I Dislike Your Favorite Team

As I have noted, Jim Souhan is a crazy vacillator.  He can go from "This Team Is Bad But Young, So Be Patient" to "Holy Shit, This Team is Terrible" in just a few days.  It should be no surprise, I guess, to see him further morph into "Blow Up This Franchise and Start Again (Again)" in just a couple of weeks time.  But he's stupid to suggest it.

Last year, the Timberwolves finished with 15 wins.  They have 13 now.  That suggests improvement to me, though I clearly don't know as much about basketball as Jim Souhan does. Will the Wolves win at least 3 more games this year?  It seems likely.

Souhan is full-on pissy after the loss to the Clippers right before the All-Star break: "In the enervating annals of Wolvesdom, we have suffered the Ebis and Averys of outrageous fortune, we have gagged on East Bay Funk and choked on that bitter candy known as Starbury, and yet today, your Minnesota Timberwolves might be the worst they've ever been."

Sorry, Jimmy Souhan, but that's a ridiculous proposition.  They were obviously worse last year.  They were probably even worse the year before.  And in terms of being actually competitive, they were maybe never worse than Garnett's last year before we finally traded him away, and gave him a chance to win somewhere else.  Or maybe Souhan reflects lovingly on the years of Masturbating, Suicidal Big Men and Ricky Davis.

The idea that this team, the youngest team in the NBA, is the worst team in the history of the Wolves is laughably stupid.  Souhan is a reactionary idiot, as I've shown a number of times.

And thus, his solutions are predictably stupid:

#1. Fire the owner.  I actually don't hate this idea, as dumb as it is.  But it's a solid decade too late.  And impossible.  Glen Taylor really, really fucked the franchise when he pushed to resign Joe Smith in violation of NBA rules, and the Wolves lost draft picks in the process.  That's when it was time to fire Glen Taylor.  Now?  He seems like he has a pretty solid management team that knows what it takes to get competitive in the NBA after years of crappy McHale managing.

#2. Fire the GM.  This is a stupid, stupid idea.  Around the league, forever, they've been mocking Kahn, but you know what?  He got two first round picks for Al Jefferson.  He held onto KLOVE, who is only putting together an offensive season that hasn't been seen in 30 years. He got Michael Beasley for nothing.  He picked up Martell Webster; he signed Darko Milicic to a deal that still seems pretty cheap to me.  He drafted Wesley Johnson.  But what does Souhan say about all of those canny moves?   "David Kahn's arrogance prompted him to run his first draft before hiring a coach and, presumably, without consulting anyone who knows anything about basketball. He is the boss who implements 100 bad ideas, knowing that if he lucks out with one innovation, he can build his entire reputation around it while the 99 failures are forgotten."

I'd love to have Souhan explain in detail all the bad moves that Kahn has made.  For all the talk about the bad drafts that Kahn had, he drafted guards and a great small forward. I, for one, like Jonny Flynn and Wes Johnson and Wayne Ellington.

#3 Fire Rambis.  So says Souhan.  "We have reached this unimaginable juncture: Taylor has made us miss McHale. As a coach, McHale could have been great if he had wanted to be. Missing McHale as a GM is like missing eczema."

I couldn't disagree more, and the idea that Souhan thinks that is indisputable makes me think that he might be mildly retarded.  No one misses McHale, except for those of us who remember him, fondly on the radio with a young Kevin Harlan.

The Timberwolves are the youngest team in the league; they have KLOVE and Michael Beasley.  Those are tent poles, and Kahn positioned the team to hold on to KLOVE and get Beasley.  They have drafted great young talent in Wes Johnson, Jonny Flynn, and Wayne Ellington.  They haven't yet traded away defensive badass Corey Brewer.  They have a ton of draft picks, still.  Pissing on the youngest team in the NBA, halfway through their reclamation project is stupid.  But if Jim Souhan is one thing, it is fucking stupid.  No offense, Jim!