In my this morning's perusal of HoopsHype, I came across a nugget from the Nets Blast Blog (also, check out the guy's Soup-Nazi-esque photo): And [the Clippers] would undoubtedly play hardball, because [the] are so paranoid they always try to kill you in a deal, and everyone hates talking to them. Then I thought to myself, "Hmmm, he's right. The Clippers don't make a lot of trades." In fact, other than trading Jared Jordan's rights to the Knicks for cash, the only deal the Clippers have made since July 2004 (when they traded for Kerry Kittles, for those scoring at home) was dealing Marko Jaric to us.

I don't even know what to write after Saturday's loss to the Grizz and last night's scrimmage against the varsity squad. There's really nothing to say about the Grizz game because it wasn't on TV and I was saved from hearing it because down here in south central MN there was a MSU hockey game on the station that usually carries the Wolves (KTOE). There's probably just as little to say about last night's mess...and I watched 1/2 of it.

First of all, I know it was snowing like nobody's business, but the Target Center was damn near empty last night. Both teams reciprocated the gesture by not really showing up to play. The Lakers suited up 10 players and Kobe Bryant played for less than 30 minutes. The Wolves played without Marko Jaric, Theo Ratliff, Randy Foye and their Coach, Randy Wittman. Big Al may as well taken the night off to rest his knee because he didn't really show up either (results, not effort). It's nights like this that make people hate the NBA. Guaranteed money with no guarantee for effort.

I suppose you could take a few positives from the losses. Sebastian Telfair is proving himself to be an NBA point, and it should once again be noted that he's a 22 year-old guard with no college experience who has shown constant and consistent improvement when given the chance to prove himself on the court. He's increasingly showing himself, along with Toine, to be the only Wolf that understands the importance of changing his game to fit what he brings to the court on any given night. Last night, Bassy's shot wasn't working early so he went to the rim; knowing that he wasn't going to hit any threes and that he could get by his slower opponents at the 1. He didn't force a shot that wasn't working and he fell back to option 2. That's a damn revelation with this group of players.

Has anyone noticed that Craig Smith has hit 70% from the floor during his last 5 games? He may have had some trouble guarding Odom last night, but the favor was returned on the other end of the court.

That's about it. There's nothing to write home about with these games. The Wolves are entering a particularly tough stretch of their schedule, they are banged up, their coach is in the hospital, and it's frickin' snowing. Again: this season will be measured by ping-pong balls, Foye's (eventual) proficiency at the 1, McCant's ability to play the 2, and the expiring contracts of Ratliff, Michael Doleac, and (hopefully) a large chunk of the young Celtics. As long as the players don't go insane, they are doing their job. This year (and the next) is about getting through 82 games without taking on additional salary and avoiding a win total that would knock the team out of the top 3 picks in the 2008 Draft.

As if to cap off the night's suckiness, the match up between OJ Mayo and Derrick Rose was ugly as sin.

Yikes indeed.

PS: can we officially stop pretending that Ryan Gomes is a decent player?

The way things look like now, the Wolves are on a crash course for 1 of 3 draft possibilities: a) a PG should the Randy Foye experiment not work out, b) Michael Beasley should he fall in their lap, or c) a big man should Foye show proficiency at the point and Beasley is off the board. Regardless of how they pick, the Wolves will have some holes they need to address on the roster. Theo Ratliff and Michael Doleac will be off the books; and Craig Smith, Gerald Green, Ryan Gomes, and Chris Richard will need to be decided on. In other words, 1/2 of the Wolves (and nearly all of their frontcourt players) have the potential to come off the books after the season ends.

Compounding matters even further is that even with these frontcourt players off the books, the Wolves are sitting at $55,124,864 in guaranteed salary (including Telfair’s qualifying offer; which I'm inserting to show how much one of the Boston guys would cost to resign). Add in $4 million for their 1st pick, $442,000 for the 2nd rounder/free agent they almost will have to sign at the league minimum to fill the roster, and they are sitting at $60 million without Green, Gomes, Smith, or Richard. As you can see, they’re already in luxury territory with the following roster:

Antoine Walker
Marko Jaric
Greg Buckner
Randy Foye
Sebastian Telfair
Corey Brewer
Al Jefferson
Mark Madsen
Rashad McCants
1st round draft pick
2nd round draft pick
(Troy Hudson)
(Juwan Howard)

Have I mentioned how much I love guaranteed salary? Before I go any further, could the Wolves make this roster work?

1. Foye/Telfair/Jaric
2. McCants/Jaric/Buckner
3. Walker/Brewer
4. Jefferson/Walker
5. Mark Madsen/Jefferson

Can you begin to see why they need Corey Brewer to work out at the 3? Wolves fans: even if you could clear Walker off the books, who is worth resigning to take his spot at the 3/4? Gomes? Smith? How much money would you really be saving if you signed Smith or Gomes to a $3 mil/year contract and bought out Walker for 7-8? It’s a push with his current $9 mil on the books. I wouldn’t bet on the Wolves extending too many more buyouts. They’re in enough of a pickle as it is. I think it’s trade or nothing at this point. Also, as long as Walker says things like this:

Q: A lot of vets in your situation would have asked for a buyout after winding up with a rebuilding team like the Wolves. Why haven't you?

A: Honestly, man, I'm just tired of moving. I don't know that the grass is greener for me somewhere else. You have to try something first before you can have an opinion about it. I didn't want to come in here and say, "I want out." I wanted to see if I can fit in with these guys. I don't want that perception put on me. I didn't want to disrespect these other 14 guys in this locker room.

At this point in my career, I'm not chasing rings like some other guys and I'm not chasing making the playoffs. I'm chasing a good situation for myself to play basketball and do something I love to do.

Q: So you're expecting a long stay in Minneapolis?

A: Right now, I'm a Timberwolf. I plan on being here right now. I've got this year and next year on my contract, and I'm just gonna worry about these two years and then see where I'm at. But I want to play five or six more years if I can stay healthy. I'm only 31.

...it would be pointless to move him because they're not moving in free agency until 2009-10 anyway.

As you may have noticed, the Wolves are already above the likely 2008-09 cap with 11 players, no true center, and 4 frontcourt players (not counting their draft picks). They can take $3 mil off the books by not resigning Telfair’s qualifying offer, but do they then spend it on Smith or Green? Can they sign both? What about Green? Smith/Green/Telfair should be similarly priced players, and signing even one will push the Wolves over the $60 mil mark. Again, the Wolves are in a pickle. Are these the types of players they want to be locking up on their way to rock bottom?

What should the Wolves do?

1. Get Chris Richard to the D-League now….yesterday, if possible. Get him as many minutes as possible and get him back up in the Association come February. The Wolves can sign Richard for under $1 million next year and they will need to do so. He should be as proficient as possible and the D-League is calling.
2. Utilize the D-League to fill out the last spot on next year’s roster. Cheap, cheap, cheap is the way to go if the Wolves are going to spend some free agent money in the 2009-10 season. Possible frontcourt players: Nik Caner-Medley, Ronald Allen, Michael Joiner. Learn to love the Sioux Falls Skyforce. The Wolves could also use their 2nd round pick to take a 4th year college big man. Randal Falker, DJ White, and Joey Dorsey may be available at the top of the 2nd round. Whatever they do, they should not, I repeat, should not waste valuable cap space on the Matt Barnes and Jarvis Hayes of the world in free agency.
3. Do not make any long-term contract negotiations with Rashad McCants. T-Hud the Sequel does not deserve $4 mil/year and he sure as hell doesn’t get a long leash; especially when his 2009-10 qualifying offer could put $3.6 mil in the bank for a free agent run.
4. If they are going to buy out Walker, Jaric, Buckner, or Madsen, they need to do so immediately so that the multi-year contract agreements will expire before the 2009-10 free agent season. They do not want to miss out on that action. Do not make any trade unless the net salary loss eclipses a buyout + resign number for one of the Green/Smith/Gomes/Telfair combo and, if doing so, is a one year contract. (PS: As you may have guessed by reading this post, it's unlikely they have the money to buy anyone out at this point.)
5. If they are going to resign anyone currently on the roster, only sign 1 of the Green/Smith/Gomes/Telfair combo. This is more of a fiscal necessity rather than helpful advice. The Wolves have about $3.5 million to throw around at one of these youngsters. Who will it be? I’m partial to Smith myself (although Telfair is growing one me), and I think the Wolves almost have to go with a frontcourt player, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. That being written, if they can get away with not signing any of them, that would be for the best in the long run.
6. Do not trade draft picks for established players (i.e. salaries). This isn’t to say that they couldn’t try to package the Miami and Celtic picks to move up in the 2009 Draft, it’s just to say that they need to keep salaries low for the 2009-10/2010-11 free-agent seasons and 1st round picks are much less costly than any vet they would likely get in return. Whatever they do, they should not trade their own 1st round pick in 2008 or 2009 under any circumstances whatsoever. I mention this because of Wally and Cassell.

The main goal for the Wolves is to become a .350-.450 team again in the 2009-10 season and a playoff team the following year with a solid base of extremely young talent and mid-20s “vets” like Foye, Brewer, and Jefferson. If things go right—and by “right,” I mean very, very bad—in the mean time, the Wolves will have had 2 consecutive top-5 picks, Miami’s 2009 pick between 10-15, and the Celtics first round pick in 09 by the time they lace ‘em up in late 2009. (Remember to check out Canis Hoopus' excellent draft info page.) Here’s what the 2009-10 roster will look like if no further buyouts take place:

(Marko Jaric)
(Greg Buckner)
(Mark Madsen)
Randy Foye
Corey Brewer
Al Jefferson
2008 1st rounder
2009 1st rounder
2009 Boston 1st rounder
2009 Miami 1st rounder

Have I ever mentioned that another reason why the Wolves can’t (and shouldn’t) lock up Green/Gomes/Smith/Telfair is because they will be swimming with guaranteed 3-year deals at the start of the 2009-10 season? Let’s throw in a 2nd rounder to bring them up to 11 players and the Wolves are sitting pretty for a big free agent run with a young team, a PF in his prime and, hopefully, 2 extremely talented top-5 draft picks. Since NBA rookie salaries are slotted, let’s take a quick look at exactly how much the Wolves should have to play with in the 2009-10/2010-11 free agent seasons should this scenario play itself out.

Jaric- $7,100,000
Buckner- $4,018,518
Madsen- $2,840,000
Foye- $3,575,761
Brewer- $2,916,120
Jefferson- $12,000,000
2008 1st rounder- $4,000,000 (est pick 1-3)
2009 1st rounder- $2,750,000 (est pick 3-7)
2009 Boston 1st rounder- $800,000 (est pick mid 20s)
2009 Miami 1st rounder- $1,300,000 (est pick 10-15)
Misc 2nd rounder- $442,114 (league minimum)

That’s $41,742,513 and 11 players for you folks playing at home. The 2009-10 cap should be somewhere around $60 million, which means the Wolves would have roughly $20 million to spend in free agency and enough room under the luxury exemption (which Taylor has said he’ll spend on a good team) to resign any good players under the Bird exemption should they get higher offers elsewhere. There’s a lot of cool stuff you can do with $20 million in the NBA. I’ll run down who will be available in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 free agent seasons in a future post, as well as what I think the Wolves should do with the money. (Remember, San Antonio is the model.)

The moral of the story is that next year’s Wolves are going to suck at least as much as (if not more than) this year’s squad. If the Wolves are going to be competitive free market players in 2009-10/2010-11, and if they are serious about keeping their 1st round draft picks, this year is not (cannot) be rock bottom. In order to clear salary, next year’s team will have to be a bare-bones operation and it’s not going to…no, it shouldn’t look pretty. If the KG trade is going to work, they need to clear this cap space to become players in 2009-10/2010-11. This is the only realistic way they can get it done.

PS: How big of a mind f#$k will it be for fans to have a scenario where the only way the KG trade will work is if Gomes, Telfair, Green, and Ratliff are all let go? As I have mentioned before, I don't think this season is about finding out what sort of talent the Wolves received in the trade. It's about seeing if Foye can play the point, seeing if McCants can work at the 2, clearing cap space, and getting ping pong balls. Green can dunk, Gomes can miss shots, Ratliff can give us $11 million off the books, and Bassy...well, he may be a nice back up 1. There...another moral victory.

PPS: Don't forget about the Derrick Rose/OJ Mayo showdown tonight on ESPN. Details here.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, one of the biggest obstacles the Wolves have to overcome on their way to winning is a massive free throw disparity. The Wolves give up 32 FTA/game which, if you consider in the Wolves' 21 FTA/game and their opponent's 80% FT%, results in a built in 9-point disadvantage for the puppies. It’s pretty hard to win games when you’re giving away this many points.

My gut reaction to the Wolves’ FT disparity is that Randy Foye’s absence may have a lot to do with the Wolves being unable to get to the line. Foye is one of the few Wolves who can create his own shot by getting into the lane and drawing contact. Is this hunch correct? Does Foye’s absence have a lot to do with the Wolves not getting to the line? Let’s take a quick look at Foye’s stats:

As a rookie, Foye got to the line 2.34 times per game. Of course, per game stats are not the way to judge effectiveness, especially with rookies. If you adjust his stats for game minutes, Foye makes roughly 4.1 FTA/40 minutes. During his senior year at Villanova, Foye got to the line 6 times/40 minutes. While Foye simply doesn’t have a large enough resume to dig too much deeper into his FTA impact (to say nothing of the small sample size of backup Wolves guards this year), it can reasonably be assumed that the Wolves are losing 4-6 FTA/40 minutes by not having Foye in the lineup. If you take into consideration Marko Jaric's 3.35 FTA/40, we’re talking about a net loss of 1-3 FTA/40 minutes. All in all, Foye’s absence hurts a little bit, but the Wolves are getting blown out by such a large amount at the line that even a nice contact player like Foye doesn’t make that big of a difference. To give you an idea of where Foye lies in the scheme of FTA, last year Kobe Bryant led the league with 9.77 FTA/40 minutes. KG led the Wolves with roughly 6.6 FTA/40 minutes. If Foye could get in the lane to the tune of Ben Gordon (447 FTA; 6.5/40 in 06/07) or Chauncey Billups (440 FTA; 6.9/40 in 06/07), he would be a vast improvement over anyone currently on the Wolves' roster.

To give you an idea of just how strapped the Wolves are for players that can get to the line, the only other player they had in the top 100 FTA during the 06/07 season was Ricky Davis (285 FTA). Al Jefferson, then a Celtic, logged in with 295 FTA. Once you take away KG’s 498 FTAs….well, the puppies are screwed. (In case you are wondering, Big Al averaged 3.46 FTA/40 minutes last year.)

Cutting to the chase, the Wolves have lost their only 3 legitimate free throw threats from the 06/07 season. KG and RD are gone via trade and Foye is still aching on the bench. While Davis’ 285 FTAs have been replaced by Jefferson’s 295, that equation still leaves us with a –488 FTA disparity since KG left for greener pastures. Yikes.

This is the single biggest drop off between last year’s team and this year’s squad. If you take out the massive discrepancy in FTA, this year’s Wolves are more effective on the defensive end than they were during KG’s last year. The 07/08 Wolves are giving up nearly 9 points per game at the line and it is killing them. If the Wolves played the FTA game even, they would have a nearly identical offensive/defensive efficiency rating. Last year, with KG’s nearly 500 FTAs on the books, the Wolves had a defensive efficiency rating of 108. This year, they are at 112 while giving away 9 points/game at the line.

Since I’m on the subject of KG, it should also be noted that while the Celts are having a fantastic defensive year, it could be a mirage as they are near the bottom of the league in FT/100 FG. In other words, the Celts give up a lot of free throws and if their offensive pace slows down just a little more than its current rate (as it did vs. Cleveland and Orlando) and their opponent has a player that can get to the line (LeBron James went 14-15; Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis combined for 18-30 in the Celts' 2 losses), their defense struggles. Luckily for them, they play the Knicks, 76ers, Miami, Charlotte, and Chicago for nearly a quarter of their games.

Getting back on track, the Wolves need to seriously think about FTA when making their top selection in next year’s draft. It should be one of the main considerations if 2 players with similar stats fall in their laps (OJ Mayo vs. Derrick Rose; Roy Hibbert vs. Deandre Jordan; etc). As far as the Wolves are concerned, free throws are the most important of the four factors as it has a trickle down effect on both their offense and defense.

As a parting tidbit, Derrick Rose is getting to the line at a clip of 10 FTA/40 minutes. Michael Beasley is averaging 9.41 FTA/40 minutes. In his junior year, Roy Hibbert got to the line 6.27 times/40 minutes. Freshman Deandre Jordan is averaging 6.62 FTA/40 minutes. If the Wolves are going to field a competitive team, increasing their free throw attempts is the most important statistical need they have to address.

If you're like me, you copied and pasted the Timberwolves' transaction history from their inception date into Excel and read it at work today. And sorted it. And read it again. And re-sorted it. (Seriously, if you don't go to the best NBA transaction database on the information superhighway, you haven't lived).

So, you didn't do that. But I did, and two transactions at the end stood out to me. You'll remember them. Cutting Wayne Simien and Beno Udrih. When McHale executed each of those moves I thought "Well, we're a young team that has a lot to sort out. Maybe we should hold onto some young wild cards and see what happens. Grrrr."

Then I saw Beno Udrih dropping almost 15 ppg with Sacramento and got more irked about cutting him.

But, in accordance with SnP's post yesterday and after viewing the Hornets game and the end of the Mavericks game tonight, the Jaric/Telfair backcourt seems more functional than any Wolves backcourt we've had since Cassell/Sprewell. James/Davis? No. James/McCants? No. James/Hassell? No. Banks/Anyone? No. Jaric/All those other guys? No.

Telfair and Jaric are not better than Cassell and Sprewell were in 03-04, but over the last three games they've been a very complementary duo that brings two Colonels to a team in need of a General. It's not what you need, but it's as good as you've got.

Beno has been able to put points on the board, but Telfair and Jaric have been able to handle running a team in need of on-court leadership, together.

We're bad. But play like this from unexpected sources is something to cheer for.