Wolves Narrow Choice to Sheed or KG

June 28, 1995
KG's Rookie Year

Timberwolves vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale will experience his first NBA draft as final decisionmaker tonight, and - unless the planets align and something inexplicable happens above them - depart with either Chicago prep star Kevin Garnett or North Carolina sophomore Rasheed Wallace.

Such a moment of power and pressure? McHale suggests it can't even compare a little to the nervous energy he felt as a player the day before a big NBA Finals game.

"If I had that same kind of energy today, I'd be running around the golf course instead of sitting here," McHale said Tuesday. "This is basketball, not brain surgery. It's not like I'm standing over a guy and if I slip, this guy's toast. We're picking a basketball player, who will be paid a great deal of money to come in and have a good time. How hard is that? I don't feel a lot of anxiety. I might be different, but I think it's exciting."

In McHale's perfect world, he already would have made a handful of trades and would be making only a cosmetic addition tonight to a completely remade 21-61 ballclub. But, hamstrung by the NBA's incomplete labor negotiations and a weak power base from which to trade, the Timberwolves remain the team they were three months ago. McHale said he and his staff would make a trade or two to add players or additional draft picks, but it's just as likely tonight will come and go with the Wolves adding but one piece to one of the league's most puzzling franchises.

Whether the Wolves get Garnett, whom they would prefer, or Wallace with the draft's fifth pick will depend on what the Washington Bullets do with No. 4. If the Bullets refuse overtures from Portland, Toronto, and Atlanta for the pick and use it themselves, they probably will select Wallace, presuming, of course, that Joe Smith, Jerry Stackhouse and Antonio McDyess are the first three players selected.

If the Bullets trade the pick, the Trail Blazers or Raptors presumably would move up to grab Garnett, a 19-year-old who played for Farragut Academy on Chicago's west side last season. The Trail Blazers made the first move toward getting that fourth pick by trading the draft's 18th and 19th picks Tuesday for Detroit's eighth pick. Now all Portland has to do is convince the Bullets to trade their pick and Calbert Cheaney for No. 8 and point guard Rod Strickland. The sticking point: Washington wants to deal guard Rex Chapman. Toronto is offering B.J. Armstrong and a flop of picks. Atlanta is dangling All-Star guard Mookie Blaylock and a first-round pick. Asked what Washington will do, McHale said, "I don't know. They're doing some shopping, but maybe no buying."

The Wolves are one of a number of teams that have become intrigued with Garnett because he's fast, he's tall and he has the skills of a player 6-6 instead of 6-11. Garnett apparently would be the proper piece to McHale's equation that the Wolves must do what's best as much for 1999 as 1995.

"The key with Garnett is the clock is ticking," McHale said. "He will get older. Everybody's got to understand: What did Scottie Pippen do his first season? Seven points and three rebounds a game, and people were asking, `Why's that guy playing so much?' I played four years of college ball, played on a couple of World University Games teams, played in the Pan Am Games and I still got my butt handed to me my first year in the league. It happens.

"You've got to be patient. He's got a ton of skills, but he doesn't know how to play. You have to nurture those skills."

If Garnett is gone, the Wolves will turn to Wallace. Or, as McHale says, "whoever is left" of the Big Five of Garnett, Wallace, Smith, McDyess and Stackhouse. There's no guarantee that this morning's draft order of Golden State, the L.A. Clippers, Philadelphia, Washington and the Wolves will remain that way come tonight.

"I think every draft choice among the top 10 has been shopped," McHale said. "Normally, that doesn't happen."

Talk of moving picks and players will continue throughout the day. The NBA closes the window on trades at 1 p.m., but reopens it when the first pick is made tonight shortly after 6:30 p.m. The Wolves most likely to be ex-Wolves are, of course, guard Isaiah Rider and forward Christian Laettner, but that's been said for three months.

"We're trying to move, but that's not happening right now," McHale said. "You just keep trying and eventually hope to wear the other team down to where they say, `OK, OK, I'm tired of talking to you.' "

And the Wolves select ...

A snapshot look at the player the Timberwolves might get in tonight's NBA draft:

Chicago prep star Kevin Garnett, if Washington keeps the fourth pick and takes North Carolina forward Rasheed Wallace.

Rasheed Wallace, if Portland, Toronto, or Atlanta deals for a shot at Garnett.

Alabama forward Antonio McDyess or Maryland forward Joe Smith, if strange things happen.

Arizona guard Damon Stoudamire or UCLA forward Ed O'Bannon, if Washington trades down to No. 7 or No. 8 and the Wolves can deal Isiah Rider for that pick.