Trade Talk (Part Nine) (READ FIRST POST)

[winforlose]

For most of the last year I'd have agreed with you about the Wolves needing a really large PF/C, but I've shifted that view based on the Wolves defensive scheme and the success they are having with it. At this point, I think having a big on the court who is a step slow in rotations would kill what is making the defense successful. I still firmly believe that Minnesota needs to add a guy with more size, but it needs to be someone who is extremely mobile.

Please elaborate. What part of the scheme falls apart?

The way the defense has been working is that everyone on the court needs to be able to quickly switch onto the open guy or rotate to help close off opponent drives. It only works if every player is athletic enough to make that happen. If the Wolves have a plus sized guy on the court who is a bit slow footed it would lead to defensive break downs. The most impressive thing about the Wolves so far this year is that guys are quick enough to frequently switch on defense while still maintaining good positioning. If even one defender is a step slow it leaves someone with an open shot or driving opportunity.

That is somewhat true, but it isn’t completely true. Last night was a great example of us having to abandon it in favor of double teaming JV. Another example is the zone we played against Memphis.

But, the key to a productive discussion is accepting the premise so I will completely accept yours. Let’s assume for 25-30 minutes a night we have a guy who is to slow to switch 1-3 but who can guard 4-5. How many points will we give up vs how many we save by denying opponents 2nd chance points. How many more points do we score with a big man down low offensive rebounding and keeping their big honest instead of guarding the non shooters (V8,JO, even MCD,) and closing down the lane. How many more points do we score by running out and getting transition buckets on blocks and boards with a big in the middle? Every player has trade offs, and I don’t think our scheme is so vulnerable we couldn’t adapt it to cover one player who cannot fully run it.

[KGdaBom]

How do we even afford Siakam?

EDIT: For reference, he earns more than Towns.

Prince and Beasley

[shangrila]

How do we even afford Siakam?

EDIT: For reference, he earns more than Towns.

Prince and Beasley

Nope. Puts us over the tax.

[KGdaBom]

How do we even afford Siakam?

EDIT: For reference, he earns more than Towns.

Prince and Beasley

Nope. Puts us over the tax.

Siakam is making more than Prince and beasley combined? I bet is real close we throw in a nobody.

[winforlose]

Prince and Beasley

Nope. Puts us over the tax.

Siakam is making more than Prince and beasley combined? I bet is real close we throw in a nobody.

Trade machine says yes anyway, but you could add layman and it should still work. Though I am little concerned about trying to fill 2 replacement spots and still stay under the tax. It is a fact that most competitive teams are over the tax and we may need to be as well if we are hoping for a home run season.

Any lineup that has Beverly, Dlo, Ant, Siakam/Turner/Collins/ect… and KAT is a roster going for a home run. The key is to do it without giving away all our depth. Maybe we give two firsts both protected and maybe even a second to leverage our future to secure a title in the next few years. Look at Boston trading for KG and Cleveland trading for Love, both won titles by selling future assets.

[King Malta]

I really, really don't want to trade Beverley at this stage. Obviously everybody ultimately has an acceptable price, and Siakam would be a pretty good addition, but Bev has been absolutely culture changing for this team IMO, and he seems to have been a pretty positive influence on DLo's defensive play to boot.

[Wolveswin]

If Isaac is healthy, prior to deadline, would you trade Edwards in a package like this:

Edwards + Prince + Layman

FOR

Isaac + Franz Wagner + Hampton or Anthony

Isaac if healthy is obviously a perfect fit with Towns. Wagner can be a sharp shooter who pushes for starting SF. Hampton or Anthony can be young guard to help backfill loss of Edwards.

Towns
Isaac
Wagner or McDaniels
Russell | Beasley
Beverley | Russell

[winforlose]

If Isaac is healthy, prior to deadline, would you trade Edwards in a package like this:

Edwards + Prince + Layman

FOR

Isaac + Franz Wagner + Hampton or Anthony

Isaac if healthy is obviously a perfect fit with Towns. Wagner can be a sharp shooter who pushes for starting SF. Hampton or Anthony can be young guard to help backfill loss of Edwards.

Towns
Isaac
Wagner or McDaniels
Russell | Beasley
Beverley | Russell

Personally, no way. Ant’s future looks very bright and the return your talking about is inadequate to say the least. You could get Turner or Sabonis for Ant and then some. We need to make a move at our margins and use draft capital to bridge the value gap if we are going for a major impact player. If you go for a lower value player like a Favors or Kanter then you give proportional talent.

[winforlose]

So here is my all idea.

Wolves out, Prince, Beasley, lottery protected 2022, and 2024 picks. Wolves in Christin Wood and Daniel Theis. The Wolves hope to re-sign wood at the end of next season.

Why the Wolves do this. We leverage our future for a chance to win a title. Wood is the perfect fit for this team. His defensive rebounding is second in the NBA to this point on a terrible team. His shooting is good enough that teams cannot cheat off of him. He can play four or five and fit well with just about anyone. What he lacks in defense Theis makes up for. All our size problems are solved and we save enough money that we can move Layman and get someone else in here we want.

Why the rockets do this. Beasley is a good contract with a team option in the final year. His shooting and age would work well with a rebuild and Prince is an expiring contract so they can keep him if he turns things around or let him go (maybe even move him again at the deadline if allowed, I am not sure about the timing of that.) Meanwhile two lottery protected firsts for a rebuilding team is a good thing. Wood probably gets moved anyway because he won’t want to resign on the Rockets timeline. Theis is good, and a long term contract for them, but again they are just starting a rebuild and he is wasted on them.

I could see Houston wanting more and I might be willing to throw a pick swap or a couple seconds in, but this seems like the kind of deal that gets us in serious contention.

Thoughts?

[shangrila]

...are you serious? Christian Wood is not the difference between us being contenders, give me a break.

God damn, we beat a handful of scrub teams and some of you lose your minds.

[winforlose]

...are you serious? Christian Wood is not the difference between us being contenders, give me a break.

God damn, we beat a handful of scrub teams and some of you lose your minds.

How do you figure? Having an extra double digit scorer who fixes our biggest weakness (defensive rebounding,) and allows you to move Dlo to the second unit all in one swoop. Imagine the lineups

Beverly, Ant, V8, Wood, KAT
Dlo, Nowell, MCD, Reid, Theis.

You create almost 7 mil in cap space with this trade and when you trade Layman for a 2nd and use the trade exemption you have real money to throw at someone for another improvement at the deadline. What am I missing?

Edit to add, JO or Bolmaro can replace Nowell for more defense if MCD can maintain/increase his offensive production.

[shrink]

If Isaac is healthy, prior to deadline, would you trade Edwards in a package like this:

Edwards + Prince + Layman

FOR

Isaac + Franz Wagner + Hampton or Anthony

Isaac if healthy is obviously a perfect fit with Towns. Wagner can be a sharp shooter who pushes for starting SF. Hampton or Anthony can be young guard to help backfill loss of Edwards.

Towns
Isaac
Wagner or McDaniels
Russell | Beasley
Beverley | Russell

Personally, no way. Ant’s future looks very bright and the return your talking about is inadequate to say the least. You could get Turner or Sabonis for Ant and then some. We need to make a move at our margins and use draft capital to bridge the value gap if we are going for a major impact player. If you go for a lower value player like a Favors or Kanter then you give proportional talent.

I agree. A healthy Jonathan Isaac is a very good defender, An actualized Ant is an NBA superstar.

MIN has two players with superstar potential - KAT and Ant. I feel like we can’t trade either one if we need to reach the peaks where we could compete in the playoffs with the teams that have two superstars - often better than ours.

[shrink]

...are you serious? Christian Wood is not the difference between us being contenders, give me a break.

God damn, we beat a handful of scrub teams and some of you lose your minds.

Yeah, I’m generally not against trading a 1st to get a player.

However, even after our winning streak, I’ms too nervous to trade future picks.

[shangrila]

...are you serious? Christian Wood is not the difference between us being contenders, give me a break.

God damn, we beat a handful of scrub teams and some of you lose your minds.

How do you figure? Having an extra double digit scorer who fixes our biggest weakness (defensive rebounding,) and allows you to move Dlo to the second unit all in one swoop. Imagine the lineups

DLo isn't getting benched. Whether you like that fact or not is irrelevant, you just have to accept it.

Beverly, Ant, V8, Wood, KAT
Dlo, Nowell, MCD, Reid, Theis.

Vando can't guard 3s. Again, are you serious with this?

You create almost 7 mil in cap space with this trade and when you trade Layman for a 2nd and use the trade exemption you have real money to throw at someone for another improvement at the deadline. What am I missing?

Lots. You're missing lots.

For starters, we are nowhere near contention. And the idea that Wood is what will push us there is, frankly, laughable. I know that's not in this specific quote but it needs to be said again and again.

Secondly, it doesn't save us 7 mil, it saves us 5.4 mil. And that isn't capspace, so we can't throw it at anyone (whatever the hell that means).

Thirdly, no one is eating 4mil in salary for a 2nd. It'd be cheaper to just buy one outright, especially when you're getting nothing out of Layman...and furthermore, that trade exception can't be combined with your already fictional capspace to begin with.

So basically, you don't understand where the team is at right now, your math is wrong, you don't know how TEs work, your reasoning makes no sense and your lineups are unrealistic.

[minimus]

If Isaac is healthy, prior to deadline, would you trade Edwards in a package like this:

Edwards + Prince + Layman

FOR

Isaac + Franz Wagner + Hampton or Anthony

Isaac if healthy is obviously a perfect fit with Towns. Wagner can be a sharp shooter who pushes for starting SF. Hampton or Anthony can be young guard to help backfill loss of Edwards.

Towns
Isaac
Wagner or McDaniels
Russell | Beasley
Beverley | Russell

Sorry mate, but you should be banned from every trade machine

[winforlose]

...are you serious? Christian Wood is not the difference between us being contenders, give me a break.

God damn, we beat a handful of scrub teams and some of you lose your minds.

How do you figure? Having an extra double digit scorer who fixes our biggest weakness (defensive rebounding,) and allows you to move Dlo to the second unit all in one swoop. Imagine the lineups

DLo isn't getting benched. Whether you like that fact or not is irrelevant, you just have to accept it.

Beverly, Ant, V8, Wood, KAT
Dlo, Nowell, MCD, Reid, Theis.

Vando can't guard 3s. Again, are you serious with this?

You create almost 7 mil in cap space with this trade and when you trade Layman for a 2nd and use the trade exemption you have real money to throw at someone for another improvement at the deadline. What am I missing?

Lots. You're missing lots.

For starters, we are nowhere near contention. And the idea that Wood is what will push us there is, frankly, laughable. I know that's not in this specific quote but it needs to be said again and again.

Secondly, it doesn't save us 7 mil, it saves us 5.4 mil. And that isn't capspace, so we can't throw it at anyone (whatever the hell that means).

Thirdly, no one is eating 4mil in salary for a 2nd. It'd be cheaper to just buy one outright, especially when you're getting nothing out of Layman...and furthermore, that trade exception can't be combined with your already fictional capspace to begin with.

So basically, you don't understand where the team is at right now, your math is wrong, you don't know how TEs work, your reasoning makes no sense and your lineups are unrealistic.

You never once addressed anything I said beyond sorry won’t happen or it seems unrealistic. For example why doesn’t Wood fix the rebounding problem using my lineups?

Second, we still have our exemption and the buyout market might have someone we want if we are doing very well with my suggested roster moves. While staying under the tax.

Third, Dlo came off the bench last season and we won. You could say it was all about rehab, but the truth is Dlo was ready sooner but was willing to come off the bench for a while. I think you will find he wants to win enough that he would play 6th man for a while, if only to allow us to play big ball.

Fourth, of course V8 can guard 3s. He switches to them all the time and does a great job. In fact he is fast enough and long enough he could probably guard 2s in a pinch. Vando and MCD are natural SFs with the length and speed to be very disruptive.

Finally, Wood fills in our rebounding gaps. His outside shooting is too good to cheat off of, so centers cannot just guard the lane and shut down Ant, (unless you think they will stick a small forward on Wood and PF on KAT while trying to have a C guard V8. Good luck with that.) On the second unit we have size, defense, and shooting. You really don’t think this fixes enough of our weaknesses to make us good enough. You don’t see Theis as better than Prince and Wood as a massive improvement over Beasley? As for trading our first and probably another from a future season, without that we won’t get a starting level big who rebounds well and can move the needle from middle of the pack to serious threat.

Edit to include, I went back and checked again you are correct it is 5.4. 5.4 mil plus the value of layman’s contract plus a trade exemption worth 4.75 mil. Throw in a Bolmaro or Nowell or even Naz (he could be expendable with the other two,) and now who knows who else we could target at the deadline.

[Wolveswin]

If Isaac is healthy, prior to deadline, would you trade Edwards in a package like this:

Edwards + Prince + Layman

FOR

Isaac + Franz Wagner + Hampton or Anthony

Isaac if healthy is obviously a perfect fit with Towns. Wagner can be a sharp shooter who pushes for starting SF. Hampton or Anthony can be young guard to help backfill loss of Edwards.

Towns
Isaac
Wagner or McDaniels
Russell | Beasley
Beverley | Russell

Personally, no way. Ant’s future looks very bright and the return your talking about is inadequate to say the least. You could get Turner or Sabonis for Ant and then some. We need to make a move at our margins and use draft capital to bridge the value gap if we are going for a major impact player. If you go for a lower value player like a Favors or Kanter then you give proportional talent.

It would suck to see Edwards excel in Orlando. No way of being sure he is real deal. As Wolves fan I sure hope so. No way of being sure on Isaac health either. But if he is healthy he is better fit than Simmons and a top player in all NBA. Not even sure Magic do this trade, they probably see Wagner and even the other young guard as having Edwards’ish level upside — and a healthy Isaac isnt worth spending to get similar upside in Edwards.

[winforlose]

If Isaac is healthy, prior to deadline, would you trade Edwards in a package like this:

Edwards + Prince + Layman

FOR

Isaac + Franz Wagner + Hampton or Anthony

Isaac if healthy is obviously a perfect fit with Towns. Wagner can be a sharp shooter who pushes for starting SF. Hampton or Anthony can be young guard to help backfill loss of Edwards.

Towns
Isaac
Wagner or McDaniels
Russell | Beasley
Beverley | Russell

Personally, no way. Ant’s future looks very bright and the return your talking about is inadequate to say the least. You could get Turner or Sabonis for Ant and then some. We need to make a move at our margins and use draft capital to bridge the value gap if we are going for a major impact player. If you go for a lower value player like a Favors or Kanter then you give proportional talent.

It would suck to see Edwards excel in Orlando. No way of being sure he is real deal. As Wolves fan I sure hope so. No way of being sure on Isaac health either. But if he is healthy he is better fit than Simmons and a top player in all NBA. Not even sure Magic do this trade, they probably see Wagner and even the other young guard as having Edwards’ish level upside — and a healthy Isaac isnt worth spending to get similar upside in Edwards.

They would sign the second you finish asking (in blood if necessary.) It is the kinda move franchises never offer and no one ever passes on. It’s like us giving away second year KAT for Tobias Harris and some throw ins.

[winforlose]

...are you serious? Christian Wood is not the difference between us being contenders, give me a break.

God damn, we beat a handful of scrub teams and some of you lose your minds.

How do you figure? Having an extra double digit scorer who fixes our biggest weakness (defensive rebounding,) and allows you to move Dlo to the second unit all in one swoop. Imagine the lineups

Beverly, Ant, V8, Wood, KAT
Dlo, Nowell, MCD, Reid, Theis.

You create around 5.4 mil in space under the tax with this trade and when you trade Layman for a 2nd or combine him with 4.75 mil trade exemption you have real money to throw at someone for another improvement at the deadline. What am I missing?

Edit to add, JO or Bolmaro can replace Nowell for more defense if MCD can maintain/increase his offensive production.

I cleaned up my post from last night and am bumping it to get some opinions. I think these lineups would be deadly.

[shrink]

...are you serious? Christian Wood is not the difference between us being contenders, give me a break.

God damn, we beat a handful of scrub teams and some of you lose your minds.

How do you figure? Having an extra double digit scorer who fixes our biggest weakness (defensive rebounding,) and allows you to move Dlo to the second unit all in one swoop. Imagine the lineups

Beverly, Ant, V8, Wood, KAT
Dlo, Nowell, MCD, Reid, Theis.

You create around 5.4 mil in space under the tax with this trade and when you trade Layman for a 2nd or combine him with 4.75 mil trade exemption you have real money to throw at someone for another improvement at the deadline. What am I missing?

Edit to add, JO or Bolmaro can replace Nowell for more defense if MCD can maintain/increase his offensive production.

I cleaned up my post from last night and am bumping it to get some opinions. I think these lineups would be deadly.

Maybe you can tell me more about Wood, because I haven’t seen enough of him. I think he can rebound, but I heard he was pretty bad defensively. Getting Theis too though would really help. I like the savings under the lux and I don’t think they get enough credit. I don’t think Vando so starts over DLo, even if it’s just team politics.

In general, MIN clearly needs another big, but I lean against these trades adding a star big man because:

1. After having no pick in last years lottery and draft, I am not confident enough in the team yet to want to trade future picks. Many of our other trade pieces don’t have a lot of value right now.

2. Most of the bigger name bigs I see in trades got those big names because they are 15-20 PPG scorers. MIN needs a big that is a threat to make an open basket if uncovered to keep Towns from being doubled and move a big out of the paint. But that guy needs to be someone who would be happy here being a fourth option, because KAT, Ant and DLo are all going to expect to get their FGA’s.

Would I love to see Myles Turner or a healthy Jonathan Isaac on this team? Sure! But it does not seem realistic to me that the Wolves would make a deal like that right now, but may aim for a lesser big.