Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports
Are the Minnesota Timberwolves fans excited for next season yet? They should be. The Wolves have had one heck of an offseason so far, starting with the 2013 NBA Draft. Grabbing Shabazz Muhammad and Gorgui Dieng gave the Wolves some youthful and promising talent.
They followed up their draft performance by re-signing Chase Budinger, executing a sign-and-trade for Kevin Martin and also bringing back Corey Brewer. The team has a contract offer on the table for their own free agent center Nikola Pekovic which they expect him to sign, therefore Minnesota is stacking up for a pretty great 2013.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, the Wolves could be adding even more before too soon. Thursday, Wojnarowski reported Minnesota is now the frontrunner for free agent big man Ronny Turiaf:
Minnesota has emerged as a strong frontrunner to sign free agent Ronny Turiaf, league sources tell Y! Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) July 11, 2013
With the addition of Turiaf, the Wolves would pretty much have rounded out their roster in excellent fashion. Turiaf most recently played for the Los Angeles Clippers last season and has made his rounds of the NBA over his nine year career.
Minnesota is looking for one more big to add to their rotation at the moment and Turiaf would give them a more than qualified candidate. He’s not a very pretty guy on the floor, but he’s scrappy, hard-working and typically not liked unless he’s on your team.
The Wolves have done a phenomenal job this offseason bringing in free agents, which goes to show new general manager Flip Saunders means business in his first year on the job. It’s time for the Wolves to take their name out of the jokes of NBA fans everywhere and launch themselves into the playoffs in 2013.
Ryan Heckman is a Senior NBA Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @ryanmheckman, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
