wednesday to repair the tear, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.

Barring any unexpected complications following that surgery, Finch should be able to travel to Denver with his team on Friday ahead of the start of the Western Conference semifinals on Saturday, per Wojnarowski and Shelburne. However, it remains to be seen whether the head coach will be able to join the Wolves on the bench for Game 1.

As ESPN’s reporters explain, Finch’s right leg will have to be immobilized in a brace during the early stages of his rehabilitation. If it’s not practical for him to sit on the bench at the start of the series vs. Denver, he’ll have to communicate to the bench from Minnesota’s locker room, with assistant Micah Nori acting as head coach.

While the Wolves are fortunate not to be missing any key players due to injuries, they’ll need every edge they can get heading into a huge second-round series against the defending-champion Nuggets. Finch’s situation isn’t ideal, especially with Minnesota up against one of the NBA’s top tacticians in Michael Malone, so hopefully he’s able to safely and comfortably return to his spot on the bench as soon as possible.

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Darvin Ham’s Position With Lakers In ‘Serious Peril’

April 30th, 2024 at 8:50am CST by Luke Adams

Darvin Ham‘s position with the Lakers is in “serious peril” following the team’s elimination from the playoffs on Monday, according to Shams Charania, Jovan Buha, and Sam Amick of The Athletic. ESPN’s Dave McMenamin agrees, citing league sources who say that Ham’s head coaching job is “very much in jeopardy.”

The Athletic’s reporters and McMenamin both say that the Lakers will take a few days to review the situation and assess what went wrong this season before making a decision on Ham’s future.

Although the Lakers finished with more regular season wins (47) than they did a year ago when they made the conference finals (43), there was a sense that this year’s team lacked an “effective direction” from the coaching staff at times, per The Athletic, and there were people within the organization confused by the way that Ham used his starting lineup and rotation over the course of the season.

As both The Athletic and McMenamin detail, Ham used a series of starting groups earlier in 2023/24 that frequently featured players like Taurean Prince and Cam Reddish, often at the expense of players that the franchise viewed more as part of its core, such as Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, and D’Angelo Russell.

There was a sense that Prince and Reddish were given opportunities to play through their mistakes that Reaves, Hachimura, Russell, and others weren’t, per The Athletic, and some team sources suggested to ESPN that the Lakers would have finished with a better record – and a higher playoff seed – if they had stuck to a starting lineup of Reaves, Hachimura, and Russell alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis earlier in the season.

“The job of a coach is to make the best out of what you have,” a team source told McMenamin. “And he wasn’t doing that.”

Reporting from both The Athletic and ESPN also pointed to Ham’s response to a post-Game 2 comment from Davis (“We have stretches where we just don’t know what we’re doing on both ends of the floor”) as troubling. Rather than downplay – or even agree with – Davis’ comment, Ham took exception, praising his coaching staff and telling reporters that he would “agree to disagree” with his star big man.

Team sources told The Athletic that Ham’s rebuttal unnecessarily amplified Davis’ initial comment and questioned whether engaging in a back-and-forth with one of the franchise’s cornerstones was a good idea. A club source who spoke to McMenamin, meanwhile, was “confounded” by Ham’s lack of accountability and questioned the wisdom of praising the preparedness of his staff after the Nuggets had run their winning streak vs. the Lakers to 10 games.

According to The Athletic, the contract Ham signed in 2022 was a four-year deal worth approximately $5MM per season, so there are still two seasons left on it. If they make a coaching change, the Lakers would eat the remainder of that contract.

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LeBron James’ Agent: Two Or Three Years Left In Tank

April 29th, 2024 at 10:50pm CST by Dana Gauruder

LeBron James‘ longtime agent believes he’s still got a couple of years left. Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul said in Sirius XM NBA Radio interview (Twitter link) with Frank Isola and Brian Scalabrine doesn’t think the Lakers superstar is pondering retirement after the season.

“He’s had an unbelievable career. I think we do see him next year,” Paul said. “How many more after that? I do not know. But I think he’s got two or three years left in the tank, maybe.”

James will turn 40 on New Year’s Eve. He holds a player option of $51.4MM for next season. He could pick up that option and negotiate an extension or decline it and pursue a new contract as an unrestricted free agent

The four-time MVP averaged 25.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 8.3 rebounds while appearing in 71 regular-season games. He has continued to play heavy, productive minutes in the playoffs.

James has often stated he’d like to last long enough to play with his son Bronny James, who has declared for the draft. But Bronny’s uneven season at USC after rehabbing from a heart condition dropped his draft stock. The plan is for Bronny to visit and work out for NBA teams, then decide based on the feedback he receives whether to remain in the draft and go pro or return to college for at least one more year.

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Thunder’s Mark Daigneault Named Coach Of Year

April 28th, 2024 at 5:50pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Mark Daigneault of the Thunder has been selected as the NBA’s Coach of the Year for the 2023/24 season, the league announced today (Twitter link).

Daigneault coached one of the league’s youngest rosters to the top spot in the Western Conference this season, compiling a 57-25 record. It has been a remarkable turnaround in recent years for the Thunder, who won just 24 games in 2021/22 and 40 in ’22/23.

While there was an expectation that Oklahoma City would take another step forward this season, the team’s preseason over/under projection was 44.5 wins — the Thunder surpassed that mark with more than a month left in the season.

Daigneault, who also earned Coach of the Year honors this season from the National Basketball Coaches Association, won the NBA’s official COY award in a landslide, racking up 89 first-place votes, compared to 10 for all the remaining candidates. He had nine second-place votes and one third-place vote for 473 (of a maximum 495) points (Twitter link).

The Magic‘s Jamahl Mosley was the runner-up with four first-place votes and 158 points. Chris Finch of the Timberwolves wound up third with 105 points, followed by the Celtics‘ Joe Mazzulla (79 points) and the Knicks‘ Tom Thibodeau (59 points).

Daigneault, in his fourth season as the Thunder’s head coach, joins Scott Brooks (2009/10) as the only coaches in franchise history to earn the award.

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Woj: Suns Considering Firing Frank Vogel After Playoffs

April 28th, 2024 at 2:27pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

The Suns are apparently already on the verge of potentially moving on from first-year head coach Frank Vogel.

Staring down an ominous 0-3 deficit to the Timberwolves in their ongoing first round playoff series, Phoenix’s brass appears prepared to make a bench shakeup, barring an unlikely comeback, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter video link) reported today.

“[There’s] increasing belief around the league that Frank Vogel’s job is in peril if this team loses,” Woj said. “Especially as abruptly as they might in a sweep, as dispirited as they looked in Game 3. When you have this kind of a payroll, these kinds of expectations, you’ve got to not only show more in the first round, you’ve got to get out of the first round.

“Losing in six last year to Denver in the second round cost [former head coach] Monty Williams his job,” Wojnarowski continued. “You’ve seen Mat Ishbia, the owner, he’s made rapid change in his short tenure as owner. Frank Vogel’s job very much may be in jeopardy now.”

Despite featuring three multi-time All-Stars in Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, the Suns struggled to stay healthy all year, finishing with a 49-33 record on the year and the West’s sixth seed. Beyond starters Grayson Allen and Jusuf Nurkic, Phoenix had a fairly thin bench and hasn’t found a ton of cohesion on the court relative to its talent.

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Woj: Darvin Ham On Hot Seat If Lakers Lose In Five Games

April 28th, 2024 at 11:55am CST by Rory Maher

Appearing on NBA Countdown prior to Saturday’s Game 4 between the Nuggets and Lakers, which Los Angeles won to stave off elimination and end an 11-game losing streak to the defending champions, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said head coach Darvin Ham will likely find himself on the hot seat if the Lakers lose the series in five games (YouTube link).

“If you are a head coach of the Lakers and you get swept in the first round of the playoffs, or you lose in five, you’ve got job issues. You’ve got job security issues,” Wojnarowski said. “And Darvin Ham will have that.”

As Wojnarowski noted, the Lakers advanced to the Western Conference Finals in 2022/23, which was Ham’s first year on the job. And they actually won more regular season games this season (47) than last season (43) despite missing Jarred Vanderbilt (heel) and Gabe Vincent (knee) for most of the ’23/24 campaign.

There’s also a question of who would replace Ham if the Lakers let him go. Former Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer is “the most accomplished” name on the open market, but he’s also rumored to be looking for a salary that the Lakers might not be willing to pay, Wojnarowski added.

While Wojnarowski questioned how “fair” it would be for Ham to be fired if the Lakers lose to the Nuggets in five games, he said “it is part of the conversation the Lakers are going to have.”

Game 5 of the first-round series between the West’s No. 2 and 7 seeds will be played on Monday in Denver.

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Damian Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo Out For Game 4

April 28th, 2024 at 11:13am CST by Rory Maher

As expected, Bucks stars Damian Lillard (right Achilles) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (left calf) have been ruled out Sunday’s Game 4 in Indiana, tweets Eric Nehm of The Athletic. Both players had previously been listed as doubtful.

Lillard has been dealing with pain in his Achilles tendon for a few weeks. Although he said he was feeling much better entering the playoffs, he aggravated the injury in Friday’s Game 3, which Milwaukee lost in overtime.

Antetokounmpo has been sidelined since April 9 due to a left soleus strain, which is one of the muscles in the calf. The two-time MVP had another incredible regular season in 2023/24, averaging 30.4 PPG, 11.5 RPG, 6.5 APG, 1.2 SPG and 1.1 BPG while shooting a career-high 61.1% from the field in 73 games (35.2 MPG), but has been injured in the playoffs for the second straight year.

As Nehm writes in a full story for The Athletic, the Bucks are approaching tonight’s Game 4 with a “next-man-up mentality.”

“I think for us, it’s our competitive nature,” wing Pat Connaughton said. “We believe we have a locker room of great players and we have guys that can have a ‘next-man-up mentality’ and can play. We have guys who have been situations and obviously delivered in the past, especially in the postseason. So making sure we lean on them.

“Just making sure that we don’t let those things mentally let us off the hook. It’s the playoffs. Everyone’s dealing with something, on our side, on their side, how do we fight through it? How do we find ways to win one game, win a battle? Overall, the series will be the war, but try to win a battle on Sunday and make sure we do it together and make sure we pick each other up with whatever it might be.”

Milwaukee currently trails the first-round series with Indiana 1-2.

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