Post by ianboyd on Aug 18, 2010 21:42:23 GMT -5
You took an interesting strategy into the initial creation draft. Can you please explain what your strategy was and what you were trying to accomplish in the creation draft?
Also, how did your plans morph as we progressed through the first few seasons? Initially, you mentioned that you didn't expect to make the playoffs for 4 seasons, but now you look to be a contender in the West. What prompted this shift in organizational vision? Was it the Eddie Jones trade? Spotting the relative weakness of the West and deciding now was a good time to make a move?
Great question off the bat, first of all, we the Kahns of the world do not need to head into the draft with a specific strategy, after all, our 1st round creation draft pick was at 23. That limited alot of things in terms of what we could dictate be it youth or experience, with 22 of the best players off the board before a single selection, our initial strategy was to wait and see what becomes available to us.
However, once the creation draft picked up pace and trades started taking place, I began exploring the idea of trading away our 1st round pick, an extremely valuable asset for addition picks in the middle of the draft, where I could be in a place to acquire multiple role players that aren't necessarily potent scorers but rather, defensive minded, athletic players that have the potential to develop. Once that thought was established and I was able to trade away a few top round picks for an abundance of 4th, 5th and 7th round picks, the strategy became clear: Pick up as many defensive minded players as possible, forgo scoring and get lucky in upcoming drafts to hopefully be in a place to draft a star player that can take care of our scoring needs.
The one aspect that I Stromiled to pay attention to that has haunted us throughout our tenure though, is rebounding. Although teams from around the league might attribute to us being a lottery team the 1st season due to our lack of scoring, we the management level of the Fighting Kahns knew better, in almost every one of our losses, our team has been out rebounded by close to 10 and that has been our biggest Achille's heel even up to now.
As for the second part of your question, all I have to say is this: we are forever grateful to the Utah Jazz organization for the trade that brought Eddie Jones in exchange for Doug Christie to us. Although Christie has been extremely helpful during the first half of our creation season, ranking as high as #2 in the NBA in steals per game at one point (behind only Bruce Bowen, who was also our starting Small Forward), we knew that deal was too good to pass up. From that point on, Jones has brought an excitement that our fans have not had the pleasure of knowing in watching our games with spectacular performances scoring the ball. In two season, Eddie has set the standards for the entire Wolves organization for offensive production; he is currently the record holder for every single offensive category in the franchise.
But, as so it happens, the trade happened well after the fact that it was clear our young team wasn't ready to be a playof team yet, we headed into the off season slightly dejected, but optimistic that our second season will show significant improvement. Just as with the Eddie trade, another miracle fell into our laps when the generous Miami Heat agreed to trade us the #9 pick of the draft for practically nothing but a swap in 2003 1st rounders. We immediately jumped at that offer and was able to select young Caron Butler as another cog in our young team.
Heading into the second season, our team looked nothing like what it did a season ago, no longer is there a question on who on a given night could manage to score more than 15 points, but rather how will our youth handle the pressure of being perceived as a playoff contender. But not all is perfect though, our 2nd overall selection of the creation draft, Stromile Swift, for what ever reason, decided to skip training camp entirely and the result was nothing short of a disaster. Although we still maintained the best defense in the entire league and managed to put on a much better offensive showing, our Achille's heel still haunted us day after day, week after week as our poor rebounding performance cost us many close games.
Fast forward another season and onto today, our team has addressed many of the concerns that prevented us from being a true contender: we traded away Stromile Swift (may god help the Kings) and received a solid post scorer and rebounder Marc Jackson, parted ways with young Caron in a block buster deal that brought creation season first team all NBA small forward Tracy McGrady to us. We still play great defense, we still maintain our identity, but with a new sense of confidence as we correct our weakness. Now WE are the team that the rest of the West must gun for and WE are the ones that will rise up to the challenge.
What moves will you make to counter the improvements teams in the west made.
I believe I have addressed this in my previous answer to the Eastern Conference Powerhouse Hornets GM. We HAVE been making moves to counter the improvements of the rest of the West. However, I believe heading into this season, it is no longer a matter of what the Wolves do, but rather, what the rest of the West will do to respond to the improvements of OUR team.
Tracy and Eddie are great players that both have received All Star and All NBA team honors, together they form one of the most fearsome scoring wing combo in the entire league. With the improvement of young Brendan Haywood's rebounding during the off season and the addition of veteran Christian Laettner to improve the depth up front, we believe we are the team to beat in the Western Conference.
Both your PGs Tinsley and Best are free agents after the year. Will you go with the unproven, younger prospect in Tinsley, or re-sign the guy who has gotten you to where you're at regardless of him turning 33 in the offseason? And if you're looking to keep both, what does that mean for Eddie Jones and Marc Jackson who are both free agents as well?
A great point and another area of concern for the Fighting Kahns heading into next season. Travis Best has done everything that was asked of him and more for us, looking back at last season, Best had one of the best assist/turnover ratios in the entire league and played nearly a staggering 40 minutes per game. During the creation draft, Jamaal was drafted ahead of Travis for 1 season only: he is younger and has more potential to grow. That hope has paid off this off season as Tinsley had a solid training camp, if he has similar results next year, I fully expect him to be able to take control of the offense.
As far as Eddie Jones is concerned, he is our #1 priority in terms of resigning, even at 32 years young, we believe that Eddie still has a few good years left in him and we will do everything in our power to convince him to finish out his career in a Fighting Kahns uniform.
Onto the issue of cap space, I believe we will have plenty of money to keep everyone happy, but if push comes to shove, we will unfortunately, have to choose to go with Jamaal Tinsley as our future PG, he has shown that he is capable of dedicating himself in the off season to improve his game even when it has yet to be rewarded with ample playing time, we expect that to change next season.
To add on to lulu's question... you only have 4 guys under contract for next year: T-Mac, Haywood, Zoran Planinic, and Alvin Jones... how do you plan on handling this situation and does it worry you at all?
As previously stated, not at all, we will have plenty of cap space to work with in the off season and if we require it, will absolutely go over the soft cap in order to keep the core of this team together for several more years in order to win a title.
Is this the year the T-Wolves win the western conference and if so why? If you could make any small addition to your roster to give you that extra push what would it be?
I believe this is as good a year as any for the Fighting Kahns to win the West, last season we played the eventual Western Conference champions to 7 games, the last 2 games we even had the lead heading into the 4th quarter. This is a much improved squad that is equipped still with our defensive minded game plan but exponentially more dangerous offensively and solid on the rebounding end, we feel this is our time.
If there was one thing that could have made this season go exactly the way we planned was the concern regarding the depth at the center position. During the free agency period, we tried to convince veteran center Elden Campbell to sign with us, but it did not work out and now young Haywood's primary backup is only Alvin Jones, who while serviceable, is no star.
In the end though, I think this is a team that will no doubt be perceived as one of, if not THE best team in the West and this season should present plenty of opportunities for us as an organization to prove that.
Also, how did your plans morph as we progressed through the first few seasons? Initially, you mentioned that you didn't expect to make the playoffs for 4 seasons, but now you look to be a contender in the West. What prompted this shift in organizational vision? Was it the Eddie Jones trade? Spotting the relative weakness of the West and deciding now was a good time to make a move?
Great question off the bat, first of all, we the Kahns of the world do not need to head into the draft with a specific strategy, after all, our 1st round creation draft pick was at 23. That limited alot of things in terms of what we could dictate be it youth or experience, with 22 of the best players off the board before a single selection, our initial strategy was to wait and see what becomes available to us.
However, once the creation draft picked up pace and trades started taking place, I began exploring the idea of trading away our 1st round pick, an extremely valuable asset for addition picks in the middle of the draft, where I could be in a place to acquire multiple role players that aren't necessarily potent scorers but rather, defensive minded, athletic players that have the potential to develop. Once that thought was established and I was able to trade away a few top round picks for an abundance of 4th, 5th and 7th round picks, the strategy became clear: Pick up as many defensive minded players as possible, forgo scoring and get lucky in upcoming drafts to hopefully be in a place to draft a star player that can take care of our scoring needs.
The one aspect that I Stromiled to pay attention to that has haunted us throughout our tenure though, is rebounding. Although teams from around the league might attribute to us being a lottery team the 1st season due to our lack of scoring, we the management level of the Fighting Kahns knew better, in almost every one of our losses, our team has been out rebounded by close to 10 and that has been our biggest Achille's heel even up to now.
As for the second part of your question, all I have to say is this: we are forever grateful to the Utah Jazz organization for the trade that brought Eddie Jones in exchange for Doug Christie to us. Although Christie has been extremely helpful during the first half of our creation season, ranking as high as #2 in the NBA in steals per game at one point (behind only Bruce Bowen, who was also our starting Small Forward), we knew that deal was too good to pass up. From that point on, Jones has brought an excitement that our fans have not had the pleasure of knowing in watching our games with spectacular performances scoring the ball. In two season, Eddie has set the standards for the entire Wolves organization for offensive production; he is currently the record holder for every single offensive category in the franchise.
But, as so it happens, the trade happened well after the fact that it was clear our young team wasn't ready to be a playof team yet, we headed into the off season slightly dejected, but optimistic that our second season will show significant improvement. Just as with the Eddie trade, another miracle fell into our laps when the generous Miami Heat agreed to trade us the #9 pick of the draft for practically nothing but a swap in 2003 1st rounders. We immediately jumped at that offer and was able to select young Caron Butler as another cog in our young team.
Heading into the second season, our team looked nothing like what it did a season ago, no longer is there a question on who on a given night could manage to score more than 15 points, but rather how will our youth handle the pressure of being perceived as a playoff contender. But not all is perfect though, our 2nd overall selection of the creation draft, Stromile Swift, for what ever reason, decided to skip training camp entirely and the result was nothing short of a disaster. Although we still maintained the best defense in the entire league and managed to put on a much better offensive showing, our Achille's heel still haunted us day after day, week after week as our poor rebounding performance cost us many close games.
Fast forward another season and onto today, our team has addressed many of the concerns that prevented us from being a true contender: we traded away Stromile Swift (may god help the Kings) and received a solid post scorer and rebounder Marc Jackson, parted ways with young Caron in a block buster deal that brought creation season first team all NBA small forward Tracy McGrady to us. We still play great defense, we still maintain our identity, but with a new sense of confidence as we correct our weakness. Now WE are the team that the rest of the West must gun for and WE are the ones that will rise up to the challenge.
What moves will you make to counter the improvements teams in the west made.
I believe I have addressed this in my previous answer to the Eastern Conference Powerhouse Hornets GM. We HAVE been making moves to counter the improvements of the rest of the West. However, I believe heading into this season, it is no longer a matter of what the Wolves do, but rather, what the rest of the West will do to respond to the improvements of OUR team.
Tracy and Eddie are great players that both have received All Star and All NBA team honors, together they form one of the most fearsome scoring wing combo in the entire league. With the improvement of young Brendan Haywood's rebounding during the off season and the addition of veteran Christian Laettner to improve the depth up front, we believe we are the team to beat in the Western Conference.
Both your PGs Tinsley and Best are free agents after the year. Will you go with the unproven, younger prospect in Tinsley, or re-sign the guy who has gotten you to where you're at regardless of him turning 33 in the offseason? And if you're looking to keep both, what does that mean for Eddie Jones and Marc Jackson who are both free agents as well?
A great point and another area of concern for the Fighting Kahns heading into next season. Travis Best has done everything that was asked of him and more for us, looking back at last season, Best had one of the best assist/turnover ratios in the entire league and played nearly a staggering 40 minutes per game. During the creation draft, Jamaal was drafted ahead of Travis for 1 season only: he is younger and has more potential to grow. That hope has paid off this off season as Tinsley had a solid training camp, if he has similar results next year, I fully expect him to be able to take control of the offense.
As far as Eddie Jones is concerned, he is our #1 priority in terms of resigning, even at 32 years young, we believe that Eddie still has a few good years left in him and we will do everything in our power to convince him to finish out his career in a Fighting Kahns uniform.
Onto the issue of cap space, I believe we will have plenty of money to keep everyone happy, but if push comes to shove, we will unfortunately, have to choose to go with Jamaal Tinsley as our future PG, he has shown that he is capable of dedicating himself in the off season to improve his game even when it has yet to be rewarded with ample playing time, we expect that to change next season.
To add on to lulu's question... you only have 4 guys under contract for next year: T-Mac, Haywood, Zoran Planinic, and Alvin Jones... how do you plan on handling this situation and does it worry you at all?
As previously stated, not at all, we will have plenty of cap space to work with in the off season and if we require it, will absolutely go over the soft cap in order to keep the core of this team together for several more years in order to win a title.
Is this the year the T-Wolves win the western conference and if so why? If you could make any small addition to your roster to give you that extra push what would it be?
I believe this is as good a year as any for the Fighting Kahns to win the West, last season we played the eventual Western Conference champions to 7 games, the last 2 games we even had the lead heading into the 4th quarter. This is a much improved squad that is equipped still with our defensive minded game plan but exponentially more dangerous offensively and solid on the rebounding end, we feel this is our time.
If there was one thing that could have made this season go exactly the way we planned was the concern regarding the depth at the center position. During the free agency period, we tried to convince veteran center Elden Campbell to sign with us, but it did not work out and now young Haywood's primary backup is only Alvin Jones, who while serviceable, is no star.
In the end though, I think this is a team that will no doubt be perceived as one of, if not THE best team in the West and this season should present plenty of opportunities for us as an organization to prove that.
