N/P Timberwolves close to making Thibs President of Basketball Ops and Head Coach

[BP225]

The fact that a huge jump was coming was known from the last CBA negotiations in 2011. That's why there is an opt out this coming offseason.

Lowe's comments don't say that he is under orders. He is relaying an impression from other parties, but that does not mean an order has or has not been given or that Dell is interested in dealing it or not or dealing a future pick too or instead or not. He's not shopping the pick, does not show flexibility in tossing it in at the time of the report, at which point its value was highly uncertain.

I appreciate your word parsing and quest for precision, I think Lowe was equally choosy about his wording as some of it seemed a bit awkward. "may not have the freedom" seems pretty deliberate in its implication. Maybe the people who told him that had an agenda, but I don't think Lowe phrases it like that if he was plainly told "New Orleans is not taking any deals for their pick." So you can either assume the direction Lowe leads you in is correct, or you can assume that there's a conspiracy afoot and that the simple explanation of Demps deciding on his own not part with the pick is correct yet was somehow not what was reported to Lowe by multiple teams based on the quote.

As for the cap jump.

The price was expected to rise given the league's growing popularity, but this is still a surprise. Previous estimates suggested the new contract would be worth close to $2 billion a season, but these new figures are closer to $3 billion.

http://www.sbnation.com/2014/10/5/69...ner-24-billion

So it was at $930 million, they were expecting it to jump to $2 Billion and instead it jumped to nearly $3 billion. So like I said, if the increase would have been half, a $1 billion increase instead of a $2 billion increase, then it stands to reason the cap escalation would be halved as well, $11 million next year instead of $22 million. That would give them roughly $11 million in cap space to both replace Gordon/Anderson/Cole and fix the hole at SF. I'm not claiming it's gross mismanagement, although I hated the Asik deal the moment it was announced, I just don't think it's praiseworthy cap management like the person I originally responded to seemed to think.

[42]

I'm glad we agree.

[UNO Gracias]

I'm glad we agree.

I'm not.