Where Do We Go From Here?

One of my lifelong dreams has been to become General Manager of a professional sports team; specifically one of which I am a fan.  So much of what makes sports great is the ability of the fans to second guess their favorite team's decisions and play the "If I were in charge..." game, but none of us will likely ever get that chance.  One of my favorite sports writers, Bill Simmons, started a somewhat tongue-in-cheek internet campaign to become the Timberwolves GM a year ago.  He asked his readers to send emails to the T'wolves' brass that expressed their frustration with the direction of the club and to consider Simmons as a way to bring the experience of NBA basketball in Minnesota closer to the fans.  I sent one of those emails.  The Timberwolves brought me a lot of enjoyment during the KG years, and it was frustrating to me to see things fall apart so quickly.  Needless to say, Simmons did not get the job.  Instead, the job was given to David Kahn, who did such a great job in his previous stint as an NBA front office man that after leaving the Indiana Pacers, Kahn had to purchase a number of NBDL (basically the minor leagues for the NBA) teams just to get his foot back in the basketball door.  Between working for the Pacers and buying the D-League teams, Kahn spearheaded an (unsuccessful) effort to bring the Montreal Expos to Portland and was involved in a number of real estate endeavors.  Great credentials.  Either way, I always wondered what it would have been like if someone like Simmons had been hired.  I believe that the perspective of a well-educated fan is superior to your average executive for the simple reason that they have the best interests of their team in mind as opposed to the best interests of their career.  A fan is more likely to take a chance on something in order to improve the team.  In the case of the Timberwolves, the team is going to suck if nothing is done, so a fan would see the value in taking the risk in order to potentially improve the team.  A GM would see the same risk as a potential way to improve the team, but also as a potential poor decision that will hurt future career prospects.  Front office jobs are few and far between, so once a guy is in, he wants to stay in.  Taking big risks is dangerous because it's a more visible way to fail than just adhering to the status quo.  A fan would care nothing about that. 

Believe it or not, I have some opinions about what the Timberwolves should do this offseason.  This summer is a big one for free agents in the NBA, but the Wolves aren't really going to be players for the big names who will be available.  No high end player wants to come to Minnesota and be forgotten about.  There are too many big market teams with space under the salary cap this year for a team like the Wolves to steal a team changing type of talent.  If the Wolves are going to improve their roster, it's going to take some a lot of work, including a few risky moves.  So, just in case Wolves owner Glen Taylor visits my site, here is what I would do if I took over as the T'wolves GM right now and was given final say on draft decisions and personnel decisions.

1.  Trade Al Jefferson

Don't get me wrong, I love Big Al.  I think when Jefferson is healthy he's one of the five best low-post scorers in the NBA (Don't agree with me?  Name five better post scorers right now.  Go ahead.  I'm waiting.  You've got nothing...).  The problem is that if I had to make a choice between Al and Kevin Love, I'm taking Love.  K-Love is the type of guy who could be great on a good team.  He's a superb passer from the post, he's got a good outside game and a developing low-post game, but most important to me is that he's a worker on the boards.  It's not often that a guy comes along who has his kind of instincts for rebounding.  Love has already established himself as a top flight rebounder in the NBA, and he's still only 21 years old.  Now, one may ask the question, "But why, Brodie, must we choose between Love and Jefferson?  Why can't we just keep the two of them together on the post and ride them to success?"  Clearly, the person asking this question has not seen Love and Jefferson try to control the paint defensively together.  It's atrocious.  Neither one of them is particularly gifted athletically, and neither one seems to have much of a shot blocking instinct.  Offensively, these two go together like peanut butter and jelly, with Love playing the high post and Jefferson playing down low.  It's a thing of beauty.  Defensively, it just doesn't work.  This past season, Wolves coach Kurt Rambis was resigned to playing the two of them interchangeably as opposed to together.  They tried to pair the two of them with a more defensive-minded center (usually either the extra-crappy Ryan Hollins or the sad puppy that is Darko Milicic) in order to hide their respective defensive deficiencies.  Ultimately, this is a flawed plan.  Love and Jefferson were clearly the two best players on the team, and they just happen to play the same position.  No big deal.  It happens.  But the way I see it, there's no reason to move forward trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole when you could just trade the square peg for a round one.

Now, I know it's easy for someone like me to write that I would trade Jefferson, and that the reality of the situation is that it's difficult to get big deals like that done, but fear not, my friends...I have a trade in place.  Bill Simmons refers to himself as the "Picasso of ESPN's NBA Trade Machine."  Well, if he's Picasso, then call me Andy Warhol.  I'm just as creative, but a slightly more contemporary and accessible to the masses.  Here's the link to the trade.  It's a three team deal that involves the Wolves, Chicago, and Charlotte.  Chicago would get Big Al and a secound rounder from Charlotte.  Charlotte would get Kirk Hinrich from Chicago and Ryan Hollins from the Wolves.  The Wolves would get Joakim Noah and Chicago's 2010 #1 pick, and Boris Diaw from Charlotte.

This trade gives the Bulls the low post scorer they need to help lure LeBron out of Cleveland, it gives Charlotte the veteran PG it needs to replace Raymond Felton (who's likely to leave through free agency), and it gives the Wolves the kind of defensive-minded center that would pair well with Kevin Love.  It also gives Minnesota a big man off the bench (Diaw) and another pick with which to wheel and deal.  This is a win-win deal for all teams involved, and it is the first move I would make this offseason.

2.  Make Some Hay in the Draft

So often, when teams are left with multiple first round picks in one year, they have a tenancy to trade some of them away for future picks in order to avoid having a large number of rookies on a team in any given year.  This is not a strategy I would adopt as GM of the Timberwolves.  This season, the Wolves gave significant minutes to crappy veterans like Sasha Pavlovic and Damien Wilkins.  For a rebuilding team with young players, it is inexcusable to waste minutes on players who have no chance of being part of the team's long term plans.  With my trade of Al Jefferson, the Wolves would have four first round picks:  #2 (based on the odds), #16, #17, and #23.  The first thing I would do with these picks is package #17 and #23 to either Utah or Indiana for the #9 or #10.  With the #2 pick, I would take Evan Turner to be the true shooting guard that this team lacks.  Knowing the history of the Wolves draft day luck, however, it seems likely that the Wolves will end up with #3 or #4 in what's shaping up to be a two-player draft, but for the purposes of this exercise, I'll leave them at #2 and take Turner.  With my new pick from Utah or Indiana, I'd look for an offensive swing man who could come off the bench and prove instant scoring.  I have three guys pegged here:  Xavier Henry, James Anderson, and Wesley Johnson.  Johnson will likely be gone by #9, so he's probably out, but that still leaves me with the choice of Anderson or Henry.  Given the choice between the two, I'll take Henry.  At #17, I'd look for a project-type big man who could get some experience while he grows into a role.  Just looking at who may be available around there, Larry Sanders from Virginia Commonwealth seems like a reasonable choice.  He's an athletic 6'10" guy who has some room to get stronger, but has the potential to become a big time defensive player.  This draft is short on players with real star quality, but it's deep on guys who can be effective NBA players.  When rebuilding a team, those type of players are what you have to stockpile.  Nothing can submarine a young, growing team faster than pairing those young guys with mediocre veterans who are just there to cash a paycheck.  My theory is to go young or go home in a situation like Minnesota is in, so taking three young guys with talent and potential is a good "big picture" move.  With my two second round picks, I'd take one guy I can keep and one guy I can stash overseas.  Dexter Pittman from Texas is a guy I always thought had some potential and he would intrigue me in the middle of the second round.  I'm not going to pretend that I know enough about these middling Euro guys to tell you which one I'd pick in the second round (that's why I'd hire good scouts), but I can guarantee you he'd be tall.

3.  Show an Interest in Ricky Rubio

I read an article this winter that said that a representative from the Wolves went to Spain to watch Rubio play exactly one time this year.  Rubio and David Kahn never spoke all season, according to this report.  This is pretty inexcusable from my point of view.  The Wolves went out on a pretty big limb in drafting Ricky, given his difficult contract situation in Europe and his extreme youth, but I believed at the time (and still do) that it was a risk worth taking.  All reports coming from Europe is that Rubio matured a lot as a point guard this year in leading his team to the Euroleague Championship.  The Wolves would do well to stay on Rubio's good side, because after the 2010-11 season, Rubio has a buyout option in his contract that would make it pretty easy for him to come over to the NBA.  I like Jonny Flynn, but I feel like Rubio is more of a pure point guard than Flynn is.  Jonny could have a nice career as a bigger version of Nate Robinson, whereas Rubio's ceiling could be more along the lines of a Deron Williams-type player.  A lot of people trashed Kahn for taking Rubio without first making sure he was ready to come over here, but in the long term, it may have been for the best for Rubio to stay over there.  As an 18 year old PG, there was certainly a lot to learn for Rubio before he could become a star in the NBA.  Spain may be a better setting for him to learn those things than the US.  In his home country of Spain, Rubio doesn't have to worry about fitting into a new culture or learning a new style of basketball.  All he has to do is play ball and work on getting better.  After next season, he'll be 20 years old and have two more years of pro ball under his belt.  The Wolves will be getting a better player than the one they would have gotten this year, and isn't that what it's all about?  I would "woo" the heck out of Ricky this year and make it known to him that he is wanted in Minnesota and that good things can happen for him here.

To fill out the roster, I'd resign guys like Nathan Jawai and Ollie Pecherov to keep some continuity.  If I didn't sign a single free agent, here's what the roster would look like:

Starters
PG    Jonny Flynn
SG    Evan Turner
SF    Corey Brewer
PF    Kevin Love
C      Joakim Noah

Bench
G     Ramon Sessions
G     Xavier Henry
G     Wayne Ellington
F      Ryan Gomes
F/C  Boris Diaw

F/C  Larry Sanders
C     Dexter Pittman

Inactives
F     Nathan Jawai
F     Oleksiy Pecherov

I could go to war with that roster.  It's probably not a playoff team, but it's certainly a team that is only going to get better.  It's talented, athletic, and filled with good character guys.  Most importantly, all I had to do was make one trade of a player and one trade involving a couple of draft picks in order to put it together.  I'm convinced that this is a reasonable incarnation of the 2010-2011 Minnesota Timberwolves.  All that's left is for someone in power to read this and sign me up. 

I'm available for hire immediately.