Travesty at Target Center

Copyright 2009 NBAE (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)

Not Wednesday’s game, of course, won by the Pistons 98-89. Who cares if the Wolves got slightly exposed in a primarily half court, playoff-like game where a historically unbalanced but talented veteran forward used his height and superior skills to torch our smaller front court in the second half? Nah, there's something else to get hung about.

Can you believe Kevin Love didn't make it to the Rookie Game on All-Star Weekend?

My...God!

I'm sure if we had our full contingent of Senators, or if our other elected representatives weren't busy trying to solve a massive budget deficit, or bring us back from imminent national financial default, we could get SOMEBODY to investigate this. Given the emotional devastation of players, coaches, broadcasters, reporters, if not bloggers over this slight, how will the Wolves handle a likely Al Jefferson All-Star snub, at the eve of probably their biggest game of the season? Ah, I love kidding this club.

Look, K-Love will probably be a decent player in this league. And generally all you need for these Rookie games is a consistent pulse to get in. But one good month doesn't an invite make, especially for a team where for much of the first half of the season they were awful, and Love sat a lot. Here are the rookie participants , their roles, and their minutes played to date:

Derrick Rose	Starter -37.4
OJ Mayo	Starter -32.2
Marc Gasol	Starter -30.4
Greg Oden	Starter- 23.3
Rudy Fernandez	Bench - 26.4
Russell Westbrook	Starter -31.0
Eric Gordon	Starter -32.2
Michael Beasley	Bench - 24.6
Brook Lopez	Starter -29.9

And, our own K-Love:

Kevin Love        Bench - 23.0

The first thing that jumps out at me is that most of these players are actually starting for their teams--Beasley, Fernandez and Love do not. Unless Beasley was a total bust, one would figure he almost gets a automatic invite. Oden was the number one pick in 2007, so politically speaking, it would be hard to leave him off as well if he’s at all playing decently. Fernandez in my book is the arguable one, but he plays an entirely different position than Love. Plus, as has been pointed out, this rookie class is particularly good.

The moral of the story may well be that if Love had got thrown out by the Wolves a little more in the first half of the season, and not “nurtured”, given his steadily improving numbers, he might have gotten the nod. The other moral could also be an old, standard complaint: the Wolves tend to over value their own talent.

At any rate, the Wolves—especially Love and probably Jefferson—need to man up. If they continue to play well and win their share of games, the accolades will come. If they can’t play though and grind out games like Wednesday, the fact they’re playing in a small market, fly-over tundra like Minnesota won’t help them.

When you consider what else is going on in America today, is it ALL that bad?