We have entered All Star Weekend in the NBA, the point in time where regular season games are suspended and the trading deadline looms. This is not coincidental. This annual hiatus is meant to provide owners and general managers with the time and impetus to make deals that will ready their respective teams for the stretch run or maximize their leverage on rebuilding for the future by trading players coveted by clubs who want to win now.
Under this scenario, teams are either buyers or sellers. But barring an offer that is simply too good to refuse, I think the Wolves are best off being non-participants. And yes, that’s easier said than (not) done.
The hardest thing to do when seemingly everything is going wrong is to do nothing. And most everything has gone wrong for the Minnesota Timberwolves for quite some time now. As I mentioned in a column last week, the Wolves have never even won 40 percent of their games in a single season without Kevin Garnett. But it might be helpful to flash back to the circumstances that compelled the front office to conclude that giving up KG was a good idea in the first place.
After making the playoffs for seven years in a row, most everyone either involved with or rooting for the Wolves franchise took their appearance in the postseason for granted, and were bedeviled by the fact that the team was eliminated in the first round every time. In response, the front office engineered two trades in the summer of 2003 that netted the Wolves three starters and surrounded Garnett with the best supporting cast of his 12-year tenure in Minnesota.
In June of that year, point guard Sam Cassell and defensive-oriented center Ervin Johnson were acquired from Milwaukee for Anthony Peeler and Joe Smith. A month later, the Wolves landed swingman Latrell Sprewell in a four-team deal that cost them Terrell Brandon and Marc Jackson. The gambits were very expensive — Sprewell’s $14 million contract put the Wolves over the luxury tax threshold, meaning it actually cost owner Glen Taylor $28 million to have him on the roster — but successful in that the Wolves surged past the first round all the way to the Western Conference Finals before being eliminated.
A year later, it all fell apart, as Cassell and Sprewell bickered with the front office over the size of their new contracts, dividing Garnett’s loyalties. (You know the sordid history.) The Wolves, favored by many to win it all in 2004-05, instead missed the playoffs altogether, costing coach Flip Saunders his job. A year later, they plummeted to their first losing record since Garnett’s sophomore season, ending the campaign with the most shameful episode in franchise history — no, not the illegal signing of Joe Smith, but the most blatant tanking performance ever in the final game, featuring awkward center Mark Madsen hoisting three-point shots to seal the defeat. Yet one year later, the Wolves had one fewer win to finish the season, tanking again as KG sat the final six games.
Those were awful times, especially with the team’s then-recent string of playoff appearances fresh in everyone’s mind. Yet it needs to be remembered that KG remained steadfast. He may have been a terrible quasi-general manager, urging the team to make disastrous deals for the likes of Troy Hudson and Mike James, but he never requested a trade.
But Glen Taylor and Kevin McHale thought it was time to make a change. And after three years of strife and regression, it was difficult to blame them.
And oh what a haul in human flesh KG was able to fetch from the Celtics — five players and two first-round draft picks for just one player. Al Jefferson was a starter and low-post stud, averaging 17 points and 12 rebounds his final year in Boston. Ryan Gomes was likewise a starter, averaging better than 12 points and five rebounds per game. Gerald Green was an uber-athletic leaper, reigning slam-dunk champion and regular rotation player. Bassy Telfair was a slick-dribbling point guard who, like Green, was a McDonald’s All American in high school, and, again like Green, not yet 22 years old. And center Theo Ratliff was a veteran rim protector less than four years removed from twice leading the NBA in blocked shots.
Plus two first-round draft picks. Who knew they were going to be Wayne Ellington and Jonny Flynn?
Of course none of those seven players are still with the Wolves, while Garnett continues to shine in Boston, and will perform in his 15th all star game on Sunday. More to the point, since the trade, Boston has won a ring and never failed to get past the first round of the playoffs. The Celtics’ regular season record over that period is 301-145. By contrast, the Wolves’ record from the time of the trade until right now is 123-321, which puts them 177 games behind the Celts in the standings, and a full 20 games behind the next-worst NBA team, the Sacramento Kings. That was a helluva trade.
Chicken or the egg?
Does losing beget personnel turnover or does personnel turnover beget losing? The behavior of the Wolves since the Garnett trade makes that question a fascinating, fruitless conundrum.
The negative fallout from the Garnett deal soon cost McHale his job. Enter new President of Basketball Operations David Kahn, charged with the assignment of reducing the team’s onerous payroll while creating a more competitive ballclub. Kahn, who came to the job with the reputation for knowing how to work numbers better than judge talent, delivered on that advertisement. He both slashed the payroll and squandered personnel assets with a vengeance.
Take, for example, the dizzying series of moves emanating from the Al Jefferson trade to Utah. In July 2010, Kahn traded Jefferson to the Jazz for center Kosta Koufos, a 2011 first-round pick, and a 2012 first-round pick. Seven months later, as part of the blockbuster deal that sent Carmelo Anthony from Denver to New York, he traded Koufos to Denver and Corey Brewer to New York in exchange for center Eddy Curry, forward Anthony Randolph and cash.
Curry was waived a week later. Randolph played 57 maddening games for the Wolves over the course of a season and a half and Minnesota chose not to renew his contract. Ironically, he is now riding the bench in Denver, where both Koufos and Brewer happen to rank among the Nuggets’ top seven in minutes as the team has compiled a 33-21 record. Meanwhile, Jefferson currently leads the Jazz, who have a record of 30-24, in minutes, points and rebounds.
So what about the two draft picks obtained in the Jefferson deal?
Well, with the 2011 pick, the Wolves took seven-footer Donatas Motiejunas — and dealt him that same night along with Jonny Flynn to Houston in exchange for Brad Miller, Nikola Mirotic, Chandler Parsons and a future first-round pick. By far the most valuable of the players in that haul turned out to be Parsons — whom Kahn immediately traded back to Houston that night for cash. Parsons currently ranks second on the Rockets, who have a record of 29-26, in minutes, points and rebounds. Of the others, Miller played 146 minutes over 15 games with the Wolves and was involved in another trade that won’t be explained because it would complicate this saga too much, which you’ll realize after you read the next paragraph.
Mirotic? He was traded that same very busy June draft night to the Chicago Bulls for Norris Cole, Malcolm Lee and cash and has yet to play an NBA game. Cole? Traded to Miami on that same frenzied June evening with cash and a future second-round pick in exchange for Bojan Bogdanovic. Cole is now the backup point guard, ranked eighth in minutes, for the defending champion Heat, who currently have a record of 36-14. Bogdanovic? Traded to New Jersey (now Brooklyn) on that same uncontrollable June night for the Nets second-round draft pick in 2013—and cash.
Fortunately, this blizzard of transactions ends with one silver lining for the Wolves. In exchange for Utah’s top pick in the 2012 draft that they received in the Jefferson deal, Minnesota acquired Chase Budinger from Houston.
But let’s step back and take stock of this wayward whirlwind for a moment. At one time or another, if sometimes only for the seconds it took David Kahn to punch up another general manager’s phone number, the Wolves had Al Jefferson, Corey Brewer, Kosta Koufos, Chandler Parsons and Norris Cole — five players in the regular rotation for teams that are currently poised to make the playoffs.
In return, the Wolves have Budinger, a perfect fit for the current roster but with a contract that expires at the end of this season. They have Lee, a defensive specialist who is out for the season after a couple of nasty leg surgeries but is signed for another two years. And after some more back-and-forth, they have managed to position themselves for Brooklyn’s second-rounder in this summer’s draft, currently rated the 50th overall pick.
It isn’t all quite that simple, of course. Kahn would argue that the deals freed up salary cap space that enabled him to go out and acquire other players, for example. Kahn’s detractors would point to unused trade exceptions that could have procured even more talent. And we could have chased some of those draft picks through future deals with contingencies that may or may not happen — like the Wolves possibly forfeiting the pick they got from Houston just to get Phoenix to take Wes Johnson off their hands.
The current bottom line is that since Kahn took over, the Wolves are 77-203, the worst record in the NBA at six-and-a-half games behind 29th-place Washington. But in terms of the salary cap, the team is in much better shape to retain talent without onerous penalties (especially under the new collective bargaining agreement) than it was under McHale. The abiding question is, will Taylor and the other partners conserve this relative dividend for their own pocketbooks or use it to invest in the team moving forward?
Tweak the roster or keep the faith?
An early sign of the Wolves’ long-term thinking might be foretold by how they treat the expiring contract of injured guard Brandon Roy between now and the trading deadline on Feb. 21. If the team deals Roy for currently healthy players or other tangible assets that immediately improve the team but swallow up Roy’s cap space next season, it will likely mean they do not intend to match a significant offer for restricted free agent center Nikola Pekovic.
From where I sit, losing Pek in free agency is the biggest danger to this team finally taking a significant step forward next season. The consensus is that the big guy will draw a contract offer in the $35 million to $50 million range over the next three to four seasons, which is a major hit on the salary structure of a team that is already paying Kevin Love max money, owes Andrei Kirilenko $10 million next season and probably hopes to extend his deal, and eventually needs to negotiate what will probably be an expensive long-term pact with point guard Ricky Rubio.
But striking the balance between talent and money is what running an NBA team is all about. Kahn has long promised that he is in it to win it — building toward a championship is what he’s about. Coach Rick Adelman is near retirement on a Hall of Fame career and is probably going to bolt at the first significant sign of the team backing off from a win-now attitude. Taylor has given the go-ahead, at least initially, to give Adelman the tools he needs to be competitive.
Obviously, the horrendous spate of injuries has prevented this team from seeing how their best personnel function together out on the court. Nevertheless, for all the grief we just passively-aggressively gave Kahn for his many maneuvers, the fact is that he, even if it is in deferment to Adelman’s greater wisdom, has assembled a roster that appears could be a synergistic joy to watch. Rubio is a ball-movement maestro and staunch, dogged perimeter defender. Pekovic is a legitimate low-post threat and stolid defensive presence in the paint. Both fit perfectly with Love’s unparalleled ability to pound the boards and step outside for three-pointers. And Kirilenko and Budinger are tall, agile, multi-faceted wing players who move well without the ball and can both hit a jumper and finish at the rim.
Yes, it will be a lot more expensive to see them perform together next season than it would have been this season — and will be in March or April, presuming everyone can finally get healthy and in rhythm by then. And yes, if any trade offers come in that obviously improve the team beyond its current potential in the short term, the front office is obligated to act — but must then be held accountable for their actions.
But after a long, long stretch of performing worse than any of the other 29 NBA franchises, the Wolves are also obligated to reward long-suffering fans with a quality product. The raw materials for that product seem to exist on the current roster. Short-circuiting the chance to see these players gel, for the sake of more savings or senseless churning, will be a fool’s errand if it doesn’t produce an immediate winner. The warranty has expired on reasonable patience.