The Rake Magazine

I don't think it is being overly melodramatic to say that tonight's NBA draft is the most consequential one for the Wolves in over a decade. It is very deep, and Minnesota is staring at the distinct possibility of losing their superstar and two first-round picks over the next three years.

But let's think happy thoughts. As Kevin McHale himself notes, the Wolves are very likely to choose a player who will provide immediate help next season. I'd like to hear your take on who you are crossing your fingers for and who you are dreading gets landed when Commissioner Stern makes the announcement this evening.

Based on various folks I've talked to and some limited viewing, here's my thumbnail take. Oden and Durant are gone, of course, and unless Atlanta comes back into the picture with the #3 pick, so are Horford and Conley. There are a clump of players from #5-10 that include Yi, Jeff Green, Corey Brewer, Brandan Wright, Noah, and Spencer Hawes, with some folks like Al Thornton and Julian Wright also considered as a reach. Here's my order:

Green--The most NBA-ready. A legit large 3 who Fred Hoiberg thinks is versatile and smart, coming out of a quality, defensive-oriented college program.

Brewer--A lock-down defender who probably doesn't need the ball, but isn't afraid to take the big shot if necessary. For those and other reasons, is a good fit with a Foye-McCants backcourt if the Wolves decide to go small and athletic.

Yi--I worry about rumors that he'll be unhappy in a city without a significant Asian population, reportedly trying to discourage both Minnesota and Milwaukee from drafting him. But from the tape I've seen has size and skills that are rarely combined.

Noah--How ironic that he'd be the perfect complement to KG; someone who emphasizes defense and quickness in the paint and is a heady ballplayer who knows how to win.

Thornton--Rugged and NBA-ready.

The pick I dread is Hawes. It certainly isn't his fault, but when was the last time that a large white guy taken in the first 10 picks fulfilled the hype? How many examples can you name that didn't? (From Koncak and Kleine in the 80s to Darko in the aughts with Big Country
Reeves in between, I can name about a dozen without straining.)

And for all your really smart NCAA types, it wouldn't hurt to hear who might be available and helpful at 41.

Thanks.

Most of the time I either ignore or mock Sid Hartman's ravings--it's better on the blood pressure. But this morning's Strib column, entitled "Minneapolis City Council could step up, but it won't," hit a nerve and continues to aggravate. So I guess today is the day to call out this asshole.

The thrust of the piece is that the City of Minneapolis won't step up and throw more money at the beleaguered new Twins stadium to bail out the inadequate planning done by Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat when financing the deal. Sid starts by recalling a meeting from 1995, when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was trying to move hockey's Winnipeg Jets into the Target Center.

Wheelock Whitney, one of the great civic leaders here, made a speech pointing out that Metropolitan Stadium, Met Center, Target Center and the Metrodome had been built without taxing the public. The Metrodome was funded on a liquor tax. And maybe this was the time for the city of Minneapolis to step up and provide some funding so the North Stars could be replaced. But the city council did nothing. And the Jets went to Phoenix and became the Coyotes. And though the NHL eventually returned with the Wild, Xcel Energy Center and Target Center continue to compete for big shows and lose money.

Leaving aside Sid's quaint notion that a liquor tax isn't a tax on the public, he conveniently forgets that 1995 was also the year the Minneapolis City Council agreed to purchase Target Center from original Wolves owners Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner for $85 million. Without that purchase, Glen Taylor wouldn't have bought the team and patrons in another city would have been watching Kevin Garnett for the past dozen years.

Sid continues:

Well today, court hearings will be held on the condemnation situation of the land that will be home for the new Twins stadium. The price could come out a lot higher than the $13.5 million the space has been taxed on. The Pohlad family has agreed to pay an additional amount to help Hennepin Country [sic] when and if the condemnation comes out higher. But Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat points out that a lot of the infrastructure connected with the ballpark will have to be eliminated if the condemnation figure comes out high. Here would be a chance for Barbara Johnson, Lisa Goodman and other geniuses in the city council to say, "If that happens, we will contribute."

Again, it is difficult to know if Sid has been rendered stupid by his blatant, all-consuming self-interest or his advancing years; either way, he doesn't seem to understand the most fundamental aspects of the way the new Twins stadium is being funded. I'll make it as simple as possible. Johnson, Goodman, and every other member of the Minneapolis City Council represent people who live in Minneapolis. People who live in Minneapolis also live in Hennepin County, and thus quite understandably make the overwhelming bulk of their purchases within Hennepin County. The largest single source of funding for the new Twins stadium--far more than the contribution made by the team's billionaire owner, the wealthiest of all baseball owners, by the way--comes from an increase in the Hennepin County sales tax.

Memo to Sid: Johnson, Goodman and, more importantly, all the people they represent, are already contributing far more than their fair share of the stadium cost. Not only that, but after repeatedly voicing their opposition to funding new playgrounds for sports billionaires, and passing an citywide amendment to limit the City's contribution to any such boondoggle to $10 million, they had this burden unilaterally placed upon them by Governor Pawlenty and the Minnesota State Legislature, who had to pass and sign a bill specifically overruling a provision in state law that stipulated voter approval of projects like the Twins stadium through a democratic referendum. It is not the fault of Johnson, Goodman or the people of Minneapolis that one of the landowners on the proposed Twins stadium site has shrewdly bargained for the best deal he can get, a factor that somehow wasn't planned for when the Twins deal was being railroaded through the general public.

A minute ago I mentioned blatant self-interest on Sid's part. Most people are acquainted with his biography: How he grew up poor selling the paper he now writes for on the streetcorners; and how he is now worth millions and millions of dollars. Now very very few people work as hard as Sid Hartman, even in his mid-80s, and he has invested the money he has earned from his journalistic labors wisely. But the plain fact is that sports in Minnesota have been very very good to Sid. One might even suggest that before he belittles the representatives of Minneapolis taxpayers for not forking over more public dollars to enhance the entertainment experience of endeavors he just happens to make his living covering, he might want to consider his own lucrative and longstanding conflicts of interest on the subject. Maybe he could even rough out a personal profit/loss statement with respect to how ballparks have eased his existence, and make appropriate amends. Put up or shut up, I think it's called.

And because I don't plan on ever writing about Sid again, one parting shot. This is a guy who in the decades I have observed and read him, turns the feisty journalistic axiom on its head: He comforts the comfortable and afflicts the afflicted. He is a slave to power, especially if the one wielding it has bullying tendencies, crawling furthest up the ass of people like Bob Knight and George Steinbrenner. And he is rude, mean and disparaging to those he considers beneath him in the social pecking order, especially but not exclusively with respect to media and communications assistants earning comparative peanuts trying to facilitate communication between petulant atheletes and team executives and journalists like me and Sid. Sid Hartman enables fascistic tendencies in human beings more than anyone I've ever met. Thank god he has devoted his boundless energy and passion to sports instead of politics.

Okay, end of rant. On an equally unpleasant subject, there are some who suggested over the weekend that Kevin Garnett's agent, Andy Miller, had either not consulted with his client or was merely posturing for a better contract down the road when he claimed Garnett would definitely opt out of his contract if traded to the Boston Celtics. In any event, now that both sides have simultaneously acknowledged that KG is on the trading block and, with conditions, amenable to being traded, it is probably impossible to stuff the genie back in the bottle. If a deal is contingent on a renegotiation of Garnett's contract after his opt-out year, that can't happen with another team until I believe July 1, but certainly after the draft, meaning that teams with earlier picks such as Atlanta or Boston, may be covertly doing the Wolves' bidding. At least that is the way one source explained it to me, and I hope I have portrayed it accurately.

David Brauer points out that a deal could be structured that gives the Wolves the package from the Celtics they supposedly wanted, and gets KG to Phoenix, where he wants to go. Here's how he pitches it:
The Celtics would get: Amare Stoudamire, James Jones, Boris Diaw, Marcus Banks and Troy Hudson. The Wolves would get Al Jefferson, the #5 overall draft pick, Wally Szczerbiak, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair and Theo Ratliff's expiring contract. Phoenix would get Kevin Garnett paired with Steve Nash and Shawn Marion, and, here's the rub, a huge hit on their salary cap, involving luxury tax dollars that Suns ownership says it doesn't want to pay.

The point is, the KG speculation game is almost certainly not going to end with Garnett staying in Minnesota; not after this much blood has been put in the water by both sides. As might be expected, the best clearinghouse for KG-related information around the net is at I Heart KG, which you can get to by hitting the link at the side of the page.

Finally, with the draft now just three days away, my tolerance for speculation is higher, to the point where I will throw up an open thread on Thursday morning for any and all who want to comment--the usual cavaet applies, however: no one-line ejaculations, or other stupidity. Keep it smart and original. Relying simply on what I have been told or inferred from sources I respect, some within the team, I think Minnesota will draft either Corey Brewer or Jeff Green at #7. I think Brewer will be gone by then (maybe to a team picking on the Wolves' behalf). I'm lousy at this sort of thing, but I'm guessing Green is the guy who gets announced on Thursday night.

Patrick Reusse may not be the greatest twirler of words in town, but the guy has usually possessed good, pithy instincts and an impeccable sense of timing. Today's column, in which Reusse posits that, A) Cornerstone players Kevin Garnett and Torii Hunter should be traded from the Wolves and Twins, respectively; and B) That it ain't gonna happen; is vintage Reusse and neatly lays out a parallel circumstance that will have a huge impact on my two favorite hometown teams.

The short answer from my end is that Reusse is right that both Garnett and Hunter should be dealt, and wrong that at least one of them won't be in a different uniform before October.

Longtime readers know that I am a huge KG booster who has only recently begun to countenance, let alone endorse, losing the chance to see Garnett deliver the goods for the Wolves night after night. Not that I had many illusions: Nearly 18 months ago I wrote a cover piece for City Pages about how Garnett would never brandish a championship ring with the Wolves logo on it. But the series of events over the past 12 months have convinced me that, even lowering expectations, it is highly unlikely that the Wolves will move beyond the first round of the playoffs during the steadily declining window of KG's prime. Put simply, the moment has passed for this superstar on this team, and barring a trade what almost certainly remains are recriminations, pity, apathy, and anger.

What has happened in the last year? For the second season in a row, Garnett had the indignity of folding up shop early while claiming some sort of "injury" so that the team would be able to retain its first-round draft pick. Philadelphia sacrificed Allen Iverson for dimes if not pennies on the dollar and found itself playing better under freed-up star-to-be Andre Iguodala. San Antonio and to a lesser extent Phoenix and Utah demonstrated the disparity in talent, depth and cohesion between the Western Conference elite and the Wolves. Conference mediocrities who could regarded as Minnesota's peers--Golden State, Portland, Seattle--were given a huge boost by playoff-matchup success or ping-pong ball luck in the draft. And for the first time in his career, KG took a slight step backward, losing a titch to age for which wisdom and experience couldn't compensate, especially on defense. Even if McHale has a superb off-season with the draft and MLE and the team gels better on the court and in the locker room--none of which, obviously, are sure things--the Wolves, at best, seem to be staring at a daunting first-round playoff foe.

Is there a chance that this squad can do everything right and get to the second round and establish momentum for 2008-09? Yup. Is there a chance they can leverage that momentum into budding stardom for Foye/McCants/this year's draft pick while KG plays Shaq to Wade in that equation? Yes, there is. Are those odds good enough to risk the horrible recriminations-pity-apathy-anger combo platter that gets served on this franchise if it doesn't happen? That's the question everyone has to ask themselves. My answer is no.

Torii is an easier call on the game of Deal or No Deal, but still more difficult than I would have imagined even three months ago. When Hunter announced he was finally feeling healthy and ready to have a monster year during spring training, I chalked it up as another chapter in the effective PR he has been staging this past 2 or 3 seasons to receive a legit contract extension and remain a Twin (remember him saying how much he wanted to play on the natural grass of an outdoor stadium in Minnesota?). But Hunter has indeed been the most surprising positive of the 2007 Twins season thus far. While I share the mystification expressed by esteemed colleague Brad Zellar as to why anyone would throw such a guess-oriented and impatient hitter like Hunter anything remotely resembling a strike unless they were way behind in the count, BZ and I have to cop to the fact that just three weeks before the All Star break Hunter has an OPS of .895 and 56 ribbies in 68 games--and hasn't lost as much in center field as KG has being superman defending the pick-and-roll.

It's ironic, really: If Glen Taylor owned the Twins, there's a chance Hunter would get his $60 million re-up even as it inflated the forthcoming deals for the likes of Justin Morneau and Johan Santana (a sage point emphasized by Reusse as to why the Twins can't re-sign Hunter). And if Carl Pohlad owned the Wolves, the incredibly depressing endgame that likely awaits KG and the Wolves would almost certainly be short-circuited (if Pohlad was always the owner of the Wolves, KG would have had a 3-year stay in Minnesota, but that's another story).

Just because it is so painful--and for fans of the Wolves and Twins, painful is not a hyperbolic word, but a legitimate description of the ache--shouldn't obscure the reality that the reasons for trading Garnett and Hunter are greater than the reasons for keeping them. I think that Kevin McHale and to a lesser extent Glen Taylor understand this, know that there is another notch or two to go to hit rock bottom and that they are likely to experience it with or without KG. Then the question becomes, what is the quickest way to emerge from it? For Terry Ryan and the Pohlad crew, the calculation is more clearcut: If the Twins manage to keep contending, Hunter will stay, because loyalty and class are the identity of this franchise. But so is intelligence, and anyone with half a brain knows that the Twins (as they are currently constituted anyway) can't afford Hunter beyond this season if they are to have any hope of retaining Morneau and Santana beyond their current contracts. So then the question becomes, what are the parameters of "contending"? On that front, last year's stirring comeback certainly augurs for patience and hope, and that's a shame, because the Twins don't have the horses to overtake both Cleveland and Detroit and almost certainly won't get past the wild card round in the postseason. But if something could secured for Hunter relatively soon, when his 2007 value as a rent-a-player remains very high to a contender, then I think the Twins' ace scouts could find some diamonds as Hunter compensation to go with next year's promise, when Santana will still be under contract, all the kids--Slowey, Garza, Bonser, Baker--will be a year older, and Mauer, Cuddyer and Morneau will be another step closer to a baseball player's chronological prime.

Two bittersweet farewells. Both should happen.

PS--In the midst of writing this entry, I happened to get an email from Jim Souhan asking me to be on KSTP radio tonight to talk about Garnett and the upcoming draft. At this point it appears that may occur early in the 7 o'clock hour.

If the Cavs and Spurs had played 20 times this month, I am now convinced San Antonio would have won 18-19 times. For Denver it would be 15-16; ditto Utah; for Phoenix, 13-14; and ditto Dallas, the tough matchup they avoided with the Golden State upset. Which is to say that the Spurs' fourth championship was the opposite of a fluke. Having seen all but one of their 20 games in the post-season, I think they were the most complete and inevitable champion since the second Jordan Bulls outfit of the mid-90s.

I was singing a slightly different tune ten days ago, of course, when I made the case that the Cavs could play the Spurs tough. Four games later, the convention wisdom--that the Spurs had too much talent, experience, will power, and everything else for the Cavs--was obviously wiser. Without going back and rereading my wayward post, I think I based my premise on the Cavs being competitive on at least two of three factors emerging. But in fact none of them developed. Read 'em while I weep.

The Cavs' perimeter defense would deter Parker and Ginobili
Parker's Finals MVP trophy gives you a clue how this one turned out. Yes, Larry Hughes was waylaid by plantar fasciitis, but Hughes would have had to be at the very top of his game to derail Parker's glory in this series. From the onset, the soon-to-be Mr. Longoria blew past two or three Cavs at a time en route to his trademark banker while taking a header into the photographers. By Games Three and Four, he had settled into such a comfort zone that not only the teardrop but the heretofore unreliable trey had become money in the bank. And when Parker wasn't bedeviling the Cavs, Ginobili was, as always, waiting for the step-up moment that would be most deflating to his opponents' resolve. The competitive killer instinct of Parker and Ginobili is more ferocious than any guard tandem since Dumars and Zeke back in the day.

LeBron would hit his midrange jumpers
You knew the Spurs wouldn't give LeBron a chance to penetrate; not without making him prove he could nail that 15-footer. It was unreasonable to expect King James to continue the long-range accuracy he'd demonstrated against the Pistons, and, at 5-20 FG from beyond the arc, he didn't. But what really doomed the Cavs was LeBron shooting just 40 percent (28-70 FG) from two-point range. What that stat says is that San Antonio was able to deny the superstar both layups and free throws. I've ripped ABC commentator Mark Jackson in the past, but he was dead-on in his repeated calls for the Cavs to post-up LeBron more often. Yes, Bruce Bowen came up huge, and the Spurs have the depth and commitment to assure that LeBron never discovered the comfort zone Parker was able to create for himself. But how does a player like LeBron operating under the new hand-checking rules only get 29 free throws in 170 minutes during this series? (By comparison, Ginobili shot 30 FTA in 117 minutes.) As someone who has praised Cavs' coach Mike Brown for his defensive schemes, I've got pile on with the critics of his offensive sets. Yes, guys like Varegao, Pavlovic and Gooden are probably destined to play stupidly in terms of shot selection and overall ball movement. But put your athletic superfreak down in the paint and see what happens a little more often--especially when it was obviously the best thing Cleveland had going on offense.

Daniel Gibson would maintain his swagger
This was a gut call that turned out to be inaccurate. I figured Gibson had absolutely nothing to lose and thus would continue to play out of his mind. Instead, the law of averages caught up with him and he reverted to his regular season mortality, shooting 44 percent from field overall and just 32 percent from three-point territory. Thus, the long-ball threat that killed the Pistons and freed up James was out of the equation.

A couple more minor points before we close the books on this slaughter. Brown made a big mistake not giving Eric Snow more burn when it was apparent Hughes couldn't go. No way a no-hope like Damon Jones deserves 65 minuts to Snow's 41. Sure, Jones is a three-point threat that could open up the floor for LeBron is ways Snow couldn't. But Jones can do anything but shoot, whereas Snow can defend and dish (despite his scant minutes, his 9 assists were third-best on the team this series). Watching Damon Jones trying to guard Parker and company was this mismatch in microcosm.

Finally, you are going to hear all about how this experience will enormously abet LeBron and make the Cavs the presumptive favorites to return for next year's finals. It is a viable theory, but I'd actually argue that it is the Spurs who benefited most from their experience this season. Consider how much two of their starting five, Oberto and Parker, grew in confidence and role-expansion over these past 20 games. Consider that Duncan looks healthy and is surrounded with players who will enable him to stay home in the paint at both ends of the floor, extending his career. Consider that Ginobili's deal with the devil--enabling him to hit every big shot and put himself in the perfect position to generate big rebounds, steals, etc., has obviously been extended. Consider that Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili are all signed through 2009-10, and that of the top 10 in their rotation, only Oberto, Finley and Vaughn are eligible for free agency this off-season. A year from now, we could very well be hearing about "one for the thumb" as it relates to championship rings for Tim Duncan.

It's not quite moving a deck chair on the Titanic, but the straight (and still unconfirmed) trade of Mike James to Houston for Juwan Howard seems more of an addition-by-subtraction and a bid to install locker room leadership than a significant upgrade in on-court talent.

First, the upside. Howard is a quality individual, a hard worker who has been given various community awards and citations for his charitable contributions and strength of character. At 6-9, he is a front court player who has averaged more than 16 points and 7 rebounds over the course of his 13-year career. In terms of chemistry, he is a stabilizer, not a disrupter, and has long been friends with Kevin Garnett.

His contract is slightly more expensive than James's, but extends out to a player option (that he will almost certainly exercise) in 2008-09, whereas James has his own lucrative player option in 2009-10, so the Wolves save a year of expensive penance for their unfortunate signing. Howard also enables the Wolves to rid themselves of James the player, whose horrendous defense and emotional inability to make the transition from role player to reliable starter was among the more significant of myriad disappointments in the 2006-07 season. Add to that persistent rumors that James was a corrosive component of this team, especially in his willingness to talk the talk about team play but not walk the walk, and it's easy to understand why Minnesota pulled the trigger on this deal.

The downside is that Howard will be 35 in February and cannot reasonably be expected to hold down the center position, even in this era of no hand-check small ball. He is a better rebounder than Mark Blount (who isn't among big men?), shares the ball better in the half court game, and is a better defender. But he is *not* a shot-blocker (his career average is 0.3 per game) and can't provide the staunch, trunk-oriented ability to hold his ground so necessary in defending bigs in the paint. Instead, he is a decent mid-range jump-shooter (albeit not as good as either KG or Blount) and passable defender of opposing power forwards who is probably incapable at this point in his career of playing the sort of uptempo style that is coming into vogue in the NBA, one the Wolves might be able to play with the right draft pick and deploying KG as the "center."

Any more tea-leaf reading on the future will of course have to wait for this month's draft and other deals that might occur between now and the beginning of training camp this fall. At first blush, it appears that Minnesota is either preparing to draft a point guard or indeed committed to Randy Foye as its point guard. I'm guessing the latter, because Juwan Howard is decidedly not the banger required to take the onus off Kevin Garnett in the paint wars.

Bottom line, I think this trade was made for chemistry reasons, and to begin to correct the backcourt imbalance on the roster that plagued the team last season. Juwan Howard is not the piece that cements a playoff contender. He is a reliable player on and off the court who will provide an honest night's effort 82 games per season. The same could not be said of Mike James. The only lingering question, one we obviously can't answer, is whether or not the Wolves could have received better compensation for James than an aging, smallish, slightly redundant power forward.