Saul: Kahn continues to make questionable decisions

The Minnesota Timberwolves’ David Kahn could be the most idiotic general manager in all of… The Minnesota Timberwolves’ David Kahn could be the most idiotic general manager in all of sports, rivaling only the Washington Redskins’ Daniel Snyder.

So why quit when you’re behind? What else could Kahn possibly do to embarrass himself? Well, a good way to start would be by chasing around Duke coaching legend Mike Krzyzewski, which Kahn did earlier this week.

According to the New York Daily News, Kahn wanted to lure Coach K from the warm sun of North Carolina all the way to Minnesota to coach guard Ricky Rubio.

I’m going to repeat that. David Kahn, the Minnesota Timberwolves general manager, thought he could lure Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski to Minnesota with the unproven Rubio.

This is the same Coach K who had no hesitation in turning down a chance to coach Lakers guard Kobe Bryant — during Bryant’s prime.

This is the same Timberwolves team that has no true center, no proven point guard and no dominant shooting guard.

It does have Kevin Love though, who is about as dominant as it gets. But Kahn, being the brilliant GM he is, chose Derrick Williams — a forward who plays the same role as Love — with the No. 2 overall pick in the draft last week.

It wasn’t the first time Kahn performed a head-scratcher at the NBA draft.

After drafting the highly-touted Spanish sensation Ricky Rubio in 2009, the Timberwolves GM headed down a turbulent path while trying to bring the guard overseas.

After weeks of bad press and public negotiations, Kahn couldn’t get Rubio to sign a buyout offer and instead spent the last two years watching his franchise player produce mediocre numbers in European basketball leagues — a stage that produces competition light-years behind that of the NBA.

Now, with his coveted guard finally on the way to Minnesota, Kahn couldn’t help himself but to re-up his standing in the idiot department over the last two weeks.

It started at the 2011 NBA draft — which was full of surprising controversy, contract-buyout issues and Danny Almonte-type age fabrication. But for the second time in three years, Kahn was the center of attention.

While Kahn has spent the last few days hunting down unreasonable coaching prospects, his move that made the headlines involved the Timberwolves 57th pick in the draft, Tanguy Ngombo.

Ngombo, who had played most of his basketball in Qatar, blew up as an Internet sensation, with people hyping him as a “21-year-old star.” All of his numbers supported the hype, except one — his age.

That’s because after the NBA draft, it surfaced that Ngombo was actually 26, not 21. A little bit of homework on the 6-foot-4 small forward would have revealed that prior to his draft selection.

While the glaring repercussion of this news is that Ngombo’s career will likely end five years earlier than previously expected, there was this catch: According to NBA draft law, an international player must be 22 years of age or younger in order to be drafted; otherwise, he must enter the market as a free agent.

That law and news of Ngombo’s age discrepancy has prompted NBA officials to void the pick — a pick which Minnesota bought the rights to, taking both Ngombo and a fat wad of cash off the table for the Timberwolves franchise.

Ngombo’s status in the league will be reviewed by NBA officials this week, but analysts do not sounds optimistic that the Timberwolves will get to keep the African star on board.

In the wake of the Ngombo pick, Kahn put into motion a draft-day trade that sent guard Johnny Flynn to the Houston Rockets in exchange for the 23rd pick in the draft and Brad Miller. After Flynn failed a physical, the Rockets pumped the brakes on the deal.

In typical Kahn fashion, the deal held a major link between a train of swaps going on involving Chicago, Miami and New Jersey. Because of Flynn’s health issues, all of those league offices were held up.

Furthermore, Flynn was the same guard who Kahn took before Stephen Curry, Brandon Jennings and Jrue Holiday – all of whom have produced much more in the NBA than Flynn. In that same draft, Kahn also picked Ty Lawson, another guard who has been better than Flynn, but traded him to the Denver Nuggets.

So there Kahn sat, with a 26-year-old forward that he paid for and probably won’t see play, a one-time Spanish phenomenon whose career might have already passed him by and a log-jammed draft-day trade involving one of the most disappointing picks in his NBA career.

I guess after all that, the only reasonable thing for him to do was to go after Coach K. I just hope it was more of a “desperate times call for desperate measures” type move, as opposed to a “I might actually make this happen” type move.

The reality is that Coach K would no sooner leave Durham for Minnesota than Cristiano Ronaldo would leave Real Madrid for the Portland Timbers of the MLS.

Speaking of soccer, well, I’ll be relieved if Kahn makes it through next year’s NBA draft without trying to pick Lionel Messi.