OFFICIAL Minnesota T-Wolves Offseason thread

The thing with Thabeet is we know that he definitely has the potential to be a bust but there are so many more reasons to spend a high pick on him ratherthan.....say......Steph Curry?
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Thabeet would come in and be a defensive presence right away...and hopefully he can learn some offensive tools as his career progresses as well. If he does, hewill be a good center in the league for years. If he doesn't...well, we know he'll always have that shot-blocking and defensive advantage.

Will Rubio come here if we draft him? Well...he will have to because he doesn't have much leverage anymore ever since he kept his name in and also decidedto sue his Spain team the Jovenuts or whatever. But would he be okay with coming here and playing for a small-market club? I don't know about that.
 
Here's the 2009 notable unrestricted free agents that I listed before:

Mike Bibby
Ben Gordon
Zydrunas Illgauskas
Jason Kidd
Rasheed Wallace
Jamal Crawford
Ron Artest
Lamar Odom
Kobe Bryant
Jermaine O'Neal
Shawn Marion
Carlos Boozer
Mehmet Okur

I can kind of see the route you're talking about potentially taking 651...it's just I'm looking at thislist and trying to figure out which of these guys would be content playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves while not being in the spotlight because he's notplaying for large-market team.
 
McHale as a coach > McHale as a GM... It's kind of sad to see him leave the team... Hopefully we can finally make some sort of progress now though.
 
From the NBA Pre-Draft thread...
An NBA executive told the Boston Globe today that the Minnesota Timberwolves is working a deal with the Phoenix Suns that would send former Celtics forward Al Jefferson and their sixth pick in next week's NBA Draft for All-Star Amare Stoudemire.

The Suns, which have dangled Stoudemire for some time, fiound a suitor in Minnesota that is in transition. The team announced today that coach Kevin McHale has ended his 15-year association with the team. New basketball of operations David Kahn is looking to take the franchise into another direction.
My response in the thread..
Originally Posted by JPZx

I wouldn't even trade Al Jefferson for Amare straight up....that's the worst trade rumor I've ever heard.

Kahn reportedly is talking to every NBA team. Maybe he's just inquiring about the value of every Wolves' player and Jefferson's name happened to pop up in a discussion or something.

Jefferson is younger, better contract and a 20 and 10 player.

Plus the #6 pick
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....

This trade rumor is laughable.
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I want to know what the rest of you (Ry, 651, rsd, nnarum) think. That'd definitely shift our franchise in a whole different direction....youknow my opinion now.
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^ Pointless...Maybe three years ago, yeah, but now? Besides, why would the Suns do that unless they overhaul their own team...Jefferson isn't much of astep up from shaq as far as quickness and overall athleticism.

Regardless of that, Jefferson at this point has much more upside...Hopefully it's just a rumor. Although I like the fact that Kahn is making some noise,albeit it stays noise unless it's something that will benefit this team.
 
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do not like that trade...amare is a stud...at getting hurt.

go a different way is one thing...but to trade big al, i can't agree with that.

if they are going to do something trade wise, i'd try and move up in the draft and grab rubio.
 
I would be okay with that trade actually. Would I do it? No. But you can also look at it the other way.....this team is going nowhere. Jefferson is a young upand coming player..........who has been in the league for 5 years and his teams have consistantly been in the basement. His fault? No. But he has not shown hecan carry a team so guess what you are not untouchable either.

Amare is a stud and in this league you win with studs. And he could get you 30 points a game. And he will sell tickets.

Again, NOTHING this team has done has worked. We can all admit that. And we are at a point where it seems every year we just add new role player pieces in thedraft that, again, are role players at best. Do you realize we are basically praying right now for .500? Think about that. And how far off they are from atitle contender. The fans just want freaking .500. Thats the current state of the franchise. Kahn was brought in to overhaul everything. Again would ipersonally do that trade? No. Do i believe this rumor to be true? No. But i do believe Kahn is going to blow this up. Who knows Amares attitude when he getshere or his contract. (But at the same time we've always heard Amare pretty much wants to be the man on a team and be paid like it so maybe he wont care tocome here and have the team built around him).

And lastly....i have said this for about 5 years running now. We are not going anywhere without a top point guard or a PG close to that.

What kills me is that this team spent about the last 5 years bottoming out...and that is your chance to draft high and get star players. And we werent able todo that. We missed our chance so now we have to work trades and FAs to get stars here for the long haul.
 
Well said, with a team as bad as ours, nothing to hold on to, nothing and nobody is untouchable.
 
If they get a decent veteran around Amare and Foye, with some decent role players, this team could make the playoffs.

Also, could we be a better run and gun team with Amare? We would need a better distributing PG though, that could have Foye at the 2 in a Ben Gordon kind ofrole...

PG - FA or even Telfair
SG - Foye
SF - Miller (He's too good of a shooter to bench right now on this roster)
PF - Love
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C - Amare

That's a pretty decent starting lineup. Gomes, Telfair, and Carney coming off the bench is pretty good too.
 
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No, no, no.

I can't believe you all are entertained by this so-called possibility. Btw nnarum, that lineup is at the most 5 wins better than the team last year.

I understand the discontent with this team the last few years...Hell, under the whole Mchale regime...But no way would I like to see this happen, nor if it didhappen would I be fine with it.

At this point, we cannot afford to trade for an older, still injury prone, non-franchise player. No way. Al, although two of those things, (non-franchise, andinjury risk) is younger, has more upside as opposed to Amare who has peaked, not to mention the declining value of STAT when not paired with a PG in Nash.Still an above average player, but nowhere near what he is in Phoenix.

Jefferson is the absolute perfect number 2. I agree with you Ry on the PG fact...Because that is the bottom line, which is why I'm excited for thepossibility of Rubio.

This team has so many options on the table at this point as far as draft picks, trade leverage with those picks, and the money we have to spend on FA'seither this year or next. We have many options to make this team a contender with what we have to spend right now, WITHOUT trading away any talent.

Even if we did make a playoff run with STAT, they won't win crap without a PG, and if by chance they did, the run would be short-lived and here we be againin a few years. The tradeoff is not worth it imo...

I know you aren't neccessarily a proponent of this Ry, but I just wanted to point some things out. This ain't happening anyway though.
 
Agreed. Im just tired of the same old that's all. Bottom line is would i go to more games next year if we landed a player of Amare's caliber? Yes. Andwould other fans? Yes. Do we know what the future would hold? No.

But yes, Jefferson is still young with a (by the NBA's standards) favorable contract. We know he is a perfect #2. The problem here is actually getting that#1. Superstars rarely become available via FA and we also likely wont have a Top 2 pick anymore (unless god forbid we have another 20 win season but that wontmatter anyway cause we will drop in the draft as usual). So what this means is you have to roll the dice. Its not even about "Jefferson and ____ forAmare" trade talk. Its rather about getting this current crop the hell out of here. They are all mostly nice decent roll players who collectively dontgive us much. And the problem with being "young and up and coming" is that every year we say that. And all this means is we arent good. Im tired ofbeing young and up and coming.

Point guard, point guard, point guard, point guard.
 
^ Yep, very true.

What do you think about Rubio...I can get excited about him, because he has tremendous upside, but who doesn't in the NBA drafts.
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I'm just wondering if at all we find a way to get him, if he can have the same sort of an impact that Parker had on the Spurs when he first came into theleague and of course his eventual, yet quick development into a stud and key part of that team.
 
Originally Posted by RyGuy45

Point guard, point guard, point guard, point guard.
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exactly!

i'm not against a trade that involves amare, but i would under no circumstances give up our first pick for him...

what i'm worried about is that kahn might be thinking he can let the first pick go and still grab a PG with one of the later 1st rounders.
 
The other thing is, too often we look at things short sighted if thats the word. Say Kahn pulls a trade that makes us go "Huh?" But it lands us anAll Star player. We must then realize that is the first step and who knows what else he call pull at a later date? Im personally going to look at this as a 17month process as he has said from the get go. If at that time we have a much better roster of players who are ready to play NOW and a team that is above .500and arent old geezers then let's roll. Im done thinking about the future and worrying about the young players and their upside. I want to win now, just getto .500 and hey who knows from there. This is pro sports.....things change every single year. Im seriously done worrying about holding on to young players forthe future. I think.

Im starting to think we are not going to have that #6 pick come draft day. Dont know if that means move up or move down.

Oh and lastly......the new coach? No idea which route to go. Every candidate has their issues we know that.
 
I understand all your points...but I just don't see the logic in trading for Amare when we know damn well he would leave for NY, Miami, or Chicago(big-market teams in need of a post and where he have to be the #1).

There's NO WAY he would stay here past the 2009-2010 season...and even if Kahn does swing a couple deals thatbrings in another fringe all-star type player, he still has no control over Amare.

Amare has already made up his mind in my opinion, (and if he does come here) in his head even if the Timberwolves did everything they could to keep him here itwouldn't work. It just won't. He's already set on playing with Wade, Lebron, and maybe Rose.

I'm all for thinking about the "now", but with this type of thing I think it's only logical to think about the future as well.
 
Eh...I guess the trade was just nixed (as reported in the NBA Off-Season Thread)...so everything I said is irrelevant
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There's no way Sarver and Kerr are smart enough to pull off that steal. Amare is absolutely not worth Big Al AND the #6 pick (maybe a true pg successor toNash?).
 
^ It is not irrelevant JPZ, your insight is just as valuable as everyone else. We thank you for your input.
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^Trust me Kahn is not going to pull a trade that makes him give up Jeff plus the #6 pick if it doesnt involve getting Amare locked for the next 6 years. Wedont need to worry about most the stuff we are worrying about.

Anyway, article today from my man Reusse:
David Kahn should not be criticized for letting Kevin McHale go. He should have been blasted if he let him stay.

Patrick Reusse
Columnist


David Kahn comes off as arrogant. That's an improvement on the atmosphere surrounding the Timberwolves over the past half-decade, which was one part paranoia and two parts incompetence (PI²).

Kahn was named the team's president for basketball operations on May 22. He immediately saw for himself that the bumbling of this organization started at the top.

Owner Glen Taylor opened the news conference with 20 minutes of glaring paranoia. Most of his monologue was spent defending the search process rather than boosting Kahn as the right man to lead the Wolves from the abyss.

Kahn promised that day to give a full hearing to Kevin McHale as the first candidate to be the coach for the 2009-10 season. He did exactly that, meeting with McHale over dinner twice and in several shorter meetings.

Finally, on Tuesday night, Kahn told McHale that he wasn't going to bring him back as coach. Kevin Love, the oh-so-coy power forward, broke the news with a tweet early Wednesday morning.

Twelve hours later, Kahn made it official at a Target Center news conference. The new basketball boss could not have been more generous in his words for McHale -- or more vague in itemizing reasons why he didn't want him as coach.

The level of angst over this decision among the assembled media was comical, when you consider the blasts we would have aimed at Kahn if he had chosen to retain the gentleman most responsible for the Wolves' dreadful condition.

The defenders of McHale insist that his basketball savvy came to the fore as a coach.

Based on what -- that he encouraged his players to push the ball on offense and allowed them to wave at opponents on defense? All members of this team's fan base (aka Timberwolves Phone Booth) probably would agree that McHale was a better coach than Randy Wittman, and he was a better coach than he was a boss of basketball operations.

Impressive as those two items might be on McHale's résumé, Kahn is entitled to have a higher standard in selecting an NBA head coach.

Kahn would be advised to hire a teacher, for what he has inherited here is a team of both limited talent and understanding of how to play the NBA game. And the knowledge gap only will increase with the prospect that a 19-year-old -- Tyreke Evans, Jrue Holiday, Brandon Jennings -- could be the next point guard.

Would it be possible to get Jeff Van Gundy in here on a lucrative contract? Presumably, Kahn will find out.

After that, Kahn would do much better bringing in Avery Johnson, a man possessed by the game, than a once-popular Wolves figure such as Sam Mitchell.

McHale took it on himself to call players such as Al Jefferson and Love to tell them that he wouldn't be back. Both players expressed sadness over McHale's departure -- Love in his news-breaking tweet and Jefferson in an interview session.

Then again, if you were as disinterested on defense as Jefferson, and as futile at it as often as Love, you might favor a coach who didn't get too worked up over that half of the court.

McHale also talked to a pair of reporters early Wednesday: the Star Tribune's Jerry Zgoda and the Pioneer Press' Charley Walters.

Any lingering doubts for Kahn had to disappear when he saw Zgoda's reporting of McHale's quotes on startribune.com.

"The players had really been reaching out to me, saying, 'We really want you to coach; we think we can make a run,' " McHale said. "The players felt so strongly, that was a big part of it.''

This job needed a realist -- not some guy from Fantasyland ready to embrace the idea this was a nucleus ready to make a run.

You need three standouts to make any kind of a run and the Wolves are standing at one-half: Jefferson, on the offensive end.

As for Love, he has a talent for rebounding. Beyond that, what Love proved after Jefferson's injury was that he's relentless as a stats collector in garbage time.

Kahn said he was leaving Wednesday's news conference to go into lockdown for next week's draft. His first act should have been a tweet to the L.A. Clippers, asking if it might be possible to send them Love, the sixth pick and another first-rounder for No. 1 overall Blake Griffin.


And as usual we get this from Sid Hartman
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And one of the first things Kahn did was to fire McHale, who did a great job winning 20 games last year with one of the youngest teams in the league using players who came from Boston in the trade for Kevin Garnett.
The players loved McHale. Kahn is going to regret his decision unless he brings in a miracle man.
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Hopefully a PG will allow us to improve on the lowest FG % in the league last year...
 
Originally Posted by 651akathePaul

^ It is not irrelevant JPZ, your insight is just as valuable as everyone else. We thank you for your input.
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Irrelevant in the sense that the trade was nixed as I was typing up the reply.

Am I using 'irrelevant' right?
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