Mateo

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=6663

There's a pretty good article over on hoopsworld. I think I agree with all of the major points. They are:

1. Get Randy Foye Into The Mix
2. A Legit Center To Compliment Jefferson
3. Put McCants In His Place
4. Money For Free Agents Soon
5. Young team. New Man In Charge?

Your thoughts on each?

Mateo

Yeah, this is definitely the biggest question. What happens with Foye is going to have a huge impact on this franchise. It will decide whether we go after another guard in the upcoming drafts or not.

Is Foye a 1 or a 2? A starter or bench player? Last year seemed to indicate that he's a 1 coming off the bench. But we need to see more.

This is one that I'm not sure I agree with. I am half/half here. Although I do agree on the point that Jefferson doesn't do as good of a job defending centers, he doesn't seem to have much problem scoring on them. Is it that centers give him a tough task defensively or is he just not a good defender, regardless of the opponents size?

Also I'm of the philosophy that you play your best players, and our PF slot is much more stacked with Smith, Gomes, Richard, Walker. So playing Jefferson at PF puts these guys to waste, trying to play Gomes and Walker at SF where they are less effective.

McCants has had his chance. His injury excuse from last year no longer holds water. He's shown that he gives you a little, but not enough to be a team leader. He's Jarvis Hayes redux, put him on the bench I say.

We do have a lot of money coming off the books, but who's signing with us? I say we line up some dough to spend on a pass first PG. Go with an underachiever like Luke Ridnour and hope he turns things around.

This is the obvious point of the article. This should have happened 10 years ago!

luther

This isn't accurate, at least not for next season. Because we already signed Jefferson to his extension, we're at just over $55 million for next season before any negotiations with Smith, Gomes, Telfair, Richard or Green. Even if we don't resign our own players and let Ratliff's deal just come off the books (as opposed to using it in a trade this season), we're already virtually capped out for next year.

We're likely to have about $3 million under the cap, assuming it goes up the usual couple million per year. Look around the league and notice that $3 million gets you the likes of a Smush Parker, a Brian Scalabrine, a Matt Barnes or a Francisco Elson. Of course, that's assuming you can convince them to come to a small market, cold-weather team. What would our much ballyhooed cap space likely buy us on this free agent market? The likes of a Mark Madsen.

We do have some other cash, but it's not cap space: it's the same cash everyone always has, and what we would've had no matter what. We'll have our midlevel and our biennial exceptions, or just under $6 million and just under $2 million. Historically, we usually don't use this money, or we split it on lower level players.

It is true that after 2008-09 we're down to $35 million or so, but that assumes we don't give anyone an extension. More likely (knowing the Wolves), we're going to give Smith several million, Gomes several million and maybe even Telfair several million. Our $20 million will become $10 million. But of course, by then McCants and Foye will be up around extension time, and decisions will have to be made regarding them.

We've never managed the team well from a player personnel/financial standpoint. While this trade offered plenty of options to improve the situation, I don't see it happening. (Anybody remember Troy Hudson and Trenton Hassell?)

luther

By the way, had we not negotiated Jefferson's extension prior to this season, we would have had more money to spend. As I understand the cap rules, prior to us offering him either a one-year tender, an extension or releasing his rights, he would have counted at 300% of his salary against our cap. That means instead of the $11 million we have against the cap after this season at the moment, we'd have had just $7.4 million counting against the cap.

Instead of about $3 million in cap space after this year, we'd be at about $6.6 million in cap space. We could have used it all to sign someone, then negotiated any extension with Jefferson, thanks to his Bird rights. AND we'd still have our midlevel (of about $6 million) and biennial (of about $2 million) to use. Yes, it would have cost more money, but we also could have a talent infusion.

I still think we'd be smart to trade Ratliff's deal for a valuable player. Again, we aren't actually getting any cap room--okay, much cap room--for it. Why not take the opportunity, spend the money and get a legitimate piece of a good team? Nearly $12 million is nothing to sneeze at in terms of NBA talent. And it isn't like we're going to have that $12 million to spend this summer.

Mateo

We're still comfortably away from the luxury threshold though, so we can use the midlevel on a decent player.

luther

The luxury tax doesn't affect our ability to use the midlevel--just our inclinations.

And better management would have basically given us the leverage to sign someone else above the midlevel amount and use the midlevel. Alternatively, we can trade for someone (Ratliff's deal) and still use the midlevel. I know it costs more money, but it's not like we're going to get an infusion of talent for free. And with one pick per year (or fewer, depending on how many more McHale decides to ship away for garbage), we aren't going to build the team that way, either. Because by the time most of those guys are legitimately productive, they're either about to become very expensive or leave. The more recent picks will be cheap but likely not ready to really produce.

JuX

1. Foye have not played this season yet. This cannot be determined by how he played last season. It might be too early to tell if he is totally ready for that position we've been looking for a long time in a point guard, or in some cases, #2 position.

2. We've never had any decent centers other than Blount and Nesterovic but that's it. I don't know who would be the perfect compliment to Big Al. Theo did a good job until his bum knee gave out in the middle of a game earlier this season. That was a big bummer, I was kind of looking forward to watch him playing well on his contract year.

3. I've already given up my hopes on McCants. He's better off as a bench player, nothing more.

4. Free agents, who? who? Are they willing to sign with our crappy team with crappy management? This is going to be rather challenging to lure a decent free agent when we're morbidly bad team. Ok, the word morbidly is excessive, but we're bad. The worst.

5. A new man in the charge? On or off the court? Off court, I say let's get rid of McFail and Taylor but that's remotely possible, unfortunately.

luther

I'd say Felton Spencer in the second half of his rookie season and Dean Garrett throughout his rookie season were both better than Blount. Blount was by far the most physically talented big we've ever had, as an athletic 7-footer who could hit the jumper and even slash toward the hoop on occasion. But (especially when you have KG), what good are those redundant-but-lesser skills? He was unwilling and unable to defend the post or play offensive post. He wouldn't set decent screens. He was like a slightly better Brad Sellers out there. So while I think he could be a valuable piece of some team, this wasn't the one.

That said, I still would rank his time here as better than Stacy King, Luc Longley, Randy Breuer, Stojko Vrankovic, Cherokee Parks and several of our other terrible centers.

You ask who the perfect complement to Al is. I'd say there are two interesting types.

One is someone like Ratliff, only younger and durable. A guy like Sam Dalembert (if we're talking current pros) or DeAndre Jordan (if we're talking current collegians): someone who doesn't demand the ball on the post on offense, but who can box out weakside and snare rebounds (or, if Al learns to pass out of double-teams, take advantage and sneak in for weakside hoops); someone who rebounds and blocks shots; someone who can allow Al to take the worse of the bigs defensively, so he can avoid foul trouble.

Another option is someone more like Rasho: someone who can step out and hit the jumper. If he could pass the ball a little, that would be nice, too, allowing for some nice high-low or across-the-lane dumps.

But the worst complement would be another guy whose offensive is his focal point, and specifically who wants the ball on the low block to be most effective.

JuX

Only the second half of his rookie year, you said Felton Spencer was better? That wasn't enough, IMO. IN his three seasons he only averaged almost 6 ppg and 4.7 rebounds per game. That wasn't overly impressive. Of course, when he was traded away to Utah he became more decent than he was when he was a Wolf, however it was a short lived.

Blount has never known as a rebounding-blocking machine kind of a center. With KG as the team's top rebounder and scorer, Blount had another use, that was to shoot from outside and mid range. Turnover prone was the main reason the fans here especially at BBF.com was leery about first having him her after the Ricky Davis trade, but later was turning into poor man's Sam Perkins but often found shooting from mid range.

Nesterovic finally found his stride in his 4th and 5th years in the league. Same reason as Blount why his RPG is considerably lower than many centers, hence the presence of KG. He wasn't very happy in Minny so he left for the championship caliber team in the Spurs.

Dean Garrett was pretty good, but was only playing good for a short period of time. He was the best center that time, ironically for a season but came back after a season in Denver, he did not play like he was in the first year with the Wolves.

luther

The problem was less Felt and more the new management of the team, though, changing directions midstream and drafting Longley. Felton was perfect for what Musselman was doing at the time, and he came into his own averaging nearly a double-double the latter part of that season. Again, I know he wasn't as good. But he was filling a role perfectly, and could have continued to provide something the Wolves went on to lack for the next, well, forever: post toughness, rebounding and shot-blocking.

The problem with Blounts use is that KG was essentially the same kind of player on offense, but far, far better. So there was nobody doing the rugged, low-block, set-screens kind of stuff. When both 7-footers prefer to stand 15 feet away and face up, it's an issue. And again, defense is a requirement, especially for a big. Blount is a joke in that department.

The only reason he was good was that Steph's drive-and-dish game suited him perfectly. When he came back we dealt Steph; Terrell Brandon, being a jumpshooter, wasn't a good fit for Garrett's limited abilities. That's why I mentioned him as good only the first year here, not as being good overall. His limited role was something he did really well that first year, but only that first year.

JuX

That would be true, if we destined to keep Felton Spencer here much longer, who knows that he will turn into a better player that he should have been. "What ifs" is 'nother whole excuse. We never had the same starting center for at least 5 seasons.

I know his defense was liable to fail but we had no choice to acquire him for Wally and Kandiman. Still was better than Kandiman, but boy am I glad that we traded him and overpaid contract anyway. He's been downgraded to no use at all in Miami. Or is he getting more minutes since Mourning is out? No clue at all since I don't watch the Heat games.

That is also true. I noticed his game was changing once we changed the point guards. He was not as effective as he was with KG, Googs, and Steph. Sad.

luther

I wasn't sure of the Wally trade when it happened, and now I look at it as a miserable failure. Kandi was in his last year anyway. Yes, we'd still have Wally under contract, but that doesn't worry me. He and KG didn't like each other...tough ****, I say. This organization has never shown any balls when it should. They played well together, and could have continued to do so, regardless of whether they went to each other's houses at Christmas or on Friday nights. Instead we brought in two flat-out losers in Davis and Blount, guys whose physical abilities fool coach after coach (or GM after GM, really) into thinking they'll produce. And even if they do statistically, they don't in the W column. They are terrible, terrible basketball players in that regard. And what else did we get? Marcus Banks, PG of the future-turned-joke. He should have been a running back, because he's freakishly fast and very strong. But he proved he doesn't know anything about basketball. Time after time in that half season, I laughed as he misread play after play.

Oh, and we gave up that 1st rounder and Dwayne Jones for the privilege of taking on some athletic losers. Great move.

And so back to the topic of this thread, "tough decisions to be made" ... not exactly a strong suit for this team, historically speaking. I'll keep rooting for them regardless, but it would sure be easier if the person in charge was someone in whom we could more easily put some faith.

Avalanche