Luck

A few weeks back, while the Wolves were racking up wins against teams with injury-depleted rosters, I opined that their luck might finally be turning.

Oops.

Just for information sake, here's a couple of links talking about general ACL surgery:

http://www.arthroscopy.com/sp05018.htm (somewhat old)
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/anterior-cruciate-ligament-acl-surgery

We don't know the extent of the injury as of yet, but I think while it might take awhile for Big Al to get back, the odds for him making a full return are good...if he's lucky.

There's that word again.

At the risk of being self-indulgent (I'm not sure there's any other definition for bloggers who write on a continual basis for free), I think Wolves fans are going over a little over the top on this. Al was a top notch offensive marvel on a bad team. Were they improving? Sure, but the goal here was modest: 30 some wins. Much like our economy, before Al's injury, they were going to need another "stimulus" to really make the jump to the next level, because frankly, Kevin Love probably isn't going to be it. He could turn out to be a nice piece on a 8-9 man rotation because the quality traits he does have--passion, fundamentals, and a great basketball IQ--is great for team play. At least we may finally get to see how good he can get in the last half of the year.

However, it was obvious that the club was going to still need major help across the board; Love and Jefferson are/were redundant at power forward. As a result, the Wolves have to depend on what has been their weakest link--personnel management--to pull them out of the doldurms.

Here's what I wrote on 1/24:

"A popular opinion about the Timberwolves franchise was that it is cursed, or unlucky at best. Such awful win-loss records, no #1 choice ever. Stephon Marbury. Tom Gugliotta. Joe Smith. Malik Sealy. Bad draft choices. Poor trades and mediocre free agent acquisitions. The evidence is substantial, when you think about it. While a lot of these results can be square put on the shoulders of human error and bad decision making, one has to consider that SOMETHING supernatural might have affected the franchise's fate up to this time."

Looking back on it, I was being kind. The truth is past the Sealy tragedy and bad ping-pong lottery bounces, you really do make you're own luck in this league. It's not about perfection, it's about the percentages; the ratio of good draft picks, free agent signings and trades to bad, the way talent is developed. The Wolves haven't been very good for years in that aspect; to overcome this unlucky break, they're going to have to significantly improve the ratio of good moves over bad.

In the end, that might just make the entire franchise--and their luck--more successful.