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Atlantic Notes: Nets, Knicks, Thomas

October 27th, 2014 at 10:00pm CST by Alex Lee

It’s been a busy Monday in the Atlantic division, with the Knicks and Sixers completing a trade and then promptly cutting both players involved. That wasn’t it for Philly, which added a forward before cutting two others. Meanwhile, the Celtics cut five players to get down to the required roster count of 15. With final rosters set, let’s see what else is going on in the Atlantic:

After waiving Casper Ware on Saturday to get their roster down to 15, the Nets now have some flexibility with Jorge Gutierrez, Cory Jefferson and Jerome Jordan, none of whom have deals that become fully guaranteed until the leaguewide guarantee date in January, tweets Robert Windrem of Nets Daily. With opening-night rosters finalized, Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News also points out that the Nets luxury tax bill of around $35MM for this season, as it stands now, pales in comparison to last season’s mammoth $90MM total (via Twitter).
Knicks head coach Derek Fisher indicated that Travis Outlaw was suffering from an Achilles injury that hurt his chances of making the team, writes Marc Berman of the New York Post. Outlaw was traded to Philly earlier today, opening up a roster spot for Travis Wear, who the Knicks initially had planned to cut and send to the D-League, according to Berman.
Sixers signee Malcolm Thomas was set to play in China and was ready to leave on Tuesday before Philly reached out to him over the weekend, notes Tom Moore of Calkins Media (via Twitter).
Meanwhile, Max Rappaport of Sixers.com points out that the careers of Thomas and Sixers coach Brett Brown intersected in San Antonio in 2012, when Thomas appeared in three games with the Spurs. “He’s got a chance — really his first chance, in my opinion — to [get] minutes and [have] a role. He sees we’ve got a bunch of young guys he’s competing with, and he probably sees a lot more daylight than he may have with Utah, the Spurs, or Chicago,” Brown said.

Sixers Waive Travis Outlaw

October 27th, 2014 at 8:55pm CST by Alex Lee

The Sixers have waived Travis Outlaw, the team announced. Philadelphia acquired Outlaw from the Knicks earlier today along with a 2019 second-round pick and the right to swap 2018 second-rounders, all in exchange for Arnett Moultrie. News of Outlaw’s release was expected, as the Sixers needed to trim their roster to 15 by today’s afternoon deadline. The team also confirmed the releases of Marquis Teague and Elliot Williams within the same announcement.

Outlaw’s release is just the latest example of Philly GM Sam Hinkie using his team’s cap space to stockpile future assets, as the Sixers continue to pay no mind to the present. Believe it or not, Moultrie was the longest-tenured player on Philadelphia’s roster. Meanwhile, Outlaw hits free agency at age 30, 11 years after he was drafted in the first round of out high school by the Blazers. He has a career scoring mark of 8.5 points per game, but hasn’t averaged over 20 minutes of playing time since the 2010/11 season with the Nets. He is in line to collect $3MM from the Sixers this season provided he clears waivers.

Knicks Trade Travis Outlaw To Sixers

October 27th, 2014 at 3:07pm CST by Chuck Myron

3:07pm: It’s the Clippers’ 2018 pick that the Sixers would send to the Knicks if they swap second-round draft choices that year, Philadelphia announced.

3:01pm: The trade is official, the Knicks announced (Twitter link). It’s Outlaw to the Sixers and Moultrie to the Knicks. The Sixers get New York’s 2019 second-round selection and the right to swap 2018 second-rounders with the Knicks, too.

2:33pm: The Knicks and Sixers have an agreement that will send Travis Outlaw to Philadelphia, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. The Sixers will also receive a future second-round pick as well as the right to swap another second-rounder with New York, according to Stein (Twitter links). Arnett Moultrie goes to New York in the swap, and the Sixers are likely to release Outlaw after the trade becomes official, Stein adds in another tweet.

The Knicks, who’ve been carrying 16 players, had reportedly been poised to release Outlaw. It’s unclear if the plan is to do the same with Moultrie, though Moultrie’s fully guaranteed salary, a little more than $1.136MM, is less than the $3MM that Outlaw is in line for, so the Knicks wouldn’t be on the hook for quite as much dead money if they went that route. New York appears to want to keep rookie undrafted rookie Travis Wear on his nominally guaranteed deal for the 15th and final regular season roster spot. Samuel Dalembert‘s partially guaranteed contract, which the Knicks will almost assuredly keep, and 13 fully guaranteed deals occupy the other 14 spots.

Philadelphia continues a strategy of using its cap space to acquire second-round picks, just as the Sixers did a few days ago in the Marquis Teague trade, last month’s acquisition of Keith Bogans, and numerous other examples since GM Sam Hinkie took control in 2013. Hinkie’s latest move means the Sixers are cutting ties with Moultrie, their longest-tenured player. The Knicks will have until Friday to decide whether to pick up a 2015/16 team option worth more than $2MM on Moultrie if they don’t cut him loose.

Executives from around the league reacted incredulously to the news of the latest Sixers deal, tweets Chris Mannix of SI.com, as the team continues to make deals focused on the future rather than the present. Still, Moultrie seemed to have a tenuous grip on a roster spot, at best, suggesting the only cost to Philadelphia is a degree of salary cap flexibility, of which they still have plenty.

Knicks To Waive Travis Outlaw, Keep Wear?

October 26th, 2014 at 12:36pm CST by ChrisCrouse

The Knicks will waive forward Travis Outlaw, according to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv. The move will bring the Knicks‘ preseason roster to 15 players and is likely an indication that Travis Wear has made the team, notes Zagoria. The Knicks would be on the hook for Outlaw’s $3MM contract, which is the last year of a fully guaranteed four year, $12MM deal. Wear is signed to a minimum-salary arrangement of which only $62K is guaranteed.

“Travis [Wear] ia a really good player,” Knicks coach Derek Fisher said last weekend, notes Zagoria. “He works hard every single day. He has some natural talents and some natural gifts that you can’t coach. He’s extremely athletic and he has a feel for the game of basketball. He’s helped us in the minutes that he has gotten out on the floor. We have a lot of veteran guys that are already on our roster and it might be tough for him to break through that but he has definitely proven in a short segment that he has some potential so we’re excited about it and we’ll try to make the best decision for him and the team going forward.”

The move to release Outlaw is likely an indication that Knicks believe Ware, who is shooting 45% in the preseason, is a better fit than Outlaw for the triangle offense. Outlaw has averaged 8.5 PPG while shooting 42.3% from the floor for his career.

Knicks Cut Galloway, Vandenberg

October 25th, 2014 at 4:46pm CST by Eddie Scarito

4:46pm: The moves are official, the team announced (Twitter link).

1:53pm: The Knicks have waived Langston Galloway and Jordan Vandenberg, Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork is reporting (Twitter link). Both players are likely headed to New York’s D-League affiliate, notes Begley. These moves reduce the Knicks’ preseason roster count to 16, and the team is considering waiving forward Travis Outlaw as well, tweets Begley, which would get them down to the regular season maximum of 15 players.

Vandenberg’s contract came with a partial guarantee of $27K, and Galloway’s deal was also partially guaranteed for $31K. If Outlaw is in fact waived, the Knicks will still have to pay his fully guaranteed amount of $3MM, unless they reach some type of buyout arrangement with the player.

The 24-year-old Vandenberg played just 10 minutes total in a pair of summer league games, and he only averaged more than 12 minutes a night once during his five seasons at N.C. State, where he received a medical redshirt in his third year despite appearing in seven games. Vandenberg averaged 4.6 PPG, 4.7 RPG and 1.4 BPG in 22.3 minutes per game as a senior this past season.

Galloway averaged 17.7 points and 4.3 rebounds with a 44.3% three-point accuracy in 36.2 minutes per game this past season with St. Joseph’s, then played for New York’s summer league entry. The Knicks coaches praised him for picking up the triangle offense quickly, but the team is especially deep with swingmen, so Galloway was a longshot to make the team.

Atlantic Notes: Rondo, Knicks, Celtics

October 18th, 2014 at 8:40am CST by Eddie Scarito

Sports Illustrated senior writer Ian Thomsen spoke with Kyle Draper and Bob Neumeier of CSNNE.com about the Celtics and the possibility that they deal Rajon Rondo this season. Thomsen believes it will be difficult for Boston to receive anything of value in return for their point guard. Thomsen said, “It all depends on Rondo or what he’s going to do, how well he’s going to play. I think he’s going to have a tremendous year looking forward to his free agency. I’m not sure how the Celtics get anything in a trade for Rondo because he wants to be a free agent and the Knicks and Lakers are going to be out there with max cap space [in the offseason]. How’s anyone going to keep him from going to one of those teams, including the Celtics?”

Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:

The battle for the final Knicks roster spot might just come down to Travis Wear versus Travis Outlaw, Keith Schlosser of SNY.tv opines. Wear is mastering the triangle offense quicker than Outlaw, but it is Outlaw’s expiring $3MM contract that might make him more valuable to retain on the regular season roster as a possible trade chip, notes Schlosser.
The Celtics got even smaller with the trade for Will Bynum, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com writes. After adding the 6’0″ Bynum, this leaves the team with eight players 6’4″ or smaller, notes Blakely. Boston still has 16 fully guaranteed contracts on the books, so more dealing is very possible, according to Blakely.
The Knicks have a new look this season both on and off the court. The architect of this rebuild is new team president Phil Jackson, and Al Iannozzone, Mark LaMonica, and Anthony Carrozzo of Newsday take an in-depth look at all the changes that Jackson has brought to New York.

Kings GM On Knicks Trade, Rookies, Collison

August 14th, 2014 at 5:29pm CST by Ryan Raroque

Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro offered some comments on the team’s offseason thus far, including the thought process behind their recent trade with the Knicks, the impression that the rookies have made at this point, and how he expects Darren Collison to significantly contribute next season. D’Alessandro covers several other topics in his recent Q&A session with NBA.com, but you can find some of the interview’s more notable highlights below:

On dealing Quincy Acy and Travis Outlaw to New York and what it meant for Sacramento:

“First, I would say Quincy did a phenomenal job for us – we loved Quincy. I think when we looked at our positioning and the positions we had filled, it became much more difficult. So we worked with Quincy – in a partnership with him – to make something happen that worked for him and worked for us. And we’re really happy for him because I think he’s going to play really well for the Knicks. On our end, we give ourselves a little flexibility. We took some protection off a pick, which we now have in an unconditional manner and we got a young player who has a chance to make our team and who’s an exceptional shooter. So we have flexibility and also we have other players in which we’re negotiating with who we think could fill the role that Travis played, which was a huge role.

Travis is another hard guy to let go – he was such a good citizen and a really good player for us. So overall, it was a broad brush of things that it did for us and cleaned some things up and it put us in position for future [moves]. For Quincy and Travis, we wish them the best and really do thank them – they are great guys and great players.”

On rookie Nik Stauskas:

“We have high hopes for Nik. He’s very young so we’re not going to put a lot of pressure on him this year, but I don’t think we don’t need to. He puts a lot of pressure on himself. We have very high hopes for him as a player, as a shooter, and as a guy who can help us to stretch the floor, so there’s a lot of opportunities for him… (What stands out about him right now is) confidence. If he gets three shots, he feels like he’s going to make all three. If he gets 20 shots, he feels like he’s going to make 20. He’s not a guy that will ever have the ball in his hands and feel like he’s not going to succeed with it and you saw that in Summer League. We didn’t go to him as often as we might have, but nothing really fazed him. He continued to shoot the ball well and do what he does. So we’re looking forward to his development.”

On Deonte Burton:

“…With Deonte we see a guy with a lot of promise. A lot of guys saw him highly ranked, but he didn’t get drafted. And this Draft was such a tough one because it was so loaded and stacked. When you got to the second round you just didn’t know what was going to happen – there were teams who didn’t necessarily want to bring guys in, so they take guys who are stashed. Deonte’s not a guy who wanted to be stashed – he feels like he’s an NBA player and we would like to see what he has…“He [had] a great (draft) workout. He’s a great kid too – I think he fits in with what we’re trying to do. We’re excited that he’ll be part of this process and training camp and he’ll have an opportunity to try to make the team.”

On Eric Moreland:

“I thought [he brought] energy and he had an ability to block shots, but really just how hard he plays…These guys come in and play hard – they play really hard and we expect that out of Eric and that’s what it’s going to take for him to succeed in this league…(Players with his skill set) translate to almost any system because those are the guys who raise the energy of your team and the players around them. To me, you can insert a guy who’s 22-years-old and now it’s up to him. It’s up to him to step in and create a niche for himself.”

On how he expects Darren Collison to have an impact:

“[He’s another guy with a high] motor – a guy who can just go, flat-out go. He can help pick up our pace. He’s a great veteran and he’s a guy we look forward to bringing more than just his skills [to our team]…You’re talking about a guy who has playoff experience – a guy who has an expectation of winning. When I talk to Darren, it’s always ‘how do we make the playoffs? How do we get there?’ That’s something that’s important to me – that you have players that are thinking that way, and more important, acting that way…His ability to pull it together – we talk about the-straw-that-stirs-the-drink analogy and that’s [our] hope for him. We want him to be that guy that brings out the talent from everyone else, while also showing his talent and leadership in the process.”

Knicks Still Considering Pablo Prigioni Trade

August 6th, 2014 at 5:46pm CST by Cray Allred

The Knicks are still considering trading Pablo Prigioni, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Frank Isola of the New York Daily News initially tweeted that New York was still open to trading Prigioni while the Knicks trade with the Kings was still unfolding earlier today. In a separate tweet, Stein adds that those trade discussions at one point included the option of sending Prigioni, along with Travis Outlaw and a draft pick, to the Jazz as a facilitating third team.

New York’s remaining willingness to part with Prigioni contradicts an earlier report from Stein that said the Knicks were fond of the point guard, and only considered trading him as an incentive for another team to take on Wayne Ellington‘s contract. Ellington has already been shipped off, so perhaps New York’s fondness of Prigioni is measured.

Prigioni has played two seasons in New York, coming to the NBA for the 2012/13 season after a successful career in Europe. The 37-year-old was a reliable backup last year, but his skills maybe viewed as expendable by Knicks president Phil Jackson, who’s helping new coach Derek Fisher install the triangle offense. The Knicks acquired point guards Jose Calderon and Shane Larkin from the Mavs the day before the draft, and Iman Shumpert is a combo guard who remains on the roster despite trade speculation dating back to last season.

Knicks Acquire Quincy Acy, Travis Outlaw

August 6th, 2014 at 4:29pm CST by Chuck Myron

4:29pm: The Knicks and Kings have officially announced the trade. Prigioni isn’t involved, so Acy, Outlaw, Ellington and Tyler are the only players changing teams. Sacramento’s statement confirms that New York removed all protection on the 2016 second-round pick going to the Kings.

4:12pm: The Kings have yet to make a final decision about waiving Ellington, according to the latest version of Amick’s story.

3:52pm: New York will guarantee Acy’s minimum salary as part of the deal, Amick tweets.

3:40pm: The Knicks will remove the protection on their own 2016 second-rounder that they already owed to Sacramento rather than send a separate second-round pick to the Kings, as Amick clarifies via Twitter. New York was to have kept the pick if it fell between Nos. 31 and 37, but it’s now entirely unprotected.

3:34pm: Frank Isola of the New York Daily News hears indications that the Knicks will part with Prigioni, too (Twitter link).

3:16pm: The Knicks and Kings have reached agreement on a deal that will send Quincy Acy and Travis Outlaw to New York for Wayne Ellington and Jeremy Tyler, reports Sam Amick of USA Today. Other players will likely be involved in the deal, too. The Kings are expected to waive Ellington and Tyler to clear space beneath the luxury tax line, according to Amick. They can clear Tyler’s minimum salary with ease since it’s non-guaranteed, but they’d use the stretch provision to help clear Ellington’s pay of more than $2.771MM from their books, as Amick points out. Sacramento will also pick up a 2016 second-round pick from New York, Amick writes.

The Knicks had reportedly been trying to trade Wayne Ellington and were open to deals involving Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith and Shane Larkin as they sought to clear a logjam in the backcourt, and specifically at shooting guard. The team had also been mulling whether to include Pablo Prigioni in a deal involving Ellington.

Sacramento has been only about $61K beneath the luxury tax threshold after striking a deal to sign Omri Casspi, and they negotiated with Acy to move the date his minimum-salary contract becomes fully guaranteed from July 25th to August 15th. The raw swap of salaries in the structure of the deal as it stands would give the Kings a net savings of only about $200K, but stretching Ellington’s salary will give Sacramento more breathing room.

Ellington is on an expiring contract, so the Kings would have to waive him prior to September, when the stretch provision would no longer allow the team to reduce his salary for the coming season. Providing they waive him this month, Ellington’s salary would be spread in equal amounts over the next three seasons. So, the Kings would be responsible for close to $924K for him each season through 2016/17, and the move would give them more than $1.8MM in additional space beneath the tax line for this year.

Acy carved out a role in the rotation for the Kings this past season after coming over in the midseason Rudy Gay swap. He averaged 2.7 points and 3.6 rebounds in 14.0 minutes per contest for Sacramento. That works out to a rate of 9.2 rebounds per 36 minutes, demonstrating proficient board work for a player listed at 6’7″. Outlaw saw slightly more playing time, notching 5.4 PPG in 16.9 MPG, sometimes filling in at shooting guard for a depleted Kings backcourt down the stretch of the season. He’ll be on New York’s books for a guaranteed $3MM this season in the final year of a five-year, $35MM deal that the Nets amnestied in 2011. Sacramento put in a partial claim that year, leaving Brooklyn to pay $4MM to Outlaw each year until the contract expires next summer.

Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images.

Amick’s Latest: Outlaw, Miller, Grizzlies

January 10th, 2014 at 6:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

Sam Amick’s latest NBA A to Z column for USA Today leads with a look at NBA coaches, all of whom stand at least decent chances of keeping their jobs through the end of the season after a summer of record turnover. Amick also passes along a few noteworthy revelations from around the league, as we detail:

Sacramento’s insistence that Travis Outlaw be a part of any deal for Andre Miller has appeared to gum up the conversation between the Kings and Nuggets. Miller could return to Denver’s lineup soon, so it seems momentum toward a trade has slowed considerably. The Kings are hoping to garner at least a second-round pick in return for Jimmer Fredette, another player rumored to be involved in the Miller talks.
Amick also says the Grizzlies got $1.1MM in cash from the Thunder as part of the three-team deal that brought Courtney Lee to Memphis this week. Reports at the time of the trade indicated the Celtics received cash from Oklahoma City in that deal, so it looks like OKC sent money in two directions.
The Clippers indeed have interest in Bobby Brown, who’s starring in the Chinese league. Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com mentioned the Clips as a possible fit for the point guard, who won’t be able to return stateside until the Chinese season is over.