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.
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