A little gas on a slow post day

Whaddup Hoopus nation.

Was just reading some posts, doing a little background digging on some players and discovered this blog entry covering the Wolves' draft this year. I'm posting it here because A) it's entertaining, B) it's enlightening in that it shows how entrenched our reflexive thinking/perception of other teams are (in this case, what other people think of us), and C) it really makes me appreciate SnP, Wyn, Hoopus, Brit, and Jerry Z all the more. When you read more and more incompetent journalism (often just opinions supporting a default view of a team with no real analysis or fact checking), it's great to have a community to keep it real and grounded in reality.

Blog entry below the jump.

So back to the Timberwolves, it isn’t just what they added in the draft but what they gave up to get those draft picks. Consider they gave up Randy Foye and Mike Miller to draft Ricky Rubio and take on some bad contracts. When you draft Johnny Flynn with the very next pick, is Rubio really worth it? I think not. Then they trade away the 18th pick when B.J. Mullens was sitting right there. Imagine this scenario instead, they take Johnny Flynn at 5, draft DeMar DeRozan at 6, B.J. Mullens at 18, and Sam Young at 28. If that had happened, then you have your backcourt of the future in Flynn and DeRozan and your frontline is set with Jefferson, Love, Mullens, and Young. Throw Corey Brewer, Ryan Gomes, and Craig Smith into the mix, and that isn’t too bad of a young nucleus to build around.

Observations: This guy hasn't seen much of Foye/Miller on the Twolves. Probably just looking at their stats. Makes me wonder how much we misperceive or overvalue other teams' players in the same way. I get the Derozen argument, but I'm still happy with both Flynn and Rubio. Also, he's basically saying he'd pick Flynn and Derozen over Rubio, which if the Wolves actually did I think he'd write a post about how the past on Rubio at the 5 and 6. Re: Mullens--yuck. I'll take a first rounder next year over Paul Grant, I mean, Mullens this year. Lastly, he thinks that building a nucleus in one draft is a better outcome than adding BPA's at this stage.

However, something more critical to look at, is why they traded Randy Foye and Mike Miller in the first place. It seemed so out of the blue. Foye was blossoming into a solid young playmaker. Also, prior to Al Jefferson’s season ending injury, the Timberwolves had been playing over .500 basketball for the last month. They were starting to play decent basketball, actually going 9-2 over one 11 game stretch. Then Jefferson went down and they were miserable the rest of the season as expected. However, the Timberwolves front office should have noticed the improvement and not virtually blown up the roster to start again.

Observations: Did you watch the Wolves the last two years? That 9-2 stretch was nice, but I think we can all agree that it's still unclear if the team was actually turning the corner or just capitalizing on being on a hot streak against a string of bad teams? We lost a bunch of games against better teams shortly after that streak before Al went down. Reminds me of a principle of studying randomness--people selectively see what supports their expected outcome. Case in point.

So basically, they did everything wrong. They were making progress and now they have blown up the team to start over. Then, they gave up way too much to get the 5th pick in the draft. After all that, they got very little out of a draft they basically mortgaged their future on. The strange part of all this is that we can’t blame Kevin McHale for any of it. He had nothing to do with it. Here is my theory, upon being hired into the front office, they beat you in the head with a baseball bat until you can no longer either spell your name or recite the alphabet. Once that occurs, the initiation is complete and you become a part of the front office. No, but seriously, what are they doing? I have no idea…

A team unlike the Timberwolves is the Oklahoma City Thunder, as they have a clear, concise plan to building a winning team. Over the last 3 drafts, they have now accumulated the foundation they need at every position. At point guard, there is Russell Westbrook. They just drafted James Harden at shooting guard. Kevin Durant and Jeff Green are the forwards. B.J. Mullens is the center of the future. With time, those five pieces will become the starting five that takes the Thunder to the playoffs. I have to give credit to general manager Sam Presti for building this team the right way.

Observations: Progress apparently is going from 22 wins to 24. We'll see if Rubio is better than Foye/Miller. I guarantee that if plays for the Wolves, though, he'll sell more tickets than those two. I wouldn't say we mortgaged our future on this draft. This has been covered before, but Foye wasn't going to work here, and getting Rubio is worth the trade off for me. Getting a first rounder next year is also a great move, but that's not brought up here.

The funniest part for me is this quote, "A team unlike the Timberwolves is the Oklahoma City Thunder, as they have a clear, concise plan to building a winning team. Over the last 3 drafts, they have now accumulated the foundation they need at every position." But I thought building a nucleus in one draft was preferable to doing it in three? I hope hope hope this dude revisits the Wolves in three years. I'd love to read what his analysis is then. The Thunder, "with time", will make it to the playoffs. The Wolves apparently need to make the playoffs tomorrow or they remain a failure and paragon of ineptitude.