Garnett agrees to new deal with Timberwolves
Williams reunites with James at Cavaliers
MINNEAPOLIS: Karl-Anthony Towns, the top pick in last month’s NBA Draft, has signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the club announced on Tuesday, while veteran star Kevin Garnett has agreed to return.
Garnett is set to play his 21st NBA campaign with the T-Wolves after returning last season in a trade with Brooklyn but playing only five games due to injury.
The 39-year-old will be an important teacher to rookie big man Towns and a locker room leader after leading Boston to a 2008 NBA crown.
Free agents such as Garnett cannot sign contracts until today but can agree to terms, while deals can be completed with draft picks such as Towns, a star for the University of Kentucky last season.
Towns joins 2014 top pick Andrew Wiggins and 2013 top pick Anthony Bennett on the roster, the other two obtained in a trade with Cleveland last year for Kevin Love. Minnesota are the first team in NBA history with three consecutive top picks in the same line-up.
Towns had 10.3 points, 6.7 rebounds and 2.26 blocked shots a game for Kentucky last season.
The Timberolves also signed guard Tyus Jones, the 24th overall selection from Duke University.
In Cleveland, point guard Mo Williams said on Tuesday he had agreed to a deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers, reuniting him with superstar LeBron James.
Williams, who averaged 14.2 points and 6.2 assists last season with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Charlotte Hornets, played alongside James from 2008-2010 with the Cavaliers.
“I’m coming home!!!!! #cavsnation #cityilove #questforaring,” Williams tweeted.
Williams will provide outside scoring as a backup to Kyrie Irving, who suffered a fractured kneecap in the NBA Finals.
But the Cavaliers remain interested in keeping Australian guard Matthew Dellavedova, the hustling defender whose work in the finals once Irving went down helped the Cavaliers force the Golden State Warriors to six games before losing.
Cleveland remain in talks with forward Tristan Thompson, and James has reportedly told the team to reach a deal with Thompson before worrying about trying to re-sign him.
James is expected to stay in Cleveland after leaving Miami last July to join the Cavaliers, his opting out of the contract seen as more of a leverage move to ensure the team’s signing of top talent than a quest for more money.
Williams was an All-Star in 2009 while playing for Cleveland. He averaged 17.8 points and connected on 43.6 percent of his three-point attempts while helping the Cavaliers go 66-16.
Meanwhile Las Vegas or Seattle could become the new home of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks if taxpayer funding for half the cost of a new arena isn’t quickly approved by lawmakers.
Bucks president Peter Feigin told lawmakers that the NBA would look to relocate the team to one of those two cities without public funding for half of a proposed US$500 million arena so construction can start this year, the Milwaukee Business Journal reported.
Feigin said a clause in the purchase deal for the team by a new ownership group 14 months ago for $550 million allowed the league to buy back the club for a $25 million profit unless a new arena was in the works by October or November.
“The window is closing,” Feigin warned. “We can’t months, even weeks, to start the public process.”
Money for the new arena was dropped from the state budget last week, according to the report.
A lease for the Bucks in their current home arena, which opened in 1988, ends in 2017 after just two more NBA seasons. The Bucks were founded in Milwaukee in 1968 as an expansion team and won their only NBA crown three years later.
A new arena is under construction in US gambling mecca Las Vegas without a sports team tenant while a new arena proposal in Seattle hinges upon having an NBA team agree to move to the former home of the SuperSonics, who became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008.