Post#108 » by Cammo101 » Sat Jun 27, 2009 4:33 am
From Draft Express, it sure looks like Kahn mucked this up...
There was a small chance that agent Dan Fegan would be able to convince Ricky Rubio (and especially his family) to pay his way out of living in suburban Barcelona to play for very little money in Minnesota. Unfortunately, that small chance evaporated once incoming GM David Kahn decided to select Jonny Flynn with the following pick.
Rubio is for now refusing to attend Minnesota’s press conference, while Kahn continues to swear that he’s excited about the possibility of playing both point guards together. This is an instance that having a coach in the war room really could have helped, as there is really no way that Flynn and Rubio can be considering anything less than the worst defensive backcourt in the NBA, and they really don’t complement each other offensively either.
What’s strange is how surprisingly unaggressive New York was while all this was going on. They really tried hard to move up in the days and weeks leading up to draft night, but decided to take a wait and see approach once it became clear that Rubio would slip to 5. It appears likely that Kahn initially took Rubio with the intent of “auctioning off the pick,” in the words of one source close to the situation, but it seems like the market isn’t quite as robust as initially anticipated.
Rubio’s comments after the draft made it very clear that he has no problem going back to Spain, and there will likely be a number of lucrative offers coming his way from the direction of Real Madrid and other top European teams once he returns home. This is likely going to be a long and drawn out process, and it’s very possible that we see teams like Dallas, New Jersey, New York and Indiana get back into the mix.