Kahn's 2009 Signings Were Mistakes

[shrink]

Overall, Kahn's signings of Sasha Pavlovic, Hollins and Sessions and their final disposition must be seen as mistakes.

Last season, Kahn split the entire MLE on Hollins and Sessions, putting them both on multi-year deals. Personally, I didn't have a problem with either move at the time.

Ryan Hollins was very raw, but he was young, athletically gifted, could run the floor, and was a 7-footer. You have to pay for size (look at the big numbers back-up C's got in free agency this summer), so a three-year deal in the low $2's seemed like a decent price.

Kahn just happened to be in the right place at the right time with Ramon Sessions. After some outstanding performances with Milwaukee, many sportswriters wondered if Sessions would be S&T'd for a little more than the MLE. However, as free agency dragged on, teams assumed that would be his price, and filled their PG needs with different options. Meanwhile, MIL spent right up to the lux, and couldn't match Sessions offer and go over the lux. After Kahn finished talking with Rubio, our hole at PG this season was revealed, and fortunately we were the only team with money (the rest of our MLE) and opportunity for Sessions, and we got him at what I considered a bargain price.

Whether the deals "seemed" OK or not, Kahn put the Wolves money down on the wrong ponies. During the season, both players under-performed our expectations. Hollins simply couldn't fix the problems his game had shown earlier, and Sessions was just a bad fit for what Rambis was trying to do with the team. Most of the Wolves took some time to learn the new system, and this hurt their trade value. Moreover, by deciding Ridnour was our future PG, we painted ourselves into a corner, further reducing our ability to trade Sessions from a position of power.

The net result of the signing is this: Kahn spent the 2009 MLE on Hollins and Sessions, and this year turned it into the loss of a 2nd round pick, $500,000 in no production by waiving West, and probably $2.7 mil additional waste of waiving Telfair. He also wasted the BAE on Sasha Pavlovic. Kahn's mistakes in 2009 cost us a 2nd and $3.2 in 2010 cap space vs doing nothing at all.

One could argue that these guys were worth a look, and I probably wouldn't disagree. After all, we got some production from them in 2009-10. However, 20-20 hindsight shows that Kahn spent the money badly, and one year later, the team has to give up assets to erase his mistakes.

[Saltine]

I generally agree, but he would have had to pay another point guard something to back up Johnny, and needed to hand another big some money instead of Hollins. Both of those moves may well have cost another 2 to 4 million... I think he basically gambled, and lost, a second round pick. Which is pretty much what all the second round picks are for. Hollins didn't seem like a bad bet last year to most of us, and Sessions seemed like a good deal at the time.

I don't have any issue with those moves, or Kahn, he needs to gamble on talent every year until we have some proven guys. Considering where they are with the cap, he would have to waste the 3 million on somebody else today to hit the minimum... So I don't think of it as a cap hit.

Now the Sasha thing was absurd, I never understood that move, but he is also off the books already

[Swimmer]

I think I disagree. I don't have an issue with any of those three signings. I thought Hollins should have made a little less for less time, but you are right, there is a big man premium. I don't think the problem was the signings themselves, but as you mentioned, we demolished Sessions' "good deal" by a) putting him into a difficult system that doesn't cater to his abilities, with no shooters, and b) relegating him into a third/fourth PG role by taking Ridnour. IMO, Kahn's mistake was not the signings themselves, but never being able to deal from a position of power. Part of this might be related to his own negotiating abilities, and part of this comes from not having a system (and shooters) that would highlight our players' abilities.

I'm a little confused about why Sessions would not fit with our system but Rubio would. Their talents and weaknesses seem to somewhat correlated. Maybe Sessions would not fit with Rubio in the rotation? I think Sessions would have done much better next year on our new team.

[C.lupus]

Sasha was more Rambis' mistake than Kahn's. and as bad as he was (and he was bad), he was just a one year rental in a season that was lost anyway, so...meh. Mistake but not a significant one.

as Saltine said, we would have needed to sign a backup PG and probably another big anyway so, again, not a huge deal to me.

IMO, Kahn's mistake was not the signings themselves, but never being able to deal from a position of power. Part of this might be related to his own negotiating abilities, and part of this comes from not having a system (and shooters) that would highlight our players' abilities.

I agree with this.

[shrink]

Just to seperate myself from being lumped in as a total Kahn-basher, I liked his trade to get the #5 pick, and he hustled to get Beasley when that deal could have gone to other teams.

Unfortunately, the decision to sign these three guys was the wrong one, and MIN now has to pay for it.

[funkatron101]

The key difference between Kahn and McHale (and many other GMs) is that while they all make similar mistakes throughout their careers, many of them are too stubborn to admit it and hold on to these players, which costs them millions with completely unproductive results, or sign these guys to worse contracts to begin with. Kahn played the penny slots, lost and moved on. McHale, however, went all in on a pair of twos.

I may question Kahn's (and Rambis's) eye for talent, but it's comforting to know that mistakes likely won't linger (Like Marko Jaric).

[Fire Mchale]

I agree and disagree with Kahn's off-season signings from last year. It's true that none of the trio of Pavlovic, Sessions and Hollins turned into a solid signing. It works that way sometimes. I'm ok with the gamble since you have to do that from time to time, but I think the most important part of this is how Kahn reacted once he realized this was a mistake.

Rather than dig his heels in, Kahn moved all three players out. Did it cost us, yes, but the loss was minimal and we didn't compound the mistake by keeping them on our roster. I would love to see fewer situations where we are ridding ourselves of players we just acquired, but I can appreciate the team acknowledging mistakes and moving on from them.

At some point, Kahn will have to start pinpointing specific players and showing his ability to assess talent and for Rambis to develop this talent. I feel like we've dug ourselves out of the hole (save for the unprotected 1st rounder in 2012) and from here on out we have to start developing players and dealing from a position of power. I'm not giving up hope on this, but Kahn stepping away from the microphone will help the cause.

[Worm Guts]

I think it's debatable whether the mistake was signing Sessions or trading him away.

[TDWOLVESFAN]

Did we have choices other than Sessions at the time? Sessions' main problem is his shooting. As for running the the offense and taking care of the ball, he did that better than Flynn in about 1/2 the games last year. Neither he or Flynn consistently "organized" the offense as Rambis would say. But we didn't have a lot of choices at that point with Rubio not coming over. Who else was available?

As for Hollins - we paid a little over $2mil to take a chance on a 7 ft athletic guy. He showed a few flashes but not enough that he would be our long term solution at C or our back-up. If his hands were to get in sync with his brain or some level of coordination- he could be a decent back-up. I don't know if that will happen for him though. He is just too emotional at times to see the big picture.

Sasha is not worth talking about except I think Rambis wanted him. Chuck a shot, chuck another one, wait let's chuck .......

[Worm Guts]

Did we have choices other than Sessions at the time? Sessions' main problem is his shooting. As for running the the offense and taking care of the ball, he did that better than Flynn in about 1/2 the games last year. Neither he or Flynn consistently "organized" the offense as Rambis would say. But we didn't have a lot of choices at that point with Rubio not coming over. Who else was available?

.......

The choice was to not sign him. We obviously put no effort into fielding a complete team last year, using Jason Hart as our primary backup wouldn't have been a huge issue.

[Casperkid23]

Just to seperate myself from being lumped in as a total Kahn-basher, I liked his trade to get the #5 pick, and he hustled to get Beasley when that deal could have gone to other teams.

Unfortunately, the decision to sign these three guys was the wrong one, and MIN now has to pay for it.

Kind of, but not really.

[Swimmer]

Unfortunately, the decision to sign these three guys was the wrong one, and MIN now has to pay for it.

Shrink, I think I feel the same way as you about Kahn, but I'm not sure why they were bad *signings*. Sasha was a short-term reclamation project, on the hope that he could regain his shooting touch, which we needed. Hollins was an athletic 7 footer who can run on a fairly cheap deal, which we also needed. Sessions is a legitimate young talent locked down on a good, longer term contract. Are you criticizing Kahn/Kahn's team's judgment of talent? The contracts themselves? Opportunity cost (other players to pick up)?

Kahn had some good ideas for what the team needed, but gambling on young prospects was not necessarily a wrong decision. They just happened not to work out. I think the Sessions signing was a great one, and that we got rid of him too early.

[Klomp]

I disagree that they were mistakes. They were chances we took. But a year later, we decided to move in a different direction. How much does 3.2 million really hurt us? IMO it doesn't.

[shrink]

I think it's debatable whether the mistake was signing Sessions or trading him away.

That's fine, but for Kahn's actions on whole, the fact that it cost us assets makes it an error.

[mandurugo]

I disagree that they were mistakes. They were chances we took. But a year later, we decided to move in a different direction. How much does 3.2 million really hurt us? IMO it doesn't.

I agree with this. Unless there were obvious moves that should have been made instead, I don't see them as mistakes. It's still too early to tell, but Flynn over Curry might have been a mistake. Certainly Kahn has admitted he was mistaken in his assessment of Curry's ability to play the point. These moves, not so much.

[Worm Guts]

I disagree that they were mistakes. They were chances we took. But a year later, we decided to move in a different direction. How much does 3.2 million really hurt us? IMO it doesn't.

I agree with this. Unless there were obvious moves that should have been made instead, I don't see them as mistakes. It's still too early to tell, but Flynn over Curry might have been a mistake. Certainly Kahn has admitted he was mistaken in his assessment of Curry's ability to play the point. These moves, not so much.

I don't think there is anyway around the fact that mistakes were made with last years signings. It's not necessarily a huge mistake, but we gave a 2nd round pick and took salary we didn't want to move Sessions and Hollins. I won't call the Pavlovic move a mistake because it was so irrelevant. That's truly just taking a chance on a guy.

[Saltine]

At least Kahn notices and moves them. The one thing that drove me nuts about McHale was the constant contracts to mediocre players, and his attachment to them. Whether it was his Joe Smith obsession, THud, or MadDog. If he would have chilled out on the below average replacement players we would have had enough cash for one more good player to fit with KG.... Something like the miami strategy, dump everyone but KG and Wally, or whomever was #2, and start over...

[SSUBluesman]

How is this even debatable? The players weren't moved for an upgrade or even a balancing of the roster, they were purged...and required minor assets to do so. Whether it was a chance, whether it was calculated, whether the repercussions were minor or non-existent etc. bears little on the fact that it failed.

[Worm Guts]

At least Kahn notices and moves them. The one thing that drove me nuts about McHale was the constant contracts to mediocre players, and his attachment to them. Whether it was his Joe Smith obsession, THud, or MadDog. If he would have chilled out on the below average replacement players we would have had enough cash for one more good player to fit with KG....

That's easier said than done. The contracts McHale gave out were much worse than contracts Kahn has given out so far.

[Saltine]

Yeah, McHale drove me nuts.