100% costing us KAT. On top of that unless I see the hammer come down on the clippers like we got for Joe Smith I’m putting a curse on Adam Silver’s bloodline 😩

Exactly this. Wolves also traded away a ton of future 1st round picks before the lottery rules change made future firsts much more valuable. This feels less specific to just the Timberwolves but is another example of a trade/transaction looking vastly different because of a change in rules after the fact.

As a Wolves fan I can tell you none of this makes me feel better.

Between these and the Joe Smith punishment, the NBA has severely fucked over the Wolves 3 times in my life. Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.

And different sport but the Wild also got screwed by a change a year after the parise and suter contracts which caused their cap hell they just finally got out of. We’re cursed any time we try make big moves the universe decides to fuck MN sports.

Could they have not kept KAT too and just paid the tax?

Heat also had a new CBA during heatles that lost us miller.

The MJ of centers. Best deal they could have possibly got.

Lots of teams had to abandon their plans with the new CBA, especially the teams it was targeted at: the Warriors, Clippers, and Nets.

There’s nothing unique about the Wolves.

And after all of the Joe Smith fallout had run its course

It was as much bc they were docked 3 frp. They had no cap room or way to draft talent

Who the fuck were they paying? His family?

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I’m sure they front loaded it so that his prime would coincide with more financial flexibility for the team.

And then that time never came because the league changed the rules after KG’s deal was signed.

It’s like going to jail for something that wasn’t illegal when you did it lol

I’m not exactly hunting for fairness. I’m trying to maybe raise awareness that KG’s wasted prime was, in no small part, a direct result of the NBA’s behavior (as opposed to just one team’s incompetence).

Poring.

“Owners were claiming.” is the optimal phrase here.

A number of other $100M contracts followed in the wake of Garnett’s, and the proliferation of those is what caused the lockout.

The Jordan contract was also absurd and had at least as much to do with it.

MJ made more money himself than the entire Utah Jazz teams he faced in the 97 and 98 finals. And even if you took Jordan’s salary off the books, the Bulls still paid their team more than the Jazz, so it’s not like that contract even hamstrung the rest of their roster construction.

The pre-99 lockout salary rules were crazy and had a lot to do with why the league was so wildly unbalanced with super teams in the 80s and 90s.

If KG and Duncan swapped teams then the teams would have probably still had the same amount of success. Being stuck on the Wolves cost KG a good 10+ spots in the all-time rankings.

If KG hadn’t wasted so many years in Minny he’d have gotten more love. I’d take him over Giannis and Jokic.

Nah in a lot. To slow and not a good enough shooter.

Why would you blame KG for the negative consequences of a vindictive CBA that was implemented after he signed his deal? The league obviously should have limited his cap hit to the new max. Instead, you’re suggesting it was incumbent upon him to renegotiate his deal? And then take paycuts on subsequent contracts? When he was worth every penny?

The thing is, at the time, the Minnesota front office was not yet “woefully” mismanaged. That would come from the handicapping that the cap imposed on the team.

When KG signed the extension, the team was already starting Stephon Marbury, and had an all-star C in Tom Gugliotfa, and made the playoffs for the first time in the short franchise history.

For a team with only one top five pick in its short existence (No 5, KG) as an expansion team, they were seemingly doing well.

The short-sightedness about KG’s contract was not that the Timberwolves were then “mismanaged” or that the market was “unappealing.”

It was that LG and his agent didn’t understand how the contract and its ripple effects would affect his teammates.

Googs refused to accept our extension and left in FA. Marbury turned down the max extension under the new CBA and left in trade.

KG also couldn’t have known that Terrell Brandon’s knees were Swiss cheese, and thus, the struggles began.

So your presumption of how he was shortsighted at the time of signing are incorrect, in my opinion.

Also, if you’re a young promising player, you’re almost always going to take that record breaking contract in a situation like when there’s no hard cap.

Nope. LA essentially drafted Kobe, so they had him under a rookie contract through 1999 followed by a second contract similar to Duncan’s. Shaq’s situation was similar to KG’s, but the timing still resulted in smaller pay increases than KG was eligible for under the CBA. 

3 first rounders*

I addressed this in the post. I’m suggesting that the CBA punished the wolves for KGs contract, and the Joe Smith scandal was a direct result of that punishment. 

That’s not what my searches say at all. The owners claimed that player salaries had risen to 57% of revenue. The 1999 CBA reduced this to 55%. The league claimed half the league was losing money. Players disputed that claim.

Your company could probably use a bunch of the money they agreed to pay you for other purposes. Why don’t you go in tomorrow and offer to give some back?

Insane take. KG should cut his pay by almost 50% because the owners declared that to be the new max salary AFTER he signed his contract?

Why not just limit KG cap hit to the new max? Because that would have been fair.

It’s in the post…

Lol I mean… he did turn out to be great though. Contracts are prospective

Uhh….but the Wolves were right and KG was a hall of fame league MVP type player. It’s only an overpay if they were wrong.

I mean what choice did they have. He was a charismatic up and coming star and they had no one else like him up to that point. the franchise, a middling sized one at that, would have been killed if they let him go at the time. They paid more than what was going value for sure but they had little choice imo. i still remember the local headlines when he got the deal. it was a major relief to me that they kept him as a long time fan.

Was anyone confused on this point? Everyone knows that contract was a huge bet based on potential. That’s not what this post is about.