Trade!

Tonight, the Wolves made a 7-player trade with the Celtics. Minnesota sent Wally Szczerbiak, Michael Olowokandi, and rookie Dwayne Jones to Boston in exchange for Ricky Davis, Mark Blount, Marcus Banks, and Justin Reed. TNT has slammed the trade, saying it does nothing for either team. I feel bad about it initially, but mainly because I thought the Wolves were going to be able to trade Olowokandi for value without trading Wally. I think Wally had really started to come around this season, and KG had mentioned publicly at least once that he and Wally knew how to play with each other now from being together for several years. It's a shame that KG will have to get used to new teammates again. Additionally, I don't know if any of the other players the Wolves got aside from Davis (more on him below) will contribute at all. They were either D-league players or bit-part role-players on a bad Celtics team. Maybe McHale sees something in one of them that nobody else does. Finally, I'm sad that Rashard McCants wasn't a part of this deal. It seems like the Wolves could've dealt him and tried to get one of Boston's young big guys, Kendrick Perkins or Al Jefferson. I guess they're both probably untouchable but I was hoping that if Wally had to go (and I'm not convinced he did, but I can see it) they'd get something special in return.

All that being said, I like Ricky Davis -- a lot. He's always been a tremendously talented player with a less than stellar reputation. I think in the past few years his reputation has come into step with his talent level. He plays hard consistently from what I've seen and heard, and he's an average to above average defender. Maybe more importantly, he's a playmaker/creator. He and Garnett should play well together, I think. I think they'll both create easier scoring opportunities for one another. Also, there will now be 2 players capable of drawing lots of attention and creating easy shots for the other Wolves. On the whole, I like the acquisition of Davis a lot. A few weeks will tell whether it was an upgrade over Szczerbiak given the fact that he has to be integrated into the offense and defense. But I now like the Wolves defense more, and their intensity and playmaking ability just got big upgrades. I hope it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship.