Jeff: Foreign Relations

If you find yourself sitting at something called a "cafe" sipping tea or coffee with your pinky up, I'm about to offend you. If you smoke 5 packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day, you're headed for a coughing fit of anger any minute. If you enjoy wearing jeans that cut off the circulation at the ankles, t-shirts that are 5 sizes too small, or purposefully buy clothes with a healthy amount of pink in them, well you're not going to be very happy with me either. Generally if you fit this description you're either a) metrosexual or b) European, and really, we're splitting hairs to tell them apart. Although my thoughts for today are meant for the latter group, any man who considers themselves part of the former and gets offended, I have no sympathy for you. Let's be honest: if you take longer to get ready than your spouse/girlfriend, have more than a bar of soap and bottle of shampoo in your shower (a razor and shaving cream are also viable shower products as long as you're only using them on your face), or enjoy any of the other things listed above, well, a little honesty could do you some good. But I digress. After the Wolves' trade of Sam Cassell AND a #1 pick for Euro guard Marko Jaric, I've had enough. I cannot and will not stand for this anymore, and it must be said:

Someone please tell me WHY you would ever draft or trade for a European player in the NBA?!?!? (And yes that includes Tony Parker) WHY?

(Please note that I am not throwing all foreign players into this. South Americans, like Argentenian Manu Ginobili, would be a welcomed edition to any team, and players from the continent of Africa have faired well. I remember Hakeem being pretty good. China? If you think Yao Ming will ever be a true go-to player, well...)

Euros have been coming into the NBA since the early '90's, with players like the late Drazen Petrovic, and the somehow-still-alive-despite-chain-smoking-during-timeouts-Vlade Divac. More and more every year we hear about the Euros and their fundamentals, their ball-movement (insert own joke here) and how they look REALLY good in practice for the Uzbekastan Wednesday night men's league. Well that's all fine and good, but let's look at the contribution of Euro's when it really matters--the NBA Playoffs:

They are as follows...



...hang on...



...wait for it...


...ok so upon further review, Euro's have as much value in the playoffs as a single man at a women's college softball tournament. From Vlade to Peja and even ol' Dirk right on down, Euro's have had little to no impact when it matters most. And this is not just a phenomenon that applies to basketball. This little sport called hockey used to annually host a tournament, or "playoff" if you will, to determine a true champion for their sport. The winning team received the Stanley Cup. The best player in these playoffs received the Conn Smythe award as the most outstanding player. How many non-North Americans have won this award in the roughly 80 years it's been handed out? Two, both Swedes (Pete Forsberg and Nik Lidstrom). And that's it.

(Americans have won it a grand total of once, but I'm letting that go since a Canadian has never won an NBA Finals MVP. But say what you will about him not deserving the regular season MVP-and I would agree- but Steve Nash was all-world against Dallas and San Antonio. And another Canadian, Bill Wennington, made a sizeable contribution to some of those Bulls championship teams. Don't believe me? What would the three-headed-white-center have been without Wennington? And the fact he was the only man wearing the full-grown beard? Well let's just say it's starting to turn into a glass case of emotions here just thinking about it so I'll leave it at that.)

I don't care how good a player is in the regular season, but if he can't step it up and play well in the playoffs then, call me crazy, he's not a guy I want on my team. Or at least not one I'm investing big dollars in, or using a lottery pick or even a 1st round pick on. I've been over this before but give me a good North American player that's proven his talents in college, rather than some Euro who looks good in warmups and has good fundamentals but is lacking, um, well, I believe the Spanish word is cahones. And I have yet to see a Euro really strap on a pair of these in the playoffs.

So I find out Friday night, from none other than the Jer himself, who happened to be live on location from North Dakota, that the Wolves had traded Cassell to the Clips for Marko Jaric. Ok, I'm a little shocked because this means Kevin McHale has entered the digital era and gotten himself a cell phone AND found time to use it in between rounds of golf. Amazing. Then Jer drops the other shoe by mentioning good ol' Kev threw in a 1st round pick... and I think this is the part where I dropped the phone.

Hear me out on this: Sam Cassell is a detriment to the team, and was one of two parts that helped completely sabotage last season (again let me point out that the Wolves fired a top-5 NBA coach instead of getting rid of Sam and Spree &/or the man who brought them there-the Big Ugly Sweater). But he is now entering the final year of his contract, which means he's VERY tradeable. Jamal Mashburn hadn't played in two seasons but was still traded last year, and you can count on one hand the number of minutes Big Dog Robinson (who probably couldn't start for his alma mater Purdue let alone an NBA team right now) played last year and he still got traded. Why? Final year of their contracts. So McHale has a valuable commodity, and he throws it away for a Euro guard (which automatically means he plays no defense whatsoever) who can't make decisions well enough to run the point but doesn't shoot well enough to play 2 guard. Ok so that makes the deal bad enough. BUT TO THROW IN A 1ST ROUND PICK?!?!?!?!?!

I need a moment here....

...ok I'm at least able to type. Look, McHale is now not only the worst GM in the Twin Cities, he's the worst in sports. Period. When Elgin Baylor and the CLippers rips you off, you are officially the worst. And guess what? He's going to be GM until he dies!!!!!! I'm debating whether we should tell him that in professional sports, your team gets a first round pick every year, and there are teams, even right here in your own league, who use them to develop good players and teams! A crazy concept, I know. but then again, considering he's used #1's on Endi Ebi, and this year passed on guys like Danny Granger (2005 NBA rookie of the year), Gerald Green (perenial all-star in 4 years or less), and Hakim Warrick (double-double machine when put beside Garnett), maybe the Wolves are better off without draft picks.

The 6 Wolves fans that are left now officially know what it's like to be the 6 New Orleans Saints fans: in a state of eternal mediocrity with no hope of getting better or worse. But hey, at least McHale signed summer-league wonder Nikolai Tschsightitgjruewhfjdvili!! He scored 25 points in ONE FREAKING GAME THIS SUMMER!!!! His previous 3 actual NBA seasons? Slim and none.

In the end though, no matter how frustrated or upset I get, no matter how many dumb moves McHale makes, it really doesn't matter: he's not going anywhere, and neither are the Wolves.