Timberwolves Lose Summer League Final

It was once again the Tyus Jones show, as the Wolves second-year point guard scored a team high 27 points, including what looked like the game winning three in the final seconds against the Summer Bulls in the championship game of the Las Vegas Summer League.

Unfortunately, Bulls Rookie Denzel Valentine hit a game tying three of his own at the buzzer to send the game to overtime, where Valentine again came up big, hitting a jumper in the final seconds to secure victory for Chicago. Valentine, who was quiet for most of the game, made clutch baskets at the end to send the Bulls to the title and the Wolves home disappointed.

For the Wolves, the big story of this summer league was the play of Jones, who earned league MVP honors for his performance. Of course, it's summer league, which is not very predictive, but it's always better to play well than poorly, and Jones led the Wolves through the tournament portion with consistently big performances. He showed immense confidence in his ability to run the team, score when necessary, and make the right decisions. We'll see if any of it carries over to the real season, but certainly his play was a big bright spot for the Wolves.

Meanwhile, also in Vegas, the USA men's Olympic basketball team began preparations for their Rio odyssey. Tom Thibodeau is an assistant coach for the team, so he'll once again get to work with some of the best players in the NBA. Hopefully he can plant some seeds...

Ricky Rubio, meanwhile, is with the Spanish team getting ready for the Olympics as well. He picked up a minor knock in their first warm up game and sat out the 2nd as a precaution, but is apparently fine. Nemanja Bjelica is not playing with the Serbian team due to a reported foot injury, though my sense is he could have played had he chosen to. Bjelica was a big part of Serbia's silver medal performance at the 2014 world championships.

That's all I got for today. Basically folks, we're about to enter the dead period of the NBA calendar. Might be a trade or two, might not. But from now til camp starts, not a lot happens. We'll have the Olympics to distract us if we can stomach it, and of course the downside of that (or one of them) is that the WNBA takes a month off so no Lynx games.

We'll come up with something; gonna do a series of player previews starting in early August I think. Maybe some around the league previews.

Today in history

1553: Lady Jane Grey deposed as queen after 9 days
1692: Five witches burned in Salem
1702: Swedish troops occupy Krakow
1848: Women's Rights convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
1866: Tennessee ratifies 14th amendment 
1913: Billboard first publishes list of top selling songs
1918: German armies retreat across the Marne
1928: King Fuad (Egypt) disbands parliament
1979: Sandinistas oust Somoza in Nicaragua; "Liberation Day"

Today's musical birthday is Brian May, founder and guitarist for Queen (and, astrophysicist). He was born in 1947