I’ll try not to repeat all of the same things I keep saying about Mayo-Love, but it’s the first full game of OJ’s that I’ve seen, so it’s obviously a good time to talk about it.

• OJ’s better than I thought he was. I’ve tried to make comparisons, ranging from Sam Cassell to Ray Allen to Brandon Roy, but I’m not really sure what the best one is. He’s a phenomenal shooter, very good passer/playmaker, and promising defensive player. He was the best guard on the floor, last night, and it wasn’t close.

• Love had a nice game. It’s perfectly fine and probably true to say that he’ll be a good NBA player. It just doesn’t change the fact that he’s a terrible mix with Jefferson. Yes, they ran plays for him, last night, and yes, he scored on some of them. He also drew some fouls (which seem to be the only way he has good offensive performances, but that’s another point…) But, every time you run a play for Love, you’re not running a play for Jefferson. When they’re on the floor together, especially, you’re simply routing your offense through its second or third best option—and I don’t see the value in it. WIth our current group of players, our best offense is Al going one-on-one. Marc Gasol is not a bad defender and he (along with Arthur) got abused, last night. If a person watched the game without knowing the draft-trade significance, they would only talk about Jefferson’s performance.

• Pat Reusse wrote an excellent column, in today’s paper. I thought he was quick to bash Love after that preseason game, but to his credit, it’s proving to be a proper take. Say what you want about cap space and the next draft, and the next draft after that… the two best players, by a landslide, on the court last night were OJ Mayo and Al Jefferson. Unfortunately for Minnesota, they were playing on different teams.

The Grizzlies can’t rebound, but have a plethora of perimeter players who can score. The Wolves are the opposite. Maybe we can get Mayo back for Love if we’re willing to take Marco, too! (heh heh)

Srsly, this morning KFAN seared Mayo’s on-court attitude last night. The guy is an unreal shooter/scorer, but if the Wolves model is San Antonio, I believe Love is a player who would fit in better on the Spurs than Mayo would. So!

Obviously we’ll never know what it would be like if Mayo was on this team, but just assuming he’d be putting up the same #s on a squad with a legit low-post scorer who tends to be a black hole and with two other combo guards to split minutes with, it seems pretty safe to assume that he would not be getting the minutes or the points he is with Memphis. Furthermore, I wonder how AJ would be getting along with a guy who averages more shots than Foye and at this point is a worse ball handler/passer (with an as/to ratio of about 1).

I’m certainly not going to argue that Mayo is in the same league as Foye or McCants. I agree with SnP that if anything has been proven in the 1st 30 games this season it’s that Foye is at best a 6th man and will never be an above average 1 or 2 in this league, and you traded away a franchise talent in Roy. Furthermore, the assumption that Foye could run the 1 and you could put Miller next to him has proven to be a joke.

Despite the points above, I still think this trade is a positive for the organization. I personally think the Wolves got a player with a high IQ who can score without needing a lot of touches/plays run for him and someone who, once he figures it out, is going to be able to hold his own with everyone but the biggest, most athletic bigs out there. Does it make them a better team this year? Maybe not much. But does it position them better in 2 years, which was the earliest we could hope this team could be competitive? There’s no way you can argue it doesn’t. Now if the FO screws it up, that’s another thing, but just having Mayo on the roster would not have changed that.

And while Mayo is putting up great #s for a rookie, to me, it’s pretty apparent that while he’ll be a very solid player, his ceiling is at best a 2nd option and probably more like a 3rd option. I don’t think he’s a brandon roy — he doesn’t have the handle or the passing ability — but he may be ray allen without the ability to get to the line as much. Remember, Ray Allen never really sniffed a championship until he was the 3rd option, and the only other time he got close, they had Glen Robinson (when he was a great scorer) and Cassell.

Also, as SnP pointed out, the wolves won despite having an 8pt quarter and shooting 1-15 from 3. The fact that they won the game says as much about the Grizz as a team as it does the Wolves. Sure they have 4 more wins than us. That speaks as much to SoS and the Wolves coaching disfunction as it does the relative quality of the teams. With a few winnable games coming up for OBZs and with a very tough stretch for the Grizz, the Wolves SHOULD have the same record as the Grizz around the middle of Jan and one team will be “hot” while the other will be “struggling”.

Bottom line to me, is that neither Love nor Mayo is Derrick Rose, so I’ll take the player plus the picks and the cap flexibility.

I had some pretty good seats to this game again, and here are some bullet points I remember.

- In spite of the fact that I’m still in the pro-Love camp, I came away VERY impressed with OJ Mayo after seeing him in person. One thing that struck me was that even though he took a lot of shots he never appeared to be a ball hog in the way that McCants always does. He has a quick enough release that many of his shots can still be considered fine shots even when he’s being guarded.

- Mayo played pretty good defense on our small guys (Ollie and Foye mostly), but I would have liked to see him match up against a bigger guard.

- Once again the most consistent crowd pleaser is the “Hoop Guy” that must be the son of one of our old assistant coaches. Their resemblance is uncanny.

- God I wish Kyle Lowry had been thrown into our draft day trade. I really like him, and I couldn’t get a good read on Mike Conley.

- The guy behind me tried to grab a flying T-shirt with his daughter on his shoulders. The look of death his wife gave him afterward was priceless.

The player he seems to most resemble right now is Ray Allen. A very good player, but one who can’t win diddly as the foundation of a team. He’s not Kobe, or LeBron, and will never be. And he plays a position at which it’s easiest to find a replacement, once Shoddy’s gone and Foye starts coming off the bench.

After 26 games, Wages of Wins gave a slightly higher 08-09 wins projection to Love than Mayo (6.4 to 6.0). And yes, I would trade Love for Mayo even up in a heartbeat.

Here’s something about Love that I can attest too as a former “guy on competitive basketball team that is afraid of f-ing up”. When Love’s confidence is down, he does NOT want the ball. You could see this during the second quarter of yesterday’s game. Love missed an early shot, and after he had a knack for holding his hand up in a way that made it look like he wanted the ball, but his hand still wasn’t out enough for a guard to actually get it to him.It also seemed blatantly clear that Love knew he was doing this, and really just didn’t want anyone to pass him the ball. This was a patented move I’d use when I didn’t want to be forced to do anything with the ball. Probably a big reason why someone with his talent can disappear in so many games.

But what is true:

1. The superstars (Lebron, DWade, Bosh, Amare, etc.) will not come here

2. The other free agents will follow the money, wherever that happens to be. But this requires the team to offer that money to them. This will not happen with the wolves. Glen Taylor is clearly in major penny pinching mode.

Exhibit
The lie that was Ratliff’s buyout last year

Selling Chalmers

The 76ers paid for all but $500,000 of Carney and Booth’s contracts. I told everyone that there was no way Booth would be bought out because he’s essentially filling a roster spot for $250,000. He still hasn’t been active for a single game or bought out.

Wolves asking the Bulls for plane tickets when they took one of our assistant coaches

The sense of desperation in their pathetic marketing ploys

All this talk about them setting up to make a push in the 2010 free agency is really just more about saving Glenny some dollars. Just wait and see, you’re sure to be dissappointed when we end up with Brad Miller on a 3 year contract for $3 million dollars a year as our big splash in 2010.

The most frustrating thing about the Mayo-Love trade was that it was clear that the grizzlies had a plan. They wanted a bunch of young talented players to start over with a clean slate. Look at their starting five, all 23 or under. When I look at the wolves current roster, I just kind of have to wonder. What kind of team exactly were they trying to put together? We have a bunch mediocre outside shooting, no true center yet not enough speed to run with a smallish lineup, no upper tier athletes or star players, and no true distributor. I don’t expect Minnesota to ever be a consistent upper tier contender, but why does our team have to be so embarassing? Hopefully whoever follows in McHale’s footsteps will be able to do something with the mess that is our current lineup.