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David Kahn called me tonight and asked me to put some ideas down on paper. Apparently he's a fan of my work here on RealGM.

Let's combine Washington, Detroit, and Milwaukee...

Detroit gets: Future 2nd
Detroit gives: Kwame Brown and #15

Minnesota gets: Kwame Brown, Luke Ridnour, DeShawn Stevenson, Etan Thomas, #5, #10, and #15
Minnesota gives: Mike Miller, Mark Madsen, Craig Smith, Sebastian Telfair, Bobby Brown, #18, and $3mil

Washington gets: Mike Miller, Craig Smith, and Bobby Brown
Washington gives: Etan Thomas, DeShawn Stevenson, #5, and a future 2nd

Milwaukee gets: Mark Madsen, Sebastian Telfair, and #18
Milwaukee gives: Luke Ridnour, #10, and $3mil

Ok, that took a LONG time and got a little out of hand for a bit. The end result is a lot of players moving. 10 altogether, plus 5 picks. But I think everyone gets what they want in the end.

Why for the Pistons? Saves them $4mil in cap space, plus the cost of the pick, allowing them more room to target Boozer and another high level free agent.

Why for the Bucks? Saves them $1.16mil, plus the cost in pick difference, allowing them to re-sign Sessions easier. Telfair leaves them with a back-up point guard to replace Ridnour. $3mil allows them to buy-out Madsen and pocket a couple bucks on top of it.

Why for the Bullets? Gets rid of Stevenson's contract and attitude, while bringing in two players ready to win now. Miller is the perfect shooting guard to pair with Arenas. He improves rebounding, passing, and is a dangerous outside threat when he's given space. Great lockerroom guy, as well. Craig Smith is a banger to compliment Jamison who's not as much of a banger. Getting rid of Etan Thomas helps with the overall morale, as well. I believe nate33 said those are the two guys they'd like to get rid of most.

Why for the Wolves? They use their cap space, expirings, and a pick to create space for other teams, or enhance line-ups, enabling them to bring back a netgain of 2 lottery picks. They spend an extra 3.5mil this year and have to take on Stevensons 3.88mil next year, but it brings in a ton of young players to turn the franchise around with. Wolves are left with 6 guys from last year's roster, but still have Brian Cardinal's expiring along with Etan Thomas, Kwame Brown, and Luke Ridnour to move at the deadline for more talent, a total of $24.65mil in expirings.

Wolves also have plenty of 2nd rounders and Utah's 2010 1st if needed to spice things up.

Draft
#5 - James Harden
#6 - Tyreke Evans
#10 - Demar DeRozan/Earl Clark
#15 - BJ Mullens
#28 - Omri Casspi
#45 - Henk Norel
#47 - Milenko Tepic

Casspi, Norel, and Tepic are left over-seas for at least a year.

C - Jefferson/Mullens/Thomas
PF - Love/Gomes/Brown
SF - Brewer/DeRozan
SG - Harden/Foye/Stevenson
PG - Evans/Ridnour

Wolves are much more athletic and taller in the backcourt. We become very young, with Jefferson, Foye, and Gomes being the senior members of the regular long-term rotation. This also makes it so we don't have to break the bank on a Foye extension in 2010. With our expirings we're still able to add another big time player to the roster, preferably a center or power forward, moving Love to the bench. If we buy-out Gomes, we'll have around $10-12mil in Free Agency 2010, which considering the economy/market would bring in a very nice 2nd or 3rd tier player. We'd be an attractive location simply because of all the young talent. The draft ends up being kind of a monkey at the zoo approach. We just fling a bunch of crap at the wall and see what sticks. We can afford to do this because of the age of our team and Jefferson's injury. We also have Utah's 2010 1st still.

The best part is we get the three guys most talked about on the Wolves draft board. Evans, Harden, and DeRozan. Makes everyone happy.

2010 Core
C - Jefferson/Mullens
PF - Love/Gomes
SF - DeRozan/Brewer
SG - Harden/(Stevenson)
PG - Evans/Foye

Stevenson is just a contract we're stuck with for one more year, otherwise we have good young players two deep at every position. Add that to our own pick(if we keep it) and Utah's pick, and I'm sure we can fill any holes if any of our rookies don't pan out.

It's done as one big trade to take advantage of the 125% take back rules to increase the amount each team can save. That's why it's not 3 separate trades.

very good.

only thing is it is different from the vibe I am getting. that vibe is a package trade for a legit pg/c with the other targeted in the draft. a s/t using exp as well. there will be movement.

The Bullets? You're showing your age...

The gray hairs show my age.

Rev, what scares me about that press conference earlier, and that same vibe, is that I can see us mortgaging our future to become a 7th seed in the play-offs, with nothing left to get any better.

My idea here is we have 3 potential star rookies we're bringing in. They grow together, and the chances are good at least one of them is going to hit it big, if not two or all three. They compliment each other well, and they bring what we need.

I just don't want to see a trade where we bring in say Vince Carter and then we're right back to the KG/Spree/Cassell Wolves of one or two good seasons, and then trying to rebuild again. I want long term. I want young pups who can grow and make us a high level franchise for the next 8-10 years at least.

As long as whatever legit PG/C we get is around 27 or younger and "legit" means capable of being a top 2 guy on a contending team, I'm ok with that. If the wolves traded all their assets for a high profile disappointment like Vince Carter, I'll be pretty irked.

your perfect offseason does not include buying me some flight tickets to come to Minnesota? consider me really disappointed J2J

Oh basti, when I win the lottery tonight, you'll hve your tickets.

Though I might see how much of the Bobcats the 65mil after taxes can buy me.

john2jer wrote: Detroit gets: Future 2nd
Detroit gives: Kwame Brown and #15

Minnesota gets: Kwame Brown, Luke Ridnour, DeShawn Stevenson, Etan Thomas, #5, #10, and #15
Minnesota gives: Mike Miller, Mark Madsen, Craig Smith, Sebastian Telfair, Bobby Brown, #18, and $3mil

Washington gets: Mike Miller, Craig Smith, and Bobby Brown
Washington gives: Etan Thomas, DeShawn Stevenson, #5, and a future 2nd

Milwaukee gets: Mark Madsen, Sebastian Telfair, and #18
Milwaukee gives: Luke Ridnour, #10, and $3mil.

That's a really nice trade. I'd like to see the size of the TPE's.

I think DET certainly does this, and if the TPE is big enough WAS as well. It seems a little light to me for MIL, but if that's all they need to sign Sessions, they'd probably be OK with it. Can I have the $6 mil in cash that goes nowhere?

I like this trade a lot. Personally though, I'm allergic to 2010 contracts, so I'd prefer Mike James to Stevenson (and give the UTA pick), and sending him to MIL for Ridnour, and pay them off by letting them add more garbage expirings to create the cap space. Its amazing though with so many players that people can have their own personal valuations upon that this works so well. I suppose I'm partial to deals where you use the three teams that may be the most desperate for 2009 cap space.

Well done.

john2jer wrote:Oh basti, when I win the lottery tonight, you'll hve your tickets.

Though I might see how much of the Bobcats the 65mil after taxes can buy me.

why not buy a decent chuck of the Hornets and trade Paul to us?

Sorry, that's WOlves give $3mil and Bucks get $3mil. Takes care of Sbass's extra year. I posted this on the trade forum and I know it's impossible to et Bullets fans to agree to anything short of Stevenson for LeBron, so I had us handing out the money here.

We drop Telfair and pick up Stevenson, losing about $1.1mil in 2010 cap space. But we're left with some good expirings that could all be sent out at the deadline leaving us with a couple big time vets and a boatload of good rookies.

john2jer wrote:Rev, what scares me about that press conference earlier, and that same vibe, is that I can see us mortgaging our future to become a 7th seed in the play-offs, with nothing left to get any better.

Paul Allen asked Kahn about that very thought after the press conference. He seemed to indicate he that he didn't want to do a rush job just to leave ourselves screwed later, so for the time being that kind of eased my worries about that. Now, if we go and trade for Vince Carter in two months, then my fears will be re-realized lol.

interesting idea. Do you do the trade without Milwaukee? Or something add'l to save Milwaukee more cap space?

I have no problem with the Wolves making moves to win now, in fact i'm all for it. Why stockpile young unproven players if they aren't can't miss types?

They need to get the most talent on their roster simultaneously right now. Once they get them all under contract simultaneously, the NBA CBA pretty much lets them keep all that talent if they're willing to pay for it. If the way to do it is get proven talent that other teams are trying to unload contracts, thats fine. If the best way to get the most talent is to try to get as many talented rookies as possible, that is fine too. Kahn and staff will need to be looking at both to try to maximize the talent on the squad and on the roster simultaneously.

so how was the lottery going J2J?

Draft
#5 - James Harden
#6 - Tyreke Evans
#10 - Demar DeRozan/Earl Clark
#15 - BJ Mullens
#28 - Omri Casspi
#45 - Henk Norel
#47 - Milenko Tepic

Ugggh. If we end up with four picks in the top fifteen and don't draft Jrue Holliday,
my big screen will magically turn into a giant paper weight.

GopherIt! wrote:

Draft
#5 - James Harden
#6 - Tyreke Evans
#10 - Demar DeRozan/Earl Clark
#15 - BJ Mullens
#28 - Omri Casspi
#45 - Henk Norel
#47 - Milenko Tepic

Ugggh. If we end up with four picks in the top fifteen and don't draft Jrue Holliday,
my big screen will magically turn into a giant paper weight.

Yeah I think Harden, Evans, and Derozan is a little over-kill. One of Harden/Evans with Derozan and then Holliday at 10.
PG-Holliday-Telfair
SG-Evans/Harden-Foye-Miller
SF-Derozan-Gomes-Brewer

If you can get Evans and Harden at 5 and 5, why would you take Holiday as well? I love Holiday, but EVans and Harden is a beautiful backcourt together. Evans and DeRozan would be nice togehter, but Holiday makes that worse. You've also passed on a better player for a lesser player.

Then again, Holiday is insurance incase the Kings screw things up and grab Evans or Harden at #4. Those cowbell waving jerks.

I'm not convinced Evans is NBA PG material. If he can't run the team then we've missed out on a great opportunity to take care of our PG need. Maybe next to someone like Harden it would work I don't know. I don't think Holliday is a lesser prospect than either he or DeRozan.

If we were to score three top twelve picks, these would be the players on my radar.

PG: Holliday/Maynor/Lawson
SG: Harden/Evans?/Henderson
SF: DeRozan/T Williams