2017-18 NBA (Week 1 Bric-a-brac)

Injuries
Dante Exum (Jazz)
Exum's season seems to be done after he elected to have surgery on the shoulder he injured during a pre-season game. Man, his rookie contract is just about up and we've barely seen the guy. Oh well, hopefully next year he'll be able to stay on the court.

Gordon Hayward (Celtics)
Hayward broke his ankle and leg about 5 minutes into his Celtics debut and is out for the season. (Dang, that was ugly!) Bet the Celtics would like to have Avery Bradley and even Demetrius Jackson back now. The Celtics got a lot of untested rookies coming off that bench, they're gonna get tested sooner rather than later.

Jeremy Lin (Nets)
Ruptured his patella tendon, won't be back this year. He was definitely going to play minutes for the Nets, a big loss for the team (though not necessarily in terms of wins and losses).

Harry Giles (Kings)
Taking a page out of the Sixers playback, the Kings announced that Giles will rehab his knee for the entire year. So we'll see Giles as a rookie next year.

Luol Deng (Lakers)
Pectoral muscle surgery will keep Deng unavailable indefinitely. Not sure if he returns this season or not.


Fired
Earl Watson (Suns)
Watson was fired 3 games into the season. Yeah, I get that the Suns have looked pretty awful in the first 3 games but I can't say I was surprised by their awfulness--indeed, who was? Didn't we all know that the Suns were going to be pretty horrible this year? Apparently morale is low in Phoenix and Watson was the fall guy. To be honest: this is how Watson got the job 3 years ago and the guy that replaces Watson has got to know that this is how he'll go out eventually too. I have no idea if Watson was the guy for this job or who is, but I don't see any more reason to fire him now than to have fired him 3 months ago or 3 months from now. Suns management hasn't made much sense to me in years, this is just par for the course really. Suns name Jay Triano the interim head coach.


Signings
Lamarcus Aldridge (Spurs) signed 3yr/$50m extension (through 2020)
This was a bit of a shock considering the rumblings all summer long about the Spurs looking to trade Aldridge. But Lamarcus is still a good scorer, he's still likely to be of comparable value to anyone else they could've signed in that slot and signing him doesn't necessarily make him less trade-able. (And I believe the 3rd year is non-guaranteed)

Richard Jefferson (Nuggets) signed 1yr/$2.3m
I kinda thought Jefferson would end up with either the Warriors or Spurs but the Nuggets are young team that could use any/all veteran presence that they can get. Jefferson is well-liked well-respected guy in the league, this is probably an excellent fit (though they had to cut Jameer Nelson to make room).

Jameer Nelson (Pelicans) signed 1yr/undisclosed
Pelicans need all the perimeter ball handlers they can get and I think Jameer is a good fit for their two big guys.


Suspended
Bobby Portis (Bulls) for 8 games
Punching a teammate during practice (sucker punch by some accounts) and shattering bones in his face is a no-no in the modern NBA. Bill Romanowski had to go on 60 Minutes and put on a Forrest Gump routine to get over the stigma of fracturing the orbital bone (and career) of a Raider teammate, not sure what kind of penance Portis will have to perform.

Eric Bledsoe (Suns)
Bledsoe had a sit-down with GM McDonough and interim coach Triano and apparently things did not go well. Bledsoe has been indefinitely suspended from the team and is likely to be traded any day now (Nuggets, Bucks have already been mentioned).


Trades
Hawks get Richard Jefferson, Kay Felder, 2019 2nd rd pick, 2020 2nd rd pick (top 55 protected), $3m cash; Cavs get the rights to Sergey Gladyr and Dimirtios Agravanis
This is just a salary dump for the Cavs and a free $3m clerical exercise for the Hawks. Both Jefferson and Felder were waived by the Hawks and as far as those 2nd round picks go the first is not likely to be any good and the second is not to likely to actually exist. So they gave up the rights to two foreign players that don't have much of a shot at playing in the NBA for $3m, while the Cavs emptied their salary cap of two players. (Felder was claimed by the Bulls--because they needed another PG!)