by Peter Christian
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We’ve traveled the journey of naming Call-Outs each week, to nominating the worst offenders of the year, paring down the nominees to semi-finalists and finalists and finally we are at the moment of truth. The announcement of the 1st Annual Call-Out of the Year Award (naming rights are currently in negotiations). We don’t have the budget of the Downtown Athletic Club to fly our finalists to sit on stage as we read their accomplishments so I’ll just tell you who the finalists are (or if you want to read them click here): Tiger Woods, Rick Reilly, the NHL and David Kahn.
We also don’t have a budget for a boring commercial break so we’ll get right to it….
The winner of the Kevin McHale Memorial (we got the negotiations done just in time) Call-Out of the Year Award is:
David Kahn!!!!
How fitting that Kahn be given the award that is named after his predecessor’s continuous f*#k ups and draft mishaps? David Kahn is the guy who decided that he needed to blow up a crappy team (understandable) for the chance at a better future and (commendable). Except that the first year Timberwolves GM failed to mention that he has no idea how to build a better basketball team. After getting the job he said he needed to meet with former GM and then head coach Kevin McHale to decide if he was going to keep him on (translation: he needed to see if McHale was going to hold his hand through the process). Then he made a blockbuster trade which helped the Wolves acquire the fifth pick in the draft to go with the sixth pick the team already earned by sucking so much in 2008-09 by trading some OK assets and taking on some bad contracts. At face value that was a brilliant move. However, Kahn was so busy congratulating himself and talking out of his ass about certain draft prospects that he never even saw workout that he failed to develop a couple of game plans or play out any scenarios of how the draft would go. That was evident by his drafting of two high profile players that play the same position.
The drafting of Ricky Rubio AND Jonny Flynn will forever go down as one of the most insane draft strategies ever (and following up with Ty Lawson 12 picks later, though Lawson was traded for a future #1 pick). After the dust settled on those two picks there has definitely been some people trying to justify the shit storm that is David Kahn’s plan but let’s get one thing straight, as much as you Kahn apologists can say that the fact that Rubio isn’t playing in a Wolves uniform isn’t a bad thing and that he is a great “asset” and that “Flynn is better anyways” and that “Rubio isn’t as ready as people think,” remember that Kahn said on draft day that he thought both could play in the same backcourt. He said that. That isn’t speculation. If Kahn’s initial goal was to take Rubio as an asset for future gains he would not have said that. By Kahn saying that on national TV immediately after making the picks he emphatically stated “I had no clue what I was doing and decided to simply take the two best players on our board.” Had he actually said that I would have respected him much more. Instead I think he’s more of an arrogant prick because he then went into months of spin control where he changed his draft day ideology with every interview he gave. I could end right now and let a select few argue why they agree with Kahn’s strategy (even though Kahn doesn’t even agree with his strategy because he’s revised what it was so many times after the fact), I’m not going to.
In July, Kahn made another move that I was on board with by trading 3 players that were already sliding down the depth charts for a player that could fill a hole in the roster (Sebastian Telfair, Craig Smith and Mark Madsen for Quentin Richardson) and the player could also be a future asset as he also had an expiring contract. Then, less than a month later, Kahn traded Richardson for possibly the lowest value he could have got for Richardson and also depleted the roster of its best option to start at the two guard for a player that had a lower buy-out value. The second half of the Q trade caused me to raise a question that has yet to be answered by Kahn or any of his followers (Kool-Aid drinkers): Why make a trade for a player when his value is the lowest? Isn’t the entire endgame of a trade to buy low/sell high? In that circumstance, Kahn did the exact opposite for what can only be explained as a cash saving move, not a move to make the basketball team better. Which brings up the point of what is Kahn’s goal with the 2009-10 team? Is it to save money or to rebuild because you can’t do both. You can trade players and cut players to save money or you can acquire players to be cornerstones of the team’s future. I know there is a crappy argument saying that the team is building cap space to spend on the very talent rich free agency class of next summer but let me remind the arguers that Quentin Richardson had no impact on the team’s cap space for next summer and had he played in a Wolves uniform its entirely possible his value increases and therefore the team can get more for him by trading him to a team that NEEDS him for a play-off run. Kahn however took a lowball offer and didn’t even attempt to let one of his assets’ value go up.
Finally, we settle on the selection of the coach. I was very vocal about who I would rather have coach the Wolves when the finalists were named, but this is hardly an indictment on Kurt Rambis. I fault Kahn for what he said and how he claims he selected Rambis as the Timberwolves head coach. Kahn claimed that he chose Rambis because Rambis was going to run a fast paced offense which Kahn wanted, even though the roster Kahn had put together was not very cohesive to a team that would run the floor (especially after trading Richardson). Yet, as the season started the Timberwolves were not playing a fast paced offense but were playing the Triangle offense (which Rambis learned under Phil Jackson) and I immediately asked, why bring in a coach to run the Triangle with this team? The Triangle is based on the fact that you have players that can move around the floor and hit short range jumpers from anywhere on the floor. This team in its current form is not built to do so and is not simply one player away from doing so (as in using the cap space to bring in a free agent that could be useful in the offense). Which means that even though Rambis has only coached the team for 3 months, its very apparent this is either not the system or not the team to succeed. Therefore, David Kahn, in all of his futility, arrogance (remember the interview on Rosen’s Sports Sunday prior to the draft when he treated another Minnesota Sports guru like a 6 year old when he described what a good basketball team needs? I do.) and insanity is the 2009 winner of the Kevin McHale Memorial Call-Out of the Year Award. Or the loser, however you look at it, David Kahn sucks.
