2011 NBA Lottery Pick: Minnesota Timberwolves Should Go Kyrie Irving or Nothing
The Minnesota Timberwolves will have yet another lottery pick in this years' upcoming draft; whether it's the No. 1 pick remains to be seen.
The Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves are the two teams with the best chance at receiving the top pick and both teams would seriously have to be interested in the former Duke Blue Devil point guard, Kyrie Irving.
Before Minnesota can draft Irving, their front office will have to seriously question internally if their 2009 lottery pick Ricky Rubio could be the stud point guard this team needs or if it will be Kyrie Irving.
This past January, the Timberwolves believed they received a private commitment from Rubio to come over from Europe and play in the 2011-2012 NBA season. If this is true, then Wolves fans everywhere will finally be able to see what they hype about Rubio was about.
If it's not true and General Manager David Kahn passes on Irving, the Timberwolves team will continue to have problems moving forward.
This team is a couple of pieces away from being in the playoffs and climbing out of the garbage bin that is the bottom of the NBA.
The immediate need though is a franchise-changing point guard. Passing on a talent like Kyrie Irving to hope and pray that Rubio comes overseas is irresponsible and ignorant to say the least.
After Irving, the next best prospects are Derrick Williams and Harrison Barnes, both who play small forward, a position Minnesota is set at with Michael Beasley.
The prospect in this years' draft with the most potential is former Baylor forward Perry Jones and his game is extremely similar to that of current Timberwolves player Anthony Randolph. After those three prospects, Enes Kanters would be the only player that could entice Kahn to draft him and his body of work isn't large enough to see how he would play in the NBA.
That being said, if the Timberwolves don't have the chance to draft Irving due to another team selecting him with a higher pick, what should they do?
The Timberwolves should then trade away the lottery pick for either a high-quality shooting guard like that of a Monta Ellis or for a top-ten pick in this year's draft, plus a first rounder for next year's draft.
Kyrie Irving really is the only player worthy of Minnesota's lottery pick and if he is not available then there's no reason to waste the pick on a player they don't necessarily need.
Trading the pick for a quality veteran shooting guard or trading back in the draft while gaining a first round pick for the 2012 draft would be much more beneficial to this team and its future.
