Welcome to the latest installment of 30 Teams, 30 Years, 30 Drafts featuring the Minnesota Timberwolves. This series takes you through each of the teams’ draft picks from 1978-2008 and evaluates how they fared. My fantasy football research sabbatical was a little longer than I thought. Turns out there are a lot more of these football player guys then basketball player guys. Who knew? Anyway, I return to action with the Western Conference and the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Wolves put up an average score of 2.838, which is pretty impressive when one considers for 3 years there at the turn of the century they were stripped of their first round picks (more on this later). Here are the Wolves drafts from their inception, highlighted by a couple of power forwards named Kevin.
Total Score: 2.838
View the previous teams and their scores here:
Boston Celtics – 3.885
Philadelphia 76ers – 2.561
Toronto Raptors – 2.659
Orlando Magic – 2.861
Charlotte Bobcats – 2.225
New York Knicks – 2.471
New Jersey Nets – 2.49
Atlanta Hawks – 1.258
Miami Heat – 2.743
Milwaukee Bucks – 3.616
Chicago Bulls - 2.93
Cleveland Cavaliers – 3.176
Indiana Pacers – 2.762
Washington Wizards – 2.359
Detroit Pistons – 3.877
Let us know in the comments below who you think their best and worst draft picks were.
To see how the score was calculated, check out the intro post here.
[table id=114 /]
1- Gerald was honored in 2004 on Chick-Fil-A’s SEC Legend’s Team. No word on his stance on gay marriage.
2- Christian Laettner actually had a pretty solid career as far as careers go. The bar was set so high after his amazing college career and inexplicably being selected to be a member of the original Dream Team that anything short of a Hall of Fame career would be considered as a disappointment for Christian. Well he fell short of that, Laettner’s career is still overshadowed by that Dream Team nod, even in retrospect, most will not be able to tell you that Christian actually made an All Star Game in a very impressive 1996-97 campaign.
3- Chris is the cousin of Super Nintendo Chalmers.
4- If memory serves me correct Rider won the 1994 Slam Dunk Contest with the first through the legs junk in contest history. This blew 11 year old me’s mind.
5- Everyone remembers the Jordan shove in Game 6 of 1998 finals against the Jazz which allowed him to get off the game winning shot. What people forget is the shot that may have made any Jordan shot a moot point. In the first half Eisley made a 3 pointer that replay clearly showed was halfway to the basket before the shot clock expired. That clearly didn’t matter to the immortal (I actually believe he will live forever to torture NBA fans) Dick Bavetta, who waived the shot off. This was before the NBA instituted replay and Jordan’s now famous shot allowed the Bulls to win a one point game and claim the title.
6- Kevin is not quite an immortal in my eyes. Close, but not quite. He is not a borderline HOF either, so we place him some where in between. For the soccer fans out there, KG is a limited share of Serie A football team A.S. Roma.
7- You may have heard of all of Stephon’s crazy antics. You may know him for what some see as selfish play on the court. However many miss out on the off the court Marbury who has been very generous with the money he has made throughout his career. Included in this is $250K to help victims of 9/11, between $500k and a million to Hurricane Katrina victims and $1 million dollars each to NYPD, FDNY, EMT and NY Teachers Fund. Good job by you, Stephon. Also apparently former WWE wrestler MVP based his character off of Marbury after an encounter he had with him while working as the doorman for a night club, so he has that going for him as well. As a Knicks fan it was hard for me to write something positive about Marbury, but he deserved it.
8- Gordon Malone played in the ABA for the Strong Island Sound. You know who refers to the island I live on as Strong Island? People I can’t stand. Mainly the type of people you see on the Jersey Shore, who are harmless enough when you are seeing them on TV, but a major pain in the ass when attending a bar mostly populated by them.
9- According to Rasho’s wikipedia page, “Rasho has a sister and three children.” This is either a really weird way to phrase things, or just really weird.
10- These seems as good a point as any to note that the Timber Wolves had their first found picks forfeited in 2001, 2002 and 2004 due to salary cap violations in signing Joe Smith. One would think that signing Joe Smith would be enough of a punishment for signing Joe Smith.
11- Wouldn’t it make sense to take a more proven college player than an international question mark project? Not if your name is Kevin McHale.
12- Randy had the rare condition called situs inversus, which means that his organs are all on the opposite side of where they should be.
13- How does one project that career path of Kevin Love as this point in time? He already has a 2nd Team All NBA to his credit, but will he ever be able to sneak onto a 1st when LeBron and Durant are alive at the forward position? Could he be a future Hall of Famer? It’s way too early to tell. In all fairness I will have to split between the 9 points one would receive for a 2nd team All NBA and the 15 for Hall of Fame and give him a 12. If he keeps putting up seasons of 20+ ppg and 13+ rpg, I like to think he’ll get there. Or maybe it’s just that I have a soft spot in my heart for big goofy white kids who can’t jump and can shoot threes.
14- Another tough one to grade. In his first season getting decent playing time last year he averaged 13.9 ppg and 7.4 rpg while only averaging 27 mpg. Per 36 minutes he averaged 18.5 ppg and 9.9 rpg. The man is young, and while there may not be many rebounds to get playing next to Kevin Love, I think he’ll reach one of our standards atleast twice through his career.
