Faith in Hoiberg and Stack?

[younggunsmn]

I swore off this team after the draft until McHale was fired, I guess technically he's not VP anymore, so here goes. This is a long rambling post I didn't want to clog up the fire wittman thread with, so you've been warned.

Faith in Hoiberg and Stack?
I say hesitantly yes. Here's why:

Before Stack was brought on board we gave out bad contract after bad contract. Since then we've been alot better, especially last summer with Gomes, Telfair, and Smith, none of whom make more than 3 mil or last longer than 2 years. Gomes' in particular was a stroke of brilliance with the team option. If he played well this year he would be excellent trade bait because of his contract.
Stack has brought alot of experience with him in this area, and contracts is supposed to be his "area" in the "rect(um)angle" of authority. More notable are the extensions NOT given to guys like ricky davis after a half season of stat padding that used to be the norm. I think Stack in particular deserves alot of credit in this area. Also in making better trades (pre mayo, where the value was okay but the fit was not), especially the Miami one.

McHale has always hated agents and never had any aptitude for negotiation. The Joe Smith fiasco was largely his fault even if Glen screwed it up by putting it in writing because a competent GM would never have allowed the owner to involve himself in any legal wrangling whatsoever. It was McHale's distaste for negotiation that allowed glen to interject himself into wally's deal, hudson's deal, and many others. His lack of communication with agents allowed players to go straight to their very un-savvy owner to ask for a deal or for their buddy KG to do so on their behalf. Yeah sure, part of it is taylor's fault for being a micromanaging owner, but it takes a very weak man to let his boss emasculate him time after time after time.

McHale was like Milton in Office Space.
Kevin: "Glen, have you seen my stapler?"
Glen: "we're gonna move you downstairs, mmkay, Garnett says Joe Smith is good so I already signed him."
Kevin: "Have you seen my stapler? It's red?"

Fred Hoiberg:
The ONE pick hoiberg has been allowed to make (Craig Smith) was a very good pick. As a 2nd rounder in a very weak draft I don't think anyone can argue it was a pretty good pick. Foye, Brewer, Richard, Love, and Peckovic were all clearly McHale guys. (Peckovic has contract issues and I've heard lately that he is closer to 6'9 than 6'11, and watching film of him he definitely doesn't look close to 6'11). Chalmers I place the blame on taylor for.

When the draft stuff was going down last summer the rumors all said that love was mchale's guy, that his bobo babcock agreed with him, and that Hoiberg and Stack wanted Mayo. I firmly believe if it was just mchale drafting he would've just taken love at 3 after being bluffed by sea/okc or memphis.
Hoiberg had all the inside info from Tim Floyd at USC and wanted him badly.

I firmly believe when Hoiberg went downstairs at about 11 pm and told the fans "We're keeping him" he was telling the honest truth. It wasn't until later that Taylor finally buckled to McHale and made the call to Memphis owner Michael Heisley to restart negotiations. All this "they called back at the beginning of the 2nd round" is all bull. It is well-documented it was Taylor and Heisley on the phone that got it done, because the memphis GM was hesitant. The 4 decision makers were split, and rather than go with the overwhelming majority of his fanbase who desperately wanted a star, or someone we hoped could be a star, he buckled to McHale, whose 3 previous drafts had been widely lampooned.
If they had held out for another week I bet we could've gotten them to do a mayo/jaric for love/miller swap straight up (like they originally wanted). So memphis called back a couple hours later and offered a WORSE deal than the one we left on the table and all of the sudden we jumped at it? Sounds like either McHale was the desperate one or he is completely full of **** and it took two hours of heated argument to get glen to finally give in.

Mayo, Love, Miller, they may all turn out to be good players. It is the FIT that is at issue here and why I was so disheartend with the trade.

Love is undersized, has short arms and is slow. 6'7 3/4 without shoes and a 8'11 standing reach (for reference Gomes is shorter but has a 9'1 standing reach). NEXT TO AL JEFFERSON he is a HUGE defensive liability. He would have been an excellent fit next to Darko or marc gasol (legit 7-footers) in Memphis at PF. His low-post game and passing would have fit there and you could've hid him defensively. Not so here. We run the ball through Al in the post. playing Al (6'9 1/2 with shoes by the way) next to Love hurts ALL 5 Players on the court defensively.

Mayo is a go-to perimeter scorer with a deadly jumper and superstar potential. He's proved that beyond a doubt in the first month+.
He would fit prefectly here at SG right now, and take the offensive pressure off of everyone else, especially big Al. He's also a decent defender.

Miller is a great shooter, but he is not quick enough to defend opposing 2's or 3's. Championship-contending teams that wanted to trade for him were looking for that sniper to run with the 2nd unit and play 28-32 minutes, which I believe is his best role.

The biggest problem here is WHY TRADE FOR MILLER NOW?
A: Because McHale had Taylor so deluded that we could win 40 games THIS YEAR, when it took 48 to make the playoffs last year. So what, finish 10th in the conference, and send our pick to the clips. YAY MORAL VICTORY!

Q: didn't we have more than enough chips to offer memphis besides mayo? miami pick, boston pick, 12 mil in expiring deals, picks 31 & 34?
A: Yes. Mayo is better than any of those chips, but we could've (and should've) done it without him if our Front Office had shown any testicular fortitude at all.

Q: Why not sign him as a free agent in 2010, when we'd have Mayo, Jefferson, Foye, Brewer, (all having played together for 2 years) and a center in the '09 draft (OR dare to dream ricky rubio). He would've been the perfect 6th man coming in for brewer on the 2nd unit.
A: Because McHale doesn't understand the concept of building step by step. Of abstaining now to grow in the future. Of not piling up redundant assets. It's been his modus operandi as GM. Always fixing for the short term and hoping for the best. Jamming square pegs into round holes. Acquiring redundant players and stifling their growth by making them split time. Trading for Jaric, signing hudson and hassell, the Mayo trade and his ill-conceived 40-win wet dream. A smart GM would've been able to tell taylor, we might only win 30 games, but Mayo will sell tickets and give the fans hope. He would've been able to admit, we're not there yet and nothing I can do today will put us there, but If I'm patient now It'll pay off tomorrow.

Cap Space:
the trade basically took about 7 million of cap space and moved it from 2009 to 2010. so what right?
well in 2010 there will be 15-20 teams with the ability to offer a max deal. In 2009 there will be like 3 or 4. One COULD HAVE BEEN US Before this trade. Visions of Bosh, Wade, or Lebron coming here in 2010 are unrealistic. We would have been in position to add a nice piece through FA or Trade next summer when there are very few teams with space and everyone trying to open space for lebron. I guarantee you we could've added a gerald wallace or Kaman. Look at how the clips added camby with a little bit of capspace this summer and a worthless 2nd rounder. In 2010, mark my words, there will be tumbleweeds blowing through all our precious capspace or we will end up severely overpaying an average player because there are so many teams with capspace in more attractive markets who DIDN'T trade kevin garnett away.

Al Jefferson had to be the single most disappointed person on draft night. Not because of any of the players involved, but because he knew after the trade that he was destined to play out of position at C for the next few years, and in the end that is my strongest argument against the trade.

I am hopeful fred has the patience McHale does not. It was very troubling that the day after the trade, one that fred clearly didn't want to make, that fred was forced to polish this turd to the media. I can't believe he stayed on. Months and months of scouting and then all you worked for is swept out from under you, and you are lied to by your owner and made out to be a liar to the fanbase.
Him spewing the company line on this does worry me a little, I have to admit.

If I am Taylor this is what I do:

I say fire McHale, fire Babcock, let fred hire his own scouting staff, his own coach, and run his own draft. Keep Stack, let him do the contracts and work the phones, but give fred final say.
Find an interim coach other than McHale to run out the year and tank tank tank. Play the young guys. Build up Kevin Love's trade value so we can move him for a legitimate defensive center, either this year or one in next year's draft (thabeet please). Order the coach to play guys at their natural positions only, except play Jefferson and Love together but when love goes out Collins plays next to jefferson, not smith or Gomes.
Keep it simple.
PG: Foye 34 /Telfair 14
SG: Miller 30 /McCants 18
SF: Gomes 34 /Carney 14
PF: Jefferson 36 /Smith 12
C: Love 34 /Collins 14

Then if I'm fred I keep my ears open for teams trying to dump disgruntled/overpayed young players, especially strong defensive players. Make a move for a guy like gerald wallace, kaman, raymond felton, using expirings and draft picks. Play guys big minutes to build up their trade value like gomes and smith. Scour the d-league and waiver wire for young bigs. Just cut ollie and booth already and bring back richard.
Point Guard and Center are the 2 most important defensive positions. Look at Boston. KG effectively plays center on D for them. He and Rondo are great defenders. The combination of the 2 stops penetration at the point and in the post, It's why Boston is so good.
We need to find our post defender and our defensive point man.

Wet Dream Fan Scenario:
McHale: Gone
Babcock: Gone
Hoiberg: VP Player Personnel
Stack: VP GM/Contracts
Coach: One of current assistants as interim coach instructed to play young guys and tank.
Hire new coach next summer before draft, new blood, not a retread.

Trade offer 1: (16 mil total salary this year)
Ryan Gomes (2 yr 7.3 mil)
Brian Cardinal (2 yr 13.05 mil)
Jason Collins (1 yr 6.2 mil)
Bos 09 1st

For: (14.2 mil salary this year)
Gerald Wallace (5 yrs 50 mil)
Nazr Mohammed (3 yrs 19.4 mil)

I don't think the bobcats can pass this up. It opens cap space in 2010, gives them a replacement in gomes, and Wallace is an incredible talent and exactly the kind of defensive player we need.
He's everything corey brewer wishes he was in his wettest dreams.
Mohammed is a shot-blocker unlike the stiff collins, contract only runs a year longer than the stiff cardinal at about same salary.
He'll be a valuable backup center in the future ala przybilla in portland.
Gomes/wallace are redundant so trading gomes makes most sense in a wallace deal.
I'd throw in mccants but we'd have to take more salary back, no one really would fit.
Getting a player like Wallace and a legit backup center for spare parts is a good way to use cap space in my opinion.

Next year's draft is weak, boston's (and utah's for that matter) pick will be pretty useless.

'09 draft:
Our Pick (1st or 2nd): ricky rubio PG (OKC takes Blake Griffin with the other).
Trade Miami pick (12) and Kevin Love
to Memphis for
(3rd pick) Hasheem Thabeet C

Draft shooting guard with utah pick.

PG: Rubio, Foye
SG: Miller, Foye, Utah pick
SF: Wallace, Brewer
PF: Jefferson, Smith
C: Thabeet, Mohammed.

Surrounding Jefferson with Wallace and Thabeet helps him tremendously defensively,
we're still around the cap next year and slightly under in '10.
We have scorers, shooters, and defenders on both the first and 2nd units.

[Foye]

N1ce thread...i like your ideas


please send it to Glen Taylor ^^

it is pretty unrealistic that it will happen but it would be phenomenal ^^

[Tekkenlaw]

Great post, agree with pretty much everything you said. I'm a 26 year old man and I came very close to crying after Mayo was traded away, oh how I drank that night. He was far and away my favorite player in the entire draft, I was so happy when we ended up in the top 3 of the draft lottery, I called my Dad just to tell him that we made it into the top 3 and that we would get Mayo at the very least. The entire day of the draft I was so anxious, just waiting for the the wolves to pick OJ Mayo so I wouldn't have to worry anymore about them taking Love or Lopez with that 3rd pick.

When he got traded I couldn't believe it, I still can't believe it. We had him in our hands, for at the very minimum the next 4 years, maybe more than twice as long as that with RFA. And say the absolute worst case scenario happened, and he wanted out of here for a bigger market the year he was due for a new contract. Couldn't a better package than what we got be had? (Assuming he becomes a yearly 20ppg scorer which seems almost completely inevitable). We could have traded him for Love then? And at least after 3 years we would know exactly what we were getting with Love.

Or put it this way, is there a snowball's chance in hell that Mayo's trade value ever drops below where it was on draft night? Not until his late 30's or in the case of a catastrophic, career threatening injury in my opinion. The trade just didn't make sense from any perspective. He could have just played here a few years, sold a ton of jerseys, and we could trade him away for a nice package of young players a few years down the road. Just like with Johan Santana and KG.

He is and was exactly what we need right now, a wing who can take his man off the dribble, shoot from anywhere on the floor, and is above average as a perimeter defender. I like Miller, and I like Love, but it makes me sick that he had him in our hands and let him slip away.

EDIT: However I will add that if he somehow ends up on the Lakers I'll be fine with the trade.

[shrink]

Really nice post younggunsmn. I particularly liked the innerworkings of the front office.

[younggunsmn]

Thanks guys.
I was on my honeymoon following the draft on a laptop on the deck sipping drinks when the trade went down.
I was elated to read we actually drafted the right guy. Then wham.
WORST CASE SCENARIO.
At no point in my wolves fandom have I been so disappointed in the team,
not after any of the first round exits, JR Rider, Laettner, the marbury trade, the joe smith deal, passing on granger, passing on Gay and Roy, passing on Thad Young and Al Thornton, and even the KG trade. This moment of utter stupidity takes the cake.

I wish memphis was on tv more (or at all) because they have 3 guys I wanted:
Mayo, Gay and Marc Gasol (whom we passed on for chris richard).
They play fast and exciting basketball. They have black holes at PG and PF but they have one helluva future if Rudy Gay buys into playing defense and a "team concept". In short they are what we should be minus Al Jefferson.

Great point T-Law about Mayo's trade value. I doubt Memphis would take even Al Jefferson for him now. I doubt they would've 5 minutes after the original trade was made. memphis fans already consider Mayo their team leader. He is just one of those rare players that seems to have ice in his veins when the shot clock is winding down or in the 4th quarter.

Even if Mayo wanted to bolt, we could command a king's ransom in a sign-and-trade for him after 4 years. Kevin Love's trade value? Can you definitively say he's any better than the other bigs drafted in the lottery? It was painful to watch brook lopez playing volleyball with rebounds the other night, tipping them back out over love's stubby arms. Whatever fantastic intangibles he may possess the physical reality will always be he is too small/slow to play effective d next to Big Al.

I think the recent shakeup is more about money, attendance, and fan apathy than anything else.
If we stick together and keep attendance low, or if you go start chants like
O-J-May-O
da da da da da
O-J-May-O

I think McHale will finally be gone for good.

[D1SGRUNTL3D]

None

[C.lupus]

Thanks guys.
I was on my honeymoon following the draft on a laptop on the deck sipping drinks when the trade went down.

You took your laptop on your honeymoon to follow the draft?
j/k

I agree with most of what you posted but I never condone tanking. These young pups need to learn how to win games and you are never guaranteed the top pick anyway. We have a deep enough hole that we will be fine in the draft even if we REALLY try to win.

[revprodeji]

80% of it is a good post, but you honestly just complain about a lot.

Couple things right away

1.--the height issue is overused. Is Love's height stopping him from rebounding? How has their height harmed them?

2.) Mayo is not a superstar. He is a shooter with a green light. Next time he helps his teammates will be the first. Get over the man crush.

3.) Pekovic is a legit 6'11, where is your source?

4.) I agree on Chalmers, I think we are overrating him, but he was still a nice piece there.

5.) We could not have got Miller w/o Mayo. Many teams have tried for Miller.

6.) Please do not speak for Jefferson. I think Love makes his life better also.

7.) Your idea of Fred and his staff might work, but an overhaul would be this summer. Not now.

8.) You never tank. Playing to not win destroys teams.

9.) Mchale as a coach makes perfect sense, he knows these plays and had his vision when bringing them in. Thus, lets see it. win-win, if it works then we are happy, if it does not then we rebuild

10.) Complaining about Jefferson out of position and then citing KG as a defensive center is contradictory.

11.) You cite the need for def at PG, but want us to cut Ollie?

12.) The Love+pick for Thabeet is horrible.

[younggunsmn]

1. Not height, REACH. First half vs Nets: Lopez 6 rebs, Yi 4, Love zero.
Why does Love have such trouble scoring in close? why has his shooting Pct gone from near 60% at UCLA to 41 percent this year? Because he lacks the reach to get his shot off inside against NBA big men, point blank. Even that dunk against the nets that jim peterson orgasmed over barely got over the rim.
Guys in this league aren't going to be fooled as much by his endless pump fakes, as scouts credibly predicted before the draft. Don't look at one 15 rebound game against a soft Mehmet Okur and short Paul Milsap and wish away these deficiencies. When Kirilenko was in there (injuries are limiting his minutes and effectiveness) he aboslutely ate Love for lunch, swatting him twice in succession and tipping out some rebounds.

The guy gives some of the best effort I've ever seen when it comes to rebounding, I have to admit.
But he also misses many important boards on the defensive end because guys with more reach are stealing them or tipping them away.

No one has any fear going into the lane against this guy either.

2. "Next Time he helps his teammates will be the first". I see you've got the cliche of the Mayo hater down pat already. Try to be objective please.
a.) Mayo is playing SHOOTING GUARD. That is what they do, shoot. He is not expected to be a point guard, a distributor, or anything of the sort.
b.) Outside of Mayo, Gay, and maybe Marc Gasol and Warrick, the players on the grizzlies are either extemely green or downright horrible. Mike Conley Jr is a huge, huge bust. PG is an open sore for them.
Rudy Gay is a guy who creates his own shot, not someone who likes to be spoon-fed. He takes a ton of shots too. Not exactly alot to work with when it comes to "helping your teammates".
b2.)Team defense is going to undeniably suffer with such a young team (and a coach who is not exactly defensive minded.)
c.) Iavaroni's D'Antoni-based system emphasizes SCORING and putting up shots quickly.
d.) His shooting numbers (47%fg, 40%3pt, .525 adjusted FG%) are incredible for any guard, let alone considering Memphis' lack of consistent PG play or a low-post threat forces Mayo to consistently create his own shot, something the trade doubters said he wouldn't be able to do.
e.) Mayo is already considered by the Memphis fans to be the team leader, not A team leader, THE team leader.
f.) The Memphis front office and coaching staff have REASONABLE expectations for their team and divide up PLAYING TIME accordingly, playing the guys who are part of their future major minutes instead of trying to micromanage every game into some miraculous win.
g.) As solely a fan of OJ Mayo, I'm happy he ended up in Memphis, because if he were in Minnesota he would not have been given the chance to grow that he has in memphis. We would have jerked around his position, minutes, and expectations until he ended up as confused as randy foye looks on offense and jefferson looks on defense.
h.) check some of the response to him on other boards. In their eyes Superstar is definitely not out of the question.


3. Peckovic does not look 6'11 on film. I forget where I heard the height rumor.
I don't trust euro measurements much and I trust anything that came out of Kevin McHale's mouth regarding his height even less. He is built like a brick s**thouse though. At this point his chief asset is low-post scoring, his shotblocking and rebounding are underdeveloped (looking at past and present stats), and he looks to be slightly less mobile than kevin love. Redundant enough for anyone?

5. They won't deal? Then wait till 2010 and sign Miller. We would've had the room then even with jaric's deal on our books. 2010 is when we REALISTICALLY could have expected to make the playoffs going into the offseason.

6. It was posted on this board by the guy who is friends with big Al after last season ended (or maybe is was the same post as when the info about the smacktalk from the 1st boston game was posted) that Al desperately wanted to play next to a legitimate center. A couple weeks ago when Collins was inserted into the starting lineup Al spoke out in the papers about how relieving it was to be playing PF again. Looking at how upset Al has looked with his body language and demeanor so far this year it is no stretch at all to think that much of this has to do with his disdain for playing center on defense next to an often undersized and overmatched PF. It has nothing to do with love personally, it has to do with the fact that a guy drafted 5th overall and traded for OJ MAYO, who is unsuited to playing anything but PF, is not going to ride the pine, and is effectively going to force Jefferson to play center next to him for the forseeable future. You ask how Mayo makes his teammates better, at least he doesn't make them worse by forcing them to play out of position.

7. McHale needs to go before any front office successor can have any room, any breathing space, or any credibility whatsoever. I don't care what they claim about him losing power. You don't demote the King and expect his successor to quit looking over his shoulder. Any permanent coaching change would take place in the offseason, but McHale should not be the interim coach.
The stench around this franchise will never leave until McHale is gone and the fanbase will never trust the "NEW" Management or embrace the team again the way it did under KG until the man responsible for all the bs that has ruined this franchise is gone. I mean look how many fans came out for the glorious new McHale era. The way it looked on TV the lower bowl was about 1/3 full, even with all the people who undoubtedly snuck down from the upper deck.

8. We don't need to tank, we're already THAT BAD. A Boozer-less UTAH and Deron Williams absolutely laid a turd for 44 minutes last night and still pulled out a win, even with the most hustle I've seen from the wolves for a long time.

9. Completely disagree. If it works we win 35-40 games (TOPS AT THIS POINT) and McHale is back as VP next summer, and we start the rollercoaster all over again of hope, disappointment, failure, and the man responsible not being held accountable, with largely the same roster.

I wish I could find the link on KFAN of what Anthony Carter said in the denver papers the other day about what it was like when McHale last coached the wolves. Basically let the assistants run everything. Practice was one long 5 on 5. Couldn't draw up a play to save his life.
He looked basically like a cheerleader last night. I did like that he was giving lots of praise to the players. The spacing on offense looked better in the first half (but they reverted to the usual clusterfrick in the 4th quarter). The guards/sf seemed to be sagging down deep into the lane alot more to help out with our pathetic post d, but good teams will burn the crap out of us with 3's if we do this consistently. Utah missed a ton of open 3's last night.
The only thing that effort really told me last night was that all those players had to REALLY REALLY hate Randy Wittman to dog it that bad the previous 2 games.
It's nice that the players responded to him, but keeping him around is just keeping the pink elephant in the room for the rest of the season. This team needed a divorce. Not a separation with joint custody. As a fan that is what I need to even begin to regain the faith I've lost in this team's management.

10. No it's not a contradiction. KG EXCELS defending centers, he has always taken the other team's biggest and baddest low-post threat. He is definitely not out of position there with his long arms and height being about 6'13 (don't dare call him a 7-footer) and not 6'9 like Jefferson.

11. Kevin Ollie a defensive genius? Kind of a stretch. If we are building for the future Telfair needs playing time, not Ollie. I was disgusted to see him get so much run and take so many shots down the stretch, shots that should have been taken by Foye or Bassy or even Shaddy if we are ever going to know whether these guys are a part of the future or not. The only logical reason I can think of is that we have a trade in the pipeline for him and are showcasing him. The Bobcats make alot of sense. But seeing Ollie and Cardinal AGAIN instead of bassy and say Richard or Harrison made me ill.

12. Don't sleep on Thabeet. He is a monster this year and has improved tremendously since last year. There is not a single player with his defensive potential at Center in this year's draft or last years, really since Andrew Bynum. He will be a top 5 pick, he could even compete for the #1 spot if some of the college guys rated ahead of him continue to struggle or go back to school.
Kevin Love doesn't have great trade value right now, and the only thing that will increase it is if he can somehow manage to average 15 & 10 on 50% shooting. right now that is a fair trade and a better fit for us. I don't see any real difference makers being available in the 11-15 range Miami's pick is likely to fall in next year.

[Twizman]

Brilliant younggunsmn! Best post I've ever read on realgm!

Maybe I just agree with every argument you have

[Shrunk]

younggun your meltdown after trading mayo was laughable, came across like a spoiled brat.