The Sixers are still mulling whether to pick up swingman Furkan Korkmaz‘s option for next season, Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer tweets. Philadelphia has a Wednesday deadline to make a decision. His option for the 2019/20 season is slightly over $2MM. If the Sixers decline, Korkmaz will be an unrestricted free agent next summer. The 6’7” Korkmaz has made four brief appearances this season after seeing action in 14 games last season.
The Sixers have exercised their 2019/20 team options on Ben Simmons, Markelle Fultz, and Dario Saric, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). Those decisions, which were due on October 31, don’t come as any surprise.
Simmons’ fourth-year option will lock in his $8,113,930 cap hit for 2019/20, though it’s Fultz’s third-year option, worth $9,745,200, that is the priciest of the bunch. Saric’s fourth-year option is more modest, with a value of $3,481,986. In total, the three options will tack on about $21.34MM in guaranteed money to Philadelphia’s cap for next season.
Simmons and Saric are now on track to become eligible for rookie scale extensions during the 2019 offseason. The 76ers will have to make one more option decision on Fultz, with that decision on his 2020/21 option due a year from now.
Philadelphia must make one more rookie scale option decision by Wednesday, with Furkan Korkmaz‘s $2,033,160 third-year option for 2019/20 also outstanding. A recent report suggested that option was a good bet to be exercised, but if the team announces its decisions on the other three options without mentioning Korkmaz, that won’t bode well for him. The cap hit on his option wouldn’t be much higher than the minimum salary, but declining it would help the Sixers maximize their cap space.
We’re tracking all of the 2019/20 rookie scale option decisions right here.
Dario Saric‘s slow start may be related to the time he spent this summer with the Croatian national team, but he doesn’t plan to stop representing his home country, relays Mike Sielski of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Saric shot just 26.5% from 3-point range and 37% overall in the Sixers’ first five games, which coach Brett Brown believes is related to a year-round work schedule.
“I don’t think it’s anything to do with the league scouting him differently,” Brown said. “I think it maybe does have to do with a little bit of burnt energy. It’s the toil of a summer. … This notion, that you play 12 months and you’re really in a good flow, is a myth. It is a myth. People need rest.”
However, Brown doesn’t expect Saric to change his priorities. As a former Olympics coach with Australia, Brown understands the passion of international competition. The NBA has long embraced the idea of players representing their native lands and it means too much to Saric to consider changing.
“Absolutely, I think I would be a better player if I didn’t play five, six years on the national team,” he said. “I think I would be a better player. But at the end of the day, everything is winning. You want to win with the national team.”
There’s more today from Philadelphia:
- Costly draft mistakes have forced the Sixers to rely on trades or free agency to add a third star to pair with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, writes Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The organization used high lottery picks on Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor, who were both traded away for little return, and chose Michael Carter-Williams ahead of Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2013. They couldn’t sign free agents LeBron James or Paul George this summer, while Kawhi Leonard was traded to the Raptors. Pompey states that the pressure for a huge move will be intense heading into the last summer for a while that significant cap space will be available.
- The Sixers are expected to pick up the third-year option on Furkan Korkmaz, even though he doesn’t see much playing time, Pompey adds in the same story. Korkmaz would only make $2.03MM next season, which shouldn’t be enough to affect the team’s free agency plans. Philadelphia has until Wednesday to decide on the option for Korkmaz, along with Simmons, Saric and Markelle Fultz.
- Injuries are at least partially to blame for the Sixers’ slow start, notes A. Sherrod Blakely of NBC Sports Boston. Philadelphia hasn’t gotten much production outside of Simmons, Embiid and J.J. Redick, but two offseason pickups who were expected to be important parts of the reserve unit, Wilson Chandler and Mike Muscala, have both been sidelined by injuries.
The Rockets‘ latest attempt to get Jimmy Butler from the Timberwolves by offering Brandon Knight, Marquese Chriss and four first-round picks is a non-starter, according to Malika Andrews of ESPN, who hears from sources that Minnesota won’t consider any deal that doesn’t include Eric Gordon.
Coach Tom Thibodeau is focused on returning to the playoffs and wants a trade that will benefit the team right away. Knight and Chriss are both injured and neither has been effective over the past two seasons in Phoenix. Thibodeau still has three years and $24MM left on his contract, but there have been rumors that his job may be in jeopardy if the Wolves commit to a full rebuilding project.
Plan A for Thibodeau is to hold onto Butler for as long as possible — possibly until February’s trade deadline — to help with the playoff push, Andrews adds. However, the team is off to a 2-4 start, including a 30-point loss last night to the Bucks, so that strategy isn’t off to a great start.
Butler, who started the process with a trade request last month, has received assurances from owner Glen Taylor that the team will continue to pursue a deal, according to Andrews, who hears from sources that another serious effort will be made about 10 to 15 games into the season.
Taylor has put GM Scott Layden in charge of working out a trade while Thibodeau coaches the team. The Heat and Sixers remain interested and Taylor has been hoping both teams will consider increasing their offers.
“I don’t consider anything drama,” Butler told reporters after a season-low four-point performance Friday. “I consider it business.”
The Sixers fell to 2-3 to open the 2018/19 season after losing to the Bucks on Wednesday night. While stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons have looked good, as has veteran sharpshooter J.J. Redick, that hasn’t been enough for the club so far, as head coach Brett Brown said after his team was defeated by Milwaukee.
“We need help,” Brown said, per Keith Pompey of Philly.com. “We need other people stepping up, and playing more as a team and getting Mike [Muscala] and Wilson [Chandler] back in this. … I like what we have. I really like what we have. It’s just early days. You know we are struggling a little bit.”
Despite suggesting that the Sixers “need help,” Brown isn’t advocating for a trade this early in the season. Instead, he’s hoping that incorporating those new additions into the lineup will help unlock contributions from the team’s role players. Muscala returned to the court this week and Chandler is inching closer to making his debut for Philadelphia. Brown is betting that once the Sixers are at full strength, they won’t have to lean so heavily on Embiid, Simmons, and Redick.
“Those three are doing a lot of work,” Brown said, per Pompey. “They really are carrying the fort a lot.”
“We can’t just rely on certain guys,” Robert Covington added. “So other guys have got to definitely make things happen.”
While it’s certainly possible that the Sixers will seek reinforcements later in the season via trades or on the buyout market, returning players like Redick and Dario Saric believe that the team is capable of getting back to where it was at the end of last season, even without key contributors like Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova. Redick suggests that the Sixers just “have some catching up to do,” while Saric says they’re “not on the same page” so far, as Pompey details.
“I think everybody needs to step up and try to play like last year with the confidence,” Saric said. “I think we are thinking too much. We’ve just got to play the game.”
The Timberwolves are showing “no inclination” to move on the Rockets‘ latest trade offer for Jimmy Butler, reports Shams Charania in a video for Stadium.
Charania confirms that Houston’s offer features four first-round picks, along with a pair of injured players — Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss. As I noted earlier today when I broke down the details of a potential Rockets offer, Knight and Chriss will become eligible to be traded in a package next Wednesday.
Even when they eventually get healthy, Knight and Chriss aren’t the sort of players who will come close to approximating Butler’s impact for the Timberwolves, so – as Charania suggests – there’s little incentive for Minnesota to jump on that offer right away. According to Charania, teams around the NBA expect the Wolves to continue to survey the market, perhaps waiting for clubs like the Heat or even the Sixers to get involved again.
The appeal of that Rockets offer to the Wolves may ultimately come down to who is making the final decision and what their top priorities are. We know that president of basketball operations Tom Thibodeau and GM Scott Layden have been seeking a package that features some combination of veteran talent, young prospects, and cap relief, so a pick-heavy offer may not do the trick.
The Spurs’ trade of Kawhi Leonard over the summer could be a good reference point for what the Wolves want for Butler. San Antonio sought an impact player who could help the club right away and ultimately accepted Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan-centric offer instead of, say, a Celtics offer loaded with draft picks. Of course, everyone with the Spurs seemed to be on the same page in that scenario — it’s not clear if that’s the case in Minnesota, where owner Glen Taylor may have different priorities than Thibodeau and Layden.
It’s also worth noting that, as the Spurs did with Leonard, the Wolves may prefer to send Butler to the Eastern Conference. Marc Stein of The New York Times has reported multiple times that Minnesota isn’t eager to help the Rockets create another Western Conference super-team.
Celtics forward Gordon Hayward has admitted that he’s still feeling the ill effects of the horrific ankle injury he suffered on opening night that season, writes Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston. As a result, he recently sat out the second night of a back-to-back.
“There’s soreness in my ankle every time I play right now. I think there will be soreness for a little while,” said Hayward. “That’s why I’m on a minutes restriction… they don’t want any overloading issues, so there is some load management stuff basically.”
That being said, Hayward still hopes that he won’t be forced to miss any future back-to-backs. “That was just the plan for that game. I want to play in every single game and every single minute but my game is not there yet. I trust our staff.”
There’s more from the Atlantic Division this evening:
- In another piece for NBC Sports Boston, Forsberg writes how head coach Brad Stevens gave a blunt assessment of the Celtics after the team’s recent loss to the Magic. “I’ve said it, that we’re not as good as everybody thinks we are. (This is) just another reminder how much we have to work.”
- Sixers All-Star big man Joel Embiid has been issued a warning from the league office for flopping against Andre Drummond and the Pistons last night, reports Ian Begley of ESPN. There is no fine involved, but there will be if violates the NBA’s anti-flopping rules again.
- Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes that J.J. Redick is an even more integral piece of this year’s Sixers team than last year’s because of the lack of quality shooting around him with the losses of Ersan Ilyasova and Marco Belinelli in free agency.
Unlike player and team options on veteran contracts, which generally have to be exercised or declined by the end of June, rookie scale contracts include third- and fourth-year options that teams must decide on a year early. The deadline for those decisions is October 31, which means that clubs have one more week to pick up or turn down those rookie scale options for the 2019/20 season.
While several teams have already announced their rookie scale option decisions for 2019/20, there are 14 clubs that will need to decide one way or the other on those options within the next week.
Below, we’ve listed the outstanding rookie scale option decisions for 2019/20, sorting them by their likelihood of being exercised. The first list features options that are certain to be exercised, such as Ben Simmons‘ or Jayson Tatum‘s. The second list features the rest of the options, which may still be picked up, but aren’t necessarily locks.
Let’s dive in…
Locks to be exercised:
- Markelle Fultz, 76ers (third year, $9,745,200)
- Ben Simmons, 76ers (fourth year, $8,113,930)
- Dario Saric, 76ers (fourth year, $3,481,986)
- Kris Dunn, Bulls (fourth year, $5,348,007)
- Lauri Markkanen, Bulls (third year, $5,300,400)
- Denzel Valentine, Bulls (fourth year, $3,377,569)
- Ante Zizic, Cavaliers (third year, $2,281,800)
- Jayson Tatum, Celtics (third year, $7,830,000)
- Jaylen Brown, Celtics (fourth year, $6,534,829)
- Malik Monk, Hornets (third year, $4,028,400)
- De’Aaron Fox, Kings (third year, $6,392,760)
- Buddy Hield, Kings (fourth year, $4,861,208)
- Justin Jackson, Kings (third year, $3,280,920)
- Harry Giles, Kings (third year, $2,578,800)
- Jamal Murray, Nuggets (fourth year, $4,444,746)
- Juan Hernangomez, Nuggets (fourth year, $3,321,030)
- Luke Kennard, Pistons (third year, $3,827,160)
- Pascal Siakam, Raptors (fourth year, $2,351,839)
- OG Anunoby, Raptors (third year, $2,281,800)
Not necessarily locks to be exercised:
- Furkan Korkmaz, 76ers (third year, $2,033,160)
- Thon Maker, Bucks (fourth year, $3,569,643)
- D.J. Wilson, Bucks (third year, $2,961,120)
- Guerschon Yabusele, Celtics (third year, $3,117,240)
- Skal Labissiere, Kings (fourth year, $2,338,847)
- Malik Beasley, Nuggets (fourth year, $2,731,714)
- Tyler Lydon, Nuggets (third year, $2,190,720)
- Henry Ellenson, Pistons (fourth year, $2,856,804)
- Malachi Richardson, Raptors (fourth year, $2,581,597)
- Marquese Chriss, Rockets (fourth year, $4,078,236)
- Dragan Bender, Suns (fourth year, $5,896,519)
- Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Thunder (fourth year, $2,529,684)
- Terrance Ferguson, Thunder (third year, $2,475,840)
- Justin Patton, Timberwolves (third year, $3,117,240)
- Damian Jones, Warriors (fourth year, $2,305,057)
Because rookie scale salaries are typically so affordable, many of the options that we don’t view as locks to be picked up will still be exercised. For instance, even if Labissiere barely has a role in the Kings’ crowded frontcourt at the moment, Sacramento doesn’t have much guaranteed money on its books for 2019/20 and may view a $2,338,847 cap hit for the big man as a worthwhile investment.
Still, many of the players in that second list don’t currently have sizable rotation roles, so teams will have to decide whether it’s worth it to continue trying to develop those players in 2019/20, or if it makes more sense to simply replace them with minimum-salary veterans. That could be an especially tricky question for teams that project to be over the luxury tax line next season — in those cases, every saved dollar matters.
For a full list of the rookie scale options for 2019/20, including the ones that have already been picked up, check out our tracker.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
- Sixers guard J.J. Redick believes the Magic made a smart move by trading him to the Bucks five years ago, Josh Robbins of The Athletic reports. Redick was heading into unrestricted free agency at the time but would have liked to finish out that season with Orlando. He would have considered a long-term deal with the Magic that summer. Orlando acquired forward Tobias Harris and two other players in the deal. “The trade for Tobias was definitely in Orlando’s favor,” Redick told Robbins. “You get a guy who’s going to get you 18 [points] and 8 [rebounds] at 22, or whatever age Tobias was at the time. … Things obviously didn’t turn out great for them subsequently, but I think they made the right call.”
When Wilson Chandler signed a four-year, $46.5MM extension with the Nuggets during the summer of 2015, he planned on playing out the contract in Denver. Still, he never viewed it as a lock that he’d be in Colorado for the entire deal.
“To be honest, I never really thought about it much because I knew at any moment I could be traded,” Chandler told Hoops Rumors in an exclusive interview before the Sixers‘ third game of the season on Saturday. “So I kind of just dealt with [the chances of being traded] day-to-day.”
The Nuggets sent the combo forward to the Sixers this past offseason in a financially-driven deal. The event marked the second time Chandler has been traded during his 10-year career (he was sent from the Knicks to the Nuggets in the 2011 Carmelo Anthony blockbuster).
“When you’re younger, even though you know it’s a business, it’s still shocking when you get traded especially when you’re in a good rhythm and just getting a feel for a place, you kind of like it and you’re settled in,” Chandler told Hoops Rumors.
“As you get older, you realize more and more how the business works,” Chandler continued. “You look at both teams and see if you’re going to a good situation. That plays a big part in it. The city, the organization, the team.”
On Saturday, Chandler said he was about a week away from making his regular season debut with the Sixers, as he’s still recovering from a strained hamstring. While the injury has kept him sidelined since the club’s first preseason game, he’s excited to get back out there with his new teammates.
“Just watching from afar and then being in training camp with these guys. It’s an amazing team, a young team,” Chandler said.
The 76ers have also been open with him about the role the 31-year-old will play once he’s healthy enough to return to the court.
“A little three, a little four. Kind of a two-way [forward]. Make open shots, defend, and play off of Ben [Simmons] and Joel [Embiid],” Chandler explained. “You really don’t need to do too much playing with those guys.”