2:10pm: Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune tweets that Stiemsma's deal with the Wolves includes a non-guaranteed second year. It will be worth the $2.575MM room exception, says Zgoda (Twitter link).
AUGUST 2ND, 1:35pm: Stiemsma has officially signed with the Timberwolves, according to the team's official PR Twitter feed.
JULY 24TH, 8:00am: The Celtics have withdrawn their qualifying offer to Stiemsma, making him an unrestricted free agent, according to Ray Richardson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This clears the way for the Timberwolves to sign the big man outright.
JULY 22ND, 4:26pm: The deal is for one year and about $3MM, tweets A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com.
3:59pm: The Timberwolves and Greg Stiemsma have agreed to terms on a contract, Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune reports (Twitter link). The deal will be for an amount greater than the $1.957MM biannual exception the Celtics were limited to giving him, Zgoda tweets, and comes after Stiemsma's agent Mike Naiditch set today as the deadline for Minnesota to sign Stiemsma at a rate cheaper than he could get elsewhere. Stiemsma reportedly received a significant offer from another team. A report earlier in the week suggested the Wolves would offer him a deal close to $3MM a year.
Though the Celtics were said to be likely to rescind his qualifying offer as of last night, they haven't done so, meaning he's technically still a restricted free agent. Since the Celtics, who are over the cap, only have non-Bird rights on Stiemsma and can't exceed the value of the biannual exception to keep him, they'll be unable to match the Wolves' offer.
Stiemsma averaged 2.9 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.5 blocks as a first-year minimum-salary player for the Celtics last season. He went undrafted out of Wisconsin in 2008 and played in the D-League before getting his shot in Boston.
Solves the back up big problem, but Wolves still need a shooting guard IMO. Ridnour’s too small and I no longer trust Wes.
I’m dubious about this move. He seems to produce less value per minute than Kosta Koufos; I did not think that was possible. We’re paying Kosta Koufos money and not even getting the real thing.
He wouldn’t be that bad if he didn’t foul as much as he did. For stretches of the season he produced well in limited minutes for Boston.