Aldridge: Better Values in 2009 Free Agency

[Devilzsidewalk]

I think the Wolves would be better served to approach Atlanta about a sign-and-trade for Williams. RFA signings are kind of like hostile takeovers and you never know what kind of bad karma the team will stir up should they try to outbid for Williams. Plus, it puts them in a bad spot having to wait around with all their eggs in one basket while other more attractive options are taken off the table. This way, they could have things move a bit more quickly and not have to have a large part of the equation be out of their control.

Another option is Trevor Ariza. He is unrestricted and would probably come at a similar cost to Williams. He is young, athletic, and can rebound and defend. He's a solid, solid young player.

thought aboutAriza too, but Carney can do some of the same things, plus he can hit the 3 and would probably be considerably cheaper

[Devilzsidewalk]

When I've mentioned it in the past, someone accused me of it being an "NBA-Live" move. I don't play the game, so I'm going to go with an adjective I heard once last year .. "maverick."

Yeah, I know this is kind of far-fetched, but we kind of backed ourselves into a little corner here. Since we bought out the contracts of Hudson and Juwon Howard (and I don't disagree with the move), we no longer have them to trade as expirings for the 2009 Free Agency. What we have is cap space, and the ability to sign a player for more than the MLE .. an ability that only two other teams might have. Its kind of like Aldridge said, having the free cash at the right time.

To me, assets are assets. They have values, and they can be traded. I'd be happy to trade cap space to another team to sign Boozer, but most teams aren't far enough under the salary cap themselves so that even with our cap space, they could still make a max deal. Any team can trade for Boozer though, if we acquire him. We have a financial advantage in 2009, and if we do nothing, it simply devolves into the 2010 cap space everybody has.

Anyway, I still think this is a longshot, but I wanted to put it on the table. I know front offices don't do this. Its risky financially, depending on the player they'd sign. However, I wanted to throw it out there, as a potential opportunity.

only time I remember it happening was when Denver signed Watson, but it didn't really work out; Watson wasn't getting enough minutes since Denver didn't really need another PG and ended up getting Reggie Evans in return.
It was kind of a mess. I just think there's too much that can go wrong and if I'm an opposing team, I'd probably call the Wolves bluff knowing they can't carry a Boozer/Jefferson/Love frontcourt for long.

[shrink]

I don't want to drag this too far from Aldridge's article, but Love can play with Al, and Love can play with Boozer .. its just that Al can't play with Boozer. I don't worry about calling MIN's bluff, because there are too many teams that could use Boozer. They can't all call the bluff, because if it looks like one team might get a bargain price, another would say, "It helps us if we pay just a little bit more."

Getting back to the Alrdidge article, I think that waiting until 2010 will result in either getting no good free agents, or having to overpay because of the competitiveness of all the teams trying to sign them. In 2009, its a buyer's market, so I expect we can get by without overpaying. Whether that means Marvin Williams, Ariza, or Boozer, I think the deals will be fair.

[john2jer]

Completely agree on 2009, and taking it a step further with the way the Wolves salaries are set, we can sign an above MLE guy like Marvin Williams, and still have enough left over to sign a max deal in 2010, and be more attractive to a free agent in that level of talent. It's bringing in one major piece for both years. And of course it gets better if our draft picks shine as rookies.