- Joe Wieskamp earned a standard deal with the Spurs by trusting in their development process, Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express-News explores. The Spurs converted Wieskamp’s two-way deal into a traditional contract on Friday. San Antonio drafted the 22-year-old with the No. 41 pick last year.
- In a separate story for the San Antonio Express-News, Orsborn examines a number of recent Spurs takeaways, including a learning lesson for rookie Joshua Primo. The 19-year-old played 11 fourth-quarter minutes against the Hornets on Saturday, finishing with 10 points.
The Celtics were among several teams that expressed interest in Nik Stauskas, coach Ime Udoka told reporters before today’s game (Twitter link from Tim Bontemps of ESPN). Stauskas signed a two-year contract with Boston on Friday after scoring a combined 100 points in his last two G League games. Udoka said the C’s reached out to Stauskas because they need more shooting.
Stauskas has a chance to see playing time as a floor spacer for the rest of the season, adds Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe. Many fans were hoping Isaiah Thomas could be brought back to fill the roster opening, but Thomas has signed with the Hornets and Himmelsbach doesn’t think he would have been a good fit because of his defensive liabilities. He suggests that signing Thomas would have been a distraction and could have ultimately harmed his reputation in Boston.
There’s more on the Celtics:
- When Nets forward Kevin Durant became the all-time leading scorer for Team USA at the Summer Olympics, he speculated that Jayson Tatum may someday break that record, Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston recalls in a preview of today’s matchup between the two stars. Forsberg notes that Durant made a strong impression on Tatum during their time as international teammates. “It means a lot [to hear Durant’s praise]. I mean he’s definitely somebody I looked up to growing up,” Tatum said. “Getting to have that matchup with him during the playoffs and then being his teammate and having conversation with him overseas, is something I will always remember.”
- The Spurs‘ decision to trade Derrick White last month took him completely by surprise, per Souichi Terada of MassLive. White has turned out to be a perfect fit for the defensive-minded Celtics, but he expected to spend more time in San Antonio. “He was sad, it’s hard to say goodbye to some of those guys you’ve had good relationships with,” said Alex Welsh, White’s friend and former college teammate. “But then he was pumped. We got him all fired up. It was a great day for him in Boston to be able to play that next day. But it was a total shock.”
- Jaylen Brown has been cleared to play today after missing time with a sprained right ankle, but Aaron Nesmith‘s ankle sprain will keep him out for a while, tweets Jared Weiss of The Athletic.
The Spurs have signed D.J. Stewart Jr. and Robert Woodard II to two-way contracts, our JD Shaw tweets. San Antonio had both of its two-way spots open after promoting Devontae Cacok and Joe Wieskamp to the 15-man roster. The Spurs now have a full 17-man roster.
Stewart, 22, went undrafted in 2021 after a couple of seasons with Mississippi State. He hasn’t made his NBA debut yet, but he’s put up solid numbers in the G League with Miami’s affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce. Through 33 games (36.2 MPG) with the Skyforce, he’s averaging 18.7 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 2.9 APG, and 1.3 SPG on .497/.388/.737 shooting.
Like Stewart, Woodard is a Mississippi native who played two seasons with the Bulldogs in college. The two were teammates during the 2019/20 season, and now will be reunited with the Spurs. Woodard was the 40th overall selection of the 2020 draft. He’s barely played in the NBA, logging a total of 87 minutes across 25 games the past two seasons for the Kings.
Woodard was waived by Sacramento on February 10 to make room for the team’s trade additions. He later signed a G League contract and appeared in six games with the Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder’s affiliate. However, he was still technically an NBA free agent, as no team held his rights until the Spurs signed him. Through 11 G League games split between the Blue and the Stockton Kings, Woodard is averaging 15.8 PPG, 8.1 RPG, and 1.8 APG on .473/.346/.611 shooting.
3:41pm: Both deals are for the rest of the season, tweets Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. That means Cacok and Wieskamp will be eligible for restricted free agency this summer.
2:04pm: The Spurs have promoted both of their two-way players, forward/center Devontae Cacok and swingman Joe Wieskamp, to the 15-man roster, signing them to standard contracts, the team announced today (Twitter link via JD Shaw).
Cacok, 25, has appeared in 11 games for San Antonio this season, averaging 3.6 PPG and 3.3 RPG in 8.4 minutes per contest. The former Laker has been a double-double machine at the G League level, averaging 19.2 PPG and 12.9 RPG in 21 NBAGL appearances (31.6 MPG) for the Austin Spurs.
The 22-year-old Wieskamp, meanwhile, has seen limited action in 17 NBA games as a rookie after being selected 41st overall in the 2021 draft. Like Cacok, he has played a larger role in the G League than in the NBA, averaging 15.9 PPG and 3.9 RPG on .439/.315/.800 shooting in 14 games (33.7 MPG) for Austin.
After buying out Goran Dragic and Tomas Satoransky, the Spurs had two openings on their 15-man roster, so no corresponding moves were required to make room for Cacok and Wieskamp. The club now has a pair of two-way slots open.
The exact terms of Cacok’s and Wieskamp’s new contracts haven’t yet been reported. A standard conversion from a two-way deal would just result in a minimum-salary, rest-of-season contract, but most clubs try to negotiate longer-term agreements. The Spurs wouldn’t be able to offer either player more than a two-year deal.
- Spurs guard Dejounte Murray was fined $20K by the NBA on Wednesday, the league announced (via Twitter). Murray threw the game ball off the legs of a referee during the fourth quarter of the team’s 118-105 loss to the Grizzlies on Monday. He was ejected for the incident.
- The Spurs’ Gregg Popovich is just two victories away from becoming the winningest coach in league history. Popovich, 73, is still as demanding as ever, Murray told The Athletic’s David Aldridge. “It’s all stuff that makes sense,” he said. “That’s the big picture about it. Everything he’s yelling about, or talking about, it all makes sense.”
Although it didn’t happen Saturday night, it’s only a matter of time until Gregg Popovich catches Don Nelson for the most career coaching victories, writes Jeff McDonald of The San Antonio Express-News. The Spurs‘ overtime win Friday at Washington was the 1,334th of Popovich’s career, leaving him one behind Nelson, who was one of his coaching mentors.
“Suffice to say, being in this position is awkward, surreal, unexpected, never planned and all of the above,” Popovich said.
The Spurs lost Saturday at Miami, extending Popovich’s wait to reach the record. The team will travel to Memphis on Monday, and with upcoming games against the Kings and Hornets he could be alone at the top by the end of the week.
Among the most impressive things about Popovich’s achievement is that all his wins are with one organization. He took over as San Antonio’s coach early in the 1996/97 season and has remained in that position ever since.
“It just shows you his longevity and excellence for decades,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It really is remarkable.”
There’s more on the Spurs:
- Keldon Johnson is averaging 20.3 points per game in February, but he understands that he has a long way to go to be a complete player, per Mike Finger of The San Antonio Express-News. Johnson, who’s in his third NBA season, said he welcomes constructive criticism, whether it’s from his acerbic coach or Draymond Green, who served as a mentor during Johnson’s Olympics experience last summer.
- The Spurs are ready to give more responsibility to first-round pick Joshua Primo, Finger adds in a separate story. The youngest player taken in the 2021 draft, Primo divided his time before the All-Star break between the NBA and the G League, but Popovich said he’ll remain with the Spurs for the rest of the season. “He’s going to be a player for us for a long time,” Popovich said. “He shows an uncanny maturity on the court for such a young kid. He’s just getting used to the physicality. He’s playing with men.”
- Trading Derrick White to the Celtics left a hole in the Spurs’ backcourt, but Lonnie Walker sees an opportunity for himself and the team’s other young guards (video link from KENS5). “Derrick was a huge piece for us offensively and defensively,” Walker said. “Losing him was probably one of the hardest things for our team, but it allows us young guys like Devin (Vassell), myself and Primo to continue to grow and get better and play our game.”
12:37pm: The Spurs have officially waived Satoransky, the team announced in a press release. He’ll clear waivers on Monday, at which point he’ll be free to sign with Washington.
11:19am: Veteran guard Tomas Satoransky is preparing to sign with the Wizards after agreeing to a contract buyout with the Spurs, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN tweets.
Satoransky is in the final year of a three-year, $30MM contract and it’s safe to say he’ll clear waivers.
Satoransky appeared in 32 games with New Orleans and one game with San Antonio this season. He was involved in two deadline deals — he was traded from the Pelicans to the Trail Blazers in the CJ McCollum blockbuster, then was shipped to the Spurs in a three-team swap.
Satoransky played his first three seasons in the league (2016-19) with Washington. With Bradley Beal out for the season and Spencer Dinwiddie having been traded to Dallas in the Kristaps Porzingis deal, Satoransky should jump right into the Wizards’ rotation.
The Spurs previously bought out another player they acquired at the trade deadline, Goran Dragic. As a result, they’ll have two open spots on their 15-man roster once they officially waive Satoransky — they’ll have two weeks to go back to the NBA-mandated minimum of 14 players.
- Having made his first All-Star team this season, Spurs guard Dejounte Murray is already eager to prove he can do it again, writes Tom Orsborn of The San Antonio Express-News. “I’m not a one-hit wonder. I got to be back here,” Murray said on Sunday. “… There ain’t no way I can miss out on these types of events. It was a hell of a weekend. I have to keep working.”
A series of NBA free agents have signed contracts with the G League, according to the NBAGL transactions log. Veteran guard Quinn Cook and former Kings Jahmi’us Ramsey and Robert Woodard II – both of whom were waived earlier this month – are among the players entering the G League.
Cook, who has 188 career NBA appearances under his belt, began the 2021/22 season playing overseas with Lokomotiv Kuban, but left the Russian team in December in what was deemed a mutual decision. Ramsey and Woodard were second-round picks in the 2020 draft, but never developed into regular rotation players in Sacramento, appearing in just 32 and 25 total games, respectively.
Woodard was initially claimed by the Iowa Wolves and has since been traded to the Oklahoma City Blue (the Thunder‘s NBAGL affiliate). Cook and Ramsey signed their contracts more recently and have yet to land with new teams.
Malik Fitts, Ky Bowman, Karim Mane, and Daulton Hommes are among the other players with NBA experience who have signed G League contracts within the last week. Although Hommes technically has yet to appear in an NBA regular season game, he spent the first two months of this season on a two-way deal with New Orleans, earning a year of NBA service.
Fitts’ returning rights belong to the Agua Caliente Clippers of Ontario, while Bowman has been traded to the Austin Spurs. Mane has landed with the Greensboro Swarm, the Hornets‘ G League team, while Hommes rejoined the Birmingham Squadron, the Pelicans‘ affiliate.
Finally, former Warriors and Magic guard Mychal Mulder has also signed a G League contract, a source tells our JD Shaw (Twitter link). Mulder, who was waived by Orlando last month, appeared in 15 games this season and has played in 82 total NBA contests since 2020.
None of these players’ rights are held by an NBA team, so they remain free to sign a standard contract or a two-way deal with any of the league’s 30 clubs.
Lakers superstar LeBron James has been the face of the NBA for the better part of the last two decades and is happy to continue in that unofficial role until he retires, as Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports writes.
“I’ve held that title of ambassador,” James said. “Nobody told me to do it, but I felt like if I wasn’t gonna do it, who was gonna do it? So I took that responsibility, and I’ll continue to do it till I’m done playing the game.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver tells Goodwill that he’s “not prepared to talk about the post-LeBron era” yet, since James is still playing at an All-NBA level and presumably has multiple strong seasons left in him. However, he’s not worried about having to prepare for a leadership void among the game’s superstars.
“At some point, a new player or players will emerge, I think, [to] take that leadership mantle in the league. It seems they always do,” Silver said. “I’m just not prepared, even in the slightest, to start thinking about the league without LeBron, because he continues to be as committed as ever to the competition, to the league overall.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Danny Leroux of The Athletic takes a look ahead at the 2022 offseason, identifying the teams that project to have the most cap flexibility. As Leroux outlines, the Pistons and Magic remain the best bets to create significant cap room, while teams like the Spurs, Trail Blazers, Pacers, and Grizzlies could potentially join them, but have more variance.
- Veteran big man Thon Maker spoke to Alec Strum of NetsDaily about his role with the Long Island Nets – Brooklyn’s G League affiliate – and his efforts to make it back to the NBA. Maker has played a limited role in Long Island so far, averaging 5.8 PPG and 5.1 RPG in 15 games (17.4 MPG), with a dismal .360 FG% (.133 3PT%).
- Mike Schmitz of ESPN (Insider link) updated his NBA rookie power rankings over the All-Star break, providing best-case comps for Evan Mobley (Anthony Davis), Cade Cunningham (Luka Doncic), Scottie Barnes (Scottie Pippen), and other standout rookies.