When Cleveland’s LeBron James signs his new contract this summer, he’ll become the NBA’s highest-paid player with a deal expected to exceed $30 million a year.
James, 31, played for a measly $23 million last season, when the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant was the league’s top-salaried player at $25 million.
The NBA’s labor deal is up after next season, but not its monster media-rights deal with ESPN and Turner Sports, which is worth $24 billion and goes into effect next season.
That should bring huge smiles to Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins of the Timberwolves. Both former NBA rookies of the year, they could be in line for contracts approaching $25 million a season when they become eligible for free agency.
Wiggins, 21, who is signed for $6.1 million next season, becomes eligible for a contract extension after the 2017-18 season, when he could become a restricted free agent. Negotiations for a new deal will begin next year.
Towns, 20, who is signed for $5.96 million next season, becomes eligible for an extension after the 2018-19 season. He could become a restricted free agent for the 2019-20 season. Those negotiations will begin in two years.
Then there’s Zach LaVine, 21, who will be eligible for a substantial deal the same year as Wiggins.
By accepting contract extensions, the trio would bypass free agency.
Wolves owner Glen Taylor is keenly aware that Towns and Wiggins eventually could require annual deals in the $25 million range.
“I’m planning that that’s a possibility,” Taylor said last week. “That’s why, for us to go out into free agency at this time, we have to be thoughtful of what’s going to happen to this club two or three years from now.
“So we’ve got to project those salaries. (General manager Scott Layden) and (coach Tom Thibodeau) are aware of the same thing, too, that we just can’t go out and offer any price to anybody for any length of contract. Right now, length of contract is really important to us, so we don’t find ourselves in a situation where some of these clubs sign a guy and then have to get rid of somebody else. So if Karl and Andrew play up to where we think they can play, they’re going to command a real high salary. And if we don’t give it to them, somebody else will.”
Taylor on Monday will fly to Las Vegas to watch his summer team and Kris Dunn, who scored 27 points in his debut against Denver on Friday.
“It’s just the beginning, the first game of summer league, and you can’t get too carried away with it, but I thought for a first outing he did well overall,” Thibodeau said from Las Vegas. “But there’s a long way to go. There’s a big difference between summer league and a NBA regular season game … it’s a start.”
As a rookie, Dunn will make $3.9 million. Second-year point guard Tyus Jones will make $1.4 million.
Jones, who scored 12 points in Las Vegas on Friday, was lighting up the nets at the Twin Cities Pro-Am League, which plays Monday through Wednesdays at
DeLaSalle High.
The Wolves have brought 6-10 Majok Deng, 23, brother of the Lakers’ 6-9 Luol Deng, 31, to their Las Vegas team. Majok, who plays for the Adelaide 36ers in Australia, played collegiately at Louisiana-Monroe but went unpicked in the NBA’s draft last month.
Cole Aldrich, 27, the Bloomington Jefferson grad who last week agreed to a $22 million, three-year deal with the Timberwolves, suddenly is the Wolves’ fourth-highest paid player for next season at $7.08 million behind Ricky Rubio ($13.4 million), Nikola Pekovic ($12.1 million) and Kevin Garnett ($8 million).
Twins rookie Max Kepler, 23, who suddenly has seven home runs in 44 major league games this season, said he’s not a home run hitter but a line-drive hitter.
When the unassuming Kepler signed with the Twins as a 16-year-old out of Berlin in 2009, his expectations were to play a couple of seasons to see how much he could improve. But he said he didn’t expect to make it to the major leagues despite receiving a $775,000 signing bonus.
Twins hitting coach Tom Brunansky and first baseman Joe Mauer were chatting the other day about how much Kepler’s swing reminds them of ex-Twins MVP Justin Morneau.
Kent Hrbek, whose No. 14 jersey has been retired by the Twins, couldn’t resist a laugh when he noticed a fan at a Twins-Oakland game at Target Field last week wearing a Hrbek replica No. 14 jersey and carrying a beer.
“Perfect!” Hrbek said.
Kirk Triplett, 54, who two weeks ago won the American Family Insurance tournament, his fifth Champions Tour victory, and a check for $300,000 in Madison, Wis., will be at Wayzata Country Club on Monday for a “Mind Over Matter” brain cancer fundraiser.
On a wall in Twins manager Paul Molitor’s Target Field office is a picture of him and 46 other Cooperstown hall of famers, each of whom autographed the print, of which only four were signed.
Although USA fans will be plenty loud when the Ryder Cup is held at Hazeltine National on Sept. 30-Aug. 2, they probably won’t be as loud as when the storied competition is held in Europe.
“Frankly, nothing is quite as loud as the first tee at a European Ryder Cup,” Tom Lehman said the other day. “Even as loud as (Hazeltine) may be, the European venues are even more so.”
Lehman, the former Gophers golfer from Alexandria, Minn., captained the 2006 USA Ryder Cup team that lost 18 1/2 to 9 1/2 to Europe in Ireland. Lehman, 57, is a vice captain for captain Davis Love III’s team this year.
Lehman said he isn’t exactly sure why the Europeans get so vociferous on their home turf.
“The European crowd has a different way of going about things,” he said. “They sing those songs. Watch any soccer game — that’s the crowd at the Ryder Cup.”
The American Marshals, who are a hearty group of local and especially patriotic USA Ryder Cup fans, have traveled to the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., Celtic Manor in Wales, Medinah in Illinois and Gleneagles in Scotland to support American Ryder Cup teams, and they will play a visible role of chanting and singing for the competition against Europe at Hazeltine.
The Minnesota Section of the PGA reports sales of nearly 1,700 Minnesota vehicle specialty golf license plates purchased during the last year at a cost of $40 besides normal registration fees. Revenue goes toward funding youth and player development programs.
St. Paul’s Mark Nelson, just back from refereeing a championship fight in Bangkok, next Saturday referees the first-ever title fight in India in New Delhi, a World Boxing Organization super middleweight bout between India national hero Vijender Singh and Kerry Hope of Australia.
Former Twins second baseman Frank Quilici, 77, who last week was to have left hip replacement surgery in Minneapolis: “That was from catching (throws) from shortstop and third base and getting killed.”
That was St. Paul’s Joe Gallagher spending a day last week with hall of fame ex-Twin Dave Winfield in San Diego preparing for the Major League Baseball Players Association party on Monday in conjunction with Tuesday’s All-Star Game. Gallagher’s “Your Team Productions” firm of St. Paul was hired by the MLBPA to produce all-star activities, and will oversee Ryder Cup opening and closing ceremonies at Hazeltine.
By the way, Winfield, 64, the St. Paul native, the past few days has had a rock star-type following in San Diego, where he spent his first eight major league seasons with the Padres signing out of the University of Minnesota.
Jennifer Garner, Jay Leno, Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and John Mellencamp are among celebs expected to attend the Starkey Awards Gala next Sunday at St. Paul’s RiverCentre.
St. Paul Saints pitcher Mark Hamburger, 29, the former Texas Rangers major leaguer from Mounds View, was 8-0 entering Saturday night’s game in Fargo and on track to become a starter for the American Association All-Star Game the Saints will host at CHS Field in three weeks.
Woodbury’s Dan Dolan, 89, remains Minnesota state amateur baseball’s all-time strikeout king, as a 20-year-old having fanned a record 23 for Milroy in an 11-0 victory over Sanborn in a nine-inning game in 1947.
Mike Wacker, son of late Gophers football coach Jim Wacker, will be new head men’s basketball coach at Texas Lutheran University.
Minnesota state high school football and soccer championships will be held in the Vikings’ new stadium next year, free of rent.
St. Paul’s Bobby Johnson, 80, a utility infielder for the 1966 World Series champion Baltimore Orioles, was in Baltimore this weekend for the team’s 50th anniversary celebration.
Stillwater golfer Hudson Carpenter, 24, who two weeks ago tied Stillwater Country Club’s course record of 64, has $10,000 to use for PGA Tour Qualifying School after shooting a pair of 66s to win the North Star Open at Dellwood Country Club last week.
Tennis pro Eric Butorac of Rochester, Minn., skipped Wimbledon this year because of the impending birth of his and wife Maggie’s second child, Charlie.
It’s a second baby girl, Leni, for T.J. Oshie of the Washington Capitals and wife Lauren. The pair reside in Sunfish Lake.
Mitch Leidner, Jack Lynn and Damarius Travis will represent the Gophers at the Big Ten kickoff luncheon July 25 in Chicago.
Minneapolis is the ninth-best city in the country for recreation, according to website WalletHub, which ranks St. Paul 45th. Orlando, Fla., is No. 1.
Hall of fame ex-Viking Alan Page, who turns 71 next month, takes daily strolls around Lake of the Isles equipped with treats for dogs he meets along the way, says the Page Education Foundation, and now is known as “the Dog Whisperer.”
DON’T PRINT THAT
The Timberwolves’ signing of free agent Cole Aldrich, 27, to a $22 million, three-year deal could be an indication that Kevin Garnett, 40, although he’s signed for $8 million next season, won’t be returning as a player.
Garnett still hasn’t told the Wolves whether he’ll be back, but he’s no longer productive on the court.
Ray Fosse, who has been the Oakland A’s broadcast analyst for 31 seasons, while in town last week for the series against the Twins, said he still wonders why the Twins, when Target Field was being built, didn’t make the left-field fences more accommodating for Joe Mauer, the way they were in the Metrodome when Mauer hit 28 home runs en route to becoming the 2009 American League MVP.
Although Jordan Schroeder has elected for salary arbitration with the Wild, the Wild center and former Gopher from Prior Lake can continue negotiating until a hearing date, which would come between July 20-Aug. 4. Schroeder, 25, was guaranteed $225,000 last season but made more than that when promoted from minor league Iowa.
It took 10 months and a 16-person search committee for the University of Minnesota to hire a permanent successor to Norwood Teague as athletics director, Mark Coyle. It took Syracuse less than two months and a six-person committee to hire Coyle’s successor, John Wildhack, a Syracuse alum and ESPN executive.
Look for Wild owner Craig Leipold on Wednesday to announce details for a first-class dining establishment he’ll open adjacent to the team’s offices on Washington Street in St. Paul.
It remains a gross injustice that former Gophers and NBA coach Bill Fitch, 82, isn’t in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Reason: He’s not a self-promoter. Fitch, who coached Minnesota two seasons before leaving for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1970, is retired on Lake Conroe in Montgomery, Texas, where he plays golf twice a week. Some prominent NBA front-office people still call him for advice.
The Timberwolves, who before drafting guard Kris Dunn last month were 75-to-1 odds to win next season’s NBA championship, now are 66-to-1. Golden State is favored at 5-to-7, NBA reigning champion Cleveland next at 7-to-2.
O.J. Mayo, 28, the ex-USC guard who this month was tossed out of the NBA for violating the league’s anti-drug program, was chosen No. 3 overall by the Timberwolves in the 2008 NBA draft, then traded to Memphis in a deal that brought Kevin Love to the Wolves.
Despite having the second-worst record among baseball’s 30 teams, the Twins rank 24th in attendance, averaging 24,381 tickets sold per game. The Twins are drawing better on the road (27,321 average) than at Target Field.
It took a long negotiation, but credit Jack Larson, the peerless Xcel Energy Center general manager, for landing singer Adele for two sold-out performances last week at the St. Paul arena.
The Gophers men’s basketball team on Thursday offered a tender to 6-foot-10 junior Daniel Oturo from Cretin-Derham Hall. The highly athletic Oturo, who is from Woodbury, has a 7-4 wingspan and should be among the top 100 juniors when national rankings come out soon. Michigan State, Kansas and Providence also have interest.
Apple Valley’s Gary Trent Jr., and Tre Jones have been spectacular for the Howard Pulley AAU basketball team at the Peach Jam tournament in Augusta, Ga.
It’ll be interesting whether the Lynx try to trade for Tayler Hill, the former Miss Basketball Minnesota guard from Minneapolis South who for the Washington Mystics scored 17 points in last week’s 87-63 victory over the Lynx.
No Timberwolves were among the top-15 most popular NBA jerseys sold on NBAStore.com. No. 1 is Stephen Curry of the Warriors.
Dave Hoover, 59, is an ice cream and milk truck driver and 16-handicap golfer who tries to play three times a week at his home course, Minnesota National, in McGregor.
Until this spring, Hoover had never scored a hole in one. Then on May 5, he knocked a 7-wood into the 184-yard No. 6 hole for an ace. A month later, he aced the No. 15, 154-yard hole with a 7-iron. Three weeks later, on June 29 on the same course, Hoover knocked his 7-wood into the 174-yard, No. 3 hole.
Three holes in one within two months.
“It’s crazy — they just went in,” Hoover said.
Total cost to Hoover for celebratory drinks: Nearly $190.
OVERHEARD
New coach Tom Thibodeau to Glen Taylor when the Timberwolves’ owner told him while watching practice that the players were working hard: “They’ll be worked harder.”
