Remember, that’s wiki, it’s not fact. And the drafting of Garnett being risky is all opinion. I remember the hyear he got drafted quite well. I turned 18 the year before so knowing there would now be a millionaire NBA Player younger than me was quite shocking. Everyone who saw tape of Garnett could easily see that he was a very, very skilled player. There was a big deal made back then with ESPN and that old Saturday morning NBA show that was hosted by Ahmad Rashad and Willow something (forgot the name of the show) about MInny taking a high schooler… but not because it was risky so much. It was just something new. There had been a handful of NBA players before who never played college ball (Shawn Kemp went to college for a semester but didn’t play and then declared for the draft) but the wiki is correct that Garnett was the first player since Malone to go directly to the NBA.

With all that said though, I still think Millen was far worse than McHale. But McHale is one of the worst currently still running a team.

you forget tom gugliotta, who had a brilliant all-around career tragically cut short by injury…he was EXTREMELY underrated in the league at the time, but he did everything as a point-4 often on the court….and sam mitchell, who was never a superstar, but had great veteran leadership, and the guy who garnett once said could grab him by the ears, scream in his face, and he’d listen….terry porter and spud webb combo’d at the point, which wasn’t a superstar tandem, but it was two veterans who’d been deep in the playoffs plenty between them….add in rider and laettner, who were both headcases, but still solid ball players, and you had a solid rotation of guys….

“The Timberwolves, under McHale, went from a joke to a perennial winner.”

you wrote incorrectly….it should have read… “the timberwolves, under saunders, went from a joke to a perennial winner”

saunders reportedly had his say only once in drafting, and that was when he insisted on wally szczerbiak to replace the fiasco of trading away ray allen his first draft as a coach….saunders LOVED allen, and reports were that he and mchale went into a rift that never fully healed after allen was dealt for starbury…

just look at the gems that mchale drafted other than garnett (who was reportedly glen taylor’s pick, not mchale’s, as well because taylor wanted a big ticket draw-also reportedly where garnett initially became ‘big ticket’-his first full year as owner)….

1995 – garnett
1996 – ray allen (traded for starbury)
1997 – paul grant
1998 – rasho nesterovic
1999 – wally szczerbiak, will avery (seriously!)
2000-2002 – no first rounder because of joe smith
2003 – ndudi ebi
2004 – no first rounder because of joe smith
2005 – rashad mccants
2006 – brandon roy (traded for randy foye)
2007 – corey brewer
2008 – oj mayo (traded for kevin love)

that wouldn’t be so bad, except that mchale constantly swung and missed on great players that were “need” players at the time, like: bobby jackson (hometown boy no less!), ron artest, josh howard, danny granger, jarrett jack, ryan gomes (who he did eventually acquire in the KG deal after media tore him up for not drafting him on draft night), and rudy gay (actually, roy was the perfect pick for the team, but he traded him away as well)

his trades weren’t much better….and giving huge contracts to guys like marko jaric, stojko vrankovic, stanley roberts, terrell brandon, troy hudson, mark madsen, and mike james have humstrung the organization….

but really, it all boils down to the joe smith fiasco….something that surely mchale doesn’t deserve full blame for, but he was certainly in favor of the deal

the last two years look better since fred hoiberg was hired, and taylor intentionally put him in charge of a lot of the basketball operations….mchale’s the final decision now, but he’s got someone else laying the groundwork for him…..hoiberg reportedly brokered a majority of the kg-to-boston deal, including insisting on two first rounders involved in the deal on top of the players….he also was the primary on the deal with houston to move gerald green, which looks to be a great deal now….