sniffle, sniffle....I'm still sad over that trade (I hope Sota's office people used the cash to buy vasoline to dull the pain of being bent over in that trade...lol)....and to make things worse for Minnesota. We gave away Chalmers to Miami for what amounts to a second round pick (we got two, but one is going to Detroit) Now look at Chalmers!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!! McFail strikes again
The curse of Telfair strikes again. We famously passed on Chris Paul and DWill because we already had Bassy at the PG spot. I assume having him around made Kevin think they didn't need Chalmers. McFail is still the worst GM in the league though.
Maybe, but if Minny continues to play like that, they'll be fine - especially with another lottery pick next year. Edit: Shooter, nice avatar!
Anyone still want to argue that Portland made the right choice in selecting Telfair ahead of Jefferson? Of course, the PatterNash brain trust that made that choice is long gone. Not much excuse for similar incompetence continuing with McHale in MN. Ed O.
McHale has drafted terribly, but at the same time he's kept a decent team in Minnesota until the rebuild started. It seems to be well on it's way with a lot of young talent, two good young big men, and a lot of other good players. Ever GM makes mistakes. Thankfully we don't have a GM for the Blazers. We have a basketball God.
I'm happy with it. We ended up with Brandon Roy who is probably held in higher regard than Al Jefferson around the league.
That's a pretty tough call, Jefferson is one of the only legit 20/10 players in the league, granted he's not a great defensive presence, but I'll bet if you took a poll of GMs around the league about who'd they prefer to have I wouldn't be surprised to see a 50/50 split.
I beg to differ. Al Jefferson is more Zach Randolph than people want to admit. He doesn't make anyone around him better and, like Zach, he brings the offense to a hault killing any sort of flow. Last year the 20/10 post players: Dwight Howard - Playoffs Tim Duncan - Playoffs Carlos Boozer - Playoffs Al Jefferson - 23-59 record Big Al would be a great 2nd option or 3rd, but he's not a player like Roy that can carry his team on his back.
I think your description of Jefferson could apply to Roy. I don't think Roy can carry a title contender. We're still dependent on Oden becoming a franchise superstar for Portland to become a top team. Roy doesn't correctly look like such a player. Both players can "carry" a team to mild success. Minnesota won the games it did last year almost entirely due to Jefferson. Portland is a better team, but puts a lot more talent around Roy.
Carlos Boozer has even worse defense than Al Jefferson. The difference is #1 Deron Williams, and #2 Kirilenko who can mask Boozer's defensive liabilities.
I'm not sure who is worse... McHale or the owner of the Wolves for keeping him around. You can only blame McHale for being an idiot for so long... eventually you have to blame the other idiot for employing the idiot in the first place.
I don't think you can accuratly attribute the player to the teams final record...after all you forgetting to mention the players they have around them... Dwight Howard - Reggie Lewis & Turky Tim Duncan - Tony Parker & Manu CArlos Boozer - D.Will & a solid cast from starters to bench Al Jefferson - Fo-..., ummm Telf-....Uh.....Al & Jefferson Just the fact that he was pretty much a one man show seeing constant double and triple teams every single night....and still be of the 4 legit 20/10 guys is impressive enough. Not to mention he's not even a minut fraction of the locker room headache that Randolph is...For pete's sake he took a well below market value price to stick with Minny for awhile...that says alot about his character and sacrifice for the team...true team player. I'm just really mad we didn't keep Roy...