Minnesota Sports Forum

SameOldDrew wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:Demarcus Cousins out for the year with a torn Achilles. Don't like him but hate to see this happen

Aaaaaand there goes my fantasy team due to injury again.

Wow that sucks. That probably eliminates them as buyers this year. I don't think they have a lot to sell on the trade market.

I was just listening to the Dunc'On podcast, trade deadline addition. There is absolutely zero chance we can unload Gorgui's contract. We'd obviously have to attach either Patton or this years OKC pick.

I'll admit, I thought the signing was ok at the time, thought it was market value and could be moved. But the salary landscape seems to have change in the league. A year later it's a terrible looking contract. To have that much money tied up between him and Taj makes zero sense with our need for depth on the wing and lack of shooting.

Duke13 wrote:I was just listening to the Dunc'On podcast, trade deadline addition. There is absolutely zero chance we can unload Gorgui's contract. We'd obviously have to attach either Patton or this years OKC pick.

I'll admit, I thought the signing was ok at the time, thought it was market value and could be moved. But the salary landscape seems to have change in the league. A year later it's a terrible looking contract. To have that much money tied up between him and Taj makes zero sense with our need for depth on the wing and lack of shooting.

I agree. Like you, I thought the money for Gorgui at the time made sense. But given the signing of Taj at $14 million per year and our lack of wing depth, it seems like too much.

I still wonder whether the Hawks would swap Bazemore for Gorgui and a future 2nd rounder. That deal would save the Hawks $3 million per year in cap space over the next two seasons. Then they'd have only one more year with Gorgui at $17 million. They could keep him if he's helping, but they could also pretty easily trade him at that point as an expiring contract. Bazemore just doesn't fit the Hawks rebuilding mode and he plays the position of their key young building block, Prince. Gorgui seems like a better fit.

lipoli390 wrote:

Duke13 wrote:I was just listening to the Dunc'On podcast, trade deadline addition. There is absolutely zero chance we can unload Gorgui's contract. We'd obviously have to attach either Patton or this years OKC pick.

I'll admit, I thought the signing was ok at the time, thought it was market value and could be moved. But the salary landscape seems to have change in the league. A year later it's a terrible looking contract. To have that much money tied up between him and Taj makes zero sense with our need for depth on the wing and lack of shooting.

I agree. Like you, I thought the money for Gorgui at the time made sense. But given the signing of Taj at $14 million per year and our lack of wing depth, it seems like too much.

I still wonder whether the Hawks would swap Bazemore for Gorgui and a future 2nd rounder. That deal would save the Hawks $3 million per year in cap space over the next two seasons. Then they'd have only one more year with Gorgui at $17 million. They could keep him if he's helping, but they could also pretty easily trade him at that point as an expiring contract. Bazemore just doesn't fit the Hawks rebuilding mode and he plays the position of their key young building block, Prince. Gorgui seems like a better fit.

It ended up being a bad contract but so many teams have bad contracts at that time. Fortunately for Dieng he took a "discount" deal and got paid. The other good news from that offseason.

Signed Aldrich to a 3 year 21 million dollar deal with 2 million guaranteed the last year. It ended up being a overpay but they got that 3rd year to be able to walk away from it. Not bad could have been worse.

Didn't sign another guy to a big deal that is tough to unload.

Bazz didn't sign that 10 million per deal that was offered him. Dodged a bullet there. Would have basically been a Myers Leonard situation although Leonard might have more value on the court but he is also a big so...yeah.

Dieng isn't completely dead salary. He can actually play. Lip pointed out the type of deal that at some point the Wolves may be able to make trading one overpriced player that can play for another one or a maybe combination of guys that get paid.

lipoli390 wrote:

Duke13 wrote:I was just listening to the Dunc'On podcast, trade deadline addition. There is absolutely zero chance we can unload Gorgui's contract. We'd obviously have to attach either Patton or this years OKC pick.

I'll admit, I thought the signing was ok at the time, thought it was market value and could be moved. But the salary landscape seems to have change in the league. A year later it's a terrible looking contract. To have that much money tied up between him and Taj makes zero sense with our need for depth on the wing and lack of shooting.

I agree. Like you, I thought the money for Gorgui at the time made sense. But given the signing of Taj at $14 million per year and our lack of wing depth, it seems like too much.

I still wonder whether the Hawks would swap Bazemore for Gorgui and a future 2nd rounder. That deal would save the Hawks $3 million per year in cap space over the next two seasons. Then they'd have only one more year with Gorgui at $17 million. They could keep him if he's helping, but they could also pretty easily trade him at that point as an expiring contract. Bazemore just doesn't fit the Hawks rebuilding mode and he plays the position of their key young building block, Prince. Gorgui seems like a better fit.

I actually am in favor of this trade simply because I would rather have wing depth than "big" depth. Moderate bigs are fairly easy to acquire. That being said, we all get very stuck on this idea that the Wolves have almost too much depth at the PF/C spot. Not sure I agree. The reason it seems that way at times is because we have had incredible durability this season at that spot. I can tell you, if Dieng goes, I am NOT comfortable with Bjelica and Cole as our "depth". I personally don't want to see Cole do anything but cheerlead, and Bjelica is simply not durable, or reliable for long stretches. That being said, based on my first statement, I am good with this type of deal, as I think it helps us long term.

Adreian Payne waived by Orlando from his 2-way contract after more disturbing things are revealed at MSU.

Lip, I think the trade makes some sense like you said for Atlanta and a lot for us, I I have a feeling the market would pretty competitive for Bazemore. So I think it's likely they would get better offers, if and most likely when they make him available

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Duke13 wrote:I was just listening to the Dunc'On podcast, trade deadline addition. There is absolutely zero chance we can unload Gorgui's contract. We'd obviously have to attach either Patton or this years OKC pick.

I'll admit, I thought the signing was ok at the time, thought it was market value and could be moved. But the salary landscape seems to have change in the league. A year later it's a terrible looking contract. To have that much money tied up between him and Taj makes zero sense with our need for depth on the wing and lack of shooting.

I agree. Like you, I thought the money for Gorgui at the time made sense. But given the signing of Taj at $14 million per year and our lack of wing depth, it seems like too much.

I still wonder whether the Hawks would swap Bazemore for Gorgui and a future 2nd rounder. That deal would save the Hawks $3 million per year in cap space over the next two seasons. Then they'd have only one more year with Gorgui at $17 million. They could keep him if he's helping, but they could also pretty easily trade him at that point as an expiring contract. Bazemore just doesn't fit the Hawks rebuilding mode and he plays the position of their key young building block, Prince. Gorgui seems like a better fit.

It ended up being a bad contract but so many teams have bad contracts at that time. Fortunately for Dieng he took a "discount" deal and got paid. The other good news from that offseason.

Signed Aldrich to a 3 year 21 million dollar deal with 2 million guaranteed the last year. It ended up being a overpay but they got that 3rd year to be able to walk away from it. Not bad could have been worse.

Didn't sign another guy to a big deal that is tough to unload.

Bazz didn't sign that 10 million per deal that was offered him. Dodged a bullet there. Would have basically been a Myers Leonard situation although Leonard might have more value on the court but he is also a big so...yeah.

Dieng isn't completely dead salary. He can actually play. Lip pointed out the type of deal that at some point the Wolves may be able to make trading one overpriced player that can play for another one or a maybe combination of guys that get paid.

Yes to the bit in bold. Lots of teams made what turned out to be big mistakes that offseason because the cap jumped soooo much that offseason and they didn't anticipate how much it would flatten out after that. Gorgui's a good player though, and we shouldn't forget it. We just signed his contract at the wrong time, and the signing of Taj was kind of redundant money, although Taj has been great. Still, the problem with that contract was more about Thibs timing his signing badly rather than Gorgui being a disappointing player.

Smart teams were more careful that offseason, and some others were lucky they needed the cap space for their stars (who deserved it). That offseason jump and the big contracts signed that year have also tied up a bunch of the cap space in the league for the next year or so and why some teams could get great deals on free agents in the next couple offseasons. There's just not enough money to go around for the players hitting the market, and there are more players hitting the market because a bunch picked up their QO or took one year deals last offseason because the money was already somewhat tight. It'll be even tighter next year as a result.

The league recommended smoothing the cap increase, but the players' association opposed it. That was a mistake by the players, IMO.

I'll be interested to see if this gambling initiative Silver is pushing actually happened. Think of what would happen to the cap then. The TV deal a couple years ago brought in something like 2.6 billion per year, almost three times what it was before (that's why the cap jumped so much). I wonder how much the league would add if it started taking 1% of legal, nationwide gambling on top of that. Vegas took in 5 billion on sports gambling last year. I don't know what percentage that was of all sports bets there, but I can imagine the NBA would stand to rake in a TON of money. Imagine what could happen to the salary cap then! Not sure it'll ever happen, and personally, I don't think it should. But if it did, whoo, boy!

SameOldDrew wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Duke13 wrote:I was just listening to the Dunc'On podcast, trade deadline addition. There is absolutely zero chance we can unload Gorgui's contract. We'd obviously have to attach either Patton or this years OKC pick.

I'll admit, I thought the signing was ok at the time, thought it was market value and could be moved. But the salary landscape seems to have change in the league. A year later it's a terrible looking contract. To have that much money tied up between him and Taj makes zero sense with our need for depth on the wing and lack of shooting.

I agree. Like you, I thought the money for Gorgui at the time made sense. But given the signing of Taj at $14 million per year and our lack of wing depth, it seems like too much.

I still wonder whether the Hawks would swap Bazemore for Gorgui and a future 2nd rounder. That deal would save the Hawks $3 million per year in cap space over the next two seasons. Then they'd have only one more year with Gorgui at $17 million. They could keep him if he's helping, but they could also pretty easily trade him at that point as an expiring contract. Bazemore just doesn't fit the Hawks rebuilding mode and he plays the position of their key young building block, Prince. Gorgui seems like a better fit.

It ended up being a bad contract but so many teams have bad contracts at that time. Fortunately for Dieng he took a "discount" deal and got paid. The other good news from that offseason.

Signed Aldrich to a 3 year 21 million dollar deal with 2 million guaranteed the last year. It ended up being a overpay but they got that 3rd year to be able to walk away from it. Not bad could have been worse.

Didn't sign another guy to a big deal that is tough to unload.

Bazz didn't sign that 10 million per deal that was offered him. Dodged a bullet there. Would have basically been a Myers Leonard situation although Leonard might have more value on the court but he is also a big so...yeah.

Dieng isn't completely dead salary. He can actually play. Lip pointed out the type of deal that at some point the Wolves may be able to make trading one overpriced player that can play for another one or a maybe combination of guys that get paid.

Yes to the bit in bold. Lots of teams made what turned out to be big mistakes that offseason because the cap jumped soooo much that offseason and they didn't anticipate how much it would flatten out after that. Gorgui's a good player though, and we shouldn't forget it. We just signed his contract at the wrong time, and the signing of Taj was kind of redundant money, although Taj has been great. Still, the problem with that contract was more about Thibs timing his signing badly rather than Gorgui being a disappointing player.

Smart teams were more careful that offseason, and some others were lucky they needed the cap space for their stars (who deserved it). That offseason jump and the big contracts signed that year have also tied up a bunch of the cap space in the league for the next year or so and why some teams could get great deals on free agents in the next couple offseasons. There's just not enough money to go around for the players hitting the market, and there are more players hitting the market because a bunch picked up their QO or took one year deals last offseason because the money was already somewhat tight. It'll be even tighter next year as a result.

The league recommended smoothing the cap increase, but the players' association opposed it. That was a mistake by the players, IMO.

I'll be interested to see if this gambling initiative Silver is pushing actually happened. Think of what would happen to the cap then. The TV deal a couple years ago brought in something like 2.6 billion per year, almost three times what it was before (that's why the cap jumped so much). I wonder how much the league would add if it started taking 1% of legal, nationwide gambling on top of that. Vegas took in 5 billion on sports gambling last year. I don't know what percentage that was of all sports bets there, but I can imagine the NBA would stand to rake in a TON of money. Imagine what could happen to the salary cap then! Not sure it'll ever happen, and personally, I don't think it should. But if it did, whoo, boy!

Agreed good post.

I was thinking the same thing about cap implications if that 1% went through that Silver proposed. I'm pretty far from an expert on that stuff but I would be surprised at this point if something doesn't go through now. It's just a matter of when.

C'mon LST, where are you? Aren't you gonna defend Kevin Ollie?