Minnesota Timberwolves Off-Season Thread... Training Camp, to Mankato they go.

DWill :x

11/21 - 0 MIN
11/23 - 0 MIN
11/24 - 11 MIN
11/27 - 0 MIN
11/28 - 12 MIN
11/30 - ??
 
Touch second half against Boston :x I believe I heard this morning the Celtics are now 10-0 against the Wolves since KG left the Wolves. Lovely.

DWill will be out of Wolves uniform by the deadline at the latest. This of course is assuming they can get a bag of balls for him straight up anymore.

I think the team is anxious to monitor what happens now with Rubio back and wait to see how he looks and where the team goes from that point.

Here is a DWill update, this just makes it look just worse when the two guys below him here are a journeyman that was out of the NBA when Wolves called, and a former 2nd Rd pick on his 4th team in three years.

Derrick Williams
11/21 - 0 MIN
11/23 - 0 MIN
11/24 - 11 MIN
11/27 - 0 MIN
11/28 - 12 MIN
11/30 - 15 MIN
12/4 - 16 MIN
12/5 - 10 MIN

Josh Howard
11/28 - 26 MIN
11/30 - 24 MIN
12/4 - 29 MIN
12/5 - 33 MIN

Dante Cunningham
11/28 - 17 MIN
11/30 - 24 MIN
12/4 - 26 MIN
12/5 - 19 MIN
 
With Roy who may end up retiring again I see trading for Reddick giving them Dwill, Malcolm and a 2nd round pick. And this team can be set for the rest of this year and potentially next year as well.

Rubio/JJ/Luke
Chase/Reddick/Shved
AK47/Howard
Love/Cunnigham/Lou,
Pek/Steisma
 
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HOOD17 said:
With Roy who may end up retiring again I see trading for Reddick giving them Dwill, Malcolm and a 2nd round pick. And this team can be set for the rest of this year and potentially next year as well.

Rubio/JJ/Luke
Chase/Reddick/Shved
AK47/Howard
Love/Cunnigham/Lou,
Pek/Steisma
Click to expand...

Magic want a lot for Reddick. DWill is not remotely enough.

They're using Reddick as their ticket to something. What that is? Who knows, but they're looking for a lot
 
yeah that makes sense their only legit piece that anyone wants.

If that's the case, then we should wait to see this team with Rubio.


Is Roy suppose to return at all this season? He should just retire or go to phoenix
 
Essential1 said:
Magic want a lot for Reddick. DWill is not remotely enough.
They're using Reddick as their ticket to something. What that is? Who knows, but they're looking for a lot
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what rumors you're hearing (I've heard nothing, so I could be missing something) but I'm not sure how much more Orlando can get out of JJ Reddick. He's good but I don't see anyone giving up THAT much for him. He's not on a bad contract, so it's not like they can send him to a contender for an expiring. Orlando should be rebuilding. Derrick Williams seems perfect for them. He's absolutely flawed as a player but he still has potential to put it together.

Then again, they traded D12 for Afflalo, Harrington and some bad rookies - so I don't know what the plan is in Orlando.

Can't wait to see Rubio, Shved, AK47, Love and Pekovic play together. Such an unselfish and creative 5.
 
mgrand15 said:
Essential1 said:
Magic want a lot for Reddick. DWill is not remotely enough.
They're using Reddick as their ticket to something. What that is? Who knows, but they're looking for a lot
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what rumors you're hearing (I've heard nothing, so I could be missing something) but I'm not sure how much more Orlando can get out of JJ Reddick. He's good but I don't see anyone giving up THAT much for him. He's not on a bad contract, so it's not like they can send him to a contender for an expiring. Orlando should be rebuilding. Derrick Williams seems perfect for them. He's absolutely flawed as a player but he still has potential to put it together.

Then again, they traded D12 for Afflalo, Harrington and some bad rookies - so I don't know what the plan is in Orlando.

Can't wait to see Rubio, Shved, AK47, Love and Pekovic play together. Such an unselfish and creative 5.
Click to expand...

It was around the time the Dwight trade was made. They were holding out for some substantial things for Reddick.

And Derrick while I think could be good, has a really diminished trade value... Orlando wouldn't take Williams for Reddick, you'd have to include multiple picks.. And they'd have to be 1sts

They are asking a lot for him.. He's the last significant piece they have (excluding AA & Al).
 
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Well this is just great.... :smh:

Woj is a complete tool though.


Kevin Love unsure about Timberwolves' future

Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports

For everyone else still stunned over the Minnesota Timberwolves' owner and general manager downright daring the franchise's best player to leave for free agency in two years, Kevin Love promises to be a professional, promises All-Star performance and productivity. Over the organization's refusal to designate him as the cornerstone, though, there come no promises of forgiveness from Love. No assurance it won't chase him out the door and out of the franchise forever someday.

"I don't know who labels people stars, but even [T'wolves owner] Glen Taylor said: I don't think Kevin Love is a star, because he hasn't led us to the playoffs," Love told Yahoo! Sports. "I mean, it's not like I had much support out there.

"That's a tough pill to swallow."

No, Kevin Love isn't over Taylor and GM David Kahn refusing him what he had earned. He isn't over Kahn marching into the trainer's room after a loss and thrusting a contract offer sheet into his hands. Where else does it work that way in the NBA? "I'm not the one to always follow professional protocol – but I do know what it is, even at 24 years old," Love says.

Perhaps those issues wouldn't still be so raw had the franchise responded differently when Love broke his hand in a preseason workout. In a regimen he's done most of his life, Love fractured a bone thrusting himself to his feet upon completion of a round of knuckle pushups. He missed a month on the floor, but his ears missed nothing from those in management whispering that maybe the injury didn't happen the way Love insisted it did.

"Even people in my own organization were asking if it was a legitimate injury, people calling my honesty and integrity into question," Love says. "And that's what really hurt me."

Across a table in a downtown Philadelphia steak house recently, Love digs into a shrimp cocktail and considers the futility of the regime that passed judgment on his future, the power it holds over his championship aspirations. As much as Love believes strongly in the greatness of coach Rick Adelman, Kahn has offered no reason for faith in his own wayward vision.

"You walk into the locker room every year, and it's completely turned over," Love says. "There's new guys everywhere. And then it happens again and again. You start to wonder: Is there really a plan here? Is there really any kind of a … plan?"

Love doesn't want to sound "bitter over it," he says, because he understands that no one wants to hear him unhappy over a four-year, $62 million contract. In so many ways, the contract is beyond his wildest dreams. Yet the five-year, $80 million maximum designation the franchise could have given him represented the commitment he wanted to make to Minnesota, the way with which a first-team All-NBA player and Olympian should stand shoulder to shoulder with a city, an organization.

In the end, Love never wants to feel like he's pitted against young point guard Ricky Rubio, because he adores him as a teammate and a talent. Yet, the reality is unmistakable: For all of Kahn's missed picks, failed signings and flawed trades, Rubio is the player whom the GM can take full credit. Someday, Kahn wants Rubio to be his five-year, max-out star, but will Rubio want to stay in Minnesota should Love walk out the door?

"It was a projection over a sure thing," Love says. "There's no question there was an agenda here. A different agenda."

"I have a very, very good memory, and I always remember the people who have done right by me, and the people who have done wrong by me," he says. "It will be embedded in my brain, and something I won't forget about. There's no telling what will happen. I would love to compete for a championship in Minnesota, but …"

Between now and his 2015 opt-out, Love wants to be clear: Around him, he doesn't want merely a playoff team. He wants a team that contends. "And that's on me to do my part, to get us there," but the organization has lost the benefit of the doubt with Love. When it's time for every franchise in the NBA to clear cap space and try to sign him, Love simply understands: "I'll have the leverage."

Love will never get over how badly he wanted the designation as the Wolves' franchise player, how deeply he believed it had been deserved and how Kahn was so smugly defiant in refusing to recognize it. When the Wolves should've been throwing a parade that Love wanted a five-year maximum contract designation a year ago, the franchise could forever regret the consequences of telling a superstar player he wasn't worth that commitment.

For as foolish as it was to tell a first-team All-NBA forward, an Olympian, that that the Wolves would be saving the super max deal for someone else, Taylor and Kahn somehow gave into Love's insistence of an opt-out after the third year of the four-year deal. Privately, Kahn has told people that he isn't worried, that the Wolves can pay Love the most money on the market and that he doesn't believe he'll leave for less.

It's a terrible miscalculation. Russell Westbrook didn't want to leave the magnificent core of talent assembled in Oklahoma City when the Thunder sold him on the four-year max contract. OKC's management sold Westbrook on finding a way to fit so much championship talent within the financial constraints of a small-market roster, but Love's situation doesn't compare.

"I haven't been in the playoffs yet," Love says. "I'm looking at my contract in the eye of two years from now, and if I haven't been to the playoffs – or it's been one playoff berth – well, it's going to be tough to say, 'Oh well, I'm going to stay here and continue to rebuild.' "

For three seasons around Love, the incompetence of Kahn's regime ruled the day. For three seasons, Love transformed his body, his talent, his productivity to become one of the most menacing scorers and rebounders in the sport. With Love and Rubio, the Wolves should be shaping into a championship contender.

The Wolves had successive seasons with the sixth, fourth and second overall picks in the draft, and nothing to show for it. Jonny Flynn is out of the NBA. Wesley Johnson is on his way. And Derrick Williams – the No. 2 overall pick – will be getting one DNP after another on the Wolves' bench until Kahn finally trades him for next to nothing in the near future. Free agents were signed only to be shipped out when they didn't perform.

After four years, Love does believe there's winning players on this roster, but he understands something else, too: Opportunity after opportunity was wasted to construct a sustainable contender around him, and those chances are gone forever. Love likes most of this roster now, but where's the staying power to suggest that it'll grow together? Bottom line: The Wolves should be much further along in their construction, and that's completely on Kahn.

Looking back, Love still refuses to believe that dumping center Al Jefferson on Utah for picks and salary-cap space – ultimately all misused, of course – was the right choice for the Wolves. For everyone within the organization who believed that those two couldn't play together, Love still contends: Did we ever find out?

"We should've at least tried it, especially with the way things were going," Love says. "I was beginning to figure things out in my second season. Everybody knew what Al was capable of, and is still capable of. It was definitely worth the risk of seeing what would happen. If it didn't work, then go another way. But we never tried it."

For Love, it goes back to smart, savvy franchise building. His summers with USA Basketball taught him about organizational structure, about accountability, about an atmosphere where everything and everyone performed at the highest level to chase victory. Love admires Adelman, and knows that Adelman had significant input into bringing talent like Andrei Kirilenko to the Wolves.

Yet, Love still understands that Adelman's job is coaching, and that ultimately there needs to be significant changes with which the way management complements Love and Rubio.

"Look at different teams around the league," he says. "Look at a San Antonio that continues to add talent around [Tim] Duncan and [Manu] Ginobili and [Tony] Parker. Look at what happens in Oklahoma City, the players they continue to add around their star players. Even the trade they had where they lost [James] Harden, they still added players that were going to fit well in their system. And speaking of small markets, look at a team like Memphis and all they've been able to accomplish. They're getting the most out of their entire organization."

Love has made the case over and over that he's hell-bent on getting the most out of himself. Two years ago, Love gave the Wolves 20 points and 15 rebounds a game. He turned it into 26 and 13 a year ago. Within the chaos of the Kahn-imposed Kurt Rambis regime, Love worked relentlessly with his personal trainer, Rob McClanaghan, and has moved to obliterate the limits that people inside and outside the game so often imposed on him.

"I obviously know the color of my skin, especially in this predominately black game," Love says. "I was tagged early as the prototypical white player, the guy with the intangibles – the smart player, the guy who did all the right things. As time went on, people started labeling me as, 'Hey this guy is a pretty good player.' And it started to become, 'Maybe he can be a great player.' I was able to grow because I was able to get out of my comfort zone, and that was something that [McClanaghan] has helped with tremendously.

"Randy Wittman told me not to shoot 3-pointers. That got me very uncomfortable. There were certain labels tagged on me very early in my career, spots on the floor where I felt uncomfortable. I continued to put myself out there in those spots."

In some ways, Taylor and Kahn have done Love a favor. They didn't do it intentionally, because they're simply not savvy enough, but there's an anger pulsating with Love, a ferocity that they've indirectly fueled. Minnesota will be the beneficiary for the term of his contract, but beyond 2015, well, the Wolves had better pray that his devotion to the locker room, to the coach, to the fans, overtakes his distaste and mistrust of them.

For now, though, the owner and GM who should've wanted to hold a parade when Kevin Love was willing to commit to five seasons are simply two more venomous voices pushing him harder and harder.

"That's the crazy thing about this: There's this whole [expletive]-up, cynical thing going on in my head, where I love people telling me what I can't do, telling me this is what you're going to be, this is your ceiling. Just everybody projecting for me. I'm not breaking any bounds or barriers saying this, but I think all kids – white, black, purple, whatever color – in basketball should never put a limit on themselves.

"I've had plenty of people tell me who I was going to be, and I feel like, for the time being, I've exceeded that."

For now, the franchise player of the Minnesota Timberwolves plays on with an understanding that sooner than later, he makes the choice on his future. If losing Kevin Garnett set back the Wolves, just watch how it turns out should Kevin Love walk out in his mid-20s. Somehow, the Wolves let this happen. Somehow, Glen Taylor and David Kahn are daring him. Pity the poor Timberwolves.
Click to expand...
 
I think deep down we all know Love is gonna bolt when his contract is up in 2015.
Im suprised he even signed the extension this year. Guess he strongly wanted to believe Minny was heading in a good direction.
There's still time to patch things up though, if the Wolves make the playoffs and sign decent free agents in the summer Love & Rubio could stay.
 
Kahn could be gone but my guess Glenn won't bow to some of his star player "request". And what happens here with Love could effect Rubio. Which can all go away when Rubio returns and we win.
 
Love just cracks me up. He's a good dude and speaks his mind but he needs to learn to pick his spots. This is now like the third time he has let the media blow up his opinions on the organization and it helps no one, including him.

For the next week he is going to be bombarded with questions about this article and I hope he is prepared.

Let's face the current facts and cut through the fluff:

1. In two years if the franchise is winning at a high rate and the salary cap is handled correctly, there is a far greater chance Love continues to stay with Minnesota for max money than Love leaving.
2. David Kahn is a tool. Glen Taylor has issues of his own. They are not the first GM/Owners that players have not been fond of.
3. Kevin Love is currently making max money at 24 and has never been to the playoffs nor put a team on his back.
4. Ricky Rubio, the other franchise player on this team, has yet to play a minute this season and is likely headed back this week to a team sitting at .500 as we speak.
 
To be fair, Minnesota made a huge play for Batum who is having a phenominal start to the year, so he was an up-and-coming star that the Wolves sought after.

I'm sure Love sees things on a day-to-day basis that leads to some of his unhappiness and whether he's right or not, you have to keep him happy in order to keep him. If he left then they might as well pack up and move to Seattle because the franchise won't ever win a damn thing.
 
Not saying he's incorrect in the things he said or that they're untrue, because they aren't. But Adrian Woj has it out for Kahn... and if Love says anything negative about the T-Wolves it'll somehow be turned into a giant article that will make the Yahoo! Sports cover page. He had an interview today and didn't deny anything he said, but he did apologize for doing it publicly. :\

I'm going to the game tonight. It'll be interesting to see what the vibe in the Target Center is like as well as how the team plays with this semi-negative cloud hanging over them.

Jon Krawcyznksi already tweeted Rubio's not playing tonight. Oh well. Maybe Friday, or maybe they're targeting the December 20th game on TNT versus the Thunder? We'll see.

Lets get a W and try to put some of this behind us. :nerd: :smokin
 
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JPZ where you been son? Why aren't you ever posting in the NBA thread anymoreq
 
Just been real busy buddy. I go on spurts where I post a lot and then other times when I'm non-existent, not at ALL the 5,000 post a year guy that I used to be :lol: :smh
 
From the comments Love said last night, it appears A) Love meant what he said (No surprise), and B) He was surprised the writer went with just that angle.

Apparently they had a wide-ranging discussion about many topics and many things were positive that were not even written about. No shock. Love has to know the drill though.

Anyway these are things we have to remember when writers look for their hook and then circle in on that for their headline. Anyone who puts "Pity the poor Timberwolves" as the closing to their column is enough for me.

Also:

Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Ricky Rubio, working his way back from a major knee injury, is expected to make his season debut Saturday, Dec. 15, against the Dallas Mavericks at Target Center, according to ESPN-AM 1500, which cited a "league source."
Click to expand...
 
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No surprise. I noticed things in the article that are red flags for bad journalism, so I kinda figured Love wasn't all-out attacking the organization.

For three seasons around Love, the incompetence of Kahn's regime ruled the day.
Click to expand...

In some ways, Taylor and Kahn have done Love a favor. They didn't do it intentionally, because they're simply not savvy enough
Click to expand...

It sounds like Woj has a vendetta against Glen Taylor and Kahn or something. Wojranowski is a Yahoo reporter... who is he to say whether a basketball team GM is stupid and not savvy, even if that's a widely held public opinion?
 
^ Yep, like I said. Woj has some beef with Kahn. There was some quote from Kahn where he bashed Woj, I wonder if I can find it.

Rubio Return. :smokin
 
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