In the 2013-14 season, the Brooklyn Nets and Minnesota Timberwolves were cross-conference peers. Minnesota was led by Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio and Nikola Pekovic and mirrored — in quality — by Brooklyn who had Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Joe Johnson and Deron Williams.
The Nets rode the soft Eastern Conference to a 44-38 record while the Wolves were 40-42 in the West. The results of that season hit both franchises with a harsh reality that they were, in fact, mediocre.
That 2013-14 campaign concluded year six of Love’s career — ultimately his last in Minnesota. The Wolves, of course, opted to pursue a youth movement but other paths were considered. Minnesota could have pushed its chips – draft picks, mostly – in the middle, so as to supplement the Love-Rubio-Pekovic core with a piece that could have pushed them over the hump.
But they didn’t.
Perhaps Minnesota had learned from Brooklyn, who when presented with the same fork in the road, opted to go all-in.
And, well, that didn’t work.
Boston went way all-in. Prior to that middling 2013-14 season, the Nets infamously made the worst trade in NBA history.
- Brooklyn received: Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Jason Terry and D.J. White
- Boston received: Gerald Wallace, Kris Humphries, MarShon Brooks, Kris Joseph, Keith Bogans, three first-round picks (2014, 2016 and 2018), plus the right to swap first-rounders in 2017.
More than four years since, Brooklyn is still scrambling in the debris of that trade.
The draft picks that were moved to Boston turned into James Young (2014), Jaylen Brown (2016), Jayson Tatum (2017) and the still-unrecognized 2018 Brooklyn pick that was moved to Cleveland for Kyrie Irving.
All Brooklyn received for the Boston coup was 96 games from Garnett, 75 from Pierce, 35 from Terry and 0 from White.
I suppose you could say the greatest value Brooklyn received in that trade was Garnett. On top of the 96 games he played, the Nets also recouped a little bit of value when they traded him for Thaddeus Young.
That was a trade with the Timberwolves.
At this point in time, the Wolves were in full-rebuild mode. Five months before acquiring Garnett, that Wolves youth movement began abruptly as they traded Love for the 2014 draft’s crown jewel — Andrew Wiggins.
The rebuild was faring as rebuilds typically fare: poorly. When the trade deadline approached, Minnesota was 12-42.
To many, the logical move at this point seemed to be tanking. Clearly, the team needed more than just Wiggins. That logic suggested the Wolves should move serviceable veteran pieces — Kevin Martin, Mo Williams, Chase Budinger and/or Young — for draft picks. This would stock the coffers for the future while likely enhancing the team’s odds in the lottery.
That didn’t happen, but Garnett did.
If you delete the name, the move seemed silly. Trading a player like Young who could have possibly fetched a late first-round pick from a contender for an overpaid 38-year-old was not a Sam Hinkie move.
It was a Flip Saunders move.
Saunders was laying the groundwork for the Timberwolves’ next chapter. The team already had two promising rookies in Wiggins and Zach LaVine – with more coming – and it was his vision that suggested what this team needed was a scaffolding of sorts if they were to reach new heights.
In Saunders’ mind, more than another draft pick the Wolves needed a leader. Of course, Garnett was the natural response to this predicament. So the move was made — Garnett for Young.
The first pages of the next chapter — with Garnett — were rough. For the rest of that season, the Wolves won four total games. It turned out the Wolves were headed for the tank with or without KG. The 4-24 post-deadline run allowed the Wolves to finish the season with the worst record in the league. That led to ping-pong balls which netted the first overall pick — Karl-Anthony Towns.
The next season, in addition to KAT, Minnesota brought Tayshaun Prince and Andre Miller into the team (and rotation). Garnett, Prince and Miller would theoretically instill a culture that had been missing in Minnesota since Garnett was first traded away in 2007.
Saunders’ overseeing eye and the vets did not return results in the win column; Minnesota went 29-53. Things just weren’t quite clicking. Many games felt like failed experiments. The X’s and O’s were calculus to the young players who could often be seen trotting over to the sidelines to ask what they messed up in their latest calculation.
Every Minnesota fan loves KG and every player in that locker room respected him, but the concoction of youngsters and grandpas — in NBA measurements — drew questions:
- Should have Young been traded for a draft pick instead?
- Would Miller and Prince’s minutes have been put to better use by playing Tyus Jones, Shabazz Muhammad, and Nemanja Bjelica?
- Why not just tank again?
Those questions seem silly in 2017-18.
The Wolves are good. It worked.
Sure, much of that acclaim falls on the talent that poured in this summer but the pieces that were once babies alongside those vets seem to (finally) be reaping the benefits of that guidance from years ago.
“Honestly, I think when you were here I think they started to hear that message,” said Jamal Crawford on Garnett’s Area 21 portion of the TNT broadcast on Jan. 23. Crawford is the new veteran voice brought into the Minnesota locker room this past offseason.
“It’s one thing to hear it and then see it every day,” continued Crawford to Garnett. “I think you made our job a lot easier. They’ve been like sponges. Now, Wigs, KAT, Tyus, G and Bjelly all those guys really listen, they wanna get better. You can see it in their eyes, they hold onto every word you say and then they’re going out there and applying it on the court. You know, changing the culture is everything.”
The culture has changed in Minnesota this season. After never winning more than 31 games in any of the three seasons that followed Love’s departure, the Wolves tallied their 31st win on Jan. 22 this year.
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Conversely, Brooklyn — the Wolves’ opponent Saturday night — continues to struggle. Without their first-round pick again this season, the Nets have no incentive to tank — they have scrapped their way to a respectable 18-30 entering Saturday night’s matchup with the Wolves.
Through new — and impressive — management, Brooklyn has dug up a few young pieces in D’Angelo Russell, Jahlil Okafor, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Spencer Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert. A young core that could be confused for a poor man’s Wiggins, Towns, LaVine, Jones and Bjelica.
But their path back to relevance — even mediocrity — is still long given the way in which they hamstrung themselves with that awful trade prior to the 2013 season.
Brooklyn, once Minnesota’s peer, serve as a comparison for what could have happened had Minnesota tried to reload around that Love-Rubio-Pekovic core. Instead, the Wolves went through a few years of pain for what, in retrospect, seems to be a relatively quick rebuild.
The Saunders Process — one of veteran-laden patience — is paying off.
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