<SBG>I strolled over to the ESPN.COM power rankings on Monday and found our Timberwolves ranked 30th out of 30 teams in the NBA. Take that with a grain of salt – Mark Stein is not exactly a Wolves lover – but there can be no doubt that the Best GM in all of Sport was a little overly optimistic when he proclaimed that the Wolves had the talent to double their win total (to 44) over last year. No, I think that 30 wins is about where we’ll see this club, and anything over that would be gravy.
O.J. Mayo has scored 30+ points in two consecutive games and his shooting numbers are pretty good. That may not hold up, but it bears watching. Meanwhile, Kevin Love looks like he’s a player, which would be good news, indeed. I am generally optimistic (and John Hollinger is much, much higher on Love than he is on Mayo) about Love’s ability to be a good pro and I suppose Mike Miller’s addition is a good thing. Plus, unloading Marko Jaric can’t hurt. I still am uneasy about this deal, though, for one big reason. Love and the T-Wolves’ best player, BAJ, play the same damned position. So, what we have is BAJ playing out of position as an undersized center who can’t defend. I would have preferred that the Wolves stuck with Mayo for no other reason than he could probably have played the point (although, to be fair, he’s probably more of an undersized shooting guard and we’ve already got a couple of those in Randy Foye and Rashad McCants).
So, maybe Love is a guy that the Wolves can build around. It’d be nice if one of these first round picks turns out to be someone of value. If you accept that Love was a straight up deal for Mayo (with the other parts of the trade severed into a completely separate trade, here’s what the Wolves have to show for the last decade of first round picks:
1999 – Wally Szczerbiak – traded (along with a number 1, which was returned in the KG trade) for Mark Blount and Ricky Davis. In turn, traded for a bag of balls (Antoine Walker, Michael Doleac, and Wayne Simien) and a first round pick, so there may be some residual value left here, depending on where that pick ends up, but we gave up a #1 here, too, so basically no value left to this team anymore.
2000 – No pick
2001 – No pick
2002 – No pick
2003 – Ndudi Ebi, complete bust.
2004 – No pick
2005 – Rashad McCants. He hasn’t been terrible at #14, but he’s probably not going to be with this club after this season. He’s a no effort defender and a one-trick offensive pony (Rashad, it’s not illegal to pass the ball).
2006 – Brandon Roy, a fantastic pick, but traded for Randy Foye and a meeeee-ilyon dollars (/thatevildudeinaustinpowers). Remember when people were all saying that he was going to be the All-Star that helped KG to the title? Yeah, I was laughing about that, too. Foye’s now coming off the bench, with Sebastian Telfair getting the starting nod at point guard and Mike Miller at the two. Oy.
2007 – Corey Brewer sucks.
2008 – Kevin Love
It’s arguable that that only first round pick in the last ten years other than Love that has any value to the current club whatsoever is the Roy pick (well, McCants isn’t nothing, but I’m almost positive he’s gone after this year). And that’s just a hugely bitter pill to swallow, too. So, hey, if Kevin Love is a player, that’d be nice. If Mayo outshines him, though, I’m going to have to search my soul to determine why I don’t flat out hate this club. Plus, there’s the matter of drafting Mario Chalmers early in the second round and sending him off to Miami for no good reason. Chalmers has been starting for Miami, although he’s not exactly lighting the world on fire. Still, though, this club isn’t so deep with talent that it can just shed young players for the heck of it, especially at the point guard position. When Bassy Telfair is your best pure point guard, you should be looking for help. I suppose this is beating a dead horse, but I think I'll spend a little time documenting the atrocities over the next few games. There's no question that poor drafting (or no drafting or poor draft day trades) over the past decade has really hurt this team. It's not the only way this club has been hurt, but it's a big way.
Tonight, the Wolves play a crappy Golden State team. They could win this one.</SBG>
<GreekHouse>First, I'd like to point people over to fellow SBG Nation citizen Stop-n-Pop's place for a very good piece he wrote after the Wolves loss to Portland.
Among his points, he mentions that he'd like to see the Wolves cut a few players out of their rotation. This may not be a team that will win an NBA championship this season, but they actually have some talent and I'd like to see what they could do if they just stuck to their best players rather than trying to work in playing time for players who aren't really NBA caliber. Do you realize the Wolves ran out a five of Foye/McCants/Gomes/Smith/Maddog for an extended period of time last game? I mean...yikes. Love and BAJ are fairly obviously the team's two best players and as SBG pointed out, they play the same position. So really, there is no excuse not to have at least one of them out on the court at all times.</GreekHouse>
Broomstick Breuer. Heh.
I like it!
Warriors announcers apparently have always liked Craig Smith. Maybe McHale could interest them in a trade?
I was going to come up with an expensive, crappy player on GS that McHale could trade Smith and a #1 for, but then I looked at their roster...I am not nearly as knowledgeable about the NBA as I once was, but who the hell are over half the guys on their roster? Al Harrington might fit the description, so I'll go with Smith and a #1 for him.
I haven't been watching all that carefully since I've been writing a calc test for my students. But how the hell do we go from a 13 point first quarter lead to an 8 point halftime deficit? WTF?
First, thanks for the Canis Hoopus recommendation the other night GH. I'm hooked.
Building on one of his points, that Love has rendered Smith and Gomes meaningless--how bad does the Gomes signing look? is it just another example of the Wolves over-valuing a mediocre players?
A couple years ago, it seemed like everyone on the roster (other than KG and a couple minimum-contract scrubs) had a 5- or 6-year deal at $5mm-$10mm per. Is Gomes really the kind of guy you want locked up for 5 years? He seems like the kind of guy you don't mind having around but should be able to easily replace either with a draft pick (first or second round) or mid-level exception guy.
I think you hit the nail on the head about Gomes. He's a good player, but guys like him are a dime a dozen in the NBA.
Gomes was part of the KG trade. I think that part of the reason to sign was that that's how we got him.
From JimPete:
"The Wolves have no one who can cover Stephen Jackson"
Granted, Jackson is a better player right now than the guy I watched for most of his time in Indiana, but that statement is very depressing for the Wolves. Jackson is what, a 6'8" slasher and the Wolves roster isn't equipped to guard him?
Wow, the last 4 minutes of regulation were just terrible for the Wolves. We had a 9 point lead and every possession we were trying to shoot a 3. I know everyone wants to hit "the dagger", but that isn't how you win games boys.