Actually, this is the latest reflection on the O.J. Mayo-Kevin Love trade.
I wrote that I liked the deal the day it was made. I liked it because I thought Mayo and Love would have similar success in the NBA. I expected both to be good-not-great players. And I liked the deal because Kevin McHale used it to clean up some of his own messes.
He dealt Mayo, Antoine Walker, Marko Jaric and Greg Buckner to Memphis for Love, Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal and Jason Collins.
At this point, all that matter is that Love has become an All-Star caliber player, Mayo was slumping and has now been suspended for 10 games for violating the NBA's anti-drug program, and the Wolves desperately needed to rid themselves of bad salaries, and this deal helped them do that.
Congratulations, Kevin McHale, on a great deal.
I've been both kind to, and tough on, the Wolves in the last month. Here's the best way I can summarize my feelings about this team: I think Love is a wonderful player. I think Michael Beasley is a very intriguing player. I'm not sure I trust anybody else on the roster or in the organization to do what it takes to build a winner.
The problem with being in sports management is that one decision (or one day of decisions) can haunt you forever. I still think David Kahn's willingness to run his first draft before he hired a new coach, meant that he made one questionable pick (Ricky Rubio), one horrible pick (Jonny Flynn instead of Steph Curry) and one horrible decision (trading Ty Lawson, who would have been better than Flynn and might be better than Rubio, too.)
Even though I like Love and Beasley, I don't trust Kahn and Kurt Rambis to put together a winner here. I hope I'm wrong.
