July 31, 2008

What A Difference A Year Makes

The re-signing of Ryan Gomes leaves the Wolves with only one free agent left. 14 players down, one to go. After taking a look here to find out what kind of deals Sebastian Telfair, Craig Smith, and Ryan Gomes were signed to, I decided to look back to about this time last season to see exactly what had changed. It's pretty amazing really. Gone are the dead weight contracts of Mark Blount, Marko Jaric, and Troy Hudson. No more Gerald Green or Trenton Hassell either for that matter. There are signs that show the Wolves may - may - be able to avoid past mistakes. They went from T-Hud's 6-year $30 million to Bassy's 3-year $7.5 millon. From Marko's 6-year $66 million to Gomes's 2-year $7.3 million. That looks, to me anyways, like appropriate amounts of money thrown at appropriately talented players. I mean sure, Rhino got a 300% raise, but $2.3 million seems reasonable for a solid, backup power forward.

Now, I've been a Wolves fan for too long to really let the bubbles of hope that we've seen this offseason get me too excited. But it's hard not to think that this team may be starting to turn this thing back around. "Dave! You almost sound like you believe in Kevin Mchale!?" Don't make that mistake. I know who's in charge of this franchise, so there's no reason to think that all these moves will end up working out. But so far, we're looking a whole lot better now than we did a year ago.

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