Here's a look at some items out of the Northwest division..
- The Timberwolves were in the building to watch Hassan Whiteside work out yesterday and free agent Andray Blatche was also in attendance, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN. It's not known if Minnesota scout Milton Barnes was in Houston, Texas to scope out both players or just Whiteside.
- Yannis Koutroupis of HoopsWorld runs down the ten most important role players for 2012/13 and includes Thunder point guard Eric Maynor, who is entering the final year of his rookie contract. Over the weekend, I looked at what it might take for Oklahoma City to work out a contract extension for the VCU alum. While the Thunder are known to be high on Maynor for his ability to manage a game and high basketball IQ, he may not fit in their budget as they look to find the coin to keep James Harden.
- The Nuggets are on the national radar thanks to their recent acquisition of Andre Iguodala, but David Thorpe of ESPN.com (Insider sub. req'd) believes that the next big star to come out of Denver is backup center Kosta Koufos. Thorpe notes that Koufos is the only center in the league who finished among the top five in offensive rebound rate and in true shooting percentage last season. While Koufos may be poised to break out in similar fashion as Marcin Gortat did with the Suns and Omer Asik for the Bulls (now with the Rockets), the Nuggets wisely signed Koufos to a contract extension that keeps him in Denver through 2013/14 at $3MM per year.