Here are some of the topics I found surfing the last few days, and my comments on them:
First off, FreeDarko has this post on Kevin Garnett, Kevin McHale, and the T-Wolves. Some great points made, including that Kevin Garnett needs to stop "passive-aggressively" asking for a trade (see the various quotes in the media cited in that post). I agreed with this totally: Kevin Garnett has a huge say, possibly more than any other player in the league (though LBJ probably does, too), in how his team is managed and what moves they make. Therefore Kevin Garnett needs to man up, and say "Yeah, I'm happy here, I enjoy having a huge say in the decision-making", or he needs to say "I want out". No having it both ways, KG.
The other problem is the general manager, Kevin McHale. I did my ranking of the East Conference GMs last week, from bottom to top. If I did the same thing for the West, or for the NBA in general, I think Kevin McHale would be at the bottom of the list. In fact I'm sure. Worse than Ainge, King, Thomas, Baylor, et al. His litany of recent mistakes is long and well-documented, but here are some of the biggest ones:
-The Joe Smith debacle. That cost the franchise its 2001, 2002, 2003,2004, and 2005 number one draft choice. Hard to build a team when you can't even pick in the draft. Its not fair to blame McHale for an organization decision that backfired like that, but as the chief executive of personel, it is his responsibility to not have allowed the franchise to get into a situation like that.
-Trading Sam Cassell, and a #1, for Marko Jaric. You know, when people criticize Isiah for whatever trade (Marbury, Francis, Curry), just remind them what a truly horrible trade looks like.
And why did he trade his sixth overall pick for the seventh pick in the last draft? To save some money? Don't think so - more likely he picked the wrong player.
Anyway, McHale aside, here's the deal with KG. He wants to win, we all know that. But he wants to win his way. If he wanted Allen Iverson, who was available earlier this season, on his team, he would have AI on his team. Simple as that. No one in Minnesota is saying "no" to KG, in any shape or form. Even if it would have cost the T-Wolves rookie Randy Foye, they would have done it if KG told them to.
Therefore we can infer that Kevin Garnett didn't want AI on his team. He wants a sidekick; AI is nobody's sidekick - he is a star equal to KG. KG wants a true sidekick, someone that will help him win but won't take away his top dog status. It's not even an ego thing, it is more like "this is my team, and I want to keep that way, I don't want to completely change what we are doing. I just want to tweak it"....
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Randy Foye has to be more desirable to Philly than Andre Miller. And Minnesota's #1 is just as nice as Denver's (probably around the same pick).
Minny lacks the salary cap fodder for this season (ironically enough, Denver used Joe Smith for that), but since Philly isn't making it under the cap next season anyway (or just barely), they could have taken on '08 expiring contracts, like Ricky Davis.
Ricky Davis + Randy Foye + #1 pick > Denver's package, no?
Or they could have gotten a third team involved. Point is, if they wanted to get it done, they could have gotten it done. It's not like Philly was looking to get the best deal... they moved AI on the cheap.
Minnesota doesn't have a first round pick this year. Maybe they could've gotten a third team involved, but there was no way the Sixers were doing this deal without getting at least one first rounder and an expiring contract back. And what would that third team have gotten out of the deal?
I think Minnesota is where Iverson wanted to go, and I know the Sixers wanted Foye, but there was no way for it to work out. The Sixers got the best deal out there, two #1's, an expiring contract and a starting PG.
The T-Wolves didn't have the pieces to pull of a trade for A.I. Even if Garnett wanted it done, it just wasn't going to happen.