The Intersecting Fates of Marbury & McHale

In October of 1997, Kevin Garnett signed a $126m contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves. That contract lead to a lockout and a new collective bargaining agreement, under which the most Stephon Marbury could be paid was $71m. Marbury wasn't happy about their discrepancy in pay and otherwise being overshadowed by Garnett. As a result, the point guard started playing selfishly and talking openly about leaving the Wolves to play in a bigger market. Tom Gugliotta, the Wolves' All-Star forward, couldn't take one more second of the Marbury saga, and departed for Phoenix as a free agent.

Marbury, meanwhile, got his wish and was dealt to New Jersey in 1999. The Wolves' got Terrell Brandon in return, whose career ended shortly thereafter due to injury. To replace Gugliotta, the Wolves' signed Joe Smith to a contract that was later discovered to be illegal. Once the illegal provision was revealed, Smith's career in Minnesota was toast. Kevin McHale, the Wolves' GM, dealt Smith to Milwaukee for Sam Cassell, who was expected to fill the void at point-guard created by the Marbury trade and Brandon injury. To replace Smith, the Wolves acquired Latrell Sprewell via trade.

The Garnett-Cassell-Sprewell trio had one good year together, the 2003-04 season where KG was named league MVP and the Wolves got to the Western Conference Finals before being eliminated. After that year, Sprewell and Cassell undertook efforts to renegotiate their contracts two years before they were set to expire. When the Wolves refused to renegotiate early, Cassell and Sprewell demanded out.

This forced McHale into making a series of moves out of desperation, trying to surround Garnett with enough talent to compete for a championship. Ricky Davis, Mark Blount, Marcus Banks, and Marco Jarik all came to Minnesota during this period, and none of them worked out.

So while there may be little doubt that McHale is primarily responsible for many of the boneheaded moves made by the Timberwolves over the last fifteen years, there is also little doubt that the starting point in the downward spiral was Stephon Marbury's trade demand. Nor can it be disputed that Marbury has yet to fulfill the promise and the expectations of his early days in Minnesota, bouncing from one team to another as his reputation has sunk into the abyss.