I have not been in Minnesota in probably 40 years. Bring ass. Welcome to Flagrant Howls, a Minnesota Timberwolves Lifestyle Podcast. Your experience won't change.
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What's up, man? How's it going? I'm so excited for the next five or six weeks. Like, maybe they wind up doing nothing but running it all back, but just, like, this is going to be kind of a crazy five or six weeks with the draft and free agency, and the Wolves back-to-back Western Conference Finals.
It's a fun time to be a Tender Wolves fan. It does seem like Wednesday, when the Wolves got curb stomped by the Thunder in another gentleman's sweep. That was, like, months ago. Took a couple days.
I do feel recharged. I'm excited for today's pod. Oh, Kyle's so excited. He may have unplugged his microphone.
And I immediately just had 900. I think your mic is now unplugged, and we're going through your computer speaker. So flip the switch, and we will get your takes on things. And while you figure that out real quick, I'm going to read.
So Tim Connelly just got done speaking with the Assembled Media, and I would say two main headlines out of it. Or three. I would say three. One, he said he was asked about his future, because he can opt out.
Tim Connelly's a free agent. Nas Reed's got a player option. Julius Randle's got a player option. And Tim Connelly's got a player option.
But he essentially said, love it here. Family and I love it here. I think you're stuck with me, so it sounds like he's opting back in. We're going to get an extension done.
Number two, he was asked about the second apron, because the Wolves were in the second apron. There's a ton of restrictions. And he said, the second apron is more for dipping your toes into. You don't want to live in it because of all the roster building.
Just, like, restrictions. Unless you're a ready-made championship team, you probably shouldn't be in the second apron. Because, for instance, you can't take two smaller contracts, cobble them together, and trade for a bigger contract. They can do that right now, or at least in a month from now, because going into this next salary cap, they are technically under both aprons.
But number three, when asked about the three impending free agents, two with player options, one who's just a straight-up free agent, Nikhil, Nas, and Randle, Tim Connelly said, we're very appreciative of what the market might look like. There's only one team with big-time cap space. It's the Nets. We're pretty cautiously optimistic.
We're in a good place with all those guys. Most importantly, they all want to be here. So, as of right now, the party line is we want to bring all those guys back going into next month cap. Yeah, that's why I didn't love, I don't always love doing pods right after a game.
I know that the man has it, but you don't want to be too reactionary. And, you know, once you pulled yourself away again from just really a disappointing way to go out, right, even the Knicks kind of, you know, they both went to the Western Conference Final, at least the Knicks kind of had a little more fight. The Wolves just didn't in Game 5. It seems like after Game 4, and they lose that game in Minnesota, they knew what their fate was.
But that's why my opinion is I don't think you're going to see many changes on that front. Like, the ownership stuff, as we record this on June 2nd, I think we'll probably see kind of like a final presentation type thing next week with the new ownership group in the NBA kind of crossing off a bunch of boxes. And then I would expect a week of the draft, which I think is like the 25th or something, maybe like a press conference then to officially, you know, welcome in, as we talked about, this is like the golden age of Timberwolves basketball, but as you welcome in a new ownership regime, I know it's been four years, we're kind of familiar with everyone, but the official start, I would imagine, is in a couple of weeks. And then soon after that, you'll probably get an official Tim Conley extension.
I know today he kind of joked that you're here with us, you're stuck with me, but I think you're going to see him. I mean, he has had really rich offers and other people and other teams trying to poach him, not just last year, but I think this year as well. So that domino is massive. And then if you do have a press conference, Phil, 22nd, 23rd, that week, the draft is like two days later, frequencies like a week later, these guys have options and player options, like those are the week of June 28th and stuff.
So it seems like the off season is just starting, but the off season will pick up, you know, as soon as you want, right? Maybe next week is when you're going to start hearing some crazy stuff go around. So they're probably going to keep their president of basketball operations. They're going to keep their head coach.
It seems like they're going to keep all that staff. Mike Inori is not a finalist for the Sun's job anymore. So they're going to have a lot of continuity on that front. But on the roster front, Tim said today, like everyone wants to stay and we want to keep them all.
But I don't know. I think that roster is still going to have some major changes later this month and in July. Yeah, we already saw. Gosh, it's just, it's glorious, reckless speculation.
You're so happy. Well, it's just like, it's fun because for so many years, the only topic of conversation in like May and June for the Timberwolves was, please God, can the ping pong ball bounce the right way? And then like, can they draft someone that can save their franchise? And now it's like, are they going to call the Bucs about Giannis?
Is Kevin Durant one of the 25 greatest players of all time? Is he a little too old where the Wolves might actually reject him? You know, it's like, it's kind of crazy how the conversation has shifted, but sure enough, right out of the gate on, I think it was Friday, like the Wolves season was still in morning, like a day and a half later. And, and Wendy had some things to say about Durant in Minnesota in the interest.
And then Sam Amico, Amico Hoops on Twitter said, quote, the Timberwolves are looking for another alpha next to Anthony Edwards to win it all, which is why sources told Hoops Wire that Minnesota is expected to pursue a Durant trade again this off season. So it's like, we didn't even wait a day and a half. And like, this is what's cooking already behind the scenes, at least the buzz. I don't know what Tim Connelly has done in the last few days, but that's the buzz.
Like the Durant stuff is going to be here for at least the next month and maybe they wind up doing it. Like what's your, on Durant, are you like, do you have a strong opinion on it or what's your current stance on it? I think this pod is going to be really fun today for many reasons, but on the Durant stuff, I'm going to throw it back to you because I had heard at the time, she was like, that rumor about them, the deadline was like real. And it wasn't just like, Hey, we're calling around.
Like that front office sets up the dominoes before you're ready to play the game type thing. And I think they were really interested in it. It just gets really hard. You would have to loop in like a 13, probably Eastern conference team to move some money around, maybe attach a pick.
I think they're going to go for it again. Now, the one thing I want to say when everyone's getting excited about reckless speculation is that when you do a trade machine or when you create an offer, just like in business, ask yourself if the other side will do it too, right? Because I've seen a lot of the, could you do Julius and Dante in the 17th pick for Giannis? And it's like, do you want the Bucs to spit on you or to punch you?
Because both those offers suck. For Durant, it's obviously a different thing because he's older. He just has less kind of mileage left on the car, but he'd also be a really good fit. I want to ask you though, just rip the bandaid off as the study came out last week.
I got an email to me as well about the most unhappy, most toxic fan bases in the NBA. And I think your Minnesota Timberwolves came in at third. Dallas Mavericks won that by a mile. I get it.
Well, well earned. And they have a right to be toxic after what happened. Do you think that, I'm just asking you, do you think the Timberwolves fan base is ready for Kevin Durant? Because not just him and not just his Twitter persona, but that is a level, I mean, if you bring in a guy who's 37 and one of the best to ever do it, you are now telling yourself, we have, not just like we're promising and golden age and you know, you're telling yourself we have to win a title in X amount of years.
And all I can think about if Durant gets acquired by the Timberwolves is that November 12th off to the Bobcat, the Hornets, the Bobcat even, where it's like, oh, bleep, we're screwed. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Well, you're a hundred percent right about expectations skyrocketing.
And it's kind of funny because even though the Wolves went to the Western Conference finals last year, because of the trade on the eve of training camp and because of the age of Anthony Edwards, he's not a fully formed product yet. There was still some leeway to not win a championship. And I think we were kind of leading that charge even on this podcast. Yeah.
But if they could win a playoff, if they could overcome the first two months of the season and they could get back in it, win a playoff series, be fighting into May again, you know, long term, when you have an Anthony Edwards, long term, win a championship, cash in on the era. Don't do what you did for 12 years here in the Kevin Garnett era, which is squander the career of one of the greatest players of all time. So I do think like long term championship expectations hover over the city for sure and over Anthony Edwards and there is pressure, but you nailed it. The minute, even though he's 37, the minute you bring in Kevin Durant, there's pressure on him to prove that he can win a championship outside of the leeching off the Golden State dynasty.
That's the view of his two championships, that they didn't need him. They already won one without him. They had a 73 win season without him. And so there's pressure on him individually to win one.
And then there would be pressure on the Anthony Edwards led side of the Timberwolves to win one too. I love it. But like the Minnesota Vikings, for example, they don't shy away from using the word championship in their comments. The Wolves just came out with a bunch of statements on, was it Friday last week when Kwesi Dolphamensa, the GM of the Vikings got a contract extension.
And in the press release, Mark Wilf and Ziggy Wilf, both like in writing, in ink, hey, we're bringing back Kwesi because we aspire to win a championship. The goal here is championship, championship, championship. They're not setting the expectation and kind of shying away from it. They're leaning into it.
And I think when you have Anthony Edwards and you have Tim Connolly running this thing and the infrastructure they've built, Chris Finch, there's things to poke out, but he is coming back and he is a very good NBA coach. I don't think you should shy away from it. I'm cool with the expectations if you bring in Kevin Durant or dare I say Giannis. I don't know.
I don't, I don't, I don't think there's been any steam there. I don't think that they have the weaponry to get Giannis, but I'm cool with those expectations. And I think those, let's talk about those expectations. I think they started June 1st.
Like I think now that's also how they should have press releases. And when they announce things that like when they talk about the ownership transition, I would imagine Mark and Alex start using the C word. But I also want to say that should start June 1st. That's not, that did not apply to me.
And it shouldn't apply to this team in May. And that's why I think I got a little spicy when it's like people saying, oh, you know, yeah, if that's how you feel, you never clean that toilet. You never did, right? Like this team made back-to-back watching conference finals.
Now the expectations can start. Now you can say, hey, if we get gentlemen swept again in the final four, that's like a disappointment. I'm with you on that. I don't care how bad they got curb stomp by OKC, not a disappointment.
That was a major moment for this organization. And now the expectations go up. Back to Durant. Hot take.
Or actually, you know what? This is going to be one of those. I'm just asking you the question. If the Timberwolves won a title with Kevin Durant, would that be Kevin Durant's signature moment of his NBA career?
I thought you were going in a different direction with that question. Where'd you think I was going? I thought you were going to ask, does that take away from Anthony Edwards? Is it going to be viewed as, it was a Durant-led title, and then the conversation shifts toward, like Kobe won those titles with Shaq.
But then it was like, once Shaq goes to Miami, now we're going to see if Kobe, are we going to do the whole thing over again? I'm sure. I'm not going to do that, but I can see other people doing that. I'm sure the Morris brothers will have something stupid to say.
I was just thinking that, you know, the Durant thing, he's been a part of our lives now for almost 20 years, and he's one of the best players I've ever watched. He's up there with, like, LeBron stuff. But, and I think he knows this, or at least this is the narrative around him, like, what are your fondest memories of Kevin Durant? And in my mind, it's like, we could be two weeks from now saying Shaq is the greatest Thunder player of all time because he won a ring.
Even though, I mean, Durant's probably still a better resume, better basketball player, higher ceiling, whatever, but if he won MVP, if he won the title for OKC, that becomes his franchise. Kevin Durant will never be, like, the Warriors guy. Like, that's always Steph. You don't really remember anything that happened in Brooklyn, obviously, other than, like, the toe-on-the-line game.
He has no aura in Phoenix. Like, there's no memorable moments other than him getting dunked on in a sweep by Anthony Edwards last year. So it's like, man, if you're Durant, and you're just, you know, enjoying some recreational activities in the summer, you're thinking, like, man, I want a title in Minnesota with ants, this guy that looks up to me. Like, that might be what people remember.
That might be a title that's worth way more than those couple titles he won in Golden State. So I think he would be very, and again, the Durant thing to me when it comes to the trade, it's all going to come down to, honestly, what he wants. I think he's going to play a big factor in that. But there are so many teams that, you know, do the Knicks flip cat for Kevin Durant?
Do the Wolves flip all the stuff they got for Kevin Durant or for Carly Towns to get Durant? Like, there's so many. And then, like, a team like Houston, they just say, believe it, we're going to give you a bunch of picks. I don't think the Suns really want picks.
I think the Suns want to try to be competitive. So I think the Durant team only gets bigger and bigger. And I would put the Wolves as one of the top two teams that once ownership is settled and Tim is extended here long term, he's like, all right, I'm going to fire some of these bullets and see if I can go get a guy to really try to take this thing to the next level. Yeah, I want to come back to the mechanics of what a trade could look like because you see the cat thing out there, too, and there's already just a ton of cat scapegoating happening in New York.
And I feel that in my soul because I've scapegoated cat multiple times on microphones. It's a favorite past time of mine. But on the legacy front, if you look at the 20 years that Kevin Durant has been in our purview watching the NBA for close to 20 years, it's a really nice patch of fertile legacy ground here in Minnesota because this is probably the worst franchise in the 35 years that they've existed. If you lined up all the franchises, wins and losses, embarrassments, lack of playoff success, et cetera, it's like Timberwolves, like Charlotte's kind of in there because they've been pretty inept over a couple different iterations.
The Clippers for the first part, the Clippers have at least been, like, competitive under new ownership, new arena. So to take in terms of just, like, NBA stock market the last 35 years, the Wolves stock is higher now than it's been at any point during that stretch. But they're still the Timberwolves in a lot of ways. To be a central figure, along with Anthony Edwards, to turn that franchise into a champion for the first time, I do think would hold more weight legacy-wise than just kind of giving up on what Oklahoma City was building.
I know he bristles at this conversation, but it's true. He bailed on an Oklahoma City team that blew a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Finals for the Warriors, joined a ready-made historic championship team that won 73 games. They won a championship in 73 games without him the following year, and that was the year I think LeBron came back down 3-1 in the finals. And then it was, like, the third year of that Golden State run that he jumped on board as the final ring on the fist.
And people have destroyed him for it, right? I think he's viewed as, like, probably the biggest villain or opportunist of the super-team era in the NBA. And I think you can kind of bring it all full circle by jumping on board with Anthony Edwards and delivering a championship to this downtrodden organization. It's a great potential storyline.
And to have to maybe climb the mountain that you kind of helped build, right, in Oklahoma City, like, he didn't have anything to do with this iteration. But, like, for that to be the team that stares at you on the other side of the Western Conference bracket, the storylines are incredible. Yeah, if Shea wins the title in two weeks, which I fully expect him to do, and he becomes the Thunder, you know, player of whatever, of the franchise's history since moving from Seattle or being stolen from Seattle. So, like, imagine that narrative a year from now if Durant is going into OKC trying to regain, you know, his standing with that fan base.
That fan base is still, I think, very much appreciates him. But, and just to clear, I mean, that Warrior stuff, like, when he joined the Warriors, I didn't like it either. But that was, like, that's the best basketball team I've ever watched. And I remember the Bulls teams.
Like, that was, those teams felt, like, in the moment, like, if they find ways to navigate all the politics, which they did not, they're just going to win every title. But, yeah, bringing it back, I mean, again, there's a whole conversation that maybe we can do after hours on a premium subscription of the last time the men's team in Minnesota has won a title was 91 with the Twins. And I think there's a lot of, like, I think the Minnesota sports conversation on the men's side, you can really tie into a concept of virginity. But we won't do that today.
But if the Timberwolves won a title, I think you take over the city. Like, I think whoever wins, I know it's always going to be football. It's a hockey state and football is king. But whatever men's team.
wins the title is going to capture the city and the state and if you have durant doing that kind of in the twilight of his career and getting at that first taste at like the finals and championship i don't think i mean his narrative and his whole thing could be he could be remembered it's not a perfect comment he could be remembered as a minnesota timberwolves basketball player by like generations of younger players kind of like kgs remember as a celtic more than he's remembered as a timberwolves sometimes because he won a title so i don't think that's going anywhere but i really do think if the wolves it's not if they want him they want him it's can they out duel other contenders that want to get in the mix because they don't have as many assets but they might have the preferred destination for during well and the assets thing let's jump let's just jump into this and there's plenty of time in the next month to do deeper dives like we can do a full episode on like here's five different ways they can make this happen and going back to the trade deadline i think he was a lot more valuable in february because he had a year and a half left on his contract and ostensibly you would have been trading for two playoff runs with kevin durant ages 36 and 37 well he only has one year left on his contract and he is turning 37 years old this summer or i think like early fall late summer sometime in there and he has 54.7 million dollars on that deal which makes him harder to acquire and that you have to piece together a couple of good players just to like make the salary matching work within 25 percent of you can you can um it's 125 like it doesn't be one for one so there's a little bit of leeway but here's the motivation on the sun side they're not anywhere close to a championship team they are 11 and a half million dollars over the second apron entering this summer so like the wolves were second apron team this last year but with the cap going up and with like nakil coming off the books even with julius randall and naz reed in fact i'll pull up the spreadsheet all right so hopefully you guys can see this okay on your youtube screens for the audio audience will explain this so on the left hand side you see the current players under contract for the wolves there's 13 of them not counting nakil alexander walker and you see the player option for julius randall at 30.9 and then naz reed at 50 million dollars so as currently constructed without any other changes other than goodbye nakil alexander walker the wolves are well above the salary cap which almost every team in the nba is this summer but they are three million dollars below the first apron and they are 15 million dollars ish below the second apron somewhere like 14 15 million dollars i might be missing a bonus or two in here but it's pretty darn close so you could bring back julius randall and naz reed and those guys might those guys might look at the market and say all right uh the nets are the only team with significant cap space and so we'd rather look ahead bet on ourselves to next summer when a bunch of teams are projected to have cap space like naz reed could bet on himself and say i'll take the 15 million this year as opposed to signing uh what i think he's eligible for a four-year 87 million dollar contract if he resigns with the wolves between now and the expiration of his current contract he could also choose to back channel with the nets and say yeah they're gonna give you a bag and we'll just kind of figure it out because i'm gonna play 35 minutes to make a bunch of money with the nets but the wolves right now would also have access to the non-taxpayer mid-level exception which is 14.1 million dollars and they've got the 17th overall pick so if it's tweaking versus potentially door number two a massive magnitude move like a kevin durant or somebody else they could justify goodbye nakil or even like bring nakil back for part of the non-taxpayer mid-level exception draft a player 17th and just hope that anthony edwards takes a step with his mid-range game and go forward that way they could also cobble together a couple of these assets send them over to phoenix or somewhere else this you brought up carl anthony towns there's been some steam for years that towns and booker would love to play together as friends that go way back to college could the knicks get swirly is it a yannis trade that involves cat going here yannis going to the knicks something going to the bucks cat going to the suns i've seen iterations that involve go bear going to either the knicks or the lakers uh but this just kind of gives you a snapshot the wolves have so much more flexibility to either cobble together contracts for one bigger contract or to make a couple minor tweaks and just bank on the 17th overall pick being something of substance uh and using the mid-level exception for another big or for like a tyus jones to replace mike on the starting line one of the best words you said there was cobble um because again i think there's gonna be a lot of moving pieces you've heard shams say publicly that he thinks this is gonna be one of the most active trade markets ever because again this isn't as you have to kind of refresh people's minds whether you're kind of a casual or just catching up to how this new cba works this is not the days where you know eight teams have cleared up max cap space and they recruit you in and get all the little cool tweets of like oh they're at they're at nobu or you know like they're at fema's getting getting spaghetti that's not anymore it's all about trades and i think going back to the cobble idea i think that's why and we're gonna put this to bed today um if you don't think the wolves won the crown state town straight that's fine but they didn't lose it and the reason they didn't lose it is because having pieces that you can cobble together i mean don't even chenzo who struggled i think in the playoffs that's fair it's still a really good contract that you can add to certain things like you want to add to a 45 million dollar contract you want to add to a 12 million dollar contract and you have that pick that's a really good pick it's a super deep draft so if you're just saying like if the knicks called phoenix and said we want to ram here's towns i don't think phoenix would be as interested in in that even yes that cat and booker played together on like the 14 15 wildcats i think more like a would you want julius randall who's a piece don't even chenzo that's a piece and a pick i mean the mix gave up a lot of picks to build that roster that they built right now they're kind of running out of pick so i think it's going to be a fascinating fascinating situation i also think you need to acknowledge that they might look almost the same next year i know that's probably the least sexy thing but i think internally tim connelly has always been a guy going back to denver that likes to keep this guy uh and you know he embraces culture and continuity having good people in the building well once you get those you don't want to let them go so is there a world where i see naz nakil and julius all back next year yeah i think that's a you know a slim chance but maybe that's because rudy gets traded out or something who i think rudy has far more just value than people think because of how bad he was in the playoffs or awkward or whatever but there's gonna be a lot of teams i mean one of the things that was on your little spreadsheet there is the free agent centers are terrible like you even joked about like oh you know jackson hayes we all saw jackson hayes and if you don't like rudy gobert and that's fine but he is a light year better than jackson hayes like clincapella over the hill steven adams was really good brooke lopez whatever so i think tim connelly is going to look to make another seismic move this this summer because they want to keep this thing going in the right direction they want to keep the momentum but he just has always done that he's been here for what three years four years and he's made two of the biggest trades in nba history let alone like timbrel's history so i circle back to all the cool colors you have and i love someone who knows how to use excel like you but durant i really do think the durant stuff has real momentum and real steam and you're not gonna have to wait too long because if a durant trade happens you're probably gonna see it either leading up to the draft or right around the time of the draft so i want to come back to your uh your center slander here in just a moment here the the clint capella steven adams slander but i'll come back to that in a second here i think the biggest headline for me on the durant discussion is that if you add up all the factors 37 years old expensive one year left on deals so he's a rental uh the sons want out of the second apron and so they have to shed at least 11 and a half million dollars to get out from the second apron all of those factors together equal to me that he shouldn't cost an arm and a leg this isn't like a few years ago where it might cost you three or four future first round picks which the bulls don't even have access to necessarily uh and the second headline is just more a personal line in the sand and i told this to judd the other day i would not put jade mcdaniel's on the table for anyone except yannis and if you're gonna compete with the treasure trove of draft picks that some of these other teams might have to offer the bucks for yannis in the absence of that you have to offer them a really good young piece that's not a really team-friendly contract for four more years uh and maybe you can fight me on that but like if yannis is the discussion and it's like the 17th pick some pick swaps uh whatever like a 2030 first round pick it's rob dillingham like whatever young assets yeah exactly uh then okay like jade mcdaniel's has to be the centerpiece of that but you're getting yannis to put next to anthony edwards and maybe you keep nas reed here and shan jr uh but to me like the minute that the mcson's say jay that i'm hanging out before you get to the mcdaniel's part of that conversation and i said that back at the trade deadline when you could have traded for two stretch runs of kevin durant so those are my two main things i don't think it's going to cost a lot to get durant except for like big contracts going out and jay mcdaniel's is a non-starter yeah i mean on my end right message wrong messenger i'm not sure i'm not even talking about this because i am biased um but unless it's like yannis i mean no player actually in my mind is untouchable right i mean we even saw that with like the donchich stuff who he was traded for but also like when if it's true that they called him like hey would you do donchich for him would you do donchich for yannis so i don't think jane is untouchable but i also think that if you look at jayden and you're like oh you can't you can't be a number two or number three on a championship team because he had 12 and 5 you just don't know basketball and just i don't know not really here to argue anymore like that he was one of the best defenders all season he was maybe one of the top three or four defenders in the playoffs he ended up shooting from the corner by the way like 38.9 which is league average so despite how bad it looked in game five like he was at least respectable league average in the playoffs from the corners like that was his only bugaboo so i look at i look at the jayden stuff phil is if you're trying to replicate what okc did but maybe building it in a different way because you don't have all the picks you know you have your mdp candidate in ant do you have a number two that's where i'd even concede like i don't know i don't know if jayden is like the simon bill simon's second best player on a championship team i don't think he is but is jay mcdaniel's like chet 6-10 blocks a bunch of shots you know increasing offensive game good friends with the best player on the team like yeah so if you have your one and you have your three it is really difficult to find that too and they won't find a j-dub unless like terran shannon jr explodes in front of us or they figure out this randall thing or you go get a kevin durant but this is why again a week later i think they're closer than a lot of people think it doesn't mean there's not a seismic trade or two coming but you have it is so hard to find that best player on a championship team it is so hard look around the league how many teams like we don't have that or we did and that player's aging out the wolves have that they might have their third banana but what you're showing here is like can you go get that second star that second banana and i'm with you i don't know if that player is either on the roster yet and they might have to be traded for yeah and on the like the durant front like is he the second guy uh 37 is really borderline for that he's not the same impactful player certainly on the defensive end that he was eight years ago but i just want to highlight offensively he was seven in the nba in scoring average kevin durant just under 27 points a game on high efficiency so among all the players that scored at least 20 points per game kd was still fourth in effective field goal percentage so it's not like he's just you know mj with the wizards kobe at the end shooting 37 just trying to pour in 25 points for the for the ticket buyers he was fourth in effective field goal percentage among all players who average 20 or more points a game and he scored 30 or more points in a third of his games last year defensively it's not great and i want to give you just one idea here from our guy tim garrison from canis hupus uh the site that used meds for a number of years so he dude tim's a tim is a trade machine psycho in the best way he is he came up with a 14 trade a couple days ago and he threw this out on twitter and i'll spare you all the details but i'm wondering would you consider something like this and or would this be something the sons would consider so the wolves would get kevin durant from phoenix and as just kind of like a body and also a salary filler maxi kleba he's a six foot 10 you can play him for 12 15 minutes you know he was with dallas in la so you basically get kevin durant and cleva you can wave him if you wanted to the wolves would give up julius randall who goes to miami there's been some miami buzz okay um rudy gobert to the lakers because they need a rim protector and maybe someone that can catch lobs from luca in that bunker spot i don't think he's got the same reliable hands like eric lively or even a gafford but gobert to the lakers and then josh minot and the 17th overall pick would go out to different places so again it'd be julius randall maybe it's a sign and trade yeah it's an opt-in and a one-year trade you have to figure that out rudy gobert josh minot and i'll even flip the tab i put this into the old spreadsheet of glory here so you guys can see it this is what it would look like all right and the wolves would give up so randall gobert josh minot and the 17th overall pick so the wolves would look like essentially they have a they have 190 ish million dollars tied up in salary cap obligations which is still five million dollars below the first apron and 18 million dollars below the second apron so you would have enough if you wanted to you could use your mid-level exception to go get one of these centers for instance that kyle was slandering you could go get a clint capella or a steven adams or hell you know brooke lopez is still really good at age 37 for like one year to plug the size gap that's left by saying goodbye to rudy gobert and julius randall now durant is big but he's a perimeter big he's not you know he's not gonna be in there as a big body playing physical so the wolves would essentially look like this would be kevin durant and nas reed and jade mcdaniels as your as your bigs and your wings anthony upwards and either conley again or this is where dillingham would have to step in um could you could you use your mid-level exception to go get a tyus jones who made two and a half three million dollars with the suns last year and then off the bench you'd have dvincenzo jalen clark terrence shannon jr dillingham or conley depending on what you do with your starter and then leonard miller would still be around maybe he takes a step forward in the rotation uh maxi cleba and like i said i still think you could is steven adams at age 31 uh the player that rudy gobert has been no but like if you need a six foot 11 seven foot large human for certain matchups you're probably gonna need someone like that and you go from a top five defense where defense is the root of your success and you get your offense however you can with a starting lineup of kd nas reed jaden ants and then let's say dillingham or conley or tyus you'd be looking to score 117 points a night and hopefully your defense can hold up uh however you can make it work coverage wise yeah i think highlighting the middle of the second part and some of the centers you could bring in that's like really really smart so kudos to you because the starting five that you just mentioned uh while you were monologuing there gave up a 10-0 run i love something i know that's not what you're doing but it's like yeah rob and now the five and it's like i don't know did you guys watch we're just we're just iterating here we're just iterating but if you throw steven kd and steven adams and antenna and a point guard and naz comes back off the bench probably making less than 30 million uh i think that's that's a really good team i think the center part of that is the big one um and i again i just bring it all the way back to i think these are real conversations they're having on the durant stuff you know we're two years removed from him being second team all nba i think he was ninth in mbp voting his first year with the suns he played 75 games he did play 62 games last year for the suns for a team that finished 10 games below 500 and i'm just saying that stuff again because that's what you do in these meetings of like let's all play devil's advocate you know that's the same thing with tyus it's like i get the tyus is sexy because he's from here and it seems like he might be cheap he got benched on a team that didn't make the playoffs like he might just not be great and i don't know if you can get too far away from the defensive minded approach of this team and maybe you can still find ways to be defensively and not have real bear on the team but i wouldn't want to lean too much in the offense because i don't think those teams i mean there's a lot of factors why the wolves got curbs not but the thunder were just awesome defensively now the pacers on the other end of it like the east is a little different there's not many good defensive teams but you do need to play really good defense you need to kind of be that top 10 in both sides of net rating to uh to make the finals and i just i don't want to give up too much but yeah i mean glass half full glass empty on what you think of durant i think it could go really well and i think now that as we pivot to june in the offseason like this team should have expectations that make everyone including myself uncomfortable but i could also see acquiring kevin durant being you know the meme where the guy set up the little domino and then it goes to the big dominoes i could see that being the little dominoes the big dominoes like Anthony Edwards demands a trade three years from now because Kevin Durant has other stuff that you need to bring up in these conversations like everywhere he goes he's unhappy everywhere and he's gonna be happy being here you know or is that gonna everywhere he goes gets coach fired he gets upset whatever that is also a part of all this but maybe the Wolves say we have the culture to make it work and Phoenix didn't which is clear Brooklyn didn't um it's so interesting it's gonna be such a fun fun interesting summer yeah the other the other one and we can we can do this later this month like officially laid out but the other name that's kind of floating around the trade machine verse for the Timberwolves is because like they need it would be great to have another reliable ball centric as needed uh unlocker of offense in an offense like Darius Garland is the name that gets fluttered and again what's the motivation you can't just be fantasy basketball what's the motivation on the other side right you can't just go plucking awesome players from teams well the Cavs have had one of the best regular season teams in the NBA for the last like three years they can't get to these conference fouls and so there's some questions about Donovan Mitchell Darius Garland backcourt are they just good over the volume of an 82 game regular season uh and they're not meant to even get through to the third round in a week eastern conference playoff bracket i think there's also some questions about whether Evan Mobley and Jared Allen are meant to be together on a team that aspires to win a championship team so not to mention the Cavs i believe are five million dollars into the second apron so they're looking to shed a big salary or at least come down five or ten million dollars maybe that's a situation you could take advantage of and then in that case now i think you're giving up a hell of a lot more to get Darius Garland than you would to be getting Kevin Durant just because age uh contract value um just health reliability all those things but if you put Darius Garland next to Anthony Edwards and maybe the cost from a salary perspective is somehow shipping out Julius Randle i'm not saying he goes to the Cavs but like you get a third or four team in and then as Reed steps into a starting role jayden McDaniels picks up more of an offensive role like he did for six or seven weeks when Julius Randle was out and they were highlighting more there's like i'm sure tim kindly has 15 different iterations of all these like on his white board in his office but that's another idea that people have floated that i'm super interested in watching the next six weeks and as we just did with the Garland stuff that's actually pretty intriguing again i think you need to ask yourself when you make these trades like why would Cleveland do that like if i'm Cleveland it's a non-starter unless you throw jayden McDaniels in there but then what we just said is like are you going to do jayden McDaniels and stuff for Darius Garland and i think that starts to question not if you know ball but how you approach ball like i don't know man i just think when it comes to playoff time the jayden McDaniels of the world are far more valuable than the Darius Garland and Darius Garland for the first time in his career played over 70 games there's a weird COVID year in there but like he doesn't injury stuff he wasn't all-star he's now a two-time all-star but i just don't need to solve the point guard thing because like in my mind there's no way they start next season with Mike Stark it would either be given to Rob or they've acquired someone who like i don't think this is attainable but if Boston has like a fire sale the guy that i want because yes Giannis is the sexiest but that's so expensive if you put Derek White alongside Anthony Edwards and then you still had a way to have jayden McDaniels as your as the three that's probably the it's not probably that is the best trio of defenders in the league and yes i'm aware of what okc has uh that would be an incredible match but you know how do you pry that off of them so uh yeah if you're looking for Boston motivation because you're right like why would the Cavs do this why would why would the I mean why would the first time in 10 plus years i'm out which this would be the best window to do it because a little injury but on the Celtics side they're looking to get out of the second apron because they're facing the repeater tax and all the restrictions that go into it and their best player is out probably for the entire 2025-26 season so why would you stay in the luxury tax the second apron luxury tax when you're not going to championship could be a great little reset year for them and they're 20 million dollars over the second apron and Derek White's contract could get them underneath that now you have to figure out like okay what's going to Boston for sure the 17th pick probably one of your good young players that doesn't make a lot of money but yeah i'm with you like put Derek White if Boston's gonna if they're gonna fire off one of their highly paid players i call this a hot take i'd rather have Derek White than Jalen Brown next Anthony Edwards i want the ball handler yeah well and i love Jalen Brown but you gotta go look at that contract that that one is that one's teetering on like Jalen Brown is awesome and also like can you build and that's a real question as i think three months now any level of NBA fan is gonna have a much better myself included yourself included you have a much better idea of what the CBA how it works i think the wolves got out in front of last year by making the town's trade and breaking up one big contract into a couple others but there's a real question coming down the road like can you build this is what dallas tried to sell their fans like can you build a championship roster with a guy that's making i mean shay dillis Alexander is now eligible for i think it's like 75 million dollar a year extension like we're a couple burps away from players making or averaging one million dollars per game in the NBA there will be an 82 million dollar guaranteed per year contract and that's gonna be crazy so it's gonna be really fun i think again i mean tim connelly did his press conference today and he didn't say the c-word phil but he had this quote that said we view the ability to be a final 14 as a real punching chance to win it all yeah and that's just not what that that is new wording from them phrasing that is not something that they had brought up in the past obviously we're trying to build a contender but now they're talking about the final four is not good enough for us we need to find a way to get from 8.5 to 10 that might be the hardest part to get right like it's hard to get from the garbage can to 8.5 but to get to 10 you really have to strike on all your moves and maybe that's what tim connelly will do this summer hey speaking of summer i got i got one more thing before you bring in uh for the best game ever i don't know if you saw something but this is june the three-year anniversary of us starting this show together uh and i just wanted to say quickly because we talked with this a little bit offline but uh this is gonna be it for me on playground house for a little bit i'm taking a little time i'm gonna figure some stuff out this summer i don't really know how i want to cover the timberwolves now they're like in the golden age um but i just want to give you a quick shout out because three years ago in 2022 we met uh like every other couple of us now online and you reached out and we started the show with your dms you did literally my dms and uh it's been awesome man i know you have the youtube channel now and it's like a specific thing the show's going a couple times a week but i just want to say thank you to everyone because it's uh this is my first standalone project and you have been people that have film acting in the last two hours a week or day don't know all the other stuff behind the scenes like you actually run a business and there's a lot of meetings you're in that probably suck like every other person has to say more power points so uh i just yeah again it's been awesome being you're one of my kind of closest friends and i think i'm going out amicable and i'm sure we'll try to bring this back we still owe everyone listening to this a top 100 update which i think is the only appropriate way to do that is that like the state fair um and maybe next year i'll be back but i'm gonna take a little time off uh re-revaluate this year by year how i want to do it so thank you to everyone that's listening to this because i think this podcast is as important as any timberwolves podcast and it's provided a lot of good fun laughs and memories and maybe some heated discussions so thanks to all the listeners and thanks to you and to ross and aj and judd and dex uh you guys are you guys are awesome well you go do your banana boat summer vacation thing and uh and there's as much or as little space on this podcast for kyle teige as as you can i know you have you have an a job you're doing stuff for dane more you have a lot of irons in the fire too that people don't see um they just see your uh you just kind of fly in with your postgame tweets and your takes on flyer and howls but yeah go uh go rest up over the summer here and hopefully we can still find some space to talk some timberwolves going forward and maybe when i come back uh we'll be talking about new jerseys i just feel a little nugget about those i have a small handful of teams are getting the old school throwbacks next year and when the ownership stuff happens and a lot of people are like oh what about the rebrand rebrand like that's one of the topics that's on their agenda but i also just want to stress again living out here this sounds corny like being as connected to them tonight because it's right there uh those jerseys take a while like the stuff that you talk about rebranding jerseys and all that stuff takes a while but i i have seen like these new i think the wolves are one of the five teams like a city edition jersey for next year and i don't think people are going to be disappointed and i think this also brings in a new era again of like when mark and alex get in you're going to start hearing names that you are familiar with right like kevin garnett um that would be a good time to bring him back in if you get you know a black a black jersey with trees you know get the trees back so a lot of exciting things coming down the pipe both for the roster for the organization also i think for the fan base love it dude well let's bring him in here uh producer screener ross is in a very important high level meeting right now so noted hockey guy from judd's hockey show there he is and he does a million things behind the scenes here at score north he is aj frederickson today's keeper of the random wolf of the week what's up aj i'm not barging on like anything i'm like that was a very heartfelt moment between you two that you just shared and it feels like you kind of just look over and i'm just standing there in the corner like yes sorry no that's kind of the nature of this podcast where one minute emotions are pouring and the next minute it's like uh okay dante cunningham is the random wolf of the week so i think i should do cry on the podcast what a loser we told aj2 by the way a good clock management by us we said about a half hour ago he was going to jump in here but you know once you start spinning kevin durant and daria starlin trade ideas and you pop up the spreadsheet of glory i don't know how you're supposed to stop that momentum so that's the difference between phil and i like phil if i said hey i need you at this time 30 minutes later he's in 17 different meetings on 17 phone calls i got nothing going on i'm free i'm free it's all right so you've got the clues here and on the season it looks like the left kyle's kyle's got seven wins i've got 11 on the season all-time kyle has 29 wins to my 23 so kyle's gonna go on hiatus like commanding career lead but i will have a commanding season two lead on him he's gonna have to sleep on that every night until he makes the comeback dean garrett malik beasley jake layman who uh craig kilbourne got that one correct wayne ellenton and joe ingles are the last handful of random wolves aj is gonna throw out some clues here and we each get a heat chat guess after the first one that doesn't count after that we get up to three incorrect guesses if someone hits the third strike the other one wins automatically are you guys ready i'm all set okay aj the floor is yours i want to preface this because i know ross typically does this he gave me a script so to speak i'm reading it like verbatim what he gave me so this is not from my mind maybe i'll throw the occasional curveball of just like my own flavor but this is as if ross is reading them to you all right all right okay so this is gonna be a journey okay yes uh number one this random wolf of the week is currently 38 years old okay heat check i love i just i just love that ross is like yeah i'm not gonna be there today but i'm gonna micromanage it no one has gotten a bigger head from all this in here random wolf of the week has become the most popular segment on podcasting and he's just like hey you're gonna say exactly what i think uh 38 years old yeah uh okay so it can't be kevin durant yet uh that'll be next time we play this game uh i got nothing for a heat check right now mike conley oh we're gonna buzzer now wow okay so no no i got nothing i got no heat check i'm just trying to win this one this random wolf of the week is six feet six inches tall hmm okay all right it's like specific he's given us the he's given us the era and essentially the position kind of all in one here this random wolf of the week played college ball in the big east this random wolf of the week only played for two different nba teams wow okay hold on so just quick 30 seconds let's review um that's okay so he played for two teams and one of them was minnesota that's insane i don't have a guess phil if you want to lob it up to you here so he's so he's like that would mean he's either a very notorious player from another team or notorious in air quotes uh and then like twilighted with the wolves or vice versa yeah i got nothing okay uh this random wolf of the week averaged just 2.9 points per game in his nba career yeah there we go that doesn't help i knew this guy wasn't wasn't hooping yeah i know the last time i killed him for ross i think i had joe ingles and i spent like a 15 minutes prior joining watching mixtapes piggybacking off that last week on those those like utah jazz eight years ago joe ingles mixtapes i will say picking backing off the 2.9 points i tried to do the same thing for this guy i couldn't find a single video youtube that's oh man okay anyways uh this wolf of the week story career high 16 points on march 2nd of 2011 against the detroit pistons this random wolf of the week played in just 72 career nba games oh my gosh this random wolf of the week his career nba earnings were just eclipsing the three million dollar mark okay is it this is ruthless yeah this is nasty phil at least you're you're on the same page right now who this player like is not especially anyone you can remember i'm so he's he's not on the top 100 wolves list we're gonna redo in august uh this might not get the top 100 former big east players who played for the wolves list i don't i think 38 i'm wrong here but keelan martin uh no okay so that's the first play professionally in 2017 oh okay so that's like you said professionally so i mean he could have been turkey for all we know based on that clue hmm this random wolf of the week was drafted by david khan oh my god everyone everyone freeze okay okay oh well but david khan i'm just thinking out loud here that's it that's a tricky clue because david khan spun off a lot of like late first second round picks so he could have well let me think about how much that guy sucked like just a quick interview like oh my god once a month every day so he was drafted by khan oh man he like didn't really play so yeah so you're right like he probably was some weird second round guy i'm really bad players but even like johnny flynn averaged more than he's shorter than six foot six obviously um played in more than 72 games okay well we'll keep the initials clue what does it rhyme with to stick with kind of the most recent playoff matchup for the wolves this player believe it or not played for both the wolves and okc for his two uh nba teams oh oh my gosh this random wolf of the week was uh college teammates with jimmy butler oh yeah yeah nice job oh that's kyle's first win since the often guest wayne ellington like two months ago i thought i was his eighth victory on the season and his 30th career victory all time in the random wolf of the week walking through what was the what was the light bulb moment there was it jay butler like you know marquette what was it i did the marquette clue i know the other things matter to me i even in a moment i'm gonna be honest i forgot that marquette was in the biggies because confidence alignment is stupid uh i just remember i was thinking about this is so weird this is like inception i was thinking about was our hayward this weekend i don't think he was left-handed but i think i remember that he was left-handed but i remember talking to a buddy i was like what if what if tj is just like a suit of lazar hayward because i you know there's a period of time phil where you bring these second round guys like yeah here we go we found a jim lazar hayward on a bad team and like he couldn't even get minutes on a terrible team so yeah he was good at marquette he was a nice compliment to uh jimmy butler but i did not know that he fizzled out that fast i kind of thought he bounced around what's funny is because this is where i thought they drafted him so i was i would not have keyed into this but that draft was wild the wolves had three first round picks i think they still had picks left over from like the kg trade or something yeah and so he was actually drafted by washington and then it was a draft night trade but before that the wolves drafted three players in that first round west johnson luke babbitt from nevada and that was part of the trade i don't remember the mechanics of it and then trevor booker from clemson with the 23rd pick and again these were like all routed to different places but it's a very active and unsuccessful night for david con see and i i don't know how i want to ask ross about this before he got his meeting i didn't get the chance because i know it's nba you have like you make a trade after somebody technically is drafted. No, they wear the hat. It's so stupid. So did Khan technically draft him?
So I don't know if that clue a couple back like technically was wrong or not. Yeah, I'm going to play this game under protest, actually, because I feel like one of the clues was factually incorrect. So he was part of a three-team trade. This is February of 2010.
Yeah, he was traded to Houston with James Harden. The rights to his pick were traded on the 10th. So it's like they're tracking the pick that he was, and it was a trade involving Zydrunas Elgauskas, Sebastian Telfair, Al Thornton, Anton Jamieson, Drew Gooden. So there's a bunch of random dudes.
And then on draft night, he was traded by the Wizards with Nemanja Bialica to the Timberwolves for Trevor Booker and then Hamadi Nijai, I guess. And so did the Wolves have Bialica's rights for all those years and then he came over? I just want to say, man, as you guys go back and forth around Wikipedia, Judd is one of my favorite people. But this is just a reminder of why you celebrate making the Western Conference Finals, because you guys just listed a bunch of really bad basketball players.
And I bought some of those jerseys, because I was like, let's all right, here we go. I think I want to feel like I want to close with this quick, because I think AJ being here is good too, and as I step back from the show for a little bit, we talk about sports media a little bit. And June now is a different month, but May was Mental Health Awareness Month. And we lost, I don't know, we lost John Brankis, who did sports science.
Yeah, he's a science guy. And his family was, I think, transparent enough to say that he lost his battle with depression. And again, this is just, this is how I want to go out on the show, at least for a while, is that keep talking to people, man. Like, Mental Health Awareness Month is May, but it should be 365.
If you're going through stuff, reach out. If you're not going through stuff right now, reach out, check in on people that you love. It's a tough world right now. It's always tough to get older.
And just check in on your friends and your loved ones, because that one, he's only in his 50s, and my dad's way older than that. And just to see someone who had so much joy, always remember Kevin Love boxing out a sumo wrestler. That's right. TV used to be so much better.
But that was one of the coolest shows. John Brankis was a really good guy who was open about his mental health struggles, and it ended up kind of getting him. So yeah, if you're listening to this, just know that you are loved by many. The show loves you, this community loves you.
And I'm excited to see what the guys have planned on the new YouTube channel this summer. Yeah, well said, Kyle. Enjoy your summer hiatus here. And I'm sure we'll steal you even for like five seconds when they trade for Kevin.
Won't be able to resist. But AJ filling in for Rob, AJ for the Random Wolf of the Week. For Kyle, I'm Phil, and this is a Timberwolves lifestyle podcast.