In the Scrum with former Celtic Kevin McHale

[rashad20]

http://www.hoopsaddict.com/2009/02/23/i ... in-mchale/

[SonicYouth34]

Even though McHale is an ex-Celtic, I can't like him. He traded away Mayo for Love...how could he do that to Big Al?

[MyInsatiableOne]

^I'll always love McHale from his days as a Celtic...he was one of my favorite players growing up. But he's the Michael Jordan of bad GMs (and Jordan himself is a lousy one!)

[Red2]

first of all the jury is still out on Love. Big men are always harder to find than guards. let's have this discussion in 5 years. Secondly if McHale is such a bad GM how come he's the one that drafted Kevin Garnett out of high school while other teams passed on him? Kevin has made some bad deals but Danny has too and so has every other gm out there. He had no choice but to trade garnett since with his owner he wasn't going to be able to get the parts he needed

[sully00]

I think McHale gets a bad rap as a GM. Not that he hasn't made mistakes and things haven't always worked out but when you look at what has happened to other expansion teams around the league, and what a mess MINN was when he took over, in the end he hasn't done a bad job. If he is terrible what can you say about Jerry West in Memphis? The only expansion team that has been able to compete has been Miami because it is a FA destination and they got a gift handed to them by a dumb agent. ORL has had 3 number one picks and one good playoff run to show for it I don't think McHale has gotten a top 3 pick.

He also did about as good a job as you possibly can of liquidating a superstar. In the end I think that the biggest mistake he made was letting Flip Saunders go, not they he is the greatest coach or anything but consistency is always better than chaos.

Let me add I don't know about Love and Jefferson together but I like Love long term better than Mayo. If you would look beyond the PPG you would see that Love has a better PER, leads the league in offensive rebounding %, and has a better offensive and defensive rating. Mayo plays a lot and shoots a lot. What is harder to find a big man who can score and rebound or a guard who can score?

[Banks2Pierce]

Love McHale. Even as a GM, didn't he lose his first rounders for a few years in a row? Can't defend the McCants pick, but no one has a track record without a scar like that on it. And I like Love as much as Mayo, if not more. The jury's still out on that one.

[MyInsatiableOne]

I forget, who's fault was it that MIN made the backdoor deal with Smith that cost them 5 yrs worth of 1st rounders? Kevin or the owner?

[shrink]

Taylor admitted later that McHale fell on the sword for him, and may lead to his devotion to the guy.

I agree that McHale has not been a bad GM. I could go into great detail on this, but I don't have time now, so I'll mention a few points:

1. KG was so good, that he could take any group of guys into the play-offs. This means mediocre picks.

2. McHale's early picks (KG, Ray Allen/Marbury, Szczerbiak all became All stars). His later lottery picks all has knee injuries in their 2nd year.

3. McHale's job is to put a team together on paper. He can't take all the blame when the guys get injured or go nuts, as the Wolves #2 guy always seemed to do, by tge time the play-offs rolled around (Brandon, Szczerbiak, Sprewell, Cassell). KG's salary was big (and he was worth every penny!), but when you take out his money and the #2 guy's, its not much left to make a team.

4. McHale was under impossible odds. Every season, it was "Win now, win now win now with fans, since they had KG." The NBA is cyclical, and you need rebuilding, or you get stuck in the middle. Without good picks and strapped for cash, this led to some desperate moves near the end of the Kg period.

5. I think McHale has done a good job with the recent deals. Its amazing how quickly he was able to turn Blount, Hassell, Juwon Howard, Troy Hudson (buy outs), Mike James, and Jaric ino picks, expirings, and young talent. His deal with MIA (Blount+Davis for shorter contracts + 1st) was great, as was his cap space deal last summer (TPE for Carney + Booth (exp) + UTA 1st). The Wolves looked bleak two years ago, and now they have the chance for an optimistic future.

McHale has made mistakes, but the media tries to use him as the poster child for horrible GM's. He is not.

[MyInsatiableOne]

^^I thought it was Glen Taylor who frigged it up in Minny...wow, Kevin's a hell of a guy for taking the fall for that ****, especially since it was all over JOE SMITH!