- Michael Rand of the Star Tribune writes that Jamal Crawford opting out of his deal with the Timberwolves was likely the best-case scenario for both sides. The 38-year-old, Rand writes, is neither an efficient player or a defensively strong one. Conversely, Jim Souhan of the Star Tribune ponders whether Crawford opting out signals trouble for Minnesota’s efforts to attract solid bench options.
- While the Timberwolves ended a 13-year postseason drought this season, things were not all that great behind the scenes, per Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN (via Dan Feldman of NBC Sports). Minnesota reached the playoffs, has several star players, and revenue is up from previous seasons but that hasn’t helped matters. “There should be a ton to celebrate, right? Just on the surface. You look at those things. But I’m telling you, there is so much angst, and I’m telling you, disconnect behind the scenes,” Wolfson said.
- Sean Deveney of Sporting News previewed the Timberwolves‘ offseason, which will include decisions on current players and possible free agents.
The Timberwolves landed back in the NBA playoffs for the first time in 14 seasons this spring. That comes as no surprise, given that the club has finally paired its stockpile of young stars with a formidable, winning coach and a green light to spend.
The Wolves need not fret that they barely put a dent in the Rockets this postseason as they’ll be back in contention next season and for as long as Jimmy Butler is capable of leading the club’s offense, flanked by Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns.
It’ll get mighty difficult to afford all three eventually but they won’t need to seriously contemplate how to make all the numbers work until the summer after this one.
Nemanja Bjelica, PF, 30 (Down) – Signed to a three-year, $12MM deal in 2015
The Timberwolves are in a much different position now than they were when they inked Bjelica as an international free agent, but the veteran has hung around in large part due to his presence in the locker room. Given that the Wolves already have so much of their 2018/19 payroll tied up in other players, don’t expect them to offer Bjelica much more than the minimum.
Aaron Brooks, PG, 33 (Down) – Signed to a one-year, $2MM deal in 2017
Brooks didn’t exactly take the league by storm in his tenth season but his role and value are clear; he’s a familiar insurance policy for former Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau. Brooks isn’t likely to have a long list of suitors so it’s well within reason that he ends up back in Minnesota on another veteran’s minimum deal late this offseason.
Jamal Crawford, SG, 38 (Down) – Signed to a two-year, $9MM deal in 2017
Having made over $100MM over the course of his career, including $11MM from a team he didn’t even play for in 2017/18, Crawford won’t accept his $4.5MM player option for next season if he’s not perfectly content playing for Minnesota. I wouldn’t rule out the 38-year-old passing on a second season with the Wolves in order to close out his career as a killer reserve on a team with more realistic short-term title aspirations.
Marcus Georges-Hunt, SG, 24 (Up) – Signed to a one-year, $1MM deal in 2017
There won’t be significant pressure for the Wolves to bring back Georges-Hunt after a solid but modest first year in Minnesota, but they’ll need to fill out their lineup eventually and he’s a tough, defensive-minded player. Expect the club to keep its options open over the course of the offseason but don’t be surprised if the Wolves bring the familiar 24-year-old back on the cheap.
Amile Jefferson, PF, 25 (Up) – Signed to a one-year deal in 2018
The Wolves converted Jefferson’s two-way contract into a standard deal last month despite the fact that he never even suited up for the big league roster. Still, the team had a spot to spare and had no reason not to add the extra layer of depth heading into the postseason. Jefferson is a stud in the G League so the organization may be intrigued by his eventual fit with the parent club, but he won’t earn more than the minimum.
Derrick Rose, PG, 29 (Up) – Signed to a one-year deal in 2018
Prior to signing on with his former head coach late in the regular season, Rose’s value was at a career low. Fast forward two months later, however, and the wayward guard may have actually stumbled into an opportunity to salvage his career. Rose averaged 14.2 points per game for the Wolves in the postseason and could be a valuable rotation piece in the right situation. We’ve seen Rose flame out in a couple of wrong situations, so the fact that he’s found any sort of momentum reunited with Thibodeau and the rest of the Timberbulls bodes well for all involved. Rose didn’t do enough during the first six months of the season to warrant any more than another speculative one-year, minimum deal, but the postseason resurgence may have earned him one last run at meaningful minutes on a competent team.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
The Timberwolves will look to improve their depth on the wing this offseason, head coach and president of basketball operations Tom Thibodeau told reporters today. As Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic tweets, Thibodeau indicated that acquiring wing players who can shoot three-pointers and guard multiple positions is Minnesota’s top priority during the offseason.
Most of the Wolves’ top contributors – including Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler, Andrew Wiggins, Jeff Teague, Jamal Crawford, and Nemanja Bjelica – shot a little from the outside in 2017/18, but no player on the roster made more than 1.5 threes per game. As a team, the Wolves made 8.0 three-pointers per contest, which ranked dead last in the NBA.
By comparison, Minnesota’s first-round opponent – the let-it-fly Rockets – led the league with 15.3 threes per game and had six players who knocked down at least two per game. So it’s no surprise that adding more three-point shooting on the wing will be a key focus for the Wolves this offseason.
Here’s more out of Minnesota:
- Krawczynski and Jerry Zgoda of The Star Tribune (Twitter link) both interpreted Thibodeau’s comments today as good news for Derrick Rose‘s potential return to the team. Thibodeau called Rose – who is an unrestricted free agent this summer – a “terrific addition,” Zgoda notes.
- Timberwolves GM Scott Layden suggested there will be a lot of activity around the draft, acknowledging that the club could explore trading its first-round pick, tweets Krawczynski. Zgoda expands on Layden’s comments, tweeting that the GM believes that first-rounder represents a chance to “get in the game” when it comes to making a trade offer for an impact player. However, Layden did say Minnesota would be happy to use the pick if there’s a player on the board who can “help us now.”
- Layden expressed some regret that he wasn’t more active at the trade deadline, indicating he expects to be more aggressive this summer (Twitter link via Krawczynski).
- Thibodeau anticipates Wiggins will have a good offseason entering the 2018/19 campaign, since he won’t have to deal with the distraction of working out a contract extension this time around, like he did a year ago (Twitter link via Krawczynski).
- Butler was just dealing with general soreness in his right knee at the end of the season, and won’t require any additional procedures on that knee, Thibodeau said today (Twitter link via Zgoda).
With the Timberwolves‘ season over after their loss to the Rockets in the first round, the focus now turns to the roster and how the organization can build a long-term roster with its current assets. The first man on that agenda is Jimmy Butler, whom the team acquired as part of a draft-day trade last summer.
Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune writes that Butler’s future will be one of the most important Timberwolves storylines to watch this summer. Butler can opt out of his contract and hit the free agent market a year from now. So if the Timberwolves can’t reach an extension with Butler, it’s not out of the question that they’d test the trade market to see what kind of value they could get in lieu of him leaving as a free agent.
Butler seems unlikely to go anywhere, as owner Glen Taylor has indicated that the star forward is a crucial part of the team. Still, keeping him in Minnesota will require some financial maneuvering on the Wolves’ end. Andrew Wiggins‘ max extension is about to take effect, and Karl-Anthony Towns will soon be eligible for a considerable payday of his own.
Check out more notes surrounding the Wolves below:
- In the same story, Taylor spoke about the Timberwolves making their first postseason since 2005. While the result was an early playoff exit, Taylor said that, at least, the team reached its goal of making the postseason.“I thought with the changes we made, the people we brought in, the sacrifices we made in moving some young, potential people, that we needed to be in the playoffs,” Taylor said. “Those were my expectations.”
- Earlier in the week, we wrote about the possibility of Butler, who spent his first six seasons with the Bulls, ending up back in the Windy City if he hits free agency in 2019.
- Chris Hine of the Star Tribune breaks down Minnesota’s offseason and what the team should be focused on as free agency and the draft approach.
The Timberwolves became the latest NBA team to be eliminated from the playoffs on Wednesday night, dropping Game 5 in Houston and losing their series against the Rockets by a 4-1 margin. With that loss, the offseason is officially underway in Minnesota.
The Wolves’ season came to a disappointing and underwhelming end after the team slipped down to the No. 8 seed and only managed a single playoff win, but there were plenty of positives to take away from the 2017/18 campaign. For one, Minnesota snapped its 14-year postseason drought, earning its spot in the playoffs in dramatic fashion by beating Denver on the final day of the regular season.
“I told the players I’m very proud of what you did, to get out of the hole we were in to win 47 games,” head coach and president Tom Thibodeau said after Wednesday’s loss, per Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. “To get into the playoffs after 14 years of not being in the playoffs, to do it in a very tight playoff race, to finish one game out of the fourth spot, it’s a major jump from where we were two years ago. … I’m very proud of what this team did. It was not easy and they fought like crazy to get it done.”
There are other reasons for optimism in Minnesota. Jimmy Butler‘s knee injury limited the team’s ceiling down the stretch and in the postseason, so the Wolves will be in a better position to make a deeper playoff run next spring if he’s healthy. Additionally, Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns are still just 23 and 22 years old, respectively, so there’s room for continued growth from both of those former No. 1 overall picks.
Still, there are some possible areas for concern. As ESPN’s Bobby Marks and The Athletic’s Danny Leroux detail in separate pieces (subscriptions required for both), the Timberwolves’ roster is starting to get expensive, particularly with Towns up for a maximum-salary extension this summer.
Minnesota will have Towns on his modest rookie contract for one more year, but the team already has $110MM on the books for 2018/19, so its ability to spend in free agency will be very limited. The team’s cap sheet for 2019/20 is slightly cleaner for now, but adding new max deals for Towns and Butler would change that equation quickly, potentially putting the Wolves into tax territory and leaving little flexibility for upgrades.
The growing cost of the Timberwolves’ roster mean that the team may have to count on veteran free agents to take discounts to join a potential contender, as owner Glen Taylor recently noted. In order for that to be a viable strategy though, the Wolves will have to convince those free agents of two things: First, that the club is capable of title contention with its current core, and second, that there will be worthwhile roles off the bench under Thibodeau, who notoriously leans heavily on his top six or seven players.
A more extreme approach to addressing the Wolves’ long-term cap outlook would be to make changes to the current core. In a column for The Star Tribune, Jim Souhan makes a case for trading Wiggins and fully committing to Butler, but that’s easier said than done. Wiggins, who is coming off underwhelming performances in Games 4 and 5 of the Houston series, will get expensive on July 1, when his five-year, maximum-salary extension takes effect. Moving a deal that big in terms of years and money can be done – as the Clippers showed with Blake Griffin – but it would be tricky.
As the Wolves’ offseason gets underway, we want to hear your thoughts on what’s next for the club. Do trades need to be made? Does Minnesota have to re-sign Nemanja Bjelica in restricted free agency? Does Wiggins’ new max deal have albatross potential, or will he make it a worthwhile investment? Is Thibodeau the right choice to continue coaching the team and making personnel decisions for the long term?
Head to the comment section below to share your thoughts!
- It’s conceivable that Jimmy Butler could wind up back in Chicago after next season, according to Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. The Timberwolves traded for Butler last summer to bring a veteran presence to the organization, but he can opt out of a $19.8MM salary next summer and may be tempted to leave if Minnesota can’t make an impact in the playoffs. Bulls president Michael Reinsdorf remains a huge fan of Butler and would be interested in a reunion. “I loved the city of Chicago, and I love the Reinsdorfs,’’ Butler said. “I’m forever grateful for them in taking a chance on me, allowing me to become the player that I am today. It’s still incredible to me that I got to hoop in a Bulls jersey. I got to play in the house that [Michael] Jordan built, that [Scottie] Pippen played, all that stuff. That’s because of the Reinsdorfs. If the time comes where I say, ‘You know what, I do want to end this thing in a Bulls jersey,’ I think that would be amazing. But it’s all about being wanted and winning.’’
Speaking to WCCO 830’s Chad Hartman, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said his team can afford to pay Karl-Anthony Towns and Jimmy Butler the max, despite already having a maximum-salary extension for Andrew Wiggins on the books. However, in order to fill out the rest of the roster with complementary pieces, the Wolves may have to convince some veteran free agents to accept below-market deals.
As Jerry Zgoda of The Star Tribune details, title contenders like the Warriors, Cavaliers, and Rockets can often convince vets looking for championships to sign minimum-salary deals. Taylor is hoping the Wolves will be able to make a similar pitch, pointing to a star like Butler and a coach like Tom Thibodeau as potentially instrumental recruiters. “That really helps when you have that clout within the league,” Taylor said.
Timberwolves rookie center Justin Patton is done for the season, with the team announcing overnight in a press release that Patton has undergone surgery on his left foot. He will be out indefinitely, according to the Wolves.
It’s the second time Patton has had surgery on the same foot within the last year. Shortly after he was drafted by the Wolves last summer, the rookie underwent a procedure to repair a broken fifth metatarsal in his left foot. The latest surgery is designed to encourage further healing of that same fracture, per the Timberwolves’ announcement.
According to Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic (Twitter link), Minnesota is hopeful that Patton will be ready to go for the start of training camp in the fall. Still, as Krawczynski observes, the nagging foot issues are a concern, since similar foot problems have felled promising NBA big men in the past.
The 16th overall pick in last year’s draft, Patton appeared in just one game for the Wolves during the 2017/18 season, playing four minutes during an April 1 loss to Utah. He did see action in 38 G League games, however, posting 12.7 PPG, 5.5 RPG, and 1.4 BPG in 23.1 minutes per contest.
The Wolves will have to decide this offseason whether to exercise or decline Patton’s $3,117,240 option for the 2019/20 season. Third-year options for players on rookie scale contracts are rarely declined, so I don’t expect the team to turn this one down. Still, the 20-year-old will be under some pressure to make it back from this foot surgery and show some potential on the court in Minnesota next season.
- The Timberwolves will be without rookie center Justin Patton tonight because of a sore left foot, tweets Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic.
Game 1 is in the books for all eight of the NBA’s first-round playoff matchups, and several of those games set up potentially fascinating series. Six of the eight higher seeds held their home-court advantage in the first game, but some of those favorites looked a little shaky in their victories, leading to plenty of speculation about first-round upsets.
We’ll start with the weekend’s biggest upset, which took place in Cleveland, where the Pacers dismantled LeBron James and the Cavaliers in Game 1. It won’t be a surprise if the Cavs eventually pull out this series, but their 98-80 loss on Sunday was something we haven’t seen since James returned to Cleveland in 2014. In their last three first-round series, the Cavs have swept the Celtics, Pistons, and – one year ago – the Pacers.
Of course, these Pacers are a much different team than the squad swept out of the postseason a year ago. Victor Oladipo looked like the best player on the floor on Sunday, and players like Myles Turner, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Lance Stephenson looked great in supporting roles. This Pacers team was overlooked and underappreciated all season, and appear poised to give the Cavs all they can handle in round one.
The other Game 1 upset occurred in Portland, where the Pelicans edged out a two-point win over the Trail Blazers. Anthony Davis (35 points, 14 rebounds) was the best player on the court in that game, but Jrue Holiday‘s impact shouldn’t be understated. Besides posting 21 points and seven assists, Holiday also locked up Damian Lillard on the other end of the court — Lillard made just six of 23 shots.
The Pelicans don’t have a whole lot of standout talent behind Davis and Holiday, but Nikola Mirotic (16 points, 11 rebounds) stepped up as a reliable third option on Saturday. If he – or another Pelican – can continue to support Davis and Holiday throughout the series, New Orleans should have a chance.
Elsewhere, the Raptors, Rockets, and Thunder had to battle to the end to hold off the Wizards, Timberwolves, and Jazz, respectively, but came away with Game 1 victories. The Bucks pushed the Celtics to overtime before losing Eric Bledsoe and Giannis Antetokounmpo to foul problems and ultimately losing the game. None of those four favorites is a mortal lock to advance, though Houston is probably close.
The Warriors and Sixers took care of business with comfortable wins over the Spurs and Heat, respectively.
What do you think? Will we see an upset – or multiple upsets – in the first round of the postseason? Which lower-seeded teams do you think look like the best bets to advance to round two?
Head to the comment section below to share your thoughts!