Kevin Love said he hasn’t been told what his role will be for Wednesday night’s season opener against Sacramento, but the Timberwolves rookie forward suspects he’ll be coming off the bench, for starters…
Love was dragging after practice because of a flu bug he said started bothering him the night before and left him dehydrated.
“Hopefully, it’s just a day thing,” he said.
Don Seeholzer/Pioneer Press on Kevin Love:
“If I was a lefty, I’d probably still be pitching, to tell you the truth,” he said, “because left-handed pitchers of this size are hard to come by. Baseball wasn’t my favorite sport, but it was probably my best sport.”
As it turned out, baseball’s loss was the Wolves’ gain, and Love’s Minnesota connection could pay off in another way.
Mike Love said the Beach Boys, still touring after all these years, play 140-170 shows a year, but he’d be happy to add one more.
“We’re due for a return to Minneapolis,” he said. “It would be cool if we could do something after a game.”
To get there, Wittman wants the player who has the ball in his hands to also have his voice heard the most on the court. Jefferson is the team’s franchise player. Mike Miller, Kevin Love, Rashad McCants and Corey Brewer are valuable complementary pieces. But the rebuilt Wolves might never become what Kevin McHale and Glen Taylor envisioned when they dealt Garnett unless Foye blossoms.
“He’s a good kid, sometimes he’s almost too good of a kid,” Wittman said. “There’s got to be a time when you kick a teammate in the seat of his pants; there’s a time to be emotional. His personality doesn’t draw that right now. Ideally, you’d like your point guard to be that guy. You look at the Magic Johnsons and the Isiah Thomases and all the great point guards who had the ability to do that, their teams were pretty good.
Jerry Zgoda/Star Tribune provides a scouting report on Randy Foye.
NBA teams must set their season-opening rosters by the end of the day Monday and Wittman said he saw nothing on the waiver wire over the weekend that would change things for the Wolves.
“Right now, we’ve got this group right here, these 15,” he said, “and that’s what we’ll have come Wednesday.”
Britt Robson/On The Ball previews each team in the league. On the Wolves:
Worries: Foye can’t play the point, Brewer can’t shoot, McCants prefers controversy to trustworthy teamwork, Wittman, McHale and Taylor in over their heads.
Overrated: Love’s immediate impact, Foye’s leadership.
Underrated: Ryan Gomes, Mike Miller’s non-shooting virtues, the instant offense of McCants.
Mike Miller’s sharp shooting will spread defenses and provide operating room in the low post for Minnesota’s Al Jefferson and Kevin Love. Like Ivey, Miller is an example of a player with limited skills who can nevertheless have a major impact in the right surroundings.
Some observers would choose Minnesota’s five of Al Jefferson, Craig Smith, Corey Brewer, Mike Miller and Randy Foye over Sacramento’s, and for one reason: toughness.
Marc J. Spears/Boston Globe previews the Northwest Division.
Expect Jefferson to be a bubble All-Star candidate, but poor record will likely keep him off team . . . Love is a great offensive player and tough, but his lack of athleticism will hurt him in NBA . . . The Wolves need forward Corey Brewer to live up to his potential that made him a lottery pick.
If the preseason is any indication of what our sleeper teams will be this year, it looks like we’ll be focusing once again on the Atlanta Hawks (can we still consider them sleepers?), the Indiana Pacers, the Golden State Warriors, and most notably the Minnesota Timberwolves. These are four teams that many are calling to miss the postseason, but with the way they’ve played so far, any one of them could be this year’s standout team.
Ken Berger/Newsday lists Randy Wittman among the coaches most likely to be fired.
If the Wolves come up with 30 wins this year, I’ll consider it a successful one. Not since the days of Doug West have I been so optimistic.
At the end of the day, it might be the ancillary part of the deal that saves face for the ‘Wolves, with Minnesota getting Mike Miller and Memphis now stuck with Antoine Walker and Marko Jaric.
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