DeMarre Carroll Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Hawks Losing Faith In Re-Signing Millsap, Carroll

June 15th, 2015 at 10:56am CST by Chuck Myron

The sense within the Hawks organization and around the league is pessimistic when it comes to going 2 for 2 on the team’s goal of re-signing Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll this summer, reports Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com. Atlanta at one point reportedly had supreme confidence in its ability to do so, but that’s no longer the case, as Arnovitz details.

Arnovitz wrote a few weeks ago that the expectation was that Millsap would command the max or close to it, and many around the NBA feel as though some team will look to Millsap as an alternative once LaMarcus Aldridge and Kevin Love come off the board, Arnovitz writes in his latest piece. The ESPN scribe also repeats an earlier estimate from sources of a four-year, $50MM deal for Carroll, and the Hawks are bracing themselves for Carroll to receive an offer of that much or more, Arnovitz hears.

It would likely be impossible for the Hawks to accommodate a max deal for Millsap and a $12.5MM starting salary for Carroll without making salary-clearing moves, as I detailed in my offseason outlook for the team two weeks ago. That’s in large measure because Atlanta has only Early Bird rights with both of them, restraining their ability to go over the cap to re-sign them. The Hawks will be limited to a starting salary of $16.625MM for Millsap, more than $2MM less than his estimated max, without using cap space, while they probably won’t be able to exceed about $6MM for Carroll without using cap space on him, either. The Hawks can get down to about $42.5MM against a projected $67.1MM cap without making a trade. Arnovitz speculates that it wouldn’t be hard to deal away a couple of players on cheaper contracts, like Mike Scott and Shelvin Mack, but even getting the salaries of Scott and Mack off the ledger still wouldn’t leave enough room for Millsap and Carroll at their most expensive estimated prices.

The Hawks are nonetheless unafraid of the consequences if they lose either of their starting forwards, Arnovitz writes, determined as they are to re-sign them only as long as the cost is within reason. Indeed, the Hawks succeeded at turning Carroll from a journeyman into a sought-after three-and-D threat within two seasons, so perhaps coach Mike Budenholzer, the acting GM, is emboldened by that experience, though that’s just my speculation.

Millsap and agent DeAngelo Simmons have signaled that the power forward is comfortable in Atlanta. The same is true of Carroll and agent Mark Bartelstein, though neither player made any promises.

Southeast Notes: Carroll, Hornets, Wizards

June 10th, 2015 at 5:39pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Hawks forward DeMarre Carroll is the top unrestricted free agent set to hit the open market this summer, and Carroll can expect to command an annual salary in the $14MM-$15MM range, writes Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The 28-year-old also believes that his best basketball is still ahead of him, Vivlamore adds. “I think I have a lot more to come,” Carroll told Vivlamore. “I think I can be an All-Star player, like Jimmy Butler and Kawhi Leonard. I see myself as one of those guys, but in order for me to get to being on the elite level, like Paul George, you have to be consistent. People got a glimpse of it this year.”

Here’s more out of the Southeast:

Though Carroll is happy in Atlanta and with the Hawks, he still intends to test the market this offseason, Vivlamore notes. “A player has few opportunities to hit the free-agent market and get a contract to take care of his family,” said Mark Bartelstein, Carroll’s agent. “However, there are a lot of elements to consider other than pure economics. The Hawks have been sensational with DeMarre’s development in so many ways. They deserve a lot of credit. At the same time, DeMarre’s work ethic and his relentless pursuit of greatness is why he continues to get better every single year, and I know it will just continue. We will weigh everything in making a great decision for DeMarre.”
The Hornets held workouts today for Devin Booker (Kentucky), Sam Dekker (Wisconsin), Keon Moore (Winthrop), Kevin Pangos (Gonzaga), Travis Trice (Michigan State), and Julian Washburn (UTEP), the team announced (via Twitter).
Scheduled to work out for the Wizards on Thursday are Brandon Ashley (Arizona), Corey Hawkins (UC Davis), David Laury (Iona), Nikola Radicevic (Serbia), Rashad Vaughn (UNLV), and Dez Wells (Maryland), the team has announced.
Kansas swingman Kelly Oubre has a workout scheduled with the Hornets on Thursday, Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer tweets.

Eastern Notes: Pistons, Wizards, Carroll

June 9th, 2015 at 7:31pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy had the opportunity to veto the team’s hire of Arn Tellem as the vice chairman of Palace Sports and Entertainment, David Aldridge of NBA.com writes. “[Team owner] Tom [Gores] told me, if you’re not comfortable with this, you can veto this,” Van Gundy said. “And I had no intention of doing that. I have 100 percent confidence in Tom. I respect his intellect. I respect his integrity.”

Van Gundy will still make the final calls on personnel in Detroit, but he plans to use Tellem’s experience and knowledge in determining player values, Aldridge adds. “Clearly he has a lot of contacts and people that have a loyalty to him,” Van Gundy said. “And that’s what most people will focus on. But the other side that will help us even when it’s with people that Arn doesn’t have a relationship with is, Arn’s been through this so many times with so many clients, he knows what pushes players’ buttons in the recruiting process. He’s been on the other side of it to know what works and what doesn’t. He can bring to us the other side and educate us on the other side of things.”

Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:

The Wizards have workouts scheduled on Wednesday for Traevon Jackson (Wisconsin), Antoine Mason (Auburn), Gabriel Olaseni (Iowa), M.J. Rhett (Mississippi), Satnam Singh (India), and Maurice Walker (Minnesota), the team announced.
Kentucky shooting guard Devin Booker and Wisconsin forward Sam Dekker will work out for the Hornets on Wednesday, Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer tweets.
DeMarre Carroll reiterated past comments indicating that the Hawks will be his first choice in free agency this summer, adding that he’ll nonetheless keep his options open as he spoke in a radio interview on Paul Gant’s “Go For It” show (audio link; transcription via Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk).

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Knicks Eye Paul Millsap, DeMarre Carroll

May 28th, 2015 at 10:29am CST by Chuck Myron

The two way games of soon-to-be Hawks free agents Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll have Knicks president Phil Jackson intrigued, according to Marc Berman of the New York Post. Still, the Hawks are “supremely confident” that they can retain both, according to USA Today. A source close to Carroll tells Berman he’d like to play with Knicks coach Derek Fisher, his former workout partner. Berman reported last month, when Carroll responded affirmatively to a question about whether he would have interest in playing in New York, that Fisher was similarly high on Carroll. Carroll nonetheless said in the wake of Tuesday’s season-ending loss to the Cavs that he’s prioritizing a new deal with the Hawks, according to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“In the end my agent is going to do all the work,” Carroll said. “He understands [the] situation for me. Right now, I’m a Hawk until the Hawks don’t want me any more — that’s the way I look at it.”

Carroll’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, is believed to be looking for an average annual value of $12MM in his client’s next deal, Berman writes. The forward who blossomed on the two-year, $5MM deal he signed with the Hawks in 2013 admits that money will play a role in determining where he goes next but said city, team and fit would also be factors, Vivlamore notes. Reporters have heard estimates from executives and other sources ranging from $8-9MM to $9-12MM to $12.5MM or more about what Carroll can expect to receive each year in his next contract. The Lakers, in particular, and the Celtics and Pistons are also interested in Carroll, according to Sean Deveney of The Sporting News.

There are whispers that Millsap, ostensibly even more valuable, might need surgery on his sprained right shoulder, as Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck heard. Speculation suggests Millsap will command the max, or close to it. Still, Atlanta seems more confident in re-signing Millsap than Carroll, as USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt said recently, and the power forward’s recent comments and remarks from agent DeAngelo Simmons support the idea that the Hawks need not fret.

The Knicks are armed with plenty of cap flexibility, since they only have about $32.4MM in commitments for next season, not counting the No. 4 overall pick. The Hawks have only Early Bird rights on both Millsap and Carroll, but with just approximately $39.3MM in guaranteed salaries for 2015/16, they can also use cap room to re-sign their talented forwards.

Hawks Rumors: Budenholzer, Carroll, Millsap

May 27th, 2015 at 8:59am CST by Chuck Myron

The Hawks crashed to earth in the conference finals after the high of a 60-win joy ride through the regular season, but a sweep at the hands of the Cavs hasn’t shaken the faith that coach and acting GM Mike Budenholzer has in his team. Paul Millsap, DeMarre Carroll, Pero Antic, Elton Brand and John Jenkins will become free agents this summer, when the Hawks have only about $39MM against a projected $67.1MM cap. Budenholzer wasn’t anxious to talk about the future so soon after Tuesday’s loss, but he made it clear that he’s not dreaming of changes, as Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution relays.

“I will say that this is a hell of a group and to bring them back would be a huge priority,” Budenholzer said.

Here’s more from Atlanta:

League sources tell Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com that Carroll is liable to see $50MM on a four-year deal this summer, with a chance for that figure to come in even higher if a front office is particularly enamored. The expectation is that Millsap will command the max or close to it, Arnovitz adds. Previous estimates for Carroll have come in at $8-9MM annually and $9-12MM a year.
The tight-knit fabric of the Hawks will be a lure to re-sign with the team, Millsap admitted in the wake of Atlanta’s elimination Tuesday, notes Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com (on Twitter). “This team is family, this team is close and that will play into the decision,” Millsap said.
Purpose and well-defined roles helped Carroll ascend from journeyman to sought-after free agent, as Eric Weiss and Kevin O’Connor of DraftExpress examine.

Hawks Notes: Millsap, Carroll, Offseason

May 26th, 2015 at 2:25pm CST by Chuck Myron

There are “whispers” that a sprained right shoulder that’s been nagging Paul Millsap since the end of the regular season might require surgery in the offseason, when he’s set to become a free agent, according to Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck. Millsap was vague about his free agent plans to Grantland’s Jonathan Abrams, but agent DeAngelo Simmons, Millsap’s uncle, had praise for the Hawks.

“Atlanta has treated us well,” Simmons said to Abrams. “They’ve treated us like first class. We’ve gotten a lot of support from them, so we’re excited to be a part of a great organization.”

The team is quietly optimistic about its chance to re-sign Millsap, as USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt reported last week. There’s plenty more on the Hawks, who remain committed to their team-oriented roster approach even as they face an 0-3 hole against LeBron James and the Cavaliers. Here’s the latest:

Millsap is in line with Atlanta’s philosophy, and made it seem as though he’s planning on sticking around in comments that Michael Lee of The Washington Post relays. “We don’t care what anybody else thinks,” Millsap said. “We feel like we’re a really good team. No matter what happens, still going to be confident. We feel like we’re going to do something special, whether it be this year, next year, or whenever. We’re going to stick to this.”
Rival executives believe DeMarre Carroll could command $9-12MM a year on his next contract, as the execs tell Beck for the same piece. An executive who spoke recently with Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops pegged Carroll’s next salary at somewhere in the $8-9MM range. The Hawks are set to have competition for Carroll from teams including the Lakers, Celtics and Pistons, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News reported last week.
Millsap could get $16MM annually or more, Beck adds, though it’s uncertain if that figure also comes from executives or is merely Beck’s educated guess.
The Hawks need another shooter, another big man, and most of all, to learn from the experience of going deep in the playoffs, writes Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Atlantic Notes: Sixers, Young, Nets, Celtics

May 24th, 2015 at 1:58pm CST by ChrisCrouse

The Sixers hold the third overall pick in this year’s draft and the team will select the player that they believe will be the best player long-term rather than the player who’s more NBA ready now, Tom Moore of Calkins Media writes.

“We’ll spend all the available time between now and then to try to gain all the information we can to make good decisions,” GM Sam Hinkie said. “By design, we’ll have to make a decision at the end of June. I think it’s really a mistake to make one sometimes much, much earlier.”

Many executives believe the Sixers will take D’Angelo Russell, but selecting Emmanuel Mudiay remains a possibility due to his potential. Moore wonders what the team will do if either Jahlil Okafor or Karl-Anthony Towns fall to the third pick. He believes the team would keep Towns, but it would look to trade Okafor, potentially to the Knicks for their fourth overall pick and an additional asset. New York cannot trade a first round pick until 2018, but that might work for Hinkie, who appears to be one of the most patient executives in the league.

Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:

Joseph Young will work out for the Nets, Robert Windrem of NetsDaily writes. Chad Ford of ESPN.com ranks the Oregon product as the 40th best prospect, while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress ranks him as the 53rd. Brooklyn holds the No. 29 and No. 41 picks in this year’s draft.
The Celtics need to improve their talents and cannot afford to pass on free agents this summer, Jackie MacMullan of the Boston Globe opines (Video link). MacMullan concedes that a top target, such as LaMarcus Aldridge, could be difficult to obtain, but even if that is the case, the team needs to add players from the next tier of free agents. She suggests Khris Middleton and Tobias Harris as potential targets. DeMarre Carroll could be another option, as Boston reportedly has interest in the forward. The Celtics have slightly more than $40.4MM in guaranteed salary on the books for the 2015/16 against a projected $67.1MM salary cap. The team could sign a few mid-tier free agents in order to improve on their 40-win campaign.

Lakers, Celtics, Pistons Eye DeMarre Carroll

May 21st, 2015 at 1:59pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Lakers have major interest in soon-to-be free agent DeMarre Carroll, a source tells Sean Deveney of The Sporting News, who adds the Celtics and the Pistons to the list of teams interested in the vastly improved small forward. Carroll went down with a left knee injury Wednesday during Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, but an MRI revealed only a sprain, the team announced via press release, listing him as questionable for Game 2.

An executive who spoke recently with Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops estimated Carroll’s next annual salary will be around $8-9MM, a giant leap from his pay of little more than $2.442MM this season. The Hawks would like to re-sign Carroll, Deveney writes, but they only have Early Bird rights on him, meaning they’d have to use cap space to give him a starting salary of any more than about $6MM. Atlanta has the cap flexibility to pay him $8-9MM next year, as do the Lakers, Celtics and Pistons, but the Hawks won’t have the chance to give him a five-year contract or 7.5% raises as they could with full Bird rights, which would have given Atlanta a leg up on other teams.

Carroll, when prompted last month, said he’d be interested in the Knicks, though more recently he made it clear that he places a high value on player development, a strength of the Hawks franchise. The former 27th overall pick bounced around to four teams in his first four NBA seasons before becoming a standout three-point shooter with the Hawks. He nailed 39.5% of his attempts from behind the arc this season, a career high.

Hawks Optimistic They’ll Re-Sign Paul Millsap

May 18th, 2015 at 1:23pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Hawks are quietly optimistic about their chances to sign Paul Millsap when he hits free agency this summer, Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today says on the A to Z podcast (audio link at 21:31 mark; hat tip to fellow USA Today scribe Sam Amick, on Twitter). Zillgitt and Amick implied in a January podcast that the sides had mutual interest in a return, and that jibed with comments that Millsap and acting GM Mike Budenholzer made earlier in the season. There is no such confidence from Atlanta with fellow soon-to-be unrestricted free agent DeMarre Carroll, as Zillgitt details, though there’s no indication that Carroll is leaning toward playing elsewhere, either.

Budenholzer said before this season that the team wanted to keep Millsap, and even though most of the 30-year-old’s numbers have either declined or held steady, it would seem surprising if the coach/executive’s stance had changed, particularly given Atlanta’s rousing success this year. Still, there’s uncertainty about whether Budenholzer will continue to have the final say with Tony Ressler leading a group that finalized a deal to buy the franchise last month, pending NBA approval. Millsap, a DeAngelo Simmons client, said in November that he intended to look at his options this summer but made it clear that remaining with the Hawks was his top choice.

Millsap signed a two-year, $19MM deal with Atlanta in 2013 and turned down the team’s offer of a four-year, $36MM contract with the thought that he’d have a better chance to secure a more lucrative deal this summer than he would two years from now, according to Zillgitt. It’s not clear whether Millsap is indeed better off hitting free agency this year, since the salary cap is projected to spike to $108MM by the summer of 2017, but it nonetheless suggests that Millsap is ready to cash in after having spent the past two seasons as a relative bargain.

The Hawks have Early Bird rights on Millsap and Carroll, so they won’t be able to go all the way to the max to re-sign either of them without using cap space to do so. Atlanta can go as high as $16.625MM with Millsap via Early Bird, while the most they could give Carroll using those rights will be 104.5% of this season’s average player salary, a figure that won’t be known until the end of the July Moratorium but which figures to come in around $6MM.

Southeast Notes: Carroll, Green, Wall

May 6th, 2015 at 4:10pm CST by Eddie Scarito

DeMarre Carroll‘s play for the Hawks this season has likely tripled the value of his next contract, Shaun Powell of NBA.com writes. But the forward’s age, 28, and his lack of a solid performance track record prior to this season could complicate the market for the unrestricted free agent, Powell adds. Interested franchises will need to determine if Carroll’s best years are ahead of him, or if he is a role-player who took advantage of the Hawks’ system, the NBA.com scribe opines. Powell also believes that the Lakers, Knicks, and Mavs will be competitors for Carroll’s services this summer.

Here’s more from the Southeast Division:

Willie Green, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, wants to return to the Magic next season, Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel relays. “I feel like I still have a good maybe three or four years — who knows? — or even more,” Green said. “It’s no secret that I met with [GM] Rob [Hennigan] and I met with the coaches and stuff here, and I expressed to them that I’m definitely open to being back here in Orlando. I like the foundation that the team has. I like our young fellas, and I think I can help them on and off the floor. So if the possibility is open, then I’m definitely open to exploring it.”
Wizards point guard John Wall‘s elevated play this season is a result of a commitment to film study and a year round fitness regimen, Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today notes. “It took us a year or two,” athletic trainer Rob McClanaghan said. “I was straight up with John. I can’t have him come to L.A. for four weeks and say, ‘See you next summer.’ It has to be all year. He loves the film and he loves the extra work. All the work he has put in has made him a much more confident player.“
Injuries derailed what was a promising first season with the Magic for Evan Fournier, Ken Hornack of FOX Sports Florida writes in his profile of the player. The 22-year-old was acquired last June in a deal with the Nuggets. Fournier appeared in 58 contests this season, averaging 12.0 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 2.1 assists in 28.6 minutes per night.