[JDB12Participant]

As a Wolves fan (Minnesota fan in general), I can’t say I’m surprised but this trade makes me sick to my stomach. I have nothing against Rudy Gobert as a player, but this is the worst trade in Wolves history and has potential to surpass the worst Minnesota sports decision ever; the trade for Herschel Walker. For the second time in the last few years, the Wolves get impatient when they have a young, talented foundation under contract to build on and they sacrifice it just to bring in a big name, make the playoffs and lose in the first round. Only this time, they give up their future of drafting young talented players to fill out meaningful roster spots for cheap with superstar players like Towns and Ant entering their prime.

I’m devastated by this trade. It’s undoubtedly a step backwards in every meaningful way. On paper, and during the regular season, the Wolves very well may see some success with the acquisition. Again, Gobert is an bottom tier All-Star player which would assumingly make any team better, and in his case, especially protecting the rim which the Wolves have struggled with. But the package we gave up in exchange for what we got doesn’t come close to matching up and in my eyes was a lateral move as far as what this team can do at best. We had the assets to swing for the fences and came away with a B-tier player that’s paid like an A-tier player.

I want to talk about the couple of moves the Wolves could have made. My most realistic one that I would have been exceptionally pleased with is a similar package, substituting DLo for Pat Beverly and trading maybe one 1st and 2nd for Dejounte Murray. This would have helped us get rid of DLo’s contract, and get a younger, more productive lead guard for half the price with several years under contract. Murray does everything well on the floor and would bring another tough defender to the Wolves backcourt. Very realistic opportunity that makes the roster better immediately while not costing us the farm.

The other move I would have liked the Wolves to even say they tried to pursue is KD. I know that sounds lofty but the Wolves were one of the only teams to have enough draft assets to trade for KD and large salaried players who are good players to swap. This is also the only opportunity for a small market team to acquire a Hall-of-Fame talent like KD at this point in their career given that no one has the assets or cap space to do it. I know I criticized the Wolves for being impatient and swinging for the fences giving up a future for a run right now. But if you are going to do it, KD is a guy worth trying to do that for. Even if it means those picks and KAT, DLo or both. A 1, 2 punch of KD and Ant would have been exciting and would have likely been able to hold on to the depth the fill out the roster better than the Nets were able to do.

I was the only Wolves fan I knew upset about bringing Butler to town for LaVine, a first (Markkanen), and Dunn because I said verbatim when the trade happened, “They just traded our most talented young player to rent Jimmy for a year, make the playoffs, and lose in the first round. They got impatient and instead of developing three young, incredibly talented players they wanted to try to take the easy way out.” That is exactly what happen and exactly what will happen with Gobert. towns signing the supermax gave us time. Ant hasn’t entered his prime yet and KAT has just entered his. We have other young talented role players that can be keys to a contending roster in years to come and they just drafted Walker Kessler who very well could have filled the role Gobert is for a fraction of the cost. If you’re going to trade your future away to try to win now then you can’t do it for a one-dimensional player who is 30 years old and under a $200 million contract.

The modern game is predicated on guard play, small ball and three point shooting. There is a place for rim protectors and big men in this league. But the recipe for success isn’t to pay almost $450 million dollars between your two big men and expect to be the best team in the league. The time of dominating twin towers died 25 years ago at the end of Robinson and Duncan’s time together.

Being a Wolves fan is disappointment after disappointment. And I go back-and-forth on these compounding decisions of disappointment of getting more and more discouraged or more and more numb because I’m never surprised each time they do something like this.

[OhCanada-Participant]

Your team just added Bryn Forbes, Kyle Anderson and Rudy Gobert to an already very good lineup. As much as it stings giving up all that draft capitol you should be pretty pumped up for this season. As a Raptors fan I’d say you trade it all in for that Championship. But a deal like that, 5 picks… they have to win or it wasn’t worth it. No way is this worse than the Khan days.

[r377Participant]

Overpaid for KAT and gave up a bit too much for Gobert.

As stated Murray would have been cheaper, Bruce brown was cheap and makes any team better.

[HitsterParticipant]

Murray would have been a better, younger and cheaper fit for T-Wolves but that would have only been a pick or so less and he could theoretically have moved on in couple of years.

Gobert and KAT I’m not sure about as a twin towers duo on offence I’d have liked a smaller PF paired with Gobert personally. But the T-Wolves new President Tim Connelly was bought in on a huge salary and expected to make moves but he had a hefty price extracted by Danny Ainge.

[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

This is a horrible trade for so many reasons. Why any team, let alone one with an all-nba caliber center would give up that many assets for gobert is beyond me. He might be the most overrated player in the NBA. Don’t get me wrong, he protects the rim and rebounds better than anyone in the league, but we see every year how valuable that is in the playoffs when he becomes a liability due to his offensive deficiencies and inability to defend in space. The wolves just sold out for a guy that will probably be able to be used situationally at best when it matters most. I anticipate the fit with KAT to be clunky at best. Neither one of those guys wants to chase wings around on defense, so that responsibility will now fall solely on KAT. Gobert will clog the paint on offense, making it very difficult for KAT to work in the post, and he’ll become an even more perimeter oriented player. I just have a hard time seeing how this works.

[ChoppyParticipant]

KAT calls himself the “best shooting big man in NBA history”, so he’ll probably be happy to move to the perimeter…

[OhCanada-Participant]

It works fine on offense. They have Ant and KAT they won’t ever have issues offensively, On defense in theory it doesn’t because KAT can’t guard in space and having Gobert behind him might make him lazy but even then Gobert is so good defensively that it might not even matter. Just like how Ant and KAT are so good defensively. Just gotta see how it all plays out.

[HitsterParticipant]

The idea of the more traditional big becoming almost a liability in the playoffs is an interesting theory. Would this have happened to the other legendary defensive C’s like Mount Mutombo or Big Ben Wallace I wonder. Big Ben was never the offensive threat that Gobert was but he was smaller and more powerful so could likely have defended away from the basket. Mount Mutombo at his peak was a defensive class above Gobert and as good offensively.

This going small tactic couldn’t have happened say in 2000’s let alone 1990’s as the classic post scoring bigs like Shaq, Robinson, Hakeem, Ewing, Mailman would have run riot around the basket.

I don’t like KAT as a totally perimeter player either. Gobert behind a Chet, Jabari Smith, Zion in a frontcourt duo would look much better fit IMO.

[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

Mutumbo would have had issues for sure in todays game. Wallace not as much because he was more versatile on D.

[HitsterParticipant]

Interesting to think how someone like Greg Oden would be coping in today’s NBA if he had stayed sound.

As regards Mutombo I’d say he’d have been as effective as Gobert in today’s NBA.

[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

I’m not saying mutumbo or gobert wouldn’t be effective in todays nba, because that’s obviously not the case. All I’m saying is that any big who struggles to defend in space is going to be exploited in a seven game series against a team with the personnel to do so. We’ve seen it happen several times with gobert over the course of his career and there is no reason to believe it wouldn’t happen with mutumbo either.

[OhCanada-Participant]

They just gave Taurean Prince a 2 yr 17mil contract for averaging 7ppg and 2reb last year. Second season isn’t gauranteed but still thats alot. Good for him.

[goddagParticipant]

I agree with you about the TW have done some bad moves in the past, but I hoping that is done with now that they have new owners that aren’t afraid to hire people that will cost a little more. Taylor is obviously a very good business man, with how he’s run that, and we owe him for stepping up years ago to keep the Wolves in MN. But hiring Tibs as a coach and GM was a terrible move, Tibs doesn’t play young players and signs old players. He was in charge of the trade where we gave up LaVine for injured Butler who was all for himself and not the young team we had. What a terrible move that was and set us back a few years, until they finally got rid of him.
And yes I was shocked when I heard about all the players we gave up in the Gobert trade, but then I took another look and don’t feel so bad. Beasly and Beverly are only signed for one more year, and Beasly came off the bench and didn’t play a lot of defense, so not a big lose with hime gone. Beverly and Vanderbilt did play defense but Vanderbilt didn’t help out of the offensive side. Bomaro and Kessler are unproven players that we won’t know how good they are for a couple of years.
And the picks hopfully won’t be that high, maybe in the 25 – 30 range, so that’s not as bad as it sounds.
All of this to get a 3 time defensive player of the year? Yes I’ll take it. Plus I’ll trust the new GM on this compared to everyone on here. Time will tell!

[HitsterParticipant]

The 2027 and 2029 pick are the unknown as they could well be past the Gobert era. The picks up until then you’d hope the current team would be well in the play offs so limited loss there. The 2029 top pick is top 5 protected so they have a safety net there.

Thibs as Team President and Head Coach was a move I didn’t like as it put too much power in one person’s hands. When Flip had come back to run the front office he ended up having to step back in as coach and his coaching drive had probably gone to be fair. Flip as someone who knew the franchise well and with all his experience plus Thibs as a top level coach would have made a strong duo and Flip would have been there to keep a guiding hand on Thibs to stop his excesses and with KAT, Wiggins and co could have built a good play off team again.

The T-Wolves had drifted since Thibs but being back in the play offs again they went all in with Gobert trade which was risky but only time will tell.

[Author]

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