Wolves waive Harrison, Ahearn, Richard and beat Bucks 95-76 in preseason finale
Posted on October 23rd, 2008 – 5:29 PMBy Jerry Zgoda
The Wolves today waived David Harrison, Blake Ahearn and Chris Richard, releasing three players who have non-guaranteed contracts to reduce their roster to the 15-player regular season limit. The moves were the most cost-effective ones the team could make. There’s still a chance they could re-sign one of those players if he clears waivers in 48 hours and if they make another roster move.
“Sometimes you just get caught in guaranteed contracts and numbers,” Kevin McHale said.
Expect the Wolves to try to trade Calvin Booth’s $1.14 million salary slot for some kind of draft pick. If they can do so, they could bring Richard back. McHale said he expects Harrison to sign with a team in China. They were swayed on the Ollie-Ahearn thing by Telfair’s season-opening suspension and by the youth of Telfair and Foye and the Ollie’s experience and mentoring ability.
Here’s one thing I heard on Thursday: Larry Brown was watching the waiver wire in Charlotte looking for Ollie’s name to show up. Ollie played for him in Philadelphia. “That’s my guy,” Ollie said of the old coach. “My agent told me he was hoping to get me back.”
Opening-night rosters are finalized on Monday. The next key date after that is Oct. 31, when the Wolves must decide whether to extend qualifying offers for the 2009-2010 season to Randy Foye, Corey Brewer and Rodney Carney. Expect them to qualify Foye and Brewer and wait on Carney until next summer, when they can try to re-sign him as an unrestricted free agent if they so desire.
Some brief thoughts about the Wolves’ 95-76 comeback victory over Milwaukee Thursday in their preseason finale:
We had our first, and only, Calvin Booth sighting in preseason games, nearly five whole minutes.
Talk about efficient, look at Al Jefferson’s 19 points on 7-for-8 shooting in 25 minutes. The guy has been approaching his 20 point season average from last season in about two-thirds of his regular playing time.
Kevin Love followed Wednesday’s 1-for-10 game with a comeback night. Wittman stuck with him, particularly in the second half, and gave him 21:36 of time and Love had a double-double (14 points 10 rebounds, 2 steals). He reached the double-double when the official scorer gave him a late rebound, which in the next instant he had swiped from his hands. “I had never played that bad,” he said. “At least not that I can remember.”
The Wolves finished the preseason at 6-2 and open the regular season Wednesday against Sacramento at Target Center.
“November is a big month for us,” Jefferson said after Thursday’s game. “Especially after last year.”
The Wolves were 2-12 in November last season.
25 Responses to "Wolves waive Harrison, Ahearn, Richard and beat Bucks 95-76 in preseason finale"
Unexpected to say the least. Cost-effective, ya, but perplexing. I’ll miss Richard, I think we could end up regretting this is Collins doesn’t stay after this year.
But more importantly, did something happen to Harrison? Rehab going badly? We signed him to basically do nothing….what was the point? Not that I’m a fan of his, but given our lack of size and athleticism in the frontcourt, I would have thought we’d at least give him a chance.
I like the Ahearn cut though. You’re a good kid Blake, but we just need Ollie’s steadiness and teaching right now. It’s clear Foye needs direct help with this point guard thing and well, Kevin can help with that. Blake can’t.
The way I read it, it was all about money. They cut the guys that didn’t cost them anything to cut. I still could see them bringing Richard back if they can make another move. With Harrison, maybe they learned all the more they needed to know about him: His career was on the line and he never got on the floor to show his stuff and maybe they doubted his heart, which has always been the question about him. Remember they’ve got those future draft picks stockpiled and presumably Pekovic coming in 2010, so they’re going to be adding young bodies to replace the Collinses, Cardinals and even probably Richardses.
I am not surprised that they made moves based on money. Is there any indication that they have some hope to find someone else from the waiver wires after the deadline?
Our roster is at 15 now, right? I’m going to echo Bert and ask if this is it for the roster then? Particularly in the case of Booth…are we to assume he stays with the team? If so, I’d really rather have bought him out and kept Richard or Harrison…
Wittman says “this is our team” but I’d bet they’ll do something else before the 29th. At least they’ll try to do something else.
Sorry I should specify my question. What I meant to ask is if we’ll buy out Booth if we can’t move him, or if he’ll just stay on the roster.
I guess even Taylor is getting hit by the recession! Cheap is one thing Glenn Taylor should not be called. He has wasted more money than any local owner. I’m actually pretty suprised by these decisions.
I think the wolves missed the boat on Ahearn, he has all up side. They should have cut ollie he is on the down side for sure. This shows me they do not have respect for the ability for Foye or Telfair as our guards. Maybe we can trade one of our many forwards we have on the roster for a all purpose guard, or a true “Tall Center”. Richard is not worth bringing back to the Twolves roster send him back to the D league to learn.
I’m sure they have respect for Foye and Bassy…just not a whole lot of faith. I don’t have any faith in Foye as a point guard. By large, his exploits at that position have been underwhelming at best, horrifying at worst. It’s clear he needs someone to teach him, which is why keeping Ollie makes a lot of sense.
Also, Ahearn’s not a point guard anyway. He’s an undersized shooting guard like Pargo or Juan Dixon.
I think the fact that Booth’s healthy is another point. Quite frankly, I want guys who can play. I’m sick of seeing players get paid to rehab. If Booth can play than fine. I love the idea of Harrison being a diamond in the rough but I trust they didn’t see that in him. I’d like Richard to be the man but haven’t really seen it from him at all. Ahearn’s the real loss here but in the end he’s an un-athletic combo guard. Curious to see what else happens soon.
Ummm… I think Ollie is a better choice at backup PG than Telfair! Bassy better watch it — he might lose his spot in the rotation if Ollie continues to run the team so well and play such excellent defense!
I wasn’t surprised to see Harrison cut since he was unable to work his way back from the calf injury. And Richard really can’t give you anything that you can’t get from Madsen, Jefferson or Smith!
I don’t know if Booth will stick around all year, but he brings something to the table that no one else does — shot blocking. The cuts make basketball sense as much as they do financial sense.
This team is put together all wrong now, I was a fan of getting miller but we see he is too slow on D and if you put him at the 2, he will get killed and be in foul trouble all game. If you move him to the 3 now your taking away from young guys that you spent a lot of money and draft picks on and admitting failure with Brewer. Carney and Gomes won’t get much playing time then. THose 2 guys need minutes but if they play then Miller goes the 2 and if Love and Al are up front with foye and miller at guards me and my intermural team could put up 100 on those guys.
I disagree, jama. Taylor has run the team on the cheap the last couple of years. They’ve let salary cap exceptions go unused (this happened even in the KG era).
As for the cuts, they make sense. I never really saw the attraction to Harrison. I don’t think we’re going to be crying about Chris Richard — he looks like the kind of guy who can have a long and lucrative career in Europe.
Anybody see Jerry snacking on something in the 3rd quarter ? Hahahaha I was watching the game, someone was shooting FT’s for us in the middle of the 3rd and all of a sudden I see Jerry’s glasses in the corner of the screen…”Oh oh ! Thats Zgoda snacking on something !”
Whatever it was Jerry, you must eat that during the 3rd the rest of the season…we started our good runs right around then ! 
Perhaps they didn’t see any fire in Harrison, which then i can understand his release. Richards will go back to the d-league.
Chris: miller can play 2 on offense and 3 on defense, with Brewer playing 2 on defense and 3 on offense. The only way i see gomes and miller on the floor at the same time is when gomes can handle the other teams 4.
4th quarter will be Foye, McCants, Miller, AJ, with the ohter depending on the other team and matchups. could be gomes, collins, brewer, etc.
Richard was too far down the depth chart at PF, and his contract was the easiest to let go (the other options being Madsen and Cardinal). He’s got an NBA body, but I’d question his skill set (granted he didn’t get a lot of burn last year to show what he can do).
Healthy is more important than upside in Harrison’s case, and I would guess his attitude is still in question. If he gets healthy, plays well and shows commitment, then he’ll be back in the NBA next year, maybe even with the Wolves.
I do like Ahearns offensive skills, but this team needs defense at the guard spots. Ollie brings that at PG, and Carney and Brewer can defend the 2 and the 3.
Chris: Miller has played the 2 for a number of years now, and I don’t recall ever hearing of him being foul prone. He played with Shane Battier at the 3 in Memphis for a while, and that seemed to work well.
arenal is right, if Miller has trouble guarding his match-up, he can switch with Brewer. If the opponents 2 and 3 are both offensive powerhouses, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see a little of Brewer and Carney on the floor together to put the clamps on.
I thought the Wolves did really well last night defensively. Getting hands in passing lanes, tipping balls etc. Our “undersized” guys did a good job on the boards too I thought. 14 O-Reb helps too…
Anyone else loving McCants getting to the rack / foul line more this year ?
So… I don’t want to be snarky or uninformed, but can anyone explain why (non-money reasons) keeping Madsen is better than keeping Richard? I don’t know, maybe they play different positions, but it just seems to me Richard has more athleticism and upside than Madson or some of the others we’ve kept…
There isn’t any non-monetary reason for it. The point on both Madsen and Cardinal is that they are potentially valuable salary cap chips. In the offseason (as they become expiring deals), they could be packaged to teams looking to clear cap room.
I like a lot of the moves McHale has made lately, but I’m still pissed about drafting Richards over Marc Gasol and this move proved my point. Instead of having the 7 footer we need next to Al (who looks bigger, but did you see him toy with the Bucks, dude is really, really good)we have a bunch of 6′10 guys and smaller. I liked the improvement from Love, but is Greg Oden just going to eat this guy or what. I can’t wait for that game.
arenal, what happens when they play Lakers, Rockets, and teams like, that Brewer on Kobe and Miller on Odom, that probably won’t work to well on the defensive end and on the offensive edn they will just sag off of Brewer, against some teams it will be ok but other, well balanced teams will destroy that lineup. I was excited as anyone about the upcoming season but I just see too many similarities to the KG and Wally days as I do with the AL and MM days to come.
Madsen over Richard ? Why ? Here is something that no one seems to mention but is 100% true…Madsen knows how to play…he knows where HE is suppose to be, sets his picks, doesn’t clog the lane etc etc. He doesn’t pull a Kandi and just sit under the hoop all day when the other big is in the post. Say what you will about his abilities (not great) but he knows what he is suppose to do.
Richard doesn’t know this stuff YET and probably wouldn’t get the minutes on the floor to learn these things with this squad…and in a worse case scenario where he is needed I’d rather have a guy who knows where he is suppose to be.
Plus Mad Dog will be a good trading chip in the future, cutting him would do us no good because his salary would still count against the cap.
Swan Dizzle: Pretzels, and they were making me thirsty.
I’m hoping we can move Booth. Whether Richard will give us more than Madsen or not, we would definitely give us more than Booth. Plus, picking up a second round pick would be a nice bonus. They’re good trade pieces and can turn up impact players if the team does its homework right.
