The Minnesota Timberwolves today announced the team has signed restricted free-agent guard Ramon Sessions to an offer sheet. Under the terms of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Milwaukee Bucks will have seven days upon receiving the offer sheet to match Minnesota’s offer. Per team policy, terms of the contract offer were not disclosed.
“We are excited about the opportunity to have Ramon Sessions on our team,” said David Kahn, Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations. “Ramon has the ability to play both guard positions, and thus will be able to complement the members of our current backcourt. At only 23, Ramon also has the potential to improve and fits our plan of building a young, up-tempo team with championship contending potential.”
Sessions’ agent, Chubby Wells, confirmed this morning that Sessions is signing a four-year, $16 million offer sheet with Minnesota.
“It came up kind of fast,” Wells said of the Timberwolves’ interest. “We were working on a couple of other things, but we weren’t going to wait around.
“He’s fine. He’s the type of guy who just plays, and he’s very excited.”
It was a long wait for Sessions, who was tendered a $1 million qualifying offer by the Bucks in late June. He received interest from the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Clippers but never got a firm offer.
“We think it’s real good,” Wells said of the Timberwolves’ offer. “In this climate it’s an excellent deal.
Ramon Sessions offer sheet with Minnesota totals $16.4 million, with a player option for $4.5 million in 2012-13, league memo says.
The Bucks, who have point guards Brandon Jennings, Luke Ridnour, and Roko Ukic on the roster, are unlikely to match, the person said. Interesting aspect of the offer sheet: It includes a player option for the fourth year — not a team option. A team option would’ve strengthened a growing belief around the league that the Timberwolves are working under the assumption that Rubio will stay in Spain for three years instead of two.
That leaves rookie Wayne Ellington and veteran Damien Wilkins as the only other guards on the roster.
Sessions’ versatility would help things, but there is still a lack of size on the perimeter for this young and rebuilding team.
Sessions isn’t known for his outside touch (he made only six of 34 three-point shots last season), but he is a slasher/scorer who is adept at finishing near the basket, drawing fouls and finding teammates off the dribble.
Asked if Sessions’s potential arrival in Minnesota changes the team’s belief that Rubio will still come stateside in the summer of 2011, or its interest in keeping its rights to Rubio, Wolves president of basketball operations David Kahn texted Friday, “no.”
Kahn had said earlier this week in a conference call with local and national reporters that bringing in another point guard one Rubio opted not to come over was a top priority.
The Wolves have been adamant that they will wait two years for Rubio if necessary. But Rubio’s decision to stay in his native country when perennial Spanish club power Barcelona offered to pay his entire $5 million buyout with DJK Joventut, coupled with Sessions’ looming arrival, only figures to encourage teams interested in Rubio — such as the Knicks — to try to pry him away from Minnesota via trade.
Matching the offer to Sessions, whose deal includes a player option for the fourth season, would put the Bucks over the luxury tax threshold, making it extremely unlikely the two-year veteran will return to Milwaukee.
That kind of uncertainy forced Kahn to seek out Sessions, who will take much of the point guard pressure off rookie Jonny Flynn.
In his short time with the Timberwolves, David Kahn has managed to take a series of moves that are stand-alone positives, and turn them into a logjam and a headache. Though Kahn’s moves haven’t created a cap nightmare for the Wolves (Sessions’ proposed deal is more than reasonable, and Flynn and Rubio will be on the rookie scale), I wouldn’t ever call it wise to jab your point guards with sharp sticks. A talented player can hold your team ransom in ways that even the salary cap can’t, and if Kahn ends up with tied hands and even less bargaining power at the trade table than he has currently, he’ll have no one to blame but himself.
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