A true disaster movie

When Hollywood decided to make the awful spoof Disaster Movie, it should have just been footage of the Minnesota Timberwolves' draft history. I was perusing it for fun, and it's even worse than you think. The gory details:

From 1990-1996, the Timberwolves possessed the 6, 7, 3, 5, 4, 5, and 5th picks. Any competent organization should be able to produce a pretty good starting lineup out of that bevy of lottery picks, right? That's 7 top-7 picks, so even if you miss on a couple, you should still be able to get a good foundation out of that. Instead, they ended up with Felton Spencer, Luc Longley, Christian Laettner, Isaiah Rider, Donyell Marshall, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen (who was traded on draft day for Stephon Marbury). By 1998, all the Timberwolves had to show for all of those picks was Kevin Garnett and Terrell Brandon, who they traded Marbury for.

In 1999, the Timberwolves possessed the 6th and 14th picks. With the 6th pick, they took Wally Szczerbiak. Immediately taken after him were Richard Hamilton, Andre Miller, Shawn Marion and Jason Terry, meaning of the next four picks, every single one of them was better than what Minnesota ended up with. With the 14th pick they took William Avery, a forgotten Duke point guard. Immediately after him was the comical Frederic Weis (somehow there's a franchise run worse than the Timberwolves, and it's been the Knicks), but after him was Ron Artest, and two picks after that was James Posey. The Timberwolves could have ended up with a nice combination of players out of that draft to work with Garnett for the next decade. Garnett-Hamilton-Artest is a nice trio of players.

The next three years, the Timberwolves did not possess a single first round pick. Why, you might ask? Because they had to give superduperstar Joe Smith an under-the-table contract in order to keep him, which the NBA deemed illegal and docked the Timberwolves their next few first round draft picks for. This ensured that while Kevin Garnett was going through his prime, no young talent would be joining him. But hey...at least they kept Joe Smith, who any day now should be having his Hall of Fame plaque hung up.

When the Timberwolves finally rejoined the first round in 2003, who did they select? None other than high school stud Ndudi Ebi. I guess missing all of those first round picks wasn't so bad after all; at least it saved the fanbase from having to endure laughable selections like this one. Who was taken directly after Ebi? To be fair, Ebi was taken with the 26th selection, where you usually don't find good players. Except in this draft; taken directly after Ebi were Kendrick Perkins, Leandro Barbosa and Josh Howard.

I think my favorite thing about Minnesota's draft history is their propensity to select the right player, and then trade him for the wrong one. In 1996 they took Ray Allen, who would later team up with Kevin Garnett on a championship team. Of course that team wasn't in Minnesota, because they traded Allen for the incomparably selfish Stephon Marbury (self-nicknamed Starbury). In 2006 they drafted future all-star Brandon Roy. Of course he wasn't an all-star for Minnesota, as he was dealt to Portland for Randy Foye, who would later be traded to Washington and then forgotten. In 2008 they drafted O.J. Mayo and then traded him to Memphis for Kevin Love. That trade is a little more even since Love actually is a good player who could contribute to a winning team. Unfortunately, he plays the same position as Minnesota's top player, Al Jefferson, and Mayo would have provided a nice inside-outside combo with Jefferson. But hey, at least they got something in return this time.

Of all the draft day exploits the Timberwolves have had, the 2009 draft might take the cake. They were able to acquire the 5th pick from the Wizards for Foye, giving them the 5th, 6th, 18th and 28th picks in the first round. In a move that has to be unprecedented, they used their first three picks on points guards. Ricky Rubio, Jonny Flynn, Ty Lawson; every single one of them a point guard. Would you believe that the one who had the best rookie season, Lawson, did it for a team other than Minnesota? It is their history after all. Lawson was traded to Denver for a future first, and had a nice rookie season backing up Chauncey Billups. Flynn shot 41% from the field, and Rubio did not play for the Timberwolves. You won't believe this either, but the best point guard in the entire draft, Stephon Curry, went one pick after Rubio and Flynn, meaning that yet again Minnesota passed on the better player. What would have been comical is if Minnesota had won the lottery in 2010 and then had to reconcile John Wall being the best player in the draft, and them already having two young point guards on the roster (counting Rubio, which they probably shouldn't do).

It's a grisly history the Timberwolves have. A quality GM could have run roughshod over the league with these assets. They somehow made an outstanding selection with Kevin Garnett, but could never pair him with another good young player. Instead the best they ever did was two veterans in Sam Cassel and Latrell Sprewell, who imploded after one year. They could have paired Garnett with Ray Allen, or Richard Hamilton, or Brandon Roy. Instead they paired him with Stephon Marbury, Wally Szczerbiak and Randy Foye. All of these draft day misfires eventually led them to trading Garnett, and becoming one of the most irrelevent teams in the league. Teams like the Clippers and Knicks get lambasted for their mistakes over the years, and rightfully so. But it seems like the Timberwolves don't receive enough criticism for the horrid job they've done. Probably because they play in Minnesota, and nobody really cares.