With the acquisition of Beasley, drafting Love, trading away Al Jeff, and trading for Darko....Kahn's starting to look like he knows what he's doing.
As I recall, Love was a draft day move by McHale. Drafted Mayo and dealt him for Love. He was panned pretty hard for that move, but it's looking like a great deal.
So does this mean we can officially retire "a Jermaine" as the term for a perpetually underachieving yet still young benchwarmer whom a fanatical minority think will become a star if traded, and replace it with "a Darko"? Or would that apply to a player who is just let go? (So, Greg would be a potential Darko if his QO was not picked up.)
Jesus, I can't imagine being a Blazers fan if they let Oden walk only to see him become a superstar with another team.
Maybe Rubio might actually want to come over now. If Wesley Johnson can be their SG long term, they're pretty set for starters except for PG. (Flynn can be a "sparkplug off the bench".)
I still remember that incredulous look Ime gave me when he saw me watching a Mavs-Nuggets playoff game on my laptop in Vegas airport a few days after the Spurs were eliminated by Dallas. Hilarious.
Darko had some good games last year for the Wolves so it's not totally out of the blue that he's put a few together this year... but that face up then between the legs cross over on Timmy late in the game was an eye popper. Dude is absolutely huge with his 7'5 Wingspan, he has some touch, he's a bit of a robot but he looks like he's come into his own. I watched the Wolves feed of the 4th quarter of tonight's game vs the Spurs. Their announcers were salivating over big games from Darko and Love and especially over their double digit lead over a team that had beaten them something like 12 times straight. But their once 21 point lead is slowly whittled away and the game goes to overtime. Their color guy fills the fans in on the focus of coach Rambis's overtime pep talk... "protect Darko! He has 5 fouls because he's been guarding the rim. Don't let your man drive on him" Manu picked up the 6th foul on Darko mere seconds into overtime leaving Rambis staring blank and pale like he was facing a firing squad. The Wolves didn't have anyone to guard Tim straight up and had to collapse their D to help... Spurs push it to 13 STOMP
Ya, Darko was vital for Minny today. That between the legs dribble he pulled made me look up this thread in the history to bump. Very few bigs are skilled enough to make that move at that juncture in the game. After he fouled out, they were screwed. Even if the numbers say otherwise, I think Darko (22-8) was more valuable tonight than Love (who had another 30-20 game).
His play today probably raised his stats, but... Darko is averaging 11 and 8 per 36 minutes with a PER of 12....
Oden is broken physically. Darko was just clueless. The latter can sometimes be fixed, so the comparison doesn't really hold.
To me, they look like a young team thats having trouble closing out games. They've had significant leads that they've lost in the 2nd half now against the Lakers, OKC and Spurs all within the last week. That Minnesota team isn't as scrubby as some think.
