# Single Worst Mistake Ever



## luther

What do you think is the single worst mistake the Wolves ever made? Feel free to vote for one of the choices or make up your own answer.


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## Avalanche

The Joe Smith Deal... destroyed the hopes of this team, 4 years without a first rounder is just crippling for a franchise, especially when trying to build towards a championship with Garnett


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## Ruff Draft

Joe Smith, easily.

Cassell for Jaric pissed me off to, but I got over it.


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## luther

There is one other major option I should have listed: hire Kevin McHale and allow him personnel control. However, while that seems like a sure thing--after all, he's responsible for the bulk of the other items on the list--he's also the guy who saw and loved KG enough to take him at #5 in 1995. And that was a gigantic risk that I am not sure anyone else would have been willing to make. After all, Golden State, L.A. Clippers, Philly and Washington saw fit to take Joe Smith, Antonio McDyess, Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace over him, and most of the local media was clamoring for Damon Stoudamire or Ed O'Bannon when McHale took Garnett. So while I should have listed that (hiring McHale) as a choice, I wouldn't vote for it. I vote for ... Joe Smith fiasco.


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## luther

One more thing. As a close second, I think firing Musselman set us back half a decade. He was a hard-***, yes, and he made some players mad. But he also got A LOT out of guys like Tony Campbell, Ty Corbin and Sam Mitchell. Pooh Richardson played near All-Star level under him even while complaining. (Don't believe me? 1990-91, 17 ppg, 9 apg, better than 4:1 A:TO ratio, 47% FG, 38 mpg...mediocre from 3, with just 33%, and awful FT. But very good ball.) The team improved dramatically that second season and things were looking up. Then Muss is fired over *not playing Gerald Glass, who had three good games in a December west-coast swing*, and the team falls fast and far until KG comes along in 1995-96. By this time, our expansion rivals Orlando was in the NBA finals, and we were working through starting PGs of Spudd Webb and Winston Garland, trying to convince ourselves Chuck Person and JR Rider were team leaders and hoping Christian Laettner would bring a winning attitude.


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## JFizzleRaider

What about trading Brandon Roy for Randy Foye? Oops.


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## luther

JFizzleRaider said:


> What about trading Brandon Roy for Randy Foye? Oops.


It's bad, but I don't know if it's as bad as some others. Foye, if he hadn't been hurt, would be producing more than he is. I don't think he's as good as Roy, but it would be a narrower gap between them. (Ironically, it was Roy who came into the league with injury concerns...)


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## Foulzilla

While I'm not a Wolves fan, I hope you don't mind me voting. I personally feel the Smith fiasco is the one. It had a much worse long term effect that the others in my opinion. Not to mention it was all in an attempt to get an average player at best (Admittedly, he was highly thought of at the time so it wasn't as bad as it looks in hindsight).


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## Ruff Draft

Of course a Portland fan will come in here and say the Roy/Foye trade. You're right, Roy is just THAT much better. Give me a break guys.


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## drexlersdad

man i gotta say the cassell for jaric was bad real bad.

didnt you also add a #1? ouch.


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## luther

drexlersdad said:


> man i gotta say the cassell for jaric was bad real bad.
> 
> didnt you also add a #1? ouch.


Yes, L.A. is still going to get a #1 from us. It has been protected based on how badly the Wolves have done so far, but I think it's unprotected next year. However, we get Miami's #1 next year, so hopefully that will even out somewhat. To take the contrary position on that, though, Cassell was going to be terrible for us. He was already causing problems with his dissatisfaction over not getting an extension. He would've been "hurt," whining or both all year long had we kept him. Of course, the problem wasn't so much losing Cassell as taking Jaric for too long and too much. (I actually like Jaric when he's playing with confidence, but his contract terms were ridiculous.)


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## B-Roy

Ruff Draft said:


> Of course a Portland fan will come in here and say the Roy/Foye trade. You're right, Roy is just THAT much better. Give me a break guys.


Definately not worse than the Joe Smith fiasco though......


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## Blue

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## luther

Blue Magic said:


> . Allen and KG couldve been reunited 10 years earlier except for it would've been for the TWolves. Instead, we got that punk clown Marbury who left at his 1st oppurtunity....what could've been :no:


That wouldn't have been a reunion, though, would it? First time playing together is a union, not a reunion. ... Anyway, I don't know if that was such a mistake. We had no point guard. Michael Williams played one--ONE--game the year before that draft. Winston Garland, Chris Smith and Darrick Martin got the majority of the minutes. And here comes Marbury, a phenomenal talent with whom KG already had a tremendous rapport. And what did he do? Only bring exactly what the Wolves needed, a confident, drive-and-dish PG who could also take and make the last shot. He and KG were perfect together. There was no way to know he'd so quickly decide he had to be "the man" and that his style of play would deteriorate into a selfish, dribble-happy, shot-happy style. If we'd have had Ray Allen instead, how different would that have been than Doug West and JR Rider? Talented, capable scorers on a team without anyone to facilitate.


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## luther

^ On that subject, it's also noteworthy that we got Terrell Brandon out of the deal, who played at a very high level while he was here. I mean, more than 3:1 a:to ratio is nothing to sneeze at. True, he was more a jump-shooter than we would've liked, but he was far above average as far as starting PGs go. So it's not like we were left empty-handed when Steph left.


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## Blue

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## Redeemed

I'd say trading KG was a bad decision, you could have went the Boston direction and traded your young guys for veterans, i'm sure #7 and Foye could have gotten you Allen (with fillers like Ratliff), and then trade for a couple of other veterans to try to make a push. Problem is though that in the tough west where would Allen and KG get you? Could you have gotten another allstar talent?


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## Avalanche

Apparently we turned down a Foye/Pick deal for iverson while KG was here... thats a huge one IMO, although never 'officially' confirmed


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## luther

DienerTime said:


> I'd say trading KG was a bad decision, you could have went the Boston direction and traded your young guys for veterans, i'm sure #7 and Foye could have gotten you Allen (with fillers like Ratliff), and then trade for a couple of other veterans to try to make a push. Problem is though that in the tough west where would Allen and KG get you? Could you have gotten another allstar talent?


I disagree whole-heartedly. I think that would have been a terrible mistake unless it would have been a sure-fire winner. Yes, the Iverson rumors were curious, but something like Ray Allen? Forget it. We'd have needed a lot more to challenge in the West. I think moving KG was the right thing to do, a rare good decision for the McHale regime.


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## mediocre man

The Joe Smith fiasco is the winner here I think 


And for the guy who mocked how much better Brandon Roy is than Randy Foye, Yes.....he really is THAT much better. Right now anyway.


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## Smithian

DienerTime said:


> I'd say trading KG was a bad decision, you could have went the Boston direction and traded your young guys for veterans, i'm sure #7 and Foye could have gotten you Allen (with fillers like Ratliff), and then trade for a couple of other veterans to try to make a push. Problem is though that in the tough west where would Allen and KG get you? Could you have gotten another allstar talent?


First, you have to weight like three months or something before you can trade a player you just aquired through trade or FA.

Second, that was a good trade for Minnesota. They got a young player in Al Jefferson who will challenge to be a superstar his whole career and they also got some other pieces.


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## Blue

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## DaBabyBullz

Clearly it's McHale. The worst GM in the history of the NBA, along with Isiah Thomas of course. But the Joe Smith fiasco got my vote. Another one would be the failure to move Garnett earlier, so they would've gotten more return out of the deal. If the Wolves weren't going to do anything with him, they should've traded him, and gotten more than (essentially) just Al Jefferson out of the deal. When I lived in the Twin Cities 3 years ago, I worked with a guy whose family friend was a part owner of the Wolves, and that minority owner and other minority owners, wanted to trade Garnett back then but the morons with the final say wouldn't go for it. The whole franchise is a joke really, pretty much always has been. 

I do, however, wish I'd known Spuddzy was a T-Wolf at one time. I loved him in Atlanta, and never knew he was with the Wolves.


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## luther

DaBabyBullz said:


> I do, however, wish I'd known Spuddzy was a T-Wolf at one time. I loved him in Atlanta, and never knew he was with the Wolves.


Yep. I think he came in the Laettner trade. We had a terrible PG situation and he did OK for us, like 9 ppg and 5.6 apg.


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## DaBabyBullz

Man, the Wolves would've been worth tuning in to had I known that, although 99% of my time I had was spent watching the Bulls back in that era (still is lol). Was he still a high flyer at that point? The first NBA game I ever watched was the Hawks, and Dominique stole the ball and got the outlet on the fast break to Spud, who went up for the dunk but just finger rolled it instead. The very next possession, Nique stole the ball again, and this time Spuddz tomahawked it. I was hooked ever since, till I found Jordan and the Bulls of course. (I was only 11 years old or so lol) I tried watching the Wolves a few times throughout the years, but they never had a single player that really appealed to me, ever. KG = no appeal at all.


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## luther

Nah, that was a TERRIBLE era for the Wolves, although that was just when it was beginning to improve (KG having been a rookie that year). It was just a disaster in those years with Rider, West, Laettner and Person basically as the go-to players. Just awful. Depressing. Directionless. Webb was already in his lower to mid-30s by the time he was here. I have a lot of great memories of Spudd, too, though. My first favorite team--before the Wolves existed--was Atlanta. Webb, Rivers, Dominique, Willis, Malone, Wittman, Long, Augmon, Volkov, Rollins and any number of other interesting players and exciting years.


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## BlazerFan22

I went with with the Joe Smith fiasco. However another large mistake that was made was signing KG to that enormous contract in the first place. He's a great player and all but basketball isen't a one man gig.


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## silverpaw1786

Anyone who says trading Roy for Foye is either clinically deranged or a Blazers homer (most of their fans are. trust me, i live in portland 9 months out of the year)


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## sheefo13

I am going to say drafting Ndudi Ebi over Josh Howard. Howard wouldve been that missing piece that would have pushed us passed the lakers in 03-04... His defense would have for sure slowed down Kobe and Kareem Rush would not of had those like 5 threes in our last game that year. I say thats our biggest mistake because that was the closest we have ever been to winning it all... And we could have actually used Howard playing instead of Hassell or better yet make up for the wasted bench space by Ebi.


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## Avalanche

Ebi was definately a horrible pick


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## DaBabyBullz

luther said:


> Nah, that was a TERRIBLE era for the Wolves, although that was just when it was beginning to improve (KG having been a rookie that year). It was just a disaster in those years with Rider, West, Laettner and Person basically as the go-to players. Just awful. Depressing. Directionless. Webb was already in his lower to mid-30s by the time he was here. I have a lot of great memories of Spudd, too, though. My first favorite team--before the Wolves existed--was Atlanta. Webb, Rivers, Dominique, Willis, Malone, Wittman, Long, Augmon, Volkov, Rollins and any number of other interesting players and exciting years.


Yep, I remember that team quite well, though I couldn't have listed off half the dudes you just did lol. I was treated to a game between my 2 favorite teams of all-time on ESPN-Classic a few months ago though. Around 1989 or so, Hawks-Bulls. I believe it's still on the TEVO, though I haven't quite gotten around to recording it onto a tape to keep lol. Just awesome seeing REAL basketball again! 3 of the all-time great dunkers in Jordan, 'Nique and Spuddzy, (those 3 are probably my 3 all-time favorite players as well) along with Pippen, Grant, etc. Those are really the only 2 teams I've always liked in the NBA, along with (to a lesser extent) the Blazers in the Drexler and Rasheed eras, the Rockets with Olujuwan, Horry, Thorpe, Kenny Smith & Mad-Max, and the Spurs with David Robinson, Sean Elliot, etc.


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## OdenRoyLMA2

silverpaw1786 said:


> Anyone who says trading Roy for Foye is either clinically deranged or a Blazers homer (most of their fans are. trust me, i live in portland 9 months out of the year)


You could classify fans of just about every team as 'homers'. It's not fair to single out a fanbase like that.


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## Avalanche

Honestly though i think the gap between Foye and Roy is going to shock a lot of people this season... and i mean that as a positive to foye, not the contrary


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## JuX

I want to say all, but the Joe Smith situation was the most impactful. I think many of you posters has already explained the reasonings behind this. 

That's among 7238947892374 reasons why I'll never forgive you, Mr. McHale.


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## The Solution

At 1 would be the Joe smith incident.

At 2 would be trading Ray Allen for Stephon Marbury

At 3 would be trading Brandon Roy for Randy Foye


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## Mateo

I don't think the Smith fiasco was the worst. Bad, but not the worst. You have to remember that our management is poor in the draft. So we would have wasted the picks anyways.

Worst was trading KG. He should have retired with the Wolves. Even winning a championship his first thought was Minnesota. He's a Wolf, no matter what jersey he wears.


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## Avalanche

The Joe Smith thing made it impossible to put a team around Garnett capable of winning though, they had no choice because they had already crippled the team


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## luther

(Mostly just to be a devil's advocate here, but) Firing Muss may have been worse than the others just because it led to the environment in which a lot of those moves happened. I believe Muss was the best coach the Wolves ever had, and they would have continued their dramatic improvements with him. Best of all, they were still bad enough to be a lottery team, and so would have had decent infusions of talent with which he could have worked. He always got great results out of his under-talented teams. We could have avoided all the ills that came with McHale by never having had need of him. (Downside, McHale is the guy who brought in KG, and a better Wolves team a) may not have had the chance, if it were good enough, and b) may not have recognized he was worth that pick)


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## Mateo

Avalanche said:


> The Joe Smith thing made it impossible to put a team around Garnett capable of winning though, they had no choice because they had already crippled the team


But they would have failed to put a team around him anyways. Look at our draft record since the Smith penalty ended. No stars, really no one that could start on a championship caliber team. Heck, our first pick of the post-Smith era was Ndudi Ebi, where is he these days?


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## someone

Can someone briefly explain the joe smith fiasco?


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## Avalanche

True.. but they did pick Ray Allen/Murbury and KG with higher picks, during that time surely they would have made at least one good pick, or at least been able to trade them for decent players


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## luther

liekomgj4ck said:


> Can someone briefly explain the joe smith fiasco?


Basically, they convinced Joe Smith to sign for a short, small-dollar contract--well below his market value--with the promise to use the resulting "Bird rights" to re-sign him to subsequent, larger deal(s? It may have been a promise for successive, larger ones ... I forget the details). This was and is against the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Someone--I believe a rival agent--told the NBA, and David Stern let down the heavy hand, taking away five consecutive first rounders (although he gave back one or two) and suspending Kevin McHale for a year. It was a pretty awful scenario even when people thought Smith was the star-type low-post scorer and defensive complement to KG, but he turned out to be more of a solid role player, and obviously nowhere near that kind of penalty.


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## Avalanche

still a huge price to pay, and i always thought a little over-board


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## luther

I understand it, though. And part of it was, that practice was rampant from the mid-90s onward, but nobody could prove it, even though everyone knew. I mean, I was a ****ing teenager, and I knew! How? Beat writers wrote about it! It was "wink wink" as Danny Manning or even Chris Dudley would sign a one-year deal for the minimum...and then get a big extension. Portland and Phoenix are the two teams I recall blatantly abusing it. So once Stern had proof, he had to make it clear that it would not be tolerated anymore.


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## Avalanche

yeah true... just sucked being the scapegoat lol


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## luther

Avalanche said:


> yeah true... just sucked being the scapegoat lol


Blame the idiots who put an illegal, under-the-table agreement ON TOP OF the table, in writing!


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## Dean the Master

A bunch of horrible picks. Some bad trades. Stupid management moves. 

Wolves really need to turn it around.


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## Smithian

luther said:


> Blame the idiots who put an illegal, under-the-table agreement ON TOP OF the table, in writing!


Explain that part.


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## Avalanche

luther said:


> Blame the idiots who put an illegal, under-the-table agreement ON TOP OF the table, in writing!


i do already lol


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## luther

Smithian said:


> Explain that part.


Nothing much to explain, it's just what I said: they made an agreement that is against league rules, as many teams were almost certainly doing "under the table." The Wolves, however, put it in writing. And they got caught. That's what the proof was that allowed Stern to take away the picks and suspend McHale.


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