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

[FinnTheHuman]

I read all the pros and cons in this topic and it makes it really hard to decide if he should survive this. But, there just seems to be a lot of bad energy around Kahn, which should have him fired if you ask me. Almost everybody connected to the Wolves in any way blames him for all these bad seasons, even if it might not be his fault.

[kmgarnett21]

With a healthy Rubio, Budinger, Love this is a playoff team. Rubio is just getting back into shape now and we have been playing better. We were up big on a talented GSW squad but we don't have the depth to maintain leads when we turn to the bench. This roster is a lot better than the one Kahn inherited.

Derrick Williams was the consensus #2, Wes J was in the mix at #4 and Cousins was passed over by a couple teams because over immaturity issues. Rubio was a solid pick. The only real head-scratcher was Flynn. Sure he can and needs to do a better job of drafting but in other areas of player acquisition he's done well.

How many teams would be in the playoffs without their all-star player and significant role-players either hurt or recovering from severe injuries as well?

This is my stance. I'm not a Kahn supporter by any means. He's been brutal in the draft aside from Rubio (and maybe Williams).

But if this team was healthy, there's ABSOLUTELY ZERO doubt in my mind we'd be in a battle for 4th or 5th seed right now. With a healthy Rubio, Love, Budinger, AK, etc, this is a no brainer playoff team.

Love is the team's best player and Rubio is the team's most important player. Imagine OKC starting the season with Westbrook and Durant injured, then Durant comes back and shortly after Westbrook comes back. But a couple of games later, Durant goes down for several months and Westbrook is struggling to get back. Where do you think OKC would be?

I'm not comparing Love/Rubio to KD/WB, all I'm saying is Love and Rubio, the team's two best players, have only been on the court together all season for a few minutes, as we all know.

Kahn isn't the best, but like RCG said, the roster now is light years better than it was when Kahn took over. And you can't deny that.

[phonzadellika]

Rubio/Curry/George/Love/Pek

I wish we were talking about how we were going to afford being able to pay for all these guys.

I bet Kahn gets a different job such as 'special advisor' or something else. He's got value it just isn't as the face of the organization or evaluator of talent.

[Klomp]

Rubio/Curry/George/Love/Pek.

Wait, I thought everyone hated the 2 PG lineups? Interesting how this is proposed as a way to bash Kahn for, but yet the solution is to have another 2 PG lineup.

Which is it?

[Murphs56]

Keep living in hypothetical universes people about "This could have been a playoff team."

I"ll just look at draft history, personnel decisions, alienation of your star player, views in the media and around the league and overall record

[Murphs56]

Rubio/Curry/George/Love/Pek.

Wait, I thought everyone hated the 2 PG lineups? Interesting how this is proposed as a way to bash Kahn for, but yet the solution is to have another 2 PG lineup.

Which is it?

Curry and Rubio fit perfectly. The Warriors implement a Curry-Jack lineup all the time. The difference b/w Curry and Ridnour is really size and incompetence

[C.lupus]

How many GMs would trade Steph Curry and Kenneth Faried for Jonny Flynn?

How about Paul George and a 1st round pick for Wes Johnson?

Or Ty Lawson and Ryan Gomes for Martell Webster?

That is essentially what Kahn did.

[phonzadellika]

Rubio/Curry/George/Love/Pek.

Wait, I thought everyone hated the 2 PG lineups? Interesting how this is proposed as a way to bash Kahn for, but yet the solution is to have another 2 PG lineup.

Which is it?

I think most of us don't enjoy Rubio/Ridnour because Ridnour is only an ok PG and is a not-good SG. I think where we really start hating the PGs is when Adelman trots out Rubio/Ridnour/Barea.

Personally, I would have been more than happy with Rubio/Curry or Rubio/Irving had we won the #1 pick.

[funkatron101]

It's time for him to go. I'm tired of hearing "next year." Really f**king tired of it.

[Klomp]

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.

Here's the thing that people seem to forget:

The salary cap made teams a lot less willing to take on longer deals.

Morrow was dealt for an expiring. We had no expirings to offer anyone. That meant in order to make a deal, we would have to give up significantly more talent to offset the extra year on Luke's contract.

[shrink]

I can't give Kahn a good grade in salary cap management because:

1. He felt the partially-guaranteed deals of Chucky Atkins and Ryan Gomes were negative attributes

2. He submitted an illegal offer to the NBA league office last summer because he didn't know his cap room.

3. He had to give up a pick to move Wes Johnson to make it legal.

[GopherIt!]

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

Relations, relations, relations.
Love has to be appeased for the teams poor handling of his contract situation/injuries, etc. Kahn must go. If Love stays, it will be because team starts kicking butt next year and he realizes what he has with Rubio and Adelman.

[Biff Cooper]

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.

The gereral concensus of this thread seems to be that Kahn should and will likely be gone. Nobody has insinuated that the grand goal is just to make the playoffs. This will be the 9th straight year we missed the playoffs. Teams generally don't go from missing the playoffs one year to winning the championship the next. Making the playoffs would be a nice stepping stone, and it should've happened this year if not for injuries.

[Calinks]

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

Looks like my first year of college

[Tirion]

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.

1. Kahn made a lot of gambles on high-risk high-potential players.
2. None of this gambles worked out.

3. Therefore I agree with his approach.

What?

[Tirion]

I can't give Kahn a good grade in salary cap management because:

1. He felt the partially-guaranteed deals of Chucky Atkins and Ryan Gomes were negative attributes

2. He submitted an illegal offer to the NBA league office last summer because he didn't know his cap room.

3. He had to give up a pick to move Wes Johnson to make it legal.

Yep. The one percieved strength of Kahn - salary management is not even a strength. Most other GMs can run circles around him when it comes to working around salary cap.

[mandurugo]

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".

Someone gave the story of the president of operations coming to their class and talking like Love was basically dead to them - surely someone must remember this?

[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.

1. Kahn made a lot of gambles on high-risk high-potential players.
2. None of this gambles worked out.

3. Therefore I agree with his approach.

What?

Im not sure what you're not following. Is it "approach?"

These specific players were all money gambles. Taylor fronted money (not talent, except the pick for Webster) to get these guys. I liked that he accepted risk in the hopes for higher upside players, rather than stick with the typical "low-upside MLE guys that get stuck with MIN" approach that we've had for a number of years.

Now if you want to blame Kahn for picking the wrong guys -- sure, you can say that. I think you also have to put some of the blame on the players for not making more of their opportunity as well. However, even if he picked the wrong "low cost-high risk-high upside" guys, I don't blame him for going after "low cost-high risk-high upside" guys.

[Tirion]

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.

1. Kahn made a lot of gambles on high-risk high-potential players.
2. None of this gambles worked out.

3. Therefore I agree with his approach.

What?

Im not sure what you're not following. Is it "approach?"

These specific players were all money gambles. Taylor fronted money (not talent, except the pick for Webster) to get these guys. I liked that he accepted risk in the hopes for higher upside players, rather than stick with the typical "low-upside MLE guys that get stuck with MIN" approach that we've had for a number of years.

Now if you want to blame Kahn for picking the wrong guys -- sure, you can say that. I think you also have to put some of the blame on the players for not making more of their opportunity as well. However, even if he picked the wrong "low cost-high risk-high upside" guys, I don't blame him for going after "low cost-high risk-high upside" guys.

It's a horrible approach for team like Minnesota. It sure looks nice on paper, with buzzwords like "low cost", "high upside", "diversification of assets" and "probabilities of panning out" floating around like shiny butterflies, but it doesn't work 99.99% of the time. And when it doesn't work multiple times, those "low costs", which seemed like such an afterthoughts at first, tend to accumulate very quickly.

It's like a newbie trader, who's investing 50% of his portfolio in a 100 randomly picked junk notes. Sure it's "low cost-high risk-high reward". The problem lies in cognitive biases. Probabilities of successful scenarios are greatly overestimated. Probabilities of failure scenarios are greatly underestimated. Add a healthy dose of inexpirience and arrogance and he probably going to lose the abovemantioned half of his portfolio in a year, then double down on junk notes, because "it's been working, man, I just needed to sell a little earlier/wait a littler longer".

Common sense tells you that if you don't know what the hell are you doing (and Wolves' FO sure doesn't) you need to KEEP IT SIMPLE. Talent evaluation is hard enough as it is, trying to get cute with it will end in failure. Leave the "other team's junk" and "bargain bin hunting" to smart people, who actually can properly evaluate different risks and factors and work with/rehabilitate damaged players. San Antonio can trade for Stephen Jackson, because they know what makes him tick, can control him for the most part and have people that he respects and listens to. Put him on the Wolves and he will destroy the locker room, damage your rookies (like Beasley apparently did with D-Will) and undermine and alienate your stars (Love being mad at Darko, Beas, etc). Then you can come and talk about the "low cost".

[LordBaldric]

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".

Someone gave the story of the president of operations coming to their class and talking like Love was basically dead to them - surely someone must remember this?

I remember that too.