I received a voicemail Monday telling me to “fax it up to Kevin McHale that the Timberwolves draft Michael Beasley.”

There are a lot of things I’d like to “fax up” to McHale but I don’t think I need to tell him to draft Beasley if he has the option. That is a no-brainer, but he won’t have that chance.

When the June 26 draft comes around the Wolves have the third pick and with that comes a decision to be made by McHale and the Wolves brain trust and that troubles me.

Count me as the many that have soured on the Timberwolves over the last few years, but when it comes to the draft I get especially negative.

The NBA Finals just wrapped up with the Celtics blowing out the Lakers and two of the “Big Three” were Wolves draft picks. Every time the “Big Three” is mentioned I can’t help but think of what could have been if McHale and others would have kept Ray Allen in the 1996 draft instead of trading him to the Bucks for Stephon Marbury.

I could go over the many other ways the Wolves have failed in the draft over the years, but I think everyone has heard all of that before.

With the third pick Minnesota sits in a precarious position. Right now the consensus is that they will select O.J. Mayo from Southern California. This is the easy pick, but it’s not the selection that is going to help the team greatly.

The Wolves have a plethora of guards already, including Rashad McCants who they selected with the 14th pick in the 2005 draft. McCants has been a bit of an enigma since he joined the team, partly because of injury, partly because of inconsistent play, but he enters his fourth year after averaging just under 15 points per game. McCants is still developing and to draft Mayo, the Wolves are essentially giving up on McCants because they play the same position and Mayo doesn’t fill a need.

Mayo is a good player whose game translates well to the NBA and he has the potential to be a star, but the Wolves would be better off working with the guards they have.

Minnesota would be best heading in the direction of a big man and that might mean Kevin Love or Brook Lopez who are expected to go later in the first round.

Therein lies the problem, draft the best available or draft for need.

Then there is the idea of trading the pick and moving down in the draft to fill the need of a big man.

This option doesn’t sound all that bad since there are really only two franchise players in the draft in Beasley and Memphis guard Derrick Rose. The Wolves could easily drop down and still find Lopez or Love in the middle of the first round and even come up with another second round pick or a future draft pick.

The rumors swirl about Minnesota and trading the third pick and McHale has said that he hasn’t entirely ruled out the option.

As far as the whole Beasley situation goes, some experts have said that Pat Riley isn’t huge on picking up a big man, but if Beasley is on the board at No. 2 there’s no way he passes him up.

I don’t know if there is a situation where Minnesota can come away from the draft looking great. If they take Mayo it’s the pick they should have made with Mayo still on the board. If they take a post player at No. 3, they may have acted too soon. If they trade the pick and come away with a player that will need time to develop, it won’t go well for the PR department.

The pessimist in me says the Wolves screw this up in some way that I haven’t even thought about, but with the third pick I have to believe that they will get a player that will contribute right away and make the club better.

With so much history of bungling the draft I haven’t got much hope left. And the last time the Wolves picked third they took Christian Laettner with Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning being selected ahead of him.