The Wolves' courtship of Nicolas Batum took another unusual turn last night, when Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com reported that the league has ruled the offer sheet he signed with the team is invalid, since the Wolves don't have enough cap space to accommodate the four-year, $46.5MM deal. Minnesota moved to clear cap space Friday by waiving Martell Webster and trading Brad Miller to the Hawks. They also renounced the rights to free agents Anthony Tolliver and Anthony Randolph, as fellow CSNNW.com scribe Dwight Jaynes reported. But, as Jaynes noted, Webster won't clear waivers until Sunday at 4:00pm Central, at which time the Wolves can finally submit a new signed offer sheet from Batum. That's not the only news from the Northwest, and we've got the rest here:
- Wolves GM David Kahn left the door open to bringing back Tolliver and Randolph, Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune reports via Twitter.
- Despite reports to the contrary, Kahn also said the team has made no verbal commitments when he was asked about the status of Brandon Roy and Alexey Shved, Zgoda tweets.
- We passed along an earlier report that the Blazers, in search of a head coach, have been granted permission to interview Pacers assistant Brian Shaw, and Sam Amick of SI.com adds former Magic assistant Steve Clifford's name to the list of candidates (Twitter link).
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Further proof that Kahn is completely inept at his job. Signs a player to a contract before clearing the space to make the contract accepted by the league.