Everyone get ready!

For the "Love is insulted by the Wolves contract offer!". In fact, it's already arrived here. I would suspect that next will come the "Love wants to go to California / Portland / Dallas" next. Or the "Love wants to test free agency in two summers!"

First off, I have the usual problem with ANYTHING reported by Shooter. However, he does have some access to Powers That Be in the Wolves (is Kahn now a Power That Was?). But why would anyone run with this as if it were fact?

As sometimes happens on the Interwebs, Pro Basketball Talk took what was basically an unconfirmed rumor in a local paper and is now implying a) that it is factual and b) that Love will be insulted. Neither of which is even remotely certain.

IF it is true, as the article admits (you have to read a couple of paragraphs to get there), all it means is that the Wolves are offering max or near-max money for 4 years to Love. Yes, they could offer an additional year which has a 7% increase in salary, but there are a couple of different ways to read that (more after the jump), most of which aren't exactly insulting to Love, and may actually be what he wants.

The big questions are this: do we know that Love wants 5 years? What if he doesn't? What if he wants 3-4 years because he wants to see how the team develops? What if he wants to match his contract length to Adelmans'? The point being that there are some sound economic and non economic reasons for Love to prefer a shorter deal rather than a longer one. Would you trust this franchise for 5 more years if you were him?

If you are the Wolves, is it a crazy negotiating tactic to offer Love 4 years? I say not necessarily. You can only have 1 player on a 5 year deal from a rookie contract at a time, which means if Love signs for 5 you will not be able to offer Wes, RR or DWill 5 years when they are free agents? (I'm kidding about at least one of those -- just want to see if you are still paying attention) What if they have offered Love the max for 5 years and he says he only wants 4 years, and they come back and say "You can either have 5 years at the max or 4 years at $1 million less per year than the max". That doesn't seem crazy to me from a negotiating standpoint (doesn't mean that he won't be insulted, but after all this is a business negotiation).

Would you keep your 5 year option for RR?

Bottom line for me: I want love here, I think he's a max player, and I would offer him 5 years and worry about the future with RR when it comes. But offering 4 years at the near max shouldn't be insulting and may actually be decent negotiating, and may even be what Love WANTS. But I expect the next week to be FILLED with stories about "Will he or won't he sign?". Get ready.