All I can say is that I am more excited and less nuerotic than I have been the past three seasons. All I can keep thinking is – 30 wins, 30 wins, 30 wins. Is that a great season? No, 60 wins and a title is a great season, but 30 wins will justify blowing up the team and starting over. This is the first step to a title team!

I’m not getting too excited about this year’s Wolves team. While I’m completely on board with Kahn’s decisions to blow up the backcourt and try to build a real winner, this is going to be the tough stretch. Almost no rookie point guards have ever made a real difference in the W/L column, and I don’t expect Flynn to be any different, even if he will be fun to watch at times and should keep improving. I hope that Brewer looks like a real offensive player and that Jefferson returns to form. If those things happen, we’ll be a decent team to watch.

Foye looked very comfortable in Washington’s big win at Dallas, last night. It probably helped that his sidekick, Arenas, looked like his 2006 self and completed dominated. If Foye can settle into a role as a third option, pure shooter, he might do pretty well there. I hope so because he had some tough situations in Minnesota between playing for Wittman, playing the wrong position and his injury in ’07.

Also, Bassy and Rhino played well for LAC. Rhino did his thing where he came off the bench and scored a bunch. Bassy did his thing where he pushed the ball and made sound decision after sound decision. It just wasn’t enough to be a stacked Laker squad. Had Blake Griffin played, the game might’ve been close. Eric Gordon might be the second-best player from the ‘08 Draft, when it’s all said and done. His game is developing rapidly, and he’s become very comfortable mixing a slashing game with his pure three-point shot.

I think Love is already starting to infiltrate this sports market and the hearts and minds of casual fans. I love that Al is starting to speak up a little and get a little feisty. And more than anything I think Flynn is going to be the magic anti-Foye/Roy balm for all the remaining Wolves fans out there (well, for most of them anyways).

I think Foye probably will have a good year this year, but his chances at averaging 8-10 points a night on that Washington squad are equally as good as him averaging 14-16. Some will say, ‘Look what we could have had!’ And most of the rest of us will say, ‘Ya-Brandon Roy.’ I hope Foye can get a fresh start and make his own legacy. That wasn’t going to happen here.

Flynn, on the other hand, is dynamic, magnetic, and plays with a swagger and strength that makes me proud to say that he’s on my team. No more finesse. Let’s bruise some opposing teams for a change. Are we going to win much? Probably not. But this franchise needs to change its cultural narrative and identity as much as it needs to get some more wins. Flynn does that through his personality and playing style. Love does that through his determination on the boards. Al does that be dominating the low post and (we’ll see) realizing he needs to become a better all around player. Brewer does that by making good on his draft selection. Cardinal does that by diving after every loose ball. Ramon does that by continuing to play as if he still needs to prove his worth on the court and picking apart other teams.

This reminds me of the Twins about ten years ago. They had been losing a ton and had completely wasted all the interest and good will from their last World Series run. To most of us casual fans they were a barren wasteland and not worth watching. But then they started to play a whole collection of young guys, let them learn by experience, and before you know it the Twins have reeled off something like 5-6 division championships or playoff appearances out of the last 8 years. My memory of the 2000 and 2001 seasons was that people liked the winning-sure-but they were just as compelled by the players themselves. Torii Hunter and the Soul Patrol, Doug Mientkewitz (sp?), Cristian Guzman, AJ, Johan, Latroy Hawkins and Everyday Eddie. My point isn’t that the Wolves are going to win a bunch of games. It is that they can start to re-establish relevance by letting their young players play and letting all of the rest of us discover them to be not what was here before.

Bad news: Flynn and Ellington might be out due to illness.

It’d show that they’ve finally figured out how important that having guards who can finish and/or draw fouls in the paint is to the NBA these days. For all of the talk about what they lack (and they do), they haven’t had an important component to scoring in the league since the hand check rules became interpreted the way they were supposed to.

This wouldn’t have been a bad rotation:

Bassy
Miller
Foye
Roy (he was drafted by us)
KG
Sheldon Williams
Rhino

All got minutes and played decently, though Bassy / Rhino’s +/- were atrocious. . .

I’m shocked at how SNP and others are suddenly pining for these guys again. Give me a break, we were going nowhere with that backcourt. If they have good seasons, good for them and washington. But honestly, the trade of those guys made a lot of sense. Both were expiring and do we really want to pay them another contract??? Or let them walk for nothing? Also, for a moment last night I felt kinda sad that Craig Smith was gone, then I realized that all he’d be doing is taking minutes away from Kevin Love and Al Jefferson.

As Wolves fans, it is pretty silly to look backward at this point. We’ve got a new GM and new philosophy. I’m tickled that Kevin McHale is now a broadcaster and not signing crappy guards to huge contracts, and trading #1 draft picks for the right to sign bench warmers to huge contracts…. must I go on… Do we really need to feel bad that we broke up the 20 win team from last year??? Jeez!

but on de real, i got NO love fo Mike. His hair iz wun uv de top 2 worst thangs ta ever happen, not juss in terms uv haircuts or basketball. iss righ up der wit de movie Juno. iss a complete an utter cultural and financial disaster mayn. lord knows what the aftermath uv such a horendous hairstyle will be. i juss thank god ay night i wont have ta look at it all yer mayn, i wuz gone off de purp lass nigh mayn an i wuz like maynnn hol up dat cant be Mike!!!!!

Den i saw him make a beuatiful three pointa. ay fuck you mike why wuzzint u shootin like dat lass year?!?!?! mayn if he playz well ima be convinced he juss a bitch mafucka know whut im sayin yall???

Ay mayn, who else goin to de game tanigh? ima be in de lower lower level nahm sayin wearin dat ICE CREAM shirt an smellin like de kill so if you see me say wuss poppin mayn an ima fiyah wun up in de stairwell fa sho

What is there do to after the Vikings end? The Wild are hopeless.

At 12 months everything was new, and any present was a joy. Look at that kid!

The one we don’t want to keep having is the one where we’re 12 years old and Kevin McHale doesn’t give us that bicycle. Right?