SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Richard Jefferson isn’t sure whether the San Antonio Spurs will keep him or not.

Jefferson reported for training camp Friday amid speculation that the Spurs will trade or waive him under the league’s amnesty provision. The veteran swingman has spent two underachieving seasons in San Antonio and is due $9.2 million this year.

Jefferson spoke as though his days might be numbered in San Antonio. Spurs guard Manu Ginobili also didn’t sound confident that his teammate would be around.

The Spurs traded for Jefferson in 2009 to bring in some scoring punch. Jefferson has instead struggled to fit in and was benched at the end of the playoffs last season.

Free agent Josh Howard has talked with the Spurs and could be a replacement.

The LA Clippers already have multiple pieces in place for the upcoming season and many view them as a dark horse candidate in the Western Conference. With free agency looming and trade rumors flying left and right, it’s time to look at the Clipper’ free agents and what may happen with the team.

Restricted: PF DeAndre Jordan

Unrestricted: PF Craig Smith, SG Jamario Moon

As you can see, there is not a lot left to be done. Re-signing Jordan will obviously be the big move, but many teams around the league will be interested in the lengthy forward after a breakout season. Keeping Jordan in LA should not be too difficult with the NBA’s new labor deal in place, but you just never know with the madness of free agency. All it takes is for one team to offer a ludicrous deal.

Neither Craig Smith nor Jamario Moon will be top priorities for the team, although they could elect to stay with the Clippers in a bench role. Los Angeles will be one of the younger teams in the league when games begin in a month and a veteran presence off the bench could be big for the franchise.

For more, head on over to Clips Nation.

Read More: nba lockout, nba lockout news, nba amnesty clause, Orlando Magic

An amnesty clause approved in an NBA lockout deal might not be one that teams have to use immediately, reports ESPN.com’s Marc Stein. Stein reports that San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt — the chair of the league’s labor committee — is pushing to allow teams to hang on to their amnesty clause for at least two years. Steins says that the amnesty clause approved in 2005 had a two-week deadline.

That could be huge in terms of player movement, and would add a massive wrinkle to trade talks. If teams could save their amnesty clause, they may be more willing to acquire hefty contracts to land prized assets. As a direct result, teams like the Orlando Magic with multiple disastrous contracts could be able to rebuild more quickly, using their own amnesty clause on one player (like Hedo Turkoglu) and dealing another (like Gilbert Arenas) with an asset (like Ryan Anderson, Jameer Nelson or [gulp] Dwight Howard).

Of course, the biggest way that the new amnesty clause is different than the Michael Finley rule of 2005 is that cutting a player under the clause won’t just give teams luxury tax savings: it will allow teams to shave salary cap space itself. This is going to have a major impact on the league’s next four or five seasons.

Read More: nba lockout, nba lockout news

When a few top officials from the league and players’ union rekindle NBA lockout talks on Wednesday, it will not happen under the precondition that players accept the owners’ 50-50 revenue split proposal, reports Chris Sheridan.

Talks broke down last Thursday when owners, led by San Antonio Spurs boss Peter Holt, told representatives from the players’ union that no further negotiations on changes to the salary cap system would be held until the players accepted the league’s proposed 50-50 split of revenue. Players balked at the ultimatum, talks broke off and federal mediator George Cohen bolted for the exits.

Accepting a 50-50 split would represent a drawdown in total player salary of about $280 million compared to last season. The NBA has claimed its teams lost $300 million last season. The union has contended that half of those losses stem from depreciation and interest payments on debt — losses that are fine to report to the IRS but that have no place in the discussion when asking for severe employee concessions. 

It’s unclear if the two sides will get anywhere, but having them in the same room is better than not.

Each day, we are going to preview the night’s NBA Playoffs action by looking at the adjustments that can be made by the losing team and showing what they can do to get the win.

Maybe the biggest shock of round one’s first set of games was the San Antonio Spurs losing to the Memphis Grizzlies this past Sunday.  Even without Manu Ginobili, this should have been a game that the Spurs won, and they could have won it if they would have done a few things differently.  They are going to have to make these changes if they want even up the series tonight.

Offense: Kick The Ball To The Corner

The Spurs were able to put together one of the league’s best offenses by taking advantage of their ability to shoot the three-point shot, especially from the corner. One of their favorite ways to set up the corner three is to work the pick-and-roll game, force the defense to sink in, and then kick the ball out to the corner. The Spurs abandoned this strategy in Game 1:

For the game, the Spurs only attempted four threes from the corner, which is much lower than what they have done over the course of the regular season.  So how did this happen?

Here, Tony Parker comes off of the screen and gets into the paint.  Once in the paint, Parker takes a little floater that he misses.  This isn’t a terrible shot, but it isn’t the Spurs’ offense.  Normally, the ball gets kicked to Jefferson in the corner (who is open on this play) and Jefferson knocks down the three-point shot.

Once again, we have the Spurs running another pick-and-roll.  This time, Parker gets the basketball to DeJaun Blair who goes up for the lay-up but misses.  Again, he has a chance to kick it out to the corner for an open three.

Finally, we have Tim Duncan in basically the same position as Blair was in the previous clip.  One thing Duncan has been very good at all season is taking that pass as the roll man and immediately kicking it out to the corner without even looking at the rim.  That quick touch pass is what got most of those corner threes.  Here however, Duncan takes a lay-up that he misses instead of kicking it out to the corner.

When the Spurs stuck to the offensive system, they were able to get good looks against the Grizzlies:

This is the Spurs’ offense.  Run a pick-and-roll, try to get the ball in the middle, and when the defense collapses, kick it to the corner for the open three.  Parker misses the three, but these are the open looks that the Spurs need to get.  They didn’t get enough of them in Game 1, and if it happens again in Game 2, they might get beat again.

Defense: Double The Post

We knew going into the series that the Spurs were going to struggle with the Grizzlies and their post offense.  The Spurs have one good defender in Tim Duncan, but their second post defender (DeJuan Blair/Matt Bonner) was at a mismatch.  The Grizzlies were able to take advantage in the post during Game 1, scoring 30 points on 23 post chances, good for a PPP of 1.28.  However, when the defense committed a second defender, the Grizzlies only scored three points off of it.  The problem with this is that the Spurs only did it five times.  

Here, the Grizzlies eventually get the basketball to Zach Randolph in the post.  Once the pass gets made, Tony Parker leaves the passer, Mike Conley, and doubles down on Randolph.  This forces Randolph to kick the basketball out to Conley who misses the contested three.

The reason why doubling down on the post works is because the Grizzlies are the worst spot-up shooting team in the league, and the double team takes them from doing something they are really good at doing and forces them to something they are not very good at doing.  If the Spurs want to stop Randolph/Gasol, they are going to need to send doubles and live with the Grizzlies taking shots on the outside.