He actually is right..It WAS a good trade, they had to start over. The are gonna have plenty of cap space coming up soon and Al Jefferson becoming a beast. The place where he fucked up was the Mayo/Love trade
Well...to be honest....the deal did work out on both ends. I mean, Al Jefferson has been an absolute stud since coming to Minny and is going to continue to develop in to one of the best big men in the NBA. Plus, Gomes isn't too bad himself. Now..was anyone in the deal remotely close to KG? No, but when you deal one of the best players in the NBA, the likelihood of you getting someone as good or better isn't high. They got what they could, and the deal was solid, especially considering it landed them the new cornerstone of their franchise.
I don't know if he really messed that up. They have a glut of guards. Granted none of them are as good or have the potential of Mayo, but still. Plus...it really has yet to be determined who won that trade. In reality, they didn't have a need for Mayo and Kevin Love filled a need. He gives them that high-post player to compliment the low post abilities of Jefferson, which will help them out in the long run. Plus, Mike Miller is a damn good player...he just needs to be more aggressive and give some more help for them on the offensive end.
One last thing...it'd be bad if your GM came out and said something like..."Looking back, I think we messed up...", or something to that extent. So, in reality, he's got to say that he likes the deal, otherwise that could really hurt the confidence of the players involved. So, he's saying the right things, whether he believes them or not is another thing though.
True, I wouldn't call the the Love/Mayo trade a bust yet, since the trouble lies in Whitman being the coach. With the team rebuilding and expectations low...there is no reason to not get Love more playing time...when he's n the floor he's doing nothing but helping and the playing time will only help. As for Miller, that is also on Whitman for not drawing up more plays for thier best shooter and second best scoring option...8 shots a games make absolutly no sense for someone of Miller's ability on this team. The other main reason I don't see this as being a bad deal is....well, let's be honest...did anyone really see Mayo playing with Minnesota past his rookie contract? At least with Love and Miller the have two players who actually look like they might stick with the Wolves...lol. Mayo was big market-bound from the jump! Sure some might make the argument that...well, KG stayed in small market Minnesota when he could've made more elsewhere, who are you to say Mayo wouldn't do the same? But in KG's case...he was THE MAN in Minnesota...it was his team...in Mayo's case...he would at best be double-headlining with Big Al...that's asking for another KG/Marbury situation all over again! Now.....to call the Roy/Foye trade a bust.......well, that would be an understatement. Not only is Roy hurting the case by being an early All-Star and budding Superstar for years to come...But the main reasoning behind the trade was the intent of making Foye a point guard feeling that Roy wasn't cut out to help in that regard....adding injury to insult when Roy proved that he could do that better as well...ouch!!! Oops.....as for the basis of the topic...lol...the KG trade. Minnesota got the best deal they could get (as well as the rumored Chicago; Deng/Tyrus and picks deal at the trade deadline, which isn't to shaby)...getting Big Al not to mention a couple picks, Gomes and what seems to be a hard working and improving Telfair...all in all it worked out good for the Wolves as well
I agree with DaRizzle, and love his Alba video. We had to trade KG, we obviously had exhausted all options - we tried so many different combinations of players around him, and we were never able to make something work. I still wish we had pulled the trigger on the Foye - Iverson deal, but hindsight is 20/20. Also, we probably got all we could out of the deal. I don't think you can call the Foye/Roy trade a bust because we never had any intention of keeping Roy. Foye was our guy all along. Obviously we had our eye on the wrong player, and it didn't work out, but it's not like we drafted Roy because we planned to keep him.
needless to say...your right, it had to be done. Everything the front office did turned to crap. From the Joe Smith situation that destroyed our building plans by taking away much needed picks. To finally putting together a winning formula in Cassel and Sprewell only to have contract disputs ruin that. We've been plauged by terrible signings of players to long painful contracts with marginal talent. And McHale has a bad habit of wanting to trade draft picks as soon as he gets them....trading away good ones (Roy and what appears to be Mayo) and keeping bad ones (Paul Grant? William Avery? Ebi?!? and starting to look bad Brewer) and I don't want to get started on why we traded a gem in Chalmers in the second round only to turn around and trade him for what amounted to another (worse) 2nd round pick?!? Man, it's painful to relive these moments....
I agree, I hate looking back on the all of the players we have drafted only to trade immediately without even giving them so much as a NIGHT to be a Timberwolf, and something has to change.
lol...funny you should say that, considering we had Ray Allen when we drafted him...lol...and then traded him right away for Starbury...which at the time was great until Starbury felt he was too good to share the limelight with KG
