Minnesota Sports Forum

KiwiMatt wrote:Year after year we hear rumours of teams willing to trade high draft picks for established stars but never seems to happen. You could argue the Wiggins for Love deal, but that happened after summer league and was an anomaly.

kekgeek1 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:If I was the Bulls I wouldn't accept anything but a ridiculous grandfather offer for Butler. He may not be a superstar but he is a very good 2-way player locked up for the next few years at what will seem like a bargain contract in a few weeks. Should they rebuild? Yes don't resign the old guys sign some younger players and build with what they have. There is some young talent there. It was literally days ago many had Billy Donovan as not up to the task and now he is a win away from coaching in an NBA finals. Maybe Hoiberg with a younger roster and the right signings ends up being a good coach after all. The Bulls might be in some sort of no man's land but I think it makes slot of sense to see what Butler and the roster they surround him with can do next year. Assuming he can stay healthy his value is gonna stay pretty high.

The thing is here is where the NBA is a little broken. I think Jimmy butler is Damn good. But here is the thing is he to good for where the Bulls are at. That is weird I know but are they going to be stuck in the late lottery or low playoff team slot with him on the team really hindering the Bulls chances to get back to championship level. If they do the Cam proposed trade they add Russell, ingram. Will be bad next year add another top 5 pick in a projected better class they might be in business. But they are also a big market so maybe the can get big free agents.

Just a question who would you rather be in ranking order the Sixers lakers or the Bulls

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:Rumors Noah wants to leave Bulls. Not surprising. Would be a good fit here. If he could get mostly or even partway back to old form, he'd be a good pickup, IMO.

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/242018/Joakim-Noah-Telling-Teammates-Hes-Leaving-Bulls-Doesnt-Trust-Front-Office

Would be a GREAT fit in MIN. Don't overpay, save the biggest deal for Gasol, but great fit.

Camden0916 wrote:If I'm Chicago (Gar Forman and John Paxson), and Los Angeles (Mitch Kupchak) offers me their pick (No. 2 overall) and Julius Randle for Jimmy Butler, I say, "Done deal. Let's sign the paperwork." I wouldn't even hesitate on Chicago's side, and I doubt LA, who's known for quick rebuilds, would be against that deal either.

Edit: Or replace Julius Randle with D'Angelo Russell considering Chicago has Bobby Portis to groom and they have no future in the backcourt.

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

Mikkeman wrote:
He played as well also in regular season while Valanciunas was injured. Biyombo averaged 7.2 pts, 12.2 rbs and 2.0 blocks in less than 30 minutes as a starter. But most important is that Raptors were playing just as well with Biyombo and without Valanciunas than they played with Valanciunas as starter and Biyombo as his backup. Their record with Biyombo as starter was 15-7.

Not a great point. What was the average record of the teams they played those 22 games? Did they play Lowry, Derozan, and the rest of their good players extra minutes to make up for the loss? If he was such a great starter, why is he playing less than 30 minutes a game? 7/12/2?!?!?! That is Ben Wallace numbers. Is he a Ben Wallace level defender? For 110 games, not 2 or 22?

And last but not least: If they do sign him for 20 EFFIN' MILLION A SEASON and it doesn't work, what are you going to do? Pay his salary? Are you even going to admit it and apologize, or are you going act like it wasn't you who said it would be great?

Mikkeman wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

Mikkeman wrote:
He played as well also in regular season while Valanciunas was injured. Biyombo averaged 7.2 pts, 12.2 rbs and 2.0 blocks in less than 30 minutes as a starter. But most important is that Raptors were playing just as well with Biyombo and without Valanciunas than they played with Valanciunas as starter and Biyombo as his backup. Their record with Biyombo as starter was 15-7.

Not a great point. What was the average record of the teams they played those 22 games? Did they play Lowry, Derozan, and the rest of their good players extra minutes to make up for the loss? If he was such a great starter, why is he playing less than 30 minutes a game? 7/12/2?!?!?! That is Ben Wallace numbers. Is he a Ben Wallace level defender? For 110 games, not 2 or 22?

And last but not least: If they do sign him for 20 EFFIN' MILLION A SEASON and it doesn't work, what are you going to do? Pay his salary? Are you even going to admit it and apologize, or are you going act like it wasn't you who said it would be great?

Average record of their opponents with Biyombo as starter was better than 41 wins. 12 opponents had better than .500 record. So their good record while Valanciunas was out was not because of weak schedule. He averaged just 29.8 minutes mainly because he is still little foul prone. Had 6 fouls in one game and 4 fouls in 9 games. As Long already wrote his per 36 minutes averages as starter are not that different compared his numbers from bench.

Interesting that you compared him to Ben Wallace. Another player that would not have been ever great if you look just PER splits but since he was such a tremendous defender, his impact for team defense made him all star level player. Here is their career stats comparison:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=1&p1=biyombi01&p2=wallabe01&p3=&p4=&p5=&p6=Biyombo vs Ben Wallace

Their per 36 minutes stats are almost identical in points, rebounds and blocks. Wallace was better in steals and assists but Biyombo is not as bad free throw shooter than Wallace was.

Here is another comparison. It's Biyombo's this year compared to Wallace's first year in Detroit. Still pretty good comparison. Wallace was still better in assists and steals but Biyombo is not as bad scorer than Wallace was.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=biyombi01&y1=2016&p2=wallabe01&y2=2001&p3=&p4=&p5=&p6=Biyombo vs Ben Wallace

In this comparison we should remember that we are comparing 23 year old Biyombo to 26 year old Wallace. So if Biyombo continues improving he should be clearly better than Wallace was in same age. He might not yet be Ben Wallace level defender but neither was Ben Wallace at age 23. Biyombo has however shown dramatic improvement in that are during last couple of years, so I wouldn't be surprised if he would end pretty close same level defender than Wallace was. His DRPM has improved in last two seasons from -0.11 to 1.58 and this season to 3.29 that ranks already top10 among all centers.

Finally I have not suggested that Wolves or any other team should sign him to 20 million (or close to that) dollars per year deal. I'm just telling that because of his improved play during this season, some team will definitely do it and I'm sure that it won't be the worst contract that will be signed this summer.

Camden wrote:Throwing out another off-season plan that I hope to be realistic, though somewhat video game-esque. It'll be a tight squeeze monetarily, but depending on how the salaries are worked out, I do think it's all doable.

- 2016-17 salary cap is set to be at $92M. Minnesota is looking at $63.6M in contracts on the roster before any moves have been made.

- Assuming Brandon Ingram, Ben Simmons, and Jamal Murray are off the board by the time the Wolves pick at No. 5 overall, trade back to a PG-needy team, such as Sacramento (No. 8 overall) or Milwaukee (No. 10 overall) with the goal in mind of landing PF Domontas Sabonis and a future first-round pick (2018 from SAC; 2017 or 2018 from MIL).

- Allow PF Kevin Garnett, SF Tayshaun Prince and C Greg Smith to leave via retirement or free agency, respectively. Hopefully none of these players will be back next season.

- Decline SF/PF Damjan Rudez team option for $1.2M.

- Sign former All-Star Luol Deng (age 31) to a three-year, $39M deal to start at PF next to C Karl-Anthony Towns while also logging significant minutes at SF next to Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, and Shabazz Muhammad. Back in December of 2015, Deng said, "I think I'm best at the 4." In today's NBA, and where he's at in his career, I totally agree with him. Not to mention he played 73% of his minutes at PF in 2015-16. He also posted 15.2 PPG, 8.1 RPG with a .561 TS% post-All Star break and a +/- of +7.1, and then had a fantastic post-season run. There's still juice left in the tank.

- Sign Matthew Dellavedova (age 25) to a three-year, $18M deal to be the primary backup PG behind Ricky Rubio. He's also capable of playing off-ball with Rubio at times. Back-to-back seasons shooting 40% or better from 3P-range. Solid AST/TO ratio over the last two years. Very pesky defender. Some stats would illustrate that the Cavs were actually better with Delly on the court rather than Irving. I wouldn't go that far from a basketball sense, but he knows his role and plays it as well as it can be played. Ironically, this would be Tom Thibodeau's new Kirk Hinrich chess piece, if you will.

- Sign veteran SF/PF James Johnson (age 29) to a two-year, $6M deal. Underutilized in his last two stints (Memphis; Toronto). His teams were better with him on the court, though his playing time was scant. Adds energy, toughness, solid defense, and the potential to score in bunches occasionally to a bench unit that sorely needs all of that.

PG: R. Rubio / M. Dellavedova / T. Jones
SG: Z. LaVine / (combination of players)
SF: A. Wiggins / S. Muhammad
PF: L. Deng / J. Johnson / D. Sabonis / N. Bjelica / A. Payne
C: K. Towns / G. Dieng / N. Pekovic

monsterpile wrote:
To me this post reads that Biyombo is gonna be as good or better than Ben Wallace which I'm not sure it was your intent. I assume it's more for a comparison of where Biyombo COULD get to but that's a really good outlook. If that played out 20 million would be a bargain as Ben Wallace was one of the best defensive players I have seen in my lifetime (he could switch off on almost anyone and make their life difficult) and was as close as I may ever see to being a superstar that never scored 10ppg. Just sayin. :)