Kirilenko Opted Out, Another Wolves Scenario

So many possibilities running through my head now that we know AK has opted out, which I think was best for this team.  The more I think about it I don't really even want AK47 back with this team unless he'd do something like a 3yr/18M contract could give him 8M in year 1, 6M in year 2 & 4M in year 3.  That way his contract decreases value as he gets older.

Anyways this is what I'd do.  Shift focus away from AK47, now concentrate on SG- Tony Allen.  He has all the defense & more that AK47 had and he fills an immediate need.  people need to remember that we still have Budinger & Muhammad as well as Gelable if we pick up his option and Bjelica might be coming over so we're basically set at the SF position.  If we could land Tony Allen that would be huge for us.
Giving us a lineup of:
C - Pekovic / Dieng
PF - Love / Williams / Cunningham
SF - (Williams) / Budinger / Muhammad / Gelable(if we pick up his option)
SG - Allen / (Shved)
PG - Rubio / Ridnour / Barea / Shved / Brown

We would still have an immediate need to bring in a shooter but shooters typically don't cost a whole lot of money & I think this team could use another defensive stopper.  Which brings me to two very familiar faces & a couple of players I thought we should have never gotten rid of in the first place.  First call up Cleveland who is in the market for a backup PG to Irving.  Offer them either Ridnour or Barea for Wayne Ellington, he would be a great fit in Rick Adelman's offense as he's great at hitting the corner 3.  In this scenario I'll just say that the Cavs accept a deal for Ridnour as he'll be an expiring contract at the end of the year if he doesn't fit with Cleveland's offense, although Barea might be a better fit as he'd keep the up temple offense for them but like I said in this scenario I pick Ridnour but once again either would work. 

This move not only helps balance out the roster & give us a good shooter but it helps shed another 2M roughly which now we can focus on getting another high energy defensive stopper.  Look no further than one Corey Brewer.  By Bringing in Brewer we also decline the option on Gelable which gives us close to another 1M in cap savings.

Giving us a roster that looks like this:
C - Pekovic(8.9M cap hold) / Dieng(1.2M)
PF - Love(14.7M) / Williams(5M) / Cunningham (2.2M)
SF - Brewer(3.5M estimated) / Budinger(3M estimated) / Muhammad(1.6M)
SG - Allen(9M estimated) / Ellington(3.1M) / Shved(3.1M)
PG - Rubio(3.7M) / Barea(4.7M) / Brown(0.5M)

This would give the Wolves a Cap total of 64.7M so it would work finacially as I've heard rumors the cap is going to be set at 71.5M

It gives the Wolves a lot of flexibility, we'd have scorers & defensive stoppers.  I think this would be a good team as well if they stayed healthy.  it allows Muhammad to come along slowly and if he does happen to pan out there isn't anyone great in front of him or basically blocking him.  I'd still like to move Barea as well but it might be easier to do that next year when he'll be an expiring deal.  It also would give the Wolves a lot of depth and a pretty good 2nd unit.  Williams could play the 3 or 4, both Brewer & Budinger could play the 2 or 3 & Shved could play the 1 or 2, just lots of options which is something Adelman likes.

What The Minnesota Timberwolves Should Do Next

  

With the 2013 NBA Draft in the books & the Minnesota Timberwolves still not addressing their huge glaring need for a Shooting Guard I have come up with what I believe the Wolves should do next. First I'll talk about the roster, we still don't have a clue whether or not Andrei Kirilenko will opt in to his contract for this upcoming season but I'll just assume that he does, if he ends up opting out and the Wolves don't re-sign him this plan will obviously need some tinkering done to it.

Alright now with that out of the way the Wolves traded out of the #9 pick last night when Victor Oladpio, Ben McLemore, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Nerlens Noel & Alex Len were all selected before the Wolves got to make their selection, they couldn't work out a trade to move up so instead of reaching for the player they ended up taking(Shabazz Muhammad) they selected PG Trey Burke who was a concensus top 5 talent in the draft and found a trade partner that made sense,  the Utah Jazz who gave up the #14 & #21 picks in the draft.  The Timberwolves than selected the next guy on their board which was Muhammad & with the 21st pick they added a much needed defensive minded Center to hopefully replace the lackluster Greg Stiemsma granted as it stands right now Stiemsma is still on the team but I don't expect that to last very long whether he is used as trade bait or just outright released since his contract isn't guaranteed.  We ended up selling/trading pick #26 to the Golden State Warriors along with SG - Malcolm Lee and received a 2014 2nd round pick along with some cash back.  I wasn't happy about that move as there were still players available that would have helped this team out such as Allen Crabbe.  The Wolves ended the night taking PG - Lorenzo Brown @ #52 & PF - Bojan Dubljevic @ #59.

The Wolves went into the draft needing to address the SG position and did no such thing which now brings me to what we need to do whether that be exploring trade options or using the MLE to bring in a SG.  I actually believe we should look to do both things and not just settle with bringing in only 1 SG and hope they can be the missing piece. Which brings me to what I believe the Wolves need to do first.  We should absolutely call New Orleans and see exactly what it would take to land SG - Austin Rivers.  He had a very lackluster year and his value should be very low with the season he just came off of.  I really liked him coming out of the draft last season & believe he just needs a change of scenery much like what Danny Green & Wayne Ellington did this past season, I'm not claiming that Rivers will turn into this superstar but I do believe he can be a great option off the bench that knocks some shots down.  The Wolves are pretty strapped for cash to spend right now and only have the MLE to offer right now.  In this move I believe the Wolves should offer up either C - Greg Stiemsma(2.7M) unguarantteed, PG - Luke Ridnour(4.4M) or PG - JJ. Barea(4.7M).  Austin Rivers will be making 2.4M so any of those players would give us salary relief along with a much needed SG.  In this scenario I will say they pull the trigger on a deal for Stiemsma who they could cut if they wanted to but after dealing Nerlens Noel last night for a package that brought in PG - Jrue Holiday & PG - Pierre Jackson I don't see them needing a PG at all.  I will also include SF - Mickael Gelable who will give them a descent bench piece. So it looks like this

Minnesota Sends:

C - Greg Stiemsma(2.7M)

SF - Mickael Gelable(0.4M)

New Orleans Sends:

SG - Austin Rivers(2.4M)

Now with the first part out of the way and the Wolves finally having added a true SG on the team they still should look to add another option but they still don't have much money to work with, so they are looking to still dump or rather shed the salaries of either Luke Ridnour(4.4M) or JJ Barea(4.7M).  Now ideally I'd like for the Wolves to call up the New York Knicks and see if they're still very interested in Ridnour and just trade him plus a future 2nd round pick for Tim Hardaway Jr but the Wolves won't go into the season with 3+ rookies on their roster it's just simply not going to happen. So the Wolves look elsewhere. Minnesota comes across JJ Redick and realizes that Milwaukee could be in a bad situation and possibly lose both Brandon Jennings & Monta Ellis as well as SG - JJ Redick.  The Bucks have said they would match any offer for Jennings but this could be to simply buy them more time to work out a potential deal because Jennings isn't happy in Milwaukee.  Rather than take a chance at losing all 3 of their guards the Bucks decide to make a Sign & Trade with the Wolves.  They come to a deal that will send Redick to Minnesota and bring back Luke Ridnour to Milwaukee. It's not the greatest return in the world swapping players straight up so Minnesota throws in a future 2nd round pick as for  Ridnour he could give Milwaukee another trade asset at the deadline or he could just end up staying in Milwaukee.

Minnesota Sends:

PG - Luke Ridnour(4.2M)

Future 2nd round pick

Milwaukee Sends:

SG - JJ Redick

This would give the Wolves a Lineup that looks like this going into the season:

C - Pekovic / Dieng

PF - Love / D Williams / D. Cunningham

SF - A. Kirilenko / C. Budinger / S. Muhammad

SG - JJ Redick / A. Rivers 

PG - Rubio / JJ Barea / Shved / L. Brown.

It would give Minnesota a lot of flexibility going forward as D. Williams can play the 3 & 4 spots, Budinger can play the 2 & 3 spots, Muhammad might be able to play the 2 & 3 spots and A. Shved can play the 1 & 2 spots.  These 2 moves give the Wolves great depth and are both possible depending upon what New Orleans thinks about a very lackluster rookie campaign from Austin Rivers.  The Wolves would also have 1 remaining roster spot as well as the MLE to use if they felt they needed to add another player.

Why The Vikings Need To Retain Jared Allen

I believe this should be a pretty simple answer but I'll try to take it into a little depth here.  The most important reason the Vikings need to get Jared Allen signed to a new contract is for the team.  I completely understand that Rick Spielman is implementing a youth movement but that doesn't mean that the entire roster needs to get younger, to have a winning team you need the perfect balance of veteran leadership mixed with youth.  I know that's stating the obvious so it needed to be in here.

Can anyone remember the Viking anemic pass rush prior to 2008? Well I do.  in 2008 Jared Allen recorded 1/2 sack less than Minnesota's top 3 players with sacks from 2007, a total of 14.5 sacks.  It took Kenechi Udeze(5), Ray Edwards(5) & Ben Leber(5) to get more sacks than Allen.  Now if you want to talk about just Defensive ends than Allen had just as many as the top 3 guys as you got Udeze, Edwards & Brian Robison(4.5).  2006 gets worse than that & we need to go all the way back to 2004 to have a Defensive End even reach double digits in sacks(Lance Johnstone 11.5).

Now if you can't tell by now Jared Allen makes defenses gameplan around him which makes it hard to put value on, sure he will be 32yrs old by the time next season start and that could be a number that scares some people off but it shouldn't be this way as Allen has put up atleast 11 sacks every season he's been in Minnesota and he still put up 12 sacks last season playing all year with a torn labrum which is very impressive. 

The next reason he needs to be retained is that he makes the entire defense better as a whole.  He helps out the opposite Defensive End.  If you want proof of this look no further than Ray Edwards who just 2 seasons ago was supposed to be a prized free agent. He bolted Minnesota for Atlanta agreeing to a 5yr/30M contract with 11M guaranteed.  I told people he should be a buyer beware free agent as he never once posted double digits in sacks playing opposite of Jared Allen and on a defensive line that also featured Kevin & Pat Williams.  Defense's simply didn't focus on Edwards at all.  Well over these past two seasons Ray Edwards recorded a total of 3.5 sacks all of them coming in 2011 and today he is currently out of the league at age 28, when he's supposed to be in the prime of his career.

Now obviously as I said earlier the Vikings are going through a youth movement but that doesn't mean everyone needs to be young.  The Vikings have two other free agent defensive ends( Everson Griffen & Brian Robison).  Griffen is the perfect compliment to Jared Allen as he can add pressure from the opposite side of the field and he fits the youth movement but a team that wants to contend should NOT have 2 very young starting defensive ends, atleast not if they want to win.  While I have no doubt Griffen could hold his own opposing defenses won't game plan around him atleast not yet, which will make the entire defense's job a lot harder.

The last reason is that the Vikings will more than likely already have atleast three huge holes to fill next offseason depending upon how Christian Ponder performs this upcoming season that could change to four huge needs(QB, OG, DE & LB).  There is also the question of what to do at DT.  Now I don't see an issue of creating another hole by letting Allen walk.  Now some people will say well they could just resign Brian Robison but he is only a year younger than Allen and if I had to choose between Allen & Robison I'd take Allen every single time, this is no knock on Robison though as he is a good player in his own right but he is no Jared Allen.  Not to mention that Allen as a Superstar is willing to put in the work it takes and has a great attitude not to mention his locker room presence.  At the end of the day if the Vikings want to continue to contend it should start with giving Allen a 3 or 4 year contract, the Vikings can afford it as his contract should go down from this season even if he will still be making 10M a year.