David Kahn's Biggest Problem: Assembling Players, Not a Team

In the rebuilding stages of the Minnesota Timberwolves, David Kahn has received a lot of criticism for the way he's constructed the Timberwolves franchise.

What he's been putting together seems more like a jumbled mess than a team.

The problem is, he's only acquiring players, not a team.

If you think of some of the players that have been in and out of the Timberwolves in the past couple of years, there have been some really talented players.

• Michael Beasely
• Corey Brewer
• Jonny Flynn
• Al Jefferson
• Wesley Johnson
• Ty Lawson
• Kevin Love
• Quentin Richardson
• Luke Ridnour
• Ricky Rubio
• Ramon Sessions

The problem is, some of them never saw any time here whatsoever, and the players who did come here never really blended well together.

For starters, let's count the point guards. Flynn, Lawson, Ridnour, Rubio, Sessions, and let's not forget Sebastian Telfair.

Six point guards in two years? That's ridiculous.

Now let's count the starting power forwards. I see Michael Beasley, Al Jefferson, and Kevin Love. Three starting power forwards? I would've thought that one would be just fine for any team to have.

Starting to see the pattern? I've heard of drafting simply for talent, but I've never heard of an entire team of scrambled talent.

David Kahn has really started his job off with a bang acquiring some really high talented players, but they've never really fit in with each other.

But, that's not the end of it.

Kahn doesn't seem to find equal value when he trades away players.

Last season, he traded Sebastain Telfair and Craig Smith away for Quentin Richardson. Seemed like an equal value trade. Then he shipped off Quentin to Miami for Mark Blount, who never played a minute here.

You can try to defend that trade by saying that Mark Blount was an expiring contract, right? Nope. Because, as it turns out, the three players he gave away at the beginning of that trading sequence were all also expiring contracts.

Sure would've loved the talent of Quentin Richardson, or Sebastian Telfair, or Craig Smith last year, right? Would've gotten us a little more than 15 wins.

And then there's Big Al. In a year that we acquired Michael Beasley and Wesley Johnson for free, he decides to give away Al Jefferson. For free.

Why would he do that? A few months ago, there were rumors sprouting that Al would be traded to Philadelphia for Andre Iguodala.

Could you imagine how the Wolves would look now if that were the case? A starting lineup of Milicic, Love, Johnson, Iguodala, and Flynn, with Beasley coming off the bench would have been a great team. Especially considering the untapped potential of all of those players.

Instead, what the Timberwolves have been left with the past couple of years are a lot of solid players who play the same position. Last year our two best players fought for the PF spot. The same could very well happen again for Beasley and Love. If we wanted to have more of a team, we'd move one of them for a small forward or a shooting guard for equal talent. If we don't by mid-season, it's just going to be the same issue for Michael and Kevin.

So if there's going to be any message to Mr. Kahn coming out of this, it would be to stop giving out players for next to nothing, and stop simply acquiring players with talent, and start assembling a team.