I wanted CDR, Chalmers, or DeAndre Jordan and all were available to be had (and Chalmers we did have!). We coulda had two of them. We would be set at our athletic big guy who could back up Big Al and Love and we would also have another shot at a future-starter at the 2.

Any injuries to Wallace this year would make me want to stay away, but if he’s healthy then I’d be OK with trading for him. He did play 70 games last year, which isn’t too bad, and would be a full-time 3 if he came here so he might be less of an injury risk.

And yeah, bring on some Evan Turner. I think he can be Joe Johnson or better, depending on how he develops his shot this year.

Re: the galvanizing force, were you talking about Iggy or Young?

Iggy would be awesome, though it seems unlikely they would look to move him. Maybe if it comes to the point that they need to shed salary and Brand can’t be moved so their only choice is to trade Iggy, but I don’t see that happening for a while.

The flip side is that you have essentially the best front court in the NBA. At pretty much all times you’re able to have 2 double-double bigs on the floor, which would be ridiculous. You still need back court talent to win, but you probably need less when your bigs are a virtual lock to dominate the other team’s front court.

you talk to teams who have assets you want (young guys who can’t necessarily contribute immediately or good assets who are slightly worse than the one coming on – to push them over the top) and who also want assets they can’t have without you. All we have to do is find a team who has something we want and who wants to sign a FA. Then they decide who and how much money. There go steps 1, 2, and 5. Now we just have to get our name out there saying we are open to sign and trades becuase we have something other teams want (cap space, it’s like using your expirings as trade bait after they have already expired) and there goes 3. Once we have that, we figure out who we want and they tell us 1,2, and 5 and we match salaries.

I don’t really think he would o that either, but I might. As for hoping for success sooner than we should be, I disagree. Maybe sooner than we are going to get it, but as fans, we should hope for success today.

Look, I get it. i get why Kahn has spoken about 2-3 years before this team is good. I frankly have mixed feelings about that plan, but he’s in charge. And the team desperately needed a rebuild. However, that doesn’t mean I have to have infinite patience. There’s been a lot of talk about trying to hold the cap space beyond next off-season. That would frankly be a big mistake in my opinion. At some point, you have to move. I don’t care how smart Kahn sounds. You have to go win, and that means finding good players. 2012 isn’t the time to do that.

Love and Flynn might need big extensions in a few years if they play to potential. You don’t need to set yourself up for trouble down the line by overpaying for someone now.

And he’s from Chicago, so yeah, the Midwest shouldn’t frighten him. If you really break it down, MN isn’t a terrible destination for him. Let’s see:

-Max money
-Near his home
-Promising young core of up and coming players that would complement him well
-No established star so he’d be the man from day 1

You could say the same about the Bulls, of course, but I think it’s possible that the Wolves could overtake them given the assets we’ve got. Blah blah it’s a dream etc. etc., but it’s interesting to think about.

but Wade will either be back with miami or be a Bull, Nyet, or Knick (in that order). The extra amount of money (endorsements) and crowd love he will get being a hometown kid will make signing with the wolves just a little less appealing that it would have to be.

Draft Paul George, a 6’7 athletic SF who’s got great range. Problem solved! All in all, though, that’s a minor issue. You could slot a guy like Gomes in at the 3 and I think that’s still a 50+ win team no problem.

No, I hadn’t even looked at their contract lengths. Holy crap they are wiping a ton of money off the books after this year. For some reason I thought Jermaine was still going to hang over them like an albatross for a year or two, but I was mistaken. Well, here’s hoping they implode anyway and Wade doesn’t have enough confidence that they can attract the multiples of talent they’d need to truly contend for a title.

we could take Ariza off their hands and send them Rubio and Gomes.

that I buy this. The more that I think about it, with love and al slimming down to not expose them not having super athletic skills, they should cease to be such a defensive liability. Any defensive liability they give up they more than make up for on the offensive end.

I don’t like that idea either, at least not based on what I’ve seen/heard/read so far. If he gets back on track and starts showing big progresst his year then things change, but so far he’s proven only to be an inefficient, volume-scoring ballhog with lackadaisical D. The potential of his athleticism and size is only worth so much if he can’t put it together mentally. I, for one, don’t want to be watching a guy who makes 10 mill and has elite athleticism play half-ass D and throw up contested 20 footers and generally not making good on his potential. In fact, I can’t think of anything more frustrating than watching that for the next 4-5 years.

It’s about maximizing your assets, though. Moving on cap space/expirings means you can bring in a proven player. Nabbing young steals is awesome, but those guys are far from guaranteed to give you production. If you gave me the choice of CDR or, for example, Gerald Wallace, I’m taking Wallace 10 times out of 10 because you know he’s going to give you good D and produce in the 18-20 PER range. If that’s the choice, why limit the team to going after younger, unproven guys? The only reason I can think to do that over moving for proven talent to put next to our current youngsters is if Taylor gave Kahn a mandate to not take on a big $$ deal.

Now, if they want to go down both those routes, then I’m all for it.

And there definitely are players (like Duncan and LeBron) who will succeed no matter where/with whom you put them.

But I do think the culture/structure of an organization has a lot to do with it. And this may work more for negatively impacting players’ careers than positive. A player who enters a losing culture like Memphis (or, until perhaps now, Minnesota) is going to be less successful, all other things being equal, than one who joins San Antonio or the KG Celtics (Anyone think Rondo develops like he has if they don’t make the Allen and Garnett trades?)

Because there are two NBAs, really. In one NBA, and this is the one often criticized by non-fans, there isn’t passing, cutting, ball movement, or defense. And if a player enters this league, that’s how he learns to be an NBA player (Rudy Gay).

But in the other NBA, teams play D all-out every possession, players know their roles, and offenses work so that players get open looks rather than contested highlight attempts. I’m of the opinion that this kind of precedent and culture set in San Antonio is the reason so many late draft picks turn in to studs, rather than excellent scouting and drafting (although certainly that plays a part also.)

I think what I was saying is that individual coaches and player mentors are overrated in their ability to impact a player’s core skill-set. It goes back to the Tim Duncan comment. Tim Duncan was going to be a great player, whether it was The Admiral on that Spurs team or Charles Shackleford. I’m sure he benefitted by The Admiral, but not enough to materially impact the way he performed.