A while ago I made a post lamenting (to a limited extent) the departures of former Timberwolves this past offseason. At the time it looked like all of them were going to contenders, ready to do what they couldn't do in Minnesota.

Well, almost 60 games into the season it looks like none of those players (with one obvious exception and one surprise) are doing ANYTHING for any of their teams, winning or not.

Mike James: Since being traded to Houston before the draft for Juwan Howard (with Mr. Reed below) Mike James has played terribly. There I said it. In 33 games with the Rockets (a team he seemed so excited to be returning to) James averaged 6.5 points in 16.2 minutes. He shot 35% from the field.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, one of the biggest obstacles the Wolves have to overcome on their way to winning is a massive free throw disparity. The Wolves give up 32 FTA/game which, if you consider in the Wolves' 21 FTA/game and their opponent's 80% FT%, results in a built in 9-point disadvantage for the puppies. It’s pretty hard to win games when you’re giving away this many points.

My gut reaction to the Wolves’ FT disparity is that Randy Foye’s absence may have a lot to do with the Wolves being unable to get to the line. Foye is one of the few Wolves who can create his own shot by getting into the lane and drawing contact. Is this hunch correct? Does Foye’s absence have a lot to do with the Wolves not getting to the line? Let’s take a quick look at Foye’s stats:

As a rookie, Foye got to the line 2.34 times per game. Of course, per game stats are not the way to judge effectiveness, especially with rookies. If you adjust his stats for game minutes, Foye makes roughly 4.1 FTA/40 minutes. During his senior year at Villanova, Foye got to the line 6 times/40 minutes. While Foye simply doesn’t have a large enough resume to dig too much deeper into his FTA impact (to say nothing of the small sample size of backup Wolves guards this year), it can reasonably be assumed that the Wolves are losing 4-6 FTA/40 minutes by not having Foye in the lineup. If you take into consideration Marko Jaric's 3.35 FTA/40, we’re talking about a net loss of 1-3 FTA/40 minutes. All in all, Foye’s absence hurts a little bit, but the Wolves are getting blown out by such a large amount at the line that even a nice contact player like Foye doesn’t make that big of a difference. To give you an idea of where Foye lies in the scheme of FTA, last year Kobe Bryant led the league with 9.77 FTA/40 minutes. KG led the Wolves with roughly 6.6 FTA/40 minutes. If Foye could get in the lane to the tune of Ben Gordon (447 FTA; 6.5/40 in 06/07) or Chauncey Billups (440 FTA; 6.9/40 in 06/07), he would be a vast improvement over anyone currently on the Wolves' roster.

To give you an idea of just how strapped the Wolves are for players that can get to the line, the only other player they had in the top 100 FTA during the 06/07 season was Ricky Davis (285 FTA). Al Jefferson, then a Celtic, logged in with 295 FTA. Once you take away KG’s 498 FTAs….well, the puppies are screwed. (In case you are wondering, Big Al averaged 3.46 FTA/40 minutes last year.)

Cutting to the chase, the Wolves have lost their only 3 legitimate free throw threats from the 06/07 season. KG and RD are gone via trade and Foye is still aching on the bench. While Davis’ 285 FTAs have been replaced by Jefferson’s 295, that equation still leaves us with a –488 FTA disparity since KG left for greener pastures. Yikes.

This is the single biggest drop off between last year’s team and this year’s squad. If you take out the massive discrepancy in FTA, this year’s Wolves are more effective on the defensive end than they were during KG’s last year. The 07/08 Wolves are giving up nearly 9 points per game at the line and it is killing them. If the Wolves played the FTA game even, they would have a nearly identical offensive/defensive efficiency rating. Last year, with KG’s nearly 500 FTAs on the books, the Wolves had a defensive efficiency rating of 108. This year, they are at 112 while giving away 9 points/game at the line.

Since I’m on the subject of KG, it should also be noted that while the Celts are having a fantastic defensive year, it could be a mirage as they are near the bottom of the league in FT/100 FG. In other words, the Celts give up a lot of free throws and if their offensive pace slows down just a little more than its current rate (as it did vs. Cleveland and Orlando) and their opponent has a player that can get to the line (LeBron James went 14-15; Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis combined for 18-30 in the Celts' 2 losses), their defense struggles. Luckily for them, they play the Knicks, 76ers, Miami, Charlotte, and Chicago for nearly a quarter of their games.

Getting back on track, the Wolves need to seriously think about FTA when making their top selection in next year’s draft. It should be one of the main considerations if 2 players with similar stats fall in their laps (OJ Mayo vs. Derrick Rose; Roy Hibbert vs. Deandre Jordan; etc). As far as the Wolves are concerned, free throws are the most important of the four factors as it has a trickle down effect on both their offense and defense.

As a parting tidbit, Derrick Rose is getting to the line at a clip of 10 FTA/40 minutes. Michael Beasley is averaging 9.41 FTA/40 minutes. In his junior year, Roy Hibbert got to the line 6.27 times/40 minutes. Freshman Deandre Jordan is averaging 6.62 FTA/40 minutes. If the Wolves are going to field a competitive team, increasing their free throw attempts is the most important statistical need they have to address.

I'm watching the Rockets/Mavericks game tonight on NBATV and I just realized there are 3 former Wolves playing for these two contending teams: Trenton Hassell, Mike James and Juwan Howard. Then there's Ricky Davis and Mark Blount, also playing for a top team in the East (yes, Miami's status at the top is in peril this year). Troy Hudson signed with the Warriors, who last year had one of the greatest playoff runs in recent memory. And, of course, there's some power forward playing in Boston this year.

No matter how you slice it, a good number of players that were supposed to bring basketball glory to Minnesota over the last few years are now playing for very relevant teams in the NBA. And even though it's early, every single one of them seem to be contributing pretty well to their new teams.

I'm struggling to find an answer here, but I just can't. Why couldn't these players, that very good teams have found a use for, get it together here? Were the Timberwolves asking too much of each of them? T-Mac, Yao and a newly deep Rockets team allow Mike James to contribute at his own pace. The same goes for Howard and Hassell in Dallas with their deep squad. Ricky has definitely been contributingg in Miami, and Blount has been as well, to a more limited extent.

If there's one thing that has become obvious in the fallout to trading KG, it's that the Timberwolves lacked serious chemistry ever since Spree and Cassell crept up on free agency. And that's not to blame those two. The chemistry problems have obviously spread from the court to the owner's box and not skipped any level along the way.

I'm as excited as the next guy about this new Wolves team. And, as I wrote yesterday, they looked much better the last two games than I expected. Regardless, trading away KG will leave a bad taste in my and many other's mouths for a long time.

End pontification

There's been quite a bit of reaction to the trade today. Why not? It's the most exciting thing that happened in the NBA today, the Wolves traded two of last season's top scorers today and the Wolves have 12 out of 17 players that were not around last year (John Edwards doesn't count anymore).

So, instead of boring you with what I think, here's a quick rundown of some interesting things other people said about todays deal:

In the Detroit Free Press Flip Saunders was quoted as saying: "Hey, that’s the Timberwolves for you. Not much there." Ouch Flip. Sure, Saunders got jobbed by McHale and Taylor, but is that necessary? Sounds more like sour grapes than basketball wisdom. (Thanks to SG at T-Wolves Blog.

In the Timberwolves.com talk with McHale and Wittman, McHale said "I'm not sure that all the players going to report here" but tied it to health. Right. He also referred to Wayne Simien's contract as "done this year." That's only partially true. Simien is still on his rookie contract and has a team option for next year. Although he plays the same position as Craig Smith, Al Jefferson and Ryan Gomes, Simien likely hasn't shown his full potential yet. In short, he's cheap young talent. If he's terrible this year, they let him walk. But if he's a wash this year in performance vs. potential, might as well keep him around next year. The roster glut will be a bit better anyway.

Here are the details McHale gave about the pick protection: "It's protected through 14 (picks) in 2008 and the protection goes down until there's not protection three years from now. ... The protection is 14 for 2008, 10 for 2009, six for 2010 and after that it's unprotected. They're looking to make a playoff push so I imagine (the pick) will be around the late teens and twenties."

Why does Wittman keep referring to "two, two and a half, or three" players developing? That makes zero sense. Also, Wittman says Toine is "not a post-up player." Really? He actually has some really good post moves, or at least he used to. Sure he jacks up threes all the time, but down low he can take a lot of small forwards in this league.

Timberwolves Today has the new Wolves commercial up. I think it's way better than I expected from the Wolves. It makes me optimistic that their marketing department is turning the ship around.

Apologies for the lull here at Canis Hoopus. It's amazing how a job that keeps you busy can interfere with blogging.

Being so busy almost caused me to miss what appears to be a pending trade. FourLetter.com is reporting that the Heat and Wolves have agreed to a deal. Here's how it breaks down:

• The Wolves send Ricky Davis and Mark Blount
• The Heat send Antoine Walker, Michael Doleac, Wayne Simien and possibly a pick

I wouldn't complain if this were the way the deal ends up. Taking Walker's contract hurts, but it's shorter than Blount's. This trade also worsens the roster glut, but buyouts appear to be impending.