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!