Month: July 2023

While most of the league was wheeling and dealing as free agency opened on Friday evening, the Los Angeles Clippers were extremely quiet. Their in-arena neighbors signed Gabe Vincent, Taurean Prince, and Cam Reddish to open the frenzy, but the Clippers were not eager to make any moves as they were still working on a potential James Harden trade.

The problem is, the Sixers plan to be patient in dealing Harden, meaning the Clippers can’t really make the moves they might want until that deal is done and that deal might take some time to get completed. So, instead of standing completely idle, the Clippers did make one move that didn’t even get reported by any of the major national reporters (although Andrew Greif of the LA Times did have it early), trading cash ($2.1 million) to Detroit for the draft rights to the 57th overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, Balsa Koprivica.

As to why the Clippers would deal for a guy’s draft rights they probably would never actually sign, there are a couple of reasons. First, as Tony East explains, is once it’s July 1 they won’t be allowed to trade cash anymore as a second apron team, but can deal draft right.

Second is, as John Hollinger notes, they can use those draft rights in a potential three-team deal for James Harden, as all parties involved need to “touch” in a trade, and Koprivica’s draft rights would suffice.

So, maybe this helps facilitate a Harden deal or maybe it was just the Clippers burning some cash in their pocket they would lose the chance to use otherwise. In any case, you can’t say they didn’t do anything on Friday night.

The Memphis Grizzlies came into this offseason with a fairly clear plan to add more veterans to their upstart roster after another early exit as the West’s 2-seed.

After trading Tyus Jones and a pair of first round picks for Marcus Smart in a June blockbuster, the Grizzlies went into free agency looking to add a veteran point guard to fill the backup role. After a big early run on guards, they landed on Derrick Rose later Friday evening, giving the former MVP a two-year deal, per Ian Begley and Adrian Wojnarowski.

Rose’s addition is interesting for Memphis in that he played very limited minutes a year ago in New York, averaging 5.6 points per game in 12.5 minutes a night off the bench. Given the Grizzlies will need to fill a lot of minutes in the first quarter of the season as Ja Morant serves a 25-game suspension, Rose may need to play a not insignificant role to start the season. At the same time, once Morant is back, backcourt minutes shouldn’t be a real issue, and landing a standout backup point guard was going to be tough with Morant and Smart expected to eat up most of the ball-handling minutes once the team got to full strength.

We’ll find out how much Rose still has in the tank, and Woj notes this is as much about adding a veteran presence to a locker room that has been lacking in that regard, although Rose isn’t known much as a vocal leader. Rose, meanwhile, returns to the place he burst on the national scene as a college player at Memphis.

Denmark’s popular and annual Roskilde Festival is wrapping up its final day of performances tomorrow. After attendees were able to catch various major acts, including Rosalía, Lil Nas X, Rina Sawayama, Blur, and more, since last Sunday — there is still much to look forward to on the closing lineup.

Here is what to know about the final day Roskilde set times for 2023.

At 11:30 a.m., Resonerende Rum opens the festival on the Platform stage. Throughout the afternoon, there is a blend of Danish acts (Saint Clara at 1:15 p.m., Sofie Birch at 1:30) and others from the US and UK, including Black Country, New Road at 3:15 p.m., Weyes Blood and Militarie Gun both at 4, and Caroline Polachek performing at 5:30.

Then, as the night continues, UK musician Loyle Carner plays at 9:30 on the Arena stage, followed by Mariki at 10:30 p.m. on the Platform stage. One of the festival’s key performers to close out is Lizzo, who festival attendees can catch at 11 p.m. on the Orange stage.

After midnight, Perturbator, Wargasm, Lyra Valenza, First Hate, and more play on various stages, The last set of the night starts at 2 a.m., although it’s unclear how early into the morning each of the closing acts will go.

For a complete list of set times for all final-day Roskilde 2023 performers, visit their official website here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Rich Paul and the folks at Klutch Sports were busy on Friday night, as they were wheeling and dealing amid the free agency frenzy as the NBA’s league year began in earnest at 6 p.m. ET.

The first big Klutch client to sign was Draymond Green, who had a 4-year, $100 million deal worked out with the Warriors as soon as free agency began. That was followed by Jerami Grant getting a 5-year, $160 million deal from the Portland Trail Blazers, as they had to keep him long-term to satiate Damian Lillard — and also because they had no cap space to replace him if he walked. From there, Fred VanVleet got the eye-popping deal of the night with a 3-year, $130 million max deal from the Houston Rockets, as they leveraged the third year out of Houston after Toronto came to the table with a reported 4-year, $120 million offer.

It was quite the night for the Klutch team, and it came amid some rumblings of discontent in Klutch land after Omar Wilkes left the agency to join Fanatics and two of his top clients, OG Anunoby and Anthony Edwards, left the agency as well. With that as a backdrop, LeBron James decided to puff his chest out for his good friend Rich Paul after he orchestrated $390 million worth of deals for the three biggest Klutch free agents, and send a message to those who had departed.

LeBron has never been shy about heaping praise on his friends and, at this point, isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers in the league if needed to do so. This is clearly a message he’s trying to send about Klutch being just fine even with the rumors about Paul and the agency’s future, and it’s hard to blame him on a night where Klutch secured three of the biggest deals of free agency out of the gate.

Seth Curry entered free agency this summer as one of the top shooters on the market, but as the league has moved away from specialists, it remained to be seen what would be out there for the sharpshooting guard.

Curry averaged 9.2 points per game on 46.3/40.5/92.7 shooting splits in Brooklyn last year, but found himself in a less than ideal roster situation, particularly after the trade deadline. The Nets had a number of wings and not a lot of ball-handlers, which tasked Curry with being more of a point guard than he is comfortable being (per Basketball-Reference, 35 percent of his time on the court was as a point guard). Where he goes next will likely need to be somewhere with a more defined off-ball role for him, where he can thrive as a spot-up shooter, which remains his elite NBA skill. On a smaller Nets team towards the end of the season, his skillset was not a great fit and he struggled to find the same level of success he in previous stops where he was able to play in a more comfortable role.

As free agency began, Curry ended up looking to go back to one of those previous stops, as he agreed to a two-year deal with the Dallas Mavericks, per Adrian Wojnarowski.

Last time Curry was in Dallas he averaged 12.4 points on 49.5/45.2/82.5 shooting splits, as he very much enjoyed being a floor-spacer for Luka Doncic. Now he’ll go back to that role, bringing some bench shooting pop for Doncic and Kyrie Irving, who Dallas re-signed earlier in the night, and hope that a return to a comfortable situation can again bring out the best in him. For Dallas, it’s a good value signing on a guy whose reputation has dipped over the last year or two, but they will know how to maximize him and he has a rapport with their top stars already.

All things considered, Dennis Schröder’s return to the Los Angeles Lakers went pretty well. After famously failing to agree to a lucrative extension with the team during his last stint with the team and spending the 2021-22 season with the Boston Celtics and the Houston Rockets, Schröder put pen to paper on a 1-year deal to head back to L.A.

One year later and Schröder finds himself in a similar spot, as he is on the unrestricted free agent market and has the ability to sign with any team he wants, with the major difference being his stock is a bit higher than it was at this point last offseason. After seeing a number of big names sign early on Friday evening, Schröder waited out the point guard market and cashed in big time when Fred VanVleet spurned the Raptors to take a three-year max in Houston. With Toronto rather desperate for a new starting point guard in their quest to stay competitive, having already re-signed Jakob Poeltl, Schröder was able to get a 2-year, $26 million deal from the Raptors.

Schröder started in the backcourt for the Lakers during most of last season, although he lost the starting nod towards the end of the regular season and for much of the postseason as Darvin Ham preferred to start the duo of D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves in the backcourt. On the year, Schröder appeared in 66 games with 50 starts, and averaged 12.6 points and 4.5 assists in 30.1 minutes per game. Getting the full mid-level from the Raptors is a significant win for Schröder, who has seen taking his time to get a deal backfire in the past but this time got rewarded with more money than I think most expected him to get.

Toronto gets a veteran replacement they desperately needed to keep their plan of running it back from falling apart, and now go into the season with a slightly shuffled backcourt, hoping to find a spark that didn’t exist a year ago.

Zac Brown Band is currently touring across North America through the fall, hitting stops like Boston’s Fenway Park, two sold-out nights in New Hampshire, Maryland’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, and more until November — when the shows currently close in Tampa, Florida.

Over the next few months, fans might be wondering what songs that they can expect to hear at the country concert. Based on Zac Brown Band’s recent concert in Wisconsin (and another being held tonight in Columbus), some covers and special surprises were also sprinkled in.

Continue scrolling for Zac Brown Band‘s most recent concert setlist, according to Setlist FM. For more information on the tour, tickets, and additional dates, visit their official website here.

1. “Homegrown”
2. “Day For The Dead”
3. “As She’s Walking Away”
4. “Toes”
5. “Uncaged”
6. “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” (The Charlie Daniels Band cover)
7. “Keep Me in Mind / Superstition” (with BRELAND)
8. “It’s Not OK”
9. “Jump Right In”
10. “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Queen cover)
11. “Whiskey’s Gone”
12. “Same Boat”
13. “Sweet Annie”
14. “Out In The Middle”
15. “Sabotage” (Beastie Boys cover)
16. “Loving You Easy”
17. “Tomorrow Never Comes” (Acoustic open)
18. “Goodbye In Her Eyes”
19. “Knee Deep”
20. “Paint It Black” (The Rolling Stones cover)
21. “Beautiful Drug”
22. “Colder Weather / Take It To The Limit”
23. “America The Beautiful” (cover)
24. “Chicken Fried”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

As expected, Fred VanVleet entered free agency this summer after declining his player option in Toronto, joining a loaded point guard market this summer.

VanVleet is coming off of a solid 2022-23 campaign, averaging 19.3 points, 7.2 assists, and 4.1 rebounds per game on 39.2/34.2/89.8 shooting splits. He saw a dip in his typical three-point efficiency, posting his worst shooting season of his career from beyond the arc, but that was partially a product of the shooting around him — Toronto was 28th in the NBA in three-point percentage. The biggest question facing VanVleet in free agency was how the rest of the point guard market would shake out around him, with Kyrie Irving and James Harden as free agents.

After Harden opted in to his player option to facilitate a trade and Kyrie Irving re-signed with Dallas, VanVleet was the biggest name available and that led to a bidding war between Houston and Toronto that the Rockets won out on, inking VanVleet to a massive 3-year, $130 million deal, per Adrian Wojnarowski.

For weeks, there were rumors Houston was going to offer a 2-year, $83 million deal to try and lure him out of Toronto, but as Friday rolled around, they were apparently willing to make a 4-year, $120 million deal to give him the longevity he sought. The Rockets, seeing most of the top names already gone, were determined to make a splash and tacked a third year onto VanVleet’s max deal to give him more money than Toronto’s total offer over a shorter timeframe, ensuring Ime Udoka got the defensive-minded point guard he wanted in Houston.

It’s quite the financial commitment to VanVleet, but Houston had gobs of money this summer and had to spend it. While they hoped to clear their books in two years when extensions started kicking in for their rookies, they had to pony up the third year to get VanVleet and now they will hope he can live up to a massive deal.

It’s hard for a player who was selected in the lottery to suit up for three separate teams on their first contract, but that exact thing has happened to Cam Reddish. A former 5-star recruit who played alongside Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett at Duke, Reddish was selected 10th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft by the Atlanta Hawks, with the hope being that he could be a dynamic, two-way wing and a perfect complement to Trae Young.

Instead, Reddish was never really able to establish himself as a consistent option in Atlanta, got traded midway through the 2021-22 season to the New York Knicks, struggled to earn Tom Thibodeau’s trust, and was once again moved at the trade deadline last year, with the Portland Trail Blazers taking a flier on him. All of this made Reddish one of the more intriguing names on the free agent market, as it is incredibly difficult to get a read on what his value is, especially after the Blazers elected not to tender a qualifying offer.

On Friday, Reddish reportedly agreed to a two-year deal with the Los Angeles Lakers, first reported as a multi-year deal by Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times and later noted to be a two-year pact by Shams Charania of The Athletic.

Reddish appeared in 40 games last season, which were split in half between the Knicks and the Blazers. He averaged 9.7 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 1.4 assists in 24.8 minutes per game between those two teams, and shot 44.6 percent from the field. He will join a Lakers team that is loading up around LeBron James and Anthony Davis, with the reported additions of Gabe Vincent and Taurean Prince, in addition to the re-signing of Rui Hachimura.

Rui Hachimura was an important piece of the puzzle for the Los Angeles Lakers as they rebuilt their team at the trade deadline last year. After starting his professional career with the Washington Wizards, Los Angeles was able to acquire Hachimura ahead of the deadline for Kendrick Nunn and a collection of second-round NBA Draft picks.

In theory, he was a snug fit on the team’s roster, as his offensive versatility and ability to score is crucial alongside the pairing of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. All of that ended up coming to fruition, and Hachimura performed well enough during his stint with the Lakers that reports indicated that the team wanted to do whatever it could to keep him, even though he was slated to become a restricted free agent and had the ability to agree to an offer sheet with a new team. On Friday night, after making some moves with their exceptions, the Lakers agreed to a 3-year, $51 million deal with Hachimura to keep him in L.A.

While Hachimura’s numbers took a bit of a step back once he arrived in Los Angeles — he averaged 9.6 points in 22.4 minutes per game while only connecting on 29.6 percent of his attempts from three — he was able to find his form during the playoffs, which was a major reason why the Lakers found themselves in the Western Conference Finals. During the team’s postseason run, Hachimura averaged 12.2 points per game and hit 48.7 percent of his attempts from behind the three-point line.

The Lakers, who also added Gabe Vincent and Taurean Prince on Friday night, now face decisions on D’Angelo Russell and Dennis Schröder, with Austin Reaves’ deal (which seems like a mere formality) also still to come.