Greg Monroe Rumors | Hoops Rumors

And-Ones: Flynn, Pistons, Love

August 30th, 2014 at 10:55am CST by Eddie Scarito

Former NBA lottery pick Jonny Flynn has signed a contract with Capo d’Orlando of the Italian League, the team announced (translation by Sportando). Flynn last saw action in the NBA with the Blazers during the 2011/12 season. His career numbers are 9.2 PPG, 1.9 RPG, and 3.9 APG. His career slash line is .400/.338/.809.

Here’s more from around the league:

With Greg Monroe likely to sign his qualifying offer, the Pistons‘ frontcourt trio of Monroe, Josh Smith, and Andre Drummond will be together for another season. Coach Stan Van Gundy‘s challenge will be to figure out how to use them more effectively than they were last season, writes Perry A. Farrell of the Detroit Free Press.
Kevin Love has essentially traded places with Chris Bosh, writes Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. Love is now the third option on the Cavs, much like Bosh was alongside LeBron James and Dwyane Wade with the Heat, Winderman notes, and it’s the statistical sacrifices of the third player that determines if these star trios are successful.
With the news that the Spurs are interested in Ray Allen, Nick Borges of ESPN.com runs down the free agent market for the future Hall-of-Famer. Borges notes that if Allen is seeking a title contender and the highest salary, then San Antonio is the best option. The Spurs can offer Allen the $5.3MM non-taxpayer mid-level exception. The Clippers, Mavs, Heat, and Cavaliers can only give Allen a veteran’s minimum contract.

Poll: Should Bledsoe, Monroe Sign QOs?

August 29th, 2014 at 10:29am CST by Chuck Myron

Monday will mark two months since the start of free agency, and still two of the top five players on the 2014 Hoops Rumors Free Agent Power Rankings remain unsigned. The restricted free agencies of Eric Bledsoe and Greg Monroe have dragged on longer than it seemed reasonable to expect, even though teams and their restricted free agents often engage in protracted negotiations, as the Wolves and Nikola Pekovic did last year. There’s little doubting the game-changing ability of either, but the power for Phoenix and Detroit to match all other offers for their respective young stars appears to have effectively short-circuited the market.

Reports have indicated that both Bledsoe and Monroe are prepared to sign their qualifying offers, the standard one-year offers that teams must make at the start of free agency to retain matching rights on their restricted free agents. One report amid a series of dispatches earlier this month indicated that Monroe had already let the Pistons know he would accept the qualifying offer, though other reports conflict with that notion. Bledsoe is insisting that he either receive a max deal or he’ll take the qualifying offer, according to the latest we’ve seen on him.

Signing the qualifying offer would represent a drastic step. Monroe’s QO is worth a shade less than $5.48MM, while Bledsoe would make just $3.727MM this season if he signed his. The Pistons and Suns appear to have made long-term offers that would pay much more than that. Phoenix reportedly has four years and $48MM on the table for Bledsoe, while the Pistons are apparently willing to give Monroe more than $54MM over four years. Still, the max for both would be a five-year, $84,789,500 contract, and it seems neither would be satisfied settling for less. Sign-and-trades remain a possibility, but it doesn’t appear as though there’s much traction toward one for either of the free agents stuck in limbo.

Bledsoe and Monroe could hit unrestricted free agency in a year if they sign their qualifying offers, and while it would seem that both would field more competitive offers from teams who would no longer have to worry that the Suns or Pistons would match, there are no guarantees. Bledsoe has only started 78 games in his career, and it appears few around the NBA regard Monroe as someone worthy of a maximum-salary contract. Only 17 players have signed qualifying offers in the past two decades, and none have carried cachet of either Bledsoe or Monroe, underscoring just what an unusual move it would be.

Let us know whether you think signing the qualifying offer, and the chance to hit unrestricted free agency in a year that comes with it, would be worthwhile for Bledsoe and Monroe, or if you think they should take the more lucrative long-term deals in front of them. Weigh in on your choice in the comments.

And-Ones: Bledsoe, Monroe, Raptors, Gray

August 21st, 2014 at 4:14pm CST by Chuck Myron

An NBA GM who spoke with Sean Deveney of The Sporting News said he’d be reluctant to sign-and-trade for either Eric Bledsoe or Greg Monroe in part because of the chance they’ll become available again next summer. The GM also suggested that the Suns and Pistons are overvaluing them, further diminishing the odds of a trade this offseason. While we continue to wait to see what happens to the two top restricted free agents, here’s more from around the league:

When Tim Leiweke spoke about two months ago to the board of the company that controls the Raptors, he declined to promise that he would stay on as CEO past next spring, as Elliotte Friedman writes for CBC.ca. That helped lead to today’s announcement of his planned departure, Friedman explains. The Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment board wanted to take control of the process and end speculation about Leiweke’s future, as Friedman details, adding that Leiweke’s contract carried an escape clause that gave him a way out.
Aaron Gray‘s contract with the Pistons is for two years, with a player option for the final season, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reveals (Twitter link).
Joel Embiid is tight with Luc Mbah a Moute, notes Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun, and that helps explain why the Sixers appear poised to acquire Mbah a Moute as part of the Kevin Love trade (Twitter link). Mbah a Moute has served as a mentor for Embiid, a fellow native of Cameroon, as Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune points out (on Twitter).

Central Rumors: Monroe, Wiggins

August 19th, 2014 at 5:50pm CST by Cray Allred

The Central Division experienced the most turmoil this offseason by far. The Cavs are set to net Kevin Love alongside LeBron James, the Bulls added Pau Gasol and Nikola Mirotic alongside the returning Derrick Rose, and the Pacers lost Lance Stephenson to free agency and Paul George to injury. Here’s a rundown from around the division:

The Thunder were among the teams in the mix for a sign-and-trade involving Greg Monroe at one point this summer, a source tells Michael Lee of The Washington Post. It’s not entirely clear if the interest originally came from Oklahoma City, the Pistons, Monroe’s camp, or some combination of the three, nor is it certain how far the pursuit of such a deal proceeded, though Lee indicates that the possibility was one that Monroe and Falk pursued.
Monroe has “nothing against” Stan Van Gundy even though he’s not sold on spending the next several years with the Pistons, as Lee writes in the same piece.
In a separate piece, Lee asserts that being spurned by James and the Cavs could be the motivation Andrew Wiggins needs to become a truly great player with the Wolves.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Greg Monroe To Accept Qualifying Offer?

August 13th, 2014 at 10:56am CST by Eddie Scarito

10:56am: Zillgitt suggests in a follow-up story that a sign-and-trade scenario still could surface. Monroe received a pair of max offers this summer from teams other than the Pistons, but neither of those teams could work out a sign-and-trade with the Pistons that would have allowed Monroe to go to one of those clubs without the looming threat that Detroit would match, Zillgitt hears. The Pistons would probably match any offer for Monroe, as Vincent Goodwill surmises via Twitter, and presumably that would include max offers, which would explain why Monroe would be reluctant to ink a max offer sheet.

WEDNESDAY, 8:36am: Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy indicated late Tuesday that neither Monroe nor Falk has informed him of any decision to take the qualifying offer, according to MLive’s David Mayo. Van Gundy also reiterated that he’d prefer Monroe to sign a long-term deal instead, Mayo notes. Other teams don’t appear to have been as concerned that the Pistons would match an offer sheet for Monroe as Monroe himself has been, Mayo writes.

TUESDAY, 7:18pm: The Pistons appear to be holding out hope that Monroe won’t sign his qualifying offer, says Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press (on Twitter), who adds that the team will continue to do so until the 24-year-old actually puts pen to paper.

6:29pm: Greg Monroe has informed the Pistons that he will accept the team’s qualifying offer, reports Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today. It was noted earlier that Monroe had been seeking sign-and-trade deals with other teams, rather than looking to sign an offer sheet with another franchise, which the Pistons were likely to match. If Monroe does indeed accept the qualifying offer, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, and be free to sign with any team he chooses.

The qualifying offer is for $5.479MM, which is significantly below the amount he would have received if Monroe would have signed a long-term deal with the Pistons. The deadline for Monroe to sign the offer is October 1st, notes Zillgitt, and the player cannot be traded without his consent once he does sign. This decision carries some risk for Monroe if he is to suffer a serious injury this year. But so far in his career Monroe has been extremely durable, missing just one of his last 310 games.

The David Falk client’s decision is historic, since he’ll become just the 18th player since rookie scale contracts were instituted in 1995 to sign his qualifying offer. He’ll be the most high-profile player ever to do so, since the maneuver has usually been the domain of restricted free agents who are without more lucrative offers. Wizards big man Kevin Seraphin is the latest player to sign a qualifying offer, having done so last month.

The 6’11”, 24-year old, has been in the league for four seasons, and his career numbers are 14.0 PPG, 9.0 RPG, and 2.3 APG. His career slash line is .508/.000/.678.

Eastern Notes: Monroe, Harrington, George, C’s

August 12th, 2014 at 1:30pm CST by Chuck Myron

The idea that Greg Monroe would take a max offer from the Pistons isn’t necessarily true, as Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy said last month, according to Vincent Goodwill (Twitter link). A resolution to Monroe’s restricted free agency still seems a ways off, as we passed along earlier today. Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:

Al Harrington hopes to sign with the Wizards after he returns from China, as he tells J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. He’ll make much more on his deal with China’s Fujian Sturgeons than he would have on an NBA minimum-salary contract, the forward also said in his conversation with Michael. The Wizards were unwilling to commit to re-signing Harrington before he inked the Chinese deal, Michael hears, though Washington was open to having him return as an assistant coach. Other NBA teams were interested in him as a player, Harrington said, but none of them were title contenders.
Pacers executive Larry Bird isn’t ruling out a return to action for Paul George at some point this season, even though the team is “sort of expecting him [to be] out all year,” as Bird said today to reporters, including Michael Pointer of the Indianapolis Star (Twitter link). We rounded up more of Bird’s remarks right here.
Celtics draft-and-stash prospect Colton Iverson has signed with Laboral Kuxta of Spain, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). David Pick of Eurobasket.com first reported the agreement (on Twitter). It’s a one-year deal for the 53rd overall pick from 2013, his agent tells Ben Rohrbach of WEEI.com (Twitter link).
Celtics summer leaguer Dairis Bertans received invitations to training camp from NBA teams, but he’ll continue to play in Spain instead, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.
Ray Allen has expressed a wish in past years that he could wait until September to decide whether to play the following season, so his unwillingness to commit to a team for 2014/15 is no surprise, as Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel writes in his mailbag column.

Latest On Greg Monroe, Eric Bledsoe

August 12th, 2014 at 10:07am CST by Chuck Myron

Greg Monroe is “definitely” willing to take his nearly $5.48MM qualifying offer from the Pistons should it come to that, a source tells Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News. He’s pursued sign-and-trade opportunities rather than offer sheets from other teams, the source also says to Goodwill. A sign-and-trade that would be amenable to all parties would dismiss the possibility that the Pistons would match a deal he inks with another team, and signing the qualifying offer would take Monroe to unrestricted free agency next summer.

Still, accepting the qualifying offer would be a drastic move. It would represent a steep one-year discount from the eight-figure salaries, perhaps in excess of $13.5MM, that Monroe would receive if he were to ink a long-term deal with the Pistons. The maneuver might backfire should Monroe become injured, but the 24-year-old has missed just one of his last 310 games, as Goodwill points out. Only 17 players have signed qualifying offers since rookie scale contracts came into being in the mid-1990s, and the most high-profile player to have done so was probably Ben Gordon, who took Chicago’s qualifying offer in 2008.

Goodwill’s source disputed the notion that he’s uninterested in returning to the Pistons, saying that the big man likes coach/executive Stan Van Gundy while cautioning that Monroe remains skeptical of Van Gundy’s vision for the team. The state of the relationship between Monroe and Bledsoe doesn’t sound quite as dire as the situation involving the Suns and Eric Bledsoe, as multiple reports have indicated that the point guard is souring on Phoenix.

“Maybe that’s just posturing and negotiating,” Suns owner Sarver said of the reports, in an interview with Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. “We haven’t heard from the guy in four months, so I couldn’t tell you. I do know that when he played here, he felt good about the organization, his coaching staff and his teammates at the end of the season. We had the same feelings toward him.”

The Suns reportedly extended a four-year, $48MM offer to Bledsoe, who appears to be holding out for the max, which would come to $84,789,500 over five seasons. Agent Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, who represents Bledsoe, is also the rep for Kevin Seraphin, the most recent player to have signed a qualifying offer, having done so last month. Seraphin was nonetheless in a drastically different position, since he couldn’t have commanded much more.

Bledsoe, like Monroe, stands to forfeit a significant amount of his earnings for the coming season if he inks his qualifying offer of nearly $3.727MM. The guard missed significant time with a meniscus tear, so injury is ostensibly a greater concern than it would be for Monroe. The qualifying offer would be a sacrifice for either Bledsoe or Monroe, and while either of them could make up the money over the life of a long-term max deal if he were to wind up with one in unrestricted free agency next summer, that sort of deal is certainly no guarantee.

Greg Monroe Denies Five-Year, ~$60MM Offer

August 10th, 2014 at 5:31pm CST by Zachary Links

Last week it was reported that the Pistons increased their offer to Greg Monroe from a five-year, $60MM package to one that’s slightly more lucrative. However, the restricted free agent took to Twitter today to deny that he has received any proposal of that nature.

“[I] can’t reject anything that was not offered to me…carry on,” Monroe said in response to a Twitter follower who asked how he could turn down a five-year, $60MM offer.

The report last week indicated that Detroit’s latest offer was slightly more lucrative than the four-year, $54MM contract that Josh Smith signed with the team last summer. The David Falk client has been widely expected to seek a max contract this summer, though many execs, scouts, and agents have balked at that idea.

The Pistons have looked into the sign-and-trade market and talked shop with the Blazers, Hawks and Pelicans but so far that hasn’t yielded a trade. Even though Monroe would be a valuable asset for a number of teams, one has to imagine that the Pistons’ match power scared off prospective suitors, much in the way that the Suns’ right to match has warded off teams with an eye on guard Eric Bledsoe.

So, for now, Monroe continues to stand without a team. If Monroe wants to enter free agency unencumbered next summer, he could take the risky and unlikely route of signing his one-year qualifying offer for less than $5.5MM.

Tom Gores On Pistons, Monroe, Team USA

August 10th, 2014 at 9:00am CST by Eddie Scarito

Pistons owner Tom Gores touched on a number of team and league subjects in a recent press interview. Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press has published the complete transcription, and here are some of the highlights:

The No. 1 topic that has dominated the entire off-season has been Greg Monroe. What are your thoughts on the contract impasse?

“We think Greg is a great player. First of all, he’s done a really great job of establishing himself as a player in Detroit. He’s shown great respect to the city and as a young man he’s really done everything we could ask of him. With Greg we just believe in him. I’d like Greg to really get excited about being in Detroit because he deserves it. He’s really been good to the city. You’ve seen him. He’s good to the city. Stan is going to have to figure out exactly everybody’s role, but we’re believers in Greg Monroe. He’s not just a great player; he also has a good basketball character. I know it’s been a lot of the off-season stuff, but I’m a believer in Greg Monroe.”

There’s a pretty substantial offer on the table (slightly better on a per-year basis than the four-year, $54-million deal Josh Smith signed last summer). Is there any disappointment that it hasn’t resolved itself and he [Monroe] hasn’t taken the offer yet?

“Of course we would like him to do that, but the fact is Greg has to decide what’s exactly right for him and he has great people representing him. We’d like Greg to get on board, but he’s got time to think about it and we should give him that time.”

It’s been a newsy summer from a league perspective and the most recent thing would be the catastrophic injury suffered by Pacers small forward Paul George at USA Basketball camp. You have Andre Drummond and he’s moving on to Chicago to continue tryouts with Team USA. Does George’s injury give you pause?

“It’s always difficult in this kind of situation. As a Detroit Pistons owner you get worried, but at the same time there’s such a valuable experience that comes out of them being together as players, camaraderie for the country, camaraderie for themselves, a different purpose. I think there is a part of it that’s great for the players because it’s just winning for your team. There’s something bigger at stake and they’re not doing it for their contract or this or that. I’m not torn on it. The upside is for the players. Is their downside for teams? That’s possible. As just a business owner? It’s very possible, but at the same time you can take a guy like Andre Drummond who has the ability to have this experience with all these different guys who are going to play for their country and are really superstars, how would I ever take that away from him? At the end of the day, I think the guy should have the experience.”

The [Pistons’] free-agent signings were targeted to address needs but lacked sizzle. Do you in hindsight wish this would have been the approach last summer when you made the splash of signing Josh Smith?

“Everybody has a different approach. One of things that I’ve really enjoyed about what Stan is doing is he’s connecting the floor to the front office, so everything he’s doing is about the way he’s going to coach it and the way he’s going to run this team and the way he’s going to move this franchise forward. He knows exactly what he’s doing. I have personally seen Stan be an executive. He has the ability to do both things. I know a lot of people question this, but I can tell you I’ve seen him in action. We all know he’s a great coach, but he’s a great executive. He’s a great leader. He’s very strategic.”

Eastern Rumors: Deng, Monroe, ‘Melo, Celtics

August 9th, 2014 at 4:15pm CST by Charlie Adams

Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel sat down with a league scout who believes that the Heat had a respectable offseason, even with the loss of LeBron James. The scout sees Luol Deng as a valuable piece for Miami to build around, even if he won’t generally be the club’s first or second scoring option. More from around the East..

Greg Monroe still isn’t sure if he’s going to be playing for the Pistons or not next season, as he tells Matt Dollinger of Sports Illustrated that the he isn’t sure how contract negotiations will end up.
The Knicks have been able to upgrade their roster this offseason, but Carmelo Anthony acknowledged that he doesn’t expect to win a title this season, notes Raul Alzaga of Primera Hora (translation via Basketball Insiders). ‘Melo is looking forward to next summer, when New York will have more cap space to work with, adds Alzaga.
Although the Celtics’ offseason lacked any major player movement, C’s owner Wyc Grousbeck was still pleased with the front office’s effort, writes Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe. “I said we’d try for fireworks and we tried,” Grousbeck said. “I’m reasonably content that first of all we tried as hard as we could and second of all we added some good pieces. But we have maintained our draft picks and we’ve maintained more building in the future as opposing to firing all the bullets now… We’re going to have to go the more patient route.“