Kevin Love Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Eastern Notes: Beal, Love, Rondo, Smith

November 16th, 2014 at 10:46am CST by Arthur Hill

The Wizards’ Bradley Beal is expected to practice Monday and could be back in the lineup by Friday, reports Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post. The high-scoring guard, who hasn’t played since fracturing his left wrist October 10th, went through a dribbling and shooting drill on Saturday. Last month, the Wizards exercised Beal’s fourth-year contract option worth $5.7MM. Here’s more from around the Eastern Conference:

Even though Kevin Love is likely to become a free agent this summer, the Cavaliers don’t believe he will leave Cleveland, writes Jason Lloyd of The Akron Beacon Journal. A rumor emerged last week that Love would consider opting out of his current contract at season’s end and to sign with the Lakers. Lloyd cautioned that many more rumors are likely regarding the six-year veteran before the season ends, but the Cavs are confident in his commitment to Cleveland.
The Celtics‘ Rajon Rondo cites improved health as the reason for his fast start, according to Mark Murphy of The Boston Herald. ACL surgery limited Rondo to just 29 games last season, and the eight-year veteran said he never felt comfortable after his return. “I can get to the paint a lot easier now,” said Rondo, who will be an unrestricted free agent in the summer. “Last year I was pretty slow, and now I’m a step faster.”
The Knicks‘ J.R. Smith remains on the trading block, tweets Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. Begley notes that the team is having ongoing internal discussions about dealing Smith, and has been since July. The 10-year veteran is being paid close to $6MM this year and has a player option for nearly $6.4MM next season.

And-Ones: Love, Union, Sterling

November 14th, 2014 at 4:03pm CST by Chuck Myron

Kevin Love earlier today dismissed a report linking him to the Lakers, and he also told reporters Friday that his offseason visit to Boston wasn’t a fact-finding mission to see if he’d like to play for the Celtics, notes Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com.

“The fact is, my agent [Jeff Schwartz] is a big Red Sox fan,” Love said. “I’d been planning on that for a long time to come in and check out not only the city, but a Red Sox game and we had a great time and we plan on coming back. It’s tough because I wasn’t a free agent last summer. I have potential to be a free agent this summer or next. It’s just one of those things. It’s obviously a tremendous city. People love it here [in Boston]. Basketball and sports in general are huge here, but it’s been fantastic being a part of the Cavaliers now. We have a team that’s formidable, has a big presence and we see a lot of you guys [in the media] on a daily basis.”

Love makes it clear that he has affection for Boston, but that it doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to play there. Here’s more from around the league:

Union executive director Michele Roberts explains why she doesn’t think eliminating maximum salaries would hurt the players who aren’t making the max in the full text of her interview with Pablo S. Torre of ESPN The Magazine. Snippets of their Q&A that ESPN released earlier this week caused a stir and prompted a response from commissioner Adam Silver. The full interview reveals that Roberts is having regular talks with Silver and that players have expressed their support for a team in Europe.
Donald Sterling named Adam Silver, David Stern and former Clippers interim CEO Dick Parsons among 18 witnesses he may call to the stand in a trial to resolve his $1 billion federal lawsuit against the NBA, reports Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times. A recent court filing revealed that Sterling lawyer Maxwell Blecher had begun talks with the NBA about a possible dismissal of the suit, but Blecher has withdrawn from representing Sterling, Fenno writes. Blecher tells Fenno that he’s unaware if any such talks are currently proceeding.
It’s “widely anticipated” that the NBA and the D-League will someday implement contracts that will allow players on NBA rosters to be paid D-League salaries while on D-League assignment, writes Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Currently, all players on D-League assignment continue to draw their NBA salaries, which are at least some 20 times greater than the maximum $25,500 D-League salary.

Kevin Love Continues To Eye Lakers?

November 14th, 2014 at 11:16am CST by Chuck Myron

FRIDAY, 11:16am: Love threw cold water on Smith’s report in response to a question from Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group (Twitter link). In his apparent denial, the power forward referenced a recent controversy over a hand gesture that he and Kyrie Irving made in a game recently that some thought was a reference to marijuana use. “Whatever we were doing with our hands is about as true as me going to the Lakers next year,” Love said to Haynes.

MONDAY, 12:14pm: Kevin Love made it clear that he wanted to play with LeBron James and the Cavs this past offseason before the trade that sent him to Cleveland, but “indications are” that he’ll consider opting out and that he still has interest in playing for the Lakers, according to Sam Smith of Bulls.com. Love possesses a $16.744MM player option for next season, but he’d stand to make significantly more on a new maximum-salary deal if he were to opt out.

Reports last season previously connected Love to the Lakers, who seemed the front-runners to land him one way or another as of the February trade deadline, though Love downplayed such talk. Still, Love played collegiately at UCLA, as Smith points out, and the Lakers, like many teams, have had interest in the sharpshooting power forward for quite some time.

The Cavs will have Love’s Bird rights come next summer, and while the Lakers couldn’t give him a fifth year or 7.5% raises the way Cleveland could, the purple-and-gold are still poised to have enough cap room to give Love a four-year max deal with 4.5% raises. The fifth year wouldn’t necessarily be attractive to the Jeff Schwartz client, since a short-term contract would allow him to re-enter free agency after the salary cap and maximum salaries jump because of the league’s new $24 billion TV deal, set to kick in for 2016/17.

Love indicated his intention to remain with Cleveland long-term shortly after the August trade that brought him from the Wolves. He said that a desire to win motivated him to push for the swap, and the Lakers, who won their first game of the season Sunday night, appear a ways from contention. He emphasized to reporters during the preseason that playing for a winner means more to him than performing in a large market.

Flip Saunders On Love Trade, LeBron, Goals

November 7th, 2014 at 2:58pm CST by Chuck Myron

The return of LeBron James to the Cavs had the greatest reverberations of any offseason move, but the most persistent storyline over the summer involved one of his new teammates. Kevin Love trade talk was a near-daily feature on Hoops Rumors for months on end, and the man at the controls was Wolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders, who also spent time looking for a coach before deciding that he was his own best candidate for the job. Saunders reflected on the trade to Tim Bontemps of the New York Post, who shares Saunders’ remarks in his weekly column on leaguewide affairs. The entire piece is worth your time, but here’s a look at Saunders’ most notable revelations:

On how he viewed the chances, as of July 1st, that he would trade Love:

“It was 50-50. We had made up our minds … we knew what we wanted, and I was very comfortable coaching Kevin and [dealing with] everything else. A lot of times, it boils down to the players … it boils down to money. If you can pay somebody $20 or $30MM more sometimes, when it comes down to it they might flinch, but they might end up staying.”

On the effect LeBron had on the trade:

“We were in a situation where if LeBron doesn’t go to Cleveland, do we trade [Love]? Probably not. He’s probably still here. But the way it worked out, LeBron went there, and a lot of pieces started to fall into place for Cleveland and it became a very logical thing for them to try to make a push to try to win a championship to get a guy that, ultimately, is one of the two best power forwards in the league, and that became a reality for them.

On his post-trade goals:

“Then, for us, it became [a situation in which] we wanted to try to maximize what we wanted to do. With Love leaving, I don’t want to say we were in a total rebuild … more of a retool situation. We wanted to get young, athletic talent that we thought had the potential where, in three years, that we could hit home runs and they could be a team that makes a run like the Oklahoma City Thunder and develop like that.”

Central Rumors: Thompson, Love, Pistons

October 25th, 2014 at 9:04pm CST by Cray Allred

Fearing a potential fine from the league, Bulls coach Tim Thibodeau decided to withhold his opinion when asked by Doug Padilla of ESPNChicago.com about proposed changes to the NBA’s draft lottery system. “The thing that I don’t like about it is it just seems like…I think it’s bad when…I guess it’s fine,” Thibodeau said, before adding, “I’ll try to save my money.” NBA owners voted down a proposal last week that would have shaken up the lottery, giving the league’s worst teams a smaller chance at the highest picks. Here’s more from around the Central Division:

There has been “zero discussion” on a contract extension for the Cavaliers‘ Tristan Thompson, a source tells Chris Haynes of Northeast Ohio Media Group. Thompson, who like teammate LeBron James is represented by Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, would become a restricted free agent next summer if no deal is reached by Friday. Haynes says Thompson is invaluable to the team’s ongoing championship makeup, an opinion shared by teammate Kyrie Irving. “He’s very important to us,” Irving said. “That motor he has, it’s something that never stops. He’s always on the boards. We’re going to need that. He’s a big part of our team.”
It was a desire to win that brought Kevin Love to Cleveland, the star forward writes in a piece for The Players’ Tribune (H/T Dan Labbe of the Plain Dealer). In the first-person essay, Love explains why he agreed to the summer trade that brought him to the Cavaliers from the Timberwolves. “I’ve never played in a playoff game,” Love writes. “I came to Cleveland because I want to win. I’ll grab a broom and sweep the floors if it gets me an NBA title.” Love also thanked Timberwolves fans and referenced the “crazy summer” of overall No. 1 draft choice Andrew Wiggins, who went to Minnesota in the blockbuster trade.
Pistons coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy told David Mayo of MLive.com that he will make his final roster decisions this weekend, well before Monday’s deadline. Mayo cites Aaron Gray, Tony Mitchell, and Luigi Datome as possibile cuts, all of whom are on guaranteed contracts. Unless Detroit can send out a player in a trade, it will have to take the hit on one of its 16 guaranteed deals to get under the roster limit before the season starts.

Arthur Hill contributed to this post.

Eastern Notes: Allen, Heat, Cavs

October 16th, 2014 at 9:58pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Many around the NBA believe Ray Allen will become a member of the Cavs this season and Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio is among the Cleveland optimists. “My gut tells me he’ll join the Cavs,” Amico said. Cleveland is among the many teams with interest in bringing the shooting guard aboard. Amico also notes that he believes Allen has already decided on whether or not he’ll play this season, and where.

Here’s more from Eastern Conference:

After he struggled last postseason there were doubts the Heat would re-sign Mario Chalmers, but head coach Eric Spoelstra is a firm believer in the point guard, writes Shandel Richardson of the Sun Sentinel. “He’s one of the all-time clutch players in this game,” Spoelstra said. “How many times does he have to prove himself?”
In a separate piece, Richardson documents how the environment around the Heat is changing post-LeBron James. Dwyane Wade couldn’t be happier about the changes. “It’s more relaxed, more chill, an opportunity we can get some work in,” Wade said. “We can actually make some mistakes and not do things as great and not really be talked about as much. We’re a team that needs time individually to get comfortable with whatever roles we’re going to be in. It’s good it’s quiet.”
Although Kevin Love‘s neck injury isn’t believed to be too serious, Jeff Caplan of NBA.com wonders if LeBron’s new teammates can stay healthy. Caplan points out the injury history of Love and Kyrie Irving and notes how crucial it is that the new big three get as much time on the court together as possible
There are Atlantic Division teams that have young players with the potential to improve such as Terrence Ross of the Raptors and Tyler Zeller of the Celtics, writes Jonathan Tjarks of RealGM.com. Mason Plumlee of the Nets, Iman Shumpert of the Knicks and Michael Carter-Williams of the Sixers are also among the players Tjarks lists as internal improvement candidates for the coming season.

And-Ones: Raptors, Faverani, Kobe, Love

October 15th, 2014 at 1:23pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Raptors, like many teams, have their sights set on chasing star free agents in the summer of 2016, but such plans will make it tough for the team to find room to grant extensions to both Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross when they’re eligible a year from now, writes Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun. GM Masai Ujiri did the perfunctory duty of exercising Toronto’s 2015/16 rookie scale team options on Valanciunas and Ross on Tuesday, but the team’s decisions regarding the pair won’t be so easy next fall, as Wolstat points out. Here’s more from around the league:

Danny Ainge on Tuesday dismissed the notion that the Celtics will waive injured center Vitor Faverani and his fully guaranteed contract, meaning the team is exploring other ways to alleviate its logjam of 16 fully guaranteed deals and 15 opening-night roster spots. Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald has the details. “We have things we can do before we waive someone,” Ainge said.
Kobe Bryant predicted the NBA will move for another lockout in 2017 and had some harsh words for owners around the league when he spoke to reporters Tuesday, including Bill Oram of the Orange County Register. Still, Bryant showered praise on the Lakers, who’ll again be paying him the league’s highest salary this season. “I think it speaks volumes,” he said. “Not only to me or this city but to other players around the league, as well. You look around at some of the other owners that try to milk their players or get rid of them or discard them, this organization doesn’t do that.”
The Lakers appeared to have the inside track for Kevin Love at times last season, but Love stressed to reporters Tuesday that playing on a contending team like the Cavs means more to him than playing in a large market, notes Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com.

Northwest Notes: Arthur, Blazers, Wolves

October 4th, 2014 at 2:31pm CST by Eddie Scarito

When asked if he’d like to remain with the Nuggets past this season, Darrell Arthur said, “Oh yeah, for sure. My family loves it here. My mom was just up here for a couple of weeks and she just loves it – loves the atmosphere, loves the people here. I love the organization, everything. It’s a family organization, they welcome you with open arms. I definitely would like this to be home,” Christopher Dempsey of the Denver Post relays. Arthur is in the final season of his contract and will become an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Here’s more from the west:

NBA TV’s Steve Smith was in Portland covering the Blazers training camp and discussed the contract situations of LaMarcus Aldridge, Wesley Matthews, and Robin Lopez. All three players are in the final year of their respective deals and Smith was asked if it would become a distraction and he said, “LaMarcus being the main one. I can’t speak for him, but I think he’ll be the easiest one to figure out. He’ll be all right. I think Wesley Matthews and Robin Lopez, financially — I’m not saying they’re not set, we all are, we play in the NBA — but LaMarcus is going to get the max. Now with those other two guys, you have to balance sacrificing for the team and making as much money possible in your career. I think this contract is … the big one for those guys.”
Smith also discussed the offseason additions of Steve Blake and Chris Kaman, saying, “It’s funny. Sometimes you look at moves — and, like you said, they’re not huge as far as names that go across the entire association — but Steve Blake is one of those veterans that just fits well with this team. You can tell just by watching practice. And he makes home here in Portland. So you have a guy who’s comfortable. He’s played here, what, three times? Chris Kaman, if you want to draw up a Portland Trail Blazer, it’s Chris Kaman. He just looks like he belongs. (laughs) And also, I think the pressure is off him. He can come in and be himself.“
Ricky Rubio believes that the departure of Kevin Love to the Cavs will be good for both Love and the Wolves, Jeff Caplan of NBA.com writes. “Of course we had a lot going on last year and the media was talking, they were wondering if Kevin wanted to be here, blah, blah, blah, and that hurt the team and hurt himself,” Rubio said. “Now that he’s not here, the media’s not going to talk about that anymore. I think that’s going to be good for him and for us.”

And-Ones: Rubio, Ayon, Garnett, Karasev

September 14th, 2014 at 10:07pm CST by Zachary Links

Wolves guard Ricky Rubio told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports that he never tried to talk Kevin Love out of asking for a trade. “If he wanted to leave, there’s no reason to talk to him about it,” Rubio said. “I really liked playing with him, but I’ll play with the players who want to be there. Kevin wants to win. That’s normal. He’s been there six years without the playoffs. I understand. If I was in the same situation – being one of the best players in the league – and not being able to be in the playoffs, I’d have a lot of frustration, too.” When asked about his own future, Rubio said that he is “loyal” and wants to give back to the organization. The guard can be a restricted free agent next summer if he doesn’t sign an extension. Here’s tonight’s look around the Association..

The Spurs continue to eye center Gustavo Ayon, tweets Nikos Varlas of Eurohoops.net. Ayon is reportedly on his way to play for Spain’s Real Madrid, but no deal with the team can become official until he comes up with the equivalent of about $376K to pay off Spanish rival FC Barcelona, which holds his European rights, according to Javier Maestro of Encestando (translation via HoopsHype).
There has been some retirement speculation surrounding Kevin Garnett but the veteran has been one of “about ten” players who have already been working out at the Nets‘ East Rutherford, New Jersey practice facility, team insiders tell Robert Windrem of Nets Daily.
Anthony Puccio of Nets Daily ran down the best pickups made by the Nets this offseason. Trade acquisitions Sergey Karasev and Jarrett Jack make the list as well as 2011 first-round pick Bojan Bogdanovic. Bogdanovic, 25, may be an NBA rookie but he comes with seven seasons of international experience and should be ready to hit the ground running.
According to his Pistons preview, Adi Joseph of USA TODAY has the franchise improving their win total slightly, but still missing the playoffs.

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.