LeBron James Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Eastern Notes: James, Millsap, Allen

February 13th, 2015 at 9:29pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Cavs superstar LeBron James has been elected as the vice president of the NBPA, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports (Twitter links). Chris Paul, the NBPA president, has been pushing for James to join him as the No. 2 man in the player’s union for some time now, Wojnarowski adds. The announcement of James’ election was soon overshadowed by the reports that the NBPA had voted to reject the league’s salary cap smoothing proposal for 2016. This news sets the stage for a potential lockout in 2017, when both the league and the union can opt out of the current CBA, though that is merely my speculation.

Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:

Paul Millsap said that the support he has received from Hawks fans and the community in Atlanta would not factor into his decision-making when he becomes a free agent this summer, Nick Powell of NJ.com relays. “It’s a good thing, but I’m not one to base my decision off emotions,” Millsap said. “I base my decisions off of everything else. Where our team is at, can I grow with this team, how’s the coach, how’s the community? There’s a lot of things that factor into it besides emotions.” When asked his feelings about potentially playing in New York, Millsap said, “It’s a good place. I consider myself a guy who could fit in anywhere.“
When Patrick Beverley was asked about potentially joining the Knicks as a free agent this summer, he stated that his first desire was to remain in Houston, Powell adds. “That’s not up to me, that’s up to my agent and stuff like that,” Beverley said. “I’m extremely happy with Houston, that’s one of the teams that kind of took a chance on me for me getting to the NBA, but at the end of the day this is a business, and I’ll let my agent handle that.” Beverly will become a restricted free agent at season’s end.
Though the Heat were indeed in contact with free agent Ray Allen last summer, the team never made a contract offer to the veteran guard, Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald writes.

Central Notes: Monroe, LeBron, Haywood, Allen

February 13th, 2015 at 2:29pm CST by Chuck Myron

Stan Van Gundy insists that the Pistons won’t trade Greg Monroe, citing his hope that the big man will re-sign this summer as well as the team’s playoff chase, as Bob Wojnowski of The Detroit News observes. Monroe has a de facto no-trade clause and agent David Falk has said he doesn’t want to be dealt.

“It’s not gonna happen,” Van Gundy said. “I don’t know where Greg’s head will be in the offseason, but we’re still hopeful of Greg Monroe for the long term. And with him going into free agency, you won’t get a lot, maybe a pick. I’m not gonna walk in that locker room and give up a piece like that and then tell the guys we’re trying to make the playoffs. They deserve the chance to ride this out. You never say never to anything, but I can tell you about 99.9%, Greg Monroe’s not going anywhere.”

The Lakers reportedly asked the Pistons about Monroe earlier this month, but it seems like their chance to nab him won’t come until the summer, when he’ll be an unrestricted free agent. There’s more on the Pistons amid the latest from around the Central Division:

Van Gundy also said that he won’t trade a first-round pick but is willing to take on a short-term salary dump from another team, Wojnowski notes in the same piece.
LeBron James expressed fondness for Madison Square Garden today while speaking to reporters for All-Star weekend, as Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com relays (Twitter link). Still, it’d be a stretch to suggest that the Cavs star, who has a player option for next season, has any interest in playing for the Knicks. “If I could have 82 regular season games anywhere they’d be at Madison Square Garden, because it’s the mecca of basketball,” James said.
The Cavs believe Brendan Haywood is “done” as an on-court contributor, as Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal writes in his Final Thoughts column. Of course, Haywood continues to have value thanks to his unique contract, and the Cavs are reportedly shopping him in advance of the deadline.
The Bulls seem like a less likely contender for Ray Allen than they had been, as Sam Smith of Bulls.com opines in his latest mailbag column.

Cavs Notes: James, Harris, Allen

February 12th, 2015 at 8:27pm CST by Dana Gauruder

LeBron James‘ decision last summer to sign a two-year contract with a player option after this season was not only motivated by the ability to take advantage of the rising salary cap and make a higher salary but also to give him maximum leverage, Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com writes. Shelburne adds that James and NBPA president Chris Paul will encourage their membership to fight for more flexible contract structures and a greater piece of the league revenue pie when the players union can opt out of the current CBA in 2017. Here’s more from Cleveland:

The Cavaliers have re-assigned Joe Harris to the Canton Charge, their D-League affiliate, the team has announced. This is the sixth trek of the season to Canton for Harris, who has appeared in six games for the Charge this season, averaging 18.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 3.0 assists in 33.2 minutes per game.
Cleveland has been in contact with free agent Ray Allen‘s representatives in recent days, but the veteran guard has still not made a decision on where, or if, he will play this season, Jason Lloyd of The Akron Beacon Journal reports.
James feels a sense of urgency to win a championship this season even though he and Kevin Love, who can opt out of his deal after the season, are expected to remain with the club long-term, according to Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders.com. The facts that James has hit the age of 30 and has logged more than 41,500 minutes in his career also figure into his thinking.

LeBron Likely To Opt Out, Sign Two-Year Deal

February 10th, 2015 at 9:16am CST by Chuck Myron

LeBron James is “widely expected” to opt out of his contract this summer and sign a new contract that covers two years with a player option for the final season, just like the one he signed this past offseason, writes Joe Vardon of the Northeast Ohio Media Group. It’ll almost certainly be another maximum-salary arrangement with the Cavs, as James made it clear that he has no intention of leaving Cleveland again. James is intent on making the “appropriate business decision”, even if it means changing teams this summer, as Northeast Ohio Media Group scribe Chris Haynes heard in December. However, James has said on multiple occasions that he signed his existing short-term deal to maximize his earnings and not to set up an early exit from the Cavs.

Vardon estimates that the maximum salary for a player with 10 or more years of experience, like James, will swell to about $23MM next season. That would give James roughly $1.5MM more than he’d make on his option, which is worth about $21.573MM. Regardless of where the league sets the maximum salary, which won’t be determined until July, James can sign for up to 105% of his approximately $20.644MM salary from this season. The value of the player option is 104.5% of his salary this year, so as long as James is in line to command the maximum salary, as he assuredly will be, opting out will be the wise financial play.

It also makes financial sense for James to sign another short-term deal. The Cavs will only have his Non-Bird rights this summer, so the second season of his deal could again represent no more than 104.5% of the salary in the first year of the contract. Plus, most league executives assume the salary cap will zoom to around $90MM for 2016/17, and that would send maximum salaries skyrocketing with it. So, the ability to once more hit the market and reap part of the influx of the league’s new television deal is surely enticing for the Rich Paul client.

Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com first wrote in July that James would probably continue to sign short-term deals. Inking another two-year pact with a player option, as Vardon pegs him likely to do, would give James the greatest amount of guaranteed money possible while still allowing him the chance to hit free agency again in 2016. Contracts signed under the most recent collective bargaining agreement can only contain one option year, unlike the deal that James signed with the Heat, which contained two options.

The ability for James to leave so soon has made the Cavs a “little uncomfortable”, Windhorst wrote in October, even though it seems highly unlikely he leaves. Another short term deal would keep pressure on the Cavs front office to cater to James, who, as Vardon points out, wants the team to keep spending to maintain a championship-caliber roster. Still, given the backlash James would engender if he were to once more desert Cleveland, the pressure on GM David Griffin and company might be overstated.

Eastern Notes: Whiteside, Cavs, Barac

February 4th, 2015 at 8:03pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Heat center Hassan Whiteside had worked out for the Wolves back in 2012 after being released by the Kings. But Minnesota chose not to sign the big man, who is having a breakout season in Miami, due to reported maturity issues, something that Whiteside has overcome, Joseph Goodman of The Miami Herald writes. “He fell through the cracks as much as anything because of whether it was people questioned his work ethic, they questioned him off the court in some situations and they questioned his discipline,” Minnesota’s president of basketball operations Flip Saunders said. “He has matured. Sometimes young players, when he came out he rose so fast at Marshall, sometimes what happens is they’re not ready for that, they’re not ready for the NBA and everything that comes with it, and they think once they’re there everything is going to fall into place. So, I think more than anything he has matured and he has paid dues.”

Here’s more from the East:

LeBron James said that he would be willing to come off of the bench if it would help the Cavs continue to win, Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com writes. “It’s about a team and how we all fit together, how the five guys on the court fit together, how the eight guys or 10 guys on the bench all help the guys that are on the floor and so on and so on,” James said. “So, sacrifice is the biggest word in team sports, but it’s not about saying it. It’s about doing it, as well. It’s about living it.“
Cavs coach David Blatt downplayed Kevin Love‘s recent struggles and called attention to the contributions Love provides that don’t make it into the box score, McMenamin adds. “I think Kevin is very much in the flow of the game and is playing both ends of the court,” Blatt said. “The last thing I really worry about with Kevin Love is if he is going to score. He’s a proven scorer in this league and a proven high-level scorer. And he’s helping the team win. He’s playing to win and that’s really what both concerns me and what impresses me about him, is he’s been willing to do whatever it takes to help us win and that’s what we want.“
Pacers draft-and-stash prospect Stanko Barac, whom the team was reportedly looking to sign to a deal, won’t be able to leave Cedevita Zagreb until this summer, Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype.com reports. Barac’s contract doesn’t contain a NBA out clause, which will prevent the 7’2″ Croatian from joining Indiana this season, Sierra notes.

Cavs Notes: Blatt, Love, LeBron, Mozgov

January 12th, 2015 at 11:30am CST by Chuck Myron

Cavs coach David Blatt didn’t rule out the notion of LeBron James returning to action for Tuesday’s game, notes Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link), but Blatt drew more attention for a comment he made about one of the team’s other stars. Joe Vardon of the Northeast Ohio Media Group pointed out after the Cavs lost in blowout fashion Sunday to the Kings that though the team didn’t have James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love were players who’d signed maximum-salary deals who took part in the contest. “Kev’s not a max player yet, is he?” Blatt rejoined. It’s true that Love signed for four years instead of five when he inked his extension in 2012, and that he isn’t yet eligible for the NBA’s 35% max that’s reserved for veterans of 10 seasons or more, but he’s making the maximum salary allowable this season for a player of his experience. Blatt might not have meant to insult the power forward, but it’s a rookie mistake for the first-year NBA head coach, as USA Today’s Adi Joseph writes, particularly with Love possessing the ability to opt out and hit free agency this summer. There’s more on that amid the latest on the tumult in Cleveland:

Executives around the league maintain belief that there’s a decent chance Love will leave Cleveland this summer, as Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal writes within his mailbag column. Love is expected to opt out, and it’s unlikely he signs a long-term deal, since a one-year contract would set him up for free agency in 2016, when executives reportedly assume the salary cap will surge to around $90MM, Lloyd writes. However, that’s not cause for the Cavs to panic, given Love’s continued insistence that he envisions a long-term future in Cleveland, Lloyd says in a separate piece.
Blatt should have known better than to tweak Love with his comment, given the sensitivity Love showed when former Timberwolves GM David Kahn refused to give him a fifth year on his extension, SB Nation’s Tom Ziller opines.
LeBron is ecstatic about Cleveland’s trade for Timofey Mozgov, a source tells Vardon for the above-linked piece.

Cavs Notes: James, Mozgov, Love

January 11th, 2015 at 12:51pm CST by ChrisCrouse

When LeBron James returns to the court from his injury, he will have three new teammates after the Cavs swung two trades this past week. The team is 1-7 without James in the lineup this season. James is second in the league points per game with 25.2, third in the league in minutes per game averaging 37.5 and has a player efficiency rating of 25.2, which ranks eighth in the league. Those numbers, coupled with the team’s win discrepancy without James on the floor, should put the four-time MVP in contention to win his fifth award this season.

Here’s more from Cleveland:

Newly acquired center Timofey Mozgov is ready to help turn around the disappointing Cavaliers, reports Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com. Coach David Blatt said the organization has been trying to work out a deal for Mozgov since July. The efforts paid off on Wednesday, as the team picked him up from the Nuggets in exchange for two first-round draft picks. Mozgov said he tried not to follow the off-the-court rumors. “I always try to be away from this business,” he said. “I just try to do my stuff on the court. Of course, I read the news, I knew it. But not too deep to think about it every day.”
Kevin Love is unlikely to sign a long-term deal with the Cavs due to the expected rise in the salary cap, writes Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal. Lloyd speculates that he might only sign a short-term deal, similar to what LeBron James signed this offseason, in order to maximize the benefit of the potential rising salary cap. Love could simply exercise his player option worth $16.7MM for next season to get the same effect; however, if he signs a new deal, he will likely get a raise on that figure, although that is just my speculation.
Despite struggling to live up to expectations this season, the Cavs are not panicking, writes Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. “We know that things are going to work out,” Love said. “I know that we have a lot of talent here, guys who can do a lot of different things, so I tend to look at that more than the negative stuff.” Love hasn’t played well this year by his standards. His player efficiency rating is 19.1, down from 26.9 last season and his scoring has fallen by 8.4 points per game.

Arthur Hill contributed to this post

Fallout From Cavs-Thunder-Knicks Trade

January 6th, 2015 at 8:59am CST by Chuck Myron

Monday night’s three-team trade brought about significant changes to a title contender in each conference and was seemingly a signal that the Knicks are focused more on the future than the present. We’ll look at the ripple effects of the move as they’re felt in Cleveland, Oklahoma City, and New York.

The Knicks plan to waive two of the three players they acquired in the trade, and Lance Thomas is the most likely among that trio to be kept, tweets Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com. The Knicks would look to fill the open roster spots that would create, coach Derek Fisher said, according to Newsday’s Al Iannazzone. “I don’t think this in any way signals the end of our transition process,” Fisher said. “I think our front office will continue to look at what we can do to replace a couple of these guys, but also how we’re going to build our roster going forward in the short term and the long term. I think Phil [Jackson] is continuing to look at how we transition as we change the culture of the New York Knicks.”
The Cavs kept LeBron James informed about the move, and he understands it as a transaction necessary for the team, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group hears. The relationship between James and J.R. Smith, who’s spent summers training with James in the past, is solid, Haynes also reports.
Kevin Durant is excited about the addition of Dion Waiters to the Thunder and said that he doesn’t think the shooting guard has felt “wanted” the past couple of years, notes Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman (Twitter link). Durant is intent on changing that. “I’m not saying he’s James [Harden]‘s replacement, we’re far past that,” Durant said. “But yeah, he can play, can come off the bench for us and score and make plays. He’s a really good player, man. A lot of people take him for granted, I think. Because he’s been around and you hear different things about him that’s not true. But he can play basketball. So he just needs to come out here and be himself, be aggressive and make plays.”

And-Ones: LeBron, Thunder, Fisher

January 1st, 2015 at 10:03pm CST by Eddie Scarito

LeBron James is expected to miss the next two weeks of action thanks to injuries to his back and left knee, the Cavaliers have announced. Coupled with the season-ending injury to Anderson Varejao, Cleveland suddenly finds itself a bit short-handed. The league has approved the franchise’s request for a disabled player exception, but with the league maximum 15 players already on their roster the Cavs would need to waive or deal a player to be able to utilize it.

Here’s more from around the league:

The Thunder are edging closer toward the summer of 2016, which is when Kevin Durant can elect to depart Oklahoma City as a free agent, and the speculation is that it will take an NBA title to keep him in town beyond then. The team’s play as of late has gotten it back on track for the season after enduring a multitude of injuries, Jeff Caplan of FOX Sports Southwest writes. “I’m excited. Obviously we need everybody healthy,” coach Scott Brooks said. “But I like the fact that our guys compete regardless of who’s on the floor. They get out there and compete. We haven’t had as many wins as we would like, but we’re competing every night. We put ourselves in a position to win games and we have a no-excuse mentality.”
Derek Fisher said that the Lakers never reached out to him after last season, and the Knicks were the only offer he had to become a head coach, Marc Berman of The New York Post writes. “I never had any conversations with the Lakers of coaching the team,’’ Fisher said. “This was the only one. It doesn’t disappoint me in any way. I never pretended to run the Lakers or make decisions for them. I did the best I could when I played. They don’t owe me anything. I don’t owe them anything.’
Brandon Jennings has emerged as a leader since the Pistons released Josh Smith, Brendan Savage of MLive.com writes. “Brandon has noticeably gotten back to probably what is his natural personality,” coach Stan Van Gundy said. “He’s really having fun. He’s talking a lot, joking with guys, things like that. I think he had been suffering. He hadn’t been playing real well, we hadn’t been winning. He had gotten really quiet.” There were conflicting reports regarding Detroit shopping the veteran point guard prior to Smith being released.
The Raptors have recalled Bruno Caboclo from the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the D-League, the team announced in a press release. This was Caboclo’s first D-League assignment of the season.

Eastern Notes: Cavaliers, Henson, Wade

January 1st, 2015 at 4:35pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Cavaliers have some roster flexibility after being granted a disabled player exception on Wednesday, and Nick Borges of ESPN.com [Insider subscription required] suggests a number of players it could be used to acquire. In recent weeks, there have been rumors linking the team to Timofey Mozgov of the Nuggets, Kosta Koufos of the Grizzlies and Robert Sacre of the Lakers. Borges also suggests Brandan Wright of the Celtics, Jerome Jordan of the Nets, Joel Anthony of the Pistons, Ekpe Udoh of the Clippers, Jeff Withey of the Pelicans, Cole Aldrich and Samuel Dalembert of the Knicks, Dewayne Dedmon of the Magic, Joel Freeland of the Blazers and Ryan Hollins of the Kings. The DPE gives Cleveland an extra $4,852,273 to use for a trade, free agent signing or waiver claim through March 10th.

There’s more from the Eastern Conference:

LeBron James understood what he was getting into when he opted to return to Cleveland, opines Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders. Kyler notes that James said “I’m not promising a championship” when he announced his decision in July. With a massively overturned roster and James’ problems with a sore back and aching knees, he was realistic about what his first season back with the Cavaliers might look like.
A rash of injuries has given the Bucks‘ John Henson a chance to show off his skills, writes Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. With Jabari Parker, Ersan Ilyasova and Larry Sanders out of action, Henson has responded with 10 blocks in his last two games. “He brings another dimension to our team and it’s not just defensively,” said teammate Kendall Marshall. “He’s very good offensively, making plays, being in the right spots at the right times.” Henson is under the Bucks’ control through the 2016/17 season.
Dwyane Wade gave up approximately $10MM in salary by opting out of his deal and then re-signing with the Heat, but despite Miami’s struggles this season it isn’t something he laments over, Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press writes. “I’ll be all right,” Wade said. “It cost me a lot. But it wasn’t ‘The Decision’ [James’ return to the Cavs] that cost me. It was my decision. I opted out for the better of the team, not for any individual. I opted out for the better of the team and it cost me some money. I’m not concerned about it. Not overly concerned, anyway.”

Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.