Minnesota Timberwolves and Portland Trail Blazers talks over Nicolas Batum in a stalemate – NBA News
The Minnesota Timberwolves remained locked in sign and trade talks, involving 23 year old swingman Nicolas Batum, with the Portland Trail Blazers all day long on Thursday, but still could not get a deal finalized. Both parties
will now meet again on Friday.
The Wolves have a four year $46 million offer sheet signed by Batum lying in their office, but have not submitted it to the league as once they do that, a trade for him becomes impossible. They are instead hoping to pull off a
sign and trade deal that will allow them to retain cap space.
Portland, who will have three days to match the Wolves offer once it is received by the NBA office, have said that the Wolves roster does not hold any attractive options for them, and plan to match the Wolves offer to retain Batum.
Wolves’ owner Glen Taylor said on Thursday that if the two teams were unable to reach an agreement, the Wolves would go ahead and file the offer sheet, forcing Portland to match their offer.
“We're going to call their bluff," Taylor said.
Portland’s General Manager Neil Olshey has stated his intent of matching the Wolves offer to retain Batum before, even though the player has openly said that he wants to move to the Wolves, adding that he would prefer to play under
Coach Rick Adelman.
The Wolves would have to buy out the contracts of Martell Webster and Brad Miller to create enough cap space to sign Batum, with Brandon Roy and Alexey Shved already signed to the team.
They started clearing cap space by using their amnesty clause on centre Darko Milicic earlier on Thursday. Milicic signed a four year deal with the Wolves in July 2010, worth $16 million. He was drafted as the 2nd overall
pick in the 2003 NBA draft by the Detroit Pistons, ahead of future superstars like Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade.
However, the 7 footer failed to make any real impact in the NBA. He struggled to stay in shape last season with the Wolves, where he played 29 games and averaged 4.6 points and 3.3 rebounds in 16.3 minutes.
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