Russell Westbrook is on the move once again, but isn't yet at his final destination.
The Los Angeles Clippers agreed to send Westbrook to the Utah Jazz on Thursday, as part of a sign-and-trade deal, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
The Jazz are expected to reach a contract buyout agreement with Westbrook, opening the door for him to join the Denver Nuggets.
Denver will be the sixth team Westbrook has played for in the last seven seasons.
To complete the trade, Utah will also receive a swap of second-round draft picks and cash from Los Angeles, while shipping guard Kris Dunn to the Clippers.
The 35-year-old Westbrook was named the NBA MVP in 2016-17, averaging a career-high 31.6 points, along with 10.7 rebounds and 10.4 assists.
In 2023-24 for the Clippers, he averaged career lows of 11.1 points and 4.5 assists with 5 boards. He came off the bench in 57 of the 68 games he played, shooting 27.3 per cent from 3-point range - the second-lowest mark among the 226 players with at least 150 attempts from beyond the arc.
The Nuggets still believe he can provide depth off the bench and help them make another run at a title after being eliminated in the Western Conference semi-finals in May.
The Clippers were ousted by the Dallas Mavericks in the first round, with Westbrook averaging 6.3 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.7 assists in the six play-off games.
In 1,162 games in a 16-year career, Westbrook has averages of 21.7 points, 8.1 assists and 7.1 rebounds. His 199 career triple-doubles are the most in NBA history.
Dunn has career averages of 7.9 points, 4.2 assists and 3.3 boards since being drafted fifth overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2016.
In starting 32 of 66 games for the Jazz last season, the 30-year-old Dunn averaged 5.4 points, 3.8 assists and 2.9 rebounds.
Kyrie Irving has undergone surgery on a broken hand, but is expected to be fit for the start of next season.
Irving was part of the Dallas Mavericks team that reached the NBA Finals, only to go down to the dominant Boston Celtics.
The 32-year-old sustained his injury while training earlier in July, and has now gone through surgery to fix the issue.
Posting on X, Irving wrote: "Tribe, Thank you for all the messages and prayers. God truly knew that I needed to take a break from basketball after the long season and give myself some time to heal.
"I am in love with getting better at my craft, but now I must rest and recover."
While the Mavs did not confirm a timetable for Irving's return, it has been reported he is anticipated to return to action in around two and a half months.
The 2024-25 season is set to begin in October.
Irving averaged 25.6 points per game in the regular season across 2023-24.
The Mavs have brought in Klay Thompson as a free agent this off-season.
Jalen Brunson signed a four-year, $156.5 million extension with the New York Knicks on Friday.
The figure is $113 million less guaranteed than he would have been eligible to receive next offseason, but it puts the Knicks in a much better position financially to build a championship-caliber roster around him.
The deal was first reported by ESPN, with Brunson’s agent telling the organisation his client chose the extension over a five-year, $269 million contract he could have received as a free agent in 2025.
It’s an unprecedented move for the All-Star guard who finished fifth in MVP voting last season after he averaged career highs of 28.7 points and 6.7 assists in 2023-24.
Those numbers were far better than expected when the former second-round pick signed with the Knicks in 2022, with some questioning if a player who had mostly been a backup in Dallas was worth more than $100 million.
Brunson, 27, helped the Knicks reach the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2013 before falling to the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Brunson broke his hand in the second half and the Knicks were already dealing with a plethora of injuries to key players.
He has blossomed into one of the league's most impactful players and leaders and earned All-NBA honours after totalling 11 40-point games in the regular season.
Brunson’s extension will begin with the 2025-26 season and his decision to take less money should help the Knicks manage their payroll after a busy offseason in which they re-signed OG Anunoby to a five-year contract worth more than $210 million and acquired Mikal Bridges from the Brooklyn Nets.
The Detroit Pistons and former No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham have agreed to terms on a five-year, $224million maximum rookie contract extension.
The deal could be worth up to $269million if Cunningham earns All-NBA honours in 2024-25.
Cunningham played one season at Oklahoma State before Detroit selected him No. 1 overall in the 2021 NBA Draft.
He earned First-Team All-Rookie honours in 2021-22 after averaging 17.4 points, 5.6 assists and 5.5 rebounds in 64 games.
Cunningham appeared in Detroit’s first 12 games in 2022-23 before sustaining a stress fracture in his shin that led to season-ending surgery.
The 22-year-old point guard bounced back last season, averaging team highs of 22.7 points and 7.5 assists while adding 4.3 rebounds per game in 62 contests.
The Pistons, though, posted an NBA-worst 14-68 record, and Detroit is last in the league with a .220 winning percentage (54-192) since drafting Cunningham.
In the 138 games Cunningham has played in his career, the Pistons have gone 32-106.
Paul George admitted he did not want to leave the Los Angeles Clippers, but felt his hand was forced when he was offered a "disrespectful" first contract extension offer.
Last week, George signed a four-year maximum contract reportedly worth $212million for the Philadelphia 76ers.
However, the nine-time All-Star's move happened after he failed to come to an agreement with the Clippers over a new contract.
"I never wanted to leave L.A.," George said on his podcast, 'Podcast P with Paul George'.
"L.A. is home, this is where I wanted to finish at, and I wanted to work as hard as possible to win one in L.A.
"That was the goal, to be here and be committed to L.A. As it played out though, the first initial deal was, I thought, kind of disrespectful.
"In all of this, no hard feelings, no love lost...it's a business. So, the first initial deal was like two years, 60. So I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
"That's crazy! I'm like, 'Naw, I'm not signing that'."
The Clippers gave Kawhi Leonard a three-year $150million extension, something George said they refused to give him if he had a no-trade clause attached.
"Then I hear wind of what they're going to give Kawhi, so I'm like, 'Just give me what Kawhi got'," George added. "'Y'all view us the same. We came here together; we want to finish this s*** together.'
"Y'all give him that, give me that. They didn't want to do that."
The guard, who played 74 regular-season games – his most since being traded to Los Angeles before the 2019-20 season – acknowledged his link-up with Leonard did not quite go as planned but had hoped to build on it in the future.
"We couldn't remain healthy as a unit," George said. "But I thought I did enough to earn that [three-year, $150-million deal with a no-trade clause].
"They didn't want to do it. So, it was just a stalemate. Ultimately it was like, all right, that ship has sailed.
"I love Steve [Ballmer], I love Lawrence [Frank], but at that point, it didn't even feel right to come back with that type of energy and be comfortable playing back in L.A."
Joel Embiid lauded the Philadelphia 76ers' planning as impressive "on paper" as he hailed a "fantastic" potential trio with Paul George and Tyrese Maxey.
Philadelphia signed nine-time All-Star George on a four-year maximum contract reportedly worth $212 million last week.
George is expected to help the 76ers contend for the Eastern Conference title next season after Philadelphia suffered a first-round playoff loss to the New York Knicks this year.
Maxey is coming off a breakout year, too, averaging a career-high 25.9 points per game en route to winning the NBA's Most Improved Player Award.
"I think as far as the fit, it looks amazing," Embiid told ESPN. "It is great, when you got a player that posts up, you need to have willing shooters and guys that are not afraid to pull the trigger.
"PG, great shooter, 40%, 45 catch and shoot; Tyrese, we know great shooter, off the dribble, catch-and-shoot.
"On paper, and as far as the fit, it looks fantastic because you got both guys that can play off the ball, and they can play on ball and they're great shooters and they can handle the ball, and then you also got me."
The three 76ers star will be aiming to help Philadelphia improve upon a No. 7 finish in the Eastern Conference standings last season.
Embiid wants to create a new era with his side, though warned it will not all be straightforward.
"It feels like you're starting from scratch," he said. "And I know there's going to be a lot of growing pains. But you just got to stick it together.
"The goal is always to win a championship, but it just doesn't happen overnight.
"Hopefully, it doesn't take us as much time as it should when you're trying to bring everybody on the same page and making sure everybody knows their role and what they have to do to achieve that goal.
"But we're going to do the best job possible."
Having watched James Harden demand a trade last year, and Maxey still as an unknown quantity, the optimism now around Philadelphia proved to Embiid that patience is key.
"I'd be lying to say that patience wasn't tested," Embiid added. "Because I'm at the point where there's no awards, there's no regular season or no All-NBA or All-Stars is going to change the way my legacy is.
"Well, there's a few things that can change it, but the main one is the championship. So when you start thinking about what you want to be remembered as, you want to be remembered as someone that's won.
"When you are presented with a plan, sometimes it goes wrong, sometimes it goes right. We've still got long way to go. On paper it looks great. But we still got to go on the court and make it work."
Stephen Curry believes the dynasty built by the Golden State Warriors throughout his career will be the last of its kind in the NBA.
Curry has won four NBA championships with the Warriors since being drafted seventh overall in 2009, leading them to glory in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022.
Golden State missed the playoffs for just the third time in the last 12 seasons in 2023-24, finishing 46-36 then losing a Play-In tie against the Sacramento Kings.
Between 2014 and 2022, the Warriors made the NBA Finals on six occasions, having failed to do so in 39 years after winning the 1974-75 championship.
Klay Thompson and Draymond Green have, alongside Curry, formed the spine of the Warriors' lineup throughout that period, but the former left for the Dallas Mavericks last week after 13 years in San Francisco.
Speaking to ESPN's Malika Andrews, Curry said: "Obviously defining a dynasty can take a lot of different looks.
"People thought this was over in 2019, but 2022 was an amazing championship because we defied the odds. That's 11 years, almost 12 years, of championship relevancy built around a certain core."
Asked whether the Warriors' achievements during that period will be replicated, Curry said: "I don't think it will, just because it's very hard to keep things together in this league. There's a lot more player movement.
"Me, Klay and Draymond, we complemented each other so well for so long. We all brought something different to the table, so we'll see.
"Records are meant to be broken. Dynasties come in all different shapes and sizes, so we'll see."
While Thompson has made the decision to leave the Bay Area, Curry – who has two years remaining on his own contract – wants to stick around for the rest of his career, as long as the team can be competitive.
"Being in one place for my whole career, I know it's really hard to do that," he said. "I want to be greedy and say we can be relevant and be in the mix and give ourselves a realistic chance to win while I'm still growing these grey hairs and doing high school visits in the Bay for my daughter.
"It's crazy. It's just the nature of where I'm at. But yes, all that is to say I love the Bay and the Bay is home and I never want that to change."
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