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Post by Bonecrusher on Jan 6, 2019 21:52:34 GMT -6
Thibs is gone. What a joy.
Now what? Not to pleased that Saunders is Interim HC. Hoiberg as POBO would be interesting but why have a CEO, GM and POBO? What a bloated setup.
Time to move forward with a GM and eliminate the POBO. Is Deng released to bring in someone who might have a future? Would Chandler Parsons be interested in a backup role?
Is Teague moved at the trade deadline? What about Rose? Moved to a team looking for a final piece for a playoff push? Will Wiggins respond to a different head coach?
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Post by The Country Club on Jan 7, 2019 0:05:09 GMT -6
CEO runs the business side of the organization (ticket sales, marketing, etc.). It's pretty natural to separate the non-basketball and basketball aspects.
Casson was brought in after Thibs was hired by Taylor. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Casson was the guy who was lobbying hard internally based on what was being said "from the business side" in past rumor mill.
That said, same business side also jacked up tickets by 20%+ each of the past two seasons and had some of the lowest attendance in the NBA this season.
Common denominator in everything? Glen Taylor...nothing's changing until the team is not in his hands.
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Post by The Country Club on Jan 7, 2019 3:26:13 GMT -6
Giving this a bit of thought this way-too-early morning:
If Layden is given a green light to clean some dead wood and expirings, the Wolves could make a lot of moves and get themselves some pieces with an eye to 2020 or 2021. I've argued for a while that the team is better off getting themselves in a position to where they have some cap space/tax cap room to maneuver after next season. There really isn't much good or use in letting the $32 mil in dead weight (Taj, Tolliver, Bayless, Rose, Deng) walk away at season's end unless, in the case of Taj and Rose, there's a clear desire to *want* to be here even with Thibs gone. That said, I'd still look at what pieces can be moved and what I can get for them. I like Taj but I'm not convinced we should keep him around unless there's a strong indication that he wants to say in Minnesota and is willing to take a discount next season.
I also would look at tagging some of these expirings with our dead weight deals (Dieng, Wiggins, Teague to a lesser extent) to try to get some upside value coming back. I fully expect Teague to re-up at this point if he's still on the roster at season's end.
The roster in a month should ideally be KAT, Saric, RoCo, Tyus, Okogie (unless I absolutely can get an upgrade in moving Okogie out with Wiggins), plus whatever comes back in trades that are made. But I think it's foolish for the Wolves to have dead cap space on the roster after the deadline given they can't do much in this offseason. Offload those expirings to 2020 and get some cap room to be able to re-up Saric plus make strategic additions in FA. If that means Teague stays, I guess I'm ok with it but I think we should be looking around at other options if possible.
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Post by Nick K on Jan 7, 2019 4:31:15 GMT -6
CEO runs the business side of the organization (ticket sales, marketing, etc.). It's pretty natural to separate the non-basketball and basketball aspects. Casson was brought in after Thibs was hired by Taylor. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Casson was the guy who was lobbying hard internally based on what was being said "from the business side" in past rumor mill.
That said, same business side also jacked up tickets by 20%+ each of the past two seasons and had some of the lowest attendance in the NBA this season.
Common denominator in everything? Glen Taylor...nothing's changing until the team is not in his hands. That's right CC. I've been thinking that too. The marketing people down there are dying. Believe me, selling something that people don't want is death for a salesman or organization. This will infuse a huge amount of life not only in the Target Center but all over. Let's give Glen Taylor a little credit for pulling the plug on this dinosaur of a coach. Better late than never. I don't know much about Casson but he seems like a pretty impressive guy.
I'm psyched. We will make the playoffs under Ryan. No doubt about it. I love the idea of a young up and comer coaching this team. Granted I wanted Adelman or Fernandez who Levine mentioned but Saunders just might surprise everybody.
I was surprised to learn that Saunders had already been coaching a corner three offense the last few games. Looking back it makes sense.
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Post by The Country Club on Jan 7, 2019 5:26:40 GMT -6
I really doubt that. The owner's the same, fans are turned off by two consecutive price hikes, and Wiggins plays with all the enthusiasm of a sloth. There might be some signs of life in the next home game and Ryan probably gets a nice ovation when he's announced but I'm not going to get carried away that anything's really going to change as long as Taylor is around. The organization has an owner that treats basketball with a 1990's mindset in the 2010's.
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Post by Nick K on Jan 7, 2019 5:32:20 GMT -6
I really doubt that. The owner's the same, fans are turned off by two consecutive price hikes, and Wiggins plays with all the enthusiasm of a sloth. There might be some signs of life in the next home game and Ryan probably gets a nice ovation when he's announced but I'm not going to get carried away that anything's really going to change as long as Taylor is around. The organization has an owner that treats basketball with a 1990's mindset in the 2010's. Sure it will. Just look at the life it's put back into this forum! I'm still jumpin up and down.
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salty
Full Member
Posts: 185
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Post by salty on Jan 7, 2019 10:04:32 GMT -6
argued for a while that the team is better off getting themselves in a position to where they have some cap space/tax cap room to maneuver after next season. There really isn't much good or use in letting the $32 mil in dead weight (Taj, Tolliver, Bayless, Rose, Deng) walk away at season's end unless, in the case of Taj and Rose, there's a clear desire to *want* to be here even with Thibs gone. That said, I'd still look at what pieces can be moved and what I can get for them. I like Taj but I'm not convinced we should keep him around unless there's a strong indication that he wants to say in Minnesota and is willing to take a discount next season. This is exactly why we should let them walk. I think there is around $20 million in increases coming next season with Towns and co.. The team needs to clear Taj and Bayless at minimum to be able to simply resign Jones. Trade Rose if you can get anything for him, but the rest will be gone for sure at the end of the season. Now...if they feel Teague will walk, then other moves could be made. I don't see Teague leaving or Gorgi being traded.
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Post by Bonecrusher on Jan 7, 2019 10:16:07 GMT -6
I really doubt that. The owner's the same, fans are turned off by two consecutive price hikes, and Wiggins plays with all the enthusiasm of a sloth. There might be some signs of life in the next home game and Ryan probably gets a nice ovation when he's announced but I'm not going to get carried away that anything's really going to change as long as Taylor is around. The organization has an owner that treats basketball with a 1990's mindset in the 2010's. Nope. One of my old co-workers is a salesmen for the Wolves selling tickets/packages/etc. He hooked me up with opening night tickets that were his. His common statement was he could sell tickets and tons of them once they fired Thibs. Mind you this was at the beginning of the season. I'm going to send him a text today and see how things are going.
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Post by The Country Club on Jan 7, 2019 10:22:05 GMT -6
argued for a while that the team is better off getting themselves in a position to where they have some cap space/tax cap room to maneuver after next season. There really isn't much good or use in letting the $32 mil in dead weight (Taj, Tolliver, Bayless, Rose, Deng) walk away at season's end unless, in the case of Taj and Rose, there's a clear desire to *want* to be here even with Thibs gone. That said, I'd still look at what pieces can be moved and what I can get for them. I like Taj but I'm not convinced we should keep him around unless there's a strong indication that he wants to say in Minnesota and is willing to take a discount next season. This is exactly why we should let them walk. I think there is around $20 million in increases coming next season with Towns and co.. The team needs to clear Taj and Bayless at minimum to be able to simply resign Jones. Trade Rose if you can get anything for him, but the rest will be gone for sure at the end of the season. Now...if they feel Teague will walk, then other moves could be made. I don't see Teague leaving or Gorgi being traded. We have 9 under contract right now + a draft pick. If the Wolves re-up Tyus, you're at 11. You need 3, realistically 4 more. We might have something in MLE world but we're still going to be strapped. And FA's aren't going to be too stoked about playing here given the way that franchise is run. If we let some of it walk, that's one thing. We need bodies and it's silly to let all of our expirings walk when you probably can get a couple of backups or role players that can contribute. One of the ideas to look at is how you can pare an expiring with someone that we want out of here that doesn't expire and we really want out of here (Wiggins) to get ourselves set up for 2020 (or 2021). Our cap situation is crap no matter what path we go - I'd rather Layden call the shots and try to get to 2020 with something resembling a roster than take our chances in FA given possible uncertainty and potentially at head coach.
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Post by The Country Club on Jan 7, 2019 10:24:27 GMT -6
I really doubt that. The owner's the same, fans are turned off by two consecutive price hikes, and Wiggins plays with all the enthusiasm of a sloth. There might be some signs of life in the next home game and Ryan probably gets a nice ovation when he's announced but I'm not going to get carried away that anything's really going to change as long as Taylor is around. The organization has an owner that treats basketball with a 1990's mindset in the 2010's. Nope. One of my old co-workers is a salesmen for the Wolves selling tickets/packages/etc. He hooked me up with opening night tickets that were his. His common statement was he could sell tickets and tons of them once they fired Thibs. Mind you this was at the beginning of the season. I'm going to send him a text today and see how things are going. I'll bet there's some walk-up interest (the Wolves have historically drawn better as the season progresses compared to the early season regardless of how bad the team is doing) but I'll be surprised that fans flock en masse to a .500ish squad until there's some direction of improvement under Ryan.
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