Minnesota Sports Forum

1. Deing is on his rookie deal for the next 3 years (I think?) making pennies on the dollar. You can afford him and Pek.

2. Deing could turn out to be the perfect complement to Love and Pek in that he's almost the exact opposite player.

3. You can never have enough bigs. People want Pek traded because he can't stay healthy. Deing is still a rookie and could easily turn out be just as injury prone. Big's tend to get hurt a lot.

4. I hear that you trade Pek because "12 million can be spent somewhere else". This is the Wolves were talking about. A. They have to overpay to get FA here. B. How many FA can you name in their entire history that they acquired and weren't overpaid? Pek is still easily this teams best center in their history.

5. The bench needs a boost badly. The team needs impact players on the bench more then anything. If deing can become one of those impact players, the team can make a big jump

I certainly don't think trading Pek is imperative. Both Pek and Dieng could make for a potent and complementary 1-2 Center tandem AND play together at times against certain matchups (for example, Drummond and Monroe or Perkins/Adams and Ibaka).

But should the front office completely ignore potential opportunities to upgrade one of the wing positions? No they shouldn't. I'm skeptical that anyone will be willing to give us an equivalent wing talent in exchange for Pek, but the front office should at least be willing to listen.

As for #4, it's almost an irrelevant point because the most likely scenario is that Pek gets traded for someone.

As for #5, you are absolutely right, but the problem with our bench is that they really struggle generating offense. We have a plethora of low usage role players that can fit in with our starting unit, but can't generate their own offense without Love or Rubio on the floor.

Alex - You make some good points. But your 5th point is actually a big part of why we need to deal Pek. Otherwise I don't see how we can add the quality players (or impact players) we need coming off the bench. We have no cap space and no other players on our roster who would bring back quality players in return. Other than our likely lottery pick this year, Pek is our only valuable trade asset.

I think Martin is our boost off the bench. We just need to put him there. I think Shabazz is the guy that is currently on this team that can do that. Start him with Brewer at SG. Not ideal. Need another ball handler.

It seems obvious to me -- Deing gives the starting unit what it needs, more so than Pek. And wouldn't Pek make that bench unit look good?!?

The only hiccup is paying a bench big 12 mil. But what the heck, Houston will be paying Asik 15 mil next year...

In hindsight, this would have been nice...

Rubio/Martin/Brewer/Love/Dieng - starters

Ridnour/Barea/Shabazz/Cunningham/Pekovic - bench

Turiaf and Budinger rotating whenever/wherever needed.

I think Ridnour would've solved a lot of our problems with the 2nd unit this year.

I agree with Ridnour being more important then Budinger.

I really do not like Budinger ... I think id even change the last two players to Turiaf and Hummel. I appreciate the way Hummel plays. Plays within the offense, and shows intensity on defense. He never gets minutes, and does not sulk because of it, he just makes the most of it when he does get them.

Point #5 is so significant and I think the back end of the roster could even be improved through the right vet minimum guys. AJ Price there were better options out there I am not sure why we didn't go for one of them. Maybe Flip was really hoping Lorenzo would be good enough to stick. of course we need more depth than vet minimum guys but the bench has been so awful this year I can't think of a worse bench going back to KGs days. You basically have Dante and JJ who have been at least somewhat effective (both IMO are less effective because they are being forced to be the top guys off the bench) and Turiaf has been great for the few games that he has been healthy but thats not many. I suppose Luc probably has been ok, but he is a defender on a team that desperately needs some bench scoring. Its a bad deal. Shved has been so awful I am not sure even the posters here that wanted him gone could have imagined how bad he would be this year.

So yes we need to add talent and depth and trading Pek does sound good, but lets also consider that if we trade Pek we have basically nothing at backup center and sure we could sign some random dude and that might be fine, but having 2 legit centers that compliment each other sounds pretty great. Also lets just consider this. We could probably upgrade the bench by signing 2 vet min guys over AJ price and Shved. I woudl think that either via our draft pick or using a player exception of some sort or a small trade we could add one decent legit rotation guy in the offseason that would help. Of course bottom line is we need Shabazz or whoever we draft to become a legit starter or this team won't go anywhere. I am not sure that trading Pek is the way to get the guys we need considering what we give up.

I'll say this though for trading Pek and I am not totally against it as long as the guy doesn't have some sort of significant injury I think he will have some pretty good value. Centers that can score and rebound are not very common and Pek can do that. Sure he is going to miss some games but basically all true centers over the age of 25 or so miss games. Thats the reality. If the Wolves get a good offer sure trade him, but I also think it might be a good idea to wait till after you get into next season to be sure what you have or don't have. This team still has alot of questions about what it has doesn't have with Bud being hurt and the bench being so awful and some young guys like Dieng and Shabazz taking a while to be able to make contributions. We woudl like to think those guys can be more of a difference maker next year.