CONTINUATION OF THE “WHAT IF” WOLVES SERIES. IN THIS SERIES, I PLAY THE ROLE OF TIMBERWOLVES OVERLORD AND GO BACK IN TIME AND RIGHT SOME OF THE WRONGS OF OUR FAVORITE FRANCHISE. SINCE THIS IS THE TIMBERWOLVES, THERE ARE A LOT OF WRONGS. THIS SERIES MAY GO ON FOREVER.
“What If” Wolves Volume Three: We got our big man, but who will get him the ball?
If you weren’t alive to witness the glory of 90s basketball, you missed out.
Play was dominated by big men in the post, point guards that controlled the game,
and the GOAT (don’t get me started with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant talk). Since there was only one Michael Jordan, teams tried to build around the post and the man who could get him the ball. Almost every team was looking for their own version of “John Stockton to Karl Malone”, a dynamic duo that would lead their team to the championship (despite the fact that neither Stockton nor Malone ever won a title, or were remotely decent people, for that matter).
The Minnesota Timberwolves were no different.
The Wolves had just drafted the greatest player in franchise history, Kevin Garnett. “KG”, “The Kid”, The Big Ticket”, and “The Franchise” (Man, the nicknames for big guys in the 90s were outstanding: “The Dream”, “The Mailman”, “The Round Mound of Rebound, ” and my favorite big man of the time, “The Admiral”).
With the power forward position in good hands after drafting “Ticket”, what the Wolves lacked was any semblance of respectable point guard play. The franchise already crushed my dream of drafting Tim Hardaway when they drafted Pooh Richardson out of UCLA. Pooh was still probably the best PG in franchise history up to the 1996 NBA draft. Granted, the list of point guards that had played for the Wolves up to that point is pretty gross. Let me know if you remember any of these floor generals. Pooh Richardson (only played three seasons with MN), Sidney Lowe (terrible coach), Scott Brooks (better coach), Michael Williams (still holds the NBA record with 97 consecutive free throws made), Corey Williams, Winston Garland, Darrick Martin, Howard Eisley, and my childhood hero, Spud Webb.
That list is hot garbage. The franchise needed better play from the PG spot, and the 1996 draft was a great place to start.
After finishing the 1995-96 season with a 26-56 record, the Timberwolves had the fifth-best odds to win the lottery. Did they get lucky and move up? Uh, no. They ended up with the fifth pick. The Wolves have only moved up once in franchise history (still the best thing any point guard has ever done for the Wolves. Probably the best thing D’Angelo Russell has done in his career as well. Thanks, DLo!).
The real Timberwolves missed out on drafting their franchise point guard with the fifth overall pick. They used the pick to draft future Hall of Fame player and NBA Champion Ray Allen. Allen was awesome coming out of UConn. He was uber-athletic and had an incredible jumper that would only get better throughout his career.
But the Wolves already had JR Rider on the roster, whom the team was still pretty high on at this point, as was I (JR was probably high as well).
The Milwaukee Bucks had the fourth overall pick. Milwaukee knew they wanted Ray Allen. They also knew that the Wolves wanted their PG of the future, so the Bucks did what any smart franchise should do and has done: take advantage of the Wolves’ front office.
The Bucks drafted PG Stephon Marbury from Georgia Tech with pick number four and dangled him in front of the Wolves GM Kevin McHale. McHale would go on to trade Ray Allen and a 1998 first-round pick for Marbury. I watched this draft live with my best friends Dan and Jason.
To be completely honest, we were all thrilled with the trade. I think we even high-fived. Oops.
Outside of watching the draft with my lifelong best friends, what would I do differently as the “What If” Wolves Overlord? The quick fix for the Wolves would be to keep Ray Allen and never have to deal with the future Marbury drama. That fix seems too simple for my taste.
Let’s get into it.
The first move by the “What If” Wolves in the summer of 1996 is to fire Kevin McHale immediately.
I asked him for an autograph once at a Subway sandwich shop. He yelled at me something along the lines of, “Can’t you see I’m having dinner with my family?!” To which I replied, “You are standing in line at a Subway, *&%#@! (Editor’s Note: not quite sure if this breaks the Subway Sandwich code of conduct).”
I left before he had a chance to yell back at me. I was a punk teenager and thought I was tough, but I still hate Kevin McHale despite him being “one of us” and guest starring in the best episode of Cheers.
To be fair, the acting is actually pretty good.
So the “What If” Wolves make some moves. After the Bucks take Marbury at pick #4 and dangle him in front of me, we make a pivot. We got Rider at shooting guard, so we don’t need Ray Allen. Also, Rider had recently won the dunk contest with his “East Bay Funk Dunk”. The dunk contest was super important to me back then, before it descended into whatever we have today (dear NBA guys, please fix this!).
I thought KG and Rider were building something and was excited to see it through, plus we would get the opportunity to hear more stories like this one about MJ. So instead of taking Allen, we trade the #5 pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers for picks #12 and #20.
Tough to move back, but we picked up an extra first-round pick and screwed over the Bucks at the same time. Nice. Cleveland takes Ray Allen at #5, which is a huge upgrade over their current SGs Bobby Phills and Bobby Sura. Phills would pass away a few years later while a member of the Charlotte Hornets in a tragic car accident.
The actual Wolves took a pretty big risk in the 1995 draft by drafting Kevin Garnett. When your franchise has been dreadful for the last few years, you need to take some risks. Now, the easy thing to do is to say that I took the same risk and drafted Kobe Bryant out of high school for the “What If” Wolves.
Again, way too easy, plus I like extra long articles.
With our newly acquired #12 pick, we take a different type of risk by taking a Canadian point guard from tiny Santa Clara University and future 2-time MVP, Steve Nash.
Coming out of college, the comparisons to John Stockton were everywhere. Small school, played on their respective National Teams, crazy court vision, decent shot, slow defender, and pretty pale. Nash was nowhere near the defender that Stockton was coming out of Gonzaga, but he checked every other box in the Stockton comparison.
Taking Nash at #12 is a bit of a reach and a bit of “drafting for need”. But I’m ok with that here. Take a flyer on a kid who has gotten better each of his four years at Santa Clara. Take a chance on the kid who steps up in the big games. In the NCAA Tournament as a freshman, Nash had 10 points, seven rebounds, four assists, and hit six straight free throws in the final 30 seconds to beat #2 Arizona.
As a senior, Nash had 28 points and 12 assists to upset #7 Maryland. He was clutch when it mattered most. That is what the Wolves need: a guy who can lead a team against all odds and destroy the powerhouse teams of the late 90s and early 2000s.
For pick #20 of the 1996 NBA Draft, the “What If” Wolves make the same pick as the real Cavs made twenty years ago and select Lithuanian center Zyndrunas Ilgauskas.
Ilgauskas was a giant at 7’3″. Couldn’t move all that well, but did well enough to earn two All-Star appearances. Ilgauskas makes it so the Wolves never sign Stojko Vrankovic, whose nickname on basketball-reference.com is actually “The Human Victory Cigar”.
I am sure that KG would have made Ilgauskas cry after being yelled at for moving too slowly, getting in his way, or speaking with broken English. Point is, KG was going to yell and scream at him (KG did this to everyone and we all love him for it). Not sure how I would handle a giant man sobbing, but if anyone can console him, I bet Steve Nash would be up for the task.
My other thought was to draft Derek Fisher out of Little Rock. This pick wouldn’t have been to solidify the point guard posistion with some solid depth. This pick would have been solely to have KG verbally abuse Fisher on a daily basis that he gives up basketball all together. I’m still bitter about him destroying the Timberwolves in the 2003 and 2004 NBA Playoffs.
So, no Marbury complaining about not making enough money. No Jesus Shuttlesworth to pair up with KG. No dynamic high school duo with Kobe. But we do get an actual floor general that is a fierce competitor, can shoot lights out, and fits in with the MN culture with his Hockey Flow haircut.
Two MVPs on the roster? I’ll take that risk.
Shoutout to the boys of the MSHSL for continuing to inspire this 50-year-old bald man. I bet Steve Nash is jealous.
