monsterpile wrote:lipoli390 wrote:Q12543 wrote:....and the drafting issues even pre-dates 2009. Foye, McCants, Brewer.....none lived up to what the franchise originally envisioned as their top-end potential. It has been THE #1 problem with this franchise from the very beginning: Drafting and then developing talent.
Yep. Actually, the worst front office the Wolves have ever had was the pre-Glen Taylor front office led by Stein. But they've all been mediocre to horrible since that time. And the common thread through every front office regime has been bad drafting. Of course, bad drafting ultimately produces bad results for any NBA franchise except perhaps the Lakers.
Looking back through the draft decisions of all the Wolves front office regimes, I'd say the team has made only three excellent picks - (1) Towns as the top pick in 2015, (2) Marbury as the 4th or 5th pick (swapped for Ray Allen) in 1996, and (3) Garnett as the 5th pick in 1995. Of these, the Garnett pick was the best, not only because of what KG accomplished over his career but because the McHale and Flip took him at #5. Credit them for spotting his talent and then having the guts to take a player right out of high school before it was popular to do so. In hindsight the Wolves should have kept Ray Allen. He was absolutely the right pick to pair with Garnett based on their skills, overall talent and the fact that they had become friends before Marbury was drafted. Recall that the Wolves were leading the Western Conference when Marbury demanded to be trade. No one could have reasonably forseen Marbury's mental implosion over KG's salary. Flip told me he argued against trading Marbury, but was overruled by McHale. KAT pick was a no-brainer, but credit Flip for at least doing the right thing.
Other than those two picks, there were only three other picks in the entire nearly 30-year history of the Wolves franchise that could be considered fair to good: (1) Wally Z, (2) Tyus Jones, (3) Zach LaVine, (4) Ricky Rubio, and (5) Wayne Ellington -- and other than Wally, it's probably a stretch to call any of these picks good ones. I consider the Jones, LaVine and Ellington picks good in part because of where they were drafted -- i.e., not top 12 picks. Rubio was a risk worth taking. The mistake then was taking Flynn rather than the best shooter in college basketball (Curry) to pair with arguably the best passer/playmaker in that draft.
So I think it's fair to say that all but 8 of the Wolves picks over the past nearly 30 years have ranged from bad to horrible - although the jury is still out on Okogie, KDB and perhaps Dunn as well. That's 5 decent selections and 3 excellent selections out of at least 60 opportunities. Yet even one of those excellent picks turned out to be a bad one when viewed entirely based on hindsight. No wonder the Wolves have been such a perennial lottery participant. And here's the kicker. If any of us who've been regularly posting on this and the previous ESPN message board had been making the draft decisions over this period, the result would be profoundly better based on what we posted when these draft decisions were made. Nearly all of us were furious we drafted Flynn instead of Curry and I remember saying that if there were issues with Curry we didn't know about, then we should have drafted DeRozan. The list goes on.
Of all the front office regimes - none of them very good - I'd rate the McHale regime as the best primarily because that regime made the best single draft pick by far when they drafted Garnett. Even the Marbury pick was a very good pick since no one could have predicted Marbury's reaction to KG's salary. And that regime also deserves credit for a long string of playoff appearances as well as the acquisitions of Spree and Cassell and the resulting Western Conference Finals appearance. Worst regime is a toss-up between the Kahn and Stein regimes. So far, I'd rank the Thibodeau regime below the McHale regime, equal to the Flip regime and above the other two.
Flip has to get a lot of credit for drafting the Wolves best and only potential star talent since Garnett. He should also get credit for drafting LaVine mid first round and credit is due for turning a disgruntled Kevin Love into Andrew Wiggins. He also brought a spirit of optimism and fun to what had become a miserable, depressing organization. On the other hand, passing on McCollum and then trading down to take Bazz instead of the Greek Freak was terrible. Even worse was the decision to sell a first round pick that could have been used to draft Rudy Gobert. That might be worse than drafting Flynn instead of Curry or Ebi instead of Josh Howard. I still can't get over the decision to sell a 1st round pick for cash. No other team does that!!
The Thibodeau regime isn't over yet. We'll have to see how Okogie and KBD pan out as well as what we get in return for Butler. Who knows, maybe Thibodeau can rise to the top of our Wolves front office regime ranking before he's done here. What a dubious honor that would be. :). But if he wants to achieve that honor, I think he'll have to replace his head coach. :)
Lip you left out the terrific draft night deal McHale made for Love which not only netted the best player it saved money against the cap.
You're right, Monster. I loved that deal at the time and it really panned out. Again, McHale was the best we've ever had running the Wolves basketball operations.
