| 09 February 2009
And the hits just keep on coming for the Minnesota Timberwolves franchise.
It's been a rough 10 years for this once promising and future-championship-contending organization. There was the Stephon Marbury saga that took away the next generation's Stockton to Malone and replaced it with Terrell Brandon (who was probably a better point guard at the time but riddled with injuries). Then the T-Wolves lost out on the 1999 draft by taking Wally Szczerbiak over Richard Hamilton and feeling like they had to take William Avery over Ron Artest because they needed a point guard and Baron Davis, Jason Terry, and Andre Miller were taken before their second first round pick. Then they stupidly signed an under the table and illegal (in the NBA collective bargaining agreement sense of the word, not the "what in the world did Isaiah Rider do now" use of illegal) agreement with Joe Smith that stripped the Wolves of their first round picks in four of the next five drafts. In the same off-season when this was discovered, their talented role player, Malik Sealy, was killed by a drunk driver while driving home from Kevin Garnett's birthday party (which is clearly far more serious than any of the other stuff that I will mention in this article).
When they did finally get a first round pick, they took Ndubi Ebi out of high school instead of Kendrick Perkins, Leandro Barbosa, and Josh Howard. They traded for Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell, made the Western Conference Finals, and then lost Sam Cassell to a hip injury, which helped them lose to a Lakers team that weathered the attack of Troy Hudson and Kevin Garnett. Because of Hudson's phenomenal play in the playoffs, he received the Tony Delk treatment and was given a contract that didn't justify the level of player that he was because of a nice run in the playoffs. They replaced Flip Saunders with Kevin McHale mid-season the following year, had their chemistry ruined by failed contract negotiations with Cassell and Sprewell, and missed the playoffs. Then they traded Sam Cassell AND a first round pick to the Clippers for Marko Jaric who was given a contract that again didn't justify the level of player he was. Throw in a couple of bad seasons with Kevin Garnett being tortured by losing and eventually it led to the trade of KG to Boston.
Then Kevin McHale decided it would be fun to give his friend Randy Wittman a shot at coaching this franchise despite the fact that he appeared to have the coaching equivalent of a behavioral problem in his brief stint coaching the Cavaliers. And you probably could have guessed it even if you didn't follow basketball that Wittman failed miserably as the Wolves coach in less than a year and a half. But there appeared to be a light at the end of this Hell Tunnel.
The Wolves under their second stint with Kevin McHale filling in as head coach on an interim basis seemed to be a pretty good and promising young team. For much of the past couple of weeks, experts and pundits were introducing the Wolves as "the team with the best record since 2009 began" and they weren't doing it to be mean. The Wolves were actually winning. They were riding the strong play of Kevin Love, the pretty strong play of Randy Foye, the strong play of Mike Miller even though he still won't take a shot, and the type of play from their young stud Al Jefferson that has Wolves fans drooling in anticipation of him leading this team back to the playoffs in the near future.
But once again, some baby steps towards success are followed by a significant two steps back for Minnesota. Al Jefferson tore his ACL in the final 30 seconds of Sunday's loss to the Hornets. He's technically out indefinitely but we all know that he's out for the season. He tore it on what his biggest weakness has been this season - playing defense. He challenged the shot of James Posey who in turn had to pass it off to Sean Marks inside. Then Al quickly turned around and blocked the shot of Marks, saving a potentially huge basket for the Hornets. But when he came down, he felt a pop in his knee, which also burst the bubble of any fans hoping to continue to see a respectable team on the court for the rest of this season.
Now what do the Wolves do?
Once again, they look towards the future. They get to see how Kevin Love will handle being the best post player on the team. They will undoubtedly lose a lot more games than they were on pace to, which should improve their draft selection for this summer. They get to rely more heavily on Randy Foye in the offense and see if Mike Miller will actually look to shoot the ball from outside. And they get to give more minutes to Craig Smith, everyone's favorite under-sized power forward. They get to have their hopes and dreams of a competitive Wolves team burst once again due to unforeseen circumstances outside of anyone's control.
But I guess this is life as a Wolves fan. Another step back when we were hoping to move forward.
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