GREENBURGH, N.Y. — When Kevin McHale traded Kevin Garnett to Danny Ainge’s Celtics, many thought he was doing his old Boston buddy a “favor.”

So, would McHale’s successor as Minnesota’s top executive, David Kahn, do likewise for his former mentor in Indiana, Donnie Walsh, by trading disgruntled Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio to the Knicks?
Walsh plans to find out.
With Rubio suggesting publicly that he might remain in Spain for another year or two rather than playing for the Timberwolves, who drafted him fifth overall Thursday, and privately suggesting he wants a trade, the Knicks’ president plans to call his former sidekick.
And as Walsh said sarcastically Friday about what they might discuss, “People in that relationship NEVER talk about their wants and needs.”
Just like McHale and Ainge only discussed the best lobster roll in Boston and the hottest chili in Minneapolis.
“I haven’t spoken to (Kahn),” Walsh said on a day when the team introduced its two first-round picks: Arizona forward Jordan Hill and Florida State guard Toney Douglas. “I will, because David, I know.
“I don’t know what’s going on there. He took a lot of point guards, so I want to ask him, ’Why did you do that?”’
Actually, Walsh said that in a pre-draft chat, Kahn hinted that, after Rubio, he might choose another “small player” — which he did in point guard Jonny Flynn.
A Niagara Falls native who went to Syracuse, Flynn should own all the down parkas he needs to handle the Great White North, but Rubio (whose rights the T-Wolves own in perpetuity) has made it clear that his mother, for one, hates cold weather.
“I wouldn’t rule out at all returning to Spain,” he told a Spanish newspaper. “It’s surprising that, aside from me, they chose another point guard at number six, but let’s see what they want.”
Kahn, meanwhile, in an open letter Friday to T-Wolves’ fans, said that Rubio “will be our starting point guard here the moment he walks through our front door. We may have to wait a year, or even two, but he is worth the wait.”
He also cited the Knicks’ success pairing Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe, and wrote that a Rubio-Flynn pairing “can and will work.”
It just might never get that chance, if the Knicks (or any other team), in concert with Rubio’s agent Dan Fegan (who league officials said hoped to orchestrate his client’s destination pre-draft), can pry the mop-topped teenager from the grasp of Kahn.
One report indicated the Knicks offered their No. 8 pick (which they used on Hill) plus Wilson Chandler for the No. 5 choice before the draft.
Chandler could be part of the bait again, although the Knicks could sign-and-trade David Lee and/or Nate Robinson on July 9.
The Knicks would also likely have to accept one of Minnesota’s albatross contracts, perhaps Darius Songaila’s two years (the second a player option) at $9.3 million or the expiring deals of Brian Cardinal ($6.75 million) or Mark Madsen ($2.84 million).
Walsh, who said Friday, “I’m always looking at 2010 because I do want to be in the free-agent market in a big way,” would prefer expiring deals. But he also can’t expect Minnesota would take Jared Jeffries’ or Eddy Curry’s albatross contracts off his hands, assuming he taught Kahn well.
How well he’ll find out when he asks about Rubio.