The Timberwolves selected Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio with the fifth pick of the draft, and Syracuse point guard Jonny Flynn with the sixth pick. New York is rumored to be hot on Rubio’s trail, trade-wise.
At #18, they picked North Carolina PG Ty Lawson, but they will trade him to Denver for a first-round pick from Charlotte, with the pick coming in one of the next five years.
That pick is protected as follows:
- Top-12 in 2010
- Top-10 in 2011
- Top-8 in 2012
- Top-3 in 2013
- Unprotected in 2014
With the 28th pick, the Timberwolves selected shooting guard Wayne Ellington, from North Carolina. Draft Express had a throwaway report that Minnesota had also traded Ellington to Denver, but as of the end of the draft this has been reported nowhere else.
With the 45th pick, the Wolves took point guard Nick Calathes from Florida. Reports are that the Wolves will trade Calathes to Dallas for future cash and draft considerations. That’s as attributed to a league executive.
With the 47th pick, Minnesota selected Dutch forward Henk Norel, who immediately has one of the best names of any Wolves draftee. He played with Rubio for DKV Joventut this year. We won’t be seeing Norel anytime soon – three years at least.
As of 11:00pm Central time, the Wolves will hold onto Rubio (5), Flynn (6), and Ellington (28). Norel (47) will play in Europe, and the team has traded Ty Lawson (18) and Nick Calathes (45).
Click “Read More” to see a night’s worth of updates, under the cut.
9:15 – RUMOR MILL: “The New York Knicks are working hard to cut a deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves to acquire guard Ricky Rubio…. One league GM said a deal ‘isn’t 100 percent,’ but likely. Timberwolves officials are thus far resisting the advances of the Knicks and the wishes of the player’s agent and insisting that Rubio will stay in Minnesota.” Thanks to Stu for the link. Trading Rubio would take pretty much all of the air out of this draft; personally, I’d go from “happy” to “unhappy” in a flash.
9:10 – Jay Bilas calls Wayne Ellington, the Wolves’ fourth pick, “a very good get” in this draft. He’s a junior guard out of UNC.
9:05 – The Wolves are back on the clock… and you get the feeling that, if they could pass out of the first round, they would.
8:50 – BJ Mullens is off the board at #24 – and so can be somebody else’s continuously disappointing project, rather than ours. That said, I have no idea what the Wolves are now planning at #28. My wild guess: Somebody from overseas that’s planning to stay overseas, so they don’t have to pay three first-rounders.
8:30 – Kevin Love had more or less the same reaction to the Lawson pick as me: “what are we doing????????????????? omg we better trade….what are we doing??????????? i dont even know”.
8:20 – What in the blue hell? The Wolves have picked three point guards!
8:15 – Wolves on the clock again. Ohio State center BJ Mullens is still on the board… and here’s a guy whose main talent involves keeping his hat seven feet off the ground. We’ll see in a minute whether the Wolves take him anyway…
8:05 – Chicago at #16 is on the clock, and we haven’t had a trade yet. This seems odd. Maybe just because Kevin McHale isn’t around.
8:00 – We’re all the way up to pick #15, and point guards Jrue Holiday and Ty Lawson are still on the board. Why not pick a third one? The Wolves can field a team consisting entirely of point guards, power fowards, and Corey Brewer!
7:45 – Of course, Rubio holds a lot of cards in negotiating with the Wolves. If he doesn’t want to play in Minnesota, he can force a trade, knowing that he can always stay in Spain. Though the team says they want to keep both, rather than trading one or the other, they may not end up with a choice.
7:30 – I admit, I’m a little confused right now; I don’t know why the Wolves just took a pure point guard and a 5-11 point guard back-to-back. ESPN.com’s Chad Ford thinks the team will move Rubio and keep Flynn, which would infuriate pretty much everybody. However, the general manager has told multiple sources that the team is keeping both, so take from that what you will – though he told the draft party that fans might have to “wait a year” on Rubio. We don’t know what that means.
7:15 – Kevin Love on the two picks: “these guys are going to love my outlets…nuff said.”
WOLVES TAKE RUBIO, FLYNN
6:58 – Moment of truth – will Sacramento take Rubio?
No! Tyreke Evans!
6:52 – The Grizzlies took Hasheem Thabeet at #2, so barring another blockbuster Memphis-Minnesota draft-day trade, Thabeet won’t be the defensive complement to Big Al. At #3, James Harden goes off the board… could Kahn’s dream be fulfilled? Could Ricky Rubio fall all the way to #5?
6:40 – Okay, the draft has started… and the Clippers picked Brandon Jennings!
Just kidding. They took Blake Griffin, obviously.
6:05 – Evening, all – and welcome to the T-Wolves Blog coverage of the 2009 Draft. I’ll be updating this thread with Wolves-specific updates as the draft happens. The latest update will always be here, “above the fold”; I’ll archive updates under the cut. And of course, you can follow along with the network-wide live blog – see the post below.
Just so we’re all clear: the Wolves, at this point, still have the same six picks as this morning: 5, 6, 18, 28, 45, and 47. That’s a lot of picks – more than one team could make, really, unless that team starts picking random Euro players that won’t be here for years.