Naz or Randle. Can't have both.

[kekgeek]

Think the Bulls would take Julius and Minott for Vuc and Patrick Williams? Could Vuc be a facsimile of KAT and Williams be a facsimile of Slo Mo (on defense)? Their contracts would seem to fit the timeline.

Rudy/Vuc
Vuc/Naz
Jaden/Williams
Ant/DDV
Mike/Dilly

I know many will say Vuc can't play the 4 but the same was said about KAT. Vuc is a versatile scorer, can hit the 3 ball and also fill in at C when Rudy sits. I kinda like this and it seems the Bulls would be open to it.

Wolves can’t do that trade. As a second apron team we can’t combine salaries in a trade

[Wolvesfan21]

Think the Bulls would take Julius and Minott for Vuc and Patrick Williams? Could Vuc be a facsimile of KAT and Williams be a facsimile of Slo Mo (on defense)? Their contracts would seem to fit the timeline.

Rudy/Vuc
Vuc/Naz
Jaden/Williams
Ant/DDV
Mike/Dilly

I know many will say Vuc can't play the 4 but the same was said about KAT. Vuc is a versatile scorer, can hit the 3 ball and also fill in at C when Rudy sits. I kinda like this and it seems the Bulls would be open to it.

Wolves can’t do that trade. As a second apron team we can’t combine salaries in a trade

I was thinking Randle and our Detroit pick for someone which I think is OK under the rules. I haven't thought about a player, maybe a guy like Vuc. I always thought he was poor as a defender though. But he'd be better then Naz for sure and not hurt the offense too much.

[Phenom]

Think the Bulls would take Julius and Minott for Vuc and Patrick Williams? Could Vuc be a facsimile of KAT and Williams be a facsimile of Slo Mo (on defense)? Their contracts would seem to fit the timeline.

Rudy/Vuc
Vuc/Naz
Jaden/Williams
Ant/DDV
Mike/Dilly

I know many will say Vuc can't play the 4 but the same was said about KAT. Vuc is a versatile scorer, can hit the 3 ball and also fill in at C when Rudy sits. I kinda like this and it seems the Bulls would be open to it.

Wolves can’t do that trade. As a second apron team we can’t combine salaries in a trade

The rule as I understand it is the team can't combine 2 salaries to equal one salary coming back. The idea is to prevent adding higher salaries. This trade should be legal.

[Phenom]

Now that I look at it, Minott makes too little. The Wolves can't take 1 dollar more back in trade.

[Lipoli390]

How about Randle, our 2025 Utah 2nd round pick and the Detroit pick we acquired in exchange for Myles Turner and Obi Toppin.

Why might Indian do this deal? Myles has a hard time staying on the court, which might make Indiana receptive to the deal as they continue to struggle. Randle would give them an inside scoring presence and a sure 20+ points per game. They don’t have the salary cap problem we have so they might be OK taking Randle with his opt in. the Utah pick will probably be a top 5 2nd rounder and it’s looking like Pistons will probably convey a 1st rounder in 2026 or 2027.

Why should the Wolves consider this? If Myles can stay on the court, he can help us this season by improving our defense without compromising our offense. Regardless of what he does for us this season, his contract is expiring, which means swapping Randle for him would free up $30 million in payroll. That would get us under the 2nd apron and give us a good shot at re-signing Naz, NAW or even both.

[60WinTim]

I know this is a minority perspective (at least at this time), but I foresee a scenario where the Wolves keep both Naz and Randle. It's a small sample size, but if you give the team a 20 game grace period to figure things out, their recent play would suggest Randle and NAZ can flourish on this team. We'll see if they can keep things going.

Randle is on a declining contract that pays 33 mil this year and a player option for 31 mil next year. Can TC pull off a Rudy-like extension where Randle forgoes the player option and signs an increasing contract starting in the 25 mil range? That would open the door for re-signing NAZ in the low 20s, signing Clark to a minimum contract, and adding one more FA to round out the roster to 14. Those salaries would still be in the luxury tax, but would drop the team under both the 1st and 2nd apron.

It wouldn't really be ANT 2.0 since we are only sans KAT. More like an ANT 1.5...

[Phenom]

I know this is a minority perspective (at least at this time), but I foresee a scenario where the Wolves keep both Naz and Randle. It's a small sample size, but if you give the team a 20 game grace period to figure things out, their recent play would suggest Randle and NAZ can flourish on this team. We'll see if they can keep things going.

Randle is on a declining contract that pays 33 mil this year and a player option for 31 mil next year. Can TC pull off a Rudy-like extension where Randle forgoes the player option and signs an increasing contract starting in the 25 mil range? That would open the door for re-signing NAZ in the low 20s, signing Clark to a minimum contract, and adding one more FA to round out the roster to 14. Those salaries would still be in the luxury tax, but would drop the team under both the 1st and 2nd apron.

It wouldn't really be ANT 2.0 since we are only sans KAT. More like an ANT 1.5...

I would guess Julius is not getting traded. Wolves need him as a bucket getter and will not likely get one back for him.

[KiwiMatt]

Think the Bulls would take Julius and Minott for Vuc and Patrick Williams? Could Vuc be a facsimile of KAT and Williams be a facsimile of Slo Mo (on defense)? Their contracts would seem to fit the timeline.

Rudy/Vuc
Vuc/Naz
Jaden/Williams
Ant/DDV
Mike/Dilly

I know many will say Vuc can't play the 4 but the same was said about KAT. Vuc is a versatile scorer, can hit the 3 ball and also fill in at C when Rudy sits. I kinda like this and it seems the Bulls would be open to it.

Bulls would be a potential destination. But that trade wouldn't work as we can't take back more salary than we're sending out due to being in the 2nd apron. Plus Patrick Williams has a terrible contract, owed 18 million annually over the next 5 years.

The principle of trading Julius Randle from the Wolves point of view would be purely to shed salary, in hopes of being able to resign both NAZ and NAW this off season.

Julius Randle and PJ Dozier to Chicago for Lonzo Ball, Jalen Smith and 2nd RP.

Yes it seems like a terrible return, but this is the type of trade we will have to make.

[Lipoli390]

Think the Bulls would take Julius and Minott for Vuc and Patrick Williams? Could Vuc be a facsimile of KAT and Williams be a facsimile of Slo Mo (on defense)? Their contracts would seem to fit the timeline.

Rudy/Vuc
Vuc/Naz
Jaden/Williams
Ant/DDV
Mike/Dilly

I know many will say Vuc can't play the 4 but the same was said about KAT. Vuc is a versatile scorer, can hit the 3 ball and also fill in at C when Rudy sits. I kinda like this and it seems the Bulls would be open to it.

Bulls would be a potential destination. But that trade wouldn't work as we can't take back more salary than we're sending out due to being in the 2nd apron. Plus Patrick Williams has a terrible contract, owed 18 million annually over the next 5 years.

The principle of trading Julius Randle from the Wolves point of view would be purely to shed salary, in hopes of being able to resign both NAZ and NAW this off season.

Julius Randle and PJ Dozier to Chicago for Lonzo Ball, Jalen Smith and 2nd RP.

Yes it seems like a terrible return, but this is the type of trade we will have to make.

Phenom - I agree with your take that trading Randle would be for salary purposes to open the door to the possibility of re-signing both Naz and Naw. I’ll just note that the 2nd apron restriction on aggregating outgoing players applies regardless of how many players come back. That means the Wolves would not be able to add any outgoing players as part of trading Randle. They could add future draft picks, but of course we don’t have many of those. It’s worth noting that 2nd apron teams are also barred from signing and trading their players. As a practical matter, that means trading Randle before next season will have to happen by this season’s February trade deadline. By that time we should know whether this team is a legitimate title contender. If we’re still hovering around .500 by that time, I think it would make sense to pull the trigger on the best salary-saving Randle deal we can get. Unfortunately, we’d probably have to include the Detroit pick we acquired for KAT.

The KAT deal is going to end up being one of the worst in Wolves history and that’s saying something. When the dust settles, it’s likely that we’ll end up giving away both Randle and the Detroit pick to get below the 2nd apron and still retain either Naz or NAW. That means we will have traded a perennial all-star in his prime (KAT) for a good bench player (DDV) and enough salary savings to get below the 2nd apron but not enough to get cap space to sign consequential free agents. The KAT deal was, of course, a consequence of the Rudy deal. All of that for one season playing and losing in the Western Conference Finals and two seasons barely making the playoffs and getting bounced in the first round (assuming we even make the playoffs this season).

I was starting to get a bit more optimistic before last night’s game. But even during our 4-game winning streak I was concerned that our offense remained subpar. Last night our defense faltered and we were unable to outscore an opponent that isn’t a particularly great defensive team. The two guys we got for KAT were terrible, Rudy wasn’t good, Jaden reverted to the regressive path he’s been on most of this season, and we remained too dependent on the 37 year old Mike Conley. Our nice winning streak put us back in the picture as a playoff team rather than a lottery team. But we’re not over the hump and the same flaws persist that suggest we’re never getting over that hump and become the championship contender we were last season.

[60WinTim]

Ugh! No Wolves games all week, so I have had far too much time on my hands to play with the trade machine on spotrac...

For the Wolves, moving on from Randle is one avenue they could pursue. But who could they obtain to fill the void?!? I've looked at most teams to see what kind of possibilities exist. It can't be just "how will they fit on the Wolves", but "why would the other team move that player", and "what would they need in return". After mashing all sorts of data and analysis, I have landed on two players we could bring in where the circumstances have created potential window to a deal: 1) Kyle Anderson -- let's add back some of that leadership, chemistry, defense and playmaking he provided; and 2) John Collins -- just for Lip, plus he does add some scoring punch, including from the 3-point line (assuming it's not a mirage).

One of the rumors flying around is Miami's willingness to field offers for Jimmy Butler. Golden State has been mentioned as a possible destination, with interest from all sides. A four team trade could make everyone's dreams come true! There are numerous ways to make the trade(s) meet all the trade restrictions, so I am only going to list the major components. There are two separate trade transactions needed to make this work, primarily because the Wolves cannot aggregate salaries.

Trade #1 involves the Wolves, Warriors and Jazz:
- Wolves send out DDV; receive SloMo.
- Warriors send out SloMo and a filler; receive DDV.
- Jazz receive the filler; send out a protected 2nd rounder or whatever is needed to complete the deal.

Trade #2 involves the Wolves Warriors, Jazz and Heat
- Wolves send out Randle; receive Collins and filler (maybe Alec Burks?)
- Warriors send out Wiggins, Melton and a couple fillers; receive Butler
- Jazz send out Collins and filler; receive Robinson and filler (and draft capital)
- Heat send out Butler, Robinson and filler; receive Wiggins, Randle and filler

From the Wolves perspective: They bring back a proven commodity in SloMo to replace the Randle experiment. They lose DDV out of their deep pool of guards, but add back a scoring big that might help fill the void left by KAT. They will lose that Detroit pick in order to get the Jazz to play ball.

From the Warriors perspective: They get their 2nd star to go alongside Curry for his swan song. Jimmy displaces SloMo in the rotation, but they add a former Warrior in DDV who played very well for them. Wiggins and Melton were always going to be the bulk of salary needed for Jimmy, but they'll need to throw in some filler to complete the salary matching. They should be able to hang on to Kuminga.

From the Jazz perspective: They lose Collins who had a player option next year, and they get back Robinson who also has a player option next year. They key for them is getting some young players with potential as fillers, plus some draft capital, include the Detroit pick from the Wolves.

From the Heat perspective: Both Butler and Robinson have player options next year. They get back Randle and Wiggins. Randle has a player option next year, but Wiggins is signed for a few more years. Both those guys could be a good fit with Miami, assuming they buy into Heat culture.

Anyway, let me know when this trade goes down...