Minnesota TImberwolves: Potential Trade Situations
There’s just something about trading in professional sports. We get all worked up about the rumors and conjecture and find ourselves locked onto even the smallest bit of new information from our dialed-in guy of choice. Even though, year after year, I come away disappointed about that lack of star power in the movement, I get riled up the next year upon the first mention of fantastic rumor.
Sometimes it makes me question myself as a sports fan and analyst. Just focusing on big stars is the mantra of the casual, bandwagon fan. They scare me, to be honest. All I did was wax poetic about the San Antonio Spurs’ performance in the NBA Finals as the greatest spectacle of team basketball that I had ever seen. And they did it with minor but crucial moves that fit into their grand scheme. Not every team is the well-oiled Spurs, but I need to be more cognizant of the subtle moves that could pay big dividends.
After seeing constant NFL cancer Percy Harvin get traded on Friday, and astonished by what on Earth could have happened behind the scenes in both Minnesota and Seattle, given that even marginal trades just don’t happen in the NFL, I’m thinking about the potential for the NBA season.
I’ve already addressed at length the potential problems with the Minnesota Timberwolves roster; not in them being bereft of talent but having solid veterans with value stealing minutes from young guys in an obvious rebuilding effort. Obviously, the Wolves’ record and where they stand in the West is going to dictate their moves. Again, the happy medium of “competing, yet rebuilding” that coach Flip Saunders wants to strike is a curious one in theory, even if they currently have the personnel to pull it off. That would take heavy minutes from guys like Kevin Martin, Corey Brewer, Chase Budinger, and other reasonable veteran guys.
They’ll start the year with those guys playing prominent roles. But the wins aren’t going to be there. All the while everyone is going to grow restless waiting for the true changing of the guard. Hopefully Saunders comes to terms with this quickly and makes trades when he has the opportunity to do so. I don’t think Saunders will patronize his base. And his trade candidates have to have value to contenders.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported that the Wolves are already ahead of the curve on Budinger, actively trying to deal him sooner rather than later. That would be good, even if picking up his $5 million player option for the 2015-16 season is a stalling point. Brewer would be more attractive guy given that he is more versatile than Budinger and doesn’t have the injury history, but I get the feeling that Saunders would prefer to hold onto him as a mentor for Andrew Wiggins. That’s a nice idea, but being a big brother can’t come at the expense of Wiggins’ play time.
Thaddeus Young is another obvious candidate, especially given that he has a player option for 2015-16. Anthony Bennett has shown flashes in both Summer League and in the preseason. I’m not saying it’s enough that he can be the Wolves’ power forward of the future, but he needs minutes and he needs patience. Young should play well enough right away that he garners interest. But Young was also his hand-picked guy to replace Kevin Love; I hope that fact doesn’t make Saunders less likely to make a deal if he feels like Bennett is progressing as he would like.
The wild card in this is that the coach is the guy looking for these deals. I don’t know if that makes him more likely to do one thing over the other. My fear has been that Saunders will be too focused on the here-and-now of the operation and focus too much on those veterans. The first month of the season will tell the story. I hope it gives a clear direction and focus.