Moving on from the draft. Next stop: free agency.

[breatnach]

I know everyone is still pretty upset about the draft and after only 4 hours of sleep I rushed back online to find pretty meaningless trades been made and not the roster reshaping we need!

However, don't resign yet, because with the number and quality of free agents available numerous teams never even pictured the draft as a way to improve their team. Maybe we could also make a splash in free agency?

First we need to check a couple of things:
- how much cap we have: It is my understanding that we have inked two rookies to guaranteed contracts, while taking on Webster and giving up Gomes. Can anyone who knows their salaries please enlighten us, how much cap room is left?

- who will be signed for sure: It seems that since we used neither in a pick - trade scenario, both Pekovic and Milicic will be coming (back). Has there been any word on what they might command? I vaguely remember Kahn saying Darko is very reasonable. How much are they likely to command and how much does this leave us with?

- what positions are we still looking at:
PF: The majority of quality FAs this year seem to be PFs (Dirk, Bosh, Amar'e, Boozer, Lee). With Love and Jefferson both still here, I think we can safely say we do not need another PF.
C seems to be locked with Darko (for the next decade if rumors are to be believed)
PG is the position I am most comfortable about. I think we're set with Flynn / Sessions and Rubio in 2011.
SF is a position we've tied up in the draft. While we are far from being contender-quality at SF, I think it is safe to assume we wouldn't use our highest pick to play him off the bench behind someone like Gay, who would have to be seriously overpayed to come here in the first place.
SG seems to be our biggest weakness. We will not really be able to see if Corey has improved much or how Webster fares as the FA is already upon us in a week and if we chose to wait 2 out of 3 windows (draft, free agency, trades) for improving this team will have passed.

- which SGs are available as FAs:
Joe Johnson (easily the best (after DWade!), albeit a little old for a "up and coming" team)
Josh Childress (younger, but not sure about his contract situation in Europe)
Larry Hughes (didn't like him at CHA or CLE, but back in the day in WAS...)
Tmac (old, injury prone)
Ray Allen, Mike Miller (old, been there&done that)

These are the only names I found in my sleep deprived state, but I believe anything really exciting would have caught my eye.

So after an emotional draft night, do we explore our options in free agency or do we wait to do trades? What moves do you predict between now and 2010 NBA tip-off?

[Saltine]

Best I can figure they've got about 16 million of cap space, give or take a couple hundred thousand.

Gomes for Webster lost 540k, but not having the 16th pick money saved 1370k, so they made 830k of room. Losing the 23 and picking up the 30 saved 150k. So they made 980k of room total.
The cap should be 56.1 million. Their guaranteed money equals about 40 million.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... SXc&gid=19

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=9302

[Foye]

Does anyone of you think we'll be able to attract a FA?

I don't think so. Even if we do it's going to be in the Ramon Sessions, Ryan Hollins mold.

[Dewey]

As is.....
Rubio is 1-year away
$15,000,000 in Cap Space (using round numbers)
Wes Johnson
Martell Webster

Summer quickies...
Pekovic if signed would be an upgrade over Hollins
Milicic is a Center that has made himself available to return

Concern...
Trading Al Jefferson for value

[breatnach]

Does anyone of you think we'll be able to attract a FA?

I don't think so. Even if we do it's going to be in the Ramon Sessions, Ryan Hollins mold.

Well quite frankly, I am not so sure we need a FA. The "Superstar" FAs are mainly PFs so we have no need there. Wade, LeBron, I'll admit, are out of our league, most likely.
So the list I made in the first post was limited to the FAs I believe we could get. Of the ones we COULD get however, you have to see which of them we want. Johnson would be seriously overpayed and his body would be on the decline before most of our players hit their prime. Do you reckon it would be worth throwing all our money at him?

I'm not sure how much they'd command but I wouldn't mind Morrow, Childress or maybe Reddick being given reasonable contracts. They seem to be young enough to hang around for a while if they light it up.

Maybe it is just me, or do you agree that SG is the only spot we defniately need an upgrade and can afford to blow all our cash on, without creating a huge logjam? (i.e. if we did pick up a PF like Bosh we would defniately have to make more trades)

[Dewey]

Agree SG is our need ... I like Joe Johnson, but he may be too pricey. He had a tough playoff series, but I still think he is a nice all-around SG.

J.Johnson, W.Johnson
C.Brewer, M.Webster
L.Hayword, and Ellington

[Tirion]

Darko will command a MLE-level contract, or at the very least 5 mill per. Webster will make another 4.8 mill. Pekovic - 3 or 4 mill. About 13 or 14 mill overall in salary and this is an absolute minimum.

What cap space?

[Wingman]

Darko will command a MLE-level contract, or at the very least 5 mill per. Webster will make another 4.8 mill. Pekovic - 3 or 4 mill. About 13 or 14 mill overall in salary and this is an absolute minimum.

What cap space?

We have the 15+ mil spending money with Webster already on the books.

[Tirion]

Darko will command a MLE-level contract, or at the very least 5 mill per. Webster will make another 4.8 mill. Pekovic - 3 or 4 mill. About 13 or 14 mill overall in salary and this is an absolute minimum.

What cap space?

We have the 15+ mil spending money with Webster already on the books.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1023555

[breatnach]

Taken from the other thread for easier discussions.

Based on a 56 million dollar cap.
First Column is salary (with 100% rookie scale cap hold numbers),
2nd number is salary if waived (we no longer have anyone who qualifies)
3rd number is salary once rookies sign (for 120% scale usually), and season starts,
(cap holds for "rights held" 1st rounders go off the books at this point.

Salary On Books Max Cap Room Lux Tax Cap Number
1 Al Jefferson 13,000,000 13,000,000 13,000,000
2 Martell Webster 4,800,000 4,800,000 4,800,000
3 Ramon Sessions 3,964,320 3,964,320 3,964,320
4 Kevin Love 3,638,280 3,638,280 3,638,280
5 Johnny Flynn 3,192,000 3,192,000 3,192,000
6 Corey Brewer 3,703,472 3,703,472 3,703,472
7 Ricky Rubio 2,812,200 2,812,200 473,604 draft rights held (#5 2009)
8 Ryan Hollins 2,333,333 2,333,333 2,333,333
9 Wayne Ellington 1,078,800 1,078,800 1,078,800
10 #4 Wesley Johnson 3,105,500 3,105,500 3,726,600
11 #30 Lazar Hayward 850,800 850,800 1,020,960
12 Cap Hold 473,604 473,604 473,604
Total Salary 42,952,309 42,952,309 41,404,973
Cap Room 13,047,691 13,047,691 14,595,027

Free Agents 2009 Salary Cap Hold
C Darko Milicic 7,640,000 11,310,000
SF Damian Wilkins 3,630,000 7,260,000
C Oleksiy Pecherov 1,547,640 2,380,270
SG Sasha Pavlovic 1,500,000 1,800,000
C Nathan Jawai 736,420 854,389
SF Brian Cardinal 111,685 854,389

2nd Round Picks
35 Nemanja Bjelica
45 Paulao Prestes

Rights Owned
Nikola Pekovic

We lost 2,275,804 in cap room with our draft day manuevering.
The Webster trade cost us 2,429,000, dropping from 23 to 30 saved us 153,196.

Including draft picks we will have to sign 2 players just to meet minimum roster requirements

Thanks to younggunsmn for getting all this information!

[Wingman]

Darko will command a MLE-level contract, or at the very least 5 mill per. Webster will make another 4.8 mill. Pekovic - 3 or 4 mill. About 13 or 14 mill overall in salary and this is an absolute minimum.

What cap space?

We have the 15+ mil spending money with Webster already on the books.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1023555

Thats with almost 3 million attributed to rubio. We will not be paying him next year

edit: I'm not sure how cap holds work

[prefuse73]

I feel that there are two primary areas that we will focus on...

Getting an athletic PF/C
Getting a sg that can create his own shot whenever needed.

Assets that will be used to get us there. Jefferson / Brewer / Pekovic / Cap space.

My idea:

Send Brewer to GS for Randolph. Perhaps the drafting of Udoh and having Beans / Wright / Turiaf makes Randolph more expendable.

Trade Jefferson to Detroit for Prince and a future 1st. Trade Prince and Pekovic to philly for Iguodola.

My opening day rotation
Darko (30) - Randolph (12) - Samb or Steismma or Hollins (6)
Love (30) - Randolph (18)
Johnson (32) - Webster (16)
Iguodola (36) - Webster (12) - Ellington
Flynn (30) - Sessions (18)

[moss_is_1]

I wonder if there's any sg who we could actually trade for that can create his own shot consistently.

[Esohny]

I wonder if there's any sg who we could actually trade for that can create his own shot consistently.

Sadly, the only one that comes to mind is Monta Ellis, and I'm not a big fan. Sigh.

[shangrila]

I think if Golden State is moving anyone it'd be Wright, who I guess I could get behind in a Brewer swap.

[Dewey]

I wonder if there's any sg who we could actually trade for that can create his own shot consistently.

Sadly, the only one that comes to mind is Monta Ellis, and I'm not a big fan. Sigh.

If we can move Session I'd be okay with Ellis ... we need some juice.

[Wolves21]

I think that the only real need right now would be a starting SG and a back up PF if we due indeed trade Big Al.As far the real free agents go for the SG here how I look at things.

My ideal signing would be Ray Allen but their's about 0% of him coming in with how the team is right now.Theirs no way he would want to be on a rebuilding team that probably wont due anything this year and is waiting on the Spanish Ghost.Joe Johnson is most likely going to a team i.e Bulls,Heat,Nets,Knicks were he can team up with another star(James,Bosh,Wade...ect) Salmons and Miller I would guess would also want to go to a winning team.Which then real leaves Redick,Kover and Brewer for the Wolves.With the Magic more then likely and real needing to keep Redick.So Now its down to Brewer and Kover which I think the Wolves well use their money on one of the other.

So what the Wolve should due is sign Kover or Brewer as a back up SG and try and trade Big Al for a prove vet SG i.e Ellis,AI2 and my guess would be that we end up with Rip Hamliton and one of their back up PF after trading Big Al to them.

[Klomp]

Here's something interesting Kahn said today: He said he and his staff went through the list of free agents the other day and came up with only three who they don't have a chance to get.

He wouldn't say which three, but that's presumably LeBron, DWade and Bosh.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolve ... 65134.html

[dunkonu21]

Wasn't there an article about Bosh to the Wolves. I think that is possible (although I'd be angry if it happens).

[Esohny]

Wasn't there an article about Bosh to the Wolves. I think that is possible (although I'd be angry if it happens).

Sam Smith wrote a ridiculous piece about the Wolves trading for Lebron and Melo. I've really only seen Bosh to the Wolves talk on fan blogs and probably in the forum here.