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Trading Anthony Bennett: Greivis Vasquez a possibility?

By Ben Beecken

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The Wolves have painted themselves into a bit of a difficult corner when it comes to the power forward depth chart. In the past calendar year, Flip Saunders has acquired Anthony Bennett and Adreian Payne — both inexperienced NBA players that have been extremely disappointing in limited action thus far.

Of course, each player was a first-round draft pick, and in Bennett’s case, the number-one overall selection — meaning that they are paired with hefty, guaranteed contracts.

Neither player was good last year, which was Payne’s rookie season after being drafted 18th overall by the Atlanta Hawks last June and Bennett’s second NBA season after Cleveland selected him first-overall in 2013. Bennett was shipped to the Wolves as a throw-in along with Thaddeus Young and Andrew Wiggins in the trade that sent Kevin Love to the Cavs.

Let’s start by making it very clear that I don’t think either player has much trade value. Bennett may actually have negative value with a $5.8 million price tag in 2015-16 and an option for 2016-17 at $7.3 million. To sum up Bennett’s first two seasons in the NBA, we’ll just say that he has a Win Shares per 48 Minutes of -.002. (Starting-caliber players should have a WS/48 north of .100, and rotation-worthy players are often in the .75 to .99 range.)

At any rate, the good folks over at Raptors Rapture put together a trade offer around Anthony Bennett that they found to be palatable. And I’m not arguing with them.

Wolves get: Greivis Vasquez and #20 draft pick

Raptors get: Anthony Bennett and #31 overall draft pick

I’m not convinced that the Raptors would even give the time of day to such a trade offer, but the Wolves would (hopefully) jump at this chance.

Vasquez has one year on his contract at $6.6 million, so this deal works from a money perspective. It also means that the Wolves can grab a veteran point guard with outside shooting ability to backup Rubio, similar to what they did with Mo Williams in free agency last year. Vasquez is a 35.6% career three-point shooter and while he isn’t an outstanding defender, he’s significantly better than Williams and has a six-foot-six frame to help clog passing lanes.

He’s a great backup that will allow Zach LaVine to slide over to his natural spot at shooting guard as the backup to Kevin Martin at the two-guard. It also frees up minutes at power forward for Karl-Anthony Towns, who should be the number-one overall pick, as well as additional minutes for Payne to possibly develop or at the very least make it clear that he isn’t a viable future option. Robbie Hummel‘s best position is as a small-ball power forward, too.

Clearing both Bennett’s salary off the books and minutes from the rotation while sliding up eleven spots in the draft would be a dream scenario. It would possibly allow Saunders to take Minnesota native and former Duke star Tyus Jones at #20 if he is okay with having the rookie begin his career as a third-string point guard. Kevon Looney from UCLA is another name that should be available at #20 and would be a great fit for the Wolves moving forward.

At any rate, head over to Raptors Rapture and leave your comments on the trade idea as well as give us your thoughts here at DWW. Personally, I don’t believe that Raptors boss Masai Ujiri would give this idea second thought, but I would certainly propose the idea if I were Flip Saunders.

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