Larry Sanders Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Larry Sanders To Miss Rest Of Season

March 19th, 2014 at 10:36am CST by Chuck Myron

Larry Sanders will be out for the rest of the season as he continues to recover from the broken right orbital bone he suffered during a game on February 8th, the center tells Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Twitter link). Sanders signed a four-year, $44MM extension last fall that kicks in for 2014/15, but he played only 23 games this season because of the orbital bone injury as well as a broken hand that he suffered during a fight at a nightclub. That off-court misstep cost Sanders nearly two months, while his latest injury will keep him away for the final nine and a half weeks of the season.

Sanders finished third last year in Most Improved Player of the Year award voting and seventh in balloting for Defensive Player of the Year, but his inability to stay on the court has been microcosmic of the 2013/14 season for the Bucks, whose 13-55 record is still the worst in the NBA by two and a half games, in spite of Philadelphia’s ongoing 21-game losing streak. Sanders appeared to regress when he did play for Milwaukee this season, with his numbers down almost across the board from 2012/13.

The Bucks were reportedly aggressive in their attempts to trade Sanders in December, shortly before he returned from his broken hand. Milwaukee was apparently seeking draft picks in return, but the team had begun turning away suitors for the 25-year-old before he suffered his orbital bone injury. The Poison Pill Provision might have had much to do with the Bucks’ inability to pull off a deal, but it would no longer be a factor if Milwaukee GM John Hammond and company wanted to revisit the idea of trading him in the summer. Still, given the cost and length of Sanders’ contract, I’d be surprised if the Bucks find any takers willing to give them enough of a return, and today’s news means that potential trade partners won’t get another chance this season to see if Sanders can bounce back.

Eastern Rumors: Sanders, Celtics, Bulls

February 14th, 2014 at 11:37am CST by Chuck Myron

A few Eastern Conference teams have picked up their play of late, but there are still only four East clubs with a record of .500 or better as the All-Star break arrives. Here’s the latest on the NBA’s weaker half:

Larry Sanders will be out at least six weeks after surgery to repair a fractured orbital bone, the Bucks announced. The team has reportedly been rejecting trade offers for the center, and today’s news makes it seem even less likely that he’ll be dealt.
Danny Ainge is “more open to a deal than most” NBA executives as the deadline approaches, but rivals believe he’d like to hang on to his future draft picks while adding as little money to the Celtics books as he can, writes Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald.
The Bulls have been at 12 players since February 1st, and they were facing a Saturday deadline to add to their roster, but the league has granted the team an exception to its two-week limit on 12-man teams, tweets Mark Deeks of ShamSports (Twitter link). Chicago can stand pat until Monday.
Bleacher Report’s Ethan Skolnick identifies Caron Butler as a player the Heat may target if the Bucks agree to a buyout after the trade deadline, citing mutual admiration between the veteran small forward and Miami’s front office. Skolnick also says Butler or Shawn Marion could become a free agent replacement for Shane Battier this summer, when Battier is likely to retire (video link).

Bucks Turning Away Suitors For Larry Sanders

February 7th, 2014 at 9:03am CST by Chuck Myron

The Bucks are rebuffing trade inquiries about Larry Sanders out of fear that they would be selling low, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Stein nonetheless senses there’s a chance the team’s stance could change before the trade deadline. Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio reported late last month that the Bucks remained “very open” to trading Sanders, following up on his initial report in December, so the notion of his availability appears fluid.

The Poison Pill Provision would complicate any potential Sanders trade. He signed a four-year, $44MM rookie scale extension with the Bucks this past offseason, but it doesn’t kick in until next season. He makes $3.05MM this season, which would count as outgoing salary for the Bucks if they traded him, but his incoming salary figure for another team would count as $7.027MM, the average between his current payday and the average annual value of his extension.

Fellow ESPN scribe Chad Ford wrote this week in an Insider piece that the Bucks are looking for a first-rounder or a young player in deals for their veterans, but it sounds like they’re hesitant to give up too soon on Sanders, who’s in just his fourth season. Stein suggests the team is focused on building around Giannis Antetokounmpo and, to a lesser extent, John Henson, though it sounds like Sanders remains a part of Milwaukee’s plans, at least for now.

Odds & Ends: Embiid, Boozer, Turner

February 4th, 2014 at 11:56pm CST by Ryan Raroque

Jeff Goodman of ESPN released his report about Joel Embiid “strongly considering” a return to Kansas for his sophomore season, noting that while the Cameroon native recently stated he didn’t feel ready for the NBA, those feelings could change depending on his development over the rest of the year. Earlier this evening, we noted that Adam Zagoria of Zagsblog relayed the first scoop from Goodman via Twitter.

After tonight’s game against Baylor, Embiid spoke with reporters: “I’m not even thinking about (going pro) right now…I’ll make a decision after the season, but I’m definitely considering coming back to school.”

Many NBA executives told ESPN.com that Embiid is their frontrunner to be selected first overall in June, according to Goodman. The Kansas center – who admittedly thought of redshirting prior to the start of the season – is averaging 11.2 PPG, 7.7 RPG, and 2.7 BPG thus far during his freshman campaign, and is reportedly shocked at the impact he’s been able to make.

Here are the rest of the notable links we’ve gathered up tonight:

Carlos Boozer hasn’t been happy with being benched in favor of Taj Gibson once the fourth quarter rolls around, letting reporters know about his frustration on Monday: ‘‘I think I should be out there, but it’s [Tom Thibodeau’s] choice,…He makes the decisions out there. I play; I don’t coach. He coaches, so he decides that. But, honestly, he’s been doing that a lot since I’ve been here, not putting me [in the game] in the fourth quarter. Sometimes we win. More times than not, we don’t. But that’s his choice’ (Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Sun-Times).
Boozer continued: ‘‘It’s very frustrating, especially when I’ve got a great game going or what have you. Obviously, as a competitor, you want to be out there to help your team win. Especially when the game is close, you can do things that can help your team win. And not being out there, all you can do is really cheer them on. But that’s [Thibodeau’s] choice.’’
Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN tweeted that nothing has changed since the beginning of the season regarding the Timberwolves’ interest in 76ers guard Evan Turner. Although Minnesota covets Turner, President of Basketball Operations Flip Saunders is still not willing to include a first rounder that Philadelphia would want in return.
During his chat with readers, Eddie Sefko of SportsDayDFW downplayed the possibility that the Bucks would deal Larry Sanders. Additionally, Sefko doesn’t believe that the Mavericks would be interested in pursuing the Milwaukee big man, especially with frontcourt positions already occupied by Samuel Dalembert, DeJuan Blair, and Brandan Wright.
Sefko doesn’t foresee the Mavs making a huge splash on the trade market, saying that if any move is to be done, it’ll involve players at the bottom of the roster instead of the top. One deal he thinks would make sense involves trading Wayne Ellington for an expiring contract, thus allowing Dallas to free themselves of $2.5MM next season.
As for the Pau Gasol sweepstakes, Sefko gets the sense that Dallas has at least made cursory inquiries and labels their chances at landing him as a “long-shot.” As for LeBron James potentially becoming available this summer, Sefko says that not being among the top on the list of preferred destinations won’t deter the team from making their free agent pitch.
With the Thunder owning and operating their D-League affiliate Tulsa 66ers, it has allowed Oklahoma City to create an infrastructure which maximizes player development, writes Anthony Slater of NewsOK.

Eastern Notes: Waiters, Sanders, Nets, Green

February 4th, 2014 at 9:37pm CST by Ryan Raroque

Cavaliers shooting guard Dion Waiters has been the subject of quite a few trade rumors throughout the season, and Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Plain Dealer notes that those talks will only intensify as we inch closer to the trade deadline. The second-year guard out of Syracuse insists he isn’t fazed by the possibility that he could be changing addresses soon:

“I don’t worry about that stuff…If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. If not, it’s not. I can’t control that. It’s out of my hands.”

Here’s more out of the Eastern Conference tonight:

During a live chat with his readers earlier today, Eddie Sefko of SportsDayDFW said that the Bucks aren’t willing to trade Larry Sanders right now because they know they’d be selling low.
According to Yannis Koutroupis of Basketball Insiders, there isn’t any untouchable player currently on the Nets roster, and in a market where star players are difficult to come by, Brook Lopez, Deron Williams, Paul Pierce, and Joe Johnson could be acquired for less than their true value because Brooklyn will clearly be sellers at this year’s trade deadline.
Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston sheds some light on Celtics forward Jeff Green, who aside from showing glimpses of his obvious potential, has struggled to find a comfort zone this year. With the trade deadline looming, Forsberg says it’s fair to wonder if Green is still a part of Boston’s future plans, and that even considering his under-performance as well as his four-year, $36.2MM price tag, there will still be teams interested in his services.
In a subscribers-only piece for ESPN Insider, Chad Ford cites an anonymous GM who thinks current Syracuse point guard Tyler Ennis will be a more reliable floor general than Kyrie Irving: “If you were to ask me right now whether I’d take Ennis over (Irving), I think it’s Ennis,..He does all the things that help a basketball team win basketball games. You can pick him apart on individual flaws, but I would take this kid right now and trust him to run my team. I think there’s very few freshmen you could ever say that about.”
Though some may be skeptical about how Andrew Bynum‘s past behavioral issues could affect the Pacers’ chemistry, Darvin Ham – formerly an assistant with the Lakers in 2011/12 and now an assistant with the Hawks– vouched for Bynum’s ability to remain focused: “I really spent a lot of one-on-one time with him, been in group settings with him…He’s really not a disruptive guy. He just wants to be left alone and left alone to play the game, plain and simple (Candace Buckner of IndyStar.com).
While Anthony Bennett has struggled for most of the year, Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal writes that the UNLV product hasn’t been listening to the negative talk about his game and doesn’t dwell on his mistakes as much as he’d done earlier in the season: “I was just worried about making a lot of mistakes, with getting subbed out, all that in the back of my head…Now I’m just going out there and giving it my all. Who cares if I get subbed out? I’m just playing.”

Bucks Rumors: Trades, Sanders, Smart

January 20th, 2014 at 10:11am CST by Chuck Myron

The Bucks are the only team in the league without at least 10 wins, and they sit atop our Reverse Standings with the NBA’s worst record. Teams in their position usually start thinking about the future at this point in the season, but that’s not the case for Milwaukee, which notoriously avoids bottoming out. The Bucks would be “more than willing” to trade for vets who could help them sneak into the playoffs in the moribund Eastern Conference, according to Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio, who has more from Milwaukee:

Bucks management is still “very open” to trading Larry Sanders before the deadline, Amico writes in the same piece, echoing his report from last month. Milwaukee would want to make draft picks the centerpiece of the package it receives in exchange. The team would still have to absorb a significant amount of salary in a deal for Sanders, thanks to the Poison Pill Provision that was triggered when the Bucks signed Sanders to his extension this past summer.
Milwaukee is enamored with Oklahoma State point guard Marcus Smart, Amico says, adding that it would nonetheless be tough to envision the Bucks taking him first overall.
O.J. Mayo, like many on the Bucks, has seen his minutes go up and down, and he tells Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel that the inconsistent rotation is partly to blame for the team’s struggles. “It’s hard to get a rhythm when you don’t know what’s going to happen for you night in and night out,” Mayo said. “You may get six minutes, 30 minutes. There’s no staple to what we’re doing. You can hang in there, compete and keep it close.”
Gary Neal left San Antonio this past summer to sign a two-year, $6.5MM deal with the Bucks, but he misses the winning he enjoyed with the Spurs, as he says to Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News. “When you’re evaluating job choices, the financial aspect comes into it,” Neal said. “I think I made the best decision for me and my family.”
Darington Hobson, whom the Bucks selected 37th overall in the 2010 draft, has reached a deal with Migdal Haemek, a team in an Israeli minor league, tweets David Pick of Eurobasket.com. Hobson has appeared in just five regular season NBA games, all with the Bucks in 2011/12.

Bucks Open To Trading Larry Sanders

December 24th, 2013 at 8:23am CST by Chuck Myron

The Bucks locked up Larry Sanders to a four-year, $44MM extension in the offseason, but now it appears that maybe “no NBA player is as available” in a trade as he is, writes Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. Milwaukee believes it can get decent return for him, and the Bucks don’t want to move anyone else from their relatively well-stocked front line.

Milwaukee isn’t rushing to move him, according to Amico, but executives around the league believe the Bucks would be willing to send him out if they received the right offer, which may be centered on draft considerations. Such an offer might not be forthcoming, since an executive recently indicated to Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times that teams around the league aren’t too high on Sanders right now.

Further complicating any trade is the Poison Pill Provision, which would come in to play since Sanders signed a rookie scale extension that hasn’t kicked in yet. His $3.053MM salary for this season would count as his outgoing salary for Milwaukee, but he’d represent about $7.027MM in incoming salary for the team that acquires him. That figure is the average between Sanders’ 2013/14 salary and the average annual value of his extension. So, any trade would have to include additional salary going out on both sides, or a third team.

The 6’11” defensive stalwart has been out for most of the season with a broken hand suffered in a nightclub brawl, and the Bucks haven’t updated his status recently, even as the original timetable for his return draws to a close. Amico wonders if the Bucks are bringing him along slowly in an effort to reduce their chances of winning games and hurting their draft lottery chances, though Milwaukee owner Herb Kohl usually wants his team to stay competitive.

Odds & Ends: Bulls, Hayward, Sanders

December 6th, 2013 at 6:52pm CST by Jonathan Nehring

With league action on the court beginning for the evening, some action around the league occurring off the court.

Sam Smith of Bulls.com doesn’t think the Bulls will apply for the Disabled Player Exception worth 50% of Derrick Rose‘s salary. With the Bulls already in luxury tax territory, adding a player under this exception would still cost Chicago double what they pay that player and no available player is worth that money to the Bulls.
With the departure of Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap this past offseason, the Jazz have turned to Gordon Hayward as their “go-to-guy”. The Jazz use Hayward 25% of the time he is on the court and have increased his playing time by 10.5 MPG more this season than his career average of 26.4 MPG. Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today discusses whether this increase in playing time could hurt the Jazz since they were unable to reach a contract extension before this season allowing Hayward to become a restricted free agent next season.
Following a breakout season last year, Larry Sanders earned himself a contract extension with the Bucks this offseason. Wondering if that contract extension will pay off, Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times asked (via Twitter) an NBA exec the trade value of Sanders, who has only played three games this season due to thumb surgery. Combining the surgery with his new contract, the exec speculates few, if any, teams would want him at the moment.

Eastern Links: Rose, Sanders, Anderson

December 5th, 2013 at 8:58pm CST by Ryan Raroque

Derrick Rose was asked to comment on the idea that the Bulls should look to move on without him after his latest injury, and he had this to say: “What do you mean?…You can be a fool if you want to…I know I’m going to be alright…I know I am (going to be the same player). A better player…If anything, this should even me out. When I think about it, the injury, I just turned and this happened, kind of like a freak accident. I put all I had into coming back and if this was to happen 10 more times I’d be able to deal with it” (Sam Smith of Bulls.com).

Here’s more out of the Eastern Conference tonight:

Earlier today, we made note that Rose wouldn’t rule out a return to the court if he managed to get healthy in time for the postseason. On the other hand, head coach Tom Thibodeau didn’t seem willing to entertain the thought of looking that far ahead: “To me, he’s out for the season…If something changes along the way…We want him to be completely healthy before he moves forward…We can’t worry about whether he may come back. Right now, it’s been determined that he’s out for the season, so that’s the way we’re going to approach it” (Sean Highkin of USA Today).
In responding to one of his Twitter followers, Steve Kyler of Hoopsworld said that the notion of dealing Larry Sanders for a lottery pick next year would not even be a consideration (Twitter link).
Keith Pompey of Philly.com talks about how James Anderson has excelled in his reserve role as of late after beginning the season as a starter for the 76ers.
We’ve relayed quite a bit from the Knicks and Nets this evening, and five ESPN writers decided to chime in on why both teams have been playing poorly, who has the hotter seat between Mike Woodson and Jason Kidd, which team will be worse in April, and which has a rougher future ahead.
Hawks GM Danny Ferry voiced his support for Cavaliers coach Mike Brown, telling FOX Sports Ohio’s Sam Amico: “(Brown’s) a relentless worker and a quality, high character person. He is a good teacher and holds players accountable. His will and passion for defense will always give any team a strong chance to be successful. This will have such a strong impact for a team establishing a foundation for years to come.”
There may have been a chorus of boos for Kidd tonight at the Barclays Center during the pre-game introductions, but the Nets coach gets a vote of confidence from his former teammate J.R. Smith: “Criticism is going to come…He’s a first-year coach and he’s a great basketball mind. Just unfortunately, he’s going through it early. Some coaches have success early, some struggle early. He just happens to be struggling right now…I think he’s the best fit for that job and he knows how to get out of it. He’s got a great core of vets, so he’ll be fine” (Roderick Boone of Newsday).
The Celtics sit atop the Atlantic Division, but the team isn’t letting their early success get to their head and remains focused on continuing to work hard (Marc D’Amico of Celtics.com).

Eastern Notes: Sanders, Woodson, Hawks, Nets

November 11th, 2013 at 8:14pm CST by Zachary Links

The Bucks announced that center Larry Sanders will be out six weeks after he underwent surgery this afternoon to repair a torn ligament in his right thumb. Sanders suffered the injury in an apparent nightclub skirmish. That’s more bad news for a 2-3 Milwaukee team as Ersan Ilyasova is sidelined and Zaza Pachulia still isn’t 100%. One has to imagine that the Bucks will at least explore a deal for some frontcourt help. Here’s a look at the latest out of the Eastern Conference..

If the Knicks continue to struggle, coach Mike Woodson could be the one to pay for the club falling short of expectations, writes Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld.
Meanwhile, Knicks star Carmelo Anthony came to the defense of Woodson in the face of criticism from fans and the media, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPNNewYork.com. “It’s New York,” Anthony said. “It happens. Woody’s not out there playing. We’re out there playing. You can’t blame Woody. We’re not, as a team, giving him the effort that he’s looking for and we’ve got to change that.”
The Hawks announced earlier today that have assigned Jared Cunningham to the D-League’s Bakersfield Jam. While with the Mavericks last season, Cunningham played in 15 D-League games for the Texas Legends, and averaged 15.3 points, 3.0 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 1.2 steals in 34.5 minutes.
Kennedy also caught up with Nets rookie Mason Plumlee, who says that he has already learned a great deal from veteran forward Kevin Garnett. Plumlee says that there isn’t much external pressure on him, but he does feel some internal pressure to play well since the expectations are so high in Brooklyn this year.