Knicks GM Scott Layden said he drafted 141/2 feet of center Thursday. But if 18-year-old 7-footer Majiec Lampe, who has a small forward's game, and 7-6 Slavko Vranes are not ready for the rotation, then the Knicks will not have accomplished their goal of getting "longer" in the frontcourt for next season.

If 6-8 Mike Sweetney becomes the opening-night starter at power forward, the Knicks still will be undersized at all three frontcourt positions, including at center, where 6-9 Kurt Thomas continues to masquerade as a pivot.

That is why the Knicks are hardly done with their retooling project. Free agency begins Tuesday and the Knicks will make another play for the Timberwolves' 7-foot center Rasho Nesterovic, who is now an unrestricted free agent. The Knicks also have interest in Alonzo Mourning and Pacers center Brad Miller, but Miller's market value will be higher than Nesterovic's and Mourning prefers to re-sign with Miami.

"They showed extreme interest last summer and I don't see that changing this summer," Nesterovic's agent, Bill Duffy, told The Post.

The Knicks courted Nesterovic, 27, last July but only had their $4.5 million exception to offer. Plus, Nesterovic was a restricted free agent and the Wolves likely would have matched any offer. Duffy believed Nesterovic was worth more than $4.5M and passed on the Knicks' long-term offer. Nesterovic elected to re-sign with Minnesota for one year, thus becoming unrestricted this Tuesday after having a nice year, averaging 11.2 points and 6.5 rebounds.

Season after season, the Timberwolves have been patient ? building from within while doing without several first-round draft picks, waiting weeks into free agency before making any substantial moves, then promising adjustments after the inevitable first-round playoff defeat.

But that changed last week, when, in a 16-hour period, the Wolves drafted a skinny high school player and made a trade that should improve the team.

And the plan is for the changes to continue.

"This definitely is just a beginning,'' team owner Glen Taylor said Friday, hours after Minnesota traded Joe Smith and Anthony Peeler to Milwaukee for Sam Cassell and Ervin Johnson. "We've got a lot more work to do.''

Teams are allowed to begin negotiating with free agents Tuesday and can sign them beginning July 16. The Wolves have eight, but the first priority is to get a decision from starting center Rasho Nesterovic, who plans to test the free agent market and already has sparked interest from New York and Toronto, at least.

"I think we just want to know where we sit with Rasho," Taylor said, noting that if Nesterovic leaves, Alonzo Mourning has put the Wolves on a list of teams he's willing to talk to. "But Rasho's our No. 1, so that's what we prefer to do.''

Nesterovic's decision will determine if the Wolves need another center, and also how they can obtain new talent. Because Minnesota has exceeded the salary cap, it has exceptions worth only $1.5 million and about $4.6 million with which to sign free agents, although the team can re-sign its own free agents for more.

Wolves vice president Kevin McHale also has been negotiating a trade involving injured point guard Terrell Brandon, who won't play again but whose contract will give a team luxury tax relief once he retires. However, the player the Wolves have been seeking in those deals has not been a top-notch center. If Nesterovic signs elsewhere, that might have to change.

The Timberwolves on Thursday drafted for the future. On Friday, they dealt for the present.

In a move team vice president Kevin McHale hopes will kick-start an active summer, the Timberwolves traded forward Joe Smith and guard Anthony Peeler to the Milwaukee Bucks for point guard Sam Cassell and center Ervin Johnson.

The swap gives Minnesota more depth at point guard while giving the Bucks more flexibility to re-sign point guard Gary Payton.

"We're trying to shore up some other areas," McHale said. "Hopefully, this isn't the end of everything. This is just the start of some stuff.''

At the center of the deal is Cassell, 33, a 10-year veteran who averaged 19.7 points and 5.8 assists last season. He has three years and about $17 million left on his contract and a reputation of being outspoken. But he also has a reputation for agitating defenders.

"I don't think we'll have a lot of problems with him; a lot of times that is because he's so competitive,'' Wolves coach Flip Saunders said of Cassell's reputation. "He wants to win."

The 19-year-old high school kid and the skinny long shot from Duluth -- the Timberwolves' two draft picks Thursday night -- realistically won't help the team improve much next season.

Maybe the 33-year-old point guard and the 35-year-old backup center the Wolves acquired Friday will.

In a trade with the Milwaukee Bucks, the Wolves swapped guard Anthony Peeler and forward Joe Smith for guard Sam Cassell and big man Ervin Johnson. The trade, initiated about two weeks ago and completed Friday afternoon, is contingent on all four players passing physicals.

The move is said to be the first of several in the offseason intended to boost the Wolves, if not beyond their 51-31 regular-season record in 2002-03, then at least out of the playoffs' first round next spring. Also on their agenda: finding a taker for injured point guard Terrell Brandon's contract in a trade for a healthy player or two, re-signing free-agent center Rasho Nesterovic, luring one or more free agents to accept the team's salary-cap exception slots and getting All-Star forward Kevin Garnett to commit to a contract extension beyond 2003-04.

Cassell, who will turn 34 a few weeks into the coming season, is the best player in Friday's trade. He has averaged 15.9 points, 6.1 assists, 1.18 steals and 30.4 minutes over 10 NBA seasons, split among five teams.

An extroverted 6-3 playmaker who was a member of Houston's championship teams in 1994 and 1995, Cassell spent the past four full seasons in Milwaukee -- which, coincidentally, acquired him in the three-team trade in March 1999 when Stephon Marbury forced his way from Minnesota to New Jersey and Brandon moved into the vacated spot in the Twin Cities.

Contract difficulties prevented the Wolves from getting Cassell straight-up at the time. But they liked him then and they like him now.

The almighty greenback continues to be a deciding factor in the Milwaukee Bucks' player personnel moves.

In an effort to cut salaries and reduce their chances of having to pay the National Basketball Association's luxury tax, the Bucks on Thursday traded guard Sam Cassell and center Ervin Johnson to the Minnesota Timberwolves for forward Joe Smith and guard Anthony Peeler.

Peeler's contract is not guaranteed after this season so the Bucks will cut him and save the $3.7 million and $4.1 million that he was to be paid for the next two seasons.

Are the Bucks a better team after the trade? That can be debated, but their player payroll will be lighter in a few days after Peeler is cut.

Bucks general manager Ernie Grunfeld contended that the money saved would give the Bucks a better chance to re-sign free agent Gary Payton.

The 19-year-old high school kid and the skinny long shot from Duluth -- the Timberwolves' two draft picks Thursday night -- realistically won't help the team improve much next season.

Maybe the 33-year-old point guard and the 35-year-old backup center the Wolves acquired Friday will.

In a trade with the Milwaukee Bucks, the Wolves swapped guard Anthony Peeler and forward Joe Smith for guard Sam Cassell and big man Ervin Johnson. The trade, initiated about two weeks ago and completed Friday afternoon, is contingent on all four players passing physicals.

The move is said to be the first of several in the offseason intended to boost the Wolves, if not beyond their 51-31 regular-season record in 2002-03, then at least out of the playoffs' first round next spring. Also on their agenda: finding a taker for injured point guard Terrell Brandon's contract in a trade for a healthy player or two, re-signing free-agent center Rasho Nesterovic, luring one or more free agents to accept the team's salary-cap exception slots and getting All-Star forward Kevin Garnett to commit to a contract extension beyond 2003-04.

Multiple league sources report that the Bucks and Timberwolves have agreed to a trade that would send Sam Cassell and Ervin Johnson to Minnesota with Anthony Peeler and Joe Smith going to Milwaukee.

The Timberwolves reportedly were going to hold a press conference at 12:00PM EST, but that has been delayed. As of 1:00PM EST, the NBA.com roster pages of both teams show the players on their supposed new teams.

UPDATE: The Score in Chicago is also reporting this trade.

UPDATE: Kevin McHale has confirmed the trade at the 1:45PM EST press conference.

Even Timberwolves vice president Kevin McHale had to laugh a bit Thursday after Minnesota drafted its second and final player of the night.

"(It's weird) to take a high school kid in the first round, then tell a sophomore he should go back to school ? but he probably should have gone back to school,'' McHale said.

As it is, University of Minnesota sophomore Rick Rickert is staying in Minnesota after all ? for now.

Opting for the future instead of the present, the Wolves drafted 19-year-old Ndudi Ebi (pronounced EN-DEE EE-BEE) ? who was born in London, raised in Nigeria and graduated from Westbury Christian High School in Houston? with the 26th pick in the NBA draft. At No. 55, in the second round, they drafted Rickert, a 6-foot-11 215-pound forward who originally expected to be chosen in the first round when he left school after the season.