2009-10 Team Previews: Minnesota Timberwolves

Welcome to another wonderful installment in the web's best NBA team previews. So magical that you will be filled with wonder and astonishment and a mystical sense of the magical and mystical magic that is mystic, yet also magic. To check out all the entries in the series, you can click here.

Today, we will be discussing the Minnesota Timberwolves, a team that basketball people spent a disproportionate time thinking about this summer because of draft day antics and the Saga of Ricky Rubio. It's worth mentioning that the distillation of this entire summer's worth of thought about the Timberolves is contained in this blog post. No, scratch that, I can do better. It is contained within these quotation marks: "You are doing what? Why? Okay... Wait, why? Oh, but you are trying? Okay. But, it's not working is it? Yeah. Wait, what now?"

Classification
Team I Don't Like With Lots of Players I Do Like

Things I Like
I like all the new guys in Minnesota: Ramon Sessions is one of the better point guards in the league despite having no outside shot and being banished to playing in the absolute definition of obscurity: second string on the Milwaukee Bucks for years (This is a special purgatory reserved for only the most interesting and exciting point guards-- I'm so sorry Brandon Jennings. The NBA is a cruel mistress). Johnny Flynn is apparently the secret twin brother of Ty Lawson (who, incidentally, the Timberwolves also drafted and then traded to Denver), so I'm obligated by law to like him and his breakneck, free-wheeling ways. Speaking of which, Wayne Ellington, the sweet-shooting Carolina guard, surprisingly-athletic Final Four Most Outstanding Player and all-round nice-guy was also drafted by the Timberwolves.

Kurt Rambis, the new coach, is also, incidentally one of my top five, all-time, NBA fashion icons. I mean look at him:



That is what a man looks like.

Things I Don't Like
David Kahn, president of basketball operations, drafted four point guards in the 2009 draft and then acquired another one in free agency. The one he really wanted, Ricky Rubio, won't even be playing in the NBA this year. But, that's fine, because you might have guessed this, but YOU ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH POINT GUARDS. So, well-played sir. Well fucking played.

The Timberwolves are a terrible organization and I say that, in all fairness, out of personal bitterness. This was the prison that caged the fearsome, freakish fury of Kevin Garnett for so many years. This is the place where Rashad McCants, one of my most favorite sweet-shooting malcontents was trapped and ruined. Because of this, I fear for Ramon Sessions. I fear for Johnny Flynn. I fear for Wayne Ellington.

Also, Ricky Rubio passes really well but as near as I can tell, that is the only thing separating him from a Jonas brother.

Mythology
Speaking of which, I'd been doing some digging in the Calderon case and I started to notice something suspicious. Look at these highlights of Ricky Rubio playing with the Spanish national team:



Notice something odd? Right. Where's Pau Gasol? He's not in any of the footage. What was Pau Gasol really doing when he was supposed to be playing basketball for Spain? Is he working for Calderon? Is all the drama surrounding Rubio really a smoke screen to cover up an insidious plot by the Spanish mafia? Is Ricky Rubio's excellent passing, singing, and dancing really just a diversion? IS HE FAKING HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH VANESSA HUDGENS? HOW WILL SHE FEEL WHEN SHE FINDS OUT?

I'm sorry, I know this isn't strictly about the Timberwolves, but this is bigger than both of us.

Prophecy
Is there any doubt in anyone's mind that Kevin Love will sort of ditch the over-sized, low-rent Justin Timberlake circa 2005 look? After bonding with Kurt Rambis, is there any doubt that the rebounding wunderkind goes full on and embraces the big dorky retro glasses and embraces the parted hair and Rambis mustache?

No, there is not. Now dream bigger.

DREAM SCENARIO: The entire team adopts the look. Imagine it. Imagine Ramon and Wayne and Al and Corey. Imagine them all. Imagine the pan down the bench. A whole bench filled with glorious Rambises (Wait, third-declension so... Rambes?). Mustaches as far as the eye can see. The shortest shorts in the league. I am picturing it. I am imagining. I am dreaming it. I am willing it.

Related Media



Verdict
Stay tuned. The Timberwolves are loaded with fun and interesting players who could make this year really entertaining, and it's totally within the realm of possibility that the new coach, new staff, and new players help to create something really great and new (Team of Rambes). On the other hand, it's the Timberwolves: It's probably going to be an unwatchable disaster in spite of everything.

Saturday Catch-Up: UNC and Michael Jordan.

UNC Alumni Game
Last weekend, the Dean Smith center in Chapel Hill played host to an exhibition game made up of former UNC basketball players. It was, in short ridiculous. Some highlights: Vince Carter dunking off a ball bounced off the backboard (twice). Wayne Ellington dunking on Antawn Jamison. Ty Lawson crossing over Raymond Felton. Danny Green, the surprising high scorer, was draining threes from all over. Everyone was there (except Rasheed Wallace), and it was beautiful. LIKE A DREAM.

Here are some highlights:

Here is the box score.

The others were all there. You'd see them around town all week. It was UNC basketball nirvana. Some bits of related miscellany:

Rashad McCants Still Looking For A Job

I love Rashad. He treats his fans pretty well, despite anything I may have said in the past. How many NBA players give out their Xbox Live handle, their AIM, and their BlackBerry Messenger info in an effort to keep talking and playing with all of his fans? Not too many. He's a good guy and a helluva baller, but his inablity to get a job right now apparently got the Carolina family concerned. This is a nice article about the resulting discussion.

Marvin Williams Middle Name
I love Marvin. I may have, however, unfairly called him a nerd. Why do I now step back from this? His middle name is Gaye. Marvin Gaye Williams. This man can not, by law, be a nerd. Apologies all round.

The Man
Also at the Alumni Game, there was a Man. His name is Michael Jordan. Last night he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Now, thousands of words have already been written about this event and MJ and what he means. I just want to make two points: When people talk about the greatness of Carolina Basketball, they usually link it to Dean Smith, and this is indisputable. The first NCAA Championship that Dean Smith won, however, is owed to Michael Jordan, that final winning shot against Georgetown. Without Jordan, Dean Smith has one championship. A great coach, but not one of the greatest of all time. Carolina Basketball, as an institution, plays down the role of Jordan, instead emphasizing a grand tradition of which Jordan is only a small part. Amazingly though, this is one area in which Jordan maybe doesn't get enough credit. Dean Smith is the Man in Chapel Hill, but what would he have been without Jordan?

The second point I want to emphasize is one about the NBA. The NBA, unlike most other sports leagues, is one where the central driving narrative of the league is easily and readily apparent. The individual struggles of the various cities and teams to win championships is a tiny, minor part of the NBA. If I were trying to explain to a Hollywood studio guy what the NBA is about in terms of it's spine or central story, the answer is easy: Who is the heir of Jordan? Is it Lebron? WILL HE FULFILL THE PROPHECY?

Jordan was the Greatest of All Time (some proof) and anyone who suggests otherwise is flatly wrong. Basketball since his reign, and even during the latter part of it, has been preoccupied with the search for a worthy heir. This is what has been driving the story of the NBA. For a while, we thought it was Kobe, but the sun is setting on him and it looks like he was merely a mirage. Unless he wins the championship every season for the next three seasons, and even if he does, it's hard to credit Kobe as a credible heir.

But what of Lebron, the Chosen One? Well, using some projections, it looks like he's going to have a real chance at surpassing the statistical achievements of Jordan, at least. The guys at Basketball Prospectus break it down here. Will he win six championships though? Much harder to say. But, this, the underlying thought behind this question, is the reason we watch the NBA. The spine, the essence, the main plot of the NBA is whether Lebron will meet expectations and surpass the achievements of Jordan. There are subplots, rivalries, and championships; these are interesting and entertaining details, but they really are just subplots. When boiled down to its bare essence, the question is as simple and elemental as you might imagine: Will anyone ever be as good as Jordan?

This is why we can't take our eyes off the Chosen One. The era of Jordan is officially done. Now, we live in the time of Lebron.

That is all.

Thursday Odds and Ends

Hypothetical Bobcats and Bobcat Hypotheticals
It's been a quiet season for the Charlotte Bobcats as they have yet to make any move aside from not extending a qualifying offer to Sean May. Charlotte needs scoring, a guy who can take over games, and someone who will help them sell tickets. Yet, all has grown quiet on the AI front, when all I want in my heart of hearts is for The Answer to come to Charlotte. Why is this? Is Charlotte really standing pat? The best answer I have seems to be that Charlotte isn't going to make any moves until they have secured a deal with Ray Felton. Inexplicably, this is, apparently far off, despite Felton wanting to play in Charlotte and Charlotte wanting Felton to play there. FIGURE OUT THE MONEY SO WE CAN GET AI.

That said, maybe Charlotte, like our esteemed friends at Queen City Hoops, has realized what a good team they have on their hands. If you project Charlotte's performance at the end of the season, after all their trades, across the whole season, Charlotte would have been the best defensive team in the league. Nice. They still would be sub par offensively, but there's still time to get a relentlessly amazing future Hall of Fame scoring guard. I mean, if that's what you think would help.

Note: Hypothetical Cats sounds like a super twee indie rock band.

The Answer
Iverson to Miami or Memphis doesn't make any sense to me. Both are totally stupid. Now imagine AI to the Clippers: Baron Davis, Allen Iverson, Blake Griffin, Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman, and Eric Gordon. That's got to be at least thirty wins right? Wrong. They will have fifteen wins or fifty-five. It's so stupid it might work.

Again, Iverson to the Bobcats makes way too much sense to be plausible. The NBA follows the rules of comic book and movie logic. Which is to say that there is a low premium on plausibility and you know, making a damn bit of sense.

Good Job, Chris Bosh
All hail the anointed Twitter Champion, Chris Bosh. Oddly, he doesn't thank me for my endorsement, which I am sure pushed him over the top.

UNC Guys in Summer League
One line summaries for the four 2009 Draft picks:

Tyler Hansbrough was way better than expected and one of the best players in Orlando.

Wayne Ellington and Danny Green have been the leading scorers on their team in at least one game and almost completely disappeared in another.

Ty Lawson has played in two games and made only one of fifteen field goal attempts, but the one that went in was such a sweet dunk that David Thorpe tweeted about it. So, yeah.

Of course, if Vegas Summer League action isn't enough and you want to watch a bizarro summer league where Flip Saunders, Sean May, and my nerdy hero Marvin Williams with the help of about half of UNC's incoming freshmen team square off against other pro's, college players, and a few high schoolers and other assorted weirdos, then allow me to introduce you to the NC Pro-Am Summer League. Billing itself as the Rucker's of the South, you can watch a truly bizarre collection of players from mostly around North Carolina go at it in a gym on the North Carolina Central campus. Seriously.

Mercuriality Update
For the many amongst you who are keeping track of which players are the most mercurial, as I know so many of you are wont to do, allow me to submit another name that should have been obvious: J.R. Smith. Mercuriality of 384. Well-done. That's good for a starting spot at shooting guard on the Love In the Time of Lebron All-Mercurial Team. Again, for those of you who keep track of such things.

Wayne Ellington, Human Sacrifice, and an Ill-Advised Manifesto

In March of 2009, I had a dream that, on a Mayan altar, Wayne Ellington sacrificed me to the gods. For the sake of historical context, let me clarify a few things:

1. In March of 2009, Wayne Ellington was the starting shooting guard of the University of North Carolina men's basketball team.
2. At the time, this basketball team was engaged in the NCAA basketball tournament, in pursuit of a championship which they did end up winning.
3. By physical description and comparison to archaelogical findings, the altar was actually most likely an Aztec altar, but in my mind, I thought of it as a Mayan altar. To clarify, the altar was on top of a pyramid and done with a knife, which is more of an Aztec thing, while it seems that the Mayans preferred to throw their sacrifices down sacred sinkholes to appease the water god, Chaac.

Why am I telling you this? To emphasize two things. The first and most important is that I think about basketball a lot. Specifically, basketball played by the University of North Carolina men and women's teams as well as the kind played by the National Basketball Association has been a source of great joy for me. I love watching, talking, and thinking about basketball. It's on my mind so much that it's not that unusual for me to dream about the Tar Heels third scoring option, though the part where he sacrifices me on top of a pyramid is, admittedly, odd. In any case, if I'm thinking about basketball so much and I enjoy talking and thinking about it so much, I thought that I might also enjoy writing about it. Hopefully, you will enjoy reading about it too. Hence, this blog.

The second thing the anecdote about the dream illustrates is how I think about basketball. In short, I like to think of basketball mythologically. When I was young, when I watched basketball, I just saw ten guys running up and down the court, bouncing a ball. Even with the sophistication of understanding the game better, my enjoyment of the sport was still as dry as the boxscore or an AP recap. I didn't truly come to love the game until I started to see basketball in terms of Epic Narratives. Once you start looking at Epic Narratives, a whole new world opens up. A basketball game, taken bare, in a vacuum, is not an event of great moral significance. Carolina vs. Duke, on the other hand, does have moral significance on the planes of class, race, and philosophy. If you look at a player as simply an athlete, they are inherently not as interesting as when you look at that same player as the messianic, Chosen One. Basketball is just a silly game played by some incredible athletes, and while I appreciate that on some level, what makes it more interesting to me is the stories that we make up, the Epic Narratives we craft. In short, I like basketball because I like the mythology we devise to make it all make sense and to keep it fun.

So now, I hope to use this space to share with you some thoughts about basketball in all of its mythic glory. This isn't a new way of doing things and this kind of thinking about basketball has lots of antecedents which I will certainly be linking to as appropriate. A specific mention of FreeDarko is necessary, however: I'm quite sensitive to and agree with most FD sensibilities, be they philosophical, stylistic, or aesthetic and I'm sure that their particular approach will have a heavy impact on this blog. If FreeDarko is the modernist (post-modernist?) reaction to the realist approach of sports journalism, then hopefully this blog will help to more fully fill the niche of magical realism and surrealism. That looks really stupid seeing it in print, but hey, that's what everyone else wanted from basketball writing right?