Timberwolves sign Batum to offer sheet

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Jul 152012
 

MINNEAPOLIS Just hours after Martell Webster cleared waivers at 4 p.m. on Sunday, the Minnesota Timberwolves signed restricted free agent Nicolas Batum to an offer sheet.

The Timberwolves would not confirm the terms of the offer sheet, but multiple reports have cited it as a four-year, 46.5 million deal. The Portland Trail Blazers received the signed offer sheet on Sunday evening, and they have until 10:59 p.m. CT on Wednesday to match Minnesota’s offer, thereby claiming Batum.

Although the Timberwolves were prepared to present the offer sheet on Friday after they’d cleared sufficient salary cap space by waiving Darko Milicic and Martell Webster and trading Brad Miller, the team was forced to wait 48 hours until Webster cleared waivers. In that 48 hours, the team hoped to continue exploring options for a sign-and-trade deal to acquire Batum, Timberwolves president of basketball operations David Kahn said on Friday. The signed offer sheet proves that those negotiations failed.

The Timberwolves have been pursing the small forward for more than a week, and from the onset, Portland was clear that it would match any offer the team presented to Batum. Despite that, Kahn said Friday that the team feels that it has an obligation to Batum and therefore would present the offer sheet regardless.

The Trail Blazers would not comment on the offer sheet, other than that they’d received it, and they will continue to reserve comment until they reach a final decision. That process could stretch as long as Wednesday even if Portland has already made up its mind to keep Batum, as all previous reports indicate.

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Hornets Gain More Assets: Brad Miller Sent to New Orleans from Timberwolves

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Jul 132012
 

The New Orleans Hornets have received big man, Brad Miller, cash and two second-round picks from the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for a conditional second-round pick in 2017.

After 16 years in the league, Miller has averaged 8.4 points and 3.2 rebounds.

Following the release of Darko Milicic, Minnesota is trying to clear up cap space in an attempt to complete an offer sheet with free agent Nicolas Batum.

As for the Hornets, this is a great move and a smart one as well.

Brad Miller is not expected to play this upcoming season, after verbally stating that his career has come to a close. For the small price the Hornets must pay by taking in Miller’s minimum salary (under $1 million dollars), they are receiving the Brooklyn Nets’ 2013 and the Timberwolves’ 2016 selection in future drafts.

While they might not be as enticing as first-round picks, New Orleans is building up their assets, and in turn giving themselves more to work with as they rebuild in a new era. They are doing everything they can to secure a brighter future, and this is yet another subtle step in achieving that goal.

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Batum will get Wolves’ offer Sunday

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Jul 132012
 

MINNEAPOLIS On Friday evening, the Minnesota Timberwolves completed what appeared to be the final step in clearing enough salary cap space to sign restricted free-agent small forward Nicolas Batum to an offer sheet. However, a league technicality will impede them from doing so until 5 p.m. ET Sunday.

After releasing small forward Martell Webster and trading center Brad Miller to New Orleans, the team cleared about 10.2 million in salary cap space, in addition to the 5.2 million it cleared when it waived Darko Milicic on Thursday. That’s sufficient space to sign Batum to an offer sheet, the terms of which were not readily available.

Batum has played for the Trail Blazers since entering the league in 2008, and the team can match any offer sheet presented to the small forward. At this point, Timberwolves president of basketball operations David Kahn said in a conference call Friday that both Batum and the Trail Blazers know the terms of the offer sheet that’s prepared for Sunday. However, Trail Blazers general manager Neil Olshey has said repeatedly the team will match the Timberwolves’ offer and that it won’t let talent “walk out the door.” Portland will have three days to match the offer after it becomes official.

Throughout the week, the two teams attempted to work out a sign-and-trade deal that would have brought Batum to Minnesota and avoided a situation in which the Trail Blazers would simply match the Timberwolves’ offer and end the negotiations. Such a deal would have been the most assured way to bring Batum to the Timberwolves, but as of Friday evening, no deal had been reached.

“I know that Nicolas and the Timberwolves would prefer this culminating in a sign-and-trade, but restricted free agency is what it is, and it’s certainly the Portland Trail Blazers’ prerogative to match whatever offer sheet we tender or for that matter not engage in a trade,” Kahn said.

With the trade negotiations in a deadlock, the Timberwolves elected to clear the necessary salary cap space to present Batum with his offer, no matter that it would seem to be just a formality in light of Olshey’s statements. The 15.4 million in cap space the Timberwolves have gained would have been enough to immediately sign Batum on Friday, but a league rule mandates that Batum not sign the offer sheet until Webster clears waivers.

In the 48 hours between Webster’s release and when he clears waivers, the Timberwolves will continue to attempt to hammer out a sign-and-trade deal with the Trail Blazers, which seems like a stretch at this point. If it comes to a matter of signing Batum, the Timberwolves will likely lose out, but they plan to make the offer regardless. They told Batum of their preference to acquire him in a sign-and-trade deal, but they also made it clear that they were willing to present him with an offer sheet. Kahn does not want to go back on his word, no matter the consequences delaying the team’s pursuit for other free agents.

“I think when you make a commitment to a player, you follow through on the commitment,” Kahn said.

The Timberwolves’ interest in Batum was first reported during the 10-day moratorium period on signing free agents, and the small forward fits the team’s need for a dynamic wing player. With four years of experience in the league, Batum is something of a veteran, but like Chase Budinger, whom the Timberwolves acquired from Houston on June 26, he has the potential to grow alongside Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio, Kahn said. In his four years with Portland, Batum averaged 10.2 points and 3.9 rebounds per game. In 2011-12, he posted the best numbers of his career, averaging 13.9 points and 4.6 rebounds.

In the past week, the negotiations for Batum have become increasingly contentious. His agent, Bouna Ndiaye, first spoke out on July 5 about his client’s desire to leave Portland and play in Minnesota. Since then, the Trail Blazers have remained adamant that they will match any offer given the small forward.

Ndiaye told CSNNW.com that Batum feels that he’d fit better into Rick Adelman’s system in Minnesota than Portland’s more rigid offense. Then, on Tuesday, Batum spoke out as well about his desire to leave Portland.

“My first choice was, and is, Minnesota,” Batum told NBA.com. “That’s where I want to play, and that’s where I want to put my family. I’ve got nothing against the fans (in Portland) and nothing against the city. But this is a basketball decision, and basketball wise, I want to be there (Minnesota.).”

Since Batum’s comments, Olshey has said that he doesn’t believe that the Timberwolves have enough to give up in exchange for Batum. Olshey also took several swipes at Batum’s desire to play in Minnesota, associating the state with mosquito bites and frostbite.

So now, the Timberwolves will wait. All parties know the terms of the offer sheet that will bear Batum’s signature on Sunday evening, and even what comes next seems easy to predict at this point. Between now and then, the Timberwolves can simply hope for a miracle.

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Wolves cut Webster, trade Miller to Hornets

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Jul 132012
 

MINNEAPOLIS On Friday afternoon, the Minnesota Timberwolves waived small forward Martell Webster and traded veteran center Brad Miller to New Orleans.

Webster would have been owed 5.7 million next season, but only 600,000 of that sum is guaranteed. Miller, who announced his intention to retire at the end of last season but has not formally done so, is owed 5.1 million next season, with only 848,000 guaranteed.

Miller, 36, will likely still retire; the team had extended the decision on his buyout in hopes of packaging him in a deal like this one to clear salary cap space. By trading Miller, the 848,000 in guaranteed money will no longer count toward the Timberwolves’ salary cap, as it would have had they simply released him. Included with Miller in the trade to New Orleans are two future second-round draft picks: Brooklyn’s in 2013 and Minnesota’s in 2016. The Timberwolves will receive a future conditional second-round pick.

With Friday’s roster moves, the Timberwolves cleared an additional 10.2 million in salary cap space, in addition to the 5.2 million they cleared Thursday when they waived center Darko Milicic.

The team is hoping to create space in order to acquire Nicolas Batum, a restricted free-agent small forward who played his first four seasons with Portland. Minnesota has been negotiating with the Trail Blazers for days, and it had hoped to work out a sign-and-trade deal or sign Batum to an offer sheet by Thursday night. However, that self-imposed deadline passed without a conclusion.

The Timberwolves’ best hope of acquiring Batum is through a sign-and-trade because the Trail Blazers have made it known that they’ll match any offer sheet Batum signs, thus claiming him.

In two years in Minnesota, Webster started 27 of the 93 games in which he played, averaging 8.4 points and 3.4 rebounds. Despite starting 26 games in 2011-12, his numbers dipped, and he averaged just 6.9 points. He also battled back problems throughout his time in Minnesota.

“We want to thank Martell for his two years with us,” said Timberwolves president of basketball operations David Kahn said in a release. “Unfortunately, Martell’s back condition caused him to miss significant time both seasons and prevented him from playing at a consistently high level. I have spoken to Martell on numerous occasions and watched him work out last month. We are both optimistic he will have a terrific season next year.”

Webster has been in the league since 2005-06. He was the sixth overall pick in the 2005 draft out of Seattle Preparatory School and played the first four seasons of his career with the Trail Blazers.

Miller, in his one season with the Timberwolves, had more of an impact in the locker room than on the court. Reunited with coach Rick Adelman, the two-time All-Star played in just 15 games, averaging 2.3 points.

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Wolves doing the math to make moves work

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Jul 112012
 

MINNEAPOLIS Late Tuesday evening, the announcement was in. The NBA set its salary cap at 58.044 million, the same as last season.

The news was as expected, and three hours later, the league’s 10-day moratorium on signing free agents ended. Free agents could officially sign, teams could officially trade players and the bureaucratic boredom should have ended.

Should have is the key term there, though, when it comes to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who will continue to hang in some sort of contractual limbo in the near term. Anyone who was expecting a flurry of tweets, official announcements or murmurs from sources Tuesday night and Wednesday would have been sorely disappointed. What the Timberwolves emitted was radio silence but for a very good reason.

Before the Timberwolves can officially announce the terms of the contracts Brandon Roy and Alexey Shved have agreed to, they have a good deal of loose ends to tie up. After a busy 10 days during the moratorium, the team could come out of free agency with at least three new players: Roy, Shved and perhaps even Portland Trail Blazers forward Nicolas Batum. But first, it needs to clear its salary cap space.

As the Timberwolves’ roster stands right now, before the additions of Roy, Shved, Batum or even second-round pick Robbie Hummel, the team is paying 13 players. Those contracts range in size from the 12.9 million due Kevin Love next season to the 762,195 Malcolm Lee will earn, totaling a sum equal to the 58 million salary cap. Fortunately for the team, though, that payroll does not present an obstacle to acquiring the free agents it has come to agreement with; rather, it’s just a matter of cutting and shifting at this point.

That 58 million currently includes the contracts of Darko Milicic, Martell Webster and Brad Miller. Those contracts total 16.044 million, but none of those three players is likely to be on the Timberwolves’ payroll by the end of free agency. However, it isn’t just a simple matter of cutting them.

Miller is retiring, and Webster won’t be back, but the team extended its June 30 deadline to pick up their contract options in the hope that they might be able to be packaged in a sign-and-trade deal. If they’re not, the team will simply buy out the contracts.

Milicic, who has underperformed throughout his tenure on the Timberwolves, lost his starting center job to Nikola Pekovic last season, and he’s a likely candidate for the team’s amnesty provision, in which he’d be released and still paid his contract, but the money wouldn’t be counted toward the Timberwolves’ salary cap. Teams have until next Tuesday, July 17, to exercise the amnesty clause.

In the coming hours and days, the Timberwolves will work through the best way to handle those contracts. It would be much simpler if the team were targeting only Roy and Shved; their salaries would fit easily into the space created by immediately getting rid of Milicic, Miller and Webster, with room to spare. But instead, there’s the extra issue of Batum, the 23-year-old restricted free-agent small forward who spent his first four NBA seasons with Portland.

Batum, who the Timberwolves have been pursuing since early in the moratorium, has expressed a desire to leave Portland for Minnesota both through his agent and directly to NBA.com. However, the Trail Blazers can match any offer sheet Batum signs, and a contract of the size Batum necessitates would also give the Timberwolves little flexibility under the cap when combined with the new contracts of Shved and Roy.

There’s also the possibility of a sign-and-trade with Portland for Batum, which is part of the reason the Timberwolves haven’t made any announcements regarding Miller, Milicic and Webster. However, all sides the Trail Blazers, the Timberwolves, Batum don’t seem to be in agreement about the feasibility of such a deal, and it seems unlikely that the Timberwolves’ roster will assume any clarity until this three-way staring contest ends.

When the salary cap situation is sorted out which it will be without major issue the Timberwolves and president of basketball operations David Kahn will have made good on their promises going into the offseason. Kahn repeatedly stressed that the team could make cap space if necessary, which it’s in the process of doing, and both he and coach Rick Adelman were adamant that adding experience would be the team’s most important goal before the 2012-13 season.

If all goes to plan, the Timberwolves will have added a backup point guard (Shved), a solid small forward who could earn significant minutes (Chase Budinger), a former star who could be explosive off the bench and in clutch situations (Roy) and even a high-level small forward (Batum). They might be able to do so without losing any key pieces like Derrick Williams, whose name has been involved in too many trade talks to count. The team could even still bring back free agents Anthony Tolliver and Anthony Randolph, the latter at a salary less than the 4 million offer it did not pick up.

Right now, sorting out the salary cap is likely at the top of the Timberwolves’ list of things to do. Though other teams will begin to introduce their new players on Wednesday and Thursday, Minnesota won’t have that luxury not yet. But the excitement will come in the next few days, and even once these new additions are cemented into the roster, that’s not to say the team’s offseason maneuvering will be over.

The Timberwolves promised changes, and here they are. Now, the team needs to ensure that changes can lead to wins, and that will be harder than working out even the most complicated deal.

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Wolves let Beasley, Randolph become free agents

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Jun 302012
 

MINNEAPOLIS The Minnesota Timberwolves announced Saturday that they did not extend qualifying offers to Michael Beasley or Anthony Randolph, making both unrestricted free agents for the 2012-13 season. Beasley, a small forward who averaged 11.5 points and 4.4 rebounds in 2011-12, posted the worst numbers of his career last season with the Timberwolves. The team would have had to extend him an 8.2 million qualifying offer. Randolph, a power forward whose qualifying offer was just 4.0 million, also underperformed last season, averaging 7.4 points and 3.6 rebounds.The Timberwolves also announced that the deadline to buy out the contracts of center Brad Miller and small forward Martell Webster has been extended into July. The team could buy out Webster’s 5.7 million contract for 600,000, and though Miller announced his retirement at the end of the 2011-12 season, he’s still technically under contract for 5.1 million next year. Both players could be trade bait in the coming days.

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Minnesota Timberwolves: Veteran Brad Miller Ends Unique Basketball Career

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Apr 282012
 

With so many young players entering the NBA every year, some of the veteran players hardly get much PR these days.

It’s almost as if they have been forgotten. In their defense, they may be past their prime but are deserving of attention and focus with the regular season coming to a close Thursday night.

One veteran big man who is ending his 14-year professional basketball career is center Brad Miller of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who played in his last NBA game against the Denver Nuggets on Thursday evening.

Miller was rather emotional last night, and deservingly so, since his entrance into the league came back in 1999 with the Charlotte Hornets. Miller was able to sustain a long professional basketball-playing career for two reasons.

The man from Kendallville, Indiana who played college basketball at Purdue under head coach Gene Keady and spent time in Italy before being signed by the Charlotte Hornets as an undrafted free agent made himself a long basketball career due to two specific skills.

First is his ability to shoot the ball from a distance. Second, his passing ability makes him a great frontcourt mate on any team.

Miller spent the prime of his basketball career as a member of the Sacramento Kings, where he partnered with both Chris Webber and Vlade Divac while averaging a career-best 15.6 points per game during the 2004-05 NBA season.

Miller, towards the latter part of his career, spent time with the Chicago Bulls (second stint with the team), Houston Rockets and the Minnesota Timberwolves and became a favorite of head coach Rick Adelman, who had coached him in Sacramento.

Adelman brought Miller in through free agency to Houston (which lasted for only one year) and then acquired the veteran center on draft night to have a veteran presence around youngster Kevin Love in Minnesota.

Miller will be missed, as teams will have a tough time finding a jump shooting, gifted passing center in free agency.

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Goodbye, Brad Miller

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Apr 272012
 


David Sherman/NBAE/Getty Images
Brad Miller’s tearful goodbye was felt by many.

Brad Miller wasn’t your typical NBA center during the era of high-flyers and YouTube-inspiring dunks. He wasn’t a guy most people would ever think of paying to see play basketball. In fact, he wasn’t a guy most people thought could play basketball.

The country boy from Kendallville, Indiana, is a slow, unathletic big man by NBA standards. He always has been.

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