Timberwolves – Page 117 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Wolves Make Right Impression

Posted on March 5, 2012March 5, 2012 by David Shama

Impressions of the Timberwolves with 28 games remaining in the strike-shortened NBA season:

This is the most entertaining pack of Wolves since Kevin Garnett, Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell were trying to put food on the table to feed their families in 2003-2004. The 2012 Wolves, 19-19 so far after finishing 17-65 last year, are much improved with better personnel, team work and coaching.

You no longer have to risk being labeled the town idiot by predicting a playoff spot this spring. The Wolves have pulled even with the average teams in the NBA and with 16 teams allowed to qualify for the playoffs Minnesota is a contender.

The club report card gives the best grades to All-Star forward Kevin Love, rookie point guard Ricky Rubio and coach Rick Adelman. Love is so improved the last two seasons that the four-year player is included in any conversation about the league’s best power forwards. Point guard, it’s often argued, is the most important position in basketball. The Wolves finally have a special talent playing the position in Rubio, a flashy talent with extraordinary vision and passing skills. The NBA might be a players’ league but coaching still counts and first-year boss Adelman could be the best person ever directing the Wolves.

This team has an unexpected hero in center Nikola Pekovic. After averaging 5.5 points during his rookie year last season, Pekovic has won the starting center job in 2012 with smarts, hustle, timely points and rebounds. What he can’t do with his short arms and average height for a center (6-11) is become a defensive whiz in the lane.

Finding a shot-blocking, defensive center is what should be at the top of the front office’s to-do list. A guy who can take the Wolves from being an okay defensive team to a better one (while helping Love with the rebounding) is needed to push Minnesota toward the elite group of NBA teams.

This Wolves team will improve a lot too if a shooting guard-forward like Wes Johnson or Martell Webster can fulfill their potential as outside shooters. Johnson is only a second year player and youth is a huge part of the rationale why fans should be excited about this product. Love is 23, Rubio, 21, Pekovic, 26, Johnson, 24, and rookie forward Derrick Williams, 20.

Better days are here…and ahead.

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Worth Noting

Posted on February 24, 2012February 24, 2012 by David Shama

Using a search committee for administrative and coaching hires has been typical at Minnesota, although there was no such committee in 2010 when football coach Jerry Kill was hired.

Twins first baseman Chris Parmelee turns 24 today. With so many questions about Justin Morneau’s health, fans may wonder if Parmelee could play even more games than he did (21) during his rookie season last year. Parmelee hit .355 with four home runs and 14 RBI.

It wouldn’t be surprising if this is pitcher Francisco Liriano’s last season with the Twins. He’s working on a one-year contract reportedly worth $5.5 million. If the inconsistent 28-year-old left hander has a similar season to last year (9-10, 5.09 ERA), the Twins may have minimal interest in re-signing him. If Liriano were to approach his electrifying 2006 stats that included a 2.16 ERA, he presumably could command a contract too rich for the Twins.

Former Gophers golfer and New York Times best selling author Harvey Mackay was featured on a recent cover of Speaker, the magazine of the National Speakers Association. The article said Mackay speaks “about once a week to Fortune 500-size companies and associations.”

The Big Ten is the best basketball conference in the country, according to a February 20 article in Sports Illustrated. The story praises the execution, toughness and defense of Big Ten teams.

“I’d almost bet my life…the Big Ten is as good as it’s been in a long time, top to bottom,” said Michigan State coach Tom Izzo when he was in Minneapolis on Wednesday night.

Gophers coach Tubby Smith talking about his team’s 66-61 loss to Michigan State on Wednesday night: “We just folded at the end of the game.”

The Gophers are 5-10 in the Big Ten, 17-11 overall and have lost four consecutive games. “He (Smith) coached better than I did,” Izzo said. “They’re good enough to be in the tourney.”

Gophers’ women’s basketball guard Rachel Banham ranks sixth in Big Ten scoring at 16.3 points per game and first among league freshmen.

Larry Bird told ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons in a February 8 interview he’s an admirer of the Timberwolves twosome of Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love. Bird played on three NBA championship teams in Boston including the 1986 team that ranks with the best for passing and unselfish play. Rubio and Love would fit perfectly on that team.

Love will be the first Timberwolf ever to participate in the NBA’s three point contest when he competes tomorrow in Orlando as part of All-Star Weekend activities.

Rookie forward Derrick Williams will be in the slam dunk contest tomorrow.

This week’s National Junior College Athletic Association poll has coach Jay Pivec’s first year Dakota County Technical College team ranked No. 8 in the country among Division II men’s teams.

The Wild will wear custom-designed camouflage jerseys during warm-ups on Sunday prior to Minnesota’s home game against San Jose. The jerseys will be available for bid via online auction starting Tuesday at www.wild.com. Proceeds benefit Defending The Blue Line, a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization created by Minnesota National Guard soldiers. The charity assists military families with costs associated with hockey.

State tennis historian and author Jim Holden reported via email that Kevin Rust, the former coach at Rochester Lourdes, has been inducted into the Minnesota State High School Tennis Coaches Hall of Fame.

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Promotion Sparks Muskies Memories

Posted on February 8, 2012February 8, 2012 by David Shama

Mention the Minnesota Muskies to Dick Jonckowski and the lively memories come back in a flash. The team played one season at Met Center as part of the start-up American Basketball Association in 1967-68. The Timberwolves are wearing Muskies jerseys for six games this season—including Friday night at Target Center against Dallas—for a promotion titled the “Hardwood Classic Series.”

The old Muskies were thought of as anything but classic before they moved to Florida because of fan apathy. They were replaced by the Minnesota Pipers, another ABA club that met with similar disinterest by the public and lasted only one season at the Met.

There is an old joke—true or not—associated with both teams that Jonckowski recalls and it goes like this: A potential ticket buyer telephones the Met Center and asks what time a Muskies or Pipers game starts? The phone operator replies: “What time can you be here?”

Jonckowski, known now to local basketball fans as the public address voice of the Gophers, was the Muskies’ assistant public relations director. He remembers “we couldn’t draw people no matter what we did.”

The team tried all kinds of promotions like free t-shirts, wristbands and basketballs without success. During an interview with Sports Headliners it didn’t take much effort to prompt Jonckowski to make jokes about the team’s lack of fans.

“We had three busloads pull up (to the Met) one afternoon,” he said. “Then we find out they only wanted to use the restroom.”

The team claimed to draw 6,000 fans for its opening game but even if accurate a more typical crowd was 2,000. There were thousands of empty green and gold seats in the building (capacity about 15,000 for basketball). Jonckowski recalled that general manager Eddie Holman didn’t like TV cameras showing all those empty seats.

“People would buy the cheap seats. He (Holman) would wave the people down to sit in the front row because we only drew 2,000—maybe 3,000 people— not many,” Jonckowski said.

The problem wasn’t the Muskies weren’t a good ballclub. The team finished second in its division and had several talented players but Minnesotans literally weren’t buying into a start-up league after having the five-time world champion Minneapolis Lakers a decade earlier.

The Muskies franchise had several owners and a general manager in Holman who Jonckowski said got the job because he was a neighbor of George Mikan, the former Laker great and ABA commissioner. Holman, who was in the restaurant and bar business, offered free food and drink to the media at the old Eddie Webster’s near the Met Center.

“It was crazy.” Jonckowski said. “It had to cost him a lot of money.”

Jonckowski, just beginning his career, would have liked some of that money sent his way. “I worked for $60 a week,” he remembered. “I just wanted to get my foot in the door in pro sports. I didn’t even have enough money to park my car. In those days I parked my car down on Glenwood Ave.(a long walk from the team’s offices downtown). …”

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