FanPost

Bench Sit


I was invited to a bench sit to the Timberwolves Game last night by the team’s social medial marketing group. The invite included two tickets and I brought my 10 year old son to the game.

First off I have to say that their marketing department treated us very well and the entire experience was great. I was expecting an all out push to buy a season ticket package but I receive no pressure in that regard at all. I personally thought that was refreshing – I hate the used car salesman approach because it is annoying and quite frankly sours my impression of the product (and I am a salesman…). We enjoyed ourselves and soaked in the atmosphere. The tickets we received were section 118 row 10 – pretty nice seats. So we arrive to meet the representative and she takes us to the T-Wolves "bench". I haven’t sat on the bench (well chairs for the professionals…) in 15 + years, but I did have some very extensive experience with that my sophomore and junior years in high school so I was right at home. We chatted about the team and the players with the representative. My son and I enjoyed the conversation and watching the players warm up – I don’t think he realized how big these guys are, even though Pek and Darko were standing pretty close to us, until Luke came out and I informed him that I am about Luke’s size (give or take 20 pounds…). My son is a football player and hasn’t played basketball yet (his choice not mine). He watches some basketball with me but is more interested in football. When Kevin came out he wanted some pictures of himself next to the court with Kevin shooting in the background so he could prove to all the kids at school that he sat on the bench during warm-ups… Anyway, we made our way up to the seats after the warm-ups and enjoyed the view – the other few games that I have been to this year were upper deck, so it was fun to get that different perspective. I let him soak in the game and he asked questions about the calls and players – he is becoming more and more interested each game I take him. A gentleman in front of us caught a couple of t-shirts and gave one to a kid in front of him and one to my son. Well that sealed the deal for my boy – it was like Christmas now… Anyway on the way home I asked him who his favorite player was and he said Kevin Love – I asked why and he said "because he is good and he works really hard." I couldn’t say it better myself. A couple things that I picked up from the shoot around and games were: I asked who the hardest working players in practice were and got an answer of Love and Beasley; Lazar’s shot in the shoot around looked really, really smooth; Wes’s didn’t; Darko looked really hobbled but the coaches and couple of players were really happy to see him move around on the court; Ellington can handle the ball better than I thought and he has a funny side spin to his shot; Darko is big – I stood right next to him and well Darko is big; Love gets pissed when he misses practice jumpers; not sure when Webster will be ready to go – I know it is a shoot around but he was moving pretty tenderly; the ref’s calls suck; make up calls/non calls suck worse; this team is fun to watch irregardless of the outcome; and Kevin "is good and he works really hard". I would go if you get an invite - you'll have a blast!