11:10 AM ET Two-time All-Star Andre Drummond says he plans to pick up his player option that will keep him in Cleveland for another year. Drummond, who was traded to the Cavaliers by the Detroit Pistons in February, has a $28.75 million option for the 2020-21 season. He said on Tuesday’s episode of the ESPN
NBA
11:18 PM ET Associated Press DALLAS — Dallas Mavericks veteran guard Courtney Lee will be out injured when the team is scheduled to resume organized workouts next week. The Mavericks said Monday night that Lee injured his left calf during the NBA hiatus. The team said he wouldn’t be available when workouts start up again
5:48 PM ET Portland Trail Blazers forward Trevor Ariza is opting out of participation in the NBA’s Orlando restart of the season, committing instead to a one-month visitation window with his young son, sources tell ESPN. Ariza, a starter, has been involved in a custody case over his 12-year-old son, and the mother’s decision to
8:02 AM ET FOR JULIUS JONES, H Unit has been home for 18 years. He’s on death row, serving time for a crime he maintains he didn’t commit, in a cell alongside 53 others stacked in two rows inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. In 2002, Jones was convicted of first-degree murder for the
6:57 AM ET Associated Press BEIJING — The Chinese basketball league has restarted after an almost five-month shutdown for the coronavirus pandemic, with fewer foreign players and no fans in the stands. The CBA was suspended on Jan. 24 after the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, a week before it was scheduled to return following a
11:58 PM ET Baxter Holmes Close ESPN Senior Writer Baxter Holmes (@Baxter) is a senior writer for ESPN Digital and Print, focusing on the NBA. He has covered the Lakers, the Celtics and previously worked for The Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times. Zach Lowe Close ESPN Senior Writer Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) is a senior
12:51 PM ET ESPN News Services Potential early-entry candidates for the 2020 NBA draft will have until Aug. 17 to declare that they are entering the draft, according to a memo obtained by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on Saturday. The new deadline is pending the NBA finalizing an agreement with the players’ union on system rule
4:26 PM ET All-Star guard Victor Oladipo plans to ramp up activity with the Indiana Pacers starting next week and evaluate his repaired torn quad tendon prior to making a final commitment to playing in the season’s restart in Orlando, he told ESPN on Saturday. Oladipo, 28, is hopeful to return to play with the
10:51 AM ET NBA Hall of Famer Wayne Embry, who was the first African American to become a general manager in pro sports, believes players should use their voices by continuing to play during the current protests while supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. “I’ve always been a proponent of sports being a model of
3:47 PM ET Los Angeles Lakers chief executive officer and governor Jeanie Buss shared a photograph of a letter on her Instagram account Friday containing racial and misogynistic epithets “so that everyone can see the hate is real and living out there,” she wrote. The two-sentence letter, composed on a type writer, begins with “Dear
7:58 PM ET Andrew LopezESPN For Memphis Grizzlies swingman Justise Winslow, the idea of playing out the rest of the season in Orlando, Florida, is “tricky.” Winslow spoke with former NBA forward Caron Butler on the league’s Twitter feed on Friday afternoon and expressed concern about the continuation of the season, the same way he
10:19 AM ET Projected top-five NBA draft pick Deni Avdija will resume his season with Maccabi Tel Aviv when the Israeli basketball league returns Sunday, he told ESPN. “Before I go to the U.S., I have a job to finish here in Israel,” Avdija wrote in an email. “As a competitor I am committed to
11:50 AM ET Tim BontempsESPN Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter tweeted Friday morning that his father had been released from prison in his native Turkey seven years after he was originally arrested by the country’s authoritarian government. “Wow! I could cry,” Kanter wrote. “Today I found out that 7 years after arresting my dad, taking
12:27 AM ET Weeks after the team issued a statement condemning “racism, bigotry, violence and prejudice in all its forms” the Los Angeles Lakers announced a pair of moves to aid in their mission to spur positive social change. The Lakers announced the hiring of Karida Brown as the team’s director of racial equity and
5:43 PM ET Eric WoodyardESPN Bucks guard Sterling Brown, who was tased by Milwaukee police in 2018 after being cited for a parking violation, sees the NBA’s restart in Orlando as an opportunity to campaign for issues of social justice and racial equality. “A lot of eyes will be on us while we’re in Orlando,”
2:11 PM ET Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says if his players take a knee during the national anthem, he hopes to join them. In an interview with ESPN’s Outside the Lines on Thursday, Cuban was asked how he would react if he saw his players not standing for the anthem. “If they were taking
8:21 PM ET NBA Insiders Who will be the most important and exciting players to watch when the NBA returns next month? The league is set to restart action on July 30 in Florida with eight seeding games for each of 22 teams before a potential play-in series and then the standard playoffs. LeBron James
5:37 PM ET The NBA Coaches Association fears new league standards and guidelines that could bar team staffers in high-risk categories for the coronavirus from attending the season’s restart in Orlando could “severely jeopardize” their future employment opportunities. NBCA executive director Dave Fogel and president Rick Carlisle have concerns that several assistants and three head