The 2012-2013 season is officially over, but Monday proved that the league never sleeps in the summer.
The day kicked off with updated details on the Doc Rivers situation with the Los Angeles Clippers. While an agreement has been reached for Rivers to coach the team, they are still touching up on the formalities of a contract. More importantly, the Clippers can forget about acquiring Kevin Garnett any time soon, from ESPN.com:
“The official completion of the deal that will send Doc Rivers to the Los Angeles Clippers is being delayed because Rivers and his representatives are still negotiating the language in the coach’s new contract, league sources told ESPNBoston.com’s Jackie MacMullan. The NBA has not approved the deal yet, but the league also is not holding up the completion of the transaction, a league source told MacMullan. ESPN incorrectly reported earlier Monday that the league already had approved the deal. League and team sources also confirmed that any deal presently involving Kevin Garnett and the Clippers is on hold in light of NBA commissioner David Stern’s objections to the appearance that the trade was related to the deal involving Rivers.”
Then came the decision by the Denver Nuggets to hire Brian Shaw, as noted in our Tweet of the Night.
And finally, the Memphis Grizzlies are reportedly signing Dave Joerger as their new head coach, according to Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com:
The Memphis Grizzlies have reached an agreement in principle with Dave Joerger to elevate the assistant to the position of head coach, sources involved in the negotiations said on Monday.
Joerger, who has spent the past six seasons on the Grizzlies’ bench, will succeed his former boss Lionel Hollins. Hollins compiled a 196-155 record after taking over for Marc Iavaroni midway through the 2008-09 season.
The 39-year-old Joerger emerged as a favorite for the position after Grizzlies management granted Hollins permission to seek out other coaching opportunities. Before turning to their longtime assistant, the Grizzlies formally interviewed former Phoenix Suns head coach Alvin Gentry and Chicago Bulls assistant Ed Pinckney for the post, and also entertained the idea of bringing on high-profile names such as former Denver Nuggets head coach George Karl.
So the coaching search for teams are starting to wind down, but there are still an endless number of news and rumors floating around the league, as you’ll find below:
Ric Bucher didn’t specify why LMA would be on the trading block and what Portland would be looking for.
I do find it strange that his name was thrown out there.
The reason I believe Granger is on the trading Block is that Paces don’t have enough cap room to re-sign David West. Surprised the Media has missed this. Just because West said he wants to return to Pacers, doesn’t mean he would accept less than 6 million, which may be all that Pacers can offer, either with the Early Bird or with Cap Space.
*Correction: a provision of the Early Bird is that he can be paid up to 175% of the previous salary for past 2 seasons. SInce West paid 10 million, this wouldn’t be a problem.
However with West having a 13 million cap hold, Pacers couldn’t obtain any free agents using cap space as the team is currently constructed.