Rare among the NBA’s free agents this summer, Antawn Jamison can join a new team and keep the home team happy all at once.
Jamison, the veteran forward who has played for four franchises in 14 seasons, still would like to add a championship ring to his resume of basketball achievements. But he also feels a tug to sign with the Charlotte Bobcats, a team that’s about as far removed from a Larry O’Brien Trophy as, say, the Montreal Canadiens but offers something the others don’t: The perfect home schedule.
Jamison has made his home in the Charlotte area, where he grew up and attended high school before heading to the University of North Carolina and, soon enough, NBA riches. He has four children who range in age from 2 years old to 12, and the prospect of seeing them more than in any previous season tugs at him.
“My kids – being around them is very important,” Jamison said in an exclusive interview Friday with the Observer. “I want to see them every day. And when I’m on the road, when I haven’t seen them for weeks, I hear, ‘When are you coming home?’ “
The Bobcats are prepared to pay Jamison to serve as mentor on a young, rebuilding team. Jamison would be a good fit on several levels; he’s savvy and personable – a pro’s pro. And he can still play, after averaging about 17 points and over six rebounds last season in a similar role with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
It’s not as if the Miami Heat or the Oklahoma City Thunder has Jamison, at 36, atop its free-agent list. And once you get beyond the top two or three contenders, in chasing a ring, the other 27 or 28 teams all wind up watching the games in June on TV anyway.
By sticking close to home, Jamison could be helpful to one group of kids (Bobcats) while staying indispensible to another (his own).
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Proving an age-old theory that absolutely every NBA contract, no matter how bad it looks at the time, is a tradeable at some point, the Detroit Pistons sent Ben Gordon and a lottery-protected Draft pick in 2013 to the Charlotte Bobcats for Corey Maggette.
The nearly $15 million in savings for the Pistons was clearly their motivation for doing the deal. Maggette is a nice veteran scorer to have, but by no means changes your franchise’s fortunes. He does have an expiring $10.9 million deal. And since Gordon is owed $25.6 million on the final two years of his deal, the Bobcats get a seasoned shooter to add to their mix, but are only the hook for the short-term.
This is one of those rare trades that actually makes complete sense for both sides. Gordon will never live down the disappointment fans in Detroit have experienced since the Pistons handed him that $55 million free agent deal in 2009. Maggette has played all over the league with the Pistons marking the sixth team in the 12-year veteran’s career.
The Draft pick the Pistons gave up has extra layers of protection, as well, through the eight pick in 2014 and No. 1 in 2015.
But it’s clear that both teams get the salary relief they needed (the Pistons needed to shed some while the Bobcats needed to add some) in the form of veteran scorers that will benefit their respective teams immediately.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We go through this in the days leading up to the NBA Draft every year. One college star always seems to generate buzz and you start hearing the rumors about teams falling over each other to trade up and get him.
Former Florida shooting guard Bradley Beal is that player this time around. The Cleveland Cavaliers are fans of the player some Draft pundits compare favorably to Ray Allen when he was just a teenager and rumored to be interested in doing whatever it takes to trade up by Thursday night to acquire that No. 2 pick so they can select Beal before someone else does.
The Bobcats currently own the No. 2 pick but, per Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld, they are considering all of their options:
Since landing the 2nd overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft Lottery the Charlotte Bobcats have made no secret of their desire to move down from the #2 spot and try to secure multiple assets in this draft in efforts to rebuild the team around a youth movement.
The Bobcats met with Kansas big man Thomas Robinson over the weekend and are debating their options with the #2.
HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – If Dwight Howard thought Stan Van Gundy was tough to deal with, can you imagine how he’d react to Hall of Famer Jerry Sloan?
The former and longtime coach of the Utah Jazz is apparently contemplating a coaching comeback at 70, with feelers from both the Charlotte Bobcats and potentially the Magic, who fired Van Gundy Monday and are currently searching for his replacement.
Sloan has already spoken with the Bobcats about their opening and is “intrigued” by the possibilities in Orlando, per the Salt Lake Tribune:
Asked about his reported interest in Orlando, Sloan said, “I’m sure a lot of people are interested. But I really don’t know what the parameters are going to be or what’s going on. I guess we’ll wait and see what happens.”
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The well wishes on Twitter from Clippers guard Chris Paul and Heat owner Micky Arison confirmed the rumblings. Heat star LeBron James and his longtime girlfriend Savannah Brinson are engaged to be married.
At a New Year’s Eve dinner and party at the Shelborne hotel in South Beach, the Miami Heat star, 27, proposed to his longtime girlfriend Savannah Brinson. And he got their kids in on the action as well.
Right after popping the question, James picked up the couple’s sons LeBron Jr., 7, and Bryce, 4, and swung them around on the floor. “It was so sweet to watch,” a rep for Remy Martin V, who hosted the dinner, tells PEOPLE. “Everyone is extremely happy.”
The party, hosted by Heat teammate Dwayne Wade and his girlfriend Gabrielle Union, was also a belated birthday celebration for James, who turned 27 the day before.
Heat star Chris Bosh and Queen Latifah were also on the guest list of 60 friends and family members.
No date has been announced, but we’re guessing James gets more than a few questions about this news before and after the Heat’s game against the Charlotte Bobcats today in Miami.
And congrats to LeBron and his bride to be. There will be a ring ceremony for him one way or another in the future.
The Bobcats, Raptors, Trail Blazers and Rockets are the four teams in hottest pursuit of unrestricted free agent swingman Reggie Williams, according to a league source. Williams became unrestricted over the weekend when his former team, the Warriors, rescinded its qualifying offer to him in order to clear room for a four-year, $43 million offer sheet Golden State made to Clippers center DeAndre Jordan. The Clippers matched the sheet on Jordan Monday.
The 25-year-old Williams is one of the better shooters still available in free agency. He made 42 percent of his three-pointers at Golden State last season, averaging 9.2 points, mainly off the bench, for the Warriors. The two-time NCAA scoring champ from VMI burst onto the NBA scene out of the Developmental League in 2010, averaging 15 points in 24 games for the Warriors after being called up. He worked out for the Bobcats in Charlotte on Sunday.
The Blazers are also interested in free agent guard Jamal Crawford, who is being pursued by the Pacers, Knicks and Timberwolves.
A three-way deal involving the Bucks, Bobcats, and Kings is in place. The particulars:
Milwaukee gets Beno Udrih, Steven Jackson, Shaun Livingston and 19th pick (which currently belongs to Charlotte).
Charlotte gets Corey Maggette and 7th pick (via the Kings).
Sacramento gets John Salmons and 10th pick (Milwaukee’s pick).
That’s a pretty big trade, and an excellent way to get the night underway.
Obviously we have to wait and see which players get chosen with the swapped draft slots, but if it happens, which team do you think gets the best end of this one?
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Hoosier hysteria this year could involve more than just the Butler Bulldogs’ March Madness run, provided they keep it going.
College basketball’s reigning Cinderella might have to make some room on the postseason stage in hoops-crazed Indiana for their NBA brothers from across town.
The Indiana Pacers are plotting for the playoffs.
They’re holding on tight (think the Iron Sheik and the Camel Clutch from the old WWF days) to the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference playoff chase, hoping to crash the party for the first time since 2006. Prior to their current drought, the Pacers had a wicked stretch that saw them make the playoffs 14 times in 15 seasons, an era that saw them rise to become one of the league’s model franchises.
Now they’re just trying to survive themselves to make it back to the postseason. They’ve won two straight games, but trailed by double digits in the first half of both games.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We suspect the standing ovation Gerald Wallace will receive at Time Warner Arena tonight in Charlotte will be as long and thunderous as any heard in Bobcats’ history.
After all, it’s not every day that the very first face of the franchise walks through the door with an opposing team. Yet that’s exactly what Wallace and his new team, the Portland Trail Blazers, will do this evening.
And it’s far from the happy homecoming you might have imagined. Wallace is more than happy to be toiling on a Blazers team steaming toward the playoffs with a renewed energy, due in large part to their last-minute acquisition of Wallace at the Feb. 24 trade deadline. And few players have exhibited the sort of no-nonsense approach to their work that Wallace does on a daily basis.
His description of the way he was shipped out of Charlotte, though, doesn’t sound like the sort of treatment the only All-Star in Bobcats history deserved. Wallace used phrases like “stab in the back” and “slap in the face” to capture his feelings about the trade, a move he insists Bobcats coach Paul Silas told him would not happen just hours before it did.
“Basically, he told me before the practice that I was good, that no trades were going to go down and I was OK and I didn’t have anything to worry about,” Wallace told reporters in Charlotte Thursday, his first day back in town since the trade. “Then I get home and bam, I’m traded.”
In this era of players dictating the terms of their own careers, the one that has some people crowing about a ruinous takeover of the league by star players demanding to play with their All-Star friends, Wallace is a victim of the age-old flip side practice of teams making moves in their own financial best interest with little regard to what that means to the player or players involved.
Don’t you figure Masai Ujiri and Josh Kroenke have to be kicking themselves about wasting the previous six months?
Maybe if they had traded Carmelo Anthony before the season started, Denver would be looking down at the rest of the Association from the top of the standings.
Go ahead, laugh. But while New Yorkers are celebrating their newest arrival like he’s biggest thing to climb atop Manhattan since King Kong, the Knicks are 3-2 with Anthony in their lineup.
