They make moves for the sake of making moves

I think this is what it really comes down to. I mean, taken in isolation, the Telfair trade isn’t awful or crippling or anything like that. The problem is that when you take all of Kahn’s moves and look at them as a cohesive whole, you don’t see a real master plan here. There’s an obvious end goal, given his and the T-Wolves’ words (get Rubio to sign in two or three years), but most of Kahn’s actions over the last year have done relatively little to place the Wolves further towards that end.

I mean, Kahn has done some good things, don’t get me wrong. He has gained a great level of salary flexibility (which is absolutely important and a major asset whether he uses it on free agents or trades or just by saving the owners money), he has acquired a few potential star players in the draft and through a trade (Beasley’s potential as a star may have run out by now, but I’d say he has another year to give it a shot; I’m really not sure that the Wolves are the best team for him to try that with, though), and he made the right move (arguably) in choosing to trade Al Jefferson and keep Kevin Love.

The problem is that the substance underlying those aspects doesn’t look too great: e.g. what he’s doing with that cap space (more Darko!), what he’s doing in the draft, what he got in that Jefferson trade (I mean, fuck, Kosta Koufos and future picks? That’s the best he could get?). At the end of the day, the fact is that the Wolves look worse today than they did three months ago, and their future doesn’t look any brighter. You look at that roster and ask, “What is this roster going to look like in two years?” and it’s going to take a miracle for that team to be much closer to the playoffs.

Contrast that to.what we saw with Presti and the Sonics/Thunder. When he came in, they had a bad team, which he gutted completely. The result was a fantastic level of roster flexibility, regardless of how well they did in the draft. Now, at the time, fans were angry (mostly over the impending move, but also over selling off Ray Allen and everyone else on that team) and plenty of people thought Presti was just preparing the team for the move, but we can see the master plan working in all of his moves. We can see that he was acquiring assets and flexibility, keeping his eyes on the ultimate goal, which is to turn those things into good players.

I don’t see that with Kahn’s moves, nor do most NBA observers and fans. I admit that he could be pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, but we realized what was up with Presti pretty quickly. Nobody can see what’s going on in Kahn’s mind but more floundering moves.

The scariest thing about Kahn, I think, is how much his actions, the analysis of his moves in the press, and the reactions of Wolves fans to that analysis, reminds me of what goes on daily with the Astros and Ed Wade. You see moves that aren’t really bad or anything when viewed in isolation, but which do not show any sort of cohesive plan when viewed together.

Not all good Euros are good for the NBA

I guess I’ve just been spoiled by Scola’s play and forgot about him coming right in. Also, did Anderson actually start any games? He had a lot to adjust to on the fly and didn’t seem to get the option. He was a rental anyway, but still.