Presti, Kahn, Hinkie, Prosas, Presti

And I did like he took fliers on a lot of dudes, swapping Sessions, Hollins, Webster, with guys like Koufos, Ridnour, Barea, and Budinger.

The tools to do that were different but it’s the same idea as this non NBA two way contracts. I believe then it was more common to pluck guys in G league and potentially sign to multiple ten days or possibly the remainder of the season.

The way Rubio’s draft was covered, specifically that he was never coming, and it made no sense to take a point guard that could step in right a way given the wait for Rubio, in what was expected to be a bad draft beyond the PG position was alway bunk because that’s a perfectly reasonable strategy.

Being outside the league’s club of bro’s did not help, but had they received coverage more like oh, it’s kind of a weird interesting thing Minnesota’s doing, or just been ignored it would have been allowed to grow more organically.

Wes, Ellington were ten year players. Flynn likely would have been.

If your defining hit no DK did not draft Edwards or KD.

Batum was a solid target if we had to keep Love, and while I think he saw appeal to pair with Love and Rubio he preferred to stay as many players do after that rookie contract. If nothing else maybe helps Batum get more out of Portland.

It was not illegal, unless it’s like a Portland blog that said it made us feel bad he had another offer. I’ve been watching a lot of that Portlandia doc lately so I assume it’s accurate. Any other gm making a play for Batum is considered a smart, savy move, even if it’s unlikely he leaves, especially to a rival, and he backs that up with Kirilenko. I mean, that is air tight gm-ing.

I def don't love everything Kahn did, and there's a lot I learned about team building during this era.  I don't love they never built the team with Rubio in mind meaning center, and stud perimeter scorer oppose to anchoring everything around a stretch four.

He was under the gun in a way that made no sense.  It is because Woj and Simmons convinced Love and fans they had no plan despite Presti just doing this 07' to 09' and it was barely covered other than the occasional what a genius article.  Presti is the one that dubbed it the process, Hinkie took it from that.  It was not new.  Because guys like Rosas, Hinkie were approved by the NBA intellectual dark web, Wolves fans assumed they were good.  The reality is the difference is who was there, when they drafted, and in Rosas case he had a decade of the Built to Lose era to get Towns on board, and did not have media telling Wolves we were all dummies for tanking to get Ball, or Ant. 

Obviously it was a new era of team building, and while I didn't really know how it would be the new norm, I thought it was very interesting, and practical team building.  Fans have it so wrong because of the outsized influence of two early internet trolls.

Up to Towns, this team never had a #1 overall pick. The best they had was a #2 they used on Williams (hailed as the second coming of Stoudemire at the time), a #3 they used on Mayo and traded that same night for #5 Love (skip over Laettner at #3, not worth talking about), and a #5 that eventually turned into MVP KG. Actually #5 was the best chance of building this team had over the years: Rubio, Ray Allen, JR Rider join the two Kevins as the #5 picks. Of course they traded for #1s with the one that has a worse drafting record than theirs: they took Bennett and Wiggins from CLE!
All that being said, making the playoffs for as many years as they did in a Western conference featuring the Malone/Stockton UTA, Duncan/Robinson SAS, Kobe/Shaq LAL and a scary litany of other good teams with much better opportunities (SAC, DAL, HOU, SEA, POR) is to be regarded as a big achievement under the circumstances.
As far as Kahn goes, I would argue that MIN would have been better off keeping McHale over that period of time. The best player Kahn had (Love) was drafted by McHale! All Kahn (and his hired coach, Rambis) did was to antagonize him o the point where he asked to be traded. And Kahn had much better drafting opportunities than McHale ever did. Seriously, Kahn's name should never be used in association with the NBA GM notion!

I agree that Roy could have changed the direction of the franchise. But here’s another one. What if Rosas had not traded Saric to move up in the draft and they picked A good player instead of Culver. Having 2 decent players instead of a bust would have won them more games and probably pushed them out of #1 2020 pick. So they wouldn’t have got Ant! So thank you Gersson for your stupid trade and lack of big men on the roster that year!

McHale drafted Craig Smith because “oddities are good in the NBA.”

McHale would have been A LOT different because he would not have opted for the modern reset/tank stuff. Instead would have tried to add pieces to Foye, Love, Miller and McCants.

McHale and whoever was in that room absolutely could not draft anybody.

Biggest issue with Love is that he was the best player on a bad team....which raised his importance to our team more than it probably should have been.  He is/was NOT the best player on a team that did anything in the playoffs.   Just another instance of us not being able to surround a good player with "better" players.

I understand those media dudes are your heroes, but the truth about that era is this was our built to lose team, and by year three Kahn had assembled a very fun, young, talented roster, with flexibility to add a potential stud wing, which is what he was trying to do.  The difference between the gm's you revere, and Kahn is your boys, and the 2010, and 2011 drafts being historically weak at the top of the draft compared to 07, and 08.  Truly if Porland took KD, Presti is taking Oden and this is an entirely different history.

2007-08 Seattle drafts KD, they assemble a roster similar to year one of Kahn, tank for Westbrook.  In 08-09 they won 23 games.  Surprisingly never received any heat for, this tank a third season and landed James Harden.  None of which was covered as if they were tanking.  The little reporting that happened was a couple articles on ESPN and NY Times about what a great plan this was.

So how then does Kahn get covered so drastically differently?  It turns out hell hath no furry like a scorned Bristol man.  Imagine if instead of Derrick Williams Wolves land the number two pick and are adding soon to be goat Anthony Edwards?  This is largely the difference.

Adelman's second year is a nightmare, they blow up their entire process to maximize Love, who of course signs his four year max, breaks his hand, lies about breaking his hand, and then follows that up with the Woj interview, either to get ahead of it, and or pave the way for his presumably west coast exit (def seems like Schwartz was one of the guys who had Woj in his pocket).  Rubio's coming back from a knee injury, Love played 18 games that year, the rest of the roster is effectively what this past December January was with covid for so many teams, guys in an out all season long.  Pek played 62, Rubio 57, Mickael Gelabale started 13 games, Malcolm Lee 12, Greg Stiemsma 19.  Chase Budinger who was brought in to replace the oft injured Martell Webster gave us 23 games.  This was all due to injuries, oh, and Adelman's wife was in and out of the hospital with seizsures.  All of which was just presented as Wolves suck.

If you were a Wolves fan at the time, it was clear they weren't going to win given the circumstances, and it shouldn't have been that big of a deal.  The problem is national media didn't cover as such.  Truly the more I think about it, it's so, so similar to how like Rush Limbaugh fans experience the Obama years.

I get why you don't appreciate what was going on, but unless you acknowledge what year one and two were in terms of the built to lose stuff, and the 2012-13 season it's sort of like debating whether or not Clintons are serial murders with a Rush fan.  And definite parallels to the rise of talk radio in the late 80's and 90's to the 2010's NBA rumor mill in terms of it's impact on what that team was doing.

Kahn was in so far over his head, he couldn't tell which way was up.

It's not his fault he was offered a job he was completely and utterly unqualified for.

I don't know where those guys in particular would have had them, but my point is they were mostly in line with the consensus in terms of around where they were drafted.  Flynn (had he stayed healthy), Ellington, and Johnson were all very reasonable, even if they would have preferred Harden or Favors respectively.

The Williams thing is a bummer, but the only trade seemed to have any real traction was Suns for Gortat, who in hindsight with Pek's injuries would have been great, and far and away Rubio's best screening big here.

The Carter Williams trade amounted to nothing.  The amazing thing about Hinkie is several of the dudes he drafted couldn't play for two years no one seemed to care.  Saric was sold as an asset, oppose to how Bjelica, let alone Rubio was covered..  The reason why he was given more runway is because Woj, Lowe, and Morey gave him the hype to do it.  Same reason fans here thought Prosas was finally doing it right.  It's a miracle that Embiid has been relatively healthy over that time, but it was really down to Wiggins or Embiid that year.  Hinkie didn't have some advanced form of drafting that Kahn didn't, it was simply where the draft fell.  Same with Noel, Okafor, and Carter-Williams.

Kahn clearly had no issues parting with guys he drafted, or signed, it's the same thing all these other teams were doing, but without the benefit of favorable press, and being such an extreme new form of team building way ahead of where Minnesota fans were at the time.

I personally do not like the tanking asset collecting era, but that's because I want to watch basketball games where both teams are attempting to win.  I think it was bad for the sport overall and it seems like the league is at least aware of it, if not full on addressing it today, but things like that season cup, and the play-in, are all gimmicks to hopefully eliminate some of the tanking and load management that's just part of the league now.  None of which would be better than shortening the regular season.

You mean like Ainge, Rosas, Morey, Hinkie, Woj, Simmons?

And we all do.

Did he think it was down?

His only mistake was not moving to Oklahoma during that first year.  Or having a global pandemic where fans couldn't pay to watch games in person.