I think Butler can be an effective small ball 4.

They need shooting and decent bench now. Does Rubio have any value? This roster would do better with a shooting pg.

yeah this is ideally what I want to see. When other teams go small, they go small except still have a 7 footer as a mismatch and switch everything else. If Wiggins can up his rebounding that lineup would be a nightmare.

Dieng is nice as a backup big, but fit has always been weird offensively with him. If he can knock down corner 3s consistently though...

Redick would be fun in a situation like this, or afflalo, but he's probably too expensive. Brandon Rush or Morrow probably the most ideal.

.550 TS% in the second half of the season, 35% 3 point shooter.

Obviously a small sample size but I think at this point we hope second half of the season Ricky Rubio is actually what he is, and with another offensive option his looks should be even better.

I just don't think it's possible to find a better option at PG than Ricky Rubio. he's in a spot to where basically everyone better than him is untouchable, and most people around him or worse are just terrible fits. Rubio is the perfect PG to put the ball in these guys' hands and from things I'm reading he's putting up 1k shots a day to get better.

I'm not saying don't look to improve at the position, I just don't know if we feasibly could.

But hasn't he been putting up bajillions of shots every off-season? I basically agree and understand for better or worse the wolves should likely keep him. Just not sure how to get shooting and a bench just from cap room.

yeah i don't disagree at all. I have a lot of casual Wolves fans that say we should get rid of Rubio, but when you look at potential upgrades...they're basically untouchable by their respective teams and those point guards that are similar value to the team are terrible fits because they're so ball dominant.

If second half Rubio is what we are going to get on this team, for his price and what he provides is going to be tough to match, imo.

edit: not saying you're a casual fan yugo, i know you're not. I just did a lot of research around the league for upgrades around the all star break this last year and really couldn't find any. That was what I was trying to say.

and yeah it's tough to find shooting, i guess keep rush and go out and get a guy like morrow as well? should be cheap bench options that can provide some off the ball value.

Filling out this roster is gonna be tough.

We need someone to take Cole, hopefully only costs us like 8 2nds.

This is the last offseason where we'll have cap space. Using it to sign Olds who will only play for a year or two seems like a giant mistake.

We probably need to sign 2 serviceable wings, and a real third point guard would be nice. We're a Ricky injury away from playing Tyus and John Lucas III or something. We might have to give up on the dream of getting a 4 to go with Towns.

We need:
-a 2-1 that's good enough to be a rotation player
-a 3-4 that's good enough to start
-some shooting
-someone to take Cole for cap space

Man, Zach Lavine, Kris Dunn and Lauri Markkanen would really be perfect for this team. Giant gaping holes. I guess this is why it's easier to get awesome via free agents than trades.

Somebody nobody wants to touch, like Nick Young, might be the answer

Given how much bball I watched last year I am the casualist of casual fans. Lol

I'd like to see JJ Redick and Kelly olynyk on the team.

The offense operates better with Rubio than without him. Upgrades to him are not easy to come by.

It looked like a light went off in his head last season when he started shooting better. It was a pretty dramatic change. He looked confident shooting the ball and it went in at a pretty good percentage.

I agree.

K Lowry is a long shot. If we basically dumped Rubio's salary, we might be able to max out Lowry. I dont think that's a big enough upgrade to take on that much additional salary. idk.

Funny, that's how I feel about Lowry.

Lowry is a good player. His WS/48, BPM and VORP are all way better than an average player. I think he's one of the few PGs in the league who would be an upgrade over Rubio, even if Rubio shoots like he did the last half of last season for the rest of his career. But Lowry's 30 and too expensive for us to consider imo.

N Young is a bad player. His WS/48, BPM and VORP are all below replacement player levels. He's a chucker who has shot a mediocre percentage in his career, he plays zero defense, and I've heard he's a head case as well.

I don't like Nick Young either. Age and health are things, Lowry would be a devastatingly bad signing imo.

what? no way

Wolves opened at -260 to playoff

Let's lock up all our future cap space in his 32-35 seasons, nothing bad can happen!

Yeah, Lowry's age definitely sucks. He'll be out of the league when Towns is 27.

Still, if Lowry or Chris Paul want to come, you can't say no imo.

We have ~20 mill in cap space right?

Here are the guys I'd be ok with targeting

1. Ersan Ilyasova- he's 30, he's 6'10 and he's a career 36 ish percent 3 point shooter. Has a good reputation defensively, although i have no idea if that continued last year. He was paid 8 mill per year, we could get him for relatively cheap. he's 2 years younger than taj and can space the floor, think it makes some sense.

2. JJ Redick- He's older, but old enough to where I don't think teams would be willing to invest long term in him. I think we could get him for relatively cheap and he'd space the floor so well with this team. He made 7 mill last year and he's 32. He'll probably want to go to a contender but who knows.

3. Patrick Patterson- He makes shots(career 37% 3 point shooter on 1k shots), he plays defense and he made 6 mill per year last year. We don't really need creation, we need guys that can knock down shots.

4. Anthony Morrow- Made 3.3 mill last year, can basically only shoot

It would be really fun if a guy like Tony Snell slipped through Milwaukee's hands and landed in ours, but that's just a dream.

Going to be tough to fill out the bench in general, but these guys all have something they could provide imo.

Yeah pretty much. Cp3 wanting to come here would be a fun problem to have, even though I find the clippers almost unwatchable in general.

Snell and Reddick are likely going to be a couple of this offseasons bad deals given that they can shoot so will be in demand but aren't very good. Morrow should never see the court for anyone outside of garbage time.

Patterson and Ilyasova would be fine depending on the money, would be interested in Mirotic but restricted free agents suck to try and sign.

I'd kick the tyres on Ingles , Gay and CJ Miles see if any of them can be had for the right price.

Any ideas on wolves best course of action from here on out?

They could use a stretch 4 and definitely need a quality shooter (I guess preferably a PG but I honestly don't mind Rubio too much with this roster)

Hill is a going to be waived and I assume BAZZ is a goner, but depending on who they sign in his place I assume they'll need to run Butler at SF for like 75% of the time with Wiggins at SG? Is that right?

Maybe they try to move Aldrich to clear space but idk if this Patton guy is a DLeaguer or can actually fill minutes off the bench

Problem is that there aren't many cheap PGs that fit but we would fill needs on wings more easily for less money. Maybe solution is to actually move Rubio then idk

PatPat was someone I had in mind while writing that. Ideally I'd really like to move Rubio, sign someone like Teague or Hill and sign PatPat but idk if it will work with the cap.

Also do you guys think Casspi will still be here when it's all said and done? He seems like a decent fit / value

PatPat is a good target but i think we probably have to get 2 wings before a 4. A 4 is probably a luxury imo.

And yeah, Cole needs to be moved for sure. Either for a wing (Dudley?) or for cap space to sign a wing.

Bogdanovic would be a nice target imo