(We're going to 'creatively borrow' Star Wars titles to honor the purchasing of LucasFilms. A film where George Lucas is a creative consult? I'm cool with that.)

I want to share a story to the Canis Hoopus mass out there, and for those willing to read it...

Every year when the basketball season begins; I begrudgingly get out of bed, go through the "waking up" routine, and go to work... where I get to see all my coworkers and their 'knowledge' of their favorite teams: the Lakers, the Heat, the Thunder, etc. And every year I take heat from the rest of them, as I am the lone Minnesota Timberwolves fan in that workplace (there's another Minnesotan, but he's a Wild fan and refuses all other sports... even during the lockout). It's tough to listen to these people because (a) half of them don't understand sports in general and (b) those that do don't know teams and matchups. However, they always said the same thing when their Heat or their Lakers played against our beloved Pups: We were no match for them.

Honestly, that sentiment may hold true this year as well, but now there is a bit more of an optimistic step when I walk into work this year. Sure, we're not even four games into the season yet, but we as T-Wolves fans have every right to be optimistic. Two years ago we didn't get our third win until our 10th game into the season. Four years ago, it wasn't until the 20th game. This year it only took us four games...

Sure, we all have our concerns... D-Will will give us headaches on both offense and defense simply because we don't know if he's thinking or acting on instinct, Barea is getting concussions or sprains, Roy knees, whether or not his shot will go down, Love and Rubio meshing back on the floor, if Luke's ever going to not get beaten on the floor, the list can go on with everybody really...

... but there is hope now that our boys on the floor can compete with the rest of them. There's hope that we can step onto the floor every game and get a W out of it. Those days when we do get the W? They're glorious. If they get the L, we can say that Adelman put those on the floor that wanted to win. No matter what happens next, I'm excited for this team because through all the critical eye we look at them, there's a team out there now that can only get better... and even though we can't go 82-0 for Tim, we can sure as hell believe they'll get as close to that as possible.

(Sidenote: Seriously though, I already bet a nice dinner at a 5-star place (there's a few around here, I live in Vegas) that the Wolves will go further than all the other teams that people were willing to bet down (Grizzlies, Spurs, Mavs to name a few), so I can't help but want to look at this optimistically...)