IF Glen had picked me...

This is rough and some of the stuff might be wrong, but I've done a lot of research and believe that this is how my team should look come Friday morning.

Trade Miller for Camby, gain 2 million dollars in the process. Go with a rotation of Jefferson, Camby and Love at 4 and 5.
Trade Foye (3.5 Mil and qualifying next year) Gomes (3.8 Mil expiring) and Madsen (2.8 Mil expiring) and 18th to Washington. Washington Gives us The 5th pick and (maybe) Andre Blatche. With the 5th pick we select (1)Tyreke Evans or (2) James Harden.
Take the 6th pick and trade it to the Knicks for their 8th pick and Wilson Chandler. We Basically give them their choice of PGs, which is what they want and gives us a reliable SF in return. At 8 we make a choice about Stephen Curry, Jonny Flynn, Brandon Jennings and Jrue Holiday). Most likely Two will be gone. My guess is Knicks take Stephen Curry and maybe The Warriors go with Jennings. That is fine with me, I kind of want Flynn as my PG with Evans at 2. Feel free to add the 28th or either of the 2nd rounders if the other teams won’t quite bite yet. NY may need a 2nd rounder in return for Wilson.

Maybe package other 2nd rounder and 28th to move up to the early 20s for one more prospect. Austin Daye is my #1 target and will most likely be around, but Eric Maynor, Sam Young, James Johnson, a sliding Earl Clark or Gerald Henderson or possibly another Euro Stasher to go along with Pekovic for future reserves.
Do Not Pick up team option on Sheldon Williams. Do pick up Rodney Carney’s option.
A shade under 60 mil is the cap this year. As is the Wolves clock in at 50 mil, the Wiz at 75 mil and NY a shade under 70 mil. Dallas (at 22) is at 69 mil, New Orleans (21)is at 72 mil, Utah (at 20) is at 72 mil, Philly at 17 and already a stretch is 2 mil under.

Depth Chart looks like this by game 42
PG- Flynn (or other rookie)- Bassy
SG- Evans (or Harden)- Carney
SF- Wilson- Brewer
PF- Big Al- Senior Amor
C- Camby- Blatche

Bench- Brian Cardinal, Craig Smith, Bobby Brown and Austin Daye (fingers crossed).
That makes 14 and cost a bit over 46 million. We shaved 4 million and became way more competitive. The following year Camby and his 7.6 and Cardinal and his 6.7 mil come off the books, that is good trade bait.

Blatche has 2 more years at around 3 mil each, Chandler has 2 more at 2 and 3 mil. Love has got 3 going to 6 mil. Brewer has 2 going to 5 mil, but the last year is a team option. Bassy has one more at 2.7 And carney at 3.6 after the signing. Big Al and Love are currently the only people on the roster going into 2013

Could This Deal Have Been Done With Foye?

I think this latest draft day trade marks the end of my tenure as Wolves fan #3267. I sick of McHale fucking with my world. I'm sick of Taylor just sitting there and allowing his team to be run by a buffoon. I'm sick of Hoiberg's heard condition keeping him from ever pulling a Shawn Chacon. If I ever see McFail on the streets he's getting a face-punch. We were promised Mayo.

Look, this trade did some good in getting us a decent swing man in Mike Miller and trading away two bad contracts and a bench player in return for one bad contract and a back-up center. My problem is that O.J. Mayo is going to be a star in this league and Kevin Love will be nothing more than a solid player and McHale love slave. The Wolves trading Mayo away cements his greatness in the league. Ray Allen, Brandon Roy and now O.J. Mayo. What gets me is that Memphis is just as notorious as the Wolves for making horrible decisions. Did we even attempt to offer Randy Foye instead of Mayo? Telfair-Mayo-Miller-Love-Jefferson would have been beautiful. Then you've got a bench consisting of McCants, Gomes and Corey Brewer plus whatever is left after all is said and done.

We could have convinced the Griz that Foye was just as exceptional a player as Mayo is and known that this team would be fielding 2 potential all-stars instead of just Jefferson. This team as it is now is just going to put up 35-40 wins and leave us with the tenth pick for the rest of our lives. We had the 3rd pick in a 3 star draft and messed it up. Give me Mayo and another year of futility, another high lottery pick and a set foundation. Love-Jefferson is not a foundation.

Randy Foye is not a point, was a bad trade and this team refuses to admit it. The trade probably would have been good for Foye, too. He could have started over and relinquished that combo that everyone attaches to him. Telfair would have blossomed as a point with Mayo as his back court counterpart. McCants might not have been so agitated by his being the 6th man if there was less confusion at his position. Love and Jefferson are going to play the same position- 4 and a half. On offense Love and Jefferson will be good together with love's passing and range and Jefferson posting up but defense is another situation. Mayo would have been the defense and a few years down the road may have taken it upon himself to enforce the defensive philosophy on his teammate. Now we have a team with no real point since they'll stick with Foye through thick and thin and no true center... we've just got 2-4 covered really well.

They will flounder, just not well enough for us to ever put ourselves in the position where we can draft a potential superstar that high in the draft. Keeping Mayo might have broken the cycle of everything. I would have been the first time since 1995 that we made the right decision on draft night and kept it. That might have in turn tempted fate to allow us to move up in a draft for once. I needed Mayo more than I needed to rid this team of 'toine and Jaric.

Fuck McHale and his love for Love. A trade like this could have been made in the next month using something other than Mayo as prime piece of real estate and returned the exact same type and quality of players. Foye has trade value. Mayo has the ability to become a superstar. What we got in return is not what we needed.
I am now a Blazer's fan. They are THE FUTURE and they do it right.

What to do with the 3rd pick as the draft approaches

When we first found out that the Wolves were drafting 3rd I said that we should select Brook Lopez. I said this because a big man is our biggest need. The problem is that almost everything is our biggest need. At this point there are 4 players I'd keep on this team Al Jefferson, Randy Foye, Sebastian Telfair and Ryan Gomes. Lots of Wolves fans will argue that only the first two names on that list should stay and will most likely call me crazy for including Bassy. Gomes is a better version of Craig Smith... both are undersized 4's, but Gomes does everything at a better clip and would make a very solid bench player if this team ever manages to field a playoff caliber starting five. I think Bassy will prove himself to be an important part of this team if they choose to resign him. He could very well be our starting point guard because I don't see Foye as the floor general.

Foye is a huge question mark. He is the reason why I've decided that the Wolves should draft O.J. Mayo. Everyone agrees that O.J. Mayo has superstar potential, Lopez' name has never been associated with the word superstar. In fact, Lopez scored last in two drills during the pre-draft workout that included 80 players.I know I compared Mayo to J.R. Rider a little over a month ago, but things have changed. The Wolves have enough ties to Mayo (Hoiberg 's college coach was Tim Flloyd) to get a real idea about the type of character he has. This kid had been touted as one of the next Jordans. His coverage in high school and even earlier is on par with Kobe and LeBron and he still managed to be a team player and someone who elevated his teammates game during his year in college.

The argument can be made that he did his own recruiting and told Flloyd that he would be playing for the Trojans, but if you know that you'll be in the NBA soon enough its a smart move to position yourself in a highly visible place and automatically be able to sign endorsement deals. A smart move made by a smart kid. His 29 on the A.C.T.s put him in the 95th percentile of all test takers. People will talk about the sports agent controversy, I know I did at first, but even if he knew what was going on, and he seems to have done a fair job of distancing himself from that situation, college players deserve more than they are given. I know that a free education is a big deal, but they rake in so much money for those universities and the actual cost for the university to cover one room, three meals and a couple chairs in a couple of classrooms per day per athlete is very minimal.

The Reason I was asking Bez about what he thought about Rashad McCant's trade value is that useing some combination of McCants or Craig Smith and out 2 second round draft picks I'm thinking we could find ourself somewhere between 14 and 20 in the first round. Somebody would be willing to do that right? Big men Projected to go around that area include. Brook's brother Robin (the defensive twin), Alex Ajinca, Kostas Koufos, DeAndre Jordan, Anthony Randolph, Roy Hibbert and Rider's Jason Thompson. Kostas Koufos would be my reason to move up in the draft and Randolph isn't a bad second option, although it would mean keeping Al Jefferson at the 5 spot.

What I'm saying is that taking a flier on a potential superstar sounds better to me than getting 10, 10 and 2 blocks from what will only become a mediocre center when we could very easily get that same type of production from a big man by packaging a few things a little later. If the Cav's had the 3rd selection and the best available player was a small forward they might want to move back. If the Lakers had the 3rd pick and the best available player was a shooting guard they might want to move back. That shooting guard position on the Wolves will be inhabited by Marco Jaric, Rashad McCants and sometimes Randy Foye... we can afford to pick up Mayo and see if he turns into something special.

Vikings now convinced that Erasmus James sucks too

The Vikings waived Erasmus James today. This makes myself and about 5 million others very happy. I didn't want Brian Robison and Ray Edwards losing playing time because James was once a first round pick and the team thought he'd be fully recovered one day. Maybe he can con Mike Tice into clearing a spot on the Jags roster for him right next to our OTHER first round draft pick from 2005.

Lets review... the pro-bowlers we could have selected instead of Williamson are Shawne Merriman, Jammal Brown or Demarcus Ware. We also could have selected Mark Clayton or Reggie Brown if you want to stick with Wide Receivers. The pro-bowlers we could have selected instead of James are Logan Mankins, Lofa Tatupu, Justin Miller, Frank Gore, Marrion Barber the III (home town!), Trent Cole (DE!) or Derrick Anderson. I also would have much rather had Justin Tuck, who will shortly become a pro-bowler as my Defensive End.

I understand that hindsight is 20/20 but this just helps underline the previous administration's ineptitude. Head over to the Daily Norseman to look at the list of all the Vikings drafted in 2005 and their lack lack of starting jobs. Having Cole/Tuck and Clayton/Brown instead of Erasmus James and Troy Williamson would have been way better. At least the new administration has given us hope for this and future vikings draft classes after only two drafts.

In Minnesota we consider not falling the same as winning.

I can't tell you how excited I got when the NBA had named the teams up to the 3rd spot in the lottery and the Timberwolves had not been called yet. I was sure that we would end up with the 5th pick. Picking 5th in itself wouldn't be that bad seeing as there is no solid 3rd best player behind Rose and Beasley, but knowing that we can trade out, get something extra and still get our guy is good to know. This will of course blow up in our face (see Roy v. Foye and Allen v. Starbury) but writing it down gives me peace of mind.

The player that I would select for the T-wolves with the #1 pick is Derrick Rose. The player that fits the Wolves best after Rose and Michael Beasley are off the board is in my opinion Brook Lopez. The thing is that one of the teams right behind us might O.J. Mayo or Jerryd Bayless badly enough to trade up. The last thing we need is another J.R. Ryder type personality (Mayo) or Foye backing up Foye (Bayless). Rose is a horse of a different color and good reason to turn Foye into an undersized shooting guard and then move McCants somewhere else.

The Grizzlies would make the most sense as trading partners assuming they want O.J. Mayo that badly. That would move us back to the 5 spot I was talking about and put Seattle between us and selecting Lopez. Having a division rival between the pick we've been given and the pick I've facetiously traded scares me, but I think that the Sonics have many big men on their squad and would go for Bayless as their PG. That allows us to select the guy I want on our team and hopefully would give us a third second round selection.

I'd like to turn around and trade 2 of those 3 for somebody in the 20's of the first round if he fits. I have no clue who or even what type of player we'd go after since we need so many different things. (Stephen Curry, Joe Alexander, Russel Westbrook, Ty Lawson, Kevin Love, Joey Dorsey?) This is all speculation of course... we'll probably end up taking Mayo at 3 because of the McHale/Hoiberg ties even though I don't want him and I don't think we need him.

When Hoiberg pulls a Tonya Harding

Imagine for a second that Kevin McHale didn't exist, or that Mchale wasn't Glen Taylor's secret lover. That Mchale was expendable within the Wolves franchise and said franchise had finally become willing to terminate his handshake agreement. It was blissful, wasn't it?

The reason for this mental exercise is simple- no McHale mean no Randy Whittman. No career .333 win percentage. Between Cleveland and Minnesota Wittman has won 96 games, lost 192 and never sniffed the playoffs. Whittman never should have risen above assistant coach in the NBA. I'd be fine with him being the head coach of Tulsa University or Coppin State, but a high profile gig does not suit a man of his basketball prowess.

You wanna know who has been to the playoffs 47 times and doesn't have a job? Avery Johnson... former undrafted role player who hit the championship clinching shot against the Knicks in 1999. Johnson has a career .735 win percentage and has won 23 of those playoff games he has coached in. The "Little General" would be the perfect man for the job... I can see him barking orders at our young lineup in his raspy voice, whipping them into shape. He wouldn't be taking orders from the vice president of who gives a fuck at this point. He'd listen, but he wouldn't play the puppet.

Wanna know who else may or may not be free next season? Mike D'antoni and his career .608 win percentage and has won 26 of the 51 playoff games he has coached in. The man who brought the European style of basketball stateside and had his teams drop bucket after bucket on the opposing team until they said enough and just gave up. His teams never really bothered with defense and that seems to be one of our weaknesses. We lack size, we're young enough to build up conditioning to function at a fast pace, don't we kind of sound like the Suns when D'antoni took over?

I know that this team does not possess the skill of either team that these two coaches previously ran, but either would most definitely be a step up from Whittman. Minnesota is used to getting the short end of the stick, win that 23rd game and we'll be happy. There will be no firings after the front office trades away a quality young player and team cohesion for a monster veteran contract that backfires. Chili's problem in his first year was that his team took a step back, I don't really have so much of a problem now that I see the team is headed in the right direction. I still can't believe that Tubby accepted his position and somehow hasn't bolted for a better opportunity. Bring in one of these two and I just might start watching the games again... hell, I might even go to one or two.

I almost forgot... no McHale would also mean a proper draft selection. Can't wait to figure out how he'll muck this one up.

The John David Booty Video

Booty may not have amazing arm strength, but he's very accurate and a mobile quarterback. He's a definite improvement over Brooks Bollinger and will make preseason more competitive. He'll make a very good second option should the T-Jack experiment go awry. I'm digging the fact that 10 days before being drafted he stated his preference for the Vikings on ESPN.

Say Hello to Your New Vikings

On the surface this years draft does not look that exciting with only one pick on the first day and 4 the second none before the 5th round. Keep in mind that our first round pick was a 26 year old all-pro DE who racked up 15.5 sacks on a D-line that was no where near as dominant as the purple. History says Sack leaders numbers go down the year after leading the league but logic says that its impossible to double team everybody on the line. If any of you are worried about giving all of that money to a man who could face a big suspension and even possible jail time with one more DUI fear not, I've found a post on Pro Football Talk outlining how the Vikes have protected themselves against this sort of thing. If you thought we gave up too much for Allen you're pretty crazy considering the Jaguars gave up their 1st, two 3rds AND a 4th rounder for Derrick Harvey at the 8 spot. Thats a 4th rounder more than we gave up for a proven commodity.

In the second round yesterday we moved up a few spots to select Tyrell Johnson, a safety from Arkansas State. He was the Sunbelt defensive player of the year and had 6 interceptions in his senior year. He made 363 tackles and had 13 interceptions during his time at Arkansas State and was impressive during his school's pro day benching 225lbs 27 times (more than anybody else) running a 4.41 40 and showcasing his 39 inch vertical. Many people were confused by this pick but I like it. Sharper is getting older and though his play doesn't show it yet its only a matter of time before we'll need Johnson to step in.

In the 5th round we moved up to select John David Booty of USC. I never thought I'd say it but thank you Green Bay... we swapped 5th rounders and threw in our 7th round pick. Booty means we'll be able to release Bollinger and upgraded both of our back-up QBs from last year. He's also a good option to have if the T-Jack experiment goes bad. I'll post a video of him in action soon.

Our next selection in the 5th puzzled me a bit. We picked up Letroy Guion, a defensive tackle from Florida State University. I know that Pat Williams is getting a little older, but we signed Fred Evans last offseason. I was thinking the team would go after an OT, but Spielman has a very complex draft board and he was rated 8th overall at his position by scout.com.

With our First pick in the 6th round we selected John Sullivan, a center out of Notre Dame. He will most likely become the center of the future should Matt Birk decide to leave after this season. He's 6-4 and 303 lbs and is extremely reminiscent of Birk.

Our final selection was Jaymar Johnson, a WR out of Jackson State. At 6-1 180 he'll need to bulk up a bit but he'll be used mostly as a kick returner if he makes the team. I was hoping we'd use this pick on OT Brandon Kieth out of Northern Iowa University, but we let him go and Arizona picked him up in the 7th round.

In related new Dominique Barber was drafted by the Houston Texans in the 6th round. He was the only Gopher drafted. As for Hawkeyes Charles Godfrey was picked up in the 3rd round by Carolina, Kenny Iwebema was picked up in the 4th round by Arizona and Mike Humpal was picked up by the Steelers in the 6th.

UPDATE: The Daily Norseman has a list of the 16 undrafted free agents signed by the purple today.

Dat Defense is D-D-D-Dangerous

The Vikings have acquired Jared Allen from the Chiefs for what appears to be a hefty price, though Allen will almost definatly prove his worth alongside the Williams boys. According to Jay Glazer, who at this moment is the only member of the media giving actual figures, the Vikings will give up their 1st (17th overall) and both of their 3rd round picks (73rd and 82nd). Glazer also says that Allen's new contract will make him the highest paid defensive player in the league.

The deal is for six years and just under $74 million, including a stunning $31,000,069 guaranteed — 69 is his jersey number.

Allen has a red flag on his record for having 2 DWIs but the Vikings say they've taken a long hard look into his background and believe him when he says that he hasn't had a drop to drink in over a year. He does, however, still own Jared Allen's Sports Arena and Grill. You need to look at that link, the man serves "Jared Juice" consisting of fruit punch and EVERCLEAR and the motto is "Wine 'em, Dine 'em and 69 'em." Classy, Mr. Allen

The Vikings are left with the 47th overall pick (Secondary?), the 117th pick (4th round, QB?), the 150th pick (5th round, no clue) switched picks in the 6th round giving us the 170th (if that info is incorrect we draft 182) 193rd (Thanks for that Tice), 209 in the 7th round for trading Adam Goldberg to the Rams. Its strange to thing that only 16 spots make up the difference in talent level between Troy Williamson and Adam Goldberg. Here is a look at where every team picks as of 3 days ago.

As most of you know Allen lead the league in sacks last year with 15.5 and has averaged over 10 a year in his 4 years as a professional. This spot was a definate need after Kenechi Udezi was diagnosed with leukemia. It was already fairly weak considering Erasmus James' knee problems. Ray Edwards will most likely start opposite Allen with Brian Robison and James filling. Edwards and Robison combined for 9.5 sacks last year and with the Williams wall and Allen commanding the line I expect that number to increase... they only have 3 years experience between the two of them.

We've got six picks left, filled in the gaping hole that will make our passing D much better than before, and the sickest runner to hit the NFL in many, many years. God, L.A. is going to love this team.

Frerotte is Frereally a Viking

Everybody knew that Gus Frerotte was going to become the Vikings' back-up quarterback, it was just a matter of finalizing the contract and choosing a number. Gus is an upgrade, but not by much. Kelly Holcomb and Brooks Bollinger had a combined sixty games played in the NFL while Frerotte has started in 82 games. He's also 36 which leads me to believe that he might have two seasons of game management and spot starting left in him.

The Vikings had better use one of their two 2nd round picks on a QB in case the Tarvaris Jackson experiment doesn't work out. Don't get me wrong - I no longer have a problem with him at QB considering he had almost no help in the receiving corps, but he still kind of reminds me of peanut brittle. I hear good things about Joe Flacco and it looks like Brian Brohm's and Chad Henne's draft stock is slipping enough for the Vikings to scoop them up some time in the second or (stretch) third round. All I know is that Bollinger need to be off my team by September. He should go become an assistant coach for his father.
As long as I'm talking about the upcoming draft I might as well say that I'm a little worried that the Vikings won't get a DE deserving of the 17th pick and I'm afraid that they might reach instead of take the 17th best player available. I know this is a different front office and they took Adrian Peterson when they already had Chester Taylor last year, but taking the violet messiah when he falls to 7 is much easier than taking Mike Jenkins or and O-lineman to replace Ryan Cook for when he replaces Matt Birk instead of reaching for Phillip Merling. All I know is the last time we reached for a player he ended up having rocks for hands and was only worth a 6th round pick from the jags.

It doesn't really matter anyway. The Wilfs will probably end up moving the team to L.A. considering the state legislature refuses to allow the metropolitan sports facilities commission to look for other possibilities for a new Vikings stadium... money that would have been spent by the owners and not by our taxes.

Sell the Team you F-ing Headcase

I am done with Glen Taylor. I vow to never go to a game or purchase Wolves gear while he owns the team. I've always thought that Taylor had a screw loose but the comments he made yesterday have cemented that opinion. K.G. tanked the season? That man has the heart of a lion, his pride wouldn't allow him to tank even a single game. If he lost his leg in some freak accident he'd be out on the floor on crutches and still dominate on D. Just a couple days ago I saw him bashing the ball against his head for missing the first free throw. Thats not something new, that not something he picked up in Boston... he transformed their team with his competitive spirit, turned them into a defensive machine.

K.G. never worried about draft position, thats something that owners and VPs of basketball operations worry about. I think my 5 year old neighbor has more basketball knowledge, and shes a baseball kind of girl. First with the stupid handshake agreement that ruins my life every summer, then the Joe Smith debacle, then firing Flip, then Dwayne Casey now badmouthing the best player ever to wear your uniform? And on the day he took down the second longest consecutive win streak in the history of the NBA. Garnett doesn't want to address that situation after an important game like that. He wants to say "Luis Scola had a good game, but we knew this had to come to an end some time and we wanted to do it ourselves," or, "Powe played great tonight, this was a playoff atmosphere type game against the best team in the west and he stepped up, we all stepped up," not, "That's not my character. I'll let him speak if he wants to."

Get off my team, Taylor. You are quickly becoming the bane of my existence. Go ruin a team in another state.

Please Pick Up Donte Stallworth

If you wear purple on Sundays (and the occasional Monday night) you are undeniably aware of the fact that the Minnesota Vikings lack a passing game. One of the many reasons for this is on his way to Jacksonville, Thanks Mike. Another reason is that the team had no go to guy on the field. I'm not getting down on Bobby Wade, because I think he'll be a quality slot receiver, but he is not and never will be "The Man." I also love our selection of Sidney Rice and think that one day he will be a big time receive, but right now he's just to young. Aundrae Allison was a great selection for where he went in the draft last year, but I think he should be used as a return man and to spell our starters.

We need to sign Stallworth and I think we have an in with Brad Childress as our head coach. I know that they never actually crossed paths, but the know some of the same people. Childress was the man who spent his time in Philadelphia coaching Donovan McNabb. Stallworth, as a receiver, no doubt sparked up a friendship with McNabb. Stallworth is a solid receiver, I had him on my fantasy team and he always produced even though he was usually the third option in that powerful offense.

If this team picked up Donte Stallworth he would become a credible threat through the air, give T-Jack some more confidence in throwing the ball, allow Rice, Wade and possibly even VithsanteShaincoe some more room to work with and keep the defense from loading the box. We would have more of a balanced offense with the reciprocal relationship that Stallworth and Peterson/Taylor. I know that this idea is a stretch, but having Stallworth instead of Williamson is a major upgrade and will give peace of mind to the older members of our defense. It will allow us to draft a receiver in a later round and focus on other needs like safety and defensive end on the first day.

In related news The Daily Norsman is reporting that Kelly Holcomb has been released, Heath Farwell has been offered a one year contract worth about $1.4 million and Dwight Smith has been offered a 2 year contract by the Detroit Lions.

I wonder if David Carr is open to backing up T-Jack now that he's been cut by the Panthers. I know hes not great, but hes an upgrade from both Holcomb and Brooks Bolinger.

ESPN wastes my time: Oden to Blazers

So the NBA lottery has always bothered me and it continues to this day. I’m pissed that ESPN has wasted a half hour of my life knowing full well that they have already told me the same information for the last week. They do this on purpose; make me keep checking back to see if the information has been released. They pretend like this is something special… In reality they probably should have released the draft order at halftime of the game. They introduce a bunch of people I don’t really care about and who will not make a decision for another month. On top of all of this they allow David Stern to beam about the Spurs and Tim Duncan in particular while defending his decision to tank the Sun’s season.

The teams that actually need/ deserve the # 1 pick don’t get it. Milwaukee won it a few years back. Duncan was picked up the one season that David Robinson went down. I recall this one time my favorite basketball team had the worst record with one Mr. O’Neal and one Mr. Mourning in the draft. Who do the Wolves end up with? Christian Laettner… A Duke player. Do me a favor and start naming all of the Duke players that led their NBA team to a championship. Now do it with Tar Heels.

As expected Memphis and the Celtics both got the shaft. You’d think that Stern would have rigged the thing in favor of a team like Boston with such a rich history, but he probably read that thing that John Mellencamp said and decided that he would punish Larry Bird along with Kevin McHale by not giving them the # 1 pick. Actually, I consider staying at #7 a victory. I was sure we would have been kicked back to # 10. The shitty part is that we now have Greg Oden in our division on a team that will be very scary by the time the Wolves consider offering contracts to worthy players (if that ever happens). On top of that the Sonics pick second so Kevin Durant will be in our division as well. Welcome to the basement Minnesota.

The Wolves need to pick up a center or a big guy. I want Roy Hibbert. I’d like to have Al Horford, but he’ll be gone. Neubie’s head would explode if we picked up Joakim Noah and I’ve always wanted to see what that looked like… so I’d be ok with that pick (for a day or two). The Wolves will pick up Yi Jianlian because he is the Asian Mark Blount and if McHale is going to go big he is going to find a way to blow it anyway. I hate my favorite basketball team.

On a side note- does anyone else see the parallels between Noah and A.J. Pierzynski?

Big Brother aka the NFL

It appears that JaMarcus Russell thinks that he has been spied on by and NFL team. According to an interesting article by Mike Freeman of Sportsline:

Russell claims that at one point recently an NFL team -- he says he does not know which one -- spied on him for a period of several days and possibly longer by assigning someone to follow him.

If this is true, which I believe it very well could be, the NFL is more fucked up then anyone of us every realized. What do you expect to gain by following someone for a "period of several days." For any of the men being drafted or being considered to be drafted, this time of their lives is the most scrutinized time they may ever face. By trailing anyone for a few days you will not gain anything.

If anything the teams should be trailing players on their teams that they have had problems with. Give Adam "pac-man" Jones a baby-sitter per say, and follow him, or give the Bengals ankle bracelets so you know there wear abouts.

I hope whichever team was spying on him found some reason not to draft him in those few days. So when Mr. Russell goes on to be some hall of fame player, all they have to say for why they passed on him was because of something they saw spying on him. Lame.

The picture is what I hope the spy looked like, although I'm sure it didn't come close.

Edit: here is the link