Jedzz wrote:shrink wrote:For those that don’t have time for podcast:
Wolfson: As of Nov 5, the Wolves have interviewed Ball, Edwards, Halliburton, Killian Hayes, RJ Hampton, Scrubb (no workout, as reported on Twitter). They want interviews with Toppin (may have happened) and Wiseman. They may want interviews with Avdija and Okoro.
Lowe’s podcast: The ESPN draft experts (Givony and Schmitz) think LaMelo is far better than anyone in this draft class. Other teams do too.
Givony: “if you talk to the teams in the top ten, they are very excited about LaMelo. I’m hearing some of the offers to Minnesota, and they’re pretty good, relative to what you think is a bad #1 pick, and it doesn’t sound like they are going to make that move. So far, they are rebuffing those offers, and there’s going to be a second meeting with LaMelo. I expect he’ll have to get on the basketball court and show some stuff, but that might be enough for them to say,”we’re not trading the pick, and we’re committing to him.”
I thought Minnsota met with Bane early on.
Givony should release the offers he is supposedly hearing "relative to what you think is a bad #1 pick" or maybe just stop the hype feeding this is all about. We can decide for ourselves what "pretty good" offer is. I can't take a word he says seriously anymore. If his goal is to drum up value for MN or something then leak the offers and start snowballing it. But to sit here claiming he's got all this insider info that he's not going to share about interest and offers...whatever.
Is it outside of all possibility that Rosas and co are using him to artificially drive up the price of Melo if a team wants him? Doesn't take away from the value of Wiseman at #1 if you're looking to turn Ball hype into a legit player that can help the team be a winner.
Basically, if they are playing some 3D Chess then there's no way they would say anything bad about the top 3 guys, because it would only limit the possibilities of what MN may do at #1 if they end up picking.
Givony could be fed a lot of info from the Wolves to artificially drive up Melo's value in relation to pre-draft/draft day deals on a negotiating front, because if Melo and Edwards look bad pre-draft, it's basically Wiseman (which a lot of teams don't think we'll pick due to KAT being here) or trade out. Which means you are only able to negotiate that pick with teams that want Wiseman enough to give up an established star/high quality role player. Supply and Demand is at play and there's more demand for Edwards/Wiseman and Ball now than there will be next year (unless Wiseman clearly separates him from the rest of the rookie class his first year), because they won't all have good rookie years. If the Wolves are being smart they are just leveraging their #1 pick to be as valuable as possible by hyping up what has been seen as a weak draft (in relation to their not being clear future stars in the top two picks).
My hope is, if they don't get a good enough offer that gets them an established player that will help them win now (without it being a terrible contract) that they'll draft Wiseman and start establishing a new meta (or a team uniquely built to exploit the small ball trend).
Cautiously optimistic, but not really expecting anything this clever, because the Wolves never seem to make the move I'd like to see (besides drafting KAT... jebus I can't believe how many people around here actually thought Okafor would be better...)
Rosas please be different!
Edit:
. About 6 more days and 6 more players, then we'll have figure out who hasn't been named yet and assume that's the guy?? 
