Ready to Burst

@BreakTheHuddle

Excerpt:

“We shouldn’t let the numbers define Rubio’s season – the eye test is also important. It’s easy to forget just how athletic he was before the knee injury, in part because the cerebral parts of his game are so celebrated (and rightfully so). What’s missing from post-injury Ricky’s game is the ability to get to whatever part of the floor he desires. Last year, Rubio showed he could see openings in the defense and attack them. He certainly sees the floor the same way this year, but he doesn’t have the speed to exploit defensive holes… yet.”

Link to full article:

http://breakthehuddle.com/?p=1626

 

How to Lose Fans and Alienate Your Teammates

Kevin Love’s foibles and Minnesota’s predicament

@BreakTheHuddle

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“People, you know, have their blogs, and can sometimes hide behind their computer screen, but, you know, you have people that, that, you know, can type out things that are derogatory towards a person…” – Kevin Love[i]

“Well, Kevin, you know, I have no athletic ability or discernible life skills, and some free time, so, you know, what do you expect?” – Yours Truly

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A few years ago, at an old job, there were three of us of similar age and education levels, who were all hired at roughly the same time. It was an entry level position, but I loved the job and was interested in making a career of it. I felt my work was comparable to my peers, and was given good reviews reflecting this belief.

The first guy was promoted and given a decent raise. The second guy was promoted and given a modest raise. I was given a lateral transfer to a similar department and received no raise. What do you suppose happened?

I looked for another job, and took the first one which was suitable, even though it paid only a pittance more than what I had made at my original place of employment.

Why do you suppose I did that?

Clearly, my work wasn’t quite as good as I thought it was – I was young, and a little immature, with how I handled it – but the whole experience changed my perspective on athletes and their public discourses regarding salary disputes and “respect.” I felt as though I deserved something similar to what the other guys got, and I didn’t get it, so that was that. I was a poisoned apple. I let it bother me, and as soon as the opportunity arose, I bolted.

Kevin Love found himself in a similarly sticky predicament last summer[ii] – only in a far more exciting setting. Instead of a middle class job, he was yearning for the finest compensation an NBA franchise could offer him – a maximum (“max”) contract extension, roughly $80 million for 5 years. LaMarcus Aldridge, a similar player two years his senior, got a max deal from Portland. Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook, who were in Love’s draft class and were viewed similarly in the league (as franchise players), also got max (or near-max) contracts from their respective teams.

Due to a new wrinkle in the collective bargaining agreement, franchises were only allowed to give one of these “max” deals at a time – and, citing this restriction as their reason, the Wolves withheld offering it to Love. His consolation prize was a four year, $62 million deal with an “opt out” clause after the 2014-15 season – meaning he could be on a new team three years from today, and the Wolves would be left with nothing to show for it.

Disgruntled about the way it was handled, the residual ill will between Love and the front office simmered, but remained largely hidden, until it finally boiled over in the form of a piece published Tuesday by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The story quotes Love as saying the following:

GM David Kahn has blown two top-6 picks during his tenure (Wes Johnson, Jonny Flynn) and might have blown a third (Derrick Williams) so it’s fair to wonder if he’s fit to run the team.

-GM David Kahn is unprofessional

-Love is unsure if the organization has a “plan” for constructing a roster

-He’s miffed that owner Glen Taylor didn’t regard him as a “superstar”

-He was  hurt by the fact that some within the organization questioned whether he really injured his hand in the preseason by doing knuckle push-ups

-And most importantly, Love was upset that he didn’t receive the “max” offer when it was time to negotiate an extension, calling the Wolves’ possible strategy of saving the “max” deal for guard Ricky Rubio “a projection over a sure thing”

Naturally, Love downplayed the comments the day after they were made public – but didn’t back off of them. He did express frustration with the fact that positive tidbits he had offered about the Wolves hadn’t made it into the article, and concluded his remarks on the entire subject with the old “I want to retire a Timberwolf” platitude.

First of all, let’s set one thing straight – Adrian Wojnarowski hates David Kahn’s guts, and this fact is widely recognized by front offices and media members around the league.[iii] Jon Krawczynski of the Associated Press, who’s as about as non-confrontational  as it gets, called the piece “sensationalized” and “a bit irresponsible”, which coming out of his mouth was as shocking to these ears as Mr. Rogers dropping an ‘F’ bomb. The story drips with condescending potshots at the Timberwolves’ organization, and its fans, for treating Kevin Love so poorly – and goes way over the top in doing so. Love’s comments were bad enough, but pair them with Wojnarowski’s agenda, and it’s hardly surprising things blew up the way they did.

As far as Love questioning Kahn’s competence – well, that’s sort of like calling the sky “blue.” Only after coach Rick Adelman came aboard did the roster begin to reflect any sort of plan. The Timberwolves, loaded with smart players who fit Adelman’s system, have built more buzz around the franchise than they’ve had since their last playoff appearance in 2004-05.The timing of the piece was the biggest buzzkill, especially because of imminent return of the sensational Ricky Rubio.

Love’s comments beyond mere organizational gripes. One way to alienate a fan base, especially a blue collar one such as Minnesota’s, is to “complain” about money when you’re making $13,668,750 this year. Reading the full article by Wojnarowski, it’s clear that Love’s got the summer of 2015 on his mind, and that’s depressing. Instead of focusing on this season, when he’s surrounded by teammates with winning pedigrees (Andrei Kirilenko and J.J. Barea, especially) he’s looking ahead to when and how he might finagle his way out of Minnesota.

Players like Love are hard to find. Once you’ve got them, you’ve got to embrace them… warts and all.

I don’t believe Love’s festering issues are strictly about money, either. He’s an All-Star, and it’s a star-driven league. Finding one, and holding onto him, is very hard to do. Love knows he holds the cards, now, and it’s crystal clear that he feels as though he was disrespected in a big way by the Wolves’ organization. Fans might be looking at a three year window of possibility before he’s lost and gone forever, to the Lakers, or the Knicks, or the Mavericks.

For better or worse, it’s not always about how much money a player makes – it’s about “respect.” And while it seems silly, if you apply it to your own work situation, it makes sense in a strange way. The fact that Love is a millionaire adds a different element to it, but he’s still human – he feels slights, and maybe he’s a little insecure. It’s probably what’s motivated him to become the player he is – reshaping his game, and his body, to become an All-Star.

I know this – it’ll be way tougher for the Wolves to replace Kevin Love than it was for anyone who’s ever had to replace me… at anything. And if you’re honest, you’ll admit the same thing, swallow your pride, and hope that the Wolves can patch things up with Kevin Love and keep him in Minneapolis for a long, long time.

It’s a superstar league. If you want to win in the NBA, you have to play by their rules, as tricky and unsavory as that can be at times.

 

BreakTheHuddle is a fan of the Twins, Timberwolves and the 13-time World Champion Green Bay Packers. Reach him at BreakTheHuddle@gmail.com, @BreakTheHuddle on Twitter or leave a comment below

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[i] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4j3n898Wig

[ii] This is the first and last time I’ll compare myself to a professional athlete. I know, I know, my life experience and his aren’t in the same stratosphere, really, but I have a point to make. I think.

[iii] http://dunkingwithwolves.com/2012/12/12/hatchet-man-adrian-wojnarowski/

The Shved Army

A Russian expatriate is becoming a Minnesota fan favorite
@BreakTheHuddle

This past offseason was one of tremendous upheaval in the offices at the Target Center. Malcontents and inconsistent buffoons were jettisoned in favor of long, athletic and intelligent wing players. Out went Michael Beasley, Darko Milicic, Martell Webster, Anthony Randolph, Wayne Ellington and Wes Johnson; in came Andrei Kirilenko, Greg Stiemsma, Dante Cunningham,  and Chase Budinger. Brandon Roy, sans knee cartilage and all, was also signed to (hopefully) fill the void at shooting guard, the caveat being – “if he can stay healthy.”

The Roy experiment lasted five games before knee pain, and another surgery, sidelined him indefinitely. The risk was well worth it: the dearth of talent at shooting guard has made it a premium position in the NBA. If Roy could have managed to be 75% of his former self, for 24-28 minutes per night, his $5 million salary would’ve actually been a bargain.

The answer to the Wolves’ shooting guard deficiency, or at least part of the answer, came in the form of their least heralded offseason pickup: Russian guard Alexey Shved. Lured away from his Euroleague club, CSKA Moscow, Shved was an unproven commodity. A combo-guard with good length, he was seen in the Olympics playing for the bronze-winning Russian national team along with fellow Wolves’ newcomer Andrei Kirilenko.

It isn’t often that impact foreign players go completely undrafted – usually, someone will take a second-round flier on an international guy just in case he develops into a back-of-the-rotation contributor – so what happened with Shved? How come he was an international free agent, ripe for the plucking?

Also a problem: the hair, which he has since fixed.

Shved was draft eligible in 2010, at the age of 21. According to scouting reports from around that time,[i] concerns about his wiry frame, as well as his perimeter shooting, held him back. According to Wolves’ beat writer Jerry Zgoda, there were also some doubts about his maturity.[ii] Oddly enough, it seems as though his game wasn’t suited for the Russian leagues in which he played, which are known for their slow-it-down, half-court style of play. Shved is more of a slasher, which is possibly attributable to his time with American players such as Trajan Langdon, a former Duke star who wound up with CSKA Moscow after his college days were over.[iii]

All that was enough for Alexey to slip through the cracks – that is, until his 2011-12 Euroleague and club season, in which he broke out in a big way. In 21 Euroleague games (Europe’s highest level of competition) he averaged a 10.6/2.6/3.6 line on 49%/50%/81% shooting splits. In club games, he went for 11.6/2.9/3.3 on 46%/39%/78% shooting. Two years older, and having addressed his perimeter shooting woes, Shved was now a free agent, thanks to the fact he’d gone undrafted in 2010. It was a blessing in disguise.

To be fair, the Wolves weren’t the only team who approached Alexey with a contract offer – Memphis and Cleveland were also in the mix – but he chose to come to Minnesota, and it’s difficult to believe Andrei Kirilenko didn’t have something to do with it. The two came as something of a package deal – 3 years, $9-$10 million for Shved, and 2 years, $20 million for Kirilenko, with both deals signed within two days of each other at the end of July.

Andrei Kirilenko has arguably been the Wolves’ most important player to this point, but Shved’s contributions to the back court cannot be understated. Though he has yet to start a game, Shved has played more minutes than the nominal “starting” shooting guard in 11 of the team’s 18 games, including the last 7 in a row. The Wolves are 6-5 in such games, and 3-4 in the rest.

Shved’s non-starting irks some Wolves fans who’d like to see him on the floor at the opening tip – but Adelman’s handling of his backcourt rotation is anything but conventional. Most teams start their best players and rest them from the 3:00 mark of the 1^st and 3^rd quarters to the 10:00 mark of the 2^nd and 4^th quarters. Adelman, however, starts Malcolm Lee at the 2-guard, plays him until there’s about 3:00 left in the 1^st and 3^rd quarters… then Alexey Shved comes in, and rarely leaves the court afterward. Shved ends halves and games on the floor – a sign that the coaching staff trusts him a great deal.[iv]

The trust in Shved makes sense – he’s hardly your typical rookie. He’s been playing professionally since he was 17 years old. This season, he’s averaging 10.6/2.7/3.6 on 40%/33%/79% shooting splits – remarkably similar to his production with CSKA Moscow last season. While a 33% mark from the perimeter is nothing to write home about, he’s had to become more of a gunner with the absence of Chase Budinger (out with a knee injury) and the struggles of Kevin Love (22% from 3-point range).

Despite the low Field Goal and 3-point percentages, he’s still an efficient player, with a 14.3 PER.[v] For some reason, he’s labeled as a point guard in all the NBA statistical databases, which is odd, because he’s rarely the primary ballhandler on the floor; almost all his minutes come with Barea or Ridnour on the court with him. If he were labeled as a shooting guard, that 14.3 PER would be good for 23^rd in the league, ahead of big money guys like Joe Johnson ($19.7 million salary) and Andre Iguodala ($14.7 million). He’s about on par with J.J. Redick ($6 million) and Jason Terry ($5 million) in that category.

I’m not saying he’s as good as those four guys, but if he’s in the conversation with them, and for half the cost, it’s pretty clear the Wolves found a diamond in the rough when they snagged him out of Mother Russia. If you insist on calling him a point guard, his efficiency looks a little worse, but is still higher than Ty Lawson, Devin Harris and some guy named Jeremy Lin – and again, Shved makes significantly less money than all of them.

What remains to be seen is how Shved meshes with Ricky Rubio when he returns. Malcolm Lee has abysmal as the starting shooting guard, and should see a significant decline in minutes once the Spanish prodigy is cleared to play. But time will tell how Adelman distributes the minutes in a crowded backcourt, with Shved, Barea and Ridnour all viable options at the guard spots.

The potential lineup that really excites many Wolves fans – most of all, me – is Rubio, Shved, Kirilenko, Love and Nikola Pekovic. It would be fun to see players with the passing skill sets they possess take the floor at the same time – the unselfish ball movement, playing within Adelman’s offensive system, would be a sight to behold.

Will Adelman agree with our premise? Would that lineup even be successful? Hopefully, we start to get some answers on Wednesday night.

 

BreakTheHuddle is a fan of the Twins, Timberwolves and the 13-time World Champion Green Bay Packers. Reach him at BreakTheHuddle@gmail.com, @BreakTheHuddle on Twitter or leave a comment below!

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[i] http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Alexey-Shved-1097/

[ii] Personal correspondence via Twitter. Jerry Zgoda is a must-follow for Wolves fans – he’s engaging, pleasant and sticks strictly to Wolves-related business.

[iii] Also in the Draft Express article referenced in footnote 1.

[iv] As of December 3^rd, Shved had played in 86% of the team’s 4^th quarter minutes, per 82games.com.

[v] PER stands for “Player Efficiency Rating”, a statistic developed by ESPN’s John Hollinger that is a little like WAR in baseball. There’s an explanation here: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics

BTH Preview: Game 1, Sacramento Kings

I pay homage to Timberwolves blogger Tim Allen, who passed away in August, by emulating one of his timeless “game preview” pieces.[i]

@BreakTheHuddle

Pictured: Tim Allen, aka @TimAllenOnline, Timberwolves blogger. His writing style, entertaining, informative and full of wisecracks, is one I make every effort to emulate.

I didn’t know Tim Allen. At least, not in a personal sense.

I knew of him, knew the Twitter handle (@TimAllenOnline), knew he was snarky, knew the intelligence, knew he had correspondence with other amateur bloggers, overwhelmingly positive, encouraging and sincere. But I never wrote anything to him, never knew what he did for a living, and I never knew his anguish. On August 7^th, 2012, hours after tweeting about a USA-Argentina Olympic basketball game, six days after his final post, Tim Allen took his own life.

I learned about him after the fact. I learned about him digitally – first through the anguish of people I follow on Twitter, people who knew him, people who couldn’t believe what had happened. Amateur sports blogging is an insular community – if you’re serious about getting what you write to the public, familiar names and faces will pop up. As a guy interested in writing about the Wolves, Tim Allen kept popping up – and now he was gone. People said he was funny, sharp and kind. A very talented writer. A brother, son and friend.

All those things are human connections, and I wouldn’t have any of that with Tim. My connection with the man is all through the internet, via screens and mobile devices. See, once he passed away, I started reading some of what he wrote – he was the co-manager of the popular Timberwolves blog Canis Hoopus – and that’s when the bond started to form.

He was a much better writer than I am – no question about that – but there was something familiar about the way he wrote. The way his brain worked, the non-sequitors, the faux-homer-ism, the painstaking attention to detail and statistics – all of it was something I try to employ in my own writing. I slowly felt as though I knew the guy, in a tiny way, knew his sense of humor, his way of seeing things. He loved hoops. He loved to play with the form and structure of writing posts. He loved being a smartass.

Forgive me if you knew him and my assumptions are way off the mark, but reading his exhaustive body of work left those impressions upon me. I admire the talent and devotion he had for writing, above all else. I am sorry to all those who lost someone they knew on a deeper level than my distant, electronic admiration.

So in honor of Tim, and because the Timberwolves begin their 2012-13 season tonight, full of promise, here is my Game 1 preview, shamelessly, earnestly imitating Tim Allen.

My first suggestion to the Wolves: fewer ‘Muskies’ throwback nights, and more ‘Early 90s’ throwback nights.

Game 1: Minnesota Timberwolves (0-0) versus Sacramento Kings (0-1) at Target Center

It’s true that some of the excitement for the Wolves’ season opener has been tempered by the fact that stars Ricky Rubio (torn ACL) and Kevin Love (broken hand) will not be in the lineup for the game. Rubio’s injury (it happened last March)has had plenty of time to sink in, and fans weren’t expecting him back until January anyway. But Love’s freak incident (which occurred while he did bare-knuckle pushups) threw a wet blanket on the anticipation for the 2012-13 campaign.

Despite the injuries to the team’s two most important players, there’s still plenty to be excited about. The roster has been upgraded, and for the first time, there is an expectation for the Wolves to contend, despite the fact they’ll have to weather the storm for awhile until Love and Rubio are healthy. If the veteran-laden team can weather the storm, there should be a playoff run to look forward to in March and April.

The Kings opened their season Wednesday night with a loss against the Derrick Rose-less Bulls at the United Center in Chicago. Tyreke Evans scored 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting, a surprisingly efficient night for the enigmatic guard. As a team, the Kings tallied 14 assists on 34 offensive field goal – they broke down into one on ones far too often, eschewing ball movement for isolation plays. The Bulls won despite the fact that Nate Robinson gets meaningful minutes for them (20 in the opener). It’s going to be a long season in Sacramento.

Let’s break down the matchups for the Wolves’ season opener:

The dude with the best tattoo in the NBA could have one of 2012’s biggest breakout seasons.

C: Nikola Pekovic vs DeMarcus Cousins

Remember last year, when Darko Milicic opened the season as Minnesota’s starting center? Wasn’t that hilarious? Well this year, the starting big man is Nikola Pekovic, who surprised everybody by making a quantum leap his second season in the league. His per/36 minute averages: 18.5/9.9/0.9, shooting 56% from the field and 74% from the line. He showed up to camp trim, fit and ready to go. Translation: a breakout season awaits him.

DeMarcus Cousins is a crazy person. At the tender age of 22, he has already got a coach’s blood on his hands (figuratively, of course. He didn’t murder Paul Westphal. Yet.) He’s got immense talent, averaging a double-double (18.1/10.9/1.6) on 44.8% shooting a season ago. At 6’11, 270 pounds, he is about as gifted athletically as they come; problem is, he’s a lunatic. And don’t even suggest this “lunacy” talk is all just latent jealousy over the fact that the Wolves took the affable, though terrible, Wes Johnson ahead of him in the 2010 NBA Draft. Don’t. Even. Suggest it.

Winner: Pekovic

If he can be 75% of what he once was, and keep his hair a defensible length and style, Kirilenko’s signing will look like a steal.

PF: Andrei Kirilenko vs Jason Thompson

AK-47 makes his triumphant return to the NBA following a year playing for a pro team in Moscow. While he won’t be the guy who averaged 17 points, 7 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2 steals and 3.6 blocks as a 23-year-old way back in 2004-05, he will still be a nice role player, filling up the stat sheet at power forward in Kevin Love’s absence.

Jason Thompson sucks. I’ve never even heard of him. Ha, I am kidding, I’ll tell you something about him. I won’t just leave it at “he sucks”, I’ll give you a reason for it. His per/36 minute averages have been stagnant or declining every year he’s been in the league. This is the start of his fifth season, and the Kings drafted a guy at his position (Thomas Robinson) fifth overall. Writing’s on the wall, Jason. Update your resume.

Winner: Kirilenko

SF: Chase Budinger vs James Johnson

Remember a paragraph ago when I said Jason Thompson’s numbers were “stagnant”? It would be a mistake to look at Budinger’s per/36 history and call those statistics “stagnant.” I prefer “consistent.” As a guy familiar with Rick Adelman’s system (he played for Adelman for two years in Houston) he’ll know what to expect, and play well within the offense. His 3-point percentage soared from 32.5% to 40.2%, more than 5 points ahead of league average.

James Johnson sucks. He’s sort of like Jason Thompson – I mean, who needs ‘em, right? Just another dude with a nondescript name on a stupidly constructed team from the most boring city in the NBA. The Googles tell me he’s a small forward who doesn’t shoot threes well (30% career) and was below average in Win Shares per 48 minutes in 2011-12. What does that mean? He’s not as good as Chase Budinger, that’s what it means.

Winner: Budinger

SG: Brandon Roy vs Tyreke Evans

Roy will get the start, and despite the fact that he “retired” before last season because he had zero cartilage left in his knees, Rick Adelman plans on playing him 30-32 minutes per night. His health will be a key component to the Wolves’ season.

Tyreke Evans is a freakish athlete without a position. Is he a point guard? His rookie season suggests, “no.” Is he a shooting guard? That’s probably right, although he doesn’t play well enough without the ball in his hands to be effective. Is he a small forward? His size (6’6) and shooting ability (20.2% from deep in 2011-12) don’t translate to that position. So what is he? An enigma, much like DeMarcus Cousins. If you’re keeping track, the Kings are starting two super-athletic head cases and two nondescript nobodies.

Winner: Roy

Hopefully, Rubio took some tips from Adrian Peterson, who returned to prime physical form less than ten months after tearing his ACL. The physical similarities between the two guys begin and end right there.

PG: Luke Ridnour vs Isaiah Thomas

Ridnour performed well last year as the team’s starting point guard after the Rubio injury, averaging nearly 14 points and 7 assists in 11 games before going down with a season-ending ankle injury. He’s the perfect guy to perform as a stop-gap at the point – a consummate professional who understands his role, and will cede the starting spot once the Spanish Messiah’s knee allows him to play.

The only difference between THIS Isaiah Thomas and THAT Isiah Thomas is an extra letter ‘a’, as well as nine playoff appearances, two NBA championships, twelve All-Star appearances, two assist titles, two head coaching gigs, one accidental overdose of Lunesta, one submarined basketball franchise (the Knicks), one torpedoed basketball league (the CBA) and one hilariously frightening sexual harassment lawsuit. Other than that, they’re exactly the same.

All kidding aside, THIS Isaiah Thomas went from being the final pick of the 2011 draft to a starter, posting averages of 11 points and 4 assists to go along with 37.9% shooting from 3-point range. It seems like he was an overlooked steal of the draft; it’s too bad he’s been punished by playing for a team with so many ‘me-first’ scorers (Evans, Marcus Thornton, Aaron Brooks, Jimmer Fredette, Francisco Garcia). We might not find out how good Thomas can actually be as a distributor for a long, long time.

Winner: Ridnour

Oh, lest I forget, there’s also a ruined college hoops program in THAT Isiah’s path of destruction.

MY PREDICTION:

Minnesota Timberwolves 111, Sacramento Kings 87

Timberwolves record: 1-0

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BreakTheHuddle is a fan of the Twins, Timberwolves and the 13-time World Champion Green Bay Packers. Reach him at BreakTheHuddle@gmail.com, @BreakTheHuddle on Twitter or leave a comment below!

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[i] Here are some of my favorites:

http://www.canishoopus.com/2011/12/26/2662187/tims-game-preview-game-1-oklahoma-city-thunder

http://www.canishoopus.com/2011/12/30/2670745/tims-game-preview-game-3-miami-heat

The way he uses pictures in this last one is pure, unquestioned genius. Amazing.

http://www.canishoopus.com/2012/2/17/2806934/tims-game-preview-game-31-houston-rockets

Diversity Quotient

Is the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Roster “Too White”?

@BreakTheHuddle

Russians Andrei Kirilenko (left) and Alexey Shved are newcomers to the Wolves, but instead of thinking of them as diverse assets to the team, some would like you to look at them and see nothing but two more white boys. Personally, all I see are two guys with above-average hair.

The Sunday morning sports section of the Minneapolis Star Tribune featured a report about the state of the Minnesota Timberwolves roster. It didn’t suggest the team make a trade, nor did it cite the team’s failure to land a marquee shooting guard in the offseason, and it didn’t once mention Ricky Rubio’s rehabilitation from a torn ACL last March. Sure, those might seem like pertinent storylines, but this article was following something else: the whiteness of Minnesota’s NBA team.

The article stated that the current incarnation of the Timberwolves’ franchise is the NBA’s “whitest” since the Celtics of the 1980s. Only 33% of Minnesota’s roster is black, which pales (PUN!) in comparison to 78%, which was the percentage of African-American athletes in the NBA in 2011-12.[i]

While those figures are interesting on a purely superficial level, and fair game for light-hearted wise cracks, no one actually thinks there’s something racist going on in the Wolves’ front offices, right? Rick Adelman, who makes most of the personnel decisions these days, is entering his 22^nd season as an NBA head coach; you think if he had an issue with black players, it would’ve surfaced by now. Team president David Kahn, also part of the Wolves’ brain trust, is in the last year of his contract, and needs desperately to produce a winner this season in order to continue his employment. Can anyone possibly believe a man in his business, and in his position, would jeopardize his future over race?

Apparently, some people do. The authors of newspaper story, Jerry Zgoda and Dennis Brackin, interviewed two Twin Cities “black leaders” (their words, not mine) on the subject. Here is part of what they had to say:

“I think, personally, that it was calculated. Is this an attempt to get fans back in the stands? Minnesota, after all, is a pretty white state…” (The white-dominated roster is a) “nullification of diversity and a reversal of history.” – Ron Edwards, Minneapolis civil rights advocate

“How did we get a roster that resembles the 1955 Lakers? I think everything is a strategy. Nothing happens by happenstance.” – Tyrone Terrell, President, St. Paul African-American Leadership Council

Oy, vey.

Apparently, those of us who took diversity to mean “the condition of having or being composed of differing elements… The inclusion of different types of people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization” were all wrong, according to Edwards and Terrell. Diversity is a black and white topic – so a roster featuring two Russians (Alexey Shved, Andrei Kirilenko), a Puerto Rican (J.J. Barea), a Spaniard (Ricky Rubio) and a dude from Montenegro (Nikoa Pekovic) – as well as five American-born black players – doesn’t qualify as being ‘diverse’.

Kevin Love,  a white superstar, is a rarity in the NBA. If he were black, would we be having this discussion?

Not only are those quotes ignorant of the meaning of the word ‘diversity’, they’re also ignorant of Minnesota basketball history, as well as insulting towards the people of this state. The Wolves were never more popular than they were in 2003-04, when they advanced all the way to the Western Conference Finals. The nucleus of that team? Kevin Garnett, Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell – all black dudes, and none of us backwoods hillbillies cared, because they were good.

I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist, nor am I saying that civil rights advocates and African-American leadership groups aren’t important – but I am saying that these two gentlemen are ignorant of reality. Ignorance offends me just as much as racism itself – and their assumption that I, as a Minnesotan, would be more likely to root for a white basketball team just because I am white is a racist thing to assume.

Know what I want to root for? A winner – just like everybody else in Minnesota! Know who the guys on the roster want to play with? Other guys who can play! And as far as the diversity thing is concerned – let’s say someone hears Nikola Pekovic is from Montenegro, gets curious, looks it up on the internet, and accidentally learns a thing or two about Balkan politics, the dissolution of Soviet Union and the rich basketball history of that country. What more can you hope for from diversity besides that?

As Dante Cunningham was quoted as saying near the end of the article:

“There’s just as many athletic white guys on this team as there are black guys who are athletic. It’s no big deal. We’re here to play ball, so regardless of whether we’re white or black or yellow or purple, we’re going to go out and play.”

Veteran newcomer Brandon Roy had this to say:

“It’s just basketball. I never really had to feel like I’m the only black guy out here. I’ve played on teams that maybe had all black guys and the feeling is just the same when I’m out there on the floor playing with these guys.”

If the players on floor don’t seem to mind the racial element, and are committed to each other and providing us a winner, why should we, the fans, care what they look like? Fact is, most of us don’t. We just want a playoff basketball team, no matter how it appears.

 

BreakTheHuddle is a fan of the Twins, Timberwolves and the 13-time World Champion Green Bay Packers. Reach him at BreakTheHuddle@gmail.com, @BreakTheHuddle on Twitter or leave a comment below!

 

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[i] That terrible “pale” pun was also the basis of the article’s headline. It was an embarrassment for the paper, as well as one of my favorite writers, Jerry Zgoda. You can read it for yourself here: http://m.startribune.com/?id=176071391