Uncategorized

We're looking to add part-time contributors to the Hoops Rumors writing team. The position pays on an hourly basis. The criteria:

• Exceptional knowledge of all 30 NBA teams, with no discernible bias. Knowledge of transaction-related concepts and CBA basics.
• Extensive writing experience is necessary with professional experience preferred. A background in journalism is a plus.
• Attention to detail — absolutely no spelling errors, especially for player and journalist names. Ability to follow the site's style and tone.
• Ability to analyze articles and craft intelligent, well-written posts summing up the news in a few paragraphs. We need the best of both worlds: quick writing with thoughtful analysis. You must be able to add value to breaking news with your own insight, numbers, or links to other relevant articles.
• Ability to use an RSS feed reader such as Feedly. Ability to use Twitter. Both of these are crucial.
• Strong evening availability – typically 5-11pm central time shifts. Flexibility to cover daytime and weekend shifts is also a significant plus.
• At least some college education is required.
• If you're interested, email hoopsrumorsapplications@gmail.com and take a couple paragraphs to explain how you qualify and stand out. Many will likely apply, so unfortunately we cannot respond to all applications.

Read more

October 31st represents the deadline for players entering the fourth year of rookie-scale contracts to sign extensions, but that’s not the only piece of business NBA teams must address by Halloween. Clubs also have to decide whether to exercise or decline 2014/15 options for rookie-scale players heading into their second or third NBA seasons.

The players listed below are already on guaranteed contracts with their respective teams for the 2013/14 season, but only have team options for 2014/15. These players’ clubs must decide by Halloween whether to lock them up for ’14/15 for the contract amount indicated in parentheses, or to let them become unrestricted free agents next summer. As Chuck Myron of Hoops Rumors wrote in September, many of these guys are locks to have their options picked up, but that’s not the case for all of them.

That October 31st deadline is still several weeks away, and many of the decisions on these players won’t become official until much closer to that date, but we’ll be tracking every decision right here for the rest of the month. You can find our rookie contract 2014/15 option tracker anytime on the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features.” Here’s the list to date, with updates to come as decisions are announced:

76ers

• Arnett Moultrie (3rd year, $1,136,160) – Exercised
• Royce White (3rd year, $1,793,520) – Waived
• Tony Wroten (3rd year, $1,210,080) – Exercised

Bobcats

• Bismack Biyombo (4th year, $3,873,398) – Exercised
• Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (3rd year, $5,016,960) – Exercised
• Kemba Walker (4th year, $3,272,091) – Exercised

Bucks

• John Henson (3rd year, $1,987,320) – Exercised
• Brandon Knight (4th year, $3,553,917) – Exercised

Bulls

• Jimmy Butler (4th year, $2,008,748) – Exercised
• Marquis Teague (3rd year, $1,120,920) – Exercised

Cavaliers

• Kyrie Irving (4th year, $7,070,730) – Exercised
• Tristan Thompson (4th year, $5,138,430) – Exercised
• Dion Waiters (3rd year, $4,062,000) – Exercised
• Tyler Zeller (3rd year, $1,703,760) – Exercised

Celtics

• MarShon Brooks (4th year, $2,179,354) – Declined
• Jared Sullinger (3rd year, $1,424,520) – Exercised

Hawks

• Jared Cunningham (3rd year, $1,260,360) – Declined
• John Jenkins (3rd year, $1,312,920) – Exercised

Heat

• Norris Cole (4th year, $2,038,206) – Exercised

Jazz

• Alec Burks (4th year, $3,034,356) – Exercised
• Enes Kanter (4th year, $5,694,674) – Exercised

Kings

• Jimmer Fredette (4th year, $3,110,796) – Declined

Knicks

• Iman Shumpert (4th year, $2,616,975) – Exercised

Magic

• Maurice Harkless (3rd year, $1,887,840) – Exercised
• Tobias Harris (4th year, $2,380,594) – Exercised
• Andrew Nicholson (3rd year, $1,545,840) – Exercised
• Nikola Vucevic (4th year, $2,751,260) – Exercised

Nuggets

• Kenneth Faried (4th year, $2,249,768) – Exercised
• Evan Fournier (3rd year, $1,483,920) – Exercised
• Jordan Hamilton (4th year, $2,109,294) – Declined

Pelicans

• Anthony Davis (3rd year, $5,607,240) – Exercised
• Austin Rivers (3rd year, $2,439,840) – Exercised

Pistons

• Andre Drummond (3rd year, $2,568,360) – Exercised

Raptors

• Terrence Ross (3rd year, $2,793,960) – Exercised
• Jonas Valanciunas (3rd year, $3,678,360) – Exercised

Rockets

• Terrence Jones (3rd year, $1,618,680) – Exercised
• Donatas Motiejunas (3rd year, $1,483,920) – Exercised

Spurs

• Cory Joseph (4th year, $2,023,261) — Exercised
• Kawhi Leonard (4th year, $2,894,059) — Exercised

Suns

• Marcus Morris (4th year, $2,943,221) – Exercised
• Markieff Morris (4th year, $2,989,239) – Exercised
• Miles Plumlee (3rd year, $1,169,880) – Exercised

Thunder

• Reggie Jackson (4th year, $2,204,370) – Exercised
• Perry Jones III (3rd year, $1,129,200) – Exercised
• Jeremy Lamb (3rd year, $2,202,000) – Exercised

Timberwolves

• Ricky Rubio (4th year, $5,070,686) – Exercised
• Derrick Williams (4th year, $6,331,404) – Exercised

Trail Blazers

• Meyers Leonard (3rd year, $2,317,920) – Exercised
• Damian Lillard (3rd year, $3,340,920) – Exercised
• Thomas Robinson (3rd year, $3,678,360) – Exercised

Warriors

• Harrison Barnes (3rd year, $3,049,920) – Exercised
• Festus Ezeli (3rd year, $1,112,880) – Exercised
• Klay Thompson (4th year, $3,075,880) – Exercised

Wizards

• Bradley Beal (3rd year, $4,505,280) – Exercised
• Kendall Marshall (3rd year, $2,091,840) – Waived
• Chris Singleton (4th year, $2,489,530) – Declined
• Jan Vesely (4th year, $4,236,287) – Declined

Storytellers Contracts was used in the creation of this post.

As we've outlined before, there are a number of different ways to follow Hoops Rumors via Facebook, Twitter, and RSS. If you don't want to follow all the site's updates, you can subscribe to team-specific or transaction-only Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds. Although we don't have Facebook pages or Twitter feeds for specific players, you can also easily follow all our updates on your favorite player.

If, for instance, you want to keep track of all the latest news and rumors on LeBron James as he enters a potential contract year, you can visit this page. If you're interested in keeping tabs on contract extension talks between the Jazz and Derrick Favors, you can find Favors' page right here.

Every player we've written about has his own rumors page. You can find your player of choice by using our search box (located in the right sidebar); by clicking his tag at the bottom of a post where he's discussed; or, by simply typing his name in your address bar after hoopsrumors.com, substituting dashes for spaces. For example, LeBron's page is located at hoopsrumors.com/lebron-james.

In addition to players and teams, there are a number of other subjects you can track by clicking on the tags we use at the bottom of posts. Items related to the NBA D-League, for instance, can be found on this rumors page. If you want to follow early updates on the 2014 NBA draft, those are all available here.

Read more

When teams and players are negotiating rookie-scale contract extensions, talks will often go down to the wire, with the two sides reaching an agreement just days or hours before the deadline. But when the club is willing to offer the maximum allowable salary, why wait? That's been the case for several extension candidates this offseason, as we've seen Paul George, John Wall, and DeMarcus Cousins ink max deals with the Pacers, Wizards, and Kings respectively.

Because they have less than six years of NBA experience, George, Wall, and Cousins won't be earning the same kind of max salaries that players like Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony are. Still, their contracts still represent significant commitments from their respective teams, despite the fact that the trio has combined for just one All-Star appearance and one All-NBA spot (both from George in 2012/13). The potential for greatness is there for all three guys, but their teams were willing to give them long-term max deals before that potential has been fully realized.

2013 represents the third consecutive extension period in which multiple players have received max deals. From 2011 to 2013, eight players have signed max rookie-scale extensions, after only five players signed max extensions in the four years from 2007 to 2010.

So why have these maximum-salary extensions been handed out with increasing frequency in recent years? Some may point to an increase in deserving players, but that's a tough case to make. After all, Al Horford, Joakim Noah, Rajon Rondo, and LaMarcus Aldridge were among the players in 2009 and 2010 alone who re-upped for less than the max.

One factor that must be considered is the Collective Bargaining Agreement. It's probably not a coincidence that this increase in max extensions began in the first year of the new CBA. Much has been made about how that CBA has kept spending in check more than the previous iteration did, but perhaps teams are just becoming smarter about where to spend their money. Clubs seem more willing to commit max money to their best players, while becoming more averse to mid-level overpays for role players, which can quickly eat up leftover cap room.

Additionally, because teams are becoming smarter about managing their cap situations and avoiding bad long-term contracts, there will always be at least one club with max cap space in the offseason, ready to pounce in free agency and offer a top restricted free agent a max deal. As we've seen in recent years with players like Eric Gordon and Nicolas Batum, those free agent situations can become messy, with the player publicly expressing a desire to join that new team, only to backtrack when his previous team matches an offer sheet. Getting a deal done during the extension period and avoiding free agency altogether allows clubs to sidestep those potentially awkward situations, while exhibiting to the player that they're fully committed to him.

Even after three years, it's hard to argue that the increase in maximum salary rookie-scale extensions is a full-fledged trend. But the 2014 offseason could provide a strong hint. At the moment, only Kyrie Irving seems like a solid bet for a max extension a year from now. If another player or two from a group that includes Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Enes Kanter, Klay Thompson, and Tobias Harris is able to land a max deal, it will be clearer that the new CBA is playing a major role in teams' evolving extension decisions.

With the help of Chuck Myron's look back at recent rookie-scale extensions, here's the complete list of maximum rookie-scale extensions since 2007. Not all of these contracts are for the maximum amount of years, but they're all for the max salary:

• 2007: Dwight Howard (Magic)
• 2008: Chris Paul (Hornets), Deron Williams (Jazz)
• 2009: Brandon Roy (Trail Blazers)
• 2010: Kevin Durant (Thunder)
• 2011: Kevin Love (Timberwolves), Derrick Rose (Bulls), Russell Westbrook (Thunder)
• 2012: Blake Griffin (Clippers), James Harden (Rockets)
• 2013: DeMarcus Cousins (Kings), Paul George (Pacers), John Wall (Wizards)

Read more

We're looking to add part-time contributors to the Hoops Rumors writing team. The position pays on an hourly basis. The criteria:

• Exceptional knowledge of all 30 NBA teams, with no discernible bias. Knowledge of transaction-related concepts and CBA basics.
• Extensive writing experience is necessary with professional experience preferred. A background in journalism is a plus.
• Attention to detail — absolutely no spelling errors, especially for player and journalist names. Ability to follow the site's style and tone.
• Ability to analyze articles and craft intelligent, well-written posts summing up the news in a few paragraphs. We need the best of both worlds: quick writing with thoughtful analysis. You must be able to add value to breaking news with your own insight, numbers, or links to other relevant articles.
• Ability to use an RSS feed reader such as Feedly. Ability to use Twitter. Both of these are crucial.
• Strong evening availability – typically 5-11pm central time shifts. Flexibility to cover daytime and weekend shifts is also a significant plus.
• At least some college education is required.
• If you're interested, email hoopsrumorsapplications@gmail.com and take a couple paragraphs to explain how you qualify and stand out. Many will likely apply, so unfortunately we cannot respond to all applications.

Read more

With training camps around the corner, Hoops Rumors' 2013 Free Agent Tracker continues to follow all the latest signings and camp invitations. Using our tracker, you can quickly browse the offseason's contract agreements, sorting by team, position, contract length, total salary, and a handful of other variables.

For instance, if you want to see all the Clippers' summer signings, you can sort by team and find all of the club's free agent additions listed here. If you're curious to see how many players signed contracts of four years or more, you can sort by contract length and bring up that list right here.

A few additional notes on the tracker:

• Not all of the agreements listed in the tracker are finalized yet. As signings become official, we'll continue to update and modify the data as needed. This also means that many of the dollar figures listed in the tracker won't be 100% accurate yet.
• Contract amounts aren't necessarily fully guaranteed, and are based on what's been reported to date.
• Training-camp invites are included in the tracker. For our purposes, we're considering these so-called "summer contracts" to be any deal with no guaranteed money. Fully guaranteed and partially guaranteed contracts aren't listed as summer contracts, which are marked with a † symbol.

Our Free Agent Tracker can be found anytime on the right sidebar under "Hoops Rumors Features" or at the top of the page in the "Tools" menu. It will be updated throughout the offseason, so be sure to check back for the latest info. If you have any corrections, please let us know right here.

Read more

Halloween falls on a Thursday this year, which means that as of tomorrow, we're five weeks away from the 2013 rookie scale extension deadline. 2010 first-round picks still on their rookie scale deals will be eligible for extensions up until that day — if they don't work out long-term pacts with their respective teams by then, they'll hit the free agent market next summer.

Typically, teams will negotiate extensions with eligible players right up until the 11th hour. A year ago, Blake Griffin quickly agreed to a maximum extension with the Clippers, and the Thunder and Serge Ibaka worked out a long-term contract in August. But the other six players who signed rookie scale extensions all had their deals finalized on either October 30th or 31st.

This offseason though, there has been a little more early action than usual. So far, three players have officially inked long-term extensions, while another one could do so within the next week. Let's catch up with this year's extension-eligible players and see which guys have new contracts, which ones could still work something out, and which ones may have to wait until next summer for a new deal….

Done:
Paul George (Pacers): Five years, maximum salary (eligible for 30% max if named to 2013/14 All-NBA team)
Larry Sanders (Bucks): Four years, $44MM
John Wall (Wizards): Five years, maximum salary (eligible for 30% max if named 2013/14 MVP)

The new deals for George and Wall ensure this is the third straight time that multiple extension-eligible players have received max deals of some kind. Last year, it was Griffin and Harden; the year before that, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Love all signed for max salaries.

Likely:
DeMarcus Cousins (Kings)

Cousins and the Kings are said to be nearing an agreement, which could be finalized before training camp even opens. We'll see just how all-in the new ownership group is on Cousins when the details of his contract emerge, but there's a decent chance the big man becomes the third extension candidate of the offseason to receive the five-year max, making him his team's designated player.

Up in the air:
Eric Bledsoe (Suns)
Derrick Favors (Jazz)
Gordon Hayward (Jazz)
Greg Monroe (Pistons)
Greivis Vasquez (Kings)

Some of these possibilities are more likely than others. Negotiations are ongoing for Favors and Hayward, and I'd be surprised if the Jazz didn't extend at least one of the two. But I'm not sure the Suns will commit long-term to Bledsoe before he plays a game in a Phoenix uniform, and the same can be said for Vasquez and the Kings. Monroe, meanwhile, may be headed for restricted free agency in 2014, given agent David Falk's aversion to early extensions.

Unlikely:
Trevor Booker (Wizards)
Avery Bradley (Celtics)
Jordan Crawford (Celtics)
Ed Davis (Grizzlies)
Patrick Patterson (Kings)
Quincy Pondexter (Grizzlies)
Kevin Seraphin (Wizards)
Evan Turner (76ers)
Ekpe Udoh (Bucks)

Last fall, Taj Gibson's four-year, $32MM was the smallest of the eight rookie scale extensions, but it's not always just big-name players who sign new deals. In recent years, players like Kosta Koufos, Jared Dudley, and Thabo Sefolosha have inked extensions more in the mid-level range, so it's possible some of the guys above will sign similar pacts. For now though, there's no indication that anything is imminent. Bradley represents the likeliest candidate of this group, but he's coming off an underwhelming season, so the Celtics seem to prefer a wait-and-see approach.

For more details on this year's extension-eligible players, be sure to check out our Extension Candidate series.

Read more

The Hoops Rumors iPhone/iPad app is now for sale in the iTunes store!  For just a one-time fee of $2.99, less than the price of a cup of coffee, here's what you get:

• Custom push notifications: pick your favorite players and teams and receive alerts when they are involved in rumors, trades, or signings.
• Read Hoops Rumors posts in an ad-free, iPhone/iPad-friendly format.
• Filter headlines to show rumors for a specific team.
• Read and create comments through Disqus.

Check out the Hoops Rumors iPhone/iPad app today!

Read more

Knee injuries kept Andrew Bynum from ever playing a game for the Sixers after they traded for him in the Dwight Howard swap last August, and though that garners a lot of attention, it's not uncommon for players to fail to appear in a game for the team that acquired them. In fact, Bynum wasn't the only player in that trade not to play for his new team. Christian Eyenga went from the Lakers to the Magic, but Orlando wound up cutting Eyenga before the end of training camp last year.

Since then, 16 other players have either been waived, injured, bought out or traded again before checking into a game for the team that originally traded for them. Salary concerns are behind many of these instances, but in some cases, teams simply found they didn't have a use for one of the guys included as part of a larger package. In other cases, players agreed to give back part of their salaries to extract themselves from a team they didn't want to play for.

This accounting doesn't include trades involving draft rights, since those commonly change hands multiple times in short order on draft night. Sometimes, the rights to "draft-and-stash" players who are unlikely to ever appear in an NBA game are used as trade ballast, so such swaps aren't included here. The list starts with a swap that involved two players last month, neither of whom will be playing for the teams that traded for them.  

• Donte Greene, Celtics: Boston waived Greene this week, a month after sending Fab Melo and cash to the Grizzlies for him.
• Fab Melo, Grizzlies: It took only 15 days for the Grizzlies to waive the player from their end of the Melo-Greene trade.
• Kris Joseph, Celtics: The Celtics waived Joseph three days after acquiring him as part of the Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett blockbuster with the Nets.
• D.J. White, Nets: Brooklyn also quickly dispatched of one of the players in that deal, waiving White six days after the trade.
• Caron Butler, Suns: The Bucks were one of the participants in the three-team trade that sent Butler to Phoenix in July, and they hooked up on another swap with the Suns in August to acquire the Wisconsin native. 
• Marcus Camby, Raptors: The veteran center almost immediately expressed his displeasure with winding up in Toronto as part of the Andrea Bargnani trade, and Camby and agent Rick Kaplan engineered a buyout a week after the trade became official.
• Quentin Richardson, Raptors: The veteran swingman wound up with a three-year contract in a sign-and-trade as a component of the Bargnani deal, but only the first season was guaranteed. The Raptors will pay him that salary even though he won't be on the roster, since they waived him earlier this month.
• Kevin Murphy, Warriors: Golden State waived Murphy two weeks after acquiring him to avoid triggering a partial guarantee on his contract.
• Malcolm Lee, Warriors: The two-year veteran was one of the tools the Warriors used to spend a net of only $600K to acquire a first-round draft pick and secure the rights to Nemanja Nedovic. Golden State acquired Lee from the Warriors on draft night and, minutes later, sent him to the Suns. 
• Leandro Barbosa, Wizards: Barbosa was already out for the season with an injured knee when the Celtics and Wizards made him a part of their deadline-day trade for salary purposes. His contract expired at the end of the 2012/13 season.
• Tyler Honeycutt, Rockets: The Kings sent their former second-round pick to Houston in the Thomas Robinson trade, and before the Rockets used Honeycutt in a game, they waived him to accomodate the signing of Aaron Brooks.
• Hakim Warrick, Magic: Orlando acquired Warrick at the deadline with the apparent intention of waiving him. The Magic did just that two days later.
• Hamed Haddadi, Raptors: The 7'2" center was traded twice last season, and though he spent nearly a month on the Raptors roster after they acquired him in the Rudy Gay trade, Toronto never put him in a game before shipping him to the Suns at the deadline.
• Josh Selby, Cavaliers: The former Kansas Jayhawk was one of three players who went to Cleveland in a salary-clearing move for the Grizzlies, but the Cavs wound up stashing Selby with their D-League affiliate in Canton before waiving him in March. 
• Matt Carroll, Pelicans: An early-season swap sent Carroll to New Orleans, but the Pelicans bought him out a week later.
• Lazar Hayward, Rockets: The James Harden swap left the Rockets with an excess of players as opening night approached, and Hayward was one of the casualties as Houston trimmed its roster to meet the 15-man limit.

An NBA agency is only as valuable as the players it represents, and every agency has one client who's more valuable than the rest. In some cases, value isn't derived directly from money. Amare Stoudemire may be the highest-paid client on the Relativity Sports roster, but that doesn't mean he's more important to the agency than Dwight Howard is. Still, even an overpaid player can be a jewel for an agency as an example of the power of negotiation. 

Using the Hoops Rumors Agency Database and ShamSports, I've found the player with the highest 2013/14 salary for each agency with at least three NBA clients. I've listed the current agency for each player, so, as with LeBron James and the Klutch Sports Group, the agency that negotiated the deal might not be represented. LeBron is nonetheless Klutch's marquee client.

This list goes by this season's base salary, not the total value of the deal, and it's organized alphabetically by agency:

• 24/7 Sports Management: Kyrie Irving, Cavaliers ($5,607,240)
• ASM Sports: Kevin Garnett, Nets ($12,433,735)
• BDA Sports Management: Rajon Rondo, Celtics ($11,954,545)
• Bell Management International: John Salmons, Kings ($7,583,000)
• CGL Sports: Wilson Chandler, Nuggets ($6,344,164)
• Comsport: Nicolas Batum, Trail Blazers ($11,295,250)
• Creative Artists Agency: Carmelo Anthony, Knicks ($21,388,954)
• Dutt Sport Services, Inc.: Jrue Holiday, Pelicans ($9,713,484)
• Edge Sports International: Joel Freeland, Trail Blazers ($2,897,976)
• Excel Sports Management: Deron Williams, Nets ($18,466,130) 
• Falk Associates Management Enterprises: Roy Hibbert, Pacers ($14,283,844) 
• Goodwin Sports Management: DeMar DeRozan, Raptors ($9,500,000) 
• IAM Sports & Entertainment: Zach Randolph, Grizzlies ($18,238,333) 
• Impact Sports Basketball: Kawhi Leonard, Spurs ($1,887,840)
• Interperformances: Luol Deng, Bulls ($14,275,000) 
• Klutch Sports Group: LeBron James, Heat ($19,067,500) 
• Lagardere Unlimited: Andrew Bogut, Warriors ($14,000,000) 
• Landmark Sports Agency, Inc.: Kobe Bryant, Lakers ($30,453,805) 
• Lee Basketball Services: John Lucas III, Jazz ($1,600,000)
• Octagon Sports: Rudy Gay, Raptors ($17,888,932)
• Perennial Sports & Entertainment: Josh Smith, Pistons ($13,500,000) 
• Pinnacle Management Corp.: Samuel Dalembert, Mavericks ($3,700,748)
• Priority Sports & Entertainment: David Lee, Warriors ($13,878,000) 
• Relativity Sports: Amare Stoudemire, Knicks ($21,679,893)
• The Neustadt Group: Boris Diaw, Spurs ($4,702,500) 
• Wasserman Media Group: Joe Johnson, Nets ($21,466,718) 
• Williams & Connolly: Hedo Turkoglu, Magic ($12,000,000) 
• Zucker International: Marcin Gortat, Suns ($7,727,280)