Look at their roster. There is not much there except Love. http://hoopshype.com/salaries/minnesota.htm
The Cavs brought in all sorts of crappy veterans to appease LeBron, how did that work out? How about our GM does the best job of improving the roster? Then let LaMarcus decide if he wants to be a part of an up and coming winner or go to a cellar dweller in a bigger city.
I bet Barcelona has interest, and possible CSKA Moscow. However, I get the distinct impression that Freeland really wants to be in the NBA now and wouldn't agree to a buyout.
Nikola Pekovic gets a 5 year 60 MIL dollar deal from MIN with 8 MIL more reachable in bonuses. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9...grees-new-deal-minnesota-timberwolves-sources Glad we didn't waste our time offering this guy to only get matched. Overpriced for what he can do for us!
Well Pek is far better than an average rotational player, but he has some major deficiencies in his game. At this price he’s way overpaid. Funny they wouldn’t give Love a 5 year extension but they give one to Pek. Can he be the 3rd best player on a title contender? At the dollars he earns the team won’t have much opportunity to improve through free agency so this is one of those contracts that locks a team into mediocrity.
I wonder if Love didn't get one because of injury concerns. Remember when we were so outraged about how long it took to give Brandon Roy his extension? And then they caved? Well, how many games has Love managed to play since he signed his extension?
Hmmm I don't think so. He doesn't have any chronic injuries to one area that I recall. I think it was more Kahn trying to play a game of dare and get him to sign a cheaper deal. Perhaps they had reservations of him being a superstar worthy of a max deal. Makes some sense at the time but now with him possibly hitting UFA in two years it'd have been much better to just lock him up.
I don't understand what Minny was thinking. They were sitting pretty with teams burning up all their cap space and no one making a hard play on Pek. They didn't have to deal with the Blazers maybe playing payback with Nic or a desperate team with cap salary space. And Pek is a restricted free agent. They were in a perfect situation. How could Pek turn down a reasonable contract of 4 yr 40 million dollar contract, heck 45 if need be, when no other team could offer that. Instead, T-Wolves pull a Blazes/Miles situation and bid against themselves. 12 mil/yr . . . for 5 years? I don't think any other team could even offer 5 yrs. It's like there was no one there negotiating on the Wolves side . . . which I would write off to Kahn, but Kahn is gone. So Saunders comes in and makes that offer? Really what was Minny thinking?
Yeah, they are idiots. There was no way Pek would turn down 4 yr 40 mil. You see this all the time with bad teams they are scared that the sky is falling so they make desperate moves. I bet the owner was impatient and told Flip to "get a deal done soon".
And #1 is the reason why Pekovic is MASSIVELY overpaid. [video]www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GLEDI8XIcQY[/video] On another note, how bout that kid from P-Town?
What I find weird is that if someone else offered him what his equivalent salary would be for 4 years 4/48 I would have been fine with that but minnesota offering him pretty much his max value for 5 years I still can't get over it. They bid against themselves and lost.
I'm not saying I agree with their strategy, but they're probably thinking that in Year 5 they'll be super-happy paying him 12M instead of whatever he'd rate as a UFA coming off of year 4. He gets guaranteed cash, they get guaranteed cost control.
I'm not talking about the 5 year part, I fully support the fact they gave him a 5 year contract because if your resigning someone as a part of your core you sure as hell want him for 5 years. There were what 2 teams who could have given Pek a 10+ contract at the moment and one of them was Philly who is tanking for all they are worth so they wouldn't give him a contract so that I think leaves pretty much the Wolves. Pek at 12m is overpaying but would he have turned down a 5/48m with incentives to pump it up to 52m contract. I believe his QO was 4.2 so thats a lot of money to leave on the table to play for 1 year and hope to have another great year and then have a shot at a big payday.
