McHale, Big Al, and the Timberpuppies

You can see the excitement and animation on McHale's face as he talks about having one of the premier low-post scorers in the game. Al Jefferson may not possess the same arsenal of moves as did McHale, but he's no less of a natural on the block.

McHale's not as stupid as his detractors would like to have us believe. You add a bona fide point guard to the Timberpuppies and it's not unreasonable to expect them to make a 10 game jump next year.

The Timberwolves won 22 games this year (only 10 fewer than with Garnett), shed Garnett's $23m salary, and picked up two-first round draft picks to boot. It also looks like Ryan Gomes may become a fixture in Minnesota.

KG has certainly been a savior in Beantown, but give the Black Hole some credit for (1) realizing it wasn't working out for the Ticket in Minny; (2) finding KG a home where it would work out for him.

McHale has made a few dumb moves over the years, the dumbest being formalizing in writing what should have remained a wink-and-a-nod agreement to re-sign Joe Smith to more money at a later date. But you can hardly fault McHale for everything else that transpired--Marbury demanding a trade, Malik Sealy dying in a car accident, Tom Googliotta demanding a trade, Latrell Sprewell demanding a max contract, Terrell Brandon suffering a career-ending injury, and Sam Cassell demanding that his contract be renegotiated two years before it expired.

I'll save that rant for another post.