TheGoldSeat

Corey Brewer.  Let me lead off this post by saying that I stand completely behind McHale et al.’s selection of Corey Brewer.  He was, in my opinion, the best available player when we picked.  However, I was a little surprised that we didn’t make a draft day trade for a shoot-first point guard.  It just seems to be what the Wolves like to do.  I kept expecting to hear “there has been a trade.  The Wolves have sent Corey Brewer to Atlanta for Acie Law IV and future considerations or cash.”  One of the worst moves in team history, right behind Ndudi Ebi and the Joe Smith wink-wink ink-ink, was trading one of my favorite players of all-time, Ray Allen, to Seattle on draft day for Stephon Marbury.  The Timberwolves followed the same blueprint last year when we made a draft day trade with Portland sending Brandon Roy there for Randy Foye and cash.  For the record, I still support the trade last year, but it looks like a trend.  A lot of people like to jump down McHale’s throat about many issues, both deservingly and not, but our last two drafts have been fantastic.  Foye is going to be a 15 year pro, Craig Smith would start on many teams this year (unfortunately for him he is really a 4, so unless we trade KG he will have a reserve role), Corey Brewer is a proven winner who plays steller defense, is slippery in the lane, and can dish with the best 3’s in the league, and Chris Richard, also a proven winner, has looked like a taller version of Craig Smith in the summer league and is a team-first guy–imagine a strong, athletic Mad-Dog. 

Speaking of the Foye trade, Brandon Roy was rookie of the year because he was put in a scoring role on a team with no guards and no hope.  It’s easy to have inflated stats when you are the only perimeter scorer on a bad team (see Mike James for Toronto in 2006).  Marbury had a great first couple of years and Seattle looked like dopes for trading him for Jesus Shuttlesworth, but one or two seasons does not a career make.  In hindsight Ray Allen has been one of the best players of his generation and Marbury has been a poison pill for every team he has touched. 

My prediction is that the Foye-Roy trade will look similar in the long run.  Brandon Roy is a solid pro, but doesn’t have the upside to be the face of a franchise like Foye does.  This year in the summer league Foye is doing a much better job of running the team like a true point guard and getting his shots in the flow of the offense and at crunch time.  On Saturday night Foye scored 26 points in the flow of the offense against Memphis.  Granted, they didn’t have Pau in the lineup, but Foye was going against Mike Conley Jr. of Ohio State and in the summer league they only play 10 minute quarters.  In my opinion, the second round choices of Smith and Richard have saved McHale’s job for the next few years.  In fact, Foye and Smith made the Summer League First Team, which was announced today.  Yes, this was the same summer league that Foye was the MVP of last year, and that is played in by the likes of Roy, Kevin Durant, Greg Oden and Rudy Gay, to name a few. 

McHale hasn’t been as bad as everyone thinks.  The aforementioned Joe Smith and Ndudi Ebi transactions were diseased, don’t get me wrong, but McHale has done some good things too.  Almost all of rube nation was behind McHale in 2003 when he signed Cassell and Spree.  In fact, I was as happy as Pat Williams at an all you can eat Cajun Crawfish buffet about it.  We were a Sammy C groin injury away from winning the NBA championship.  It is not McHale’s fault that Cassell got hurt and we lost in the Western Finals.  It’s not fair to go back now and criticize McHale for taking the risk to get Sam and Latrell, because we were all behind it at the time. 

Also, McHale has been bound by Garnett’s contract (who he never gets the credit for drafting, by the way) his entire tenure.  Garnett keeps complaining that we aren’t putting a good team together?  Ok, let’s redo your deal so you get the mid-level exception (still about 6 million per) and we’ll sign Gilbert Arenas!  Oh, I guess he’s not THAT upset about losing.  Every year all we have is the mid-level and the 1 million dollar ditty to sign new players.  KG either needs to take less money so we can afford another (real) superstar, or he needs to start recruiting his friends to come play for the mid-level.  Shaq went and got Antoine Walker and Gary Payton for the mid-level and the minimum, respectively, and they won the Championship.  Maybe if KG didn’t disappear for 6 months during the offseason we could make some progress.  Even better, KG could take a pay cut AND recruit his buddies to play for the minimum to win a championship…  I guess he hasn’t considered that, because if he had thought of it he is such a team-first guy that he would undoubtedly have already done it.  I don’t know if you can say “unselfish, team first player” and “largest contract in league history” in the same sentence with a straight face.  If you can, feel free to leave a comment…