Robbie Hummel

Northwest Notes: Booker, Lyles, Wolves, Jones

The Jazz have a July 15th deadline for a decision on the second year of Trevor Booker‘s contract, tweets Jody Genessy of The Deseret News. Booker is due to make nearly $4.8MM next season if Utah retains him, but only $250K of that is guaranteed. Genessy calls the decision a “no-brainer,” saying the Jazz would be wise to avoid the risks of free agency. (Twitter link). He also tweeted about Utah’s decision to extend a qualifying offer to Joe Ingles, noting that he won the Jazz over with his play in the second part of the season, especially by shooting 42.7% from three-point range.

There’s more news from the Northwest Division:

  • Trey Lyles impressed the Jazz in workouts with his ability in the open floor, Genessy writes. Coach Quinn Snyder said Lyles caught the team’s attention with the way he was able to rebound the ball on the defensive end, then push it up court and create opportunities for teammates. “We’ve alluded to the concept of being unselfish,” said GM Dennis Lindsey. “When I saw him play on tape and then here, that resonated with me.” The GM noted that Lyles posted the highest score on an advanced balance test of 104 players who participated in workouts.
  • The Wolves aren’t expected to be major players in free agency, according to Jerry Zgoda of The Star Tribune. The team is expected to try to re-sign veteran forward Kevin Garnett and reach a deal with European Nemanja Bjelica, but otherwise won’t be very active. “I’m actually, right now at this point, pretty comfortable,” said Minnesota coach/executive Flip Saunders. Garnett made $12MM last season, but Zgoda estimates his new salary will be around $8MM, and possibly part of a two-year deal that includes an opt-out after the first season. Saunders indicated he would also like to bring back restricted free agent Robbie Hummel, who made $880K last year.
  • The Wolves had been looking for a veteran point guard before the draft, Zgoda writes in the same story, but those plans changed when they were able to acquire Tyus Jones from the Cavaliers on draft night. Minnesota may try to reach a cost-effective deal to keep fourth guard Lorenzo Brown, but Saunders said he is “pretty comfortable” with Jones and Zach LaVine backing up Ricky Rubio.

And-Ones: Hummel, Bullock, Celtics, Draft

There’s been a run of tough luck over the past few days, with Kobe Bryant, Brandon Jennings, Tony Wroten and Mirza Teletovic all likely having been knocked out for the season. There’s news on another injury this morning as the NBA hopes inclement weather in the Northeast won’t interfere with a seven-game night:

  • The Wolves have lost Robbie Hummel to a broken right (shooting) hand, the team announced (on Twitter), and Hummel said he’ll be out four to six weeks, reports Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune. Hummel has started four of the last five games for Minnesota, which has a full 15-man roster, including Miroslav Raduljica, who’s on a 10-day contract.
  • Suns coach Jeff Hornacek believes new acquisition Reggie Bullock will fit into Phoenix’s plans for the future, as he told reporters, including Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com. Bullock engaged in what he calls a “great conversation” with Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers when he found out that Rivers had pulled the trigger on the deal that sent him to Phoenix, Markazi observes.
  • The original plan was for Andre Dawkins to remain on D-League assignment for the duration of his 10-day contract with the Celtics, but coach Brad Stevens indicated there’s a decent chance that will change, notes Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald. In any case, Gino Pilato of D-League Digest examines the reasons why NBA teams would sign a player to a 10-day deal and immediately send him to the D-League, as Boston did with Dawkins.
  • Tyler Harris said the idea that he intends to enter this year’s NBA draft didn’t come from him, tweets Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv. A report last week indicated that the Providence junior small forward planned to declare for early entry.

Western Notes: Wolves, Budinger, Nelson

The Spurs have been a hallmark of stability over the years, but perhaps never more than they are now, with 14 of the 15 players who were on the team during the Finals last year still on the team, as Bleacher Report’s Ethan Skolnick examines. While we wait to see if familiarity breeds success or stagnation, here’s more from around the Western Conference.

  • It seems at this point that Glenn Robinson III will remain with the Wolves for opening night, and J.J. Barea continues to impress the team with his preseason performance, as Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities hears (Twitter link). The Pistons are probably the “team to watch” regarding Minnesota’s apparent efforts to trade Chase BudingerWolfson adds.
  • Robbie Hummel is expected to make it to opening night with the Wolves, but with a guaranteed salary of just $880K, that’s not a certainty, and Hummel knows it. Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune has the details. “We have a lot of good players and camp has been real competitive, so every opportunity to get on the court is important,” Hummel said. “You try to stay ready, but it’s hard when you don’t play for a couple games, but it’s part of the job … even if there’s 15 guaranteed contracts, you want to go out and play well. Every night is an audition for another team.”
  • Jameer Nelson has a player option for the final season of the two-year deal he signed with the Mavs this summer, but he says he plans to stick with the team for the long term, as Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News observes.
  • Former Clippers owner Donald Sterling is streamlining his legal efforts, having withdrawn a suit in Los Angeles Superior Court against his wife, the NBA and Adam Silver to concentrate on his federal antitrust suit against the league, reports Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times. Sterling also faces the NBA’s counterclaim against him, Fenno notes.
  • A desire to have Sean Kilpatrick play for their D-League affiliate fueled the Warriors‘ decision to sign the undrafted shooting guard Monday, tweets Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Contract Details: Brooks, Bairstow, Brown

As free agent transactions around the league become official, so do the monetary specifics of their contract agreements. Here’s a round up of the latest contract details to come to light this evening:

  • The minimum salary contract Aaron Brooks signed with the Bulls is for one year, as Mark Deeks of ShamSports reveals on his updated Bulls salary page.
  • Cameron Bairstow‘s three-year contract with the Bulls is guaranteed for $425K in year two and otherwise non-guaranteed past the first season, Deeks also reports.
  • Markel Brown‘s two-year deal with the Nets is fully guaranteed in year one, with a series of guarantee dates for the second season, as Deeks shows.
  • The two-year deal the Nets gave Cory Jefferson is similar, except it’s only guaranteed for $75K this year, Deeks also notes.
  • The Nets gave Bojan Bogdanovic a 15% trade kicker on his three-year deal rather than the player option that he initially appeared to be getting, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reports on his Nets salary page.
  • Robbie Hummel‘s deal with the Timberwolves is fully-guaranteed for $880K for the upcoming season, reports Pincus. It was originally reported to be worth $900K. Pincus adds that the deal allows Hummel to block any trade Minnesota may try to include him in (Twitter links).

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Wolves Re-Sign Robbie Hummel

WEDNESDAY, 3:23pm: The deal is official, the team announced.

MONDAY, 8:28pm: Robbie Hummel has re-signed with the Wolves, according to his reps at Priority Sports (on Twitter).  It’s a fully-guaranteed one-year, $900K pact, according to Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN (on Twitter).

The Wolves declined to extend Hummel a qualifying offer of $1.016MM at the end of June, but less than a month later they’ve agreed to a deal that pays just ~$100K less.  Last season, the 25-year-old averaged 3.4 PPG and 2.5 RPG in 12.4 minutes per contest across 53 games (five starts).

The swingman was taken with the No. 58 pick in the 2012 draft, signed with a Spanish team later that summer, and circled back to the T’Wolves prior to the 2013/14 season.

Qualifying Offers: Monday

Teams must decide today whether to tender qualifying offers to their players eligible for restricted free agency or lose the right to match offers from other teams. We’ll round up all of today’s qualifying offer decisions here:

  • The Pacers declined to tender a qualifying offer to Lavoy Allen, according to Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star (Twitter link). Still, there’s mutual interest in a new deal, Buckner adds (on Twitter).
  • The Hawks extended a qualifying offer to Mike Scott, notes Mark Deeks of ShamSports (on Twitter).
  • No surprise here: Chandler Parsons got his QO from the Rockets, tweets Mark Deeks of ShamSports.
  • The Pacers won’t extend a QO to Evan Turner, writes Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today.
  • Kevin Seraphin officially got his qualifying offer from the Wizards, tweets Mark Deeks of ShamSports.com.
  • As expected, the Warriors won’t extend a QO to Jordan Crawford, according to Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle (on Twitter).
  • The Hawks have extended a qualifying offer to Shelvin Mack, a source tells Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (on Twitter).
  • The Bucks have told forward-center Ekpe Udoh he will not be tendered an offer thus making him an unrestricted free agent, a source told Marc J. Spears of Yahoo (on Twitter).
  • The Grizzlies have passed on making a qualifying offer to Ed Davis, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Davis was reportedly a favorite of former CEO Jason Levien, but with Zach Randolph having agreed to an extension, it appears that Davis isn’t quite as highly valued in Memphis as he once was. His qualifying offer would have been worth $4,268,609, a slightly smaller amount than he was originally in line for, as I explained.
  • No shock here, but the Pistons extended a qualifying offer to Greg Monroe, tweets Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News, preserving their right to match offers for the fifth-rated player in the Hoops Rumors Free Agent Power Rankings. The qualifying offer is worth nearly $5.5MM, but he’ll command much more than that.
  • The Pelicans will not give Darius Miller a qualifying offer, reports John Reid of The Times Picayune. The offer would have been worth more than $1.115MM.
  • The Spurs have tendered a qualifying offer to Aron Baynes, notes Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News (on Twitter). It’s worth more than $1.115MM, the same amount as Miller’s would have been.
  • The Knicks have elected not to make a qualifying offer to Toure’ Murry, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link). They’d like to re-sign him nonetheless, Stein adds in a second tweet, but other teams have interest, USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt says (on Twitter). The offer would have been worth more than $1.016MM.
  • Othyus Jeffers and Robbie Hummel won’t receive qualifying offers from the Wolves, the team announced (on Twitter). The offers would have been for amounts slightly greater than $1.148MM and $1.016MM, respectively.

Players Whose Contracts Will Be Guaranteed

As we outlined earlier today, players on non-guaranteed contracts who aren’t released by 4:00pm central time will have their full 2013/14 salaries guaranteed. We’ll be keeping tabs in this post on players who have been informed they’ll remain on their respective teams’ rosters, with new updates added to the top of the list throughout the afternoon:

  • Barring an unexpected development, the Pacers will guarantee Rasual Butler‘s contract today, tweets Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star.

Earlier updates:

Fallout From Wolves/Kings Trade

The Timberwolves and Kings finalized a trade today that sent Luc Mbah a Moute to Minnesota straight up for 2011’s second overall pick, Derrick Williams. Because Williams is making a little more money this year than Mbah a Moute, the Wolves obtained a trade exception worth $428,576, which will almost certainly go unused. While that TPE may not be noteworthy, a few of today’s quotes out of Minnesota and Sacramento were, so let’s round them up….

  • Sources tell Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld that the acquisition of D-Will isn’t the only trade the Kings have discussed. According to Kyler, there’s a belief that the Kings have “one or two more deals up their sleeves.”
  • Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro cited Williams’ untapped potential in explaining to Sam Amick of USA Today why the team decided to acquire him. D’Alessandro adds within the same piece that he feels like the Kings owe it to their fans to be aggressive in exploring roster moves.
  • Wolves president Flip Saunders tells Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune (Twitter link) that Minnesota talked about acquiring Mbah a Moute over the summer when the team put together the deal that sent Luke Ridnour to the Bucks.
  • Reports yesterday indicated that Mbah a Moute would have to undergo a physical before the swap become official, due to concerns about knee issues. However, according to Saunders, that physical has yet to happen — the Wolves were confident enough in their research that they were comfortable completing the deal without it (Twitter link via Zgoda).
  • More from Flip: Asked about the possibility of sending Shabazz Muhammad and/or Robbie Hummel to the D-League, Saunders said the notion that they won’t see any playing time with the Wolves isn’t necessarily true (Twitter link via Zgoda).
  • Interestingly, while Saunders suggested to Zgoda (Twitter link) that he and Rick Adelman concluded Williams couldn’t play small forward in the Wolves’ system, D’Alessandro says the initial plan for D-Will in Sacramento is to start him at the three (Twitter link via Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld).
  • Alexey Shved was rumored to be available as well, but he hopes to remain with the Wolves, as he tells Phil Ervin of FOX Sports North.

Timberwolves Waive Chris Johnson

2:40pm: The Wolves have officially announced the moves, according to the team’s Twitter account.

1:19pm: The Timberwolves have waived big man Chris Johnson, a source tells Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link). The former LSU Tiger is not to be confused with the Chris Johnson from Dayton whom the Nets waived earlier today. The Wolves will be on the hook for Johnson’s guaranteed $916,099 salary this season. The move likely means Robbie Hummel and A.J. Price, both of whom are on non-guaranteed deals, have made the opening-night roster, since the subtraction of Johnson leaves Minnesota with 15 players.

Multiple reports this month indicated Johnson’s spot on the team was vulnerable in spite of the guaranteed money on the contract he signed with the team last season after a pair of 10-day deals. He appeared in just two games for a total of nine minutes during preseason action. He averaged 3.9 points and 2.0 rebounds in 9.5 minutes per game across 30 contests for the Wolves last year.

Western Notes: Blair, Durant, ‘Wolves

With Brandan Wright out indefinitely after a left shoulder injury, free agent signee DeJuan Blair, is learning both the power forward and center assignments with the Mavs, writes Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News.

The 6’7″ Blair is under-sized for a center, but as he told Sefko, “I’ve been playing five all my life against 7-footers.” Blair was largely relegated to the Spurs bench the last season. He only started 16 games and played only 76 minutes during their run to the Finals last year. So look for him to be extra motivated if given a significant opportunity in Dallas.

Here’s more from around the West tonight:

  • As mentioned previously, the Oklahoman’s Darnell Mayberry spoke with Thunder coach Scott Brooks about Kevin Durant‘s minutes with Russell Westbrook expected to miss the first quarter of the season.
  • Assuming Durant appears in at least 79 games this season, at 38 minutes a night, that would have him playing over 3,000 regular season minutes for the fourth time in five seasons. Ben Wallace in 2004/05 was the last player to win a title after playing over 3,000 minutes during the regular season.
  • But it’s a workload Brooks plans to manage with off days and practice time and Durant appears up to the challenge, as long as it helps them win.
  • Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman is looking for more continuity from his starters in preseason despite the second straight game without Kevin Martin, he tells  Jerry Zgoda of the Star-Tribune.
  • But, Zgoda tweets that Adelman has no idea if a week of rest will get Martin back on the court, though he certainly hopes so.
  • Zgoda goes on to say that Othyus Jeffers, A.J. Price, Robbie Hummel and Lorenzo Brown are battling for what will likely be two spots when the team waives Chris Johnson.
  • But Adelman says the Wolves could add players cut from other training camps once teams pare down their rosters in the final week of preseason.
  • Adelman is also happy former ‘Wolves assistant Bill Bayno was hired as lead assistant for the Raptors (Twitter).