Videos
Jerry Zgoda/Star Tribune on Al Jefferson:
"Al had never touched the ball that many times in his life," Wolves coach Randy Wittman said. "He liked it. And when he didn't get the ball, he'd get upset sometimes."
That led to exchanges with teammates after one of them committed a turnover, missed a shot or, heaven forbid, didn't pass him the ball.
Late in the season, Wittman dealt with the matter at halftime during a game in Memphis after Jefferson and Randy Foye traded words in the first half. In that moment of game No. 81, Jefferson experienced an epiphany of sorts.
In the second half that night, Jefferson approached Foye.
"He told me, 'Whatever happens -- if I get upset at you or you get upset at me, it don't matter -- we're going to be together for a long time here, so we better learn to stick together,'" Foye said. "That's what started it."
When it comes to the rest of Jefferson's game, there's little room for improvement.
Coming off a season in which he posted career highs in scoring (21 points per game) and rebounds (11.1), Jefferson was limited during training camp by a sprained knee ligament, but it and he got better as the exhibition season went on.
Jefferson followed an opening 18-point, nine-rebound game at Milwaukee with seven more solid outings and finished exhibition play as the team leader in points (14.9) and rebounds (9.0) while playing a little more than 26 minutes per night.
The rest of the Wolves weren't as consistent, but Jefferson feels good about the team and has high hopes.
He treated the Wolves' office staff to dinner Tuesday night at JD Hoyt's in downtown Minneapolis. "They do so much for us," Jefferson said. "There's like 100 people and I don't know half of them. It's my way to say, 'Thanks.' "
From the Pioneer Press: Meet The Timberwolves
Brian Stensaas/Star Tribune on Gomes, McCants, Smith, Telfair, and Brewer.
Jim Souhan/Star Tribune writes an open letter to the Timberwolves with instructions he thinks will help the team improve.
From Mike Max/WCCO:
As the Minnesota Timberwolves prepare to open the regular season players will tell you that Corey Brewer is the most improved defensive player and Randy Witman will say if Kevin Love wants to play on the team his minutes will be determined by how well he plays defense early on.
Odds of the Timberwolves winning the NBA championship this season are 150 to 1, according to the Bodog online betting service.
The Wolves' Randy Foye will win the NBA's most improved player award, EA Sports NBA LIVE 09 projects.
no commentsKare 11 has a photo and video of the Target Center's new court.
Tuesday, the team showed off their new floor inside the arena. Ditching the parquet floor of the last ten seasons, the new court has a more natuaral wood look.
Update:
Coach Randy Wittman, asked if he has any concerns about playing the opening game on a new floor, couldn't suppress a laugh.
"Nothing could be worse than the other floor," he said. "They've had the polish worn off that thing for two or three years. So no, actually, I've got no concerns."
Judd Spicer/City Pages with keys to a strong start for the team's season.
Before playing his first NBA game, rookie Kevin Love is already proving one of the most polarizing figures in ‘Wolves history. I’m of the stance that the post-draft trade that sent away high-octane guard O.J. Mayo to Memphis in exchange for Love (among other secondaries both ways) was the right move. The NBA is a player’s league -- anybody who’s given the chance at taking 20 shots can score. But Love is unique. He’s a savvy big man who can pass, shoot from the outside, and will eventually prove a creative positional rebounder -- all tenets that will aid Al Jefferson in time. A slow start may ensue, but give these skills time to develop and this nephew of Beach Boy Mike Love will prove more “Good Vibrations” than “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).”
Love worked the counter at the Minneapolis City Center from 9-9:30 this morning and said he's now an old pro when it comes to making mocha frappuccinos.
“That’s my specialty right there,” he said. “A lot of people ordered that. They showed me how to make it and I ended up making four or five of them in about 20 minutes so it was fun.”
Click here for a pic of Love serving coffee.
The Wolves? It was back to square one. And despite the improvement they showed in the final month of the season, Wittman's 34-90 record as the team's head coach still stands out.
"That's what it always comes down to, whether you start over like we did last year and go through 20-some wins like we did, I'm still judged on wins and losses," Wittman said. "I don't really worry about that stuff."
From Nate Jones/Fanhouse:
I love Kevin Love. I think he's going to be a very good player in the NBA. He's going to be great on the glass, and will likely become the league's best passing big man. But just like most NBA players, Love has his weaknesses...
With Love's lack of lateral movement and defensive prowess, Amare is going to have a lot of fun against the T-Wolves this season. The inevitable spanking Amare will give Kevin Love this season might be bad enough to make Love wish he was still back at UCLA, dominating everyone in the Pac-10.
Darnell Mayberry/The Oklahoman lists Randy Foye as one of this season's five breakout players.
Finance and Commerce with a pic of "what the Target Center green roof will look like when it’s completed in 2009."
no commentsHornets 247 plays host to the season's first blogger power rankings.
WCCO has video of Kevin Love serving up free coffee and Wolves tickets at Starbucks this morning.
From the Timberwolves site:
Minnesota will open the regular season on Wednesday, Oct. 29 against the Sacramento Kings at Target Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. CDT. The game will be telecast on FSN North with Tom Hanneman and Jim Petersen calling the action and can be heard on KFAN AM 1130 with Alan Horton and Kevin Lynch.
Minnesota will open the regular season on Wednesday, Oct. 29 against the Sacramento Kings at Target Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. CDT. The game will be telecast on FSN North with Tom Hanneman and Jim Petersen calling the action and can be heard on KFAN AM 1130 with Alan Horton and Kevin Lynch.
Randy Wittman gets one vote in ESPN's predictions for "Coach Of The Year."
David Thorpe, Scouts Inc.: I like what Minnesota's building, and the combination of their strength inside with the low expectations of opposing teams will translate into some surprising wins.
Coach Randy Wittman said after practice he does not anticipate any roster moves before the start of the season and expects the 15 that were on the floor for Thursday's preseason finale to be the roster come Wednesday night.
Sebastian Telfair practiced with the team today but veteran Kevin Ollie got most of the reps as backup PG since Telfair is suspended for the first three games of the season.
Paul Lukas/ESPN on the new Wolves uniform.
From Reno Gazette-Journal:
Former Nevada shooting guard Kirk Snyder will play basketball this season in China, his agent Chris Emens confirmed via e-mail Monday.
The NBA's Board of Governors unanimously elected Glen Taylor, owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves, as its chairman last week.
The classy Taylor replaces Miami Heat managing general partner Micky Arison, who served in the position for the past three years...
Taylor's first order of business will likely be the future of the NBA's participation with FIBA.
no commentsKFAN Rube Chat posts a link to a pic that could be a sketch of the new court.
Update:
The pic was also posted on ESPN:
Six teams have new court designs: the Hornets (additional info here), Timberwolves, Raptors, Thunder, Bobcats, and Heat (sorry, no photo for that one).
The Timberwolves’ new Target Center court is in place, just in time for Wednesday night’s season opener against Sacramento.
Workmen finished installing it today and it has some distinctive features, with dark wood between the three-point lines and light wood inside them.
A large Wolves head (no trees) dominates center court, with the team’s new secondary howling wolf logo appearing on each end.
no commentsRookie forward Kevin Love will assume the role of a Starbucks barista Tuesday morning, serving drinks to customers at the downtown Minneapolis City Center from 9-9:30 before heading off to practice.
Cameras televising the first preseason broadcast in the franchise's 20-year history captured a priceless moment when Love, in the midst of a 1-for-10 shooting night, came to the bench, buried his head in a towel in utter frustration and looked like he was -- against Chicago, in October! -- on the verge of an emotional meltdown.
Teammate Rashad McCants, seated next to him, watched Love with a look on his face that said: Dude, lighten up, we play 82 of these in the regular season...
A multi-skilled player who is NOT, in the words of former NBA star and current Pacific-10 television analyst Marques Johnson, a "glorified Mark Madsen." ... Perhaps the best outlet passer since Wes Unseld. ... Must learn which passes he can and cannot make."He's going to throw some passes that are not going to get through at this level," Kevin McHale said. ... Has three-point range and is a relentless offensive rebounder. ... Lacks height, but plays big. He measured 6-7 1/2 in his stocking feet at the predraft camp, a little over 6-9 in his shoes.
Marc Stein/ESPN ranks the Wolves at #24 in his preseason power rankings.
The theory, if you subscribe, is that the Wolves have flanked Al Jefferson with multiple quality shooters ... and that players named Kevin (Love, in this case) tend to do well in this town. We haven't subscribed yet.
Matt Stroup/NBCSports.com lists Kevin Love as one of the "less trendy, but intriguing picks" for rookie of the year.
Yes, he was very good in college. Yes, he has NBA three-point range, a tremendous set of all-around basketball skills and can chest-pass a basketball across a medium-sized lake. But Love didn’t show signs of an upcoming breakout this preseason (8.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg) and will likely need time to establish his game.
no comments The Wolves’ roster was finalized when the league’s 5 p.m. deadline passed and it’s the same as it looked on Thursday, when the team placed Chris Richard, David Harrison and Blake Ahearn. None of the three were claimed on waivers and all became free agents officially as of 5 o’clock.
The Wolves practiced at Target Center this morning in preparation for Wednesday night’s season opener against Sacramento. It sure looks like the starting lineup will be the one they finished with in the preseason: Gomes, Jefferson and Brewer in the frontcourt, Miller and Foye in the backcourt.
Don Seeholzer/Pioneer Press has a Q&A session with Wolves owner Glen Taylor in which Taylor discussed the team's rebuilding effort, the trade for Kevin Love, and more.
Q: Is the rebuilding plan you put in place after the Kevin Garnett trade on schedule, and how soon do you expect to be a playoff team?
A: We said when we did that that this was a three-year (deal), so we're in the second year of it. Next year we would hope that for sure we would be a playoff team, but I don't want to say that we're not going to try for that this year. We are, but we recognize it's not only our team. We're looking at the other teams in the conference. There are a lot of other teams that sort of geared up to win in the short run. They added experienced players. We just have to play through that and recognize that some of those teams are going to have to remold their team in the next year or two. That's when I think we'll make the big jump.
The headband is back. And if portions of the preseason were telling, so might be Corey Brewer.
Brewer wore two NCAA championships at Florida and sported a fabric headband while doing so. In his debut NBA season a year ago, he went without it because coach Randy Wittman's team rule prohibits rookies from wearing one.
"No particular reason, other than he was a rookie," Wittman said when asked about the rule. "He graduated to his headband this year."
Brewer spent all summer in the gym working on a jump shot that abandoned him last season. In eight preseason games, he shot 40.3 percent from the field -- a slight improvement over last season's 37 percent -- but made eight of 12 three-point shots, one more than he made all last regular season.
KSTP talks to Wolves VP of Communications Ted Johnson about the team's new uniform and the new Target Center court (video).
Don Seeholzer/Pioneer Press on Jason Collins:
Sidelined since before the start of training camp while recovering from elbow surgery, the Timberwolves' veteran center won't play in Wednesday night's season opener against Sacramento, but he has been cleared to practice the following day.
Bob Sansevere/Pioneer Press conducts a Q&A with Ryan Gomes.
BS: Will this be a breakout year for the Timberwolves and/or Ryan Gomes?
RG: I believe so. You have to have confidence in yourself, and you want to think you can get better as a team and individual. We put ourselves in a position to be something special this year (with the addition of players such as Mike Miller and rookie Kevin Love). We came on late last year to play well. Early in the season, we were adjusting to what our roles were.
Jan Hubbard/Star-Telegram names the Wolves the West's "most fascinating team":
Pundits criticized Wolves GM Kevin McHale for his gift of Kevin Garnett to McHale’s alma mater, the Celtics, but the cupboard is not empty. Only nine players averaged double figures in points and rebounds last year, and one of those was Al Jefferson, who is 6-10, 265 and 23 years old. Jefferson, the key player for the Wolves in the Garnett deal, averaged 21.0 points and 11.1 rebounds and this year gets help in the form of Kevin Love, who adds additional bulk underneath the basket. The Wolves won’t challenge for the playoffs this season, but watching the team develop will be fun for Minnesota fans.
no commentsRookie forward Kevin Love will assume the role of a Starbucks barista Tuesday morning, serving drinks to customers at the downtown Minneapolis City Center from 9-9:30 before heading off to practice.
Bill Ingram/Hoospworld lists the Wolves as one of the 4 sleeper teams in the West.
Believe it or not, the Timberwolves are playing very good basketball through preseason and could make things interesting when it comes time to determine the final playoff seedings in April. The arrival of Kevin Love spells a new era of big man basketball in Minnesota, and the Mike Miller addition will pay huge dividends. Rashad McCants seems to be ready to realize his potential, and Al Jefferson was a force in the paint as the Wolves finished preseason with a 6-2 record. Don't be surprised if Minnesota becomes a tough stop on a Western Conference road trip.
The team will unveil its new Target Center floor Tuesday afternoon and it is said to be very different from its predecessor.
Some other pregame notes: About 1,000 tickets remain and the first 5,000 fans will receive a free Wolves hat courtesy of US Bank.
Tom Ziller/Fanhouse has Wittman on his list of those most likely to get fired this season.
Shockingly, the Wolves are building some expectations this year. No one dreams of 40 wins, but the team will at least need to be competitive throughout. There's a lot of room for error here: Wittman's roster is littered with special cases that need to be put in the right position to succeed, from Randy Foye to Ryan Gomes to Kevin Love. Something about Wittman's last 120 or so games at the helm doesn't provide encouragement, for some reason. Fall below Oklahoma City and say good night.
The Wolves held six of their eight opponents under 90 points, which was something that coach Randy Wittman and his staff stressed from the start of training camp on.
"It was a good preseason for us. We laid some parameters down of what we wanted to try to accomplish and it started on with our defense and I thought our guys bought into it. I thought our defense for the most part this preseason was pretty solid."
All Shook Down and Locksmith Sports post season previews.
From Jay Weiner/MinnPost:
One sexy element of Target Center's renovation plans has been an environmentally friendly green roof, which would become one of the nation's biggest tree-huggable tops and the largest in Minnesota at 113,000 square feet.
Eighteen months ago, when arena and city officials began discussing this, a price tag of about $2.2 million was assumed, or perhaps $400,000 more than a standard roof. Energy savings were expected to pay off the capital cost difference within about five years.
Wrong again...
It appears as if the difference in costs between the standard one and the "garden" variety is nearly $4 million, not $400,000. This would shoot the costs sky high into the $5 million zone.
From Jerry Zgoda/Star Tribune:
no commentsWorkers are scheduled to install the Target Center’s new court on Tuesday. You’ll probably see some video of it on the Web or nightly news that night.
So far, it’s hushed in secrecy, but I’m hearing that the parquet look of the current court is out. Also, reportedly there’s no paint in the paint. I’m sure you’ll also see that new secondary “Wolf’s head” logo somewhere on there.
The free-throw lane is defined instead simply by lines rather than a solid block of painted wood and the area inside the three-point arc is stained slightly different than the rest of the court. The new look probably is something similar to the Phoenix Suns’ court.
Kevin Love said he hasn't been told what his role will be for Wednesday night's season opener against Sacramento, but the Timberwolves rookie forward suspects he'll be coming off the bench, for starters...
Love was dragging after practice because of a flu bug he said started bothering him the night before and left him dehydrated.
"Hopefully, it's just a day thing," he said.
Don Seeholzer/Pioneer Press on Kevin Love:
"If I was a lefty, I'd probably still be pitching, to tell you the truth," he said, "because left-handed pitchers of this size are hard to come by. Baseball wasn't my favorite sport, but it was probably my best sport."
As it turned out, baseball's loss was the Wolves' gain, and Love's Minnesota connection could pay off in another way.
Mike Love said the Beach Boys, still touring after all these years, play 140-170 shows a year, but he'd be happy to add one more.
"We're due for a return to Minneapolis," he said. "It would be cool if we could do something after a game."
To get there, Wittman wants the player who has the ball in his hands to also have his voice heard the most on the court. Jefferson is the team's franchise player. Mike Miller, Kevin Love, Rashad McCants and Corey Brewer are valuable complementary pieces. But the rebuilt Wolves might never become what Kevin McHale and Glen Taylor envisioned when they dealt Garnett unless Foye blossoms.
"He's a good kid, sometimes he's almost too good of a kid," Wittman said. "There's got to be a time when you kick a teammate in the seat of his pants; there's a time to be emotional. His personality doesn't draw that right now. Ideally, you'd like your point guard to be that guy. You look at the Magic Johnsons and the Isiah Thomases and all the great point guards who had the ability to do that, their teams were pretty good.
Jerry Zgoda/Star Tribune provides a scouting report on Randy Foye.
NBA teams must set their season-opening rosters by the end of the day Monday and Wittman said he saw nothing on the waiver wire over the weekend that would change things for the Wolves.
“Right now, we’ve got this group right here, these 15,” he said, “and that’s what we’ll have come Wednesday.”
Britt Robson/On The Ball previews each team in the league. On the Wolves:
Worries: Foye can't play the point, Brewer can't shoot, McCants prefers controversy to trustworthy teamwork, Wittman, McHale and Taylor in over their heads.
Overrated: Love's immediate impact, Foye's leadership.
Underrated: Ryan Gomes, Mike Miller's non-shooting virtues, the instant offense of McCants.
no commentsMike Miller's sharp shooting will spread defenses and provide operating room in the low post for Minnesota's Al Jefferson and Kevin Love. Like Ivey, Miller is an example of a player with limited skills who can nevertheless have a major impact in the right surroundings.
Some observers would choose Minnesota's five of Al Jefferson, Craig Smith, Corey Brewer, Mike Miller and Randy Foye over Sacramento's, and for one reason: toughness.
Marc J. Spears/Boston Globe previews the Northwest Division.
Expect Jefferson to be a bubble All-Star candidate, but poor record will likely keep him off team . . . Love is a great offensive player and tough, but his lack of athleticism will hurt him in NBA . . . The Wolves need forward Corey Brewer to live up to his potential that made him a lottery pick.
If the preseason is any indication of what our sleeper teams will be this year, it looks like we'll be focusing once again on the Atlanta Hawks (can we still consider them sleepers?), the Indiana Pacers, the Golden State Warriors, and most notably the Minnesota Timberwolves. These are four teams that many are calling to miss the postseason, but with the way they've played so far, any one of them could be this year's standout team.
Ken Berger/Newsday lists Randy Wittman among the coaches most likely to be fired.
If the Wolves come up with 30 wins this year, I'll consider it a successful one. Not since the days of Doug West have I been so optimistic.
At the end of the day, it might be the ancillary part of the deal that saves face for the 'Wolves, with Minnesota getting Mike Miller and Memphis now stuck with Antoine Walker and Marko Jaric.
