5 p.m. Wednesday: Best Minnesota draft picks ever at our Virtual Happy Hour
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Welcome to our weekly Star Tribune sports Virtual Happy Hour. Today we'll be drafting the 20 best draft picks by Minnesota's professional teams. We're pretty sure that the picks will be all over the board, with some folks drafting the best available draft pick and others draft according to personal preference. You can send us your comments and, as long as they're bar-room friendly and on point, we'll try to get most of them published.
Here's our draft order for today. It's a snake draft, so we'll be reversing the order for the second round.
1. Michael Rand, senior digital writer and pro basketball editor;2. Ken Chia, copy editor;3. Jeff Day, copy editor;4. Chip Scoggins, columnist;5. Marcus Fuller, college men's basketball writer;6. Jerry Zgoda, soccer and golf writer;7. Chris Miller, Vikings/Twins/Wild team leader;8. Randy Johnson, Puck Drop editor and college hockey writer;9. Howard Sinker, digital sports editor.There will be two bonus picks awarded to create our list of 20. And, yes, don't hesitate to shout out your suggestions. -
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Man alive, is this a depressing list to read
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Timberwolves_draft_historyl -
We're about five minutes away from go time ... with Michael Rand, Ken Chia and Jeff Day having the first three picks. To clarify, this is a draft by Minnesota teams, not of players from Minnesota. So Dave Winfield, Kevin McHale and a few others will have to wait for *that* draft.
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Nick Punto: I think, and Howard can correct me here, but it's all on the table? Meaning, say, Steph Marbury would apply even though he's not a Wolves draft pick per se because the Wolves traded Ray Allen for him on draft night? At least, that's how I interpret this. (I would say Ray Allen is not on the table, though.)
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An all-time great draft pick should obviously be a great player. But it should be more than that. It should be a pick that took some guts. It should be a pick that might not have worked out.For that reason -- and yes, I waffled some on this -- I'm taking Kevin Garnett No. 1 overall.He was taken No. 5 overall in 1995, a skinny kid out of Farragut Academy. He went on to be the best player -- by a mile -- in Wolves history and a league MVP.
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I had a feeling KG would go No. 1 overall, with good reason. But with the No. 2 overall pick, I select the Twins drafting of Joe Mauer with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2001 June amateur draft. I can't imagine a pick that worked out better for an organization than Mauer did for the Twins. The fact that it was somewhat controversial (many thought Mark Prior was the better prospect) and that it was perhaps the greatest prep athlete in Minnesota history made it all the more riveting. And the fact is that often the No. 1 overall pick simply doesn't pan out (Tim Belcher) so the fact that Mauer went on to a Hall of Fame career (I will hear NO arguments) made it all the better.
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OK, well I'll need to change. But I want to throw out that besides the Belcher example (he didn't even sign!), the Twins in the three years beforehand drafted Ryan Mills, B.J. Garbe and Adam Johnson with their first overall pick. So they could easily have screwed it up. But they didn't!
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KG and Mauer were the early betting line to go Nos. 1 and 2. But people weren't sure of the order. We'll see whether Jeff Day moves us to another sport or goes to the baseball/basketball well once again. Chip Scoggins will make his Happy Hour debut after that.
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OK, I wasn't planning on doing any Vikings UNLESS Randy Moss was available. Randy Moss is available, and he is my pick. A once-in-a-lifetime talent who transformed not only the team he was on but the game of football itself, and he was selected 21st overall. Remember that there were 20 guys taken before him! No, there was no Super Bowl victory for the Vikings because of this pick, nor was there even an NFC championship. And yes, there were antics that had to be put up with. I don't care, he made the Vikings THE team in this town, a title that had been wavering a little before his arrival.
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