Minnesota Sports Forum

KG4Ever wrote:KAT and Jaylen Nowell to Phoenix for Ayton, Payne, Cam Johnson and Jalen Smith and 3 picks. Phoenix would have a lineup of KAT, Bridges, Crowder, Booker and CP3. Wolves could build around Ayton and Ant. I think Payne is underrated and Johnson and Smith are young with some upside.

Note: Phoenix traded away its 2022 pick, so the picks would be 2024, 2026 and 2028.

Here's why this deal sucks:

Ayton isn't as good as KAT, yet this team is expected to pay Ayton max money, exactly the same as KAT, to offer us less impact, especially when he's only motivated to get said max contract. At best he's the third guy on a really good team and I damn sure don't want Ayton to get in the way of this team being able to draft a Holmgren or a Wembanyama. Cam is decent filler for this team, but nothing more than that (by the way, Cam Johnson is older than everyone in your offer except Payne). Cam Payne is the kind of player that this team should be trying to find on their own, not pay $6 mil a year for what someone else was able to unearth for basically nothing-- and everyone outside of Ayton would be backups here when this team is filled with them already.)

Smith is a UFA at the end of the year, so even if you like Smith, that's a guy you should a) be able to sign and b) not have to trade KAT to get him.


I understand this team needs bigs in the worst way, but the next 2 drafts are rich with young bigs. This team in a return for KAT needs to land a young wing or PG with immense upside who can be what you expect Ayton to be without having to commit max money for him already. I just don't see a good team being built off Anthony Edwards and the expendables of the Phoenix Suns. If that's the best package they can get, so be it, but I'd be rerouting Ayton immediately for something else.


and for the record, I don't even think Phoenix agrees to adding 3 picks to this if the Suns are so gun shy about paying the luxury tax. Towns is basically gonna command what Vucevic got: 2 firsts, a big expiring and a young big Orlando believed in. This team is probably gonna wind up doing the same shit. They'll ask for future picks, an expiring to guarantee they won't be near the luxury tax and someone on their rookie deal who they pray can be a core foundational piece (and may have to settle for one of those things not being part of the return)

At this point the ideal KAT return would be like

Towns and Prince to Toronto for Barnes/Anunoby/Dragic, Dragic then gets bought out

Now at least you have your wings and a PF set

Then that opens it up to do other things like trade Okogie to the Knicks for Knox and 3 2nd's (Knox gets bought out)

C Vanderbilt til you draft someone in 2022 /Reid /Knight
PF Barnes /McDaniels /Layman
SF Anunoby /Bolmaro /sign another Iowa Wolf to play out the string
SG Edwards /Beasley /Nowell
PG Beverley (and if he asks for a buyout, just start Nowell or McLaughlin, either way, D'Lo loses his starting job upon any KAT trade since realistically, you're not getting anything worth a damn for him.)

then it's time to tank for Holmgren, Banchero, TyTy Washington or Jean Montero

WolvesFan21 wrote:

WildWolf2813 wrote:Sure, but the return for Towns will never satisfy you because he doesn't have the kind of value we think he has. The only player with a worse reputation than Towns is Ben Simmons and leave it to this team to wanna pair em together.

The problem is the idea of "trade KAT, build around Ant." 1. Ant might not be good enough for that, but that's a separate argument. The bigger issue is that it can't just be Ant. You have to build with 2-3 guys in mind. Ant AND at least one other person, and on this franchise, two other people. It can't be the McDaniels' of the world. Yeah KAT is a loser but so is this organization and I'm convinced they could ruin ANYONE, even if you're one of the 75 greatest of all time. If this team just expects Ant to do it alone, in 2 years we'll be wondering whether Ant should go (because in order to get the other two guys to join Ant, this team will need to do A LOT of losing and that's eventually gonna wear on Ant.)

KAT's regression in some ways has really pushed this team back to a very hopeless situation that will necessitate the kind of miracle that this team never stumbles upon in order to fix it. In the meantime, this team has to continue to try to unearth talent on the cheap who can become rotational players and right now, outside of Reid, this team isn't good at doing that either. It shouldn't be that hard to find guys in the G-League who can outplay guys on this team. They just need opportunity and this team should be the land of opportunity for hungry basketball players.


At the very minimum, his input is meaningless now. This team has tried it his way and it hasn't worked.

Something like DLO + KAT in a 3 way trade with 3 1sts coming back and Simmons. DLO going to Philly,

I'm still high on Simmons that he can still be an All Star player. So get me him and multiple picks and I'm stoked.

17.4 ppg / 3.6 reb / 5.6 ast / 39% fg / 37% 3fg / 2.9 TO / $61M over the next 2 seasons.

vs.

17.6 ppg / 3.6 reb / 4.6 ast / 51.9% fg / 41.3% 3fg / 1.4 TO / $9.8M over the next 3 seasons.

___________

I think the Russell-to-Philly discussion is dead. At least for the foreseeable future. Can you imagine being a Philly fan and waking up to see that after all this... Russell is the team's new PG.

Because right now, they have a 2nd year player who's playing better than Russell at 1/15 the price. Now unless Russell improves significantly (quickly and consistently) AND Maxey loses his slipper... or if Philly decides that 4 other teams in 5 years were entirely wrong about Russell... it's simply not a viable option.

WildWolf2813 wrote:At this point the ideal KAT return would be like

Towns and Prince to Toronto for Barnes/Anunoby/Dragic, Dragic then gets bought out

Now at least you have your wings and a PF set

Then that opens it up to do other things like trade Okogie to the Knicks for Knox and 3 2nd's (Knox gets bought out)

C Vanderbilt til you draft someone in 2022 /Reid /Knight
PF Barnes /McDaniels /Layman
SF Anunoby /Bolmaro /sign another Iowa Wolf to play out the string
SG Edwards /Beasley /Nowell
PG Beverley (and if he asks for a buyout, just start Nowell or McLaughlin, either way, D'Lo loses his starting job upon any KAT trade since realistically, you're not getting anything worth a damn for him.)

then it's time to tank for Holmgren, Banchero, TyTy Washington or Jean Montero

I think we've reached the point where I'm pretty certain the Wolves would win more games with Barnes and Anunoby THIS season than with the league's best shooting big man (possibly in history).

And both players have incredible upside.

I'm not sure I know what to do at this point since literally nothing ever works for this franchise. We have gone the tanking route multiple times and it yields players that either have massive holes in their games that never get addressed or all out busts. We go get vets and they almost never play as well here as they did for their prior teams or it blows up in our face. Whatever this franchise touches kind of turns to shit. I've gone full-on nihilist at this point!

Q12543 wrote:I'm not sure I know what to do at this point since literally nothing ever works for this franchise. We have gone the tanking route multiple times and it yields players that either have massive holes in their games that never get addressed or all out busts. We go get vets and they almost never play as well here as they did for their prior teams or it blows up in our face. Whatever this franchise touches kind of turns to shit. I've gone full-on nihilist at this point!

Thank goodness for the Detroit Lions.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:I'm not sure I know what to do at this point since literally nothing ever works for this franchise. We have gone the tanking route multiple times and it yields players that either have massive holes in their games that never get addressed or all out busts. We go get vets and they almost never play as well here as they did for their prior teams or it blows up in our face. Whatever this franchise touches kind of turns to shit. I've gone full-on nihilist at this point!

Thank goodness for the Detroit Lions.

Yeah, I've been thinking about them and their fans. Similar issues...no matter what they do there it just doesn't work. And football is much easier to get good or bad quickly.

Boston Celtics: C Karl-Anthony Towns

Minnesota Timberwolves: SF Jaylen Brown, C Robert Williams, 2022 first-round pick, 2024 first-round pick
___

New Orleans Pelicans: C Karl-Anthony Towns, SG Malik Beasley

Minnesota Timberwolves: SF Brandon Ingram, C Jonas Valanciunas
___

Atlanta Hawks: C Karl-Anthony Towns

Minnesota Timberwolves: C Clint Capela, SF DeAndre Hunter, SG Kevin Huerter, 2022 first-round pick, 2024 first-round pick
___

Phoenix Suns: C Karl-Anthony Towns

Minnesota Timberwolves: C Deandre Ayton, SF Mikal Bridges, PF Cam Johnson, 2024 first-round pick, 2026 first-round pick
___

These are the kinds of returns from potential suitors I'd have in mind if the Wolves were to consider trading Towns. You could conceivably add teams like New York, Portland, Toronto, and Washington to the list as those who would have interest, but they're either lacking the attractive assets or aren't close enough to contention to pull the trigger on the deal they'd need to offer.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

WolvesFan21 wrote:

WildWolf2813 wrote:Sure, but the return for Towns will never satisfy you because he doesn't have the kind of value we think he has. The only player with a worse reputation than Towns is Ben Simmons and leave it to this team to wanna pair em together.

The problem is the idea of "trade KAT, build around Ant." 1. Ant might not be good enough for that, but that's a separate argument. The bigger issue is that it can't just be Ant. You have to build with 2-3 guys in mind. Ant AND at least one other person, and on this franchise, two other people. It can't be the McDaniels' of the world. Yeah KAT is a loser but so is this organization and I'm convinced they could ruin ANYONE, even if you're one of the 75 greatest of all time. If this team just expects Ant to do it alone, in 2 years we'll be wondering whether Ant should go (because in order to get the other two guys to join Ant, this team will need to do A LOT of losing and that's eventually gonna wear on Ant.)

KAT's regression in some ways has really pushed this team back to a very hopeless situation that will necessitate the kind of miracle that this team never stumbles upon in order to fix it. In the meantime, this team has to continue to try to unearth talent on the cheap who can become rotational players and right now, outside of Reid, this team isn't good at doing that either. It shouldn't be that hard to find guys in the G-League who can outplay guys on this team. They just need opportunity and this team should be the land of opportunity for hungry basketball players.


At the very minimum, his input is meaningless now. This team has tried it his way and it hasn't worked.

Something like DLO + KAT in a 3 way trade with 3 1sts coming back and Simmons. DLO going to Philly,

I'm still high on Simmons that he can still be an All Star player. So get me him and multiple picks and I'm stoked.

17.4 ppg / 3.6 reb / 5.6 ast / 39% fg / 37% 3fg / 2.9 TO / $61M over the next 2 seasons.

vs.

17.6 ppg / 3.6 reb / 4.6 ast / 51.9% fg / 41.3% 3fg / 1.4 TO / $9.8M over the next 3 seasons.

___________

I think the Russell-to-Philly discussion is dead. At least for the foreseeable future. Can you imagine being a Philly fan and waking up to see that after all this... Russell is the team's new PG.

Because right now, they have a 2nd year player who's playing better than Russell at 1/15 the price. Now unless Russell improves significantly (quickly and consistently) AND Maxey loses his slipper... or if Philly decides that 4 other teams in 5 years were entirely wrong about Russell... it's simply not a viable option.

True they may not want DLO all that much especially how he's been playing, but if they also got a 1st and another player from team X then maybe it's good enough return.

I think you almost have to get a 3rd team going to make things really work for all sides.

Would getting Simmons and 3 1sts picks be good return for you for DLO and KAT?

Camden0916 wrote:Boston Celtics: C Karl-Anthony Towns

Minnesota Timberwolves: SF Jaylen Brown, C Robert Williams, 2022 first-round pick, 2024 first-round pick
___

New Orleans Pelicans: C Karl-Anthony Towns, SG Malik Beasley

Minnesota Timberwolves: SF Brandon Ingram, C Jonas Valanciunas
___

Atlanta Hawks: C Karl-Anthony Towns

Minnesota Timberwolves: C Clint Capela, SF DeAndre Hunter, SG Kevin Huerter, 2022 first-round pick, 2024 first-round pick
___

Phoenix Suns: C Karl-Anthony Towns

Minnesota Timberwolves: C Deandre Ayton, SF Mikal Bridges, PF Cam Johnson, 2024 first-round pick, 2026 first-round pick
___

These are the kinds of returns from potential suitors I'd have in mind if the Wolves were to consider trading Towns. You could conceivably add teams like New York, Portland, Toronto, and Washington to the list as those who would have interest, but they're either lacking the attractive assets or aren't close enough to contention to pull the trigger on the deal they'd need to offer.

Sign me up for Celtics Trade. The best part is I think they would suck in next 3 years even with KAT so those draft pick is going to be pretty good. I don't see how a Tatum Towns mix would work out well.