Tag: woj

Boston’s Enes Kanter tweets in support of Woj after ESPN suspension

Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter tweeted his support for suspended ESPN analyst Adrian Wojnarowski on Sunday.

Often outspoken Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter made a rare foray into political discussions involving U.S. politicians Sunday — if indirectly — with a comment on Twitter referencing senior ESPN analyst Adrian Wojnarowski.

Woj — as he is often called for short — had recently fallen into hot water with the prominent sports outlet for a brief but profane email sent to Missouri Senator Josh Hawley recently, which resulted in the suspension of Wojnarowski with ESPN.

Kanter, a constant defender of human rights in his native Turkey and in general, has typically been open to working with politicians in the U.S. on either side of the aisle so long as they are willing to stand in defense of human rights.

But his tweet on Sunday, which appeared to show an army of supporters coming to Wojnarowski’s aid after his suspension for the profane letter along with the hashtag #FreeWoj, looked to put the Celtics center squarely in Woj’s camp.

While the reason behind Woj’s letter is not necessarily clear, it seems to have been in response to recent comments about the league by the Senator.

Hawley’s position is that the NBA has been too cozy with China after the incident with Houston Rockets (general manager Daryl Morey created a firestorm of controversy with that country after his Twitter critique of the response to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong earlier in the season).

He also has said that players should be granted more leeway in the messaging the NBA has granted players in support of racial justice, calling on the NBA to allow messages in support of police and other causes.

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Key dates for NBA offseason come into focus as early entry window set

Potential draft targets of the Celtics now know when they can join the early entry class of prospects to gauge their odds of being taken.

The contours of the NBA offseason are beginning to come into view, with ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reporting the league has set dates for the 2020 NBA Draft, as well as early entry and withdrawal dates for participating prospects.

Those dates will be as follows: October 16th for the draft itself (pushed back from an earlier date set for October 15th), August 17th the early entry date, and October 6th for the withdrawal date for any prospects who have had second thoughts about retaining their NCAA eligibility.

The early entry program allows fringe prospects to attend NBA pre-draft camps and individual team workouts to gauge team interest and get valuable feedback on what needs work in their games without losing NCAA eligibility so long as they hire no agent.

As with much of the NBA calendar, the usual schedule for the program had been upended by the pandemic hiatus, so this information is a big help for prospects trying to remain (or improve) conditioning on their own ahead of such events.

Depending on how (or if) the 2020 NBA Combine is conducted due to restrictions placed on it out of concern for the pandemic, such a process could be limited to remote or in-person interviews, depending on the state of the pandemic by these dates.

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NBA to present 22-team return-to-play plan for vote Thursday

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports the NBA will present the Board of Governors with a 22-team plan to resume the 2019-20 season Thursday.

The Boston Celtics and the rest of the NBA look poised to resume the 2019-20 NBA season with word from The Athletic’s Shams Charania and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that the NBA plans to hold a vote on a 22-team return to action.

The plan, which would see each of the 22 teams play eight regular season games for purposes of seeding in Orlando before starting the Playoffs, will need to be ratified on the Board of Governors call scheduled Thursday.

Teams included are the 16 franchises who would currently qualify for the postseason based on record along with the New Orleans Pelicans, Portland Trail Blazers, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings and San Antonio Spurs in the West and Washington Wizards in the East.

According to Wojnarowski, “If the ninth seed is more than four games behind the eighth, No. 8 makes playoffs,” but if less than “four games, a play-in tournament” will be held. Moreover, a “play-in format requires a double-elimination format for the 8th seed, a single-elimination for the 9th seed.”

While there are still many steps between where the wider NBA community is at this moment and another, bonafide tip-off in the currently-suspended season, we are closer than we have been in months to games that count being played again.

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Celtics among teams hoping to go directly to camp on season restart

The Boston Celtics are among several teams hoping to go directly to training camp upon resuming the 2019-20 NBA season.

The Boston Celtics are reportedly one of several teams requesting to report directly to training camp once the 2019-20 NBA season is restarted, according to ESPN senior writer Adrian Wojnarowski.

Among teams whose markets were late to lift stay-at-home orders, the Celtics are petitioning the NBA to be able to go directly to wherever the final location chosen to restart the season occurs in.

With the league officially in talks with Disney to use ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida as the sole site being reported by fellow ESPN writer Ramona Shelburne, it appears likely to be firmly in the center of the Sunshine state.

The primary concern is the competitive advantage which other teams may have over franchises in areas where those stay-at-home orders remained in place longer, according to Wojnarowski.

“Most teams in regions still adhering to stay-at-home policies amid the coronavirus pandemic have an abundance of players who left their marketplace during the shutdown and would need to quarantine for an extended period — perhaps as many as 14 days — prior to joining workouts in team facilities,” explained Wojnaroski.

“Teams want to avoid having to quarantine significant portions of their rosters twice — once upon returning to more restrictive markets, and again, at the bubble site,” related the ESPN analyst.

Additional concern over the relatively limited range of allowed activities in team facilities’ ability to keep players engaged was also voiced by front offices.

A board of governors meeting is set for this coming Friday, and addressing these concerns will be among several related issues on the docket alongside scheduling details and other minutiae related to restarting the season.

Such issues will include the format of the playoffs and number of remaining regular season games (if any) to be played, whether a play-in tournament for the postseason might be implemented, and many other pressing concerns for teams as a ramp-up time frame is beginning to become clearer.

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Report: Warriors ‘investigating deals’ that shed salary, lower tax bill and bring back draft value

With the trade deadline around the corner, Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting the Warriors are “investigating deals that shed salary and lower their tax bill” but can bring back draft value as well.

The NBA trade deadline is quickly approaching, and for the first time in years, the Golden State Warriors are in the middle of all the rumors. Competing in five-straight NBA titles with a roster that features four healthy All-Star caliber players has left the Warriors content in trade deadlines of the past. However, in the 2019-20 season, things are changing.

The Warriors have already traded center Willie Cauley-Stein to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for a second-round pick, and with the deadline to make trades right around the corner, the rumors around Golden State are heating up.

23-year-old guard, D’Angelo Russell, has been the centerpiece of most trade chatter with several different teams being connected. Reports have indicated both the New York Knicks and the Minnesota Timberwolves are interested in Russell. Yet, there hasn’t been a deal to come to fruition yet.

When it comes to the deadline, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Warriors are “investigating deals that shed salary and lower tax bill — as well as bring back some draft value.”

Wojnarowski mentions that the Warriors could hold onto Russell through the deadline. If a team can’t meet Golden State’s pricepoint, seeing Russell alongside a healthy Stephen Curry would be an intriguing option for Warriors’ decision-makers.

Curry has played only four games this season, limiting any opportunity for Russell and the two-time Most Valuable Player to build chemistry. If Curry’s rehab from his broken hand injury continues to go as planned, he could return sometime in March, giving him and Russell around 20 games to play together before the end of the season.

If the Curry and Russell backcourt experiment fails, the Warriors could look to tweak their roster over the offseason instead of the upcoming trade deadline.

Woj: Boston unwilling to ‘give up … core wing players’ in potential deals

ESPN senior writer Adrian Wojnarowski weighs in on trade speculation involving the Boston Celtics’ frontcourt.

As the Boston Celtics struggle with injury and a bit of a slowdown in accumulating wins, speculation on how the team might pivot this season on the trade market has been forthcoming.

Several splashy-but-implausible suggestions involving players like Kevin Love and Steven Adams have been making the rounds recently, but if ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is correct, Boston won’t be picking up the phone to see what the price might be.

Today on Sportscenter, the well-connected writer revealed that the Celtics have little interest in making a move that would require dealing one of their best players just to — at least on paper — better match up with some of the East’s brawnier bigs.

“[The Celtics] could certainly use a veteran center at that position … but Boston’s not willing to give up any of their core wing players,” explained Woj, “and right now the Celtics, with [a] kind of a three-headed monster, they have [a] center … better than really anything that’s available to them in the marketplace.”

Who might this mystery center be, exactly, who is already on the roster?

Before you get too excited, he won’t be suiting up for the better part of a month, even in the best-case scenario.

The Woj bomblet refers to none other than Timelord, who will be convalescing a left hip edema into the new year.

“Robert Williams has been a revelation in his second season; [he was] their first-round pick last year,” continued Wojnarowski. “Williams is a player that Boston — not just for the short term but the long term — has a chance to have great staying power at that center position.”

It may be that the Celtics make no move at all by the February trade deadline, believing their roster has enough upside once healthy to be worth hanging onto.

Based on what Wojnarowski is relating, it seems the front office is less concerned than some of the fanbase with the frontcourt situation even in spite of the spate of injuries.

There’s still plenty of time for the team’s record — or an unexpected steal of a deal — to upend the intel the ESPN guru shared today, but from the sounds of things it’s going to be small moves for the Celtics this season.

If any at all.