FanHouse

On the front sports "page" of the Minny Star-Tribune today, there is the news about the Timberwolves getting the third overall pick in the draft. Right below it is the news about Kevin Garnett leading the Celtics past the Pistons. Which is sad in some ways, but at least Minnesota has their priorites right (future over past).

Kevin McHale seems pretty optimistic too, as long as you are discussing the Wolves future. Don't ask him about players taking money while in college though, or he will paint a (realistically) grim picture. Which is what he did when someone asked him if he was worried about O.J. Mayo receiving money to play at USC.

'No, not at all,' McHale said after the draft lottery. 'Tell you what, if you said that every person who ever took any money in college would not be drafted, it'd be slim pickings.'

[...]'That's more news interest for people and probably very interesting for the University of Southern California wondering what's going to happen...'

Fair enough, I suppose. Although it would be nice, if not a little naive, to hope that a prominent NBA general manager had enough couth to at least pretend his team cares about character. At least he was honest about getting the third pick though.

'Hey, we ended up where we were ... I'm very happy with that.'

[...]'It's supposedly a two-man draft,' [McHale] said. 'I love being third. We have eight players that you look at in this draft and you really, really like. It gives us a lot of flexibility at that third spot.'

Okay, okay. So "honest" isn't a synonym for "insanely optimistic". McHale also professed his joy at being a 22 win team last season, which is odd, considering you play 60 more games each year in the NBA.

All told, there is a strong sentiment from NBA GM's to play the "at least we didn't move back!" card when their team gets unlucky at the lottery. And this is just an example of McHale doing that; obviously he would rather have a shot at Derrick Rose or Michael Beasley, where there is a much lower chance that he screws things up.

H/T: 850 the Buzz