Patrick Reusse may not be the greatest twirler of words in town, but the guy has usually possessed good, pithy instincts and an impeccable sense of timing. Today’s column, in which Reusse posits that, A) Cornerstone players Kevin Garnett and Torii Hunter should be traded from the Wolves and Twins, respectively; and B) That it ain’t gonna happen; is vintage Reusse and neatly lays out a parallel circumstance that will have a huge impact on my two favorite hometown teams.
The short answer from my end is that Reusse is right that both Garnett and Hunter should be dealt, and wrong that at least one of them won’t be in a different uniform before October.
Longtime readers know that I am a huge KG booster who has only recently begun to countenance, let alone endorse, losing the chance to see Garnett deliver the goods for the Wolves night after night. Not that I had many illusions: Nearly 18 months ago I wrote a cover piece for City Pages about how Garnett would never brandish a championship ring with the Wolves logo on it. But the series of events over the past 12 months have convinced me that, even lowering expectations, it is highly unlikely that the Wolves will move beyond the first round of the playoffs during the steadily declining window of KG’s prime. Put simply, the moment has passed for this superstar on this team, and barring a trade what almost certainly remains are recriminations, pity, apathy, and anger.
What has happened in the last year? For the second season in a row, Garnett had the indignity of folding up shop early while claiming some sort of “injury” so that the team would be able to retain its first-round draft pick. Philadelphia sacrificed Allen Iverson for dimes if not pennies on the dollar and found itself playing better under freed-up star-to-be Andre Iguodala. San Antonio and to a lesser extent Phoenix and Utah demonstrated the disparity in talent, depth and cohesion between the Western Conference elite and the Wolves. Conference mediocrities who could regarded as Minnesota’s peers–Golden State, Portland, Seattle–were given a huge boost by playoff-matchup success or ping-pong ball luck in the draft. And for the first time in his career, KG took a slight step backward, losing a titch to age for which wisdom and experience couldn’t compensate, especially on defense. Even if McHale has a superb off-season with the draft and MLE and the team gels better on the court and in the locker room–none of which, obviously, are sure things–the Wolves, at best, seem to be staring at a daunting first-round playoff foe.
Is there a chance that this squad can do everything right and get to the second round and establish momentum for 2008-09? Yup. Is there a chance they can leverage that momentum into budding stardom for Foye/McCants/this year’s draft pick while KG plays Shaq to Wade in that equation? Yes, there is. Are those odds good enough to risk the horrible recriminations-pity-apathy-anger combo platter that gets served on this franchise if it doesn’t happen? That’s the question everyone has to ask themselves. My answer is no.
Torii is an easier call on the game of Deal or No Deal, but still more difficult than I would have imagined even three months ago. When Hunter announced he was finally feeling healthy and ready to have a monster year during spring training, I chalked it up as another chapter in the effective PR he has been staging this past 2 or 3 seasons to receive a legit contract extension and remain a Twin (remember him saying how much he wanted to play on the natural grass of an outdoor stadium in Minnesota?). But Hunter has indeed been the most surprising positive of the 2007 Twins season thus far. While I share the mystification expressed by esteemed colleague Brad Zellar as to why anyone would throw such a guess-oriented and impatient hitter like Hunter anything remotely resembling a strike unless they were way behind in the count, BZ and I have to cop to the fact that just three weeks before the All Star break Hunter has an OPS of .895 and 56 ribbies in 68 games–and hasn’t lost as much in center field as KG has being superman defending the pick-and-roll.
It’s ironic, really: If Glen Taylor owned the Twins, there’s a chance Hunter would get his $60 million re-up even as it inflated the forthcoming deals for the likes of Justin Morneau and Johan Santana (a sage point emphasized by Reusse as to why the Twins can’t re-sign Hunter). And if Carl Pohlad owned the Wolves, the incredibly depressing endgame that likely awaits KG and the Wolves would almost certainly be short-circuited (if Pohlad was always the owner of the Wolves, KG would have had a 3-year stay in Minnesota, but that’s another story).
Just because it is so painful–and for fans of the Wolves and Twins, painful is not a hyperbolic word, but a legitimate description of the ache–shouldn’t obscure the reality that the reasons for trading Garnett and Hunter are greater than the reasons for keeping them. I think that Kevin McHale and to a lesser extent Glen Taylor understand this, know that there is another notch or two to go to hit rock bottom and that they are likely to experience it with or without KG. Then the question becomes, what is the quickest way to emerge from it? For Terry Ryan and the Pohlad crew, the calculation is more clearcut: If the Twins manage to keep contending, Hunter will stay, because loyalty and class are the identity of this franchise. But so is intelligence, and anyone with half a brain knows that the Twins (as they are currently constituted anyway) can’t afford Hunter beyond this season if they are to have any hope of retaining Morneau and Santana beyond their current contracts. So then the question becomes, what are the parameters of “contending”? On that front, last year’s stirring comeback certainly augurs for patience and hope, and that’s a shame, because the Twins don’t have the horses to overtake both Cleveland and Detroit and almost certainly won’t get past the wild card round in the postseason. But if something could secured for Hunter relatively soon, when his 2007 value as a rent-a-player remains very high to a contender, then I think the Twins’ ace scouts could find some diamonds as Hunter compensation to go with next year’s promise, when Santana will still be under contract, all the kids–Slowey, Garza, Bonser, Baker–will be a year older, and Mauer, Cuddyer and Morneau will be another step closer to a baseball player’s chronological prime.
Two bittersweet farewells. Both should happen.
PS–In the midst of writing this entry, I happened to get an email from Jim Souhan asking me to be on KSTP radio tonight to talk about Garnett and the upcoming draft. At this point it appears that may occur early in the 7 o’clock hour.
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