Wolves Home Opener vs. Blazers

Happy Wolves Day Wolves fans.

The Wolves are in action tonight against the Portland Trail Blazers at Target Center for their home opener. This will not only be their first regular season home game of the year, but also their first appearance at home since the passing of Flip Saunders. It will no doubt be an emotional night for the team and the fans. Expect a well done tribute to Flip before the game.

This follows a difficult week in which the team had to go on the road to open their season just a couple of days after Saunders' death, then return home for his funeral which took place on Saturday. According to reports, many of his colleagues in the coaching community were on hand, including friends Tom Izzo and Jeff van Gundy, Randy Wittman, Gregg Popovich, and others. Ryan Saunders eulogized his father.

On the court, the Wolves have started brightly, winning their first two games on the road. Portland comes in 1-2, off consecutive losses to the Phoenix Suns. Much of what they do is perimeter oriented, and Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum lead them in field goal attempts and nobody else is even close. More on the game later.

By the way, how good is the point guard position that Lillard is in some ways just another guy? Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook are just destroying people, and that's just the tip of the talent iceberg that goes incredibly deep. I guess my question is: how unusual is this? It seems fairly extreme to me, the depth at that position, but I could be wrong.

On a different note, here, watch this:

He's so impressive. The breadth of his skills at this point in his career is astounding.

Meanwhile, the Wolves are no longer listing Wiggins on their injury report, only Pekovic. I hope that means his back is feeling much better. Would like to see him getting back into the mix more aggressively.

After tonight's game against Portland, the Wolves have the Heat coming to town Thursday, then are in Chicago against the Bulls on Saturday.

Oh, the 2nd episode of The Awkward Bounce is out, this one featuring Nate in St. Paul as the guest. That link is to the soundcloud page.

I meant to mention this a couple of weeks ago, but alien megastructures in space?

Today in History

1355: English army under King Edward lands at Calais
1675: New England colonists attack Narragansetts at the Great Swamp Fort
1783: George Washington bids farewell to his army after Revolution
1824: Popular vote for U.S. president first recorded; Andrew Jackson defeats John Q. Adams
1852: Franklin Pierce elected president
1880: James Garfield elected president
1914: Russia declares war on Ottoman Empire
1920: Warren Harding elected president
1944: Gassing of inmates begins at Auschwitz
1948: Truman re-elected over Thomas Dewey
1955: David Ben-Gurion forms Israeli government
1960: Mary Leakey finds fossils of homo habilis (human ancestor) in Tanzania
1976: Jimmy Carter elected president

Today's musical birthday is K.D. Lang, born in 1961