Timberwolves post-mortem

Well another season of mediocrity for the Timberwolves, and frankly, looking back I can’t believe KG didn’t hurt anyone more than that guy in the stands he threw the ball at. That was kind of a sad but fitting commentary on their season. He couldn’t even get his frustration out without something going horribly wrong. I fully expect if we have another season like the last, that late in a game we have already lost he will start throwing haymakers at (insert instigator).


Well we missed Sam Cassell more than I thought we would, with injuries all over the place this year (Hassell, T-Hud the rapper formerly known as Troy Hudson, and Fred “The Mayor” Hoiberg) we really could have used his leadership. We also made that big trade which will either haunt us or be a big boon to us for the next few years. We did get rid of Wally, to every 15 year old Minnesota girl’s displeasure, so that is a plus, but I’m not sure we improved yet, and with the players we received, they will be under contract for some time. The Kandy man’s contract would have expired this year so that would have given us some cap space. We’ll just have to see about mid season next year where we are at. With Kevin and Ricky out for the last several games we got to see what out future could be like. It was very mixed. Reed looks like an average bench player at best. Blount looks like he could be pretty good someday, if he can just camp out underneath and rebound on both ends of the court, we might be OK there. By the way that goes for you too Eddie Griffin if you take any more threes, I swear to God I’ll, stick my head in my snowblower. You are 6 fotot 10. Even if you just stand with one foot in the paint, you will get 10 rebounds a game with just keeping your position. Ahhhhh! Ricky Davis has the talent to score in the NBA. On the other hand we have had plenty of scorers on the Timberwolves over the years from Tony Campbell to Gerald Glass, to J.R. (I care) Rider who either couldn’t do it consistently enough, or couldn’t do it on the defensive End (Wally). So far he’s getting about a C+ on defense. If he could get it up to a B+ we could be set there too. Which brings us to the point guard. As I mentioned in the coaches entry, we have definitely had our problems at this position over the years. Now we have 4 potential point guards. We will need either Marcus Banks to step up as a starter, or we will be back where we started again, with T-Hud and Banks sharing time with Jarich and adding Carter and McCants trying to get minutes at either guard position and it just seems like we have too many back-up guards and no starters. Banks and McCants look like they may be able to rise to the occasion in the next couple of years more often than not, but do you think they can compete with Kobe (Mamba), Nash, Billups or even Parker? Let’s just move on.

So that leaves us with:

Backcourt
Davis, McCants, Banks, maybe resurgence of Hassell and T-Hud but since they are not in contract years...so they will probably coincidentally struggle, Anthony Carter and Marko Jarich to fill in off the bench.


Frontcourt
Who else Kevin Garnett, and Eddie Griffin spotting him. Marc Blount, Justin Reed, and Mark Madsen. Random IASWAA (It’s a small world after all). Mark Madsen lives on the same block as one of my friends, probably the only guy on an NBA team that he is cooler than, well besides Brian Scalibrene, even I'm cooler than him.

One of the highlights was the cheerleader dunk contest at Houston late in the season. Yes that’s right, about five of the the Rockets Power Dancers were dunking during a time out. All right so it was off of a trampoline but just wait. The first couple were just routine two handed throw downs, then the next was a 180.

The next was two handed with a full Chinese splits, by this gal:





















Then the granddaddy was this girl with a FLIP, (not a 360, a freaking flip) two handed throwdown:




One positive is we did win the tie breaker with Boston for the fourth, ironic that we had the exact same record with the team we had the blockbuster trade with. You add a Joachim Noah to our roster and the frontcourt looks pretty good again. With a 53 in 1000 chance no less. Well we still have a ways to go to get back to the Western Conference Finals, but in the words of the great Celtic coach Rick Pitino “Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and if you expect him to (he) will be old and gray”. Well maybe that’s where the problem lies, maybe we need some new blood in the front office (Notice I did not insult the basketball jesus Larry Bird, I carefully excluded him from that quote, therefore I did not in any way jinx the Timberwolves).

Greatest Sports Names

As some of you who know my real name know, I have a rather uncommon first name. So when I see an odd name it really sticks with me. Here is a list of my ten favorite names I can think of in sports. And by sport, I am going to include cheerleading, because, well you’ll see. Here they are in no particular order.



Ivana Mandic former Basketball player for UNC Charlotte I think. OK if you didn’t get it try reading it again s-l-o-w-e-r and like Ivan Drago, and out loud especially if you’re at work. I went to high school with someone named Mandyck, and this one is even funnier if you pronounce it “I Wanna Man Dyke”.




Howard Johnson Hey it’s a hotel. Therefore one of the best nicknames in sports HoJo. It always makes me laugh when someone has a first name that is a city or car, it always makes me think the parents conceived the child there, and they think it's some kind of secret. Hey everybody knows you got pregnant in the back seat of a Mercedes, is that what you want people to think? Hojo also reminds me of a girl I went to high school with, her last name was Ho and she is a lesbian, go figure. Well I guess she wants a mandyke too. Random it’s a small world note: She was the Niece of Don Ho.



Albert Pujoles (pronounced Poo Holes) Yes that’s right he’s a proctologist straight out of a Seinfeld episode. In the greatest shocker, in compiling this list, he is married and she took his last name! I would give $200 to hear the conversation they had when she decided to take his name. I mean there had to be a conversation right? And what about their three kids (well their first had Downs and he isn’t the father, but the other two...), talk about getting beat up every day. Even if your dad is in the bigs, you still gotta take your lumps with a name like poo holes.






Larisa and Marisa Ok so that’s two, and their names aren’t even funny, but does everyone know that the twin barrier has been broken in professional cheerleading? Whay hasn’t there been more on this, why do I have to find this out by creepily looking at the cheer web sites? Here is a new rule, anytime you can have twin cheerleaders on your team, you have to take them. Just like ever time the Bucks get a first round draft pick they have to waste it on a 7 footer who can’t jump rope.





Coco Crisp Enourmously funny, although there was never a cereal called Cocoa Crisp (copyright Sports Guy Intern wanna-be last Year), Believe It Or Not. Yes there was Cocoa Wheat, Cocoa Puffs, and Sugar Crisp but no Cocoa Crisp. By the way, we all agree that The Sugar Bear from Sugar Crisp was always high right?















Brieanna Daddio From the first name misspelled Brie instead of Bri to the whole name sounding like a strip club act, this one is a classic.


















Fennis Dembo of Wyoming University once beat Reggie Miller and the Bruins in the NCAA tournament almost single handedly scoring 41 points as a junior in a 78-68 victory. It was a #12 seed over a #4 seed back when teams were actually good in college; 1987. Fennis actually went on to win a ring in his only NBA season for the Pistons in 1989, something Reggie would never do in all his years in the NBA. And anyone who can stick it to Reggie like that, well we love ya. And for all you Women’s Basketball haters out there, the great Reggie Miller used to lose to his sister Cheryl Miller in 1 on 1 when they were in college!














Ashton Youboty, Ohio State Here’s my token new name. I don’t know anything about this guy except Mel Kiper has him going in the late first round of the NFL draft to Seattle. Maybe he’ll follow in Fennis Dembo’s footsteps and win a championship his first year as a pro.










World B. Free In a move of pure genius, he was the only player I know of to legally change his name to his basketball nickname. He was a flamboyant player in the days of “Iceman” George Gervin and “Doctor J”. I mean can you imagine Michael Jordan changing his first name to “Air” or even Gary Payton changing his name to “Glove”. These people take themselves way too seriously. Unfortunately he was not smart enough to shave his head when he went bald.










Holly Baack I’m speechless. It’s so timely... this name should never be forgotten. Could she have been the inspiration for the song?

Timberwolves Coaches (Seven)

To me, coaches are the most important thing in basketball. If you have a good coach that will motivate players to play the right way (defense, rebounds, blocks and assists first) then you will at least have an above average team no matter what your GM does as far as personnel. Unfortunately this makes my coaching debut this year in the 5th grade Minnesota traveling basketball league a little suspect as our record was like 5-15. So by my own logic I am a bad coach. But that therefore makes me uniquely qualified to call out bad coaches. And my friend we have had plenty of them here.




Bill Musselman (1989-1991) Good ‘ol Muss. A poor man’s Bud Grant actually. Kept it simple for his players and therefore did surprisingly well. The team brought in some quality verterans like Tyrone Corbin and Sam Mitchell to build on too, too bad with the lifeblood of new teams being the draft, the T’wolved did incredibly bad. Our first pick being Pooh Richardson, ‘nuf said. I liked the pick at the time because they were trying to start off with a point guard. A theme that would haunt the team to this day. Here are the point guards that I remember: Richardson, Michael Williams, Terry Porter, Stephon Marbury, Terrell Brandon , Chauncey Billups, Troy Hudson, Sam Cassell, and that’s not even mentioning guys like William Avery and Winston Garland. Pooh goes down as probably the best true point guard in team history, not saying much I know. Others in that list were better basketball players (Marbury, Billups, Cassell) but were playing out of position. Anyway we still have not had a 'better than good' true point guard.
(51-113)



This is the only pic I could find of him, that should tell you something right there about his coaching prowess. Very small, like...

Jimmy Rodgers (1991-1992) Since there’s not much to say about the Jimmy Rodgers era, I’ll give you a random it’s a small world note: After a game my wife and I attended, we left pretty much right after the game, didn’t rush out, but left right with everyone else. Well as we were walking down the sidewalk, a full size black luxury car pulls out of the underground ramp. So I’m trying to see who it is and whatta ya know, it was Jimmy’s big gray curly head. I have a hundred questions right now, but HE WAS ALREADY LEAVING THE TARGET CENTER BEFORE I COULD WALK TO MY CAR, and that about sums up his coaching career. Besides, in the early 90’s nobody had poodle hair except Richard Simmons. Maybe a flat top, or a shaved head was as weird as haircuts got back then, or if you were me, a mullet (short on the top, party in the back). So here’s a new rule “Never trust a guy with poodle hair” right up there with “Never trust a woman who knows more about guns than you do” as evidenced by Brigitte Nielsen in Beverly Hills Cop II, Flav I’m talking to you.
(21-90)


Er... swords either



Sid Lowe (1992-1994) I don’t remember much about Sid Lowe, except he was the slower, worse shooting version of Pooh Richardson in the Wolves early years. He took over early in the 92-93 season after Rodgers went 6-23 and Lowe was an assistant. He was handed a disaster though, Michael Williams, Chuck Person, Doug West, Christian Laettner were the stars of this team, and it went downhill from there. Somebody named Bob McCann played the next most minutes who I don’t even remember, that’s saying something because he played more than Felton Spencer and Luc Longley who were two more of our first round busts. I will address our draft day woes on a seperate day.
(33-102)

I Can't even find a pic of him on Google, definitely proof that he is the worst coach of T'wolves history.
Bill Blair (1994-1995) Maybe the worst coach we had in terms of he could not get the team to work on the defensive end, and this in an era where defense ruled and there were not silly rules against hand checking and the like. Like I said earlier, any team with a decent coach can be .500 if they just do the basics. My favorite Bill Blair moment was when he left the team and the players were asked what was different with their new coach, the answer was “We actually have a defensive game plan”. Nice, how many hours did I waste watching that team.
(27-75)



Flip Saunders (1995-2004) Random It’s a small world note: I went to the Flip Saunders basketball camp for a couple of years as a kid. I remember him always being there (which is something that most “Name Brand” camps do not do these days) and demonstrating the drills. He could dribble and shoot like a fool. Behind his back through his legs, low dribble in circles around his legs. Like those “And 1” guys without the somersaults. He would play us in P-I-G during breaks too. But it was over very quick (breaks were only a couple of minutes) He would shoot 35 foot shots, backwards from 20, it was amazing. And he was the first person I met who loved basketball as much as I did. So he does the demonstration on Free-Throws and he describes how to do it hold your hand here, do the same number of dribbles, arc the ball like this, put your toe on the nail (he was the first person to point out that there is always a nail on a wood floor right in the middle of the basket on the free throw line) and the whole time he makes every single shot, 90% of them swishes. It was probably 35 in a row, and he just kept on shooting, he knew we were all losing our bowels at this showing, and was kind of laughing. He went on to make 96 out of 100. Missing the 4 towards the end as his arm got tired. Anyway Flip is of course the best coach we have had. I truly think he will be in the Hall some day. The first coach since Muss to make the right decisions at the end of games and halves. Played the players in a logical rotation and they generally seemed like they knew what to do at all times. He also finally had the talent too. Kevin Garnett , Tom Gugliotta, Stephon Marbury, Wally Szczerbiak and later with Sam Cassell, and Latrell Sprewell plus a strange affinity to Anthony Peeler, an average at best shooting guard who couldn’t shoot all that well. In fact I always pictured Flip playing the Wolves in P-I-G in practice just like at camp and I can’t think of any player that could beat him, but certainly AP wouldn’t have a chance. I always wondered if the players that came in for a “workout” before they are signed had to play him or something... OK so I’m weird. And he (or McHale) was smart enough to get rid of Isiah Rider and Christian Laettner within the first year. Also the announcing team of Trent Tucker (double T) and Kevin Harlan came in under his reign. The best combo by far in franchise history. Kevin Harlan would say stuff like “Googily Oogily Baby” and double T would say in his staccato voice “What the Timberwoles need to do is work the basketball and get it into the hands of their best player, the big ticket, and ride the big fella to victory”. God I miss double T. I saw him at the game against the Knicks and he just didn’t look happy. He has to watch that miserable Jim Peterson walk over to the table and take his job each game, and he just gets to do the post-mortem while Petey goes home to his mansion. I’d guess he was bitter. He was also doing some stuff for the Minnesota high school basketball tournament. Not to mention he was on the greatest Gopher team ever, in 1982 (because that other team that went to the final 4 never happened remember, I mean you can't remember because it never happened... never mind) but that deserves another entry on its own. Double T we miss ‘ya.
Flip had moderate success in the playoffs, getting to the Western conference finals in 2004 losing to the Kobe/ Shaq / Payton and Malone Lakers 2-4. It was not meant to be as Cassell was injured (putting his back and Dennis Green’s balls as the most infamous body parts in Minnesota sports history) so we had Derrick Martin Leading our team from the point. Yet another page in Minnesota sports agony. Flip’s greatest quote of the series: regarding his hack a Shaq strategy, using Ervin Johnson, Michael Olowokandi, Mark Madsen, and Oliver Miller to foul Shaq whenever possible “If we have to foul him 40 times we’ll foul him 40 times if that’s what it takes” with Shaq answering “They’ll only call 15 of them”. Making Shaq literally the 'biggest' whiner in sports history, passing Abdoul-Jabbar. Him complaining about those guys fouling him is like me complaining when my 100 pound 10 year old fouls me in the driveway. Kareem Rush dropping 6-7 from 3 point range put the final nail in the coffin in game 6.
regular season (411-326)
playoffs (17-30)




Kevin Mchale (2004) If anyone thought that Flip was the problem with the 2004 Timberwolves you’re insane. But Kevin Mchale fired his buddy Flip and took over the team late in the season. Wally Szczerbiak is best as a bench player. There I said it. Some guys just are, its not a knock. Great shooters and incredibly fast players are best off the bench when they can come in and break the other team’s back when they are tired. Wally is not quick enough to start, he needs that edge of the other tem being a little tired to get his shot off, and defend well. But with Cassell and Spreewell gone we just didn’t have the talent to get to the finals any more.
(19-12)


Dwane Casey (2005-Present) We don’t know much here yet. The best we can hope for is that the younger players from Boston we just acquired will get better in the next couple of years. Hopefully Mchale wasn't just doing old buddy Danny Ainge a favor as a final move before Taylor fires him. Kevin Garnett has put the team completely on his back since the trade and they are doing better as of late. Hopefully Casey can get them to play team defense so we can shut some teams down in the 4th quarter. So far we are back to 1990 with about a 30 win team. The cycle has bottomed out, hopefully.
(31-43 so far)