NBA free agency is still over two months away, but rumblings are already starting that the top realistic name available is very ready to explore the market come July.
ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported last week that LaMarcus Aldridge was more likely to leave the Blazers than most folks around the league realize, while The Oregonian‘s Jason Quick quoted an anonymous Portland teammate as estimating the chances of Aldridge returning to Portland are 50-50, at best.
The rumor mill picked up even more steam Tuesday when Grantland‘s Zach Lowe cited league sources as saying that Aldridge — a Texas native who played his college basketball at the University of Texas in Austin — might meet with the San Antonio Spurs.
The Spurs accepted that risk because waiting to bump up Leonard’s salary gives them the chance to dangle max cap space in front of Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge this summer. Neither is a good bet to leave his current team, but sources around the league have been saying for weeks that the Spurs might get a hearing with Aldridge — and that was before the Oregonian reported that at least one Blazers player thinks there is only a 50-50 chance that Aldridge stays in Portland.
(And no, I wouldn’t take that as gospel, either. Aldridge said before the season that he wants to be the greatest Blazer ever.)
The odds are still in favor of Aldridge remaining in Portland, of course. As his current team, the Blazers can offer Aldridge the most money — and they also have a young star in Damian Lillard for him to play alongside in the coming years.
That said, the case for Aldridge leaving is deeper than most realize. If the Blazers, who were blown out by Memphis in Game 1 and struggled down the stretch of this season, go down easily to the Grizzlies, are they really that close to a title? With a veteran-laden roster including one way-too-big salary (Nicolas Batum at over $12 million), the Blazers don’t have the financial flexibility to be a major player in free agency this summer, considering Aldridge’s cap hold. And even if they somehow did, Portland’s presence as one of the league’s smallest markets could work against it as a destination.
The Blazers might improve if Wes Matthews makes a full recovery from his torn Achilles by next season — but that’s a notoriously tricky injury to come back from. There’s also the matter of Matthews himself being a free agent this summer, so it’s no guarantee that he returns, either.
The bottom line is that if Portland goes out with ease in the first round, they might not appear on the cusp of serious contention to Aldridge, and they also seem to lack the financial flexibility to do much about it this summer. With Aldridge having no pre-existing ties to small-market Portland and known roots in Texas, it makes a lot of sense for him to look around if a contender like the Spurs, Mavs or Rockets is able to put together an appropriate financial package.
Should Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili retire, the Spurs would have the financial ability to offer Aldridge a max contract and the chance to star alongside Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker, all in an arena about 90 miles from his college campus and led by an all-time great coach in Gregg Popovich. It wouldn’t be a slam dunk — after all, Lillard is no slouch — but it would seem to be a very tempting scenario.
BUDENHOLZER EDGES OUT KERR FOR NBA COACH OF THE YEAR
Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer narrowly held off Golden State’s Steve Kerr to win the Red Auerbach Trophy as the 2014-15 NBA Coach of the Year.
From the NBA’s announcement:
Budenholzer received 67 first-place votes and 513 total points from a panel of 130 sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada. The Golden State Warriors’ Steve Kerr, who led the Pacific Division champions to a franchise-record and NBA-high 67 victories in his first season as an NBA coach, finished second with 56 first-place votes and 471 total points. Jason Kidd of the Milwaukee Bucks was third with one first-place vote and 57 total points. Coaches were awarded five points for each first-place vote, three points for each second-place vote and one point for each third-place vote.
In just his second season, Budenholzer led Atlanta to a 60-22 record, which sets the mark as the top win total in the Hawks’ franchise history. They earned both the No. 1 playoff seed in the Eastern Conference and a division title for the first time since 1993-94. Appropriately, that was the most recent year before the 2014-15 campaign in which Atlanta had the NBA Coach of the Year (Lenny Wilkens).
Though Atlanta has made the playoffs for eight consecutive seasons, their 60-22 record was a 22-win improvement from a year ago. After starting the year 5-5, the Hawks won 35 of their next 38 games, including a 17-0 January that represented the best calendar month for a team in NBA history. That month earned the Hawks’ entire starting five the NBA Eastern Conference Player of the Month award and Budenholzer his second Eastern Conference Coach of the Month award.
The honors continued when a franchise-record four Hawks players were selected to the All-Star Game, coached on the East team by Budenholzer.
Currently, the Hawks hold a 1-0 advantage in their best-of-seven series against No. 8 Brooklyn, with Game 2 slated for Wednesday night in Atlanta. Budenholzer will be honored prior to the game.
OTHER NEWS FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE
Speaking of league award winners and the upcoming summer free agency period, Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams is set to hit the market when his Toronto contract expires after the season.
But after scoring 15.5 points in 25.2 minutes with the Raptors, all on a highly-efficient PER of 19.9, the 28-year-old guard hoping to stay put right where he is.
From Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca:
“[Staying in Toronto] would be ideal for me,” he said. “Just the culture that they’re building here, just the identity that this team and this town has, I really want to be a part of it. I look forward to it. I don’t want to say hopefully we get something done, I’m really positive that we will get something done. I don’t see why not, at this point. So I just look forward to the future here.”
Of course, a lot could change between now and July, when NBA free agency officially opens. It takes two to tango – the Raptors would have to be willing to pay up in order to keep Williams from moving south and with the salary cap set to skyrocket the following summer, the market figures to be an unpredictable one.
Williams is now a 10-year veteran after playing his first seven seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers and two with the Atlanta Hawks. Originally a second-round pick in the 2005 draft, the 15.5 points per game he averaged with Toronto this season are the most of his career — despite his minutes-per-game total being only the fourth-highest. It seems to be an ideal fit for Williams, who is playing the most efficient ball of his career. As a result, prolonging his stay appears to be the likely outcome.
New York team president Phil Jackson is wanting his Knicks to improve their win total by at least 25 games next season, reports Ian Begley of ESPN New York.
A 25-win improvement means Jackson is hoping for a winning record in 2015-16 for the Knicks, who finished 2014-15 with a franchise-worst record of 17-65.
An improvement of that magnitude is significant, but not impossible. The Knicks are expected to have at least $25 million in cap space to spend on free agents this summer, which Jackson hopes will yield two starters. They’ll also have a top-five pick in the draft.
While Jackson’s preference is to hold that pick and develop a young star internally, Begley reports that Jackson would consider trading the pick, depending on where the Knicks finish in the draft lottery.
“We’ll consider everything,” Jackson said. “I mean, I want to be quite blunt with you and say, depending upon the lottery — everything starts when the picks come in on the 19th of May. Everything starts to germinate from there. Do you move a pick 1, 2, 3 or 4? Um, that’s questionable. Do you move a pick five if that’s the end result and use it as a chip? Maybe. So there’s a lot of options out there.”
Knicks general manager Steve Mills previously said that the team had already fielded two offers for its pick, but added that he and Jackson would prefer to keep it.
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.