Q&A: Wolves VP Sachin Gupta on trade deadline, playoff outlook, and more

Wolves executive vice president of operations Sachin Gupta spoke with our Darren ‘Doogie’ Wolfson on Friday. At 29-26 heading into Friday night’s game at Chicago, the Wolves are in 7th place in the Western Conference.

The top-6 teams in each conference are guaranteed a playoff spot, with seeds 7-10 fighting for the final two spots. Just 1.5 games back of 6-seed Denver, 3.5 games back of 5-seed Dallas, the Wolves would love to avoid April’s play-in tournament.

***Click the video box above to watch our conversation with Gupta***

Gupta chose to remain with the status quo at Thursday’s trade deadline. He acknowledged that he and his staff had many conversations with teams, but ultimately a match never came to fruition.

Gupta said that he’ll have financial flexibility in early March, if he wants to add a free agent. Adding a free agent now, mostly to help with the Wolves’ defensive rebounding woes, would put the Wolves over the luxury tax, somewhere they don’t plan on being.

A number of players will be bought out of their contracts by their current team in the next few weeks. One possible target, center Enes Freedom, was let go by Houston on Thursday after the Rockets acquired him in a trade with Boston.