Former T’Wolves GM David Kahn may never work in basketball again because of the choices he made during the 2009 NBA Draft.
Kahn and the T’Wolves had three of the first 18 picks of the draft, and wanted to put talent around Kevin Love.
Minnesota selected Ricky Rubio at No. 5, Jonny Flynn at No. 6, and Ty Lawson at No. 18, but then eventually traded Lawson to Denver for a pick.
Grantland did a terrific piece on Flynn’s battle to get back into the NBA, but it also pokes fun at the reason Kahn chose three-point guards in the same draft.
In what can deemed the most laughable comparison in the history of the game, David Kahn envisioned Jonny Flynn and Ricky Rubio being the next Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe.
Dave Wohl, Minnesota’s lead assistant, remembers arriving in Minnesota and Kahn asking him whether Rubio and Flynn could prosper playing together. Wohl described Flynn as a good, ambitious kid. He also said that Rubio and (No. 7 pick Stephen) Curry would have made a better pairing. He didn’t believe either Flynn or Rubio could perform at shooting guard. “He said, ‘No, no. I want to play Jonny and Rubio. They remind me of [Walt] Frazier and [Earl] Monroe,’” Wohl said.
“When he said that, I didn’t know what to say. I actually played during the ’70s against Earl and Clyde and there’s just no comparison.” Wohl told Kahn that he did not think it was an accurate comparison. “He said, ‘Yeah, it is. They are two guys who can handle the ball,’” Wohl recalled Kahn saying. “When he started going in that direction, I knew that Kurt was going to have a struggle in him trying to figure out what to do with both those guys when they came because Ricky was clearly a guy who was a great passer and was going to be able to do some things offensively with his passing that Jonny, at that point, wasn’t able to do,” Wohl said.
David Kahn can never watch a basketball game again, let alone be a personnel guy for making such a ridiculous comparison.