Is Kahn going to survive this? Should he survive this?

[[RCG]]

If the Lakers can manage to miss the playoffs with Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol I'm not going to be upset about missing the playoffs without Kevin Love for basically the whole year and a recovering Ricky Rubio.

[jfg]

It's funny because the defense of Kahn is that one year out of all the years he's been Minny he tried to assemble a decent team. Well WOW, Wonderful...What about all those other years we were predicted to finish in the basement of the division and did? Oh yeah, we were developing our young core of talent right? He's got 1 person on his resume. He's got absolutely NOTHING else. GMs in the NBA, coaches in the NBA have been fired for A LOT less.

He had to let his core develop before going out to find help, because he didn't know where he needed it. What if he had signed a center before Pek developed into a top 10 center? What if, and this is a big what if, Wes Johnson actually panned out? They had to give him a shot to develop. The guys who didn't develop are gone and now he's building a team around the ones who did. I agree that his drafting hasn't been good, but he cut his losses and built a solid team around what he or McHale got right. There's a lot of GM's who won't admit their mistakes. But you can't just go and sign a bunch of free agents before knowing what your young guys can do because that's what gets you into a salary cap mess. He found out what his core was last year and made the moves this past offseason to bring a winner in and the whole team got injured basically. Overall though his 3 year plan should have worked and will work. The only issue now is Love, and honestly it could have been anybody at the GM helm and I think Love would have wanted out. He doesn't get the plan, or that the plan is working like a lot of people posting here.

[Murphs56]

It's funny because the defense of Kahn is that one year out of all the years he's been Minny he tried to assemble a decent team. Well WOW, Wonderful...What about all those other years we were predicted to finish in the basement of the division and did? Oh yeah, we were developing our young core of talent right? He's got 1 person on his resume. He's got absolutely NOTHING else. GMs in the NBA, coaches in the NBA have been fired for A LOT less.

He had to let his core develop before going out to find help, because he didn't know where he needed it. What if he had signed a center before Pek developed into a top 10 center? What if, and this is a big what if, Wes Johnson actually panned out? They had to give him a shot to develop. The guys who didn't develop are gone and now he's building a team around the ones who did. I agree that his drafting hasn't been good, but he cut his losses and built a solid team around what he or McHale got right. There's a lot of GM's who won't admit their mistakes. But you can't just go and sign a bunch of free agents before knowing what your young guys can do because that's what gets you into a salary cap mess. He found out what his core was last year and made the moves this past offseason to bring a winner in and the whole team got injured basically. Overall though his 3 year plan should have worked and will work. The only issue now is Love, and honestly it could have been anybody at the GM helm and I think Love would have wanted out. He doesn't get the plan, or that the plan is working like a lot of people posting here.

This is a result driven league. All you have written right there are a bunch of excuses. I don't think any GM would have brought Love a contract after a loss and told him to sign this right now

[jfg]

I agree that it's a results driven league and I think that's been the demise of a lot of teams including the Wolves. Too many teams churn coaches and GMs and don't allow anything to play out.

[Tirion]

He had to let his core develop before going out to find help, because he didn't know where he needed it. What if he had signed a center before Pek developed into a top 10 center? What if, and this is a big what if, Wes Johnson actually panned out? They had to give him a shot to develop. The guys who didn't develop are gone and now he's building a team around the ones who did. I agree that his drafting hasn't been good, but he cut his losses and built a solid team around what he or McHale got right. There's a lot of GM's who won't admit their mistakes. But you can't just go and sign a bunch of free agents before knowing what your young guys can do because that's what gets you into a salary cap mess. He found out what his core was last year and made the moves this past offseason to bring a winner in and the whole team got injured basically. Overall though his 3 year plan should have worked and will work. The only issue now is Love, and honestly it could have been anybody at the GM helm and I think Love would have wanted out. He doesn't get the plan, or that the plan is working like a lot of people posting here.

So the general consensus have changed, huh? This kind of "Kahn has a 3 year plan" BS drivel is in a minority now, like it should've been from the beginning.

[Saltine]

You can't blame him for our amazing injury streak, or Love's ego.

It seems like he's only in charge of the Cap now, which he is very good at, so I don't see how it matters anymore. Adelman made it very clear last week that he has the final call on talent, he decides if we trade or not. Kahn is just handling the details, I assume something similar applies to the draft.

Kahn is just the numbers guy now, which is fine, he's very good at that. Anybody else we hire to be the GM would just be a numbers guy as well.

The team still looks very good on paper. AK, Love, Pek, Bud and Rubio is a nice group. Shved, Derrick, Dante, Luke, JJ are a decent bench. We need a good wing, as usual.

I doubt he is gone.

[Foye]

I blame him for not getting any deal done at the trade deadline to improve our shooting woes.

You can't tell me that it wasn't possible to get a guy like Anthony Morrow on this team.

[Murphs56]

You can't blame him for our amazing injury streak, or Love's ego.

It seems like he's only in charge of the Cap now, which he is very good at, so I don't see how it matters anymore. Adelman made it very clear last week that he has the final call on talent, he decides if we trade or not. Kahn is just handling the details, I assume something similar applies to the draft.

Kahn is just the numbers guy now, which is fine, he's very good at that. Anybody else we hire to be the GM would just be a numbers guy as well.

The team still looks very good on paper. AK, Love, Pek, Bud and Rubio is a nice group. Shved, Derrick, Dante, Luke, JJ are a decent bench. We need a good wing, as usual.

I doubt he is gone.

You can't blame him for Love's Ego? I blame him for being a moron when it comes to handling his best player. If Love walks, you can blame Kahn. He had the chance to lock him up long term, he fudged the whole thing and EVERYONE in the basketball media knows it

I think you should shoot a tweet to Magic, Simmons, any NBA person and ask them how Kahn's doing as GM of the Wolves and how he's handled Kevin Love.

[Worm Guts]

I blame him for not getting any deal done at the trade deadline to improve our shooting woes.

You can't tell me that it wasn't possible to get a guy like Anthony Morrow on this team.

There was absolutely no reason to give up anything for a guy who's going to be a free agent at the end of the season.

[Worm Guts]

Kahn probably needs to be gone though. We're not just talking bad personnel decisions (especially the draft) but he's also given us bad PR and alienated our best player. We need to move on.

[shrink]

Kahn will be gone.

Regardless if Taylor likes him, or even some of the fans like him, we know one person who doesn't -- Kevin Love. The future of this franchise is attached more closely to Love than Kahn, and Kahn will not have his contract renewed.

[shrink]

While I am no fan of Kahn, I would point out that I agree with his approach to acquisitions.

He looked at a team with a few decent players, but filled with questionable contracts, and realized that our team did not have enough talent to truly compete AND didn't have the trade assets to acquire these players. He made multiple gambles on high-potential players who were high risk, that brought their price down to something we could afford. While it never worked out for Beasley, Anthony Randolph, Darko, Martell Webster, and Roy, I think the value-investing approach was the right decision.

However, in professional sports, it all comes down to wins and losses. There will be no astericks next to this season in the records book that says, ""except Kevin Love was out, and 4 SG's went down with major knee injuries." Whether it's coaches or GM's, if you don't succeed, you're replaced, and I expect that is what will happen with Kahn.

[PZiv]

Kahn's era is too short to give a precise judgement.

[mandurugo]

Kahn probably needs to be gone though. We're not just talking bad personnel decisions (especially the draft) but he's also given us bad PR and alienated our best player. We need to move on.

Well, if that is the criteria you need to replace the entire front office and Taylor as well.

[Worm Guts]

You can't fire the owner. And I'm not sure who else you would be referring to in terms of the "entire front office".

[C.lupus]

OK, instead of doing my work, I created a summary of Kahn's tenure here. I submit for your viewing pleasure:

Drafts
2009
5: Ricky Rubio
6: Jonny Flynn– on the board: Steph Curry, Jordan Hill, DeMar DeRozan
18: Traded (Ty Lawson) – on the board: Jeff Teague, Eric Maynor
28: Wayne Ellington – on the board: Toney Douglas, Dante Cunningham
45: Traded (Nick Calathes)
47: Henk Norel

2010
4: Wes Johnson – on the board: DeMarcus cousins, Greg Monroe, Gordon Hayward, Paul George
16: Traded for Martell Webster – on the board: Kevin Seraphin, Eric Bledsoe, Avery Bradley
23: Traded
30: Lazar Hayward
45: Paulao Prestes
56: Traded

2011
2: Derrick Williams – on the board: Enes Kanter, Tristan Thompson, Jonas Valanciunas
20: Traded (Donatas Motiejunas) – on the board: Kenneth Faried, Marshon Brooks
43: Malcolm Lee

2012
58: Robbie Hummel


Trades - final results to date with all connected trades
- Mike Miller and Randy Foye for Ricky Rubio (bunch of fillers on both sides)
- Ty Lawson and Ryan Gomes for Martell Webster
- Mark Madsen, Craig Smith, Sebastian Telfair for Mark Blount’s contract
- Brian Cardinal for Darko Milicic and cash
- Jason Hart and Trevor Booker for Alando Tucker, Nemanja Bjelica, 2 future 2nd rounders, and cash
- 2nd rounder (never given) for Nathan Jawai
- Cash , Bojan Bogdanovic, 2014 2nd rounder for Michael Beasley
- Al Jefferson, Corey Brewer, Jonny Flynn for Brad Miller, Anthony Randolph, Malcolm Lee, Eddy Curry, future 1st rounder, cash (Donatas Motiejunas and Chandler Parsons were part of this)
- Future 2nd rounder for Tanguy Ngombo
- Ryan Hollins, Ramon Sessions, 2013 2nd rounder for Sebastian Telfair and Delonte West
- Terrence Jones for Chase Budinger and Lior Eliyahu
- Brad Miller and 2 future 2nd rounders for a future 2nd rounder
- Wayne Ellington for Dante Cunningham
- Wes Johnson and a future first for 3 future 2nd rounders


Free Agent Signings - not including training camp fodder signings
Ryan Hollins
Ramon Sessions
Sasha Pavlovic
Greg Steimsma
Luke Ridnour
Anthony Tolliver
JJ Barea
Alexey Shved
Andrei Kirilenko
Brandon Roy
Lou Amundson
Chris Johnson
Josh Howard
Lazar Hayward
Mikael Gelabale

Coach signings: Kurt Rambis and Rick Adelman

[C.lupus]

My grades:
Drafting: D (only because of Rubio, otherwise an F)
Trades: C+ (won some, most were in the meh category)
FA Signings: C- (again, most were meh but this year was good)
Coach signings: C (Rambis: F, Adelman: A)
Relations with media: F (he's a joke)
Relations with other GMS: F (viewed as an ass)
Relations with players: F (Love hates him)
Salary cap management: A

[Biff Cooper]

I'm a little surprised Kahn doesn't have more support in this thread. It seemed pretty clear to me that Kahn put together a playoff team coming into the season. I don't think there are too many of us that would say we weren't going to make the playoffs after watching us play the first month of the season and projecting where we'd be with Love and Rubio getting back to full health.

I'm not sure the thought process on not trying to bring in a shooter before the trade deadline. Giving Kahn the benefit of the doubt, I could possibly see him thinking that acquiring one shooter wasn't going to make much of a difference on a team with below average shooters at every postion, and the potential deals that were out there might've cost us too much in future compensation or locking us in to guaranteed contracts.

The argument that because Magic Johnson and Bill Simmons (or any other media member) were ripping Kahn at halftime as a reason to get rid of Kahn is very silly, particularly since Simmons has hard feelings over not getting Kahn's job, and gets paid to spout strong opinions.

My hunch is that Love should really be more upset with Taylor than Kahn and that Kahn kind of ended up being the fall guy in the middle.

From reading this post so far, you might think I want us to keep Kahn. I do not. I was very worried when we hired him, and he has actually done a better job than I thought he would. However, I was never a fan of his hire, and far too many of his chances to improve our team haven't worked out to justify keeping him.

[Fire Mchale]

I think Biff has a point here that Kahn's name would be far from our minds if this team is 100% healthy all season. If we were sitting here at 36-17 and fighting for home court in the playoffs, would we still have the same level of venom for Kahn? I've grown weary of him as GM, but I'll admit that this roster at the start of the season is one I was more excited about than virtually any in more than a decade. Then the roof fell in. That doesn't cover for the failures in Flynn and Johnson, but would there be as much flame around the "Can Kahn" fire?

[LordBaldric]

Guys, more than half the teams make the playoffs each year. "Putting together a playoff team" is hardly a sign of greatness compared to the damage Kahn has done as a whole.