Posts Tagged ‘Samuel Dalembert’

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Report: Bucks To Keep Ilyasova

July 8, 2012  ·  3:06PM




The Milwaukee Bucks didn’t make the playoffs last season, but their offseason has already been a success. Sources confirmed a report on the basketball Web site HoopsHype Sunday afternoon that the club was close to a deal that would keep forward Ersan Ilyasova in Milwaukee on a five-year, $45 million deal.

Ilyasova was one of the top free agents on the market at power forward, a “stretch four” who finished tied for second in the league in three-point percentage last season (.455) with Warriors guard Stephen Curry. But he also averaged 8.8 rebounds to go with his 13 points per game, posting 20 double-doubles for the Bucks and finishing second to Orlando’s Ryan Anderson in voting for Most Improved Player.

The Nets had significant interest in signing Ilyasova, particularly if they were unable to make a trade for Magic center Dwight Howard. But one source said Sunday that Milwaukee had never been very concerned about Brooklyn, surmising that the Nets couldn’t create enough cap room to make an offer that Ilyasova would have to seriously consider. The Raptors also were reportedly interested, and Ilyasova had offers to play in Europe as well.

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Posted in Free Agency 2012 / Comments (12) /

Rockets’ Howard Fantasy Up In Smoke

June 28, 2012  ·  11:53PM





HOUSTON — For the better part of the week, putting All-Star Dwight Howard into the middle of their lineup was the stuff of the Rockets’ dreams.

In the end it was strictly fantasy. A pipe dream.

As the draft approached, general manager Daryl Morey was said to be dealing more than a four-armed casino worker. He sent Chase Budinger to Minnesota to acquire an extra first round pick. Then he shipped Samuel Dalembert to Milwaukee in order to jump up two spots from 14th to 12th.

Those were supposed to be just the first dominos falling as Morey kept inching and climbing his way closer to the top of the lottery selections. Could he get the No. 8 pick from Toronto? The No. 7 from Golden State? The No. 5 from Sacramento? Or even the No. 2 from Charlotte?

Put one or more of those choice selections with a veteran such as Kyle Lowry, Kevin Martin and/or Luis Scola and the idea was to entice Orlando with a nice rebuilding package in exchange for Howard.

So, Magic, how would you like to take your pick among Jeremy Lamb, Royce White and Terrence Jones?

That bag of three kids is what the Rockets were left holding after they couldn’t swing a blockbuster deal and wound up making all of their own.

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Posted in 2012, 2012 NBA Draft / Comments (26) /

Blogtable: Potential Playoff Upsets

March 28, 2012  ·  10:41AM

Each week, we’ll ask our stable of scribes to weigh in on the three most important NBA topics of the day — and then give you a chance to step on the scale, too, in the comments below.

Give us a potential low seed in the playoffs that you see is the most likely to pull off a big upset?

Steve Aschburner: Gotta define the terminology here. A “low seed” could be any team that opens on the road, IMHO. Yet a No. 5 beating a No. 4 scarcely qualifies as an upset. I don’t see any seventh- or eighth-seeded teams knocking off the Nos. 1 or 2 on either side of the bracket. That leaves a No. 6 vs. No. 3 possibility and, frankly (using the teams as they sat Wednesday morning), I could make cases for both Atlanta over Orlando and for Memphis over the Lakers. How ’bout we go with the Hawks, who could milk Josh Smith at the peak of his powers and pose problems for the Magic with point guard Jeff Teague? An early exit for Orlando would crank up the Dwight Howard turmoil for the ensuing nine months too.

Fran Blinebury: You want big. I’ll give you big. Houston over OKC, No. 8 over No. 1. Despite their talent and record and athleticism and enthusiasm and energy, there is still something unsettling about the way the Thunder play down the stretch of close games. They still don’t have a plan to attack the basket. The teams tied the season series, but Houston won at home and in OKC. The Rockets are young and fearless and will play with absolutely nothing to lose. They have added Marcus Camby to Samuel Dalembert up front, giving them two shot blockers, which turns the Thunder into even more of a jump-shooting team.  I’d feel even better about this pick if I knew Kyle Lowry would be back in the lineup and completely healthy. But this still a potential match-up that should cause worry in OKC. Now all the Rockets have to do, of course, is actually make the playoffs.

Scott Howard-Cooper: Problem is, we don’t know which teams will be on the bottom of the West. And we only need to consider the West — No. 8 or No. 7 in the East is not beating the Bulls or Heat. (No. 6 dumping the Magic would be a surprise, but not a big upset, given the Magic’s lack of dependability all season.) But in the West, the Clippers or Mavericks, maybe the Lakers, could drop to 6-7. They could top No. 2 San Antonio. (more…)

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Posted in Blogtable / Comments (106) /

Linsanity About Opportunity … Or Skill?

February 16, 2012  ·  9:16AM




HOUSTON – It’s one thing for fans to get caught up in the fever or for the media to fan the flames.

But you know that “Linsanity” is for real when Jeremy Lin is getting noticed in the other locker rooms around the NBA and the buzz is filling the pre-game talk.

“I think everybody is keeping one eye on him,” the Thunder’s Kevin Durant said with a grin on Tuesday night. “I mean, I don’t know that guy from a can of paint, but I’m happy for him. I’m rooting for him.

“Guys this locker room are not fans in terms of being in awe of other guys. But we see the good plays. We respect the good players. We respect the good teams. You have to respect what the guy is doing.

“It’s a little different than it was for me, because I was the No. 2 pick and I was supposed to do that. For him, people didn’t think he’d even come close to that. So that’s the unique thing about it. I’m so happy for him that he’s out there proving people wrong. He’s gotten his chance and he’s taking full advantage of it.”

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Posted in HT News / Comments (51) /

Rockets Tailor-Made For This Season

January 24, 2012  ·  11:35AM





The truth is we should have seen this coming.

The Rockets are exactly the kind of life-raft team that was made to stay afloat in the choppy waters of the jam-packed, no-rhyme-or-reason post-lockout schedule.

They have continuity. They have young legs. Now with Samuel Dalembert challenging opponents in the middle and new coach Kevin McHale challenging the Rockets from the bench, they are developing a defensive personality.

These are no longer Rick Adelman’s Rockets, though Adelman did get an up-close view on Monday night when they handled his Timberwolves 107-92 to put a grip on their seventh straight victory.

It is the most consecutive wins by the Rockets since Jan. 29-Mar. 16, 2008 when the franchise ripped off 22 in a row, the second-longest win streak in NBA history.

Nobody’s circling Feb. 20 (home vs. Memphis) yet as the date when the Rockets will notch No. 23-in-a-row this season. But after a 3-7 start, there is a sense that this is a team built for the long haul of a schedule that will test sanity and endurance along with sheer talent.

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Kobe Won’t Change His Spots … Or Shots

January 3, 2012  ·  11:33AM

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HANG TIME TEXAS – Do you really expect that someday you’ll hear about a leopard walking into a salon and asking the stylist to change his spots?

So then, why should anyone think a 6-for-28 night in Denver would make Kobe Bryant think about shooting less?

Kobe, after all, is Kobe, as Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles reminds us:

“I do what I do. If guys are open, I kick it to them, if they’re not, I shoot it,” Bryant said. “I play my game.”

Bryant, playing with a torn lunotriquetral ligament in his right (shooting) wrist that he suffered during the preseason, started off the season averaging 27.8 points on 48.1 percent shooting through the Lakers’ first four games but had difficulty with his accuracy over the weekend. He averaged just 16.5 points on 12-for-26 shooting (26.1 percent) in a back-to-back against the Nuggets that the Lakers split 1-1.

Through the first four games of the season, when Andrew Bynum was sidelined with a suspension, Bryant averaged 20.3 shot attempts per game. In the two games since Bynum came back, Bryant’s shot attempts actually increased to an average of 23.0 per contest. Meanwhile, Bynum has averaged 23.5 points per game on only 15 attempts per game and is shooting 66.7 percent from the field.

“We always start inside-out,” Bryant said, when asked about Bynum and Pau Gasol‘s effectiveness on offense. “If you mean (to ask me) if I’m going to shoot less, the answer is no. It starts with me. I do what I do and we play off of that. That’s not going to change.”

All that’s missing is a corncob pipe and a can of spinach to be Popeye the Sailor in short pants: “I yam what I yam.”

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Past, Present Staring Down Kings

December 20, 2011  ·  1:12PM

HANG TIME TEXAS, Y’ALL – These are busy, frantic times in the King-dom of Sacramento.

For a minute or two, try to forget all of the problems in trying to get a new arena and the rumors that the franchise is still headed to Anaheim. For now, there are other immediate concerns:

First off, how to replace forward/center Chuck Hayes, whose free agent contract was voided when a physical exam revealed a heart abnormality?

Matt Kawahara and Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee had the news:

A projected starter who signed a four-year, $21.3 million free-agent contract Dec. 9, Hayes was expected to play a key role in the Kings’ offense and serve as a physical, vocal presence on defense.

“We’re not going to be able to replace him,” Kings basketball president Geoff Petrie told The Bee on Monday afternoon. “He was one of the best defensive frontcourt players in the league and a really unique player we thought would facilitate some offense.

“We’ll take a look at what we can do, but it’s not going to be the same.”In a statement released Monday, Petrie said notifying Hayes of the failed physical was “one of the most heartbreaking moments of my professional or personal life.”

Hayes has undergone further testing on his heart, but specifics about his condition have not been released. Messages left for Hayes’ agent Monday were not returned.

Monday evening, Hayes posted to his Twitter account, “Thank you everyone for your prayers and support, taking the next step to get healthy and back on the court, much love.”

Perhaps fortunate for the Kings front office is the fact that one of their own, who played in Sacramento last season, is still out there on the free agent leftover pile.

As the Kings look for ways to replace Hayes, among the available free-agent big men is Samuel Dalembert, who played last season in Sacramento.Asked about the possibility of bringing back Dalembert, Petrie said: “We’ve stayed in touch with him periodically along the way. We’ll see what develops here in the next few days and go from there.”

While scrambling to fill cracks in the immediate future, the Kings would be wise to take time out to honor their past in the aftermath of Peja Stojakovic’s calling it a career by hanging his retired jersey from the rafters.

As Victor Contreras of the Bee points out, those 7 1/2 seasons that Peja spent in Sacramento were special and usually spent performing at a very high level.

He goes out as one of Sacramento’s all-time favorite Kings, a player whose No. 16 should hang from the Power Balance Pavilion rafters soon alongside the jerseys of former teammates Chris Webber (No. 4) and Vlade Divac (No. 21).

Stojakovic was the stubbly, baby-faced assassin on the Kings’ original Fab Five. Webber was the muscle inside, Jason Williams thrilled crowds with no-look passes, Divac played point-center, and Doug Christie supplied the defense.

But it was Stojakovic who killed teams from beyond the arc. He was in constant motion, flowing along the baseline like a shark, scoring on back-door feeds and hitting threes from the corner.

Worth remembering also? Peja’s fourth place finish in the 2003-04 MVP voting (24.2 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 48% 3-point shooting) was just as high as Webber ever finished in his best season of 2000-01 (27.1 ppg, 11.1 rpg, 4.2).

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Dalembert, Others Await Teams’ Call

December 20, 2011  ·  9:37AM

HANG TIME TEXAS, Y’ALL – Though time is growing late as the Christmas Day tipoff draws near, our friend Chris Sheridan at Sheridan Hoops says there are still several free agents available that should have been signed by now, with Kings shotblocker supreme Samuel Dalembert heading the list.

Lest we all forget, Dalembert was somewhat linked to landing in Miami with the Heat early in the free-agency game. That has since changed as he recently told Fox Sports Florida’s Chris Tomasson that taking the Heat’s $5 million exception “would be tough.” Houston has emerged as a suitor of late, but where Dalembert and several other talented-but-still unemployed free agents end up is a mystery:

Samuel Dalembert should have been signed by now. A shot-blocking and rebounding specialist, the 7-footer would figure to be in his demand simply because capable 7-footers are always seemingly in high demand.

Dalembert had been in negotiations with the Houston Rockets, who have been trying to dig out of the rubble caused when commissioner David Stern dynamited their trade with the Hornets and Lakers, ruining their plans to field a front line of Pau Gasol and Nene.

But now that the news is out that the Kings have voided the contract of free agent signee Chuck Hayes because of a heart abnormality, it makes all that much more sense for Dalembert to re-sign with the Kings, whose owners vowed to keep him at the conclusion of last season.

Yet Dalembert remains idle, as is Kris Humphries, who averaged a double-double for New Jersey last season before marrying and then breaking up with Kim Kardashian.

Meanwhile, the Grizzlies made an offer to Bobcats forward Dante Cunningham when they got news that Darrell Arthur would be lost for the season due to a torn Achilles’ tendon.

In the wake of the Kings voiding the four-year, $21-million contract to Chuck Hayes after a physical found a heart irregularlity, don’t think for a minute that his former team in Houston won’t be interested. One thing the Rockets never doubted was Hayes’ heart.

Is there yet an NBA team that can make the right offer to get Andrei Kirilenko to return from his native Russia?

And what about Gilbert Arenas? Isn’t there somebody still willing to roll the dice?

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The Best Of The Rest

December 15, 2011  ·  5:14PM

HANG TIME NEW JERSEY BUREAU – The Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City a little over three years ago, so Jamal Crawford can’t play for his hometown team. But he can come close.

That’s what Crawford will do when he signs with the Portland Trail Blazers for $10 million over two years. Crawford reportedly chose Portland over Sacramento and New York, who could only offer him their $2.5 million exception.

Crawford replaces Brandon Roy, who is being waived via the amnesty clause. And he should give a boost to an offense that has regressed each of the last two years. The Blazers had the second-best offense in the league in 2008-09, but ranked seventh in ’09-10 and 11th last season.

Also today, Richard Hamilton signed a three-year deal with the Chicago Bulls.

The free agency dominoes continue to fall, but there are still some guys available who can help a team. Here’s the best of the bunch…

Arron Afflalo (restricted): When the Nuggets agreed to terms with Nene on Tuesday night, GM Masai Ujiri told our David Aldridge that progress was being made on a deal with Afflalo. But all has been quiet on the Afflalo front since then.

Samuel Dalembert: There hasn’t been much chatter about Dalembert in the last few days. He reportedly had interest from Houston and Sacramento. Right now, the Rockets’ best center is Hasheem Thabeet.

Josh Howard: Howard met with the Jazz on Tuesday and has had several teams, including the Spurs, interested. He tore his ACL in February of 2010 and has played just 53 games over the last two seasons.

Kris Humphries: Humphries could be back in a Nets uniform on a one-year deal by the weekend. They need a power forward desperately, but because they’re looking to preserve their $22 million of cap space for next summer, they’re looking to hand out one-year deals.

Andrei Kirilenko: Reports have the Nets and Kings interested. Even with Humphries’ cap hold, New Jersey has over $12 million of cap space after waiving Travis Outlaw via the amnesty clause today. So they could give Kirilenko a pretty lucrative one-year deal.

Rodney Stuckey (restricted): ESPN reported Wednesday that Stuckey and the Pistons were at an impasse, and that he might just accept his $3.9 million qualifying offer. That would make him an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Nick Young (restricted): Michael Lee of The Washington Post updates us on Young, whose best option may be to accept the qualifying offer from the Wizards.

Getting ready for the season was tough enough with just 17 days of training camp before games start on Christmas. But for these guys, it’s going to be even harder to get integrated on the fly with whatever teams they eventually sign with.

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John Schuhmann is a staff writer for NBA.com. Send him an e-mail or follow him on twitter.

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Posted in Free Agency 2011 / Comments (27) /

Nene, Nuggets Agree To Terms

December 13, 2011  ·  10:41PM

– For the latest updates check out: NBA.com’s Free Agent Tracker

The Denver Nuggets were not always the favorites, but at the end of the day, they got their big man back.

Beating back strong competition from Houston and New Jersey, the Nuggets reached terms Tuesday with free agent center Nene on a five-year, $67 million deal. Earlier in the day, the Nuggets pulled off a trade with the Mavericks, acquiring forwards Corey Brewer and Rudy Fernandez from Dallas for a second-round pick. And general manager Masai Ujiri said Tuesday night that progress had been made toward re-signing restricted free agent guard Arron Afflalo.

“Today was a good day for the Nuggets,” Ujiri said.

The Nets had an offer on the table believed to be in excess of $14 million per season for the 29-year-old Nene, who averaged 14.5 points and 7.6 rebounds last season for Denver. And the Rockets coveted Nene as well, hoping to pair him with Lakers forward Pau Gasol last week when it looked like Houston would be part of the three-team deal that sent Chris Paul to the Lakers. But the deal fell through, and the Rockets couldn’t make a deal for Nene alone work.

“We’ve been grinding all along,” Ujiri said. “Nene was our guy and we stayed the course and got through it. Nene wanted to stay home. He wanted to test free agency, but at the end of the day he wanted to stay home and play for the Nuggets. Nene will be a good player for us for a long time.”

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Posted in Free Agency 2011, HT News / Comments (66) /

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