








The Wild Ride of the 2008 NBA Draft: The Mayo Trade
The story of what it's like to report on a blockbuster tradebefore it happens
3:00 PM CT 6/27/08
To me the NBA Draft is like Christmas, I love the anticipation ofnot knowing what your team is going to get. We all knew the pressure theTimberwolves faced going into this draft and it appeared for once that theyfinally had made the right move by drafting OJ Mayo at #3 as he was the bestprospect available. In the back of every Timberwolves fan's mind, we all now wondered, will he stay in Minnesota? Well it sure looked that way for theentire draft as there was no trade rumors mentioned on ESPN involving Mayo.Usually if a trade is to be made involving two top 5 picks, it is at leastannounced by the end of the first round. But tonight was different; onceTimberwolves fans turned off their TV’s, little did they know that theTimberwolves were up to something that was about to turn everyone’s stomachupside down.
We at TimberwolvesPress learned about this trade right when thefirst round ended. Little did we know that we were about to help break open onethe biggest trades in draft day history.
Here is the journey of what it is like to break loose ablockbuster trade that will most likely be bad news to your hometown team’sfans.
6:47 PM CT
Finally the Timberwolves did what they were supposed to do bydrafting OJ Mayo. Although OJ didn’t fit a need for the Timberwolves, he wasthe big name they needed to keep fans happy. To be good to be true? Of course, we would soon learn the Timberwolves had something up theirsleeves like usual and that OJ Mayo would not be a Minnesota Timberwolf forlong.
10:00 PM CT
Everything changed at 10 o’clock. My partners and I received aphone call from an inside source claiming the Timberwolves and the Grizzliespretty much had agreed upon a trade before the draft that would have sent the3rd pick and Marko Jaric to Memphis in exchange for Mike Miller and the 5thpick. The deal was said to be done until Memphis decided on draft day that theywere no longer interested in taking on the contract of Marko Jaric. Mycolleagues and I were relieved that the trade hadn't gone through and we alljoked about how McHale would have screwed this draft up if he had made thattrade. I posted this news on a few threads and most people responded with a“whew.” I’ll be honest I was pretty happy it didn’t happen as well because Iwas still so excited about OJ Mayo and just the extras that he brings to abasketball team. Thinking of seeing Big Al, Foye, and Mayo in a lineup reallyhad me looking forward to next season.
10:02 PM CT
Two Minutes later our phone rings again but this time, my colleaguehas a bit more of a surprised look on his face.
“We just traded Mayo to Memphis!” he said.
“No we didn’t!” I quickly responded.
Two minutes ago we had just learned that this proposed deal hadbeen declared dead but now all of sudden it was supposedly done? We all sat inshock for about a minute, saying things like, “I knew this would happen,” or“McHale always has to screw up.” Finally after a minute of shock we knew we hadto report this.
Now we are a fairly new site but we only report information thatwe are 100% sure on. And I’ll tell you this; we were 100% about this trade. Wequickly posted the news that Mayo had been traded on a message board called,MNSportsFans.com at 10:05 PM CT. Within minutes the news was already lookedupon as garbage and as a joke. This would be also be a huge credibility shot toour site if we had this news wrong. We all sat knowing what this could mean forour site but at the same time we knew we had a very reliable source and thatthis was to good to not be reported.
Once the Timberwolves two 2nd round picks were over, we reallybegan to believe that this trade had happened. Surely if we had kept Mayo wewould have drafted a center that could help us out by next year. Instead weused the picks on Pekovic who wont be ready for 2-3 years and Chalmers who wequickly traded to Miami. Something just wasn’t right about these picks and theyjust didn’t make sense with what we needed. Right there we knew that this trademust have been filling those needs that we were going to address with our 2ndround picks.
We all sat in confusion for the next 30 minutes wondering what thehell was going on at Target Center. Nothing still had been reported about theMayo trade and we were beginning to get a bit nervous. Maybe it wasn’t going tohappen.
Then all of sudden, the TV announced that there was a trade…
The Minnesota Timberwolves trade the rights to…
Here it was the OJ Mayo trade….
Mario Chalmers to the Miami Heat…..
Right when the deputy commissioner said Minnesota Timberwolves, wethought this was the deal but instead it was Mario Chalmers heading to Miami.
Now we were getting worried about this trade so we decided to makeanother call to our source.
10:39 PM CT
“The trade is 85% done and the Timberwolves plan to trade Mayo,Walker, Jaric and Buckner to the Grizzlies for Love, Miller, Cardinal andCollins,” said ourMiller source. This news gave us a breath of fresh air as thetrade was still being worked on. We quickly posted this news on our site and afew message boards to let T’Wolves fans know what was going on. We were in avery awkward position right here as this was news that no Timberwolves fanwanted to hear at the moment but it had to be reported. I mean this is hugenews whether its for the good or the bad. Right when this call came in I knewwe had this trade because it now named specific players and they all madesense. We got rid of our horrible contracts in exchange for a player who McHaleloves in Kevin Love and we also would get a solid scorer in Mike Miller.
A few minutes later we heard news that Mike Cristaldi, the PR guyfor the Wolves had just told reporters that McHale was not ready for the mediayet as he was still working on something.
Bam, we nailed it!
It was now just a matter of time before this would be announced onESPN that the Timberwolves had just made the shock of the draft hours after ithad concluded.
11:42 PM CT
We tuned into Sportscenter waiting for the news and at 11:42 PM CTit finally came. Right after a commercial break, ESPN comes back on andreported OJ Mayo has just been traded to the Memphis Grizzlies along with MarkoJaric, Antoine Walker, and Greg Buckner in exchange for Kevin Love, MikeMiller, Jason Collins and Brian Cardinal.
We all sat in a state of shock and ecstasy as we had just got thistrade 100% correct hours before ESPN had even reported it. Surely everyone whohad chosen not to believe this trade was in store for some sweet reality.
Here we were just an average group of guys covering the draft andthen with a phone call our night turned into a night full of reporting one ofthe biggest trades in Timberwolves history. It is a night surely we will neverforget. We had Fred Hoiberg saying we weren’t going to trade Mayo and the StarTribune reporting Mayo was staying as a T’Wolf.
It’s not easy when you have two very reliable sources goingagainst what you are reporting. But our goal is to provide everyone with thecorrect information and in this case our hard work paid off.
And that my friend's is what its like to break a blockbuster tradehours before it is even reported.
TimberwolvesPress.Com thanks all of it’s colleagues on draft nightfor their hard work!



(Sorry for the delay folks, we are going to make this recap short and sweet because I think we are all tired of hearing about the 2007-08 Minnesota Timberwolves.)
Things didn't get much better in the second half of the season, but after starting 5-34, finishing the season 17-26 was a lot easier to digest. It's hard to take any positives away from this season but we did beat the Suns twice, lost to the league best Celtics twice by a combined total of three points(Yes sadly losing two games are highlights of this season), and Al Jefferson played at an all-star level averaging 21 points and 11 rebounds a game. 
MVP: Al Jefferson- Al was the only consistent thing in a very inconsistent season. Al put up his double-double every night and established himself as one of the up and coming stars in this league.
Shocker in ATL
Scott Cunningham/NBAE via Getty Images
I am completely stunned right now after watching the Atlanta Hawks take it to the Boston Celtics, 97-92. In what seemed to be a 4 game sweep by the Celtics has all of a sudden has turned into one of the most exciting series' so far. Who would have thought this 1 vs. 8 matchup would be more exciting to watch then the Nuggets and Lakers matchup which turned out to be a blowout.
The young Hawks with no one on their side have now stunned the Celtics two games in a row and have guaranteed themselves another game at home in Atlanta. For the second straight year we have seen the top team in the league struggle in their first round matchup. However, I still don't think the Hawks have a chance to pull this one off even though they are playing with extreme confidence right now.
Like the Warriors last year, the Hawks are playing with nothing to lose. They are giving the Celtics everything have right now and the Celtics are simply not taking the Hawks as serious as they should. There is no excuse to not have won this series in 4 games as now the Celtics will miss out on one of the most important things in the playoffs, rest, by having to play at least a 6 game series.
Like the Warriors last year, the playoffs has given birth to another bandwagon team in the Atlanta Hawks. Why not root for the underdog when they are this fun to watch? Give the Hawks some credit though, they do have Mike Bibby who is full of playoff experience and Joe Johnson who has some as well. Mix those vets with some young athletes that can flat out cause problems like Josh Smith, Marvin Williams and Josh Childress and you have a team just waiting to make some noise. Rookie Al Horford has held his ground down low and Zaza has done his job of throwing the Celtics off their game after the altercation tonight.
Its nice to see a city like Atlanta finally have a team that is finally winning games as they have had to endure many years of horrible basketball. Phillips Arena was going crazy all night and you can't blame them, their 37 win Hawks were taking it to the league best Celtics.
This is the start of something special in Atlanta, unfortunately they just aren't deep enough to win a playoff series. I expect the Celtics to end this one in six games with a 10-15 point win at home and then a win in Atlanta in a pretty close game.





1. Los Angeles Lakers vs 8. Denver Nuggets
2. New Orleans Hornets vs 7. Dallas Mavericks
3. San Antonio Spurs vs 6. Phoenix Suns
4. Utah Jazz vs 5. Houston Rockets
1. Los Angeles Lakers vs 5. Houston Rockets
2. New Orleans Hornets vs 6. Phoenix Suns
1. Los Angeles Lakers vs 6. Phoenix Suns
1. Boston Celtics vs 8. Atlanta Hawks
2. Detroit Pistons vs 7. Philadelphia 76ers
3. Orlando Magic vs 6. Toronto Raptors
4. Cleveland Cavaliers vs 5. Washington Wizards
1. Boston Celtics vs 5. Washington Wizards
2. Detroit Pistons vs 3. Orlando Magic
1. Boston Celtics vs 2. Detroit Pistons
1. Boston Celtics vs 6. Phoenix Suns