Welcome back! For those of you unaware, my “Wolves Wednesday” column is something I’ve taken pride in producing since I joined Canis over four years ago. I usually like to wait until the end of the Wolves season to get this up and running, but since we are technically living in the “off____season,” I figured there was no better time than now for bringing it back.

Additional COVID-19 Cases

If you are quarantined to your house or apartment and have increased your Twitter activity by 400% like I have, you saw that Tuesday was a fairly big news day in the NBA. First, there was this Shams grenade about additional COVID-19 cases:

This was on the heels of an earlier report that four Brooklyn Nets players had tested positive for coronavirus, which *could* be tied to the Nets west coast road trip earlier this month, a trip that included games in Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. It was reported late Tuesday night that the Los Angeles Lakers are now in the process of testing all of their players (which sparks an entirely different topic of how professional athletes seem to have no issue accessing tests while our friends and family have to jump through countless hoops), and I would imagine more information about the results of those Lakers tests will be released soon.

Other NBA News

In more generic NBA news, it was reported by Adrian Wojnarowski that the league was increasing their credit line from $650 million to $1.2 billion, which basically just provides increased cash flow for teams to continue paying bills and (hopefully) employees. The NBA Board of Governors will continue to meet on a regular basis to stay abreast of the latest COVID-19 updates in an attempt to navigate their next steps for the league. While nothing is certain (obviously this whole situation is ever-evolving), the only real positive news yesterday was that the NBA is apparently still “hopeful” of re-starting the season before July:

Telecommuting Timberwolves

As the entire COVID-19 situation relates to our favorite team, the Wolves are now living lives much similar to the fans who cheer them on — quarantined at home, playing games, learning new skills, and overall just going crazy. With more and more people and organizations embracing social distancing as the nation attempts to flatten the curve, players from Karl-Anthony Towns all the way to Kelan Martin are finding unique ways to pass the time.

For KAT specifically, he has apparently opened his (mega) home to his friends D’Angelo Russell and Kelan Martin, and the trio has spent a majority of their sleepovers training their upper bodies, with a specific emphasis on their finger and chest muscles:

While online gaming has become a favorite way for most NBA players to pass the time, it’s not the only hobby these athletes have taken up recently. Mr. Nonstop Josh Okogie has taken a different route to embracing his social distancing, pivoting from his role as a defensive legend to becoming the next John Legend:

With Mayo Square on lock down for the foreseeable future, we are likely to see more Wolves step outside the box as they embrace new hobbies, which means we may see James Johnson pick up watercolor painting, Malik Beasley creating at-home workout routines, or Naz Reid creating an online book club.

Finally, I thought it was important to remind everyone that Jarrett Culver has now gone eight straight days without missing a free throw, his longest streak since early January. See... brighter days are indeed on the horizon!

Stay safe, fam!