I didn't mind David Kahn as much as many Timberwolves fans and folks in the local sports media. I thought that large vocabulary -- with the professorial delivery -- was humorous. A couple of years ago, at the end of a radio interview, I asked Kahn to use "bifurcate" in a sentence, and he did it.
How bad a guy can you be if you're willing to say "bifurcate" on the public airwaves, knowing that the host is doing so to make sport of you?
It was in another radio interview, with partner Phil Mackey and me, when I challenged Kahn's theory that Michael Beasley could come to Minnesota and be a productive player.
I don't have the transcript, but the question basically was, "We always hear that players like this are going to change, and they don't. Why should anyone believe that Beasley can change?"
Kahn said that Beasley had admitted to him smoking too much marijuana while in Miami, that Michael had vowed to stop smoking the weed, and Kahn was willing to give The Beasy a chance to prove it.
The NBA saw reports of this interview and fined Kahn $50,000 individually and the Timberwolves another 50 Gs as a team.
Kahn got robbed in that deal. He wasn't saying anything people didn't know, and he was actually talking up Beasley's potential. He was fined because of the NBA's embarrassment over its public perception as being home to large numbers of potheads.
When Beasley finally wound up in Phoenix before the start of this season, he told the media there that he was going to be a better player with the Suns because he had stopped smoking weed. The NBA should've sent back Kahn's $50,000 the same day Beasley gave that interview.
