Karl Towns (and Karlito) are Here, Nemanja Bjelica on his Way?

The Wolves introduced their two draft picks, Karl-Anthony Towns and Tyus Jones at a press conference yesterday, where the rookies showed their excitement and generally impressed the hordes.

You can find various videos of the day at the TImberwolves site.

No doubt exhausted after flying into the Twin Cities and being paraded around for fans and media, Karl-Anthony Towns still got in a workout at the new Mayo Clinic Square facility last night:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Love my new home. Late night work. <a href="http://t.co/PR0Xa1ynGe">pic.twitter.com/PR0Xa1ynGe</a></p>&mdash; Karl-Anthony Towns (@KarlTowns) <a href="https://twitter.com/KarlTowns/status/614640956739035137">June 27, 2015</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Please note the shot he takes in this clip. Cause, you know, jokes.

In addition to Towns and Jones, our friend Jon at the AP reports that the Wolves are nearing a deal with Serbian forward and Euroleague MVP Nemanja Bjelica.  No word on what the contract will look like, but we can assume it will take most if not all of the MLE to land him, and I think it's worth it. Bjelica has made tremendous strides in the last couple of years, and is a power forward with excellent ball skills. He can handle, pass and shoot, which should help the Wolves space the floor and keep the offense moving.

We'll have more on this next week, but the signing of Bjelica, along with the two rookies and the expected re-signing of Kevin Garnett puts the roster at 14 guaranteed contracts for next year, with Lorenzo Brown on a non-guaranteed deal. The roster is crowded, so if they want to do anything else they will have to figure out a way to open some things up. It seems as if they would like to move Anthony Bennett, who is out of favor at the power forward spot, and certainly they would move Chase Budinger if they could.

Meanwhile, Flip Saunders, in making the media rounds, seemed to downplay Kevin Martin when discussing next season, and talked about playing Andrew Wiggins and Shabazz Muhammad together at the wing spots, while also talking up Zach LaVine at shooting guard.

I wouldn't read too much into this yet, but Martin could be another guy they look to move to a better team. We'll have more roster discussion obviously in the coming weeks.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Women's National Team beat China 1-0 last night to move on to a semifinal match up with World #1 Germany, who beat a terrific looking French team on penalties. The U.S. played their best game of the tournament, controlling possession and creating a number of decent chances, but were only able to put one past the Chinese keeper. Still, they looked somewhat more fluid last night than they have all tournament, in no small part because Morgan Brian did tremendous work as a holding midfielder, recycling possession and picking the right pass to get things moving. Be interesting to see if she retains her spot when Lauren Holiday returns from her suspension.

The Lynx are back in action tonight hosting the Phoenix Mercury, who beat them in Phoenix last week, at Target Center. While the Lynx are 6-2 on the season, it hasn't been easy, and they are still awaiting Maya Moore to break out of her funk.

Last thing: we're working with a cool T-shirt company that produced this:

If you are interested, you can order here. We get a little bit of each sale through that link, which I would like to share with the people who work hard for free on this site if we actually sell enough to generate any dough. We might have some other designs coming in the future.

Have a great Saturday.