NBA Trade Deadline: Who Do The Wolves Have?

Suns general manager Steve Kerr met with Stoudemire’s agent, Happy Walters, on Thursday, and league sources say there was little sense an agreement could be reached before the trade deadline. With Stoudemire able to opt out of the final $17.7 million season of his contract, the Suns don’t want to risk losing him for nothing in free agency this summer.

As they did when shopping Stoudemire last season, the Suns want a combination of young talent, salary-cap relief and draft picks for him. Some teams are hesitant to trade for Stoudemire for fear he won’t want to re-sign with them this summer. The Minnesota Timberwolves lead that group of teams, sources say. The Wolves are mostly eyeing small forwards, including the Memphis Grizzlies’ Rudy Gay(notes), the Bulls’ Luol Deng(notes) and the Washington Wizards’ Caron Butler(notes). No one is untouchable on the Wolves roster, sources say.

via Suns seeking trade offers for Stoudemire – NBA – Yahoo! Sports.

Okay, we’ll get to the actual information here in a second. But can we all stop and realize for a second that Amar’e Stoudemire’s agent is named Happy? Happy Walters. “Hi, I’m Happy Walters, and I’m here to play hardball.”  Or, “Nobody disrespects Happy! NOBODY!”

Okay, we’ll get back to Amare in a second. The Wolves would like to acquire Rudy Gay, Deng, or Caron Butler. What do they have to give? There’s a lot of talk (yes, unsourced) about Jefferson not digging the triangle and that he’s on the block. But what in God’s name are the Grizzlies going to take for Rudy? They have Randolph and Gasol, who are both end of the bench All-Star reserve candidates. They can’t send Flynn, they’ll have no point guard on this continent! What, are they going to send Memphis Rubio’s draft rights and some scrubs just so Memphis can trim its payroll down even mo….ooooooooooh. (The CBA required minimum payroll prevents this, but you get the idea.) The Grizzlies seem to be in a “if we can’t outspend the other teams in RFA, fine, but we’re not trading him for .50 on the dollar” which is exactly what they should do.

Chicago, though, is interesting. If they can pry Jefferson out of their hands for Deng, they should absolutely do it. Jefferson with Noah at his back is a significant low-post upgrade. They’ll be weak at SF, but at this point, who cares?

If they can wheedle Caron out of Washington for draft picks or some other peanuts deal, it’ll be the first good one of Kahn’s reign.

On to Amar’e.

The more I look at this rumor, I can’t buy it. What, Kahn’s going to trade his biggest chip for a player who obviously won’t re-sign with them so they’ll have more cap space to pursue a free agent? I still think Ellison plus Jefferson is a reasonable price for Amare, but you’d have to send a pick back with Amare, and the Suns can’t be dumb enough to send another pick away. Oh, wait, it’s the Suns, they’re exactly that dumb.

Oster-Tags: Al Jefferson, Amar'e Stoudemire, Caron Butler, David Kahn, Rudy Gay