As last season wore on and it became obvious the Timberwolves were going to miss the playoffs for the sixth time in Kevin Love’s six-year NBA career, it was hard to fathom how Minnesota could get anywhere near market value in return for their want-away star.
Everyone in the NBA knew Love, eligible to become a free agent following the 2014-15 season, had no interest in playing another game in a Timberwolves uniform, and would all but certainly leave for nothing if team president – and recently installed head coach – Flip Saunders didn’t move him. Despite the obvious demand for Love’s unique skill set, it seemingly left Saunders without much bargaining power.
So how did Saunders do? Really well, considering.
Here’s how Minnesota’s haul in the three-team trade with Cleveland and Philadelphia stacks up against six other mega-trades from the last 10 years in which superstars switched teams in their prime.
7. Aug. 1, 2007: Timberwolves receive Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair, Theo Ratliff, two first-round picks (turned into Jonny Flynn and Wayne Ellington) and cash from the Celtics for Kevin Garnett.
This list ironically begins with the last time the Timberwolves dealt away an All-NBA power forward. The team hasn’t come close to making the playoffs since sending away The Big Ticket after 12 years of loyal service and only one trip deep into the playoffs on his resume.
Al Jefferson is an excellent player, but wound up being dealt away during the disastrous David Kahn Era and otherwise this deal was a total washout. Green has become a serviceable role player … after washing out of the league and spending time playing in Russia and China. Gomes, Ellington and Telfair have become end-of-the-bench journeymen, Ratliff was an expiring contract and Flynn was a disastrous pick at No. 6 overall – one spot ahead of Stephen Curry and three ahead of DeMar DeRozan.
6. Dec. 14, 2011: Hornets receive Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu and a first-round pick (turned into Austin Rivers) from the Clippers for Chris Paul.
This was a controversial trade for a number of reasons, but most importantly because NBA commissioner David Stern – acting as team owner after the league had purchased the New Orleans franchise from George Shinn – had vetoed a potential trade of Paul to the Lakers.
He wound up approving a deal that sent Paul to the Clippers for Gordon – a very promising young guard – as well as a top-10 pick in Aminu and what turned into another in Rivers.
None of these assets have really panned out, though. Gordon is still talented, but injuries have kept him from staying on the court. Aminu left New Orleans as a free agent this summer, signing with Dallas, and Rivers has been a colossal bust.
5. Feb. 24, 2011: Jazz receive Devin Harris, Derrick Favors, two first-round picks (turned into Enes Kanter and Rodney Hood) from the Nets for Deron Williams.
In the wake of losing Carmelo Anthony to their crosstown rivals (we’ll get to that in a moment), the Nets pounced almost immediately on a suddenly available Williams for virtually the same package they were offering the Knicks.
This trade is still a mixed bag for the Jazz, who used the final pick from the deal in this year’s draft when they took Hood with the No. 23 pick. Harris was a serviceable player before moving on to greener pastures, while Favors is still an unfinished product (thought excellent defensively). Kanter is still a bit of an enigma: After posting 12.3 points and 7.5 rebounds in his third pro season, we’ll see if the Jazz are willing to extend him this fall.
4. Aug. 10, 2012: Magic receive Josh McRoberts, Christian Eyenga, Maurice Harkless, Nikola Vucevic, Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington and two first-round picks (one turned into Elfrid Payton, the other was traded) from Lakers, 76ers, Nuggets in four-team trade that sent Dwight Howard to Los Angeles.
The Magic’s Dwight Howard saga was similar to the situation the Timberwolves faced with Love: Everyone knew Howard was leaving town one way or the other, and it was just a matter of what they got in return for him.
Newly installed Magic general manager Rob Hennigan was able to eventually concoct a complicated four-team trade in which the Magic got back two young, interesting pieces in Vucevic and Harkless, a solid vet in Afflalo and a pair of first-round picks that turned into guard Elfrid Payton, a lottery pick in this coming year’s draft.
If Payton works out, the Magic could easily move up this list, but at the moment it appears they did not get a star in return for Howard, which limits the upside of this trade.
3. July 14, 2004: Lakers receive Caron Butler, Lamar Odom, Brian Grant and a first-round pick (turned into Jordan Farmar) from the Heat for Shaquille O’Neal.
Hard to fault this superstar trade for either side, as the Heat wound up winning a championship in 2006 with O’Neal manning the middle and the Lakers wound up building their next two championships with Odom and Jordan Farmar playing key roles.
Odom is likely the best individual player any of these teams received in exchange for one of these stars, and Butler was a good player for the Lakers before being dealt to Washington for Kwame Brown – a precursor to Brown’s expiring contract becoming a key piece of the Pau Gasol trade a few years later.
2. Feb. 22, 2011: Nuggets receive Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov and a first-round pick (later traded) from the Knicks as part of a multi-team trade that sent Carmelo Anthony to New York.
At the time of the deal, Nuggets general manager Masai Ujiri was hailed as setting the new standard for the best deal you could get in return for a star player. Denver got four rotation quality players – with Gallinari, in particular, having the chance to be much more — and a first-round pick in exchange for Anthony.
Gallinari has spent the past two seasons mostly on the sidelines because of knee injuries, but this trade helped the Nuggets win 56 games in 2012-13, building a unique team that instead of having one go-to player went 11 or 12 deep with quality rotation players.
1. Aug. 23, 2014: Timberwolves receive Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and Thaddeus Young from 76ers, Cavaliers in three-team trade that sent Kevin Love to Cleveland.
And now we have the Love trade, which is the new gold standard for how these trades should be judged moving forward.
When you’re moving a player like Kevin Love – a superstar in his prime – the ideal scenario is to acquire a player can be as good or better than the player you’re trading away. Who knows how good Andrew Wiggins is going to be, but there’s no question the ceiling on his massive potential makes him as good as what Love is now, if not better.
And that doesn’t even consider that Minnesota also got last year’s No. 1 overall pick Bennett. He had a rough rookie season largely due to health issues, but he looked to be much more confident and in better shape in summer league last month and could blossom into a very good player.
Throw in Thaddeus Young, a solid, dependable pro whom the Timberwolves got in exchange for the protected first-round pick they received from the Cavaliers, and there’s no question this package far exceeds the Timberwolves’ expected return with such little leverage.
Some things broke Minnesota’s way. Cleveland won the draft lottery. Joel Embiid’s foot injury kept him from being the first pick (he would’ve been a perfect fit for the Cavaliers). LeBron James’ decision to return to Cleveland pushed the Cavaliers to become a win-now championship contender.
But the Timberwolves still had to get the deal done. And now that the dust has settled, it’s clear they couldn’t have done much better than this.