Timberwolves: Martin Injury Lingers, NBA Rookie Pre-Season Performances

Morning everyone. Things are relatively quiet in Wolves land the last couple of days, as the team has several practice days before their next pre-season game against the Bucks in Cedar Rapids on Friday.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Flip said neither KMartin nor Shabazz did much other than shoot today, he&#39;s not sure if either will play Friday in Cedar Rapids vs Bucks</p>&mdash; Jerry Zgoda (@JerryZgoda) <a href="https://twitter.com/JerryZgoda/status/521728289254436865">October 13, 2014</a></blockquote>

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While we are still more than two weeks from the season opener, I'm beginning to get a bit concerned about this Kevin Martin injury. I hope it's just the Wolves be extra-cautious in the pre-season. Martin has his weaknesses, but the Wolves will desperately need his three point shooting and the threat of his shooting if the offense is going to work. There just aren't other good options.

The always excellent Punch-Drunk Wolves has a really good article up about Ricky Rubio and his future. I assume most of you check out PDW regularly, but if by some chance you don't, you should. Always interesting stuff with different angles. I often disagree with those guys, but I'm never bored or disappointed with their writing.

By the way, here is Pek's pronouncement after going to the Vikings game on Sunday:

"It's way more fun than baseball. That's for sure," Pekovic said. "I'm still more of a soccer fan."

So there you go. Pek has spoken.

Some interesting rookie performances in yesterday's pre-season action:

• Jusuf Nurkic of the Nuggets scored 15 points on 7-9 shooting in 14 minutes. He also fouled out in 14 minutes.
• In the same game, a Bulls win over Denver, both Doug McDermott and Nikola Mirotic were in double figures off the bench for Chicago. McBuckets went 3-4 from 3, and added 5 boards to his 16 points, while Mirotic had 12 along with 4 steals and 0 turnovers. That pair is going to be interesting to watch.
• Elfrid Payton is going stuff the box score. 14 points (on 15 shots) yesterday for the Magic, along with 6 boards and 5 assists.