Timberwolves deal: A midnight express

For days, the Timberwolves and Memphis Grizzlies broadly discussed a transformative draft-night deal involving two top-five picks, so many potential players and inevitably the shuffling of more than $70 million in players' salaries.

Just before the stroke of midnight Thursday, the teams finalized an eight-player trade that seemed so improbable just three hours earlier.

"The thing was dead," said Kevin McHale, Wolves vice president of basketball operations. "Dead in the water."

The trade -- resurrected in an instant from an unexpected phone call from Memphis -- swapped the draft rights of Southern California guard O.J. Mayo for UCLA forward Kevin Love, reshaped each franchise and provided draft night's finishing fireworks long after fans had left both Target Center and Madison Square Garden.

On Thursday night, many Timberwolves fans went to bed envisioning a future lineup that would pair the sweet-shooting Mayo, a nationally known star since the seventh grade, with frontcourt star Al Jefferson.

On Friday afternoon, the Wolves introduced Love at a Target Center news conference, a turnabout even he didn't expect when he turned off his phone and headed to dinner late Thursday night with high school friends after the Grizzlies selected him fifth overall.

"I told my agent I hope I can end up in Minnesota because this is where I wanted to be," said Love, a former Oregon schoolboy star. "Kevin McHale was maybe my favorite player of all time. I'm happy to be in the city. It's almost like Portland, only colder. It's going to be my new favorite city."

Memphis calling

Love's life changed with one little telephone call placed from Memphis to Minneapolis just as the first round of Thursday's draft concluded.

For days, McHale and his scouting tribunal negotiated with several NBA teams selecting high in the draft, hoping to leverage their third overall pick and the right presumably to select Mayo into a bonanza that would answer the rebuilding team's needs for a knockdown shooter, a couple of big men and some more precious salary-cap relief.

McHale and Memphis General Manager Chris Wallace discussed combinations of players, the Grizzlies' extra first-round draft pick and the Wolves' two high second-round picks in a process McHale described as a "deal we walked around a little bit." Wolves owner Glen Taylor and Memphis owner Michael Heisley got involved with a Thursday afternoon conversation intended to grease the wheels.

The Wolves wanted Miller -- a career 40 percent three-point shooter -- as part of any deal. The Grizzlies refused.

Then, the draft began. Chicago took Derrick Rose first, Miami ended all the predraft posturing by taking Michael Beasley second, and the Wolves plucked Mayo. Wolves fans gathered for a party in the team's training facility erupted with glee.

Two picks later, the Grizzlies drafted Love and life went on.

Mayo wore a Wolves cap faraway in New York City and chatted by telephone with Minnesota reporters. Love donned a Grizzlies cap, shook hands with NBA Commissioner David Stern and later headed out in Manhattan with his pals.

Wolves assistant GM Fred Hoiberg addressed the team's fans gathered downstairs at Target Center and told them the team was thrilled to acquire Mayo.

"When we picked O.J. Mayo, we picked him to be on our team next year," said Hoiberg, who arrived at work Friday morning greeted by e-mails accusing him of lying to fans.

Wallace called suddenly, presumably spurred on by an owner who wanted both to enliven a moribund franchise by dealing for a famous name and also to save some money in the short term. Wallace asked to revive the deal and reeled off a list of names that included one Mike Miller.

"No one was more surprised than we were when the deal came back," McHale said. "We were all sitting around and looking at each other like, 'Wow.' Mike Miller was a hinging point for us and actually a deal-breaker for them. When they called back and included him, I said, 'Oooh, yeah, we'll do that.' "

Draft-night maneuvering

Days before, the Wolves days settled on choosing with the first pick in the second round (31st overall) European center Nikola Pekovic, a 6-11 brute who won't arrive in Minnesota until 2010 at the earliest because he just signed a rich contract with a Greek team.

NBA teams lit up the Wolves' phones with offers that included big cash and future protected first-round picks for the chance to take Pekovic, a lottery-type talent who every NBA team pegged as the second round's first pick because of his contract status.

Before Wallace's call came, the Wolves agreed to trade Miami their fourth pick in the second round (34th overall). Several big frontcourt players the Wolves liked had just gone off the draft board, and the Wolves -- with Mayo already drafted and Randy Foye, Marko Jaric, Rashad McCants under contract and Sebastian Telfair in their sights to be re-signed -- didn't want to add another guard. And they had no interest in Texas A&M freshman DeAndre Jordan, a raw, blessed center once projected as a lottery pick.

So they accepted from Miami $2 million and two second-round picks in the 2009 draft, when they also potentially will have three first-round picks. They then drafted Kansas guard Mario Chalmers, hero of the NCAA championship game, for the Heat. The Wolves will receive the lower two from Miami's collection of three second-round picks that include the Heat's own as well as Philadelphia's and Indiana's next summer.

The Grizzlies called just after the Wolves agreed to the Miami trade. Before midnight struck, Mayo, Jaric, Antoine Walker and Greg Buckner were Grizzlies. Suddenly, the Wolves now have just one point guard, Foye, under contract.

"Twenty minutes and Mayo and Marko and everybody was gone," McHale said. "That was the way it worked. We almost wanted to call Miami and see if we could take [Chalmers] back, but I don't think that would have worked."

The Grizzlies have a glut of guards. McHale thought about asking for a guard back in the deal, then reconsidered.

"At that point, muddying up the deal was not going to help," McHale said. "I really had a feeling there was a huge contingency in Memphis who didn't want to do it. In fact, I know that. They told me that."

The Wolves never wavered after the Grizzles called and offered Miller. McHale said they rated Mayo as the best guard and Love the best forward left on their draft board after Rose and Beasley went 1-2. The opportunity to leverage one pick for what McHale calls "two building blocks" in Love and Miller was irresistible. The deal sent away unhappy Walker and Jaric's big, bloated contract and brought back two veterans in center Jason Collins and forward Brian Cardinal.

Wolves General Manager Jim Stack said the salary-cap relief obtained in the deal gives the team the chance to become a "major player" in the enticing 2010 free-agent market.

"The minute we made the trade last night, we became a better team in a lot of areas," McHale said Friday. "It made us a much better passing team, a better shooting team. We became bigger. We became a great NBA locker room with Cardinal and Collins and Mike Miller. A lot of things happened when we made that trade."