My Letter to The Sports Guy

ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons posted his NBA Lottery Karma Index today.  I couldn’t believe how skewed his view of the Timberwolves was.  He felt that the Blazers, Bucks, Grizzlies, Celtics, and Sonics were all far more deserving of the picks than the Wolves.  Has our front office made some incredibly awful decisions that have gotten us to this point?  Yeah.  Did we probably tank a little to get where we are?  Yeah.

[ad2] But a lot of us in the TWolvesBlog.com Forum were calling for the Wolves to tank long before they did.  The team didn’t give up the fight until they were mathmatically elminated from the post-season.  After that, can you blame them?  The point is, despite all the questionable moves our front office has made, the Timberwolves fanbase and Kevin Garnett are perhaps the most deserving candidates to finally have something good happen to them.

Anway, Simmons really played up the case for his Celtics tonight.  Part of that is understandable, seeing as every fan knows his team inside and out and is much more in tune with what’s going on with them than the other 29 teams.  But when he attempted to play up the “we’re the most due for something good to happen” angle, I couldn’t help but think how pathetic his list compared to the Wolves’. 

“Name me a team that suffered more trauma since the mid-’80s: Lenny Bias and Reggie Lewis, the demolition of the Boston Garden, the M.L. Carr era, the Duncan lottery, the Pitino era, the Paul Pierce stabbing, the Vin Baker trade, Red Auerbach’s death, Doc Rivers’ second life. … After 16 titles in 30 years, it’s been a preposterously brutal stretch of bad luck.”

I’ll name you a team, Bill.  The Minnesota Timberwolves. Sorry, but your Celtics have got nothing on them.  And as the good T-Wolves fan I am, I took the time to fill him in on the last 18 years of Minnesota basketball… 

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I love your stuff SG, but the fact that you have the audacity to even compare the Celtics recent woes to franchises like Atlanta, the Clips, and Minnesota is ridiculous. 

As the person who’s largely considered to be the biggest die-hard Wolves fan on the planet, I can say with good authority that only the Clippers can make a case for being as downtrodden of a franchise. 

It took us seven years to make the playoffs.  During that time we had a 15 win season in 91-92. However, we managed to miss out on Shaq and Mourning and ended up with Christian Laettner.  Seven years spent deep in the crapper and Christian Laettner is our ONLY top 3 pick?  That’s the only time we got a lottery selection.  Christian Laettner. The THIRD pick. Are you kidding me?!?!?

Yes, we lucked out with Garnett. But we got him with the 5th pick.  It’s not like he was a sure thing that we got by winning the lottery.  But after drafting him we suffered through seven straight first round exits.  During that stretch we had the fiasco with Marbury, whom we traded for Terrell Brandon’s mangled knee.  We watched a Finals MVP walk away without compensation in Chauncey Billups.  We drafted Rasho, Will Avery, and Ndudi Ebi during that time – when we actualy had picks.  Because who can forget that Kevin McHale managed to lose five of them for the illegal Joe Smith signing? 

We had a player die – Malik Sealy. 

Then we had our ONE season of glory 2003/2004 – a year where it seemed that all our suffering had finally paid off.  Only we were forced to watch in horror as Sam Cassell’s hip gave out in the Western Conference Finals and our Wolves fell to the unholy alliance of Shaq, Kobe, Malone, and Payton.

The next season, Sprewell and Cassell decided to pull a complete sabotage, destroying the team’s chemistry and hopes for making another run at the title. 

Michael Olowokandi.  Enough Said.

We then drafted Rashad McCants, who gave us 2/3 of a season before he needed microfracture surgery.  We gave up Cassell and a 1st rounder for Marko Jaric.  We then gave up another 1st round pick (to your Celtics, by the way) for Marcus Banks.

We drafted and then traded Rookie of the Year, Brandon Roy.

Eddie Griffin got into an car accident while drunk, watching porn, and “taking care of himself”. 

We fired the incompetent Dwane Casey and replaced him with Randy Wittman who had something like a 60-100 record as a head coach at the time. 

And to make matter’s worse, this whole time we’ve been forced to watch our heart and soul, our franchise player, Kevin Garnett go through these horible circumstances.  We’re torn between cutting him loose and freeing him from this disaster and keeping the only good thing this franchise has ever experienced in 18 seasons.  It’s been absolutely gut-wrenching.  Yet at the same time, watching Garnett handle this adversity with such class and dignity has almost made it all worth it.  You want an athlete that exemplifies everything that’s good about sports, look no further than Kevin Garnett. 

So forget all your whining about the Celtics.  You’ve had Larry Bird and your slew of titles.  Us Wolves fans have had NOTHING but suffering.  We deserve the #1 pick.  Garnett deserves the #1 pick. 

And that’s why Greg Oden is coming to Minnesota tonight!!!!!!!!

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