I know my posts have been few and far between this season. Hopefully I haven’t been missed too much since the rest of the TWolvesBlog crew have been picking up the slack with a constant barrage of posts. Between school, residency interviews, my 13-0 Patriots, catching some Celtics games, and our 3-15 record heading into this evening, there’s been a lot that’s keeping me from diving into this Wolves season head first. There’s also a major redesign in the works for DeROK.Net as well that’s been consuming most of my free time. Things will get better and I’ll be able to post more frequently and make some tweaks to improve this site here and there in the near future. I’ll cut to the chase now…
I’m firing up my TiVo tonight to catch the Wolves/Wizards game. I’ll hit the pause button after each quarter and make some observations. Seeing as I just finished the first, I’ll delve right into that.
First Quarter Observations:
Craig Smith is a Rhinelepotamus. That’s what you get when you cross a rhino, and elephant, and a hippopotamus, as well as any other large, gray, stampeding mammal I may have excluded. He was an absolute beast this quarter! Simply calling him “The Rhino” does not suffice.
Sebastian Telfair is maturing before our very eyes, and with this season, and perhaps another under his belt, he may be able to be a legit starting point guard on a contending team. He’s definitely doesn’t look like he’ll become a Chris Paul any time soon, but if the Wolves do get to pick first in the draft this year, they may not have to take Derrick Rose. They may just be able to select the best player on the board, regardless of position, because Bassy can hold his own.
Brewer needs to learn how to shoot. Desperately.
You can’t put a price on the unintentional comedy of having Antoine Walker on your team. Right now he’s putting on a “how NOT to play basketball” clinic. And you know what, I’m not even mad. If anybody else was playing that way, chucking up awful shots and passing the ball right to the other team, I’d be fuming. But not with ‘Toine.
Long live the Shimmy.
Second Quarter Observations:
Al Jefferson… Paging Al Jefferson…
Big Al finally got his first points with about four minutes left in the quarter and then put up a couple more. I didn’t catch the Phoenix game, but I’m guessing tonight’s performance is a far cry from his 30 and 20 night.
Some guy named Roger Mason Jr. is putting the hurt on the Wolves. He has the Mark Blount “sleepy” or “chronically high” look going on. Medical school has definitely dropped my NBA I.Q. a good 20-30 points as I really only have time to follow the Wolves. I used to know everybody on every team. Now I have Roger Mason Jr.’s popping up every night and it’s driving me crazy.
On a completely random note, the Washington Wizards may be the team I know the least about. I think it’s because I refuse to view them as a legitimate team after they changed their name. “Washington Wizards” has got to be the worst name in the NBA, yes, even worse than the “New Jersey Nets”, “Utah Jazz”, and “Toronto Raptors”. What really does it for me is that they used to have a cool name, but then opted for a totally lame one to be politically correct. People have got to learn that Bullets don’t kill people, Chuck Norris does.
On a more random note, how ridiculous is it that the Bullets had to change their controversially “violent” name, while the Redskins are allowed to keep theirs while playing in the same city? That’s got to be the most racist name going.
And on an even more random note, if the Skins ever do change their name and it ends up being something lame, like, say, anything to do with politics, would Washington have officially wrapped up the title for the city with the worst team names? They’ve already got the Capitals, Nationals, and Wizards. I get that the Caps and Nats fit with the whole theme of the city, but they’re still lame. We’ve already covered the Wizards lameness. I don’t think any other city could contend with that.
Can you tell it was a bad quarter for us?
Third Quarter Observations
When I’m watching a recorded game late at night, I invoke something called “The Ten Point” Rule, to keep myself from losing valuable sleep on a bad game. Basically, if I feel the team is playing poorly and they go down by ten points or more, I watch the game on the slowest fast forward setting until the deficit is cut to single digits.
Needless to say, I watched the entire third quarter in just over six minutes.
Since things were moving a bit too fast for me to make any valid points, here’s a question I’d like to bring up. Does Randy Wittman get credited with Wednesday’s win in his head coaching record? I would think you’d have to be physically present to get credited with a victory. I’m very fascinated with Wittman’s head coaching record, mostly because I can’t wait to hear how Kevin McHale and Glen Taylor justify bringing him and his .259 winning percentage back for next season after not even making an attempt to contact Jeff Van Gundy or any other coach who’s had any ounce of success at this level.
Fourth Quarter Observations
The NBA: Where “Suffering through seven straight first-round exits and giving your heart and soul to your team and their once-in-a-lifetime franchise player, only to watch him get traded away and experience unprecedented success with his new team, while you stay true to your team and get to watch them start 3-16” happens.
Yet I still love this game… And this team.
What can you do? At least I got to take it off fast forward down the stretch. We were down 20 at one point. And hats off to the Rhinelepotamus for his incredible game! Any chance that name sticks?
Yeah, I didn’t think so…
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