Top Ten List of those deserving thanks for the Love-Wiggins Trade

[TeamRicky [enjin:6648771]]

1. K. Love: Kevin obviously should be thanked for taking his game to the level that could net us a player like Wiggins and we are lucky he alerted the team just before one of the deepest drafts to come along in some time.

2. Wiggins: Obviously we are fortunate that a talent like Andrew came out this year and he took the rumors in stride and now seems happy to be a TWolf.

3. David Kahn: Though roundly criticized for signing Love to only 4 years, this trade likely never happens if Love was on a 5 year deal.

4. Lottery Gods: We were very fortunate that Cleveland won the Lottery this year despite the odds against them.

5. Pat Riley: Pat's unwillingness to sign Mike Miller and others who LeBron wanted created enough of a rift for LeBron to at least consider what many thought was unthinkable, leaving the Heat.

6. The San Antonio Spurs: They were hellbent on not repeating their finals loss of a year earlier and their beating the Heat coupled with #5, gave LeBron a reason to consider a new home.

7. Kyrie Irving: If he doesn't sign an extension this summer, the thought of a Big 3 in Cleveland might not have entered LeBron's head.

8. Joel Embiid: if he doesn't get injured, maybe Cleveland takes him instead.

9. LeBron James: the defacto GM who single handedly forced the Cleveland ownership to trade Wiggins for Love.

10. Flip Saunders: Great poker player, stayed the course and didn't get lured into lesser offers.

[worldK]

Pretty good list teamricky. I don't know if you rank them by order or what but I would definitely rank flip #1 guy to thank for this trade. So many 'analysts' expected a much lesser return for us and wanted us to roll over and take less like a bulls or celtics deal but flip hold his ground and ended up with the best possible haul for love.

Il also put golden state in there somewhere. Good luck to the warriors paying klay max money next season. I'm glad we dodged that bullet.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

1. Flip Saunders -- For playing this perfectly in every way possible. Pretty much a flawless performance.

2. LeBron James -- For returning to Cleveland and refusing to rely on unknown prospects to help him win.

3. Golden State's front office and Andre Iguodala -- For not parting with Klay "Superstar" Thompson. I hope Iggy does get Thompson his money. Go ahead and max that team's potential out. I was worried that we were close to accepting a package of Thompson/Lee/Barnes for Love/Martin/13 (LaVine). Would have been terrible for us.

4. Chicago's front office -- For offering a competitive trade package (reportedly offered McDermott and Mirotic) to help drive up the price.

5. Kevin Love -- Personally, I thought Love was fine throughout 99% of this, honestly. He made one poor comment about wanting to play with any one of the 30 teams that can help him win; then referred to Wolves as "they" instead of "we". That's picky, but everything about this process has been picky. Picking up hints and using common sense. Other than that, I couldn't have asked anything more from Love. Shut up, let your agent do his job and stay away from competitive basketball (Team USA). Had he gotten injured, Flip would have received much less for our star.

6-10. Irrelevant, in my opinion. All we needed was our GM to have patience and value his trade chip highly, our star player to stay quiet and off the court, at least one other serious buyer (CHI, GS, BOS, etc.) and LeBron heading to Cleveland to make Love commit there. That's what made this deal happen.

[TeamRicky [enjin:6648771]]

Yeah, I'd rank Flip and LeBron near the top, but I did it more in a chronological fashion. I'm sure I missed some and Golden State's Front Office would be a worthy addition.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Excellent thread, ricky! Many of us have talked about the perfect storm that had to happen to bring Wiggins, Bennett and Young to us in exchange for a guy who was leaving anyway, but this thread documents all the elements in that perfect storm. I'm glad that world and cam added GS to the list...really foolish of them to not include Klay in a package. Really an extraordinary confluence of events with an unbelievably terrific outcome, and not at all the way we Wolves fans are used to seeing things turn out. Could this be a sign that the bizarre poor luck this franchise has had is now over? We sure deserve it!

I'm more of an Anthony Bennett fan than most on this board, so I would also add this to the top ten list. If Bennett doesn't hurt his shoulder, show up 15 pounds overweight and stumble through his rookie year, there's no way Cleveland is willing to include him in the package for Love.

[BloopOracle]

I would change Pat Riley to Micky Arison, he's the real reason they got rid of miller

[BizarroJerry [enjin:6592520]]

Yeah, nice thread Ricky. There are quite a few people to thank here. You guys got em' all. Funny how Kahn gave us something good in the end. The stars are aligning here my friends. This is our time. Flip knows it. Sam Mitchell knows it. I'm gonna thank Canada too!

[Monster]

If we are handing out awards for players getting hurt I think we should give some credit to the actual cavs organization. They were gifted with #1 and Lebron but they managed not to screw anything up and that's something to give credit for.

Also I can't wait for the posts 5-10 years from now (or sooner) that say Flip doesn't deserve much credit for this trade it fell in his lap etc. Lol

Also I think credit should be given for the united front the Wolves had. Milt's comments were pretty much right in line with what Flip said and was all about making the team better. Heck crazy Glenn kept saying he wanted Love back with the team they weren't just giving him up etc. I'm not getting carried away with giving credit for people beyond Flip but I think its pretty clear the organization did very well with this deal. It might end up not working out but it seems the concensus is VERY good.