There's a buzz of excitement you can hear every time you walk towards Target Center...unfortunately, it's coming from either (a) the Twins stadium construction site or (b) the neon lights in the hallway to Target Center.  As a commuting downtown Minneapolis worker that has parked in Ramp C for the past year-plus, I have walked through Target Center at least twice a day, five times a week.  I took the picture above this morning and it pretty much sums up the excitement level involved with this team.  Unfortunately, this shot is right at ground zero for the Wolves idea makers, and it's the management's failure to keep this team in the minds of fans in the offseason (and in the regular season, based on this year's attendance).  Perhaps the front office can blame it on the Large Hadron Collider.

When the RNC was in town, the national media mentioned St. Paul's love for the Wild, and the state's affection for the Twins and Vikings...no mention of the Timberwolves.  Now, this is hardly anything to get livid about, but the image above reflects laziness on the front office's part.  Immediately to the left of those empty display cases is a vacant retail location that used to house the Wolves' gym.  With NBA City and its merchandise store downstairs, the Gym became expendable.  However, as you walk down this hallway, you can see the clear failure on the part of the Wolves' management to capitalize on the team's other recent marketing opportunities.  Immediately after Kevin Love was drafted, the team quickly put up his picture on the walls next to all of the large pictures of the other Wolves "stars."  I was very impressed, and I thought that the Wolves were really going to start plugging these young players and generating excitement for this team.  Since then, nothing has been done to the facade of these hallways.  It's my understanding that subsequent to the draft, the Wolves unveiled a new secondary logo, a revamped primary logo and, oh yeah, did you hear we have new uniforms?  Well, nothing in the hallways of Target Center reflects any of those changes.  Can the team at least put a new jersey in the display case?  The only occupied display case still contains the pathetic remains of Sweetwater Jones, the least effective ad campaign since Reebok pimped Dan and Dave.

That being said, much like the tree falling in the woods, if the Wolves lose 60 games again this season and no one is there to watch it, do the clangs off the rim make a noise?

Since October 2007, the TwolvesBlog front page has hosted the hotly debated question of whether or not Randy Wittman is the right coach for the revamped Wolves.  Well, maybe it's not hotly debated, but the question has occupied the poll on the right-hand side for the past year.  I know when I first joined the site, I easily answered, "No."  I think "no" is the majority answer for a lot of the readers, forum participants, and columnists here.

<< What do you mean I have to make rotations BEFORE the regular season starts?!

However, as I made it to all the games last year, I have to admit that Randy Wittman has changed my answer to, "Maybe, I'm willing to give him a chance, but I'm not sure how successful he'll be."

How was TheOldLogo sold?  Please click "Read More" to continue.

  College Wolf's Open Mailbag...

Yeehaw.  Another day, another Mailbag.  Thanks in advance to everyone that submitted questions for this edition of the Mailbag.  Keep em coming and I will gladly answer.  Anyhow… as usual there is a very diverse variety of topics ranging from: The Celtics run through the NBA playoffs, Olympic basketball, The origins of TWolvesBlog, Which five NBA players I’d like to punch in the face, Something from Maddog_04, and two special submissions from actual, real-live NBA players!  Until next time…


Feel free to leave any comments and/or email me questions for the next Mailbag. ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )  

Previous Editions:
 
-  June 9th, 2008.
-  March 3rd, 2008.
-  January 28th, 2008. 
-  December 27th, 2007. 


(Click "Read More..." to dive into the MailBag.)

It's the semi-finals of the Hoops Addict Floor Burn Tournament and Minnesota's own Mark Madsen is barely trailing Ronny Turiaf in their head to head match-up.  I'm making this post to encourage those of you Wolves fans who haven't voted yet to do so and show the Dog some support.  Remember, this is the guy who's always there to sign an autograph, help out in the community, wave a towel on the sidelines, high five a teammate, and even launch embarassing 3-pointers to secure much needed draft positioning.  Mark Madsen's been giving us 110% for four years now and the least we can do is click on a link and click a vote button for the guy.  So what are you waiting for?  Vote for the Mad Dog!

Click Here to Vote!

Anything Wolves related today obviously revolves around the new jerseys in this photograph (photograph from Timberwolves.com).  For those Wolves fans emerging from the cave, the team unveiled the new, thid incarnation of the Timberwolves jerseys.  I have had three seperate reactions to this jersey.

The first reaction came in late July/early August with the picture of Kevin Love in what was being touted on many blogs as possibly being the new Wolves jersey.  I had a bifurcated first reaction as (a) the jersey looked like a practice jersey, so I didn't think it was worth getting up in arms about, but (b) the part of me reacting to a new jersey immediately hated it.

My second reaction came this morning when CW "unvelied" the new uniform after a conference call with several Wolves VIPs and media/media-related personalities.  Besides liking Miller's shoes, my reaction was entirely negative.

Finally, my third reaction came just after noon in the Crystal Court of the IDS Center at the official unveiling.  Upon survivng the small talk between Tom Hanneman and Fred Hoiberg, and then zoning out team president Chris Wright's inaudible oration (sorry Mr. Wright, the acoustics in the Crystal Court certainly don't allow a speaker to sound crystal clear...that and I wanted to use my lunch hour to do things like eat lunch and check out Target gals), the Wolves Kevin-Love-look-a-like employee flipped the on switch to the air pumps and two large, inflatable jerseys signaled the next era of Wolves fashion.  I ran into CW at the unveiling, and I summed up my thoughts as, "I liked the previous home jerseys better, and the new road jerseys better."

So there you have it, that was then (two hours ago), and is now, my simple reaction to these uniforms.  However, seeing that I didn't like our last uniforms, that doesn't mean much.  In all the other posts and sources I've read today, the front office has used phrases like, "refresh our brand," and "new era."  The new uniforms look like the 2nd generation uniform's colors went on summer break in Charlotte and mated with the design of the Bobcats uniforms (and must have been very drunk to do so).

I do have a more "old school" taste, but this is not only aesthetic (as I believe the jersey below is the best jersey in Wolves history), it is also historic.  If you can't tell, the image below comes from Online Sports.com

Please click "Read More" to hear my detailed likes (yes, there are some) and dislikes of this jersey and a historical view of why we won't be throwing parades in the Twin Cities with this jersey.

Vote For the Mad Dog...


C'mon... we can do it!  As improbable as it seems, Madsen is somehow in the Semifinals!

How can you not vote for him at this point?  Everyone loves an underdog!  On top of that, his contract is far more reasonable than Turiaf's...

Click Here to view the:  Floor Burn Tournament: Semifinals

Invitation to the Mailbag Party...

Time for the next TWolvesblog Open Mailbag for anyone that is interested in sending any questions and/or thoughts, and I'll anwer them as soon as I get a sufficient amount of submissions. Don't be afraid to send stuff in (I don't want to have to make stuff up!) Heck, I promise that I'll even answer them all... I'm like an Equal Opportunity Employer.

I know, I know.  It's Cucumber Season.  But that's no excuse to not send in some insightful and thought provoking questions!  We've got some of the best forum members around (and lots of lurkers too), so you guys should be able to throw something at me... right?  Honestly, I'm not going to try and kid anyone about their being a ton of NBA stuff going on right now, so send in questions to anything you ever wanted to know.  Also, we are in the middle of Olympic Basketball, which is a pretty darn good topic.  The Wolves roster is a perpetual conundrum, who plays and how much?  Are we going to sign Chris Richard?  Is Kevin Love going to suck?  Is OJ Mayo going to be r0xxer next season?  The more you send me, the better the mailbag... the possibilities are endless!

Or you can just email me and tell me that I suck.  It's all good.

Email all inquiries/Mail Bag questions/comments/hate mail to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Along with comments from the other contributors on this site, I sent the following lineup to Steve, keeping in mind that my intent was to create a starting five, and not necessarily confine anyone to a set position (seeing that KG is easily the best 3 and 4 in Wolves history).

Please click "Read More" for the submission.