Free agency: Spurs’ Green prepares for pay day

When the free-agent bell tolls tonight at 11 San Antonio time, all eyes in the Alamo City will be on Tim Duncan — and rightfully so. The Spurs franchise icon is set to become a free agent for just the third time in his 15-year career.

Elsewhere below the radar, however, the Spurs’ starting shooting guard is also set to hit the market. Danny Green says he’s ready.

“This is my first time to be pursued,” Green, who is set to enter his fourth NBA season, told the Express-News on Saturday by phone from his home on Long Island.

“It’s an exciting time, and hopefully a fun time. I’m hoping there’s a good amount of teams who like what I can do.”

Green, who turned 25 on June 22, started 38 of 66 games for the Spurs and averaged 9.1 points while shooting a blazing 43.6 percent from 3-point range. Now, he is set to cash in.

The Spurs liked Green enough to extend a qualifying offer worth nearly $2.7 million, making him a restricted free agent and giving the team the right to match any offer he receives.

Even if Green hears only crickets in free agency, he is set to more than triple the $854,369 he made last season as one of the NBA’s biggest bargains.

Green was a force for the Spurs during the first two rounds of the playoffs, averaging 10.3 points against Utah and the Los Angeles Clippers.

He faded in the Western Conference finals against Oklahoma City, when he went 8 for 31 from the floor and was eventually replaced in the starting lineup by Manu Ginobili.

Though Green said he’s looking forward to wading into the free agency waters, he says he would like to return the Spurs.

“I really do like San Antonio,”  Green said .”Hopefully, they have faith in me and will do what they need to do to bring me back.”

James’ incandescent efforts a bright contrast from 2011

MIAMI — LeBron James arrived for practice Monday wearing lime-green sneakers, a highly fluorescent shade.

It was the fashion statement du jour for the league’s three-time MVP, much like the eyeglass frames he’s been sporting after games throughout this postseason. But those sneakers probably would have remained tucked away in the drawer beneath his locker during last year’s NBA Finals, since very little about James’ game would be considered glowing or luminous during those two weeks.

Different year, different story.

For the second straight season, the Miami Heat hold a 2-1 lead in the NBA Finals. There’s a glaring difference this time around — that being James is playing at the top of his game. And he’ll try to help the Heat move within one win of a championship tonight when Miami plays host to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 4 of this title series.

“We’re a totally different team than we was last year when we was up 2-1,” James said Monday. “… We understand what it takes to win, we’ve used that motivation, and we will continue to use that motivation. But last year is last year, and we’re not going into a Game 4 on someone else’s floor. We’re going into a Game 4 on our floor with a lot of experience in this type of situation. We’ll be ready. We love the challenge.”

Miami lost Game 4 in Dallas last year, the start of a three-game slide that ended with the Mavericks winning the title.

So the Thunder know a 2-1 deficit in a series is hardly insurmountable, even though the home-court roles are reversed this time around. And if Oklahoma City needed more proof, all the Thunder need to do is remember the Western Conference finals when they lost the first two games to San Antonio, becoming the 19th and 20th entries on the Spurs’ incredible winning streak. The Spurs didn’t win another game the rest of the way.

“We were down 2-0 against San Antonio, and everybody thought the series was over,” Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. “But I know our guys, they’re very competitive, they’re very resilient. They’ve always showed that type of effort every game, and we’ve always been a great bounce-back team. I thought last night was a great bounce-back. It’s unfortunate we didn’t make a couple plays, and uncharacteristic, also.”

Uncharacteristic. That would also be a fine word to describe how James played in the Finals last season.

He freely acknowledges that he “didn’t make enough plays” against the Mavericks a year ago, and the numbers — 17.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game — back that up, as do his well-chronicled fourth quarter struggles in that series. So far in this year’s Finals, James is averaging 30.3 points, 10.3 rebounds and 4.0 assists, and in the final minutes of Miami’s two wins in the series, he’s done his part to slam the door on the Thunder.

“He’s been aggressive. He’s an aggressive player,” Thunder guard James Harden said. “He’s been aggressive all year, all postseason. He’s tall, strong, and physical. He’s a tough matchup. It takes five guys to really lock down on their offense because they’re a very offensive team especially with LeBron and (Dwyane) Wade.”

James is shooting 46 percent in the series, not even close to the 57 percent clip Kevin Durant is putting up for Oklahoma City. But here’s maybe one piece of proof to support that aggression notion Harden was speaking of — James is 25 for 29 from the foul line in the three games, while Durant is just 14 for 19.

James has done much of his work near the rim in these Finals. But while it wasn’t his most memorable shot, perhaps the biggest one he hit all night in Miami’s Game 3 victory was a 3-pointer late in the third quarter, one of just five shots the Heat made from outside the paint in that game. That shot put Miami up entering the fourth and seemed to extend the Thunder defense just enough to allow James, Wade and Chris Bosh to create more in the lane late.

“The biggest evolution of great players is they always stay in constant state of being uncomfortable,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They don’t stay satisfied. And LeBron every summer has added something to his game. … I think that’s a sign of greatness.”

Dollars for Diaw: A Spurs’ equation

Column by Buck Harvey

Before the series with the Thunder, here is what one Spurs’ staffer thought was the best way to keep Boris Diaw:

Win.

Give Diaw both a ring and a sentimental reason to want to return.

After the series with the Thunder, here’s what another in the organization wonders:

Will anyone else want to commit big dollars to a guy who went scoreless in Game 6?

It’s the power of the last impression, and all of this will figure into the Spurs’ summer. While they know they will eventually reach agreements with Tim Duncan and Danny Green, Diaw is something else entirely.

Exactly how much is he worth on the open market?

These are the questions of every summer, since the art of basketball management is financially based. DeJuan Blair is an example.

The Spurs have been disappointed with him at times. He got emotional this season when he was demoted, and he gained some weight. As the Spurs like to say about players who aren’t in tune with their way of doing things, he wasn’t pulling the rope.

Blair seemed to recover late in the season, and staff found him working out at surprising hours in the practice facility. But the bottom-line incentive to bring him back is the salary cap’s bottom line. Blair is ?under contract for a little more than $1 million next?? season, and that’s the kind of value that eases other concerns.

What’s tougher to determine is how much to pay someone such as the veteran European player, Erazem Lorbek. Obtained in the Kawhi Leonard trade, Lorbek shoots nearly as well as Matt Bonner and does most other things better.

They like him. At 28, Lorbek is at an age where he should come to the NBA if he is ever going to. But money will determine what happens this summer, and, again, once they establish Duncan’s salary, this begins with Diaw.

From the day he arrived after a buy-out in Charlotte, Diaw was priceless. Diaw knows the game, and he’s clever enough to pass and big enough to defend the post.

He had a 12-rebound game against the Clippers, as well as a 16-point one. He banged with Blake Griffin while also becoming a snug fit between Duncan and Leonard.

Had the Spurs advanced to the Finals, then maybe another team would have wanted to steal a healthy 30-year-old with his kind of versatility. Anything beyond the mid-level exception will be out of reach of the Spurs, and, besides, a ring and sentiment only go so far in this business.

At his age, Diaw is facing what is likely his last chance to cash in.

But then came the Thunder series. As adaptable as Diaw is, he struggled to stay on the floor when Oklahoma City went small. He was hesitant to take the 3-point shot the Thunder were giving him, and when Diaw opted to drive instead, he was ineffective with either the shot or the pass.

He ended with five turnovers in the final two games — when he had only three in a stretch of seven consecutive games in the postseason.

Were other teams still thinking he was worth, say, a $35 million deal? What happened in Charlotte will leave doubt, too. And even those impressed with his stint with the Spurs might wonder if he was happier in San Antonio than he would be elsewhere.

There’s only one city where he can live with Tony Parker, after all.

The Spurs hope all of this is part of the equation. They thought Diaw was remarkable, especially since the stretch-four position is new to him. Diaw was 9 of 18 from behind the 3-point line this postseason, for example; in his previous 39 playoff games with other teams, he was only 4 of 29.

So how much better would Diaw be if Gregg Popovich gets him in November instead of March?

The Spurs hope they will be able to pay to see that.

bharvey@express-news.net
Twitter: @Buck_SA