Wolves 2018 Free Agent Thread

[TAFKASP]

Despite a significant roster turnover and a slow start to the season, the Wolves were a top-4 team in the West up until Butler's injury.

Based upon Butler's history there is little reason to think that missing a bunch of games won't continue to be a recurring issue. Will KAT and Wig improve enough to offset the virtually inevitable Butler loss, or will they sign somebody of significance to help? If the answers are no and no then next season will likely be no different than last season.

[Monster]

Despite a significant roster turnover and a slow start to the season, the Wolves were a top-4 team in the West up until Butler's injury.

Based upon Butler's history there is little reason to think that missing a bunch of games won't continue to be a recurring issue. Will KAT and Wig improve enough to offset the virtually inevitable Butler loss, or will they sign somebody of significance to help? If the answers are no and no then next season will likely be no different than last season.

Well even the Debbie Downer Thorpe thought the Wolves would get someone worthwhile on the FA market.

[Monster]

I guess Budinger isn't available anymore. This was kind of an interesting story with some info I didn't know about.

https://www.si.com/nba/2018/06/26/chase-budinger-nba-volleyball-avp-new-york-olympics

[60WinTim]

The Wolves are not extending a Qualifying Offer to MGH...

Michael Scotto ?@MikeAScotto
The Minnesota Timberwolves will not tender Marcus Georges-Hunt a qualifying offer, a league source told The Athletic. He will become an unrestricted free agent as a result. He played 42 games for Minnesota last season.

[crazy-canuck [enjin:18955461]]

Amazingly, Doogie had a fantastic interview with David Thorpe. Lots of talk about Thibs (all negative), FA wings and Belly. Well worth a listen.

http://www.1500espn.com/the-scoop-2/2018/06/david-thorpe-wolves-nba-free-agency-draft-fallout-ep-156/

This was a good listen, thanks.

The wolves should be running more, but I just dont know if thats on teague or thibs or both.

At times last year, we'd see someone running down the court for an easy lob or a quick bounce for an easy dunk, but teague would not make that play. Then later in the season these guys just didnt run as hard to the rim because they know nothing will come out of it. I dont know if teague is just that inept at running the break or ive been spoiled by watching rubio for so long. Maybe thibs is game planning to slow the game down and yelling at teague to hold up at the 3 pt line to reset into the half court iso. I dont know.

Maybe someone smarter has an answer. Its not why we dont run, its why do we refuse to run?

[KiwiMatt]

The Wolves are not extending a Qualifying Offer to MGH...

Michael Scotto ?@MikeAScotto
The Minnesota Timberwolves will not tender Marcus Georges-Hunt a qualifying offer, a league source told The Athletic. He will become an unrestricted free agent as a result. He played 42 games for Minnesota last season.

Drafting Okogie kind of made MGH redundant. I hope he gets picked up by another NBA team!

[thedoper]

So Thorpe thinks everyone hates Thibs and no one wants to play for him but we can still land a free agent? He's always striked me as bitter about his diminishing value as a "coach" and his equally diminishing profile. I'm on to the next opinion. If "Basketball is Jazz" then his Jazz is Kenny G.

[Lipoli390]

The Wolves are not extending a Qualifying Offer to MGH...

Michael Scotto ?@MikeAScotto
The Minnesota Timberwolves will not tender Marcus Georges-Hunt a qualifying offer, a league source told The Athletic. He will become an unrestricted free agent as a result. He played 42 games for Minnesota last season.

Not surprising. The Wolves couldn't afford his cap hold. In fact, the Wolves can't afford any cap holds because of how close they are to the luxury tax threshold. If they want to re-sign Belly without using their MLE, they'll have to retain their rights to him and live with the cap hold until they do. I get the sense the Wolves are looking to round out their roster this summer without paying the luxury tax. The numbers show it will be very hard to do.

[Monster]

The Wolves are not extending a Qualifying Offer to MGH...

Michael Scotto ?@MikeAScotto
The Minnesota Timberwolves will not tender Marcus Georges-Hunt a qualifying offer, a league source told The Athletic. He will become an unrestricted free agent as a result. He played 42 games for Minnesota last season.

Not surprising. The Wolves couldn't afford his cap hold. In fact, the Wolves can't afford any cap holds because of how close they are to the luxury tax threshold. If they want to re-sign Belly without using their MLE, they'll have to retain their rights to him and live with the cap hold until they do. I get the sense the Wolves are looking to round out their roster this summer without paying the luxury tax. The numbers show it will be very hard to do.

This doesn't really change the overall point of your post but i'll point that technically speaking the Wolves will still have a cap hold on MGH unless they renounce him. Not extending a qualifying offer to him just means he is an unrestricted FA. The reality is that they weren't going to match anything higher than a vet min deal on him anyway espcially after their draft. I expect he will have some team sign him to a non-guaranteed deal at the very least since other teams we're interested in signing him last year and some team would have claimed him when the Magic waives him if he was cheap enough to do so.

It remains to be seen if the Wolves put forth a qualifying offer to Belly which would be just under 5 million. Wolfson said in that last podcast he thinks there are a few teams interested and the offer he gets may make it easy enough to just move on and he senses the same that Glen isn't up for the lux tax at this point. I still think if they wanted to they could end up keeping Belly at a perfectly reasonable number however I get the lux tax concerns and I will agree that a 30 year old Belly that has had trouble saying healthy even back to his days in Europe might not be a guy worth doing all that for. Basically we need to hope KBD or some other cheap player (I keep saying Tyler Cavanaugh is a young guy I would take a chance on) can take his spot in the rotation. That's what the good teams do find cheaper players to fill the void. I'll hate to see him go though. If I had to choose for next year between Belly or Say Tolliver for winning games next year I would probably take Tolliver and he might come cheaper.

[60WinTim]

I was wondering what Belly's QO would be. I don't know that the Wolves would want to spend 5 mil on Belly. They would risk Belly accepting the QO and wind up 5 mil closer to the luxury tax.

I suspect they will extend a QO to Amile Jefferson because he would represent some cheap depth.