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Southwest Notes: Mavs’ Sale, Pelicans, H. Jones, Spurs

December 5th, 2023 at 7:12pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Mark Cuban’s agreed-upon sale of a majority stake in the Mavericks has been in the works for quite some time, Marc Stein reports in a Substack post.

Cuban informed commissioner Adam Silver last season that he was pursuing the sale with Las Vegas Sands Corp. Cuban will retain control of the Mavericks’ basketball ops, even though he will no longer hold the majority stake if the Board of Governors approves the transaction.

The partnership hopes to build an arena and casino in Dallas if gambling is approved in the state. Cuban told Everton Bailey Jr. of the Dallas Morning News via email that the franchise would remain in Dallas, despite the incoming owners’ Las Vegas roots.

“I will say on the record the team is not moving anywhere,” Cuban wrote. “We are the DALLAS Mavs.”

We have more from the Southwest Division:

The Pelicans advanced to the in-season tournament semifinals on Monday by defeating Sacramento. ESPN’s Andrew Lopez provides details about a team meeting last month held following a five-game losing streak. Larry Nance Jr. called the meeting, which was described as productive. The players were receptive to constructive criticism. “It just felt a little that we could be better. And I thought we did a great job of addressing exactly what we needed to address and walking into the meeting with a clear direction and a path the meeting was supposed to take. And it took that,” Nance said.
Herbert Jones displayed his defensive chops against the Kings’ De’Aaron Fox on Monday, hounding the star guard into a 10-for-25 shooting performance and six turnovers. Jones, who is signed through the 2026/27 season after becoming a restricted free agent earlier this year, also supplied 23 points, Christian Clark of the New Orleans Times-Picayune notes. “Herb was everywhere,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said. “He was flying around. He was blocking shots. He was getting steals, rebounding the ball. We needed that effort across the ball. This was a big-time win.”
The addition of Victor Wembanyama hasn’t resolved the Spurs’ defensive issues. Losers of 14 straight, they’re giving up an average of 123.9 points per game and the coaching staff is emphasizing the fundamentals to the young squad. “Now we are starting from it seems like square one, as basic as it gets about where to be in help side, how to guard the ball, taking away the basket first and forcing them to kick out to tougher shots,” guard Tre Jones told Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News. “It seems like so many basic things, but some people have never been taught it.”

Eastern Notes: Adebayo, Raptors, Dick, Trent Jr., Wagner

December 5th, 2023 at 5:45pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Bam Adebayo has already been ruled out of the Heat’s game against Toronto on Wednesday. The standout big man is uncertain whether he’ll be ready to go for Friday’s contest against Cleveland, he told Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.

“I have no idea,” said Adebayo, who is dealing with a hip contusion. “This is new to me…to be on the sideline. I get reevaluated when the team gets back from Toronto. We’ll have a conversation then.”

We have more from the Eastern Conference:

With the Raptors potentially being sellers at the trade deadline, The Athletic’s Eric Koreen takes a look at five questions that will define the second quarter of their season. Among those questions is whether first-rounder Gradey Dick will start contributing to the NBA club and if coach Darko Rajakovic will swap in Gary Trent Jr. for Dennis Schröder in the starting five.
Exploring a similar topic, Michael Grange of Sportsnet writes that the Raptors are reaching a critical juncture after a 9-11 start. If they don’t show real improvement in the next two months, the front office will have little choice but to explore trades for Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby and Trent, their three rotation players on expiring contacts, Grange suggests.
Franz Wagner takes on a variety of topics during an in-depth interview with Hoops Hype’s Michael Scotto. With the Magic off to a hot start, Wagner and his teammates have their sights set on the postseason. “I think we want to make the playoffs,” he said. “Last year, I think we were four or five games out of the play-in, and my first year, we didn’t win a lot of games at all, so that would be really cool. I’d be super excited for it, and we’ve still got more than 60 games left, so we’ve got to make sure that we keep putting in the work every day and keep getting better as well.”

Hoops Rumors Glossary: Hardship Exception

December 5th, 2023 at 3:57pm CST by Luke Adams

Most “exceptions” available to an NBA team in a given league year – such as the mid-level, bi-annual, or minimum-salary exception – give that club some additional spending flexibility to continue adding players once its team salary has reached or exceeded the cap.

The hardship exception doesn’t fall into that category — it’s not related to the salary cap. Instead of granting a team extra spending power, a hardship exception gives the team the ability to temporarily carry one or more extra players on its standard roster.

A team qualifies for a hardship exception when it meets all of the following criteria:

It has at least four players unavailable due to injury or illness.
All four of those players have missed at least three consecutive games.
All four of those players are expected to remain sidelined for at least two more weeks.

If a team meets those criteria, the NBA will grant a hardship exception, which gives the club the ability to sign a free agent to a 10-day contract even if its 15-man roster is already full.

Typically, the annual period for 10-day signings doesn’t open until January 5, but a team that qualifies for a hardship exception can sign a player to a 10-day contract prior to that date. When the player’s 10-day contract expires, he can be re-signed to another 10-day deal as long as the team still meets the criteria for a hardship exception.

The rules for standard 10-day contracts prohibit a player from signing more than two 10-day deals with the same team in a given season. That limit also applies to players signing 10-day contracts via hardship rules.

A team can qualify for multiple hardship exceptions simultaneously if it has more than four players who meet the hardship criteria. For instance, a team with five injured players who have missed three or more games and will remain out for at least two more weeks could be granted two extra roster spots via the hardship provision. A team with six players who fit that bill could be granted three extra roster spots, and so on.

The Grizzlies were the first team this season to request and receive a hardship exception, and since they had five injured players who met the hardship criteria (Steven Adams, Brandon Clarke, Luke Kennard, Marcus Smart, and Jake LaRavia), they were granted two additional roster spots. They used their hardship exceptions to sign Jaylen Nowell and Shaquille Harrison to 10-day deals and have since re-signed Nowell.

Here are a few more rules related to the hardship exception:

Only players unavailable due to injury or illness can be counted toward a team’s sidelined players for hardship purposes. A player who is unavailable for other reasons (e.g. a personal absence, a suspension, etc.) would not qualify.
- Note: For instance, if the Grizzlies only had three injured players, they wouldn’t be able to count suspended guard Ja Morant as a fourth unavailable player in order to qualify for a hardship exception. However, they were able to move him to the suspended list five games into his ban, temporarily opening up an extra roster spot that way.
If one of the four injured players is ready to return earlier than anticipated and a team that used a hardship exception no longer meets the criteria, that team must reduce its roster count to 15 players. In this scenario, most clubs would simply terminate the 10-day contract signed by their hardship addition, but a team could also keep that player and waive someone else instead.
If a player signs a hardship contract with fewer than 10 days left in the season, its expiry date is considered to be the last day of the regular season. The team wouldn’t hold any form of Bird rights on that player.
Only a team with a full 15-man roster can qualify for a hardship exception.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Information from Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ and ESPN’s Bobby Marks was used in the creation of this post.

New York Notes: DiVincenzo, Grimes, Walker, Finney-Smith

December 5th, 2023 at 2:45pm CST by Luke Adams

After making 7-of-9 three-point attempts in Friday’s win over Toronto, Knicks sharpshooter Donte DiVincenzo has converted 43.4% of his tries from beyond the arc this season, which would easily be a career high. Julius Randle says DiVincenzo has made New York “a more dynamic team,” while head coach Tom Thibodeau expressed appreciation for what the veteran wing has brought to the club, per Peter Botte of The New York Post.

“I think he complements our primary scorers great, because he can stretch the floor and he does a little bit of everything,” Thibodeau said. “He handles the ball, he makes plays, he rebounds the ball well for his size. So he’s done a really good job, but it’s that entire [second] unit that’s really done a good job.”

DiVincenzo, who signed a four-year contract during the 2023 offseason, is one of two Knicks players who will become trade-eligible on December 15, but there have certainly been no indications that the team will look to move him this season.

Here’s more on the NBA’s two New York teams:

Knicks wing Quentin Grimes is off to a slow start this season, having averaged just 6.2 points per game on 36.3% shooting. However, Thibodeau remains comfortable with Grimes as part of the starting five because the group as a whole is performing well, writes Zach Braziller of The New York Post. “To me, it’s not about individuals. It’s about, how is the unit performing?” Thibodeau said. “And if the unit is performing well, then you’re fine, right? And if you’re open, you shoot it, and if you’re guarded, you make a play. He can help a lot, and he does. He’s guarding a lot of different players for us. That’s a very important role for our team.”
After missing Saturday’s win over Orlando, Lonnie Walker underwent imaging on his left hamstring strain and is expected to remain sidelined for several more games, head coach Jacque Vaughn said on Tuesday (Twitter link via Brian Lewis of The New York Post). “Lonnie’s situation is he will not travel with us to Atlanta (for Wednesday’s game) and all signs pointing towards him not playing on the West Coast trip (which runs from Dec. 11-18) and having some more information about that after we get back from the West Coast trip,” Vaughn told reporters.
On the plus side for the Nets, Dorian Finney-Smith, who was also unavailable on Saturday due to right foot/knee soreness, practiced on Tuesday and is “back in action,” according to Vaughn (Twitter link via Lewis).
Although the Nets‘ 10-9 record isn’t a major surprise, their strong offensive production has been a little unexpected, Braziller says for The New York Post. Seven different Nets are averaging double-digit points per game and Brooklyn’s 117.5 offensive rating ranks sixth in the NBA. The club is also second in the league with a 39.0% three-point rate, Braziller notes.

Rockets Notes: Whitmore, Thompson, Sengun, Udoka

December 5th, 2023 at 1:04pm CST by Luke Adams

It was a big offseason for Cam Whitmore, who was named the Summer League MVP in Las Vegas, then was voted the biggest steal of the 2023 draft by NBA general managers. However, the rookie forward hasn’t been part of the Rockets‘ rotation this fall, logging just 32 total minutes in five appearances at the NBA level.

Whitmore has seen more action in the G League for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, Houston’s G League affiliate. In six games as a Viper, the 19-year-old has put up 24.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 4.0 assists per night with a shooting line of .486/.431/.786.

While the scoring numbers are impressive, the Rockets have been even more encouraged by Whitmore’s assist totals, according to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle (subscription required), who notes that the youngster only had 19 assists in 26 college games at Villanova. Head coach Ime Udoka said the team liked what it saw from the rookie in several other areas too.

“He did well,” Udoka said of Whitmore’s G League play. “He had numbers, obviously. But it’s not really the scoring. It’s shot selection, improvement on defense, recognition. They do the same schemes that we do.

“One thing about the G League, people go down there to score; it doesn’t always translate to the NBA. You’re not always going to get those same looks or other things. It’s how you blend in with the team and the scheme. When you’re getting a lot of time as a young guy, I think it’s invaluable to go down there to … play. We’re looking at everything, from understanding game plans, coverages and everything we don’t get a chance to work on daily.”

Here’s more on the Rockets:

Whitmore was one of four Rockets sent to the Vipers on Tuesday, along with fellow first-rounder Amen Thompson and two-way players Jermaine Samuels and Nate Hinton. Thompson is recovering from an ankle injury and Feigen suggests (via Twitter) that playing with the Vipers may be the next step in his return for the NBA club. Rio Grande Valley has three games in four days beginning on Wednesday.
Rockets center Alperen Sengun has put up All-Star caliber numbers, averaging 21.0 PPG, 9.2 RPG, and 5.5 APG through his first 17 games this season. However, he’ll face tough competition as a frontcourt player in the Western Conference, so his case would be strengthened if the Rockets – who have lost six of their last eight games – can reverse their recent slide and remain in the thick of the West’s playoff race, Feigen writes for The Houston Chronicle (subscription required).
The Rockets’ loss to the Lakers in Los Angeles on Saturday night wasn’t the team’s finest hour. As Kelly Iko of The Athletic details, Ime Udoka was ejected following a verbal altercation with LeBron James, while Dillon Brooks ripped the officiating after the game, referring to them as a “terrible group” of referees. Still, if the team emulates Udoka’s intensity and “don’t get punked” attitude going forward, the game could prove beneficial, according to Feigen (subscription required). “We’re trying to imitate our coach,” Jabari Smith Jr. said. “That’s who he is. That’s how he is. We’re trying to be like that.”

Hoops Rumors Chat Transcript: 12/5/2023

December 5th, 2023 at 1:00pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The transcript of our weekly Tuesday chat can be accessed by clicking this link.

Categories:
Hoops Rumors Chats

NBA To Allow Teams To Attend Several High School Showcases

December 5th, 2023 at 11:44am CST by Luke Adams

The NBA will allow teams to scout a series of high school events over the course of the 2023/24 season, beginning with the Nike EYBL Scholastic Showcase Games in Las Vegas later this week, reports ESPN’s Jonathan Givony.

As Givony explains, after instituting the one-and-done rule, which prevents prospects from entering the draft directly out of high school, the NBA also put a series of “no-contact” rules in place in 2005, prohibiting its clubs from scouting high school players in person. However, front offices have long pushed the league office to loosen those rules and it seems the NBA is complying.

According to Givony, one reason the league is becoming more willing to permit teams to scout high school events and players is the fact that a number of prospects in recent years, including Shaedon Sharpe and Darius Bazley, have opted not to play competitive basketball during the year after high school. Others, such as James Wiseman and Darius Garland, have seen very limited action in their lone college season due to an injury or an eligibility issue.

Being able to scout those prospects at high school events would have given teams more information to base their evaluations on once they became draft-eligible.

This week’s event in Vegas, which will take place when teams are already in town for the in-season tournament final four, will feature top prospects Cooper Flagg and Tre Johnson facing off against one another as members of Montverde Academy and Link Academy, respectively.

Here are the 2023/24 high school events that were certified by the NBA for scouts in a memo sent to teams last month, according to Givony:

Nike EYBL Scholastic Showcase Games (Dec. 8-9 in Las Vegas, NV)
Sunshine Prep Showcase at IMG Academy (Dec. 14-17 in Bradenton, FL)
Tarkanian Classic (Dec. 15-21 in Las Vegas, NV)
City of Palms Classic (Dec. 18-23 in Fort Myers, FL)
HoopHall Classic (Jan. 11-15, Springfield, MA)
Throne National Championship (March 28-31 in New York City, NY)
High School Boys Basketball Nationals (April 4-6 in Brownsburg, IN)

Atlantic Notes: Celtics, Koloko, Siakam, Sixers

December 5th, 2023 at 10:12am CST by Luke Adams

Appearing on FanDuel’s Run It Back show (Twitter video link), Shams Charania of The Athletic said that he anticipates the Celtics being active on the trade market as February’s deadline nears. The goal for the C’s, Charania says, will be to “beef up” their bench rotation.

The expectation coming into the season was that Boston would have a top-heavy roster, and that has certainly been the case so far this fall. Top scorers Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Kristaps Porzingis have averaged nearly 69 combined points per game, while the club’s reserves are totaling just 25.7 points per contest, which ranks 29th in the NBA.

As Charania observes, the Celtics parted with a pair of future first-round picks in their preseason trade for Jrue Holiday, but one of those came from Golden State, so they still have some flexibility with draft assets going forward and could theoretically move multiple first-rounders. The team also has a trade exception worth approximately $6.2MM that could come in handy in a deal involving a player earning a modest salary.

Here’s more from around the Atlantic:

There are still no concrete updates on the status of Raptors big man Christian Koloko, who has been sidelined since Summer League due to a respiratory issue, tweets Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca. The 23-year-old appeared in 58 games as a rookie last season, but is still just doing drill work with coaches after practices and has yet to participate in full practices this fall, Grange notes.
Raptors forward Pascal Siakam is in the midst of one of the worst shooting slumps of his career, having made just five of his last 52 three-pointers, per Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca. Siakam’s poor shooting has been a major factor in Toronto’s underwhelming 33.7% rate on threes (28th in the NBA), but he’s confident he’ll turn things around. “I think the most important [thing] is just putting the work in,” Siakam said. “… Either you stop shooting them or the other thing you do is you keep shooting and it just kinda [evens out]. I think it’s just basketball. It happens and you just got to continue to work on it, trust the work and the process.”
The scheduling around the in-season tournament has resulted in a stretch of four consecutive off-days for the Sixers. Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer takes a closer look at how the 76ers have been taking advantage of the break in their schedule, including head coach Nick Nurse giving his team two days off followed by two days of “sharp, intense” practices.

Southeast Notes: Hawks, Ball, Heat, McClung

December 5th, 2023 at 9:08am CST by Luke Adams

With Jalen Johnson unavailable due to a wrist injury, the Hawks have been experimenting a little more with different frontcourt combinations, including playing centers Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu alongside one another, writes Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (subscription required).

The pairing is very much a work in progress, particularly on the offensive end, but it showed some intriguing potential against bigger teams like San Antonio and Milwaukee, according to Williams.

“There’s certain times in the game where that allows itself and there’s certain matchups where I think it pays dividends defensively,” head coach Quin Snyder said. “(Saturday vs. Milwaukee) was one of those nights).”

For his part, Okongwu is on board with the idea of handling power forward alongside Capela if it means he’ll get an opportunity to play a little more.

“Whatever it takes for me to be on the court longer, I’ll do it,” Okongwu said. “Playing the four, it’s obviously is an adjustment but nothing I can’t do.”

Here’s more from around the Southeast:

Hornets guard LaMelo Ball still has a noticeable limp and isn’t expected to return anytime soon, but he’s no longer wearing a walking boot, tweets Roderick Boone of The Charlotte Observer. That’s a promising first step in Ball’s recovery from a severely sprained right ankle, which he’s scheduled to have reevaluated this week.
Buoyed by a seven-game winning streak in the first half of November, the Heat are 11-9 after 20 games, but many of their victories have come against subpar competition and they’ve lost four of their last five contests. Jimmy Butler kept coming back to one word when describing the team’s performance so far, per Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald. “We stand right where we don’t want to be, which is very mediocre, not good, not bad, not great, not any of those things,” Butler said. “Just mediocre. You talk about our offense has been mediocre. You talk about our defense has been mediocre. That’s the word I would use.”
Mac McClung, who has been playing for the Magic‘s G League affiliate this season, was named the NBAGL’s player of the month for November, the league announced on Monday (Twitter link). McClung averaged 25.4 points, 5.7 assists, and 4.3 rebounds per game in nine November contests for the Osceola Magic, but isn’t under contract with Orlando — the 2023 slam dunk champion remains an NBA free agent, available to sign with any team.

Tournament Notes: Haliburton, Pacers, Pelicans, Awards

December 5th, 2023 at 8:03am CST by Luke Adams

After missing Saturday’s win over Miami due to an upper respiratory infection, Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton got off to a slow start in Monday’s in-season tournament quarterfinal and had to use an inhaler at halftime, writes Tim Bontemps of ESPN. He bounced back in a big way in the second half, registering his first career triple-double (26 points, 13 assists, 10 rebounds) and leading Indiana to a comeback victory over the favored Celtics.

It was the first Pacers game this season that was nationally televised and it represented an opportunity for one of the NBA’s rising talents to show off his game for a wider audience, according to David Aldridge of The Athletic, who suggests that Haliburton’s star turn has been the best thing about the in-season tournament so far.

“You don’t play on national TV if you don’t win games,” Haliburton said. “The more we come out here and prove that, on a night-to-night basis, that we can win games, it’s gonna change. And that’s all that we’re about right now; changing how this organization is viewed and how we are as players viewed, and just coming out here and competing every night.”

The fourth-year guard has been the driving force of a Pacers offense that has a 123.6 rating, which is the top mark in the league by nearly four full points. He earned “MVP” chants from the home crowd in Indiana.

“I haven’t heard MVP chants, maybe when (Victor) Oladipo was here, but Ty’s really come in and taken over and it’s fun stuff,” Myles Turner said after the victory, per Bontemps.

Here’s more on the NBA’s in-season tournament:

Although Larry Nance Jr. is currently on the shelf, the Pelicans are otherwise as healthy as they’ve been since early in the 2022/23 season — they’re eager to make a run at show what this roster is capable of, according to Kendra Andrews of ESPN. That effort began with a quarterfinal win over Sacramento on Monday. Star forward Zion Williamson only scored 10 points in the victory, but New Orleans got at least 16 points apiece from five players, including the other four starters. “With their complete roster, they are the team that I could see challenging the Denver Nuggets for the top team in the West,” a league source told ESPN.
In an announcement on Monday (Twitter link), the league unveiled its new awards related to the in-season tournament, including the NBA Cup for the team that wins the event and the trophies for the tournament’s MVP and all-tournament team.
Players on two-way contracts will receive half the prize money that players on standard deals will receive in the in-season tournament, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks. That means a two-way player on the championship team would receive $250K rather than $500K, but that’s still a significant chunk of money for players who are earning just $559,782 this season. “It’s another good reason to be motivated,” Suns two-way player Saben Lee said, per Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. “But regardless, guys love to play basketball and compete at a high level.”
A few of the teams still alive in the tournament have open roster spots, so it’s worth noting that a player won’t be eligible to participate in the tournament final unless he’s added to the roster before the semifinals, according to Marks (Twitter link).