Josh Lewenberg: Raptors make the Hollis-Jefferson signing official.
Storyline: Rondae Hollis-Jefferson Free Agency
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Blake Murphy: Hollis-Jefferson’s deal is for the minimum, per a source, by the way.
Toronto adds Rondae Hollis-Jefferson
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson: Brooklynnnnn I Love You.. can’t believe it’s been 4 years ha.. Thank you 🙌🏽
The Spencer Dinwiddie $1.6M free agent hold is now replaced by a $10.6M salary in 2019-20. The Nets are still projected to have cap flexibility in July but how much will be based on the future of restricted free agents D’Angelo Russell and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
Michael Scotto: No extensions for D’Angelo Russell and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. When asked about the possibility of an extension earlier at practice, neither player knew today was the deadline. Both players will be eligible for restricted free agency this summer as Nets preserve 2019 cap space.
Bobby Marks: With the Dwight Howard trade, only Allen Crabbe will have a guaranteed contract for the Nets in 2019-20. The Nets could potentially have up to $60M+ in room next summer but will be contingent on the restricted free agency of D’Angelo Russell and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
December 5, 2019 | 8:30 pm UTC Update
Rick Bonnell: Cody Martin back to the Swarm
Jovan Buha: Kawhi Leonard on returning to Toronto next week: “I’ll be thinking about just playing against the team and wanting to win the game, for the most part. Just really getting my ring that night. … We’re there for one reason: to play the Raptors and try to win the game.”
December 5, 2019 | 7:20 pm UTC Update
The Heat knew it was getting an All-Star in Jimmy Butler when it acquired him this past summer. But during the first 21 games of the season, Heat players and coaches have had the opportunity to learn the different layers of Butler’s game and personality. The four-time All-Star is averaging a team-high in points (20.1), assists (6.5) and steals (2.4) to go with six rebounds this season.
“He’s not about the numbers,” Heat guard Goran Dragic said, with the Heat (15-6) starting a four-game homestand Friday against the Wizards. “He’s a superstar in this league, but he wants to win. Sometimes he would rather pass than score. That’s a quality that not everybody has. You can see it. He tries to get everybody involved first, then when he needs to close the game, he does it.”
“He’s just willing to do whatever it takes to win,” forward Justise Winslow said of Butler. “That’s the biggest thing. He’s super competitive. He’s good if not great at pretty much everything out there on the basketball court. He’s super easy to play with. He’s super unselfish. But just that winning nature, that competitive nature, it’s stronger than I thought.”
“Spo always says, ‘Playoff Jimmy, we’re going to need him,’” Heat rookie guard Tyler Herro said. “There are two different Jimmys. There’s Jimmy and there’s playoff Jimmy. I think [in Boston] we saw playoff Jimmy. Shoot, the last three games, I think we’ve seen playoff Jimmy, for sure. He’s a great player. I just keep learning from him. He’s solid.”
Kellan Olson: Aron Baynes (left calf strain) is listed as doubtful tonight. No one else on the injury report.
December 5, 2019 | 6:02 pm UTC Update
Case against Luke Walton dropped
The woman who accused Luke Walton of sexually assaulting her in a hotel room in 2017 has officially dropped her lawsuit against the NBA coach, TMZ Sports has learned. Kelli Tennant — a former sports reporter — had sued Walton claiming he forced himself on her in a Santa Monica hotel room while he was an asst. coach with the Golden State Warriors.
In her lawsuit, Tennant claimed Walton forced kisses on her neck, face and chest — and despite telling to stop, he held her down, groped her breasts and groin, and rubbed his erection on her leg. Tennant claimed she was “in shock and fear. She was afraid she was about to be raped,” the suit states.
Walton, who now coaches the Sacramento Kings, had adamantly denied wrongdoing — claiming Tennant, was the person who initiated their meet-up, insists it was “platonic” and nothing sexual ever occurred. Now, Tennant has filed new court docs calling off the suit — asking a judge to dismiss with prejudice, which means she can’t refile it. Unclear if Walton and Tennant struck a settlement — but it’s not uncommon in situations like this.
The Boston Celtics’ disastrous 2018-19 season came to an end on a Wednesday in May. The dejected squad dressed quietly in a Milwaukee locker room, then flew back to Boston the next morning. A few players talked to the media, but they didn’t have any answers. Nobody really did. The next morning, Celtics assistant coach Tony Dobbins got a text: Could he get to the practice facility? Jaylen Brown wanted to get in the gym.
Dobbins was a little incredulous at first. Immediately after the season, players are encouraged to let their bodies heal from the day-to-day grind of an 82-game-plus-playoffs season. “We just finished the other day,” Dobbins told Brown. “You sure you don’t want to take a step away, take some time?” Brown’s answer: “Nah. Let’s get it. Let’s get after it.”
Part of Brown’s urgency was due to his schedule. He had a trip to Egypt planned, and he wanted to make sure he got in the gym before he left in case finding a gym overseas proved difficult (ultimately, a basketball star doesn’t have much trouble finding a place to workout, even in a foreign country). But one thing was clear: After enduring one of the strangest seasons in recent NBA memory, Brown didn’t want to waste time.
December 5, 2019 | 4:37 pm UTC Update
Nikos Varlas: Vincent Poirier assigned to the G-League
Matt Velazquez: Giannis finished with 0 assists last night vs. the Pistons. I thought that was odd and indeed it is. The last time that happened — regular season or playoffs — was Feb. 5, 2016. It’s been nearly 1400 days and he’s played 278 reg-season games and 28 playoff games since then.
Justin Kubatko: The @Milwaukee Bucks have outscored their opponents by 109 points over the last three games, tying the fourth-largest differential over a three-game, single-season span in NBA history: +134 – SAC, 1992-93, +130 – SAC, 1992-93, +127 – PHX, 1988-89, +109 – PHX, 1988-89, +109 – MIL, 2019-20
Basketball-Reference: Luka Doncic isn’t the only 2nd year player having a big scoring season. Trae Young is averaging 28.7 PPG. In the last 50 years, the only players with more PPG in their first or second NBA season than Doncic or Young are Kareem, Bob McAdoo, and Shaq bkref.com/tiny/jzl7z pic.twitter.com/wUcJKNrfBi
Albert Nahmad: It’s December 5. Which means, by my unofficial count: – In exactly 10 days, 120+ players will become trade eligible (for a total of around 91% of the league). – In exactly 1 month, all NBA teams (including the hard-capped ones) will be eligible to sign 10-day contracts.
December 5, 2019 | 2:18 pm UTC Update
Welcome to the opening weeks of the NBA’s coach’s challenge. ESPN asked head coaches from almost half the league’s 30 teams for their input on the challenge system. The views ranged from hostile to constructive, but there wasn’t an endorsement to be found. But for all the frustration and bewilderment the new rule has created across the league, don’t expect it to go the way of the NBA’s synthetic basketball.
Even still, Ellis is fine with all that. Those who remember and appreciate how good he was, what he meant to the organization, they remember. Those who don’t, that’s fine, too. Peace won’t let that bother him. Because he remembers. “Everything, even through my bad times, I still enjoyed it,” Ellis said in a phone interview this week of his time with the Warriors. “Because at the end of the day, they gave me my shot. They took a chance on drafting a high schooler, 152 pounds of out Jackson, Mississippi. … So I was always grateful and thankful for that. It went down the way it went down. I guess that’s part of the business. And it just happened the way it happened. But my whole experience, the time that I was there for seven and a half years, I loved every bit of it.”
When the Warriors drafted Curry, a player just as slight as him, Ellis didn’t think it could work. And he said so, which created controversy. He laughs about it now, that character trait of his that stirred that pot. Ellis doesn’t talk much. But when he does, he says what he believes. And the straight-talking young man from the Dirty South only knew one way to tell it. “I ain’t gon’ lie,” he said over the phone. “I’ve done some things when I was young that bite me in my butt. But it is what it is, a part of life. “Just some people didn’t take, when they ask me an opinion, they didn’t really want to accept the reality of it, the truth. Because, you know, I don’t know how to be fake with nobody.”
He was getting dressed in the visiting locker room at Arco Arena, ready to take on the Kings, when Dominic McGuire broke the news to him. He saw it on the ESPN ticker on the locker room TV. Ellis was traded to Milwaukee. Just like that, he was no longer a Warrior. He was pissed. “Not only so much that they traded me,” Ellis remembered, “just how they went about trading me. If they would’ve traded me and let me know the process of everything that was going down, it would’ve been a whole lot better. I mean, that was a career-changing experience right there. ‘Cause when I went to Milwaukee, it was totally different.”
Matt Babcock, owner of Babcock Hoops and a former NBA agent, told The Commercial Appeal that Wiseman having to sit out one-third of Memphis’ regular season isn’t all that significant from an NBA draft standpoint. “It’s not like he’s a guy that just has a lot of upside with a lot of polishing to do. He’s ready to play in the NBA right now,” Babcock said. “Not that he doesn’t have room for growth. He does. (But) I think it’s more of just he’s being robbed of the experience.” Babcock believes Wiseman (who is tied with North Carolina’s Cole Anthony as FanDuel Sportsbook’s odds-on favorite to be picked first) is worthy of No. 1-pick status. But the games he will miss could also cost him the opportunity to cement himself as such.
December 5, 2019 | 10:43 am UTC Update
The Nets have been about as transparent as a brick wall when it comes to Kyrie Irving’s shoulder injury. But the star’s absence is approaching three weeks, and multiple sources told The Post he could need a few more — if he’s lucky.
Two specialists told The Post that Irving is likely to be out a few more weeks. One medical source not affiliated with the team intimated there’s more under the surface and that this injury could be even more long term. “That’s a very, very broad term,” said Dr. Andrew S. Rokito, chief of shoulder surgery at NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital. “Impingement typically does not refer to an acute injury. [It] refers to more of a long-standing, chronic issue with the rotator cuff.
Kyle Goon: I asked a super important question about LeBron’s first half travel. “I really had a malfunction. I feel bad for the refs on that one because they’ll probably get a writeup on that or something. That was pretty bad.”
This will be the sixth consecutive season with fewer post-ups than the last, and 2019-20 is on pace for the largest post-up drop-off in more than a decade. The reasons for the play’s excision are all tied together, a result of both rule and strategic changes that have encouraged the rise of Moreyball. (Another fun excerpt from that 2015 Lowe column: He wrote that the post-up death “evokes both wistfulness for the past and a fear that the NBA is heading toward a homogeneity in which every team drives for corner 3s, layups, and free throws. What happens if we all play Rocketball?” Welcome to the NBA in 2019!)
Jared Weiss: Jaylen Brown said he blew a kiss for Kelly Olynyk after hitting a shot. Q: “Did he see it?” A: “I don’t know, but he felt it.”
USA Basketball named former NBA head coach Mike Fratello as USA’s head coach for the 2021 FIBA AmeriCup Qualifiers. Andy Greer and Othella Harrington will be his assistants. Fratello holds previous experience at the international level with Ukraine between 2011 and 2014. From 1984 to 2006 made it to the playoffs 11 times in 15 full-season attempts with various NBA teams.
But a year from now, things could drastically change and that has the rest of the NBA in a panic according to NBC Sports NBA Insider Tom Haberstroh. “The people I talk to around the league are really worried they are going to trade that first-round pick, the 2020 pick, because if they load up with an All-Star-type player with that pick, they are terrified,” Haberstroh said during the Warriors-Hornets telecast on NBC Sports Bay Area on Wednesday. “Or if they land a Luka Doncic in the draft, they’re terrified. So that 2020 pick, adding to the group they have established here with [Eric] Paschall stepping in right away, man, I think every team is going to try to do a gap year.”
Sitting alongside Sandler at a Manhattan hotel this week was a cackling Kevin Garnett, who plays himself in a new movie, “Uncut Gems,” co-directed by the Safdie brothers, Josh and Benny, New Yorkers who also count themselves among the legion of long-tortured Knicks die-hards. Garnett was known as the Big Ticket during his playing days, mostly in Minnesota and Boston, where in 2008 he helped secure championship banner No. 17. But Sandler is the box office star in the film — which opens this month — as Howard Ratner, a wheeler, dealer and degenerate gambler in midtown Manhattan’s diamond district who is increasingly desperate to settle his debts with one massive score.
December 5, 2019 | 3:14 am UTC Update
Houston had been optimistic in the wake of the loss that the NBA office would take action without a protest being necessary. However, sources said the Rockets are leaning toward filing a protest to ensure that the NBA office will have to make a ruling.
NBA rules require a protest to be filed within 48 hours after a game. Sources said the NBA office has started conducting an investigation that could take longer than the 48-hour window. The Rockets contend that they should either be awarded the win — because they actually outscored the Spurs in regulation — or that the final seven minutes, 50 seconds of the game be replayed at a later date. League sources, however, scoffed at the suggestion that the Rockets would be awarded the victory.
Rod Beard: FINAL: #Bucks 127, #Pistons 103 Drummond: 23 pts, 14 rebs, 5 assts Galloway: 20 pts Griffin: 16 pts, 10 rebs #Bucks get 35 pts, 9 rebs from Giannis and win their 13th straight.
Josh Robbins: Final: Magic 128, Suns 114. Aaron Gordon: season-high 32 pts. (13/15 FGAs), 5 rebs., 5 assts. Ross: season-high 22 pts., 3 rebs. Bamba: 10 pts., 10 rebs., 4 blocks, 1 steal. Kaminsky: season-high 23 pts. (10/12 FGAs). Magic: new season-high point total & new high FG% (57.6)
December 5, 2019 | 12:57 am UTC Update
Clutch Points: Giannis just got a taste of his own medicine from Andre Drummond 💀 pic.twitter.com/WEXIfGg5Fr
December 5, 2019 | 12:11 am UTC Update
Kevin Chouinard: Kenny Atkinson on Trae Young’s improved ability to draw free throws: “I think he’s been watching James Harden at night.”
