Well, you can say Beasley fell into his lap, but the fact is a ton of other teams could've taken him and didn't, so that's a +1 for Kahn over a lot of guys.

Those were all awful players, but Stinko was a FA, Grant was the 20th pick in the draft, and Ebi was the 26th pick in the draft. If you want to add a couple terrible picks to that list, you can say Will Avery and Rashad McCant were right up there as well.

None of those guys were picked at #6 like Flynn, which makes him easily the worst draft choice in Wolves history imo, especially considering we could have taken Curry and there were a lot of people, myself included, that wanted Curry. Flynn was rated way lower by all other teams. He was a huge reach at the time, and it looks way worse now that we've seen him. Even if we didnt pick Curry and wanted another PG, there were at least 3 or 4 other PGs off the top of my head that are far better than Flynn. We wasted a very valuable pick on him.

I need many more details to have an opinion because there are too many variables that I've heard discussed so far. It could range from swapping crap for crap to a decent deal for us to a bad deal for us depending on if we give up the cap exemption and which pick gets sent from us.

I'll give Kahn credit for the Beasley deal even though it was a nice gift by the Heat. I think the Rubio pick was obvious (most other teams would have done it and I think it was the right choice), and the trade to get us that pick was solid.

There are a lot of other reasons I want Kahn to go. The biggest one is I dont think he knows wtf he's doing as far as judging talent. Going forward with him running this year's draft and making a decision with that trade exemption could be a disaster imo.

Here's some credible stuff about the potential Melo deal: http://www.canishoopus.com/2011/2/6/...atic#storyjump

the jefferson trade was a great deal for us.

I meant Rasho not Stojko, whoops. And mostly I wanted to laugh at our history. Don't forget Rider, Laettner and Marshall!

Rasho was probably the best C in Wolves history. That's not saying a lot, and he was soft, but he was fairly productive. This was actually one of the Wolves better picks in their history. Darko has a chance to be better than Rasho, but he hasnt done nearly enough as of yet imo.

You could say Longley and Spencer were bad picks, but they were both serviceable big men, but not worth their high draft choices.

yeah Rider & Laettner were both cancers, but at least they could play a little.

Rider maybe could be considered to be a worse decision than Flynn because of how bad of a human being he was, but taking him with the 4th pick was not a reach at the time. A lot of other teams might have taken him at #4 too.

Laettner was considered the 3rd best player in the draft that year by everyone. He even made the Dream Team ahead of Shaq & Mourning somehow. I dont know if there was any discussion about any other player going #3 that year.

Marshall was a bum, but we got Googs in a trade for him and Marshall actually wound up being a decent backup shooting forward in his later years for Utah & maybe some other teams.

Some of those suggestions do provide some competition for Flynn, but I think he's still our worst pick ever, all things considered.

wot

The only positive thing that it did was force Rambis to give Love more playing time. I guess Love would still be coming off the bench playing 25 minutes a game if we had kept Al, but if we had a good coach, I think those two would have been seeing the court together.

I saw some number a while back about different player combos from last year. Love & Al played very few minutes together, and during the time they did play together, the team did relatively well. I dont know how to find those numbers or I would post them.

If we were to somehow cash in & get a good player in trade by using that cap exemption we got from the Al trade, then the Al deal could wind up being ok or good, but I think its looking to be less likely to get us anything of much value at this point. I hope I'm wrong about that.

The two 1st round picks we got have very little value because they will be late round picks who make guaranteed money. Koufos has almost no value.

http://www.82games.com/0910/0910MIN2.HTM

Thanks for the link. Someone arranged those numbers so they were easier to interpret, but you can see most of our lineups that contained Al had the best +/-.

I kinda saw parts of the game tonight but didnt watch it closely. Nice game by Love as usual. Good to see us hang on for a win vs a good team! Anyone have any comments on the game tonight?

Tolliver is shooting >40% beyond the arc for us which is crazy, he had a good game tonight. Darko and Beasley both got hurt. Jonny Flynn was awful awful awful. Love was just everywhere as per the usual.

the wolves have until july 14 to use the trade exception. it doesn't have to be during the season.

edit: even if they don't use the exception (to trade for up to $13m in salary) by july 14, i think they are way under the cap because of the trade, so they could the use space to sign FAs in future years.

and i'm not sure if you even need an exception to trade for salary when you are under the cap. i would think you wouldn't. it's the cap space that is awesome. (not to mention the $ savings, right?)

basically within a matter of days in july, kahn traded jefferson for beasley and koufus, two 2nd rounders for two protected 1st rounders, and a lot of salary liability for a lot of cap space/trade exception.

pretty awesome imo.

Haven't been able to watch the games, but is there any hope in Flynn's last 5 games?
10.6 PPG
6.0 Ast
2.6 TO

Or is it just because he's playing more? Does he even look servicable?

He had like 7 TOs tonight, probably not a good time to ask that question.

fyp

At least with all the time he's getting there's a small chance imo that he becomes a good attacking PG type player who just shouldn't orchestrate the offense. But he needs better coaching or coachability or something.

We didnt have to trade Al to get Beasley. Koufos is pretty close to being completely useless, as are two late 1st round picks. We dont have enough roster space to use those picks and those two picks will get guaranteed money.

Cap space and the trade exemption - we'll see what happens with that. That's what could turn it into a better deal. Right now, I'm not optimistic about that. It sounds like Taylor has lost faith in Kahn, which means Kahn might not have full authority to make whatever moves he wants to anymore. Taylor might veto certain deals if they cost him too much money. If that's the case, he should just get rid of Kahn now and hire someone else to do the job.

I think the Wolves would benefit from a change of scenery for Johnny

Kwame Brown lottery:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=VxEGhVVzUgM

This is one of the funniest things I've seen on Youtube in a long time.

Hilarious! lol

fyp

and yeah, he didn't have to trade jefferson to get beasley, but it opened up minutes for beasley and love. at the time beasley was arguably more of a 4 than a 3.

as for taylor vetoing deals to save money, it's still a gain. taylor is a great owner and i'd rather he just saved $13m/yr than waste it on al jefferson.

I give up willie. I dont think we're going to agree with each other on that stuff for a while.

Great game tonight! We were missing 4 or our top 5 scorers, 3 of which area starters.

Love was playing with flu-like symptoms. He looked sick to his stomach in the first half and managed 20/14. That's 38 double doubles in a row for a franchise record, and the most in 25 years since Moses did 44 for the record. The others in the top 5 for the past 25 years are KG, Stockton, Barkley, and Blake Griffin. Nice company (4 HoF'ers or probable HoF'ers), and Love is at the top of that list!

Flynn made some shots and had some assists tonight, but he is still just awful. The stupid TOs and the poor excuse for defense make it hard to watch him play. ~ 3 times a game he leaves his feet and has no idea what he's going to do with the ball. He started at least two fast breaks for Houston tonight with dreadful TOs passing the ball back towards the wrong basket. Hopefully some of the scoring numbers he's putting up will inflate his trade value to the point where we might receive a late 2nd round pick for him.

Pek is showing signs of becoming a legitimate solid backup C. Its gonna take him a while yet, but I think he's going to be a productive player for us.

Ellington looked really good tonight. He's been working on moves and his shot, and it showed tonight. The last 3 he hit - we ran a pick play where Houston switched defenders so a big was guarding Ellington, who had the ball near the 3 point line. Ellington recognized the mismatch right away, drove toward the basket, then pulled back for a wide open 3 and nailed it. That shot was huge, and it was good to see an actual smart play by a Wolf not named Love for a change. I hope he gets some of Brewer's PT going forward.

Bassy is a lot better than Flynn. He generally plays smart and actually plays defense. He can break down a defense by penetrating and makes mostly good decisions. He was hitting shots tonight too.

Leaving Flynn in at the end of a close game is insane if you are actually trying to win. Houston basically forced Flynn to shoot a layup with ~16 seconds left and the Wolves leading by 3. He missed. Luckily, Houston isnt very good right now and the rest of the Wolves played really well at the end.

2 in a row on the road - one against a playoff team and the other against a team we hadnt beat since 2006 - woot!

The reports with the Wolves being the third player in the Melo' deal are that they do not feel that Eddy Curry's expiring contract and Anthony Randolph are worth a mid-1st round pick and Brewer which is what they'd be giving up.

I don't know a whole lot about Randolph but I'm inclined to agree here. Not sure why we need another PF and Curry's contract would provide more cap relief for a team that can't really attract a big FA anyway. The only time in Wolves history they attracted bigger FA's was when they traded for Cassell and Spreewell during the KG years.

I like Brewer's attitude and work ethic but his offense is super AIDS and I'll never be sold on him being our defensive stopper. He's not quick enough to guard the 2's and not muscular enough to avoid being pounded by the 3's. Brewer is a stopper, but on guys built just like him.

That said, I'm not sure if the Wolves think they can get something better for Brewer alone. He's an RFA and the Wolves have a qualifying offer for him next year of ~$5M.

yeah I agree with all that.

One point though - I heard we might be willing to dump one of the mid-late 1st round picks for next to nothing because we have too many guys under contract and those would be two more guaranteed contracts.

This post was from Jan 4, now we're projected to win 25.1 even with the last 2 wins. Kind of sad.

Some better news:

According to Barcelona coach Xavi Pascual, Rubio is steadily progressing.

"(Rubio) will experience an important jump in his game when he stabilizes his scoring. He will (then) become one of the best to ever play the game," said Pascual, who was hopeful Rubio wouldn't sacrifice his best qualities in search of more points. "He cannot lose his identity as a player based on defense and passing."

A move to the NBA could be just what Rubio needs to realize his potential. Scouts say that, despite a common stereotype in the United States that European players are "soft," the Euroleague is actually much more rugged than the American pro game.

"Here, in Europe, we do everything as a team," said Pete Mickeal, a former Cincinnati standout and Rubio's teammate at Barcelona. "There (in the NBA) he is going have a lot of individual one-on-one workouts and he is going to be great at that."

Guards have much more freedom to operate in the NBA, where the league has cracked down on hand-checking and contact on the perimeter.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/115663554.html

i don't know if that's really "good news". that's just his coach talking him up/people making excuses for him. not they are necessarily wrong, it's just not anything new.

on the other hand it was news to me when this article talked about how rubio would not be against playing in spain another year depending on the lockout situation and/or the timberwolves' prospects for winning.