Timberwolves basketball. Are there any words in the Twin Cities sports market that have inspired more “meh?” Well, I decided it was time to get out of that mindset and try to look for positive things to talk about. Granted, Minnesota sports teams don’t make it easy to find optimism, but it’s got to be worth trying, right?
One of the most positive things I can think of off the floor is Glen Taylor has a sale agreement in place for the team. Reports says Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore are taking a little bit more of a hands-on approach to running Timberwolves basketball. Even though Taylor is said to still have the final say, it’s good to know that new ideas are forthcoming for the franchise.
I’m actually paying a little attention this year to the upcoming Timberwolves basketball season. Enjoying a bit of optimism.
The new schedule is out, and as I look at the returning players from last year, I’m finding a little more interest than I have in years. The starting five next year might actually be pretty decent. Look, I’m not predicting a march to the NBA finals, nor am I even predicting a playoff spot. I’d be happy with a legitimate run at a .500 win-loss mark. That’s how low my expectations are for Minnesota basketball after the last 20-plus years.
When the Timberwolves run this lineup next season it’s gonna be spooky
D’Angelo Russell Patrick Beverley Malik Beasley Anthony Edwards Karl-Anthony Towns
This starting lineup has a little more promise than we’ve seen in years.
I haven’t had much chance to research the young man the Wolves drafted out of Europe last year, but I am interested to see what the kid can bring to Timberwolves basketball. Of course, this is the one kid that I’m really excited to watch play ball next season.
I wasn’t happy they drafted Anthony Edwards at number one overall. Couldn’t be happier to admit I was wrong and am starting to love this kid.
So, to find out more about the upcoming season, I tracked down Evan with The Daily Wolves fan page on Twitter. We had a lot of basketball notes to get through.
Blogging. What’s it all about? Every time I sit down to
write a blog post, I freeze. Writer’s block is not something that happens to me
very often, but in this case, I’m not sure what’s interesting enough in my life
and the lives of others around me to write about.
Blogging about sports is a good place to start. Watching the Timberwolves play the Miami Heat and realizing just what a dull and uninteresting franchise they are. Notice I didn’t use the words “professional sports” in front of the word “franchise.” I’m honestly not sure they qualify. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a team revamp virtually their entire roster and not reap any kind of rewards.
Is Karl-Anthony Towns the right guy to lead the Timberwolves for the next several years? Great offense. LOUSY defense. Doesn’t appear to think he commits fouls at all.. and hurts the team with his constant bellyaching. (Photo from onlinegambling.com)
I suppose I need to give them time. We’ve already given them
decades and gotten a couple of good seasons for all of our patience. Where have
you gone, KG? Can I ask an honest question? As good as the big KAT is, IS he
the right guy to lead this franchise into the future? Fantastic offensive
talent. Lousy and disinterested on the defensive end. This is a team that
cannot play a lick of defense. Great to score 137 points, unless you give up
140 to the opposition. It’s still a loss.
The NFL Combine is in full swing and I couldn’t be more blasé to the whole thing. Why am I so uninspired about the Vikings and their potential future draft choices? What direction is this franchise going in and how are they going to disappoint their fans next? I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I think it bears repeating; WHY do you want to be a running team first and spend so damn much on a quarterback and two wide receivers? I’m getting a bit of a mixed message here.
Still trying to figure out the direction of this franchise, especially with the head coach and general manager going into the last year of their contracts. (Photo from bleacherreport.com)
By the way, isn’t the NFL a passing league now? And if that’s
the case, does Zimmer’s insistence on running the ball mean the game has passed
him by a little bit? Not saying it has or it hasn’t. Just reading the tea
leaves here.
On to other topics. What’s up with the coronavirus outbreak? Have you seen the hysteria surrounding the “Pandemic?” I’ve been looking behind the headlines and am finding out that the coronavirus fatality rate appears to be three percent. My South Dakota/Minnesota math tells me that 97 percent of the people who are infected appear to actually survive? If that is the case, WHY are we hearing about a “global epidemic” in every major news outlet, making it sound like the second coming of the plague? What don’t I know about this?
Why am I still on social media? I was just perusing a short time ago and couldn’t believe how much the current president is being skewered over the coronavirus. And before you get snippy, I didn’t vote for him. If I blamed presidents I didn’t vote for as much as the current political left does, NOTHING would get done. Ever. Didn’t vote for Clinton either. I’d give my kingdom for a reliable third-party candidate or possibly a middle-of-the-road Democrat. The current list of Democratic presidential candidates are all bat-crap crazy. Not sure the incumbent is a great option either.
I really enjoyed social media when it was first ramping up.
After all, I’d just left full-time media for the first time in my adult life
and it was my only outlet to keep doing what I loved. I really don’t enjoy it
much anymore. Have we as a society ALWAYS been this spiteful and vindictive? Is
social media just a convenient outlet for all that vitriol we’ve been saving
up? Frankly, the behavior of grown adults on social media is the same thing we
all remember growing up during the turbulent teenage years.
Well, there you go. Almost 700 words later and I guess the writer’s block is gone? I do welcome comments when I’m done blogging. You don’t have to agree with me. Just don’t be a jerk about it. Let’s be adults and educate each other about the things we don’t know. Be willing to listen to other people’s point of view once in a while. You and I both might learn something. Think I’ll try this blogging thing again really soon.
Minnesota sports fans, the long-suffering bunch that we are, apparently have to suffer through another rough winter season of mediocrity. Actually, that word doesn’t apply to the “professional” basketball team. That’s just one big bucket of suck.
The Minnesota Wild have a lot of work to do to return to a team that can make a run in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Wild hockey. It’s not fantastic. Watching the Bruins school the Minnesota “professional” hockey team 4-0 after two periods of play. I shudder to think how much further ahead Boston would be if the Wild hadn’t blocked 10 shots through two periods. This team cannot score goals consistently enough to win.
But how do you go about finding good offense to add to the
roster with the salary cap situation and two contracts that are taking up more
of that cap than they should? Minnesota sports STARTS with hockey. We call
ourselves the “State of Hockey” for a reason, right?
What is it with Minnesota sports? The Wild are stuck in neutral and multiple games away from the playoffs. The Timberwolves aren’t even a blip on the sports radar in the Twin Cities. Oh my goodness, are they bad.
The Minnesota Timberwolves have a long way to go to be mildly interesting to watch. They’re not even a blip on the Twin Cities’ sports scene these days.
I know Gersson Rojas and Ryan Saunders have a plan that
involves a lot of threes. It’s an offense tailored to the modern NBA game. But
they don’t have players talented enough to play that system well. Isn’t that
like trying to force a square peg through a round hole? As a coach, don’t you
want to at least somewhat build your offense based on the skillset of your
current roster?
Minnesota sports confuse me, especially when it comes to the
professional football team. An 11-win season and the second round of the NFL
playoffs look good on paper. They beat precisely one team with a winning record,
and we were all impressed with that win in New Orleans. But then you don’t put
up any kind of a fight in San Francisco? It took me back to the Philadelphia
fiasco and the day the Vikings laid one of their biggest eggs in a long line of
said eggs. They didn’t show up at all when they had a chance to be the first
team in the NFL to HOST a Super Bowl in their home stadium.
I’d say there’s a pattern forming in which the Vikings aren’t prepared for their biggest games. Is that coaching or is that on the players?
The Minnesota Vikings confuse me. You want to run the ball but you paid the most offensive money to a quarterback who can’t run and two wide receivers? Mixed messages here.
I’m starting to sour on the purple. So, Mike Zimmer wants to
run the ball? Fine. Then WHY did you invest $84 million in a quarterback who
breaks when a defensive lineman gets within ten yards and put him behind an O
line that can’t block elite pass rushers? Why did we invest around $30 million
in two wide receivers? I’m seeing some mixed messages there. You tailor your
offense to play off the strengths of your roster, right?
Maybe it’s just me. Man, I used to schedule my Sundays around Vikings games. Now it’s kind of blasé. I’m sure I’ll keep watching but with much less interest than ever before. If you believe what you see on social media (be careful about that), I’m starting to wonder if the NFL might be looking for some new fans within 5 to 10 years?
Things like this are why I’m more interested in watching
college sports than a professional event. They’re still kids out there having
fun. The atmosphere is more upbeat as well.
Maybe I’m just mellowing in my middle age. Sports aren’t quite the be-all, end-all that they used to be. Is that normal as fans age?
I expected controversial, but what I got was a delightful sports conversation. I was glad to be wrong. I caught up with Jim Souhan, the long-time sportswriter at the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper, during an interview for a weekly podcast I co-host called Minnesota Sports Weekly. If the old saying is “never judge a book by its cover,” I get what that really means.
Jim Souhan, long-time sports writer and columnist, sat down with me to visit on our podcast, Minnesota Sports Weekly. (Photo from Twitter.com)
“I’ve been with the Star Tribune 28.5 years,” he said. “I was an Air Force brat growing up and moved all over the country, but I’d never visited Minnesota until I came here for a job interview in February of 1990. Back then, my industry was mobile, so I thought I’d be here for a bit and then head someplace else. Had kids and settled in, so, as I always tell people, I’ve been here 28-and-a-half years and, if I make it another 30, Minnesotans might almost think of me as a native.”
Souhan describes himself as a “geek” growing up, so he was an avid reader. He played Strat-O-Matic baseball, Sports Illustrated baseball, and was really into reading about sports, especially baseball (he’s a baseball guy, in case that hadn’t clicked yet). Souhan grew up in the Pennsylvania/Maryland area when the Baltimore Orioles were one of the best franchises in baseball. It was during the era of colorful characters like Earl Weaver, Brooks Robinson, and Jim Palmer.
“I have a thousand autographs from each of them,” Souhan said. “Going to big-league games wasn’t very expensive, so you could go to a lot of them. That was in my formative years. I loved reading and I loved sports. When I went to high school, I ran track and cross country. The student newspaper wasn’t covering it, so I volunteered to write about it myself. That was my introduction to getting published and I loved it. I was living in St. Louis at the time and went to college at the University of Missouri.”
During the early years of his career, Souhan described himself as a “grunt,” typing in box scores while making six dollars an hour with no benefits. After that, he was promoted to an assistant high school writer for ten dollars an hour with no benefits. Then, he became the primary high school sports writer for the Dallas Morning News. Souhan then took a big jump, getting promoted to the Dallas Cowboys beat writer position. After a year in that job, he said the Star Tribune came calling.
Souhan made the jump to become the Vikings beat writer for a few years. He’s also covered the Twins and was a roving feature writer for the Trib back when “budgets were a little bigger.” A column position came open in 2004 and he’s been doing that ever since. Souhan has even gotten into podcasting, starting his own company called Talk North. His early years in the beat writer position, combined with his experience writing columns has given him unique insights into the Minnesota sports market. A recent column on the Timberwolves dysfunctional situation, saying the NBA is a little bit more public than other leagues when it comes to this.
“I haven’t seen a winning team with this much dysfunction,” he recalled. “That’s where the NBA is different from other sports because it’s all about personalities, egos, money, and how all those things mesh together. I’ve really never seen anything like the last year in Timberwolves history. Here they go, winning close to 50 games, they go to the playoffs, they win a game against a very good team in the playoffs, they have loads of talent, and nobody is happy.”
It’s hard for anybody in the Wolves organization to know what will happen next. Souhan says it’s hard to know what (Head Coach/GM) Tom Thibodeaux is going to do, if it’s sustainable, and whether he can maintain relationships. He’s basically made star player Jimmy Butler a de facto assistant coach, who might be leaving after next season. And that’s not the only challenge ahead.
“Karl-Anthony Towns is said to be less-than-thrilled with the way things are going and I get that,” Souhan said. “He’s the most talented guy on the team and he’s not the focal point. You never know when Andrew Wiggins is going to play hard. Jamal Crawford came in eager to play with this team but couldn’t wait to leave after the season. It’s fascinating, but troubling, that two years ago, they looked like the most promising young team in the league. While they are still promising, there are some big decisions ahead.”
On a brighter note, the Minnesota Vikings are gearing up for a Super Bowl run after falling one game short of being the first team in history to host a Super Bowl. After signing quarterback Kirk Cousins away from Washington, Souhan said the Vikings season will be fun to watch because this team is loaded.
“This team looks really good on paper,” he said. “Cousins is going to do really well in this offense. (Running back) Dalvin Cook being back in this offense could make them really dynamic. You could even see (wide receiver) Laquan Treadwell finally emerge. Kendall Wright is a very good slot receiver. They are really loaded but keep in mind, so is the rest of the NFC.”
Looking into professional baseball, he said a lot of the Twins challenges this summer have been multiple injuries to several key players. Souhan said the team did a great job of building what may be the deepest pitching staff they’ve had in years, and that’s with Ervin Santana eventually coming back from an injury. There are some middle relief issues they need to figure out, but he said, “that’s not unusual for any team.”
Souhan offers some additional thoughts on the injury situations surrounding young Twins stars Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton:
