Chase Budinger draws interest (UPDATE: Bud reaches $3 year, $16M deal with TWolves)

Your analysis of 2Pat is exactly why we needed to trade him. He'll get a salary of at least $5M/yr even if we're not benchmarking him to overpaid deals like Chase and Fields

Having said that, Bud and Martin feels like semi-desperate signings to sway Adelman to stay. If they lose Pekovic, Kirilenko, and Love returns with KMart and Bud, who's going to play defense?

There'll be no one to prevent penetration, and no presence at the rim.

 

Who is going to play defense for the wolves?

If they lose Pekovic they realy had a terrible offseason. (if they keep him they just had a bad offseason).

 

I think it's either Pekovic or Kirilenko..they're not getting them both back. Pekovic is restricted so they can match but he's going to get a good size offer from another team. Kirilenko opted out of 10.2 million in the last year of his contract..Spurs are rumored to have interest. I wonder how high the Wolves are willing to go for Pekovic.

 

Just looking at his numbers from each season, he shot from long distance 36.9%, 32.5%, 40.2%, and 32.1% with the Wolves (although he only played 23 games). Seems like a solid shooter but not great. I remember he was mad streaky with us. Ice cold for long stretches and then a drought. It was a rollercoaster ride with him.

 

That's a white ass team right there, but to fill the quota they decided to sign one black guy in Derrick Williams, one half-half in Kevin Martin and Muhammad because it sounds Arabic and thus filling the Middle-East (Asian) quota

 

How is Budinger making more money than Tony Allen? The Wolves roster isn't exactly shaping up the way I thought it might. I can see Love complaining again soon.

 

1. My point is that on a team with 2 max salary stars, having a good role player (Patterson, Courtney Lee, Chuck Hayes, Kyle Korver, Boris Diaw, Danny Green) getting paid $5M/year or so isn't a bad thing.

If your team doesn't have the elite stars to contend for a title, paying a role player at his market value will hurt the flexibility you need to pursue such a star-- better to convert those into more liquid assets like draft picks and cap room.

However, once you have the elite guys you need, having the role players to help on the court is more important than preserving salary flexibility. You are not looking to sign an extra star and chances are you are capped out with multiple big salary anyway, so $4-5M paid to a good role player is not a big problem.

Remember when the Rockets were trying to make the Gasol trade work after the "veto" while trying to add Nene? Morey thought Gasol+Nene+Lowry would give the team a window to contend so he asked Chuck Hayes to wait on the Kings offer because the Rockets would give him something comparable if Gasol and Nene became Rockets. When the deals fell apart, Morey let Chuck go.

This is how it works: Good specialist role player at $5M would be a good idea if you have a contender, but not if you are trying to create the flexibility to land your first superstar.

2. The question about Budinger isn't whether it is a good thing to pay a good role player $5M a year. The question is whether Budinger really is that good of a role player. People talk about him being a sharpshooter, but his 3 point % just hasn't been that great. And he doesn't bring the defense that guys like Danny Green brings.

 

There's gonna be a lot of finger-pointing on that team before Adelman calls for frustrated time-outs:

Budinger:
"I thought you had him."

Love:
"No, YOU were supposed to get him, I have this guy."

Martin:
"Oh, man, they're gonna blame me again...."

Rubio:
"Esto es como una película mala. El protagonista, perdido en Minnesota por la eternidad ..."

Adelman:
"Ricky, tu eres supposed to defender everybody else-o and get the steal-o because these guys don't jugar defense, entiendes?"

Rubio:
"Coach, I do speak English..."

 

HAHAHAHA. I must spread some rep before giving it to you again. But well done.

 

Glad we traded him when we did. We would not have been able to keep him.

 

Good for him he is a quality shooting SF/SG.

DD

 

This opens up an opportunity to pick up Kirilenko - would midlevel exception be enough?

 

Do you really want this injury-prone guy? He hasn't played a full season since his rookie year.

NBC sports reports Spurs are seriously interested in AK-47.

 

I don't think the Spurs have enough room for AK, but as to your question, yea he's a bit injury-prone but I feel he's the perfect backup 3-4 this team needs behind Parsons. Amazingly smart on defense and useful on offense (cuts and corner 3's).

Assuming no free agent 4 is picked up, I think he's a good veteran presence behind DMO/TJones.

 

Who's better off the bench...Bud, or Del-fino? They're both three point specialists. Who is your choice?

 

Are you kidding me?! AK would be an awesome addition to our team, not only in regards his skillset but as a much-needed veteran presence w/ playoff experience. But I doubt we could afford him.

 

Yea... he was making around ~9.5 million this past season and the mid-level is only like ~2.5 million. Probably too low... sigh... So who do the Rox pick up for backup 3-4, assuming no Smith? No one decent in that price range...

 

I think that starting 5 gives up 105 pts a game.... LoL