If somebody were to tell me the Wolves would be missing 3 out of their 4 most productive players for a game against the odds on favorite to represent the Western Conference in the finals, I would have told you the Wolves would trail by double digits for most of the game and the hometown fans would be treated to heavy minutes from the end of the visiting team's bench. For some reason the Wolves decided to make a game of it, and I was glad to see it.

A couple of things became very clear by the end of the game. First and foremost, the Wolves do not have an answer to Kevin Durant on either end of the floor. Second, the Wolves need to spend some time working on their free throw shooting because they lost this game at the line over the course of the night.

In a couple ways this game was a tale of two halves. Not nearly to the extent the game in Denver was, but it was definitely noticeable. It had little-to-nothing to do with the scoreboard either.

On to the grades. Each player will be receiving two grades. The first grade will be based on how I felt the player compared to an average NBA player at that position. The second grade (in parentheses) will be based on how I felt the player compared to what I've come to expect from them over the course of this season.

A = Well above expectations;

B = Above expectations;

C = Meets expectations;

D = Below expectations;

F = Well below expectations.

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This is not a direct response to Ebomb’s excellent post. This is a simple statement of NBA reality (as I see it). There’s a reason why guys like Chad Ford talk about Upside when it comes to NBA draft prospects: upside is more important to NBA success than production. However, if you want to win an NBA Championship you probably need both in the same player.

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What is the consensus regarding this trade idea:

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The Timberwolves are looking better this year than they have in a long time. We have a young dynamic duo in Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio. Love just got a new contract extension to stay with the team for four more years, but the fourth year is a player option. That means this organization has three years to establish direction and propel the team into contention, otherwise they will most likely lose one of the franchise cornerstones.

The current roster is still young and it certainly could grow up into a contender. However, is anyone still enamored with Michael Beasley's upside? Though I see some improvement at times, his shot selection is far too inefficient for my tastes. For some reason Anthony Randolph is having his minutes yanked around by Rick Adelman (I can't see the reasoning behind it while watching, but I trust Adelman's decision), which can only lead to questions about how much of our ability to contend for a championship should be relying on him fulfilling his potential. Darko Milicic is the same as he has ever been, but at least Adelman is making the most out of him. Nikola Pekovic has looked like a beast at times, but he still collects fouls at an alarming rate. Wesley Johnson looks lost on the offensive end of the court - for some reason he is afraid of taking open jump shots in the rhythm of the offense, but he'll dribble once after passing up an open 3-pointer to shoot a semi-contested 20-footer. Johnson does look decent when passing the ball or crashing the offensive boards, but it is clear he still has a long way to go before he becomes the player we thought we were getting with the fourth pick in the draft (never mind that the player we thought we were getting wasn't the player many of us wanted to get with that pick). Wayne Ellington is actually beginning to look like a competent back-up shooting guard, and not just a waste of roster space. Then there's Derrick Williams. It's too early to make a definitive call on this guy. He clearly shows flashes of brilliance and has been Rubio's favorite alley-oop partner so far. But Williams also shows some signs of being willing to settle for inefficient, Beasley-esque, mid-range jumpers too often.

What if the Wolves could set themselves up to contend immediately and into the foreseeable future? Below the fold is my suggestion for how to do exactly that. It's a simple, straight-forward two team trade that I believe makes sense for both teams. Really it would have to be structured as two separate trades with the same team, but that's just a CBA related formality.

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As we stand on the brink of truncating the NBA season thanks to a lockout caused by greedy owners and overpaid players (not all players are overpaid, but some of them definitely are), I figured it might be fun to speculate as to how to create a league that would rival the NBA.

I will admit I got this idea from a Bill Simmons' Column, but as usual his idea for the execution of things leaves much to be desired.

Below the fold you will find the structure for my speculative rival to the NBA.

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With the Timberwolves drafting yet another power forward (or is he a small forward? - either way he plays the same position as at least 3 other guys already on the roster) it seems prudent to question whether traditional positions have value, to question whether the landscape of the NBA has truly become position-less as Tony Ronzone suggested.

Below the fold I will attempt to answer the titular question: What's the point of having positions in basketball?

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This is an oft-discussed topic at this time of year, but it really should be quite simple.  Logic dictates that with each pick you have in the draft you should select the Best Player Available to your team.  There can be no argument about that.  What sense does it make to use a draft pick on a player that you believe will be anything less than the best one available to your team?  None.  Sometimes the best player available to your team is the one that will fetch the best assets in trade.  This is important to remember.  Sometimes the best player available to the other 29 teams in the league is not the best player available to your team.
What this means is that you assess which available player will be best for your team, with fit being one part of the equation.  I believe this approach will result in drafting a player at a position you already have covered as often as not.  It's kind of similar to the "tier drafting" style that Chad Ford describes in many of his draft related articles. 

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I was reading something about the Finals this morning and had an original thought about Derrick Williams.  Ever since he suggested that he would be a small forward in the NBA, everyone on CH has been comparing him to Michael Beasley.  Some people have insisted that Williams is a power forward and the comparisons to Beasley aren't worth much.

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Have the Wolves stockpiled enough assets to attempt a Celtics style turnaround?

If we were going to try it, it would start with a Michael Beasley trade.  The first option I have in mind would send Beasley, Pekovic, and the #20 pick to Golden State for Monta Ellis.  The second option I have in mind would send Beasley, Pekovic, Lazar Hayward, and the #20 pick to Houston for Kevin Martin.  The third option would be to send Beasley, Milicic, Ellington, and the #20 to Philadelphia for Andre Iguodala.

The second step would be turning the #2 pick in a 2-player draft into another solid veteran.  Option A would send Milicic (or Pekovic, whichever wasn't involved in the first trade), Flynn, and the #2 pick (the slotted salary is roughly equal to Luke Ridnour's salary so I've used him as a proxy) to the L.A. Lakers for Andrew Bynum.  Option B would send Milicic (or Pekovic), Flynn, Randolph, Johnson, the #2 pick, and Utah's protected pick to Orlando for Dwight Howard.  Option C would send Milicic (or Pekovic), Flynn, Randolph, Johnson, and Derrick Williams to New Orleans for Chris Paul and Emeka Okafor - the ESPN Trade Machine suggests that this won't work, but I believe it will work once Eddy Curry's contract comes off our books on July 01.

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Here's one man's take on the value of our pieces.  I'm sure most people will disagree with the value I place on at least one of these players.  I have put the players into tiers on our team, and tried to come up with a league player that I think has similar value for each of our guys - bear in mind I'm not necessarily saying they will be valued by the same kinds of teams that value the player I'm comparing them to, merely that the level of interest throughout the league and the expected return for the two players are likely to be similar (e.g: I view Wesley Johnson as having comparable value to Corey Brewer; even though they obviously are valued by different teams and for different reasons, I think the overall return we could get for them is probably fairly similar at this point).

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Following the majority of movement in the vaunted summer of 2010, I wrote about what my plan would be to bring the Timberwolves into championship contention.  As the season winds down I will now revisit my plan.  Firstly, I will assess the difference between where the current team sits and where the team would sit if my plan were followed.  Secondly, I will assess the feasibility of my plan moving forward.  Finally, I will suggest alterations to my plan to bring it back in line with the reality that has unfolded over the course of the season.

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When you look at the record of this team during Kevin Love's time here, it's clear to see that he's lost more games than he's won.  But if you're only counting wins and losses, then everybody on this team is a loser.  What happens if you start looking at W-L record less and start looking at the games in a different light?

I've looked at the statistics from this season for Kevin Love (a supposed "loser") and Carmelo Anthony (a supposed "winner") to determine whether either deserves the public perception they have.

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We all know the NBA has some atrocious officiating.  Some games are better than others, but as Minnesota Timberwolves fans we're acutely aware of how biased the refs can be.

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It has recently been suggested that Kahn Haters shouldn't be claiming how horrible he's been as a GM without providing concrete examples of things he could have done that would result in the Wolves being a "better basketball team."  For the purposes of this post I would suggest that a "better basketball team" could be any of three things: 1) a team that wins more games (we can call this being more productive); 2) a team that is likely to win a championship sooner (we can call this having more potential); or 3) a team that is more fun to watch (we can call this being more entertaining).  For the record, I am not a Kahn Hater, but a frequent Kahn Apologist that is more in line with the Kahn Maybe crowd.

This post will focus on the first round of the 2009 NBA Draft and what could have been if Kahn had made different moves.  As you will see if you continue reading, this will effectively be an attempt to use the benefit of hindsight to make a 2009 NBA Mock Draft as if I were unencumbered by the benefit of hindsight, but with accompanying analysis containing some of the small amount of hindsight available up to this point.

(note - I'm particularly amused by the description of the concept of this post and that may in fact prove to be the highlight of the entire post for me)

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What might be the most unique aspect of NBA 2K5 was the features of the simulate game function.  Unlike in other games, NBA 2K5 involved the player in the simulation process by allowing the player to designate how many shots each of the players on the court would take during the next simulated quarter.  If Kevin Garnett had a good shooting quarter, then you could give him several extra shots the next quarter.  If Latrell Sprewell was laying bricks you could give his shots to Sam Cassell.  It really was an interesting and enjoyable function of the simulation process.  Unfortunately the 2K franchise got sold to another publisher and the interactive simulation feature disappeared in the future incarnations.

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I'm excited about how this team has played for the last three games.  I'm enjoying the success our 2 best players (Kevin Love and Michael Beasley) have had over those games.  Likewise I'm happy to see Sebastian Telfair playing so well as the starter - who saw that one coming, seriously?  I like how Wes Johnson has been stroking it well.  It's been fun to watch Corey Brewer being such a disruptive force on defense.  I also like that Darko's been ... uh ... Darko's shooting has been ... uh ... Darko's been playing some defense.  And I'm legitimately excited to watch the team's next few games.

But before we get too carried away, let's try to remember the 5 games before we played the Lakers.

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This is all speculation at this point, but until the regular season starts it's all we've got.  Pre-season basketball is pretty fun to watch, but the games don't mean anything and all the wolves-haters out there will cling to that fact.  They'll keep talking about how bad the Wolves will be up until the Wolves start winning games that count.

So I feel like speculating as to why the Timberwolves passed on a player of Cousins tremendous upside potential because that seems to be a hot-button topic on this site.

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Carmelo Anthony trade rumors swirl anew following the "death" of the possible 4-team trade (which did NOT work when I tried putting it into the ESPN trade machine for some reason):

Denver Nuggets receive: Derrick Favors, Andrei Kirilenko, New Jersey's 2011 1st round pick (presumably unprotected), and a 1st round pick from the Golden State Warriors (top-7 protected in 2012 and 2013, top-6 protected in 2014 - after which it is converted into 2nd round picks in 2014 and 2016);

Utah Jazz receive: Boris Diaw;

New Jersey Nets receive: Carmelo Anthony;

Charlotte Bobcats receive: Devin Harris.

According to sources "close to the deal" the sticking point was not Anthony's willingness to sign a contract extension with the Nets, but rather the Nuggets desire to not take on the extra salary and accompanying luxury tax.  The deal would saddle the Nuggets with approximately $10M in extra expenses this season.

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I had a discussion earlier today with my younger brother about this topic.  We both concluded that the original Dream Team was far superior to the Redeem Team.  But how much better?  If we somehow were able to manipulate the space-time continuum to make it so that it was simultaneously 1992 and 2008 to allow for those two teams to square off in a seven game series to be played in a neutral arena in Asgabat, Turkmenistan (roughly the midway point between Barcelona and Beijing), what would be the outcome of the series?

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David Kahn was hired to turn around this franchise because he had a plan.  So far his plan has included sucking horribly on the court in year 1, cleaning house following the worst season in franchise history, and loading the roster with large amounts of untapped potential and as much cap space as league rules allow.  He also remains committed to the notion that Ricky Rubio will opt out (or buy his way out) of his contract with FC Barcelona following the 2010-11 season and join the Timberwolves.  Kahn has hinted at the possibility of using the cap space he has artfully created to buy low on a star talent at the trading deadline this February.  There is plenty of speculation as far as who will be available and who will fit well with the rest of the young roster of the team.  Will it be Andre Iguodala?  Will it be Ben Gordon?  Could it be Eric Gordon?  Nobody knows at this point.

This season appears as though it will be another long lesson in losing for the Wolves.  Sure, Kahn will find out what he really has in this group of young talent.  Also he will probably use the trade deadline, or possibly next summer, to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak.  However, I would really like to get an idea about what his plan ultimately is.  I don't want to speculate about what Kahn's plan is.  All I can tell you is that I will be very disappointed if it relies upon any type of lottery luck.  Hoping and praying for Harrison Barnes simply won't cut it for this fan.

For me it would be a dream come true to get a job running an NBA franchise.  If I were offered Kahn's job today, the following is what I would do assuming that a new (but fairly similar) Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is in place before July 1, 2011:

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This will be an open forum to find other people to play pickup games throughout the Twin Cities area.  My suggestion is that you make a new post in the comments for the part of the cities you are looking to play in.  That way other interested people can find a game in their area (e.g: western suburbs, southwestern suburbs, eastern suburbs, etc.)

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The Timberwolves have been in playoff exile ever since we learned Latrell Sprewell can't even provide food for his family while making in excess of $7 million a year.  Methinks we can all agree this exile is the result of the bumbling inadequacies of Kevin McHale.  By second guessing himself when it came to Sprewell and Cassell and deciding not to pay them - certainly he must have understood at the time he traded for them that they were going to want to get paid if they were successful in helping KG lift the team past the first round of the playoffs for the first time in franchise history - he set the stage for the dismantling of a championship caliber team [many people believe that if Sam Cassell was healthy for the Lakers series the Wolves would have represented the Western Conference in the Finals - but I am not one of those people].

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