I like the black athletic socks.

Jared Reiner get a spot on this team, since I think he’s at least better than Pecherov, but I doubt it will happen.

I love AJ’s unselfishness (the way he took a lower contract in order to sign more players to build a winner was awesome) but the guy cannot defend. I’m not sure if it’s a lack of effort or genetics but something needs to change. Love will be the better long-term option. Here’s what I propose:

OKC gets: A. Jefferson
MIN gets: J. Green, T. Sefolosha, N. Collison, and OKC’s own first round pick

OKC would still have the one owed to them by Phoenix so they might consider it. Jeff Green isn’t really a power forward and Jefferson/Durant would be awesome to watch on one side of the court at least…

My take on this is that if Rambis is actively preventing Flynn from doing what he does best in order to force him to work on and improve other parts of his game, then why wouldn’t he be doing the exact same thing with other players? Is Flynn a special case?

Consider:
Rambis is letting Brewer jack up 25 FGAs in three games. When is this ever a good idea? But what have we learned? Brewer’s taken 23 FTs and made a good chunk of them. That’s something that I think is amazing and worth finding out in the preseason-Brewer can draw fouls. Who knew?
Rambis let Big Al defend Bosh and Reggie Evans mano a mano. These athletes are proud and highly competitive people. Sometimes nothing lights a fire under a guy than having a weakness exposed-and having your coach give you that “I told you so” smug look. Furthermore, he’s coming back from knee surgery and is not near game shape (according to Rambis, anyways). Al is like the anti-Brewer: his offense is so superior to whoever he’s going against that it outweighs his poor defense.
Kevin Love is jacking up threes. I know everyone here is super excited about Love, and so am I, but let’s face it-Love will never be Dirk. Love is a scrapper, a fighter, and a weasel. He gets in the middle of the scrum, bangs around, and uses his smarts to get open and capitalize on mistakes. Here’s my question—does anyone here really believe Love is a better go-to scorer than Al, especially if Al isn’t around anymore?

In my opinion calling for trading Al after three preseason games is the definition of a knee-jerk reaction to something many of us TWolves fans are unfamiliar with—legitimate optimism. This team has actual potential—we all see it. There’s actual talent there, and a coaching staff with the attitude, intent, and ability to mold that talent into a winning basketball team. And we have an honest to god GM who actually calls people and scouts players and works hard at his job. Add it all up and I know I feel like we’re going to win 45 games sometimes, but then I have to remind myself that Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Al is coming back from surgery and is being asked to play—and being held accountable for—competent defense for the first time. Brewer is being asked to show improvement in his offensive efficiency while becoming a shut-down defender. Flynn is being asked to orchestrate the offense and not just do what he’s always done. That all is going to take time. Even if only two out of three of those player developments actually happen to a league average standard, think about how great an impact that would have on our team. I’m sorry, but trading Al to OKC for all those players, I believe, will not make us any better over the long term than keeping him here and risking on him developing further.

I mean I know he’s coming back from an injury, but ugh. He is terrible.

Just a note to peeps with DirecTV sports package – preseason NBA hoops are not subject to blackout rules, so you could have watched the game live last night on Comcast Sports Chicago instead of recording the wee hours FSN broadcast.

I agree with the Pecherov comments - he’s reallly awful. On a positive note, I thought Brewer played pretty well (all over the court). Although he still suffers from hyperactivity at times, I thought his handle looked pretty decent last night. There were a couple of occasions where he got a rebound at the defensive end, took the ball the full length of the court, challenged multiple defenders (a mistake), but drew the foul (thanks scab refs!).

I was also favorably impressed with Damien Wilkins. Not getting my hopes up too much for someone who we all assume is future cap relief, but in an overall poor team performance, he stood out as one of the better players for the Wolves on both ends of the court. Maybe he can rediscover his Sonics form from 3-4 years ago.

Final note: Am I the only one who appreciates the quality of Jim Pete and Hanny when subjected to the incredibly poor commentating from other local crews? The Chicago guys (Stacey King and some schmuck) were awful. Not only idiotic, but mean spirited. They started the broadcast by suggesting that Target Center should be torn down, constantly ridiculed the Wolves players throughout, went off on a long tirade about what idiots we were to draft Rubio, etc. and so on. They also don’t know a whole hell of a lot about hoops, referring to Chris Richard as a “rookie” on more than one occasion, and never once mentioning that he began his career as a Timberwolf (which would seem of some interest and relevance).

We’re already prepared and we’ve already seen it. You just happened to catch by far their best games of the preseason.

(At least I’ve seen it. I keep harping on the “goddammit Miller, shoot the damn ball!” criticism).

From being at the game last night:

1. The first thing I noticed was that the tempo did seem to be a lot faster on both offense and defense. This, should be a good thing given our personnel.
2. HOWEVER, the game was dissapointingly similar to most of last year — a bunch of clanked shots (Brewer looked EXACTLY the same — he had an airball and a clank of the side of the backboard on two baseline J’s, plus a wild drive to the bucket that got backboard and nothing else) and the next thing you know we’re down double-digits in the 1st quarter, shooting under 30% and having mroe TOs than assists. I’m not confident that there’s a lot of progress yet, or that there will be for most of November, given all the new faces that have to figure out how to play together.
3. I think the lack of outside shooting is going to be a BIG concern — if Al thought he saw hard double teams last year, wait til this year.
4. Love and AJ seem to have a bit of chemistry going, and Love was his old scrappy self.
5. The perimiter D has the potential to be so much better than last year it’s just unfathonable. I’m not saying it’s going to translate into a lot of wins, but both Brewer and Pavs can play the passing lanes and are long, and Sessions and probably Flynn are just huge improvements over the other guards. Even a guy like WIlikins looks a lot better than someone like Carney did last year. This will be critical given our lack of a shot blocker other than Hollins (who’s more prone to fouling rather than shot blocking, I think).
6. It will be interesting to see what Rambis does. I think you could throw a team out there of AJ, Love, Gomes, Pavs and Sessions and be reasonably competitive, and could be a legit crunch-time lineup. But if you let guys like Flynn learn on the job and give more minutes than they deserve to Hollins, Brewer and Ellington, it’s going to be a long season. Which may be the plan (i.e., get a top draft pick). Or do you play Wilkins and el Janitor (who was already in mid-season form) a lot off the bench, or do you give minutes to the guys who are probably going to hurt you more than help you?

I think it was Cuban who said they’re doing a great job because they call the game straight down the line. As in they see a foul and they call it, it doesn’t matter who it is, what point the game is at, etc. I haven’t seen much of any preseason action so far, does anyone who has have a take on that?

Putting in new systems means that things could take a while to look good. I only watched the first quarter, but that quarter just seemed like a practice with a bigger crowd; they’re working on stuff. Here’s my guess: the team runs the Rambis version of the triangle for the first 3 quarters and then takes the Phil Jackson approach of letting guys win matchups. This’ll mean seeing PnR from Flynn and Sessions and post-ups for Jefferson. Also, I only watched the first quarter, but the Bulls were uncommonly hot from the field, and it’s not like they were shooting layups.

The encouraging thing from what I watched was that it seems like Jefferson and Love will not only be able to play high-post/low-post together on offense, but they can get open shots inside from putting each one at a block. One posts up, the other flashes to the rim.

What is Kevin Love’s rebound percentage of missed field goals specifically by Al Jefferson?

It was one of the few positives I took from a mostly dreary game. Love seems to be developing a real knack for finding a choice spot underneath the rim as the opposing defense shifts to wall off Jefferson. It’s not something that will show up in the box score, but it essentially makes Jefferson into a more efficient offensive player. If he can shoot 10 of 20, but have Love convert 3 or 4 of those misses into points, he (or rather, they) suddenly becomes a much more effective source of offense.

It’s something to think about with regards to the trade Jefferson talks above. A Biedrins type of center would not take as many shots or draw as much attention as Jefferson, which would in turn decrease Love’s 2nd chance opportunities. Love may be the more efficient scorer now, but how much would his efficiency suffer if he had to get more of his offense in the form of isolations in the post and less from put backs and passes out of a double team?

goddamnit SNP, you made me spray vodka and orange juice out of my nose.

The headline, picture and caption just caught me right.

I thought you guys were being cruel until I finally saw Pecherov. To be fair to Oleg, his head doesn’t look (exactly) like he was thrown up against the ceiling too hard.

I think you’ve just set the perfect tone for this season.