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.

Theo Ratliff has Flown the Coup

The Wolves have waived Theo Ratliff. According to The Detroit News he'll be picked up by the Detroit Pistons and have an opportunity to get his ring before his ever looming retirement. Unfortunately for Antoine Walker, it was not Antoine Walker who was given his walking papers. Walker is also having trouble understanding that you don't need a passport to enter Ohio.

This was bound to happen knowing that Ratliff was in the last year of his huge contract and would be holding back the development of Chris Richards in terms of actual game play over the last 30 games of the season. It would be silly to expect that Richards end up as the starting center, and I'm pulling for out lottery pick to be a center* so we can move Big Al to power forward, but its good to get him into the game more.

Best of luck to Ratliff in his quest for a championship and thanks for opening up that gaping hole in our cap space. TWolves Blog is the best place to find out more on the deal.

*unless Derrick Rose is available

Guess Who Still Sucks at Stuff

Its Troy Hudson. Golden State agreed. When the Warriors decided to clear a spot on the bench for Chris Webber they chose the dreaded one's spot. Its cool though, cause now he has time to work on his rap career.

Straight outta Carbondale, UHHH!

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.

Warning

At 1pm Central Standard time tomorrow shit is going to hit the proverbial fan. George Mitchell has called a presser for 2pm eastern at the Grand Hyatt, in New York city. In this press conference he will be revealing his report to Major League Baseball on steroid use. It is expected that he will be naming up to 70 players, former and present, that are associated to steroids.

To be honest, what i think you need to be warned about is what is going to come about because of this Mitchell Report; nothing. Nothing is going to change, from the way it is now. They aren't going to go take stats away from these players. They aren't going to give fans money back because they got tricked into believing lies. Nope, there will be a bunch of people who will say, "I told you so," and then we'll go right back to the way things are now.

This report will not point any fingers at the real problem in baseball, Mr. Bud Selig. He ignored the problem when he was an owner, and when he became commissioner he did the same. So this report will ignore him and his office who were and are the true enablers in this whole problem and point fingers at players.

The fun part now has been speculating who will be named in this thing. To me it's pretty obvious the twins non-tendered Jason Tyner today because they know he'll be named in this thing tomorrow, and they don't want to be associated with such a power player like him. Well, until tomorrow at 1 central take a break from all that is baseball commentary, because come 1:45 you will be unable to get any other kind of commentary for quite a while.

Just watch it

Nothing is really needed to set this video up, besides it's a must watch.

I Want 10 Million to Not Play Basketball

Obviously T-Hud took my advice and accepted the buyout from the Timberwolves. He'll probably end up as a Celtic since they'll be needing a backup point guard and he a Garnett are good friends. I bet Danny Ainge won't offer Hudson 30 million dollars. I bet the Celtics get him for 1-2 million per season and I'm sure that will be fine considering he already has about 10 million bones in his back pocket and will be joining a newly made elite eastern division team.

He should not, however, take the second part of my advice. It seems that hip hop aficionados are not exactly feeling Undrafted. Even if Hudson can make a dollar off of each CD sold, which would be a deal only the Kevin McHale of the recording industry would make, he would still only pull in about 78 bucks a week. I guess that Carbondale won't become the new rap capitol of the world anytime soon. Below is an Excerpt from his Myspace page-

An avid music writer, Troy also has written over two thousand original songs in his music career. In 2004, Troy formed NuttyBoyz Entertainment Group, which has evolved into Troy E. Hudson Enterprises, with Troy at the helm as Chief Executive Officer. Featuring a full range of music labels and production capabilities, Hudson Records and NuttyBoyz Records began actively recording and publishing music in 2005 at his newly built Hudson Studios, a private set of state-of-the-art music studios located in North Minneapolis.

It also says that he is "an outstanding guard known for his quickness, Solid defense and accurate shooting" - that is not the back-up's back-up that I know. On the plus side you could win a $50,000 chain through the myspace page. Seeing as the album was suck a big seller in its first week I'm guessing you odds are way better trying to win the chain than they are with a scratch off worth the same.

Man is he lucky that he got this whole not playing basketball career to fall back on.

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