- The Trail Blazers‘ agreement with Jusuf Nurkic can be worth up to $54MM, but has a base value of $48MM, with $6MM in unlikely incentives. The fourth and final year is also currently only partially guaranteed for $4MM (Twitter link).
In the wake of a few cryptic tweets sent from his Twitter account and another round of speculation that the Lakers may want to acquire him, Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard set the record straight during a conversation with reporters on Sunday. As Jason Quick of NBC Sports Northwest writes, Lillard dismissed the idea that he’s dissatisfied in Portland or that he wants to play elsewhere.
“I’m straight up. I’m straight up with coach, I’m straight up with (president of basketball operations) Neil (Olshey), straight up with you all,” Lillard said. “I’m not unhappy. I love where I live. I love the organization. I love our coaching staff. I love where I am.”
The Lillard tweets that fueled speculation about his possible unhappiness were published after word broke that Ed Davis would sign with the Nets on a fairly modest one-year, $4.4MM deal. While the standout point guard admitted that he and the Blazers will miss Davis, along with other free agents like Shabazz Napier and Pat Connaughton, he said he’s eager to see who will step up with those players gone.
“Obviously, I loved Ed,” Lillard said, per Quick. “He was one of my best friends in the league; one of favorite teammates I’ve played with. We lose him – that’s a loss for our team. ‘Bazz played big minutes for us, Pat played big minutes for us – so we lose three rotation players that gave us a lot and contributed to our season last year. But I guess now we look forward to who can come in and replace those minutes and give us that type of quality.”
The Trail Blazers signed Nik Stauskas and Seth Curry in free agency in the hopes of adding more shooting. The team will also lean on second-year big man Zach Collins for a larger role. Lillard said on Sunday that he expects Collins to “make a huge leap” in his sophomore year, and added that rookies Anfernee Simons and Gary Trent Jr. are “both impressive,” as Joe Freeman of The Oregonian details.
Lillard, who has been a Blazers since entering the league in 2012, remains under contract with the franchise through the 2020/21 season, so he’s unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon.
- Seth Curry‘s agreement with the Trail Blazers was originally reported as a two-year contract with a second-year player option, but it appears to just be a one-year, $2.795MM deal (Twitter link).
- Gary Trent Jr., the 37th overall pick in the draft, got a fully guaranteed three-year deal from the Trail Blazers (Twitter link). Although all three years are worth the minimum salary, Portland had to use part of its mid-level exception to go more than two years for Trent.
Kevin Love has a chance to raise his trade value by the February deadline, which may explain why the Cavaliers aren’t putting him on the market now, writes Terry Pluto of Cleveland.com. GM Koby Altman said this week that the organization “doesn’t get better” by moving Love, and a rival executive that Pluto talked to agrees.
With LeBron James gone, Love will become the new focus of the offense in Cleveland and he has a good chance to raise the numbers of 17.6PPG and 9.0 RPG that earned him an All-Star berth this season. He also stretches opposing defense, which will give Jordan Clarkson and rookie point guard Collin Sexton easier paths to the rim.
Love will make $24MM in the upcoming season, then has a $25.6MM salary for 2019/20 that he is expected to opt out of, so the Cavaliers will likely decide to trade him at some point. The unidentified executive says he could be very popular around the deadline, especially in the Eastern Conference, where teams will see a wide open field with James now a Laker.
There’s more this morning out of Cleveland:
- The Heat, Hornets, Trail Blazers and Raptors stand out as potential trade destinations for Love, according to Frank Urbina of Hoops Hype.
- Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue will meet with Lakers coach Luke Walton and associate head coach Brian Shaw to discuss the experience of coaching James, according to Tania Ganguli of The Los Angeles Times. “I’ll just tell them LeBron’s easy,” Lue said. “People get this whole thing built up like he’s hard to coach. It’s not. LeBron’s not the problem. It’s the outside tension that’s the problem. Just put added pressure immediately on the coaches, on his teammates. Now everything you do is under a microscope. … So it’s going to be a totally different change for the Lakers. They’ll be able to handle it.” Lue adds that he spoke to James a number of times while he was making his free agency decision, but never pressed him to stay in Cleveland.
- Pluto examines James’ legacy with the Cavaliers in a separate story. Through all he has accomplished, the enduring memory for James may be bringing an NBA championship to Cleveland. “Only people who are from there understand what that title meant,” said former Cavs coach Mike Brown. “To LeBron, I bet it’s worth more than all his MVP awards [four] and his other titles [in Miami] combined.”
- Ante Zizic, an overlooked part of the Kyrie Irving trade, has been putting up huge numbers in the Las Vegas Summer League, relays Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com. He posted 25 points and 11 rebounds in Saturday’s loss to the Bulls.
JULY 7, 12:20pm: Per Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post, Nurkic’s partial guarantee in the final season of his new contract – 2021/22 – is for $4MM.
JULY 7, 7:23am: The Trail Blazers have officially re-signed Nurkic, the club early on Saturday morning in a press release.
JULY 6: Restricted free agent center Jusuf Nurkic has agreed to a four-year, $48MM contract to remain with the Trail Blazers, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN tweets.
The deal includes a partial guarantee in the fourth season, Wojnarowski adds. The contract could be worth up to $53MM, according to Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports.
The 7-foot Nurkic, who turns 24 in August, posted averages of 14.3 PPG, 9.0 RPG and 1.4 BPG last season. Nurkic started all 79 games in which he played.
Nurkic could have signed for more money a few months ago, according to Wojnarowski’s follow-up story, but turned down that offer. With the market shrinking, Nurkic decided to take the Blazers’ revised offer.
Nurkic’s career took off when the Nuggets traded him to Portland during the 2016/17 season. He was one of the top big men available on the free agent market this summer, coming in at No. 16 overall on our list of 2018’s top 50 free agents.
With Nurkic back under contract, the Blazers have now made three signings this week, adding Nik Stauskas and Seth Curry to the mix as well. Those new deals project to take Portland over the tax line, though there’s still plenty of time for the team to dip back below it — last year, for instance, the Blazers went well over that threshold before moving Allen Crabbe and Noah Vonleh to avoid becoming a taxpayer.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
The Trail Blazers have signed second-round pick Gary Trent Jr., the team announced on its website. The contract is fully guaranteed for three years, tweets Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports.
Portland will likely use part of its mid-level exception to complete the signing. The Blazers are over the cap, and minimum deals are limited to two seasons.
Trent, the 37th overall pick, came to Portland in a draft night deal with Sacramento, with the Blazers giving up cash and two second-round picks in return.
The 19-year-old averaged 14.5 points per game in his freshman season at Duke and shot 40% from 3-point range. He led the ACC in 3-pointers made with 97.
July 5: The Blazers announced in a press release that they’ve officially signed Stauskas.
July 1: The Trail Blazers have reached an agreement to sign former eighth overall pick Nik Stauskas, reports ESPN’s Chris Haynes (via Twitter). Stauskas will sign a one-year, minimum-salary contract with the club, Haynes adds (via Twitter).
Stauskas, who began his NBA career with the Kings, has been traded twice since then, first to Philadelphia and then to Brooklyn. The 6’6″ shooting guard posted decent numbers for the Sixers in 2016/17, putting up 9.5 PPG, 2.8 RPG, and 2.4 APG with a .496/.368/.813 shooting line. However, he fell out of the team’s rotation early in the 2017/18 campaign and was sent to the Nets along with Jahlil Okafor.
In 35 games for Brooklyn, Stauskas averaged 5.1 PPG in 13.7 minutes per contest, with a .404 3PT%. The Nets opted not to issue him a qualifying offer this week, which allowed him to reach the open market as an unrestricted free agent.
Stauskas will earn $1,621,415 on his new deal, though Portland will only be on the hook for a $1,512,601 cap hit.
- Per Joe Freeman of The Oregonian, a couple of key subplots have emerged for the Trail Blazers during the team’s summer league minicamp. First, it’s an opportunity for Portland to get a first-hand look at rookies Anfernee Simons and Gary Trent Jr. in an NBA practice. Moreover, both Wade Baldwin and Georgios Papagiannis are fighting for their NBA lives while Jake Layman looks to secure a more prominent role for next season.
Before DeMarcus Cousins agreed to join the defending-champion Warriors on a one-year, $5.3MM contract, the Trail Blazers and Pelicans discussed the possibility of a sign-and-trade deal that would have sent the star center to Portland, reports Chris Haynes of ESPN.com (Twitter link). However, according to Haynes, the fact that Cousins and Jusuf Nurkic share the same agent was one roadblock in those talks.
Even if not for that issue, it would have been tricky for the Pelicans and Blazers to reach a deal that worked for both sides. Acquiring a player via sign-and-trade would have hard-capped the Blazers, who were already well over the cap, so they likely would have had to send at least one or two players to New Orleans. It’s not clear if talks progressed to the point where the two sides were discussing specific players.
Here’s more on the free agency decision that has practically made LeBron James‘ move to Los Angeles an afterthought tonight:
- Cousins had narrowed down his choices to Golden State and Boston before opting for the Warriors, according to Haynes (Twitter link). The Celtics could have comfortably matched Golden State’s offer and would have been a fascinating destination for Cousins — with LeBron out of the East, the C’s already look like a favorite to represent the conference in the Finals in 2019, so the team’s status as the frontrunner would have been cemented with Cousins in the mix.
- Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports takes a look at the Warriors‘ recruitment of Cousins, which was led by his USA Basketball teammates Draymond Green and Kevin Durant, along with GM Bob Myers. Cousins also had “positive phone calls” with head coach Steve Kerr, league sources tell Charania.
- The Warriors were initially reluctant to believe in Cousins’ interest, according to Charania, who adds that the big man also received interest from the Pelicans, Mavericks, and Wizards. Golden State’s agreement with Cousins came together so quickly that some members of the organization were “stunned” when word of the deal broke, tweets ESPN’s Zach Lowe.
- Speaking to Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated (Twitter links), Cousins called his decision to join the Warriors the “smartest move ever,” and said he’s still hoping to return from his Achilles injury for training camp. Reports tonight suggested the Dubs may be eyeing a December or January return to action for their latest acquisition.
- Cousins also told Spears that he received no significant contract offers when free agency began, but was prepared for that possibility due to his Achilles injury (Twitter link).
- While it’s not impossible that Cousins could end up hurting the Warriors more than he helps, the addition – combined with the Rockets’ loss of Trevor Ariza – appears to have further widened the gap between Golden State and the rest of the NBA, writes Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com in his breakdown of the deal.
The Trail Blazers have signed first-round pick Anfernee Simons, according to the team’s website.
Portland used the 24th overall pick on the 19-year-old Simons, who attended IMG Academy last year. The 6’4” Simons will receive approximately $1.8MM during his rookie year.
Simons could see playing time in his rookie season, even though the Trail Blazers just came to terms with free agent Seth Curry. Portland is still somewhat thin at the guard spots behind starters Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.