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Chicago Bulls' Billy Donovan fires 4 assistant coaches month after hire

New Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan shook up his staff, letting assistants Karen Stack Umlauf, Dean Cooper, Nate Loenser and Roy Rogers go on Monday. A standout player for Northwestern in the early 1980s, Umlauf joined the Bulls as an entry-level ticket representative in 1985. Hall of Fame general manager Jerry Krause shifted her to the basketball operations department soon afterward and she became Chicago's first female assistant when she served as associate coach at the 2018 summer league. Loenser was in his third season with the Bulls. Cooper was in his second and Rogers was in his first. Donovan led Oklahoma City to a 243-157 record the past five seasons and reached the playoffs every year. Before his time with the Thunder, he coached for 19 seasons at the University of Florida, winning two NCAA titles.

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Daryl Morey stepping down as Houston Rockets GM, sources say
Under Morey, the Rockets have the league's longest consecutive playoff appearance streak with eight -- advancing in the Western Conference playoffs in each of the past four years. Under Morey as general manager, the Rockets made 77 trades -- the second most in the NBA since May 2007.

Brett Brown resigns as Australian Boomers basketball coach
Brown had worked with the Australian men's team in the 1990s and early 2000s and again from 2009 to 2012 before joining the 76ers. He was hired again in November last year on a short-term basis for the Olympic assignment.
 
Daryl Morey stepping down as Houston Rockets GM, sources say
Under Morey, the Rockets have the league's longest consecutive playoff appearance streak with eight -- advancing in the Western Conference playoffs in each of the past four years. Under Morey as general manager, the Rockets made 77 trades -- the second most in the NBA since May 2007.


With Daryl Morey stepping down, what's the future for the Houston Rockets and James Harden?

What's next for the Houston Rockets after Daryl Morey's decision to step down as general manager, as reported Thursday by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski? Already, Houston was trending in the wrong direction. Despite giving up multiple first-round picks to fortify what was the league's oldest roster weighted by minutes played in the postseason, the Rockets haven't been able to get back to the conference finals since coming within a game of knocking off the Golden State Warriors in 2018. If those trends continue, could Morey's departure eventually lead to the end of an era of contending Houston teams led by James Harden Will Harden himself end up departing?

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How Ty Lue gets the Clippers back to contention

The LA Clippers' disappointing crash out of the 2020 playoffs helped get Ty Lue the opportunity to become head coach. How does he prevent it from happening again in 2021? Despite a strong regular season and a 3-1 series lead over the Denver Nuggets in the second round of the playoffs, the Clippers lost their last three games. Less than two weeks after that early postseason exit, the Clippers and head coach Doc Rivers mutually decided to part ways, clearing the path for Lue to slide over from his role as Rivers' assistant. Now that Lue and the Clippers have agreed to a five-year contract, what's on Lue's to-do list?

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NBA Power Rankings, way-too-early edition: Next for Lakers, Heat and all 30 teams

The Los Angeles Lakers are the 2020 NBA champions, Blitzing through the bubble playoffs with a 16-5 record and finishing off the Miami Heat in six games in the NBA Finals. Now what? As the league enters an offseason of more uncertainty, we're taking a way-too-early look at where all 30 teams stand heading into the 2020-21 season.

#1 Los Angeles Lakers: 2019-20 record: 52-19 - Result: NBA champions - 2021 title odds: +325
#9 Miami Heat: 2019-20 record: 44-29 - Result: L, NBA Finals - 2021 title odds: +1400

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NBA free agency: The people with the power to make big moves

Sometime between now and the 2020 NBA draft on Nov. 18, the league should lift the monthslong transaction moratorium, allowing its annual round of offseason chaos to officially begin. There are many things the NBA will need to sort over the next few months, from the salary cap rules governing next season to where games will be played to whether fans will be in attendance. Those negotiations and conversations with public health officials are an immediate priority for commissioner Adam Silver and National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts. But teams are also getting ready to navigate the unpredictable roster shuffle that hits the league every offseason. It's been more than eight months since the most recent NBA trade and more than 15 months since the last big move of the 2019 NBA offseason, when Russell Westbrook was dealt for Chris Paul. That silence will end quickly. To preview what's to come, and where the real transaction power is held, here's our list of the people who will be making the biggest decisions this offseason, all their options and the potential fallout.

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Indiana Pacers hire Toronto Raptors assistant Nate Bjorkgren as head coach

The Indiana Pacers have agreed to a multiyear deal to hire Toronto Raptors assistant Nate Bjorkgren as their head coach, sources told ESPN. The Pacers officially named Bjorkgren as their new head coach Tuesday but did not disclose terms of his deal. Bjorkgren, a disciple of reigning NBA Coach of the Year Nick Nurse, sold the Pacers on his history of innovation, adaptability and winning in his time as an NBA assistant and G League head coach, according to sources. The Pacers are replacing Nate McMillan, who was dismissed after four consecutive trips to the playoffs. McMillan had a 183-136 record in Indiana, including 3-16 in the postseason. The Pacers have made five consecutive postseason appearances but have been swept in the first round each of the past two years.

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NBA predictions: What's next for the biggest players in free agency and trade season

This NBA offseason is full of decisions that could impact the hierarchy of the league for years to come. Will back-to-back MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo hold off on signing a supermax extension with the Milwaukee Bucks? Will the Golden State Warriors keep or trade the No. 2 overall pick in November's draft? Will the Brooklyn Nets deal for a third superstar to play alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving?

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Sources: NBA eyes pre-Christmas start, 72-game regular season
The NBA shared these plans in a call with the league's board of governors on Friday afternoon, and the league plans to move quickly to complete negotiations with the National Basketball Players Association to implement the plan, sources said.

NBA schedule debate: Pros and cons of a pre-Christmas start to the season
Among other changes being discussed: a regular season with fewer than 82 games, not waiting for fans to be permitted in all league arenas, as well as tournament and play-in scenarios.
 
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Malcolm Brogdon: NBA, union expected to push back Friday deadline as talks continue

Brogdon, an NBPA vice president, said "absolutely" in an appearance on ESPN's The Jump when asked Thursday if he expected the deadline to be extended. "The way talks are going, this is a super-complicated issue, and there's a lot to balance. [There's] a lot of minds working on this collaboratively, on both sides. So it's going to take some time. Brogdon has missed at least 18 games each of the past three seasons, and he saw his 3-point shooting drop by 10 percentage points after taking on a more ball-dominant role in his first season with the Pacers. He had spent most of his first three NBA seasons in Milwaukee playing off the ball alongside two-time reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo.

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Barack Obama details phone call with LeBron James, Chris Paul that helped save NBA season

New details about the midnight phone call from the president of the National Basketball Players Association, Chris Paul, to the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, that helped save the NBA season have surfaced. Appearing as a guest on LeBron James' barbershop-themed talk show "The Shop," which aired Friday on HBO, Obama described the discussion that unfolded hours after the Milwaukee Bucks' wildcat strike in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, put the league's bubble in jeopardy. Obama's suggestion took hold. Two days later, the NBPA and the NBA jointly announced an agreement to establish a social justice coalition composed of players, coaches and team governors with an expressed interest in increasing access to voting, promoting civic engagement and advocating for meaningful police and criminal justice reform. With that pact in place, along with a commitment from team owners to use arenas as mass voting centers and for voting-centric public service announcements to be aired during subsequent playoff broadcasts, the season continued.

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NBA, players' union reach agreement on amended CBA, with free agency set to begin Nov. 20

The NBA and players' union have reached an agreement in principle on the start of the 2020-21 season, as well as an amended collective bargaining agreement, the two sides announced Monday night. The deal calls for free agency to begin at 6 p.m. ET on Friday, Nov. 20, two days after next week's NBA draft. The salary cap is going to be set at $109.1 million, and the luxury tax will be $132.6 million -- the same numbers they were during the 2019-20 season, before the league's finances took a drastic hit as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Teams had been expecting both numbers to remain the same next season for some time now, as it was better for both the teams and the players to avoid a massive drop in the salary cap for next season because of the unplanned drop in revenue. Teams aren't likely to receive formal numbers from the league until near the end of the week, after a final agreement is officially reached. The league's current moratorium on transactions is also expected to be lifted early next week -- shortly before the NBA draft is scheduled to take place on Nov. 18.

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Miami Heat's Kelly Olynyk exercises 2020-21 option, source says
Olynyk, 29, averaged 8.2 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 69 games for the Heat last season, his third with the team. He averaged 7.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 17 playoff games during the Heat's run to the NBA Finals.

Minnesota Timberwolves take Georgia's Anthony Edwards with No. 1 pick in NBA draft
Edwards, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound guard from Atlanta who spent his lone college season at Georgia, joins a young Timberwolves core led by star center Karl-Anthony Towns and point guard D'Angelo Russell. Edwards led all Division I freshmen with 19.1 points per game last season and was the SEC Freshman of the Year.
 
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