Haywood Highsmith made his first start of the season Friday night as coach Erik Spoelstra continues to experiment with forwards to fit alongside Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo in the Heat’s frontcourt, writes Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald. Jackson notes that Highsmith is the fifth player to fill that role in Miami’s last 11 meaningful games, with Kevin Love, Caleb Martin, Nikola Jovic and Jaime Jaquez also getting opportunities as starters.
Highsmith scored 10 points and stood out defensively on Friday as the Heat outscored the Wizards by 10 points in his 22 minutes on the court. He told Jackson that he’s determined to become a rotation player in his third season with Miami.
“Now that I’m here, I’m here to stay and trying to be an NBA player for a long, long time,” Highsmith said. “Trying to get more minutes and create a role for myself in this league and putting everyone on notice that I’m here to stay.”
There’s more from Miami:
Longtime NBA guard Eric Bledsoe is heading back overseas, having re-signed with the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association, according to the team (link via Dario Skerletic of Sportando).
Bledsoe played for the Sharks last season after spending 12 years in the NBA and appearing in more than 800 career regular season and playoff games for the Clippers, Suns, Bucks, and Pelicans.
Known for his athleticism and perimeter defense, Bledsoe averaged 13.7 points, 4.7 assists, and 3.9 rebounds in 756 regular season games (27.8 MPG) as an NBA player, with a shooting line of .452/.336/.784. He last played in the NBA in 2021/22, starting 29 of 54 games for the Clippers and recording 9.9 PPG, 4.2 APG, and 3.4 RPG in 25.2 MPG.
In Shanghai last season, Bledsoe put up 17.6 PPG, 6.1 APG, and 5.8 RPG on .435/.332/.714 shooting in 29 games (22.6 MPG).
The 33-year-old’s season came to an unusual end when the Sharks were disqualified from the CBA postseason amid match-fixing allegations. Bledsoe, who was serving a suspension during the games in question, distanced himself from the allegations and apparently feels comfortable rejoining the team for the 2023/24 season.
Each of the NBA’s 30 teams is permitted to carry 15 players on standard contracts and three on two-way deals, which works out to a maximum of 540 players across 30 rosters. The Grizzlies have been granted an extra roster spot after moving Ja Morant to the suspended list, so let’s call it 541.
Of those 541 potential roster spots, 527 are currently occupied, leaving just 14 open roster spots around the NBA. Four of those open roster spots belong to two teams, while 10 other clubs have one opening apiece.
[RELATED: 2023/24 NBA Roster Counts]
Here’s the full breakdown:
Two open standard roster spots
As we’ve previously discussed, teams can only carry two open spots on their standard rosters for up to 14 days at a time, so the Warriors and Clippers will each have to add a 14th man soon.
That deadline is coming up very soon for the Warriors, who have had two open roster spots since the start of the season on October 24. The Clippers, who just dipped to 13 players following their two trades on Thursday, will have a little more time to decide on their next roster move.
I wouldn’t expect either team to be in any rush to add a 15th man, since both clubs are well above the luxury tax line.
One open standard roster spot
Many of these teams are carrying an open roster spot for luxury tax reasons. The Celtics, Lakers, Heat, and Pelicans are all over the tax line, while the Bulls, Cavaliers, and Timberwolves don’t have much breathing room below it. Most of those teams will add 15th men eventually, but they’ll be in no rush to do so yet.
The Pistons are well below the tax, however, while the Trail Blazers have more than enough flexibility to sign a 15th man without getting too close to tax territory. Both teams should be on the lookout for players who would make good candidates to fill those openings.
One open two-way roster spot
It’s no coincidence that Phoenix, the only NBA team without a G League affiliate of its own, is also the only club carrying just a pair of two-way players instead of three.
With no NBAGL team where they can send players for developmental purposes, the Suns will be less motivated to carry a full complement of two-way players, since it’s unlikely they’ll need three of them to regularly contribute at the NBA level unless their standard roster is beset by injuries.
The 2023/24 NBA campaign tipped off on October 24, making this the 12th day of the 177-day regular season. It’s early, in other words, so teams falling short of their expectations during the season’s first couple weeks shouldn’t be reaching for the panic button quite yet.
Still, the Western Conference is expected to be extremely competitive this season — when we ran our over/under polls on teams’ win totals in the weeks leading up to opening night, the benchmark for 11 of the 15 teams in the West was 44.5 or more victories. Only six Western teams will qualify for the playoffs outright and only four more will make the play-in tournament, which means one of those 11 clubs with high expectations for 2023/24 will be left on the outside looking in, not even a play-in team.
The margin for error in the West is thin, which doesn’t bode well for the Grizzlies, the NBA’s lone remaining winless team.
We knew Memphis might be in some trouble entering the season, with a few key players expected to be unavailable for a significant portion of the year. All-Star guard Ja Morant is serving a 25-game suspension, starting center Steven Adams is out for the season with a knee injury, and key frontcourt reserve Brandon Clarke is still on his way back from a torn Achilles.
Still, we didn’t expect the Grizzlies to begin the season 0-6, with losses to potential lottery-bound teams like Washington, Utah, and Portland. Again, it’s early, but Memphis is digging an early-season hole that might be tricky to climb out of.
In addition to being without Morant, the Grizzlies can no longer rely on steady backup point guard Tyus Jones, who was traded in the offseason, and newcomers Marcus Smart and Derrick Rose have been shaky so far. Jones has been the NBA’s perennial leader in assist-to-turnover ratio, but without him and Morant, the Grizzlies rank 26th in that category in the early going and have had trouble generating much offense at all — the club’s 102.9 offensive rating ranks dead last in the NBA.
Adams obviously isn’t the scorer or play-maker that Morant is, but his absence in the frontcourt has been just as deeply felt as Morant’s in the backcourt. Before Adams went down with his knee injury last season, the Grizzlies ranked second in the league in rebounding percentage and offensive rebounding percentage, with Adams leading that effort. However, they were 25th and 22nd in those categories the rest of last season, and are in the bottom half of the league’s rebounders again this fall.
The good news for the Grizzlies is that their stars – Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson – have looked great, and there’s no reason not to expect the same from Morant when he returns in December. But Memphis isn’t getting much from its role players, and the team needs to at least tread water until Morant is back in order to stay in the playoff hunt.
We want to know what you think. After winning over 50 games in each of the past two regular season, are the Grizzlies just off to a slow start this season? Will they turn things around and end up having a strong year? Or is this slow start a harbinger of things to come? Will the Grizzlies end up being the odd man out of the postseason from that group of 11 Western teams with playoff expectations?
Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section to weigh in with your thoughts on the Grizzlies.
As we did with 2023’s offseason trades and the in-season swaps from 2022/23, we’ll be keeping track of all the NBA trades completed this season, updating this article with each transaction. This post can be found anytime throughout the season on our desktop sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features,” or in our mobile menu under “Features.”
Trades are listed here in reverse chronological order, with the latest on top. So, if a player has been dealt multiple times, the first team listed as having acquired him is the one that ended up with him. Trades listed in italics have been agreed upon but are not yet official. For more details on each trade, click the date above it.
For more information on the specific conditions dictating if and when draft picks involved in these deals will actually change hands, be sure to check out RealGM.com’s breakdown of the details on traded picks.
Here’s the full list of the trades completed during the 2023/24 NBA season:
New Clippers guard James Harden discussed his desire to help the team win a championship during his introductory presser on Thursday, and the Clippers are much closer to winning a chip by acquiring him, Mirjam Swanson of The Orange County Register opines. However, Swanson argues that trading for Harden puts the Clippers under more public scrutiny, adding Harden to a list of big-name players alongside Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Russell Westbrook.
The fit between Harden and Westbrook, who have played together twice before in Houston and Oklahoma City, will be interesting to watch unfold. Andrew Greif of the Los Angeles Times further explores the fit, adding that coach Tyronn Lue said he hasn’t yet talked to the two about splitting ball-handling duties.
“I don’t predict the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know, bro,” Westbrook said. “But it’s going to be a process. It’s going to be ups and downs, going to be good games, bad games. It’s not just going to come together and mesh and we’re going to be perfectly fine. That’s unrealistic expectations for everybody. The realistic expectations, like I said, it’s going to be a process. I don’t have the answer to what that is.”
Harden said he’s used to adjusting his playing style, having done so in Brooklyn and Philadelphia alongside other superstars, though he expressed displeasure with his role in Philly.
“Somebody that can have that dialogue with me and understand and move forward and figure out and make adjustments on the fly throughout the course of games, that’s all I really care about,” Harden said. “It’s not about me scoring … 34 points. I’ve done that already.”
Harden is in the final year of his contract and will earn about $35.6MM this season.
We have more from the Pacific Division:
Bulls guard Zach LaVine refuted the idea that the team hosted a players-only meeting following last week’s season opener, as detailed by Yahoo Sports’ Vincent Goodwill. LaVine said the players didn’t have a team meeting, as suggested by head coach Billy Donovan, but instead had “a basketball conversation.”
“We’re having conversations from top to bottom,” LaVine said. “If we don’t want the coaches in there while we are talking, that’s not a team meeting, it’s players talking amongst ourselves. I don’t know if coach got that misunderstood or not.”
Goodwill writes the Bulls are at an inflection point. Notably, LaVine has been in trade rumors, Nikola Vucevic had a tense exchange with Donovan in the opener, and the team hasn’t been able to come to terms on an extension with DeMar DeRozan. On top of that, as Goodwill observes, Donovan has multiple years left following the extension he signed before last season and owner Jerry Reinsdorf hasn’t historically given up on long-term coaching contracts.
“You know, we’re on our third year now, and I’ve been saying since training camp: It’s time to put pen to paper,” LaVine said. “If it don’t work, we understand the business of basketball. We have three All-Star players. We gotta make this work, from top to bottom. It’s not just the players. We gotta make this click.”
We have more from the Central Division:
Rockets rookie guard Amen Thompson sprained his right ankle on Wednesday, with the team ruling him out of the contest shortly after he suffered the injury in the third quarter. According to Ben DuBose of Rockets Wire, head coach Ime Udoka said Thompson suffered a Grade 2 ankle sprain.
Thompson also sustained a Grade 2 left ankle sprain over the summer and that injury had a two-to-four week recovery timetable, according to DuBose, so it’s likely he’s looking at a similar return timeline for this injury.
The No. 4 overall pick is Houston’s primary backup point guard behind Fred VanVleet, so Aaron Holiday absorbed the brunt of Thompson’s minutes following his departure from the game. However, Udoka didn’t turn to Holiday right away, moving Jae’Sean Tate to the backcourt before bringing Holiday in, Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle observes (subscriber link). Udoka wasn’t ready to fully commit to the idea of Holiday always being the backup in a three-guard rotation.
“I think we’ll go by committee a little bit,” Udoka said. “I think, the lineup that we had out there, even Amen was out there, we had Jae’Sean as another guy that can initiate, so we do have some guys I can kind of play up or down and fill different roles. We’ll look at it as game-to-game.”
Udoka praised Holiday’s playing ability and said he believed Holiday and VanVleet could play together. Feigen writes that improving the bench play of the Rockets is crucial and playing Holiday may be important to finding a consistent rotation.
“Depending on the team, for sure,” Udoka said. “Teams that have bigger wings, obviously that’ll pose some threats. But Aaron is a guy, similar to his brother, doesn’t have the height of Jrue, but he is a very physical, tough guy that can play on or off the ball. Fred does as well.”
According to Feigen, Udoka said there may be situations where he calls on Reggie Bullock, rookie Cam Whitmore or Tate to fill in some of the backcourt minutes.
Holiday signed a one-year, minimum-salary contract with the Rockets this offseason that has just $1MM guaranteed. If Holiday is on the roster on Jan. 10, that contract will become fully guaranteed.
We have more from the Southwest Division:
Former Rockets two-way guard Trevor Hudgins is signing with French club Le Mans, according to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia (Twitter link).
Hudgins joined Houston on a two-way contract after going undrafted out of Northwest Missouri State in 2022. He appeared in just five NBA games with the team, playing in 5.6 minutes per contest.
Hudgins had a more productive stint in the G League, where he averaged 18.6 points, 5.8 assists and 1.5 steals in 46 regular season and Showcase Cup games. He was also a strong three-point shooter for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, hitting 38.3% of his 11.5 deep-ball attempts per game, propelling the Vipers to the G League Finals where they eventually fell to the Delaware Blue Coats.
The 6’0″ guard accepted his two-way qualifying offer with the Rockets this offseason but was waived at the NBA’s roster cutdown deadline in October. The Rockets used the two-way slot opened by waiving Hudgins to sign Nate Hinton to a two-way deal.
Hudgins was eligible to sign a two-way deal with another team after being waived, though it’s unclear whether he received any further NBA interest. It’s also possible that his deal with Le Mans comes with more money than a two-way deal, and he gets the chance to be a feature player for the club.
The Wizards are looking to make major renovations to their arena and want public funding to pay for the majority of the bill.
Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Wizards as well as the NHL’s Capitals and WNBA’s Mystics, has asked D.C. for $600MM of public funding to renovate Capital One Arena, Sam Fortier of The Washington Post reports. That’s about 75% of the funds needed to carry out Monumental’s renovation plan. The remaining $200MM would be covered by Monumental, which is owned by chief executive Ted Leonsis.
We have more from the Southeast Division: