Minnesota Sports Forum

I would like the see these lineups for development and talent evaluation reasons.

PG - Rubio / LaVine
SG - Wiggins / Martin
SF - Young / Shabazz
PF - Payne / AB
C - Pek / Dieng

Q12543 wrote:

Tactical unit wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:I'm all for keeping Thad on this team going forward, based on him resigning for a reasonable price.

However I'd have him as my first big off the bench. I'd like to see Flip experiment by starting Dieng or Payne at PF and have Young come in and play the 4 and the 3. I'd still like to see him get 28 - 30 minutes a game though. I believe Thad could flourish in this role and really exploit opposition 2nd units.

bleedspeed177 wrote:LST - I was going off D-League stats for both.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Clint-Capela-6359/
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Adreian-Payne-5286/

Payne is shooting less then 20% on 3's in the D-League. That is likely to go up, but it might not translate to the NBA.

I don't even want him at what would be considered a reasonable price. I am fine with him for another year as a means of being competitive next year because I think we might be playoff caliber next year (good health please). I'd rather cash out on Thad if possible because I'd invest his money in better FA's that will want to play with all these young assets we have. Also we are going to need money to keep all these players around so giving money to Thad beyond next year at the price he is likely to command doesn't make sense to me.

But who are those FA's that are better that we could get at a lower price? What if Thad wanted to stay at $6-7M per year on a longer deal? He's only 26.

I think Thad gets around 7.5M on the open market and no matter how you slice it if you give him 3 or more years on a contract your missing out on multiple FA years that you could have used that money with other cap to draw in the pieces you need. As much youth as we have were not winning a championship next year unless something major happens. So keep the teams long term success in mind and by 2017 we have Thad's money, Martin in his expiring contract year, Chase long gone, AB either being worth investment or discarded for more cap room and we are activating team options on all our young good players.

That plan can't afford Thad, and doesn't have room for mistakes like giving Robbie 3M a year for 3yrs or other poor investments on FA additions. As this team gets better the better FA's available will want to join us yet another reason why we can't afford Thad. I also would like to point out I like Thad quite a bit in the role many would like to see him in off the bench but I think his money will be better spent if we just sit back and wait for everything to develop.

bleedspeed177 wrote:I would like the see these lineups for development and talent evaluation reasons.

PG - Rubio / LaVine
SG - Wiggins / Martin
SF - Young / Shabazz
PF - Payne / AB
C - Pek / Dieng

Nice, we all want to see Thad off the bench how about evaluating this.
PG - Rubio / LaVine
SG - Wiggins / Martin
SF - Shabazz / Young
PF - Dieng / AB
C - Pek / Payne

Tactical unit wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

TRKO wrote:Flip has done a good job as shown by the amount of youngsters we had playing in the rising star game. I think his only real big flaw is trading two firsts to try to find the answer at PF. I'm not sure he has found that guy. Thad is a nice player, but you need your PF to get a minimum of 7 rebounds per game. I think Thad may be better off coming off the bench as a tweener.

Agree his best role is off the bench, as his best years in Philly were in that role. I've always been a proponent of giving Gorgui a chance at PF, not because I think he's ideal either, but I thought it would be a good way to start games since teams tend to start big, then go smaller when they go to their bench. Flip played with this a bit and it seemed to work OK, but then he went away from it for whatever reason.

I'd like to see:
Rubio
Wiggins
Thad (This way I get to see how much I like Thad at SF)
Dieng
Pek

Might be the 5 best guys on the roster. But, there are some definite space issues that would emerge. Nobody in the frontcourt can stretch the floor.

Wiggins might have promise as an outside shooter, but I think teams would invite him to shoot that.

And Rubio is in the process of recreating his shot after struggling mightily for his first 3 seasons.

Tactical unit wrote:

Nice, we all want to see Thad off the bench how about evaluating this.
PG - Rubio / LaVine
SG - Wiggins / Martin
SF - Shabazz / Young
PF - Dieng / AB
C - Pek / Payne

I like that even better.

There is no cap space if Thad leaves just to remind people. Ricky's raise eats it all up. We are again a team full of MLE level paid players (Martin, Bud, Wiggins, AB and the top 5 pick people are projecting we have). The splash in FA can't happen this year unless by a miracle someone takes Bud off our hands and we dump Martin. We're better off going all in during the 2016 offseason when the cap goes up and we get that max space back. I don't see a ton of guys worth breaking the bank for this offseason anyway. I think we go young one more year to see what everyone can do and then build it around Ricky, Wiggins and whichever other young guys step up next year and everybody else is fair game to trade for an upgrade.

Tactical unit wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

Tactical unit wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:I'm all for keeping Thad on this team going forward, based on him resigning for a reasonable price.

However I'd have him as my first big off the bench. I'd like to see Flip experiment by starting Dieng or Payne at PF and have Young come in and play the 4 and the 3. I'd still like to see him get 28 - 30 minutes a game though. I believe Thad could flourish in this role and really exploit opposition 2nd units.

bleedspeed177 wrote:LST - I was going off D-League stats for both.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Clint-Capela-6359/
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Adreian-Payne-5286/

Payne is shooting less then 20% on 3's in the D-League. That is likely to go up, but it might not translate to the NBA.

I don't even want him at what would be considered a reasonable price. I am fine with him for another year as a means of being competitive next year because I think we might be playoff caliber next year (good health please). I'd rather cash out on Thad if possible because I'd invest his money in better FA's that will want to play with all these young assets we have. Also we are going to need money to keep all these players around so giving money to Thad beyond next year at the price he is likely to command doesn't make sense to me.

But who are those FA's that are better that we could get at a lower price? What if Thad wanted to stay at $6-7M per year on a longer deal? He's only 26.

I think Thad gets around 7.5M on the open market and no matter how you slice it if you give him 3 or more years on a contract your missing out on multiple FA years that you could have used that money with other cap to draw in the pieces you need. As much youth as we have were not winning a championship next year unless something major happens. So keep the teams long term success in mind and by 2017 we have Thad's money, Martin in his expiring contract year, Chase long gone, AB either being worth investment or discarded for more cap room and we are activating team options on all our young good players.

That plan can't afford Thad, and doesn't have room for mistakes like giving Robbie 3M a year for 3yrs or other poor investments on FA additions. As this team gets better the better FA's available will want to join us yet another reason why we can't afford Thad. I also would like to point out I like Thad quite a bit in the role many would like to see him in off the bench but I think his money will be better spent if we just sit back and wait for everything to develop.

But isn't Thad perhaps just the type of free agent we might end up trying to target in a couple of years? A veteran forward that can come off the bench and add valuable depth and experience to our second unit? I guess there is the possibility of saving all our chips for a much bigger FA acquisition, but that seems like a reach given our history and the nature of restricted free agency.

The other benefit of re-doing Thad's deal is one that doesn't get much mention: Roster stability. Wouldn't it be nice if we stuck with some core group of guys for 3, 4, 5+ years? Thad is only 26 and will still be in his prime by the time we all hope to be competing in the playoffs. We know that when surrounded by other competent and experienced players that he is a pretty damn good player himself.

khans2k5 wrote:There is no cap space if Thad leaves just to remind people. Ricky's raise eats it all up. We are again a team full of MLE level paid players (Martin, Bud, Wiggins, AB and the top 5 pick people are projecting we have). The splash in FA can't happen this year unless by a miracle someone takes Bud off our hands and we dump Martin. We're better off going all in during the 2016 offseason when the cap goes up and we get that max space back. I don't see a ton of guys worth breaking the bank for this offseason anyway. I think we go young one more year to see what everyone can do and then build it around Ricky, Wiggins and whichever other young guys step up next year and everybody else is fair game to trade for an upgrade.

Good point. So the only real value of trading Thad is the actual player or pick we get in return, not the freed up salary space.

The cap for next year is going to be a mystery for a while. Even though the players rejected the smoothing offer the league will try to negotiate for it hard. We should be making efforts all over our team to free up room to get a player to $ ratio with our vets because either way we want to be ready for the huge shift in the league that is going to happen in 2016.

There can be cap space if Thad is moved. It's true that Ricky's raise eats up most of Thad's salary. But Flip has been quietly maneuvering next year's salaries so they could be players in the FA market. Trading Brewer, who had a 5 mil option next year, and taking back a much smaller deal for next year (Daniels). But then he dumped Daniels, too, by making him part of the Mo Williams trade.

The cap was 63 mil this year. I saw a projection for 66 mil next year, with the cap ballooning in following years because of the new TV deal. My ROUGH math says the Wolves should be somewhere around 53 mil next year, not including the lottery pick.

Moving Thad puts the Wolves in position to move under the cap if they so choose...