In case you were wondering, the answer is “no.” Al Jefferson will not be going anywhere but rehab and conditioning sessions this offseason. So there, we’ve started this post at the end. Now we can go back to where this mess began… for posterity’s sake.
Marc Spears of the Boston Globe reported on his blog late Wednesday that an unnamed league exec. knew Wolves novice GM David Kahn was entertaining trade scenarios with the Suns involving Al Jefferson, Minnesota’s No. 6 pick and Amar’e Stoudemire. Here’s what Spears wrote:
An NBA executive told the Boston Globe that the Timberwolves and Suns are working on a trade that would send Al Jefferson and the Wolves’ sixth draft pick to Phoenix in exchange for Amare Stoudemire.
This deal, as reported, will not happen. Not only is Al Jefferson arguably the more valuable player (considering he rebounds, defends and is much healthier and younger), the No. 6 pick in the upcoming draft is also included. Stoudemire, with one year left on his contract, could leave any team after this season. The Wolves would be giving away two of its major building blocks for essentially a goggled, one-year rental.
But some with a little less sense (and others with early onset offseason boredom) began to take this news to another level. Thankfully KTAR‘s John Gambadoro set the record straight right away. In so many words, Gambo plainly states what should’ve been said from the outset: The trade has no legs.
The truth is that there have been NO discussions between the teams about this trade. It is a total BS made up rumor with no legs.
[…]
So before this trade rumor starts to take off let’s do a reality check — it is not going to happen. It has not been discussed. And it is 100 percent completely made up.
So before we get all excited (or depressed) or go off on David Kahn for his foolishness, just remember it was one sentence, on one blog post, from one unnamed source, about one completely unrealistic scenario.
Don’t you just love the offseason!
