Wolves Waive Steamer

Wolves Waive Stiemsma, Gelabale; Still Trying To Trade Barea Or Ridnour
Jul 08, 2013 8:55 AM EDT


The Minnesota Timberwolves have waived Greg Stiemsma and Mickael Gelabale to create salary cap space to sign Kevin Martin and Chase Budinger while re-signing Nikola Pekovic.

The Wolves are also trying to trade J.J. Barea or Luke Ridnour to balance their depth chart and create additional space.

The Wolves had until July 17 to waive Stiemsma or fully guarantee his $2.7 million contract with the club.

Via Jerry Zgoda/Star Tribune


bob
MY NOTE:  This wouldn't solve our starting center problem, but at least he's a veteran center.  We are SO salary capped, Danny has to move bodies and I do mean soon.  Team's are making cuts to NOT guarantee contracts and decent players are becoming available. Barea would also fix our backup point guard issue.

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Bob,

I agree to both -- the Celtics could use Stiemsma and Barea. Then the question becomes who stays and who goes to get the roster down to size.

How's this for an idea? Danny amnesties Gerald Wallace, trades a couple of first round picks to Houston, and the Celts wind up with Omer Asik on our roster. Center problem solved.

Still under the cap?
Gyso, can you help me out with that one?

worcester wrote:How's this for an idea? Danny amnesties Gerald Wallace, trades a couple of first round picks to Houston, and the Celts wind up with Omer Asik on our roster. Center problem solved.

Still under the cap?
Gyso, can you help me out with that one?

worcester,

We cannot amnesty Wallace because he wasn't on our roster before the new CBA went into effect.  What we can do is use the "stretch" provision which allows us to spread his contract over 2x the number of years left +1.  So, he has 3 years left, that would let us stretch his $30M over 7 years, or about $4.5M/year over 7 years.  That's like signing a mid-level exemption player, and having his contract suck up cap space for 7 years, without actually having the player.

Asik has asked for a trade, now that Howard is coming in, and Houston has said no (officially).

Asik made about $5M last year and will make $5M this year, but next year his contract balloons to $14M ($25M total, 3 year contract, just spread out weirdly).

Jeremy Lin is the same.

Between these two players, Harden and Howard, Houston is going to be so freaking far over the cap next year they won't even be able to see it from where they are.

bob


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Too bad we can't land Omer...he's a seriously productive center, and he has something to prove.

bobheckler wrote:MY NOTE:  This wouldn't solve our starting center problem, but at least he's a veteran center.  We are SO salary capped, Danny has to move bodies and I do mean soon.  Team's are making cuts to NOT guarantee contracts and decent players are becoming available.  Barea would also fix our backup point guard issue.

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Makes good sense for a team in transition like us, especially since we have no center on our current roster.

There has been speculation that Kardashian might play there, since he has seen some floor time at the position, but that's not his spot.

In theory (this is still a "what if" conversation, of course) that would make it;

C:  Steamer
PF: Kardashian, Bass, Sully, Randolph, White (maybe Olynyk)
SF: Wallace, Green
SG: Bradley, Lee, Crawford, Bogans
PG: Rondo, Barea

...so far.

NYCelt,
You forgot Marshon Brooks (sp?) in you hypothetical lineup.
Regardless whether Celtics can sign Steamer and Barea or not there're too many 4s and 2s on the roster. I hope Danny can trade some of them for the next step in the ladder to the level of contenders.

AK

Sinus,

Good catch; I left out the best player we got in the deal!

Add Brooks and you get to 15 with Olynyk presumably in the D league.

Regards

No way is OK in the D League.

Funny that we have a team without a real center and without a healthy PG.

Sinus,

That's 15 on the roster as I play GM freely with Bob's 2 hypothetical acquisitions and move bodies where I will...

W-

I put Olynyk in the D league partly because there was no room for him after I picked up those two players and partly because I need to see more than 1 game against watered down competition to think he'll open with the big club (as it now stands I would expect Kardashian to be our PF with Sully and Bass filling out minutes there).  After all, I'm playing GM here!



Just let me know if there's any other player anyone wants me to sign.

I saw Kelly play in college for Gonzaga and was really impressed with his game, conformed by yesterday's play. Let's hope he can keep it up. You're right; we have a glut at PF...such an unbalanced lineup we have.

I still want you to sign Dwight Howard. Good luck convincing Kevin to trade him for Gerald Wallace and future considerations.