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And-Ones: Hornets D-League, Final Cuts, Johnson

October 25th, 2015 at 10:03am CST by Arthur Hill

Greensboro, North Carolina, will be the site of the Hornets‘ new D-League team, reports Jeff Mills of the Greensboro News & Record. The new franchise, which will expand the league to 20 teams, will begin play next fall. Charlotte currently has no D-League affiliate. Players on D-League assignment will go to the one-to-one affiliate of another NBA team. “Greensboro’s approach to the process was innovative,” said Fred Whitfield, the Hornets’ president and chief operating officer. “Taking the Pavilion and renovating it into a basketball-style fieldhouse for us was very attractive. Especially when you could have offices for us right across the street.” The move is expected to be officially announced Tuesday. Asheville and Fayetteville were the other finalists.

There’s more news from around the basketball world:

  • After a flurry of moves Saturday, seven NBA teams still have final cuts to make before Monday’s roster deadline, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. The Mavericks, Pistons, Pacers, Lakers and Grizzlies each have to unload one player to reach the roster limit of 15. The Nets still have 17 players and the Sixers have 20, which is the training camp maximum (Twitter link). The five teams with roster openings are the Rockets, Pelicans, Knicks, Magic and Suns, who each have 14 spots filled. (Twitter link).
  • Several teams have expressed interest in Nick Johnson, who was waived Saturday by the Nuggets, according to Sam Amico of Amicohoops.net. Citing an unidentified source, Amico says there’s a chance someone could pick up Johnson by Monday. Johnson was one of four players sent from Houston to Denver in the Ty Lawson trade.
  • The league is looking into the reported confrontation between Knicks coach Derek Fisher and the Grizzlies‘ Matt Barnes, writes Frank Isola of the New York Daily News. Commissioner Adam Silver confirmed the investigation, but did not offer specifics regarding possible punishment for either Fisher or Barnes. They were allegedly involved in a physical altercation at the house of Barnes’ estranged wife.
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Magic Waive Nnanna Egwu

October 23rd, 2015 at 9:54pm CST by Eddie Scarito

9:54pm: Egwu has been waived, the Magic announced via a press release.

9:25pm: The Magic have waived center Nnanna Egwu, Josh Robbins of The Orlando Sentinel reports (Twitter link). Egwu was in camp on a non-guaranteed deal, so Orlando won’t be responsible for any salary as a result of this move.

Egwu had played for the Magic in the summer league this year, where he logged averages of 3.2 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 20.0 minutes per game across five contests. He appeared in four preseason contests for Orlando, averaging a single point in 9.3 minutes per appearance. The 6’11” 23-year-old spent four seasons at Illinois, notching career averages of 5.5 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks to accompany a slash line of .438/.258/.708.

Orlando’s roster count now sits at 14 players, including 13 possessing full guarantees on their pacts.

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Top Bloggers: Philip Rossman-Reich On The Magic

October 23rd, 2015 at 5:50pm CST by Zachary Links

Anyone can have a blog about an NBA team, but some set themselves apart from the rest with the dedication and valuable insight they bring to their craft. We’ll be sharing some knowledge from these dialed-in writers on Hoops Rumors in a new feature called Top Bloggers. As with The Beat, our ongoing series of interviews with NBA beat writers, it’s part of an effort to bring Hoops Rumors readers ever closer to the pulse of the teams they follow. Last time, we spoke with Brian Robb, who is the owner and editor-in-chief of Celtics Hub, part of ESPN’s TrueHoop Network. Click here to see the entire Top Bloggers series.

Next up is Philip Rossman-Reich, who is the Managing Editor of Fansided’s Orlando Magic Daily. You can follow Philip on Twitter at @philrsquared and click here to check out his stories.

Hoops Rumors: What are your thoughts on Scott Skiles? Are you worried at all that his strict approach might not fit with the Magic?

Philip Rossman-Reich: Skiles has been pretty consistent everywhere he has gone. He has built his team up into consistency and competitiveness and then leveled off. That is about what we are expecting in Orlando in this latest coaching stint. As long as those are the expectations, I think things will be fine with Skiles overall. You just have to know and accept what he is at the end of the day.

I would have preferred to see the Magic hire a coach who had some potential long-term prospects. But the Magic really need a coach like Skiles, even if it lasts just three years. They need someone who is going to demand a bit more and light a fire under them. Jacque Vaughn and the previous coaching staff were very much a nurturing group; they allowed players to make mistakes and grow through experience. Now they have expectations to produce. They need a coach who will sit a player down when he makes a mistake and get someone in there who will get the job done.

Hoops Rumors: We’ve been hearing buzz about Mario Hezonja all summer long. Who would you say is his NBA comp? Where is his ceiling?

Philip Rossman-Reich: I haven’t been able to think of a good player comparison for Hezonja. Maybe he is a more athletic Peja Stojakovic? Probably not as good of a shooter. Hezonja still feels a bit of a blank slate. I am not quite sure what kind of player he can become.

His floor is pretty high though. He is a great shooter. A really good shooter and an underrated passer too. He has the famous bravado but he also seemed willing to learn throughout the preseason. He might have superstar ceiling. I think he still has to prove himself as a driver and offensive creator. In any case, I see him as a solid contributor as a rookie and moving forward through his career. He should be a solid guy for the Magic to have fill an important role for the team.

Hoops Rumors: Were you surprised at all that the Magic gave Tobias Harris a four-year, $64MM deal this offseason?

Philip Rossman-Reich: I really was not surprised. I expected Harris to get about $16MM per year. Whether he was actually worth that depends on what you think of Harris as a player. Even in that regard, I am not sure. Harris is just 23 years old and there are so few players who have put up his numbers at his age – there have been only 17 seasons since 2010 where a player 23 years old or younger has averaged 17 PPG and 7.0 RPG like Harris did last year. It is hard to let that go without getting something in return. From an asset retention standpoint, the Magic could not just let Harris walk. And where they are in their development, they needed to keep the talented and productive player rather than letting him walk. The price tag is just the cost of doing business.

Hoops Rumors: Victor Oladipo has been working on his outside shot this offseason. How scary will he be if he becomes a reliable 3-point shooter?

Philip Rossman-Reich: He will become very scary. The Dwyane Wade comparisons are apt, although he is not nearly the finisher that Wade is. Wade is an all-timer, but his lack of a 3-point shot has probably cut short some of his effectiveness and taken away a development of his game that could push him even further into the stratosphere. A 3-point shot would add so much to his game. It would add so much to the team. The Magic are desperate for shooters, so if Oladipo can become a competent 3-point shooter, that makes the team that much better. It adds another scoring outlet for Oladipo so he does not have to throw himself at the rim desperately.

Hoops Rumors: If you had to call it today, what kind of record do you see the Magic finishing with in 2015/16?

Philip Rossman-Reich: I think the Magic could finish anywhere from about 40 wins to back down to 28 wins again. They could show modest improvement, extreme improvement, or no improvement. This is largely the same roster as last year, so to expect the team to take a huge step up seems pretty far out there, though not impossible. Internal improvement and a better, more directed coach should mean improvement from last year. And significant improvement at that. I have the Magic winning about 32-36 games and I think they take a step forward as a team and improve pretty significantly this year, bringing a lot of promise for 2017.

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Southeast Notes: Weber, Hardaway Jr., Webster

October 22nd, 2015 at 10:19pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Martell Webster‘s injury woes may end up costing him some guaranteed salary, J. Michael of CSN Mid-Atlantic relays. The final season of Webster’s four-year, $22MM deal with the Wizards includes an incentive clause that stipulates that he has to appear in a total of 180 regular season contests during the first three years of the arrangement, or else his full guarantee will be downgraded to a partial guarantee of $2MM, which is less than 50% of what Webster’s contract calls for in 2016/17, Michael notes. Webster played 78 and 32 games in the first two years of his deal, which means that he’d need to make 70 appearances this season to meet his contractual goal, an unrealistic expectation given the Wizards’ depth at forward and his current health status, the CSN scribe opines.

Here’s more out of the Southeast:

  • Briante Weber‘s minimum salary deal with the Heat is for one year and includes no guaranteed money, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders relays (via Twitter).
  • Hawks swingman Tim Hardaway Jr. has struggled to find his shooting stroke during the preseason, but he’ll still be given ample opportunities to prove himself this season given the high price Atlanta paid to obtain him, writes Kris Willis of SB Nation’s Peachtree Hoops.
  • Magic coach Scott Skiles believes that second-year combo forward Aaron Gordon will be a difference-maker for the team this season, John Denton of NBA.com writes. Orlando is hoping that Gordon will be able to play small forward full time which would allow the team to shift Tobias Harris to power forward, Denton adds. “I want to get [Gordon] to play with Tobias some. It’s not like we’re doubting that they can play together because we know that they can, but it’s just a matter of actually going out there and doing it,’’ Skiles said. “Then, it’s about figuring out after Friday who we want to start opening night and things like that [with the rotations].’’
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And-Ones: Amerileague, Fredette, Draft, Coaches

October 22nd, 2015 at 12:28pm CST by Chuck Myron

The viability of the Amerileague plunged further into question Wednesday as a former spokesperson for the league revealed to freelance journalist Erin Ashley Simon that the league’s CEO was using a fictitious name and is actually Glendon Alexander, a former McDonald’s All-American with multiple fraud convictions. Amerileague operations manager Marcus Bass confirmed the news to Jeff Goodman and Paula Lavigne of ESPN’s Outside the Lines. Alexander has resigned as CEO, reports Adam Johnson of D-League Digest (Twitter link), ending a trail of suspicion about his involvement that Kami Mattioli of The Sporting News first detailed in May. Henry Walker recently became the first player who appeared in the NBA during the 2014/15 season to sign with the Amerileague, but Walker’s agent, Mike Naiditch, tells Hoops Rumors that, “If there was never a league, then [there] was never a deal.” 

The Amerileague draft was to take place today, but Bass tells Johnson that the event is on hold (Twitter link). See more from around basketball:

  • An unwillingness to adjust his freewheeling college game to the NBA style of play led to Jimmer Fredette‘s lack of success in the league, one of his former NBA assistant asserts to Michael Lee of Yahoo Sports. The Spurs waived Fredette on Wednesday, though four other NBA teams still reportedly have some level of interest in him.
  • Vanderbilt junior center/forward Damian Jones says he plans to enter the 2016 draft, as Adam Sparks of The Tennessean relays. Chad Ford of ESPN.com ranks the 6’10” Jones as the 14th-best draft prospect, while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress has him at No. 16.
  • Hawks assistant Kenny Atkinson, Magic assistant Adrian Griffin and Pelicans assistant Darren Erman are future head coaching candidates to watch, according to Chris Mannix of SI.com. Heat assistant David Fizdale draws an honorable mention on Mannix’s list.
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Magic Waive Greg Stiemsma

October 22nd, 2015 at 9:18am CST by Chuck Myron

The Magic have waived Greg Stiemsma, the team announced via press release. The move takes the Magic down to 15 players, the regular season roster limit. Orlando has 13 fully guaranteed contracts, and while teams aren’t required to carry more than that many players, most start the season with 15, which suggests Orlando has made its final preseason cut. If that’s the case, center Nnanna Egwu and Devyn Marble will make the Magic opening night roster on their non-guaranteed deals. Stiemsma was attempting to do the same after signing a non-guaranteed deal with the Magic shortly before the start of training camp last month.

Stiemsma, 30, went scoreless and grabbed two rebounds this month in his lone preseason appearance, which lasted close to 10 minutes. A strained Achilles tendon kept him out of the first few exhibitions this fall, notes Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. The five-year NBA veteran was on the Raptors roster all of last season, but he rarely saw playing time, averaging just 3.9 minutes per contest over a scant 17 games.

The release is one of two transactions the Magic have made in the past 24 hours, as Orlando also waived Melvin Ejim late Wednesday. Saturday is the last day teams can waive summer contracts without them counting against the books, so the Magic could still make moves that bump Egwu and Marble from the roster.

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Magic Waive Melvin Ejim

October 21st, 2015 at 10:02pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Magic have waived small forward Melvin Ejim, the team announced via a press release. Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel was the first to report the news (via Twitter). Ejim’s minimum salary deal includes a partial guarantee of $150K for the 2015/16 season, which Orlando will still be on the hook for, providing he clears waivers.

Ejim put up 9.2 points and 6.8 rebounds in 30.1 minutes per game for the Magic’s summer league team this year after spending this past season with Virtus Roma in Italy. He made four preseason appearances for the Magic this summer, averaging just 3.5 points in 8.0 minutes of action per contest. The 6’7″ small forward went undrafted in 2014 in spite of a solid senior season in 2013/14, when he averaged 17.8 PPG and 8.4 RPG in 32.1 MPG for the Cyclones.

Orlando’s preseason roster count now sits at 16 players, including 13 with fully guaranteed pacts. The Magic will still need to pare down their roster by at least one more player prior to the October 26th deadline.

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Battle For Roster Spots: Southeast Division

October 19th, 2015 at 3:59pm CST by Chuck Myron

Hoops Rumors is taking a team-by-team look at the battles for regular season roster spots going on around the NBA this month, the last before rosters shrink from the offseason limit of 20 to the 15-man regular season maximum. We’ve already checked out the Northwest, Pacific, Southwest, Central and Atlantic division franchises, and now we’ll finish up the series with a look at the Atlantic Division:

HAWKS

13 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: Tim Hardaway Jr. — $1,304,520; Edy Tavares and Justin Holiday have smaller full guarantees for this season, but their salaries for next season are guaranteed, too.)

Non-guaranteed players

Analysis: Muscala has long been a “lock” for the regular season roster, as Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has said, so realistically this is a matter of four players competing for one opening night spot. Patterson has seen far more playing time in the preseason than the other three, as Vivlamore pointed out before this weekend’s game against the Heat (Twitter link), and that still holds true. Patterson, who signed as a draft-and-stash prospect this summer after having been the 48th overall pick in 2014, is averaging 4.0 points in 14.3 minutes per game. Petteway is only logging about half as many minutes per contest, and Barron and Jones have seen fewer than five minutes a night.

HEAT

13 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: Josh Richardson — $525,093)

Non-guaranteed players

Analysis: Johnson seems like a strong bet for opening night, since half his salary is already guaranteed and he is first in line to become the third-string point guard, a key position given the uncertainty surrounding Mario Chalmers. That ostensibly leaves one open spot, though the Heat, in line to pay repeat-offender tax penalties if they wind up over the $84.74MM tax threshold at the end of the regular season, could save money and keep a spot free beneath the 15-man roster maximum on opening night. Ennis is leading the six Heat players with non-guaranteed salary in minutes per game so far in the preseason, with 17.0 MPG, but Greg Whittington is not far behind, at 16.1 MPG. Making it tricky is that Ennis’ salary of $845,059 would become fully guaranteed on opening night, though in the long run, he’d be cheaper than the other non-guaranteed players, whose full-season salaries would count as $947,276 for tax purposes if they were to stick for all of 2015/16. At least two other teams are interested in Ennis, scouts tell Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel, as we noted earlier, so the Heat might not get the chance to re-sign Ennis later this season if they let him go.

HORNETS

14 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: Troy Daniels, Tyler Hansbrough, tie — $947,276)

Non-guaranteed players

Analysis: The season-ending injury to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist begat the Wilkins signing, seemingly dampening the chances that any of the other four camp invitees will stick around for the regular season. Wilkins saw nearly 24 minutes of action in his preseason debut, his only appearance with the Hornets so far, taking only three shots and scoring five points. Still, through just one game, he’s managed to total more minutes than any other camp invitee on Charlotte’s roster except for Harrison, who’s averaging 3.8 points in 12.5 minutes per contest across four appearances so far. Harrison has a financial edge thanks to his partial guarantee, though $75K isn’t much to deter the Hornets if they’d prefer Wilkins. Harrison and Wilkins are the same height, but Wilkins has a longer wingspan that would allow him to defend better against small forwards, duties that Kidd-Gilchrist normally assumes.

MAGIC

13 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: Dewayne Dedmon — $947,276)

Non-guaranteed players

Analysis: Marble, the 56th overall pick of the 2014 draft who missed much of his rookie season with an eye injury, is averaging 8.8 points in 19.7 minutes, and both numbers are better than any of the other Magic camp invitees so far. None of the others is seeing double-figure minutes, and while Stiemsma comes closest, this weekend’s exhibition against Flamengo of Brazil was his first appearance of the preseason thanks to an Achilles tendon strain that had kept him from playing in the team’s first five preseason games. Ejim has looked sharp in close to 32 total minutes of play across four games, scoring 14 points and grabbing nine rebounds, helping justify his status as the only remaining Orlando camp invitee with partially guaranteed money. However, partial guarantees of $100K apiece didn’t preserve the jobs of Keith Appling and Jordan Sibert, whom the Magic waived this afternoon.

WIZARDS

15 full guarantees (Smallest full guarantee: Garrett Temple — $1,100,602)

Non-guaranteed players

Analysis: The opening night roster for the Wizards appears to have been settled for a while, or at least since trade rumors connecting Temple to the Jazz died down. The Wizards seem to be fond of Temple, who’s leading the team in preseason minutes per game, and they’d have to either trade or eat at least $2MM in salary if they were to get rid of anyone else among their 15 fully guaranteed players. Temple is posting an impressive 7.0 assists in 24.1 minutes per game so far in the preseason, though Smith is dishing dimes at an even more efficient rate, with 4.2 APG in 12.4 MPG.

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

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Magic Waive Keith Appling, Jordan Sibert

October 19th, 2015 at 3:15pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Magic have waived Keith Appling and Jordan Sibert, the team announced via press release. Both will join the team’s D-League affiliate assuming they clear waivers, the Magic also said. Appling and Sibert have matching $100K partial guarantees, so Orlando would be on the hook for those if they indeed clear waivers. The move leaves the team with 17 players, 13 of whom have full guarantees.

Appling, a point guard from Michigan State, scored six points in about 43 total minutes of play in five appearances in the preseason, while Sibert, a shooting guard from Dayton, totaled three points in approximately 30 minutes of play across five preseason games. Both are 23, though Sibert went undrafted this summer while Appling is in his second season as a pro, having spent last season with the D-League affiliates of the Lakers and Magic after a short time on the Lakers NBA roster prior to opening night last fall.

Teams can keep the D-League rights to as many as four players they waive, providing they clear waivers and agree to join the D-League, though the Magic already had Appling’s rights from his time with their affiliate last season. Centers Nnanna Egwu and Greg Stiemsma, small forward Melvin Ejim and shooting guard Devyn Marble are the remaining Magic players without fully guaranteed salaries. Ejim is the only one with a partial guarantee. He’s assured of $150K, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders.

Who do you think will get the final two regular season roster spots on the Magic, assuming they carry 15 players? Leave a comment to let us know.

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Southeast Notes: Blair, Oubre, Wilkins, Frye

October 17th, 2015 at 7:47pm CST by Arthur Hill

DeJuan Blair is looking forward to repairing his reputation in Washington, according to J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. Blair had a disappointing first season with the Wizards after agreeing to a sign-and-trade from Dallas, appearing in just 29 games and averaging 1.9 points and 1.9 rebounds. But Blair, who still has two years and $4MM left on his contract, expects to get more playing time this season with Kevin Seraphin gone to the Knicks. “It’s my body [that’s the difference],” said Blair, who dropped 30 pounds over the summer. “Last year was a big wake-up call coming from Dallas, went from playing in the playoffs to not playing at all … This year I worked all over the summer.”

There’s more news from the Southeast Division:

  • A rash of injuries to wing players may force Kelly Oubre Jr. into the Wizards‘ rotation sooner than expected, writes Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post. Free agent addition Alan Anderson will miss a big part of the season after ankle surgery this week, his second procedure in five months. He joins an injured list that includes Martell Webster [arthritic hip], Garrett Temple [sore hamstring] and Jared Dudley [back surgery]. That leaves Oubre and Gary Neal as the only healthy wings off the bench. “Every day I’m just trying to work, and I’m trying to find myself on the court and make sure the game comes easier for me,” Oubre said. “I never really had expectations on playing time or anything like that. I’m just all in on the team.”
  • NBA veteran Damien Wilkins, signed by the Hornets after an injury to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, tells Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer that he understands his place on the team. “I’m not going to come in and try to be MKG. There is only one him – that’s why he makes the big bucks,” Wilkins said. “I’ve just got to be myself and provide some leadership and experience, make plays on both ends of the floor.” Kidd-Gilchrist is expected to miss the season after dislocating his right shoulder in a preseason game.
  • Channing Frye has become more agile and aggressive as he prepares for an expanded role with the Magic, according to John Denton of Magic.com. Frye was mainly a three-point shooter in Jacque Vaughn’s offense last season, but new coach Scott Skiles wants him to play a more complete game.
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