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Pacific Notes: Lakers, Suns, Jordan

June 25th, 2013 at 8:32pm CST by Michael Pina

A few notes from around the league's Pacific Division.

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Kyler On Paul, Pierce, Garnett, Bledsoe, Jordan

June 24th, 2013 at 10:17am CST by Luke Adams

While replacing Vinny Del Negro with Doc Rivers on the bench may be worth a first-round draft pick on its own, the Clippers' decision to send the Celtics an unprotected 2015 pick was also closely tied to Chris Paul's future in Los Angeles. As Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld writes in today's NBA AM piece, the Clippers hiring Rivers virtually cements Paul re-signing long-term with the club when free agency begins next month.

The NBA still has to approve the Rivers transaction, but that shouldn't be a problem now that Kevin Garnett and other players aren't involved in the deal, so Kyler takes a look at the next steps for both the Celtics and Clippers once Doc officially changes addresses:

  • The Cavaliers have expressed "serious interest" in acquiring Paul Pierce, but according to Kyler, they're offering a pair of early second-round picks, while the Celtics are reportedly seeking a first-rounder. Kyler echoes what we heard last night, suggesting that Boston isn't averse to keeping Pierce beyond June 30th, guaranteed his full $15MM+ salary, since the team still feels he could be traded for good value later on.
  • According to Kyler, there have been reports indicating the Timberwolves have interest in re-acquiring Garnett. I'm not sure exactly which reports Kyler is referring to — Darren Wolfson of ESPN 1500 Twin Cities speculated about the idea earlier this month, but said his sources shot it down. And Adrian Wojnarowski indicated last night that a reunion between Garnett and the Wolves could happen eventually, but in an off-court, ownership capacity.
  • In any case, Kyler points out that trading KG still makes sense for the Celtics, and with the NBA unlikely to approve a move to the Clippers, other suitors like the Wolves could get involved (though I think Minnesota is far from Garnett's likeliest destination).
  • The Clippers have long been reluctant to move Eric Bledsoe until they can officially lock up Paul long-term. Now that CP3 appears to be a lock to re-sign, L.A. may begin shopping Bledsoe in earnest. According to Kyler, there has been no shortage of suitors with offers for the young point guard.
  • Sources tell Kyler that the team isn't worried about bringing back DeAndre Jordan after he was at the center of trade rumors, feeling that Rivers will be able to mend that fence. However, according to Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com (via Twitter), there's still a belief that Jordan will be moved. It may not happen right away though, as the Clippers take time to consider their options.
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Latest On Celtics/Clippers Talks

June 22nd, 2013 at 1:34pm CST by Chuck Myron

Yesterday we heard that the Celtics/Clippers deal involving Doc Rivers was dead, only to later come across reports that such trade talks would continue. More continues to come in about the on-again, off-again saga, much of it courtesy Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald and Baxter Holmes of the Boston Globe. Here’s what we know: 

  • A source tells Murphy that the deal is dead, despite insistence from the Clippers camp that it will be revived. Discussion about a Kevin Garnett-for-DeAndre Jordan trade is probably dead as well, Murphy writes. 
  • Rivers is still in contact with Danny Ainge and deliberating over whether he’ll return to Boston for next season, and the decision is not necessarily tied to whether the Celtics will rebuild, Murphy says.
  • The Celtics postponed Friday’s press conference with Rivers and Ainge until Monday because the Clippers wanted to discuss a deal again, according to Holmes.
  • Holmes hears that Rivers wants to continue coaching in the NBA, despite his well-documented misgivings about doing so with a rebuilding team. Yet sources tell Holmes that Rivers could wind up returning to broadcasting, where his salary would not match what he could get as a coach, because it might be too awkward to go back to the Boston bench at this point. Even so, Celtics management maintains that they would welcome him back. 
  • As Holmes points out, the Clippers were prepared to give up a first-round pick for Rivers earlier this week when it appeared there was a second, separate deal involving Garnett. Now that the two sides have pushed the Garnett talk to the backburner under pressure from the league, the Clippers only seem willing to relinquish a second-rounder for Rivers. 
  • Holmes hears from sources who believe the Clippers never intended to pull of a deal with the C’s, and were merely trying to make it seem as though they were to appease Chris Paul.
  • A source tells Chris Sheridan of SheridanHoops.com that Rivers and Rajon Rondo had a locker-room altercation that nearly turned into a physical confrontation. “An intense dislike” for Rondo is part of Rivers’ motivation for leaving the Celtics, Sheridan writes. Rich Levine of CSNNE.com tweets his doubts that such an incident took place, and believes that if it did, it may have happened as far back as 2010. 
  • In a separate piece, Holmes notes that Celtics assistant coach Mike Longabardi has accepted a position on Jeff Hornacek‘s coaching staff with the Suns. He’s the only Celtics assistant to have depared the team this offseason.
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Latest On Clippers/Celtics Negotiations

June 21st, 2013 at 3:22pm CST by Luke Adams

3:22pm: The Celtics and Rivers' camp are "rapidly" coming to believe that no deal is going to be reached with the Clippers, according to Wojnarowski (via Twitter).

2:59pm: Although the Clippers raised the idea of sending Boston a second-round pick as compensation for Rivers, the Celtics are holding out for a first-rounder, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. That would suggest that perhaps the 2015 first-rounder mentioned below hasn't officially been put on the table yet. According to Wojnarowski, the two sides aren't making much progress at this point.

12:47pm: The ongoing saga involving the Clippers, the Celtics, Doc Rivers, and Kevin Garnett took another odd twist this morning, when the Celtics sent out a press release announcing that Rivers and GM Danny Ainge would speak to the media today. Shortly after that announcement, the Celtics postponed the press conference until Monday, tentatively at noon eastern, according to Ben Rohrbach of WEEI.com (via Twitter).

As Baxter Holmes of the Boston Globe notes (via Twitter), the unusual move by the Celtics may have been designed to push the Clippers into action. The Clips had previously been unwilling to give up first-round draft picks as compensation for Rivers, but the threat of a press conference in Boston (perhaps to announce that Rivers would be returning) may have changed that, says Holmes.

Hall of Fame scribe Mark Heisler confirms as much, reporting (via Twitter) that the Clippers have now offered a protected 2015 first-round pick for Rivers. If the two sides can reach an agreement on compensation for Rivers, a Doc deal could be completed today, according to Heisler (Twitter link). However, he adds that the same can't be said for a trade involving Garnett. Due to CBA rules, the NBA has essentially insisted that Rivers and KG would have to be moved in separate, unrelated transactions.

To clarify that last point: Because NBA head coaches can't officially be traded, the Celtics aren't allowed to include Rivers in a Garnett deal. Instead, they'd have to release Rivers from his contract, allowing him to sign with the Clippers, making a potential KG/DeAndre Jordan swap an entirely separate transaction.

But the CBA also doesn't allow teams to make two separate moves that are contingent on one another, so the Clippers have shifted their focus to Rivers for now, in hopes of hiring him and then pursuing Garnett at a later date. If the Clips were to land Rivers and agree to acquire Garnett later, they'd have to convince the NBA that the two moves were made independently of one another.

For more details on how these negotiations have played out, check out our posts rounding up the updates from Wednesday and from Thursday.

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Clippers Targeting Rivers First; KG, Pierce Later

June 20th, 2013 at 7:28pm CST by Luke Adams

7:28pm: Dan Woike of the OC Register tweets that Los Angeles isn't optimistic that the league will ever allow them to acquire both Garnett and Rivers. 

7:10pm: ESPN's Ramona Shelburne tweets that the Clippers are in no rush to get something done, knowing that two of the three candidates they've interviewed will be available for a while. 

7:00pm: Rivers is said to be growing frustrated by the lack of closure on the deal and could take himself out of it if things aren't resolved by tomorrow morning, writes Bulpett. Though another source tells Bulpett that process has come too far along to turn away now. 

6:21pm: Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald (via Twitter) says that there was no deal presented to the league today because the Clippers have yet to meet the Celtics' asking price. 

4:43pm: According to Wojnarowski, the Celtics would just want one first-round pick as compensation for releasing Rivers from his contract. If the two sides eventually returned to talks involving Garnett, the Celtics would want another first-rounder along with Jordan, says Wojnarowski.

However, the Clippers still haven't extended an offer of compensation to Boston, and there's concern from people involved in the talks that L.A.'s front office doesn't have the authority to meet the Celtics' request. Clippers management had privately insisted to people they were waiting on Donald Sterling's approval for the draft-pick compensation.

4:07pm: Although the Clippers want to set aside the Garnett discussions for now, they haven't shown a willingness to offer even one first-round pick for the rights to Rivers, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Wojnarowski adds that talks are going nowhere until the Clippers relent on at least one pick (Twitter links).

Since it was previously reported that the deal for Garnett and Rivers would include two first-rounders along with Jordan, this new information is a little confusing. Obviously, the Clippers wouldn't give up two first-round picks and Jordan for Garnett alone, so it had appeared the team was willing to give up a first-rounder or two for Rivers.

The equation has likely changed now for one of two reasons: If the Clippers reach an agreement for Doc first, there's no guarantee they'll be able to work out a separate deal for KG later, so the team may be unwilling to part with first-round picks for just a coach, rather than the duo as a package. The Clippers also may feel they've regained some leverage, since Stern's public comments today suggested the NBA was uneasy about attaching significant trade value to head coaches. Both of those theories are my own speculation though.

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Western Links: Clippers, Kirilenko, Spurs, Nuggets

June 20th, 2013 at 3:25pm CST by Luke Adams

DeAndre Jordan told Yahoo! Sports Radio (link via WEEI.com) today that he'd be happy playing for either the Clippers or Celtics next season, and Eric Pincus of HoopsWorld took a detailed look at what L.A.'s cap situation would look like if the team were to acquire Kevin Garnett in exchange for Jordan. But the long-rumored deal that would send Garnett and Doc Rivers to the Clippers appears to be in trouble, as the latest reports suggest the NBA has serious misgivings about approving a move that wouldn't be in accordance with the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement.

As we wait to see whether the two teams will be able to come up with a solution that satisfies the NBA, let's check out a few more items from around the Western Conference:

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Clippers/Celtics Updates: Thursday

June 20th, 2013 at 3:12pm CST by Luke Adams

3:12pm: The Clippers and Celtics haven't talked for several hours, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). However, Wojnarowski reports that the Clips would still like to get the deal done and are working on ways to satisfy the league's concerns.

1:00pm: Sam Amick of USA Today suggests that for the deal to be completed, one of two adjustments may have to be made. The Celtics may have to give up something more in the deal along with Garnett, most likely draft picks; or the Clippers may be able to give up slightly less.

According to Amick, the NBA believes that the "mere appearance that there is value being attached to Rivers" is not in accordance with the CBA, so it's Garnett's trade value that should be at the center of the discussion, rather than Rivers' value.

12:52pm: The league's primary concern with the proposed Celtics/Clippers deal is that the CBA doesn't allow coaches to be traded, as Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times writes. Breaking it up into two separate moves would still be frowned upon by the NBA, a source tells Turner, since the Clippers are trying to get Rivers more than anything else.

The league has told the two teams for "several days" that the deal as currently constructed isn't legitamite, so the two sides are working to come up with an alternate solution, according to Turner.

12:26pm: Appearing on The Herd with Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio today (video link), commissioner David Stern confirmed that the NBA wants to ensure the Celtics and Clippers aren't violating the CBA by including a head coach in a trade or by making two separate deals that are contingent on one another.

"If we know that what the parties really wanted to do is one [deal] they're going to break into two for purposes of trying to avoid the restrictions that the Collective Bargaining Agreement places on it, we know how to deal with that," Stern said.

11:36am: Stein reports (via Twitter) that the Celtics and Clippers have begun discussing new trade scenarios in an attempt to satisfy the league's misgivings about the two deals.

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Negotiations End, No Deal For Celtics, Clippers

June 18th, 2013 at 2:33pm CST by Luke Adams

2:33pm: According to tweets from Ramona Shelburne and Arash Markazi of ESPN.com, financial concerns weren't the reason the Clippers pulled out of the deal. The team was prepared to give Rivers a big contract, but didn't want to give up two first-round picks in the move (Twitter links).

11:46am: According to Wojnarowski (via Twitter), Ainge has called Rivers to inform him that talks are over and that he still wants Rivers back as the Celtics' coach.

11:41am: Sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link) that the Clippers got "cold feet" over the financial commitment necessary to complete the deal. Even if Terry and Lee weren't involved, the Clips would have been paying Jordan's trade kicker and committing a $6-7MM annual salary to Rivers.

11:31am: The Clippers don't appear to be posturing when they say talks are over, according to Turner, who tweets that the deal is "dead, dead, dead." Amick and Dan Woike of the Orange County Register are also hearing the same thing (Twitter links). Celtics GM Danny Ainge confirms to Baxter Holmes of the Boston Globe (Twitter link) that negotiations are over from Boston's perspective as well.

11:01am: After days of negotiating, the Clippers appear to have called off a potential deal with the Celtics that would have sent Kevin Garnett and coach Doc Rivers to L.A., according to Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times (via Twitter). Turner hears from a Clippers executive that the Celtics were asking for too much in the proposed swap.

Earlier today, we heard that while the Celtics would have liked to include Jason Terry's or Courtney Lee's contract in the deal, Boston was willing to hang on to those players if the Clippers gave up two first-round picks. However, according to Turner (via Twitter), the Clippers were unwilling to part with multiple first-rounders in addition to DeAndre Jordan. Los Angeles will move forward with its head coaching search, as owner Donald Sterling prepares to meet with Byron Scott today and Brian Shaw tomorrow, says Turner (via Twitter).

I'm a little surprised that a second first-round pick would be the sticking point for the Clippers, considering how many other concessions the Celtics appear to have made, including agreeing not to include Eric Bledsoe in the deal. The Clippers figured to be a perennial contender in the West for the next several years if they locked up Chris Paul to go along with a roster that would also include Blake Griffin, Garnett, and whatever other assets the team acquired this summer, so those future picks would likely have landed late in the first round.

It would seem to be in the best interests of both teams to get something done — for the Clippers, it virtually guarantees Paul would re-sign with the team in July, while for the Celtics it would mean starting their rebuilding process in earnest. Both sides wanted closure one way or the other early this week, so it's possible that talks are indeed dead, as Sam Amick of USA Today is also hearing (Twitter link). But as Amick notes, until the Clippers officially hire a head coach besides Rivers, it's hard to believe both teams would truly walk away from this deal.

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Clippers/Celtics Updates: Tuesday

June 18th, 2013 at 8:28am CST by Luke Adams

Even with Game Six of the NBA Finals less than 12 hours away, the hottest topic around the Association remains the trade talks between the Clippers and Celtics involving Kevin Garnett, DeAndre Jordan, and Doc Rivers. We rounded up a ton of reports on the story yesterday, but by the end of the night, the two sides had yet to reach an agreement. As the two sides continue to negotiate, we'll round up the latest rumors on the proposed deal below, with any additional updates coming throughout the day:

  • As we noted last night, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported that the deal may get done without the Clippers giving up Eric Bledsoe or taking on Jason Terry's or Courtney Lee's contracts. In that scenario, Boston would be seeking Jordan and two first-round picks. Ramona Shelburne and Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported that the Clips were unwilling to acquire both Terry and Lee, but still may take on one of the two — however, according to Wojnarowski, L.A. has refused to take on additional salary "in any combination."
  • In the event an agreement is reached, the Clippers would have to pay about $3.5MM for Jordan's 15% trade kicker and would also be prepared to offer Rivers a five-year contract worth about $35MM, writes Wojnarowski. So the move would represent a significant financial commitment for the franchise even without Terry or Lee involved.
  • While there's still optimism that a deal will get done, the Clippers are preparing a contingency plan for their head coaching opening, having owner Donald Sterling meet with Byron Scott on Tuesday and Brian Shaw on Wednesday, according to Shelburne and Stein. As for Rivers, he remains "torn" on whether he'd return to the Celtics should this deal fall apart, says Wojnarowski.
  • Although various outlets are reporting slightly different details on the talks, all of the latest reports, including those from ESPN.com, Yahoo!, and Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald, agree that Bledsoe is off the table and won't be part of the deal if it gets done.
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Clippers/Celtics Updates: Monday

June 17th, 2013 at 10:31pm CST by Luke Adams

The trade talks between the Celtics and Clippers aren't quite dead yet, but they also didn't move forward at all yesterday, as we detailed in a pair of posts rounding up Sunday's updates. Though the two sides have reached a stalemate for now, they continue to engage in talks and hope remains of finding an agreement, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (via Twitter). We'll keep tabs on today's new items right here, with any further updates added to the top of the page throughout the day:

  • The price to complete the deal may come down to the Clippers' willingness to include a second first-round pick, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.  After pushing for the Clippers to take back long-term contracts, the C's relented and have shown willingness to complete the deal for DeAndre Jordan and two first-round picks. The Clippers are willing to give the Celtics Jordan and one draft pick, but are resisting a second future pick.  Boston has also dropped their pursuit of Eric Bledsoe, which could help speed things along.
  • The two sides have decided to leave the office for the evening and will reconnect tomorrow morning, league sources tell Wojnarowski (Twitter link).  

Earlier updates:

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