Michele Roberts Rumors | Hoops Rumors

And-Ones: Top Under-25 Players, Wade, EuroLeague, More

September 14th, 2022 at 10:37am CST by Luke Adams

Fifteen NBA executives polled by Michael Scotto of HoopsHype unanimously picked Mavericks star Luka Doncic as the NBA player under 25 years old whom they’d most want to build a team around. While Doncic’s selection comes as no surprise, there are some interesting picks further down Scotto’s list, which was derived from asking those 15 NBA execs to name the five players under 25 they’d most want to build around.

Celtics forward Jayson Tatum and Grizzlies guard Ja Morant ranked second and third, with Cavaliers big man Evan Mobley following them at No. 4. Former first overall picks Anthony Edwards (Timberwolves) and Zion Williamson (Pelicans) came in at Nos. 5 and 6, with last season’s Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes (Raptors) rounding out the top seven. You can check out Scotto’s full story to see the other seven rising stars who received votes.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

After spending three years in an analyst role with the network, Dwyane Wade won’t return to TNT for the 2022/23 NBA season, reports Andrew Marchand of The New York Post. According to Marchand, TNT made an offer to retain Wade, but he decided to leave his position to focus on other business ventures.
Euroleague Basketball has appointed Dejan Bodiroga as its new president and Marshall Glickman as acting CEO, per a press release. They’ll replace Jordi Bertomeu, who served as president and CEO for 22 years and was a co-founder of Euroleague Basketball, which operates and oversees the EuroLeague and EuroCup, two of the world’s biggest non-NBA basketball leagues.
Former NBA star Baron Davis and ex-NBPA executive director Michele Roberts are among the backers of the new Fan Controlled Hoops league, which is scheduled to launch in February of 2023, as Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic outlines. The league, which will follow in the footsteps of Fan Controlled Football, will feature 4-on-4 games played on an LED floor, with fans getting the opportunity to illuminate parts of the court to create zones where players get extra points when they score.

And-Ones: Exceptions, Trade Market, Dunn, Ferguson, Roberts

January 11th, 2022 at 9:00pm CST by Luke Adams

Teams that still have money remaining on their mid-level and bi-annual exceptions saw those exceptions begin to prorate downward by 1/174th per day on Monday, January 10, as Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets.

For instance, if a team still had $5MM of its mid-level exception on Monday, that amount has now begun to decrease by $28,736 per day. The daily reduction for the rest of the season is always determined based on the amount of the exception left on January 10. So even if that hypothetical team with $5MM of its mid-level remaining decided to use $2MM of it today, the leftover amount would continue to decrease by $28,736 per day going forward.

Many teams have either already used their mid-level and bi-annual exceptions or don’t intend to. However, this may affect certain teams that want to pursue players on the buyout market or plan to convert players from two-way contracts to standard deals later in the season.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

In an Insider-only story for ESPN, Marks has shared his annual trade deadline guide, providing an in-depth look at what to watch for all 30 teams, including each club’s cap and tax situation, trade restrictions, and top trade candidates.
After signing NBA G League contracts, two former first-round picks have new teams. Guard Kris Dunn has joined the Clippers‘ affiliate, the Agua Caliente Clippers of Ontario, while Terrance Ferguson will be a member of the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the Rockets‘ affiliate (Twitter links via Marc Stein).
Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic spoke to outgoing NBPA executive director Michele Roberts about her tenure with the players’ union, her retirement, the upcoming CBA negotiations between the league and the union, and several more topics. Tamika Tremaglio took the reins as the NBPA’s new executive director on Monday.

Sixers Notes: Roberts, Simmons, Morey, Embiid

October 23rd, 2021 at 6:24pm CST by Arthur Hill

NBPA executive director Michele Roberts is defending Ben Simmons against accusations that he might be claiming psychological issues as an excuse to avoid playing, writes Liz Roscher of Yahoo Sports. Simmons told his Sixers teammates and coach Doc Rivers on Friday that’s he’s not mentally ready to start playing for the team again. That prompted skeptics to question Simmons’ motives since he claimed a medical issue with back tightness earlier this week.

Roberts threw her support behind Simmons and blasted Philadelphia president of basketball operations Daryl Morey for suggesting that it could take a long time to find an acceptable trade, possibly even the four years that Simmons has left on his contract.

“Really? Is it so hard to believe that Ben’s not mentally at a place to compete? Professional athletes — like the rest of us — have difficult periods in our lives that require time and energy to heal,” Roberts said. “We have and will continue to provide Ben with the support and resources he needs to work through this. Threatening the prospect of ‘another four years’ serves no one’s interests. Like Tobias (Harris), I say let’s respect Ben’s space and embrace him while allowing him the time to move forward. So, take a breath and count to 10: We are all too good to continue to play this perpetual game of chicken.”

There’s more from Philadelphia:

Morey has called around the league in an effort to work out a trade for Simmons, but he hasn’t contacted the Nets to inquire about Kyrie Irving, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said Friday on “NBA Countdown” (video link). Woj adds that Brooklyn GM Sean Marks has accepted calls about Irving, but he hasn’t reached out to other teams about the star guard, who is inactive because of vaccination issues.
At a team meeting on Friday, Joel Embiid asked Simmons why he wants to be traded, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. Simmons responded that he isn’t feeling like himself mentally and needs some time away from the team. Harris and other team leaders expressed support for Simmons, sources tell Charania.
Soreness in his right knee is already an issue for Embiid, per Tim Bontemps and Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. Embiid was having trouble moving on Friday after a collision in the season opener, but he intends to continue playing if the pain doesn’t get worse. “I mean, after last game, that was a pretty good hit by the big fella, but we’ll see how it feels tomorrow, but I’m not planning on sitting,” he said. “I want to keep playing as long as there’s not any big damage on it.”

NBPA’s Roberts: Players Who Miss Games Due To Local Vaccine Mandates Shouldn’t Lose Salary

October 6th, 2021 at 12:52pm CST by Luke Adams

The National Basketball Players Association didn’t sign off on allowing teams to dock players 1/91.6th of their salaries for 2021/22 if they’re unable to play in a game due to a local vaccine mandate, NBPA executive director Michele Roberts tells Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News.

The NBA announced last week that unvaccinated players who are ineligible to play in games in New York and San Francisco wouldn’t be paid for the games they miss due to those cities’ local mandates. A follow-up report indicated that the league and the players’ union had agreed on the amount of the fine for such a violation.

However, Roberts tells Bondy that while the NBPA approved that per-game penalty (1/91.6th of a player’s salary) for certain health and safety protocol violations, the union doesn’t believe it should apply to players who miss games solely for being unvaccinated.

“They’ve been reporting that we’ve agreed that if a player who was not able to play because of his non-vaccination status, they could be docked (pay),” Roberts said. “We did not agree. The league’s position is that they can. We’ll see. If we get to that point, we’ll see.”

As Roberts explains, the NBPA’s position is that a player shouldn’t be punished for being unvaccinated, since the NBA has no vaccine mandate of its own for its players. The league’s stance, per Roberts, is that the Collective Bargaining Agreement allows teams to assess those penalties without NBPA approval.

“It’s debatable. We’ll see,” Roberts said. “I’m not going to say it’s impossible, but I’m going to say it’s a bridge we’ll cross, if and when we get there. Right now, we’ve agreed that a player breaks protocols, that he can be disciplined to include some taxing of his comp. But not being vaccinated — because it’s not mandatory — in and of itself should not lead to any discipline.”

As far as we know, the only NBA player who is in real danger of being docked salary for missing games due to his vaccination status is Nets guard Kyrie Irving. The local mandates in New York and San Francisco don’t apply to visiting players, and no other Nets, Knicks, or Warriors players have been reported as unvaccinated. An unvaccinated player in another market – such as Wizards guard Bradley Beal – should still be able to play in all 82 games.

While Irving, Beal, and a handful of other unvaccinated players have been the subject of an outsized number of headlines since training camps began, Roberts reiterated that the vast majority of NBA players are fully vaccinated. She told Kavitha Davidson of The Athletic (Twitter link) that there’s now a 96% vaccination rate among NBA players, noting that vaccinated players have played a role in helping convince some of the holdouts.

“We’re doing better than companies who are mandatory vaccinations because we’re at 95-96%,” Roberts said to Bondy. “100% is still an aspiration.”

Tamika Tremaglio Chosen To Succeed Roberts As NBPA Exec. Director

September 22nd, 2021 at 6:49pm CST by Dana Gauruder

6:49pm: The NBPA confirms the hiring of Tremaglio in a press release, adding that Roberts will retire at the end of the year.

McCollum said of the new executive director: “Tamika has been by our side for many years, advising us on the best practices and policies needed for our organization to operate more like a successful business. Given Michele’s strong leadership and guidance that have brought us to where we are today, we were looking for a next-generation leader, who has the skills, vision, and credibility to pick up where Michele will leave off and to elevate our Union to even greater heights. Tamika’s well-rounded experience in collective bargaining, staff management, revenue creation, wealth preservation and culture building, undoubtedly will put our players in the best position to succeed.”

6:25pm: Deloitte lawyer Tamika Tremaglio has been chosen as the NBA Players Association’s new executive director, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN tweets.

Substack’s Marc Stein was first to report that Tremaglio had emerged as a leading candidate (Twitter link).

The Players Association has searched for months for a successor to Michele Roberts, who announced this summer she was retiring from her post.

Tremaglio is retiring as the Managing Principal of Deloitte’s Greater Washington practice to become the full-time director of the NBPA, Wojnarowski adds in another tweet. She has familiarity with the role she’ll be taking — she’s been a consultant for the league’s union for the past nine years.

This is the first significant decision made the Players’ Association since Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum became president. The current collective bargaining agreement runs through the 2023/24 and Tremaglio will now take the lead in negotiating the next CBA.

Stein’s Latest: Simmons, Sixers, NBPA Executive Director

September 21st, 2021 at 4:00pm CST by Luke Adams

The structure of Ben Simmons‘ contract may embolden him in his plans to hold out from the Sixers, Marc Stein of Substack writes in his latest newsletter. As Stein explains, Simmons received 25% of his 2021/22 salary on August 1 and will receive another 25% on October 1, meaning he’ll already have earned half of his $33MM salary for the season by the time the preseason starts.

League rules permit the Sixers to assess substantial fines for each game he misses during his holdout (approximately $228K per game), but Stein suggests those fines won’t be docked from Simmons’ pay until November, after the first pay period of the regular season. If Simmons was on a more traditional payment schedule, those fines would be more costly, but it will take a while for them to put a dent into the $16.5MM he’ll already have earned this season.

Here’s more from Stein:

Don’t expect the Sixers and Simmons to follow the blueprint that Al Horford and the Thunder or John Wall and the Rockets have, according to Stein. While those rebuilding teams were comfortable holding out their veteran players until they found a suitable trade partner, the 76ers continue to try to convince Simmons to report to training camp and have “zero interest” in reaching a mutual agreement to allow the three-time All-Star to remain away from the team, says Stein.
According to Stein, many of the teams that have engaged the Sixers in Simmons trade talks – including the Timberwolves, Raptors, Spurs, Cavaliers, and Kings – typically aren’t major players in free agency, and like the idea of securing a young impact player who is under contract for four years. However, most of those teams don’t have stars that would interest Philadelphia, or have made them unavailable in trade negotiations (such as the Wolves with Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, or the Kings with De’Aaron Fox).
The NBPA has enlisted Chicago-based search firm Heidrick & Struggles to help seek out a new executive director to replace Michele Roberts, according to Stein, who says that “well-placed observers” believe Roberts’ replacement could be an unexpected selection who hasn’t yet been publicly identified.
Stein, who previously named Malik Rose as a candidate to become the NBPA’s executive director, suggests Noah Croom, Arne Duncan, Nichole Francis Reynolds, Pat Garrity, and Mark Termini are other viable contenders for the job. Croom and Garrity are veteran team executives, Termini is a longtime player agent, and Duncan and Reynolds work outside of the NBA in education/politics and business, respectively.

And-Ones: Rose, Roberts, Thunder’s Arena, Free Agents, Silver

July 16th, 2021 at 9:45pm CST by Dana Gauruder

NBA VP of basketball operations Malik Rose is a candidate to succeed Michele Roberts as executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, Marc Stein of Substack tweets. Roberts recently told Yahoo Sports’ Vincent Goodwill she planned to stay at her post for “another six or so months.” Rose was an assistant GM with the Pistons for two seasons prior to accepting his current post last June.

We have more from around the basketball world:

A new name for the Thunder‘s arena will be revealed as soon as next week, Steve Lackmeyer of The Oklahoman writes. Signage for the Chesapeake Energy Arena was removed on Thursday. The team has a naming rights deal in place, pending approval of its application from the Downtown Design Review Committee.
Kawhi Leonard, Chris Paul and John Collins are the top three potential free agents, according to a ranking system used by The Athletic’s John Hollinger. The top 20 free agents are ranked, with Hollinger projecting potential contracts offers for those players.
The challenges over the past two seasons created by the virus have been immense but NBA commissioner Adam Silver hopes it has brought a better understanding between management and players, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. “That sense of unity, I hope we can keep up,” Silver said. “I think the players have a better understanding of what we’re up against in trying to run this business, and we have a better understanding of the players — what it’s like to travel the amount they do, the stresses they’re under, the emotional and physical burdens they’re under by competing at this level.”

And-Ones: NBPA, V. Baker, Hervey, Okobo, NBA Parity

July 10th, 2021 at 2:15pm CST by Eli Cohen

In an interview with Yahoo Sports’ Vincent Goodwill, National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts spoke about why she considers this season a success, what role she plays in the union’s decision-making process, and the criticisms some players, including LeBron James, have vocalized about the shortened offseason heading into this year.

“The recommendation to start in December came from the league,” Roberts said. “So the big ask was, could we start the games in December? And the answer was not yes from Michele. The decision to play or not to play comes from the players.”

As far as the criticisms from James, and others who may agree with him, Roberts’ reinforced her support for players voicing dissenting opinions. “I don’t have a problem with players that articulate their opposition to decisions that were made,” she said. “That’s their absolute right. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

We have more news from around the basketball community:

Dan Woike of The Los Angeles Times writes about Bucks‘ assistant coach Vin Baker‘s rise as an NBA star, his battles with alcoholism – which included him drinking Bacardi Limón from a water bottle during games – and his eventual recovery and progression back to the world of the NBA. “This was an opportunity that was afforded to me not to screw up,” Baker said. “It’s not about me. Like it’s not about ‘I made it. I’m a coach of the Bucks.’ It’s about there’s somebody watching.”
Virtus Bologna has signed Kevin Hervey to a two-year deal, tweets Donatas Urbonas, a Lithuania-based reporter. The deal for the former Thunder second-round pick had been reported to be in the works in recent weeks.
Elie Okobo, the 31st pick in the 2018 draft, has signed with ASVEL Basket in France, reports Dario Skerletic of Sportando. Okobo will join former NBA players Norris Cole and Guerschon Yabusele, as well as top 2023 prospect Victor Wembanyama.
The “Parity Era” in the NBA may be here, writes Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. “I see this as, hopefully, the end of a transition for the league,” Reynolds quotes commissioner Adam Silver as saying. “Not just post-COVID, but just by virtue of the teams that we saw in the conference finals, a real transition in terms of the league of the up-and-coming new stars, up-and-coming franchises, more parity throughout the league.” Whether that’s the case or whether injuries played more of a role in the playoffs shaping up the way they did remains to be seen.

COVID-19 Roundup: Silver, Vaccine, Restrictions, Flights, Postponements

January 19th, 2021 at 7:36pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The NBA has held discussions about players receiving COVID-19 vaccines in order to influence the general public, and the African-American community in particular, to do the same, Brian Windhorst of ESPN reports. Commissioner Adam Silver hopes the league can set an example and foster the belief that the vaccines are safe and effective.

“Several public health officials — and this is operating state by state right now — have suggested there would be a real public health benefit to getting some very high-profile African Americans vaccinated to demonstrate to the larger community that it is safe and effective,” Silver said.

Right now, NBA athletes are not eligible to receive the vaccines until they become more widely available. It has been suggested that players could volunteer at public distribution centers and receive the vaccine in that setting while encouraging the public to follow suit. Michele Roberts, the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, has said that numerous players are hesitant about getting the vaccine.

We have more COVID-19 related news:

There’s been a mixed reaction to the recently-tightened health and safety protocols, according to Sean Highkin of Bleacher Report. Some players and coaches are resistant to the notion of having little to no contact with the outside world. Others say they have little choice. “If we don’t accept that that’s the way it has to be, we lose out on a lot of things. Our season, our health, our contracts, everything goes downhill if we don’t play by these rules,” Suns coach Monty Williams said.
In the same article, Highkin noted that 28 of the NBA’s 30 teams have a partnership with Delta Airlines, which has not mandated that its flight crews get tested for COVID-19 despite lobbying from the league’s medical leadership. Delta crew members must wear masks and can’t come within six feet of any NBA personnel, but several teams still refuse to eat on team planes.
The league is determined to continue playing despite a rash of postponements due to virus-related issues, Chris Hine of the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes. An unnamed Western Conference executive told ESPN’s Baxter Holmes that resistance to playing in another bubble-like environment made these issues inevitable. “Nobody wanting to go back to a long bubble period of play has put us in this position,” he said. “It is doable but sub-optimal.”

NBA Officially Suspends Random Marijuana Testing For 2020/21

December 4th, 2020 at 12:08pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBA has officially suspended random marijuana testing for the 2020/21 season, tweets Marc Stein of The New York Times.

Ben Dowsett first reported on Thursday that the league would continue to forgo those tests after scrapping them for the summer restart in Orlando. The NBA will only conduct “with cause” tests this season, sources tell Dowsett.

“Due to the unusual circumstances in conjunction with the pandemic, we have agreed with the NBPA to suspend random testing for marijuana for the 2020/21 season and focus our random testing program on performance-enhancing products and drugs of abuse,” league spokesperson Mike Bass said in a statement (Twitter link via Stein).

Although the coronavirus pandemic is being cited as the motivating factor for eliminating random marijuana tests in 2020/21, there’s no guarantee that the program will ever return in its previous form. As Dowsett writes in a feature for GQ.com, with the non-medical use of cannabis being decriminalized and legalized in more and more states, NBPA executive director Michele Roberts would like to see the testing program eventually removed from the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.

“I am absolutely confident (that) by next season – at the absolute latest by the time the next CBA is negotiated – this is going to be old news,” Roberts said of the NBA’s random marijuana testing.