No Gay Love in Memphis
In a bad contract trading frenzy, Memphis traded no 5 pick Kevin Love and Mike Miller plus some filler to Minnesota for no 3 pick OJ Mayo. Out of the 6 contracts traded, 4 were of the bad type. I really don’t remember any trade involving as many bad contracts, but considering who was doing the trading, this isn’t really a surprise.
As for the trade itself, it’s hard to pick a winner between Kevin McHale and Chris Wallace. The Wolves did one good thing: they got Mike Miller. But I can’t agree with John Hollinger on this one (he thinks the Wolves won the trade). I don’t think it was worth sending Mayo for Love, especially since by the trade deadline they’ll be trading Miller to a contender for an expiring and a late 1st round or 2nd round pick. Well, unless someone offers McHale a trully horible contract or 2 that he can’t resist in exchange for Mike Miller. Perhaps something like Jerome James and Jared Jeffries.
I may be biased against undersized not-so-athletic white PF, but historically, who’s the last 6′10 white PF who was worth a high draft pick ? Actually Love ain’t even 6′10. He’s 6′7.75″ without shoes and barely 6′9.5″ with some big ass shoes. So let me rephrase that. Who’s the last 6′8 white PF who was worth a high draft pick ? All the white PF/C who are any good are at least 6′11: Bogut, Biedrins, Bargnani (assuming he stops sucking soon), Kaman. The closest thing I can think of is Nick Collison, but he has a full inch over Love, better wingspan and better standing reach. Considering Collison in his best season so far produced 9.8 ppg and 9.4 reb, I don’t think that’s worth a no 5 pick.
There’s one other thing that makes me no tlike this trade for the Wolves. Here’s a quote from Hollinger himself:
Obviously the Jefferson-Love combo raises some concerns at the defensive end, since neither is especially tall or moves well laterally, but offensively they could be devastating.
This sounds familiar. Now where did I hear these same words ? Oh, right, here:
Additionally, Randolph is a slowfooted, lethargic defender. Pairing him with Curry — another slowfooted, lethargic defender — raises some obvious red flags, particularly since the Knicks defended poorly a year ago. Combining the two would create what is almost certainly the worst defensive frontcourt in basketball.
The trade may not be completed for a few days, but despite my reservations about Randolph’s defense, demeanor and salary, it has to be considered a huge coup for New York.
We all know how that “coup” turned out. Everybody was raving about how 2 low post scorers are better than one, but they’d have been better off searching the word “redundant” in the dictionary.
There is a saying about how if you don’t learn from past mistakes you’re doomed to repeat them, and looks like Kevin McHale didn’t learn shit from any of his past mistakes. And there were lots of them. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he offered Kwame Brown the MLE this summer.
