I was breezing through this rather happy Philly story (in comparison to the stuff over at 700 level), when something caught my eye.
The Rodney Carney to Minnesota trade has to go down first and then Elton can sign.
I knew this already. What caught my eye though? Was this realization.
The Minnesota Timberwolves have been the primary actor in the two biggest deals of the last two seasons. There was, of course, the KG deal which was an outright robbery, no matter how good Al "The Harbinger" Jefferson is or will be. Then, very quietly, McHale traded with Philly for Rodney Carney, Calvin Booth, and a future first round pick, in exchange for cap space. In turn, Phill used that cap space to get them into the upper spending echelon, which, in turn, allowed them to get Brand.
So now this is two years when McHale has helped a power shift from the West to the East take place with a formidable big man going to a team with talent to form a legitimate playoff contender. And neither time has resulted in his team getting discernibly better.
I'm trying to get my brain around this sequence of events. Is the man just the catalyst for every dramatic even not involving the Timberwolves? If he can be close to, a part of, the the mechanism to signficant deals that land superstars in new places ready to really put something together, why can't he do it with his own team? Last season it was Phoenix and LA fans seething at McHale giving Garnett away. This season, the Clippers fans or whatever is left of them after last night, have to be throwing darts at his picture.
The man is an accidental genius. In the worst way.
7 comments:
I'm getting a little tired of the whole Garnett-trade-was-a-robbery angle. Yes, he should have traded him earlier and gotten more. But what, last summer, would have been better? Everyone at the time said that Chicago presented a "better" offer...would you rather have their trash heap (Gordon, Deng, Thomas) or Al Jefferson? People mentioned the Lakers, but what would that have been -- Crittendon, Kwame, and like Luke Walton or somebody to make money work. I suppose they could have taken Lamar, but what would be the point. The fact of the matter is, Minnesota had to, in trading Garnett, get a stud centerpiece for a team. The only team that allowed them to do that was Boston with Al Jefferson, who will be at least a 5-year all-star by the time he's done, and probably more.
That said, McHale is a complete idiot. I'm not disputing this. But his error was not trading KG earlier, or failing to appropriately build around him. The deal he made was the best he could have done at the time.
Don't forget that McHale's trade with Memphis created a buzz in that city that hadn't been there since Hubie Brown was the coach. It is far too early to say that Mayo for Miller and Love will be an impact making trade along the lines of Garnett and Brand but who would you want to bet will be the bigger star in this deal: Two white guys with back and knee issues or a slick black scoring point guard who has been in the national spotlight since he was in 7th grade?
i've heard reports of gs offered monta, biedrins, harrington, bwright, and belinelli, or something to that effect, for kg. that's a WHOLE lot better.
I don't ever remember that kind of bounty, but yes, that would be a competitive offer. I'm not sure it's as good, for the following reason:
You need to have absolute stud guys to win. None of the GS crew is. Monta might be close, but he's an undersized scoring guard. Those guys, historically, don't win. Belinelli is a long-shot. Brandan Wright needs to gain about 100 pounds. Harrington is overpaid garbage and has a long-term deal, which provides no value to Minnesota. Biedrins is a solid young player, yes, and is the next best piece after Monta.
Overall talent, that might be better. But with Boston's deal, Minny locked up Al at a reasonable deal (something like 6/65 if I'm not mistaken) to build around, and everyone else they acquired was expiring (Ratliff and Telfair) or had qualifying offers (I think Gomes applies here...can't remember, but I think they get him for another year). The picks they got back don't matter much -- the one they had given away could be good, obviously, but Boston's pick will be lousy. To me, that's a wise deal -- the only money they ended up committing was to the one guy they could build around. With the GS/Chicago deals, they had to extend multiple guys for the trade to have value, but they might not be the guys you want to extend to build a winning team.
fatherscott, you say guys like Monta don't win. Well, power forwards with no defense don't win, either.
The GS offer was way better than Boston's: they would only have to extend Monta, Biedrins and maybe Wright. They could've tradesd Harrington to a contender for an expiring contract, and they'll be fine (cap wise).
The expiring contracts were nice, but what are the wolves gonna do with them?
Anyway, I think it's still too early to bash on the trade, but so far, it has sucked.
Phoenix (at least, their GM) can't be listed as a team that was realistically close to landing Garnett. Every time they apparently were discussing a deal (most of them were multiple team deals), it broke down usually because of something out of their hands.
Marion didn't want to go to Boston, the Suns owners didn't want to pay tax money, the Hawks didn't want to do the Amare 3-way deal...
The Golden State and Chicago ideas were also flawed -- especially in hindsight -- because why would Ellis/Biedrins or Gordon/Deng (all free agents this summer) have stayed in Minnesota after one season? They got Jefferson at a good price for the long-term. Nobody else would have given them that.
I don't believe McHale could have done that much better unless they had talked KG into going to Boston on Draft Night (they would have gotten Jefferson/Gomes AND the #5 pick).
Justin makes a great point, one that I missed a little. When you split the value of a trade among a bunch of guys, you then have to count on them all wanting to stick around. And Monta would jet for a bigger market, I think. Big Al is a pretty unique guy in that sense.
To answer Anonymous, yes, Al's defense is, as of now, dreadful. I think he can improve that without giving up anything else. Monta can't really improve on "being an undersized shooting guard" -- it's his game.
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