Yeah! Wait... What? No!

As you all know by now there is both good and bad news in the land of snow and mediocre sports teams. The good news is that Randy Wittman is out of a job. The bad news is that Kevin McHale is now the leader of this ragged band of malcontents. The good news is McHale is no longer the G.M. or "V.P. of basketball operations" or whatever title they used for the job of the dude in charge of throwing the franchise's future down the drain. The bad news is the trapezoid of idiocy is still intact and in charge of makeing all of the wrong descisions off the court while McHale handles the on-court part.

I think Sam Mitchell or Eddie Jordan would have made for better coaches and an actuall GM would have been nice. I don't know why McHale gets the Isaiah Thomas treatment. Worse yet we didn't even get the satisfaction of public ultimatum like James Dolan gave Thomas. Glen taylor might actually think this is a good idea and not just a way to justify something that the rest of the world thought was already justifiable. McHale should have been out the door with Whittman.

So far McHale has twice replaced a coach with a worse one. For all of our sake I hope he goes 3 for 3 in that particular category. These players need to go 0-62 the rest of the season if they want the ineptitude of this team to end. Al Jefferson needs to study tape of KG's career, but he needs to focus on the stuff that happened off the court and realize the reason(s) why a player so great could only get past the first round once in Minnesota. Losing tonight was a start, Al, but you and your boys have a long way to go if you want to win in the future.

My dream is that Glen Taylor rip out the entire front office (sans secretaries, ect.) and start from scratch. If he wants he can keep Fred Hoiberg as Assistant GM, but only as long as he gets a real GM to come and work for him. We need someone who has a coach in mind (someone who can invent a system in which the players we have play to and beyond their full potential) won't deal with mediocre players under the table, won't constantly draft a better player and imediatly trade them away and someone who actually has a plan for the future that doesn't include sweater shopping and fishing at the top of the list.

Randy Wittman and his career .326 win percentage (which got worse every year he coached) is gone and Kevin McHale has (presumably) lost his decision making power, so the team is moving in the right direction. If they want to get me to think about buying an actual ticket to one of these games they need go all the way and blow up the front office and start from scratch. If they take that last sentance literally I will buy a ticket.

I may write again. I may not. Just couldn't fully wrap my head around this conundrum and needed to put it down somewhere.

Fuck You NBA and Possibly Fox Sports Net Too

Today during one of the first 28 Home runs that Josh Hamilton hit I realized that tonight was the Wolves first summer league game. Then Bez informed me that I could watch the game for free on NBA.com as IT WOULD NOT BE BROADCAST IN THE TWIN CITIES.

After signing up for the service and telling them the truth about who I am and where I'm from I was informed that:

This live webcast is not available in your area. Please check your local tv listings for broadcast info on this game.

Uhh, Fuck you NBA. Who in their right minds wants to watch a shittier version of the wolves except for maybe me and 3 other dudes? And who told you that this game was being broadcast somewhere where it was definitely not. All I want to do is take a look at what Kevin Love can do against bad compatition and get a feel for who our next back-up PG is going to be. (I'm afraid Bassy is so gonzo that even Hunter S. Thompson can't understand)

What can I watch instead of my beloved and shitty Wolves? O.J. fucking Mayo and the Memphis Grizzlies play the Fake Lakers. Thats some shitty shit, man. Did you plan this? Are you mocking me assholes? Whats the deal with letting me watch the player I wanted play for the wrong team but not the right team with the wrong player?
I hate everyone responsible for what occured tonight. I even tried to pretend I was from Idaho even though I knew it was a feutal attempt to see my team.

P.S. Kevin Love had 16 pts and 11 rebounds last time I looked which doesn't mean shit.

P.P.S. Amazingly Justin Morneau won the home run derby by some loophole in the rules where the man with the best proformance doesn't always get to win. Congratulations of the money and the car if you got one, but we both know Hamilton got robbed. He put on a crazy show that put my jaw on the floor for what felt like a good half hour.

Pre-Draft Link Drop

With the Draft coming on Thursday I thought I would pass on some reading material draft related. I also have some things that are completely unrelated to the draft. I don't know where that first image came from but I would like to go there. Hold on.

Couple days ago, Benny asked me what I thought of Rashad McCants' trade value. I don't know but Rashad thinks he should be playing more.

This past year after working extremely hard to recover from microfracture surgury, I found myself coming of the bench being the sixth man and the second leading scorer. The only bad part about it was that I could have been twice as productive with more minutes. I would have been able to meet my individual goals, we could have won more games, and I'd be on my way to being a respected player in the NBA.

Jon Marthaler from over at TNABACG disagrees with the kid. He had this over at twolvesblog.

A few weeks ago I was in a mock-draft over in the Swamp, here's the results if you're interested:

1. Chicago - Michael Beasley, PF, Kansas State
2. Miami - Derrick Rose, PG, Memphis
3. Minnesota -Brook Lopez, C, Stanford
4. Seattle - Darrell Arthur, PF, Kansas
5. Memphis - Kevin Love, PF, UCLA
6. New York - Jerryd Bayless, PG, Arizona
7. L.A. Clippers - O.J. Mayo, SG, USC
8. Milwaukee - Eric Gordon, SG, Indiana
9. Charlotte - DeAndre Jordan, C, Texas A&M
10. New Jersey - Danilo Gallinardi, SF, Italy
11. Indiana - Russell Westbrook, PG, UCLA
12. Sacramento - DJ Augustine, PG, Texas
13. Portland - Joe Alexander, SF, West Virginia
14. Golden State - Anthony Randolph, PF, LSU
15. Phoenix (from ATL) - Brandon Rush, SG/SF, Kansas
16. Philadelphia - Donte' Greene, SF, Syracuse
17. Toronto - Nicholas Batum, F, France
18. Washington - Marreese Speights, PF/C, Florida
19. Cleveland - J. J. Hickson, PF, NC State
20. Denver -Mario Chalmers, PG, Kansas
21. New Jersey (from DAL) - JaVale McGee, C, Nevada
22. Orlando - Kosta Koufos, C, Ohio State
23. Utah - Roy Hibbert, C, Georgetown
24. Seattle (from PHX) - Chase Budinger, SF, Arizona
25. Houston -Robin Lopez, C, Sanford
26. San Antonio – Alexis Ajinca, C, France
27. New Orleans - Chris Douglas-Roberts, SG, Memphis
28. Memphis (from LAL) – Bill Walker, SF, Kansas State
29. Detroit – Jason Thompson, PF, Rider

This was started about 3 weeks ago so somethings have changed, people have fallen, some have risen. I selected Brook Lopez, but if I were to do it over again I would probably do if differently. Before I state who I would take I will give you a paragraph neubie wrote a bit back:

As for OJ Mayo, I don't think I've wanted a soon to be professional athlete fail more than I do this guy. Since I first heard the story of him walking into USC coach Tim Floyd's office and recruiting himself to the school, I have wished for his demise. It only got worse on hearing about and seeing the tape of him throwing an alley-oop to himself towards the end of a 40 point State Championship Game blowout and then getting ejected from his final game for chucking the ball into the stands. This might even be tolerable, if not excusable, but then he walked around the court, hands held high, basking in the cascading cheers of the crowd like some Roman Gladiator just having defeated a wildebeest. Only this is a high school kid, and it just proves what kind of cocky, attention hogging idiot this guy really is. The sad thing is, he has sick basketball talent and that will land him in a high spot in the upcoming NBA draft and probably some endorsement deals with Sunny D and Hellman's.

With that taken care of, I would like to say I had similar feelings about Mayo at first too. I felt pretty similar when all this came out even. But as of right now I hope that we can select OJ Mayo at the 3rd pick.

The Big Lead has been previewing each team prior to the draft for the last few weeks. Today they had the Wolves. TBL thinks we should take Lopez. I disagree. Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo. Hew, got that out of the system.

Speaking of TBL if you're missing the feud going on over there, I suggest you check it out. The following is a cronological series of links of this (in Barriero's words) Kerfuffle.

LATimes.

TBL

Deadspin

Some guy ripping the shit out of Will Leitch.

I'm sure there is more out there but this is the way I read it. It's a long read, but if you're familiar with any of TBL's work or Deadspin, it's very interesting.

You have to love Jerry Zgoda's headline over at the startrib.

McHale not sure of Wolves' draft strategy

This could either be a future piece or a historic piece. It's just really funny hard to tell just from the headline.

Well I may write something up tomorrow after the EuroCup game. If not after the draft it will happen for sure. By the way whatever happened to that Bracey kid?

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.

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.

Your Bracey Update

Senior Bracey Wright, Whom I promise to contact his upcoming off-season, as well as some other new Wolves (mainly Corey Brewer because he has a site), needs his stats updated.

A far as I can tell Bracey averaged just under 15 points per game,2.5 rebounds, 1.6 assists, .7 steals, 1.9 T.Os and .5 blocks per game over in Greece. Hopefully some NBA team will realize that these numbers can translate into the NBA game.

I wish his defensive numbers would have gone up to better his chances of becoming an NBA player again, but I hope that someone will give him a chance anyway. At least we know he'll be good some day.

Ain't no stoppin' us now

Watch out NBA, here comes the Timberwolves.

Thank God Almighty!

The Wolves won. Their victory made me realize that I have my own dream.

Two years less a score Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner, in whose symbolic shadows we stand today, signed the expansionation proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light to thousands of Minnesotans who had been frostbitten by the winds of withering injustice. It came as a joyous ray of sunshine to end the long winter of discontent.

But eighteen years later, the Minnesotan is still not free. The life of a Minnesotan is still sadly crippled by the manacles of ineptitude and the chains of it's ownership. The Minnesotan lives on an island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity (Portland?). And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

We have come to this hallowed spot to remind the NBA of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promise of victory. Now is the time to lift our team from the quicksands of injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to making winning a reality for all of the shivering children.

It would be fatal for the ownership to overlook the urgency of the moment. This freezing winter of the team's legitimate discontent until there is an invigorating spring of defense and teamwork. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in Minnesota until the Timberwolves are granted the right to victory.

But there is something I must say to my team, who stand on the warm threshold which leads to the palace of parquet and iron: in the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for victory by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative defense to degenerate into violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of physical force with contact on the ball and the ball alone.

We cannot walk alone. (Travel)
And as we walk, we must pledge that we shall always push the ball forward.
We cannot turn our back. (on the ball handler)

There are those that will ask the fans, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the team is victim of the unspeakable horrors of road losses. We can never be satisfied when our bodies, heavy with fatigue and travel, cannot gain the upper hand in the Arenas along the highways and the Gardens of the cities.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. it is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that this team will rise up and live out the true meaning of it's creed, " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all teams are created equal."
I have a dream that Al Jefferson will make us all forget about Kevin Garnett.
I have a dream that Randy Foye can make up for his not being Brandon Roy.
I have a dream that Sebastion Telfair is the truth and not just a throw in to make the money work.
I have a dream that the Wolves will actually get the number one pick when they deserve it.
I have a dream that one day I will open the front page and it will contain these four words- McHale, Whitman, Murder, Suicide

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that Theo Ratliff's contract along with the other expiring contracts will be enough to coax a worthy free agent into the snow an blistering cold.
I have a dream that we will make the right decision when deciding which SG/SFs to keep and get good value out of those who no longer remain on the roster.
I have a dream that this team will free itself from the dungeon that is the bottom of the NBA standings. And we will let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every lake and every hill, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Protestants and Catholics, we will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Spiritual

free at last, free at last
Thank god almighty, we are free at last!

This is meant in no way to be disrespectful to Dr. King or any of his beliefs. He has done more for this nation than a good number of presidents and did it all in a way that would seem impossible if I hadn't seen the footage with my own eyes. If you have taken offense to this I sincerely apologise. Unless you are Kevin Mchale- seriously, its time to leave dude.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Wolves Might Lose Fewer Games in the Future

Randy Foye has been cleared to work out.

I know that doesn't matter because the team is a steaming pile of shit being lead by three blind men with a cumulative IQ of 42, but I've wanted to see what this team was supposed to look like all season. Foye stated earlier this year that he felt he would be ready to about 5 games after given the go ahead. That would place his return on the 18th or 19th of December against Phoenix of Denver. My guess is that he will take longer than that to get back into game form and would only have a minimal role for the first few games back seeing as the team has a snowballs chance in hell of doing anything but accumulating the most ping pong balls for that crazy lottery that should only take 5 minutes but ESPN stretches out into an hour.

Foye has been out all season with a stress reaction- that's jibba jabba for a few millimeters from needing micro fracture surgery. That's a bunch of bullshit Randy, I remember this great runningback who tore a ligament in in his knee and hit the ground running two games later. His knee Randy! Runningbacks need their knees just as badly as point guards. You're not even a real point guard, the three headed beast just shoved you into that role.

I'm just playin'. It'll be good to possibly win 2 games a month instead of the 1 that we have become so accustomed to. We might even be able to challenge the Heat, Knicks and Supersonics on a semi-regular basis. Watch out world, here come the T-Wolves!

On a quasi-related note Bracey Wright is averaging 15.5 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1 steal and just under a steal in 30 minutes for Aris TT Bank in Greece. The team has a 6-4 record and have 4 more games to go in the regular season. I have no clue how basketball works in Europe but there are three different groups so I think its like soccer and goes on forever as long as they keep on winning.

It might be time for the Triple B- BRING BRACEY BACK. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see Theo Ratliff again this year and thought there is no place for him on the team it wouldn't really matter as long as someone can stand on the court for a couple of minutes while we get beat.

They'd still suck but...

I've been thinking about the Wolves lately and I feel that I've relegated them to the back of the blog for too long. I chose the old wolves logo because that is what this team reminds me of- The Pre-KG not talent all-stars. I remember going to Wolves games with my father shortly after the birth of the franchise and cheering on Felton Spencer, asking Luc Longly for an autograph (I still have it around here somewhere, Tom Gugliota's too), and most of all that long wait for the first in-person win. I swear it took a good 3-4 years of going to a handful of games a year to finally see a victory.

The thing is that I believe in this team way more than I did in those teams. I believe in Randy Foye and Craig Smith. I believe that one day Al Jefferson will make us forget about KG. I believe that all Marko Jaric needed to get his game jump started was some Brazilain supermodel NaNa. I believe that the player everyone more or less thought was a throw in to help even out money issues could be our point guard for years to come. I'm beginning to think that this team should move Foye to his natural two spot and use our lottery pick on O.J. Mayo or Derrick Rose and put them behind Sebastion Telfair for a while. I'm leaning towards Rose because I have a feeling that Mayo would do like Eli Manning or like Kobe and never step foot in Minnesota.

I don't want to stray too far from the reason I even began writing this, the fourth quarter free fall. It didn't happen tonight, though they still lost, but this team seems to keep me entertained and keep my hopes alive through the first three quarters only break my heart in the final 12 minutes. I did a little research and found that this team would be 10-16-1 if the game only lasted 36 minutes. We held the lead in all four of our actual wins against The Kings, The Hornets, The Suns and The Pacers. We had the lead against Atlanta twice, The Spurs, The Nuggets, The Heat and The Wizards in a game which included a healthy Arenas (scored 27 that night).

If we had that record our team would be better than New York, Chicago, Miami, The Clippers, Memphis, tied with Charlotte and Seattle would be below us in our own division. I'd like to know what Kind of affect "Fourth Quarter" Foye would have on this teams record or what will happen when hes back on the floor and in good health. I'd also like to see what a steady rotation would do for this team. I guess the only real difference would be seen in draft position, the difference between picking Derrick Rose or Roy Hibbert if we really turned it on in the next few months.

I guess I'd just like to see this team play an entire game instead of just watch their opponents take over. I guess I'd just like to see the team play more like the teams that this logo reminds me of.

Blog, I forgot all about you

Blog,
I'm sorry I have been gone for so long. You have been neglected. It's just that things haven't gone well in my sports universe lately. It has been hard, Iowa football sucks (some may say they always have (I won't be one of them)), The Twins sucked the season away, not that I care, but the Vikings blow (actually that's funny), and The Wild are just getting going (they got some help from drunk me, and friends Saturday).

I know I have made promises before to come back more often, and that usually is short lived, so this time I'm not making any promises, but I will try. I may need some motivations so here are a list of things a few things that make me happy:

1. The Yankee's season was only 4 games longer then the Twins. Go Indians.
2. I don't live in Chicago, suck it Bears, bring back Rexy already.
3. Ozzie Guillen will back next year.
4. Lists.
5. The Wild.
6. The NBA is back soon, which seems to give me plenty to write about.

That was short and sweet.

Anyway, If one doesn't work tomorrow afternoon, I suggest in tuning into ESPN2. Timberwolves vs Celtics in preseason play from Italy.

Done Deal

Although when it first went up Gerald Green wasn't on the list, the deal is done and just how it was talked about yesterday afternoon. Have fun KG, we're going to miss you. I'm going to go get in line for tickets to the Wolves/Celtics game this season, see ya there.

A league source just confirmed that the Celtics and Timberwolves have finalized a deal that will bring Kevin Garnett to Boston in exchange for Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair, Theo Ratliff and two first round draft picks.

Garnett is expected to arrive in Boston this afternoon for a physical.
Garnett has agreed to a three-year extension with the Celtics beyond the two remaining on his contract, guaranteeing that he will be a Celtic for the next five years.

One reason for prolonged negotiations was the Celtics’ attempt to lessen the luxury tax hit this team will take next year, with Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen scheduled to earn a combined $54.4 million - the highest of any three-player combo in the NBA.

This will involve finding a way to lessen the impact of a 15 percent trade kicker in Garnett’s contract.

Link

A letter to T-Hud

Listen, guy, you, I and everyone else who still holds some allegiance to the horrible basketball team known as the Minnesota Timberwolves know that you are not worth the 9 million or so that the team is offering you to leave. The fact that you feel that this offer is too low is ludicrous, Mr. Hudson. The writers of Forbes are among the only people who could ever agree that you are worth the contract you were given, and the world may never know why that is. Congratulations on becoming one of the many veterans to convince Kevin McHale to give you far too much money. Your name goes along side those of Joe Smith (twice), Michael Olowakandi, Mike James and Marko Jaric as the worst contracts in the Kevin Garnett era.

The world knows that once “freed” from this place you will serve as the back up to the back up on some basketball team with an equally pessimistic fan-base and no future playoff contention in sight. Do you know why? You are a cancer and believe yourself to be better than you actually are. Did Mr. McHale’s contract actually make you believe that you could play ball? I once saw the man tip his taxi driver $1,000 for knowing how to drive. He gave the doorman a five-year contract extension to a building in which he did not own, let alone live in.

I implore you to give up you shitty basketball career and embark on your new, equally shitty rap career (Via RandBall). Maybe you can convince Ron Artest or Ludacris to give you a 5 record deal based on the street cred that you gained growing up on the mean streets of Carbondale, Illinois. That is if you don’t come down with a bad case of bronchitis that prevents you from putting together those final 4 albums. (If you feel that this may be in your future you may not want to sign with Artest I heard he’ll be taking the Suge Knight approach to recording).

Take the money and run. You are the bane of my existence as a Wolves fan, Troy Hudson.

Sincerely.

Muck

7/31 UPDATE: I just found out that Hudson's Album sold all of 78 copies in its debut weekend. Wanna see THUD at work? here is a link with a video

LUNCH BREAK: Tigers need not wait said half hour

Yesterday I brought you a naked swimmer and today I bring you a swimming tiger. Bez pointed these pictures out to me the other day and since I had no theme for the lunch break I thought this would do. Today’s links are very Minnesota heavy so screw you, other 49 states in the union. There, I said it.

Musings from a Twins fan trapped in Chicago. Apparently they are still bitter about the sweep.

Roger Goodell’s inner monologue

Surprisingly the Wolves don’t show up on this list of the worst and best NBA drafts in the last ten years. Except for the time they passed up their pick.

Some notes about Tarvaris Jackson and Adrian Peterson from NFC-North.com.

Tim Brewster is lying, but his son is probably a better quarterback.

The T-wolves blog want Chauncey back. I just want to know how many guards Detriot would be willing to take in return.

The Cobra Brigade breaks down the NBA finals match-up by position.

Manny and Backstrom forced to appear on stage together to accept an award… Awkward.

Do not play a game of pick-up ball with THE GAME.

Randball takes time out of his busy day to scratch his head.

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?

LUNCH BREAK: Chef Wanted Edition

The last two days sucked as far as "news" goes, but finally we've got some stuff worth sharing with you guys. What did we learn? Don't hang around Ricky Davis, Griffey can still hit homeruns, Josh Howard likes CourtTV and delete your text messages if you're getting side action.

• Ricky Davis’ friends are not cool. No ceviche for them.
• Tracy Mcgrady is either a magician or a wizard.
• Bonds not to break Arron home run record this year.
• Griffey takes sole possession of 10^th on the all-time home run list… would be a step behind Bonds if not for injuries. Here is your steroid angled story.
• The Fanhouse says Matt Spaeth is undervalued.
• I liked Josh Howard before this Truehoop interview. Now I think he’s great.
• Vikings catch a break. Get it? Break. Ha ha, I so funny!
• The bloody sock debate is brought back to life. Shilling works a fastball powerful enough to hit the press box.
• If women hockey players were hot I’d probably want to coach them.
• Triple technical? That sounds crazy! Ohh, Stephen Jackson was involved. That makes sense.
• Alec Baldwin quits yelling at his daughter long enough to yell at draft prospects.

LUNCH BREAK: Eat Fresh! Edition

Brady Quinn likes his Subway, and Trent Green may be the key to the Vikings drafting him (though I don't think we should)

New and ingenious ways to run marathons.

The New York Times breaks down the statistical difference between the A.L. and the N.L.

The MLB says Torii is in trouble for sending Dom. I say bullshit, leave the man alone.

Randball has a mustache fetish, and so do the Orioles.

Derok.net talks T-wolves and the Twilight of KG's productive years.

Carron Butler… Straw chewer extraordinaire. WTF?

Taking power from Mchale is a good thing, but giving more to Glen Taylor probably isn’t.

Kevin Slowey is making a run at Ponson’s spot in the rotation. No protest here, we enjoy sub 1.00
ERAs.

The Big Lead has figured out how to cure cancer, and all its gonna take is some lunch money.

FSN is out of options

Minnesota has reached rock bottom. FSN North is now employing the 'KG Cam' to try to entice viewers to continue their watching experience. The 'KG CAM' consists of one camera that follows Kevin Garnett no matter where he goes. If you ever wondered who KG talks to while he is on the bench you no longer need wonder. It's Trenton Hasell and Mark Blount. I swear to god, if McHale makes it past June I'm going to kill myself. The man has ruined basketball in Minnesota.

Last Week the T-wolves got a .2 share of the market.

We are now no longer concerened with action on the court and now focus all attention on our superstar. How far are we away from naming our team the Minnesota Kevin Garnetts? If we have sunk to this level we should feel free to lose every single game prior to and after this horribly inefficient game. Free Bracey Wright!!! We need to see if he is worth keeping around and the world know that Jaric, Hudson and James are not worth the salary we pay them.

This team is in the dumps and will go nowhere without a new front office... its not the talent that is the problem at this point- its the people bringing the talent in. The KG cam = the self-destruction of the season

Free Bracey Wright!!!

Usually Unusual

Unbelievable T-Wolves, unbelievable! Finding out about the Timberpuppies blowing a twenty-five point lead was about as surprising as reading another blog about how much Joakim Noah is ugly and sucks at life. I think Dick Vitale would agree with me. But the thing that was surprising was that the T-Pupps managed to score 71 points in the first half. This maybe dim glimmer of hope as the season continues to stumble beyond mediocrity and into the backyard of painful. Minnesota fails to score a field goal for the last 6:38 of the game, breaking the all time record of longest drought without a field goal to end a game, set by the Middlebury, Vermont third grade girls B team. Rashard Lewis laid a massive beat down of the Timberwolves in the fourth quarter by scoring 21 of his 35. All in all, this will be the low point of a dissapointing season, by an overrated team, with high expectations. But the inevitablity of this letdown is something to take comfort in. We as fans now don't have to pretend we want to make it to the playoffs, because there is always a chance. We can now openly express our opinion about secertly wanting the team to take it in the ass for the remaining games, so they don't have to give up their shot at the Oden/Durant lottery. And starting from this point on, we here at Some-Peoples-Kids are vamping up the effort to get our main man Bracey Wright some much needed court time, to show us and "Pacman" Jones what it takes to really make it "rain".

I also find it hilarious that the Timberwolves are having a back to the 80's retro night, when they only existed as a team for a whole three months in 1989. But hey, whatever gets your pants off...

Free Bracey Wright!!!