The Minnesota Timberwolves came out of the 2011 NBA Draft with Derrick Williams, Malcolm Lee and Tanguy Ngombo and a couple of future picks. Unfortunately, that hasn't kept the media from piling on to David Kahn and his front office team.
The front office began the evening with the second pick, the No. 20 pick and an interest in acquiring a late second round pick to acquire Ngombo. By the end of the night, Williams was the second overall pick, but the rest of the night was confusing and resulted in two future picks and a decent amount of cash in the Wolves' pockets.
The fact that the Wolves traded down multiple times to pick up cash drew the ire of Dana Wessel from ESPN 1500.
Kahn scoffed at the notion that the reported trades that included cash were essentially a fundraiser for Rambis' buyout despite the fact it was painfully obvious that was his intention.
"No. Come on. First of all, we added to 20-year olds this year. We are a painfully young team," a clearly agitated Kahn said. "I had great reticence to add rookie, after rookie, after rookie to a team that frankly needs a few veterans."
Hopefully Kahn didn't lose out on valuable players simply to be able to fire Rambis for less of a financial burden, but looking at the facts, the Wolves didn't come out of this draft too bad.
They turned two picks and Jonny Flynn into the second best player in the draft, a solid point guard, a player they apparently know better than anyone in the world, a future first and second pick and a bag full of cash. That sounds alright to me.