Jonah Ballow/Timberwolves site talks to Wolves GM Jim Stack about the trade with Sacramento.
Jonah: From a pure basketball standpoint, let’s start with Sheldon Williams and what he brings to this team this year?
Jim Stack: Jonah, he’s a guy that obviously had a great career at Duke and drafted very high by the Atlanta Hawks, and you know when we looked at our situation, it was a situation where with Al Jefferson being injured, we felt like we had Kevin Love at that spot, and to give Kevin McHale a little flexibility, we felt like if we could add another big body to play that power forward spot, that gives Kevin more flexibility with the roster. Sheldon brings some shot blocking, he can score in the low post, and he’s a big body, and hopefully he’ll help in the rebounding area. It will be up to Kevin McHale how much he plays, but we think there was a void there a little bit. Craig Smith is a little bit of a different guy because he’s more of a ball-handling power forward and can make plays, whereas Sheldon fits more than banger at the basket type of guy with Kevin Love. Hopefully he’ll come in here and I told him on the phone, it’s wide open. We’ll be looking to evaluate him and there’s an opportunity for him here, so it’ll be up to him to take advantage of it.
GM Jim Stack just chatted about the trade and here are a couple pertinent things:
As it appears, it’s basically a low-risk swap of expiring contracts that gives the Wolves a backup point guard for next season at “a very low salary number,” whether the Wolves decide to keep him to backup Telfair or Foye or use him as a palatable piece in a summertime trade.
Stack was asked Thursday if he considers McCants a draft bust. “I don’t think so,” he said. “He just came off a season when he scored 15 points a game, shot 41 percent from the three-point line. He’s got a body of work at the NBA level, and he’s capable of sustaining it. I don’t by any means think that makes him a bust.”
Stack said he talked to every NBA team in the days leading up to Thursday’s deadline, but he wouldn’t say how close the Wolves, who reportedly had strong interest in Chicago Bulls point guard Kirk Hinrich, came to making any other deals.
With career averages of 4.6 points and 4.1 rebounds, Williams, who is married to WNBA star Candace Parker, hasn’t played like a top-five draft choice, but this is another chance for him to realize his potential.
“The future’s wide open for him,” Stack said.
Stack said Williams and Brown are scheduled to arrive in town this morning to undergo physical examinations but that it’s highly doubtful everything will be completed in time for them to play tonight against Indiana.
From Jon Krawczynski/AP Sports on Rashad McCants:
“He came off a year where he was very productive last season and, for whatever reason, didn’t work out this year,” Wolves general manager Jim Stack said. “He didn’t make that next step in terms of his production. We felt this was an opportunity for him to make a fresh start in Sacramento.”
The moody shooting guard from North Carolina fell out of the rotation shortly after Kevin McHale took over as coach. He hasn’t played more than 15 minutes in a game since Dec. 27 and has often been seen brooding on the bench because of the decrease in playing time.
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