Minnesota Timberwolves will waste a Garnett trade with bad draft picks

I really love golf.

There. Now when the inevitable chorus of, “What does this have to do with golf?” arises, you can just read that first sentence.

So, on to the 2007 NBA Draft. This is a day I dread worse than my annual prostate exam. Why? Because history has taught me that my home-state team, the Minnesota Timberwolves cannot make a decent draft pick any more than I can qualify for the U.S. Open. (Oh, there — another golf reference.)

Now the team – whose very first exhibition game I attended with such high hopes and bright-eyed naiveté – is shopping around the one, the only decent player they’ve EVER procured from said draft, Kevin Garnett.

This strategy may or may not make sense from a salary cap and contract-renewal stance, and it would certainly be nice for Garnett, one of the most likeable and hard-working players in the NBA, to move to a team that might get him beyond the first round of the playoffs.

Still, what do the Wolves have to gain from such a trade? More early draft picks?

Woo-hoo.

Let’s just consider the draft history of this team, to whom I remain loyal despite perpetual disappointment:

1989 – With the team’s first pick ever (#10) they take…Pooh Richardson. Might as well have been Eyore.

From there on, with the exception of Garnett, the team’s draft picks comprise a litany of second-fiddles, has-beens, and never weres. Oh sure, there were some “names” (eg., Christian Laettner), but no players. My favorite is Felton Spencer, with the #6 overall pick in 1990. Of course, that was an awful draft year, but still…:

Andrae Patterson
Blake Stepp
Bracey Wright
Luc Longley
Christian Laettner
Chris Smith
Donyell Marshall
Doug West
Gerald Glass
Gary Leonard
Gordon Malone
Igor Rakocevic
Jerome Allen
Loren Woods
Luis Bullock
Luc Longley
Marcus Taylor
Mark Anthony Davis
Marton Maxey
Myron Brown
Ndudi Ebi
Paul Grant
Pooh Richardson
Radoslav Nesterovic
Rashad McCants
Ray Allen (They got a good one! And traded him for a guy who never wanted to play in MN.)
Rick Rickert
Sherron Mills
Tim Burroughs
William Avery
Wally Sczcerbiak
Kevin Garnett

What futility. I don’t even recognize half these names, and I’m an ardent fan, for Pistol Pete’s sake!

I feel for Garnett. I feel for other Wolves fans.

And I believe that even if we had the first pick overall this year, we’d skip over Greg Oden and take Milovan Rakovic instead.

Who?

Precisely.