Minnesota Sports Forum

A lot depends on how "cap friendly" Garnett is willing to be. At this point, we know exactly what Hamilton and Hummel are... NBA journeymen with a few specific talents that hopefully are only needed to supply minutes when players are hurt. Rather than resign one of them for $1.4 mil, I'd prefer Bjelica, if the scouting matches what I've heard and if he'd come over for something like 3 years, $9 mil, assuming we can afford him.

What we definitely don't want is another of Flip's "$5-7 mil per year for 4 years" deals, assuming we could ever trade away players for the cap room to do it.

And I'd love it if pick #31 is another Euro like Bjelica that can be stashed for 3 years to evaluate.

Bjelica's not coming for $3M a year. He wouldn't even waste his time packing his bags. We're looking at about $5M per year for the guy.

Roster spots, roster spots, roster spots. We simply don't have a lot of room to make more than 1 legitimate move outside of the KG signing and that move should be used on a backup PG.

Guards: Rubio, Lavine, Martin, need a backup PG

Forwards: Wiggins, Bazz, Bud, KG, Bennett, Payne

Centers: Pek, Dieng

That's 12/15 and you can only keep 12 active on game nights to play so 13-15 need to be guys ok wearing suits most of the year pending injuries. Our top pick makes 13. That leaves two roster spots. If you bring over Bjelica that is 1 spot left. Who's not suiting up then? Bud, AB and Payne? Bjelica isn't coming over if there isn't PT available for him. Until we deal some guys we really don't have a lot of moves to make. Sign KG and a backup PG and fill spots 14 and 15 on minimum guys who can ride the pine all year which is where our two seconds can come in or a second and one of Robbie/Hamilton. Unless we can start packaging guys together we don't have a lot of options to open up the spots for bigger splashes in free agency.

Well, I continue to believe that Bennett's a goner, whether he's involved in a deal for a backup point guard or just sent away to a team who buys in on his physical gifts. I don't see the need to keep him at all, and you can try to argue why we should, but I'm not going to change my opinion on that.

Assuming Bennett's roster spot is replaced by a backup point guard in some way, that gives me 10 roster spots taken up before free agency or the draft.

Garnett, Bjelica and Hummel would be the only FA signings that I expect to happen. That's 13 spots taken up.

One roster spot is reserved for our 2015 first-rounder. That makes 14.

That means one spot is remaining for a 2nd-rounder/Lo-Brown/Hamilton/Adrien/etc.

13 players dress, but only 12 can play.

Guys in suits nightly: Payne, Hummel and our 2nd-rounder/Lo-Brown/Hamilton/Adrien/etc.

Active: Rubio, [Backup PG], LaVine, Martin, Wiggins, Muhammad, Budinger, Garnett, Bjelica, [2015 first-rounder], Dieng, Pekovic.

Keep in mind there's no chance that Garnett stays active for 82 games so him and Payne can be rotational on the DNP list. I'd also expect someone else to be banged up... cough, cough... Pekovic, Budinger, Martin.

Camden0916 wrote:Well, I continue to believe that Bennett's a goner, whether he's involved in a deal for a backup point guard or just sent away to a team who buys in on his physical gifts. I don't see the need to keep him at all, and you can try to argue why we should, but I'm not going to change my opinion on that.

Assuming Bennett's roster spot is replaced by a backup point guard in some way, that gives me 10 roster spots taken up before free agency or the draft.

Garnett, Bjelica and Hummel would be the only FA signings that I expect to happen. That's 13 spots taken up.

One roster spot is reserved for our 2015 first-rounder. That makes 14.

That means one spot is remaining for a 2nd-rounder/Lo-Brown/Hamilton/Adrien/etc.

13 players dress, but only 12 can play.

Guys in suits nightly: Payne, Hummel and our 2nd-rounder/Lo-Brown/Hamilton/Adrien/etc.

Active: Rubio, [Backup PG], LaVine, Martin, Wiggins, Muhammad, Budinger, Garnett, Bjelica, [2015 first-rounder], Dieng, Pekovic.

Keep in mind there's no chance that Garnett stays active for 82 games so him and Payne can be rotational on the DNP list. I'd also expect someone else to be banged up... cough, cough... Pekovic, Budinger, Martin.

If Bennett is as bad as you think he is, what team would trade a rotation quality backup PG for him? He's worth more than an end of the bench minimum guy as trade filler so there is no reason to outright cut him either.

Man, Flip has made a mess of the PF situation. He's basically locked himself into three sub-optimum options:

KG - Our best option, but will play about 25% of the available minutes. Big whoop.
AB - Tons of God-given talent, but lacks a consistent motor and Flip is too stuck in his ways to encourage him to develop his 3 point shot (which I think has promise). Instead, we get crappy 20 footers. No one is going to want him in a trade given his contract. He's paid a LOT of money for a 3rd year borderline bust.
Payne - Zero b-ball IQ or instincts. Old as hell. But Flip is too invested in Izzo and that trade to abandon him.

Because of this, we have very limited flexibility to utilize two players who I think could fill the 75% of minutes KG doesn't use: Bjelica and Dieng. A KG/Bjelica rotation with a dose of Dieng against some of the bigger teams could actually be a passable PF rotation. But is Flip really going to use $10M of cap space to sign both KG AND Bjelica? I doubt it. My guess is that they look to trade the rights to Bjelica since Flip is so emotionally invested in KG. Unlike Payne and AB, Bjelica might actually fetch us something in return - may be a backup PG.

I'd hate to use Bjelica to acquire a backup PG. He's a good enough prospect/player to package in a deal with other guys to get a legitimate piece (borderline starter quality depending on who's involved).

Camden wrote:I'd hate to use Bjelica to acquire a backup PG. He's a good enough prospect/player to package in a deal with other guys to get a legitimate piece (borderline starter quality depending on who's involved).

Good point, but I wouldn't mind a borderline starter quality backup PG given Rubio's injury history. We have absolutely fallen to pieces the last few years when he's gone down. It would be nice to stay competitive for once if he misses a few games.

Another option is to trade Bjelica for a future 1st rounder with very limited protections.

Q12543 wrote:

Camden wrote:I'd hate to use Bjelica to acquire a backup PG. He's a good enough prospect/player to package in a deal with other guys to get a legitimate piece (borderline starter quality depending on who's involved).

Good point, but I wouldn't mind a borderline starter quality backup PG given Rubio's injury history. We have absolutely fallen to pieces the last few years when he's gone down. It would be nice to stay competitive for once if he misses a few games.

Another option is to trade Bjelica for a future 1st rounder with very limited protections.

I wonder if we could package Bjelica, Martin, and our seconds to move into the lottery . I would love to target FRANK KAMINSKY.

We have the assets to move back into the first round and go after Tyus Jones. And that is exactly what we should do. Especially if we land Towns or Okafor with our pick.