Lowlights from the Timberwolves

Around Thanksgiving I was visiting my family in Minnesota. I had the chance to go to a Timberwolves game with my brother, sister, and dad. It was my third T-wolves game ever!

A quick history of the other two games: The first T-wolves game I attended was in Utah on the way back to the second semester of my freshmen year of college in 2002. The Wolves were facing the Stockton/Malone Jazz. The Wolves won, which was awesome. Better than that, it was the first win of an 11 game winning streak. It was the longest streak for any team in the NBA that season, and it vaulted them into the playoffs. They lost in the first round, as usual, but it was still awesome to be at the start of that streak.

The second game was during the 2005-2006 season. My wife, brother, sister, and I went to watch the Wolves play the Milwaukee Bucks. I actually purchased tickets from a guy on the street. It's probably the last time I'll do that. No offense to all of you honest scalpers out there, but this guy was about as truthful as Achan. The seats were decent, but they were nowhere near as good as he promised. The game was lackluster. The Wolves lost. Probably the most exciting part of the trip was my sister talking in her sleep on the drive home. I don't remember exactly, but I believe she couldn't find her legs. I think that's a common occurrence after watching the T-wolves lose to the Bucks from less than stellar seats for which you overpaid.

On to the most recent game, played on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007. Here are the highlights, generally ranked from the greatest to the least:
1) Lebron James scored 45 points. It was the first time I had seen King James live. Forty five points! He made it look so easy. Too easy. It didn't help that the Wolves left him wide open behind the trey-line on several occasions. Seriously, he's the best player on the court, (arguably in the NBA), why aren't you guarding him?
2) The Target Center. The Wolves play in a really nice facility. We had decent seats (I scored the tickets for a sweet deal on eBay). But in looking around I determined that there really wasn't a bad seat in the place.
3) Adrian Peterson was introduced and shown on the Jumbotron. My brother and I dreamed of running into him and asking for an autograph. The fact that he was court side and we were in the upper bowl made this a pretty far-fetched dream.
4) Al Jefferson. He was exciting too watch and had some good skills. He reminded me of another tall lanky power forward that used to play for the Wolves. What was his name?
5) Corey Brewer. He didn't touch the floor until midway through the third quarter. I found out later it was because he slept through the morning practice. Wake up Corey! It's not college anymore.
6) Lebron's monster dunk. After the Wolves blew a rally by allowing James 2 straight uncontested 3 pointers, they let James officially seal the deal with a ginormous breakaway double clutch dunk. It was tremendous. I only regret not having my camera ready.

Lowlights, ranked from tolerable to terrible.
1) Antoine Walker. Here Marc Stein shares that his three point percentage is up from past seasons. I'm not surprised. Every time he had the ball and the Wolves were losing (which was all game), he was jacking a three pointer. Why did we trade for him? What can he possibly offer the club in the long run?
2) Low attendance. Maybe I liked the Target Center so much because it was half full, if that. Sad, sad, sad, sad.
3) The World's Most Flexible Man. Aka 'Rubberboy'. In actuality, this was the most revolting aspect of the night. Click here if you dare. He should not be allowed to perform in front of the general public. My stomach was turning the whole time. (Of course, the overpriced funky tasting hot dog that was still trying to settle down in my intestinal tract didn't help.)
4) No Kevin Garnett. Maybe you knew I was getting here. Garnett was why the Wolves beat the Jazz and won 11 straight games back in 2002. He made their loss to the Bucks in 2006 bearable. I recently heard Mike Tirico discussing how much the fall of Michael Vick hurt the Falcons as an organization. He asked if there were any other players whose demise would hurt their organization in the same way. I've got one: Kevin Garnett. And he didn't do anything wrong, we just traded him away.

The Wolves slogan this year is: "See what they can do." I for one, would rather not. See you in a few years guys. Best of luck until then.