Wolves offseason thread

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Lipoli390
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by Lipoli390 »

CoolBreeze44 wrote:
khans2k5 wrote:
CoolBreeze44 wrote:After all the years of futility I don't blame any fan who wants us to be competitive and winning as many games as possible. That's not my stance, but I don't begrudge anyone for taking it.

However I think we jumped the gun on the Butler trade and it has put a ceiling on our potential. I'd gladly trade him back to Chicago for the same assets. And I am sure there are other deals out there that would benefit us in the long run. But of course this franchise is going to wait too long and we are either going to get $.50 on the dollar at the trade deadline or he is going to walk for nothing at the end of his contract. I guess we could hope for a sign and trade, but that's always sketchy - just ask the Cavs today.

So the next rebuild is inevitable. If you want to push it back for one more year that's your prerogative. But it's going to be harder the longer we wait.


Better to be set back in a year and have money to work with than end the franchise for another decade on a prospect whiff...again. I just don't know how you can say the next rebuild is inevitable and still have any faith that a Towns, Wiggins, Doncic or whoever core could have won a title. That seems like having your cake and eating it too. Towns and Wiggins are part of both of those scenarios that range from title to bum. That math doesn't work.

The time to add a piece like Butler is when you are fully ready to contend, and those opportunities will come once you've established yourself as a contender. Pretty much every current contender has done it that way. Houston acquired CP3, Golden State got Durant and now Cousins, Boston added Heyward and Kyrie, OKC went out and got Melo and George. We just jumped the gun when our core hadn't established themselves as even a playoff team. We blew our assets on a good, not great player who is injury prone and may be looking for an out. I don't care how many times we've had to rebuild in the past, if you want to win a title we need to make the right decisions going forward. And one of those decisions is to maximize the return on Butler. Time is running out.


Cool - You are absolutely right. Butler is who he is. He won't get better and he'll continued to be injury prone. Moreover, he can leave next season and it's clear by now he's unhappy with his teammates.

As for Kahn's math issue, the key numbers in the equation are age and games missed. KAT 22 years old and far from his peak, Butler will be declining, missing lots of games and probably won't even be here by the time KAT starts to peak. That's the math that mattters.
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khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by khans2k5 [enjin:6608728] »

lipoli390 wrote:
CoolBreeze44 wrote:
khans2k5 wrote:
CoolBreeze44 wrote:After all the years of futility I don't blame any fan who wants us to be competitive and winning as many games as possible. That's not my stance, but I don't begrudge anyone for taking it.

However I think we jumped the gun on the Butler trade and it has put a ceiling on our potential. I'd gladly trade him back to Chicago for the same assets. And I am sure there are other deals out there that would benefit us in the long run. But of course this franchise is going to wait too long and we are either going to get $.50 on the dollar at the trade deadline or he is going to walk for nothing at the end of his contract. I guess we could hope for a sign and trade, but that's always sketchy - just ask the Cavs today.

So the next rebuild is inevitable. If you want to push it back for one more year that's your prerogative. But it's going to be harder the longer we wait.


Better to be set back in a year and have money to work with than end the franchise for another decade on a prospect whiff...again. I just don't know how you can say the next rebuild is inevitable and still have any faith that a Towns, Wiggins, Doncic or whoever core could have won a title. That seems like having your cake and eating it too. Towns and Wiggins are part of both of those scenarios that range from title to bum. That math doesn't work.

The time to add a piece like Butler is when you are fully ready to contend, and those opportunities will come once you've established yourself as a contender. Pretty much every current contender has done it that way. Houston acquired CP3, Golden State got Durant and now Cousins, Boston added Heyward and Kyrie, OKC went out and got Melo and George. We just jumped the gun when our core hadn't established themselves as even a playoff team. We blew our assets on a good, not great player who is injury prone and may be looking for an out. I don't care how many times we've had to rebuild in the past, if you want to win a title we need to make the right decisions going forward. And one of those decisions is to maximize the return on Butler. Time is running out.


Cool - You are absolutely right. Butler is who he is. He won't get better and he'll continued to be injury prone. Moreover, he can leave next season and it's clear by now he's unhappy with his teammates.

As for Kahn's math issue, the key numbers in the equation are age and games missed. KAT 22 years old and far from his peak, Butler will be declining, missing lots of games and probably won't even be here by the time KAT starts to peak. That's the math that mattters.


The math that matters that you and Cool don't seem to understand is that we are not talking about Butler and Towns as the core of our contender. Our contending starts after Jimmy is gone because it's his age group that is running the league in Steph, KD, Harden, etc. and it's his age group that needs to age out to even begin talk about contending. Our window is not Jimmy + KAT. It's KAT + Wiggins + future star like a Devin Booker or Giannis. It's just a matter of you guys are trying to find that guy now when he is almost a complete unknown and has a high chance of failure when I am good winning for the next few years with a solid team and sign or trade for that guy when we are actually ready to contend.
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Coolbreeze44
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by Coolbreeze44 »

The point I can't seem to articulate well enough is that Butler is currently at his zenith in terms of value. I believe his true value to us is as a trade asset, not a player. I don't consider him a great player. He's damn good but he DOES miss a large chunk of every season. As I've often said the best ability is availability.

But the bottom line is Thibs is not going to trade Jimmy, so much of this discussion is mute. We're just going to have to see how this plays out during the season. My prediction is we will look back unfavorably on the decision to keep Jimmy at the end of the year.
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thedoper
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by thedoper »

CoolBreeze44 wrote:The point I can't seem to articulate well enough is that Butler is currently at his zenith in terms of value. I believe his true value to us is as a trade asset, not a player. I don't consider him a great player. He's damn good but he DOES miss a large chunk of every season. As I've often said the best ability is availability.

But the bottom line is Thibs is not going to trade Jimmy, so much of this discussion is mute. We're just going to have to see how this plays out during the season. My prediction is we will look back unfavorably on the decision to keep Jimmy at the end of the year.


If Butler is only Damn good then we don't have great players on the team below him. He was our best player last year. The core of Wiggins and Towns just won't get us there if you think Butler is only good. And if your evaluation is accurate, then we aren't getting anything for him anyway. We have lots of years to rebuild ahead of us. Better to pass these years with KAT and Wiggins in meaningful games rather than building more assets in the lottery and watching them want to leave in a few years.
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khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by khans2k5 [enjin:6608728] »

CoolBreeze44 wrote:The point I can't seem to articulate well enough is that Butler is currently at his zenith in terms of value. I believe his true value to us is as a trade asset, not a player. I don't consider him a great player. He's damn good but he DOES miss a large chunk of every season. As I've often said the best ability is availability.

But the bottom line is Thibs is not going to trade Jimmy, so much of this discussion is mute. We're just going to have to see how this plays out during the season. My prediction is we will look back unfavorably on the decision to keep Jimmy at the end of the year.


His value is helping the young guys win games. It's to build a culture here that doesn't accept losing and being losers. When you trade him away you lose that and we go back to being losers which is a toxicity that has held this franchise down for over a decade. We won't win games without Jimmy on this team right now. We will be back in the lottery and the toxicity will eat away at this franchise again until it all needs to be blown up again. You are sacrificing culture for future potential and the fact is there is no future without the right culture.
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Coolbreeze44
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by Coolbreeze44 »

khans2k5 wrote:
CoolBreeze44 wrote:The point I can't seem to articulate well enough is that Butler is currently at his zenith in terms of value. I believe his true value to us is as a trade asset, not a player. I don't consider him a great player. He's damn good but he DOES miss a large chunk of every season. As I've often said the best ability is availability.

But the bottom line is Thibs is not going to trade Jimmy, so much of this discussion is mute. We're just going to have to see how this plays out during the season. My prediction is we will look back unfavorably on the decision to keep Jimmy at the end of the year.


His value is helping the young guys win games. It's to build a culture here that doesn't accept losing and being losers. When you trade him away you lose that and we go back to being losers which is a toxicity that has held this franchise down for over a decade. We won't win games without Jimmy on this team right now. We will be back in the lottery and the toxicity will eat away at this franchise again until it all needs to be blown up again. You are sacrificing culture for future potential and the fact is there is no future without the right culture.

So even if he leaves for nothing after this year, you're still okay with it because he helped build the culture for two years?

We are going to have a tough time making the playoffs with or without Butler. The West is that good. Especially when you can't expect Jimmy to play more than 65 games in a season, he played 59 last year.

Again this discussion really doesn't matter, he's not going to get traded. Let's just see if it ends up being a good move or a bad move. It should be easy to tell one year from now.
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Monster
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by Monster »

The main reason to undo the Butler trade probably is Markanan and some of that is because Patton got hurt and wasn't super impressive coming back in the G-league. Dunn looked improved but got hurt a few times and there are negative reports about him and even some about Lavine. Zach struggled and only played 24 games. For most people Lavine was the reason they didn't want to do that deal or whatever myself included. Lavine being a stud is more in question to me that it was a year ago which is unfortunate because I really like that guy.

The thing that Wolves fans basically assume is that this franchise won't do what the good franchises do and that's build through non-lottery draft picks etc. it doesn't matter Jimmy or no Jimmy if this franchise can't find worthwhile players with those types of picks and moves we would have just been a playoff team or whatever. This franchise has to keep building and that's what makes Patton's injury tough because you hoped at some point he could at least be a rotation guy. Now that and his talent is in question although some still believe. :)
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Q12543 [enjin:6621299]
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by Q12543 [enjin:6621299] »

CoolBreeze44 wrote:
khans2k5 wrote:
CoolBreeze44 wrote:The point I can't seem to articulate well enough is that Butler is currently at his zenith in terms of value. I believe his true value to us is as a trade asset, not a player. I don't consider him a great player. He's damn good but he DOES miss a large chunk of every season. As I've often said the best ability is availability.

But the bottom line is Thibs is not going to trade Jimmy, so much of this discussion is mute. We're just going to have to see how this plays out during the season. My prediction is we will look back unfavorably on the decision to keep Jimmy at the end of the year.


His value is helping the young guys win games. It's to build a culture here that doesn't accept losing and being losers. When you trade him away you lose that and we go back to being losers which is a toxicity that has held this franchise down for over a decade. We won't win games without Jimmy on this team right now. We will be back in the lottery and the toxicity will eat away at this franchise again until it all needs to be blown up again. You are sacrificing culture for future potential and the fact is there is no future without the right culture.

So even if he leaves for nothing after this year, you're still okay with it because he helped build the culture for two years?

We are going to have a tough time making the playoffs with or without Butler. The West is that good. Especially when you can't expect Jimmy to play more than 65 games in a season, he played 59 last year.

Again this discussion really doesn't matter, he's not going to get traded. Let's just see if it ends up being a good move or a bad move. It should be easy to tell one year from now.


This may be unknowable. For one thing, what could we reasonably get for Butler right now given the salary squeeze most teams are under and the fact he can become an unrestricted free agent after this season? We'd have to somehow take matching salaries on, no? What does that look like

If he just ups and leaves after this season, that's $20M off the books. That has value. Taj's $14M also comes off the books. And so does potentially Teague's $19M. Our ability to re-tool if Butler leaves does not absolutely require we get rid of him now.
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thedoper
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by thedoper »

monsterpile wrote:The main reason to undo the Butler trade probably is Markanan and some of that is because Patton got hurt and wasn't super impressive coming back in the G-league. Dunn looked improved but got hurt a few times and there are negative reports about him and even some about Lavine. Zach struggled and only played 24 games. For most people Lavine was the reason they didn't want to do that deal or whatever myself included. Lavine being a stud is more in question to me that it was a year ago which is unfortunate because I really like that guy.

The thing that Wolves fans basically assume is that this franchise won't do what the good franchises do and that's build through non-lottery draft picks etc. it doesn't matter Jimmy or no Jimmy if this franchise can't find worthwhile players with those types of picks and moves we would have just been a playoff team or whatever. This franchise has to keep building and that's what makes Patton's injury tough because you hoped at some point he could at least be a rotation guy. Now that and his talent is in question although some still believe. :)


If we didn't do the trade our team would be facing a Lavine extension with huge question marks, we'd have Markenen and probably whatever the 11th or 12th pick in the draft was, and growing angst in KAT and Wiggins for another year not making the playoffs. I can't really conceive how that is a better situation for us.
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Monster
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Re: Wolves offseason thread

Post by Monster »

thedoper wrote:
monsterpile wrote:The main reason to undo the Butler trade probably is Markanan and some of that is because Patton got hurt and wasn't super impressive coming back in the G-league. Dunn looked improved but got hurt a few times and there are negative reports about him and even some about Lavine. Zach struggled and only played 24 games. For most people Lavine was the reason they didn't want to do that deal or whatever myself included. Lavine being a stud is more in question to me that it was a year ago which is unfortunate because I really like that guy.

The thing that Wolves fans basically assume is that this franchise won't do what the good franchises do and that's build through non-lottery draft picks etc. it doesn't matter Jimmy or no Jimmy if this franchise can't find worthwhile players with those types of picks and moves we would have just been a playoff team or whatever. This franchise has to keep building and that's what makes Patton's injury tough because you hoped at some point he could at least be a rotation guy. Now that and his talent is in question although some still believe. :)


If we didn't do the trade our team would be facing a Lavine extension with huge question marks, we'd have Markenen and probably whatever the 11th or 12th pick in the draft was, and growing angst in KAT and Wiggins for another year not making the playoffs. I can't really conceive how that is a better situation for us.


That scenario would bring plenty of questions there is no doubt about that. It's fair to say a few different moves may have been made without the Jimmy trade which would change where we would be at right now which could be both good and or bad.

One thing that's weird to me is that some people that want to make this type of deal for assets don't seem to want to give Thibs and Layden for cashing in on Rubio and getting a valueable 1st round pick for him.
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