Portland Trail Blazers Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Windhorst: Gallinari A Good Target For Blazers?

October 30th, 2019 at 9:47am CST by Luke Adams

The Trail Blazers could use a scoring forward, according to Windhorst, who thinks the Thunder‘s Danilo Gallinari is a more realistic target than Kevin Love. Gallinari’s expiring contract would make more sense, given Portland’s long-term cap outlook.

[SOURCE LINK]

The Trail Blazers could use a scoring forward, according to Windhorst, who thinks the Thunder‘s Danilo Gallinari is a more realistic target than Kevin Love. Gallinari’s expiring contract would make more sense, given Portland’s long-term cap outlook.

2019/20 NBA Disabled Player Exceptions

October 29th, 2019 at 12:11pm CST by Luke Adams

A disabled player exception can be granted when an NBA team has a player go down with an injury deemed to be season-ending. The exception gives the club some additional spending flexibility, functioning almost as a cross between a traded player exception and a mid-level exception.

We go into more detail on who qualifies for disabled player exceptions and how exactly they work in our glossary entry on the subject. But essentially, a DPE gives a team the opportunity to add an injury replacement by either signing a player to a one-year contract, trading for a player in the final year of his contract, or placing a waiver claim on a player in the final year of his contract.

Because the rules related to disable player exceptions are somewhat restrictive and the exceptions themselves often aren’t worth a lot, they often simply expire without being used. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on which disabled player exceptions have been granted, just in case.

We’ll use this space to break down the teams with DPEs available for the 2019/20 league year, updating it as the season progresses. Teams have until January 15 to apply for a disabled player exception and until March 10 to actually use them.

Teams that have been granted disabled player exceptions:

Detroit Pistons: $9,258,000 (Blake Griffin) (story)
Orlando Magic: $4,629,000 (Al-Farouq Aminu) (story)
Washington Wizards: $4,365,079 (C.J. Miles) (story)
- Used to acquire Shabazz Napier.
New Orleans Pelicans: $3,625,000 (Darius Miller) (story)
Portland Trail Blazers: $2,859,000 (Rodney Hood) (story)
Los Angeles Lakers: $1,750,000 (DeMarcus Cousins) (story)
- Used to sign Markieff Morris.
Cleveland Cavaliers: $1,017,900 (Dylan Windler) (story)
Brooklyn Nets: $839,427 (David Nwaba) (story)

Many of the teams that have been granted disabled player exceptions have full 15-man rosters, so they would have to open up a roster spot in order to use their DPEs.

So far, only the Lakers and Wizards have used their disabled player exceptions. Now that the trade deadline has passed, the remaining exceptions are less likely to be used, since teams like the Pistons, Magic, Pelicans, Trail Blazers, Cavaliers, and Nets are unlikely to be in the market for free agents who require more than minimum-salary investments.

Teams/players ineligible for disabled player exceptions:

Orlando Magic (Jonathan Isaac) (story)
Washington Wizards (John Wall) (story)

The Wizards applied for a disabled player exception for Wall during the first week of the 2019/20 league year. Word that the NBA had denied that request didn’t surface until October, but the league’s decision makes sense. After all, Wall underwent Achilles surgery all the way back in February.

In order for a DPE to be approved, the injured player must be considered substantially more likely than not to be sidelined through June 15 of that league year. Recovery from Achilles surgery is generally viewed as an 11-15 month process, whereas June 15 would’ve been more than 16 months since Wall underwent that procedure.

The Magic are in the same boat with Isaac. His knee injury apparently isn’t serious enough that the NBA is willing to count on him being sidelined through June 15, so Orlando’s DPE request was denied.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Zach Collins Suffers Dislocated Shoulder

October 27th, 2019 at 9:09pm CST by JD Shaw

Trail Blazers big man Zach Collins suffered a dislocated left shoulder against the Mavericks on Sunday, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).

Collins will undergo an MRI on the injured shoulder on Monday, Wojnarowski notes.

The former lottery pick exited the game in the fourth quarter due to the injury, finishing with 10 points and three rebounds in 24 minutes. He stated after the game that his shoulder “popped back in cleanly,” something that could be a good sign for Blazers fans, Marc Stein of the New York Times tweets.

Collins, 21, is in his third season with Portland. He appeared in 77 games with the team last year, averaging 6.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 17.6 minutes per contest. He’s started in each of his three games this season.

Brown, Hoard Join Mavs' Affiliate; Bazemore Makes Early Impact

October 27th, 2019 at 6:35pm CST by JD Shaw

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.”

NBA Teams With Open Roster Spots To Start Season

October 23rd, 2019 at 9:00am CST by Luke Adams

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

Northwest Notes: Bazemore, Wolves, Nuggets, Ingles

October 18th, 2019 at 3:00pm CST by Luke Adams

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.

Trail Blazers Release Three Players

October 18th, 2019 at 12:36pm CST by Luke Adams

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.

Blazers Convert Moses Brown’s Contract To Two-Way Deal

October 17th, 2019 at 10:38pm CST by ChrisCrouse

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.

Gasol's Status Remains Uncertain

October 16th, 2019 at 10:02pm CST by clarkcrum

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.”

Jusuf Nurkic Signing With Rich Paul, Klutch Sports

October 15th, 2019 at 1:12pm CST by Luke Adams

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.