Remember when David Kahn drafted Jonny freaking Flynn over Steph Curry, thus setting the Timberwolves back about a decade?
In an essay for Sports Illustrated, Kahn says he took Flynn immediately after drafting Ricky Rubio because Curry’s camp told him he didn’t want to play in Minnesota, and Kahn couldn’t draft two guys, with Rubio being the other, that might refuse to come to Minnesota.
“So we now had the Nos. 5 and 6 picks in the draft. Taking not one, but two players who might not want to play in Minnesota? That would have taken real cojones. We took Rubio and Jonny Flynn, a ready-to-play point guard who started 81 games for us as a rookie and then fell victim to a terrible hip injury. At the time, drafting Flynn made a lot of sense: we didn’t have a single point guard on the roster and our staff had ranked him No. 1 among all point-guard prospects for not only his on-court play, but also his strong leadership qualities, a significant team need.
Flynn made his final move to the top of our charts based on his impressive visit and workout with Tyreke Evans and Brandon Jennings, among others. Curry’s absence was duly noted. Rubio wasn’t there, either, but I thought his passing ability and defense were extraordinary for an 18-year-old and was willing to take the risk I could ultimately recruit him to come. That was the player I wanted.”
Again, Kahn admits that he liked Rubio more than Curry going into the draft. Because of that, he took a risk on Rubio instead of the future two-time league MVP.
Even scarier is that Kahn and the Wolves ranked Flynn higher than any other point guard in the ’09 draft.
But it is true that Curry’s old man, former NBA player Dell Curry, told Kahn not to draft his boy.
“We told Minnesota that Steph didn’t want to go there,” Dell Curry told the Arizona Republic last year.
