I Think I'm Going to Boston ...

... to see KG and the Celtics. Well, not quite. I am departing to Boston tomorrow for a few days, but it turns out I won't be going to a Celtics game. My original thoughts were that it would be a great opportunity to see a good basketball team for a change while seeing KG in person one more time. It turns out that Generic Corporate Name Arena #237 is officially sold out and the nosebleed seats on Stubhub are going for $60 a piece when I'm in town. Couple that with the possibility that KG may not play due to a lingering injury and it is simply way too much dough to spend on a team that ultimately does not hold much interest for me. Maybe I'll just catch their local broadcast after my daughter zonks out for the night.

The Wolves did get a little lotto help last night with a Memphis victory. I personally think there's about a 90% chance the Wolves end up with the 5th or 6th most chances given the remaining schedules of the Wolves and the other bottom feeders. However, I still hope Memphis and OKC play some downright mediocre basketball and give the Wolves the 4th most chances.

I'm expecting the lotto standings to be a little more solid by the time I get back next week. Maybe then it will be a little less pointless to speculate on draft prospects.

Fan Apathy Level

The Wolves lost again yesterday, and I'm sure very few people cared. As is often the case with the consistently putrid performance of the Wolves in the front office and on the court, there are two ways that the fans will react. They will either get angry or become apathetic.

Getting angry is the preferred outcome. An angry fan still cares about his team. An angry fan may go to fewer games, but that fan will still follow the team, vent on message boards, and check out team blogs to share their pain with others. The angry fan may even contact someone employed by the franchise in an effort to let them know how bad they are screwing things up.

No team wants angry fans, but it is better than the alternative: apathetic fans. The apathetic fans are the ones who have lost hope. This is the difference between the two kinds of fans. After a tough stretch for a franchise, a fan that lost his hope for a better team will be much harder to win back. The angry fan will feel rewarded for sticking with the franchise through dire straits, but the apathetic fan will tell themselves, "That franchise had their chance with me." The team has failed that fan's trust and will rarely earn it back.

So, what is the apathy level amongst Wolves fans? Well, let's see. This Timberwolves basketball blog has noticed fewer people care. The 600 Project points out how cheap Wolves tickets are on Ebay. Cheap tickets mean people don't want to go to games, and that means people don't care. And then you have all the Wolves blogs out there that haven't been updated in months.

It looks like the apathy level is very high.

At Least the Lottery Position Improved

I tuned into yesterday's game against OKC expecting to see a close game. That thought was based on the 42 point blowout in the Wolves favor the last time these teams played combined with the loss of Al Jefferson. Of course, that also assumed the Wolves would show up to play for most of the game.

Unfortunately, no one other than Craig Smith showed an interest in playing until the 4th quarter. The only reason the final scored looked respectable was the fact that OKC got tired of beating down the Wolves after three quarters.

A game like that just makes a guy wish the season would just end. At this point, I don't believe there is much to build on. There will be no momentum building for next year unless they have something like a 9-3 finish. Most of the young players have had plenty of time to show what they can or cannot do. The final 12 games will not do much to sway the opinions of the team's talent evaluators. There isn't even the benefit of getting the youngsters more playing time with Big Al to get comfortable with each other. No, the only thing left in this season to determine how many lottery chances the Wolves have this year so we fans can look forward to the future (yet again).

Speaking of lottery chances, if you ignore ugliness of yesterday's game, the loss was very good for the Wolves. It puts them into a tie with OKC for the 5th most chances. A win would have put them two games ahead of OKC in the standings. I think that would have pretty much cemented the Wolves into the number 6 slot as it would be tough for OKC to make up two games with only 12 to play. There is now a very good shot at landing the 5th most chances while there is still a remote chance of moving to the 3rd or 4th best shot at winning the lottery. Let's go ping pong balls!

Introduction

Welcome to Talking Timberwolves. This blog is a place to share my thoughts on whatever is going on with the Minnesota Timberwolves. There will some praising, some ranting, and a lot of thoughts somewhere in between. (Unfortunately, things will probably come closer to the ranting end of the spectrum for some time given the current state of the franchise.) I hope that other fans will stumble upon this blog and provide their thoughts so we can share in the trials and tribulations of following our Wolves.

Here's a little background on me. I've been a Timberwolves fan since the day they announced Minnesota was getting a franchise. I've followed them through the many, many bad years and through the couple of good years. The Twin Cities area has been my home for the past 8 years and I've been to many Timberwolves games in that time. I've never broken down and purchased season tickets but I think about it every year. (More on this in a future post.) Most posts will stay on topic with the Timberwolves, but I may occasionally touch on a different topic from time to time.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to share your comments.