How about doing this first, postpone Butler? Is there a way to trade Knight or Chriss for the following players, via 4th or 5th team? Marcus Morris – Boston Celtics (5 million a year) Jae Crowder – Utah Jazz (7 million a year) Julius Randle – New Orleans Pelicans offer picks
I've been saying that if I were Minny, I would trade Wiggins and KAT and build around Butler with some good 3&D guys and hard nose bigs. That wouldn't be enough to win a championship. (Only a handful of teams could challenge GSW anyway.) But it would at least be a respectable team. Oh, yeah, and fire Thibs and get a more open minded coach.
You don’t build around a 30 year old with a history of knee problems, much less trade away one of the top young talents in the game to do it. (KAT)
I dun know too much about KAT but you dun build around Butler and Wiggins. Not long term at least. Maybe KAT can become much more mature because he got all the tools just not the mentality and motor just yet.
Did we even make a play for him? It doesn't seem we tried to coax him here. We really need him or someone with his skillset to back up CC.
I think it was COD, that said we had a chance but ultimately we didn't have a need for him on the Roster. Now, info is fluid and I don't doubt COD but it is possible he simply chose LA over us.
The NBA is full of talented guys with all the tools but lack either the brain or the work ethic and end up having a good but not great career. KAT is looking like that after three seasons. Wiggins is even worse. I assume that by trading KAT, you'd get either some young talent or good future pick back. That's your future. Building around the current KAT is not going anywhere. Might as well staying competitive with Butler as the alpha dog and hope the new young guys you get from trading Wiggins and KAT can bloom after the demise of GSW. BTW, Butler was only 28 when they got him, well within his prime. I am convinced that unless you can assemble a super team (like Boston did with Garnett and Allen, and Miami did with LeBron and Wade), the key to building a contender is to be able to differentiate TRUE superstar talent from fools gold early in their career. The draft is a crap shoot. But after a couple of seasons, you should be able to see if a guy is the kind of player who can lead a team to contention. If your main young guys aren't that, you should quickly get rid of them and haul in some good futures and try again. (To use DD's terms, kick the can down the road.) If your young guys are that, then lock them up and do your best to get complementary pieces to surround them.
In your case you'd probably have to figure out if Butler wants to stay long term for the money or for the cold region Minny. I am betting Butler would still go somewhere warmer or to a bigger market. KAT is young enough, sure, they trade him when he is 26 or 27 if he amounted to nothing much. Minnesota isn't going to the WCF very soon. I might be wrong but they just did that with KG, Cassell and Sprewell. It's just what it is.
I hope we trade Gordon, Chriss, Nene, and whatever number of necessary first round picks for Butler. We'll be thin at center but I want to see Qi and Knight come back healthy. I think if Knight can be ready to play by the 2nd half the season, he can be a lesser version of Gordon.