6 Months Later: The KG Trade

No, I can honestly say that we are not tanking AT ALL. You can see the effort that these guys put forth in the games, it’s just that we are not a very good team. Also, our coach…. ummm…. leaves a lot to be desired we’ll say.

We beat the Bulls by almost 20 last night. Tanking teams don’t do that.

Wolves are definitely not tanking. They’re just bad. They were due about 65 losses and they’re on track to be somewhere around that.

Talent tells no lies

Hey College Wolf how many players from the KG trade do you expect to be in a Minnesota jersey next season? How about the general view from Wolves fans too?

I only expect Al. Maybe Gomes will convince McHale to pay some money and make it two but I only expect Al.

I like the analysis, but the thing that wasn’t really mentioned is that by trading KG and being so damn bad, the Wolves will get a much better player in the draft. Beasley, Rose, and Jordan are all real possibilities for the Wolves, with KG they are possibilities but not real likely since the odds of winning the lottery are small. Those three all have superstar potential and are where the Wolves benefit most from the trade (except perhaps for Jefferson, though he desparately needs to improve defensively to be the anchor of a good team).

Who -

Honestly, I also only think it will be Big Al. Maybe if we are lucky we’ll also keep Gomes (who I really, really, really want us to keep.)

As you all probably know, Telfair declined our 1 year contract extension before this season and will probably land a decent payday from someone due to his pretty good play of late.

Gomes is a stud and should easily get the MLE. He’s a restricted Free Agent, but I have a gut feeling our front office won’t match.

GG and Theo are both locks to not be coming back.

For the most part, I think the general consensus among fans is about the same as mine. Of course, there are a few that want to keep GG, or get rid of Gomes, and/or sign Theo on the cheap if he’d come back… but definitely the minority of fans.

The most important part of the Kevin Garnett trade was ….. the next moves.

I liked the Ricky Blount for Antoine trade. I did think that Minny stood a decent chance of being able to pry an expiring deal like Kwame or J-Will but Antoine was the next best thing so overall that was good.

The Hassell-Buckner trade. Again good move considering the buyout clause but still half thought that Hassell was good enough to fetch an outright expiring contract (say Goran Giricek since Utah was looking for a stopper at the two, amongst many other teams looking for the same need).

The next two moves were showed predictably atrocious decision making:
(1) Troy Hudson buyout
(2) Juwan Howard buyout
Those contracts are going to count against the cap now. Howard definitely had value down the road as a trade asset and his buyout was needless waste. Considering Troy Hudson’s injury they were unlikely to ever be able to trade that, but they would have got insurance money plus an injury-related-exception from the league for … I think it’s half the contract to sign another player. Still more value keeping him than letting him go.

The last move was Marko Jaric and so far it’s been a non-move. They should have tried to package Marko off with some of the youth. Salary flexibility was more important than most of the youngsters but the front office got caught up and messed up. It’s a bit late in the season now considering Gomes/Telfair/Green/Smith are all expiring deals. Still it should be explored but unlikely to bring anything home. Even a deal that cut the salary to about 4m per annum would be good (Cavs got needs, and those types of contracts).

The KG trade in itself was never going to do enough for the franchise. It was the consequential moves that were going to determine the success of the trade. Adding that flexibility opportunity (cap/draft/FA) to make moves. Typicaly, the Wolves front office went half hearted (2 good moves, 3 bad) at it and have made it increasingly and unneccessarily difficult to rebuild the team.

Also letting go of Udrih was stupid.

Forced the team into a position where they couldn’t (at least made it very difficult) to trade Telfair as part of a package.

Plus Foye is now forced into some minutes at the point. The guy’s an unselfish scorer. Not someone who can run an offense. Let him be a two-guard and use his best talents. His point-relevant skills would all be well above average at the two guard and give the Wolves increased options offensively. But playing him at the one makes his impact on the game weaker.

If we could trade McCants in addition to one of our “bad contracts”, I would be beyond esctatic.

Addition by subtraction, in my opinion.

Think any teams around the league would take him along with say, Marko/Buckner/Walker/etc for an expiring contract? That would make me really happy.

I am not a McCants fan at all.

Al Jefferson and the Leadership Part from your discussion

I wouldn’t worry too much about that at this point. It’s still way too early to pigeon-hole the guy. Now that goes both ways, it’s too early to call him the cornerstone and it’s too early to say he isn’t going to become the cornerstone. Only in the middle of his fourth year out of High School and one of those was injury plauged. And he’s only been a credible starter for one and a half seasons.

Leadership is one of those things that’s vastly mis-reported by the media. They all want one guy to point to and to acclaim. It’s hardly ever that. If any team is that reliant on one man than they’re setting themselves up to fail (T’Wolves last couple of years?), they just haven’t realized it yet.

Take the Rockets of the mid-90’s. You had a great leader in Olajuwon. Another great leader in Drexler. Another top leader in Kenny Smith. Another leader in Robert Horry. Another leader in Sam Cassell. Another leader in Mario Elie.

Another young team in Portland has one of the games best young leaders in Brandon Roy. But they also have Jarret Jack who’s a fantastic young leader. They also have Joel Przybilla, who I’ll come back to in a second, who’s a good leader. They also have Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw is emerging as a leader this season too. They also have other guys who I suspect do a lot more behind than scenes but are hard to get a good grasp on considering their short time in the league (Aldridge I’m thinking about here). I wanted to come back to Przybilla. He’s in his 7th year now. For the first 5 he was a very hesitant voice in the locker room, even last year he was hesitant to speak when someone like Zach Randolph did. But he’s grown into it. It started when he became the starter in Portland three years ago and he was asked to be their defense leader, call out what’s happening in the paint and keep the defense organized. He was doing that well and starting to emerge. But he never did it in the locker room. He used to go over to Nate McMillan and say this has happened and someone needs to say ‘X, Y and Z now’ and Nate used to just look at him and say ’that’s for you to say, if you notice it go out and say it, don’t wait for someone else, go and say it’. Two and a bit seasons later and he’s developed into a leader.

Another example is Greg Ostertag. Immature and a jokester in the locker room. He was never a leader. Then when Stock and Malone retired Jerry Sloan asked him to be a captain and all of the Jazz fans (and reporters around the league) wondered why the heck was Jerry doing this? Well ‘Tag came out and was fantastic in the locker room. Kept the team on track all season and met one-on-one with anyone who was messing around in practice and told them they were hurting the team and that the team needed more from them. Next season Tag goes to Sacramento and Utah lack leadership in the locker room all season, Sloan admits it was Ostertag’s presence that made all the difference. They re-acquired Greg the next year I think.

Another guy is Tim Duncan. Everybody questioned his quiet ways and hesitancy to step up as a leader. But he had guys like Avery Johnson, Robinson, Will Perdue, Mario Elie, Sean Elliott. As they started to leave Tim gradually stood up and did more and more. Now he’s considered one of the game’s premier leaders, yet for the first few years (and he was winning MVPs) he wasn’t.

The two best leaders on the Wolves roster right now are probably Greg Buckner and Antoine Walker. This reminds me so much of Isiah in NY, where he thought and still does, that Malik Rose could provide enough leadership on the players side of things. Leadership has to be on the court to manifest itself in games, has to be on the court and the Wolves don’t have them. That’s why Al seems to struggle so much with it.

Some people are born leaders. Others gradually become them. It’s way too early to pigeon-hole Al Jefferson either way.

Al Jefferson and being the Cornerstone

This one will be much shorter than my last comment. I promise! Otherwise I’ll scroll back and cut this part out like I normally do!

I wouldn’t worry too much about that at this point. It’s still way too early to pigeon-hole the guy. Now that goes both ways, it’s too early to call him the cornerstone and it’s too early to say he isn’t going to become the cornerstone. Only in the middle of his fourth year out of High School and one of those was injury plauged. And he’s only been a credible starter for one and a half seasons.

This is true for here also. Think back to all the players that have come out of High School. How many were able to be the first option from day one? LeBron James. That’s it. Everyone else had to grow into it.

Remember how much a guy like Shawn Kemp grew as the years went on? He didn’t look like being capable of being a top option early on either, but he led Seattle to the Finals as one.

Even the game’s premier scorer and MVP candidate, Kobe Bryant, wasn’t able to be a top option early in his career. True he always looked like becoming it but it wasn’t until his fifth season that he became capable of it. He had about as good an environment to grow as a player as one could possibly create and it took him that amount of time.

Another player is Tracy McGrady. When he emerged he was in Vince Carter’s shadow constantly and nearly all felt he was perfertly suited to be the No.2 because he didn’t have the disposition to dominate. Well then he goes down to Orlando and 4 months later is their leading player. A season or two later and he’s on his way to scoring titles and holding the whole team on his back.

Another guy is Jermaine O Neal. First four years in the league and he was averaging 4ppg and 3rpg. Then he goes to Indiana and within two-three years he was an MVP candidate. Leading his team to 61 wins and finishing third in the MVP race. Some would question if he was capable of being top dog, personally, I question where his sidekick was?

So to go back to the start, it’s way too early to pigeon-hole Al Jefferson.

Take this season for example. All Boston fans are amazed at just how much his jump shot has improved, how much his passing out of the post has improved. Every year this guy comes back with something added to his game. He’s a worker and he wants to be a success in this league. Every day he’s figuring out how good he can be and every day he’s setting his sights higher than before.

Way too early to comment on the kid’s ability to be a cornerstone. Right now you just have to sit back and hope your management begins surrounding him with enough talent. With the picks Minny are going to be getting, they should be plenty able to add another player of comparable ability to put next to Al. By then the picture will even clearer. Then it’s time to mold it into a contender.

It’s so hard to plan out the career-path of these players that came directly out of HS. It’s something we must avoid, if possible, doing too early. For Minny it is possible. There is no cap space and the team have a need at every position Al doesn’t play so there’s no need to look at him this early. Just recognize his all-star level ability and the possibility of more.

And I’m not criticizing any of the answers on the blog. It’s just too early to ask that question.

College Wolf said:
  If we could trade McCants in addition to one of our “bad contracts”, I would be beyond esctatic.

Addition by subtraction, in my opinion.

Think any teams around the league would take him along with say, Marko/Buckner/Walker/etc for an expiring contract? That would make me really happy.

I am not a McCants fan at all.

Absolutely, a trade like that is definitely possible.

I’m a McCants fan. I understand completely where you’re coming from though, but if he’s anyway coachable I think he’s worth taking a shot on.

He has some defensive ability. Very good penetrator. Good jump shooter. He could be a very impressive scorer in this league. I’m not sure he’s All-Star type player, because he suffers too much from Tunnel Vision and can’t seem to do two things at once, but he could easily become a 20ppg level scorer.

I was commenting on the game thread when Minny came to Boston, that I’d love to see McCants change two things:

(1) Mix his speeds up. He spends all game going at 100mph. It’s great that he has that type of speed and first step but if he uses them as a constant he finds trouble. When goes at one speed all the time he becomes too easy to plan for. See it all the time when he get’s into the lane but the big man beats him to the spot and challenges the shot or forces a bad pass. Even when he comes around a screen, and his defender cheats to get back in front of him because he knows McCants won’t stop and cut through the open space.

A change of pace dribble. A stutter step. That’s it. Learn those two things.

I love his acceleration, his pace, his balance, his agility, his overall maneouverability. He wastes it by going full speed so often.

He has a decent handle too which allows him to do a lot more than say our very own Tony Allen at this juncture of his career.

(2) Use a midrange shot. Way too many of his jumpers are from the outside. And way too many of his penetrating drives end up as contested and low percentage shot. That midrange jumper over the dribble drive is fastly becoming a lost art in the NBA. If McCants added that to his repertoire (just 3-4 times a game) he’d average about 3-5 extra ppg and 2 less turnovers. A big part of this is recognition of when the layup is there and isn’t there, and when his own man is cheating him on the drive.

Ray Allen used to be great at this earlier in his career. We’ve barely seen him use this shot since coming to Boston. He used to just take one or two hard dribbles and rise up from about fifteen feet and he’d catch the defense off balance every time and get a gimme jumper. Drexler was one of the masters.

Two things! That’s all he needs to change to play on a contending team. Just two things.

So I’m a McCants fan but I understand perfectly where you’re coming from – the wasted possessions, the inability to help the PG keep the offense moving, ball movement, poor recognition, poor decisions, overdribbling at times, forces plays

And since Foye is on the roster, giving up McCants shouldn’t be too painful today or in the future if it can give you cap space. I think Foye needs those two guard minutes anyway.

Two things I say!

The T’Wolves decided to drop salary and go young. That immediately makes them the losers. But with KG they weren’t going anywhere anyway because they couldn’t or wouldn’t make the deals to optimize KG’s abilitys. The C’s chose to keep and optimize the abilities of PP. They went experience. For now we are the winners. Some say we sold our future for now. I don’t think the T’Wolves will be much better than us when our new 3 retire. So we still win. DA made the right choice. Other teams are mimicing what the C’s did. They are going young and hoping to come together as a good team in the future. We’ll see what they will do in 3 or 4 years. Right now experience wins. In 3 or 4 years there may not be enough experienced (quality) players to make a difference which way to go.

CAn someone please explain to me which 2 first drafts did we give away for KG? For what years and if they are lottery protected, which I assume wewont be in the lottery anytime soon. Just want to know if I should get interested in next year’s first round draft or just in the second round portion of it. Can someoen please help? Thank you in advance.

Reyquila -

One pick we got back was the pick we originally (and stupidly) traded you in the Wally S/Blount/Ricky Dazzle trade. You weren’t slated to get that pick until 2011 or 2012, so that has basically no affect on anything.

The actual first round pick that we got from the Celtics is your 2009 pick. It is Top 3 protected in 2009. I am not sure if it has futher protections for the years after that, but it shouldn’t matter because there is almost no chance you guys are bad in 2009.

Hope that helps.

Who said:

Plus Foye is now forced into some minutes at the point. The guy’s an unselfish scorer. Not someone who can run an offense. Let him be a two-guard and use his best talents. His point-relevant skills would all be well above average at the two guard and give the Wolves increased options offensively. But playing him at the one makes his impact on the game weaker.

Who[/i], that’s been my position on Foye as well, as I’ve expressed in a few threads, including your poll on the Wolves wins and possible ways to fix the team. Of course, a lot of my reasoning is chance to draft Derrick Rose.

Oops, skipped the better part of a sentence there. Meant to say a lot of my reasoning behind moving Foye to the 2 is IF they have a chance to draft Rose. If they don’t get him, then I think Foye stays at point until they have a better option than Jaric.

i’m stilled PISSED at the MN organization for offering jefferson KG’s #21. >:(

KG was the best thing to hit the MN sports scene since Kirby Puckett (RIP).

icandunk said:
  i’m stilled PISSED at the MN organization for offering jefferson KG’s #21. smilies/angry.gif

KG was the best thing to hit the MN sports scene since Kirby Puckett (RIP).

Ummm…. do you have any prove of that? I specifically remember Glen Taylor saying nobody would be getting #21, and not for a long time, if ever.

They did have #21 available, but I’m not sure it was “offered” to any particular player. I agree that it if was offered, that was incredibly stupid. The number will (and should be) retired.

Big Ticket -

Here is my preliminary draft list (subject to change):

Derrick Rose
Michael Beasley
Eric Gordon
Donte Green
DeAndre Jordan
OJ Majo

Foye is NOT a starting caliber point guard in the NBA. We’d be much better off with Rose, in my opinion. That’s who I want #1.
I was pissed on draft night, and still am very pissed that we traded Roy for Foye. Sigh.