The Darko Initiative

I'm a few days late with this, but I should comment on the Minnesota Timberwolves trade that happened before the NBA's trade deadline last week.

On Wednesday February 17th the Timberwolves made a trade with the New York Knicks, sending them seldom used Brian Cardinal for seldom used Darko Milicic. This is a trade that shows why David Kahn is doing a much better job than Kevin McHale did. I'm not one of those people that bashes McHale. He did a very good job of building the franchise up from being a laughingstock to a team that made it to the Western Conference Finals. Of course it then headed straight back to being a laughingstock before Kevin left not of his own accord.

There is a chance this trade will end up just being a wash for the Timberwolves. Brian Cardinal was not going to be on the team next year and he wasn't playing this year. Darko has been on record saying he is done with the NBA and will head home to Europe and play there next season. So, if Darko does stay in Europe next year, the T-Wolves are no better or no worse than they were without the trade. And that is the absolute worse this trade can be.

The good side of this deal? Milicic was taken #2 in a very deep and talented draft. He probably should not have been taken then, and hind-site says that was an absolutely horrible pick by the Detroit Pistons. But the fact remains that he does have some undeniable skill and for whatever reason has not been able to put that skill to use in his NBA career. He is also only 24 years old which means he should just now be entering the prime of his career. A time that his physical skills should start to flourish. He has been in the league for seven years already, and has mostly been an afterthought through those seven years. He's shown flashes of the brilliance that made him become the #2 pick in that draft, and he's also shown why he finds himself at the end of the bench on most of the teams he's played for.

He is exactly the type of player the Timberwolves need to compliment Al Jefferson and Kevin Love, and if Milicic can figure out how to use his skills here, this will be one of the best trades this team could ever make.

As I'm writing this, Darko has played exactly one game with the Timberwolves. He has stated he flat-out is not in game shape because of his lack of playing time in New York. So we should be expecting some growing pains here in what will amount to a 27-game tryout that will let each side know if Milicic will be a good fit with us or be better off going back over-seas. In that one game he played... WOW. Who would have seen this coming? He played 19-minutes, which is more than anyone could have expected him to play. But the thing is he earned those minutes. He scored 8 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, blocked 1 shot and had two assists, one of which was a beautiful back door pass to Damian Wilkins. But the big stat of the night? He was a +35, which means the Timberwolves outscored Oklahoma by 35-points while he was in the game. That's an insane number especially considering a)it was a close game decided by two-points and b)we lost. It would be easy to see someone be +35 in a blow-out win. It would be easy to see a +35 with someone playing garbage-time minutes. But this was a +35 where he found himself playing meaningful minutes and he found himself on the court for the last 4-minutes of a game decided by just two points.

It was only one game, and maybe that will be the peak of his career with us. But if he can build on that, and enjoy himself and comeback to play next year and years to come, wow, this trade would just be brilliant for the Timberwolves. The T-Wolves don't need a center that needs to score. They need a center that can play defense, block some shots, grab some rebounds, and score when needed and that is exactly what Milicic can bring.

Here's looking to some positive days with Milicic as the starting center for years to come.