I Wish The Pro Basketball Team In The City I Live In Was As Smart As Other Pro Basketball Teams In Other Cities

It has happened again, as we thought it would, as we prayed it wouldn't, and as we knew it should. Kevin McHale horsed the team over once again, and this time I'm not drinking the Kool Aid. Every single move that Deadzo makes should be seen as negative, until proven otherwise. This is the United States, not Russia.

In a long list of terrible, backward-thinking moves, this one is the latest and greatest, and will no doubt take a few years to "correct", by which time hopefully every good player has left the organization and they have to start their next "3 year plan". I have watched the Timberwolves for a very long time, and there have been only 2... TWO times that they have gotten "better" as an organization before my eyes: Drafting KG, and the Sam and Spree year. These were the only two times that I ever noticed improvement in the way the team was run and the conduct on and off the court by the players and staff. Every single other season, we've seen regression. Don't believe me? The Wolves drafted KG, then Stephon (I'll lump him in with KG, being that they came so close together) and all of a sudden the Wolves were in the playoffs. But they were getting bounced in the first round. EVERY YEAR. Then Stephon left. They still got bounced from the first round. Chauncey came and went. Bounced. Rasho. Bounced. Troy, Wally, Googs, TB. Bounced, bounced, bounced. After 7 years, they had not improved at all. If anything, they had wasted that time of KG's career. The obvious improvement came in the Spree and Sam year, when they also landed The Mayor and Mad-Dog, and the rag-tag bunch went all the way to the Conference Finals. Now, that season was magical. Number one seed? Hell yeah. KG 4 MVP? Yes and Yes.

(long pause...................)



Of course we've seen how it's played out since then. Every single move, every single transaction, has been negative. They have regressed to being back to the absolute bottom of the barrel (I maintain that they were EXTREMELY lucky to win as many games as they did last year... they have virtually no talent, no effort, and a terrible coach... they should have lost 70 games), and now they dig themselves even further.

I suppose we should get into the nuts and bolts of this thing...

Having the number 3 pick in the draft is pretty special. It doesn't happen all the time. It means your number was actually drawn in the lottery, not just taking what position had been given to you, but actually, technically, winning something. That's pretty good.

If you turned on the TV or paid any attention at all to anyone who even said the word "draft" in the past two months, you would know the following to be true: There was no debate on who the top 2 players would be, only the order they would be drafted in, and the third best player in the draft was OJ Mayo. These things were not just agreed upon, they were assumed as gospel. When McHale talked about Kevin Love, it was like he was daring someone to put a hit out on him. He was truly making like Donald Rumsfeld, just pissing right into your face and daring you to do something. But everyone knew that you couldn't possibly draft Love at #3, that would be ridiculous.

Only the Wolves, REPEAT, ONLY THE WOLVES, could take the #3 pick and turn it into the #5 pick.

The other pieces swapped in this trade are a joke. There has been talk about "getting out from under" Marko's contract. Who fucking signed that? And Antoine Walker? Oh, so now he's a malcontent who brought the team down? YEAH NO SHIT EVERYONE KNOWS THAT IT'S WRITTEN IN MARKER ON HIS DUFFEL BAG. WHY DID YOU TRADE FOR HIM? Could it possibly have been the fact that his HUGE FUCKING ENORMOUS CONTRACT COMES OFF THE BOOKS THIS YEAR AND HE WOULD BE A VERY VALUABLE PIECE IN A TRADE AT THE DEADLINE TO A TEAM WANTING TO REBUILD FOR THE FUTURE??????????? COULD THAT BE IT???????????

I'm sorry to shout like this. You see what happens when I start to think about Deadzo.

Ok, if I calm down a little, I can respect getting a guy like Mike Miller, who is as consistent as Fred was, if not as good of a basketball player. Brian Cardinal is absolute garbage, with an extra year on his contract. Jason Collins is a career loser, who can't score the basketball. In short, besides Miller, the other guys the Wolves got in this trade are perfect for your Failure Fantasy team.

But I suppose it all makes sense, because Deadzo "rid himself of the bad contracts". Don't believe the hype. Marko didn't make max money, he could've sat on the bench while the other real live NBA players performed on the court. You didn't have to absolutely dump him right then. Hey, I hate his face as much as anyone, and lord knows Wittless can't help himself when he's on the bench and crying, but you don't need to trade a bad contract for a bad contract. Good franchises eat their mistakes, and make up for them by doing other good things. Not overreacting like a dumb child and trading shit for shit. "Hey, Blount is just as bad as Kandi, let's make a swap so that I can continue to decompose! Sure, throw Ricky in for Wally!!!!!!! Why the hell not!!!!" And Walker, as discussed, was a pretty large asset that could've, nay SHOULD'VE been moved by himself, to a team looking to make a fresh start next year. They would've given up something a lot better than Brian Goddamned Cardinal.

And then there's the issue of Mayo for Love.

I happen to think that OJ Mayo is a preening prick-ass who will likely fall apart and settle in being a poor-man's Vince Carter, all offense and nothing else. He has never had a strong coach in his life, and now he's in the NBA, where coaches are as strong as the refs. Whatever team he ends up on (because Christ knows it's not going to be Memphis for longer than 4 years) will cater to him as this giant star and he will drag them down with his spotty effort (Oh please let it be the Knicks!). HOWEVER. He is a legitimate offensive threat, something that Wolves lack entirely. He demands attention, right now, even as a rookie. That sure would make things on a struggling offense run a bit less stressful, wouldn't it? We thought McCants would provide that. Wrong. McCAN'TANDWON'TTRY. Mayo would at least create his own offense, which would possibly free up others to do other things... assuming that Wittless doesn't tell them to run into each other and fall down because it would amuse him.

The underlying aspect in all of this, the thing that nobody wants to say or talk about, is of course, race, but I don't want to pull that card out right now. It's too much to get into, so let's just make like the last 200 years and pretend it doesn't exist.

The TRUE underlying aspect is that the Wolves traded a guy who was a legitimate #3 pick in the draft for a guy who was the #5 pick. You and everyone you know can sit here all day and try to make that make sense. It won't.

It's all justification, all blame transfer and heading off possible criticism, and we've all bought into it, instead of just calling McHale what he truly is. A loser. A goddamned loser who has made enough good moves in his tenure as GM to count on two fingers. And he's made enough mistakes to keep the Target Center at half capacity for the next decade.

I'm glad. Because I don't like this team anymore. And I don't like KG, or Boston, or any of it. I don't like basketball as much as I used to. It's his fault. I want him to go away.

Sorry, but inevitably, every post is going to end this way.