Tag: Royce O’Neale

Royce O’Neale told about his trade from Nets to Suns during Call of Duty

Royce O’Neale said that he found out about his trade from the Brooklyn Nets to the Phoenix Suns while playing Call of Duty with his friends.

The Brooklyn Nets were expected to be one of the more active teams in the NBA during the trade deadline in February. While Brooklyn did not make the kind of moves that significantly changed the complexion of the roster, there was one move they made that surprised one of their veterans.

At the deadline, one of the moves that the Nets made was trading forward Royce O’Neale to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for three future second-round picks, guard Jordan Goodwin (who was later waived), and forward Keita Bates-Diop. However, O’Neale found out that he was traded while he was playing Call of Duty with his friends.

O’Neale was one of the players that Brooklyn brought in to support Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in the team’s quest for a championship during the window of the superstar era. Heading into the 2022-23 season, the Nets traded their 2023 first-round pick (later became Brice Sensabaugh with the 28th overall pick) to the Utah Jazz for O’Neale.

O’Neale was a productive play during his time in Brooklyn as he averaged 8.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per game while shooting 38.7% from the field and 38.0% from three-point land. However, following how the Nets underperformed this season after a 13-10 start, O’Neale became one of the players that was traded at the deadline for an opportunity with a contender.

Here’s how O’Neale broke down his finding out about the trade while speaking to Michelle Beadle on FanDuel TV’s “Run It Back” show:

“I was actually playing Call of Duty. I wasn’t trying to keep up with all the rumors and stuff that was going around. My friends kept calling me and my agent called me right as it happened. I’m in the middle of the game and I just like, kind of like threw the controller down and told my friends I gotta go. So, it happened real fast. I was excited just for another opportunity to keep playing.”

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An uncovered Royce O’Neale tweet from 2011 hilariously had Suns fans convinced he’s a perfect fit in Phoenix

He’s officially one of the fellas.

The NBA trade deadline as a whole didn’t see star players make a move, but the Phoenix Suns did add some depth in acquiring Royce O’Neale in a three-team deal with the Grizzlies and Nets.

It turns out that O’Neale is going to fit in just fine with the fellas.

When Devin Booker broke out as a franchise star for the Suns, fans inevitably dove into Booker’s Twitter/X account where they found some delightfully uneventful tweets from his high school days. Back in 2012, Booker tweeted that he was “thinking Hooters tonight with the fellas.” And the rest was history.

Fast forward to Thursday’s trade, and O’Neale was on the same page with Booker back in 2011.

Of course, Suns fans had to check if O’Neale had ever tweeted about Hooters. And they must have been so pumped to see that he in fact did. Suns fans were quick to celebrate the trade based on that tweet alone.

Report: Nets trade Royce O’Neale to Suns for 3 second-round picks; salaries

Shams Charania of The Athletic reported Thursday that the Brooklyn Nets are trading Royce O’Neale to the Phoenix Suns for 3 2nd-round picks.

The Brooklyn Nets were approaching a crossroads with the 2023-24 NBA trade deadline of 3 PM ET approaching quickly and with the team having three veterans still on the roster. After dealing Spencer Dinwiddie to the Toronto Raptors earlier in the day, Brooklyn was able to trade away one of the two remaining veterans.

Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported on Thursday that the Nets were trading forward Royce O’Neale to the Phoenix Suns for three second-round picks and “salaries”. Charania later reported that this trade was being expanded to include the Memphis Grizzlies.

Charania did not specify what salaries were going to Brooklyn as the term seems to indicate minimum-contract players that the Suns are unloading for salary-matching purposes. In a subsequent report, Charania added that the players that Phoenix is sending out are Keita Bates-Diop, Jordan Goodwin, and Chimezie Metu, but did not specify which players were going to the Nets.

O’Neale, 30, played 125 games for the Nets over the past two seasons after being traded to Brooklyn from the Utah Jazz in the offseason heading into the 2022-23 season in exchange for a first-round pick. He averaged 8.3 points per game and shot 38% from three-point land.

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5 realistic trade targets for the Lakers that would make LeBron James happy

These players are actually available for a price the Lakers can afford.

As we approach the 2024 NBA trade deadline, basketball fans can almost definitely count out any deal involving LeBron James.

But that doesn’t mean that James doesn’t want more talent on the roster in Los Angeles. James is applying pressure on the organization to make some moves, which is not exactly unusual behavior for the four-time NBA Finals MVP this time of year.

This is perhaps a quieter trade deadline than normal because many of the bigger names (e.g. James Harden, OG Anunoby, and Pascal Siakam) were moved earlier this season.

However, several other players are still potentially available and could make for a good fit in Los Angeles.

We looked at some options actually on the market within a price range that Los Angeles could afford. That means the Lakers could realistically make a move for some of the following players if they want to make the playoffs and potentially even avoid the play-in tournament:

Ranking the top 5 Thunder targets ahead of trade deadline

Ranking the top 5 Thunder targets ahead of trade deadline.

The NBA trade deadline is a little over a day away, which means the Oklahoma City Thunder could soon welcome new additions to their roster.

The Thunder (35-16) are in the thick of the race for the first seed as the All-Star break approaches. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has played like an MVP candidate; Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams help carve out an impressive trio.

This means this will be the first deadline OKC will be viewed as buyers in quite some time as it prepares for its first playoffs since 2020.

Odds are, the Thunder won’t make any drastic moves to the roster by Feb. 8. If OKC makes a deal, it’ll likely be to strengthen its depth and help fix some of its rebounding woes.

Entering the deadline, the Thunder are wealthy in trade capital — they have several young prospects they could trade along with an unending supply of draft picks.

If the Thunder wanted to, they could outbid anybody in the league for someone’s services.

Thunder Wire is ranking the top five trade targets for the Thunder as the trade deadline approaches:

3 backup wings that make sense for Thunder at trade deadline

3 backup wings that make sense for Thunder at trade deadline.

Sitting at 29-13 and in second place in the Western Conference standings, the Oklahoma City Thunder will approach the Feb. 8 trade deadline as buyers for the first time in several years.

The Thunder have broken open a contention window led by MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams round out one of the league’s best trios.

While OKC is not expected to make any blockbuster deals, expect it to possibly make minor upgrades to improve its depth heading into its first playoff appearance since 2020.

In today’s NBA, you can never have too many quality wings. Thunder general manager Sam Presti can strengthen the backup wing spot by targeting low-risk veteran players on bad teams.

The Thunder have plenty of draft capital and young prospects to facilitate any type of deal. Scouring through the league, let’s look at three bench wing options OKC could add.

Lakers have six new trade targets, including Bruce Brown

The rumor mill is heating up when it comes to the Lakers and what they may look to do on the trade market.

With less than three weeks to go before the NBA’s trade deadline, the rumor mill is starting to heat up, especially for the Los Angeles Lakers.

There has been plenty of talk that they have been looking to acquire Atlanta Hawks guard Dejounte Murray. Reportedly, the two teams have talked about a potential deal, but the sticking point has been Atlanta’s desire to acquire Austin Reaves and the Lakers’ reluctance to give him up.

Los Angeles has also been rumored to have some interest in Tyus Jones and Collin Sexton, and indeed, it does want a speedy ball-handling guard who can score. But now, according to Jovan Buha, it has six additional targets (h/t Lakers Daily).

Via The Athletic:

“If the Toronto Raptors decide to move on from Bruce Brown Jr., the Lakers will have interest in acquiring him, according to team sources,” Jovan Buha wrote. “The Lakers coveted Brown last summer and believed they were the favorites to sign him using the team’s nontaxpayer midlevel exception before Indiana swooped in with a cap-space offer. (Los Angeles eventually signed (Gabe) Vincent with that exception.) Much like he was last summer, Brown will become one of the most coveted players on the trade market if he’s available. Of note: Because Brown was already traded from Indiana to Toronto in the (Pascal) Siakam deal, he cannot be combined with another player in a potential trade.

“Other names that have come up in talks with team and league personnel over the past two weeks include Portland’s Jerami Grant, Charlotte’s Terry Rozier, Toronto’s Gary Trent Jr. and Brooklyn’s Dorian Finney-Smith and Royce O’Neale. Each player fills at least one of the Lakers’ three needs.”

While a speedy ball-handling guard appears to be the Lakers’ biggest priority on the trade market, a 3-and-D wing is another. Although Brown isn’t a great 3-point shooter, his defense and ability to score make him an attractive trade piece.

Grant would be an interesting get for the Lakers. He’s averaging 21.4 points a game and shooting 41.2% from 3-point range this season, but he isn’t a particularly good rebounder, and he does have a somewhat large contract that runs for at least three more seasons.

Nets’ Royce O’Neale says team ‘should’ve had’ same intensity in the second half

After Wednesday’s loss at the Houston Rockets, Brooklyn Nets forward Royce O’Neale says that the team should’ve played hard all game.

The Brooklyn Nets have been losing a lot of games lately and right now, this seems to be the lowest point of the season for the franchise. After starting the season with a 12-9 record and being more competitive than expected, the Nets have lost 10 of its last 12 games and have looked anything but a winning team.

Brooklyn lost to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday 112-101 and the loss seemed to be the same thing that has been the Nets’ downfall over the past three weeks or so. The Nets were competitive for a little over two quarters, but the bottom fell out for Brooklyn towards the end of the third quarter when the Rockets ran away with the game.

Despite the Nets going into halftime leading Houston 50-49, they found themselves down 81-68 with 2:40 left in the third quarter thanks to the Rockets getting hot from all over the court while Brooklyn could not get anything right on either end of the floor. Houston out-scored the Nets 38-25 in the period, but the game looked worse than the score indicated.

Nets backup forward Royce O’Neale had one of the better games for the Nets as he had 13 points, four rebounds, three assists, and two steals, but he struggled to a 2-for-8 performance from deep. Here’s what he had to say about why the Nets fell out of this game despite playing a solid first half:

“We just kind of let up a little bit. Should have had the same intensity as the first (half). Fouled a little too much, especially in that third quarter, they (the Rockets) got hot. We just got to sustain the same energy all 48 minutes.”

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Buha: Lakers may have interest in trading for Nets duo

According to one insider, the Lakers may have other trade targets besides Zach LaVine and Dejounte Murray.

There have been trade rumors concerning the Los Angeles Lakers in recent weeks. Mainly, people have been speculating the team will look to trade for a star guard such as the Chicago Bulls’ Zach LaVine or Dejounte Murray of the Atlanta Hawks.

But sometimes rumors are nothing more than a smokescreen for a team’s real intentions on the open market. The trade deadline is Feb. 8, 2024, and much can change before then. Certainly, new rumors will arise over the next several weeks.

One new rumor involves the Lakers going after Royce O’Neale and Dorian Finney-Smith of the Brooklyn Nets.

Via Heavy Sports:

“Maybe you … go for Royce O’Neale and Dorian Finney-Smith,” The Athletic’s Jovan Buha said on the “Hoops Tonight” podcast on Dec. 26. “Those are two guys the Lakers have had interest in dating back to last offseason and even last trade deadline. So I know that those are two guys that they would have interest in bringing in.”

O’Neale is a very solid 3-and-D wing who stands 6 feet, 6 inches and weighs 226 pounds. He is shooting 39.2% from 3-point range and averaging 0.7 steals and 0.8 blocks in 26.2 minutes a game this season.

Finney-Smith, meanwhile, is hitting 44.8% of his 3-point attempts, and at 6 feet, 7 inches and 220 pounds, he can play both the 3 and 4 spots.

Brooklyn Nets veterans considered team’s top trade candidates

Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Royce O’Neale are considered top trade candidates for the Brooklyn Nets according to HoopsHype.

The Brooklyn Nets are at an interesting place within the NBA hierarchy as they are not bad enough to be a team in position to draft a potential superstar, but also aren’t good enough to be considered to be competing for a championship anytime soon. That could mean that the Nets could choose to get even younger at this season’s trade deadline.

Michael Scotto of HoopsHype recently published an article detailing the top trade candidates for every team in the league based on conversations between HoopsHype and 15 NBA executives and sources. For the Nets, the top trade candidates are Spencer Dinwiddie, Royce O’Neale, and Dorian Finney-Smith.

This does not come as much of a surprise as all three are 30 years old and are three years older than the next-oldest player on the team in Mikal Bridges, who is 27. Some Nets fans might be surprised to see these three regarded as trade candidates given how well each of them have played this season for a Brooklyn team looking to make it to the postseason.

Per Scotto, Dinwiddie is one of the players on the Nets to keep an eye on due to his ability to help plenty of teams around the league who are in a better position to compete for a championship than Brooklyn is right now. It seems that Dinwiddie has understood for awhile that him being traded was a strong possibility as he has constantly referenced throughout the season that the Nets’ core for the future is Bridges, Cam Johnson, Ben Simmons, and Nic Claxton.

Dinwiddie even went so far as to say this while on the HoopsHype podcast:

“I’ll be a free agent at the end of the year. I earned my pension already, so it is what it is. We’ll see what happens after that. If the team wins and we’ve got guys rolling, at the bare minimum, I’ve left the team in good hands, and if it’s time for me to ride off into the sunset, that’s what it is, and I’ll be a Brooklyn Nets fan.”

Scotto also noted in his piece that league executives are monitoring the statuses of Finney-Smith and O’Neale. Finney-Smith has drawn interest from several playoff-caliber teams and he is tailor-made to help a team looking for a wing who can shoot the three and play effective defense. Scotto says that league executives are expecting the Nets to want the value of two first-round picks for trading Finney-Smith.

For O’Neale, some executives, according to HoopsHype, believe that Brooklyn will want a first-round pick in value in return for any trade of O’Neale. O’Neale will be an unrestricted free-agent after this season.

It will be interesting to see what the Nets do as they are currently in the running for the play-in tournament if the season ended today.

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