As I wrote previously I was pulling for the Wolves to draft OJ Mayo. From a marketing perspective it seemed like the most sound move for the franchise. The upside of OJ was also a big factor in my attitude. The Wolves did have OJ Mayo but only for a fleeting couple of hours. It’s probably safe to say many Wolves fans went to bed with visions of Mayo and woke up with Kevin Love. Kevin McHale is once again unpredictable as ever. But you know what? I’m OK with the move. In the long run I think Kevin Love may be a better fit in Minnesota, for a couple of reasons.
The Stephon Reason: OJ Mayo has been brights lights big city since the beginning. His choice of LA to play his college ball is yet another example. Like Stephon Marbury there’s a good chance he would have been ready to leave once his rookie contract expired. Memphis may find out what Minnesota found out about Marbury. It tends to get a bit chilly up here and as much as we love our fair city we’re not the media capital of the world. For these same reasons Kevin Love is a better fit. Where Mayo is big city Kevin Love is the kind of guy who’ll be perfectly happy carving out a solid career here in Minnesota. He’s a hardworking big man who’ll be a fan favorite.
Mike Miller: Mike Miller was a great pickup for the Wolves. To add a top flight three point shooter and get rid of Marko Jaric at the same time was a nice coup for the Wolves. Adding Love in the post really changes the complexion of the team. The Wolves now have the core of what could be a solid club real soon. Even if he’s a bit undersized Love will be a nice compliment to Jefferson inside.
Is he for real? The other factor is OJ Mayo himself. The jury is still out on whether Mayo will be the franchise player people have been talking about since the sixth grade. He has a great skill set but how many players have dominated the league at 6′4″? He doesn’t have the out of this world athleticism of Jordan and Kobe or the sheer size of Magic or Lebron. For all the criticism of Love being a nice player but not a star the same could hold true for Mayo. Most importantly how good of a fit would Mayo have been on a team with Randy Foye? John Hollinger of ESPN agrees and thinks McHale made a good trade.
Future Free Agents: As John Hollinger points out the trade also gets Greg Buckner and Marko Jaric off the T-Wolves books and frees up some money down the line. Marko is now free to court hot supermodels elsewhere. The Wolves may be in a position to attract a couple of desirable mid-market free agents in a couple of years.
Other Draft Night Thoughts…
Bayless is a Steal: I’m partial because I’m a University of Arizona grad but I watched Jerryd Bayless quite a bit this year while also watching Eric Gordon. Bayless was a steal in the late lottery. He’s a better player than Gordon now and will be a better player than Gordon in the future. For all the talk of him going fourth to Seattle I’m shocked the Sonics took Russell Westbrook. Westbrook is the classic NFL-like case of a great athlete drafted on the potential that may never pan out to be as solid as a top-five pick should be. The Portland Trail Blazers seem to have some crazy Karma going on with the NBA draft lately. To add Bayless to the stable of players they have already is downright wrong.
Pat Riley looked Depressed: I can’t figure out what the deal is with Riley. He looked downright depressed to get the singular best talent in the draft. Michael Beasley will be a superstar. Period.
Celtic Athleticism: Interesting strategy by the Celtics to go after JR Giddens and Bill Walker, two phenomenal athletes dogged by personal problems (Giddens) and injuries (Walker). If either of these two live up to their potential the Celtics will have gotten lottery talent late.
Brendan Harris, BOOM!
Brian Buscher, BOOM!
Trevor Hoffman implodes again. As a fellow University of Arizona grad it’s tough to see one of the all time greats struggle. On the other side Joe Nathan comes in to once again seal the deal in smooth fashion. The Twins have now won back to back games against the NL’s top two pitchers in Brandon Webb and Jake Peavy. Of course they didn’t get much going against Peavy today. Nice outing by Kevin Slowey, it’s too bad he didn’t see the seventh inning. Alexi Casilla got a mini write up in today’s USA Today. If the young pitching staff keeps throwing out quality starts they’ll be getting some more national attention as well.
In other news the Miami Heat may actually decide not to take Michael Beasley, according to ESPN and Andy Katz. Here’s hoping the Heat take Mayo and the Wolves get a nice little Christmas present in the Kansas State phenom. Even Kevin McHale can’t screw up this decision.
Or can he?
Thursday is the NBA draft. As a kid growing up and into my pre-marriage/children/real job days I used to actually sit down and watch the whole thing. I also used to sit down and watch the slam dunk contest. Things have changed a bit. I probably didn’t watch more than sixty minutes of Wolves hoops this year and all of that was while on the treadmill. Since I wrote multiple times in the last couple of weeks that I don’t care about the NBA any longer it’s ironic that I’m writing about the Timberwolves draft strategy. In a bizarre kind of way I still care about the Wolves. KG is gone and vindicated and the team couldn’t get any lower among the combined consciousness of the Twin Cities sporting public. They are a far a distant fourth behind the plucky Twins, the dependable Wild and the up and coming (or so they say) Vikings. With Al Jefferson there’s a core in place. Star power is needed.
Unless the Bulls and Heat make a miraculous mistake and don’t draft Michael Beasley the Wolves should take a leap of faith and draft OJ Mayo. Don’t fall into the trap of taking the “dependable” Robin Lopez or the foreign player of intrique Gallinari. Considering he has the absolute unconditional love and support of Glen Taylor, its not much of a risk in taking OJ Mayo. Why take Mayo? He’s the only player, beyond Derrick Rose and Beasley that have the ability to be truly great. If he lives up to his potential he can be a marketer’s dream and a potential superstar for a city lacking what Kevin Garnett provided. Mayo’s size and skillset can be a perfect compliment for Jefferson and Randy Foye. Put those three players together and you have a good nucleus for the future.
If Mayo isn’t to be I wouldn’t mind seeing the club take Jerryd Baylees, who is virtually assured of going to Seattle in the four slot. Bayless has the potential to be a light’s out scorer in the league. Unfortunately they’ve already make the investment on Randy Foye, who plays the same position but has less potential and upside than Bayless.
It’s not the luxury of choosing between Rose and Beasley, but Mayo does provide a unique alternative. Physically he’s ready for the league immediately. It’s amazing how the Twin Cities sports landscape has changed in just a few years. Torii, KG, Randy and Daunte are distant memories. Now we have Adrian Peterson, Al Jefferson and Carlos Gomez. Coming soon OJ Mayo?
The answer to the above question?
The San Antonio Spurs.
A second reason?
The Detroit Pistons.
David Stern better pray that the Lakers and Boston knock off their respective foes in the conference finals to avoid another NBA finals series watched by none and ripped apart by many. Like many I won’t tune into a second of a Spurs/Pistons final. The league I grew up loving is absolutely unable to recapture the magic of the past. Two of the final four teams are borderline unwatchable. A Lakers/Celtics series would bring the magic back but what’s the chance of that actually happening? The Spurs will grind out another victory, Horry will cheap shot somebody, Bruce Bowen will manhandle somebody and Tim Duncan will continue to be boringly effective. On the eastern side it seems unlikely that the Celtics will continue to win when they can’t pull out a victory on the road. The outcome of tonight’s game in New Orleans was sadly inevitable, so much that I never even tuned in until the end.
Yawn.
On the other side of the sports spectrum the NHL has a chance to recapture some momentum and fans with a dream finals matchup of Detroit and Pittsburgh. Both teams are full of firepower, the game will be played in the eastern time zone, and the most marketable star in several years can win his first title (Crosby).
Gary Bettman must be a happy man.
As somebody who followed the Wolves in their early days it’s nice to be able to hear Kevin Harlan on a regular basis on the TNT telecasts. He’s always been a personal favorite of mine.
He brought out one of his best catch-phrases as Lebron posterized KG last night.
With no regard for human life…
Lebron still can’t hit a jumper in the Celtics series but the C’s can’t win on the road. And KG still can’t deliver in the fourth quarter. At this point it’s clear KG is destined to follow in the Charles Barkley/Karl Malone footsteps, a great player who never won a championship. I know he provides the “intangibles” but the NBA is different. If you’re making 23 million a year you can’t go scoreless in the 4th quarter in a key playoff game. He may not be the “go to guy” during the regular season but in the playoffs the great ones step up. It’s what will separate Tim Duncan from KG twenty years from now.
From Dan Bareirro who’s been on top of KG fourth quarter disappearances from the beginning:
The Celtics have yet to win a road game in the playoffs. A Cavs fan bearing this sign might have noticed Monday night: “Where 0-5 Happens.” Another one waiting to be made: “Anybody seen (Big) Ticket Lately?” Late Monday night, the TNT crew had a brain cramp of a moment when Barkley suggested rightly that with Paul Pierce a little busy with LeBron James, it will be tougher to expect him to be the go-to guy in the fourth quarter on the road. So that go-to guy has to be…Ray Allen? That’s what Barkley said in a stupefying moment. Shouldn’t KG be that guy? Especially since he has no such matchup that should be occupying him to the same degree. At least not as much as Anderson Varejao did last night.
The OJ Mayo story is the logical result of the NCAA one-year rule. After giving the Lebron and Kobe and the likes the ability to go straight to the NBA and all the instant endorsements and celebrity that came with it it’s no shock what’s alleged to have happened in the Mayo situation. Mayo is a player that never would have set foot on a college basketball court if not for the one-year rule. He’s been a celebrity since the ninth grade and has clearly embraced the Lebronish spotlight since then. No one in their right mind can be surprised that he may have taken gifts before and while at USC.
Unless the NCAA and the NBA cleans up the AAU/Agent circuit and severely punishes agents that start courting players as early as the ninth grade these problems are going to continue. There’s going to be a lot of criticism of Bill Duffy but he’s just another cog in a corrupt system. With the one-year rule college basketball now has to deal with the whole mess. Clearly I can’t name names but it’s impossible to believe that Mayo is alone in receiving such benefits over the past few years since this one-year rule has been in effect.
The criticism of USC is a bit over the top but is also warranted. Tim Floyd clearly should have questioned a player who had his representative “recruit” USC instead of vice versa, especially when that player is one of the top-five in the country. As we’ve seen with the USC football team the lure of LA is strong for young players. These kids are celebrities in the ultimate city of celebrity. At the same time you have to understand Floyd’s predicament. He’s coaching in the highly competitive PAC 10 and trying to resurrect a program— who’s going to turn down a player like Mayo?
Then we have ESPN and another “gotcha” moment with the Kelly Naqi interview of Mayo, ala Miquel Tejada. The Dateline/Chris Hansen fad has moved into sports journalism, putting Mayo “on the spot” after his press conference to answer the allegations. Let’s remember the kid is still nineteen-years-old and is just one element of a system that enables him to receive alleged illegal gifts. What nineteen-year-old is going to turn down cash and electronics?
I’m not close to as big a fan of pro basketball as I used to be. Growing up I was a big Celtic and Larry Legend fan. I followed the league through the 80’s and 90’s. The last couple of years my interest has waned. I’m not one of those guys who blames my decreasing interest on high school players going straight to the league or the “hip hop” culture. I simply have too much going on in my life now with work, kids, etc. It would make sense some of my sports interest would fall off. With the Twins and Favre and the Pack dominating my fandom, the NBA didn’t make the cut.
After not watching any NBA playoff action this year I watched most of the Hornets/Spurs game two while I was out of town on business on Monday night. I immediately became enthralled with how extraordinary a player Chris Paul has become. He’s the closest thing to Isiah Thomas since the man himself. I’m going to say it right now— he’s the perfect point guard. The man is about to dominate the position for the next decade. Since I have no other loyalty, I’m making the immediate decision to join the Chris Paul/New Orleans Hornets bandwagon. They’re a fun club to watch. It’s almost halftime in tonight’s game an Paul is putting on another clinic against Tony Parker.
Point Guard Play 101 with your instructor, Chris Paul. .
Oh, and by the way, what’s the deal with Rick Bucher? When he started with ESPN he had this bookish writer look. Now the guy looks like the second coming of Gordon Gekko.
I know I’m far from the first person to post on this, but this is absolutely blowing my mind. Dwayne Wade and “I’m a Lawyer” Star Jones dating? Seriously? If you asked me to sit down and name a celebrity that Dwayne Wade may be dating it would take me the better part of a day and I still wouldn’t come up with Star Jones. I’d be less surprised if Gilbert Arenas came out and declared he’s dating Oprah. This is one of those rumors that is so unfathomable that you would have to think its true. Who else would come up with such a combination? There’s one thing for sure, Charles Barkley better get Wade out of his five. In the future rather than using the cliche “how the mighty have fallen” we can just use the term “pulling a Dwayne Wade.” Like I can’t believe this guy, he used to have it all together now he went out and pulled a Dwayne Wade. Three years ago he spectacularly led the Heat to the NBA title and and was the league’s top player. Three years later the Heat have thirteen wins and he’s dating Star Jones. Holy Crap.
What are we watching? Not the Timberwolves, according to Dan Barreiro’s show this evening and Judd Zulgad’s Strib media column today. Wednesday night as Twin City sports fans were watching the Wild and the Avalanche or the Twins versus White Sox nobody was watching the Timberwolves take on the New Orleans Hornets. And I mean nobody. The game received an impossibly small rating of 0.1 or a total of 1,700 households. Yet another nail in the coffin of the most mismanaged franchise in Minnesota pro sports history.
You have to wonder how many of those 1,700 households were people that just turned their set off with the cable box still powered on with the channel left on FSN. While looking for the Twins game I naturally checked FSN first. I’m sure there were a few people caught by Nielson this way— turning the game on accidentally and than spending a few minutes marveling at how few fans were in the stands.
Up where I live there’s a couple of public access channels that televise a lot of the local high school games. I’m going to venture a guess that your typical Elk River/Anoka hockey game probably gets more viewers than the Wolves received. I’m going to guarantee that every high school hockey game shown on FSN gets higher ratings. I’d be embarrassed if I were Taylor or McHale. Can you imagine working in ticket sales for the Wolves? Good luck selling season ticket packages for next year.
Meanwhile the Wolves have started mailing in another season yet again. Mark Madsen will be tossing up errant threes in no time.
Derrick Rose or Michael Beasley anybody?
I was out with friends on Friday night in northeast Minneapolis. As I was strolling towards the restroom at the bar we were watching the tourney at I overheard a couple of guys talking about Tyler Hansbrough. One guy must have made the claim that Tyler Hansbrough was overrated. The other guy, who seemed a bit tipsy as it was, returned a comment that summed Hansbrough up perfectly in my opinion. “No way man, he plays his ass off.”
You can’t define him better other than saying the guy plays his ass off. Some national columnists have tried to make the claim that certain ESPN-type pundits overrate how hard Hansbrough plays compared to other players— even trying to make the claim that they overrate how hard he plays because he’s white. I think the guy outside the mens room at the Bulldog was right. When you sit down and watch UNC play this weekend, keep an eye on Hansbrough and how hard he plays. He literally does not stop moving and fighting, all the while taking a tremendous amount of punishment. He plays the entire game with an intensity that a lot of players only find in short spurts. It’s really incredible to watch.
The other line you hear about Hansbrough, as if it means anything, is that he’ll be nothing but a bit player in the NBA. This bothers me for a couple of reasons. First, who cares? He’s a great college player, this is the NCAA tournament– appreciate how great of a COLLEGE player he is. Second, I don’t agree with the idea he’s going to be a complimentary or bench player in the NBA. He has the size, the skill, and he definitely has the intensity. You don’t think a player who works this hard isn’t going to put in the time to tailor his game to the NBA? I think he’ll do exactly what he does in college. Fight and claw for rebounds, get to the line, play aggressive defense and hit the boards hard. An NBA team will get a steal of a player in the mid-first round.
Here’s to Hansbrough. The nickname may be a bit contrived but the player takes us back to the essence of sports. A no-nonsense, blue-collar hard working tough SOB who never quits. He deserves all the accolades he gets.
11:03 PM- My plan to only pick the higher seeds has taken a tumble today with several upsets. I’m 10-5 so far with it looking like its going to be 10-6 because Villanova is leading Clemson. Quite a memorable day in the tournament. I was able to catch most of the end of the Drake/Western Kentucky game as they hit big shot after big shot down the stretch. The Davidson/Gonzaga game was also a joy to watch. It’s scary to think that Stephen Curry may be as good a shooter as his dad Dell– and Dell was about the greatest shooter I’ve ever seen. Curry’s one of those shooters that doesn’t only not miss, he seems to hit nothing but net. Absolutely unconscious.
7:07 PM- As I mentioned earlier I’m using a NCAA tournament strategy to just pick the highest seed in each game and see how well I do in my pool. So far so good. Eight games have gone final and the higher seed has won each game. That may change soon as USC is down by ten to K-State at halftime. Beasley has been in foul trouble but Bill Walker has blown up. I stayed true to the strategy, even picking Arizona to lose to West Virginia which is absolutely sacreligious.
I’m trying to figure out how to link to the standings in our pool— but since it needs a password I can’t quite figure it out.
Since I pay a lot less attention to the NCAA men’s tourney than I use to I’m going to try something different this year. When I join the pool at work I’m going to simply pick the seeded favorite in each game. No upsets, no predicting any Cinderella runs for any mid-majors. I’ll just pick the winners and then post after each round of games on the site here how I’m doing. It’s a method I’ve always thought about trying.
Now that I have this little blog that I post sometimes amusing messages on I’m going to do something I’ve always admired. I’m going to be the person who posts the NCAA tournament All-Name-Team, and then gets to make pithy comments under each name! I’m sure someone has already beat me to it, but here it is.
Nice little run by the Gophers so far in the Big Ten tournament and another miracle buzzer beater by Blake Hoffarber. He’ll never top the shot he made in 2005 to give Hopkins the Minnesota State Championship but his winner against Indiana will be remembered in Gopher lore for quite a while. The Gophers tried their hardest to blow a five-point lead in the last minute but everything is forgotten when you win on a miracle shot.
What a difference a decent coach makes. The Gophers don’t have any more talent than they had under Dan Monson but they’re much more competitive. Too bad the Big Ten network controlled the first two rounds of the tournament so no one in Minnesota had much of a chance to see the game. With a good recruiting class coming in the Gophers will be on the rise— the local cable companies are going to have to figure out this Big Ten Network issue so the games can be seen locally next season.
Tubby and Hoffarber have me tuning in to see the Gophers face Illinois today. I haven’t seen a game all year up to this point.
ON SECOND THOUGHT I may not be watching long. Nine minutes in the Gophers have scored five points. It’s getting difficult to stay awake.
The Arizona Wildcats defeated a six-win Oregon State team yesterday, probably enough to finally secure an NCAA tournament bid in the Cats most topsy-turvy season in decades. They play number twelve Stanford on Thursday, a team they narrowly lost to twice. If the season holds form they will probably narrowly lose to them again— or destroy them in epic fashion– since this is the season of Arizona hoops that absolutely no can predict, but a lot of people probably saw coming.
It’s the season that Mr. Dependable, Lute Olson got strange. Mr. Midwest, North Dakota born and Minnesota raised, as pragmatic and conservative as you would expect a seventy-four year old Scandinavian to be. It was the season that Lute spent in the wilderness dealing with unknown personal and private matters, matters still not really understood or discussed at all. And just when it seemed Kevin O’Neill literally and figuratively “assumed the position” of Arizona coach the press release came out stating that Lute was going to return again, maybe even coach for another three or four years. The odd thing is, Lute still hasn’t really told anyone anything, making no official comment to the press. The Olson saga is one reason this edition of Arizona basketball has felt so strange. Things just haven’t seemed under control in Tucson. Things have SLIPPED mightedly in the desert.