See if this link works, this sulia stuff is weird especially from mobile. Didn't see it posted. Link EDIT by Admin: Included the comments from Bucher...
Bucher is an idiot. The wolves have been bad for a while, while we have never been bad. We never had a top 10 pick of our own since the Rudy Gay trade where Kahn has had multiple. The wolve's best player was someone McHale drafted. We also have max cap room to add a player this coming season, and have enough capspace and assets to trade for a near max player this season. We had 3 first round draft picks and we swung for the fences with White. So far have a count of 0-1 but we still have a few more pitches to swing at with White.
I agree with Bucher on this. Morey has managed to acquire "assets" pretty well. But he has not really had amazing draft success. Hindsight is always 20-20, but clearly he's not Jerry West. Morey has a philosophy but I think that philosophy at times puts the numbers ahead of talent. And with the Royce White pick...I don't know why you gamble on someone with mental health issues at their age. Just seems to me that the NBA is no place for a young kid with those sorts of problems. He needs to deal with that first. Morey has his good points as a GM. He takes risks, he makes a lot of good decisions. But he's not above criticism by any means.
Bummer... was working on a Morey thread that had this in there, but it can wait. Here's the text of Bucher's comments, broken into paragraphs so it's actually readable.
I like how he says that we've been in the lotto for 3 years JUST LIKE Minnesota. The #14 is not the real "lottery" to me. To me the lotto is a real chance at landing the #1 pick. We've been over .500 for the past 3 years, and Morey has shown he can find talent in places that people can't. That's whats valuable about him. I also like that he takes risks. The best traders are the one who make their money by betting against the general opinion, going against what everyone believes to be right. Rubio was a safe pick IMO. The kid has been in the lotto since he was 12 years old.
Seriously? Do we really need to have this conversation? How many lottery picks are in the Wolves' roster? Let's see, there's Love, Derrick Williams, Wesley Johnson, Rubio, and then Johnny Flynn (who was no longer in the team). How many top 5 are in the Rox roster? Well there's harden(who was traded for)....and that's about it. And yet the Rox have a better record, better talent and have more young players and assets to trade. Not only that, Kahn started his reign with Al Jefferson, Love and 2 top 5 lottery picks. Morey started out with Yao, Tmac, and trash you couldn't even trade away. Anyway, to be fair to Kahn he's not even that bad. People made fun of him for getting 2 pgs, but he made the correct move, he got the BPAs regardless of position. Of course, he was wrong in the evaluation of BPAs, but at least the move was correct in theory. In our most recent matchup, it wasn't Pek and Love who carried the team (mchale picks), it was Rubio, AK47, Sved and Barrea, and all those guys were plucked by Kahn. Barrea was let go by the "amazing" Dallas FO for Ricky bubwa (or whatever his name was), they sure could have used him this season. There's one thing both of them have in common though, DM and Kahn both started out raw as GMs and then gradually improved over the years. That's more than I can say for other personnel out there.
How many terrible draft picks has he had? How many NBA players has he found in the second round or late first round. You can criticize Morey all you want but he's probably only San Antonio in terms of talent evaluation and the draft.
Just delete this thread then and itd be like it never happened.... Also, more from Ric in the comments:
So according to Bucher, Morey is on the same level as the guy who kept Jonny Flynn over Ty Lawson, has had multiple top 10 draft picks that turned out to be Wes Johnson, Derrick Williams, and Ricky Rubio (this pick panned out), and the guy that refused to give Kevin Love his max contract? Nice work, Puker.
This has to be a joke, right? During the time Morey had been the Rockets GM, Kahn has drafted Wesley Johnson #4 Johnny Flynn #6 Rubio #5 Derrick Williams #2 Chase Budinger #18(via trade) Give Morey 4 top-6 picks instead of two albatross contracts from 2 injured superstars and let's see how he does.
Sure, but Morey has a better batting average in his moves, working without the benefit if high draft picks, than Kahn has. While Morey was pulling rotation guys Brooks, Landry, Budinger, Parsons, Patterson and Morris (this year's rookies are too early to tell) out of the middle and later parts of the draft, Kahn used the 4th and 6th picks on Wesley Johnson and Jonny Flynn. Derrick Williams, 2nd overall pick, also hasn't looked very good, but it is relatively early for him still (but not that early). There is really no doubt whose record is better.
I am not sure how you can argue that he has not had amazing draft success... The guy has been a great drafter. Any draft pick outside of the top 10 is typically a crap shoot, thus I feel Morey has done a great job drafting. We are talking about a guy who has drafted the following players: - Aaron Brooks (served us well as a 20/5 player) - Nicolas Batum (not really for us, so doesn't really count) - Jermaine Taylor (late first rounder who showed flashes) - Chase Budinger (2nd rounder who is a very good backup role players) - Marcus Morris (late lottery pick that has been pretty good for us so far) - Nikola Mirotic (late first rounder who was flipped) - Chandler Parsons (diamond in the rough 2nd rounder) - Jeremy Lamb (late first rounder who will probably be a very good scorer) - Royce White (only real miss, but Morey was swinging for the fences) - Terrance Jones (another late rounder that shows promise) I don't understand how you can argue that Morey has not done a great job drafting, considering we have never had great draft picks. If we consider his draft spots and how the players have panned out, I would argue that he has done an incredible job thus far of finding useful players where teams find trash more often than not, especially in the 2nd round.
This article is ridiculous and it's been bashed in the comments. Lin/Asik/Harden along with Parson and a bunch of solid role-players have far more upside than Timberwolves. We're currently at 16-12 while the Wolves are 13-13. We're on a 5 game winning stream with only the Heat and Clippers being better. We're on big name trade away from contending while the Wolves are probably going to be stuck in mediocrity for years to come. Oh and good luck untangling from the Love max-deal fiasco.
