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The Brooklyn Nets have requested waivers on guard Jordan Bowden and forward Nate Sestina.
Bowden and Sestina were originally signed by the Nets on Dec. 1.
NBA preseason begins tonight. With the regular season 1.5 weeks away, teams around the league will begin to trim their rosters.
Brooklyn’s roster now stands at 18 players.
The Dallas Mavericks have signed veteran guard Courtney Lee.
Lee, listed at 6-foot-5, 215 lbs., originally joined the Mavericks as part of the seven-player trade that brought Kristaps Porzingis, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Trey Burke to Dallas in January 2019.
The 35-year-old, 13-season veteran holds career averages of 9.6 points, 2.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.0 steals and 27.1 minutes in 811 games (518 starts) with Orlando, New Jersey, Houston, Boston, Memphis, Charlotte, New York and Dallas. Last year, Lee averaged 4.5 points, 1.3 rebounds and 0.5 assists in 14.4 minutes through 24 games (nine starts). Lee did not play in the NBA Restart due to a calf injury.
Lee played four seasons at Western Kentucky where, in 127 starts, he averaged 17.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.9 steals in 31.2 minutes. He was named First Team All-Sun Belt in each of his final three seasons (2005-08) and earned 2008 Sun Belt Player of the Year honors as a senior.
Lee, a native of Indianapolis, will join the team after clearing medical protocols.
Lee will wear No. 45.
The Minnesota Timberwolves have signed guard Charlie Brown Jr. to a training camp contract.
Brown Jr., 6-6, totaled 20 points and 4 rebounds last season in 10 games with Atlanta. He was originally signed by the Hawks on July 1, 2019.
The 23-year-old played in 29 games in the G League for the College Park Skyhawks where he averaged 17.1 points on 42.2% shooting and 6.7 rebounds per game.
Brown Jr. played two seasons for Saint Joseph’s University, averaging 16.0 points and 5.6 rebounds in 63 games. As a sophomore, he was named to the Atlantic 10 All-Conference Second Team as well as won the A-10 scoring crown, averaging 19.0 points per game.
The Dallas Mavericks have waived guard Jose Juan Barea.
Per the Dallas Morning News, “Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson on Thursday confirmed that the team will be releasing veteran guard Barea. ESPN on Wednesday reported the expected roster move. “A little bit of a sad day in Mavs-ville as we say goodbye to J.J. Barea,” Nelson told reporters via Zoom. “We’ve had an incredible, amazing ride with J.J. … He, in a lot of respects, has been the heart and soul of us for many, many years.”
Barea (5-10, 180) holds career averages of 8.9 points, 3.9 assists and 19.6 minutes in 831 games (107 starts) with Dallas and Minnesota. In an additional 50 playoff games (11 starts) for Dallas, Barea averaged 7.9 points, 2.0 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 19.7 minutes. The point guard helped the Mavericks to their first NBA title in 2011, appearing in 21 games throughout the run.
And per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “the Mavericks re-signed Barea for one year and $2.6 million earlier this fall, but according to ESPN, Cuban was aware that the guard was going to be released and wanted to reward him for his 11 seasons with the team.”
Barea has played 11 of his 14 NBA seasons with the Mavericks. Among franchise leaders, he ranks fifth in games (637), seventh in 3-pointers made (596) and eighth in assists (2,441).
The Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, native went undrafted in the 2006 NBA Draft and was signed by Dallas as a rookie free agent on Aug. 17, 2006. Barea attended Northeastern University where, as a senior, he averaged 21.0 points, 8.4 assists and 4.4 rebounds for the Huskies.
Stephen Curry is already very impressed with Warriors lottery pick James Wiseman. Here’s ESPN.com quoting Curry from a KGMZ-FM 95.7 radio interview:
“He’s just going to be a force, man,” Curry said of Wiseman. “To the point of all the things we need to learn as fast as possible, I can’t imagine for a 19-year-old to be able to ingest all that information, go out and play, but the things that he does well, you really can’t teach. His size, his athleticism, his presence to protect the paint, the speed to run up and down the floor, put pressure on the rim, we can use that right away. So you’re going to see a different player probably from Game 1 to Game 72, but early in the season he should be able to show what he’s about and provide a lot of value for us on the interior and play Warrior basketball. So I’m excited, man. You can see the look in his eyes. He’s chomping at the bit right now.”
The Warriors will be a team to watch this season, even if they’ll be without star shooting guard Klay Thompson for a second straight season.
The Denver Nuggets have signed guard Monte Morris to a multi-year contract extension.
Morris’ contract extension is reportedly a three-year deal worth $27 million. Per the Denver Post, “the deal, which is fully guaranteed, offers incentives which could push it closer to $9.4 million annually, according to one source. The extension kicks in at the start of the 2021-22 season.”
Morris, listed at 6-foot-3, 185 lbs., averaged 9.0 points, 1.9 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 22.4 minutes per game for the Nuggets last season.
And in 2018-19, Morris played all 82 games for the Nuggets, starting six of them, and averaged 10.4 points, 2.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists, while shooting .414 from three-point range.
Over the last two seasons combined, Morris boasts the second-best assist-to-turnover ratio in the NBA at 5.29.
Morris spent most of the 2017-18 season on a two-way contract with the Denver Nuggets. In 37 G League games for Rio Grande Valley Vipers, he put up 17.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 6.5 assists, while shooting 47.2% from the field.
The Nuggets drafted Morris late second round (51st overall) in 2017. He played four seasons of college hoops at Iowa State University.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have signed rookie forward Aleksej Pokuševski.
Drafted first round (17th overall) in the 2020 NBA draft, Pokuševski’s draft rights were acquired from the Timberwolves as part of a three-team trade on November 20.
According to the Oklahoman, “the Thunder now has 18 players under contract for this season, not counting its two players on two-way contracts.”
Pokuševski (7-0, 195) averaged 10.8 points, 7.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.3 steals in 22.6 minutes in 11 games with Olympiacos B in the Greek Second Division, HEBA A2 during the 2019-20 season as the team went 17-4 and earned a second-place finish in A2. At the 2019 U18 European Championships, the Serbian native averaged 10.0 points, 7.2 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 2.7 steals and led with event with 4.0 blocks per game.
The Utah Jazz have signed guard Shaquille Harrison.
It’s reportedly a deal for the league minimum.
Listed at 6-foot-4, 190 lbs., this will be Harrison’s fourth NBA season.
Harrison played for the Chicago Bulls in 2019-20. In 43 games (10 starts), he averaged 4.9 points on 46.7 percent from the field, 2.0 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 11.3 minutes per game.
Per KSL.com, “He’s been an energy player on bad teams thus far, but his defensive metrics show he may have some true value. Last season, he was 15th in the NBA in Defensive Real Plus-Minus (for reference, Utah’s Rudy Gobert was first). Harrison’s 4.9 deflections per 36 minutes and 2.3 loose balls recovered per 36 minutes were among the league leaders according to NBA.com’s hustle stats. There are worse options for an end-of-the-bench player.”
Harrison has also played for the Suns, as well as in the G League for the Northern Arizona Suns.
The Charlotte Hornets have hired Sam Farber as the team’s new radio play-by-play broadcaster.
“We are pleased to welcome Sam and his family to Charlotte,” said Hornets President & Vice Chairman Fred Whitfield. “He is a talented, young broadcaster who we feel will be a fantastic addition to our organization. We believe our fans will enjoy listening to him call our games and hearing his perspective across our digital platforms. We look forward to having him as part of our Hornets family.”
“I am incredibly excited to join the Hornets organization,” Farber said. “It is an honor to have the opportunity to be part of a great franchise with a passionate fan base. I cannot wait to get to Charlotte and begin to connect with the team and our fans, and along with my wife, Lauren, and our two kids, we look forward to building our lives in this incredible community.”
Per the team, “Farber comes to Charlotte from Southern California and brings a wide variety of broadcasting experience to the Hornets. He regularly calls play-by-play for college basketball, college baseball and high school football for both ESPN and FOX Sports West/Prime Ticket. Farber also serves as a Game Break Update anchor for college football games on FOX and FOX Sports 1, as well as the halftime and postgame host for University of Southern California football. Additionally, he has been a play-by-play announcer for the South Bay Lakers of the NBA G League on Spectrum SportsNet since 2016. From 2014-2016, Farber was the pregame host for the Los Angeles Clippers flagship station, The Beast 980, where he also was an anchor, reporter and host.”
The Oklahoma City Thunder have signed rookie guard Theo Maledon.
Maledon entered the 2020 NBA draft, and was selected in the early second round (34th overall). His draft rights were acquired from the 76ers on December 8.
Listed at 6-foot-5, 180 lbs., Maledon in the 2019-20 season played in France’s Pro A league for ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne. He only started in half the games he played, and averaged 7.3 points, 2.7 assists and 1.9 rebounds in 17.3 minutes per game.
Over the course of his three seasons playing for ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne, Maledon did play in an All-Star game. And in the 2018-19 season he won the Rising Star award.