Asking the Tough Questions

This weekly post will delve into the most important NBA questions I have asked myself in the past week. They may be irrelevant and ridiculous, but hopefully they will be entertaining.

Is David Kahn actually a genius?

The Timberwolves have turned into one of the most entertaining teams in the league this season.  They are one of the few teams in the league that you can watch any night and find a team playing great basketball.  All of this is due to the team David Kahn put together.

While in Minnesota, every move made by David Kahn has been scrutinized and for very good reason.  He has made some really, really dumb moves.  Bill Simmons covered earlier this week in his column, but here's a quick recap: Johnny Flynn over Stephen Curry, trading Ty Lawson, drafting Wes Johnson, and overpaying a lot of really bad players including Darko Milicic.  While in Minnesota, he hit one home run and it might be a 600 foot bomb: RUBIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Rubio is breathtaking on the floor.  And excuse me while I hop on the Cliche Train, but he sees the game steps ahead of other players, threads the needle on passes consistently, and is the definition of floor general.  I can't think of a player in the league that wouldn't want to play with him.  He makes the game fun and gets each of his teammates involved which is truly the sign of a great point guard.  Sorry for the gushing.  I probably just sounded like a middle school girl describing the cute boy in class, but I really do love watching Rubio play.  I watched every second of the first five Timberwolves games this season just to watch him play.

Even with the wizardry of Rubio, I still think David Kahn is an awful GM.  He proved this in his most recent move.

Last week, the Timberwolves signed Kevin Love to a 4 year contract with a player option after the third year.  Love wanted to sign a 5 year maximum contract.  Love wanted to become the face of the franchise.  Kahn decided against signing him to the maximum contract.

Let's take a closer look at this.  Minnesota is very cold.  Minnesota is a miniscule market.  Kevin Love actually wanted to sign the maximum contract and Kahn decided not to keep him in Minnesota.  Why would you not want to keep one of the 15 best players in the league on your team for five years?  I have no idea.

The only conceivable reason to do this is to save the designated player contract for Ricky Rubio.  This is a moronic idea.  Obviously, Kahn did a great job drafting and believing in Rubio, but he may not be able to look at the situation unbiasedly.  Rubio was not happy about being drafted by Minnesota.  He attempted to force his way into a larger city before finally relenting and coming to Minnesota.  Does David Kahn really think he can convince Rubio to stay in Minnesota?  If he has struggled this much to get a supporting cast in the three years before Rubio's arrival, what would make him think he could get the job done now?

Does the NBA need to institute the Lew Alcindor rule?

The Lew Alcindor Rule was the rule established by the NCAA that banned dunking from 1967 to 1976. 

Yup.  I just said the NBA should ban dunking.  Why?

In the last week, two of the most amazing dunks I have ever seen have occurred.  Lebron James jumped over another player to grab a one-handed alley oop and Blake Griffin dunked over Kendrick Perkins.  I described it with as little excitement as possible because apparently that's how dunks are treated now.

Michael Wilbon, Jalen Rose, and Magic Johnson all agreed that Lebron's dunk wasn't in his top 800.  They agreed that Lebron had three other dunks in that game that were better.  Look at this dunk.



He jumped completely over another human being to dunk the basketball.  I don't care if that man was John Lucas III and he's not even six feet tall.  Lebron jumped over another player in game action.  That is insane.  How can someone say this isn't in his Top 800 dunks?  Are people just immune to his amazing athletic feats?  Are they just numb to the ridiculous plays Lebron makes?

After watching the Blake Griffin dunk I proceeded to retweet every relevant tweet about it for about 15 minutes and then I saw this tweet from my radio show's co-host Cody Steger: "On the Griffin dunk: it was a solid dunk, but i've seen better..."



What kind of world do we live in where people can't get excited about either of those dunks?  If I would have shown those two plays to Dr. James Naismath, I'm pretty sure his head would have exploded on the spot because he simply would not have been able to comprehend what had just happened in the game he invented.  Or maybe he would have reacted like Father Pat in Semi-Pro.

How good is your "best shooter" when he plays for five seconds the entire game?

While watching the end of the Knicks-Celtics game last night, I couldn't have been more surprised that Steve Novak missed the game winner.  It's crazy that a guy that hasn't played the entire game can't hit a game winner.  I mean there is not a better warmup than sitting on the bench for 47 minutes and 50 seconds.

What are coaches thinking when they do this?  Using the guy as a decoy is one thing, but actually giving him the shot is another.  I'm not sure that Mike D'Antoni know this, but Carmelo Anthony plays for the Knicks and he just happens to be one of the best in the entire league at finishing games.  Just awful.

How will I manage to bring up the Super Bowl in an NBA column?

Whoops.  I don't think I have really in-depth thoughts about the actual game, but I do have some in-depth thoughts regarding the hatred I have for this game.  On one hand, you have the Patriots who I can just not stand.  I respect Brady, but just hate Belichek.  On the other hand, you have Eli Manning who I have very little respect for.  I will be sick to my stomach if somehow after this game, people see Eli as the better Manning.  So, for me, this game is a lose-lose.  I'll take the Patriots for the win though.  New England 27, New York 23.