IF Glen had picked me...

This is rough and some of the stuff might be wrong, but I've done a lot of research and believe that this is how my team should look come Friday morning.

Trade Miller for Camby, gain 2 million dollars in the process. Go with a rotation of Jefferson, Camby and Love at 4 and 5.
Trade Foye (3.5 Mil and qualifying next year) Gomes (3.8 Mil expiring) and Madsen (2.8 Mil expiring) and 18th to Washington. Washington Gives us The 5th pick and (maybe) Andre Blatche. With the 5th pick we select (1)Tyreke Evans or (2) James Harden.
Take the 6th pick and trade it to the Knicks for their 8th pick and Wilson Chandler. We Basically give them their choice of PGs, which is what they want and gives us a reliable SF in return. At 8 we make a choice about Stephen Curry, Jonny Flynn, Brandon Jennings and Jrue Holiday). Most likely Two will be gone. My guess is Knicks take Stephen Curry and maybe The Warriors go with Jennings. That is fine with me, I kind of want Flynn as my PG with Evans at 2. Feel free to add the 28th or either of the 2nd rounders if the other teams won’t quite bite yet. NY may need a 2nd rounder in return for Wilson.

Maybe package other 2nd rounder and 28th to move up to the early 20s for one more prospect. Austin Daye is my #1 target and will most likely be around, but Eric Maynor, Sam Young, James Johnson, a sliding Earl Clark or Gerald Henderson or possibly another Euro Stasher to go along with Pekovic for future reserves.
Do Not Pick up team option on Sheldon Williams. Do pick up Rodney Carney’s option.
A shade under 60 mil is the cap this year. As is the Wolves clock in at 50 mil, the Wiz at 75 mil and NY a shade under 70 mil. Dallas (at 22) is at 69 mil, New Orleans (21)is at 72 mil, Utah (at 20) is at 72 mil, Philly at 17 and already a stretch is 2 mil under.

Depth Chart looks like this by game 42
PG- Flynn (or other rookie)- Bassy
SG- Evans (or Harden)- Carney
SF- Wilson- Brewer
PF- Big Al- Senior Amor
C- Camby- Blatche

Bench- Brian Cardinal, Craig Smith, Bobby Brown and Austin Daye (fingers crossed).
That makes 14 and cost a bit over 46 million. We shaved 4 million and became way more competitive. The following year Camby and his 7.6 and Cardinal and his 6.7 mil come off the books, that is good trade bait.

Blatche has 2 more years at around 3 mil each, Chandler has 2 more at 2 and 3 mil. Love has got 3 going to 6 mil. Brewer has 2 going to 5 mil, but the last year is a team option. Bassy has one more at 2.7 And carney at 3.6 after the signing. Big Al and Love are currently the only people on the roster going into 2013

I think we may not have messed that up

Pic created by undrcrwn for Adidas and found here

The Wolves successfully did not draft Brook Lopez or Kevin Love tonight. We took O.J. Mayo with the 3rd draft pick, Center Nikola Pekovic out of Mentenegro with the 1st pick of the second round and Point Guard Mario Chalmers a few picks later. This Pekovic dude is supposed to be really good. Top 10 good if not for his having signed a huge contact over in Europe. He'll be over there for a minimum of 3 years and We'll have to prove that our team is playoff caliber to lure him away from another contract over there. (The euro is killing the dollar in the market and makes it hard for the NBA's rookie scale to work while buying out a contract) If worse comes to worse his contract may be worth something to another player and it doesn't count against our cap.

Sounds like Chalmers is going to Miami for some more second round picks and cash. I don't get the Chalmers thing... I would have liked to grab DeAndre Jordan. Jordan could have turned out to be another Gerald Green, but he was worth a flier with the 34th pick or whatever it was. I've got to think that Mayo's selection signifies the end of the McCants era in Minnesota.

Stuff and Things.. Butt Mostly, Stuff.

FINALLY!!!..
Someone out there is a genius! This just proves that you don't need to come up with a new form of rocket science to make it rich. I was watching TV the only day when a commercial came on that I took as a Mad TV skit. This couldn't be a real product, could it? Then I did some in-depth (not really) research on the topic and found out that yes! it indeed was an actual product that you could purchase. Its called Anti- Monkey Butt Powder. For those who are not familiar with the Monkey Butt, it is referred to as to red, chapped rear end resulting from being seated and sweaty for far too long. It can also be used in reference to the phenomenon of going to the bathroom too many times with less than high quality toilet paper.(Ouch) An obvious relative of SWASS, Monkey Butt has affected too many people for far, far too long. There is an end in sight for sufferers of Monkey Butt. While I'm pretty sure its just glorified Gold-Bond or other talcum powder, its still a glorious marketing idea. And whoever came up with the slogan has my respect for the willingness to put such a sexual explicit undertone on the front of a product. It sounds like something Creepy-D Skeet might be interested in.
If anyone is interested, you can purchase it here.

Moving along.
With all the draft talk on this blog centering around the hometown team, I would like to take a minute to focus on the happenings outside of the Twin Cities. It was announced last night that the Pacers and Raptors had
come to terms on a deal that would send Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal to the Raptors for TJ Ford, RASHO, and the 17th overall selection in tonight's NBA Draft. I had heard about this trade rumor for a couple days now, but I was really hoping that Toronto wouldn't give in. From the sounds of things, there is alot of interest in TJ in numerous trades. It's apparent to everyone too that he needs to go in one form or another. Ford was lost his starting spot and 2+ months of playing time to a flagrant foul by Atlanta Hawks Forward Al Horford last year. Little known Jose Calderon took his spot and never looked back. When Ford was eligible to come back, he was open with his frustration of riding the bench. Some deals had him going to Phoenix in a deal involving Boris Diaw, while others had him going to Portland for some players and a pick. It seems, however that the Raptors have decided to take in the oft-injured Jermaine O'Neal and his contract, which stands at 2 years, and 44 Million dollars left. While TJ had to go, this was not the player to get back in return. If he is healthy, O' Neal is one of the better power forwards in the NBA, but the thing is he can NEVER stay healthy. Over the past four seasons, he has missed 122 games, or over 30 per season. So, you are telling me you are going to pay this clown 22 Million dollars to play, on average 51 games per year over the next two. Indiana is probably thrilled at this thievery. Sure, after those two years, that money will come off the books and they will have plenty of money to spend on other free agents or to re-sign stud Chris Bosh, but to me thats too much risk to take on. I have listened to some experts say that they love this trade for Toronto, but only if he can stay healthy. I can agree with them on those terms, but to that, I say "good luck." I have to see it before I can believe that one.

Of the teams in this draft, Miami, along with the Wolves, have drawn the most intrigue about what to do with their picks. Miami is a team, that with one or two players, can jump back into the top of the Eastern Conference picture again. At last check, they still have Dwayne Wade and Shawn Marion on the roster. Couple that with a young superstar at the top of this draft, and things are looking pretty good again in Miami. Many people have speculated that the Heat are decided between Mayo and Beasley with a lean towards Mayo. This would be music to my ears if Beasley falls to the Wolves at #3. While my stance on Mayo has softened considerably since an earlier post when I realized the thing that we needed the most on this squad was some star power, I would much rather have Beasley because he fills an immediate need, which is also a plus. I think its going to be a very active draft all around the league. It should be fun to watch.


A couple baseball topics before I go.

How's the saying go? "There's one in every family." Well, it appears there is one in every league now too. Shawn Chacon, journeyman pitcher, formerly of the Houston Astros was suspended indefinitely yesterday. Chacon has spent years with the Rockies, Yankees, Pirates, and now the Astros. He was suspended after doing his best Latrell Sprewell impression and choking the shit out of his general manager. As much as all of us has wanted to beat up our boss at one point in time, most of us refrain from doing so to save our lively hood and our dignity. Then there is people like Chacon, angry after being demoted to the bullpen, who decide to take matters into their own hands, literally. If you feel the absolute need to choke someone out, find the equipment manager, the ball boy or that guy who shoots the shirts into the stands, don't do it to the guy who makes decisions on whether players stay or go. This is a ticket straight out of the major leagues. Chacon, who was a decent 4th or 5th starter, is now widely considered to be done in the major leagues for good, something that relieves general managers all over the US. Every once and a while, these stories pop up in the news, whether its Latrell or Bobby Knight choking one of his players. It makes me laugh every time because these people don't realize they are committing career suicide. They will always carry that stigma around with them for as long as the play or coach. Thats, if, they ever play or coach again.

Has anyone noticed the Twins are on an 8 game winning streak? Its gone fairly unnoticed as far as I can tell. True, it was against the likes of Washington, Arizona, and San Diego. And sure, it was interleague play, where the Twins always work their National League opponents. And sure, like I told someone the other day, any team can go on a 7-8 game winning streak throughout the season. I mean, hell, the Kansas City Royals are 10-1 in their last 11 games after all. I don't expect this from this Twins team, though, which makes me even more intrigued than I already am. I think this squad has played alot better then people expected them to through this point in the season. They have some rough stretches, characteristic of a young ball club, but if they can keep this up, they might be contending for the division by the end of the season. In a stretch of 5 games this past week, the Twins faced, and beat, 4 pitchers in 5 games that had won one or multiple Cy Young Awards. It doesnt matter what teams you are playing when those are the odds against you. The main reason for their success, I think has been their starting pitching, which has compiled a 7-0 record and a 1.90 Era over the last 8 games. Some of their call ups have even done well. Alexi Casilla has seemed to figure it out, and Brian Busher is hitting .390 at last check.
I think July will say alot about this team. They have series against Texas, the Yankees, the Red Sox, The White Sox, the Indians and 2 series' against the Tigers. This should give us a good idea of where we should expect this team to finish come September.

And for our newest viewer... Hook 'Em Horns!

What Would the IMU Do?

So I'm getting pretty stoked about this draft tonight and I'm been talking to Bez while he slacks off at work. He asked me where I thought everyone would go because I was telling him I though Chad Ford's latest Mock Draft was pretty shitty. It started because of a handful of players being in what I thought was the completely wrong place in the first round, but also because He has the Wolves taking two international players and keeping them over seas in the second round. I've already stated that I think the Wolves should move up, which I'll talk about at the bottom of this, but should they keep those picks what good is it to keep players away from this team when backing up our Power Forward turned Center are Micheal Doleac and Chris Richards who is shorter than Jefferson. Our Power Forwards are all too small as well. Gomes and Smith are 6-7 and Madsen is not only nothing more than a glorified cheerleader, but also a 6-9 player who tends to mop up in the 5 spot more than the 4.

Anyways... Here's how I see the Top Ten going down.

1. Chicago takes Derrick Rose. Easy.
2. Beasley goes here. If Miami doesn't take him they trade the pick to either Seattle or Memphis. From Seattle they get Chris Wilcox and the 4. From Memphis They get Mike Miller and the 5. I'm sure there would be other current NBA players involved in this trade for money purposes, but I'm not going to bother figuring that sort of stuff out.
3. The Wolves take Ovinton J'Anthony Mayo. Please take him. Please take him. Please take him. God strike McHale down before 6 PM. ( you don't have to kill him, just incapacitate him during our picks)
4. Jerryd Bayless goes here either to the Heat or to Seattle.
5.The Grizzlies take Kevin Love or The Heat take Russell Westbrook.
6. I think the Knicks take Westbrook or D.J. Augustine Lets face it... the Knicks could use everything and Ford has them leaning towards Danillo Gallinari. I think they want Westbrook to fix that Starbury problem. I'm not sold on teams digging that European Point-Forward bullshit after they all seemingly flop unless they are named Dirk (who just chokes in the clutch)
7.I think the Clips take D.J Augustine. If he is not available they pick Eric Gordon.
8. The Bucks take Joe Alexander. This seems pretty set in stone.
9. The Bobcats will take Kevin Love if he isn't selected at 3 (no please) or 5. If he is gone they take Brook Lopez so that they can move Emeka Okefor to Power Forward.
10. The Nets take Danillo Gallinari at 10.

I think Ford has Bayless way too low, Lopez and Galinary too high, and Augustine and Westbrook slightly lower than they should be. This is a Guard's top 10 and a Center's mid section.

Now. About that trade I want the Wolves to make to jump into the middle of the first round. It looks like The Warriors at 14 are our best hopes if we try to package this years two second rounders and/or Antoine Walker. The Warriors have Andris Biedrins and Monta Elis as restricted free agents and could use Walker's salary off the books to help sign one or both along with not having guaranteed contracts for second rounders. The Sixers are in the same boat as the Warriors at 16 as they have Andre Iguodalla as a restricted free agent this season. If the combination involves the first rounder we got from Boston there are more options... probably the The Wizards who need to figure out a way to get Gilbert Arenas and Antwan Jamison back on their team. My guess is they'll only get Gilbert back.

I'd rather not bother giving up a first rounder and ending up lower with the Wiz, but it may end up happening and that Celtics pick won't be too many spots above the one Miami gave us any way. I want to figure out a way to get rid of Antoine Walker, Marko Jaric, Rashad McCants and Craig Smith are on my chopping block. Bassy and Gomes are very reluctantly there as well. There are worse players that are obvious choices to go, but I don't think they'd be wanted unless contracts don't match up. If you want to know who I'd like us to pick up for a big man its either Kosta Koufus or DeAndre Jordan leaning towards Koufus.

UPDATE: It looks like the Sonics and Clippers will swap the 4 and 7 picks if Mayo is off the table by then. Sounds like the Clippers wanted Eric Gordon even more than I thought they did(I'll go ahaed and take half a point when this thing goes through). I still think Seattle will be looking for a PG.

What to do with the 3rd pick as the draft approaches

When we first found out that the Wolves were drafting 3rd I said that we should select Brook Lopez. I said this because a big man is our biggest need. The problem is that almost everything is our biggest need. At this point there are 4 players I'd keep on this team Al Jefferson, Randy Foye, Sebastian Telfair and Ryan Gomes. Lots of Wolves fans will argue that only the first two names on that list should stay and will most likely call me crazy for including Bassy. Gomes is a better version of Craig Smith... both are undersized 4's, but Gomes does everything at a better clip and would make a very solid bench player if this team ever manages to field a playoff caliber starting five. I think Bassy will prove himself to be an important part of this team if they choose to resign him. He could very well be our starting point guard because I don't see Foye as the floor general.

Foye is a huge question mark. He is the reason why I've decided that the Wolves should draft O.J. Mayo. Everyone agrees that O.J. Mayo has superstar potential, Lopez' name has never been associated with the word superstar. In fact, Lopez scored last in two drills during the pre-draft workout that included 80 players.I know I compared Mayo to J.R. Rider a little over a month ago, but things have changed. The Wolves have enough ties to Mayo (Hoiberg 's college coach was Tim Flloyd) to get a real idea about the type of character he has. This kid had been touted as one of the next Jordans. His coverage in high school and even earlier is on par with Kobe and LeBron and he still managed to be a team player and someone who elevated his teammates game during his year in college.

The argument can be made that he did his own recruiting and told Flloyd that he would be playing for the Trojans, but if you know that you'll be in the NBA soon enough its a smart move to position yourself in a highly visible place and automatically be able to sign endorsement deals. A smart move made by a smart kid. His 29 on the A.C.T.s put him in the 95th percentile of all test takers. People will talk about the sports agent controversy, I know I did at first, but even if he knew what was going on, and he seems to have done a fair job of distancing himself from that situation, college players deserve more than they are given. I know that a free education is a big deal, but they rake in so much money for those universities and the actual cost for the university to cover one room, three meals and a couple chairs in a couple of classrooms per day per athlete is very minimal.

The Reason I was asking Bez about what he thought about Rashad McCant's trade value is that useing some combination of McCants or Craig Smith and out 2 second round draft picks I'm thinking we could find ourself somewhere between 14 and 20 in the first round. Somebody would be willing to do that right? Big men Projected to go around that area include. Brook's brother Robin (the defensive twin), Alex Ajinca, Kostas Koufos, DeAndre Jordan, Anthony Randolph, Roy Hibbert and Rider's Jason Thompson. Kostas Koufos would be my reason to move up in the draft and Randolph isn't a bad second option, although it would mean keeping Al Jefferson at the 5 spot.

What I'm saying is that taking a flier on a potential superstar sounds better to me than getting 10, 10 and 2 blocks from what will only become a mediocre center when we could very easily get that same type of production from a big man by packaging a few things a little later. If the Cav's had the 3rd selection and the best available player was a small forward they might want to move back. If the Lakers had the 3rd pick and the best available player was a shooting guard they might want to move back. That shooting guard position on the Wolves will be inhabited by Marco Jaric, Rashad McCants and sometimes Randy Foye... we can afford to pick up Mayo and see if he turns into something special.

Pre-Draft Link Drop

With the Draft coming on Thursday I thought I would pass on some reading material draft related. I also have some things that are completely unrelated to the draft. I don't know where that first image came from but I would like to go there. Hold on.

Couple days ago, Benny asked me what I thought of Rashad McCants' trade value. I don't know but Rashad thinks he should be playing more.

This past year after working extremely hard to recover from microfracture surgury, I found myself coming of the bench being the sixth man and the second leading scorer. The only bad part about it was that I could have been twice as productive with more minutes. I would have been able to meet my individual goals, we could have won more games, and I'd be on my way to being a respected player in the NBA.

Jon Marthaler from over at TNABACG disagrees with the kid. He had this over at twolvesblog.

A few weeks ago I was in a mock-draft over in the Swamp, here's the results if you're interested:

1. Chicago - Michael Beasley, PF, Kansas State
2. Miami - Derrick Rose, PG, Memphis
3. Minnesota -Brook Lopez, C, Stanford
4. Seattle - Darrell Arthur, PF, Kansas
5. Memphis - Kevin Love, PF, UCLA
6. New York - Jerryd Bayless, PG, Arizona
7. L.A. Clippers - O.J. Mayo, SG, USC
8. Milwaukee - Eric Gordon, SG, Indiana
9. Charlotte - DeAndre Jordan, C, Texas A&M
10. New Jersey - Danilo Gallinardi, SF, Italy
11. Indiana - Russell Westbrook, PG, UCLA
12. Sacramento - DJ Augustine, PG, Texas
13. Portland - Joe Alexander, SF, West Virginia
14. Golden State - Anthony Randolph, PF, LSU
15. Phoenix (from ATL) - Brandon Rush, SG/SF, Kansas
16. Philadelphia - Donte' Greene, SF, Syracuse
17. Toronto - Nicholas Batum, F, France
18. Washington - Marreese Speights, PF/C, Florida
19. Cleveland - J. J. Hickson, PF, NC State
20. Denver -Mario Chalmers, PG, Kansas
21. New Jersey (from DAL) - JaVale McGee, C, Nevada
22. Orlando - Kosta Koufos, C, Ohio State
23. Utah - Roy Hibbert, C, Georgetown
24. Seattle (from PHX) - Chase Budinger, SF, Arizona
25. Houston -Robin Lopez, C, Sanford
26. San Antonio – Alexis Ajinca, C, France
27. New Orleans - Chris Douglas-Roberts, SG, Memphis
28. Memphis (from LAL) – Bill Walker, SF, Kansas State
29. Detroit – Jason Thompson, PF, Rider

This was started about 3 weeks ago so somethings have changed, people have fallen, some have risen. I selected Brook Lopez, but if I were to do it over again I would probably do if differently. Before I state who I would take I will give you a paragraph neubie wrote a bit back:

As for OJ Mayo, I don't think I've wanted a soon to be professional athlete fail more than I do this guy. Since I first heard the story of him walking into USC coach Tim Floyd's office and recruiting himself to the school, I have wished for his demise. It only got worse on hearing about and seeing the tape of him throwing an alley-oop to himself towards the end of a 40 point State Championship Game blowout and then getting ejected from his final game for chucking the ball into the stands. This might even be tolerable, if not excusable, but then he walked around the court, hands held high, basking in the cascading cheers of the crowd like some Roman Gladiator just having defeated a wildebeest. Only this is a high school kid, and it just proves what kind of cocky, attention hogging idiot this guy really is. The sad thing is, he has sick basketball talent and that will land him in a high spot in the upcoming NBA draft and probably some endorsement deals with Sunny D and Hellman's.

With that taken care of, I would like to say I had similar feelings about Mayo at first too. I felt pretty similar when all this came out even. But as of right now I hope that we can select OJ Mayo at the 3rd pick.

The Big Lead has been previewing each team prior to the draft for the last few weeks. Today they had the Wolves. TBL thinks we should take Lopez. I disagree. Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo. Hew, got that out of the system.

Speaking of TBL if you're missing the feud going on over there, I suggest you check it out. The following is a cronological series of links of this (in Barriero's words) Kerfuffle.

LATimes.

TBL

Deadspin

Some guy ripping the shit out of Will Leitch.

I'm sure there is more out there but this is the way I read it. It's a long read, but if you're familiar with any of TBL's work or Deadspin, it's very interesting.

You have to love Jerry Zgoda's headline over at the startrib.

McHale not sure of Wolves' draft strategy

This could either be a future piece or a historic piece. It's just really funny hard to tell just from the headline.

Well I may write something up tomorrow after the EuroCup game. If not after the draft it will happen for sure. By the way whatever happened to that Bracey kid?