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"We can't wait," Adelman, the Wolves' first-year coach, said Tuesday. "You hope your young people get better, but that's not a given. Other people you can get, in free agency or trades, are givens. We have to be aggressive in all those areas."

"We need better ball handling throughout the lineup, not just the point guards, and better perimeter scoring," he said. "We don't have that. I don't think we realized how hard it was going to be to replace people. We had made real strides until the all-star break. Then we fell apart. You have to evaluate how much better people can get and where do we go as far as adding depth to this team."

shangrila wrote:Eh, I doubt they're going to trade Williams. HIs value would be pretty low right now and, honestly, Adelman's comment was probably more about Beas/Randolph/Wes than Williams. Those are the young guys who wouldn't really seem like they'll improve.

shangrila wrote:Well, expect Crawford to be targetted again. Probably Kevin Martin too.

jpatrick wrote:As much as I'd love Gordon or Batum, I think their teams will match any offer. Neither can afford to lose them for nothing. Is it possible we could work out a S/T, yeah, but I don't think it's likely.

Dewey wrote:

shangrila wrote:Well, expect Crawford to be targetted again. Probably Kevin Martin too.

Holy moly ... that has epic failure written all over it. There's a reason these guys are on the move - AGAIN.

Worm Guts wrote:

jpatrick wrote:As much as I'd love Gordon or Batum, I think their teams will match any offer. Neither can afford to lose them for nothing. Is it possible we could work out a S/T, yeah, but I don't think it's likely.

Actually since I don't either team want to trade or lose those players, I think the most likely scenario is we make an offer those teams won't match.

eyeteeth wrote:I like the idea of making a big offer to Batum more than Gordon. Gordon's injury issues terrify me. Just how big of a contract makes sense for Batum? Rudy Gay sized? Is that large enough to keep Portland from matching?

"We need better ball handling throughout the lineup, not just the point guards, and better perimeter scoring," he said. "We don't have that. I don't think we realized how hard it was going to be to replace people. We had made real strides until the all-star break. Then we fell apart. You have to evaluate how much better people can get and where do we go as far as adding depth to this team."

Krapinsky wrote:

eyeteeth wrote:I like the idea of making a big offer to Batum more than Gordon. Gordon's injury issues terrify me. Just how big of a contract makes sense for Batum? Rudy Gay sized? Is that large enough to keep Portland from matching?

Rudy Gay is on the second year of a 5 year 82M max deal. I like Batum more than most, but that's waaaaay too much and I believe also more than we could potentially offer.

I could go something like $48M/4 for Batum -- and I would consider that overpaying. If Portland matched, I could very well live with that.

Gay agrees to max deal with Grizzlies
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Thursday, Jul 1, 2010

Rudy Gay(notes) has agreed to a five-year, $81.6 million contract with the Memphis Grizzlies, his representatives at Octagon confirmed to Y! Sports.

The fifth and final year of the contract will be at Gay’s option.

“We have a verbal agreement on a deal,” said Gay’s agent, Jeff Austin.

The Grizzlies had the right to match any offer made to Gay because he’s a restricted free agent. But by reaching agreement quickly, they prevented another suitor – like the New Jersey Nets – from front-loading a contract offer with a signing bonus that could have necessitated a first-year payment of $20 million.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal first reported the agreement.