Minnesota Sports Forum

Good poll, alex. My original thought was "Irrelevant, because Flip never had a choice of KG or the Miami pick". But Flip apparently was goaded into comparing the two by a savvy ink-stained wretch, because he clearly made the comment last night that KG would be more valuable than the pick.

We may not ever know the winner in this poll, but I think this could be a good thread/poll to bump after some time has passed. I voted for KG, but as I said, I'm not sure how we will ever determine which is more valuable.

One of the main reasons I voted KG is Flip's comment that he has never made a deal that was so enthusiastically received by his team. Sure, KG is 38 and not the player he was in his prime, but he still is a sure-fire HOFer who won a ring when our young players were closely watching the post-season as teenagers, dreaming about if they would ever make it. I may see KG is a jerk, but these guys look at him as a god, and now they get to play on the same side as him. That, combined with the fact that KG demands 100% effort and excellence from his teammates, has got to bring out the best in the extraordinary young talent that Flip has assembled. And that could turn out to be a very good thing. If KG can inspire Rubio, Wiggins, Zach, AB, Gorgui, Bazz and a top 5 pick TBD to play a little harder, to get out every ounce of potential they have inside of them, just like he has played his entire career, the rosy future of this franchise just got that much rosier. My hope is that while KG/Young individual performance ends up being a net wash, the impact KG has on our young talent in bringing out their enormous upside, will be the real value in this deal.

Now, some are going to vote for the Miami pick in the poll, and how will that pick be determined to be a winner? I think like this. KG plays much older the next two years than he did this year and contributes less on the court, or even worse, has a Wally-like incident with a teammate that disrupts our team chemistry. Concurrently, someone projected to go in the 15-20 range in the draft...a Bobby Portis for instance...is cited by someone voting for the Miami pick as the guy we could have drafted if we had kept the pick, and that player eventually becomes a star. I think that would have to be judged to be a win for the pick. But hindsight can't be used for the purpose of supporting your vote. There's always someone selected in the late teens or early 20s that eventually becomes a star, but far more in that range who fail. You gotta make your call at the time of the draft! At any rate, this could be a good talker for years to come.

bleedspeed177 wrote:I said the pick because it is easy enough to sign KG in the offseason. Jeff Adrien would have been fine here this year playing PF for us. And that pick could have been used to land us a decent player at the deadline or traded for a future first.

This is why I voted for the pick. Well said Bleed!

Pick. Even if the pick bombs I take the pick. I think we could get a solid rotational guy maybe even a starter with that pick. We could have signed Garnett in the offseason. I would take the pick over Young. We need to build for the future. We have some very good young pieces. We need more.

khans2k5 wrote:

alexftbl8181 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:I think the pick will amount to very little. But that is just me taking an educated guess based on the history of the draft.

The 2013 draft, the non lottery picks ended up better then the lottery ones

Care to add a bigger sample size than 1 year that still has tons of time to make that statement false because of how young the players still are?

ok, how about all the Wolves players the could of had in those later picks they either traded or passed on,

Josh Howard
Mitroic
Gobert
Parsons
Dont Monj
Terrence Jones

If KG can inspire Rubio, Wiggins, Zach, AB, Gorgui, Bazz and a top 5 pick TBD to play a little harder, to get out every ounce of potential they have inside of them, just like he has played his entire career, the rosy future of this franchise just got that much rosier.

Long, you know damn well there isn't a difference between that, and Love calling out JJ which you rip on him for all the time. It's ok for KG to do it but not Love?

With the benefit of hindsight I would take the pick and attempt to sign KG this offseason if they wanted him that bad.

While if healthy I do believe they could have been in the running for the 8th playoff spot I didn't believe that was the right thing to do even with the past decade of misery. Even so I understand what Flip was trying to do and there was no way any of us could see the titanic of a season coming from an injury standpoint.

On the other hand just how many 1st and 2nd year players can a team be successful with? They need some veteran leadership and while I love Rubio and despise bad KG I do think good KG can go a long way toward helping develop a game in, game out expectation of winning.

The chain of events that led us to this position flat out sucks and its okay to question the initial trade for Thad. Its also okay to question the Thad for KG trade. I think it is unreasonable to connect the first round pick to KG. Yes, that was the end result, but it was no where close to the plan.

Anybody who expected the teams three most important vets to go down virtually at the same time and for so long pat yourself on the back, the rest of us are going off of hindsight.

alexftbl8181 wrote:If KG can inspire Rubio, Wiggins, Zach, AB, Gorgui, Bazz and a top 5 pick TBD to play a little harder, to get out every ounce of potential they have inside of them, just like he has played his entire career, the rosy future of this franchise just got that much rosier.

Long, you know damn well there isn't a difference between that, and Love calling out JJ which you rip on him for all the time. It's ok for KG to do it but not Love?

Alex, it's sometimes difficult to absorb your point when I am looking at the mug on left hand side! ;-)

And you cannot seriously be comparing Love's behavior and actions to what KG has brought to his teams over the years. Except then I look at that mug, and maybe you are?!?

BTW, I couldn't disagree more with the "sign KG in the off-season".

Why, so we can start trying to set the tone in next year's training camp?!?

No way! If the opportunity is available to instill a championship mentality over these last 29 games, and allow that seed to blossom and grow over the off-season, then DO IT NOW!

It really boggles my mind how little appreciation many here have for what Flip is trying to do to mold this incredibly young team. Rubio is the only leader. KG can make a difference.

TheSP wrote:With the benefit of hindsight I would take the pick and attempt to sign KG this offseason if they wanted him that bad.

While if healthy I do believe they could have been in the running for the 8th playoff spot I didn't believe that was the right thing to do even with the past decade of misery. Even so I understand what Flip was trying to do and there was no way any of us could see the titanic of a season coming from an injury standpoint.

On the other hand just how many 1st and 2nd year players can a team be successful with? They need some veteran leadership and while I love Rubio and despise bad KG I do think good KG can go a long way toward helping develop a game in, game out expectation of winning.

The chain of events that led us to this position flat out sucks and its okay to question the initial trade for Thad. Its also okay to question the Thad for KG trade. I think it is unreasonable to connect the first round pick to KG. Yes, that was the end result, but it was no where close to the plan.

Anybody who expected the teams three most important vets to go down virtually at the same time and for so long pat yourself on the back, the rest of us are going off of hindsight.

Excellent post SP. Lots of good points in there.

alexftbl8181 wrote:If KG can inspire Rubio, Wiggins, Zach, AB, Gorgui, Bazz and a top 5 pick TBD to play a little harder, to get out every ounce of potential they have inside of them, just like he has played his entire career, the rosy future of this franchise just got that much rosier.

Long, you know damn well there isn't a difference between that, and Love calling out JJ which you rip on him for all the time. It's ok for KG to do it but not Love?

So many differences I don't know where to start. Let me at least cover the two most important.

1) KG calls his teammates out to their face, as opposed to Kevin Love's preferred method of whining to Jerry Zgoda. There's a big difference in calling somewhat out man-to-man, and doing it in a pansy fashion through the media.

2) KG has earned the right to call out teammates by playing hard every second he is on the court. I'm not saying Love always dogs it...he consistently works hard on the boards, and his rebounding numbers reflect that. But his matador defense, or sometimes choosing not to even cross mid-court on defense before the opponent has scored, is something we have never seen from KG. If you're going to whine to the media about teammates, your effort on the court better be beyond reproach.

I don't like KG as a person, and I have made that clear for 15 years. But to say there is no difference between him and Love in terms of how they handle their teammates is simply not true.