Naz or Randle. Can't have both.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Both could leave. Both CANNOT stay.

It's a bad mix. Both are undersized and poor defenders. While different offensively, their strengths are on that side of the ball.

Unfortunately, they really can't play many minutes together. The defense is just too poor... with no signs that it will ever get better. So, one has to go.

Obviously, everyone here has more of a relationship with Reid and have been part of his NBA journey, so I assume it's unanimous to keep him over Randle.

The bigger questions are...

1) What type of player should be found to replace Randle?
2) When will it happen? Is it worth compromising this season in hopes of it working out against all odds?

[mjs34]

It really doesn't matter. If I were you Abe, I would be watching as many games as I could. This team has maybe two seasons before Ant asks to be traded.

Connelly will likely leave this summer after decimating what looked like the most talented young squad in the league when he took over. He immediately sealded the fate of KAT by trading for Rudy, giving up 5 (or 6) first rounders and putting the wolves in cap hell. So he then trades KAT for maybe 1 first rounder, with Randle likely to walk.

Connelly biggest mistake was doing exactly what Thibs did here. He jumped two years too early to try and win a title.

Why did we give Rudy 110 mil. He is not moveable any more if he was before.

[DNatagal]

Naz should stay, his contract should still be cheaper than what Randle is going to get.
The Wolves need a springy center that can be a younger version of Rudy, but with better hands.

[Q-is-here]

Your thesis is backed up by the numbers....The Reid/Randle pairing has the worst defensive rating of any player pair that has played more than 100 minutes together. Meanwhile, the Reid/Rudy pairing is elite together, as they were last season as well. Granted, Reid is in with Rudy against a lot of 2nd unit-ish opposing lineups, so it isn't totally apples to apples.

A lot of us hoped that we could flip Randle for something right away when the KAT trade was first announced, but then the honeymoon started and we promptly dropped our dislike of Julius. Now reality is starting to set in.....

Ultimately, Reid is preferable, but at what price this offseason? And he simply CANNOT play any Center if we keep him. He is a PF and needs a pure Center playing next to him. Rudy needs a backup. It isn't coming from our G-League outfit either, as Leonard Miller is also an offensively-oriented PF and Jesse Edwards is terrible.

[Wolvesfan21]

Your thesis is backed up by the numbers....The Reid/Randle pairing has the worst defensive rating of any player pair that has played more than 100 minutes together. Meanwhile, the Reid/Rudy pairing is elite together, as they were last season as well. Granted, Reid is in with Rudy against a lot of 2nd unit-ish opposing lineups, so it isn't totally apples to apples.

A lot of us hoped that we could flip Randle for something right away when the KAT trade was first announced, but then the honeymoon started and we promptly dropped our dislike of Julius. Now reality is starting to set in.....

Ultimately, Reid is preferable, but at what price this offseason? And he simply CANNOT play any Center if we keep him. He is a PF and needs a pure Center playing next to him. Rudy needs a backup. It isn't coming from our G-League outfit either, as Leonard Miller is also an offensively-oriented PF and Jesse Edwards is terrible.

Agreed on all points. I would consider packaging Big Ju and and maybe our pick we got for a very good defensive backup center (who IDK). We need more rebounding on defense, more rim protection. Neither of these guys defend well enough and my worry was they would be bad on defense and guess what, they are. We're a Rudy injury away from being a very bad defensive team.

That said many of our perimeter players are playing half ass or lost on defense. Clean that up and that would help a lot. Guys are playing like it's preseason. True it doesn't really matter how many games you win or if you are the 1 seed. It would be nice, but they showed last year that homecourt was basically a non factor. I only worry that if this continues on for too long bad habits don't get fixed. Can they turn the switch like last post season and turn up the intensity in the playoffs (if they make it D:), we'll see abd we we're already number one on defense going in. So I kind of think it does matter.

[WildWolf2813]

I tried.


The part that sucks is that they're smaller without any progress from guys Connelly was banking on being main supporting cast members for Ant.

Dillingham and Shannon and clearly TBD (also sucks that NAW of all people is playing well knowing he's a goner at the end of the season.)

Now the focus is gonna be on finding a backup C in next year's draft and start now to groom Gobert's successor.

As for Randle/Reid, it's pretty obvious that Randle might have to go, but Randle is part of that Lavine/Ingram group of guys who will want bigger contracts than they'll get. Only now, who wants Randle? Who sees Randle as that missing piece? Who's gonna wanna pay him? We might be stuck with him and for those who wanna see Naz start, then that means Randle picks up the option to be disgruntled next year too.

[KG4Ever]

TC should have kept Kessler and not made the idiotic Gobert trade nor the idiotic KAT trade. But TC couldn't help himself and doesn't care that he's ruined a team's future just so he can brag that he took team to WCF finals. In a lot of ways I hate TC more than Kahn. Yeah, Kahn was a drafting idiot, but he didn't trade away a bunch of future picks like TC. No decent GM will want to come here after TC is gone with the cupboard being bare.

[KG4Ever]

Can we have neither?

[Lipoli390]

It really doesn't matter. If I were you Abe, I would be watching as many games as I could. This team has maybe two seasons before Ant asks to be traded.

Connelly will likely leave this summer after decimating what looked like the most talented young squad in the league when he took over. He immediately sealded the fate of KAT by trading for Rudy, giving up 5 (or 6) first rounders and putting the wolves in cap hell. So he then trades KAT for maybe 1 first rounder, with Randle likely to walk.

Connelly biggest mistake was doing exactly what Thibs did here. He jumped two years too early to try and win a title.

Why did we give Rudy 110 mil. He is not moveable any more if he was before.

Hard to argue with any of your observations. Now we’ll see if TC can earn that unprecedented lucrative contract Lore and A-Rod gave him. We’ve had one good season with Rudy out of the three so far. That one was VERY good, but it’s not nearly enough when getting Rudy left our draft coffers largely bare and our financial/transactional flexibility shackled to the ground. This season isn’t over yet and you never know. But I see no signs that this current team can turn things around and become a thing other than a 6-8 seed playoff team winning no more than one round and probably getting bounced in the first. Right now, we’re looking more like a lottery team without our lottery pick.

If I were in TC’s shoes I’d be looking to trade Randle, Jaden and Rudy. But we’ll have to trade Randle before the deadline and I can’t think of a team that would give up anything of value for him unless we took a longer-term contract in exchange. Jaden’s trade value is plummeting. Rudy’s new contract probably makes him untraceable. We could probably get a really good return for Donte, but do we want to lose him? Also, our 2nd apron really constrains our ability to make trades. So I don’t know what TC will be able to do.

[Phenom]

Think the Bulls would take Julius and Minott for Vuc and Patrick Williams? Could Vuc be a facsimile of KAT and Williams be a facsimile of Slo Mo (on defense)? Their contracts would seem to fit the timeline.

Rudy/Vuc
Vuc/Naz
Jaden/Williams
Ant/DDV
Mike/Dilly

I know many will say Vuc can't play the 4 but the same was said about KAT. Vuc is a versatile scorer, can hit the 3 ball and also fill in at C when Rudy sits. I kinda like this and it seems the Bulls would be open to it.