- A recent feature on 2018 Hall of Fame inductee Maurice Cheeks paints the retired point guard and former Thunder assistant as a “Russell Westbrook whisperer.” Royce Young of ESPN details the coach’s impact on the early years of Westbrook’s career.
The Timberwolves have hosted a handful of free agents for a workout this week, with Marcus Georges-Hunt, Rashad Vaughn, and John Jenkins among the latest players to earn a look from Minnesota, per Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic (Twitter link). Darren Wolfson of ESPN 1500 (Twitter link) also adds Eric Moreland to the list of players auditioned by the Wolves.
Nick Young, Arron Afflalo and Corey Brewer worked out for the Timberwolves too, but according to Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune, a number of agents believe the Wolves simply plan to sign Luol Deng, making them reluctant to send their players for a workout with the team. Minnesota reportedly launched its pursuit of Deng this week.
There’s more from the Northwest Division:
- Following his trade from the Celtics this summer, Thunder forward Abdel Nader is looking forward to his new opportunity with the team, relays Nick Gallo of OKCThunder.com. “It’s great,” Nader said. “I met a lot of the younger guys mostly, and even Russ, PG, Raymond (Felton). Everybody has been great. It’s a great group of guys. High character guys. I’m just really excited to be able to start playing with this team and build chemistry on the court as well as off the court.”
- Dennis Schroder, who was also traded to the Thunder this summer, discussed his upcoming season, the difficulties he faced growing up in Germany and the advice he received from Dirk Nowitzki in a separate piece written by Nick Gallo. Schroder will provide depth off the bench behind All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook this season.
- Nuggets forward Paul Millsap is set to start the season injury-free after wrist surgery forced him to miss 44 games last year, as detailed by Chris Dempsey of Nuggets.com. Millsap will be relied upon to anchor Denver’s defense and stretch the club’s offense.
Former Thunder swingman Josh Huestis has received a camp invite from the Spurs, Fred Katz of MassLive.com tweets. The news was confirmed by Tony Jones of the Salt Lake Tribune (Twitter link).
There’s been little news regarding Huestis since he entered unrestricted free agency this summer. The Thunder didn’t pick up his fourth-year option prior to last season.
Huestis wasn’t able to establish a steady rotation role with Oklahoma City until his third and last season with that organization. He saw action in 69 games and averaged 2.3 PPG and 2.3 RPG in 14.2 MPG but shot just 28.7% from long range. He also saw spot duty in four postseason games.
The Spurs currently have 14 players with contract guarantees, so there is a roster opening if Huestis shines in training camp. The Spurs have Rudy Gay, Lonnie Walker and Dante Cunningham as small forward options but the retirement of Manu Ginobili could open the door for Huestis.
The 6’7” Huestis was a late first-round pick in 2014 out of Stanford and spent the bulk of his time in the G League prior to last season.
The Thunder’s decision to use the stretch provision on Kyle Singler will result in a savings of about $20MM for the upcoming season, according to Erik Horne of The Oklahoman. The veteran forward was owed $4.996MM in the final season of an extension that was granted in 2015. That money that will now be paid out over the next five seasons, giving OKC a significant reduction in its 2018/19 luxury tax bill, which will drop from $93.1MM to $73.7MM.
Singler, 30, spent three and half seasons with the Thunder, but barely played last year. He dropped out of the rotation early and appeared in just 12 games, averaging 4.9 minutes per night. Oklahoma City tried to find a taker on the trade market, but had few first-round picks left to offer.
Cutting ties with Singler brings OKC down to 14 guaranteed contracts, along with two-way players Deonte Burton and Tyler Davis. The team payroll is set at $145.5MM, the highest in the league, well above the projected $101MM salary cap and the $123MM tax threshold.
There’s more from the Northwest Division:
- There hasn’t been any progress in extension talks between the Timberwolves and center Karl-Anthony Towns, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said in a recent appearance on “The Jump.” Towns has until October 15 to reach an extension that could pay him up to $158MM over five years. Windhorst speculates that Towns might be considering a shorter agreement rather than a full five-year deal.
- C.J. Williams, who signed a two-way contract with the Timberwolves in July, is putting his new team ahead of his role with USA Basketball, tweets Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News. The former Clipper played for Jeff Van Gundy and the U.S. team last September, but will be in Minnesota on Monday when the national team opens training camp in its quest to qualify for the World Cup.
- The Trail Blazers don’t seem to mind being among three NBA teams without direct G League affiliates, writes Marc Stein of The New York Times in his latest email notebook. Portland once had an affiliate in Idaho and isn’t convinced that it was a valuable investment, Stein adds. However, he notes that G League President Malcolm Turner said this year that he expects all 30 teams to have affiliates within 12 to 18 months, so the Blazers appear ready to give it another shot.
AUGUST 31: The Thunder have officially waived Singler, the team announced today in a press release.
AUGUST 30: The Thunder will part ways with forward Kyle Singler, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who reports (via Twitter) that the team is waiving Singler and using the stretch provision to help reduce the cost of this year’s roster.
The move had been expected to happen at some point this week, since August 31 is the last day that teams can waive a player and stretch his 2018/19 salary across multiple seasons. A player released after Friday can have his future salaries stretched, but his ’18/19 cap will remain unchanged.
Singler is owed $4,996,000 for 2018/19 and $5,333,500 for 2019/20, but his second-year salary is non-guaranteed, meaning the Thunder will only be responsible for paying him this season’s salary. The club will have the ability to stretch the cap hits across five seasons, resulting in annual charges of $999,200 through 2022/23.
While the savings for this year may not appear massive, the impact on the Thunder’s tax bill will be significant. With Singler’s full cap hit on the roster, OKC had a team salary of $149,579,364 and a projected tax bill of $93,193,411, by our count. Stretching Singler will reduce those figures to $145,582,564 and $73,785,429, respectively.
In total, the Thunder will trim the projected cost of their roster from $242,772,775 to $219,367,993, good for more than $23.4MM in savings, assuming they don’t fill Singler’s spot on the roster with someone else. Once Singler is officially released, the team will have 14 players on guaranteed deals.
Beyond the financial implications of the move, cutting Singler made sense for the Thunder from an on-court perspective. While Singler’s solid three-point shooting in his first three NBA seasons (.378 3PT%) earned him a long-term contract from the Thunder, the 30-year-old has regressed in recent years and fell out of Oklahoma City’s rotation in 2017/18, appearing sparingly in just 12 games.
Singler will become an unrestricted free agent once he clears waivers.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Over the summer, NBA teams faced a number of decisions on whether to keep a player and guarantee his salary or waive him and avoid that extra cost. In total, nearly 50 players had some sort of guarantee deadline on their contracts in June, July, and August.
Typically, that pattern continues to some extent in the fall. All NBA contracts for a given year become guaranteed on January 10 (not counting 10-day deals), but several contracts include trigger dates that come before the new year, most frequently around the start of the regular season.
A player with a mid-October salary guarantee date in his contract receives a sizable bonus if he makes his club’s regular season roster, perhaps even having his entire salary guaranteed. If he doesn’t earn a spot on his team’s 15-man squad, he’s waived without getting that guarantee, but has the opportunity to seek a new job elsewhere.
For the 2018/19 league year though, fall salary guarantee dates are scarce. While there are plenty of players on non-guaranteed contracts around the NBA, virtually all of those contracts will remain non-guaranteed until January 10.
According to data from Basketball Insiders and ESPN, the Knicks are one of the few teams carrying players with salary trigger dates this fall. Trey Burke, whose deal is currently partially guaranteed for $100K, will have that partial guarantee bumped to $400K if he remains under contract for the first game of the regular season. Noah Vonleh, on a non-guaranteed contract for now, will receive a $100K partial guarantee if he’s not waived by September 25.
Outside of those two dates, September 1 represents the other deadline of note for salary guarantees. The Thunder and Abdel Nader reportedly agreed to push his guarantee deadline from August 1 to September 1, so Nader – who currently has a $450K partial guarantee – should be in line for a fully guaranteed salary if he’s not waived by Saturday.
Elsewhere, there’s some conflicting info on a pair of Pelicans players. Emeka Okafor and DeAndre Liggins have $100K and $75K partial guarantees, respectively, according to Basketball Insiders. However, ESPN’s Bobby Marks indicated this week (via Twitter) that those partial guarantees won’t actually lock in until after September 1. If Okafor remains under contract through October 16, his guarantee would increase to $200K, per Basketball Insiders.
Salary details are still trickling in for some recent signees, and it’s possible that a few more free agent deals between now and the start of the season will feature trigger dates. For now though, there aren’t many salary guarantee deadlines worth keeping an eye on this fall.
As we detailed on Friday, NBA teams have until August 31 to waive players and stretch their 2018/19 cap hits over multiple years. If a player is released after August 31, his current cap hit will remain unchanged, and only the subsequent years of his contract can be stretched.
With just a few more days for teams to stretch 2018/19 salaries, Thunder swingman Kyle Singler looks like the top candidate to be waived this week, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks notes (via Twitter).
Three factors are working against Singler and making him a prime release candidate. For one, he fell out of Oklahoma City’s rotation entirely in 2017/18, appearing in just 12 games and playing only 59 total minutes for the season. Secondly, he’s essentially on an expiring contract, since his $5.3MM+ salary for 2019/20 is non-guaranteed. And finally, the Thunder currently have the largest projected tax bill in the NBA, meaning waiving Singler could create substantial immediate savings for the franchise.
Currently, the Thunder have a total team salary of $149.58MM, with a projected tax bill of $93.19MM. If they were to waive Singler, who has a $4,996,000 salary, they could stretch his cap hit across five seasons due to his non-guaranteed second year, reducing this season’s cap charge to just $999,200. That would bring the Thunder’s team salary down to $145.58MM and their projected tax bill to about $73.79MM, creating $23MM+ in total savings.
Outside of Singler, there aren’t many obvious stretch candidates around the NBA. Other projected taxpayers could consider similar moves to save some money, but many of those clubs don’t have players on expiring contracts that they’d want to release. The Wizards, with Jason Smith and his expiring $5.45MM salary, may be one team to watch.
Another motive for a team to stretch a player’s 2018/19 salary would be to open up more cap room. However, there aren’t many clubs that can create meaningful cap space at this point in the offseason, and there’s little incentive to do so anyway, given the lack of players worth spending it on. The Kings (Iman Shumpert or others) and Suns (Darrell Arthur or Tyson Chandler) could open up a chunk of cap room by stretching well-paid veterans, but I’d be surprised if they cut into their projected space for 2019 and/or 2020 by doing so.
- The Thunder should honor Nick Collison‘s years of service to the organization by retiring his number, contends an article in The Oklahoman (subscription only.) Collison was the 12th pick in the 2003 draft by the SuperSonics and remained with the team for a full decade after its move to Okahoma City. He announced his retirement in May.
Despite previously reporting that Thunder guard Andre Roberson said he was on track to be back for the start of the 2018/19 season, Brett Dawson of The Oklahoman is now being told that Roberson is still a “couple months away” from his return and that he’s targeting the end of 2018 for a return to normalcy.
Roberson, 26, says he’ll return “when (he) feel(s) ready” after rupturing his left patellar tendon in January of this year. “I’m not really putting a particular timeline on it, but I want to come back to myself somewhere in, like, December,” Roberson said. “It would be great if it happened before Christmas. That’d be great, but like I said, not putting a timeline on it, just taking it a day at a time.”
“Knowing the history of this injury, not many people come back from it the same way,” Roberson added, but also noted that “in today’s day and era, in terms of technology, medicine and stuff like that, it’s totally different,” crediting the Thunder’s medical staff with helping him work his way back.
Thunder head coach Billy Donovan said the team is fine with Roberson taking his time to get right and that he wouldn’t rush to get Roberson back on the court, especially considering the severity of the type of injury suffered by Roberson.
That being said, the Thunder are still sure to be eager to get Roberson back on the court. As Dawson notes, the Thunder ranked fifth in the NBA in defensive rating last season before Roberson got hurt. Afterward, Oklahoma City saw its rating drop ten spots to fifteenth.
- The Thunder have to decide by September 1st whether to fully guarantee Abdel Nader‘s salary for next season, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets. Nader will receive $450K of his $1,378,242 salary if he’s not retained. If Nader sticks, the Thunder will have 15 players on guaranteed contracts along with both two-way slots filled. It would be a surprise if the Thunder let Nader go, since they traded with the Celtics for the swingman last month.