Just because the game thread is freezing my pc.

Rubio's last two turnovers were terrible, which is too bad because it will shift all of the blame to him. Rubio was taking Jeremy Lin to school all game long, had him totally flustered, and hit the biggest shot of the game for the Wolves, driving into the paint for a lefty layup against Tyson Chandler. After NY executed a perfect post-timeout play for a Novak three (why can't we find a guy that can just hit treys?) the game was tied and pretty much a coin flip as to who would take the W. Prior to that, the Wolves had the worst offensive 4th quarter of the season while Rick Adelman elected not to play Nikola Pekovic (who was 9/10) for the majority of the final quarter. Ricky messed up at the end and is no doubt killing himself right now, but he played really well and is suffering because of the lack of wing shooters and a truly awful (but rare) coaching error.

I don't sense that much of the CH community is as frustrated as I am in regards to the TV broadcast schedule, so I might just be overreacting. That said, I find this completely unacceptable. Timberwolves fans have just endured two of the most agonizing and pathetic years in the history of pro basketball, then had to try to stomach a ridiculous labor dispute between equally arrogant and detached from the public parties of millionaires and billionaires. How does the team reward us? By taking 14 games of the SHORTENED NBA season off local TV.

I'm pissed.

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Contraction is a word/theme that has been tossed around the NBA ionosphere for years and has gained steam throughout the lockout, with many prominent NBA writers/bloggers openly calling for it, going as far to say that the league cannot profit without it. The purpose of this post is not necessarily to dispute the idea of contraction, it is more so to eliminate the Timberwolves as a candidate. Our Wolves are often haphazardly tossed onto the contraction chopping block by those who favor deleting teams, and the most common reason for this is the "small market myth"

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Reason for Luke's absence revealed, and it's bad news. Yikes.

Per Zgoda tweet: Away from the team because of complications with one of his newborn twins.

This explains the sudden absence. I remember when my 2 year old daughter was born, being terrified and positive that something would go wrong. Can't imagine how scary that must be for he and his wife, thoughts go out to them and I hope the little one gets healthy ASAP.

I was a fan of the Rubio pick and have stayed positive about it despite all that's happened, but something is starting to really piss me off.  Jonathon Giovny, of the impressive DraftExpress.com, penned a recent NY times article that I'm sure most of you have seen. In it, he cited "a senior member of Rubio's camp" as saying: "The bottom line is, why would he want to play in Minnesota? He'll continue to say all the diplomatic things, and Minnesota needs to keep his value up for trade purposes, but the family's preference is to be on the East Coast, specifically New York, Miami or Boston. He wouldn't be troubled if he has to stay another year."

Why would he want to? Why would we want to?, Mr. "Senior member of Rubio's camp" (WTF does that mean anyway? How big is his camp? Do the senior members have extra Spanish emblems woven into their jackets? Do they get free tix to watch Barcelona futbol?)

WHY WOULD HE WANT TO? MAYBE BECAUSE HE ENTERED THE EFFING NBA DRAFT KNOWING FULL WELL THE TIMBERWOLVES WOULD BE ONE OF THE TEAMS THAT HAD A SHOT AT HIM

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Good Evening.

S.O.S.

I need help. I'm the last one aboard the Wes Johnson express, everyone else has jumped off, I'm clinging to my seat, debris crashing around me.. I'm cursing myself for not boarding the souped up Cuz-Train, I knew it had more hype, that the WJ express was 4 years older than most but well, I was impressed by it's length. I look out the window in what could be my last moments, I see a man in a Terrell Brandon jersey holding a book of recipes, nodding knowingly. I see Adrian Wojnarowski, cackling gleefully like a mad man. I see Jim Peterson, blaming the officials. I see Kevin Love, booking his next "Entourage" guest spot. I see Kevin Garnett, getting in the face of and intimidating a confused rookie European player. Is this the end????

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My favorite NBA blogger, master chef, kitchen rehab expert extraordinaire, and founder of this fantastic blog, SnP.. got into it a little with me during the recent heart wrenching OKC loss, not to be confused with the heart wrenching CHA loss from a little over a week ago, or the heart wrenching SAS loss that just happened a few minutes ago. The game was good, and it was still close, when I came across the following... (FYI the three periods are so you keep on reading, here's a few more..............) ...........................

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Alright, let's preface this with an admission that I'm a fan of Kevin Love, I think he's a potentially historic rebounder, a solid shooter, a great basketball player, and a good dude. All that said, I am supremely tired of the national outcry over this guy's playing time. If you are unafraid of desecrating our hero, please follow me to the jump.

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Note: I'd like to first acknowledge a few predictable responses to a post like this:

1. Get a life. How long did this take?

About 35 minutes and two Bud Lights

2. You are just a typical blind defensive homer bitter and desperate to cling to something, open your eyes, Kahn sucks.

While I admit to still being a Kahn defender, this post is less about defending him and more of an attack on lazy writing by hacks in the basketball community. I actually dislike several of Kahn's moves and feel he is a bit too honest.

3. If you find this website to be operated by bad, lazy writers with no credibility, why read enough of it to get you this worked up?

Got myself there, damn me. I'm a big fan of PFT and HBT, so I had high hopes for PBT, as it's my favorite sport. Perhaps that's why I still check it out, although in my defense, It's not like I comb through it 3 times a day, collecting false data and waiting to pounce, I check it out few times a week, which is enough to get annoyed.

Lost interest? Probably? If you have nothing else to do, the rest is after the jump.

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Comrade, have you met Al Jefferson?

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I generally enjoy both of these guys, but their Wolves opinions are so off that I have to question their information regarding other teams as well.

Wojo has gone out of his way to perpetuate the idea that Rod Thorn and the Nets had Kahn and the Wolves basically having a heart attack over the false information they put out about taking Johnson 3. Ford praised the Nets for this in the Simmons podcast. Now, first of all, I don't even think it's accurate, I think the Wolves loved Favors and would have been very happy to select him at 4, but even if they were petrified about the idea of the Nets sniping Wes Johnson, um, the Wolves didn't bite, they didn't trade up... So why is it relevant? Just terrible journalism that reeks of a personal vendetta against Kahn. On top of that, Ford's expert analysis of the Wolves draft was basically just him being incredulous that they accumulated so many small forwards. Regardless of how you feel about the draft, that's about the weakest criticism you could come up with. Gomes was a SF, as was Wilkins, Sasha played some 3 as well, none of them are returning, so can someone point out the logjam at SF for me? And did I miss the presser where the Wolves announced that they are done for the summer and that this is the final roster? Ugh.

Why is the general theme here shock and dismay at Johnson over Cousins? Hasn't it been obvious for weeks now that it was Favors or Johnson? You can disagree with the pick but you should have seen it coming 10 miles away. I also have another objection to the draft coverage from my favorite (and really only) Wolves site:

I want to clarify this by saying that by no means am I sold on David Kahn as a basketball decision maker, and I do not agree with some of the moves made tonight

I don't think that Stop-n-Pop (who's takes I usually really enjoy) has been fair with his coverage of the draft both on this site and on twitter. I know this website doesn't claim to be a real source of journalism, but I come here for professional opinions, especially from the head writer and based on tonight I wouldn't be able to tell his opinions apart from any other drunken fan at a bar. All he has done is fire insults and crack lame unfunny jokes. It's cool to disagree and criticize the picks/trades and disagree with them, but going with #firekahn and #hirepritchard (ludicrous) hash tags on twitter and really insulting the Kahn man all night is just disrespectful, especially after the access he has granted bloggers and this website in particular. Hate to be a prude, and again, I'm not sold on him nor do I love this draft, but I was dissapointed with Hoopus tonight.

Lets hope we are all wrong about Wes Johnson and that Cousins melts down and baloons to 350...

Looks like the "writer from a major market" was Sam Smith of Bulls.com and the player was Melo.

Link:   http://www.nba.com/bulls/news/smith_100621.html   (scroll down)

-- So how would LeBron fit with the Minnesota Timberwolves? I know, I laughed, too. But then I was told it wasn’t such a funny idea, which suggests even more so that this recruitment of James is going to take even more forms than we imagined possible.

The talk is the Timberwolves intend to be very aggressive with their cap space and not accept some veteran or modest talent under the assumption no free agent would go there. As it was pointed out to me, Brett Favre went there because it was a better chance to win. And Favre left New York to go to Minnesota, whose sports teams, including the Twins, have a successful track record and supportive fan base.

The thinking goes like this: The Timberwolves have three firsts and seem willing to part with Al Jefferson, a post up inside player, or Kevin Love. Say Jefferson is in greater demand because he is a bigger scorer. They offer Jefferson and their three firsts, including No. 4, to Denver for Carmelo Anthony. Denver has an aging group with Kenyon Martin and Chauncey Billups and likely is headed down. Here’s a chance to recoup fast at a time they easily could lose Anthony in a year. So they get a potential star center and a top five pick to build a better core. And maybe pick up something for their veterans as they seem to have peaked. And Minnesota has Jonny Flynn, Love, Darko Milicic and Corey Brewer and goes for LeBron and even maybe works a sign and trade by getting Ricky Rubio to the Cavs and also LeBron out of the conference. Far fetched? Sure, but you never say never in the NBA, and perhaps more significantly, it suggests the bidding for James is hardly going to be among just the four or five teams who gutted their rosters for cap room.

(Ed Note: Many thanks to MoreJuice for writing Houston's game wrap.  He volunteered to write this last week and I am more than happy to bump it up to the front page.  Wyn and I have talked about throwing some game wraps open for FanPosts and if this sounds like a good idea, and if you would like to share your game wrap thoughts with thousands of your fellow Wolves fans on some upcoming contests, I'll put a thread up later in the week with some open dates and you can sign up then. For now, let's thank MoreJuice for his work and talk about the Houston game.)

Ugh.

That was one of those games in which I often wondered why I even bothered spending 2 hours of my day watching Ryan Hollins, Damien Wilkins, Sasha Pavlovic, Darko Milicic, and Ryan Gomes bumble around the court at Target Center when it's highly unlikely that any of those players will have provide any meaningful contributions if and when this team returns to the land of relevance. When your a diehard and your team sucks, you don't continue to watch every game hoping they reach 25 wins, you watch to see the young players develop, you watch for hope, and when that hope, due to suspension and injury, consists of just four players (Kevin Love, Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer, and to a lesser extent, Ramon Sessions) it makes for an awfully boring game.

The Wolves were out-worked from the start, and the first half was less of a competitive basketball game and more of a highlight reel of Rocket's swishing wide open three point jumpers, each punctuated with a Jim Peterson: "Man...". Aaron Brooks repeatedly abused Jonny Flynn and any other Minnesota defender, either scoring or penetrating and finding an open shooter. Luis Scola looked like Wilt Chamberlain circa 1965 with 25 points and 21 rebounds, 8 of which were offensive mostly due to lazy  or non existent seal offs by Ryan Hollins and Darko Milicic. The Wolves made a late run and came within 7 points, but Ryan Gomes blew back to back nice finds from Flynn, a wide open three pointer and a layup, and they never got closer. On the positive side, Kevin Love again proved to be the best player on the team with another mostly solid performance that included a couple highlight reel outlets, each of which produced fantastic overreactions by Hanneman and Peterson (both reacted as though he had just thrown the single greatest outlet passes in the history of the NBA).

Cliche alert! 

Keys to the game: Points off Turnovers (HOU 23) and Offensive Rebounding (HOU wins 15-9)

Notes:

Darko is a fantastic passer and a solid defensive presence, and I understand he hasn't played regularly since November, but wow, he is wheezing 2 minutes in to the game, he looks like a fat kid in gym class out there. Even if he decided to stay, I'm not sure the Wolves need someone with that type of work ethic on their roster.

Sasha Pavlovic may be the single worst player to ever play semi regularly in the NBA, I miss Rodney Carney.

Who had "And the Rockets, red glare!" in the Tom Hanneman cheesy play call pool?

This summer by all accounts will be the most important stretch of the rebuilding process, and what Kahn does in that time will likely make or break his career as well as determine which direction this franchise is going to go for the next 5 years. The Wolves will want as many assets to play with as possible, they know that it's very important that they are at the very least formidable in a tough conference by 2012 in order to avoid a possible major buzz kill. That's why I'm a Bobcats fan for the next 6 weeks, we want their pick now, not later. Go Cap'n Jack! Don't get arrested until the season ends!