Minnesota Sports Forum

bleedspeed wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 4:50 pm

BeenLurkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 4:46 pm

bleedspeed wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 4:43 pm

The question we should be asking is could have we won a championship with Jalen Brunson over Ant.

When did we have Brunson on the team?

You will get it. I hope. Waiting for it.....

You wanna trade Ant?

Only other option is you are lamenting that we traded Kat when we should have traded Ant for Brunson and had Kat and Brunson be our core?

You’re the one who asked the question. And as stated the question is really useless. If you feel like expounding on it further?

bleedspeed wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 4:47 pm

TheGrey08 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 4:42 pm 100% right, hence why some of us are waiting to see what moves they make to fill out the roster. I see the trade as an incomplete transaction until we see more. If they fail to bring in 2-3 good fitting pieces, I'll be with you in criticizing their decisions.

My concern is we trade KAT for flexibility and basically after 2 years it has not panned out. At best I think this works out as we take on somone else's salary dump.

Yeah I get it. Right now we're looking at an empty 33m slot that used to be 2/3rds of KAT's salary.

There are plenty of opportunities that will come up between now, July and the trade deadline (even if we don't hear about all of them). There's Jaylen Brown trade steam and I'm sure we will see more trades between now and July. All it takes is one team who really needs to send out a 20-30m salary to get their bigger fish and now the Wolves are a team who could just absorb the right fitting player into the TPE.

Just trying to point out that there are as many opportunities now as there were before the trade.

bleedspeed wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 4:43 pm

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 3:44 pm

BeenLurkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 3:27 pm

We added flexibility. You don’t seem to understand the new reality of the CBA and how it affects roster building.

What I don't understand is folks thinking that because KAT won a title with the Knicks that somehow he and Ant would have won a title together if we had just kept him. I'll let someone smarter than me like Kekgeek explain all the reasons why keeping KAT was problematic for the Wolves, but it's not like he turned into a different player with the Knicks. He had a lot of the same issues as with the Wolves and ultimately became their 3rd option as they got deeper into the playoffs.

The question we should be asking is could have we won a championship with Jalen Brunson over Ant.

It's an odd statement and I'm not sure what you're getting at. That we'll be forced to trade Ant to the Knicks to be reunited with KAT because he hates it here or something? And didn't you or a friend/family member have a serious issue with his sleazy Dad??

Good to hear from you by the way!

bleedspeed wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 1:47 pm This move goes down as another case study in franchise General Management 101 that the team that receives the best player in a player for player trade wins.

I do think if we didn't make the WCF last year TC would have been fired for the KAT trade.

My concern now is we don't stop the bleeding at do another bad trade trying to recover.

We were extremely lucky to make the WCF last year, playing an overrated lakers team and an old and injured warriors. When we got smoked by OKC, TC should have been fired immediately after. Dude is a joke.

D-Loser25 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 5:27 pm

bleedspeed wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 1:47 pm This move goes down as another case study in franchise General Management 101 that the team that receives the best player in a player for player trade wins.

I do think if we didn't make the WCF last year TC would have been fired for the KAT trade.

My concern now is we don't stop the bleeding at do another bad trade trying to recover.

We were extremely lucky to make the WCF last year, playing an overrated lakers team and an old and injured warriors. When we got smoked by OKC, TC should have been fired immediately after. Dude is a joke.

You’re right about the circumstances that contributed to the Wolves making the WCFs in 2025. However, I disagree that getting smoked by OKC should have triggered TC’s immediate dismissal. I do think it should have triggered moving Randle and possibly Gobert last summer. I recall posting last summer that it was time for a reset around our younger guys - maybe even taking a step back to take two steps forward.

I also think trading KAT for Randle was a mistake, but understandable at the time for financial reasons. Randle was never going to be a good fit here and I think it was a mistake to try - the old square peg in the round hole. And of course I thought the overpay for the 30-year old Rudy to pair with the teenage or near teenage trio of Ant, Jaden and Naz after the team had just won 46 games was a big mistake. That initial mistake, barely two months after TC was hired, created the financial pinch that forced the KAT trade, caused the loss of NAW, prevented us from getting the player we wanted at 31 last year and other things. The trade cost us a highly coveted young big in Walker Kessler and the chance to draft Keyonte George who averaged 23.6 b points, and 5.3 assists last season at age 22. How different things would be right how if we had Keyonte and Edwards paired in the backcourt with Jaden, Naz and Kessler up front. Further, without the Rudy trade, we would have had the financial flexibility to sign Hartenstein. And of course, the lack of all those draft assets we gave up put us out of contention for Giannis this year. If that isn’t enough, I’ll note that Utah traded Beasley and Vando to the Lakers for a 1st round pick that was only top 4 protected - yet another example of the profound opportunity costs of that Rudy deal.

So yes, I have lots of issues with what TC has done here so far. But I don’t think it’s fair to say he’s been a total flop or should be fired. He’s made some good moves like the deal for Conley and NAW, as well as drafting Beringer, Rocco and TSJ. And I have to acknowledge that even the decisions he’s made that I strongly disagree with were thoughtful decisions and not the sort of “seat of the pants” crap we used to see from David Kahn and Kevin McHale. Right now, I continue to believe TC is one of the better PBOs in the League but clearly not at the level of Sam Presti or Gregg Popovich and his cohorts in the Spurs front office. I can’t put him on par with Leon Rose or Rosas either. I’d give TC a B- so far. My opinion of him will rise or fall depending on what happens over the next rather years because that’s the window he has on Ant’s contract in my view.

I still think this ship is salvageable, but TC will have to up his game and get just about everything right going forward.

By the way, I’ll note that TC has only one more year on his contract, which has not been extended. I’m not sure what’s up there. I would think that ownership wants to keep him. If so, then it would appear that TC might not want to stay here. If he decides to leave after this season and we are nothing more than a 1st or 2nd round playoff team with no promising new young talent, then I’ll take TC’s grade down to a D or maybe an F as the guy who inherited the riches bequeathed by Rosas, squandered them and then abandoned us.

I am 100% convinced Gobert is staying and they are mostly running it back. Except for no Dubious. Add possible MLE and Bi-Annual players.

Mnwild1128 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 6:47 pm I am 100% convinced Gobert is staying and they are mostly running it back. Except for no Dubious. Add possible MLE and Bi-Annual players.

It's also worth noting that the MLE and BLE can be used as a trade exception as well.

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 5:05 pm
It's an odd statement and I'm not sure what you're getting at. That we'll be forced to trade Ant to the Knicks to be reunited with KAT because he hates it here or something? And didn't you or a friend/family member have a serious issue with his sleazy Dad??

Good to hear from you by the way!

It is more or less is Ant good enough to be the best player on a championship team. If he is not we need to get our alpha player and KAT was our best shot at that outside of Ant.

I look at the Knicks roster and don't think it is as good as ours. That might be a bit of homer view. Maybe it is coaching, Maybe it is players. IDK.

bleedspeed wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 7:08 pm

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2026 5:05 pm
It's an odd statement and I'm not sure what you're getting at. That we'll be forced to trade Ant to the Knicks to be reunited with KAT because he hates it here or something? And didn't you or a friend/family member have a serious issue with his sleazy Dad??

Good to hear from you by the way!

It is more or less is Ant good enough to be the best player on a championship team. If he is not we need to get our alpha player and KAT was our best shot at that outside of Ant.

I look at the Knicks roster and don't think it is as good as ours. That might be a bit of homer view. Maybe it is coaching, Maybe it is players. IDK.

Maybe it’s 4 more attempts during his prime that Brunson has had? Hes 29.

Brunson at Ants age was still a Mavrick. How many titles did he have at that point?