Monday has almost come and gone, seemingly awfully quiet at that. Will the Wolves have a new VP/GM by Friday?

Of course, could be. But I wouldn’t bet a lot on it. It’s going on three weeks now since season end and the time gone by and the names considered and/or crossed off what is believed to be the list makes it look like they could have trouble giving the job away.

That’s nonsense. I have no idea what impression candidates are coming away with what it’d be like to work for Glen Taylor and Rob Moor, but if you look the bones of what the current group has set up the last two years and there’s  potential for the next guy to look like a genius.

The assets:

* Al Jefferson. Granted, the X factor is how he comes back from that knee surgery. He is, though, given Tim Duncan’s aging and gimpy knees, the best low-post scorer in the game and just as importantly, he is signed to a “reasonable” deal ($12 million next year, $1 million raise a year thereafter) for the next four years

Portland and Oklahoma City so far have collected a better nucleus of young players, but both have had had a Top 1 or 2 pick in 2007 (and, yes, I’m not forgetting the Roy-Foye deal) and both are going to have to figure out how to pay all those young guys in the not-so-distant future. That’s going to be tricky.

The Wolves have their main guy signed and if you don’t believe you can build a contender around him because he doesn’t play defense or can’t or won’t share the ball, he does have value because of his youth, his talent and his contract (as long as that knee doesn’t prove troublesome).

* Those draft picks: Three first rounders this summer, admittedly in a draft that’s notable as much for the guys who didn’t decide to join it as those who did,  possibly two (or none) in 2010 and two second rounders this year (but not their own). Depending on their lottery luck, they should get another vital piece to rebuilding process with their lottery pick and they should be able to get depth whether they use those other two (18th and 28th overall) and trade one or both for players to replace a roster that just now is ridding itself of its Juwan Howard-Antoine Walker-Greg Buckner-Jason Collins-Shelden Williams baggage.

*Expiring contracts, lots and lots of them: Howard, Collins, Williams, Kevin Ollie all come off the books this summer. For the summer of 2010, you’ve got Mike Miller’s $9.75 million, Brian Cardinal’s $6.75 million, Ryan Gomes’ $3.5 million, Mark Madsen’s $2.84 million, Craig Smith’s $2.5 million and Rodney Carney’s $1.65 million deals up (Bobby Brown’s minimal deal, too, I think).

That’s at least $27 million, which is an awful lot of flexibility if you hire somebody with a creative mind.

Say all you want about Hoiberg and Stack being more of the same, but they’ve been part of a group that’s done a pretty good job reconfiguring after Taylor and McHale concluded they had failed at building a contender around KG. That’s a lot of assets, considering where this team was less than two years ago with KG’s huge contract and bloated other deals belonging to the likes of Mark Blount and Marko Jaric.

As for other subjects, how much of a chance do you give the Celtics against Orlando or the Rockets against the Lakers. Both series start tonight and the Magic just put the pedal down before halftime and are ahead by 18 after a 26-6 first-half finish.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.