Camden wrote:Honestly, outside of Paul Millsap primarily for his veteran presence and winning pedigree and Lauri Markkanen for his size and perimeter shooting, there's just not a four in the free agent pool that I think is actually better than Jarred Vanderbilt. He does a lot of the dirty work, hustle plays that this team needs more of. And to his credit, he's a very good rebounder and a plus defender. The Wolves could actually do much worse than him. I don't think Minnesota should overpay for what he's worth, but if they're not making a trade for anyone noticeably better, or dumping salary to take on a Markkanen, or persuading the veteran to join a young team over a contender, they should just lock Vando down to a multi-year deal and prepare for the season. The Harry Giles, Isaiah Hartenstein, Marquese Chriss type projects don't move the needle for me. I think Vando could be a 10/8/1.5/1.0 player or better next year. He's just incredibly active.
Don't disagree with you. But I think we need Vando AND [insert another big name here]. I think we need another big with some size and strength that can do battle in the paint and hold his ground. Vando is great as a chaotic, switching defender. But if an opposing big puts his butt or shoulder into him, he is pretty helpless. And we can't have KAT always take these assignments on, as he struggles as well.
Q nailed it and I also say depth...ok sure of Towns is hurt for a chunk of time we are probably screwed but other than Towns and Reid the Wolves don't have anyone I would consider close to being a other than Knight. The Wolves right now have Towns Reid Vanderbilt (if signed) and Knight as guy that are true bigs. That's pretty thin. I'm not saying get a big ass dude just to get one but it would give this team something it does not have. Towns isn't even a big ass dude really.
Our focus should be on resigning Vandy to a team friendly 3 year deal - around 12 mil with team option final year.
I still love his upside. He's a hard worker with good defensive instincts. Also an underrated rebounder and ball handler. Every team needs a player like Jared Vanderbilt to do the stuff that doesn't necessarily show up in the box score.
I would honestly be quite with a starting front court of McDaniels, Vandy and KAT with DLo and Edwards in the backcourt. With PBev, Beasley, Okogie, Prince and Reid off the bench.
Our focus should be on resigning Vandy to a team friendly 3 year deal - around 12 mil with team option final year.
I still love his upside. He's a hard worker with good defensive instincts. Also an underrated rebounder and ball handler. Every team needs a player like Jared Vanderbilt to do the stuff that doesn't necessarily show up in the box score.
I would honestly be quite with a starting front court of McDaniels, Vandy and KAT with DLo and Edwards in the backcourt. With PBev, Beasley, Okogie, Prince and Reid off the bench.
KiwiMatt wrote:Our focus should be on resigning Vandy to a team friendly 3 year deal - around 12 mil with team option final year.
I still love his upside. He's a hard worker with good defensive instincts. Also an underrated rebounder and ball handler. Every team needs a player like Jared Vanderbilt to do the stuff that doesn't necessarily show up in the box score.
I would honestly be quite with a starting front court of McDaniels, Vandy and KAT with DLo and Edwards in the backcourt. With PBev, Beasley, Okogie, Prince and Reid off the bench.
KiwiMatt wrote:Our focus should be on resigning Vandy to a team friendly 3 year deal - around 12 mil with team option final year.
I still love his upside. He's a hard worker with good defensive instincts. Also an underrated rebounder and ball handler. Every team needs a player like Jared Vanderbilt to do the stuff that doesn't necessarily show up in the box score.
I would honestly be quite with a starting front court of McDaniels, Vandy and KAT with DLo and Edwards in the backcourt. With PBev, Beasley, Okogie, Prince and Reid off the bench.
That's a pretty solid rotation.
Vanderbilt has been mentioned as being better than other guys we could sign but I'd also rather see Naz play some minutes next to Towns than some of the other options. He turns 22 in a few days and I know some people don't think he is a good defender but I'm not convinced on that long term. In addition while I still think he isn't big center sized guy he has a 9'1" reach, has some girth and is more mobile and athletic than when he came out of college after working hard on his body. Let's get something out of that great contract we signed him to. If we want to play small I'm cool with seeing Prince get some minutes at PF. My issue with the roster with big men is more about depth but with an open roster spot and Knight on a 2-way...there are some options.
Meanwhile even though the reports Lip mentioned about Hartenstein scare me a bit Christian wood at one time had some issues as well as Whiteside. Maybe for Wood he needed the whole journey to smooth some of that out. I'm not expecting Hartenstein to reach the levels of either guy but there are some bigs with some mild baggage that have ended up being a success. Ultimately I'm wanting to try and get another uncovered gem. Hopefully Knight is at least a highly useful rock. :)
KiwiMatt wrote:Our focus should be on resigning Vandy to a team friendly 3 year deal - around 12 mil with team option final year.
I still love his upside. He's a hard worker with good defensive instincts. Also an underrated rebounder and ball handler. Every team needs a player like Jared Vanderbilt to do the stuff that doesn't necessarily show up in the box score.
I would honestly be quite with a starting front court of McDaniels, Vandy and KAT with DLo and Edwards in the backcourt. With PBev, Beasley, Okogie, Prince and Reid off the bench.
That's a pretty solid rotation.
Vanderbilt has been mentioned as being better than other guys we could sign but I'd also rather see Naz play some minutes next to Towns than some of the other options. He turns 22 in a few days and I know some people don't think he is a good defender but I'm not convinced on that long term. In addition while I still think he isn't big center sized guy he has a 9'1" reach, has some girth and is more mobile and athletic than when he came out of college after working hard on his body. Let's get something out of that great contract we signed him to. If we want to play small I'm cool with seeing Prince get some minutes at PF. My issue with the roster with big men is more about depth but with an open roster spot and Knight on a 2-way...there are some options.
Meanwhile even though the reports Lip mentioned about Hartenstein scare me a bit Christian wood at one time had some issues as well as Whiteside. Maybe for Wood he needed the whole journey to smooth some of that out. I'm not expecting Hartenstein to reach the levels of either guy but there are some bigs with some mild baggage that have ended up being a success. Ultimately I'm wanting to try and get another uncovered gem. Hopefully Knight is at least a highly useful rock. :)
Monster, I both expect and hope to see more of Reid and Towns playing together this year. Should be a nice leap year for Reid, and I'm thinking he may play a lot of basketball for us.
Finch has specifically said multiple times this summer that he plans to play Towns and Reid more together. We saw him experiment with it last year. Some of us here were pounding the table for it all of last year. The results were a mixed bag, but mostly good, in my opinion. I don't think that duo is the answer long-term -- unless one of them gets much better defensively -- but they can definitely be a force together for spurts.
Camden0916 wrote:Finch has specifically said multiple times this summer that he plans to play Towns and Reid more together. We saw him experiment with it last year. Some of us here were pounding the table for it all of last year. The results were a mixed bag, but mostly good, in my opinion. I don't think that duo is the answer long-term -- unless one of them gets much better defensively -- but they can definitely be a force together for spurts.
I agree with what both you and Cool have said.
I'll add this...let's be honest nobody on this roster is likely to be a terrific pairing on defense with Towns. Vanderbilt I am not even totally convinced is much more than average on that end (I do believe in his potential though possibly even this season) so I don't see why Reid and Towns can't play together considering the defensive side of the balI. I mean how much worse can it be than other options including other players that were utilized last season? I know the idea is to improve but I also think Naz has a chance to improve overall. I mean if he was a FA this offseason what would he make as guy that is about to turn 22 and has been pretty productive even on a bad team? 5 million a year? More? Play him.
I just realized that the Beverley deal increases our payroll by exactly $1 million. That means the Wolves will be $7.8M under the luxury tax threshold after signing Bolmaro. If we sign Vando to a deal starting at $4M, we'll be $3.8M under the luxury tax. That will be just enough to sign JMac and a vet at the vet-minimum to fill out the roster. Even if the Wolves don't sign JMac, I don't see how they offer enough to sign Millsap - unless they trade Layman (probably with a 2nd-round pick) for a non guaranteed contract to free up another $3M.
lipoli390 wrote:I just realized that the Beverley deal increases our payroll by exactly $1 million. That means the Wolves will be $7.8M under the luxury tax threshold after signing Bolmaro. If we sign Vando to a deal starting at $4M, we'll be $3.8M under the luxury tax. That will be just enough to sign JMac and a vet at the vet-minimum to fill out the roster. Even if the Wolves don't sign JMac, I don't see how they offer enough to sign Millsap - unless they trade Layman (probably with a 2nd-round pick) for a non guaranteed contract to free up another $3M.
My spreadsheet says they have even less money (about a million less) than what yours does. I wonder where the discrepancy is. Regardless I think we come to the same thought that it seems unlikely that the Wolves will be able to offer even a decent amount of money to sign Millsap without making a move. I'd probably be willing to give up the Sixers/Nuggets 2nd rounder to clear the way to get Millsap. I was looking earlier to try and find a Layman for PF/C deal that made sense for both teams. I didn't find one. I started looking at 2 for 1 trades in case a team wanted to save money getting rid of a couple players. One example would be Boston has too many players and are above the Lux tax. It's not exciting and maybe Layman would be better to keep but a Fernando and Grant Williams would work. That deal would save the Celtics a bit of money. I'm not advocating that trade just using it as an example of what the Wolves might be able to do closer to the beginning of the season and maybe take a flyer on a young player that hasn't done much yet. If a team is willing to even partially guarantee Decker some money to try and make a team there will be some team that wouldn't mind having Layman on the roster especially if it is either equal money or saves them some. I wouldn't hate keeping Layman he isn't great but he doesn't suck. If he was the worst player on your roster that would be just fine...unless you had a lot of guys barely better than him. Lol
