It's time for the Love in the Time of LeBron 2010 Season Team Previews. You know how we do. Next up, the lovable loser, the Minnesota Timberwolves
Classification
A Terrible Team With A Ton Of Potential
Why We Care
We shouldn't. Despite New Jersey's nearly historically terrible record, Minnesota was clearly the worst team in the league last year. They were worse than the Nets, and that says something. That said, we feel optimism. There is something about bottoming out that makes it feel like things have to get better. Kevin Love has all the talent in the world and his break-out seems inevitable. We're bullish on a Beasley bounce-back and honestly expect a blossoming at the Minnesota wings. Wayne Ellington is a sentimental favorite around these parts, and he seems primed to make that big second-year jump in a dramatic passion. I love watching teams get better, and I think it would be hard for the Timberwolves to be worse.
Significant Beards
Maurice Ager: Landing strip. Clearance refused.
Michael Beasley: Hanging goatee. Why bother?
Corey Brewer: Stubbly and shadowy. Charming.
Wayne Ellington: Magiciany little ‘stache and goatee. Both really need to disappear in a puff of smoke.
Lazar Haywood: Standard but successful goatee. Approved.
Kevin Love: The most earnest goatee ever.
Sebastian Telfair: Scraggly... yet completely flat. How? Why?
Martell Webster: Underchin patch. Sweat-catcher?
Guiding Text
Pale Fire
If They Were A Terrible Sports Franchise They Would Be...
The Minnesota Timberwolves
LeBron on the Timberwolves
The counted the ballots one at a time. Taking each one out of the box and reading them aloud. Kevin diligently put a mark next to the appropriate name on the whiteboard in the back of the room. There were three whiteboards in the room. The one on the front had a diagrammed play. The one one on the side of the room was laid out into a grid, an elaborate scouting report, lovingly prepared by some assistant who put great care into his handwriting. The players seldom read the board scouting report, preferring, when they read the reports at all, to look at a hard copy. The paper reports are quite good, but the board report has a graphical aspect to it that’s compelling: the different colored markers providing an extra dimension of represented knowledge. The handwriting was truly lovely.
Michael had three votes now. LeBron couldn’t understand it. He still only had the one: he saw the slip; it was his own handwriting. He didn’t get it. Kurt just stood on impassively. This was happening. There was a looping quality to the handwriting on the board: not extra flourishes but an overall tendency towards curves over lines. The letters were still thin, though the lines seemed thick. Kevin was saying something now. LeBron knew he should pay attention, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. It didn’t matter. Focusing takes a lot, and you can focus for years and never achieve anything but strain. Kevin’s words were just meaningless noise. He could hear them, if they chose, but they still wouldn’t have any meaning.
Rosetta Stone
This pretty much explains it.
Showing posts with label timberwolves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label timberwolves. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 15, 2009
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.
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.
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