My Plan to Rebuild the Minny C’s

I could never do what Minnesota Timberwolves GM Kevin McHale did on the court, but I know I could do a better job building a team. 

Seeing as I’m a Celtics fan, rooting for the Minny C’s, otherwise known as the Minnesota Timberwolves, comes naturally; one might even call it required.  So, since Kevin McHale has proven time and again that he’s not the man for the job, I’m going to draw up my own plan to rebuild this once proud franchise in 7 steps (OK, maybe not ”once proud” but possibly proud in the future).

1. First and most important job: identify the players on the team capable of being core members of a quality team.  In order to do this, you need to play the kids (only Al Jefferson has proven he is that type of player at this point).  Here is my starting line-up and rotation, which would be subject to alteration when deserved, but would never be whimsical or based on game-to-game match-ups:

Put Randy Foye at the point, Rashad McCants at the two, Corey Brewer at the three, and Big Al Jefferson and Craig Smith at the 4/5.  Make Marko Jaric, Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, and Chris Richard first off the bench nightly in order to increase their value for trade purposes or see if they can help in the future (Jaric is purely for trade purposes).  Give Antoine Walker minutes occasionally because he competes, which sets a good example for the kids; the same goes for Ratliff.

2. Next, make a realistic time-table and formulate a plan based on it–be patient, this will take years to complete.  The earliest the T-Wolves can hope to contend for a play-off spot would be in two to three years.  This means making moves to clear cap space with 2010 and beyond in mind.

3. Hire a coaching staff that complements the team you are building–in this case one that runs, runs, runs.  Mike D’Antoni in two years once he grows tired of Steve Kerr and leaves Phoenix?  He would certainly be a target under my watch.  Until then hire someone with a rapport with younger players and knows how to teach the game.  I can’t give you a specific name, but that’s what the interview process is for anyways.

4. Talk to all desperate teams and look to fleece them in some way.  Trading Jaric would be great, as would trading Antoine Walker.  Aim to pick up cap space in a few years in any trade.  Look to pick up draft picks in every deal if possible. 

I would specifically target the disgruntled Stephon Marbury’s contract.  If you can acquire him you then consider buying him out or holding on to him until the summer when his contract has some value as an expiring deal and can be used as Ratliff’s was.  

Other names to consider: Cuttino Mobley, Nene Hilario, Larry Hughes, and Ben Wallace.  Some proposed deals are listed below with their trade machine evaluations linked.  Each trade is merely a possibility for the groundwork of a swap; specific lesser players could easily be substituted so long as the greater goal of shedding bad contracts and keeping the core of the team intact is never compromised.

Marbury Trade: Ratliff, Jaric, and Michael Doleac for Stephon Marbury.

Expanded Starbury Trade: Ratliff, Jaric, Doleac, Corey Brewer, Gerald Green, and Mark Madsen for Stephon Marbury and Malik Allen.

Wallace Trade: Ratliff and Jaric for Ben Wallace and Adrian Griffin.

Big Larry Hughes Trade: Ratliff, Jaric, Telfair, and Doleac for Larry Hughes, Eric Snow, Donyell Marshall, and Damon Jones.

Nene Trade: Ratliff and Jaric for Nene, Eduardo Najera, and Steven Hunter.

Cuttino Mobley/Tim Thomas Trade: Ratliff and Jaric for Cuttino Mobley, Tim Thomas, and Aaron Williams.

Any of these proposed deals could be altered to include different players, but the focus remains the same, shed Marko Jaric’s contract (or other undesirable long-term deals) in return for greater cap space in two or three years as opposed to losing Ratliff’s cap number this off-season.  Any player traded for could then be dealt once again as an expiring contract in future years for further assets, or simply bought out if the new player would potentially retard the development of the core of the team with a lack of professionalism.

5. Pray for help from the ping pong gods, and if things don’t go your way, reassess the situation and look to trade up to acquire the impact player you need–in this case the perfect man for the job will be Michael Beasley, who will play the 4 next to Al Jefferson at the 5 in the perfect scenario.  This team will be the next generation of the Suns when they originally took form.

6. Find a great defensive-minded coach to run the less glorious side of the game, someone like Tim Thibodeau, whom the Celtics lucked into hiring this past summer.  Once the team is ready, find better defensive players who fit into the team’s schema.

7.  Give it time, continuing to stockpile assets and cap space with the hopes of luring a top-flight free agent in 2010 or beyond.  This is Minnesota we’re talking about, so it won’t be as easy as offering a max deal to LeBron, but don’t grow discouraged.  If no one wants your money right away, save it and look to the future or use it in making heady deals.

If things were to go according to plan, my team would include the following:

Al Jefferson and Micheal Beasely to build around, two perfectly complementary forwards in a bigger line-up or the best scoring 4/5 combo in the Association.  Cap space galore in 2 or more years.  Additional draft picks and young players.  A line-up that could include Jefferson, Beasley, Brewer, McCants, and Foye.  Flexibility going forward. 

Now let’s just hope Kevin McHale reads The Sports Beat.

Swisher Trade Continues Beane’s Oakland Makeover

Nick Swisher will have to take his classic mullet and above-average game to Chicago in 2008. 

Nick Swisher has been a slightly better than average hitter from the left side over the duration of his career, and for the past two seasons has shown a proclivity to mash as a right-handed hitter (he posted a .910 OPS in 2006 and a .922 OPS in 2007 from the right side).  The problem is he’d be much better off with the opposite splits, since he spends most of his time facing right-handed pitchers (simply because there are many more righties than lefties in the world).

He currently is underpaid, having yet to enter his expensive arbitration years, meaning his value is similar to that of the recently departed Dan Haren–he’s a player any team would love to have sheerly based on ability, but his production per dollar makes him much more in-demand than he will be once he closes in on free agency.

Because of this, I find the deal the Athletics just completed with the Chicago White Sox, one that sent the White Sox’ top pitching prospect Gio Gonzalez to the A’s, along with two other potential Major League contributors, pitcher Faustino De Los Santos and outfielder Ryan Sweeney, a coup for Billy Beane.

The Athletics traded a guy who is older than you think (he’s 27) and would most likely not fit into their plans for long once the team is ready to contend again in two or three years for three quality prospects.  Ryan Sweeney has a chance to be nearly as good as Swisher in 5 years and will make many times less money, while Gonzalez and De Los Santos, two guys with live arms who have missed bats to this point in their careers, only add to the stable of young arms Oakland has collected recently. 

Meanwhile, on the south side of Chicago, White Sox GM Kenny Williams continues to try to make his team a contender, but has thus far upgraded his offense at the cost of pitching, making the whole endeavor moot.  Swisher should be a solid player for the Sox, giving them a nice line-up, one that could be potentially potent if Jermaine Dye returns to form and regression avoids Chicago’s other hitters, but the picture is not yet complete.

If Kenny Williams can somehow find another three quality pitchers to deepen his questionable staff, then we can call Chicago a contender.  As of now, it looks like Chicago is mortgaging its future for another third or fourth place finish in the AL Central.

The Quarter-Life Crisis

The term “mid-life crisis” is firmly implanted in the American vernacular, but a new term, the ”quarter-life crisis,” is confronting twenty-somethings daily (in real life, not just on Scrubs). 

We all know the symptoms of a mid-life crisis: one day your father happily drives his three kids to school in a dented, dirty, 1999 Ford Windstar, dresses in slacks and button-ups or “Dad jeans,” the equivalent of “Mom jeans” made so famous by Saturday Night Live, and almost makes sure to avoid any physical activity other than twelve ounce curls–then the next thing you know he goes all Kevin Spacey on you.

Gone is the practical Windstar, traded in for a highly irrationally chosen Mustang or Lexus; he starts wearing designer clothes and joins a gym, where he now spends 5:30 to 7:30 a.m. reshaping his past-its-prime body into something twenty-year-olds would envy.

Dad’s panic moves are understandable, because, well, half his life is over, maybe even more.  He’s 50 now, and there’s a good chance his best days are behind him in almost every facet. 

His love life is a flickering flame, nearly entirely burnt out and certainly scentless, not like one of those aphrodesiac types, his day revolves around spending an absurd number of hours behind a desk repeating a monotonous routine, and he’s grown truly tired of watching his kids play in the same meaningless softball and basketball and soccer games, or perform in boring plays and musicals–as much as he loves them things have just gone stale. 

Right now he’s the moldy hunk of cheese in the back of the refrigerator.  No one wants to throw him out yet, but he hasn’t felt the pleasure of cold steel slicing through him in some time.  He simply sits there while the fresher foods and condiments go out for daily romps on the kitchen counter.

Hey, Dad.

All of this is understandle.  We can feel empathy for our fathers; after all, we’ll be him some day ourselves.  But why do we act like him right now, at 22, 23, 24 years old, at the apex of our lives?

Why do we no longer feel so special either?  We’re the ones everyone wants a taste of–the spicy buffalo wings, the vital all-purpose ketchup, the wholesome apple pie.  We’re the ones with a future, a life full of opportunity and not a care in the world to hold us down.  We travel, we meet new people, we “experiment” with substances, we “find ourselves” by doing absurd things on the weekends, we “expand our horizons” sexually, we still get to do all the things outlawed by government and religion that people love so much.

And yet, what is that cloud hanging over our heads whenever there’s a lull in the party?

Times have changed.  While the youth of today no longer worries about Nuclear Winter or Vietnam or economic crises or stickin’ it to the goddamn racists who run the country, our focus has shifted to terrorism, global warming, the War in Iraq, the international fall-out caused by the adminstration of George W. Bush, AIDS, new despots sprouting up around the globe, the declining dollar, and the incredible debt laid upon us by past generations–both personal and national.

As medicine continues to improve, making people live longer, and the cost of living rises, where does all the money needed to take care of a generation of baby boomers looking to retire as soon as possible come from? 

College graduates find that their university degrees promise nothing more than a shot in the dark at landing a job at Starbucks, while more school is needed to earn anything near $40,000 out of the box a year for most.  Already indebted nationally, the cost of education has grown to the point where many intelligent, hard-working students from the middle and lower classes find themselves choosing between going to the best schools, the ones they struggled to get into, or lesser state schools, simply over cost.  When our generation is expected to earn enough money to pay for the sins of our parents, as well as their health costs until they croak at 100 years old, our own immense costs associated with buying a home, paying off educational loans, and supplying our children with a decent life, it’s quite an ominous picture we see when we look to the future.

 

Nice work, too bad your diploma’s essentially worthless.

So, we ignore reality, jump on a flight at a moment’s notice, run up bar tabs and credit card debt with no remorse, figure bankruptcy can erase it all anyways (except for that pesky little signature on all our loans saying if we default loansharks will eat our parents alive), live at home wasting away, and resort to drugs and alcohol to ease the stress. 

Now, my words are not an attempt to dig up sympathy, or to make irresponsibility seem almost the right thing to do, but merely an explanation.  We no longer must walk both ways uphill in the snow, stand up to a collection of fascist dictators hell-bent on taking over the globe, or generally hide who we are from the world, but new challenges face twenty-somethings across the nation and the planet, and it’s time we acknowledge it.

At least knowing that in our own little way, father and son, mother and daughter alike, we’re all carrying a little more burden than the other can see, and realizing it will be the first step to lending a helping hand to the very ones creating our burdens.

Pierce’s Maturity and Awareness Power Win Over Rockets

Paul Pierce’s maturation from a young gunslinger to a savvy veteran bodes well for the title aspirations of the Boston Celtics. 

While KG’s intensity fuels the locamotive that the Boston Celtics have become, it’s the unselfishness of Paul Pierce that allows the team to succeed, or conversely, his superman complex that will derail the Celtic train. 

Case in point: at the end of Wednesday night’s home win against the Rockets, it wasn’t Pierce’s ability to make the late shot that won the game, it was instead his ability to recognize Kevin Garnett as the Celtic with the best chance to make the big shot. 

With little more than a minute remainging on the clock, Pierce caught the ball on the baseline with a chance to take a slightly contested three, one he would have hoisted without a second thought in years past.  He instead up-faked and passed the ball to an open KG at the top of the key, the same spot Garnett had lit up the Rockets from all night, and The Big Ticket delivered two points.  Pierce would prove that his wise play was not a fluke on the next Boston possession as well. 

The quintessential display of Pierce’s growing awareness ocurred when he received a pass right in front of mid-court from Ray Allen, who had just managed to sneak in for a key offensive rebound with under a minute keftand up only three points.  When Pierce held the ball and barely moved for a few seconds, images of former superman efforts flashed through my mind, and I shuttered.  I fully expected The Truth to try to do it on his own, either hoisting an ill-advised fall-away or turning the ball over as every memeber of the Rockets swarmed him on the drive.

Yet, Pierce did not abide, and gave me even more hope for raising the 17th World Championship banner in the storied history of the Boston Celtics next autumn.

Taking his man into the screen set at the three point line he perfectly and purposely drew both defenders involved, then dished behind the back to a waiting Kevin Garnett, who knocked down the game-breaking shot with only 22.2 seconds available for the Rockets to work with. 

It appears our part-time superman, part-time emotional roller coaster has grown up, and is ready to embrace a team worthy of his heroic performances, even if the style of his efforts may have changed.  This steady maturity, something any 30-year-old should hope to achieve, helped Mr. Truth earn the NBA’s Player of the Week award Tuesday.

Game Notes:

Scot (that’s with only one ‘t’) Pollard was fantastic tonight, supplying energy and using all of his fouls to keep Yao Ming quiet.  Kendrick Perkins also did a nice job of limiting the Eastern Giant to a sufficient, but not overly impressive output (19 points on 7 of 20 shooting, 13 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 4 turnovers).

Rajon Rondo’s jumper has betrayed him in the past week–it will be interesting to see how long it takes him to get it back.  If he continues to struggle with his jump shot for an extended period of time, will he keep taking the necessary open shots or will his unwillingness to shoot cramp the great spacing and ball movement that have been staples of the Celtics so far this season?  It will be very interesting to see.

While Ray Allen has clearly taken a back seat to the other two thirds of the Boston Three Party, he still remains vital to the team’s success.  His calm demeanor helps balance out Garnett’s vicious intensity and Paul Pierce’s emotional play, and Allen’s ability to hit shots from anywhere in the clutch gives the team an indefensible trifecta of creators at the end of the game.

Doc Rivers alternated between coaching well and completely dropping the ball against Houston and his surprisingly inept counterpart, Rick Adelman (who plays his third and fourth best players, Bonzi Wells and Luis Scola, very limited minutes off the bench while the starters at their positions struggle).  It’d be nice to see Doc a little more aware with his substitutions–fortunately KG found the necessary strength and energy to both score big buckets and guard the gargantuan Yao, but had Doc done a little more mental lifting, perhaps Kendrick Perkins or Scot Pollard would have been available to guard the big man at the end of the game.  There’s no reason “Big Baby” Davis couldn’t have played more than 2 minutes on the evening, especially when Yao went to the bench for stretches.  Doc’s inactivity almost cost the Celtics a game in which they outpaced Houston by their usual 20 points before coughing up the lead with lackidasical play and uninspiring coaching against a weakened, Tracy McGrady-less Rockets team.