This week Ricky Rubio, who was the top draft choice this year for the Minnesota Timberwolves decided to stay in his native Spain at least for two more years and play, he made new general manager David Kahn look very foolish for wasting the pick on him.  David Kahn the rookie general manager has put his reputation and possibly his job on the line by not putting people around an emerging dominant post player in Al Jefferson.  Anyone else reminded of the previous gm Kevin McHale and how he did the same to one Kevin Garnett?  McHale had numerous chances to surround Garnett with players that could compliment his perennial all-star power forward.  If Kahn isn’t very careful he will doom his current burgeoning star to the same fate as Garnett.

Ricky Rubio’s game as it is now doesn’t mesh with Al Jefferson’s at all in my opinion.  Rubio’s biggest attributes are his court vision and passing in a up tempo style of game.  Al Jefferson is a low post operator with a solid mid range jumper, in the same mold of Elton Brand.  Also Rubio isn’t as quick and explosive as most point guards he’d have to face in the NBA on a nightly basis.  Which would mean NBA defenses would just make him be more of a facilitator and shooter, the latter is also lacking consistently in his game.  Which leads me to conclude he’d just make a serviceable professional, not a top tier point guard and worthy of his high selection and hype.

That said, this all falls back into the lap of the person who drafted Rubio in the first place, David Kahn.  General managers are known and judged mostly by four things: Drafting players, trades they make, managing the salary cap and hiring coaches.  With the revolving door for coaches that take over teams that are works in progress laden with young players or teams that are cellar dwellers being around 2-3 years.  GMs aren’t crucified for taking a misstep if they don’t hire the right one initially. Trades in the NBA are mostly made for three reasons: to dump salary to avoid the luxury tax threshold in years to come,  give your team a little extra boost in making the playoffs or to make your playoff team a little better.  When making trades you have to try to match salaries.  In Minnesota’s case many of the pieces other teams may want to either get younger or dump their salary are very young.  They haven’t shown they’re dependable players night after night so their possible trade value isn’t high.  So now what Kahn will be judged mostly early on in his tenure is drafting.   With his other lottery selection Kahn choose to swap draft picks with Sacramento and getting another point guard Jonny Flynn a more athletic version of their point guard last year Randy Foye.  Foye and Flynn both talented offensive players aren’t natural point guards, both are undersized shooting guards playing point guard. So again I don’t understand what Kahn is doing, with two lottery picks you come away two point guards?  One that doesn’t want to play for your organization and just switched teams in Spain and has a larger buyout fee than his previous contract did and the other a talented albeit undersized point guard.  While Flynn may pan out, Kahn would’ve been served to filling holes and drafting players that would help the team.  He could’ve taken Stephen Curry to space the floor and make teams pay for doubling Jefferson.   Kahn did have a chance to redeem himself with two other 1st round picks and selected Austin Daye a talented kid but at 6’10 and 190 pounds is very frail and injury prone and Jonas Jerebko a 6’9 Swedish small forward who again has some upside but was a reach this high in the draft.

So what Kahn has done is make an already young and unproven team even younger with more question marks.  You would think that Kahn having been under Donnie Walsh with the Indiana Pacers, who is widely considered a great personnel guy and basketball mind, would’ve have learned not to take so many chances so early when building a team.  You can see what Walsh is doing in New York not committing to the long term futures of his best two players from the past year in Nate Robinson and David Lee, knowing while they are solid players their numbers were inflated by the system they ran.  I know drafting isn’t an exact science and several lottery picks and for that matter, 1st rounders haven’t panned out Kahn should’ve done better with four 1st round picks.  Kahn entrusted with reviving the struggling franchise has had a very inauspicious start with 3 out of the 4 1st round draft picks he made won’t be immediate impact players for the franchise.  Kahn now runs the risk of having another disgruntled star big man wanting to leave Minnesota, because of the decisions he’s making or not making.

---

Add this page to your favorite social bookmarking websites!