J.J. Barea trade rumors: T’Wolves still shopping point guard
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After all the rumors, the Minnesota Timberwolves and Cleveland Cavaliers have officially agreed on a trade–it can’t become official until August 23rd. As we expected, superstar forward Kevin Love will be heading to the Cavaliers to form a ‘Big 3’ of Love, Kyrie Irving and LeBron James while 2013 number one overall pick Anthony Bennett, 2014 number one overall pick Andrew Wiggins, and a 2015 first-round pick will be heading to Minnesota. Of all those names, a common one that has been rumored to be apart of this deal for a long time has been left out in J.J. Barea, but according to Yahoo! Sports, the Wolves will continue finding a new home for the point guard.
"The T’wolves had hopes of unloading contracts in a Love deal, but that won’t be happening. Minnesota still has a goal of freeing itself of J.J. Barea, Luc Mbah a Moute and Alexey Shved, league sources said."
Since last season, the Wolves have been trying to unload Barea in a trade, but have come up unsuccessful. With a Kevin Love trade expected to happen, the franchise then turned their sights on forced a team to take on Barea with Love, but it seems that wasn’t an option for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Wolves still have options to fit Barea into this current trade window though it may not be to Cleveland. As rumored, the Wolves are in talks with the Philadelphia 76ers. Those talks could spur into a three-team trade allowing the Wolves to dump Barea and his expiring $4.5 million deal.