vs. Sacramento Kings
Wolves 109 – Sacramento Kings 121
You can take anything positive that I wrote in my first “Musings” recap (season opener vs. the Kings) and pretty much turn it on its side. By and large, the Wolves looked putrid en route to losing their fourth straight game. I am pretty sure I blabbered on about beating teams like the Kings is something we must do if we ever seriously plan on being title contenders. Well, we failed miserably. If we can’t beat the sucktastic up-and-coming Kings, it’s going to be a long season. It shouldn’t even matter that this game was on the road, as teams like the Kings are “must wins.” I humbly rescind my pre-season prediction of 34 wins. I know it’s early and all, but if things don’t start turning around quickly, I don’t see how we can even hope to win triple ten. I’m not sure what anyone would really want to hear about this from me? Was it a “good” game? Ehhh, not really. We were behind from the get go and never really made a serious effort to narrow the 10-pointish deficit that faced us for most of the game. There is zero excuse for giving up at least 26 effing points per quarter to any team, let alone the boring azz Kings. That’s just sad, pathetic defense and a lack of effort from everyone. Long story short, we lost a game (again) that most people would think we could win, and looked horrible doing so. You know it’s really sad when Kevin Love was probably the biggest bright spot of the night. That’s not a knock on him, but rather the rest of our team.
– What really cost us this win? I’d say terribly inept coaching, along with some mind-numbingly absurd rotations. Our bench killed us. But then again, what do you expect when two of our better bench players (Kevin Love and Sebastion Telfair) were moved into the starting rotation tonight? I guess in that regard, it was one of the (very) few things that Coach (Dim)Wittman has done right this season. He finally benched Randy Foye as our starting point guard, as it’s incredibly obvious to everyone except the 601 Country Club that Foye just won’t cut it as an NBA caliber starting PG. With that said, Wittman doesn’t have many bullets left in the chamber if the Wolves don’t start winning soon. He’s already given his uninspiring motivational and highly rousing speeches/sound bites, and just shook up the starting rotation by inserting Telfair and Love. What else can he do at this point (well, besides learn how to actually coach, but that’s pretty much out of the question.) He is a career .333 winning percentage coach, and I’d assume its only a short matter of time until he’s sent packing… unless things get drastically better drastically quick. I drastically don’t see that happening. And yes I drastically am repeating the word drastically an inordinate amount of times on purpose. My only options to release my frustrations at this point are stabbing myself in the eye with a rusty fork or venting in this game recap article. And I like being able to see. So there.
– For anyone that cares, Brad Miller was back from his five game league mandated suspension. I’m not sure what drugs it was that he took, but I just can’t see him as someone that would take steroids. My guess is the reefer… or perhaps PCP. Maybe PCP laced with cyanide. He started instead of Spencer “Grown Man” Hawes. Either way, the Kings would have still had two white guys in the starting rotation, so Miller starting didn’t affect the outcome of the game.
– I know that no one cares about this, but Kevin Martin is no longer on my Western Conference Only Auction Keeper League Fantasy Basketball Team. I traded him this week for Allen Iverson. Was it a good move? I think so. Then again, KMart had a somewhat “off” night while dropping 26 points, 5 boards, 6 assists, and 6 free throws in 40 minutes of action. On the positive side, he was 9 of 23 from the field, so I won’t miss the volume shooting aspect of his game. But man, he sure is starting to get some sick calls in his favor. I bet you don’t know this, but last year he led the entire league in made free throws per game with 8.2. I don’t see that slowing down this season with some of the calls he’s getting. And for anyone that is wondering, NO, I can’t keep Iverson on my team for the next season since it’s a Western Conference Only league and he was traded to the East. I need to free up the Auction dollars anyways since I’ll be keeping Big Al, Durant, Thornton, BRoy, and maybe T-Mac.
– Our friendly neighborhood stumblebums television announcers (Hanney and Jim Pete) informed me that the Kings were last in the league in turnovers so far this season. The Wolves and Kings both only had 10 turnovers, so I guess that’s a moral victory of sorts for both teams.
– John Salmons looks like the rapper Tech N9ne without a headband on. This is not an insult. It is respekt.
– No disrespect to KLove and his solid skills and all-around game, but man he has really flabby old man arms. What is up with the lack of muscle definition? Is that too much to ask? It’s weird seeing them jiggle when he runs, especially since he’s only 20 years old. There is not even any unintentional comedy to be found here. Just horror.
– Our wonderful television commentator (Tom Hanneman) called the Kings Brad Miller “Mike Miller” at least three times. I was going to make a mean joke about this but then I realized they are both white and look like they live in a trailer park. I guess I could see how he would repeatedly mistake them.
– The attendance was downright pitiful “sparse” to put it nicely. It looked like a crowd that you would see at a Wolves pre-season game. The official listed attendance was 10,592, but I almost think you could almost cut that number in half. At times you could hear individual fans yelling comments to specific players/coaches/referees. It was bad. My favorite comment clearly overheard on the TV broadcast was to one of the refs: “C’mon Phil get your head out of your butt!” I laughed. CW Jr. cried some more.
– We are still not playing any much defense, as the Kings have 62 points at halftime.
– Foye played “better” off the bench, but comparing that to his previous four games is like saying he’s the least blind man on an island full of people with no eyes. I don’t see how he could play worse than he did so far this season. Anyways, I guess it is not all Foye’s fault that the front office is infatuated with him and basically tried to force him to be our PG of the Future. That’s a lot of weight on his shoulders. Especially after they traded Brandon Roy (the fuc…?) to get him on draft night. The shorter Randy played 26 minutes while going 4 of 8 from the field for 11 points, 4 assists and only 1 turnover. He didn’t play a ton of PG and that’s good, because he sucks at it. I could live with him coming off the bench as the backup PG, but preferrably I think I would have him in a SG/Instant offense role. Oh wait, that’s what Rashad McCants is supposed to do. Therein lies the conundrum of drafting these two players in consecutive drafts. Both are reserves, and both are undersized guards. The more I think about it, I think I would be most happy if we just traded them both. For anything.
– Whoa. Brian Cardinal sighting. A Janitor sighting does not bode well for the chances of increasing the win column.
CW
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