NBA Free Agency is underway in full effect. By now, any of the big names may have signed. In true brentnet fashion, I’m writing this on Thursday night (7/1) and posting Monday morning meaning it may be completely irrelevant at this point.

As a big NBA fan and THE lone remaining Timberwolves fan, I’ve paid quite a bit of attention to what’s happening. The Timberwolves entered the offseason as one of the teams with cap space. They didn’t quite have enough to sign a max guy, but enough to be a player. While many Timberwolves fans may have enjoyed that position, but a year ago, it scared me.

My philosophy all along has been that the Wolves were going to pay max dollars to a guy like Joe Johnson or Rudy Guy. The NBA is a different league than the NFL or MLB. In the NFL, you can sign four or five decent guys, have a decent draft, and turn from a 3-win team to a contender. The Saints went from perennial loser to Super Bowl champs. In the NBA, though, if you want to be one of the top 8 teams in the league – which has to be the goal in any league – you’ve gotta have THE guy. The top 8 teams in the NBA – Celtics (KG, Pierce, and Rondo), Lakers (Kobe & Gasol), Suns (Nash & Amar’e), Magic (Howard), Cavs (Bron), Hawks (Johnson), Jazz (Williams & Boozer), and Spurs (Duncan, Manu, and Parker) – all have guys that would be considered THE guy at one time or another. The Timberwolves biggest problem right now is that they don’t have THE guy.

Taking a look at the list of free agents, there are 9 guys that could be considered THE guy. A few of them would be THE guy with an asterisk. Bron, Wade, and Bosh are no brainers on that list. Pierce and Dirk are getting a little older, but they are still on the list as well. Realistically, there isn’t anyone alive that thought the Wolves had any chance at any of those guys. It leaves only four guys who could be considered THE guy available – Carlos Boozer, Amar’e Stoudamire, Joe Johnson, and Rudy Gay*. Rudy Gay* and Joe Johnson already signed insane franchise killing contracts. Meaning the only two guys available for the Wolves who can step in and be THE guy is a 6’9” guy who plays below the rim, is a good rebounder but subpar defender and another 6’9” guy with a bad knee that can't play defense. If you’re scoring at home, the Timberwolves marquee player Al Jefferson is a 6’9” guy who players below the rim, is a good rebounder but subpar defender who has a bad knee that can't play defense.

By the way, Rudy Gay gets the asterisks label because… well, he’s not *that* good. He’s 23 years old three guard who put up a nice, but not mind-boggling statline of 19.6, 6 boards, and 2 assists with a steal and a half while playing the third most minutes in the entire league. He’s a guy that looks great on paper – he’s extremely long (6’9”) and athletic. When you look into the stats, though, his 19.6 points per game is good for 21st in the league (for comparison – Corey Maggette was 20th and Aaron Brooks finished 22nd). If you break it down to points per 48 minutes, he falls down to 69th in the league behind such stars like Charlie Villanueva, Andray Blatche, Nate Robinson, and Al Harrington. I’m not huge on all encompassing basketball statistics. Too much of what goes on the court is subjective. An assist where you pass the ball up the court to a wide open guy for the layup is far less valuable than an assist where you beat your man, attract a defender and dump the ball to the open player on the defensive rotation. You can’t even argue that it’s not more valuable. Stats measure these things as black and white while they clearly aren’t. PER is one stat I do really like, though. The top five players in the league last year, according to PER, were LeBron, Wade, Durant, Bosh, and Duncan. Swap Kobe (#15) for Bosh and Howard (#6) for Duncan and I completely agree. The way PER works is it’s a stat that adds everything that a player does and bases it on an average. Every year, the most statistically average player in the league is going to be a 15.0 PER. Rudy Gay had the 10th highest PER amongst Small Forwards. It seems odd at first, but when you see the list of people that finished above him (James, Durant, Melo, Maggette, Granger, Gerald Wallce, Kirilenko, Pierce, and Nicolas Batum), I’d be curious which players who consider worse than him (I’d only consider Maggette).

Even the biggest Rudy Gay apologists have to agree that – present day – he’s not as good as LeBron, Durant, Melo, Granger, and Pierce. If you add in shooting guards, I think you can’t even argue that he’s behind Wade, Manu, Kobe, Brandon Roy, and Joe Johnson. The Memphis Grizzlies paid $16.4 million for the next five years for, at best, the 11th best wing player in the league. What makes it worse is 8 months ago, he was seeking a contract in the range of 5 –years, $50 million. By not offering that last November – during a period nobody else could negotiate with Gay – the Grizzlies cost themselves a minimum of $6.2 million per year.

How does this relate to the Wolves? Well, obviously the Wolves were looking at signing Gay. Thankfully, they didn’t get the chance. If the past has been any indication, you can afford to make small mistakes. Looking around the league, most team have a few guys that are paid better than they probably should be. In 2008-09, the Wolves had Brian Cardinal, Troy Hudson, and Jason Collins making a combined $17.5 million. Even teams like the OKC Thunder, who are universally praised for how well they’ve put together a team, have bad contracts ($19.1 million this upcoming year for Nene Kristic, Nick Collison, and Morris Peterson).

I bring all of this up because the Timberwolves are being ripped to shreds for re-upping Darko for 4 years/$20-million in the media.

I might be the only guy saying this, but it’s not a bad contract.

Hear me out. First of all, Darko still posseses all of the physical characteristics that made him so attractive in the draft. I would imagine most people who make fun of him have actually never seen him play in a game other than a random SportsCenter highlight where he rips his jersey off or something of a similar sort. If you’ve ever seen him play in person, there are a few things that stands out. First of all, he’s huge. The list of guys taller than him in the NBA right now is: Hasheem Thabeet, Aaron Gray, Brandon Haywood, BJ Mullens, and Andrea Bargnani.

Forget Darko as “the guy who was picked above ____.” Detroit picked him number two and then proceeded to play him 5.7 minutes per game for the next two-and-a-half seasons. The next two-and-a-half seasons in Orlando and Memphis, he was serviceable. He played about 20 minutes per game and averaged around 7.5 points, 5.5 boards, and 2 blocks. His per36 numbers of 12 points, 8.2 boards, and 3 blocks are pretty league average for a backup.

For the next four years, though, Orlando is paying Marcin Gortat $28.1 million. Kendrick Perkins (per36 averages of 10 points, 7.6 boards, and 1.7 blocks) is likely going to get more than that next year. Anderson Varejao (per 36 averages of 11/10/1) is signed for the next 5 years for $42 million. Zaza Pachulia (per 36 – 11/10/1) is signed up for the next 3 years for $14.25 mill. Birdman (per36 – 9.5/10/3) is locked in at 4-years/$17.5 million. Andris Biedrins (career per36 since last year was a down year of 12/12/2) is signed up for 4-years/$36 million. Luke Walton (more forward than center but per36 – 9/5/0) is locked in for the next 3-years/$17 million. And that’s not even including the all-time bad deals like Charlie Villanueva, Samuel Dalembert, DeSagana Diop, Erick Dampier, Emeka Okafor, and Elton Brand.

Nobody got too bent out of shape about any of these contracts. At least not like this. Honestly, though, it might not be the best deal ever. But in comparison to what the Gortat’s, Pachulia’s, Bridmen, and Biedrins’ of the NBA are getting paid, it’s a fair deal. My brother-in-law Ross and I have been to seven Wolves games in the past two years and watched countless more. Darko may be a punchline. He’s not THAT bad, though. In fact, after the two games I saw him play this year, I was hoping we’d resign him at about $3-4 million per year. So he got one million more than I was hoping. Big whoop. Teams don’t get murdered by paying $5 million to guys who maybe are worth $3-4. You get murdered by paying a number two or number three guy max money. I'd much much MUCH rather give a bum off the street $20-million than giving $80-120 for guys that aren't going to make you a champion.

KG is my childhood hero, but part of the reason he struggled in the playoffs is because he’s a number two but he was paid like the number one guy in the entire league. I think of KG the same way I think of Scottie Pippen which is as the best number two guy in the league. By paying KG so much money, we didn’t have the ability to make a move on any other contributing pieces. Fans of the Grizzle (no “s” on purpose, thank you) and Hawks will soon find out what happens when you pay top dollar for guys that probably don’t deserve it.

Back to the original point of the blog. The Wolves are getting ripped apart for spending $33 million of Pekovic and Milicic. The fact of the matter is nobody is going to come to Minnesota unless you overpay. The only way to get better is through the draft. If the Ricky Rubio experiment doesn’t work, it’ll be back to the drawing board again. I’d rather take my chances spending $3-4 million on guys than going all-in. Some team is going to overpay the David Lee’s, John Salmon’s, Luis Scola’s, and Ray Allen’s of the league. If I’m right, they are going to overpay exponentially. While I’d love to see the Wolves get better next year, I’d rather not make the mistake countless teams (cough*NYC Knickerbockers of years past*cough*) have made over and over again. Give me Rubio, a few athletic wings, a few shooters, and a few posts that can rebound and score and let’s see what we can do with this team.