OK, it's the next day.  Time to start dealing with some of the tough issues brought about by last night's draft.  First and foremost among any issue with the Wolves' selections is the seemingly inexplicable decision to pass on Stephen Curry after taking Ricky Rubio.  Forget about Jonny Flynn for a moment.  You're the Wolves.  You've just drafted the best passing point guard in the draft.  You have a roster filled with power forwards and exactly zero players who can hit above 40% of their shots from beyond 15 feet.  Do you a) take a 6'2" guard who shoots .387% from 3 (on a ton of attempts; many of them contested), .519% from 2 (mostly mid-range jumpers), has long range, and can shoot the lights out off the screen or in catch-and-shoot situations or b) a 5'11" guy who has Bassy-esque 3 point averages, average defensive numbers, and very modest RSB/40 numbers?  

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Seriously, you can't trade him after that picture.  How on earth is DeJuan Blair still available? 

• 9:32- Jeff Pendergraph is the 1st pick in the 2nd round and he is headed to Portland in a trade
• 9:37- Jermaine Taylor is off to DC.  Not sure what they are doing there with all of the shooting guards but hey, who am I to complain when rooting for a team with 10 power forwards and 4 points.
  
• 9:39- Griz and Knicks work out a trade with Darko going to New York.  New York is going to be sneaky good next year if Galinari is healthy. 
  
• 9:40- Blazers take Dante Cunningham from 'Nova.
  
• 9:45- Lakers trade rights to Toney Douglas to the Knicks for a future 2nd round pick.
  
• 9:46- Sergio Llull to the Nuggs.  Denver made out like bandits tonight.  Denver is having the best draft of the night.  They may have picked up 2 better point guards than the Wolves. 
  
• 9:47- Pistons get DeJuan Summers. This pick has Wolves connections.  The Pistons got the pick from the Wolves for Ronald Dupree.
  
• 9:50- Griz take Sam Young.  David Kahn is doing a presser now.  You can watch it here. They're keeping the picks.  Few other interesting notes: Kahn said that OKC was on radio silence today.  I will post a link to the archived conference as soon as it becomes available.  "Destination not an issue" with Rubio.
  
• 9:51- Spurs have DeJuan Blair fall into their laps. Amazing.  Sometimes winning requires luck.  If the Spurs can sign Sheed, they're going to make a serious run.
  
• 9:54- Ty Lawson deal officially announced.  John Brockman goes to the Blazers. 
• 10:00- Jonas Jerebko to the Pistons.  Chase Budinger still available.  So is Calathes, Thrornton, and Paul Harris. There are still good players on the board.  All three players were on our draft board.
  
• 10:01- Washington sends Jermaine Taylor to the Rockets for cash.  Dork Elvis on the prowl. 
  
• 10:02- Derrick Brown to the Cats. Chris Wallace on the tube explaining the Thabeet pick.  Demare Carroll and Sam Young to round things out.  "There's a buzz in town about the Griz," says Wallace.
  
• 10:03- DX reports that the Wolves have traded Ellington to the Nuggs.
• 10:10- Bucks take Jodie Meeks, Lakers take Patrick Beverly, Heat take Marcus Thronton, and Pistons take Chase Budinger.  Denver also trades rights to Sergio Llull to Houston.  Dork Elvis strikes again.  Llull is going to be a player.  Wolves on the clock.
• 10:18- Wolves kill the 45th pick with Nick Calathes.  This is an amazing pick.  Unbelievable pick.  We have often referred to Calathes as the American Rubio.  The Wolves could start both guys.  The Wolves have now taken 4 point guards.  I'm still working on confirming the Ellington rumors.
• 10:20- Cavs get Danny Green.  Excellent pick.  Wolves are back on the clock.  Are there any more point guards to take?  Nando de Colo?  I'm really rooting for Paul Harris here.
• 10:28- Wolves take Henk Norel, Rubio's teammate from Spain.
  
• 10:39- Suns continue their habit of taking lesser brothers (see Lopez, Robin) with their selection of Taylor Griffin.  Seth Curry will be a Sun in 3 years.
• 10:35- Goran Suton to the Jazz.
  
• 10:36- Jack McClinton to the Spurs.  Hello corner threes!!!
• 10:40- Indy takes A.J. Price
• 10:42- Spurs get Nando de Colo.  They are cleaning up in the 2nd round.  Blair, McClinton, and De Colo.  All of these guys were on our draft board.  All of them are solid players. 
  
• 10:44- RealGM says that Yahoo is reporting that the Wolves traded Calathes to the Mavs.
  
• 10:45- Robert Vaden to the Cats.
• 10:46- Patrick Mills off the board. 
  
• 10:47- Dork Elvis strikes again.  Gets Chase Budinger from the Pistons for future 1sts.
  
• 10:48- David Kahn (former point guard Jewish Community Center) talks to Stu about the picks.  Rubio is "transformational", Flynn is "special".  Both guys can be on the court at the same time.  Jonny is a "scoring point" and Rubio is an "orchestra leader", an "unbelievable conductor".  Kahn makes a joke about Dick Vitale being a prominent former NBA coach on the panel...instead of JVG.  Kahn thinks this will make the coaching search go a bit better.
• 10:50- From Yahoo Sports: "Minnesota is expected to trade the rights of Florida's Pat Calathes to Dallas for future considerations, a league executive said."
• 10:51- It sounds like Ellington will stay in Minny.  More to come as it becomes available.
  
• 10:52- Dallas takes Ahmad Nivins and the Suns take Emir Preldzic.
  
• 10:59- Lester Hudson to the Celts.
• 11:00- The Lakers have traded the draft rights to Patrick Beverley to the Heat for a future pick and cash.
• 11:01- Robert Vaden to the Thunder for cash.  Lakers take Chinemelu Elonu.
  
• 11:06- Mr. Irrelevant is Robert Dozier.  Winners: Mark Jackson says Clippers and Magic.  JVG goes with Spurs (I agree).  Bilas says the Wolves. 

You can't trade the kid.  If anyone has a link to a picture with him in a Wolves hat, please place it in the comments.  

• 7:52- Indy takes Psycho T
• 7:56- Phoenix takes Earl Clark.  Rumors of an Amare to GSW deal abound.  Phoenix is in full-fledged rebuilding mode.  Did Phoenix just take Clark for Minny?
• 8:03- Detroit takes Austin Daye. So much for any Clark/Daye dreams at 18 for the Wolves.  Quick thought on the Flynn/Rubio business.  The more I think about it, the more I can see the benefit in taking the top 2 players on your board if you're a bad team.  However, with guys like Lawson and Maynor still on the board, if a team wants a stout PG, they can get it for a lot less than what the Wolves are probably asking.  Perhaps the Wolves will tell Rubio to stay over another year.  Maybe there is something in his buyout that speaks to this.  Perhaps the amount goes down.  If that's the case, this is a fantastic pick and they can play Flynn for a year while Rubio stays in Europe and then they trade one of them in the loaded 2010 draft.  I'm not sold on Flynn as a player but that wasn't a bad pick. 
• 8:08-Bulls take James Johnson from Wake. Apparently he's a martial arts champion.
• 8:13-Holiday finally goes. The Sixers got great value with Jrue falling.
• 8:20-At 18 the Wolves grab their third point guard with Ty Lawson. Crazy. Something's gotta give.
• 8:21-And give it does: Lawson to Denver for Charlotte's future 1st rounder.
• 8:26- Hawks grab Jeff Teague
• 8:32- Jazz grab Eric Maynor.  Love freaks out over all the point guards: "what are we doing????????????????? omg we better trade....what are we doing??????????? i dont even know"
• 8:34- First mention from Wolves that Rubio may not come over next season.
  

• 8:34-Protection on Charlotte's pick from Denver is top 12 protected in 2010, top 10 protected in 2011, top 8 protected in 2012, top 3 protected in 2013, and unprotected in the 2014.

• 8:40-Portland grabs Victor Claver with number 22., a Spaniard.
• 8:42-With #23, Sacramento goes with Omri Casspi. Let's hear it for the Israelis.
• 8:50-Mullens, only the 2nd center to be drafted falls to the Mavericks at 24.
• 8:54-OKC takes Rodrique Beaubois and flips him back to Dallas for Mullens. No word on what other parts are involved.
• 9:00-Can't believe Chicago passed on DeJuan Blair at 26, but they did and took Taj Gibson. Seems like a  reach for Gibson based on the mocks.
• 9:04-The Grizz snatch up DeMarre Caroll. Let's hope the Wolves get Calathes and land 4 points guards.
• 9:10-The Wolves use 28 on Wayne Ellington. Solid pick. A guard, but not a point guard. I'll take it.
• Lakers take Toney Douglas and the Cavs take Christian Eyenga

The most entertaining sports night of the year is here.  Let the festivities begin.

• 6:34- First big rumor: Harden with the 3rd pick.
• 6:38- 2 potential Wolves coaches on the ESPN broadcast crew: Marc Jackson and JVG; Stuart Scott is not under consideration
• 6:39- Blake Griffin goes with the 1st pick.  Do the Clips have purple in their unis?  Come on man, you're a millionaire who knows where he's going.  Coordinate with the team colors big fella. Clips now have as many power forwards as the Wolves.
  
• 6:46- Memphis takes Hasheem Thabeet. Jim Peterson immediately tries to copyright the term Ivory Tower before Marc Gasol can get a hold of it.  The biggest pick of the draft is now on the clock.  Here we go.
• 6:51- OKC takes James Harden!!! Come on SacTown, you know you want Evans!!  BTW: Nice bow-tie.
  
• 6:56- Sacramento takes Tyreke Evans...HOLY S%$T!!!  RUUUUUUUBBBBIIIIOOOOOO!!!!!!  Double-whammy for SacTown: Rashad McCants listed as a "key reserve".
  
• 7:04- Minnesota takes Ricky Rubio!!!! This is unbelievable.  This is completely amazing.  You can't trade the kid after he put the hat on....the shiny new black Wolves hat.  No more Foye/Roy, no more Allen/Steph, this kid is staying and holy crap, they got him....with 3 picks to go. 
  
• 7:07- "I'm Ricky Rubio. I'm not like anyone else."
• 7:08- David Kahn just traded Mike Miller and Randy Foye for Ricky Rubio. Will MSG go nuts if Wolves take Curry?
• 7:10- Wow. Jonny Flynn and Ricky Rubio? Can you have both players on the team at the same time? Wow.  I don't know what to say about this one.  Is someone going to get traded?
• 7:16- GSW becomes public enemy number one at MSG by picking Stephen Curry.  Kevin Love Tweets about Jonny Flynn here. Knicks up next.  Have the Wolves worked out a deal with the Knickerbockers? We shall see.
  
• 7:22- Knicks take Jordan Hill.  Surely the Wolves won't trade for Hill. Remember that a trade cannot be announced until after the 2nd pick is made.
• 7:27- Kevin Love on Jordan Hill: jordan hill???? what???? haha
• 7:28- Did the Raptors just draft Demar DeRozan for the Wolves?
  
• 7:30- From Zgoda: "Wolves' vision is to play Flynn/Rubio together like Pistons did Dumars/Isiah or Celts did DJ/Ainge. #timberwolves"
• 7:33-Jennings to the Bucks. What does that mean for Ramon Sessions?
• 7:38-Nets take Terrence Williams. I like him, but Pitino's kids never seem to pan out as much as they're expected to.
• 7:45-The Charlotte Jordans select Gerald Henderson. Love that ACC.
  

OK folks, let's get right into this.  Here is the final Community Draft Board, voted on by all y'all:

1. Blake Griffin
2. Ricky Rubio
3. James Harden
4. Stephen Curry
5. Hasheem Thabeet
6. Tyreke Evans
7. Demar DeRozan
8. Brandon Jennings
9. Jrue Holiday
10. Jonny Flynn
11. Jordan Hill
12. Ty Lawson
13. Earl Clark
14. Eric Maynor
15. Austin Daye
16. Gerald Henderson
17. Terrence Williams
18. B.J. Mullens
19. Jeff Teague
20. DeJuan Blair
21. Nick Calathes
22. Sam Young
23. James Johnson

We only had single votes through the Henderson pick but I filled out the rest by adding up the votes of the past 3 polls and using the results to fill out the list.  If our readers have their way, it is likely that the Wolves will be holding a presser introducing Stephen Curry and James Harden on Friday morning. Our very own Hoopus Draft Board is located below the fold.

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OK, we're almost to the end.  This week's schedule looks like this:

Monday: 2nd round steals.

Tuesday: Possible trades.

Wednesday: Final Draft Board (Hoopus and Community)

Thursday: Open thread draft day

Here's where the Community Draft Board currently stands:

1. Blake Griffin
2. Ricky Rubio
3. James Harden
4. Stephen Curry
5. Hasheem Thabeet
6. Tyreke Evans
7. Demar DeRozan
8. Brandon Jennings
9. Jrue Holiday
10. Jonny Flynn
11. Jordan Hill
12. Ty Lawson
13. Earl Clark
14. ???

While you're voting, please take the time to listen to David Kahn's appearance on Saturday's In the Zone.  If you're really up to it, you can listen to hour 2 where Dan Barreiro calls in to defend his honor against charges of being flustered during his own appearance with Kahn.  In typical Danny-B fashion, he weighs down his take with qualifier after qualifier while calling those who disagree with him (including a long-time In the Zone caller) "chowder heads" and misstating Kahn's position as he uses it as a springboard for "savagery".  At the end of the day, all he seems to care about his the meaningless middle (i.e. the center of attention), putting people in "boxes", and the aforementioned savagery.  Kahn got the better of him and he's spent the past few days yelling otherwise into his very loud microphone.

Anywho, the Kahn interview on In the Zone is pretty good. 

Until later.

Good lord, as if watching one team have its best player go down with a devastating season-ending knee injury wasn't enough, yesterday delivered news that the Lynx's Seimone Augustus (Olympian Seimone Augustus) has a torn ACL in her left knee and will be out for the year.  I cannot explain to you just how much this is going to impact the Lynx's season.  Keep in mind that the team is already dealing with a situation where their coach bolted on them a few days before the beginning of the season to take a job in the NBA.  This situation is every bit as turbulent, if not more, than what happened to the Wolves with Randy Wittman and Al Jefferson.  Relatively speaking, Augustus is the better player and the Lynx have better all-around talent than the Wolves.  In other words, this loss, combined with the already-tough coaching change, is going to make it hard for the Lynx to win a lot of games...which is extremely unfortunate because this squad has a phenomenal young core (Wiggins, Augustus, Montgomery, Anosike) that was poised to take a big step this year with a healthy leader on the court and a new leader on the bench.  

Exhibit A is last night's 28-point loss to the Seattle Storm. The Lynx, a team that scored a boat load of points over its first few games, never scored more than 20 points in a quarter while shooting less than 30% from the floor.   Ball movement was stagnant, the offense was stifled, and transition opportunities were almost non-existent.  Moving back to the bigger picture, let's take a quick look back to former Hoopus contributor Peter W's 2008 Lynx preview:

Why they won't make the playoffs comes down to three factors: coaching, defense, and point guard play. Zierden is not head coaching material, period. In the games I saw last year, he had no strategy on how to break presses or half court traps, and his offense centered around Augustus using her athleticism to try and make something happen. The fact she was second in the league in scoring and attempted 241 more shots than any other Lynx player last year speaks volumes for the way Zierden used her.

This issue was being addressed this season but it a) wasn't completely fixed, and b) is still hard to overstate just how important Augustus is/was/will be to the offense of this ball club.  Until Renee Montgomery can start displaying her college form at the point, this team will be much too dependent on one player for ball movement, offense, transition play...you name it.  If there is any silver lining to this situation (and there really isn't; their best player went down with a knee injury), it is that Montgomery should be thrown into the fire and forced into a bit higher learning curve than she was before.  Hopefully, she will respond well.  Here's hoping for a speedy and full recovery for Augustus.  Here's hoping that the Lynx can find a way to adjust to their new reality and get back to playing some entertaining and competitive games.  It will be a tall order on a team that is trying to rid itself of the 1-player dominant style it exhibited last season.

Moving on to the Community Draft Board, here is where we currently stand:

1. Blake Griffin
2. Ricky Rubio
3. James Harden
4. Stephen Curry
5. Hasheem Thabeet
6. Tyreke Evans
7. Demar DeRozan
8. Brandon Jennings
9. Jrue Holiday
10. Jonny Flynn
11. Jordan Hill
12. Ty Lawson
13. ???

Just to give you an idea of how this stacks up to our very own Hoopus Score Draft Board, here's a link to the list.  We'll put up our final draft board (with 1 or 2 changes from that link) on Monday or Tuesday. 

First of all, a hearty thank you goes out to the Seattle Storm for not pulling a marketing gimmick and changing their team's unis to something along the lines of Lauren Jackson's Aussie Olympic gear.  I can live with ads on the jerseys but dressing up women ballers in form-fitting sex suits would be just silly.  Loose unis for everyone!!!

Secondly, we would like to thank Lynx assistant coach (and Wolves broadcaster) Jim Petersen for mentioning the site yesterday during his appearance on the PA Show.  This is the 2nd time the former St. Louis Park star has gone out of his way to mention the site and we would like to thank the Ivory Tower for his graciousness.

Getting around to the game, the Lynx ran into Ms. Jackson and Sue Bird last night at the Target Center.  Before the game I had never heard of Swin Cash but now both I and Seimone Augustus know all about her, as the Minny Olympian was pestered into a 6-15 shooting night and she had to work hard for every one of her points. 

It will be interesting to see how the Lynx bounce back from this loss.  The Storm made a concerted effort to keep the Lynx in a 1/2 court setting and it really affected how the hometown five were able to score.  Gone were the layups and quick twos before the defense could really set up.  Gone were the open threes brought about by a transitioning defense.  Instead, the Lynx were slug-fested to the ground.  For fans of wide-open ball, this is the biggest problem that comes with the philosophy: How do you respond when you are hit in the mouth and slowed down?  Win or lose, it will be interesting to see how the Lynx respond to the challenge. 

It should also be noted that Lynx coach Jen Gillom is being inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame today.  Hall of Famers, Olympians, exciting ball, and a roster filled with players from powerhouses like Stanford, UConn, Tennessee, and LSU.  This is what you get at a Lynx game.  The WNBA even lets you watch them for free on line.  Imagine that, a Broadband League Pass that actually works!

Wrapping this little ditty up, here is where we stand with the Community Draft Board:

1. Blake Griffin
2. Ricky Rubio
3. James Harden
4. Stephen Curry
5. Hasheem Thabeet
6. Tyreke Evans
7. Demar DeRozan
8. Brandon Jennings
9. Jrue Holiday
10. Jonny Flynn
11. ???

Who should be the #11 player on the Wolves' draft board? 

One final thing: I took part in Ridiculous Upside's Mock Draft.  You can read my selection for the Wolves here.