Q12543 wrote:What a disaster. Yet another proof point that whatever this franchise touches in the draft usually turns out even worse than anyone could have expected. Culver is a great kid and is already an NBA-caliber defender, but how do you not scout for this shit!? His shot is broken. Someone should have known this.
Culver is about what I expected him to be. Most of us on this Board knew his shot was broken just watching a couple televised games and some highlights. As if that wasn't enough, his 3-point and free throw shooting stats were big red flags. Yet, not only did the Wolves draft him, they traded up to get him. When your front office isn't as sharp as the rubes on a message board, you're in trouble. It's the story of this franchise - mediocre to bad front office executives making mediocre to bad draft and player-personnel decisions. Let's review for a moment some of that history, limited to the moves that I disagreed with at the time without benefit of hindsight:
1. Trading Billups in favor of retaining and starting Terrell Brandon, whose age didn't match up with KG and who was often injured. Billups was just beginning to show his talent at the time.
2. Drafting Ebi instead of Josh Howard near the bottom of the 1st round
3. Drafting Flynn instead of Curry or DeRozan.
4. Trading down rather than drafting McCollum in the 2013 draft.
5. After trading down in the 2013 draft, taking Bazz instead of Giannis (or just about anyone else)
6. Trading the 27th pick in the 2013 draft for CASH, rather than drafting Rudy Gobert
7. Drafting Dunn rather than Murray or Hield in the 2017 draft
8. Trading LaVine, Dunn and swapping our 7th pick in the 1st round for Butler, who was often injured, known for not working well with young players and 6 years older than our best young player, KAT, who was 21 years old.
9. Having decided to make the Butler deal, refusing the offer for Wiggins straight up, and instead giving up LaVine, Dunn, and most importantly, a much higher 1st round pick.
10. Having made the Butler deal, using the 16th pick we received in the swap to take Patton rather than John Collins or Anunoby.
11. Allowing the Butler's discontent to become public and, even worse, devolve into a public embarrassment, which undoubtedly diminished his trade value.
12. Finally, trading up apparently for Garland and, failing to get Garland, taking a good but not great college player with a broken shot, namely Jarrett Culver. There are so many layers of mismanagement in this one example. First, trading away a valuable asset to move up for a player without knowing for sure they could get that player. Second, once they missed on Garland, failing to trade back in for what could have been 2 first round picks in a relatively flat draft. Third, taking Culver, a guy with a terribly broken perimeter shot for a team in desperate need of perimeter shooting.
Those are just some examples and the ones I'm not just judging in hindsight. Some might disagree with me on the Butler deal and I get that. But the list is long even if that one isn't included.
As you can see, the Wolves history of front office mismanagement spans multiple regimes. So it's not just Thibodeau, Kahn or McHale. Now we can add Rosas to the list, although he still has time to redeem himself. It's not a matter of some curse, poor luck or bad karma. And it's it has little to do with player development. It's simply very poor or sadly mediocre judgment when it comes to player personnel decisions, especially draft decision. Until that changes, this franchise will continue to be a frustrating failure.
It's a sad tale.