Minnesota Sports Forum

WildWolf2813 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

TheSP wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:I'd use the opportunity to try to get a Steph like extension. Below market value because of an injury that ends up being a great deal if he stays healthy. Zach might be enough of a team player to do it to. I have no problem giving him 15-18 per year over 4 years. A short term deal makes no sense because he's not gonna play well during that deal until his contract year because it takes about an extra season before guys get close to their old selves and then you have to pay him sooner than if you gave him a 4 year deal. The extension year 1 is a wash. That leaves 3 years to get back to this level. I also think the break might help him bulk up which he still needs to do to reach his potential. Put on some upper body strength so you don't need as much quickness to be effective. He's a good shooter so I don't think a knee injury literally cripples his career like a D Rose. I think he'll come back from it and be solid in 2019/20.

The Wolves don't have 2-3 years to gamble on Lavine's recovery even at a "relative" bargain rate of $15-18M IMO. If they're going to dish out that kind of money and years it has to be on a known/proven commodity.

We have 100 million to spend. We can afford to pay 15% for a high risk/high reward move. If you don't think they should then they should just cut Zach right now because what's the point. He's gonna get at least that in free agency from someone willing to take that risk that needs a homerun move. We really can't afford to let him become a star for someone else because we won't pay him Pek's money + his current salary to take a chance on him. Zach's 21. His career isn't over because of this and you probably have to deal with 1 down year to get him back to where he is. The player he would be those next 3 years is worth the 15 million.

It's not that his career is over, but look at it rationally:

If you think Wiggins is best suited at SG, LaVine can't be here. He's not gonna be a 6th man behind Wiggins simply because the minutes won't be there unless they play together, and if they play together, the only way to do that is if Wiggins plays SF, but if you're gonna do that, you might as well abandon the idea of Wiggins at SG since LaVine at PG failed (which is one of the reasons why I hated the LaVine selection in the first place). Why pay someone so much money to have a limited role? Where is the home run gonna come from? At this rate if neither guy can avoid replicating the other, one has to go, as painful as that may be, and now that's compromised with LaVine's injury. If you prefer to keep Zach, Wiggins has to go since he doesn't put in the work to be a great SF.

I don't believe Wiggins is going to be a better option at the 2 than the 3. His shooting and handle are not that of a typical NBA 2 and I really don't want Wiggins post ups to be our offense which is the only advantage he gets at the 2. Otherwise 2's are generally quicker making his ability to get to the rim harder given his lack of handle. You're trading some of Wiggins' opportunity to get to the bucket for a better post up look. He also doesn't get to avoid matchups like Leonard or whoever anyway because ditching Lavine and keeping Wiggins makes him the number 1 option on the wing anyway which will draw the top defender regardless. That's a net negative in my opinion. Zach can thrive next to that attention to Wiggins which we saw early in the year when all 3 were averaging 20/game before Zach got the hip injury. Wiggins and Zach work perfectly fine offensively next to each other and they are both works in progress defensively. I simply don't see it as one or the other has to go. Get a real 3&D SF off the bench and you can run Lavine/Wiggins/whoever for the wing rotation (maybe even Lance gets/keeps his shit together and we already have that guy). I just happen to believe the result of their play at 21 really shouldn't already have us declaring they don't work together. If you believe in both guys as I do you make it work. You don't back out just to make one of their lives easier because you have such a high likelihood of making the team worse in the long run.

Whatever they do contract wise is one thing...

But the injury takes a trade out of the equation... and that's a pretty big deal.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Whatever they do contract wise is one thing...

But the injury takes a trade out of the equation... and that's a pretty big deal.

On their Latest podcast Souhan and Jon K. Took a Twitter question that asked if the Lavine injury could be a blessing in disguise. Jon K said it complicates thing more no matter what angle you look at it. i thought he broke it down pretty well. What he said that if you were thinking about trading Wiggins or Lavine now you can't really evaluate that and like you said Abe it's tough to trade Lavine now. If you were looking to pay all 3 now you can't evaluate fully Lavine before you have to do so and he probably won't be back to being completely healthy and in a grove to maybe the 2018-2019 season. If you are still evaluating...well that's interrupted also.

The bottom line is that Lavine's injury is a bad thing for the Wolves going forward for a lot of reasons. I think the biggest silver lining will be if someone steps up like Lance that wouldnt have gotten the opportunity otherwise.

As for what they should do with Lavine Wiggins...I still say Wiggins can play SF and both guys can play good enough defense. They have both done it with their teams for stretches of parts of games. They were part of a team that was on the rise in that regard before it went off the rails for a short stretch part of which that terrible defender Lavine was out.

Looking towards the future so think the best thing to do is lock up good/promising players like Zach for long term sooner rather than later. I tend to think the cap is gonna just keep going up and up and up. Jersey ads are flowing in and that's going to raise the cap. It's more and more of a global game all the time and the D-league moving towards being a legit. Inor league system is likely going to drive it even higher in popularity. Lock guys in now they will probably be value deals down the road if you do decide you need to make a move. It would be cool if Both Lavine and Wiggins took less than the max that they could get. I'm not going to get my hopes up but...with those 2 guys I wouldn't be completely shocked if they did either. Based on the market the last 10+ years they both deserve it even with Lavine's injury. Those 2nd contracts are hardly ever based on the players current production it's banking on potential. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Remember when Wall got all that money and people were raising their eyebrows? Not anymore.