MVN - Most Valuable Network

Offseason update and 2009 Division outlook

With the Olympics over and a gold medal in the hands of American basketball players once again, those players fortunate enough to be a member of the “redeem team” can take get some rest before training camp starts. Luckily for a team like the Wolves, whose roster from last year probably would probably have struggled against even the weaker international teams we saw in Beijing, all of their players have been in the states for the last two weeks (vacations aside) and have already gotten to work for the 2009 season.

Fred Hoiberg was on KFAN’s PA & Dubay show last Tuesday with an update from Target Center on the team’s status. Freddie said 10 players came for voluntary workouts to do strength training, drills, and scrimmages last week and was incredibly enthusiastic about the acquisition of Mike Miller who made, “36 three pointers in a row” at the end of practice and made, “57 of 58 three pointers at one point”. Practice or not, there’s no doubt that Miller has a good shooting stroke – he was tenth in the NBA last year in three point shooting percentage and has shot 46% from the field for his career. With the lack of perimeter shooting that last year’s squad had, adding Miller will, at the very least, keep teams honest when he’s behind the arc.

Obviously Freddie is going to put the best possible spin on the outlook of the team, but it’s good to hear that we have guys who are trying to make themselves and the team better by showing up for these practices. Nobody is (or shouldn’t be, anyways) expecting Mike Miller to be the one player that turns this franchise around, just a solid addition as somebody who can knock down some shots in the fourth quarter (wouldn’t that be nice). One thing’s for sure, the brain wizards that run this team have got to be praying for Miller to play well and O.J. Mayo to struggle mightily. If the opposite happens, it’ll just be another coulda-woulda-shoulda in Wolves draft history along the same lines of the Brandon Roy and Ray Allen years.

We’re still about 20 regular season games away from really being able to get a good idea of how this team will fare in a division that shapes up to be much more competitive than last year, but as you look around the Northwest, the Wolves will probably remain at the bottom. I don’t see the Wolves being better than a Portland team that will finally get it’s centerpiece into the lineup after winning half of their games last year. Brandon Roy’s got another year of NBA experience under his belt, as does LaMarcus Aldridge, and I think the Blazers will be a team to watch in 2008-09 if Oden remains healthy and plays as well as everyone hopes.

The Nuggets made the shocking Camby deal, but they still have Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony, two proven leaders and scorers in this league, to go with a decent supporting cast with guys like ex-Timberwolf Anthony Carter, Kenyon Martin and the high flying J.R. Smith. I think most would agree that the Nuggets will, at the very least, post a better record than the Wolves.

As for the Utah Jazz, they are a lock to finish above the Wolves and have a chance to make some noise in the playoffs if they stay healthy. That leaves the Seattle Supe—Oklahoma City To-Be-Determineds, and although they finished behind the Wolves last year, Kevin Durant will be going into his sophomore season in the NBA. They acquired Desmond Mason and Joe Smith in the offseason, and with Russell Westbrook and D.J. White coming via the draft,

The Wolves still aren’t where they were under Flip Saunders in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, a perennial one-and-done team in the West, but they are headed in the somewhat right direction. The outlook on this season isn’t quite as bleak as last year, when there were question marks at virtually every position, and the Wolves should be able to put a more respectable group of players on the court in 2009. I expect the Wolves to get somewhere around the 35 win mark, barring injuries to Big Al, Bassy, or Mike Miller.

Wolves sign Telfair, Gomes remains contract-less

Telfair signs for at least 2 more years

It is being reported today that the Wolves have retained the only true point guard on the roster, Sebastian Telfair. The team signed him to a 2 year deal with an option for a third after the 2010 season. Telfair exceeded expectations last season and some would say that playing in a new environment has had a positive impact Telfair’s work ethic and his evolution as a player. Whether Telfair is going to be the Wolves point guard for the next 3 or 4+ years remains a waiting game, but as the only point guard the team has, the Wolves need the services of anyone with experience playing the position.  Minnesota is probably one of the only franchise’s in the NBA that would offer Telfair the starting nod, so you have to figure Telfair was eager to re-sign.

Gomes in limbo

Meanwhile, Ryan Gomes is still in negotiations with the front office. The Strib is reporting that Gomes’ agent is looking for $5.6 million/year, a pretty steep price for a player of Gomes’ caliber. Ryan has shown himself to be a pretty good situational player, but he has shown very little indication that he’ll be somebody that can anchor any position in the lineup. He’s a solid free throw shooter and can get his share of rebounds when given the right matchup, but you’re also hoping that Corey Brewer can emerge as this team’s small forward.

It’ll be interesting to see what McHale decides to do with Gomes. With the additions the Wolves have made this offseason, namely the acquisiton of Mike Miller, it’s likely that Gomes will be a bench player next year that could get a spot start when Wittman has to resort to mixing up the lineup to get more production.

8 player deal on draft day brings new Wolves into the Den

Not surprisingly, Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley were the top two picks in yesterday’s NBA draft. That left the Wolves in an interesting position - they had to weigh the benefits of drafting for need and going with Brook Lopez or going for the best available player in O.J. Mayo. Or so we thought. Looks like the guys at Target Center were cooking up a plan all along that resulted in a big-time trade that should re-vitalize at least a portion of the Wolves’ fan base that was turned off by last season’s *ahem* lack-luster performance.

The Wolves went ahead and drafted Mayo number three, and, to me anyways, that seemed like a logical move. Lopez would have helped take some heat off of Big Al and give us a big-bodied center, but Mayo is the more exciting, athletic player capable of scoring in bunches and and putting fannies in the seats. Had they just gotten Mayo and nobody else, I would have been enthusiastic about the direction of the franchise, but with the trade they made in the subsequent hours, you have to figure the timetable for this franchise to contend has been moved up, putting more pressure on Coach Wittman.

The Wolves traded Mayo, Marko Jaric, Antoine Walker, and Greg Buckner to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for Kevin Love, Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal and Jason Collins. Wow. At first blush, this seems like a great deal for Minnesota.

Not only do they get the Pac-10 Player of the Year in Love, who many experts believe has enough basketball acumen to be a significant contributor on a contending team, but they also get Mike Miller, a guy who has showed he can be a productive scorer from multiple areas on the court, even on a bad team. Miller is only 28 and may still only get better with age ala Paul Pierce.

As if getting those two guys for 2009 wasn’t good enough, Wolves fans (and McHale) have to be eternally grateful to the Grizzlies for taking on the terrible contracts of Walker and Jaric. All I can say is that the Grizz must really be high on Mayo if they’re willing to do that. If you thought Antoine Walker was upset to be in Minnesota, wait until he arrives in Memphis.

I just can’t say enough about how good this deal looks on paper. By no means does it exonerate Kevin McHale for his past blunders, but this is definitely a huge step in the right direction for the re-building process. I’m not completely sold on Kevin Love yet, but it seems like all he’ll have to do is feed the rock to Jefferson, Miller, and McCants from the block and get some occasional clean-up baskets near the rim. He showed that he’s a great passer in college, and he looked good against fellow top-10 pick Brook Lopez when they matched up head-to-head last season.

Rashad McCants has to be breathing a sigh of relief right now. He may still find himself as the odd man out with the addition of Miller, but his dismissal would have been almost certain had to Wolves stuck with Mayo.

The Wolves also picked up a 6-11 Serbian center in the second round named Nikola Pekovic. ESPN’s Chad Ford says that he’s the “most dominant international player in the draft”, and since I haven’t been able to score tickets to any Serbian basketball games recently, I’ll have to take his word for it.

There are still some pieces left to put in place, most obviously being a better than mediocre point guard, but Kevin McHale has finally made the kind of earth-shaking deal that fans have been clamoring for for some time. Maybe he learned a little something from the last time he tried to build the franchise around the team’s power forward and will have better luck with it a second time around.

Wolves return to KFAN

KFAN, the preeminent sports talk radio station in the Twin Cities, has announced that they will once again have the Wolves radio broadcasts transmitted on their air waves.  This comes after 2 seasons of radio broadcasts on 106.1 “The Bob”.

It’s about time, Clear Channel.  KFAN was the radio home of the Wolves for the first 17 seasons of the franchise’s existence.  I loved listening to Chad Hartman and Billy McKinney call games back in the glory days of the Wolves when the franchise making the playoffs was more than a punchline on The Common Man Progrum.  Instead of spotty reception from a country station of all things that is based in Princeton, MN, Wolves fans in the metro will once again be able to hear the games loud and clear on the AM dial.

Unfortunately, it looks like Chad Hartman won’t be back as the play-by-play man, but McKinney will still offer his insight along with Alan Horton.  Earlier today on the FAN, Sludge and Lake filled in for Dan Cole and played some classic McKinney sound bites that reminded me of the kind of entertainment I’ve been missing out on.  Those of us in the metro who were out of “The Bob’s” range could still listen online through NBA.com, but when you’re driving around in a car or doing something else to distract you from the frigid cold of Minnesota winters, it’s not always convenient to listen online.

As far as I know, KFAN has yet to announce if they will bring back “Wolves After Dark”, the post-game show to break down all of the action, and until the Wolves put a better product out on the floor I don’t see why they would.  If they do decide to put After Dark back on the air, however, you can’t go wrong with the rock solid analysis of Trent Tucker and Dave Sinykin or the always entertaining Sludge and Lake.

More Draft Speculation

With the draft just a few weeks away now, rumors have started swirling about what the Wolves will decide to do with their third overall pick.  Apparently Pat Riley and the people down in Miami are considering going against conventional wisdom and taking either O.J. Mayo or Brook Lopez instead of Beasley/Rose.  If that were the case it would mean the Wolves can get one of the top two players in the draft (according the the experts, anyways), without having to trade up.

Another scenario that hasn’t been talked about very much is if the Wolves were to trade down.  They already have an extra second round pick from the Heat, and there might be a team out there willing to give up some more picks for the #3 selection.  The only problem is that with the dropoff after Beasley and Rose, the third pick isn’t nearly as attractive in this year’s draft as it has been in other years.

Whatever transpires, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin McHale ends up getting fleeced once again one way or another.  That just seems to be the way things have gone for the franchise recently.