Next Moves for the Wolves

[kekgeek]

2021 is being heralded as the best free agent class of all time by some and I want to be players and we will shed Gorgui's and Teague's contracts by then and so should be primed as long as we don't take on much salary. There are the big marquee names and there is the next tier where we have a chance to be players (Oladipo, Josh Richardson, Jrue Holiday, Beal, McCollum, Gobert, Oubre, Hayward, Steven Adams), also of interest (Monte Moore, Otto Porter, LMA, Richuan Holmes, Will Barton, Danny Green, Norman Powell, Redick, Dinwiddie, D. Schroder, Mills, Lyles, Korkmaz, Cody Zeller, Jabari Parker).

Signing DLO would not only cost us in terms of assets, but also the chance to be players in 2021. Hopefully, Gersson has a long term plan in place.

You're severely overrating the cap space, if any, that this franchise will have in 2021. Kek has tried to help you understand that multiple times but you've continued to ignore it.

Even if Rosas did make the moves necessary to have ample cap space to sign a difference-maker in free agency, what makes you think that the players would want to come to Minnesota? Traditionally-speaking, that's never been the case.

Their best bet is to rely heavily on the draft and trades. I'm not ruling out free agency, but it's more likely that the Wolves can fill certain holes with role players in free agency instead of finding actual core players -- which is what is still needed.

Once again as long as Wiggins and Kat are on the roster the wolves will not have cap space to sign good free agents. In that year assuming the cap stays around the same 109 million the wolves will have about 15 million to spend on 7 players. That is not including our 1st round draft pick this year what will come in at about 6 to 7 million assuming we stay where we are in the draft. Wolves will not be add any player in that list you mentioned and that is not even including that the player wants to come here. Also Wolves usually have to overpay to get players to come here and the wolves won't have that kind of money.

Wolves in theory can create 14 more million in cap space declining the team option of Okogie and Culver and cutting the non-guaranteed contracts of Ried and Nowell.

So yes if we cut every single player that is eligible to be cut, add no player via FA this next offseason that has more than one year, Trade our draft picks this upcoming year for nothing. Yes the Wolves can create damn near close to max cap space with only Wiggins, Kat, Layman and Cov remaining on the roster.

Once again, Im completely fine with you not wanting DLO because you don't like him as a player, Dlo obviously has his flaws but it is not like if we add DLO we won't have cap space and if we don't get Dlo we have significant cap space. That is not true, as long as Wiggins and Kat are on this team the wolves will not have cap space to even make an offer to a guy that makes a difference.

To add guys who can make a legit big difference in this teams future it will need to come with trades and via the draft. And I will continue to say in 2 years the Wolves will not have the contracts of Teague (1 year for him) and Gorgui to match salaries of a higher paid player.

[KG4Ever]

Some of you DLO apologists have poor math skills or cherry pick your scenarios. I can't reason with idiots. The Wolves free agent opportunities and flexibility would be exponentially greater without DLO than with him.

[kekgeek]

Some of you DLO apologists have poor math skills and cherry pick your scenarios. I can't reason with idiots.

Hahaha, are you a real person, Im not even defending trading for Dlo, I am telling you we don't have significant cap space in that offseason you mentioned. So can you explain how I am using poor math skills when I am using basketball reference at they have the Wolves at 93,883,961 (approx 94 million) in salary with 8 players under contact in Kat, Wiggins, Cov, Okogie, Culver, Layman, Nowell, Naz. Okogie and Culver have team options and Nowell and Naz have non guaranteed contracts. We will also be adding another lottory rookie so over 6 million in salary and more than likely a 2nd round pick so just under 2 million.

So can you please explain to me how I am cherry picking scenarios and I am an idiot. Legit curious. Just because I laid it out that the Wolves will not be in the position to add significant talent because we don't have cap space like you think we will does not make me an idiot.

[KG4Ever]

Kek, I get that adding a max player in 2021 won't be easy (but at least there is a viable path if we could attract the kind of superstar worth shedding contracts for) and it might not be that bad if the cap figure is much higher than you project.

if we go the max route, we'd have to clear up some space to get there, but we'd have plenty of moveable contracts if it made sense to move them. KAT and Wiggs together are about 63M, if you add DLO to the mix it would be $93M. I didn't say it was easy, but the paths are much easier without DLO's contract. Now if you think DLO's contract would be movable (I am very skeptical about that) in a S&T, then God Bless you! But, going the max route is just one option. We would have more $ to go after guys in the $8 to $15 million range (maybe Josh Richardson). We might even be able to benefit as facilitators. You are right in that most of my distaste for DLO is my assessment that I think he's a poor fit here, I don't think he improves the club and I think Cov and Culver (long term) are better pieces to have, my concern that he would be a negative influence on KAT and the team, and his ball dominance may stunt the development of Culver and other young guards we may want to develop.

By then we'll see if Wiggs/Culver or our 2020 draft pick can be the answer at PG and if not, we can make a run at a cheaper option like Monte Morris who doesn't need to be a big time scorer but can protect the ball, shoots well and plays steady defense.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Who are you getting for Towns that's gonna end up better than him? Teams just don't trade young all-stars and trading him for unknown draft picks might as well seal the fate of this team going to Seattle. Tatum, Luka, Zion, Ja, Mitchell. None of those guys are on the block. We're just better off hoping he matures as this contract goes on and becomes that guy than rebuilding yet again.

Agreed. The only avenue that you could even hope for is to make it a trade after the draft lottery where the team acquiring Towns has the number one overall pick and it happens to be a strong draft class at the top. Unfortunately, those are rare circumstances.

You probably don't get a player better than KAT straight up in a trade. But here are all the things we need in order to build around him:

1. A defensive big that exhibits toughness and switchabillity and is good enough offensively to play more than just a token amount of minutes.
2. A play making ball handler that can run PnR and get guys open shots, including KAT.
3. Wings that can defend and shoot.

In other words, we pretty much need the exact three same things if we were starting from scratch! Therein lies the problem with building around an offensive-oriented big man that struggles on defense.

[KG4Ever]

Bring back KG to mentor KAT on defense. KAT put more effort on D when KG was here.

[Wolvesfan21]

Who are you getting for Towns that's gonna end up better than him? Teams just don't trade young all-stars and trading him for unknown draft picks might as well seal the fate of this team going to Seattle. Tatum, Luka, Zion, Ja, Mitchell. None of those guys are on the block. We're just better off hoping he matures as this contract goes on and becomes that guy than rebuilding yet again.

Agreed. The only avenue that you could even hope for is to make it a trade after the draft lottery where the team acquiring Towns has the number one overall pick and it happens to be a strong draft class at the top. Unfortunately, those are rare circumstances.

You probably don't get a player better than KAT straight up in a trade. But here are all the things we need in order to build around him:

1. A defensive big that exhibits toughness and switchabillity and is good enough offensively to play more than just a token amount of minutes.
2. A play making ball handler that can run PnR and get guys open shots, including KAT.
3. Wings that can defend and shoot.

In other words, we pretty much need the exact three same things if we were starting from scratch! Therein lies the problem with building around an offensive-oriented big man that struggles on defense.

You could be one of the other 20-25 teams where they don't have a decent floor spacing big man though. How you can have an offense ever below 10th when you have the best floor spacing big in the game is preposterous. KAT's not the problem. Just like KG wasn't the problem. It's the other guys who are terrible that are the problem. You should be able to place any remotely adequate wing or guard and tear up the offense as KAT takes the big out of the paint. No one has it as easy as the Wolves do on offense, because of KAT, nobody. Teams have zero interior defense to stop drives, yet we have Wiggins who is the only player who can remotely drive and finish at all. The rest are junk. Teague drives into the paint 4-5 times a game, stops then dribbles back out. The guy isn't a scorer, not a good one. Culver should be having a field day, so should Okogie, etc. They just are not good "yet".

I'm not ready to write off KAT as an avg to above avg defender yet. Just a week and a half ago his drtg was 102. Then they went on the worst skid of any team in the league. Went from 12th in defense to what they are now, not sure what it is.

[Lipoli390]

A lot of the elite teams in the League this season don't have starting centers who are particularly good defensively. The Clippers' Zubac is big, but not particularly good defensively unless your dumb enough (like Wolves players last night) to dribble right at him and then stop in front of him to launch an awkward jump shot rather than dribbling past him or taking a step-back jumper. The Bucks' Brook Lopez isn't much of a defender. Neither Bam nor Leonard is a particularly good interior defender for the Heat. The Celtics Kanter isn't known for his defense. I wouldn't call Jokic a particularly good defender. What all those teams have are very good defenders at the wing and/or PG positions. And they play well defensively as a team. KAT isn't the problem. He's part of the solution. Trading KAT would be in line with the boneheaded tradition of the Wolves history of front office follies. It's the job of the Wolves front office to find and keep the level of talent and the right mix of players to put around KAT. Right now, he needs three things:

1. He needs an all-star caliber wing or PG who can hand the ball like it's on a string and create shots for himself and others. Wiggins isn't that guy. While he's improved his handle this season, it's still shaky and far short of what we need. And he isn't particularly good at creating for others.

2. KAT also needs a really good 3-point shooter or two around him. Right now, there's no one.

3. Finally, KAT needs an interior big who can defend and block shots to help out the team's interior defense and mitigate KAT's defensive weakness.

The key and hard part will be #1. But the the front office needs to find that player either on the roster via development or externally through the draft, trade or free-agency. McHale and Flip blew their chance of building a sustainable contender around KG when they lost patience with Chauncey Billups and let him go in favor of the aging, injury-prone alternative. And they blew it other times by failing to draft the right player, one of which might have been Josh Howard instead of Ebi. Trading KAT would be dumb and an act of failure. It's time that we had a smart front office making savvy decisions. Whether we have that in Rosas an his minions remains to be seen.

[Coolbreeze44]

A lot of the elite teams in the League this season don't have starting centers who are particularly good defensively. The Clippers' Zubac is big, but not particularly good defensively unless your dumb enough (like Wolves players last night) to dribble right at him and then stop in front of him to launch an awkward jump shot rather than dribbling past him or taking a step-back jumper. The Bucks' Brook Lopez isn't much of a defender. Neither Bam nor Leonard is a particularly good interior defender for the Heat. The Celtics Kanter isn't known for his defense. I wouldn't call Jokic a particularly good defender. What all those teams have are very good defenders at the wing and/or PG positions. And they play well defensively as a team. KAT isn't the problem. He's part of the solution. Trading KAT would be in line with the boneheaded tradition of the Wolves history of front office follies. It's the job of the Wolves front office to find and keep the level of talent and the right mix of players to put around KAT. Right now, he needs three things:

1. He needs an all-star caliber wing or PG who can hand the ball like it's on a string and create shots for himself and others. Wiggins isn't that guy. While he's improved his handle this season, it's still shaky and far short of what we need. And he isn't particularly good at creating for others.

2. KAT also needs a really good 3-point shooter or two around him. Right now, there's no one.

3. Finally, KAT needs an interior big who can defend and block shots to help out the team's interior defense and mitigate KAT's defensive weakness.

The key and hard part will be #1. But the the front office needs to find that player either on the roster via development or externally through the draft, trade or free-agency. McHale and Flip blew their chance of building a sustainable contender around KG when they lost patience with Chauncey Billups and let him go in favor of the aging, injury-prone alternative. And they blew it other times by failing to draft the right player, one of which might have been Josh Howard instead of Ebi. Trading KAT would be dumb and an act of failure. It's time that we had a smart front office making savvy decisions. Whether we have that in Rosas an his minions remains to be seen.

Lip, I have to disagree with some of this. Defense is played from the inside out. KAT is absolutely a big reason we are so poor defensively. In my opinion his defense keeps him from being a special player even though he is ridiculous on offense. If KAT was really that great, he would be able to take what we have and get this team into the playoffs. But he's not at that level. And you're wrong about Brook Lopez. He cleans up most of what penetrates the Bucks perimeter defense. He's a big reason the Bucks are so good defensively.

[kekgeek]

A lot of the elite teams in the League this season don't have starting centers who are particularly good defensively. The Clippers' Zubac is big, but not particularly good defensively unless your dumb enough (like Wolves players last night) to dribble right at him and then stop in front of him to launch an awkward jump shot rather than dribbling past him or taking a step-back jumper. The Bucks' Brook Lopez isn't much of a defender. Neither Bam nor Leonard is a particularly good interior defender for the Heat. The Celtics Kanter isn't known for his defense. I wouldn't call Jokic a particularly good defender. What all those teams have are very good defenders at the wing and/or PG positions. And they play well defensively as a team. KAT isn't the problem. He's part of the solution. Trading KAT would be in line with the boneheaded tradition of the Wolves history of front office follies. It's the job of the Wolves front office to find and keep the level of talent and the right mix of players to put around KAT. Right now, he needs three things:

1. He needs an all-star caliber wing or PG who can hand the ball like it's on a string and create shots for himself and others. Wiggins isn't that guy. While he's improved his handle this season, it's still shaky and far short of what we need. And he isn't particularly good at creating for others.

2. KAT also needs a really good 3-point shooter or two around him. Right now, there's no one.

3. Finally, KAT needs an interior big who can defend and block shots to help out the team's interior defense and mitigate KAT's defensive weakness.

The key and hard part will be #1. But the the front office needs to find that player either on the roster via development or externally through the draft, trade or free-agency. McHale and Flip blew their chance of building a sustainable contender around KG when they lost patience with Chauncey Billups and let him go in favor of the aging, injury-prone alternative. And they blew it other times by failing to draft the right player, one of which might have been Josh Howard instead of Ebi. Trading KAT would be dumb and an act of failure. It's time that we had a smart front office making savvy decisions. Whether we have that in Rosas an his minions remains to be seen.

Lip, I have to disagree with some of this. Defense is played from the inside out. KAT is absolutely a big reason we are so poor defensively. In my opinion his defense keeps him from being a special player even though he is ridiculous on offense. If KAT was really that great, he would be able to take what we have and get this team into the playoffs. But he's not at that level. And you're wrong about Brook Lopez. He cleans up most of what penetrates the Bucks perimeter defense. He's a big reason the Bucks are so good defensively.

I was just going to say this. I'm not saying I disagree with your bullet points but on the individual defenders. Brook Lopez was 5th in NBA at being a rim protector and #2 as a starter and Bam is getting buzz as defensive player of the year and is set up to make all defensive team.

Big difference also with guys you mentioned outside of Jokic is the wolves are built around Kat unlike those other guys