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Michael Scotto: The Denver Nuggets declined their rookie scale team option on DaRon Holmes worth $5.55 million for the 2027-28 season, league sources told @hoopshype. Holmes was the 22nd pick of the 2024 NBA Draft. Holmes will become an unrestricted free agent in 2027.
Finish freshman Miika Muurinen has quickly impressed his peers and opponents before the college basketball season has even officially begun. “Miika could be the No. 1 overall pick,” Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway told the media on Thursday. “This dude is ridiculous, he’s like so long, so active. When he spreads out man it’s like he covers the entire arena.”
Yaxel Lendeborg’s early play helps illustrate just how much opportunity is being given to a few players in this year’s draft class. Here’s a fun fact: Through the first week of the season, four rookies — Acuff Jr. (24.3), Boozer (15.3), Lendeborg (15.0), Wilson (18.5) — are averaging at least 15 field goal attempts per game. If that held for the entire season, it would be the first time during the shot-clock era that four different rookies took 15 or more shots per game, per Basketball-Reference’s Stathead tool. Winning be damned — except in Memphis, where Boozer is getting reps and the 4-0 Grizzlies keep winning — teams are giving these rookies an awful lot of opportunity and living with the results, hoping the reps will lead to real development down the road.
One thing the NBA did in its otherwise unassailable reform was leave a back door open to tanking situations that, while likely far less egregious than those of recent vintage, would nonetheless not completely cure the tanking scourge. While they’re generally relieved that the tanking abomination is out of play, multiple executives I’ve talked to since then, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the topic freely, wondered why the league left the door open a crack for a couple of scenarios. One scenario that I’m not that worried about: a team intentionally dropping out of the seventh position in the conference standings by losing the first Play-In game, thus allowing itself to have one ping-pong ball in the lottery (2.7 percent chance at No. 1). In the medium case, that team could move up five picks in the draft (an average of 12th rather than 17th), yet still have a chance to make the playoffs in a second Play-In game that would be played at home.
Moreover, there’s a second scenario that also nearly involved the Nets that could be much more susceptible to bad behavior: that “anti-Spurs” rule that prevents teams from picking in the top five in three consecutive seasons. The Nets narrowly avoided being swept up in this one when they finished sixth in the 2026 lottery. Otherwise, they would have had even more 2026-27 tanking incentive, to avoid landing a top-five pick in 2027 that went to the Rockets and being flushed out of the top five entirely in the 2028 draft. Finishing in the bottom three in the standings reduces those odds from 39 percent to 28 percent. The other dodged quicksand involves the LA Clippers, who own a top-three protected 2029 first that otherwise goes to the Philadelphia 76ers.
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Later in the show, Buha was asked about adding another athletic big man to the roster and pointed toward Cisse as the type of minimum-level option he believes could thrive alongside Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves. "To me, Moussa Cisse – I don't wanna overrate Moussa Cisse – but I think he's the exact type of big that would just eat with the Lakers," Buha said. "And he would be a dynamic lob threat with Luka and Austin, and he just has to screen, roll, finish. He could do that." "He's also a solid rebounder and rim protector, at least by bench-big standards," Buha continued. "So to me, Moussa Cisse, like, you're not asking for the moon. You're not asking to draft an Aday Mara. You're not asking to add Mitchell Robinson to the bench." "Keeping it realistic with a minimum-level player, Moussa Cisse is the archetype to me."
My sense after a number of discussions leaguewide is that, outside of recent precedent in completed deals, there is little for teams to lean on in terms of universal valuation across front offices on what the currency of the NBA's marketplace — such as draft picks and salary cap space — is worth. While some teams, according to various front office figures, do try to establish an internal measure of how much $X million on your books equates to in draft capital, that varies based on teams' valuations of the player attached to said money. And there's likewise little unanimity about what a second-round pick is worth compared to a first-round pick — meaning there's no universally established conversion rate, let's say, dictating that three seconds equals one first — like we employ when converting American dollars to Euros.
Michael Scotto: The Oklahoma City Thunder and Micah Peavy have agreed to a two-way deal, league sources told @hoopshype. Peavy, the 40th pick of the 2025 NBA Draft, played in 61 games for the New Orleans Pelicans last season.
Anthony Slater on Kristaps Porzingis: Clearly, this is something as you mentioned that that Mike Dunleavy's called around the league and explored. And as you (Brian Windhorst) laid out, I think there was this immediate reaction of this combo report that said guy contemplating his future retirement potentially on the table. Also, Warriors trying to trade him. And there was a confusion of how. But yeah, it's an expiring deal with the Warriors have draft picks. They could take on future salary for a tradable first.
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Chris Haynes: The deadline will pass with Scoot Henderson — No. 3 pick in 2023 NBA Draft — and the Portland Trail Blazers bypassing on a rookie-scale extension, league sources tell me. He’ll become an RFA following the season.
Michael Scotto: The Los Angeles Lakers are waiving Dalton Knecht, league sources told @hoopshype. Knecht, the 17th overall pick of the 2024 NBA Draft, averaged 7.1 points on 46% shooting from the field and 37% shooting from 3-point range in two seasons with the Lakers.
Joe Tipton: NEWS: Purdue transfer and Minnesota Timberwolves draft pick Trey Kaufman-Renn has signed with Kansas, the school announced. The 24-year-old forward is currently eligible for a sixth season though a court injunction. Averaged 14.2 PTS and 8.3 REB last season.
Marc Stein: The Mavericks waived Seth Lundy today but I'm told he has emerged as a candidate for the two-way roster spot that Dallas just opened. Lundy was drafted No. 46 overall by Atlanta in 2023 and played against the Hawks for the Mavericks last night in the teams' preseason finale.