The Real Cost of Joe Smith
by Doug West Domination!!! on Mar 24, 2011 7:57 PM CDT
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PrintNot my first post but I haven't done a lot of them. Previously went by waldo11teen but everyone thought I was a 12 year old so I changed my account to a different name to honor my favorite T-Wolve of all time.
I took a look at the drafts we missed out on because of the infamous "Pay Joe Under the Table" scandal. I took into account that we might have improved based upon the player we drafted but the Wolves did that dramatically from here on out going from 13th best record in the NBA to the 2nd best in the 3 year span.
Keep in mind also that hindsight is always 20/20 and McHale was drafting these things and in 2003 we took Ndudi Ebi and the next 3 picks were Kendrick Perkins, Leandro Barbosa, & Josh Howard. With that said maybe Joe Smith just saved us a lot of head scratching over the past decade. Could you imagine if we had taken 4 Ndudi Ebi's over 4 years?
2001 NBA Draft
Wolves record 47-35 (8th in West) 13th in NBA
Let's begin with the 2001 NBA Draft. This seemed to be our best chance to secure a very good player out of all of them. We would have picked higher and there were a lot of good choices from Gerald Wallace in the mid first round all the way to Nocioni who wasn't even drafted. We took Lored Woods in the 2nd who is 7'2" so maybe we wanted a long athletic center. My best guess and hope is they would have at least drafted Haywood.
(Kwame Brown need I say more?)
Next 5 picks
Joseph Forte
Jeryl Sasser
Notable Players on board
Gerald Wallace
Jamal Tinsley
2nd Round Pick
Loren Woods
2002 NBA Draft
Wolves Record 50-32 (5th in West) 7th in NBA
The 2002 draft gets a lot thinner especially since we picked around 23rd (Tied with the Pistons at 50 wins). They took a flyer on Marcus Taylor in the 2nd round a 6'3" guard who left Michigan State after 2 years so I'm not sure what they were looking for position wise. You would have to think they would've taken Prince or Kristic. They had Wally and Sam Mitchel on the wing but I think they would have wanted to get a little more athletic here but who really knows.
Next 5 Picks
Nenad Kristic
Frank Williams
Chris Jefferies
Notables Players on board
2nd Round Pick
Marcus Taylor
2003 NBA Draft
(One of the best drafts ever and guess which guy we ended up with)
No need to go into detail here. We had a pick and it wasn't good.
1st Round
Ndudi Ebi
2nd Round
Rick Rickert
2004 NBA Draft
Wolves Record (1st in West) 2nd in NBA
(The extremely tall guy in the back was Pavel Podkolzin)
This draft was thin and we would've picked late. But hey we didn't care we took it to the Lakers with no PG and won our first 2 playoff series. I do remember signing Keith McLeod to a couple of 10 day contracts and playing him good minutes as well as having the round mound of Oliver Miller getting a lot of clock so I would guess we go PG or big man here. The next 4 picks were Centers and Chalmers was a PG so we probably don't do a lot here but maybe these guys learned some things from KG, who knows?
Next 5 Picks
Peter John Ramos
Lionel Chalmers
Notable Players on board
2nd Round Pick
Blake Stepp
All in all I think the absolute best we could've done based on what we knew and more importantly what McHale thought would be
Brendan Haywood
Tayshaun Prince
David Harrison
Who knows what this really cost us in the end. KG? Rings? Still contending? It's all speculative but hey thats what sports blogs are for aren't they? Speculation.
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For what it's worth
I think the name change will benefit you in discussions.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
I think so too
Basically why I did it.
by Doug West Domination!!! on Mar 25, 2011 10:09 AM CDT up reply actions
I don't think the impact was so severe
We need to try to look at the selections with the information people had at the time of the draft. For example, in 2001, we would have had the 17th pick. At the draft, TOR used the #17 pick to the guy they thought looked best. … Michael Bradley. Gerald Wallace didn’t get picked until #25.
And even if we had gotten it right and selected Brandon Haywood, then our next picks would have gotten worse, so we wouldn’t have gotten Tayshaun Prince in the next draft. If Haywood improved our record by a single game, then DET picks in front of us, and takes Haywood.
In my view, Taylor tried to make up for the Joe Smith debacle by spending over the lux to add Cassell and Sprewell, giving us the most talented team we ever had. Not only did that help make Garnett happier than he had ever been, but the improvement lowered the value of the picks and reduced the cost of the Joe Smith punishment.
Don't discount
the fact that the money Glen spent on Sprewell and Cassell was tiny compared to what he saved by not having to pay Joe Smith.
Which would make a cynical person wonder if perhaps the perpetrator of the under-the-table deal was not also the snitch.
Only four more months until the lockout begins!
Contracts
Smith: 6 years, $34 mil
Sprewell: 02-03: $13,500,000
Sprewell: 03-04: $14,625,000
Sprewell: 04-05: offered: 3-year, $21 mil contract
Cassell: 02-03: $5,062,500
Cassell: 03-04 $6,066,667
Cassell: 04-05 $6,740,740
Some of the 02-03 can be discounted for trading expirings, like Olowokandi, that they’d still have to pay.
On the picks
they did get lower every year after the 17th pick because we improved. We went from 17th to 23rd to second to last in the first round. If our picks improved our team then we would’ve gone lower anyways.
I still think Taylor would’ve overspent and gone over the luxary tax regardless if we had picks or not. KG wanted Sprewell & Cassel (At least thats what he said at the time) and they went out and got them.
But like I said who knows who we would’ve picked. Could’ve been 3 more Ndudi Ebi’s and we’d be sctratching our heads even harder today.
by Doug West Domination!!! on Mar 25, 2011 9:51 AM CDT up reply actions
Again, it's McHale making the picks
…but he could have traded them for something. What was crazy about the first-round exit years—besides them looking so good to us now—was how the Wolves did so little to improve from year to year. They always said it’s because they couldn’t, which I buy to some degree, but could also be because McHale wasn’t, uh, engaged. Even David Stern said they could buy a pick, and since Taylor took the blame for the Smith fiasco, he could have dug deep bought a pick or two and helped the situation a lot.
Three years of nothing
McHale went three years (!) after the Marbury trade before making a trade of any significance to improve the roster — the Marc Jackson trade of 2002.
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