FanHouse DavidKahn

Imagine a world where upon trading most of your veterans and turning the team over to unproven youngsters, you have growing pains and lots of losses. It's almost as if rebuilding entails some necessary and unavoidable period of truly sucky basketball!

This is all news to one David Kahn, boss of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who blew up the team this past summer.

After Monday's embarrassing dismantling at the hands of the (get ready for it) Golden State Warriors(!), Kahn, in quotes to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, seemed flabbergasted that his mish-mosh of raw players hasn't won many games.

MINNEAPOLIS -- A look of disbelief crosses Bill Laimbeer's face. After all, he spent years perfecting such expressions for NBA referees.

"I don't know what you're talking about,'' Laimbeer said when asked if he's teaching those on the young Minnesota Timberwolves to flop.

When it comes to flopping, Laimbeer made Manu Ginobili's moves today look rather amateurish. The former Detroit Pistons center was the all-time master.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Al Jefferson wasn't even born when the incident happened in 1984. But he's seen the old footage.

"The only thing I knew about Kurt (Rambis) from him playing is the highlight of Kevin McHale knocking him out,'' said the Minnesota forward.

Jonny Flynn wasn't born when Rambis won the last his four titles with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1988. But Flynn has seen the highlights as well.

"I remember he had the high socks, the thick glasses and the short shorts,'' said the Timberwolves point guard. "That was my first impressions about him. I said that when we first talked on the phone, and we got a good laugh about it.''

When new Minnesota GM David Kahn made a play for free agent point guard Ramon Sessions, there were two ways to look at it. On the surface, the Sessions deal (four years, $16 million) is a fair price for a solid young playmaker. Given how bad Minnesota's backcourt has been, Sessions can't hurt, right?

But Kahn famously selected two high-profile point guards within the top six picks of the June draft, Spaniard Ricky Rubio and Syracuse's Jonny Flynn. Rubio stayed in Barcelona, all while Kahn insisted the plan was for the pair to play together in Minnesota. When Kahn signed Sessions, the plan was to play him and Flynn together. The problem, which I noted at the time of the signing, is that neither Sessions nor Flynn has any business playing off-guard.

It seems Wolves coach Kurt Rambis has now arrived at the same conclusion.

Come 2011 or 2012, the Minnesota Timberwolves are going to have a hell of a rotation at point guard.

Everybody's favorite new maverick GM, David Kahn, got over Ricky Rubio's rebuff in a hurry and went out and signed restricted free agent Ramon Sessions to a four-year, $16 million offer sheet, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Sessions, who played in Milwaukee last season, has been hanging out there all summer, drawing interest from a number of teams but never quite receiving that elusive offer. Until, that is, Rubio did his number on the Timberwolves.

At what point does Jonny Flynn become insulted?

Sure, Timberwolves capo David Kahn made fierce Flynn the No. 6 pick in the NBA draft, higher than Brandon Jennings, Jrue Holiday or Ty Lawson. But that pick came after Kahn already took a point guard, Mr. Ricky Rubio. Kahn proceeded to spend all summer trying to get Ricky to actually come play for the Wolves. (It didn't work.)

Now, as Rubio's rejection has seemingly made Flynn's path to the starting lineup clear, there's one more potential roadblock. Gerry Woelfel of the Racine Journal-Times reports that Kahn may soon be presenting restricted free agent point guard Ramon Sessions with an offer sheet.

Largely, Timberwolves general manager David Kahn's final statement on L'Affair Ricky Rubio is concillatory. Kahn echoes the assertion that Rubio will actually become a better basketball player by competing in the world's No. 2 league for the next two years instead of getting 25 minutes a night in the NBA. He says he understands and even endorses Rubio's decision.

But before he gets to all that Kumbaya, he lets the world know that Rubio, DKV Joventut and the Wolves had a handshake deal Saturday night to bring Ricky to the NBA immediately ... and that Rubio backed out on Monday.

It's July 1, 2011. The Timberwolves have added only a second-round pick in the June draft ... but hope to get much better by adding the 21-year-old Euroleague MVP, Ricky Rubio, to the team. Corey Brewer is a restricted free agent, and Kevin Love is eligible for an extension. But the real focus is on Rubio, a gifted passer who has blossomed into an uncanny playmaker while developing in Barcelona.

There's just one problem: the league's owners have locked out the players. The union and ownership couldn't hash out a new collective bargaining agreement over the previous two summers, and the 2011-12 season is in jeopardy. The Wolves are not allowed to ink Rubio to his rookie deal, because there's no guarantee he'll have a team to play for if he ditches Barcelona.

With all the uncertainty swirling around the NBA, Rubio declines his Barcelona buyout option before the August deadline, and stays in Spain another year. Or longer. This, surely, wasn't what David Kahn had in mind.

The Tim Thomas signing in Dallas makes it official: Free agency is winding down. Yeah, Lamar Odom is still out there and so are David Lee and a few others. But once you get to Tim Thomas, it means that Free Agency 2009 is poised to jump the shark.

Whatever the opposite of a difference-maker is, that's Thomas. Dallas will be the seventh NBA stop for Thomas, who was selected with the No. 7 pick in the 1997 draft. Yes, Thomas is talented, and, yes, he can stretch the floor with his 3-point shooting.

But we've heard those things for 12 years now. The reality of the situation is that Thomas will either be unhappy with limited minutes in Dallas or he'll get plenty of playing time there, meaning the Mavs aren't going to be going anywhere.

With Tuesday's talent dump netting the No. 5 pick for Minnesota, the initial theory followed that said pick combined with the Wolves' own No. 6 could net the team Memphis' for-sale No. 2 pick, a selection coveted by several teams. Minnesota quickly blew back that idea, saying it would not be giving up both top-six picks in any such deal.

But the quest for No. 2 -- and the Ricky Rubio or Hasheem Thabeet it entails -- isn't over yet.