Since David Kahn took over as President of Basketball Operations in May 2009, we have heard the continual promotion of flexibility, youth, rebuilding, cap space, etc. etc. Shortly after Kahn was able to convince Kevin Love to sign an extension back in January, this all changed, as Love started to provide his own thoughts to the media on how the Twolves needed to start showing improvement and to get to the playoffs. With a decent amount of flexibility and the added pressure of appeasing one of team’s core pieces, Kahn and the rest of the front office had their work cut out for them this offseason. To Kahn’s credit, at least he didn’t take a month off to go fishing …
Here’s my take on the Timberpups offseason.
NBA Draft
Heading into Draft week, the Twolves held the 18th and 58th picks. Two nights before the draft, Kahn sent the 18th pick to Houston for Chase Budinger. In general, I hate seeing trades like this. If you have something like this lined up, why not wait until draft night? I understand that Houston was looking for ways to get Dwight Howard, but I still hate the notion of giving up your pick so far in advance. I would like to think there will be a time when the Twolves actually take advantage of someone else’s panic move over the course of a draft night. When this happens, I’ll immediately drive to Shop Rite to stock up on their can-can special.
As for the trade itself, I like Budinger as a complementary wing / role player at SF. If nothing else, he’s competent and that is more than what we can say about any wing on last year’s roster. As an added bonus – based off of his Twitter feed – he seems to have a great personality.
With the 58th pick, the Twolves selected Robbie Hummel, who has had quite the busy summer. Given the moves that the Wolves have made since (we’re getting there, promise), Hummel decided to sign with a team in Spain (Obradoiro). I think that was a wise choice for Hummel given the team’s other moves and the lack of PT that would have come his way, if any at all. More than likely, he would have wound up in the D-League. However, since going over to join the team in Spain, Hummel has since torn his meniscus again and will be out for several weeks.
I had high hopes going into the draft; A. trading Derrick Williams and filler for MKG or Beal and B. trading Wes Johnson for Crowder / anyone worthwhile. The DWill moves were a bit of a pipedream. However, Kahn technically had 34 chances to find a way to get Jae Crowder and trading Wes to anyone in the late first round / early second would have been a fantastic move. Alas, no avail.
This wasn’t the start of the offseason that I was looking for. Beyond Ricky Rubio falling into Kahn’s lap with the fifth pick in ’09, his draft night performances have been 50 shades of abysmal. (See what I did there? Building your female audience 101)
My draft grade: C-
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