"This one's for 'sota"

Those were among the first audible words out of Kevin Garnett's mouth when Michelle Tafoya attempted to interview him after he won his first championship. Things like that are why I love KG so much... he knows it's not the fan's fault that the GM of the Timberwolves is Kevin McHale. He knew that he needed to win a championship and that just wouldn't happen here, but he never forgot us and we never forgot him. I know its only been a year and it would be hard to forget any athlete that quickly, but I mean that as of August 1st, 2007 the state of Minnesota probably had more Boston Celtic fans than it had Minnesota Timberwolves fans.

I wish that things had gone differently and he could be celebrating that championship with a Wolves jersey on, but they didn't. Congratulations Mr. Garnett, you've made us all proud.

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.

Steve Nash - Training Day

Steve Nash is awesome. I'm sure everyone has already seen this commercial and is asking, "whats so special about this?" Well, my friends, besides the fact that Nash is a really good soccer player and rides a skateboard he also directed the commercial himself. It sounds like Nash plans to make films when he retires from basketball. He has set up his own production company to make independent films. The Arizona Republic interviewed a few people in the film world about Nash's commercial.

"The spot is like Steve Nash himself - very spontaneous,"(Chris) Lamont(Phoenix film festival president) said. "Guerrilla-style filmmaking really lends itself to the type of work. There is an improv quality, which is like his play . . . I give it a thumbs up."

I can't wait to see what he does when basketball is no longer his main focus.

(via Kotte.org via truehoop with an assist from the Arizona republic)

I used to think wrestling was not awesome

It still isn't, but I've gained a lot of respect for this particular wrestler.

I saw a similar clip at The Big Lead, but found one with some more info for you guys.

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.

Ladies and Gentlemen... Dave Chappelle

"You know what? I say a lot of racist jokes, and my mouth says a lot of racist things but my penis is a humanitarian."

I found this clip of some new Dave Chappelle stand up on Funnyordie.com and felt the need to share it with the world. I guess his crazy pills have kicked in and he's made his way from Africa to London. Hopefully he'll be touring the U.S. with some new material shortly because he is greatly missed.

P.S. Carlos Mencia sucks

This Kid Looks Hungry Too

...For Yards! Purple Jesus done done it again setting a record for most yards in a game with 296. Wanna know whose going to break that record? Adrian Peterson... Kid is a freaking rookie, he's got time to improve his game. Purple Jesus is crazy ridiculous. Nobody can touch him, and if they do he just knocks them over and keeps on going. Somebody should figure out how many yards he averages after first contact cause I'm willing to bet it better than a lot of starting running backs regular average per carry. Oh yeah, and his line did a great job. Especially that right side that gets so much flack, Ryan Cook and Anthony Herrera. I kind of think the key to the line was starting Herrera.

As for the rest of the team stuff went well. Tarvaris Jackson got injured again... If Adrian Peterson is Purple Jesus Tarvaris Jackson has to be Purple Judas. I know that early in the season I was pulling for Jackson and calling for Bollinger to be cut, but Jackson has proven nothing but the fact that he holds the ball too long, passes the ball too far away from the receivers and his bones are made of china. Bollinger hasn't done too much but he was 7/10 for 95 yards, 40 of which went to Sidney Rice for a TD.

The D-Line held LT to 40 yards. An amazing feat considering he is the best back in the league not wearing purple. Ray Edwards had a great game on the outside of the line. The secondary did a great job, too. Antonio Gates didn't exist, yet another amazing feat. The third amazing feat was that the secondary held their own with a combined 5 years of experience at corner. Cedric Griffin is a solid second year guy, Marcus McCauley is a rookie who has been targeted for much of the year and Charles Gordon got an interception.

The only thing I was not happy about was Chilli's field goal attempt at the end of the half. We had a tie game and were out of Longwell's range. That could have killed us. Last year that would have killed us. I still have no faith in Childress. Its just too easy to call a run play for number 28 and get an automatic first down. If Childress wants my vote of confidence he needs to show me something like a comeback win that takes an air attack.

I didn't think Peterson would have a better game than the one against the Bears this year, but I was pleasantly surprised. Hopefully we can do the same against the Pack next week.

P.S. we scored more than 24 points.

In Theaters Tomorrow… Sept. 7th

Two out of three ain’t bad. The first film is already generating Oscar buzz and will open the floodgates for the Western to come back into fashion. The second film is an absurd and exciting action pic starring a BAMF that does not get the respect that he deserves. The third film out in wide release stars two comic actors whose work I have enjoyed but I’m not so sure that they can carry a film by themselves.

3:10 TO YUMA is a remake of a 1957 film by the same name. This one stars Christian Bale as an Arizona rancher who agrees to transfer a captured outlaw (Russell Crowe) to the train going to Yuma for trial. Guess what time the train arrives. Seriously. Guess. The two characters gain each other’s respect as they ride the trail to get to their train and face many obstacles including Crowe’s gang. Tom Cruise almost killed this film when he pulled out, but things totally get better when Tom Cruise pulls out. Peter Fonda, Ben Foster and Gretchen Mol also have parts in the film.

SHOOT ‘EM UP does not want you get its genre confused. This film looks totally wicked like a mix between CRANK and SIN CITY and SMOKIN’ ACES and anything else that is ultra violent, super fast paced and ridiculous in a good way. Clive Owen (The Bad Ass Mother F*cker previously mention) plays Mr. Smith who may or may not be a hit man but who does become a babysitter/guardian to a child that he has delivered during a gunfight. Yeah, you just read that correctly. This is one of those films that doesn’t offer too much of a plot but throws so much ammunition, car chases and explosions that you forget that films even have plots. I have faith that I won’t notice the plot holes in this film, especially when I’m busy looking at Monica Belluchi. Owen uses carrots to kill people and Paul Giamatti plays the leader of the gang that is trying to kill the child. I’m all for films that explore social issues, develop plots and characters and try to enlighten audiences but sometimes I really dig an action film that goes balls to the wall.

The last film this week looks mentally handicapped, and not in a funny way either. Will Forte (SNL, BEERFEST) Will Arnett (“Arrested Development”, BLADES OF GLORY, LETS GO TO PRISON) and Jenna Fischer (“The Office”) star in THE BROTHERS SOLOMON. The Wills play brothers who were home schooled and therefore socially inept. Their father’s dying wish was to have a grandchild so the brothers set out to get their groove on. Lee Majors, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig (Both from SNL) also appear in the film. It will not be good.