Remember When?

Okay, so I've been off on a few series. I never thought the Bulls would sweep the Heat, I thought Toronto was ready to move against a mediocre NJ team, and, in the most incredible outcome so far, I believed the Mavs--with some difficulty--would have outlasted the Warriors by now. Instead of focusing on my mediocrity, let's talk instead about our boys the Wolves, and all those years they were the lower seed team in the playoffs, in contrast to the Warriors, playing top seeded Dallas.

Remember when all we heard from Flip Saunders were excuses why he didn't have more playoff wins? They were always the lower seed, no home court advantage, the deck was stacked against them from the beginning, he said. The truth is, and still is, Flip can't win the big game. There were a couple of times they came close to the big upset, against Seattle and LA in the last 10 years, but on the whole, they weren't mentally prepared to handle playoff intensity. We see a team like the Warriors--a lot of bad guys on their team--play intensely, with a coach familiar with the Mavericks system. Stephen Jackson--who was on one of the Spurs championship teams--and Baron Davis are leading the way, with role players like Matt Barnes chipping in. As much as I'm not a huge fan of Don Nelson, you have to love the underdog at this point and root for the bad guys. It tells me if you have a coaching strategy and have players who can leave it all on the court any thing can happen, which never much happened with Flip and the Wolves.

Another interesting aspect is the role of big men in today's NBA. Taking a look at two primarily perimeter teams--the Suns and Bulls--you could say this is evidence of a major shift in the league. But where would the Suns be without Stoudemire, and the Bulls without Wallace and Brown? Both those teams played well last year, but lacked the inside play to carry them to the top. This year, we saw the team with the most dominant big man in the NBA--Shaq--get swept in four games, because D-Wade wasn't close to the top of his game, and no one else showed up. So while guard play is critical, it's the balance between the front and back court that more than else determines success in this league. You can be a jump shooting team, but there still has to be the ability for a team to work inside out on offense, and to be tough in the paint on defense.

A couple pretty good match-ups in the playoffs so far. It should be much more interesting in the second round, especially if the Mavs fall in the first.

Beware the Lynx's Jinx

Okay, anyone see a pattern here? The Wolves, with a multitude of guards on their roster, and the Lynx, with a multitude of guards on their roster. Don Zierden, long time member of the "TC Club", (ex-officio while he was with the Pistons), is now coach. Statements made before and after an event (draft, games, playoffs, etc.) not matching up.

And furthermore:
Zierden said before the draft they needed front court help. Then they go out and draft guards with their top selections, trade the forward they obtained in the Charlotte draft (which could have been McCarville, but wasn't), then say in Saturday's paper they decided to take the best talent, see where they're at, and draft for front court help next year. If Donnie says all the Lynx need are a few "tweaks" to the roster to win the championship, then we'll know that there's no difference in philosophy between the men and the women's teams--other than the fact that the Lynx traded their major star (Katie Smith) awhile back. Of course, the Wolves may achieve that in this off-season.

At least SHE won a championship!

McHale's Gravy

We've heard the official announcement...he's baack! Step 1 of the Blueprint for Disaster. All the familiar bloggers, radio jocks and MSM columnists have weighed in, rather negatively obviously. I think though you have to step back a minute and admire the dynamic taking place here. After all, it is the American Dream: the boss is suckered, the payday is great, the hours and accountability are limited. It's what a lot of people dream of having: one official definition of gravy. From a rather twisted point of view, it's a beautiful thing.

My one piece of advice to the Iron Ranger...when you're giving press conferences, don't slurp your drink. Find subtler ways of showing disdain for the media and the larger fan base. Listening on headphones to the press conference on Thursday was annoying not only from the viewpoint of what he was saying, but from an audio perspective...slurping his drink before he would answer a question. Remarkable.

The NBA first round playoffs picks:

Toronto over Nets
Heat over Bulls
Cleveland over Washington
Pistons over Orlando
Mavs over Warriors
Houston over Utah
Phoenix over Lakers
Spurs over Nuggets

No real surprises here, the Bulls/Heat and Toronto/NJ series will be the most competitive, the Warriors/Mavs the most interesting for one game, because the Warriors matched up well against Cuban's club in the regular season. But, it WAS the regular season, and Don Nelson is the same as Flip Saunders, good regular season coach, mediocre playoff coach.

I do love this time of year!

Beginning of the End?

Memphis 116 vs. Minnesota 94

Mercifully, it's over. No need for three point attempts from your worst offensive player, the Wolves lost the game the old-fashioned way--bad defense, poor offense and lifeless effort. Now the drama begins: Who will the draft choice be? Will McHale stay? Will Garnett leave? Can the Wolves get rid of some bad or attitude poor players?

Yeah, it's kind of dysfunctional to be looking forward to this sort of activity, as opposed to the on-court goings-on, but with this bunch, the on-court entertainment has been lousy; the only way it improves is if someone provides a breakthrough...a great draft choice, an impossible trade or other acquisition that enables the team to raise the quality level.

My guesses are: McHale stays, Garnett stays, Wittman stays, they draft Roy Hibbert out of Georgetown, they find a way to get rid of Hassell or Mike James, and use their mid-level to try and add a mediocre role player. There's too much of good thing for the top members of the drama happening to give it all away now, fans be dammed. They'll be a lot of bluster, but not a lot of "out-of-the box" thinking.

We'll see if it's the beginning of the end for some of our heroes. Remember, "the Adventures of the Iron Ranger" might be in the works if McHale stays!

Sunday Reflections

Sunday mornings are great for reading all about basketball. I've read Robson, Vecsey, Aschburner and Winderman so far. While I think the beat writers must borrow heavily from each other in producing their Sunday summations, the columnists and bloggers are a little less traditional. Robson goes on the stats analysis route, comparing Wittman to Casey. Shockingly, he has determined that the Wolves played worst defense under Randy than Dwane, which I think even a casual fans could pick up on if they had watched the last half of the season. For the beat writers, it's time to announce their picks for league "best of" categories. Needless to say, our club doesn't qualify for any achievement awards.

The bigger news was from the resident grenade throwing columnist for the NY Post, Peter Vecsey. I like Vecsey the best, simply because he will often work through the mainstream media hype to tweak our "heroes". Sometimes the tweaks are cheap (Charlatan Barkley, Abscess Ahmad), and are often as a result a poor working relationship he had with the individual in the past (Barkley). But he's direct in his criticism, and is willing to take on the establishment.

He leads with the notion that the Knicks are going after KG, which isn't surprising. I'm sure Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune will once again continue his "Star Trek"-like five year mission to encourage the Bulls to deal for our fading superstar as well. Vecsey however casts doubt on whether this would ever happen, sarcastically saying: "Yup, that's who the Timberwolves aspire to be, last season's Knicks." Of course since the Knicks have given the Bulls the one thing Minnesota really wants this year--a top first round draft pick, as a result of the Eddy Curry trade--I would doubt if the Knicks really have anything the Wolves want. At least I certainly hope that's the case, but with the Iron Ranger, you never know.

Even though this season was lousy, if you're at all interested in organizational psychology and business, June through August are going to be fascinating months for the Wolves. As with other years, it will probably be more bluster than real activity, with fans being once again disappointed and disheartened by the results. But consider a few scenarios:

1) Keeping the lottery pick AND KG. Depending on who we get (please, no more PG's!), that would generate some buzz, despite any front office reshuffling.
2) Losing the lottery pick AND KG. Sure, we'd probably pick up a number one as a result of a trade, but I think the shock value of that long discussed outcome would cast a bit of a pall across the Wolves community, and generate still MORE anger at Taylor and McHale.
3) Keeping the lottery pick and losing KG. The team is officially blown up, with hopefully two top 10 draft picks. Sad to see KG go, but hopeful for the future, unless of course McHale stays. Then the fan's trepidation will remain.

Of course, it's looking like the Ranger is sticking around. Gotta work on that podcast!

Appreciate This!

San Antonio 110 vs. Minnesota 91

My brother and I attended the Spurs game last night. Thank God we got in for free. How people could actually pay for games at this point is beyond me. This was an uninspired mess of a contest. To add insult to injury it was fan appreciation night, one of the worst I've seen in modern sports franchise history. Among the lowlights:

* A person picked for the halfcourt million dollar shot actually threw the ball UNDERHAND toward the basket.
* A tarp full of DIGIORNO pizzas being dragged out to center court, then handed out to the first level fans only.
* At least two cheap Polaroid 32 " HDTV's were given away, but the winners had been preselected, so there was no random chance for anyone who showed up to win.
* For exiting fans, a cheap mug courtesy of the Minnesota State Lottery.
I'm not sure when the Ricky Davis figurines were handed out, but face it, he's enough of a bobblehead on the court. I didn't need one to bring home to remind me how he's contributed to this wreck of a team.

And then there was the game.

Remember January 3rd, the last time San Antonio played here? An exciting game, going down to the wire. Mark Blount actually played Tim Duncan straight up and went 12 for14, scoring 28 points. Garnett had 17 rebounds, in a 103-101 victory for our club. Those were the days when the games meant something, when you saw the effort coming from this club. A few weeks later after the Pistons game here at home, it began to unravel.

The story since then?

Garnett is supposedly getting his quad checked out in California somewhere. The MSM press is taking it hook, line, and sinker. What about one of the media outlets actually putting someone out on a plane to check whether or not KG is simply barbecuing at his California home, artificially on the shelf for the rest of the season? I guess the StarTrib and the PioneerPress are too busy with their lawyers to actually shell out any dough for a reporter to investigate. I'm not sure what the television outlets are covering at this point.

Back on the court, we have Duncan taking Blount to school, scoring almost at will when he wasn't on the bench or yawning. There was no team play, passing or offensive rebounding to speak of, only a team going through the motions. Smith and Blount were repeatedly rejected trying to take the ball to the hole, and Trenton Hassell missed close range shots with regularity. The Wolves zone was soft; the Spurs could shoot over the top of it anytime they wanted, a result of actually SHARING the ball. All in all, a nasty, lackluster effort--complete with bad promotions--on a night to show appreciation for the fans who show up to watch this crap.

And the draft choice watch continues...

Ahh...that's more like it

New Orleans 96 vs. Minnesota 94

Back on the losing track, complete with KG Cam. The kids play mediocre, the vets do nothing to help the cause, and we're still fighting for our lottery pick. Stephen Litel calls Wittman "brilliant", attaching himself to the Robson theorem that the Wolves are tanking games.

All I know is this:

Club Dysfunction has it in reverse. If the Wolves are tanking games, then they should be losing the road games, and winning at least one or two of the home games. Most of the season they have been playing horrible on the road, now in the last week or two they win games on the road (Sacramento, Orlando, NY), and look horrible at home. Can't these guys do ANYTHING right? People are paying good money to see crap right now; if the tanking theory holds water, it shows a level of disdain for the paying customer to throw games like this. Maddog jacking up threes last year was bad enough, must we go this as well. It takes real stones to treat the fans this way, then ask for early season ticket money.

I look for Chris Bosh to dominate KG tomorrow...

Knick-knack paddy's got whacked

Minnesota 99 vs. New York 94

I thought we were tanking games.

Of course, when the team you're playing is an injured, still dysfunctional Knick team, you can't make it too obvious. As a result, even though they tried once again to blow a lead, they came up against a club even less mentally tough than ours. Tonight, given the back-to-back games, and the fact our boys love to stink it up in front of the home crowd, the pursuit of our own draft pick should be back on track.

Of course, I can't let the moment go by without mentioning the irony of two teams being led into the ground by two of the greatest stars of the 80's--McHale and Thomas. Which leads me to a point that I wish other boards and blogs (STILL rehashing the Spree/Cassell situation? Time to move on, for Jim Pete's sake) would take up in more detail: the gap between having professionally played the game and managing/evaluating a franchise. How many times have we heard Jim Petersen tell us he's played the game; the ordinary fan just doesn't understand the nuances of the game when evaluating talent. Or, we hear anecdotally about the Iron Ranger's distain for anyone's opinion other than his because he was on championship teams. I think the last few years have exposed both McHale and Petersen's stances to be arrogant and dismissive.

To be fair, we hear that from professionals in all fields, sports or not. And to some degree it is obvious. If I don't know anything about nuclear physics, it would be hard for me to evaluate someone's ability if I were hiring them for a corporate research position. But if that same candidate were, say, foaming at the mouth, or babbling off into incoherence when asked a question, I might be able to recommend that person NOT be hired, despite my lack of physics knowledge. And, given the nature of the actual job, the salary available, and the advancement possibilities, I might recommend a less accomplished candidate over another who's pedigree--at least on paper--might be superior. The major point in all of this is that there are many factors in running a team and evaluating players well beyond than on-the-court ability. There are other qualities in being a good executive, or talent recommender.

Humility is one key trait. This doesn't mean one can't be supremely confident in one's abilities. It does mean however that you have to understand your limitations, and hold yourself accountable when things don't go as well as planned. I'll admit I haven't heard every single minute of the Wolves TV broadcasts this year, but I haven't heard one retraction from Petersen about Mark Blount's abilities. Early on, especially in the first half of the year when the Blountser was going well, all we heard from Jim Pete and Hanneman was how Jim Pete was right about our front court hero. What about now? Where's the simple, direct and humble admission from Petersen that Blount is really a one-dimensional player? Where's any sort of simple, humble and direct statement from McHale about the lack of contract/player evaluation acumen, and his mis-management of his draft choices? A simple "my bad" would help--along with a new and creative strategy, of course--and would go a long way toward repair the damage he has created in the Wolves fan base.

Presently, it would be only his leaving, a tearful and humble good-bye speech, and about 10 years of inactivity that would revive his credibility in this market. It doesn't have to be that way, but given the stubbornness and arrogance of these individuals, I'm afraid that's the probable outcome. I don't think there's enough server space to talk about what a destructive force Thomas has been in basketball since he stepped off the hardwood.

The bottom line: Actions and results speak louder than platitudes and arrogance. Being able to actually learn from failure, and adjust strategy are critical success factors in many businesses, not just basketball. Being able to ADMIT failure is the first step in this strategy; this is what I'm personally waiting for out of McHale, Thomas, and to a much lesser degree, Jim Petersen. That's how you can resurrect a bad franchise.

Cleveland Rocks

Our story so far:
A great friend of mine gets two free tickets to the game. Yeah, the weather's crappy, but it's King James, who at that time is a "maybe" for the tilt. We slide down to the game, almost literally. I think to myself: how bad can it be?

I should have known better, especially as hard as I've been on Club Timberwolves all year. I would suggest they rename themselves the Minnesota Sleepwalkers. It would bring a needed bit of humor to the club in their last remaining games. Just think: at game introduction, where they have the video of a wolf prowling through the forest, you could instead have a man complete with a one-piece nightie and stocking cap, stumbling through the brush and pine, eyes closed, hands outstretched. Combine that with Eddie Griffin's "The Stroke", and you have two fan favorites, and a way to actually entertain the fans during this awful stretch of basketball.

Reading Robson's Three Pointer, and a couple of other message boards this morning, the fangs are certainly bared. We're all piling on at this point, and with good reason. Watching Blount, M. James, and Davis play so many minutes at the expense of our "blueprint" is a travesty. These guys must know by now that a majority of the real fans in this market really don't think much of them, and it's clear that they have responded in kind. No defense, no ball movement, no rebounding, just quick shots, turnovers and a bad attitude.

What's worse though, is the Minnesota organization. We can see why Wittman was hired; he's even better than Casey at spinning tales that no one believes. His real value must be that he--behind closed doors--has drunk the Ranger cool aid. What would it be like to play awful the last remaining games, not make the playoffs, AND lose the draft pick? A little honesty from the coach, and our VP would be refreshing.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure Cleveland can make an extended run in the playoffs. Other than Lebron, they still lack that other option who can has a dagger in the clutch. Larry Hughes doesn't impress me much, especially at over 40 million dollars. They have some decent post players, but no one who can receive a King James pass with ticks left on the clock for a winning score. That will be the challenge for them in the post-season.