Minnesota Sports Forum

Thanks for the clarification, SJM. If I were Flip I'd play this out for a while, but I would ultimately offer the max flat for 5 years which would appear to be around $75 million for the contract period. This franchise needs some stability right now. We can't afford to be penny-wise and pound foolish with Rubio the way Kahn and Glen were with Love.

So let's deal Love for the best return we can get, and then lock in Ricky for five years at a flat max for 5 years. With the higher TV revenue coming in, it won't hurt the franchise and may turn out to be a bargain -- maybe a huge bargain if Rick improves his shooting significantly. If it doesn't work out, we will always be able to find a trade partner to take him Ricky the way the Griz found the Kings to take Rudy Gay and his huge contract. And Rudy doesn't have anything close to Ricky's star power.

We have to stop acting like small-town hicks pinching pennies, cutting corners and avoiding any action that might be considered bold. At its best, this franchise has acted boldly and been willing to pony up the money for someone who could be an elite or core player. The Wolves went out on a limb drafting KG out of high school before anyone else was drafting players out of high school. The Wolves then stepped up and paid big bucks to KG. Those two decisions led to a run of playoff appearances and 50-win seasons. The Wolves later stepped up and acquired Cassell and Sprewell in spite of Sprewell's $14.8 million per year salary at the time. Those acquisitions led to a trip to the Western Conference Finals.

The main problem with this Franchise has never be over-spending or excessive boldness. The main problem has been poor talent evaluation, which has resulted in bad draft selections and poor trades. Our front office people have also shown an amazing lack of sophistication and vision over the years.

A five year flat would be closer to 75 mil Lip. I would prefer to give him a max with each season descending in value, and we could always throw in an incentive based on his TS% for each season. If the NBA deems it unlikely to happen, it doesn't go against the cap. Either way, we are overpaying for him, but at least we have a guy we like watching locked up for five more years.

sjm34 wrote:Pek got a five year deal because he was not on a rookie scale contract, and as such wasn't bound by the designated player rule. Oh, and because Flip was an absolute idiot!

The Pek signing was problematic because of Pek's injury history the limited scope of his game -- not making others around him better. It was a bad decision by Flip, but amazingly, even that deal won't kill us. Assuming Love leaves via trade or free agency (highly likely), we can keep Pek, give Ricky a max deal and still have plenty of room to sign good players around them. After next season, Pek will have 3 years left on his deal and his salary goes down his last year. So by the end of next season, Pek's contract will be more palatable to other teams for trade purposes.

It was just foolish giving Pek five years, when nobody was bidding for his services.

sjm34 wrote:A five year flat would be closer to 75 mil Lip. I would prefer to give him a max with each season descending in value, and we could always throw in an incentive based on his TS% for each season. If the NBA deems it unlikely to happen, it doesn't go against the cap. Either way, we are overpaying for him, but at least we have a guy we like watching locked up for five more years.

Thanks for the clarification, SJM. I like your idea of the descending value with a TS-based incentive.

sjm34 wrote:It was just foolish giving Pek five years, when nobody was bidding for his services.

Agreed. Unless there were suitors behind the scenes we didn't hear about. But there were no reports, not even any rumors, that Pek was getting offers in the vicinity of the amount the Wolves ultimately gave him. That's the key. It's about a player's market value and what other teams are willing to pay determines that market value. Perhaps Flip had information we didn't that gave him reason to believe some other team would offer the same or more to Pek.

No other team could give him more than 4 years though, and of all our players, Pek is likely the one guy that actually enjoys the winter here.

sjm34 wrote:No other team could give him more than 4 years though, and of all our players, Pek is likely the one guy that actually enjoys the winter here.

Good point. Hard to justify Flip's decision on Pek last summer.

A 5yr 75m contract that starts out at the max and being even every year with no opt out for the next five years sounds good to me. Thanks sjm for enlightening us here on the rules with the 5 yr max.

If love is gone then it is a must to keep rubio here. Im looking forward to see rubio take over the team and be its de facto leader once love is gone. Are we overpaying rubio? Yes we probably will but if parsons and hayward gets max deal. No reason rubio wont get one.

One thing I am unsure of is what happens if Rubio signs for the 5 years, and then the wolves strike a deal with GS involving Klay. He is eligible for an extension, and it would make sense to have him sign one before coming over, but I am not sure if a S&T on a rookie extension can be done for the five years and then traded. The CBA states that a team can only designate one player, but can trade for another that already has his deal in place.

If the wolves could get both on descending deals, it would really set the wolves up nicely for the future.