Indiana owner Herb Simon would approve of the team re-acquiring former Pacers guard Lance Stephenson in a trade, The Indianapolis Star reports.
Stephenson, who played his first four NBA seasons with the Pacers and posted a career-high 13.8 points per game a year ago, was wanted back by the team during the offseason. But when the Pacers offered him a five-year deal at $44 million — rather than the $55 million he was hoping for — Stephenson balked and instead took a shorter deal in Charlotte, presumably giving him more flexibility to eventually earn his payday.
Unfortunately for Stephenson and the Hornets, nearly everything has gone wrong since then. His scoring has dipped from 13.8 points to 10.3 points, accompanied by a drop in field-goal percentage from 49.1% to 38.7% and a staggering decline on threes from 35.2% to 15.7%. Naturally, his player efficiency rating (PER) has fallen from 14.7 to 10.5.
Oh, and the Hornets are a wildly disappointing 6-18, placing them 12th in the Eastern Conference standings and well outside of the playoff picture.
As a result, it’s no surprise that Charlotte is considering moving on. The question for prospective trade partners is whether Stephenson’s falloff is based on declining skills or the system in Charlotte. And if it’s the latter, does that team have the infrastructure in place, as the veteran Pacers did in recent years, to work with Stephenson’s quirks?
The Pacers still have fairly similar personnel to their recent Eastern Conference Finals teams, led by veterans David West and Roy Hibbert. Add that to their offseason bids to re-sign Stephenson, and they might very easily see the 24-year-old as a good basketball fit. The bigger question is whether the bridge and relationship between Stephenson and the organization has been burned.
Indiana Pacers owner Herb Simon said he would personally be fine with bringing back Lance Stephenson in a trade, however the judgment would be up to the front office.
“I’d be OK with it but it’s not up to me. Larry (Bird) has to decide if he fits,” Simon told The Star.
In other words, Stephenson isn’t black-listed simply because of the offseason contract tensions. It comes down to whether Larry Bird views him as a good basketball fit.
Several deciding factors would determine the Pacers’ interest in Stephenson, said Simon, and a huge consideration would be chemistry.
“First of all, we don’t know if they’re really trading him, at least I don’t know,” Simon said about the Hornets. “I know they made some calls and we would have to (figure out) how he fits back into the team. Those are all basketball decisions and Larry and Kevin (Pritchard) are the best to answer that.”
We’re now past December 15, so the Hornets can move an offseason signing like Stephenson as soon as today, should they choose. Considering his poor play on the floor, it seems unlikely they’d be able to recoup significant value in a Stephenson trade, other than simply getting out from under his contract.
Likewise, because of his woes away from Indiana, a non-Pacers team may be reluctant to commit themselves to multiple years of Stephenson at a cap figure of $9 million per season.
The stars seem to be aligning for a Stephenson return to Indiana. Stephenson seems to need Indiana’s franchise culture, while the Pacers’ on-court product (now 8-17 and in dire need of scoring with Paul George sidelined) could definitely use Stephenson. And the owner clearly isn’t standing in the way.
It seems like it’ll come down to whether Larry Bird and head coach Frank Vogel see Stephenson as a basketball fit. Considering they did five months ago at an even higher cap number, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them give Stephenson another chance in the near future.
ROBIN LOPEZ FRACTURES HAND, LIKELY TO MISS MONTH
Portland big man Robin Lopez is expected to miss about a month after suffering two fractures in his hand during the Blazers’ Monday-night win over the Spurs, Yahoo‘s Adrian Wojnarowski reports.
Lopez, averaging 9.6 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game as Portland’s starting center, injured himself after his hand hit the back of Boris Diaw’s head when going after a rebound.
From Peter Socotch of CSNNW.com:
It was clear from the moment that Robin Lopez’s right hand hit Diaw that something was wrong. Lopez grimaced after the failed attempt at a rebound, but he kept playing. In fact, he continued to play for several minutes after it happened, passing the ball with his left hand, hiding his right hand from further harm.
After the timeout was called, Lopez was met at the Trail Blazers bench by trainer Geoff Clark who quickly ushered Lopez to the locker room where tests confirmed the Trail Blazers big man suffered two fractures in his right hand.
“We don’t know much right now,” Lopez said after the game with his right hand perched upwards on the arm rest at his seat in front of his locker. “I’m going to get re-evaluated [Tuesday] morning.”
Lopez played in all 82 games a season ago for the Blazers, who are currently 19-6 and holding onto fourth place in the Western Conference.
It’s not the first major injury to a Western Conference big man this season. Dwight Howard missed almost a month for the Rockets (18-5) with a knee strain, but the club rallied to go 8-3 in his absence. Likewise, Andrew Bogut has been sidelined from the Warriors for over a week with knee tendinitis, and Golden State has yet to lose a game without him.
Given the ultra-competitive West, the pressure will certainly be on Portland to find similar success without Lopez. At the moment, seventh-seeded Dallas is only two games behind the Blazers.
Chris Kaman (10 points, 6.2 rebounds in 19 minutes) should start in Lopez’s place moving forward.
OTHER NEWS FROM AROUND THE NBA
The Nets are more likely to trade one or two of their big-name players rather than all three, reports Howard Beck of Bleacher Report.
Reports came out a week ago that the Nets were shopping all three of Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez, though general manager Billy King later denied that Brooklyn was having a fire sale.
According to Beck’s report, both sides may have some truth:
The more likely scenario, per team sources, is that the Nets will trade one of the three, two at most, and keep retooling around whoever is left. Team officials want to rebuild while staying competitive.
The Nets are now 10-12 and in possession of the eighth and final playoff spot in the East. Considering the next-best team (Orlando) already has 17 losses, they do have some wiggle room — which could make them more likely to consider a modest shakeup.
Chris Mullin is unlikely to make an in-season move to become coach of the Sacramento Kings, ESPN‘s Chris Broussard and Marc Stein report.
Sources told ESPN.com that Kings owner Vivek Ranadive has spent much of the last 24 hours lobbying Mullin to replace the fired Mike Malone despite his lack of NBA coaching experience. But sources say Mullin has reservations about making such a leap in the middle of the season, without the benefit of training camp or the time to assemble a veteran-laden coaching staff like Steve Kerr has as a rookie head coach at Golden State.
Sources say that Mullin, in recent months, has indeed expressed some interest to associates about trying his hand at coaching down the road. But if he can ultimately be persuaded to take the Kings’ job, sources say, chances are far greater that it would happen going into next season as opposed to an in-season appointment.
Mullin has been as a top adviser to Ranadive with the Kings since September 2013 and also works with team general manager Pete D’Alessandro, who worked under Mullen in Golden State.
The 11-13 Kings, who fired Malone allegedly for philosophy reasons, appear likely to give interim coach Ty Corbin a shot to see if he can develop the up-tempo style sought by Sacramento management.
If he doesn’t, Mullin could very well become the guy. It just seems more likely to happen in a few months after the regular season concludes, rather than in the immediate future.
Trade talks are more active than usual for an early period in the NBA’s trading season, according to Yahoo‘s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Unofficially, “trading season” begins on Dec. 15, when offseason signings such as Lance Stephenson first become eligible to be dealt. Usually, the activity tends to be on the slow side until closer to the mid-February trade deadline, when more teams are willing to commit themselves to being “buyers” or “sellers”.
That’s not the case this year, though. The report:
No sense of imminent deals, but tremendous volume of trade discussions among teams for only the mid-December benchmark.
Among most active teams on phones: (in no order): Celtics, Pistons, Suns, Timberwolves, Hornets, Clippers, Pacers, Nets, Nuggets, Rockets.
In particular, the Rockets are an intriguing team to watch over the next few days. They have an $8.3M traded-player exception (TPE) from the Jeremy Lin trade to Los Angeles, but the downside for Daryl Morey is that the exception cannot be aggregated with other salaries to land a truly “big” piece, as we know they’re looking for. For example, the TPE can’t be packaged with Jason Terry ($5.9M) to then acquire a player with a $14M salary. The TPE is only designated for use individually.
There’s one creative way around it, though. The TPE can be “liquidated” and used in the interim to acquire a mid-level player, and later in the season — once the 60-day period passes in which newly-acquired players cannot be traded as part of a package — that player and his salary can then be used in a larger package deal (unlike the TPE). The one catch? The 60-day period needs to expire before the Feb. 19 deadline, which means the Rockets have to complete a deal by this Friday, Dec. 19.
Buckle up.
Ben DuBose is a veteran sports reporter who has followed the Houston Rockets and the NBA since Hakeem Olajuwon was Akeem Olajuwon. He writes for both SheridanHoops and ClutchFans, an independent Rockets blog. You can follow him on Twitter.