By Peter Christian
I’ve had more than 24 hours to digest the first round point guard smorgasbord that was the Minnesota Timberwolves draft platter. All I can still say is, “Ummm, OK?” and “Now what?”
I have run so many different theories as to the logic being dished in the Timberwolves draft room by the Anti-Brain Trust headed up by first time GM David Kahn (no, I know he was technically GM in Indiana a few years back, but that was in title only, he had absolutely NO SAY in the basketball decisions with Donnie Walsh and Larry Bird calling the shots) and honestly I think that I’m being far too generous with the optimistic spin I’ve put on the eyebrow raising decisions yesterday.
Before I get too far into my spinning and destroying, I want to go on record to say thank you to Chris Wallace, Sam Presti and Geoff Petrie for passing on a player that could become the best point guard on the planet:
Thank you fellas and see you back in the lottery next season, its decisions like that that ensure you will be counting your ping pong balls in early February rather than determining how you match-up against potential play-off opponents.
I was so happy that the Wolves were in a position to draft Ricky Rubio that I may have uttered praising words of David Kahn. For anyone that heard them, please disregard what you heard and continue believing that I am the biggest proponent of raising awareness about his arrogance and basketball ineptitude.
Only minutes later however, the other shoe dropped, kind of. When the commissioner announced that the Wolves had selected Jonny Flynn with the sixth pick (over the expected pick of Stephen Curry) I immediately started thinking of trade opportunities. As time wore on and no rumors surfaced I was briefly scared that Kahn (from here on out referred to as The Idiot) was trying to secretly shop Rubio (which I’m denying is an option at this point, but with The Idiot, anything could happen)
I kind of talked myself into a combination of Rubio and Flynn until the 18th pick was announced, at which point I just started laughing like the Joker in “Batman” (the one with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson). It’s worth mentioning that after this pick I made the comment that I really like Sebastian Telfair as a 4th string point guard in the NBA. I think that is his ideal role in the league.
Shortly thereafter I started brainstorming what The Idiot was doing. Did he mistake the 2009 NBA draft for a fantasy basketball draft? Was he really just really worried that he was going to “miss” on a point guard in one of the best point guard drafts ever, so he tried to take as many as possible to cover his ass? Was he just trying to prove a point to Timberwolves fans that in fact, it can get worse than having Kevin McHale as your team’s GM? No matter what the strategy was, it sucked. The Idiot illustrated in his first draft that he has no business making decisions to build a basketball team, because he was seemingly unaware that a) a successful team needs more than just a plethora of point guards and power forwards and b) that he can actually select players that play ANY position in the draft.
(note: I like the Wayne Ellington pick, a lot and the selection the guy named Henk is meaningless, let’s just deal with the fact that the Wolves had six picks and took a point guard with four of them).
In hindsight, I’ve come to the realization that the Wolves took Flynn as insurance for the possibility that Rubio isn’t too excited to live in Minnesota (which he isn’t) and that if they let Rubio stay in Spain for a year or two it isn’t the end of the world. Flynn can handle the point, Ellington might have a bit of an extended role as a #28 pick and the team can likely look forward to three first round picks next year (two of which should be in the top twenty).
Does that mean that I’m sold on the events that took place yesterday? Not a chance. Do I think The Idiot has a plan? Only if he just read that last paragraph.
Oh the wonders of being a Timberwolves fan.