Minnesota Timberwolves, 4-22
SRS: -7.39 (28th of 30) â–ª Pace Factor: 91.5 (16th of 30) â–ª Offensive Rating: 102.0 (28th of 30) â–ª Defensive Rating: 110.4 (25th of 30)
San Antonio Spurs, 17-10
SRS: 2.05 (11th of 30) â–ª Pace Factor: 88.3 (27th of 30) â–ª Offensive Rating: 107.8 (12th of 30) â–ª Defensive Rating: 104.2 (8th of 30)
<SBG>This game is the already the third time that the Wolves have faced the Spurs this season, with a fourth game scheduled on March 17th. The last time the Wolves played the Spurs, they had won four straight and I was beginning to think that this club would challenge in the West. Of course, they beat the Wolves (now losers of 12 straight) and won their next game against the hapless OKC Thunder. After that, though, they dropped a pair of road games at New Orleans and Orlando. Those are two good teams to be sure, and losing to both of them is certainly no shame. But, I'll back off a little and let this season play out a little more before I commit to the Spurs as being a legitimate threat to win the Western Conference. The West is losing the overall battle against the East this year, but the top of the West is still very strong. Hollinger projects the Spurs to win 50 games this year, but that's only good enough for the sixth seed. He also sees the Spurs as having a 10% chance of winning the West. Unlike the East, which has two and maybe three teams with a shot at the conference title, the West is wide open. San Antonio looks like a team on the periphery and still one that has a decent enough shot to play for a title.
In the other corner are our Wolves. I hope that morale improves, because the beatings are going to continue. With 15 games left in the first half of the season, I think it's quite possible that the Wolves could make it to the halfway point with just 6 or 7 victories (last year it was 7). Perhaps more. I count five games that are winnable (of course, any game is winnable, I'm talking about games with a decent chance to win) in the next 15: Memphis, at Memphis, Golden State, OKC, and at Clippers. If they can win all of those games, they are at nine wins and an 18 win pace. Throw in a win at New York and they are at 10 wins. However, Memphis is improved, they laid an egg earlier (meaning that they played like crap the whole game) against the Clipperdoodles, who have been better, lost to OKC (and won on a buzzer beater). So no game is in the bag. Except for tonight's game. For the Spurs.</SBG>
<GreekHouse>Well, the Wolves are certainly looking woeful these days, which at least means that they will likely get a high draft pick. Of course, their first pick in the first round will be just one of many that they will get this year. It looks like they will get 4 (is that right???). Other than the Joe Smith fiasco, McHale's most notable failures have come on draft day. But even beyond his inability to select good players is the way he treated draft picks throughout his tenure as GM of the Wolves.
The impression that I get from McHale is that the draft is only useful to teams that are in pretty bad shape and he seemed to piss them away in pretty much any trade that he made. It started with the Marbury/Allen trade, then we continued to trade away picks in pretty much every major trade we made until the Garnett trade. Since then, picking up first rounders has been top priority and now the Wolves seem to have a relative surplus of them. The combination of these two thing leads me to believe that McHale really doesn't understand exactly what makes picks valuable and how much actual value they have.
While it's generally true that draft picks have more value to teams that are trying to rebuild, draft picks have value even to championship contenders. Part of the reason draft picks have more value to teams that are trying to rebuild though, is that their picks tend to come at the beginning of the draft where they can get better players with them. You're not going to get LeBron with the 25th pick in the first round. That isn't to say that low draft picks don't have value however.
All other things being equal, the teams with the best records in the league one year will typically have a worse record the next year and vice versa. In other words, the tendency of all teams is to regress to the mean. The tendency is due to a number of factors which I won't go into here. But in order for a championship caliber team to continue to compete, they typically need to do something to continue to play at the same high level. Usually, this is done by adding a player or two during the offseason. One way to get these players is through free agency, but this is often an expensive and impractical way to improve your team--and that's where the draft comes in.
If your team is already pretty good, you typically don't need to go out and secure a big name free agent to continue competing, but you will likely have smaller needs that can be addressed more cheaply. The draft is a great way to address these needs. Even near the end of the first round, you can typically get a decent player that will help your team in some way. It may just be a backup point guard or a center who plays 10 minutes a game, but having these players is essential to any successful team. If you can draft someone like this, you can get them for a fraction of the price that you would have to pay a comparable free agent. You will also have them under contract for several years.
A good GM should always look to improve his team any way he can. This means he should be open to all options at all times. McHale seemed to thing that drafting players wasn't really a good option for improving the Wolves. He basically traded them away for minor upgrades (if that) at positions where we already had a decent player. In reality, the Wolves likely would have benefited more from keeping the players that they had and picking up a good backup in the next draft. While making a single trade like this might be beneficial (assuming you get enough value for your picks), the result of doing this over and over left the Wolves with very little depth. Combine this with McHale's inability to select good players when he did keep the picks and the Wolves were left virtually crippled, even with Garnett.
Now the Wolves are looking at a potential 4 first round picks in a rather weak looking draft class. Although having a lot of draft picks is never really a bad thing, it does introduce some interesting problems. For one thing, first round picks are guaranteed contracts, so we'll be left with 4 contracts that are on the books. Furthermore, the contracts will all be expiring at the same time, leaving it difficult to resign all of them and possibly having to make difficult choices down the line. It would be nice to see the Wolves deal some of these picks for either an established player or a future first round pick.</GreekHouse>
The Wolves have 10 players under contract for next year already, plus Shoddy McCan't will be a free agent, as if. So, with potentially four #1s coming our way, we will have fourteen roster spots filled (out of 15).
Here's the rundown. The Wolves pick is ours unless the Wolves fall out of the top 10, in which case it goes to the Clippers. Okay, stop laughing, that's not happening. We will have to hand over a pick in 2012 unprotected.
The Celtics pick is top 3 protected, so we are getting that one.
The Heat pick is top 10 protected, so we are probably getting that.
The Jazz pick is top 22 protected, so we might get that. Actually, it'd be nice to defer that one a year. It's top 17 protected in 2010.
On top of that, it seems like we could trim the roster a bit if necessary.
Mike Miller ought to be of interest to teams, even if he's not a world beater. Cardinal may be useful to someone as an expiring contract. It might be worth it to just buy out Mad Dog. Someone out there has to like Craig Smith, right? He doesn't seem to fit at all with Love and BAJ.
Jefferson's really the only guy that they have a long-term commitment to, so I think there ought to be plenty of flexibility should someone with a clue happen to take over as GM. If we ever get a new GM...
I suspect that your point about draft picks is right on, GH. For one thing, veterans come with higher salaries than cost-controlled draftees and thus present a much bigger problem if they start to suck, especially in a league with a salary cap.
It's always seemed to me that the Lakers have done a pretty decent job filling their bench with late first-rounders. I might just think this because they've gotten a couple of Pac-10 guys, and I've been more in tune with the Pac-10 since moving to Seattle. But Farmar, Vujacic, and Walton at least seem like decent bench guys. It might not be much, but it's better than the likes of Jaric and THUD.
And really, Vujacic and Walton are about the 9th and 10th guys in their rotation at this point, they're so deep.
And the beat goes on. Woofs fall 99-93.