Minnesota Sports Forum

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Here's an interesting tidbit. In my lunch with Flip, I mentioned Vonleh as a possible pick because I really liked him in that draft. Flip said he wouldn't consider him. I asked why and he said there are some issues but wouldn't elaborate. So we can all guess. But the fact that he's bounced around and couldn't even stick with the Knicks sort of confirms the presence of some red flags of come kind.

Nevertheless, signing Vonleh and Bell are precisely the types of moves this organization needs to make. It's what I've wanted for years -- signing young players with high upside who for one reason or another haven't developed but who are still young enough to have promise. Signing multiple players who fit that profile is the way to go for a mid-market capped-out team like the Wolves in my opinion. You only have to hit on one of them. And of course, there will be one or more red flags associated with any such player. That's why they're available and cheap.

All I can see is - keep going Gersson!

Good info Lip. It's certainly something to keep in the back of our minds. It was 5 years ago so who knows. The Knicks let him go but...and Portland let him go last year but remember they had like 34 bigs so it would make sense they would let him go. Also just looked it up I think they moved him to get under the Lux tax. Still good info but worth having some context. It's also a positive IMO he played for a good team and organization in Portland for about 2.5 seasons.

So with that info you shared in the back of my mind...remember after the Saric trade I said there was likely an opportunity to bring in a guy that may actually have value not that dissimilar to Saric a year from now? We just got Vonleh and we also have Jordon bell. Opportunity partly because Saric is gone helped us get these guys. Maybe neither guy ends up being all that great but I think the chances one guy becomes a legit rotation player for us beyond this year is at least 30%. That's not bad odds. What was the chance Saric was just the next Illyasova? 30%. Keep in mind I like Saric AND Illyasova. :)

lipoli390 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Here's an interesting tidbit. In my lunch with Flip, I mentioned Vonleh as a possible pick because I really liked him in that draft. Flip said he wouldn't consider him. I asked why and he said there are some issues but wouldn't elaborate. So we can all guess. But the fact that he's bounced around and couldn't even stick with the Knicks sort of confirms the presence of some red flags of come kind.

Nevertheless, signing Vonleh and Bell are precisely the types of moves this organization needs to make. It's what I've wanted for years -- signing young players with high upside who for one reason or another haven't developed but who are still young enough to have promise. Signing multiple players who fit that profile is the way to go for a mid-market capped-out team like the Wolves in my opinion. You only have to hit on one of them. And of course, there will be one or more red flags associated with any such player. That's why they're available and cheap.

All I can see is - keep going Gersson!

Good info Lip. It's certainly something to keep in the back of our minds. It was 5 years ago so who knows. The Knicks let him go but...and Portland let him go last year but remember they had like 34 bigs so it would make sense they would let him go. Also just looked it up I think they moved him to get under the Lux tax. Still good info but worth having some context. It's also a positive IMO he played for a good team and organization in Portland for about 2.5 seasons.

So with that info you shared in the back of my mind...remember after the Saric trade I said there was likely an opportunity to bring in a guy that may actually have value not that dissimilar to Saric a year from now? We just got Vonleh and we also have Jordon bell. Opportunity partly because Saric is gone helped us get these guys. Maybe neither guy ends up being all that great but I think the chances one guy becomes a legit rotation player for us beyond this year is at least 30%. That's not bad odds. What was the chance Saric was just the next Illyasova? 30%. Keep in mind I like Saric AND Illyasova. :)

Actually, Vonleh has played for 4 different teams - Charlotte, Portland, Chicago and New York. That's 4 teams in 5 seasons. He definitely has some issues -- probably character issues. But this last season with the Knicks was his best. It included nearly 8 rebounds per game in around 25 minutes. So we'll see.

Reading Wild's post, I think I agree I'd rather sign Hollis-Jefferson. But who knows how much that would cost.

I wonder where the $2 million will come from. It's above the vet minimum. Will it be part of our MLE?

monsterpile wrote:It may be worth noting that David Vanterpool would have coached vonleh for 2.5 years. It might be good to have some familiarity and the Wolves probably know a bit what they are getting there.

Q12543 wrote:Another somewhat speculative signing by Rosas on the cheap. I guess we just hope one or both of these two bigs (Bell and Vonleh) eventually become high-level role players. But yeah, this is the market inefficiency I have been talking about. LOTS of cheap bigs out there. We could benefit more than most if one of these guys can defend and help KAT on the interior.