From Rick Kamla/NBA TV:
If I were Glen Taylor, I would upgrade to one of the NBA’s better coaches in Sam Mitchell.
A coach who is not afraid to admonish a player – regardless of salary – for unsatisfactory play. A coach who is keeping the old-school mentality alive, in terms of playing every minute of every game like it’s your last. A coach whose players didn’t turn on him nearly as much as management did.
If I were Glen Taylor, I would take care of Wittman, who is doing the best he can with limited resources.
I would make Randy the lead assistant and move every other coach down one rung on the ladder, but I would not fire any of them or adjust their salaries. Why, you ask? Like I said, I am a Road Man for the Lords of Karma….as well as the billionaire owner of my beloved Timberwolves in my stupid fantasy.
Click here for the forum’s thread for tonight’s game at New Jersey
Game previews:
From Matthew McQueeny/Nothin’ But Nets:
Seeing the Timberwolves come in to IZOD for their game Friday evening will bring about a couple of thoughts, mostly negative or at best bittersweet. The one nice sight will be Jason Collins (happy birthday: ‘twin’ turned 30 on Tuesday), the dependable down low player present at the creation of the Nets run through the Finals and the six-straight playoff seasons. We know he is limited, but he was a trooper, a solid defender (haven’t seen that in a while), and a guy who even knowing he was being traded basically played hard for the Nets for two games because they needed the extra body last season…
In that Minnesota win – what ended up being the final time Jason Kidd would play in a Nets uniform – the captain had nine points, nine assists, and 10 rebounds (would’ve been nice to get that 100th with the Nets). It was a snowy, blustery night, and a game played to a half-empty arena. Not exactly fitting for an era of superb dominance, ushered by a maestro at his position. Minnesota ended up being an almost perfect chapter book-end of the Jason Kidd saga of 2007-08.
But the biggest – literally and figuratively – worry is Al Jefferson “maybe the best post player in the league,” Frank said.
“I know he is a really gifted offensive center,” said Brook Lopez who gets to bounced around with Jefferson, the guy who dropped 40 points on the Nets’ collective skull last season in Minnesota. “He has a lot of moves and can do a lot of things so I’m excited for a matchup like that. I’m always excited for a challenge like that.”
The Timberwolves got some good news Thursday about Mike Miller’s injured right ankle when a magnetic resonance imaging test revealed no additional damage.
The Wolves’ shooting guard/forward, who suffered the injury Wednesday night during the third quarter of Minnesota’s 100-89 loss at Orlando, is listed as day to day with a sprain.
Miller didn’t practice Thursday, and his status for tonight’s game at New Jersey is uncertain. His absence would necessitate another lineup change for the Wolves, who inserted Kevin Ollie at point guard for the game against the Magic, setting off a chain reaction that landed Randy Foye at shooting guard, Miller at small forward and center Jason Collins on the bench.
If you watched Wednesday’s loss, you might have wondered about a few things. So here’s Wittman’s answers to some questions:
• Why Kevin Ollie, 35, started at point guard with Foye in the backcourt instead of Sebastian Telfair and will he do that again tonight:
“I don’t know,” he said. “I moved Kevin in there because of his ability to change our intensity defensively out front. That’s important for us to have somebody out front doing that. You’ve got to get up and defend, too. Bassy should be able to do that, too … Kevin played because he’s playing well. He could be 50. If he’s playing well, he’s going to play. We’ve got to win games. We’re here to win games. You know what? If Bassy or Kevin or whoever deserves to play, they’ll play.”
• On why small forward Rodney Carney was inactive, even with swingman Corey Brewer out for the season: “We needed big guys last night to defend [Magic center] Dwight Howard. There’s going to be guys on the inactive list on and off. You can’t dress 15 guys.”
But when Ilgauskas applied for early entry into the 1995 NBA draft, Minnesota Timberwolves assistant general manager Kevin McHale was all over him. Ilgauskas had a couple of impressive workouts in Minnesota but, in what would become an all-too-common occurrence, his right foot started to hurt. In fact, it was broken and he wound up withdrawing from the draft and having two surgeries, which caused him to miss the 1995-96 season.
He came back strong the next spring, and reapplied for early entry into the 1996 draft, which included Allen Iverson (No. 1), Kobe Bryant (No. 13) and Steve Nash (No. 15.) Minnesota had the No. 5 pick, which it used on Ray Allen.
From Sid Hartman:
According to the Business Journal, the Twins have the strongest sports brand in town. The 2008 Turnkey Team Brand Index shows the Twins performed the best among the four local professional-sports franchises in a survey of 300 Minnesota sports fans that looked at a wide range of factors, including entertainment value, ownership, player likability and commitment to winning. The Wild narrowly edged out the Vikings for second place, while the Timberwolves finished a distant fourth. Nationally, the Twins ranked 34th among all 122 teams in the four major professional-sports leagues. The Wild placed 51st, the Vikings were 53rd and the Wolves came in 115th. The index measures the strength of a team’s brand within its home market, so only local fans rated the Minnesota teams. The national rankings indicate how a team is viewed within its home market compared to how other teams are viewed within their respective markets.
Former Eden Prairie basketball star Ryan Wittman, a 6-foot-7 junior forward on the Cornell (4-4) basketball team that plays the Gophers on Saturday afternoon at Williams Arena, scored a career-high 33 points including a school-record nine three-point field goals Wednesday night in an 88-78 loss to No. 16 Syracuse. Wittman’s 22.5-point average leads the Ivy League in scoring and ranks No. 22 nationally.
But there will be no leaving school early for the NBA, his father, Randy, the Timberwolves coach, insists. Ryan is also an all-academic Ivy League player. Randy is expected to see his son play against Minnesota, then zoom over to Target Center to coach the Wolves against the Los Angeles Clippers that evening.
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