Deron Williams could opt for less money to join Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas this summer. (Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images)

There can’t be any more depressing basketball-related piece of news for a New Jersey/Brooklyn fan to read than this quote from Deron Williams to Yahoo! Sports’ Marc Spears on the possibility of teaming with Dwight Howard over the long haul:

“It’s a decision [Howard] made for himself,” Williams said. “I really have no comment on it. He did what was best for him. I respect that. I’m still friends with him.

“Oh yeah, it definitely would have changed things. I’ve already made it known that if he would have come I probably would have stayed.”

Williams is referring to Howard’s decision just ahead of the March 15 trade deadline to opt in with the Magic for next season, effectively delaying his free agency for one year. Williams could do the same via a player option worth $17.8 million, but he reaffirmed to Spears on Monday that he will decline that option:

“People get traded all the time,” Williams told Yahoo! Sports. “They don’t get backlash as an organization. If [players] leave, we are not loyal, we are ungrateful. People say stuff to me on Twitter. They already think I’m gone. They are out there bashing me, saying to me I’m a traitor.

“I didn’t ask to be here. I got traded. I didn’t come here being a free agent. This is the first time that I’m a free agent in my career.”

Williams, of course, is right to exercise the same career self-determination any of these Twitter jockeys would want for themselves. What’s interesting is that Williams is actually sacrificing a bit of salary in doing so.

Under the new cap rules, Williams could have maximized his earnings in both the short and long term by opting in for next season at that $17.8 million price and then re-signing with New Jersey after next season via a five-year deal starting at about $18.7 million in Year 1 and growing by 7.5 percent annually after that. That would net Williams about $126.2 million over six years. Read More…

Derek Fisher will reportedly sign with the Thunder after clearing waivers on Wednesday. (AP)

For better or worse, player movement drives fan interest in the NBA as much as actual on-court basketball, and so the NBA world has an annual tradition of treating veteran buyouts and waiver claims made after the trade deadline as if they are major stories. Over the last 48 hours, we’ve had breathless accounts of Derek Fisher’s location, as if he is going to tilt the balance of power in the league.

But snark aside, all it takes is one-quarter of playoff basketball for someone to make a giant impact on the outcome of a series. Peja Stojakovic wasn’t a buyout guy last season, but he was the rough equivalent of one in terms of his status in the league, and I’m not sure how the Dallas-Lakers conference semifinal series unfolds without his long-range shooting. Do the 2007-08 Celtics escape the Cavaliers without a few big shots from P.J. Brown? In the tiny sample size of a postseason series, a hot streak here and there by a bit player can make a big difference.

Fisher, of course, has had his postseason moments, including a killer fourth quarter in Game 3 of the 2010 Finals in Boston, one of two wins by the road team in that series. The Thunder will reportedly finalize the signing of Fisher Wednesday night after he clears waivers, according to several news outlets. Read More…

If Dwight Howard opts out and becomes a free agent, he could sign a four-year deal with a first-year salary of $18,996,358 elsewhere. (Greg Nelson/SI)

It has been repeated throughout the league for months now: If the Mavericks can find a way to trade Shawn Marion, use the amnesty provision on Brendan Haywood and move all or most of their other players before free agency begins, they will have enough cap space to offer max-level contracts to both Dwight Howard and Deron Williams.

Reality is more complex for everyone involved once you dig into the numbers, which I’ve done with help from several cap gurus and lawyers.

Dirk Nowitzki will earn $20,907,128 next season, per ShamSports and other sources. The salary cap for 2012-13 is expected to stay almost precisely flat at around $58,044,000.

Even assuming the Mavs move Marion and amnesty Haywood between now and July 1, they are still on the hook for guaranteed money to the following players, per ShamSports: Read More…

Kenyon Martin agreed to a one-year, $2.5 million deal with the Clippers. (Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images.)

Every day in this crazy season, you will be reminded of how little you really know about certain teams. It takes only a few days for a team to morph from scary-looking contender into exposed also-ran, and then perhaps back into scary-looking contender. Few want to admit it, but there is much we don’t know, and some questions will persist all season.

One such question: Are the Clippers title contenders? Their scoring margin — plus-0.85 points per game — marks them as mediocre, but their best player, Chris Paul, has missed five games, including a surprising home loss to the Timberwolves and a margin-skewing 29-point blowout loss in Utah. They have played only seven road games, tied for fewest in the league, but they have gone 13-7 against the league’s toughest schedule, in terms of opponent winning percentage.

And on Friday they reached a deal with Kenyon Martin, a 34-year-old power forward who has been playing in China — at a disappointing level, according to most reports — as the nutty NBA season has unfolded. We don’t know what condition Martin is in, when exactly he’ll suit up for the Clippers (though SI.com’s Sam Amick reports that he’s expected to resume his NBA career immediately) and how much game he has left.

But we do know this: He can’t hurt the Clippers, even if he can be sulky and unmotivated in bad situations. You need three capable big men to win an NBA title. Most teams need four, but you might be able to get away with three — and a fourth playing some token/emergency minutes — if your top two are young and capable of carrying a heavy load every night. The Clippers are blessed with two such players in Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, and five-man units featuring that pair of bigs have done splendidly. Of eight such units that have logged at least 15 minutes together, seven have positive scoring margins, and the two that have logged the most minutes have been among the league’s most productive line-ups, according to Basketball Value. Read More…

Brief takes on the major contract extensions/non-extensions on Wednesday:

Eric Gordon may prove worth the max at some point. (Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images)

• Eric Gordon turned down the Hornets’ four-year offer.

Here’s the backdrop we’re working with here: Roughly half the league’s teams can work their way this summer to enough cap room to fit a max-level contract, though several of those teams would have to use the amnesty clause and/or renounce the rights to their own free agents to make it happen. Take the Pacers, for instance: Their lust for Gordon, an Indy native, is no secret around the league. On the surface, they have the money to offer Gordon a max-level four-year deal, worth about $60 million, and thus rob the Hornets of one of the two prized assets (the other being Minnesota’s first-round pick) they received in the Chris Paul deal.

But there are complicating factors: The combined cap holds attached to restricted free agents Roy Hibbert and George Hill add more than $10 million in artificial charges to the Pacers’ payroll, giving Indiana about $46 million in “salary” for 2012-13 — and not quite enough room to offer Gordon the max, unless the salary cap jumps higher than expected. The Pacers could get rid of those holds by renouncing the rights to Hibbert and Hill, but doing so means losing the ability to match competing offers for those guys.

Still, the Pacers could make a decent run at Gordon, as could lots of other teams with cap room and a potential need at the position. But none can offer quite as much money as the Hornets, who can also add an extra fifth year. And New Orleans can of course match any offer sheet another team lavishes upon Gordon. You can’t blame the Hornets if they tried to retain Gordon for something less than the maximum annual amount on a four-year deal — and if they resisted using their “designated player” label on Gordon and offering the fifth year such players may receive on contract extensions. Gordon may prove worth the max at some point, but he has played at that level for about 2 1/2 months in the NBA, with injuries having cost him so much time. The world praised the Celtics for retaining Rajon Rondo at a below-market deal; why should the Hornets not try to do the same here, given their matching rights? It might irritate Gordon, but he’s not quite as valuable as … Read More…

David Stern said a system that allows players, like Chris Paul, to choose their own destiny after "seven or eight years" of service to the team that drafted them is ethically fair. (Kyle Terada/US PRESSWIRE)

I encourage you to bookmark these David Stern quotes for future use, whether in 2017, when the owners can opt out of the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, or over the next few months, when the Dwight Howard trade rumors resurface along with the hand-wringing over stars choosing a new team (via Ken Berger of CBS Sports).

First, here’s Stern on Sunday addressing a question about an NFL-style franchise tag that could (in theory) bind a star player to his team for at least one season:

Stern pointed to a new measure in the CBA that allows a team to extend a star player by paying him 30 percent of the salary cap, as the Bulls recently did to retain reigning MVP Derrick Rose.

“After that, when a player has played a number of years in the league — seven or eight — and says, ‘I don’t want to re-sign in this particular city, I have a different choice,’ it doesn’t concern us at all that he has that option,” Stern said. “This league has embraced free agency … and has for decades. And that’s fine.”

And then later, on the Heat’s move in July 2010 to sign three of the league’s very best free agents:

“I don’t think it’s a slippery slope at all. I think the fact that players are able to move from team to team, having played under their contracts — their rookie extension, whatever it is — and find a team that is managed well enough so they are under the cap and they can acquire more than one player, we think that’s fine. The ultimate for the league will be whether that’s an interesting and fun team, and the Heat are an interesting and fun team.”

The NBA has always sought to give incumbent teams an advantage in re-signing their own free agents, but that advantage drops sharply when a player becomes eligible to enter free agency a second time. The player’s team at that point no longer has the matching rights teams hold when a player hits free agency for the first time, as a restricted free agent upon the expiration of his rookie deal. In unrestricted free agency, an incumbent team can count only on two things: Read More…

Nene has been a solid two-way player for the Nuggets, who just re-signed the 29-year-old big man. (AP)

There was a lot of preemptive criticism over the maximum-level deal that free-agent big man Nene seemed sure to receive, whether it was a five-year, $100 million contract from the Nuggets or the four-year, $75 million package that rival suitors could offer. Nene is a very nice two-way player, but he does not look the part of a franchise cornerstone. So the NBA know-it-alls were perched over their keyboards, ready to rip a general manager for overspending after a lockout designed to engineer financial restraint.

Guess what? The Nuggets retained Nene late Tuesday with a five-year, $67 million deal. That means he’ll make $13.4 million annually — a bit less than Tyson Chandler will earn on his four-year deal with the Knicks, about $1.4 million more per season than Atlanta’s Al Horford is paid and “only” about $3 million more per year than the Clippers gave DeAndre Jordan, a relatively unproven player, at least compared to a veteran like Nene.

This is a fair deal, and if the Nuggets pair it with the re-signing of restricted free agent Arron Afflalo and the continued development of point guard Ty Lawson and forward Danilo Gallinari, they would be positioned to make the playoffs this season and maintain their future financial flexibility.

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Kwame Brown, whom Michael Jordan infamously selected with the top pick in the 2001 draft, agreed to a one-year, $7 million deal with the Warriors. (AP)

Golden State’s one-year, $7 million deal for big man Kwame Brown, the Michael Jordan-era punchline, isn’t so bad independent of context. Brown was reasonably productive last season in Charlotte, in part because he posted an acceptable turnover rate so out of whack with his slippery-handed career norms that he likely can’t approach it again. Brown is a sturdy post defender and decent rebounder, and on offense he’ll show flashes of the explosion that made him the No. 1 overall pick of the 2001 draft. A team that needs post defense and clearly has no faith in Andris Biedrins can overpay Brown a bit for one season, develop Ekpe Udoh and let Brown walk in the summer.

Not much harm, not much foul.

But the context is troubling. Golden State used its one-time-only amnesty provision to cut Charlie Bell’s $4 million expiring contract and free up the space to sign center DeAndre Jordan to a four-year, $43 million offer sheet. The Clippers matched that offer Monday night to keep Jordan, as most of the league expected they would. The Warriors thus blew their one shot at amnesty while Biedrins remains on the books for $9 million in each of the next three seasons for a team that just gave him a pretty glaring no-confidence vote.

The other bonus of using the amnesty now on Bell rather than later on Biedrins is that it opened up more cap space. After cutting Bell and renouncing Reggie Williams, the Warriors had about $10 million in cap space, once you figure in deals for their second-round picks (Charles Jenkins and Jeremy Tyler) and charges tied to empty roster spots. You can do something with $10 million in cap space, even if you can’t sign Nene outright: You can sign a decent player, use the space later to acquire an asset in a salary-dumping trade or land a big name in a sign-and-trade transaction without adding too much salary.

The Warriors took that cap space and used $7 million of it on Kwame Brown. They’ve got a small amount left, but that sliver doesn’t bring the same kind flexibility as a vacant $10 million space. They could have retained amnesty by either keeping Bell or buying him out, and then offered Brown a deal in the range of $5 million to $6 million, using their remaining cap space. Read More…

The Timberwolves are reportedly finalizing a four-year, $19 million deal with J.J. Barea. (AP)

The jokes have been easy since Timberwolves GM David Khan selected three point guards in the first round of the 2009 draft, including two with back-to-back picks at No. 5 and No. 6 when Stephen Curry was still on the board. The jokes will come back today, once the Timberwolves finalize a reported four-year, $19 million deal with J.J. Barea, a crucial reserve-turned-starter on the Mavericks’ championship team.

But I’m having a hard time summoning any real negativity about this deal, even if the Wolves have both Ricky Rubio and Luke Ridnour under contract for the next few seasons, giving them three point guards deserving of major playing time. One of those point guards has never played in the NBA and is coming off a Euroleague season in which he shot worse than 40 percent from the floor and 25 percent from three-point range. The other, Ridnour, is a decent long-range shooter coming off a season in which his turnover rate blew up to a career-worst level, his defense remained so-so and he looked a bit uncomfortable in Kurt Rambis’ triangle offense. His addiction to questionable pull-up jumpers in transition remained strong, though.

In other words: It’s not the worst thing in the world to have a third point guard here, even if Rick Adelman’s corner offense system isn’t as heavy on the pick-and-roll — Barea’s main strength. Barea might be a bit overpaid at about $5 million per year, but he wouldn’t be overpaid by much, and the Wolves retain a bunch of financial flexibility going forward. They have only about $27.6 million in guaranteed money committed for 2012-13, though they’ll obviously work to sign Kevin Love to the maximum five-year deal allowed in the new CBA for so-called “designated players.” Martell Webster and Brad Miller have mostly non-guaranteed deals for 2012-13, and the following players will either hit restricted free agency or team options over the next two years: Michael Beasley, Anthony Randolph, Wesley Johnson, Lazar Hayward and Wayne Ellington. Even Darko Milicic’s horrid deal is only about one-third guaranteed for 2013-14. Read More…

The NBA officially resumes business Friday amid unprecedented chaos. In this space, we’ll continuously update you on the latest trades, signings and news, with quick-hitting analysis.

• The Sixers get Thaddeus Young back.

The Sixers have re-signed Thaddeus Young, their 23-year-old (so young!) tweener forward, to a five-year, $42 million deal. There are some concerns here, including (as voiced by John Hollinger of ESPN.com) that the Sixers are tossing big money at a restricted free agent before they have any idea about his place in the market–a market in chaos right now. But this is fair money for a player so young and so explosive, and it could turn into a huge bargain.

Young isn’t a can’t-miss guy, but he did crack the overall top 50 in Player Eficiency Rating last season, and he’s a brutally efficient scorer from 15 feet and in. He has trouble creating his own shot, and his jumper has been inconsistent–though he told me earlier this summer he’s been focusing on the mid-range shot more than any part of his game. Defensively, he has all the usual tweener issues–he’s not quite big enough to rebound against traditional power forwards, some of whom can bully him in the post. Young can fight that by using quickness and fronting post-up threats, and his speed should make him a very good pick-and-roll defender when called upon. On the flip side, he might have trouble staying with some of the league’s quicker small forwards; Doug Collins kept him away from LeBron James during Philly’s first-round playoff series with Miami, and though Young told me that was because Collins preferred him elsewhere, you’d have to think other concerns were at play, too.

Concerns aside, the Sixers thrived when they had Young on the floor and played small; they were much better on both ends with Young on the court. That has been the case for most of the last three seasons, and when those on-court/off-court splits start going the same way every year, they become more meaningful. Positional issues aside, Young has been helping Philadelphia.

And he’s just 23, with ridiculous explosiveness and so much room to grow on both ends of the floor. Give this guy a jumper and even average ball-handling, and he’s going to become a powerful threat. There’s a good chance we’ll look at this deal as a bargain in a couple of years, and a much smaller chance we’ll look at it is as a bust.

This pretty much does it in terms of cap room for the Sixers until the summer of 2013, when Elton Brand’s deal comes off the books. But the Sixers weren’t looking at major cap room until then anyway. They can always maneuver in the meantime–Andre Iguodala will always be on the block, it seems–and they’re in position to be free agent players two Julys from now. Locking up Young as a piece of the next generation is a solid move.

Read More…