Kevin Garnett was traded to Boston on July 31 for five players and two draft choices. The popular reaction with the Twin Cities sporting public seemed to be this:
It was unfortunate that Garnett was leaving town, but the Timberwolves had been going downhill with him and they had to try something.
We're two months into the season, and the Boston Celtics are 27-3 and the Minnesota Timberwolves, well, they might as well be 0-30.
This has led to the arrival of numerous e-mails with roughly this message: "Are you watching what Garnett and the Celtics are doing? He should still be with the Timberwolves. Fire Kevin McHale!"
These messages are always worth a smile, because they are based on the premise that the Wolves would be sailing effortlessly through the early days of the NBA if Garnett still were here.
Randy Wittman, the Wolves coach, was asked about the local fans who seem to be upset that Garnett and the Celtics have gotten off to such an impressive start.
"I don't think [Boston's success] was part of our thinking when we made the deal," Wittman said. "I don't think anyone is surprised that the Celtics are winning.
"They have three of those guys - Kevin, Ray [Allen] and [Paul] Pierce - so didn't we all assume they were going to win a lot of basketball games?
"And why wouldn't Kevin be playing like that in Boston? He's a great player."
He's a great player who had not been able to lead the Timberwolves to the playoffs in the past three seasons. Early in KG's time in Minnesota, the tradition developed that the Wolves would be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.
That happened seven years in a row. Then, in 2003-04, the Wolves went into the playoffs as the Western Conference's No. 1 seed. They lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the conference finals.
The tradition that developed after that playoff run was for the Wolves to bench Garnett late in the schedule with a marginal injury. They did this in both 2006 and 2007, in order to stay low enough in the standings to maintain a No. 1 draft choice owed to the L.A. Clippers.
The victory total went from 58 in 2004 to 44, 33 and 32 in the three consecutive non-playoff seasons. It was a downhill trend that screamed for a Garnett trade, so that the Wolves could take a shot at rebuilding.
Trading a star doesn't often work for an NBA team. More than any other, this is a league in which championship teams are built around two or three great players and then another handful of solid pieces. The odds of getting a couple of young players who will turn out to be great are remote.
Boston already had one piece in Pierce. It was coming off such a lousy season that it had a fifth overall draft choice to trade to Seattle for Ray Allen. And when they added Allen, that made Garnett reconsider his earlier turndown of a trade to the Celtics.
We can continue to rip McHale for past inadequacies, but it doesn't change the fact that his old pal in Boston, Danny Ainge, had the assets to give Pierce a pair of stars with whom he can win, and the Timberwolves did not.
The Wolves wouldn't be as bad as they are with Garnett, but they still would be on the outside looking in for the playoffs come April.
The reaction when the trade was made still stands: The Wolves had to try something.
They did get one player who will play in future All-Star Games in Al Jefferson.
"He's a very, very coachable player ... and that's something you don't know until you're on the practice floor with him," Wittman said. "He's a very creative on the inside. He can score from weird angles. You find yourself going, 'Why is he taking that shot?' and then it goes in."
That's one piece for a contending team in a few years. The Wolves will need a couple more. Meantime, if Garnett, Piece and Allen are seen in the NBA Finals next spring, or perhaps the one after that, so what?
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