- Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee examines some summer league finale notes for the Kings. Sacramento defeated Houston on Saturday despite missing Keegan Murray and others, winning 92-81. The team was lead by Jeriah Horne‘s 20 points.
29-year-old former 2013 NBA lottery pick Shabazz Muhammad is hoping to return to the NBA after spending the past four seasons abroad, writes Dana O’Neil of The Athletic. Muhammad indicates that he has worked out for the Kings and has received interest from the Mavericks.
Muhammad was selected with the No. 14 pick out of UCLA in 2013 and spent the majority of his NBA tenure with the Timberwolves. After Minnesota waived him in the spring of 2018, he latched on with the Bucks. Since then, he has suited up for a pair of CBA clubs, the Shanxi Brave Dragons and the Shenzhen Aviators. During the 2021/22 season, Muhammad played briefly with the Nuggets’ NBAGL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Gold. He next joined the San Miguel Beermen of the Phillippine Basketball Association.
“It was a big adjustment,’’ Muhammad said of his time abroad. “The language barrier — I needed a translator to talk to my teammates — the food. I got down on myself.’’
Here are some other odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Former Nets small forward Dzanan Musa has inked a deal with top EuroLeague power Real Madrid, according to Alessandro Maggi of Sportando. The 6’9″ wing, still just 23, was selected with the No. 29 pick by Brooklyn in 2018. From 2018-20, he appeared in a total of 49 games for the Nets, averaging 4.8 PPG, 2.1 RPG and 1.1 APG while shooting 37.6% from the floor. Musa spent the 2021/22 season with another Spanish team, Club Baloncesto Breogán, for whom he averaged 20.1 PPG, 5.1 RPG and 3.1 APG.
- Another recent Net, point guard Mike James, has opted to re-sign with AS Monaco on a two-year deal, according to Eurohoops. James, 31, was named to the All-EuroLeague First Team during his 2021/22 season with AS Monaco, averaging 16.4 PPG, 5.7 APG and 3.4 RPG. The 6’1″ James last suited up in 13 games for the Nets during the 2020/21 season, averaging 7.7 PPG, 4.2 APG and 2.5 RPG across 18.2 MPG.
- Former NBA reserve guard Jerian Grant has signed with the Turkish club Turk Telekom, per Eurohoops. Grant, now 29, was selected with the No. 19 pick out of Notre Dame in 2015, and logged time with the Knicks, Bulls, and Magic, before landing with the Wizards for his last NBA season, 2019/20. The 6’4″ vet holds career NBA averages of 6.1 PPG, 2.9 APG, 1.9 RPG and 0.7 SPG across 279 games. Grant spent the 2021/22 season with Italian EuroLeague club Olimpia Milano. During his games played within the Italian League, he averaged 7.4 PPG 2.7 APG and 1.9 RPG.
The Warriors only have 11 players on standard contracts so far, leaving at least three openings on their projected regular season roster. According to Anthony Slater of The Athletic, it’s possible one of those spots will be filled by Andre Iguodala.
Golden State hasn’t set any sort of deadline for Iguodala to make a decision on whether or not he wants to continue his playing career, so there will be a roster spot available for him if he decides he wants to continue playing, Slater explains.
Second-round pick Ryan Rollins also appears likely to claim one of the 15-man roster spots. He has a stress fracture in his foot, but Slater says there’s a belief he should be ready to go by training camp and he’ll likely receive a standard contract rather than a two-way deal.
Quinndary Weatherspoon, who received a two-way qualifying offer from the Warriors, is another player to watch, according to Slater, though he says the team’s preference would be to keep Weatherspoon on a two-way contract rather than a standard deal.
Here’s more from around the Pacific:
- While some rival scouts and executives questioned the Lakers‘ decision to use their taxpayer mid-level exception on Lonnie Walker and didn’t love the signing of Troy Brown, the general reaction to the team’s free agency moves has been positive, says Dan Woike of The Los Angeles Times. In particular, Los Angeles received “high marks” for getting centers Thomas Bryant and Damian Jones on minimum-salary contracts, according to Woike.
- In an episode of The Void Podcast, Kevin O’Connor, J. Kyle Mann, and Jonathan Tjarks of The Ringer make the case that the Kings made the right choice picking Keegan Murray over Jaden Ivey, suggesting that Murray is an ideal fit for Sacramento’s roster.
- The contracts signed by Moses Brown, Jay Scrubb, and Xavier Moon with the Clippers are all Exhibit 10 deals, Hoops Rumors has learned. That means they’re one-year, non-guaranteed minimum-salary contracts which won’t count against the cap unless the player makes the regular season roster.
The departures of Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. open up playing time for Warriors guard Moses Moody. He could have a 20-minute role as the eighth or ninth man in the rotation if all goes well, Anthony Slater of The Athletic writes.
“Try to make myself beneficial,” Moody said of his goals. “Make it to the point where if I’m getting into the game, it’s not because someone likes me. It’s not doing me a favor. I want to be needed. I want you to think ‘I need Moses on the floor.’ That’s on me. I’ve got to make that the scenario.”
We have more from the Pacific Division:
- Moody, James Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga are all showing signs of rewarding the Warriors’ patience in them during Summer League play, according to Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic. Kuminga, in particular, sparkled at the end of the Warriors’ one-point win over the Spurs on Sunday, with eight points and an assist in the last four minutes as well as making defensive plays.
- Free agent Ish Wainright is hopeful of re-signing with the Suns, Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports tweets. The undrafted Wainwright appeared in 45 regular season games last season. He had his two-way contract converted into a standard end-of-the-season-deal during the waning days of the season. “Everybody knows I want to be back,” said Wainwright, who is playing Summer League games with the Suns. “It’s out of my hands.”
- Domantas Sabonis is happy with the Kings’ moves during the offseason, as he told James Boyd of the Indianap0lis Star. “We’re doing the right things,” he said. “We’ve got a coaching staff that is motivated to get us better and put us in the right direction. We made some good add-ons in free agency (signing Malik Monk and trading for Kevin Huerter), and we still have some time left, so I’m just excited.”
- Now a member of the Pacers, Tyrese Haliburton says he still has love for Sacramento, despite unexpectedly being traded to Indiana prior to the 2022 deadline. Haliburton told Sean Cunningham of Fox 40 in Sacramento (video link) that his feelings toward the Kings organization and Kings fans are “completely different” from one another.
- After having his NBA rights acquired by the Kings in June, Olympiacos forward Sasha Vezenkov had reportedly planned to meet with the team in Las Vegas this month. However, Vezenkov isn’t traveling stateside after all, according to Vangelis Ioannou of Eurohoops.net, and he recently made comments hinting he may remain in Greece for the 2022/23 season, per Antonis Stroggylakis of Eurohoops.net. Vezenkov has an NBA opt-out deadline of July 20 in his deal with Olympiacos, so he’ll have another nine days to see if he and the Kings can work out a deal. Sacramento has a small portion of its mid-level exception available to offer the 26-year-old more than two years, or could dip into its bi-annual exception to offer a two-year deal worth more than the rookie minimum.
7:08pm: Quinn Cook and Shabazz Muhammad also have workouts set for the Kings this week, tweets James Ham of ESPN 1320. Sacramento has three roster spots to fill.
6:44pm: Matthew Dellavedova is working out for the Kings in Las Vegas in hopes of earning an invitation to training camp, tweets Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
The 31-year-old Australian guard played for the Cavaliers during the 2020/21 season, but was limited to 13 games because of various injuries, a concussion and an emergency appendectomy. He returned home to play for Melbourne United this past season, but is hoping for an NBA comeback.
McMenamin notes that Mike Brown, Sacramento’s new head coach, was coaching in Cleveland when Dellavedova broke into the NBA in 2013.
Dellavedova played 447 games in eight NBA seasons, mostly with the Cavaliers, though he also spent some time with the Bucks. Known as an on-court leader and a scrappy defender, he was part of Cleveland’s championship team in 2016.
- Veteran player development coach Rico Hines has left the Kings to join the Raptors, as Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee writes. Hines confirmed the move in an Instagram post after previously bidding farewell to Kings fans in another post on Instagram. Hines spent the last three seasons working under Luke Walton and Alvin Gentry in Sacramento.
- Malik Monk‘s long friendship with De’Aaron Fox played an important role in his decision to sign with the Kings, according to Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. Monk and Fox have been friends since high school and they were backcourt partners at Kentucky. “They speak all the time,” a source told Anderson. “They’re still in their college group chat, so they speak every day. Those guys are real brothers, so I’m excited for them both.”
Malik Monk‘s two-year deal with the Kings is worth approximately $19.42MM in total, with a first-year salary of $9.47MM, Hoops Rumors has learned. While Sacramento used most of the mid-level exception to bring Monk aboard, the team still has $1,017,781 left on the MLE, which is the exact value of the rookie minimum salary.
The Kings didn’t have a second-round pick in this year’s draft, so that leftover mid-level money won’t go to a 2022 draftee. But the club may have it earmarked for a player like Sasha Vezenkov, a 2017 second-rounder whose draft rights were acquired from Cleveland last month. Using that leftover mid-level money, Sacramento could offer Vezenkov – or another player – a minimum-salary deal that exceeds two years.
Here are a few more details on recently-signed contracts from around the NBA:
- As expected, Joe Ingles got the full taxpayer mid-level exception ($6.48MM) from the Bucks, while Bobby Portis‘s four-year deal is worth the most he could receive using his Early Bird rights ($48.58MM), Hoops Rumors has learned. Portis’ contract includes a 15% trade kicker and a fourth-year player option.
- Wesley Matthews‘ new deal with the Bucks is a one-year, minimum-salary contract, while the team used Jevon Carter‘s Non-Bird rights to give him a first-year salary ($2.1MM) worth a little more than his minimum ($1.97MM). Carter’s second-year player option is for the veteran’s minimum.
- Kessler Edwards‘ two-year deal with the Nets, which features a second-year team option, is – as expected – worth the minimum.
- Luguentz Dort‘s five-year contract with the Thunder includes a team option in year five and has a total base value of $82.5MM. It can be worth up to $87.5MM if Dort earns $5MM in total unlikely bonuses ($1MM annually), tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks.
- Tyus Jones‘ two-year deal with the Grizzlies begins at $15MM and declines to $14MM in 2023/24, per Marks (Twitter link). The deal includes an additional $1MM in unlikely incentives related to the team’s performance, Marks adds.
JULY 6: The trade is now official, according to a press release from the Hawks. Within the team’s announcement, president of basketball operations Travis Schlenk referred to Holiday and Harkless as “two defensive-minded, quality veterans who can help our team on the court and in the locker room.”
JULY 1: The Hawks and Kings have agreed to a trade that will send sharpshooter Kevin Huerter to Sacramento, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
According to Wojnarowski, Atlanta will receive forwards Justin Holiday and Maurice Harkless in the deal, along with a future first-round pick.
That first-rounder will be the Kings’ own 2024 selection and will be lottery-protected, reports Chris Kirschner of The Athletic (Twitter link). If it doesn’t convey immediately, it would be top-12 protected in 2025 and top-10 protected in 2026. If it still hasn’t changed hands by that point, the Hawks would instead receive two second-rounders, says Kirschner.
The Kings have clearly made it a priority this offseason to add reliable outside shooting to complement their two stars, De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. Huerter made a career-high 38.9% of his three-pointers in 2021/22, attempting 5.6 per game.
Neither Fox nor Sabonis is a major threat from beyond the arc, but they should be surrounded by solid floor-spaces. In addition to striking a deal for Huerter, the Kings have also drafted Keegan Murray and agreed to sign Malik Monk since the offseason began.
The Hawks, meanwhile, will replenish their stash of draft assets slightly after giving up three first-round picks and a swap to acquire Dejounte Murray earlier in the week.
Atlanta will also move off Huerter’s four-year, $65MM contract, creating a little extra long-term flexibility and also shedding some salary in the short term. As Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype tweets, Atlanta is hovering right around the tax line for 13 players.
While the Hawks will miss Huerter’s shooting, their first-round pick, AJ Griffin, was considered one of the top marksmen in this year’s draft class and should help make up for that loss. Assuming both are retained, Holiday and Harkless also offer some defensive versatility that Huerter lacked.
The Hawks have now agreed to acquire two of the Holiday brothers today — they also reached a deal to sign point guard Aaron Holiday.