30 teams in 56 or so days: Minnesota Timberwolves
November 9th, 2007
Players acquired via free agency or trade: Greg Buckner (acquired from Dallas) Michael Doleac (acquired from Miami) Antoine Walker (acquired from Miami) Theo Ratliff (acquired from Boston) Ryan Gomes (acquired from Boston) Al Jefferson (acquired from Boston) Sebastian Telfair (acquired from Boston) Gerald Green (acquired from Boston) Players acquired via draft: First round: Corey Brewer (7th overall) Second round: Chris Richard (41st overall) Players retained: None Players departed: Mark Blount (traded to Miami) Ricky Davis (traded to Miami) Kevin Garnett (traded to Boston) Trenton Hassell (traded to Dallas) Troy Hudson (bought out) Mike James (traded to Houston) Justin Reed (traded to Houston) Bracey Wright (left unrestricted, signed in Greece) Bobbins: You probably want me, or expect me, to burn Kevin McHale in this space, as I have done in the past. But it’s not going to happen. I actually think he’s done a nice job this offseason, all things considering. The reason I say “all things considering”, is that McHale has done a rather nice job of restructuring a team that, apart from New York, was about the hardest possible team to reconstruct. With multiple long and bad contracts, and also with first-round draft picks still owed to Boston and the Los Angeles Clippers, the Timberwolves were roundly screwed. With only a couple of young players worth a damn and with only superstar Kevin Garnett providing any value worth a damn, McHale had only one option – to trade Kevin Garnett and start again. He could have gone the other way, signed a veteran, and made another playoff push, hoping that the impossible would occur and that the Timberwolves would suddenly have enough firepower to rival the West’s best teams. That would have been a stupid thing to do, though, It was also a stupid thing […]
30 teams in 56 or so days: Miami Heat
October 27th, 2007
Players acquired via free agency or trade: Mark Blount (acquired from Minnesota) Ricky Davis (acquired from Minnesota) Smush Parker (signed, two years, $4,680,000) Joel Anthony, Brian Chase, Devin Green, Penny Hardaway, Alexander Johnson, Jeremy Richardson and Marcus Slaughter (all signed to the minimum salary with assorted levels of partial guarantees. If you include holdovers Earl Barron and Chris Quinn, you have eight players on the bubble, four of whom are going to have to be cut.) Players acquired via draft: First round: Daequan Cook (21st overall, acquired in draft night deal) Second round: None Players retained: Earl Barron (re-signed, unguaranteed qualifying offer) Players departed: Michael Doleac (traded to Minnesota) Wayne Simien (traded to Minnesota) Antoine Walker (traded to Minnesota) Eddie Jones (signed with Miami) Jason Kapono (signed with Toronto) Gary Payton (put to sleep) James Posey (signed with Boston) Bobbins: It seems fitting to “do” Miami next, given that they are a team recently in the news. If you are like me, and you’re the kind of person that tends to get so excited when a transaction is made that a little bit of wee seeps out, then you probably secreted when you learnt of the recent Miami/Minnesota trade. That move saw Miami trades Antoine Walker, Wayne Simien, Michael Doleac, a first-round pick and cash to Minnesota for Ricky Davis and Mark Blount, which potentially salvaged the offseason for Miami. Despite previous protestations about how the team would never be a taxpayer, last year’s capitulation at the hands of the incomparably superior Chicago Bulls awakened Riley, Pfund and the like to the fact that their team just isn’t that good any more. The Heat had committed themselves financially to a core that had a championship window of exactly one year. They capitalised on that, winning the […]
