Minnesota Timberwolves

March 16, 2013; Las Vegas, NV, USA; UCLA Bruins guard/forward Shabazz Muhammad (15) shoots against Oregon Ducks guard Johnathan Loyd (10) during the second half of the championship game of the Pac 12 tournament at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Oregon defeated UCLA 78-69. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports Smokescreens and intrigue, the buildup to the NBA Draft is upon us. The Wolves have some buzz around the league as movers and shakers lying in wait for Charlotte’s number four pick. What it would take to move up from number nine is unclear, but not so unclear as how the existence of the rumor the Wolves would be interested in UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad if they stick with their number nine pick is possible. Is Flip Saunders creating the possibility to draw attention from his actual target? Is there real interest in Muhammad? In the wake of his hire, Flip gave a lot of lip service to fit and character with regard to Rick Adelman’s system and the overall culture. (Could have used a Flip-ism like: insofar as, right there, and chose not to.) From Doogie Scoops: Look for new Minnesota Timberwolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders to engage Charlotte, holders of the No. 4 pick in next month’s draft, in trade talks. According to league sources, Saunders is a big fan of Indiana guard Victor Oladipo, and the only way to get him is to move up from the ninth-spot. If the Wolves stay at No. 9, one league source predicts Saunders will take UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad. Word has it that the Wolves like him. But so does Detroit, and they pick one spot ahead of the Wolves.

Timberwolves.com compiled several mock drafts from reputable sports media outlets highlighting where they think prospects will be selected at the June 27 NBA Draft.

We’re kicking off our offseason coverage here at A Wolf Among Wolves with a comprehensive roster review of the team from this past season, looking at how each player’s 2012-13 went and what we see for them going forward. One player a day for the next couple weeks, starting with the bench and rolling up [...]

While the Cavaliers seem likely to choose Nerlens Noel with the first pick overall, there are persistent rumors that they are really looking to use the pick and other assets (along with their upcoming cap space) in a trade a la last summer's James Harden blockbuster. They want another star to pair with Kyrie Irving. This was discussed in part two of yesterday's B.S. Report with Bill Simmons, by Brian Windhorst, an ESPN writer who formerly worked in Cleveland. He also cogently discusses the ramifications of the new luxury tax system. I know Simmons isn't everyone's favorite, but Windhorst is interesting here, and it's worth a listen. For those of you who can't get enough mock drafts, here are links to a few--feel free to add more in comments: Draft ExpressSB NationSports IllustratedNBA.com Several mocks have the Wolves taking Canis Hoopus favorite (whipping boy) Shabazz Muhammad. Darren Wolfson, in his latest Scoops column has sources that say the Wolves like him. Of course our own Just a Fan assured us the other day that they don't like him and he isn't on their list. Ah, pre-draft prevarications. But for fun, here's his DX scouting video, just so you can wallow: All of this year's scouting videos are here. Wolfson also suggests that the Wolves will try to move up (probably to Charlotte's 4th spot) for Victor Oladipo. Flip Saunders reports on his twitter that Trevor Mbakwe was very impressive at the Nets pre-draft camp,with his rebounding prowess and that Rodney Williams measured very well. This was echoed by Jonathan Givony of Draft Express. Next Tuesday and Wednesday the Wolves will play host to NBA decision-makers as they hold their annual pre-draft workout. Don't know yet who will participate, but it's usually mostly second rounders and potential UDFAs. If you see any NBA GMs around town, be ready with your trade machine ideas. They love that. In the meantime, vjl110 has updated his expected peak wins chart by including information from the combine in his model. He says: " I am not necessarily ready to sign off on these results..." so buyer beware. Still, it makes Cody Zeller look incredible and separates C.J. McCollum from KCP and others. In free agent "news," Wolfson said on his twitter last night that the team is assuming that AK will exercise his player option. Though that's a little confusing to parse, I interpret it to mean that they expect him to opt in. He also tweets that Kahn inquired about Alec Burks of the Utah Jazz in February, but that the Jazz had no interest in trading him. The Minnesota Lynx finalized their roster yesterday a week ahead of their June 1st season opener by cutting Pepper Wilson. I'm a little concerned about their depth in bigs, especially since Janel McCarville is coming off a pretty long lay-off. Third year player Amber Harris and second year player Devereaux Peters are going to have to step up. Hey, there's a ballgame tonight! Those nights with no games remind me that we are heading for a months long dry spell with no NBA basketball. Anyway: Pacers at Heat: 7:30 Central on TNT Can these two teams produce another game as riveting as game one? That game was marred by a lot of turnovers, but was incredibly competitive and featured several fantastic moments, including the Paul George game tying three in regulation, Chris Bosh's fantastic put back and-1 in overtime that tied it up, and of course the James game winner with Roy Hibbert sitting on the bench. How resilient are the Pacers? They had their shot in game one and now have to win four of six from the best team in the league. Huge game tonight. Enjoy it.

Feel free to change the title of this post to help its clickability, I'm not a marketer. So, I waited to create this after the lottery and VJL had made all of his projection posts to get the best idea overall idea of the FA “Bigs” market going into the off-season. I might be a minority but when thinking about Pek I think we might be in the fortunate position to have a “Bigs” buyers market if you will, similar to the PG market a few years back. I have listed the current 2012/2013 roster for every team along with their respective upcoming market status. I have also listed the cap space available to all of the teams, but it should be noted that the first value assumes all non-guaranteed (NG) contracts are eliminated and the second value is all options (ETO and TO) are declined. If only one value is listed then there are no contracts with options for the specific team. I have also listed the possible KEY: FA – Free Agent ETO – Early Termination Option NG – Non-Guaranteed TO – Team Option PA – Player Amnesty (According to Rumors) Atlantic Knicks: Centers/PFs: Marcus Camby, Tyson Chandler, Kenyon Martin (FA), Amar’e Stoudemire Cap Space: -$18.68 Million or -$15.66 Million (Without Options) Nets: Centers/PFs: Andre Blatche (FA), Reggie Evans, Kris Humphries, Brook Lopez, Miraz Teletovic Cap Space: -$26.63 Million or -$25.53 Million (Without Options) Celtics: Centers/PFs: Brandon Bass, Kevin Garnett (PA?), Jeff Green, Fab Melo, Shavlik Randolph (NG), Jared Sullinger, D.J. White(NG), Chris Wilcox (FA) Cap Space: -$14.37 Million or $0.97 Million (Without Options) 76ers: Centers/PFs: Lavoy Allen, Kwame Brown (ETO), Andrew Bynum (FA), Spencer Hawes, Arnett Moultrie Cap Space: $13.62 Million or $16.57 Million (Without Options) Raptors: Centers/PFs: Andrea Bargnani, Aaron Gray (ETO), Amir Johnson, Jonas Valanciunas Cap Space: -$7.74 Million or -$6.17 Million (Without Options) Central Pacers: Centers/PFs: Tyler Hansbrough (FA), Roy Hibbert, Ian Mahinmi, Jeff Pendergraph (FA), Miles Plumlee, David West (FA) Cap Space: $9.96 Million Bulls: Centers/PFs: Carlos Boozer (PA?), Taj Gibson, Nazr Mohammed (FA), Joakim Noah, Malcolm Thomas (NG), Nikola Mirotic (Cap Hold) Cap Space: -$15.32 Million Bucks: Centers/PFs: Gustavo Ayon, Samuel Dalembert (FA), Drew Gooden, John Henson, Ersan Ilyasova, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Joel Przybilla (FA), Larry Sanders, Ekpe Udoh Cap Space: $17.95 Million or $28.95 Million (Without Options) Pistons: Centers/PFs: Andre Drummond, Jonas Jerebko, Viacheslav Kravtsov (NG), Jason Maxiell (FA), Greg Monroe, Charlie Villanueva (ETO) Cap Space: $29.03 Million Cavaliers: Centers/PFs: Kevin Jones (NG), Marreese Speights (ETO), Tristan Thompson, Anderson Varejao, Tyler Zeller Cap Space: $22.34 Million or $26.86 Million (Without Options) Southeast Heat: Centers/PFs: Chris Andersen (FA), Joel Anthony, Chris Bosh, Udonis Haslem, Juwan Howard (FA), Rashard Lewis (ETO), Jarvis Varnado (NG) Cap Space: -$25.68 Million or -$15.55 Million (Without Options) Hawks: Centers/PFs: Al Horford, Ivan Johnson (FA), Zaza Pachulia (FA), Johan Petro (FA), Mike Scott (NG), Anthony Tolliver (FA), Josh Smith (FA) Cap Space: $38.79 Million Wizards: Centers/PFs: Trevor Booker, Jason Collins (FA), Nene Hilario, Cartier Martin (FA), Emeka Okafor (ETO), Kevin Seraphin Cap Space: -$0.63 Million or $21.58 Million (Without Options) Bobcats: Centers/PFs: Bismack Biyombo, DeSagana Diop (FA), Brendan Haywood, Josh McRoberts (FA), Byron Mullens (FA), Tyrus Thomas Cap Space: $16.62 Million or $29.82 Million (Without Options) Magic: Centers/PFs: Glen Davis, Al Harrington (NG), Andrew Nicholson, Kyle O’Quinn (NG), Nikola Vucevic Cap Space: $5.64 Million or $12.89 Million (Without Options) Pacific Clippers: Centers/PFs: Blake Griffen, Ryan Hollins (FA), DeAndre Jordan, Lamar Odom (FA), Ronny Turiaf (FA) Cap Space: $13.76 Mill

Guess what? This isn't another rant about the NBA lottery being rigged. No, in fact, I believe the lottery works exactly as its intended to. Just one problem: the way its intended to work hurts more than it helps. And never, in the 16 years the Timberwolves have not moved up in the lottery, was this more apparent than this past week. Two years ago, when it was becoming apparent that 'the blueprint' wasn't going to build the grand Timbertower we were promised, we of the Canis Hoopus variety swore off cheering for moral victories. No more. None. The team either won or it got Korean food. And that's something we carried through quite literally with every %%% comment about draft picks and athletes and blueprints and smiles and open letters and too much weed and assigning the coaches homework and loss after loss after loss. Win now. The end. But here's the thing. At the end of just this last February, the Wolves were sitting on a record of 20-35. Chase Budinger was set to come back anytime, and there was still the possibility that Love get in a few games as well. And we said GREAT. Get 'em on the court and let's win some games! But let's take a moment to think about what we were really cheering for. Actually...what were we cheering for? The Pups had a nearly 2-1 loss-win count, and with no moves made at the trade deadline, were clearly not going to make the playoffs (at the time, we calculated that the Wolves would need to play better ball than the Heat to make the 8th seed at that point (BTW, the Heat have lost only 3 games since the end of February)) With no chance at the postseason and the roster too decimated by injury to claim the whole "gaining some on-court chemistry" thing, winning would accomplish nothing. But we wanted them to win, and they wanted to win, and so they started winning; from March 1st to the end of the season, the Wolves posted a not-all-that-terrible record of 11-16, to finish the year at 31-51, good for the #9 draft pick. So...hooray....?..??.......? Ok, but let's rewind one more time: 20-35. A really terrible record after 3 previous years of really terrible records. But here's the thing: had we stayed on that path, we would have finished with a record of 29-53. Just a difference of two wins, right? Wrong. 29-53 is the record the Wizards finished with. Which put their lottery chances at 3.5% as opposed to our own 1.7%, which ultimately got them the 3rd pick...not the 9th. It would seem that we all like Victor Oladipo in this draft. And if we assume the first two picks will be some 2-person combination of Nerlens Noel, Ben McLemore, Otto Porter, and Trey Burke, then it turns out the difference between 29-35 and 31-51 is the difference between Victor Oladipo and.....not Victor Oladipo. Winning would get us nothing. We cheered for our team to accomplish nothing and they got nothing. Were we wrong? Of course not. How would we be wrong for wanting our team to win after 3 1/2 years of losing? But at the same time, the winning clearly hurt us in this case, and hurts most teams in almost all lottery cases. Teams exist to win. But when a season is clearly lost early on, and winning doesn't get the team anything practical, then the only way to make something useful out of the situation is to engage in that blasphemous, 4-letter word practice. Tank. And therein lies the core of the problem of using the current lottery system. For a team to win later, it has to actively lose now. And that's not the team's fault and it's not our fault and it's not even the lottery's fault. The lottery does what it's supposed to do. It's the system's fault. As Royce White said early this year in his battle for a mental health policy, "The problem is the art of the business." Good teams are built by drafting the best players. The best players get drafted with high picks. The system is set up to award high picks to those with bad record; the worse the record, the better the pick is likely to be. And no, having the wor

Just play that bubbly, happy music. Get excited. There are endless opportunities to change your fortune. To make a splash. To move some weight. To shake things up. According to Timberwolves.com, Flip Saunders is open to all those things. “We’re going to exhaust every opportunity to make this team better, whether it’s through trades, getting lucky (and having a good player fall to them at 9),” Saunders said. “I don’t think anybody expected when Portland was picking at 6 last year that they’d have the unanimous rookie of the year.” “I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice to be in the top three. I’d love to be in the top three,” Saunders said. “It’s not where I’m looking to say where our franchise is happy we didn’t’ get in the top there. But with the players that we have, adding through free agency or trades and guys getting healthier, that’s how we’re going to make our jump next year.” Saunders said unlike the widely popularized moves in the NFL Draft, it’s highly unlikely in the NBA to package those two first rounders to move up to a top three spot. Instead, the question Saunders will ponder is if there is a situation where the No. 9 pick and a player on the current roster could help them move upward. He said teams are not in deal-making mode—teams are instead in Draft mode and will see if there is a player they fall in love with. He said the Wolves, too, have some players they’re taking a hard look at. So, moving anyone not named Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio and Nikola Pekovic, let’s make a deal. According to Sam Amico’s worthless rumormongering, there’s this… The Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Hawks are said to be two such teams, with both supposedly exploring the idea of improving their draft position. As for the Lakers, their lone pick doesn’t come until midway through the second round (No. 48 overall). But, as usual, they’re supposedly willing to trade big man Pau Gasol in attempt to get younger. That may mean obtaining a pick, a younger player and a contract. Again, all of this is just speculation at the moment, and it may result in nothing at the end. And goodness knows, these are the type of discussions among GMs and execs that will take place all the way through the draft. Connect the dots, people. Connect them and find an overpriced third big for the Wolves. April 26, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers power forward Pau Gasol (16) reacts during the first half in game three of the first round of the 2013 NBA playoffs at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Daryl Morey's reputation makes it possible that this post will become completely outdated by Opening Day. After all, consider last year's team. SlowBreak wrote an excellent state of the Rockets post last May. By August, nearly the entire team had been turned over, and I wrote another Rockets post. A little over two months later, the Rockets traded for James Harden, remodeling the team twice in one summer. Houston has assembled something like a stable, young core, but with near max cap space, and a bevy of young, tradeable assets, it is entirely possible that this team will look completely different come the autumn. Part One: The Core James Harden (13.7 million in 2014). Harden is a superstar. He averaged 26/5/6 with a .600 TS%, and has finished in the top 5 in the league in offensive win shares the past two years. His defense fell to embarrassing depths this year as he was forced to run the offense for almost forty minutes every night. If he improves his effort on that side of the ball, he'll cement his status as a top ten player. He is signed through 2018, and not going anywhere. Omer Asik (8.4 million in 2014). Asik's success is another victory for the primacy of per minute statistics. A dominant per minute rebounder and defender behind Joakim Noah, Asik seized the chance to play 30 minutes a game, leading the league in total rebounds (14 per 36), and singlehandedly lifting the defense from "Kingsesque" to comfortably above average in the time he was on the floor. His much derided 3/25 contract is now looking like one of the biggest free agent bargains in recent memory. His awkwardly acrobatic layup attempts are also amusing, if somewhat frustrating for Rockets fans, who wish he would just dunk the ball. Jeremy Lin (8.4 million in 2014). After all the hullabaloo, Lin was an exactly average NBA player in 2013, posting a PER of 14.9 (15 is average) and a WS/48 of .099 (.1 is average). Of course, "average" is quite a good for a (n essentially) sophomore point guard coming off a serious knee injury. Encouragingly, Lin improved quite a bit throughout the year, and was a ~40% 3 point shooter during the final three months of the season. There's no reason not to expect him to continue to improve over the next couple years. Chandler Parsons (0.9 million team option in 2014). A practically perfect role player, Parsons can shoot, to the shock of those who watched him at Florida, rebound, pass, and play defense. Like several other Rockets players, Parsons' defense suffered at times this year, due to excessive gambling and increased offensive responsibility. My estimation of his "ceiling" keeps rising, but I think he has the potential to become a similar player to Hedo Turkoglu, with better defense. And how about that contract? Patrick Beverley (0.8 million team option in 2014). My old friend! I may be overreacting here, but I do think Beverley deserves to be listed in this group. For those of you that have not seen him play, Beverley is a spark plug extraordinaire. He's an exceptional rebounder for his position, a good passer, always pushes the pace, is a really tough defender, and will hit the corner three. A very aggressive player who can play on the ball and off, he's exactly what you want from a third guard. By the end of the year, many Rockets fans were clamoring for him to start over Jeremy Lin. While I don't endorse that viewpoint, he is a valuable player that the Rockets found for nothing (mid season free agent signing from Russia). Sigh. Part Two: The Young Power Forward Army Remember last summer, when the Rockets had a dozen power forwards on the roster? Ironically, that is now the weak spot on the team, although there are plenty of young talented fours still on the roster. Greg Smith (0.9 million team option in 2014). Last year, I wrote "He's tall. Put up good numbers in the D-League." This year? He's tall. Put up good numbers in the NBA. Smith is a fantastic finisher, both on the roll and on the offensive boards. Hi

This is the second part of a two-part series of my ramblings on the Minnesota Timberwolves upcoming offseason. The first part, which you can read here, focused on the current makeup of the team and the situations they’re facing right now. In Part II, you will learn more about the options the Wolves have this summer and moves that I would personally endorse to finally turn this team into a playoff contender. Enjoy! Have you ever started a project but realized you didn’t have the right tools to complete it? You’re hanging up some sheetrock in a friends house. Why? I don’t know, you’re just a really nice guy. But you get there and realize everything’s in place but the sheet rock screws! DOH! You’re not about to hammer nails into it, everyone knows that, so you make the run to get the screws and come right back. But by the time you’re back and finally able to get the job done, you’ve wasted nearly an hour going back to get what you should’ve already had. Time wasted. That’s a little bit what I think about Timberwolves right now. David Kahn did a fairly decent job of creating what we thought a winning team, a playoff team might look like. Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio, even Nikola Pekovic headline what might be a solid team with the potential of making a run in the playoffs with some rambunctious, entertaining play. But see, Love, Rubio and Pekovic might be the tools you need to get the job started — the sheetrock, the drill and perhaps some gloves — but the Wolves are missing a big part still: “The screws.” And without those, the project won’t be finished and you’ll only be set back on time until you get them. Welcome to 2013 and we’re finally coming back from the store. Now comes the time we finally get those screws and start building this house for the future. Okay, enough of the poor synonyms, let’s talk about how the Wolves should move forward. In part I of my ramblings, I outlined where the Wolves are at currently and what means they might be able to fix the team moving forward. I’ll start with the draft because that is what comes first naturally. The lottery last Tuesday revealed to us the Timberwolves hopelessness of ever moving up in the NBA Draft but that’s no matter. There are many other teams that have thrived drafting in the middle of the pack. Take Indiana for example. They’re battling against the defending champs in the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals, and if you look at their team, no one was drafted higher than DJ Augustin, who was drafted 9th by the Charlotte Bobcats back in 2008. Their newfound superstar in Paul George was taken 10th in 2010 — the same year we took Wesley Johnson. Obviously the Wolves don’t have the same level of luck as the Pacers have found in the past 5 years but it’s more than that. It’s all about good management and understanding the value not just at your position but the whole draft. Our good friend Chad Ford has told us time and time again that this is not an earth-shattering draft in terms overwhelming talent. But that’s not to say there aren’t great players eligible that won’t make your team better immediately as long as you identify and go after them. So who are they and will they be available at #9 and #26? Well it’s important to break down any big board by need first then value. The Wolves’ needs are clear as day: They need shooters, preferably shooting guards, and perhaps another big body to challenge Greg Stiemsma for backup center or strictly as insurance if Pekovic bolts via restricted free agency. With that, you can rattle off a few interesting names such as Ben McLemore, Victor Oladipo, Nerlens Noel, Alex Len, CJ McCullom, Shabazz Muhammed, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Anyone jump out at you besides the first three? No, I didn’t think so. Chad Ford has the Wolves going McCullom at #

On Tuesday evening, the Wolves solidified the inevitable and secured the 9th pick in the draft. As lottery non-winners for the 15th-ish time, this likely came as no surprise to a team that had roughly a 95% chance to not move up. The Cavs won pick #1 again. Life goes on. The only real solace we can gain out of this is not having moved back a spot. So what should the Wolves do at pick #9? The immediate gut instinct is to push for a trade-up, right? Sorry to burst any bubbles, but it may not even be worth the time to consider the possibility. Look, as soon as the lottery results are revealed, the fact of the matter is dozens upon dozens of folks, including myself, start spewing out fake trades on how the Wolves could move up in the draft. It is sort like a new "season" of sorts, similar to hunting, fishing or intramural badminton, with the ideas generally becoming more and more preposterous, unlikely, impossible, homerish, or even anti-homerish (such as trading Kevin Love to move up, just wait, someone will come up with the idea) as time goes on. Let's think of things this way. Why would the Wolves move up in the draft? I can think of only one player truly worth moving up for that might be an option due to draft positioning: Victor Oladipo. Victor has shot up the draft boards and at the very least is all but guaranteed to be drafted in the top 5. Otto Porter? Perhaps, but he may go even higher that Victory O. So, let's play a little game. Since 2005 (when I stopped looking or trade records were getting harder to find or decipher from internet 1.0 pages), see if you can take a guess on how many trades have been made involving a team moving from pick 6-10 into the top 5? .... Hint: It rhymes with "Euro" .... Yup, zero times! No team has done it in at least the last eight drafts, and probably more. What we have seen are only two post-lottery transactions involving top 5 picks, coincidentally both involving the Wolves and both being arguably two of the top 3-4 moves in franchise history: Kahn sending Randy Foye and Mike Miller to the Wizards for the #5 pick in 2009, and in 2008 the Wolves moving back from 3 to 5 and acquiring Kevin Love for OJ Mayo. Aside from that, there have been a total of zero moves involving top 5 picks after the lottery, and a total of zero moves involving a team moving into the top 5 by packaging an inferior pick with players. Why might this be the case? It takes two to tango. The team with the higher pick is usually young, bad, and wants to build its roster with a potential stud/unknown and will only move back if it gets a legitimate stud/star-level veteran in return (unless of course you are the 2009 Wizards, and let's just pretend Flip didn't have a say in that move). The team with the lower pick, in turn, sees value at their poorer position but is unwilling to part with a key rotation player since it was a better team to begin with, perhaps on the cusp of a playoff berth the previous season but plans were derailed for whatever reason (such as your Wolves). This, in turn, is a dreadful matchup in trade and, thus, it almost never works. The only real move-up and move-backs involve picks that were both higher to begin with, among teams completely rebuilding. Needless to say, it remains exceedingly unlikely we will see the Wolves move up. The slightly more likely (yet still pretty unlikely) scenario would be the Wolves trading some existing players and acquiring a new pick outright, or trading out altogether. We have seen a few of these moves over the years (Rubio, and Ray Allen to Boston for Jeff Green the 5th pick in 2007), but the fact of the matter is outside of Kirilenko the Wolves don't exactly have a good package to put together to make such a move, nor does it fit at all with the current strategy of the front office. And if anyone thinks D-Will is worth a top 5 pick in any draft....well, yeah. Get real. But let's pretend the Wolves were