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Scotty Pippen Jr. Signs Two-Way Contract With Grizzlies

January 16th, 2024 at 2:42pm CST by Luke Adams

2:42pm: Pippen has officially signed with the Grizzlies, the team announced today in a press release (Twitter link). He’ll be eligible to appear in up to 26 regular season games for the club.

2:30pm: Former Lakers guard Scotty Pippen Jr. has agreed to a two-way contract with the Grizzlies, agent Erika Ruiz tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link). According to Wojnarowski, it will be a two-year deal, covering not just the rest of this season but 2024/25 as well.

Pippen, the son of Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen, spent his rookie year in 2022/23 on a two-way deal with the Lakers after going undrafted out of Vanderbilt. He logged just 32 total minutes in six games at the NBA level, but played regularly for the South Bay Lakers, averaging 22.2 points, 5.3 assists, and 3.7 rebounds in 28.3 minutes per game across 35 NBAGL appearances in the Showcase Cup and regular season.

After spending training camp with Los Angeles again this past fall, Pippen was waived ahead of the regular season and returned to South Bay. He has put up 20.2 PPG, 5.9 APG, and 5.3 RPG with a .485/.329/.846 shooting line in 17 G League games this season.

The Grizzlies had a two-way slot available after promoting Vince Williams to their standard 15-man roster last week. Pippen will join G.G. Jackson and Jacob Gilyard as Memphis’ two-way players.

Once Pippen officially signs, Memphis will have a full roster of 15 players on standard contracts and three on two-way deals. However, as we outlined earlier this afternoon, the Grizzlies are in position to fill out their roster beyond the standard limits due to a series of injuries that will make the team eligible for hardship exceptions.

Wizards Acquire Bagley, Livers From Pistons In Four-Player Trade

January 14th, 2024 at 2:31pm CST by Arthur Hill

2:31pm: The trade is now official, Detroit has announced in a press release (Twitter link).

9:35am: The Pistons will send Marvin Bagley III, Isaiah Livers and two second-round picks to the Wizards in exchange for Danilo Gallinari and Mike Muscala, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link). The picks are for 2025 and 2026, sources tell Wojnarowski (Twitter link).

Detroit used some of its draft assets to offload Bagley’s contract, which will pay him $12.5MM next season. The other three players in the trade are all on expiring deals, with Livers at $1.8MM, Gallinari at $6.8MM and Muscala at $3.5MM.

Bagley had been a part-time starter since being acquired from Sacramento at the 2022 trade deadline, but the organization is motivated to create as much cap space as possible in the wake of a disastrous season. Detroit will have 11 impending free agents once the trade is finalized and currently projects to have about $64MM to work with in free agency, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN.

This could be the start of a complete overhaul for the 3-36 Pistons heading into the February 8 trade deadline, suggests Omari Sankofa II of The Detroit Free Press (Twitter link). Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports cites a high-ranking source who tells him the deal is just the “first step” (Twitter link).

There are several options available for the two draft picks in the trade, observes John Hollinger of The Athletic (Twitter link). The 2025 selection could be a return of Washington’s pick, while the 2026 choice could be from Minnesota, New York, New Orleans or Portland.

Bagley, the second overall selection in the 2018 draft, will get a chance to revive his career with another rebuilding team in Washington. Although he was averaging 10.2 points and 4.5 rebounds in 26 games this season, he was an awkward fit for a team that already had Jalen Duren, Isaiah Stewart and James Wiseman in its big-man rotation.

Livers, a 25-year-old forward, established himself as a rotation player in Detroit after being drafted in the second round in 2021. He averaged 5.0 points and 2.1 rebounds in 23 games this season, but was shooting career lows of 34.5% from the field and 28.6% from three-point range.

Gallinari appeared in 26 games in his first year with the Wizards after sitting out all of last season with a torn ACL. The 35-year-old forward was averaging 7.0 points and 2.9 rebounds in 14.8 minutes per night.

Muscala, 32, was acquired from Boston last summer in the same deal as Gallinari. He averaged 4.0 points and 3.1 rebounds in 24 games in his brief time in Washington.

The Pistons will also create a $5.7MM trade exception in the deal, according to cap expert Yossi Gozlan (Twitter link).

Grizzlies Give Vince Williams Standard Contract, Waive Bismack Biyombo

January 10th, 2024 at 5:54pm CST by Arthur Hill

5:54pm: The moves involving Williams and Biyombo are now official, the Grizzlies announced (via Twitter).

5:18pm: The Grizzlies will convert Vince Williams‘ two-way contract to a standard deal, tweets ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The new contract will be fully guaranteed at $7.9MM over three years and carries a team option for a fourth season, adds Wojnarowski, who states that it’s believed to be the richest ever for a player coming off a two-way deal.

To open a spot for Williams on the 15-man roster, Memphis will waive veteran center Bismack Biyombo, according to Woj, who notes that Biyombo has been impressive in his time with the Grizzlies and could return to the team later in the season if he clears waivers. Wojnarowski hears that Memphis will look for another big man to fill its open two-way slot.

Williams has emerged as an outstanding perimeter defender in his second year with Memphis after being taken with the 47th pick in the 2022 draft. The 23-year-old swingman has appeared in 27 games this season, making eight starts, and is averaging 5.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 21.9 minutes per night.

Memphis will use part of the $7.4MM remaining on its non-taxpayer mid-level exception to cover Williams’ salary for the rest of the season, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link). The team already spent $5MM of its MLE to sign Biyombo in November.

Biyombo’s contract was only partially guaranteed and the Grizzlies could have saved money by waiving him before Sunday’s deadline, but Marks notes that they’re far enough below the luxury tax that it won’t affect their financial flexibility this season.

Memphis added the 31-year-old Biyombo after losing Steven Adams with a season-ending knee injury. Biyombo quickly took over as the starting center and averaged 5.2 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.1 blocks in 30 games. The Grizzlies will be responsible for the rest of his contract unless another team claims him on waivers.

Clippers Sign Kawhi Leonard To Three-Year Extension

January 10th, 2024 at 1:00pm CST by Luke Adams

1:00pm: Leonard’s new contract is a three-year extension worth $152.4MM, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter links). The deal, which runs through 2026/27, doesn’t include a player option and comes in a little below Leonard’s maximum salary, Charania adds.

The precise value of Leonard’s maximum salary for next season won’t be known until the 2024/25 salary cap is set, but based on current projections, Leonard could have earned up to about $161MM on a three-year max extension; that figure could end up at nearly $170MM if the cap increases by the maximum 10%.

Leonard’s new deal will feature a salary in the $52MM range in year one before dipping to approximately $50MM for each of the next two seasons, per Wojnarowski (Twitter link). The cap would have to rise by more than 9% this summer for Kawhi’s max to get to $52MM — if it doesn’t, the first-year salary on his new deal will come in slightly lower than that.

The extension will make Leonard ineligible to be traded until July 10.

12:34pm: The Clippers have signed star forward Kawhi Leonard to a contract extension, the team announced today in a press release.

Prior to agreeing to a new deal, Leonard was eligible to reach unrestricted free agency this summer by turning down a $48.8MM player option for 2024/25. The terms of his extension aren’t yet known, but he had the ability to decline that option at any time up until June 30 and then add as many as four years to the final season of his current contract.

“We’re thrilled to continue our relationship with Kawhi,” president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said in a statement. “He is an elite player, a terrific partner and a relentless worker who knows how to win and makes it his first priority. He elevated our franchise from the moment he arrived. We feel fortunate that Kawhi chose to join the Clippers four years ago, and excited to keep building with him.”

Leonard, who signed with the Clippers in 2019 on the heels of leading the Raptors to a championship, has been hampered by injuries during his time in Los Angeles, appearing in no more than 57 regular season games in any of his first four years as a Clipper. He missed the entire 2021/22 season while recovering from an ACL tear that he sustained during the ’21 playoffs.

However, the 32-year-old has continued to perform at an All-NBA level when he’s healthy and has played in 32 of 36 Clippers games so far in his fifth season with the franchise, leading L.A. to a 23-13 record. Leonard has averaged 23.8 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.8 steals in 34.5 minutes per night in 2023/24, posting an elite shooting line of .516/.430/.871.

Entering the day, Leonard and Paul George were on identical contracts, with George also eligible to sign an extension of up to four years if he declines a $48.8MM player option for ’24/25.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link), the organization’s extension talks with George are ongoing, with the Clippers hoping to get both stars locked up to longer-term contracts as they prepare to move into their new arena later this year.

The Clippers won’t be able to extend James Harden‘s contract before he becomes an unrestricted free agent in the 2024 offseason, but if the rest of this season goes well, the team would presumably be looking to sign him to a new deal as well.

The Clippers lost their first six games after acquiring Harden on November 1, but have been on fire since then, winning 20 of their past 26 games to move up in the Western Conference standings from 12th place to fourth.

Kings Re-Sign Toscano-Anderson To 10-Day Deal

January 9th, 2024 at 5:57pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

JANUARY 9: The Kings have re-signed Toscano-Anderson on a 10-day contract, Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee tweets.

JANUARY 7: As expected, the Kings have officially waived reserve wing Juan Toscano-Anderson, according to James Ham of ESPN 1320 Sacramento (Twitter link). However, Ham reports that Sacramento intends to re-sign Toscano-Anderson to a 10-day deal if and when he clears waivers.

Toscano-Anderson first joined Sacramento last month, though he never cracked the regular lineup, only playing 19 minutes of mop-up duty across eight games. He scored a total of two points, grabbed five cumulative boards, and dished out three dimes.

After spending two days on waivers, the 30-year-old will have earned a total of $323,506 from the non-guaranteed minimum deal he initially signed on December 15.

Given that today marks the NBA’s deadline to lock in non-guaranteed salaries, it makes sense that Sacramento wants to maximize its flexibility on the fringes of its roster, with just over a month until this year’s February 8 trade deadline. Toscano-Anderson would again fill the Kings’ 15th and final roster spot once he rejoins the team.

Across his five NBA seasons spent with four teams now, the 6’6″ swingman boasts averages of 4.1 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 1.9 APG, and 0.6 SPG. He went undrafted out of Marquette in 2015. Following stints with pro clubs in Mexico and Venezuela, he latched on with the Warriors’ Santa Cruz NBAGL affiliate in 2018. Toscano-Anderson signed on with Golden State proper in 2020 and won a title with the club in 2022. He has spent the past two seasons with the Lakers, Jazz, and now Kings.

Wizards Sign Hamidou Diallo To 10-Day Deal

January 9th, 2024 at 1:58pm CST by Luke Adams

1:58pm: The Wizards have officially signed Diallo to a 10-day contract, the team announced today in a press release. The deal will run through next Thursday (January 18).

8:14am: The Wizards have agreed to sign free agent wing Hamidou Diallo to a 10-day contract, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).

Diallo, 25, was the 45th overall pick in the 2018 draft. Over his first five years in the NBA, he appeared in 263 regular season games for the Thunder and Pistons, averaging 8.6 points and 3.8 rebounds in 18.7 minutes per night. Last season, he made a career-high 57.3% of shots from the field in 56 games (17.8 MPG) for Detroit, putting up 9.3 PPG and 3.5 RPG.

While Diallo is an athletic player, an above-average rebounder for his position, and an active defender, he’s an awkward fit in some lineups due to his inability to space the floor — he has made just 27.4% of his career three-point attempts. That’s presumably a key reason why he didn’t find an NBA home when he became an unrestricted free agent this past offseason.

Washington eventually signed Diallo to an Exhibit 10 contract at the end of the offseason and made him an affiliate player for the Capital City Go-Go. The former Kentucky standout has averaged 18.8 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 2.7 assists in 31.1 minutes per game across 20 appearances this season for the Go-Go.

The Wizards have an open spot on their 15-man roster after having waived Ryan Rollins on Monday. Diallo will fill that opening and will earn $134,863 over the course of his 10 days with the club. He’ll be available for the team’s next four games, assuming he officially signs today or tomorrow. Washington would be eligible to sign Diallo to one more 10-day contract after his first deal expires.

As Rylan Stiles of Locked on Thunder points out (via Twitter), current Wizards general manager Will Dawkins was in the Thunder’s front office during Diallo’s time in Oklahoma City.

Wizards Waive Guard Ryan Rollins

January 8th, 2024 at 10:17pm CST by Dana Gauruder

10:45pm: The Wizards have officially waived Rollins, the team’s PR department tweets.

10:17pm: The Wizards are waiving guard Ryan Rollins, Josh Robbins of The Athletic tweets.

Rollins has appeared in 10 games with Washington, averaging 4.1 points in 6.6 minutes per night.

A second-round pick in 2022, Rollins played 12 games for Golden State last season. He was included in the trade that sent Chris Paul to the Warriors and brought Jordan Poole to Washington.

Rollins had a $1,719,864 salary this season. His deal wasn’t fully guaranteed beyond this season, but it included a $600K partial guarantee for 2024/25, according to Spotrac. The Wizards will be on the hook for that money unless he’s claimed on waivers.

Rollins hasn’t appeared in an NBA contest since Dec. 27. The Wizards are planning to replace him on the roster soon, perhaps with a player on a 10-day contract, according to Robbins.

Jazz Waive Christopher, Sign Preston To Two-Way Deal

January 8th, 2024 at 10:07pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Jazz have waived Josh Christopher and signed Jason Preston to a two-way deal, Andy Larsen of the Salt Lake Tribune tweets.

Preston spent training camp with the Grizzlies but was waived prior to the season. He was also cut by the Clippers at the beginning of October before his $1.8MM salary became fully guaranteed. He appeared in 14 games with L.A. last season and spent most of his time in the G League.

Prior to getting a contract with Utah, Preston was playing for the G League’s Memphis Hustle. Preston played in 17 games (16 starts) for the Hustle, averaging 12.4 points (on 48.1% shooting), 8.6 assists, and 7.9 rebounds per contest.

Christopher appeared in 138 games with Houston from 2021-23 but hasn’t seen any NBA action this season. He has appeared in 18 games (17 starts) for the Jazz’s G League affiliate, the Salt Lake City Stars, averaging 17.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 6.0 assists in 29.0 minutes per contest.

He was signed to a two-way deal in mid-October.

Lakers Add Skylar Mays On Two-Way Contract

January 8th, 2024 at 8:03pm CST by Dana Gauruder

8:03pm: The signing has been announced in a team press release, Jovan Buha of The Athletic tweets.

4:38pm: The Lakers are adding Skylar Mays on a two-way deal, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports (Twitter link).

Mays was waived on Saturday by the Trail Blazers before his contract became fully guaranteed. Mays’ contract was partially guaranteed for just $850K and would have become fully guaranteed for approximately $1.86MM if he hadn’t been waived.

Mays will now draw a two-way salary and provide depth at point guard for the Lakers.

Los Angeles had an open two-way slot after waiving Alex Fudge and D’Moi Hodge over the weekend. Colin Castleton and Dylan Windler, who was signed on Saturday, hold the other two-way spots.

Mays’ two-way deal with Portland was converted to a standard deal in October. The LSU product had some impressive performances in November while Portland’s roster was banged up, averaging 11.1 points and 6.4 assists in 26.3 minutes across nine games from Nov. 3-21. However, he fell out of the rotation when the Blazers got healthier and averaged just 11.1 minutes in eight appearances after that.

Knicks Waive Taj Gibson

January 7th, 2024 at 3:49pm CST by Luke Adams

The Knicks have waived big man Taj Gibson ahead of today’s salary guarantee deadline, the team announced (Twitter links).

Gibson signed a non-guaranteed, minimum-salary contract with the Knicks on December 15 and appeared in 10 games for the club, averaging 1.4 points and 1.8 rebounds in 9.7 minutes per night.

Initially expected to merely provide some frontcourt depth and locker room leadership, the 38-year-old saw more playing time than anticipated due to injuries to centers Mitchell Robinson and Jericho Sims.

However, with Sims healthy again and Precious Achiuwa added to the roster in last weekend’s OG Anunoby trade, Gibson once again found himself pushed down the depth chart — he hadn’t played at all since Monday.

Gibson’s release doesn’t necessarily mean the Knicks are done with him for the season. He could return on a 10-day contract or two, and if the team still has an open roster spot after the trade deadline comes and goes, he’d be an obvious candidate for a rest-of-season deal.

According to Ian Begley of SNY.tv (Twitter link), New York decided to part with Gibson for now to create some additional roster flexibility ahead of the trade deadline, since the club expects to continue to be active.

Gibson had been one of two players on the Knicks’ roster who was on a non-guaranteed contract for 2023/24. The other one, Ryan Arcidiacono, will be retained and will have his full $2,528,233 salary (and $2,019,706 cap hit) guaranteed, according to Fred Katz of The Athletic (Twitter link).

Assuming he clears waivers, Gibson will count for $477,630 in dead money on the Knicks’ salary cap.