Patrick Beverley Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Northwest Notes: Morris, MPJ, Powell, Beverley

October 1st, 2021 at 12:42pm CST by Luke Adams

The Nuggets haven’t made it official yet, but it certainly appears that Monte Morris is on track to claim a spot in the team’s starting lineup while Jamal Murray recovers from ACL surgery. As Mike Singer of The Denver Post writes, head coach Michael Malone said this week that he’s “extremely confident” in Morris’ ability and wants the 26-year-old point guard to get comfortable running the first-team offense.

“It’s just a matter of (Morris) playing with aggression and confidence, playing with that attack mindset and being more vocal on the floor to run his team,” Malone said. “And that’s not easy, especially when you’re playing with the reigning MVP. And I tell him sometimes, ‘Hey, tell Nikola (Jokic) where you want him.’ I say, ‘That’s your job as a point guard,’ and I think he’s embracing that.”

There’s no set timeline for Murray’s return, and it seems unlikely that we’ll see him back on the court until at least the spring, so assuming Morris is named the Nuggets’ starting point guard, it’s a job he could hang onto all season.

Here’s more from around the Northwest:

ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Instagram video) provides some more details on how Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. can bump the $12MM partial guarantee on the fifth year of his new contract extension to a full $39.3MM guarantee. Porter could get that full guarantee if he earns two All-Stars berths or a single All-NBA or All-Defense nod before then. He’d also get the full fifth-year amount if Denver wins a title and he meets certain games-played thresholds during that season.
After initially arriving in Portland with less than two months left in the 2021/22 season, Norman Powell said this week that life with the Trail Blazers is “starting to feel natural and normal to me,” per Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian. Like some of his teammates, Powell is excited about how new head coach Chauncey Billups plans to use him. “It’s only the first two days but I’m definitely feeling included on the offensive side of the ball,” Powell said.
New Timberwolves guard Patrick Beverley said on Thursday that when he and the Clippers couldn’t agree on an extension this summer, the team asked him where else he might like to play and he put Minnesota “in my top three, my top two I believe” (link via Chris Hine of The Star Tribune). While it’s a little hard to believe Beverley was so bullish on the idea of joining a small-market team that has made the postseason just once since 2004, he expressed enthusiasm this week about being a mentor to the Wolves’ young guards and bringing some “intensity” to the team.

Details On Timberwolves’ Dismissal Of Gersson Rosas

September 23rd, 2021 at 8:18am CST by Luke Adams

The Timberwolves‘ dismissal of president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas was made for “performance reasons,” a high-ranking team source told Jon Krawczynski and Shams Charania of The Athletic. The team’s lack of success during Rosas’ tenure was a key factor in the decision, and complaints from staffers about Rosas’ leadership also played a part, per The Athletic’s duo.

However, another issue that factored into the timing of the move was the fact that the Wolves recently learned that Rosas – who is married – had a “consensual intimate relationship” with a member of the organization, according to Krawczysnki and Charania, who suggest that the relationship made several people within the franchise uncomfortable.

The Athletic’s deep dive into the situation in Minnesota’s front office uncovered sources who said Rosas worked his staffers long hours without giving them much input into personnel decisions. Some members of the front office took issue with those decisions, such as the one to include such light protections (top-three) on the first-round pick the Wolves sent Golden State in the D’Angelo Russell trade.

Rosas did have backers within the organization, including some who reached out to The Athletic in recent weeks to defend the way things were going, per Krawczynski and Charania. Some of Rosas’ defenders believe the pandemic and the change of ownership were factors that contributed to tension in the front office, while Rosas himself “vehemently disputed” that there were any significant problems with the team’s culture.

Still, many of The Athletic’s sources described Rosas’ tenure as dysfunctional, and when those complaints reached ownership, Glen Taylor, Alex Rodriguez, and Marc Lore decided the situation was untenable and a move needed to be made sooner rather than later.

“It’s hard,” said one staffer who followed Rosas to Minnesota after he was hired in 2019. “He’s not who I thought he was.”

The report from Krawczynski and Charania is worth checking out in full if you’re an Athletic subscriber. Here are some of the other highlights:

New interim head of basketball operations Sachin Gupta is well-regarded by team officials and is expected to get a chance to earn the permanent job, sources tell The Athletic. However, Krawczynski and Charania note that Gupta did “butt heads” with Rosas this summer when Gupta sought to make a lateral move to the Rockets for a similar job with higher pay, and Rosas blocked him. Rosas defended the decision by saying that the move wouldn’t have been a promotion, and it was too close to the draft and free agency to let a top executive with so much knowledge of Minnesota’s plans leave to join a rival. According to The Athletic, Rosas “banished” Gupta from the team’s offices in August and allowed him to seek employment elsewhere at that point, but Gupta decided to stay with the Wolves after ownership got involved.
Some player agents had issues with Rosas’ negotiating tactics, according to Krawczynski and Charania, who point to the team’s recent contract talks with Jordan McLaughlin as one example. A source tells The Athletic that Rosas reneged on promises about the role McLaughlin would have going forward after Patrick Beverley was acquired. Although agents recognized Rosas’ primary allegiance was to the organization, they expected better treatment in certain scenarios, according to The Athletic’s duo. “Rosas was the cause of mishaps and pulled his promises,” the source said of the McLaughlin negotiations.
Rosas’ decision to replace head coach Ryan Saunders with Chris Finch during the season without considering any other candidates – including minority candidates – wasn’t popular with some staffers, and neither was the decision to part with veteran scout Zarko Durisic last year, per Krawczysnki and Charania. Some people believed those moves flew in the face of Rosas’ portrayal of the organization as a “family.”
Krawczynski and Charania say Rosas was “working feverishly” this offseason to try to acquire Ben Simmons, who was viewed by some people in the organization as the roster’s missing piece. It’s unclear if Gupta will have the same level of interest in the Sixers star.
A report from Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report confirms and adds some details to many of the issues reported by The Athletic, including the recent discovery of Rosas’ “consensual extramarital affair” with a team staffer.

Northwest Notes: Beverley, Billups, Brase, Thunder

September 15th, 2021 at 9:00pm CST by Arthur Hill

Patrick Beverley hasn’t missed the playoffs since his NBA career began in 2012, and he’s determined to keep his postseason streak alive in his first season with the Timberwolves, writes Chris Hine of The Star-Tribune. Beverley was traded from the Clippers to the Grizzlies and then from Memphis to Minnesota this summer, winding up with an organization that only been to the playoffs one time since 2004.

“My biggest focus is seeing how locked in we can be each and every night consistently, over a preseason, a season and eventually if we’re doing the right things getting to the playoffs,” Beverley said today during his introductory press conference. “Basketball is basketball. That won’t change. But everything else in the middle, I think you can control that to put yourself in a position to win a lot of games.”

Team president Gersson Rosas sees Beverley as a player who “can change the whole defense,” which will be a priority for a Wolves team that was 28th in defensive rating last season. Beverley will also be a veteran leader on a team filled with young players.

“Understand what’s going on. Understand positioning. Understand spacing. Understand timing and once you understand those things, you’re a student of the game and then you’re able to become a teacher,” Beverley said. “When … you’re able to teach the defense or teach that position, you put yourself in the position to be successful defensively.”

There’s more from the Northwest Division:

Tutoring sessions with Tyronn Lue during last year’s COVID-19 hiatus convinced Chauncey Billups to try coaching, according to Jason Quick of The Athletic. Billups, who was an announcer for the Clippers at the time, learned the game from a different perspective during that makeshift coaching camp, which routinely lasted four to five hours a day. Billups spent a season as an assistant with L.A. before being hired as head coach of the Trail Blazers this summer.
Matt Brase is the newest addition to Billups’ staff with the Trail Blazers, per Michael Scotto of Hoops Hype. Brase was an assistant to Mike D’Antoni in Houston from 2018-20.
The Thunder and their G League affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blue, will share the Paycom Center as their home arena this season, writes Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman. They are scheduled to play home games on the same day 15 times.

Wolves Notes: Edwards, Beverley, Simmons, Harding

September 1st, 2021 at 8:58pm CST by Arthur Hill

Anthony Edwards has grown two inches in the past year and it may affect the way the Timberwolves use him, writes Chris Hine of The Star Tribune. Edwards, who finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting, was 6’4″ when Minnesota selected him with the top pick in the 2020 draft. He’s now 6’6″ and may be even more versatile than he was last season.

Edwards averaged 4.7 rebounds per game as a rookie, but Hine notes that figure increased to 5.4 over the final 20 games as the Wolves asked him to put more emphasis on attacking the backboards. Coach Chris Finch is now considering using Edwards as a power forward in smaller lineups.

“He’s an extremely unique player and has all this raw ability, but he’s very literal when you coach him. Like I say to him, ‘I need you to go out and do X,’ he’ll do it,” Finch said. “We discovered in the last part of the season (when I’d tell him), ‘I need you to get seven rebounds tonight.’ We gave him goals almost every game or every period of time, so you give him stuff to focus on and he went out and did that.”

There’s more from Minnesota:

Finch is looking forward to reuniting with Patrick Beverley, whom he coached several years ago as an assistant with the Rockets, Hine adds. Finch expects Beverley, who was acquired in a trade with the Grizzlies, to serve as a leader on defense. “He’s going to bring a lot of toughness, tenacious defense,” Finch said. “It gives our defense a bit of a personality. Defenses are always best when they start on the ball with the type of approach and aggressiveness he brings. I think one of the most encouraging things about bringing Patrick here is not how excited we are he’s coming, but he’s really excited. He knows he’s exactly the type of piece we need.”
Beverley appears to be on board with the Wolves’ pursuit of Ben Simmons. Responding to a tweet from NBA writer Ben Stinar suggesting that Simmons, Edwards, D’Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns would be a contender in the West, Beverley wrote “Facts” (Twitter link). Of course, as Stan Van Gundy noted in a reply to Stinar’s tweet, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Minnesota could land Simmons without giving up any of those three players.
Before hiring Elston Turner as an assistant on Finch’s staff, Minnesota considered Kings player development coach Lindsey Harding, tweets Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News. Harding began her WNBA career with the Minnesota Lynx.

Grizzlies Trade Beverley To Wolves For Culver, Hernangomez

August 25th, 2021 at 1:42pm CST by Luke Adams

AUGUST 25: Over a week after agreeing to terms, the Grizzlies and Timberwolves have completed their trade, according to press releases sent out by both teams. Memphis waived Sean McDermott in order to make room on the 20-man roster for the extra incoming player.

AUGUST 17: A day after acquiring him from the Clippers, the Grizzlies have lined up a deal to flip veteran guard Patrick Beverley to the Timberwolves, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).

According to Wojnarowski, Memphis will receive wing Jarrett Culver and forward Juan Hernangomez from Minnesota in the trade.

As Wojnarowski observes (via Twitter), Timberwolves president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas worked in the Rockets’ front office when Beverley was in Houston and appreciates the toughness and leadership he can bring to a young team. Minnesota lost some point guard depth when the team shipped Ricky Rubio to Cleveland, so Beverley will help fortify that position.

Beverley, 33, averaged 7.5 PPG, 3.2 RPG, and 2.1 APG on .423/.397/.800 shooting in 37 games (22.5 MPG) for the Clippers in 2020/21 and is considered a strong perimeter defender.

Moving Hernangomez will reduce the Wolves’ options at an already-thin power forward spot, but it may have been a necessary move. There was reportedly tension between the player and the team after Minnesota’s medical staff prevented the 25-year-old from representing Spain at the Tokyo Olympics last month due to a shoulder injury.

Culver, meanwhile, was the No. 6 overall pick in the 2019 draft. One of Rosas’ first moves after being hired by the Wolves was to trade Dario Saric and the No. 11 pick (Cameron Johnson) in order to move up for Culver, but he struggled during his first two years in the NBA, putting up a modest 7.8 PPG and 3.3 RPG on .406/.288/.503 shooting in 97 total games (20.7 MPG).

After taking on some extra 2021/22 money in their trade with the Clippers, the Grizzlies will reduce this year’s team salary a little in this deal — the combined salaries for Culver ($6.4MM) and Hernangomez ($6.9MM) come in slightly lower than Beverley’s cap hit ($14.32MM). Neither player is owed any guaranteed money in 2022/23 yet either, though Culver has an $8.11MM team option and Hernangomez has a $7.42MM non-guaranteed salary.

It’s unclear how Culver and Hernangomez fit into Memphis’ plans. The deal certainly doesn’t help the Grizzlies’ roster crunch — they already had 17 players on guaranteed contracts before swapping out Beverley for two new players, and will actually have to waive someone from their 20-man roster in order to complete the one-for-two trade.

There are likely more moves to come for the Grizzlies, so we’ll have to wait to see what they have in mind for Culver and Hernangomez, but it’s worth noting that Culver is still just 22 years old — the club may seem some untapped potential there. Memphis will have to make a decision on his $8.1MM option for 2022/23 this fall.

Wolves Notes: Beverley Trade, Free Agency, Beasley

August 17th, 2021 at 5:00pm CST by Eli Cohen

In his latest piece for The Athletic, Jon Krawczynski writes that for the Timberwolves, trading Juan Hernangomez and Jarrett Culver was not just about adding a veteran defender and shooter in Patrick Beverley, but also about dealing two players who were looking for a change of scenery to get their careers back on track.

According to Krawczynski, Culver grew disenfranchised with the Wolves as he fell further and further out of the rotation in 2020/21, which caused him at times to seem to lose all confidence in himself. Hernangomez wanted out from the team that barred his participation in the Olympics due to a shoulder injury that Spanish doctors had cleared him from, and even went so far as to reach out to team owner Glen Taylor to attempt to circumvent the decision of president Gersson Rosas.

Krawczynski adds that Rosas has a relationship with Beverley going back to his time in with the Rockets, the team that originally brought the defensive-minded point guard over from Europe and got his NBA career on track.

We have more Timberwolves news:

Krawczysnki suggests that adding a little extra money in the Beverley deal will further complicate the Wolves’ efforts to sign restricted free agents Jarred Vanderbilt and Jordan McLaughlin to multiyear deals. He expects Vanderbilt to receive a multiyear contract, while the team uses te minimum salary exception to add another point guard, either McLaughlin or someone else.
Trading Culver is a concession by Rosas that the first draft pick of his tenure, a pick he traded Dario Saric and the 11th pick to acquire, was a failure, writes Michael Rand of The Star Tribune. The idea, Rand writes, was for Culver to provide a similar skill-set Beverley will now be counted on for: to play hard-nosed defense and knock down threes. Rand adds that, on his expiring salary, Beverley could be a good trade chip if the team is underperforming at the trade deadline.
Darren Wolfson of SKOR North tweets that he’s been told Beverley is “very happy” with the trade to the Wolves. Beverley, no stranger to fighting for his place in the league, has had a tumultuous couple days, and while no longer on a championship contender, he has a chance to play a vital role for an up-and-coming team.
Malik Beasley has been released from jail after serving 78 days for pleading guilty to threats of violence, writes Jeff Day of The Star Tribune. Beasley was sentenced to 120 days, and was released after 78 for good behavior. If he completes his three years of probation, the charge will be dropped from felony to misdemeanor.

Grizzlies Trade Bledsoe To Clippers For Beverley, Rondo, Oturu

August 16th, 2021 at 12:21pm CST by Luke Adams

AUGUST 16: The Grizzlies and Clippers have put out press releases officially announcing the trade.

AUGUST 15: The Grizzlies and Clippers have agree to a trade that will send veteran point guard Eric Bledsoe back to Los Angeles in exchange for Patrick Beverley, Rajon Rondo, and Daniel Oturu, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).

Bledsoe, who began his NBA career with the Clippers back in 2010, was traded from New Orleans to Memphis earlier in the offseason as part of a salary-dump deal that also sent Steven Adams to the Grizzlies. A report at the time of the agreement indicated that Bledsoe was unlikely to remain in Memphis, though it was unclear if the plan was to trade him or buy him out.

This trade, a three-for-one swap, will help generate some roster flexibility for a Clippers team that had been carrying 16 players on fully guaranteed contracts. Los Angeles will now have 14 players on guaranteed deals, plus Yogi Ferrell on a non-guaranteed salary.

Swapping out Beverley ($14.32MM), Rondo ($8.25MM), and Oturu ($1.52MM) for Bledsoe ($18.13MM) will also save the Clippers some money on a tax bill that was projected to be worth $125MM. According to ESPN’s Bobby Marks (via Twitter), that projection will dip to about $95MM.

The three outgoing players are all on expiring contracts, while Bledsoe is on a pseudo-expiring deal — his $19.38MM salary for 2022/23 is only partially guaranteed for $3.9MM. Because only Beverley and Oturu are required for salary-matching purposes, L.A. will generate a trade exception worth Rondo’s $8.25MM salary, Marks notes.

Although the Clippers will sacrifice a little depth in the trade, Bledsoe is a bounce-back candidate who could conceivably provide the club with some of the play-making and defense lost by moving Beverley and Rondo. Bledsoe had a down year with the Pelicans in 2020/21, but he averaged 5.5 assists per game during his time in Milwaukee from 2018-20 and earned All-Defensive nods in both seasons.

The Grizzlies, meanwhile, save a little 2022/23 money in the deal while taking on some extra salary for ’21/22. Memphis is now facing a roster crunch of its own, with 17 players on fully guaranteed contracts.

According to Wojnarowsi (Twitter link), the Grizzlies will be “open-minded” in weighing additional roster moves involving Beverley, Rondo, and/or Oturu and will likely consider flipping one or more of them in separate deals.

Memphis is already relatively deep at the point guard spot, with Tyus Jones backing up Ja Morant and De’Anthony Melton also capable of playing the position. As such, it’s hard to imagine both Beverley and Rondo starting the season with the club.

Because they’re on smaller expiring deals, Beverley and Rondo should be easier for the Grizzlies to move in subsequent trades than Bledsoe was. The move to turn one bigger contract into multiple smaller ones is somewhat reminiscent of a trade the team completed during the 2019 offseason, sending out Chandler Parsons‘ oversized expiring deal for Solomon Hill and Miles Plumlee, who were each earning about half of what Parsons was.

Scotto’s Latest: Beverley, Mann, L. Williams, Wizards

July 7th, 2021 at 11:58am CST by Luke Adams

Veteran guard Patrick Beverley is open to signing a contract extension with the Clippers, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype said on the latest episode of the HoopsHype podcast alongside Yossi Gozlan.

Beverley, who will earn $14.3MM in the final year of his current contract in 2021/22, loves playing in Los Angeles with the Clippers, according to Scotto, who says the former Arkansas standout is a “big fan” of team owner Steve Ballmer. The team will have to determine this offseason how it plans to handle the point guard position, including Beverley’s and Rajon Rondo‘s expiring contracts.

Here’s more from Scotto:

Terance Mann is another key Clippers guard who is eligible for an extension this summer, but Scotto doesn’t believe they’ve had those discussions yet. Scotto gets the sense that Mann would only seriously consider an extension if the club offered the maximum allowable contract (approximately $56MM over four years).
Veteran guard Lou Williams is believed to be seeking a multiyear deal of either two or three years, says Scotto. Williams has interest in re-signing with the Hawks, and comments from GM Travis Schlenk at season’s end suggest that interest is mutual, Scotto adds.
Before beginning their second round of interviews, the Wizards met with Suns assistant Kevin Young about their head coaching vacancy, according to Scotto, who suggests Young is a name to watch for future coaching openings.

NBA Suspends Patrick Beverley One Game

July 3rd, 2021 at 12:29pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

Clippers guard Patrick Beverley has been suspended by the NBA for one game without pay, the league has announced in a statement (via Twitter).

Beverley shoved All-Star Suns guard Chris Paul in the back during a pause in play with 5:49 left, with the game already out of hand in a blowout 130-103 Game 6 Phoenix victory on Thursday, June 30. At the time, Beverley was given a technical foul and ejected from action.

The press release goes on to note that Beverley will be suspended for the first game of the upcoming 2021/22 season in which he would otherwise be able to take the floor (so if he’s injured, the suspension will apply once he’s healthy). The NBA called Beverley’s behavior an “unsportsmanlike act.”

As we mentioned earlier today, some level of suspension for Beverley had been anticipated.

Beverley, 32, has one year and $14.3MM left on his current deal with L.A. During an injury-plagued 2020/21 season, Beverley appeared in just 37 contests (starting 34) with the club, averaging 7.5 PPG, 3.2 RPG, and 2.1 APG across 22.5 MPG. These were his lowest numbers in each of these categories since his 2012/13 rookie NBA season.

Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets that Beverley will lose $98,765 as a result of this one-game suspension.

Clippers Notes: Beverley, Rondo, Kennard, Batum

July 3rd, 2021 at 10:48am CST by Dana Gauruder

Clippers guard Patrick Beverley will face a suspension at the start of next season for shoving Chris Paul from behind in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reports. The incident occurred during the fourth quarter of the Suns’ clinching victory. Beverley has since apologized on Twitter, stating, “@CP3 emotions got the best of me last night gang. My bad wasn’t meant for you. Congrats on making it to the Finals. Best of Luck.”

We have more on the Clippers:

With Kawhi Leonard dealing with an unknown knee injury and potentially opting out, and Reggie Jackson and Nicolas Batum headed to unrestricted free agency, the team faces an uncertain future after reaching the conference finals for the first time, Andrew Greif of the Los Angeles Times writes. The expiring contracts of Beverley and Rajon Rondo could be used as trade chips, and the Clips could also explore trade options for Luke Kennard, whose didn’t play up to expectations after signing a four-year extension, Greif adds.
Batum isn’t sure what his future holds but he’s grateful to the organization for reviving his career after it went sour in Charlotte, according to Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times. “Now look where I am right now, just incredible. It’s amazing to what happened to me this year,” he said. “I can’t thank enough the Clippers’ organization for giving me a chance to be a basketball player again. I wasn’t sure what I could do this year, and they give me a chance to be a player again.”
In case you missed it, Paul George believes the team would have made the Finals if Leonard was healthy. He’s also eager to recruit players for next season. Get the details here.