Rudy Gay?

[PeeDee]

Nice post Biff. I think a lot of what Kahn says can be taken with a grain of salt. The transparency is nice for us fans, but in reality, a GM would be an idiot to wear everything on his sleeve.

Furthermore, Jefferson may not be #1 on a team in regards to his complete game, but his offense is elite and should no doubt be the #1 option on any team that doesn't have Kobe or LeBron. Moreso, the more talent you put around Jefferson, the better he will get offensively. If the Wolves can make teams pay for double and triple teaming him, his scoring averages and shooting percentages will sky rocket. With the right personnel around him, I can easily see Big Al averaging 25 pts on 55% shooting. That is a #1 scoring option.

I like Gay on this team simply because he's someone who can make teams pay for cheating on Al. One of the biggest detrements to adding Gay, however, is sometimes he's described as a black hole, just like Al. If they can both add more "team skills" to their repetiore, they will be terriffic as a one-two scoring punch. If Jonny Flynn reaches his potential, we might get the same scoring output from Jefferson, Gay and Flynn as we did with KG, Sprewell and Sammy. And that, my friends, would be a beautiful thing.

[Worm Guts]

I don't see him ever being a #1 or #2 scoring option for a team, a team leader, someone that you want creating offense, or even someone that has a decent BB IQ. If we are expecting these things out of him, I am against signing him.

I'm not disagreeing with you Biff but this is where I start getting confused with Kahn's plan. He stated that Al was a #2 guy on a championship team and Love was a #4 guy and that he wanted to bring in the pieces to make a championship-level team. That, to me, means bringing in a #1 guy. Does he think Flynn or Rubio is that guy? If so, then a guy like Gay makes sense. If not, we need to set our sights higher.

I think Kahn's plan is a mystery to all of us, and I'm not sure that he's targeted specific F.A. or trade deadline targets yet. We do have the luxury this season to see what we have in a lot of players, and are in a cap position that should allow us to re-assess and agressively attack where we see needs. I think Kahn had Flynn and Rubio as the top two guys on his board at #5 and 6, but I am really at a loss as to how he views both of them. The way he talks about Rubio ("transformational talent"), it sounds like he thinks of him as a #1 option. Still I'm not convinced that if they only had one pick that they wouldn't have taken Flynn over Rubio ("we purposely drafted Rubio first to help him out with his buyout"), so I'm not sure if that means he also views Flynn as a #1, or if everything he says is misleading B.S.

I am also not convinced that Kahn doesn't view Jefferson as a #1 option on a championship team. The guy creates more double-teams than pretty much anyone else in the league. His statement about Jefferson being a #2 might've been more motivational for him to get better at defense, passing out of double teams, and being a leader than anything else.

If we are still looking for a #1 or #2 championship option after this year, I agree with you that we shouldn't be looking at Gay.

I don't think Kahn's plan is a mystery. He recognized that this team had a need for upper echelon talent. That Jefferson and Love are good, but not good enough to win a championship without a lot of help. The 3 ways to acquire top tier talent would be high draft picks, trade, or free agency. I think he's putting the team in the position where they have the most opportunity to acquire that talent. That means getting top draft picks (Miller and Foye for Rubio), clearing cap space for a trade for free agency run, and identifying what could be used as trade bait for top tier talent (expiring contracts, draft picks, and young talent).
It's difficult to acquire a true #1 talent, but I think Kahn is attempting to open as many avenues as possible to acquire one.

[C.lupus]

By 'upper echelon' or '#1', I'm assuming we are talking about players in the LBJ/Kobe/CP3/DH/Roy/Rose/Durant/Duncan category. The problem as I see it (and I have admittedly bad vision) is that for a team like Minnesota, free agency is probably not a realistic option and a trade for one of these players would gut the team. That basically leaves the draft as a feasible way of acquiring upper echelon talent (and FA/trades for second-tier talent).

This is where I start having trouble following Kahn's plan. I agree that it is good practice to open as many avenues as possible and I fully support that strategy. I just can't help thinking that this strategy is at least in part a pipe dream.

IDK. Maybe I've just been a Timberwolves fan too long.

[Worm Guts]

By 'upper echelon' or '#1', I'm assuming we are talking about players in the LBJ/Kobe/CP3/DH/Roy/Rose/Durant/Duncan category. The problem as I see it (and I have admittedly bad vision) is that for a team like Minnesota, free agency is probably not a realistic option and a trade for one of these players would gut the team. That basically leaves the draft as a feasible way of acquiring upper echelon talent (and FA/trades for second-tier talent).

This is where I start having trouble following Kahn's plan. I agree that it is good practice to open as many avenues as possible and I fully support that strategy. I just can't help thinking that this strategy is at least in part a pipe dream.

IDK. Maybe I've just been a Timberwolves fan too long.

Maybe shooting for a #1 through trade or free agency is unrealistic, but I think you open the vision up for top 3 caliber players. Getting number ones is tough, so maybe you focus on getting as many top 3 guys as you can. You might think it's a pipe dream, but the only realistic way to win a championship is with top tier talent.
I do think we have enough to trade for a #1 without gutting the team. Rubio, Love, and cap space would arguably be better than what we got for Garnett, and it still would leave Jefferson, Flynn and picks.

[C.lupus]

I've got the inlaws at home for a week and I'm tired and a bit less positive than I usually am so I apologize for taking this thread a bit off track.

I do agree that the best way to a championship is with top tier talent. I just don't know how we are going to get there from here. I think we definitely can get at least one other talent of Jefferson's level (I would call him a tier 2 player) and I think some combination of Love/Rubio or Flynn/cap space can do it. I don't think we can realistically think about a Paul/Roy/Durant type player, though, unless their team is really hurting for cash. Anyway, if we acquire another Jefferson-level player (maybe someone like a Kevin Martin or Joe Johnson - just throwing out names) to a core of Big Al and Flynn or Rubio, it will be a huge step down that championship road.

And to bring it back home, I'm not convinced Rudy Gay is that missing championship piece.

[Worm Guts]

I've got the inlaws at home for a week and I'm tired and a bit less positive than I usually am so I apologize for taking this thread a bit off track.

I do agree that the best way to a championship is with top tier talent. I just don't know how we are going to get there from here. I think we definitely can get at least one other talent of Jefferson's level (I would call him a tier 2 player) and I think some combination of Love/Rubio or Flynn/cap space can do it. I don't think we can realistically think about a Paul/Roy/Durant type player, though, unless their team is really hurting for cash. Anyway, if we acquire another Jefferson-level player (maybe someone like a Kevin Martin or Joe Johnson - just throwing out names) to a core of Big Al and Flynn or Rubio, it will be a huge step down that championship road.

And to bring it back home, I'm not convinced Rudy Gay is that missing championship piece.

I'm not sure if the plan is to bring in a Paul/Roy/Durant type player through free agency or trade, although it's nice to keep that option open for as long as possible. If some trade falls into our laps and we're able to turn into a contender overnight ala Boston, we'll take it.
I think the plan is to find at least a three man core of all-star caliber player (or potential all-star caliber players), probably through the draft, and then find good complentary players to surround them, probably through free agency.
The thing is, if we had pushed forward with what we had, it probably wasn't enough to ever contend. It would have been highly dependent on both Love and Flynn becoming all-star caliber players, and Love and Jefferson being a frontcourt that was dominant together. We took a step back by trading Foye and Miller, but hopefully it allowed the opportunity to grab 1 or 2 more guys with all-star potential before we pushed forward.

[shrink]

I've got the inlaws at home for a week and I'm tired and a bit less positive than I usually am so I apologize for taking this thread a bit off track.

I do agree that the best way to a championship is with top tier talent. I just don't know how we are going to get there from here. I think we definitely can get at least one other talent of Jefferson's level (I would call him a tier 2 player) and I think some combination of Love/Rubio or Flynn/cap space can do it. I don't think we can realistically think about a Paul/Roy/Durant type player, though, unless their team is really hurting for cash. Anyway, if we acquire another Jefferson-level player (maybe someone like a Kevin Martin or Joe Johnson - just throwing out names) to a core of Big Al and Flynn or Rubio, it will be a huge step down that championship road.

And to bring it back home, I'm not convinced Rudy Gay is that missing championship piece.

I'm not sure if the plan is to bring in a Paul/Roy/Durant type player through free agency or trade, although it's nice to keep that option open for as long as possible. If some trade falls into our laps and we're able to turn into a contender overnight ala Boston, we'll take it.
I think the plan is to find at least a three man core of all-star caliber player (or potential all-star caliber players), probably through the draft, and then find good complentary players to surround them, probably through free agency.
The thing is, if we had pushed forward with what we had, it probably wasn't enough to ever contend. It would have been highly dependent on both Love and Flynn becoming all-star caliber players, and Love and Jefferson being a frontcourt that was dominant together. We took a step back by trading Foye and Miller, but hopefully it allowed the opportunity to grab 1 or 2 more guys with all-star potential before we pushed forward.

Great post.

I think if we would have stayed the course, we could have been a MIL, being a competitive mid-range team that has no chance of getting out of the first round. Finding OK players in the NBA isn't hard, but finding ones with the potential to be elite is extremely difficult. I love the strategy of taking those chances, opening the doors with lottery picks or cap space, even if it sets us back briefly. If we want to be a force, we need to find a superstar to go with Al.