Timberwolves big man Nemanja Bjelica underwent surgery Tuesday to repair a fractured navicular bone in his left foot, the team announced in a press release. Bjelica’s season-ending injury occurred during Minnesota’s 117-104 loss to Boston on March 15th. He was averaging 6.2 PPG and 3.8 RPG in 18.3 MPG while appearing in 65 games. The club did not announce how long it would take for Bjelica, who will make a guaranteed $3,949,999 next season, to recover from the injury.
March 20: The Wolves officially announced in a press release on Twitter that they’ve signed Casspi, though the exact terms have not yet been made available.
March 19: The Timberwolves are closing in on a deal with Omri Casspi, according to Marc Stein of ESPN (Twitter link). Casspi had been cleared to resume basketball activities last week, after suffering a right thumb injury.
Stein shed further light on the deal, reporting Wolves coach Tom Thibodeau met face-to-face with Casspi over dinner this weekend in New Orleans (article link). According to Stein, the Clippers, Celtics, and Grizzlies also showed interest in Casspi.
The Wolves have a need for Casspi, having lost Nemanja Bjelica for the season with a left foot injury. Like Bjelica, Casspi is known as a long-distance shooting specialist, shooting 36.9% on 3-pointers over the course of his career. While Casspi is playoff-eligible- having been released prior to the March 1 deadline- the Wolves face long odds to make the postseason. Thibodeau’s squad is 28-40, receiving 3% odds of making the playoffs according to Five Thirty Eight.
Casspi’s deal is expected to be finalized Monday, Stein reports.
For most of the 2016/17 season, seven Western Conference teams have comfortably held postseason positions. The Warriors and Spurs have led the pack, followed by the Rockets, with the Jazz, Clippers, Thunder, and Grizzlies rounding out the top seven. The order those teams finish in has yet to be determined, but none of them are in danger of losing their playoff spots.
That leaves just one open spot for Western Conference teams vying for playoff contention, and the battle for the No. 8 seed has been an interesting one. With one or two exceptions, virtually every team in the bottom of the Western standings has been viewed as a viable candidate for that final postseason spot at some point since October — even the last-place Lakers created a little buzz when they opened the season with a 10-10 record before falling off significantly.
At this point, two teams look like top contenders for that No. 8 seed, and those two clubs actually completed a trade with one another just last month. The Nuggets and Trail Blazers swapped Mason Plumlee for Jusuf Nurkic in February, and those players have thrived with their new teams, helping to position them for a run at the West’s No. 8 seed. Both teams have been among the NBA’s best so far in March — Denver currently holds a one game lead over Portland with 13 to play, but the Blazers have won three games in a row and have a favorable schedule down the stretch.
Ultimately, it might not matter much which team claims the No. 8 spot — neither the Nuggets nor the Blazers is a serious threat to upset the top-ranked Warriors (or Spurs). Still, either club could at least make things a little interesting in round one as a frisky underdog, given how well they’ve been playing as of late.
What do you think? Will it be the Nuggets or the Blazers in that No. 8 spot at the end of the regular season? Or will another Western team – such as the Mavericks, Pelicans, or Timberwolves – sneak into that final spot with a hot streak in the season’s final weeks?
Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.
The Timberwolves are likely to move on from Lance Stephenson as his second 10-day contract expires, says Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News. The veteran guard has averaged 6.6 points per game this season across stops with the Wolves and Pelicans.
Originally signed to a 10-day deal with Minnesota on February 8 and then a second one following his recovery from an ankle injury on March 8, Stephenson never did quite establish himself in head coach Tom Thibodeau’s rotation.
Beyond the 16 minutes he played on the day he inked the second 10-day deal, Stephenson has played just two minutes for the Timberwolves since.
Queried about free agent Jimmer Fredette on Twitter, Wolfson added that the club has some interest in the guard (who recently saw a prolific season in China draw to an end) but may also have other options in mind as well.
The Timberwolves have a full 15-man roster, but a handful of those spots are being occupied by players currently unable to contribute. Nikola Pekovic won’t play this season, Zach LaVine is out for the year, and this week Nemanja Bjelica and Lance Stephenson have gone down with injuries as well. The latest injuries to rotation players have left the Wolves considering adding a new healthy body to their roster, according to Jerry Zgoda of The Star Tribune.
As Zgoda notes, it’s possible that Tom Thibodeau will look at in-house options as he considers how to replace Bjelica, who will miss the rest of the season with a foot injury. Gorgui Dieng, Shabazz Muhammad, or Cole Aldrich could be asked to take on larger roles, and perhaps a player like Adreian Payne or Jordan Hill will rejoin the rotation. For his part, Thibodeau says he thinks his roster has “more than enough to win with.” Still, Minnesota’s head coach and president of basketball operations acknowledged that an outside addition is possible.
“We’re just looking at where we are and who’s available,” Thibodeau said. “With Pek being out, too, you’re down roster spots. You want to be sure you have enough bodies just so you’re able to practice and handle foul trouble and things like that.”
Stephenson’s second 10-day contract with the Wolves will expire tonight, and as long as he remains on the shelf with an ankle injury, he won’t be a candidate for a full-season deal. However, Thibodeau indicated that it’s “premature” to say whether Minnesota is ready to part ways with Stephenson, since the extent of his injury hasn’t yet been determined.
Although the expiration of Stephenson’s 10-day contract will open up one spot on the Wolves’ roster, the team likely wouldn’t be eligible for a hardship exception that would allow for a 16th man. To be awarded that exemption, a team needs to have at least four players who have missed at least three straight games and will continue to be sidelined. In Pekovic, LaVine, and Blejica, the Wolves have three of those players. Payne likely doesn’t qualify as a fourth, since he was cleared to practice more than a week ago and seems to be available to play if needed — he’s just not in the club’s rotation at the moment.
The Timberwolves saw a key reserve go down on Wednesday night, as Nemanja Bjelica left the team’s game against Boston with a left foot injury. After Bjelica underwent an MRI today to determine the extent of the injury, the Wolves announced in a press release that the forward will miss the rest of the season.
The exact nature of Bjelica’s injury wasn’t specified by the Wolves in their announcement today. However, the team did say that the 28-year-old will seek medical opinions from “appropriate specialists” in order to determine his options for treatment.
A second-round pick in 2010, Bjelica finally arrived stateside for the 2015/16 season, and has appeared in 125 games for the Wolves since making his NBA debut, coming off the bench in all but one of those games. The 6’10” Serbian has been a steady presence for Minnesota’s second unit, averaging 5.7 PPG and 3.6 RPG in 18.1 minutes per contest over the course of his career. Bjelica had been playing even better as of late, with four double-doubles since the All-Star break.
Bjelica remains under contract with the Wolves for at least one more season. He’ll make just under $4MM in 2017/18, then will face a decision on a player option in the summer of ’18.
- The Timberwolves are running out of times to sneak into the Western Conference playoff picture, Jerry Zgoda of the StarTribune writes. With just 17 games left in the season, the Wolves will have to leapfrog three teams and make up 3.5 games in the standings.
The Wolves beat the Warriors on Friday night in a game that came down to a missed Stephen Curry jumper in the remaining seconds of regulation. Minnesota is 7-3 over its last 10 contests (only the Spurs can claim a better record) and the team’s defense deserves credit for the stretch. The team held Curry to just one made 3-pointer on his eight attempts and as a team, Golden State shot just 29.3% from behind the arc.
Entering their game with the Warriors, the Wolves had the highest defensive rating in the league post All-Star break, as I recently mentioned. It takes time to learn defensive schemes in the NBA and it appears that the team’s young talent is starting to grasp Tom Thibodeau’s playbook.
The franchise enters the day just 2.5 games behind the Nuggets for the eighth seed in the Western Conference, though the Wolves would also have to jump the Blazers and Mavs to punch a ticket to the NBA’s second season.
That leads us to tonight’s shootaround topic: Can the Wolves make a run over the last quarter of the season and make the playoffs or are they a piece or two away from being a playoff team? Let us know if you think Minnesota can climb in the standings or what the team should do this offseason to complement Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins. We look forward to what you have to say!
Jazz coach Quin Snyder is receiving contributions from seldom-used players Jeff Withey and Raul Neto, Jody Genessy of Deseret News writes.
“To be honest, we’ve been in these situations a lot, so there are different guys each night,” Snyder said. “When you have the right spirit, the game rewards you and that’s what happened with those two guys tonight. It’s easy to say, ‘Stay ready,’ and we say that stuff as coaches, but it’s hard to do. For those guys to literally be ready and contribute like they did, it was pretty good.”
The Jazz have won seven of their last 10, enjoying a successful 2016/17 campaign despite occasional injuries to George Hill, Derrick Favors, and Gordon Hayward.
“It’s tough because you never know when your name will be called, so you have to be ready,” Withey said. “On days off, I’m always in the gym running, trying to stay in shape, get shots up and stuff. It’s tough mentally also. It’s part of the business. It’s part of the job.”
More from the Northwest…
- The Nuggets still hold the eighth seed of the Western Conference, but the team’s defense must improve to sustain a playoff run, Nick Kosmider of the Denver Post writes. Denver’s opponent field goal percentage ranks 28th in the league since the All-Star break, Kosmider writes, and 24th in defensive rating. Coach Michael Malone is well-aware of the problem. “You go back to the start of the regular season, and we were playing good defense the first 10, close to 15 games. Obviously, the wheels have fallen off,” Malone said. Interestingly, Darrell Arthur was hesitant to blame his teammates for the defensive shortcomings: “We’re still learning. We’ve got a young team. It takes a while to go from a mediocre team to a good team to a great team. We’re trying to be great. We’re right there around good, but not so consistent.”
- Karl-Anthony Towns has taken charge of the “desperate” Timberwolves, Jon Krawczynski of the Associated Press writes. Towns has been the key to Minnesota’s recent playoff push; winning seven of their last 10, climbing to within two games of the eighth seed. Following tonight’s crucial win over the Warriors, hopes are high for the young Wolves. “Desperation makes you do a lot of things you couldn’t normally do,” Towns said. “Being so close to the playoffs, I have a lot of desperation trying to play the best that I can so I can try to help us get to the playoffs and get that eighth spot.”
- Tom Thibodeau praised his team’s defensive improvements, saying they’ve taken a “quantum leap” in the right direction. “We’re not where we need to be, but when you look at the past couple of years and where we are now, (the point differential) says we’ve made a big jump,” Thibodeau told AJ Neuharth-Keusch of USA Today. “I believe we’re down to 13th now in points allowed (on the season), so that’s a quantum leap, and it’s still not where it needs to be, and we have to understand that.”
Players who are currently in the third year of their rookie-scale contracts will become eligible for contract extensions beginning on July 1, and will have until the start of the regular season to work out new deals with their respective clubs. For the most part, that group is made up of first-round picks from the 2014 draft, which means that plenty of promising young players will be up for extensions this offseason.
Former No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins will be a top extension candidate for the Timberwolves, and other top-10 picks from 2014 – like Aaron Gordon (Magic), Marcus Smart (Celtics), and Julius Randle (Lakers) – figure to discuss new deals with their teams. Several players selected later in the first round, such as Gary Harris (Nuggets), Rodney Hood (Jazz), Clint Capela (Rockets), Jusuf Nurkic (Trail Blazers), and T.J. Warren (Suns) will also be viable candidates for extensions.
However, it would be hard to make a list of 2017’s top rookie-scale extension candidates that doesn’t include three players currently on the shelf due to injuries: Joel Embiid, Jabari Parker, and Zach LaVine.
Joel Embiid (Sixers)
Embiid may be involved in the Rookie of the Year conversation for 2016/17, but he’s technically a third-year player, meaning the Sixers will be faced with a major decision on his future sooner than they’d like. Embiid, who won’t play again this season due to a knee injury, has only played in 31 games in his first three NBA seasons, a disconcertingly small sample size for the Sixers as they weigh a possible extension.
As impressive as Embiid looked during those 31 games this season, it’s hard to imagine Philadelphia making a long-term commitment to him in 2017 unless the team can get something done at a significant discount. Like the rest of his fellow rookie-scale extension candidates, Embiid would be eligible for restricted free agency in 2018 if he’s not locked up this year, at which point the Sixers would be able to match any offer sheet he gets.
If Embiid stays healthy – or at least healthier – in 2017/18, it would be an easier decision for the Sixers to go up to the max for him in the summer of ’18. If not, then perhaps other suitors will shy away from making aggressive offers in restricted free agency as well, reducing the cost for Philadelphia. Either way, it probably makes sense for the Sixers to take another year to gather more information on Embiid — if he proves worthy of a maximum-salary investment by that point, they’d certainly be happy to do it.
Jabari Parker (Bucks)
Unlike Embiid, who is expected to be ready to go to start the 2017/18 campaign, Parker is expected to miss a full year after tearing his ACL, meaning he may not get back on the court for the Bucks until about halfway through next season. Clearly, that’s problematic for Milwaukee — the club will likely have to make a decision on an extension for Parker when he’s still a few months away from playing.
Before going down last month, Parker was enjoying a breakout season, averaging career highs in nearly every key category, including PPG (20.1), RPG (6.1), APG (2.8), and 3PT% (.365). He likely would have been on track for an extension worth at least as much as Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s (four years, $100MM) if he had stayed healthy. But it remains to be seen if the Bucks will be willing to make a long-term commitment to Parker while he continues to rehab a second ACL tear.
If Parker is seeking financial security, and the Bucks are confident in his ability to make a full recovery, it could be a good opportunity for the team to roll the dice — something in the four-year, $70-75MM range might make sense for both sides. For Parker, it’s a huge payday that ensures he’ll be set for life no matter how his knees hold up going forward. For the Bucks, it would be Luol Deng money for a player who has the potential to develop into an All-Star. It would be a leap of faith, but with the salary cap set to exceed $100MM, such a contract wouldn’t necessarily be a huge albatross if Parker’s health prevents him from taking the next step.
Zach LaVine (Timberwolves)
LaVine tore his ACL just a few days before Parker did, though the Timberwolves didn’t announce a timeline for his recovery, so it’s not clear if he’ll remain off the court until 2018 as well. Unlike Parker, LaVine had been relatively healthy during his first two years in the NBA, missing just five total games, so perhaps there’s more optimism about his ability to get back to 100%.
With Wiggins also up for an extension, and a big payday for Karl-Anthony Towns potentially coming in 2018, LaVine likely won’t be Minnesota’s top priority this offseason. Still, he shouldn’t be overlooked. Having increased his scoring average from 10.1 PPG to 14.0 PPG to 18.9 PPG in his first three NBA seasons, LaVine adds a dangerous scoring punch to the Wolves’ backcourt. The team may view him as a piece of a long-term Big Three, alongside Wiggins and Towns, so exploring an extension this fall makes sense.
As is the case in the other two scenarios, the Wolves would likely only re-up LaVine in 2017 if they can do so at a discounted rate. The club won’t sign LaVine to a max extension, but if he’s open to doing something in the Dennis Schroder range (four years, $62MM), I think the team would jump on it. If LaVine’s asking price is closer to the $84MM that a healthy Victor Oladipo got on his four-year extension with the Thunder, that would make it more difficult for Minnesota to pull the trigger.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.