Minnesota Sports Forum

I hope you're right LST. I personally see Bazz and Dieng putting us over the cap if peak and Gasol are still on the team and Glen not willing To do that while not being in real contention. I'm not a huge Bazz fan, but I do see good potential in him. Dieng I absolutely don't want to lose next season, and I know Gasol has no real bearing on that. Am I wrong though to think the Gasol signing means the end of Bazz here? i just view the potential of a Dieng and Bazz being much more important to the future improvement of our team when compared to Dieng and 2 seasons of Gasol.

Gasol at 20 or 22 mil leaves us a spot for a minimum player, right? If the camp jumps 14 mil next season and 10 mil come off between kg and Payne then we have 24 mil to spend. That's not enough for Bazz and Dieng with this market. I may be missing something so please point it out if so?

If losing Bazz and signing Gasol means we are in better position to keep LaVine, Wiggins, and KAT then I understand. Though with the numbers Khans laid out it looks like we could retain all 6 of our recent 1st round picks for the foreseeable future and that's more promising to me than two feel good early playoff pushes with Gasol.

khans2k5 wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

TheFuture wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

60WinTim wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Just read through 6 pages of this Pau speculation and nobody has mentioned what I thought of immediately after seeing the Wolves aggressively going after him. Could it be that one or two of our bigs are part of a potential Jimmy Butler deal? Makes some sense to me. Let's not kid ourselves, Pau would be coming here to start, then you would have G, Belly, and Aldrich left to fight for backup minutes. That's not to even mention what KG might bring if he plays. I still fully expect the Butler conversations to continue this summer centered around Dunn and whatever else we can use to entice the Bulls.

While I see your perspective, I think you are wrong. :-P

Gasol would give us 3 bigs we can absolutely count on. Aldrich is a nice depth guy. Belly might be good(I like him) but could end up being meh. If you can add a Gasol you do it. I think it's pretty simple.

Even at a cost of 20-22 mil for 2 years? If both Dieng and shabazz show good improvement under Thibs then we put ourselves in a very difficult spot next offseason ( I don't see a 36 year old Gasol on a 20 mil contract as easy to move ). Please correct me If it is possible for us to still resign those 2 while still fielding a team as we wait on the Gasol/ Pek contracts to expire the following season. I also don't think you can put a ton of weight into counting on a 36 year old Gasol to remain as healthy as he has. Again, I'm not going to be disappointed, but I worry we are jumping the gun a year or two on a Gasol type signing.

I see you had mentioned the injury/age concerns previously. I agree you may not sign 3 guys that are currently as good as Gasol, but a question to ask is if that will that be the case in 1 or 2 years? A guy on a 6-10mil contract should be much easier to move as well.

Future, I don't see signing Pau to a 2-year contract having any bearing on our ability to pay Bazz and Gorgui market rate contracts. We will have a huge amount of cap space in 2017-8 with the cap going up and KG/Pek dropping off, that there will be plenty of room for Bazz, G and Pau. The issue with signing Gorgui and Pau comes in 2018-9 and 2019-20, when we may have to pay three max or near max contracts. But if Bazz and G are performing and we have signed them to reasonable contracts, we can move them if we have to to avoid the luxury tax.

Pek has 2 years left, not 1. His money coming off the books will help pay for Wiggins and Zach.

That's right. But even with Pek and Pau on the books next year, our 2017-8 payroll is only at $50 million and the cap is projected to be $108 million. So, there's no issue with signing G and Bazz. We would even have room to sign another impact player, but that would really cause problems when it comes time to pay our Big 3.

The point I'm making is that signing Pau has no bearing on signing G and Bazz next year.

longstrangetrip wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

TheFuture wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:4 years 70 million Crabbe to the Nets.

Wow, so a guy who was drafted in the second round three years ago, and has only started 17 games while averaging 7 PPG gets $17.5 million per year...really? Bizarre...just bizarre.

We should all send thank you cards to the nets. Who the hell wants to face a possible Durant and horford led Celtics team which has the chance at a #1 pick the following season?

Keep spending money Nets!

Maybe Crabbe isn't worth that much but he is a nice player. If the Nets could get him he could end up being a legit starting 2 way SG. Crabbe has a nice set of skills and I've heard the guy also plays D. Kent Bazemore was undrafted in 2012 so just because the guy wasn't a ______draft pick doesn't mean he can't be a good player.

Yeah, maybe not the draft position. But 7 PPG in three seasons is at last an indicator that he may not be worth $17.5 million. I mean I get that the cap has exploded, but that's still almost 1/5 of the cap for a guy who's only started 17 games in his career. Nets fans seem fine with the deal, though, so maybe I'm the outlier here.

Serious question. Have you watched the guy play this year?

Also think about the wing depth on the Blazers last year. Crabbe put up an efficient 10ppg off the bench along with being known for being able to play D. That's worth at least 10 million in the NBA landscape. AT LEAST. Crabbe is a classic example of paying for potential (just like a lot of teams trip with guys for max deals after their 1st round contract is up) but I'm telling you the potential is actually there for Crabbe. Also the Nets need young talent they can sort of afford to take a chance on a guy like that turning out.

The Kings have reportedly agreed to terms with free agent Matt Barnes.

Seeing Turner, Crabbe, etc. get that money really puts that Butler deal in a new light..

LST how do you come up with 50 mil?

Pek, Gasol, Aldrich, and Rubio would be about 55 by themselves..

Teams that haven't announced a signing yet are Cleveland, Golden State, OKC, San Antonio and Dallas. Dallas has the most cap space of these teams but they intend to offer Barnes the max and resign Dirk and probably Deron Williams.

Future, it's easier to do this with visuals. Here's the Wolves current contract situation:

http://hoopshype.com/salaries/minnesota_timberwolves/

Let's assume Pau is signed for $22 million each of the next two years. You also need to add in $7 million for Cole and $5 million for Dunn. So after pulling out the qualifying offers for Bazz and Gorgui (in green on the chart) our committed payroll is only at $57 million for 11 players...and that even includes picking up the options for Payne and Jones. So there is plenty of room between the cap ($108 million) and our commitment ($57 million) to pay Gorgui and Bazz and also fill out our roster.

TheFuture wrote:LST how do you come up with 50 mil?

Pek, Gasol, Aldrich, and Rubio would be about 55 by themselves..

Future, see the chart in my post above. Our committed payroll including Pau, Dunn and Cole (but minus G and Bazz) is $57 million.

TheFuture wrote:LST how do you come up with 50 mil?

Pek, Gasol, Aldrich, and Rubio would be about 55 by themselves..

longstrangetrip wrote:

TheFuture wrote:LST how do you come up with 50 mil?

Pek, Gasol, Aldrich, and Rubio would be about 55 by themselves..

Future, see the chart in my post above. Our committed payroll including Pau, Dunn and Cole (but minus G and Bazz) is $57 million.

LST, I think Future is right. The 29 Million Figure only includes the salaries in black (Ricky, Pek and Belly's). It doesn't include the red salaries for those like Wiggins, KAT, LaVine who we will surely extend. The Hoops Hype salary chart also doesn't stretch out the KMart salary.