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Rudy Gobert Apologizes To “People I May Have Endangered”

March 12th, 2020 at 3:18pm CST by Luke Adams

Rudy Gobert, who became the first NBA player to test positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday, has published an Instagram post confirming the diagnosis.

Within the post, Gobert apologized for his carelessness in potentially endangering those around him. The All-Star Jazz center mockingly touched all the microphones and recorders in front of him following a Monday media session. According to a report from ESPN, Jazz players were also privately saying that Gobert exhibited “a cavalier attitude toward the virus in the locker room, touching teammates and their belongings.”

“I have gone through so many emotions since learning of my diagnosis,” Gobert wrote. “Mostly fear, anxiety, and embarrassment. The first and most important thing is I would like to publicly apologize to the people that I may have endangered. At the time, I had no idea I was even infected. I was careless and make no excuse.

“I hope my story serves as a warning and causes everyone to take this seriously,” he continued. “I will do whatever I can to support using my experience as way to educate others and prevent the spread of this virus.”

Sources told Shams Charania and Tony Jones of The Athletic that Gobert has been around people who recently traveled to the U.S. from France, but there’s “no clear determination” on how or when he contracted COVID-19. His teammate Donovan Mitchell also tested positive for the virus, as we detailed earlier today.

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League Office “Slammed” With Questions About Next Steps

March 12th, 2020 at 8:22am CST by Luke Adams

After announcing that the 2019/20 season has been suspended indefinitely, the NBA’s league office has been “slammed” with procedural and “bigger-picture” questions from team owners and executives, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).

As Wojnarowski reports, the NBA has told its teams to be patient and sit tight for now — more guidance will be provided soon, likely as early as Thursday. In the meantime, despite the fact that clubs are reportedly still permitted to hold practices, many teams around the league plan to close their facilities today and give players a couple days away, Woj notes.

The Jazz, whose starting center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, have been among the teams most significantly affected by the crisis. As ESPN’s Royce Young details, Utah’s players and staff had to remain at Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy Arena for hours after the postponement of last night’s game vs. the Thunder, undergoing tests for coronavirus. The results of those tests should be known soon, which will help the NBA determine how to move forward, tweets Chris Mannix of SI.com.

After finally leaving the arena late last night, the Jazz spent the night in the OKC area, exploring the possibility of chartering buses to get back to Salt Lake City, since there were “issues” with putting everyone on a Delta charter flight, per ESPN. According to Young (Twitter link), the organization is expected to finalize travel plans after getting the results of their tests. It’s possible they’ll fly back to Utah on two separate charter flights — one for those who tested positive and one for those who didn’t.

Here are more updates on the situation as the first day of the league’s hiatus begins:

  • Sources tell Shams Charania and Tony Jones of The Athletic that Gobert has been around people who recently traveled to the U.S. from France, but there’s “no clear determination” on how he contracted COVID-19.
  • ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Tim Bontemps break down what we do and don’t know about the NBA’s suspension of play, including whether players will be paid during the stoppage and how it may affect the salary cap going forward. Meanwhile, Brian Lewis of The New York Post provides six questions the league must answer.
  • By suspending its season, the NBA made the only decision it could, according to Chris Mannix of SI.com, who writes that the league shouldn’t consider a return until the virus has been “contained nationally.”
  • The Pelicans/Kings game on Wednesday night was initially expected to be played even after the NBA’s suspension announcement, but it was eventually postponed due to concerns related to referee Courtney Kirkland, who worked Utah’s game on Monday. Sam Amick, Will Guillory, and Jason Jones of The Athletic share some behind-the-scenes details on a surreal night in Sacramento.
  • Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who said on Wednesday night that the franchise would develop a plan to help arena employees with lost income during the hiatus, said that the situation “isn’t about basketball,” as Tim MacMahon of ESPN relays. “This isn’t about when do we start, do we start? Or how do we start? This is a pandemic, a global pandemic where people’s lives are at stake,” Cuban said. “I’m a lot more worried about my kids and my mom who is 82 years old — in talking to her and telling her to stay in the house — than when we play in our next game.”
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Rudy Gobert Tests Positive For Coronavirus

March 11th, 2020 at 8:30pm CST by Luke Adams

Jazz center Rudy Gobert has tested positive for coronavirus, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).

The NBA has confirmed in a press release that a Jazz player tested positive for COVID-19, though the league didn’t specifically name Gobert as that player. The test result was reported just before tip-off of tonight’s game between Utah and Oklahoma City, which was postponed.

The affected player – presumed to be Gobert – wasn’t in the arena at that time, according to the league’s statement. Gobert was never at the Chesapeake Energy Arena tonight, ESPN’s Royce Young confirms (Twitter link).

As a result of the coronavirus crisis, the NBA will suspend the season indefinitely following the conclusion of tonight’s games.

According to reports from Charania and Young (Twitter links), even though Gobert was initially ruled out for tonight’s game with an illness, he felt strong enough to play. The league wanted confirmation that he didn’t have coronavirus before he could be cleared to play, so he was tested before the game.

Once it was determined that Gobert had tested positive, the game was immediately postponed and players and staff returned to their respective locker rooms. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter), Jazz and Thunder players are currently being quarantined in the arena.

While it’s not clear exactly when Gobert contracted the virus, he’ll face criticism for making light of the situation on Monday by going out of his way to touch every microphone and recorder in front of him following his shootaround availability (Twitter link via Eric Walden of The Salt Lake Tribune).

Depending on how long Gobert – or others – have had the virus, the ripple effect across the NBA could be massive. As Sam Amick of The Athletic notes (via Twitter), Utah has played the Raptors, Pistons, Celtics, and Knicks in the past eight days, so players from those teams seem like good bets to be tested as soon as possible.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Fournier Could Be On The Move

December 23rd, 2019 at 5:17pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Magic swingman Evan Fournier is the player most likely to be moved before the trade deadline, according to an ESPN Insider report from Bobby Marks.

While there’s no indication Fournier is being shopped, a straw poll of NBA executives believe that the Magic will need to start exploring their trade options on the veteran, who is likely to leave $17.2MM on the table and opt out this summer. Orlando is currently battling for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Fournier is enjoying a career year, averaging 19.6 PPG and shooting 42.3% from long range.

Here are more nuggets from the ESPN report:

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NBA Super-Max Candidates To Watch In 2019/20

November 8th, 2019 at 8:56am CST by Luke Adams

The Designated Veteran Extension, as we explain our glossary entry on the subject, is a relatively new addition to the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. It allows players with 7-9 years of experience, who would normally qualify for a maximum starting salary of 30% of the cap, to qualify for a “super-max” contract that starts at 35% of the cap, a level normally reserved players with 10+ years of experience.

A player who has seven or eight years of NBA service with one or two years left on his contract becomes eligible for a Designated Veteran Extension if he meets the required performance criteria and hasn’t been traded since his first four years in the league. A Designated Veteran contract can also be signed by a player who is technically a free agent if he has eight or nine years of service and meets the required criteria.

The performance criteria is as follows (only one of the following must be true):

  • The player was named to an All-NBA team and/or was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year in the most recent season, or in two of the last three seasons.
  • The player was named the NBA MVP in any of the three most recent seasons.

With those criteria in mind, it’s worth keeping an eye on the players who could qualify for a super-max veteran contract with their play this season. Let’s dive in and examine a few of those guys…

Players who already qualify for a super-max contract:

Antetokounmpo met the performance criteria for the super-max when he won last season’s MVP award. Gobert did so by winning the Defensive Player of the Year award in 2018 and then being named to the All-NBA team in 2019 — his second consecutive DPOY award in ’19 merely put an emphatic stamp on his eligibility.

However, neither Antetokounmpo nor Gobert can actually sign a Designated Veteran Extension yet, since they must have seven years of NBA experience under their belts.

Each player is in his seventh season now, but years of experience aren’t officially added until the very end of the league year. In other words, the Bucks and Jazz stars will have to wait until next July to officially sign super-max extensions.

We know the Bucks will put that offer on the table for Giannis, but we’re not sure yet whether he’ll sign it. It also remains to be seen if the Jazz will make the same offer to Gobert. Based on the NBA’s latest cap projection for 2021/22 ($125MM), each player would be eligible for $253.75MM over five years.

Players who could qualify for a super-max contract by meeting the criteria in 2019/20:

Technically, any player who earns an All-NBA spot in 2019/20 and meets the contract criteria can qualify for a super-max, but the two players listed above are probably the only legitimately viable candidates. Thunder center Steven Adams, for instance, would become eligible for a super-max extension by earning an All-NBA spot, but that’s probably not happening.

Even Drummond might be a long shot, but if he can maintain the numbers he has posted in his first nine games (21.9 PPG, 18.6 RPG, 2.2 BPG), he’ll be in the conversation. So far, he’s outplaying last year’s All-NBA First Team center Nikola Jokic, who is off to a slow start.

Embiid, last season’s All-NBA Second Team center, looks like a safer All-NBA bet as long he stays healthy. He earned his spot in 2018/19 despite playing just 64 games, so if he can match or exceed that number this season with similar production, look for him to become super-max eligible.

Drummond is in his eighth NBA season, while Embiid is only in his sixth. So if Drummond were to earn All-NBA honors this season, he’d become eligible to immediately sign a super-max contract. Declining his player option and signing a five-year Designated Veteran contract would put Drummond in line for a deal worth $235.48MM based on the league’s latest cap projection for 2020/21 ($116MM). Though of course, there’s no guarantee the Pistons would be willing to go quite that high.

As for Embiid, if he makes an All-NBA team this season, he’ll be in a similar situation to the one Giannis and Gobert are in now — super-max eligible based on his performance criteria, but not yet on his contract criteria. He’d have to wait until the 2021 offseason to sign that extension. I expect the Sixers will be ready to do a super-max deal if he keeps playing at this level and doesn’t suffer any more major injuries.

It’s also worth mentioning Jokic and Karl-Anthony Towns in this group. They’ll only have five years of NBA experience apiece after this season, so they wouldn’t be able to sign super-max extensions until the 2022 offseason. Technically though, one of them could meet the required performance criteria as early as this spring by winning the MVP award.

Players who can no longer qualify for a super-max contract:

There are many other players who could be added to this list, but these are the three who would otherwise be strong candidates to qualify the super-max if they hadn’t already become ineligible based on one of the required criteria.

In Beal’s case, he opted to sign a standard veteran extension this fall rather than wait to see if he’d make an All-NBA team this season and become eligible for the super-max. By the time he’ll be able to opt out of his new deal in the summer of 2022, he’ll have 10 years of experience under his belt, meaning he’ll automatically qualify for the 35% max.

Davis and Oladipo, meanwhile, were traded while playing out their rookie scale contract extensions, making them ineligible for a super-max. Davis would have been able to sign such a deal this past offseason if he had remained with the Pelicans.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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World Cup Notes: Walker, Gobert, Scola, Guduric

September 2nd, 2019 at 8:56pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Chinese fans have embraced Kemba Walker and he’s enjoying the attention as the biggest star on Team USA in the FIBA World Cup, Brian Windhorst of ESPN reports. Many fans are wearing his jersey in the stands.

“To know you have fans in other places, especially me, it was very humbling,” Walker said. “It’s just a great feeling.”

While many stars passed on playing for their national teams this summer, Walker has looked forward to this opportunity for years.

“It’s special to be a part of this team,” Walker said. “I’ve been a part of USA Basketball for years, I was on a couple Select Teams where I didn’t get this far. I appreciate it.”

We have more World Cup news:

  • Jazz center Rudy Gobert, who is representing France, is upset by FIBA’s drug testing procedure, Sportando relays. Gobert posted on Twitter that he was awaken after a late game to get tested. “No respect for the player’s recovery time,” he wrote in part.
  • Former NBA forward Luis Scola has moved into second place on FIBA’s all-time World Cup scoring list, Sportando reports. The 39-year-old Scola trails only Brazilian legend Oscar Schmidt. He surpassed Australia’s Andrew Gaze during a game against Nigeria.
  • Marko Guduric, who signed with the Grizzlies this summer, is averaging 10.5 PPG for Serbia through two games in the FIBA World Cup, David Cobb of the Memphis Commercial Appeal writes. The swingman inked a two-year, $5.3MM deal with Memphis after playing the last two seasons for Fenerbahçe in Turkey.
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World Cup Updates: Lithuania, Joseph, Nigeria, France

August 27th, 2019 at 10:27am CST by Luke Adams

The Lithuanian national team has announced its roster for the 2019 World Cup, according to Donatas Urbonas, who tweets that the 12-man squad will include Grizzlies center Jonas Valanciunas and Pacers big man Domantas Sabonis in the frontcourt. Former Knicks forward Mindaugas Kuzminskas is also on the roster.

Lithuania is viewed as a contender to make a deep run in this year’s tournament, but it won’t have an easy path to even make it out of the first round. The Lithuanian national team is part of a group that also includes Australia, Canada, and Senegal — only two of those clubs will advance to the round of 16.

Here’s more on the 2019 World Cup, which will tip off in just four days in China:

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And-Ones: Telfair, Georges-Hunt, O’Bryant, Re-Draft

August 15th, 2019 at 6:07pm CST by clarkcrum

Former high school basketball prodigy and NBA veteran Sebastian Telfair was sentenced on Monday to three and a half years in prison in his New York City gun case, per The Associated Press. Telfair, 34, was convicted earlier this year of carrying a loaded handgun in his pickup truck.

This was not Telfair’s first brush with the law nor his first incident involving a loaded weapon. He and a friend were arrested in 2007 after a traffic stop during which police found a loaded handgun in the vehicle. He pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a weapon and was sentenced to three years’ probation.

While he never lived up to the hype from his prep career, Telfair did have a relatively successful NBA career. He played 564 games over 10 seasons and averaged 7.4 PPG and 3.5 APG.

There’s more NBA-related news to pass along this evening:

  • Former Magic and Timberwolves guard Marcus Georges-Hunt, now fully healthy, recently worked out for the Nuggets as he looks to work his way back to the NBA. According to Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic, the fully healthy 25-year-old Georgia Tech product also has several other workouts lined up the rest of the month.
  • As first reported by Donatas Urbonas (Twitter link), top EuroLeague free agent and former NBA player Johnny O’Bryant has signed with Lokomotiv Krasnodar (Twitter link) of the Russian VTB United League. O’Bryant, a second-round pick in the 2014 NBA draft, played four seasons in the NBA with the Bucks, Nuggets, and Hornets.
  • Sam Vecenie of The Athletic would draft Bucks forward and 2018/19 MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jazz big man Rudy Gobert, and Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum with the top three picks in a re-draft of the 2013 NBA Draft. None of the three went higher than No. 10 overall six years ago.
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Northwest Notes: Whiteside, Grant, Gilgeous-Alexander, Jazz

July 8th, 2019 at 10:46pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard believes he can bring out the best of Hassan Whiteside, the enigmatic center acquired from the Heat as part of the multi-team Jimmy Butler sign-and-trade. Lillard has a good friendship with Whiteside and that should help prevent Whiteside from getting over-emotional, according to Jason Quick of The Athletic.

“I said, ‘So this is what this is going to come down to: If in the middle of the game, you are not getting the ball and you mad, and you felt like somebody should have done something, you come and say something to me,” Lillard said. “And if (Trail Blazers) Coach (Terry Stotts) is getting on you, or Coach takes you out and you get mad at Coach, me and you have to be able to communicate. Even if we argue, that’s fine. But we have to be able to get through to each other.”

We have more from the Northwest Division:

  • Nuggets coach Michael Malone is thrilled with the acquisition of forward Jerami Grant from the Thunder, as he told Alex Labidou of the team’s website. He believes Grant will mesh well with franchise player Nikola Jokic and significantly improve the team’s defense. “Watching film, he’s guarded Damian Lillard, James Harden, Anthony Davis, the guy can guard anybody,” Malone said. “I think that versatility is exciting.”
  • Shai Gilgeous-Alexander gives the Thunder a long-term answer at point guard who may have a better future than Paul George, Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman writes. Gilgeous-Alexander is nine years younger than George, Tramel notes, and he displayed better defensive and shooting skills than Russell Westbrook did in his rookie year.
  • Jazz center Rudy Gobert shrugs off the Clippers’ acquisitions of Kawhi Leonard and George, confident that the Jazz have done enough this offseason to become serious contenders. “We don’t want to pay too much attention into what the other teams are doing,” Gobert told Tony Jones of The Athletic. “We want to keep working hard, and we want to stay hungry. We know what we have to do. Whenever we step out onto the court, the goal is to win. We know that we have a chance to do some good things this year. But we want to take things one step at a time.”
  • The Timberwolves have brought back Bryan Gates as an assistant coach under Ryan Saunders, according to an Associated Press report. Gates has been on the Kings’ staff the last three seasons but spent the 2015/16 season with Minnesota.
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Gobert Repeats As Defensive Player Of Year

June 24th, 2019 at 9:57pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Jazz center Rudy Gobert was named the Defensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive season at the league’s annual awards show on Monday.

Gobert topped two players who are also finalists for the Most Valuable Player award, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Paul George. The anchor of the Jazz’s defense averaged 2.3 blocks for the second straight season. Utah’s 105.2 defensive rating was second only to Milwauekee’s 104.9. The Jazz also allowed the fourth fewest points.

Kawhi Leonard was the last player to win back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year awards (2015, 2016).

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