Camden wrote:Throwing out another off-season plan that I hope to be realistic, though somewhat video game-esque. It'll be a tight squeeze monetarily, but depending on how the salaries are worked out, I do think it's all doable.
- 2016-17 salary cap is set to be at $92M. Minnesota is looking at $63.6M in contracts on the roster before any moves have been made.
- Assuming Brandon Ingram, Ben Simmons, and Jamal Murray are off the board by the time the Wolves pick at No. 5 overall, trade back to a PG-needy team, such as Sacramento (No. 8 overall) or Milwaukee (No. 10 overall) with the goal in mind of landing PF Domontas Sabonis and a future first-round pick (2018 from SAC; 2017 or 2018 from MIL).
- Allow PF Kevin Garnett, SF Tayshaun Prince and C Greg Smith to leave via retirement or free agency, respectively. Hopefully none of these players will be back next season.
- Decline SF/PF Damjan Rudez team option for $1.2M.
- Sign former All-Star Luol Deng (age 31) to a three-year, $39M deal to start at PF next to C Karl-Anthony Towns while also logging significant minutes at SF next to Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, and Shabazz Muhammad. Back in December of 2015, Deng said, "I think I'm best at the 4." In today's NBA, and where he's at in his career, I totally agree with him. Not to mention he played 73% of his minutes at PF in 2015-16. He also posted 15.2 PPG, 8.1 RPG with a .561 TS% post-All Star break and a +/- of +7.1, and then had a fantastic post-season run. There's still juice left in the tank.
- Sign Matthew Dellavedova (age 25) to a three-year, $18M deal to be the primary backup PG behind Ricky Rubio. He's also capable of playing off-ball with Rubio at times. Back-to-back seasons shooting 40% or better from 3P-range. Solid AST/TO ratio over the last two years. Very pesky defender. Some stats would illustrate that the Cavs were actually better with Delly on the court rather than Irving. I wouldn't go that far from a basketball sense, but he knows his role and plays it as well as it can be played. Ironically, this would be Tom Thibodeau's new Kirk Hinrich chess piece, if you will.
- Sign veteran SF/PF James Johnson (age 29) to a two-year, $6M deal. Underutilized in his last two stints (Memphis; Toronto). His teams were better with him on the court, though his playing time was scant. Adds energy, toughness, solid defense, and the potential to score in bunches occasionally to a bench unit that sorely needs all of that.
PG: R. Rubio / M. Dellavedova / T. Jones
SG: Z. LaVine / (combination of players)
SF: A. Wiggins / S. Muhammad
PF: L. Deng / J. Johnson / D. Sabonis / N. Bjelica / A. Payne
C: K. Towns / G. Dieng / N. Pekovic
I like most of this plan. I would do just couple of changes. I would rather sign some cheap big instead of James Johnson. My reasoning is that I still believe that Bjelica can be good player for Wolves and Johnson would not be needed if Bjelica plays better. But if Pekovic is once again injured, we need third center.
I would also use Deng as starting small forward even tough I would play in the end of games when many teams use smaller lineups exactly same lineup than your starting lineup is. My reasons for using bigger starting lineup and bringing Lavine from bench is that I would like to have Deng guarding opponents best wing so that Wiggins could save his energy to offensive end. If Deng would start as power forward, he could not guard best wing player in Wolves team since he should guard opponents power forward since neither Wiggins or Lavine has enough size for that. In Miami team, Deng could start as power forward and still guard often opponents best wing since he was starting next to JJ who is 6'8 and weights 240lbs.
