RealGM

Decisions decisions...

A positive spin when players are happy to consider MN in their plans ...

The fact that they mention trade right out of the box with Pekovic, even without a deal in place, leads me to believe that is the favored option.

But where would you guage his value? What is the lowest pick you'd accept for him in trade?

shrink wrote:But where would you guage his value? What is the lowest pick you'd accept for him in trade?

My guess is a future first in the teens.....much like the CHA pick. Lowest would be around where the Utah pick is this year.

Man, we are set with offensive bigs. Seriously, what a bountiful supply. We should be able to make some great deals. With Pekovic, Love, Al, Rubio, all in the mix we could create a convincing package.

That's good news on Darko. Of course it's all dependent on $ for what would make me happy vs. make me cringe.

I would look at Peko as a mid-first. It is interesting that they mention that without a deal in place, that we know of. Of course Kahn could just be keeping all options open as Peko could be more important if we do move Love or Jefferson.

shrink wrote:The fact that they mention trade right out of the box with Pekovic, even without a deal in place, leads me to believe that is the favored option.

Until he is signed and in a Wolves uniform, my guess is Kahn still has to think of Pekovic as an asset. That is why trade was brought up.......

...though a counterargument could be that Kahn has never brought up trade talk about Rubio.

Calinks wrote:Man, we are set with offensive bigs. Seriously, what a bountiful supply. We should be able to make some great deals. With Pekovic, Love, Al, Rubio, all in the mix we could create a convincing package.

Just because Rubio is 6'5" does not mean he can guard post players..... (though one has to wonder if he'd be better than some of the bigs on our team)

Good news all around, I do think Pekovic is most likely trade bait, but it's impossible to know what his value would be among front offices. Among realgm posters he is basically worthless, but I'd like to think "real" gm's have a better idea of what he's worth.

Pekovic's trade value? Probably a pick in the 15-20 range. I would think a team like Miami would be a great fit. Their 18th pick or the pick Toronto owes them (top 14 protection) would be decent value. He could also be the trade chip that pushes a bigger deal over the top.

Great News Shrink, thanks. You can never have enough options. Especially stoked about the Darko part. As someone who suffered through watching the last 20+ games, it's my opinion Darko was probably our best overall player during that stretch. His BBIQ seemed to be well above all of his teammates. Solid defense, great passing. I would love to see what he looks like when he's actually in shape, his shooting efficiency (while not terrible) should improve.

That said, I think alot depends on how the draft/free agency shapes up because of two things:
1. Playing Time
2. Cap Room

As far as playing time, there are room for 3 of love/jefferson/darko/pekovic. If we can't move love or Al for value, or get stuck with Favors or Cousins at 3 or 4, it's pretty unlikely Pekovic plays for us next year. Darko should be priority 1, he is the only true center or decent defender of the 4, the other 3 are somewhat interchangeable in my opinion.

He is an asset that has good value as a player, but no trade value, thus the most efficient use of the asset is signing him outright to a reasonable deal. His comfort with the team and coach, and bad history with getting playing time on other teams gives us a huge advantage when it comes to Darko and free agency, to the point we're the only NBA team he'll play for. Trading cardinal for him was truly a magnificent move by Kahn. There is no way he'd have considered us as a FA otherwise.
The only other decent defensive C FA is Haywood, and he is older and will cost significantly more.

Say we draft Whiteside or another project big with 16 or 23, can we still sell the idea of playing time to Darko? Can we convince him they are just projects?

Cap Room - The draft lottery will play a huge role. We may need to use gomes to take a bad contract if need to trade up for turner, which will cut into our cap room. We could also use his unguaranteed deal in a pickswap/trade up/salary dump for a pick (NOH?). So we really won't know our cap situation until the draft.

It will take probably at least 5 million for darko. Probably one year is smartest for both sides.
Pekovic I would say probably 3 years 10-12 million minimum. Without any trades we will have about 14.5 million. If we sign/trade for rudy gay or pull off a deal for granger it would cut significantly into that number. We would be lucky to have enough room for Darko.
There is the possibility of dumping our later picks for future picks (or consolidating them), but the cap effect of that is negligible, we'd be lucky to clear even 2-3 million that way.

The highly preferable option, in my opinion, is to not have to use our raw cap space, which means our big acquisitions should come between draft day and july 1 (Or any trade or S&T we do after 7/1 fits under 125% matching). This way we can use Bird Rights on Darko and the MLE on Pekovic.

Klomp wrote:

Calinks wrote:Man, we are set with offensive bigs. Seriously, what a bountiful supply. We should be able to make some great deals. With Pekovic, Love, Al, Rubio, all in the mix we could create a convincing package.

Just because Rubio is 6'5" does not mean he can guard post players..... (though one has to wonder if he'd be better than some of the bigs on our team)

We aren't saying ALL the time, but there may be situations where Rubio will have to guard Shaq and Dwight Howard.

Who would you compare Darko's ceiling to? I was watching his youtube mixes and realized that his closest comparison is Gasol. Obviously he has a long way to reach this peak, but with his shooting touch, ambidextrous post moves, great shot blocking and Bball IQ...who else is there besides Gasol?

younggunsmn wrote:Pekovic's trade value? Probably a pick in the 15-20 range. I would think a team like Miami would be a great fit. Their 18th pick or the pick Toronto owes them (top 14 protection) would be decent value. He could also be the trade chip that pushes a bigger deal over the top.

Pek to Miami actually makes a lot of sense....especially if they are still looking to shed salary for free agency. The biggest thing is that I don't believe Pekovic has a cap hold. The 18 has a cap hold of ~$1.2M.

I'm not a cap expert, but doesn't the cap hold take affect once the player is drafted? So if we traded Peko for #18 before a player has been chosen at #18 the cap hold isn't applied. I could be wrong, but that's how I thought it worked.

I kind of like the way Pek projects in the triangle. He makes very quick decisions with the ball, much like Rambis has been trying to teach Jefferson to do. Of course, he doesn't pass the ball, but can't blame him with such a high shooting %.

Another thing -- if we're going to be a running team, maybe a Darko tandem with short rotations is a good thing. 28 minutes for Darko and 20 minutes for Pek to start out, and just sub them every 5-6 minutes to keep them fresh.

karch34 wrote:I'm not a cap expert, but doesn't the cap hold take affect once the player is drafted? So if we traded Peko for #18 before a player has been chosen at #18 the cap hold isn't applied. I could be wrong, but that's how I thought it worked.

The rights to a second rounder do not carry a cap hold, because only first round salaries are guaranteed.

However, if a team is under the cap and wants to use its raw cap space, it renounces it's exceptions. Therefore, they'd need to use their cap space if they wanted to bring the player over this year unless he was willing to play for the minimum.

Krapinsky wrote:I kind of like the way Pek projects in the triangle. He makes very quick decisions with the ball, much like Rambis has been trying to teach Jefferson to do. Of course, he doesn't pass the ball, but can't blame him with such a high shooting %.

Another thing -- if we're going to be a running team, maybe a Darko tandem with short rotations is a good thing. 28 minutes for Darko and 20 minutes for Pek to start out, and just sub them every 5-6 minutes to keep them fresh.

Are you serious? You must be confusing Jefferson with prime Shaq, because Al's TS% is mediocre for a big man and has been trending downwards ever since he got here.

He's talking about Pek.

PeeDee wrote:He's talking about Pek.

This.