Ahh, the NBA Draft of 2009. That’s the year the Timberwolves were going to put all these great pieces around Kevin Love — Minnesota had three picks in the top 18.
They selected three point guards — Ricky Rubio at No. 5, Jonny Flynn at No. 6 and eventually Ty Lawson at No. 18 (who was traded to Denver for a pick). It was a Timberwolves draft that had fans, other executives and Love himself perplexed (remember Love tweeted: ‘what are we doing????????????????? omg we better trade....what are we doing??????????? i dont even know’). They didn’t even have a coach yet (they eventually hired Kurt Rambis, who was an odd fit for a team Kahn wanted to run constantly).
There is a fantastic look at Flynn over at Grantland by Jonathan Abrams, and about Flynn’s effort to get back in the league. You should read it. But that’s not the fun part.
What’s fun is the discussion of why Kahn made that pick.Dave Wohl, Minnesota’s lead assistant, remembers arriving in Minnesota and Kahn asking him whether Rubio and Flynn could prosper playing together. Wohl described Flynn as a good, ambitious kid. He also said that Rubio and (No. 7 pick Stephen) Curry would have made a better pairing. He didn’t believe either Flynn or Rubio could perform at shooting guard. “He said, ‘No, no. I want to play Jonny and Rubio. They remind me of [Walt] Frazier and [Earl] Monroe,’” Wohl said.
“When he said that, I didn’t know what to say. I actually played during the ‘70s against Earl and Clyde and there’s just no comparison.” Wohl told Kahn that he did not think it was an accurate comparison. “He said, ‘Yeah, it is. They are two guys who can handle the ball,’” Wohl recalled Kahn saying. “When he started going in that direction, I knew that Kurt was going to have a struggle in him trying to figure out what to do with both those guys when they came because Ricky was clearly a guy who was a great passer and was going to be able to do some things offensively with his passing that Jonny, at that point, wasn’t able to do,” Wohl said.
Wow, is that a misreading of talent. Just stunning. Former Knicks backcourt Frazier and Monroe are in the Hall of Fame after great careers, Rubio and Flynn were not in their class and never were.
Glen Taylor stuck with Kahn longer than most people expected, but this summer jettisoned him in favor of Flip Saunders. Nobody has picked Kahn up. While Flip has made some nice player moves (getting Kevin Martin, for one) his primary job is to repair the franchise’s relationship with Kevin Love and keep him in Minnesota when he can opt out in 2015.