Harrison Barnes, the one prospect that I really wanted to see join the Timberwolves next season, in the year where we finally have the most ping pong balls, has decided to forgoe the NBA and potential #1 overall status to return to UNC for his sophomore season.  You can't make this stuff up.  Just when you look to the heavens for a sign that things will get better, a bird rains turd down on your face. 

Of course, my disappointment regarding this situation is based on the assumption that the Wolves would actually end up with one of this year's top picks, so I could be getting worked up about nothing.  (And given history, I likely am).   Still, the absence of Barnes makes this already weak draft class that much weaker.  When the Wolves do end up picking 4th, it will be like they were picking 5th in a draft that contained Harrison Barnes. 

Remind me to stab myself in the eye when Barnes is starting for the Clippers in 2012, Rubio is still in Spain, and we've got some smiley Euro sitting on the bench for us that we picked 4th overall. 

As you can see, it's easy to let any bump in the road lead to a downward spiral of self-pity when you're a Wolves fan.  That's why I've enlisted the help of Courage Wolf to keep our spirits up during these rough times.  I initially found Courage Wolf on a random Google Images search for the post below this one.  I had no idea who or what he was until Roundhouse filled me in on his story.  After doing a little research of my own, I think he's a good companion to keep around to keep us all mentally tough. After all, if Harrison Barnes prance around in his powder blues against inferior competition instead of finally taking his shot at Kobe, LeBron, and Durant, he's probably not the alpha dog this team needs anyway.  How many guys who deferred entering the NBA in the past 10 years ended up being super stars? 

In my Google Images search to find some sort of humorous "last place" image, I stumbled upon the picture above.  I have no idea why that phrase has anything to do with a snarling wolf, but I figured it was close enough to the topic of this post that we could roll with it.  After all, it makes about as much sense as half the lineups that Rhombus rolled out this season.

So the T-Wolves finished in last place for the second time in franchise history.  The last time they held this distinction, Shaquille O'Neal was ripe for the drafting.  Today, Shaq is 480 lbs. and limping around the court with Minnesota's only legitimate franchise player, who happens to be playing alongside another perrenial all-star that the Wolves drafted but traded away before he ever played a game for them, and they are all playing for the team that our former Vice President of Basketball operations used to play for.  Confused?  Well, that about sums up the past 19 years of Timberwolves basketball. 

At any rate, the Timberwolves now own a pretigious 75% chance of getting screwed yet again in the NBA lottery, and they will without a doubt keep their streak of 22 years without improving their draft positioning alive.  If by some miracle their ping pong ball combination does come the winner, they will get to select first in one of the weakest drafts ever.  David Kahn will likely draft a power forward, make that a European power forward, with the belief that the Euro and K. Lav will absolutely be able to play together on the court.  Adding insult to injury, Ricky Rubio will finally be able to get out of his contract with FC Barcelona, only to have the owners lock the players out, which makes him decide to stay overseas. 

Are you pumped yet?

Look, I know that this post is just brewing with negativity, but I really mean this all tongue-in-cheek.  The Minnesota Timberwolves are a sad-sack NBA franchise if there ever was one, but I love them all the same.  Everyone just keep hanging in there.  Things will get better.  After all, they can't get any worse.

And with the first pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Clippers, using their pick from the Minnesota Timberwolves, select...

Oh, wait.  They can.

 

Excellent forum post from very valued TWolves Blog member "Wolfenstein."  We'll let him take it away from here...

(Check out this post and much, much more, in our TWolves Blog Forums)

 

First of all, credit where credit's due: from Simmons via ESPN.com (about halfway down, read the Rockets write-up):

...The Law of Too Many Guys. You only need eight and a half guys to win in the NBA: five starters, three bench guys, then an 8½th man who doesn't mind playing 0-10 minutes a night and being on call if a rotation guy gets into foul trouble, gets hurt or whatever. Of those eight and half guys, ideally, you need two scorers, one ball handler, one perimeter defender and one rebounder. You need to be able to play defense. You need everyone to know their roles. You need to know who's playing crunch time and who gets the ball in those last few minutes. And you need a coach competent enough not to screw things up. That's it.
...
It's a common-sense thing. Ask any NBA starter how many minutes would make them happy and they'd say 36 to 38 (one rest per half). There are 240 minutes available in a basketball game. That means you need to allot 180-190 minutes for your five starters to be happy. Now, ask any bench player how many minutes they need to play well and you know what they'd say? Two stretches per half for 8-10 minutes. They need time to run around, break a sweat, get a feel for the game and get comfortable. That means you need to allot 50-60 minutes for your three bench guys and your 8½th man.
...
So let's split the difference: 185 minutes for five happy starters, 55 minutes for the three and a half bench guys. That adds up to … wait for it … 240 minutes! What a coincidence.

Deep, deep insight from Simmons. If you line up 2 scorers, a ballhandler, an excellent rebounder, and an excellent defender in a pickup game, you know you can run the court for a few games, until you either tire out or until someone brings a better team with similar balance and better talent. I would argue that it is possible for your best defender to be a post defender, as long as you don't have substantial gaps with your perimeter defense. If you are letting guys penetrate all game long, you will have a problem with just a great interior defender. Otherwise, with decent perimeter defense a guy like Mutombo or Garnett as your plus defender is good.

Let's assume this bit of basketball knowledge is accurate, as I think it is. Let's also go one step further and say that you can have a MAXIMUM of one defensive liability in your starting 5, and one in your 3.5 backups. Usually this is one of the scorers, but if you think back to some of the great teams of the last 10 years you realize at times it is a ballhandler, at times a big man; in no case is more than one starter a defensive liability.

So, to recap:

• One Ball Handler
• One Rebounder
• One Elite Defender
• Two Scorers
• Three Bench Contributors
• One Serviceable Sub
• MAX one Defensive Liability as a Starter, one as a Sub

Let's now take this theory back to our dear Wolfies. Keep in mind that everyone at the NBA level is versatile to a certain degree- i.e. Love is a solid scorer as well as rebounder, but since we must categorize him as one or the other, the dominant role takes precedence; obviously Love gets classed as a Rebounder. I'm also going to list each player's overall score as I see it at this point in their career. ++++ would be your perennial All-Stars, +++ is top 10 at his position, ++ is a legit starter, + is a contributing role-player, = is a replacement level player and - is sub-par. I will also note those players that I believe are significant Defensive Liabilities. This is obviously a subjective exercise so there will be those that disagree with details, but it's useful nonetheless for sorting purposes.

Please click "Read More" for the in-depth analysis and insight from "Wolfenstein"...

Rubio

Ken Berger reporting that Ricky Rubio has told Kahn that he'll cross the pond if there isn't a lockout. How's the Farmers Almanac prediction for 2012? This is good news. It is hard to expect Ricky to get out of a contract in Europe NOT to play basketball in the USA.

Draft

In other news at least one top prospect will be in the draft. Kyrie Irving has officially declared and will hire an agent. At this point it sounds like he is the #1 pick for any team without a stud player at PG. Given the absence of Shooting Guards in this draft you have to imagine Irving is at the top of the Wolves chart among the players currently declared. 

Rambis

From the same Ken Berger article:

...Rambis appears to have developed the talent he's been given well enough to warrant coming back. 

Agree to disagree Mr. Berger.  

I recommend the Steve Kerr podcast on the B.S. Report. In a discussion about Mike D'Antoni not being a good fit with a great half court player like Carmelo he comments that a coach needs to be a good fit for the players he has. I felt this was a solid piece of insight. It is generally assumed that good coach should be good with any team and adapt appropriately. Maybe we need to think about fit and coaches a little more. It isn't clear to me that Rambis style is working with young guys that need this much guidance. Maybe it would with a team like the Mavs.  

Wolves v. Suns

Steve Nash, Vince Carter, and Vince's horrible, horrible beard beat the Wolves tonight. Seemed like each time the Wolves got into a position to tie it or take a lead they'd give up back to back to back dunks. The Wolves didn't have tons of TO's but they made the most of the ones they had. Beas and AR eased their way to 20 points while Wes laid brick after brick. 

Darko Selling Championship paraphernalia for Charity

The cause is The Zorana and Darko Milicic Fund for Children with Life Threatening Diseases and the prize is the 2004 Championship Ring, Belt and a host of other things surrounding the NBA Finals. It is going off Raffle Ticket style. Prize wise, it doesn't get much better than this one.  $10 can get you in the mix for it too. Not bad Darko, not bad.  

 

(The closest the score of the game will be all night long.)

Last night was CW Jr.'s first Timberwolves game at Target Center.  He just turned 3 a little over a week ago.  I know, I know... poor kid.  But we live in Minnesota, not somewhere with a good team, like 10-15 or so other cities in the United States.  Anyways, so we were heading into downtown Minneapolis from 35W:

Mrs. CW: Look Graham, that's Minneapolis. See all those big buildings up there. Whoa, that's Minneapolis!
CW JR: Yeah, there's lotsa-apolis.
Mrs. CW: Graham, it's "Minn-e-apolis."
CW JR:  No... it's LOTS OF APOLISES!!!

Logical.  He's got a point there.

 

(CW Jr. is naive to the score of the game, which still makes this fun!)

I don't know if this was the worst game of the season; probably not since we were facing such a great team, but that didn't make the loss any more palatable.  We are a bad, and very sad, sad, sad team.  The best part of the game/night was that CW Jr. had fun, and really, that's all the matters anyway.

 Is there even any point in listing off the ineptitude that occurred last night?  Our starters were sat the entire 4th quarter; maybe it will teach them a lesson, but probably not.

Kevin Love came back and played 27 minutes, but we were blown out again.  Anthony Randolph put up better stats in only 19 minutes.  Side note: Someone please tell me WHY Darrell Rhombus* refuses to play Kevin Love and AR together on the court?!?  Literally the only shred of optimism left for this season is to play Love and AR together huge minutes (at the same time, you dolt) and see how it works out.  We need to find out if it's A) even possible and B) if we've got something with these two guys on the court together. I am so sad.

*If you are new to this blog and/or don't know who "Darrell Rhombus" is... Kurt Rambis' real first name is actually "Darrell."  No lie, look it up.  His middle name is "Kurt."  As for "Rhombus" rather than "Rambis", a rhombus is a geometric shape that looks like a normal square, but is quite clearly not.  Much like Kurt Rambis' bi-angle offense.  Err... I mean triangle offense.

We had 12 assists on 35 makes, compared to 31 assists on 45 field goals for the Bulls. They also shot over 50%, compared to 41% for the Wolves (yay, over 40% this game!)  That's probably why da Bulls have the best record in the Eastern Conference, and we have the second worst record in the entire league.

I believe we are something like the best rebounding team in the league, (by some metric.)  Too lazy to look it up, and yes its semi-mind blowing, yet we were STILL outrebounded by 16.  The Bulls are also missing their best defender, and one of the top rebounders in the league (Joakim Noah), while the Wolves had the league leading rebounder back in action. Someone please explain this to me!?!  Maybe I need to just move on...

(Look!  Darko almost got a rebound!) 

 Please click "Read More" to continue on with the Game Recrap and pictures...

Wolves versus Suns

Wednesday, April 6th on NBA League Pass (i.e. not on TV)

What is at stake for the Wolves?

Wolves are 2 games back of Cleveland for the number 1 spot. Clearly they are not going to give them any quarter. The Cavs have the Wizards still on the schedule which means there is still hope to be inverse champs. Presumably Love is still out tonight which means we'll get 20 and 15 from Anthony Randolph instead. 

What is at stake for the Suns?

Nothing. They are now under .500 and are certainly deflated. They've lost 6 of their last 7 against mostly very difficult competition (last two against Chicago and the Spurs). 

Result

This is the last Wolves win of the season.  I don't think they'll lose out the last month of the year. They have to win sometime. The ex-factor to me is Gortat pummeling us for fun. Peko needs to take an early double ejection for the team here.  Sun come out hot but look like they are waiting for the team flight during the 3rd quarter.  

Enjoy it tonight if the you have the LP. Hopefully I can squeeze in the double header of last nights game and tonights via LP Broadband.  

Lineups

Ridnour, Wes, Beas, Tolliver, Darko

Nash, Hill, Dudley,  Frye, Gortat

no comments

Egads! Another Eastern Conference powerhouse to deal with tonight! And an angry one, as well, coming off a loss against the Sixers. Former Wolves assistant and non-Wolves head coach hiree Tom Thibodeau is probably ready for vengeance. maybe not. Some brief thoughts, per usual:

1. Is Derrick Rose not shockingly underrated? The guy has lead his team to the 2nd best record in the NBA! Very quietly as well, amidst the Heat and Melo drama. This guy deserves the MVP award, and I think he will get it, along with the recognition he deserves.

LeBron does not. Speaking of LeBron, this guy just keeps getting worse and worse, skipping player-intros in Cleveland for alleged urinary reasons (BS), and just continuing to be an all-out clown. I'm happy for Cleveland after last night.

2. Don't expect the Wolves to win tonight or Friday, they are in full-out tank mode now resting Kevin Love for penile reasons. He may play tonight it seems.

3. A spirited forum discussion generated the other day on why Duke, such a college powerhouse, has only really produced 1 superstar player (Grant Hill early on). Surely guys like Boozer, Brand and others have made impacts, but 1 star. As the draft approaches, does this concern you with Kyrie Irving as a potential Wolves draft pick? Furthermore, how odd is it the # of former Dukie NBA careers that have been cut short by injury? Hurley, J Williams, Hill, Boozer to an extent, Brand, Maggette. There are others. Is a curse afoot?

 

One would expect a Love apologist such as myself to say "haha I told you so! (re: Anthony Randolph)" but I wont:

1. Foul trouble killed his momentum in the 1st half.
2. With a quick thought-through of the NBA landscape, I cannot think of a more difficult matchup for him than KG. Especially since the crowd was blatantly cheering for Garnett and the Celtics on a pathetic level throughout the game. Kind of a lot of pressure. He was probably shocked at what was going on.

I'm not concerned about his future.

Beasley had a relatively nice game. He got a lot of key rebounds/tip outs and hit some great shots...amidst some questionable ones. Nice to see him step it up a bit.. Took him 28 shots, but he was the only one producing on offense outside of Tolliver.

More on point #2 above. Look, I get the diehard KG fans, forum posters here, ya know, people who follow the team, who would go to the game and cheer for Garnett... die hards. NBA fans. But never in attending all of the marquee games over the past 3 years have I been more ashamed of the Target Center crowd tonight. it was absolutely pathetic. Look, again, I get some want Garnett to do well. I get the Wolves suck. I get it if a small faction of fans want to do it in a raise-the-middle-finger gesture to Kahn, Rambis, Taylor and the rest of the 600 First Avenue boobs. But, just wow. It was absolutely insane. The crowd went nuts when Boston regained the lead...on our home floor. There were Ray Allen jerseys, Rondo jerseys all over. I couldn't believe it.

Has this EVER happened in any other sports situation? That the GENERAL, CASUAL, and NON-DIEHARD fan would go to a game and root for the other team in such pathetic fashion that they had to run a skit on the jumbotron on how idiotic bandwagon fans are? Minnesotans truly are bandwagon fans. We don't deserve another Garnett after that display of poor form.

Just a shame.....inexcusable really, that the general fan who doesn't know what is going on wears a Celtics jersey to a home Timberwolves game. Those people aren't die hards. Those people exemplify the fair-weathered nature that is parasitic to our sports franchises. Why is this the case? Is there no pride here? Even with 17 wins you can't want and hope a shorthanded squad will take the cake? 

Ugh. And with LeBron coming on Friday I can't imagine things getting any better. 

Kind of different, but what if Packer fans cheered for Favre in a Vikings jersey, and the whole team to boot? Wouldn't anyone from Green Bay doing that be ridiculed? Sure, they won the bowl, but not last year. Of course, this is different, but not all that much when it boils down to the general principle.

Just a thought....

TWolves fall to OKC in the second night of a back-to-back, 111 - 103

Wow, a second really good game against two really top teams.  And they were back-to-back with traveling involved, as well.  Gotta say I enjoyed it again. Who would have thought we would ever played OKC and Dallas that close without K-Lav? What does that say about not having him out there? It's definitely not good for K-Lav apologists, no offense. We were in both games very late, only down 2 points at times (with 1 minute left in Dallas, and in the end of the 3rd against OKC.) The Wolves, dare I say it, actually looked like a much better team, and more of what (I think) Rhombus envisioned) without K-Lav in the mix.

Ok everyone, Randolph is legit.  A question was posited in the TWolves Blog forums, and I explained it my response in detail here, in response to forum user "9Deuce."  Here's how I responded:

Sure looks like he is [legit.] AR can do it all, and you can tell that he has tons and tons of natural talent. I don't know if I have seen anyone that tall with soooooo much talent since a young KG. And I'm not even kidding here, his skills are unreal. It's just a question of if he will get the minutes on the court, and if he has the right attitude to maximize his potential, and play within a team game.

So far, the past two games he has done all that and more. Creates his own shot, hitting jumpers, rebounding, playing D, scoring baskets in all kinds of ways, making better passes than anyone else on our team, and dribbling like a PG. He can pretty much do it all.

Yes, I think he's pretty legit. Too bad it took Rhombus until now to figure out he should get minutes. Fool.

 

Can we trade Love to OKC for Ibaka and Harden? That's probably one of the better deals we would get at this point? K-Lav's sky-high trade value can't get any higher in my opinion, and will only go down from here on out. Especially with him being hurt, his double-double streak and subsequent national media slobbering of attention being over, and the fact that I don't think he wants to be here and will be wanting a max contract extension. Love fits in great on OKC, and we'd get nice value in return with Ibaka (huge STUD!), Harden (a baller), and perhaps draft picks or something? Ibaka is great; he plays D, rebounds, blocks shots, hits jumpers, is tough inside... what a solid defensive-minded big man, especially as it currently stands with him on OKC next to Durant and Perkins.

For the record, Randolph had 45 & 15 in Love’s place and '+/-' of +6 in an 8 point loss with Randolph playing 37 minutes.  Of course, our bench gave away the game, which wouldn’t have played with Love.  Our starters actually outscored OKC, but were decimated whenever AR went to the bench.  Two games in a row now in which we performed much better than expected without K-Lav, AND the starting unit performed better with AR than the aforementioned Love in the game.

Our starters played well overall, and had much better stats this game than against Dallas. Well, except Beasley and his 3 month long (and running) slump.  He missed 10 shots out of 18, had 7 turnovers, and 4 fouls.  But his issues are another story for another day.  And again, we were in this one. In the third, after being down 16 points and 10 at half-time, Rhombus went with a crazy lineup of:

PG: Ridnour
PF/SF: Beasley
PF: Tolliver
PF/C: Randolph
C: Darko

... and it worked! With Love out, it's the hugest, longest, most athletic, and awesome the TWolves could possibly field.  These guys rolled off a 15-4 run,  and we came back to within 2 points.  Really, they were just playing some great and frenetic basketball.  The defense was on point, and OKC couldn't really answer.   Beasley was the SG! Tolliver was playing superb D against Durant.  In fairness, Durant did hit two huge threes towards the end of the quarter and at the buzzer. Still, I was loving it. To Rhombus' credit, he went back to this lineup again in the fourth quarter after giving our backup backups some minutes. That lineup was fun to see.  What was not fun to see was our super backups coming in and squandering all the goodwill.  Flynn, Ellington, Pekovic, and Hayward gave all that away, and the Wolves were back down 10 before you knew it.

Man, I really love OKC. If I could only watch all the games of 1 team in the NBA, it would be really hard to pick between OKC and Boston. I like all their players, and they are pretty much the perfect team. They've got a prototypical stud young PG in Westbrook.  Durant is of course, the man and the unquestioned alpha leader.  They've got a lockdown defender in Thabo.  They've got 3 point specialist in Cook, and a super sub 6th man in James Harden.  They have size to bang with any team in the league (Ibaka, Perkins, Nazr Mohammed, Nick Collison, and Cole Aldrich.)  And of course, all these guys compliment each other PERFECTLY.  On top of all this, they will still (most likely) have cap room to spare next summer, depending on the new CBA/salary cap rules.  Sam Presti is a genius.  He's the best at what he does. 

I don't know what there is to not like about these guys. I hope they can make some noise in the playoffs, although the Lakers seem to be back and are playing crazy awesome since the AS break. The Lakers and Celtics have to be the favorites right now to make the Finals again. Perhaps Chicago, but their offense is only average, and tends to sputter at times.  Good defensive teams like Boston can stop them by packing the paint and daring them to shoot from the outside.  That really negates a lot of Rose's greatness.

Anyways, a solid game all around.  We better bring K-Lav back soon, or else we might blow our second worst pick draft position by winning games if he stays out of the rest of the season...

Hit us up in the TWolves Blog Forums, tons of Wolves/NBA analysis going on at all times.

Only one day after the Wolves took the Mav's to the wire, we are back at it again against another elite team in OKC. Good times.

1. How about Anthony Randolph last night? What a performance. Now let's not get too out of whack here, but a very small part of me saw the team Kahnbis perhaps originally envisioned, and why they felt Love didn't fit in it. Of course, it is only a single game and what not, and teams sometimes play better with their stars out of the lineup, but it was still interesting. His post moves were magical. To deny his NBA ability would be a crime.... and this certainly isn't the only big game AR has had in his career. Let's see how he deals with Serge Ibaka tonight.

2. Last night following the Mavs game Michael Beasley retweeted an interesting message about his coach. His Twitter account has since been deleted. I don't blame Mike one bit. One of Rambis' myriad of epic fails is putting players in uncomfortable positions despite their strenghts, perhaps one of the biggest potential flops of a leader. It could be that Mike not having the freedom he needs is a reason for his decline of late. Maybe it's the losing. Either way, he needs to step it up in OKC tonight.

3. it was rumored during the all-star break that the OKC crew recuited Love to join the squad. This is a reasonable concern. Hypothetically, if it came to that, what would you accept in sign and trade as an ideal package?