San Antonio Spurs Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Spurs Sign Jimmer Fredette

July 22nd, 2015 at 5:02pm CST by Eddie Scarito

5:02pm: The signing is official, the Spurs announced via a press release.

4:25pm: The Spurs and unrestricted free agent Jimmer Fredette are finalizing a deal that would bring the guard to San Antonio, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link). Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter links) classifies it as a training camp deal that includes a modest financial guarantee.

San Antonio is seeking to boost its outside scoring, and a partially guaranteed deal will allow the team to see how Fredette fits within its system. The Spurs already have 13 guaranteed contracts on the books for next season, so it’s a long shot that the 26-year-old makes the team. Fredette had been considering an offer from Italy’s Olimpia Milano to play overseas.

Fredette made 50 appearances for the Pelicans last season, averaging 3.6 points, 0.8 rebounds, and 1.2 assists in 10.2 minutes per contest. His slash line was .380/.188/.956.

Spurs Sign Jonathon Simmons

July 22nd, 2015 at 4:35pm CST by Eddie Scarito

JULY 22ND, 4:35pm: The signing is official, the team announced via a press release.

JULY 10TH, 4:21pm: The Spurs have reached an agreement with unrestricted free agent Jonathon Simmons, Shams Charania of RealGM reports. It will be a two-year pact worth the minimum, and it includes a team option for the second season. Simmons’ 2015/16 salary will be fully guaranteed, Charania adds.

The 25-year-old swingman went undrafted out of the University of Houston in 2012. Simmons made 29 appearances for the Cougars back in 2011/12, averaging 14.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 2.2 assists, with a slash line of .512/.386/.721.

Simmons has spent the last two seasons playing for the Austin Spurs in the NBA D-League. His D-League numbers last season were 15.2 PPG, 4.3 RPG, and 3.6 APG. His most recent action came as a member of the Nets’ Summer League squad in Orlando.

Western Notes: Hammon, Terry, Teletovic, Jazz

July 22nd, 2015 at 8:59am CST by Chuck Myron

Former Nets executive Bobby Marks says he would call Spurs assistant Becky Hammon first if he were running a team and looking for a head coach (Twitter link). Hammon has been a full-time NBA assistant for only one season, but she guided the Spurs to the Las Vegas Summer League title as the first female summer league head coach and commanded the attention of her players, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News details.

“She’s just a good coach,” said Kyle Anderson, San Antonio’s 2014 first-round pick. “Everybody listens to her like they would anyone else. I mean, she’s the coach.”

The arrival of the first female head coach for regular season play still seems a long way off, but, as Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News points out, the Spurs have once more proven they’re not afraid of innovation. Here’s more from around the Western Conference:

Jason Terry confirmed Monday that he’s close to a deal with the Rockets, but Houston has renounced his Bird rights, according to the RealGM transactions log. That means the team is limited to paying him a deal with a starting salary of no more than the roughly $2MM slice of the mid-level exception left over from the K.J. McDaniels signing, which also took up a portion of the mid-level.
Upheaval has surrounded the Suns during GM Ryan McDonough‘s first two seasons on the job, but this week he signaled that he’s settled on his main players, as Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic documents. “It took a little while to get to a core we liked but we think we finally have that and have the ability to be successful this year and then hopefully build on that and add to it a year from now when the cap spikes up and we have cap space to bring in guys that help our young core,” McDonough said.
The Suns signed Mirza Teletovic for only one year, but they hope to re-sign him to a new deal next summer, Coro writes in the same piece.
The Jazz‘s three-year deal with Tibor Pleiss is worth an even $9MM, and the team’s three-year deal with Raul Neto is worth precisely $2,852,546, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link).

Southwest Notes: Lawson, McCallum, Pelicans

July 21st, 2015 at 9:58pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Rockets GM Daryl Morey isn’t shy about gambling, and he acknowledges that trading four players for troubled point guard Ty Lawson carries with it some potential pitfalls, Calvin Watkins of ESPN.com writes. “I think when you’re trying to get the best team out of 30, you got to take risk all over the place,” Morey said. “Again, it’s a playing risk, injury risk, character risk. We feel Ty is someone we wanted to add to our team.”

With Houston badly in need of a playmaker at the point, Morey believes he has filled that need with Lawson, Watkins notes. “He’s one of the best playmakers in the league,” Morey continued. “If you look at the leaderboard for assists in the last few years or since he’s been in the league, he’s near the top. I think, as we saw, especially when [Harden] played a couple of teams last year, we struggle against teams that really load on James Harden, and we feel Ty will be a lot more difficult for teams to do that.”

Here’s more out of the Southwest Division:

Recent Spurs trade acquisition Ray McCallum‘s minimum salary of $947,276 became fully guaranteed when San Antonio didn’t waive him by the end of Monday, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders notes (Twitter link). It had been partially guaranteed for $200K, as the schedule of salary guarantee dates shows.
The Pelicans are looking into establishing their own D-League franchise, John Reid of The Times Picayune writes. New Orleans GM Dell Demps acknowledged the franchise’s interest in the D-League, but he didn’t know the exact time frame for the process, Reid adds. ”A couple of years ago, we did not do it because our players were so young and growing and we figured we just throw them into the fire,” Demps said. ”But that is the next step for us. We’re looking at some options right now on the Gulf Coast and in the state of Louisiana. So we’re looking into that. We have some plans to add our own D-League team.”
Danny Green surprised some when he elected to re-sign with the Spurs with a four-year, $45MM deal when numerous teams had expressed interest in his services, and he likely could have earned more elsewhere. But Green believes his annual salary is in line with his production, Dan McCarney of The San Antonio Express-News notes (Twitter links). “People keep saying that I took less. I think I took what I was worth,” said Green. Though, to get his full market value, Green would have likely had to go to a team like the Pistons or the Kings, who certainly don’t offer as good a chance to contend as San Antonio does, McCarney adds. The Pistons, Mavericks, Blazers, Knicks and the Kings, who’d reportedly made Green their top target, all had some degree of interest in the swingman.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Bucks Nearing Deal With Chris Copeland?

July 21st, 2015 at 9:13pm CST by Chuck Myron

9:13pm: Copeland had a strong workout with the Bucks today, but the Spurs and Thunder are still in the mix for his services, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports tweets.

7:30pm: The Bucks and Copeland are working to finalize a deal, and it is expected to be completed sometime this week, Marc Stein of ESPN.com tweets.

JULY 21ST, 12:22pm: Copeland has traveled to Milwaukee for a meeting with the Bucks and perhaps to take a physical, Woelfel tweets.

JULY 17TH, 2:09pm: Some higher-ups from around the league think the Bucks have become the front-runners for Copeland, Woelfel reports (Twitter link).

JULY 14TH, 11:42am: The Bucks are interested in Chris Copeland, but they have yet to make an offer to the unrestricted free agent forward, reports Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times (Twitter link). Milwaukee is still looking to replace the perimeter shooting it gave up in the Ersan Ilyasova trade, Woelfel notes, pointing to Copeland’s career 37.3% three-point shooting.

That three-point shooting percentage was above 40% before this past season, when he nailed only 31.1% and dropped out of the Pacers rotation in the second half as many of Indiana’s regulars returned to health. His season ended prematurely when he was stabbed and suffered a broken elbow in April outside a New York nightclub.

Milwaukee is among four teams on Copeland’s radar, and the 31-year-old is expected to decide between them in the next couple of days, Woelfel tweets. The Wizards were linked to the John Spencer client early in free agency.

Copeland signed a two-year, $6.135MM deal with Indiana two years ago, when he was coming off a surprisingly successful rookie season with the Knicks, with whom he made his NBA debut six years after going undrafted out of Colorado. He wasn’t able to duplicate that performance with the Pacers, who declined their chance to match competing bids for him this summer when they elected not to make a qualifying offer that would have been worth nearly $3.919MM.

2015/16 Roster Counts: San Antonio Spurs

July 21st, 2015 at 8:16pm CST by Eddie Scarito

During the offseason it’s OK for teams to carry as many as 20 players, but clubs must trim their rosters down to a maximum of 15 by opening night. In the meantime, some teams will hang around that 15-man line, while others will max out their roster counts. Some clubs may actually have more than 15 contracts that are at least partially guaranteed on the books. That means they’ll end up paying players who won’t be on the regular season roster, unless they can find trade partners.

With plenty more movement still to come, here’s the latest look at the Spurs’ roster size, the contract guarantee status of each player, and how each player came to be on San Antonio’s roster.

(Last Updated 3-9-16, 6:00pm)

Fully Guaranteed (15)

LaMarcus Aldridge (F) — 6’11″/29 years old. Free agent signing.
Kyle Anderson (G/F) — 6’9″/21 years old. Drafted with No. 30 overall pick in 2014.
Matt Bonner (F) — 6’10″/35 years old. Acquired via trade from Raptors.
Boris Diaw (F) — 6’8″/33 years old. Free agent signing.
Tim Duncan (F) — 6’11″/39 years old. Drafted with No. 1 overall pick in 1997.
Manu Ginobili (G) — 6’6″/36 years old. Drafted with No. 57 overall pick in 1999.
Danny Green (G/F) — 6’6″/28 years old. Free agent signing.
Kawhi Leonard (F) — 6’7″/24 years old. Draft rights acquired via Pacers.
Boban Marjanovic (C) — 7’3″/26 years old. Free agent signing.
Kevin Martin (G) — 6’7″/33 years old. Free agent signing.
Andre Miller (G) — 6’3″/39 years old. Free agent signing.
Patty Mills (G) — 6’0″/26 years old. Free agent signing.
Tony Parker (G) — 6’2″/33 years old. Drafted with No. 28 overall pick in 2001.
Jonathon Simmons (G/F) — 6’6″/25 years old. Free agent signing.
David West (F) — 6’9″/34 years old. Free agent signing.

10-Day Contracts (0)

N/A

TOTAL ROSTER COUNT (15)

Southwest Notes: Gee, Cunningham, Barea, Spurs

July 20th, 2015 at 10:43pm CST by Charlie Adams

The Pelicans used a portion of their mid-level exception to sign Alonzo Gee and Dante Cunningham, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders passes along (on Twitter). Gee will earn $1.32MM this season, while Cunningham will take home a bit more at $2.85MM. That means New Orleans still has $1.294MM of its mid-level exception remaining and 10 guaranteed contracts on the books. We’ve got more contract details in tonight’s look at the Southwest Division:

The front-loaded deal J.J Barea inked with the Mavericks will pay him slightly more than $16MM over four years, as Pincus reveals in his updated Dallas salary page. He’ll earn $4.29MM this season, $4,096,950 the following year, $3,903,900 in year three, and $3,710,850 during the 2018/19 season. The Mavs upped the Puerto Rican guard’s yearly salaries after missing out on DeAndre Jordan.
It has been a busy offseason in San Antonio, and the most overlooked move that the Spurs have made is the addition of 7’3” center Boban Marjanovic, as David Pick details for Bleacher Report. Marjanovic was a relative unknown prior to last season, but his efficient play and massive size netted him some lucrative offers from European teams that he turned down in favor of the Spurs, as Pick relays.
LaMarcus Aldridge, Tim Duncan, Kawhi Leonard, David West, and Danny Green all have player options in the final years of their contracts, as Pincus notes on his updated Spurs salary page.

Spurs Re-Sign Manu Ginobili

July 20th, 2015 at 12:06pm CST by Chuck Myron

NBA: San Antonio Spurs at Toronto Raptors

Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

JULY 20TH, 12:06pm: The deal is official, the team announced via press release. Since it indeed looks like Ginobili is going into the room exception, San Antonio will be limited to giving the minimum salary to outside free agents.

JULY 7TH, 8:24am: Manu Ginobili will come back to the Spurs on a deal worth $5.7MM over two years, with a player option on year two, sources tell Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Ginobili publicly announced Monday that he would return for 2015/16, and while it was thus expected that he would re-sign with San Antonio, the team and the Herb Rudoy client had yet to work out any terms. That $5.7MM figure would be slightly less than the full $5,754,630 two-year value of the room exception, but it’s quite possible that it’s because of rounding. Using the room exception would allow San Antonio to renounce Ginobili’s Bird rights and clear his $10.5MM cap hold to accommodate the team’s deals for LaMarcus Aldridge and others.

Ginobili wasn’t a safe bet to return, as conflicting reports about San Antonio’s confidence about his continued desire to play painted a cloudy picture. His role has gradually been shrinking, and he’s played fewer than 24 minutes a game each of the past four seasons. His 10.5 points and 22.7 minutes were his lowest per-game averages since he was a rookie, and he saw just 18.7 minutes per game in the playoffs. Still, Ginobili, who turns 38 next month, has no shortage of institutional knowledge, and his 16.2 PER shows he’s still fairly efficient when he’s on the floor.

The move helps San Antonio keep its core together amid a summer of momentous changes. Aldridge and David West are set to join the Spurs, who’ve agreed to trade Tiago Splitter to the Hawks. Still, the majority of the team’s five free agent agreements so far have been internal, as Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, just like Manu Ginobili, have agreed to re-sign. Tim Duncan, who’s also decided to put off retirement for at least another year, is expected to follow suit.

And-Ones: Gallinari, Belinelli, Jazz, Harrellson

July 20th, 2015 at 10:35am CST by Chuck Myron

Danilo Gallinari confirmed to Italian media that he and the Nuggets are discussing an extension, as Dario Vismara of Rivista Ufficiale NBA tweets (translation via Sportando’s Orazio Cauchi). Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post reported last week that the team intended to begin talks. The Nuggets can open about $6MM in cap room if they waive both Pablo Prigioni and Kostas Papanikolaou, whom they’re reportedly about to acquire in the deal for Ty Lawson, as former Nets executive Bobby Marks points out (on Twitter). They could use the cap room to give Gallinari a renegotiation and extension, as they did with Wilson Chandler, a maneuver that would be more lucrative for Gallinari than a simple extension. While we wait to see if that’s the route the Nuggets take, here’s more from around the NBA:

The Pelicans, Knicks, Clippers, Lakers, Spurs and Warriors all made offers to Marco Belinelli, who instead signed with the Kings, as he said at the same gathering of Italian media, Vismara notes (Twitter link).
The salary cap is set to surge next summer, but the 2016 free agent class doesn’t have much depth beyond Kevin Durant and LeBron James, leaving many teams with a conundrum as they face the prospect of a salary floor of some $81MM, as Marks examines for HoopsHype.
A work stoppage in 2017 is a “virtual certainty,” an executive from a team recently told Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com, in spite of commissioner Adam Silver’s suggestion to the contrary. Teams are worried that the new TV revenue somehow won’t allow them to keep up with surging payrolls, and clubs that have traditionally relied on revenue sharing figure to take a hit with fewer teams in line to pay into the luxury tax in seasons to come, as Arnovitz details.
The Jazz are drawing raves from coaches and GM around the league for their home-grown approach to rebuilding and hesitance to sign mid-tier free agents who’d only help the team make incremental gains, Arnovitz writes in the same piece.
Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press tells the story of a handful of summer leaguers who carry divergent credentials, including three-year NBA veteran Josh Harrellson, who’s willing to be flexible as he tries to make it back to the NBA now that he’s recovered from a career-threatening back injury. “I think I’ll get a camp invite,” Harrellson said. “My main goal is to get a contract out of this. Even if it’s a partial [guarantee], just something.”

Spurs Rumors: West, Lalanne, Marjanovic, Bonner

July 19th, 2015 at 1:00pm CST by Arthur Hill

Signing free agent LaMarcus Aldridge was one of several smart moves that should help the Spurs remain a contender for years, writes Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. San Antonio also added David West to strengthen its bench and reached long-term deals with Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. General manager R.C. Buford said the franchise took advantage of a unique opportunity. “The free agent market had some people that may consider San Antonio, which is closer to their home,” Buford said. “That won’t happen every year and this was our chance to see if we could make it work, and fortunately for us it did.”

There’s more this afternoon from San Antonio:

West’s contract includes a player option for a second season, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM. Because West signed for the veteran’s minimum, he is almost certain to opt out.
Cady Lalanne doesn’t expect to spend next season with the Spurs, but overseas trips are nothing new for him, writes Mike Monroe of The Express News. The late second-round pick came to the United States with his family from Haiti in an overcrowded boat at age 6. He went on to star at the University of Massachusetts and caught the eyes of Spurs brass in a private workout two days before the draft. “He came in and had a really good workout,” Buford said. “He’s an athletic big guy that has a really good shooting form.”
Serbian center Boban Marjanovic’s contract with the Spurs is for one year at a guaranteed $1.2MM, tweets Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The 7’3″ center has been a professional since 2006 and made the All-Euroleague First Team for 2015, according to Monroe.
Even though he had to wait for his contract, Matt Bonner is excited to be returning to the Spurs for another season, writes Dan McCarney of The Express News. The veteran sharpshooter re-signed Wednesday for the veteran’s minimum. “I’m not naive enough to think I’m a top priority at this point in my career,” he said. “I knew I just had to be patient and let the process take its course.”