Coming into the season, there was reason for optimism in Minneapolis for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Last year, Minnesota was 21-19 and in the NBA playoff picture for the first time since the 2003-04 season. But then it all fell apart March 9 when Ricky Rubio tore his ACL against the Los Angeles Lakers trying to take a charge against Kobe Bryant. After the promising start, Minnesota ended the season 5-21 after the Rubio injury.
This season, Minnesota signed forward Andrei Kirilenko and fellow Russian Alexey Shved to try to help out the wings, which was a weakness for the team a year ago. The Timberwolves also traded its first round pick to Houston for sharp-shooter Chase Budinger.
With Rubio out until mid-December, the season nearly ended before it started when Kevin Love injured himself doing knuckle push-ups and would not make his debut until late November. Budinger then injured his knee just six games into the season and a promising 5-2 start to the season came crashing down.
Here the Wolves are at 19-31 with Love and Budinger still out until next month and Rubio is finally showing signs of being his old self again. They sit 7.5 games in back of the No. 8 seed and need to make a move to try to make a run at the playoffs. This may also be a last ditch effort for General Manager David Kahn to save his job.
Shved is still the only true shooting guard on the roster, so odds are Minnesota is trying to get one as it is currently starting point guard Luke Ridnour at shooting guard along with Rubio. Some names have been floated out there, such as Eric Gordon and J.J. Redick. Gordon signed a big contract with New Orleans in the offseason, but has only played 27 games the past two years combined.
With the addition of Rudy Gay, Demar DeRozan may be a target for Minnesota as well. But Minnesota struggles from 3-point land and DeRozan is shooting just 28 percent from 3-point range this year and only 23 percent for his career.
Minnesota is dangling Ridnour or J.J. Barea in an effort to be acquire a shooting guard and New York is one of the teams interested. Either Ridnour or Barea needs to be traded, as the Wolves cannot afford to keep three point guards making around $5 million per season.
Derrick Williams may be trade bait to try to acquire a shooting guard, but he probably will not be traded until the offseason, if he is traded at all.
Also, Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted yesterday that Minnesota "has been aggressive in offering multiple first-round picks for established talent." Who knows what that means? It is fun to speculate if the first rounders are involved with a player or if they are on their own.
Even though Kahn has made some questionable draft picks like Jonny Flynn and Wes Johnson, he has made quality trades during his tenure. He turned two second round picks into Michael Beasley and two role players, Randy Foye and Mike Miller, into Rubio. There are plenty of things people can rip Kahn for, but trades are not one of them.
And finally, this is an out of the box trade idea. But Los Angeles has issues and Dwight Howard would be a perfect fit for Minnesota. Now, this is unlikely because Howard will never want to re-sign with the Timberwolves, but if Minnesota wants a great fit next to Love and Los Angeles wants to get younger, this might not be a bad idea. Minnesota would have to trade Derrick Williams, Nikola Pekovic, Brandon Roy's contract and another player as well as a first round pick or two, but it would be worth the investment.
There will be a follow-up if a trade is indeed made.
No comments:
Post a Comment