Not long after it was announced that Blake Griffin would meet with the Suns when free agency began, he canceled the meeting, Sam Amick of USA Today tweets.
The All-Star forward also cancelled a meeting with the Nuggets suggesting that, barring a mysterious unnamed club swooping in and luring the forward away, a return to the Clippers may be imminent.
That Griffin did in fact cancel meetings with both Phoenix and Denver has since been corroborated by Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times.
All-Star forward Blake Griffin is scheduled to meet with the Suns this Saturday, a league source tells Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times. After exercising his early termination option last week, Griffin will hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent.
Although the Clippers remain optimistic about signing Griffin even after the Chris Paul trade, the 28-year-old forward could very well bring a formal end to Lob City by signing a deal elsewhere.
The Suns boast an intriguing young core with Devin Booker and Josh Jackson and could look to climb out of the lottery with the addition of an established star like Griffin. Griffin averaged 21.6 points and 8.1 rebounds per game last season in a third consecutive injury-plagued campaign.
Mike James is expected to sign with the Suns, international basketball journalist David Pick suggests (link via Twitter). Pick describes James as “EuroLeague’s most electrifying combo guard.”
The exact details of James’ and the Suns’ commitment are not yet known, but this sounds to be more than just a Summer League deal. Whatever the terms of the contract may be, it cannot become official until the new league year.
This James, not to be confused with NBA veteran Mike James, has yet to play in the NBA and last suited up for Panathinaikos in 2016/17. He did, however, play for the Suns during the 2015 NBA Summer League. In Greece last season, he averaged 13.0 PPG and 3.0 APG on a .490 FG%.
Three more players are now officially on track to become restricted free agents on the weekend, per RealGM’s transactions log. The Suns have tendered qualifying offers to Alex Len and Alan Williams, while Shabazz Muhammad has received a QO from the Timberwolves.
Extending qualifying offers to potential restricted free agents is a housekeeping move to ensure that teams retain the right of first refusal on their respective free agents. However, QOs also represent one-year contract offers, so Len, Williams, or Muhammad could opt to accept their offers and sign a one-year deal once the new league year begins.
Len, 24, was the fifth overall pick in the 2013 draft, but hasn’t developed into a true impact player for the Suns. In 77 games (34 starts) last season, the 7’1″ center averaged 8.0 PPG and 6.6 RPG in 20.3 minutes per contest. Williams, an undrafted free agent big man, played a similar role in Phoenix, averaging 7.4 PPG and 6.2 RPG in 15.1 MPG (47 games).
As for Muhammad, the 24-year-old continued to play part-time minutes on the wing for the Wolves, having averaged 9.9 PPG, 2.8 RPG, and a .338 3PT% in 78 games last season.
Len and Muhammad, having failed to meet the starter criteria for RFAs, will receive qualifying offers worth $4,187,598. Williams’ QO will be worth a more modest $1,671,382.
The NBA has announced its All-Rookie teams for the 2016/17 season, with Bucks guard Malcolm Brogdon and Sixers forward Dario Saric headlining the First Team. Brogdon and Saric were the only two players who were unanimously named to the NBA’s All-Rookie First Team.
Here’s the full breakdown of this year’s All-Rookie squads:
First Team:
Second Team:
Brogdon, Saric, and Embiid are the finalists for the 2016/17 NBA Rookie of the Year award, which will be announced later tonight during the league’s TV broadcast on TNT.
There are rumblings out of Boston that the Suns may have encouraged Josh Jackson to skip his workout with the Celtics so he would be available for Phoenix with the fourth pick.
A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE passes along the theory that Suns GM Ryan McDonough, who spent 10 years in the Celtics’ organization, was behind Jackson’s decision to cancel a scheduled session with the team in Sacramento. McDonough joked about the situation Friday in Jackson’s introductory press conference, but later offered hints that there might be some truth to the allegations.
“Look, it is a competition,” he told reporters. “The Celtics were ahead of us at No. 3 and they could have selected whoever they wanted to. I think they got a very good player in Jayson Tatum, but that doesn’t mean [Jackson’s agent] B.J. [Armstrong] and I and … other members of my staff couldn’t talk and try to formulate the best plan to get a player we were really high on to a place we felt he really wanted to go and would be a great fit for him.”
McDonough pointed out that it wouldn’t violate any NBA rules if he and Armstrong had worked together to steer Jackson to Phoenix.
The Boston contingent, made up of president of basketball operations Danny Ainge, coach Brad Stevens and assistant GM and team counsel Mike Zarren, didn’t find out about the cancellation until their plane landed in Sacramento, which sparked some anger toward Jackson.
“Flew across the country, are you kidding me? I had to get up at 4 o’clock and fly back home,” Ainge said.
Jackson claimed he had a phone conversation with Stevens this week, but Ainge said on draft night that no one in the organization had direct contact with the Kansas forward, Blakely relays in a separate story. Some believe Jackson was bitter that the Celtics didn’t give him serious consideration when they had the No. 1 pick and he didn’t want to join the team after it traded back to No. 3.
“There was something that he didn’t want to play for the Celtics,” Ainge added.
Before they accepted the Timberwolves‘ offer for Jimmy Butler, the Bulls canvassed the league in search of a more appealing offer, according to Zach Lowe of ESPN.com.
Lowe writes in his latest piece for ESPN that the Bulls spoke to the Suns about a package centered around Eric Bledsoe and the No. 4 overall pick, but the two sides never really got close. Chicago also had discussions with the Nuggets and Celtics, but Denver drew the line at including Jamal Murray in any potential deal, and Boston wouldn’t include the No. 3 pick, according to Lowe.
As Lowe notes, teams like the Suns and Nuggets had to consider the fact that Butler may not have re-signed with them in free agency in 2019 if they acquired him. Although Butler’s contract would give teams an extra year of control over someone like Paul George, the star forward might still have ultimately been a rental if he didn’t love where he ended up. That cooled the market somewhat, as the Bulls explored potential trade scenarios.
Here’s more from Lowe’s latest piece:
The Knicks would like to unload Joakim Noah‘s salary in any deal involving Kristaps Porzingis, according to a post by Ian Begley on ESPN Now. Noah was considered a major disappointment in his first year in New York after signing a four-year, $72MM deal last summer. Injuries and a suspension for violating the NBA drug policy limited him to 46 games, and he averaged just 5.0 points and 8.7 rebounds per night. Noah still has three years and $55MM left on his contract.
There’s more from a day filled with trade rumors:
Malik Monk and Frank Ntilikina may be in “weird positions” tonight, according to ESPN’s Chad Ford. As Ford explains, one of those two players is a good bet to land with the Knicks at No. 8. However, the player who isn’t picked by New York is a candidate to fall out of the top 10 and perhaps to the end of the lottery. In his final mock draft, Ford has Ntilikina going to the Knicks and Monk slipping to the Pistons at No. 12.
Here are a few more draft rumors and notes:
6:01pm: Discussions between the Suns and Bulls on Bledsoe involved the No. 16 overall pick, tweets Michael Scotto of Basketball Insiders.
5:39pm: The Suns currently have no trades on tap, and are preparing to use the No. 4 pick in the draft, tweets TNT’s David Aldridge.
5:25pm: The Nuggets and Suns have discussed a trade that would send Eric Bledsoe to Denver, with Emmanuel Mudiay and the No. 13 pick going to Phoenix, league sources tell Chris Haynes of ESPN.com (Twitter link). No deal is imminent, but talks remain “fluid,” per Haynes.
ESPN’s Chad Ford first reported that the Nuggets and Bulls were engaged with the Suns today on possible Bledsoe trade scenarios, while Gery Woelfel of The Racine Journal Times tweeted that Phoenix was still looking to make a “major splash” with Bledsoe and/or the No. 4 pick.
According to Ford, if the Suns use the fourth overall pick on De’Aaron Fox, it will likely signal that they found a taker on Bledsoe. If Phoenix isn’t able to complete a Bledsoe trade tonight, Josh Jackson is the more probable pick at No. 4, assuming he’s still on the board, says Ford.
Denver would be an interesting landing spot for Bledsoe, who averaged a career-best 21.1 PPG and 6.3 APG in 66 games last year, before he was benched down the stretch by the tanking Suns. Although Mudiay is a former seventh overall pick, his development has been slow so far, leaving the Nuggets seeking a possible long-term alternative at the point guard position.