News broke today that Victor Oladipo will miss the first few weeks of the season with a facial fracture.
Here’s Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports’ report:
After undergoing surgery to repair a facial fracture, Orlando Magic guard Victor Oladipo is expected to miss a month of the season, a league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Oladipo, the 2014 runner-up for the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award, sustained an elbow to his head in practice on Thursday. He had the surgical procedure on Saturday.
Oladipo is already probably the player the Magic can least afford to lose. In only his second season, he’s shown that he can score, rebound and distribute, and play good perimeter defense. He still needs some developing, of course, but given time, he should turn into a very solid shooting guard.
Which is exactly why he’s the last guy you want to be playing catch-up all season. Hopefully he’ll be fine, but this isn’t the time you want a guy like him getting hurt.
Here’s some more of the latest news from around the NBA:
TEAMS MAKE FINAL ROSTER CUTS
Here’s a few notable ones:
The Warriors waived guard Aaron Craft, swingman Jason Kapono, guard Sean Kilpatrick, forward James Michael McAdoo and forward Mitchell Watt
— Marc J. Spears (@SpearsNBAYahoo) October 25, 2014
Justin Holiday (brother of Jrue) claimed Golden State’s 15th roster spot, so those of us who really wanted to see Kapono join forces with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and new coach Steve Kerr will have to wait a little longer to find out just how much three-point shooting can fit in one locker room. Ray Allen’s still available. Just saying.
Mavs informing guys of cuts today. Charlie Villanueva made the team, per source.
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) October 25, 2014
Villanueva didn’t look as done during the World Cup as he did playing with the Pistons. Of course, just about everyone not named Monroe or Drummond looks done when they’re playing with the Pistons. Maybe Villanueva is about to pull off the Dallas Career Resurgence that just about everybody seems to have.
The New York Knicks are strongly considering parting ways with veteran forward Travis Outlaw, league sources told ESPNNewYork.com on Saturday.
Outlaw is owed $3 million this season. If the Knicks released him, they would still owe him his full salary. They also could dump him on another team via a trade.
Getting rid of Outlaw via release would open up a roster spot for another player. There is a possibility that spot would be filled by Travis Wear.
Wear, whom the Knicks signed to a non-guaranteed deal, impressed the team in training camp and the preseason.
(via Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com)
Speaking of guys who have looked done, Travis Outlaw, ladies and gentlemen. It wasn’t franchise-crippling, but what the Nets were thinking when they gave him a five-year deal I’ll never know.
MARC STEIN REMEMBERS STEVE NASH
Stein is one of the best writers in the business, and his ode to the imminently-departing Nash is as good as you’ll find anywhere. Here’s a snippet:
The image that pops into my head whenever someone asks about Nash, thanks to a seemingly mundane trip to the visitors locker room at the Toyota Center in Houston late in Nash’s final season as an NBA All-Star, was seared into my brain on April 13, 2012. Just outside the trainer’s office, I stood in the doorway for a good half-hour, horrified but unable to look away as Suns lifer Aaron Nelson pushed and pulled and twisted and stretched Nash’s limbs in a manner that your squeamish correspondent will never forget.
Just picturing the pressure Nelson was applying so close to Nash’s crotch, trying to loosen up all the connected circuitry that made him go back then at 38, still makes me wince as I type about it more than two years later.
Nash, of course, would eventually rise up off Nelson’s training table and laugh at me for being such a baby. The daily toll it took just to get on the floor in his later years, just to be able to handle the rigors of your average Friday in the NBA, never bothered Two Time.
He dribbled his way into major college basketball when everyone back home said it was impossible, pushed himself to play at an elite level in the pros — with a bad back the whole time — nearly as long as John Stockton. Based on the 20-plus seasons I’ve had the privilege to study NBA players up close, Nash possessed what I would deem inhuman reserves of work ethic, focus and discipline in that battered body of his, all of which took him to unfathomable heights.
That, as much as anything, is what I’ll remember about Stevie Nash’s career.
TRISTAN, KLAY THOMPSON STALLING ON EXTENSIONS
They’re not related, but they do have the same last name, and they were in the same draft class. And neither has good news on their extension prospects.
First, on Tristan, from Chris Haynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
Behind the scenes for Thompson, there’s not much happening.
The deadline for the Cavaliers and Thompson to agree to a rookie-scale extension is Friday. That’s less than a week away and a source close to the situation says, “There has been zero discussion on an extension” between the two sides.
It’s no secret Thompson’s agent, Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, also represents the one guy responsible for the bright lights returning to Quicken Loans Arena with the Cavaliers boasting a league-high 29 national televised games.
If a deal is not reached by the deadline, Thompson will become a restricted free agent in the summer of 2015. Cleveland would then retain the right to match an offer sheet to Thompson, and the Cavs could also attempt to sign him themselves at that time.
However, with a big increase in the salary cap coming for next year, it is unlikely that the value of the double-double-producing power forward will decrease.
If he does hit restricted free agency, competitors will surely attempt to snatch Thompson away from this title-contending Cavaliers team. Allowing it to go this far is dicey business.
And on Klay, from Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports:
Klay Thompson’s camp is frustrated that the Golden State Warriors haven’t offered a maximum contract in their ongoing extension talks with Friday’s deadline nearing, sources told Yahoo Sports.
Thompson is seeking a maximum deal paying upward of $15 million per season, a source said. The Warriors have improved their offer to get in the vicinity but have not offered a full maximum contract, sources said.
If Thompson and the Warriors do not come to terms on an extension by the Halloween deadline, he will be a restricted free agent next summer.
Warriors owner Joe Lacob has yet to become comfortable offering a maximum extension, sources said. A source close to Thompson said any offer shy of a max would be “absurd” considering his improvement and the influx of money to come to NBA teams from the next television contract.