- Since the Trail Blazers don’t have a G League affiliate of their own, their two-way players – Moses Brown and Jaylen Hoard – will join the Texas Legends, G League affiliate of the Mavericks, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
- Trail Blazers forward Kent Bazemore is here to disrupt, Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com writes. Bazemore, an accomplished defender who’s spent eight seasons in the NBA, was acquired by the team this past summer in a deal with Atlanta. “It’s good to kind of see the ball go in, but that’ll come,” he said. “Just find your rhythm as you kind of get used to things, get the jitters out. My defense is going to be the constant thing for me regardless of if the shot’s falling for me or not. I just want to find other ways to impact the game. We’ve got two of the best scorers at their position in the league and Hassan down low, Ant Simons did a great job for us off the bench. My job is to go out there and disrupt.”
As of Monday’s roster cutdown deadline, no NBA team is carrying more than 17 players in total — 15 on standard contracts and two on two-way deals. However, not every team is making use of all 17 roster spots available to them.
Currently, a third of the league’s 30 teams have at least one open roster spot, either on their regular roster or in their two-way slots.
For most clubs, that decision is financially motivated — teams like the Magic and Nuggets are getting dangerously close to the tax line and prefer to avoid moving even closer by paying an extra player or two. The Thunder and Trail Blazers are already over the tax and won’t want to push their projected bills higher.
For teams like the Heat and Warriors, the decision not to carry a 15th man is dictated by the hard cap — neither club currently has sufficient room under the hard cap for more than 14 players.
Teams’ reasoning for retaining an open two-way spot is less clear. Those players earn very modest salaries and don’t count against the cap, so finances shouldn’t be a factor. Perhaps the teams with two-way openings are still considering their options before G League training camps begin next week, recognizing that any two-way player they sign now is unlikely to actually play for the NBA team this week.
Listed below, with the help of our roster counts breakdown, are the teams that aren’t carrying full rosters.
Teams with an open 15-man roster spot:
- Atlanta Hawks
- Cleveland Cavaliers
- Denver Nuggets
- Golden State Warriors
- Miami Heat
- Oklahoma City Thunder
- Orlando Magic
- Note: The Magic have two open roster spots, giving them two weeks to get to the required minimum of 14 players.
- Portland Trail Blazers
Teams with an open two-way slot:
- Brooklyn Nets
- Phoenix Suns
After being traded from the Hawks to the Trail Blazers in the offseason, Kent Bazemore has become rejuvenated, writes Jason Quick of The Athletic. As Quick writes, the veteran wing had become frustrated playing in Atlanta last season as the team – which won 60 games during his first year as a Hawk – fully embraced its youth movement.
“The game is changing with the young guys coming in and getting an opportunity right away,” Bazemore said. “It wasn’t like that when I first came in. I’m old school in that respect. All you have to do is be respectful, work your way up. But the league is changing in that respect, and that frustrated me.”
According to Quick, before Bazemore was traded, he provided the Hawks with a list of preferred destinations. The Blazers were number one on that list. Now, his new teammates can see that Bazemore is enjoying the opportunity to get a fresh start in Portland.
“The environment here will light him up,” Rodney Hood said. “And you can already tell with him, coming from Atlanta and not playing competitive basketball, that he wants to taste it again, that he’s hungry, prepared and ready. He was telling me last year he was so frustrated that he got a lot of technicals. But we can all see he’s excited about the season.”
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
- Before Kyle Lowry signed an extension with Toronto, the Timberwolves looked into his availability, tweets Darren Wolfson of SKOR North. There has been no indication that the Raptors were considering moving their All-Star point guard, so it may have been as simple as an inquiry that went nowhere. Still, as Wolfson points out, it shows that new president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas will kick the tires on every potentially available impact player — even those that don’t necessarily fit Minnesota’s timeline.
- The battle for the Nuggets‘ starting small forward job appears to be down to Will Barton and Torrey Craig, writes Nick Kosmider of The Athletic. Barton, who was more effective in Denver’s final preseason game on Thursday, has said he’d “prefer to start,” as Mike Singer of The Denver Post relays.
- Joe Ingles may have emerged this preseason as the de facto backup point guard for the Jazz, says Tony Jones of The Athletic. Dante Exum is still making his way back from knee surgery and Emmanuel Mudiay hasn’t shown the ability to consistently run an NBA offense, so Ingles figures to take on some ball-handling responsibilities for the second unit, Jones explains.
The Trail Blazers have waived guards Troy Caupain and London Perrantes, along with forward Keljin Blevins, the team announced today in a press release. All three players were on non-guaranteed contracts, so Portland’s cap won’t be impacted.
The Blazers only have 14 players on fully guaranteed contracts for 2019/20, leaving the 15th spot on the roster open. However, Portland was always unlikely to fill that opening to start the season, since it would mean increasing the team’s projected luxury-tax bill to carry a 15th man who likely wouldn’t play.
As such, the only chance Caupain, Perrantes, and Blevins really had to stick with the Blazers to start the season was claiming the club’s open two-way contract slot. Moses Brown earned that spot and had his contract converted to a two-way deal, making the rest of the camp invitees expendable.
The Blazers’ roster now appears set for the regular season. I wouldn’t count on any additional moves from the team this weekend unless something unexpected pops up, since Portland doesn’t have its own G League affiliate and doesn’t have to worry about securing players’ NBAGL rights.
The Trail Blazers are converting Moses Brown‘s Exhibit 10 deal into a two-way contract, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link).
Portland doesn’t have a G League team, so Brown will play for another team’s affiliate. The franchise didn’t sign any players to two-way contracts last season, but they’ve filled both slots this year, as our tracker shows. Jaylen Hoard joins Brown as the Blazers’ two-way players.
Brown, who turned 20 years old on Sunday spent his lone college season at UCLA last year. The 7’1″ center played in 32 games for the Bruins, averaging 9.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks per game.
- Trail Blazers veteran big man Pau Gasol will not play in either of the team’s final two preseason games, and his status for the regular season remains up in the air, tweets Joe Freeman of The Oregonian. Head coach Terry Stotts said of Gasol (Twitter link), “He works with (the health and performance staff) every day, he’s very diligent about doing what he needs to do. But as far as an update, there is really no update.”
Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic is hiring new representation, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, who reports (via Twitter) that Nurkic will sign with Rich Paul of Klutch Sports. Nurkic was previously repped by Aylton Tesch of Dynasty Sports.
Nurkic is only in the second season of his current four-year contract, which expires after the 2021/22 season. However, he’ll become eligible for a contract extension on July 6, 2020, two years after he signed that deal. It’s not clear whether the big man will be seeking an extension immediately upon becoming eligible, but making his agent change now could help prepare him for those negotiations.
Despite the fact that Nurkic remains under contract for multiple seasons, it makes some sense that he’s making a change. The four-year, $48MM deal he signed as a restricted free agent in 2018 with Portland was widely considered a steal for the Blazers.
Before his 2018/19 season ended with a broken leg, Nurkic was making his contract look even more team-friendly by establishing new career highs in PPG (15.6), RPG (10.4), APG (3.2), and several other categories. That leg injury will sideline him for the start of the 2019/20 campaign, but he’s considered likely to return well before the playoffs if he doesn’t experience any setbacks.
The 2019/20 NBA regular season will get underway in less than two weeks, which means it’s time to start getting serious about predictions for the upcoming campaign.
With the help of the lines from a handful of sports betting sites, including Bovada and BetOnline, we’re running through the predicted win totals for each of the NBA’s 30 teams, by division. In a series of team-by-team polls, you’ll get the chance to weigh in on whether you think those forecasts are too optimistic or too pessimistic.
Having already looked at the Atlantic, we’re moving onto the Northwest today…
Denver Nuggets
- 2018/19 record: 54-28
- Over/under for 2019/20: 53.5 wins
- Major offseason moves:
- Added: Jerami Grant, Vlatko Cancar, Bol Bol
- Lost: Trey Lyles, Tyler Lydon, Isaiah Thomas
Trade Rumors app users, click here for Nuggets poll.
Utah Jazz
- 2018/19 record: 50-32
- Over/under for 2019/20: 53.5 wins
- Major offseason moves:
Trade Rumors app users, click here for Jazz poll.
Portland Trail Blazers
- 2018/19 record: 53-29
- Over/under for 2019/20: 46.5 wins
- Major offseason moves:
Trade Rumors app users, click here for Trail Blazers poll.
Minnesota Timberwolves
- 2018/19 record: 36-46
- Over/under for 2019/20: 35.5 wins
- Major offseason moves:
- Added: Jarrett Culver, Jake Layman, Noah Vonleh, Shabazz Napier, Treveon Graham, Jordan Bell, Jaylen Nowell, Naz Reid
- Lost: Dario Saric, Tyus Jones, Derrick Rose, Taj Gibson, Anthony Tolliver, Luol Deng, Jerryd Bayless, Cameron Reynolds
Trade Rumors app users, click here for Timberwolves poll.
Oklahoma City Thunder
- 2018/19 record: 49-33
- Over/under for 2019/20: 32.5 wins
- Major offseason moves:
- Added: Chris Paul, Danilo Gallinari, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Darius Bazley, Mike Muscala, Justin Patton
- Lost: Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Jerami Grant, Patrick Patterson, Markieff Morris, Raymond Felton
Trade Rumors app users, click here for Thunder poll.
Previous voting results:
- Philadelphia 76ers (54.5 wins): Over (54.9%)
- Boston Celtics (49.5 wins): Under (57.0%)
- Toronto Raptors (46.5 wins): Under (59.1%)
- Brooklyn Nets (43.5 wins): Over (58.3%)
- New York Knicks (27.5 wins): Under (54.9%)
After initially telling NBA teams that they wouldn’t be permitted to scout practices involving top prospects LaMelo Ball and R.J. Hampton this season due to the league’s no-contact rules, the league office allowed clubs to attend a pair of New Zealand Breakers practices in Memphis this week to get a look at Hampton, according to a pair of reports from Jonathan Givony of ESPN.com.
As Givony details, scouts and executives from NBA teams had hoped to attend a total of five Breakers practices this week in Memphis and Oklahoma City to scout Hampton as part of the New Zealand club’s preseason tour. However, the league prohibited teams from attending sessions on Sunday and Monday morning before opening up Monday night’s practice as well as Tuesday morning’s shootaround. Teams will also be allowed to attend the Breakers’ morning shootaround on Thursday in OKC, Givony adds.
As Givony explains, the NBA’s no-contact rules prohibit teams from having contact with draft-ineligible players outside of a few approved settings, including official games and select college practices. Non-college prospects like Ball and Hampton are still considered draft-ineligible for 2020 at this point since they haven’t officially declared through the league office.
The league’s latest memo related to non-contact rules extensively addressed college and international prospects, but Ball and Hampton technically don’t fall into either category since they’re not attending college and haven’t lived outside the U.S. for three years — they’re essentially in a grey area, leaving the NBA to interpret their status based on the league’s existing rules.
It’s possible the NBA will alter its interpretation of those rules or tweak them slightly to allow teams more freedom to scout Ball and Hampton over the course of the 2019/20 season. Givony points out that 27 NBA scouts attending the NBL Blitz in Tasmania last month and many of those scouts attended practices involving Ball and Hampton, which may lead to fines.
The Breakers practices that were open to NBA execs and scouts this week were heavily populated, according to the NBL, which estimates that over 100 reps from teams were on hand on Monday night to get a look at Hampton. Another top 2020 prospect, James Wiseman, had his pro day at the University of Memphis earlier on Monday, so many scouts and execs attended both events.
Meanwhile, Ball, who is also playing in the NBL as a member of the Illawarra Hawks, is drawing plenty of attention from fans in addition to NBA teams. According to Adam Zagoria of Forbes.com, Ball’s NBL debut became the most-watched game in league history, with one million viewers streaming the game on Facebook in the United States.
Zagoria also wrote in a separate Forbes article that the Trail Blazers, Pelicans, Nets, and Raptors are among the teams that have reached out to the Spire Academy in Ohio – where Ball played last season – for information on the young point guard. The Cavaliers have also been evaluating him, sources tell Zagoria.
In ESPN’s latest mock draft, Givony had Wiseman coming off the board at No. 1, followed by Ball at No. 3 and Hampton at No. 6.
- Pau Gasol has embraced a mentoring role with the Trail Blazers, according to an Associated Press report. Gasol, who signed a one-year deal to join Portland, is hopeful to be ready by opening night as he rehabs from foot surgery but he’s asserting himself in camp in other ways. “I hope to add leadership on and off the court, experience and also quality of play,” he said. “I’m excited after a difficult health year, frustrating. I’m excited to just work on my body and be healthy so I can do what I do on the floor and just have fun with the guys and compete, and play as hard as I can.”