Minnesota Sports Forum

WolvesFan21 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

WolvesFan21 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:A friend of mine said that his cousin who went to high school with a girl that hooked up with Giannis Antetokounmpo ...

My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

---

But let's say the KAT rumors are true. Why would anybody be surprised?

- Worst NBA franchise. Ever.
- Cold city. Very low on the list of preferred NBA cities among players.
- No ties to city.
- Losing team. Long rebuild.
- A lot of national criticism.
- New generation of player and brand marketer.
- An organization that took Jimmy Butler's side during the saga where Butler sabotaged an entire season... effectively throwing Towns under the bus.

I think most (all?) of us love loyalty. I know I lament the lack of it in the current NBA. But of all players... in all cities... why would Towns choose to stay in Minnesota if he didn't have to?

It's actually more unlikely that he'd want to stay at this point and that there wasn't juice behind this rumor.

I agree. Until there is real teeth in the CBA to incentivizing players to stay in small markets our expectation should be that these players want to leave and that players wanting to stay on our team is the exception to the rule.

The greatest problem with the NBA is the Max salaries. Why is LeBron James in the Finals pretty much every year? Because he is UNDERPAID severely. He should be making double of what he is currently if not more. Then LA cannot sign/trade for AD. Or LeBron leaves 100's of millions on the table to chase rings. That's a hard thing to give up.

We will continue to see top players join forces and win because the system is broken and does not allow free market competition. Salary cap is fine, but limits is not. You get superteam after superteam and I am sick of it!!!

The NBA was literally built on the backs of super teams. It will forever and always be a super team league. Those Celtics sure lacked talent around Bill Russell. Those Lakers sure lacked talent around Magic. How about the Celtics around Bird? Jordan/Pippen, Kobe/Shaq, The Spurs big 3, the Heatles and on and on. People want to see the best players play at the end of the day, not Lebron dragging corpses to the Finals against Giannis dragging corpses to the finals with those 2 being the only stars in the series. Why do you want to watch a bunch of role players around 1 star 30 times over?

Parody. Any team has a chance to win. Not just the big market super teams. You still get to see stars, but likely not 3 on the same team, unless they somehow drafted really well. Is this going to sell well to the casual fan? Nope, but diehards of fair competition and any team having a chance would. Things like drafting, management and coaching would even matter more.

Sure bigger markets would still have an advantage but it would be less. I'm sure ESPN doesn't want an Atlanta vs Memphis finals so they rigged it for super teams. I don't consider this NBA era legitimate.

khans2k5 wrote:

WolvesFan21 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

WolvesFan21 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:A friend of mine said that his cousin who went to high school with a girl that hooked up with Giannis Antetokounmpo ...

My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

---

But let's say the KAT rumors are true. Why would anybody be surprised?

- Worst NBA franchise. Ever.
- Cold city. Very low on the list of preferred NBA cities among players.
- No ties to city.
- Losing team. Long rebuild.
- A lot of national criticism.
- New generation of player and brand marketer.
- An organization that took Jimmy Butler's side during the saga where Butler sabotaged an entire season... effectively throwing Towns under the bus.

I think most (all?) of us love loyalty. I know I lament the lack of it in the current NBA. But of all players... in all cities... why would Towns choose to stay in Minnesota if he didn't have to?

It's actually more unlikely that he'd want to stay at this point and that there wasn't juice behind this rumor.

I agree. Until there is real teeth in the CBA to incentivizing players to stay in small markets our expectation should be that these players want to leave and that players wanting to stay on our team is the exception to the rule.

The greatest problem with the NBA is the Max salaries. Why is LeBron James in the Finals pretty much every year? Because he is UNDERPAID severely. He should be making double of what he is currently if not more. Then LA cannot sign/trade for AD. Or LeBron leaves 100's of millions on the table to chase rings. That's a hard thing to give up.

We will continue to see top players join forces and win because the system is broken and does not allow free market competition. Salary cap is fine, but limits is not. You get superteam after superteam and I am sick of it!!!

The NBA was literally built on the backs of super teams. It will forever and always be a super team league. Those Celtics sure lacked talent around Bill Russell. Those Lakers sure lacked talent around Magic. How about the Celtics around Bird? Jordan/Pippen, Kobe/Shaq, The Spurs big 3, the Heatles and on and on. People want to see the best players play at the end of the day, not Lebron dragging corpses to the Finals against Giannis dragging corpses to the finals with those 2 being the only stars in the series. Why do you want to watch a bunch of role players around 1 star 30 times over?

Parody. Any team has a chance to win. Not just the big market super teams. You still get to see stars, but likely not 3 on the same team, unless they somehow drafted really well. Is this going to sell well to the casual fan? Nope, but diehards of fair competition and any team having a chance would. Things like drafting, management and coaching would even matter more.

Sure bigger markets would still have an advantage but it would be less. I'm sure ESPN doesn't want an Atlanta vs Memphis finals so they rigged it for super teams. I don't consider this NBA era legitimate.

Parody doesn't attract interest in the league. Hardcore fans are not what lead to billion dollar tv deals. You just have to get over the idea that parody and small markets winning is good for the league. It's just not. It's good for the minority hardcore fan that roots for small markets like the Wolves and that's it. The league as a whole is better when there are a few teams at the top that the rest of the league is trying to take down. That's what drives interest, growth, money and on and on. Parody is a pipe dream when only a handful of players consistently decide the fate of the league every year.

WolvesFan21 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

WolvesFan21 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

WolvesFan21 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:A friend of mine said that his cousin who went to high school with a girl that hooked up with Giannis Antetokounmpo ...

My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

---

But let's say the KAT rumors are true. Why would anybody be surprised?

- Worst NBA franchise. Ever.
- Cold city. Very low on the list of preferred NBA cities among players.
- No ties to city.
- Losing team. Long rebuild.
- A lot of national criticism.
- New generation of player and brand marketer.
- An organization that took Jimmy Butler's side during the saga where Butler sabotaged an entire season... effectively throwing Towns under the bus.

I think most (all?) of us love loyalty. I know I lament the lack of it in the current NBA. But of all players... in all cities... why would Towns choose to stay in Minnesota if he didn't have to?

It's actually more unlikely that he'd want to stay at this point and that there wasn't juice behind this rumor.

I agree. Until there is real teeth in the CBA to incentivizing players to stay in small markets our expectation should be that these players want to leave and that players wanting to stay on our team is the exception to the rule.

The greatest problem with the NBA is the Max salaries. Why is LeBron James in the Finals pretty much every year? Because he is UNDERPAID severely. He should be making double of what he is currently if not more. Then LA cannot sign/trade for AD. Or LeBron leaves 100's of millions on the table to chase rings. That's a hard thing to give up.

We will continue to see top players join forces and win because the system is broken and does not allow free market competition. Salary cap is fine, but limits is not. You get superteam after superteam and I am sick of it!!!

The NBA was literally built on the backs of super teams. It will forever and always be a super team league. Those Celtics sure lacked talent around Bill Russell. Those Lakers sure lacked talent around Magic. How about the Celtics around Bird? Jordan/Pippen, Kobe/Shaq, The Spurs big 3, the Heatles and on and on. People want to see the best players play at the end of the day, not Lebron dragging corpses to the Finals against Giannis dragging corpses to the finals with those 2 being the only stars in the series. Why do you want to watch a bunch of role players around 1 star 30 times over?

Parody. Any team has a chance to win. Not just the big market super teams. You still get to see stars, but likely not 3 on the same team, unless they somehow drafted really well. Is this going to sell well to the casual fan? Nope, but diehards of fair competition and any team having a chance would. Things like drafting, management and coaching would even matter more.

Sure bigger markets would still have an advantage but it would be less. I'm sure ESPN doesn't want an Atlanta vs Memphis finals so they rigged it for super teams. I don't consider this NBA era legitimate.

Parody doesn't attract interest in the league. Hardcore fans are not what lead to billion dollar tv deals. You just have to get over the idea that parody and small markets winning is good for the league. It's just not. It's good for the minority hardcore fan that roots for small markets like the Wolves and that's it. The league as a whole is better when there are a few teams at the top that the rest of the league is trying to take down. That's what drives interest, growth, money and on and on. Parody is a pipe dream when only a handful of players consistently decide the fate of the league every year.

I agree that super teams drive the bigger money. Making sure LeBron is in the Finals is good for business.

But at the same time the NFL is doing just fine with parody. No limit on the salaries in the NFL. Literally any team can come from no where in a year or two after making some smart moves.

The NBA small markets suffer greatly because they have little to no shot to win. So it is a worthy discussion. Maybe those fanbases get energized if they do actually have a chance to win?

BizarroJerry wrote:Parity boys. Not parody.

Camden wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:I'm not saying Karl-Anthony Towns won't leave or be traded, or that Minnesota is a destination that players should want to play at, but I am saying that the rumor from Darren Wolfson is silly and shouldn't have even surfaced on SKOR North. That kind of barber talk, locker room chat about hypotheticals in the far future means nothing in the present. It's the same kind of thing we do here for fun and most, if not all, of us have no real sources behind it. Maybe Wolfson wanted some clicks or just wanted to throw a discussion topic out there, but it means little to nothing to me.

Also, the optics of Towns leaving this franchise and one of his best friends behind would be pretty horrendous for his reputation -- and it's not all that great to begin with after the Jimmy Butler situation and Joel Embiid beef.

1. Maybe Towns and Russell have an understanding. After all... Russell is the same cat who left Towns hanging in a helicopter to sign with GSW. If their bond and desire to win was so strong... why did he leave his boy hanging and not just sign with MN when they didn't have to give up so many assets (and potential future success) to get him?

2. The NBA business is as much about off-the-court stuff as on-the-court stuff in 2020. It's a likely rumor... and Wolfson is likely to get his name in print by national media outlets. It's good for the Wolfson brand. Good for clicks. Good for the NBA if we're being honest.

1. Abe, no disrespect intended here, but I think you're misremembering the circumstances a year ago. D'Angelo Russell was a targeted player from the Gersson Rosas-led front office, but they had zero cap space to sign him outright. Rosas would have had to make a trade or two to sign him anyways. It just ended up happening at the trade deadline instead of before the season.

And for Russell it was about securing the bag. He jumped at the first max contract that was offered to him, which was necessary for Golden State to match salaries in the sign-and-trade involving Kevin Durant to Brooklyn.

If Minnesota would have had a max slot and could have signed him straight up, then I think we would have seen that happen. That just wasn't the situation a year ago. Golden State would have never been part of his timeline. I doubt Russell would have committed five years of his prime to play behind Steph Curry and Klay Thompson unless the financials dictated that move.

And lastly, as I've argued before, the trade that brought Russell to Minnesota was an absolute steal in that they replaced a grossly overpaid and underperforming salary cap anchor in Andrew Wiggins with a dynamic lead guard -- in a guard-oriented league right now -- with the price being one first-round pick. Most thought it would take two first-round picks just to dump Wiggins' contract without taking back anything of actual value. The Wolves ended up getting back a 24-year old former All-Star. That's highway robbery.

2. You hit that on the head and I agree with you completely. I just don't think Darren Wolfson's radio vomit should lead to any over-analyzing.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:I'm not saying Karl-Anthony Towns won't leave or be traded, or that Minnesota is a destination that players should want to play at, but I am saying that the rumor from Darren Wolfson is silly and shouldn't have even surfaced on SKOR North. That kind of barber talk, locker room chat about hypotheticals in the far future means nothing in the present. It's the same kind of thing we do here for fun and most, if not all, of us have no real sources behind it. Maybe Wolfson wanted some clicks or just wanted to throw a discussion topic out there, but it means little to nothing to me.

Also, the optics of Towns leaving this franchise and one of his best friends behind would be pretty horrendous for his reputation -- and it's not all that great to begin with after the Jimmy Butler situation and Joel Embiid beef.

1. Maybe Towns and Russell have an understanding. After all... Russell is the same cat who left Towns hanging in a helicopter to sign with GSW. If their bond and desire to win was so strong... why did he leave his boy hanging and not just sign with MN when they didn't have to give up so many assets (and potential future success) to get him?

2. The NBA business is as much about off-the-court stuff as on-the-court stuff in 2020. It's a likely rumor... and Wolfson is likely to get his name in print by national media outlets. It's good for the Wolfson brand. Good for clicks. Good for the NBA if we're being honest.

1. Abe, no disrespect intended here, but I think you're misremembering the circumstances a year ago. D'Angelo Russell was a targeted player from the Gersson Rosas-led front office, but they had zero cap space to sign him outright. Rosas would have had to make a trade or two to sign him anyways. It just ended up happening at the trade deadline instead of before the season.

And for Russell it was about securing the bag. He jumped at the first max contract that was offered to him, which was necessary for Golden State to match salaries in the sign-and-trade involving Kevin Durant to Brooklyn.

If Minnesota would have had a max slot and could have signed him straight up, then I think we would have seen that happen. That just wasn't the situation a year ago. Golden State would have never been part of his timeline. I doubt Russell would have committed five years of his prime to play behind Steph Curry and Klay Thompson unless the financials dictated that move.

And lastly, as I've argued before, the trade that brought Russell to Minnesota was an absolute steal in that they replaced a grossly overpaid and underperforming salary cap anchor in Andrew Wiggins with a dynamic lead guard -- in a guard-oriented league right now -- with the price being one first-round pick. Most thought it would take two first-round picks just to dump Wiggins' contract without taking back anything of actual value. The Wolves ended up getting back a 24-year old former All-Star. That's highway robbery.

2. You hit that on the head and I agree with you completely. I just don't think Darren Wolfson's radio vomit should lead to any over-analyzing.

Yes. I know that the Wolves still had to move pieces. But it would have been players... not high draft picks.

And all of the pieces were entirely expendable, sans Towns. Is the Wiggins deal a hidden gem of a trade? Maybe. Maybe not. We'll find out.

Camden wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:I'm not saying Karl-Anthony Towns won't leave or be traded, or that Minnesota is a destination that players should want to play at, but I am saying that the rumor from Darren Wolfson is silly and shouldn't have even surfaced on SKOR North. That kind of barber talk, locker room chat about hypotheticals in the far future means nothing in the present. It's the same kind of thing we do here for fun and most, if not all, of us have no real sources behind it. Maybe Wolfson wanted some clicks or just wanted to throw a discussion topic out there, but it means little to nothing to me.

Also, the optics of Towns leaving this franchise and one of his best friends behind would be pretty horrendous for his reputation -- and it's not all that great to begin with after the Jimmy Butler situation and Joel Embiid beef.

1. Maybe Towns and Russell have an understanding. After all... Russell is the same cat who left Towns hanging in a helicopter to sign with GSW. If their bond and desire to win was so strong... why did he leave his boy hanging and not just sign with MN when they didn't have to give up so many assets (and potential future success) to get him?

2. The NBA business is as much about off-the-court stuff as on-the-court stuff in 2020. It's a likely rumor... and Wolfson is likely to get his name in print by national media outlets. It's good for the Wolfson brand. Good for clicks. Good for the NBA if we're being honest.

1. Abe, no disrespect intended here, but I think you're misremembering the circumstances a year ago. D'Angelo Russell was a targeted player from the Gersson Rosas-led front office, but they had zero cap space to sign him outright. Rosas would have had to make a trade or two to sign him anyways. It just ended up happening at the trade deadline instead of before the season.

And for Russell it was about securing the bag. He jumped at the first max contract that was offered to him, which was necessary for Golden State to match salaries in the sign-and-trade involving Kevin Durant to Brooklyn.

If Minnesota would have had a max slot and could have signed him straight up, then I think we would have seen that happen. That just wasn't the situation a year ago. Golden State would have never been part of his timeline. I doubt Russell would have committed five years of his prime to play behind Steph Curry and Klay Thompson unless the financials dictated that move.

And lastly, as I've argued before, the trade that brought Russell to Minnesota was an absolute steal in that they replaced a grossly overpaid and underperforming salary cap anchor in Andrew Wiggins with a dynamic lead guard -- in a guard-oriented league right now -- with the price being one first-round pick. Most thought it would take two first-round picks just to dump Wiggins' contract without taking back anything of actual value. The Wolves ended up getting back a 24-year old former All-Star. That's highway robbery.

2. You hit that on the head and I agree with you completely. I just don't think Darren Wolfson's radio vomit should lead to any over-analyzing.

Yes. I know that the Wolves still had to move pieces. But it would have been players... not high draft picks.

And all of the pieces were entirely expendable, sans Towns. Is the Wiggins deal a hidden gem of a trade? Maybe. Maybe not. We'll find out.

I'm not sure I follow. How else did you think the Wolves were going to move players for cap space? Draft capital was always going to be used to dump Andrew Wiggins and his contract. It was just a matter of how much. It turned out to be less than expected while getting back a lot more than expected. That should be seen as a huge win.