Month: July 2023

Kevin Love’s time in Cleveland finally came to an end after 8.5 seasons — four of which were spent with Love constantly in trade rumors — when he was bought out by the Cavs after the trade deadline. The veteran forward was picked up by the Miami Heat, who brought him in to bolster their frontcourt and bring some added spacing, and while he had a rocky regular season as a shooter, he regained his shooting stroke come playoff time, starting 18 playoff games for the Heat in their run to the Finals.

That postseason run proved he can still contribute in a limited role for a team needing a pick-and-pop/spot-up threat from the power forward spot. After rumblings he was under consideration by the Lakers and Suns, two star-studded Western Conference contenders looking for veteran minimum additions, Love decided to return to the Heat after finding a comfortable spot last season, per Tim Reynolds.

Love averaged 7.7 points and 5.7 rebounds per game in 20 regular season games for Miami last season, with similar production in the postseason (6.9 points and 5.6 rebounds) on improved shooting, knocking down 37.5 percent of his threes in the Heat’s run to the Finals. After seeing Gabe Vincent and (likely) Max Strus leave, retaining Love became increasingly important for a Miami team that was facing having to replace a number of playoff contributors.

Over the past few months, social media has heavily focused on a suspected feud between Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez — over Justin Bieber, even years after Gomez split from him. TikTok users had accused both women of copying each other and sending hate to each side.

Hailey Bieber now opened up about the toxicity in a recent interview with Bloomberg’s The Circuit.

“I don’t think that this is about me, Hailey Bieber, and Selena Gomez,” she said, according to Rolling Stone. “This is not about this pitting between two women and division between two women — it’s about the vile, disgusting hatred that can come from completely made-up and twisted, and perpetuated narratives that can be really dangerous.”

“Because of a guy? It’s awful. I hate it,” Bieber added. “I’ve hated it since the beginning, and it goes back to being misunderstood. Time and time again, I don’t know why I keep having to say that there is no issue and there is no problem. It’s so disappointing that people still behave this way over a man.”

Gomez had even tried to put a stop to the social media hate, posting on her Instagram story that she and Bieber were in contact to fix the negativity and “death threats.”

While things have thankfully calmed down a bit since then, Bieber did feel it was the right chance to speak and set things straight.

Veteran wings are at a premium in the modern NBA, and Josh Richardson fits the bill. The former Tennessee Volunteers standout is an eight-year veteran of the league, though Richardson has bounced around in recent years, appearing for five teams in the last four seasons. Richardson finished the 2022-23 campaign in a New Orleans Pelicans uniform, playing 23 games after appearing 42 times for the San Antonio Spurs during the same season.

Richardson averaged 10.1 points per game while shooting 36.5 percent from 3-point range overall in 2022-23, and he has averaged double figures in seven consecutive seasons. He will turn 30 years old before the start of the 2022-23 season, but Richardson remains a strong defender and a versatile piece that is malleable into the majority of perimeter contexts. Notably, Richardson has also converted 38.8 percent of his three-point attempts combined over the last two seasons (539 attempts).

Next season Richardson will return to the team that drafted him, as Shams Charania reported he will sign a two-year deal with the Miami Heat, with a player option on the second year.

Richardson will be part of the Heat’s effort to replace Gabe Vincent and (almost assuredly) Max Strus. The former is headed to the Lakers while the latter is expected to join the Cavaliers in a sign-and-trade. Richardson will give Erik Spoelstra another veteran 3-and-D option as Miami looks to reset its backcourt rotation a bit after another trip to the Finals.

The New Orleans Pelicans made a somewhat surprising move in the lead-up to the NBA’s free agency period opening up. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Pelicans decided to decline the team option on one of their most promising young players: defensive ace Herbert Jones, who has turned himself into one of the league’s most menacing defenders. As a result, Jones would hit the restricted free agent market.

While another team could have theoretically come in, blown Jones away, and given him a deal that would have been too rich for the Pelicans’ blood, that did not happen. Instead, New Orleans rewarded Jones’ strong play since being drafted with a 4-year, $54 million deal to remain with the Pelicans long-term, per Adrian Wojnarowski and Andrew Lopez.

Jones went in the second round of the 2021 NBA Draft to New Orleans, which took him with the 35th overall pick. Almost immediately he became a crucial piece of the team’s rotation, as he is among the most destructive defensive players in the league and he’s given the team enough juice on offense to keep him from being labeled as just a defensive specialist. Last season, Jones started all 66 games in which he appeared and averaged 9.8 points, 4.1 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.6 steals, and 0.6 blocks in 29.6 minutes per game.

Former Philadelphia 76ers guard Shake Milton has agreed to a two-year, $10 million deal with the Timberwolves, per Adrian Wojnarowski. Milton spent the first five years of his career in Philadelphia, where he averaged 9.3 points, 2.7 assists and 2.4 rebounds. Last season, he was the Sixers’ fourth rotation guard behind James Harden, Tyrese Maxey, and De’Anthony Melton, though barely saw the floor in the playoffs when they shortened the bench. He should presumably have more opportunity with Wolves.

Milton is a useful complementary ball-handler, playmaker and floor-spacer (36.5 percent from deep for his career). At 6’5 with a 7-foot wingspan, he loves to wield hesitations and changes of pace as a slasher and will burrow through or around undersized defenders. Thirty-eight percent of his shots were at the rim in 2022-23 (83rd percentile among combo guards, per Cleaning The Glass) and he converted 63 percent of them (58th percentile). However, he’s a bit stiff and upright defensively, which complicates his screen navigation and viability at the point-of-attack.

His playing time was erratic at times with the Sixers, but he seemingly always delivered when called upon. In 11 starts last year, he averaged 20.3 points (61.8 percent true shooting), 7.2 assists and 4.8 rebounds. His most prolific campaign came in 2020-21, averaging a career-high 13.0 points, along with 3.1 assists and 2.3 rebounds. The 26-year-old is a legitimate rotation player and will help invigorate Minnesota’s cast of guards for the foreseeable future as he enters his prime.

Milton joins Troy Brown Jr. as the Timberwolves biggest additions to start free agency, as they also re-signed Nickeil Alexander-Walker and, most crucially, Naz Reid days before free agency began.

Joe Ingles made his return to the court in the middle of the 2022-23 season after rehabbing for nearly a full calendar year following a torn ACL that ended his tenure with the Utah Jazz. After signing with the Bucks last offseason, Ingles returned to being a reliable catch-and-shoot threat, knocking down 40.3 percent of his threes in Milwaukee while averaging 6.9 points, 3.3 assists, and 2.8 rebounds per game in 46 appearances in the regular season.

Ingles returned to the free agent market this summer having shown he still can provide value as a shooter and secondary ball-handler, albeit one with some defensive deficiencies at this point in his career. Still, for teams seeking out veteran help, Ingles figured to have legitimate interest from a number of hopeful contenders around the league, as well as a potential return to Milwaukee. In the end, though, Ingles was able to command a substantial investment from the Orlando Magic and he agreed to a two-year deal for $22 million.

As noted by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Ingles will bring experience to a young Magic team, and he is also an established high-end shooter. While Orlando invested a lottery pick in Jett Howard, the Magic need ready-made floor spacing for the upcoming season, and Ingles has also acted as a secondary creator in the past.

The Magic appear to be seeking a tangible step forward for the 2023-24 season around budding standouts in Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. Ingles may not change the entire dynamic for Orlando, but he does check several boxes for a team trying to improve.

The Brooklyn Nets went into the 2022-23 season trying to build around a pair of superstars in Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, which made it incredibly important that the team was able to surround them with good, cheap role players. One such player who ended up being a nice contributor alongside Durant and Irving was Yuta Watanabe, who had stints in Memphis and Toronto to start his career before getting to Brooklyn last year.

After Durant and Irving saw their respective tenures with the Nets come to an end around the trade deadline, Watanabe found playing time harder and harder to come by, to the point that he did not play in the team’s final three games of the postseason. Still, he flashed enough as a savvy role player who could hit open shots around those two that he figured to have some sort of market entering free agency. On Friday, we learned Watanabe will reunite with Durant in Phoenix, as he became the sixth player in the first 90 minutes of free agency to agree to a minimum deal to join the Suns, as they fill out their roster around their quartet of stars.

Watanabe, a former undrafted free agent who will turn 29 in October, appeared in 58 games last season for the Nets, which included one start on the final day of the regular season. He averaged 5.6 points and 2.4 rebounds in 16 minutes per game, and knocked down a career-high 44.4 percent of his attempts from behind the three-point line.

Kyrie Irving will be back in Dallas for at least two more seasons, as the star guard who the Mavs acquired in a trade at the deadline agreed to a 3-year, $126 million contract with a third-year player option as free agency opened on Friday.

For the Mavs, bringing Irving back was their top priority after trading Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, and a first round pick for him. After doing some wheeling and dealing during the Draft, the Mavs also have the mid-level at their disposal to try and make another addition, but Irving had to be back because they simply didn’t have any other alternatives to replace him without taking a step back. Still, not everyone was a fan of the deal they handed out, because it was a lot of money that gives Irving a lot of power, which doesn’t always work out for teams.

On NBA TV’s free agency coverage, former Suns general manager Ryan McDonough — who know a thing or two about making a deal you later regret — torched the Mavs for giving Irving this deal when they were seemingly bidding against themselves.

“I think they are crazy. Kyrie Irving has been unhappy over the last six years on a winning Cleveland Cavaliers team, a winning Boston Celtics team, and a Brooklyn Nets superteam that he chose to go four years ago today as a free agent with Kevin Durant. So why would you give him this kind of money? Why would you give him a player option in the third year? $42 million a year is insane for Kyrie Irving combined with a player option. Who were they bidding against?”

McDonough goes on to note the only possible threat for Kyrie was Houston, which is still sitting there waiting on Fred VanVleet’s decision and would have $64 million to spend if he chooses to stay in Toronto. There’s definitely truth to what McDonough is saying, as Kyrie’s market was a mid-level somewhere or Houston and that’s it. However, Dallas’ issue was less the free agency negotiation and more the situation they put themselves in by trading for Irving, and giving up so much that they had no choice but to give him the deal he wanted.

While Irving didn’t get the four-year max he absolutely wanted, a three-year deal with a player option at that money is about as good as he could’ve hoped for. It’s a credit to him and his agent for making it happen, but McDonough notes what many around the league will think, which is the Mavs overpaid simply because they allowed themselves to enter this summer with no leverage after making the trade.

Taylor Swift is gearing up to drop her next re-recorded album, with Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) getting announced during her first Nashville Eras Tour show a few weeks ago. Time has truly flown, though — and fans can hear it sooner than they might think.

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) arrives next Friday. Fans will be able to listen to it around the globe at midnight in their local time zone.

Swift previously revealed the full tracklist — containing the original Speak Now songs and six new From The Vault additions. (These are songs she created around the time of each original album that never made the cut.) There are also two collaborations on the re-recorded version: Fall Out Boy on “Electric Touch” and Paramore’s Hayley Williams on “Castles Crumbling.”

“Since Speak Now was all about my songwriting, I decided to go to the artists who I feel influenced me most powerfully as a lyricist at that time and ask them to sing on the album,” Swift said about the two collabs.

Fans discovered, shortly after the first glimpse of “Back To December (Taylor’s Version)” was used in The Summer I Turned Pretty series, they could see how long the songs were on iTunes too. Considering many of the other vault tracks, including “Timeless” and “Foolish One,” run over five minutes, Swift is sure delivering for this updated Speak Now era.

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is out 7/7 via Republic. Find more information here.

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

Miami Heat guard Gabe Vincent made himself a whole lot of money during the NBA playoffs. Vincent, one of the many undrafted free agents who have turned into important players in Miami, entered this summer as an unrestricted free agent on the heels of taking over the team’s starting point guard job during the stretch run of the regular season and for the entirety of the team’s surprising run to the NBA Finals.

The expectation was that the 27-year-old Vincent — who went to UC Santa Barbara, went undrafted in 2018, and started his career within the Sacramento Kings’ G League setup — would be able to get paid handsomely this summer, as he was able to join any team he wanted. On Friday, we learned what the future holds for Vincent, as he will leave Miami in a bit of a surprise to join the Los Angeles Lakers as they give him most of their mid-level with a 3-year, $33 million deal, per Shams Charania.

While Vincent was certainly not a bad player prior to the 2023 playoffs, he ended up becoming an indispensable piece of the puzzle as Miami made its way through the Eastern Conference postseason. After averaging 9.4 points and 2.5 assists in 25.9 minutes per game during the regular season, Vincent averaged 12.7 points and 3.5 assists in 30.5 minutes a night during the playoffs, and started all 22 games in which he appeared.

The Lakers could use a point guard with his shot creation skills as well as his abilities on the defensive end, and this seems like a very nice usage of the mid-level by L.A. The Heat will now have to replace Vincent and likely Max Strus, which will put their roster building skills to the test if they want to remain a contender. This would seemingly be the last major addition for L.A., which used its bi-annual exception earlier to bring in Taurean Prince after he was waived by Minnesota. They still have some of their own free agents to make decisions on, with Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura as restricted free agents and Dennis Schröder, D’Angelo Russell, and Lonnie Walker IV as unrestricted free agents. Adding Vincent takes some of the pressure away to bring both Schröder and Russell back, adding another interesting twist to the point guard market.