What to do with Derrick Williams? MiniGophers-Illinois Preview

 Standings - Northwest Division

Teams	W	L	Pct	GB	L10	Stk
MIN	3	1	.750	-	3-1	W2
OKC	2	2	.500	1.0	2-2	W1
POR	2	2	.500	1.0	2-2	L1
DEN	2	3	.400	1.5	2-3	W2
UTA	2	3	.400	1.5	2-3	W1

Shved's new haircut = speed.

Our Wolves are winning early in the year with a combination of solid defense, timely runs and the benefit of playing mostly crappy teams.  While Orlando, Brooklyn, Toronto and Sacramento isn't a murderers row, there are 8 new Timberwolves playing significant minutes that were not on the team last year.  This is a testament to how well Rick Adelman can coach.  I've seen a dozen different lineups, often with 5 non-starters in together;  and yet they still play solid basketball.  The one thing that has gotten out of hand at times is the turnovers.  For some, like Shved, I'll chalk it up to nerves and for others I'll chalk it up to growing pains as they learn the offense and each other.  Shved can play, by the way.  Another nice scoop up for our guy KAHN.

Some tough games are on the horizon:  Friday vs Indiana, Saturday @Chicago and Monday @Dallas.  They could easily drop all three of those games against 3 likely playoff-bound squads. In fact, over the next 15 games only 5 look like cupcakes.  My hope was and remains that we are no worse than a few games under .500 by the time Love returns and the smashing begins.

So the real point of this blog is what do we do with Derrick Williams.  Williams was a much-hyped #2 overall pick that is now entering his second year after a lackluster rookie season.  As I speculated in my old blog he doesn't have the quickness/athleticism/whatever to play a lot of minutes at the 3.  (I wanted Enes Kanter, the jury is still out there as well)  He's more suited to be a bit of a stretch four that is scrappy under the basket.  Andrei Kirilenko was clearly brought in because Williams didn't cut it in his first season and now he has an uphill battle for big minutes.  The Kevin Love rawr knuckle-pushups! injury has opened about a month of games where he can get minutes and show that he deserves some serious rotation time with this team.  So far what has happened is he's had one good game (his last one) and a bunch of duds.  In fact, toolsy everyman Dante Cunningham has played more down the stretch and has looked the smarter (for sure) and better player.

Williams is clearly pressing and forcing the issue now, which is bad.  He knows he has to make an impression and he has the pee pants because of it.  As I've mentioned before, Kahn seems unafraid to have a quick hook for player that don't contribute even if they were a Kahn draft pick.  Is there a team that would want Williams for much at this point?  He's still just 21 years old.  Or is it better, to sit on him and wait.  The unthinkable could happen and Love could bolt...and Kirilenko has just a two year deal and is no spring chicken.  And I don't expect Dante Cunningham to continue to be Scottie Pippen. 

Poor Chekov

Let's say he's meh for the month Love is out.  Then Adelman is likely to go with "the hot hand" between D-Will and Dante Pippen for spare forward minutes.  I also think it's likely Kahn starts working the phone and putting alien insects in Chekov's ear canal.  In my opinion, the best they could do at this point is maybe a borderline lottery pick and maybe a solid veteran to a rebuilding squad.  You might be yelling at me that he was the #2 pick and that he's worth more, but so far he hasn't shown it.  And it's certainly possible to play the wait and see game with D-Will, but the longer we wait the bigger chance that were stuck with him/nothing. 

Teams/Deals that might be of interest:

Atlanta Hawks - Josh Smith could be out the door after this season, so the Hawks might look to add someone to fill that gap.  The Wolves likely wouldn't get Smith in a deal as he'll be a max guy and is unlikely to sign with MN.  However, they could be a partner in a 3 team deal and possibly get back a protected first round pick and one of Atlanta's 3 point chuckers:  Kyle Korver, Anthony Morrow or John Jenkins.  I like Jenkins a lot, but he was their #23 pick, so it may be a tough row to hoe...unless perhaps a guy like Barea or Ridnour goes to ATL as well.  Hey, they have some value, right?  Maybe?

Indiana Pacers - Similarly, the Pacers are on the last year of a deal with David West, who is making $10MM.  Although he's pretty good, he's older and not worth a huge new contract, imo.  They do have Hansbrough and rookie Miles Plumlee though, so perhaps they wouldn't be interested.  Lance Stephenson is a physical 2 that I like...so I'd try for him and a first round pick.

Oklahoma City Thunder - Just kidding, there's no room there.  How crazy is it that they have Jeremy Lamb and Perry Jones III waiting in the wings?  I still don't like losing Harden, but they sure can reload.

Orlando Magic - The Magic have a ton of picks following the D12 deal.  How about one of the picks and JJ Redick who expires after this year.  Keep the white-out going?  Glen Davis looks solid there, but D-Will would definitely get a chance at serious minutes.

Philly 76ers - Are they ready to give up on Evan Turner?  Do we even want Evan Turner?  I like Thad Young too, but not for 9MM over the next 4 years.  I'd take Dorell Wright and a pick too I think.

That's about all I got.  It's not pretty.  I don't see a lot of teams with room to take the gamble on giving Williams a lot of minutes, including the Wolves.  We may be stuck with him, so let's hope he has a huge month!  *sealbarks*

Your reward for making it to the end.

Mini-Preview of Gophers/Illininininini

Illinois is terrible.  Like a diaper dumpster fire terrible.  They have no wins in conference play, but the Gophers have just the lone Purdue ass-stomping.  All of our white speed receivers are out for the game it sounds like. (Engel, Barker)  Gray is still gimpy too.  So it might be B-Green, Rabe, Lncln Plsk and who knows who else? 

That being said, they still should win.  Illinois can't stop anyone and Phil-dawg is damn near a veteran footballer at this point.  He'll probably run it 150 times and the Gophers will win 12-7. 

Minnesota Timberwolves 2012-2013 Preview

Ricky Rehabbing Knee

So, I had planned on doing a little blurb about every team in the NBA leading up to a grand Timberwolves finale today.  I made it through the Eastern Conference and I'm freaking exhausted.  So, today I'm doing the Wolves season preview as planned, and maybe I'll haiku the crap out of the rest of the conference early next week.

Chance for the playoffs
Hangs in the balance by just
a few knee tendons

If I knew how to photoshop, I'd draw a face on that mole.

Say what you will about KAHN, he's certainly had his ups and downs as the GM for the Timberwolves.  One thing that continues to be a theme though is if you can't play, you're out.  Even if he drafted you and thought very highly of you (Flynn>hi) - he doesn't keep you around long if you don't perform.  Another thing that is fairly easy to see is how the Wolves have gained depth under the KAHN regime. Remember when guys like Rashad McCants, Sebastien Telfair and Craig Smith were playing major minutes?

Also, I don't know how he did it, but getting Rick Adelman was a stroke of luck/genius.  It could be as simple as Kevin Love's connection to him, but man, he is one good NBA coach.  I'm sure all of the money helps too.

Let's break down our 2012-13 Timberwolves by position.

Point Guard - There is no doubt that Ricky Rubio was a sensation in 2011...right up until the horrible knee injury that resulted in a torn ACL and LCL.  Watching that poor dude roll on the ground was pretty sad.  Seeing him now as he prepares to return (mid-December is the latest projection), he appears to be in high spirits and ready to roll.  Rubio probably won't be going for 35mpg like he did last season, rather they'll work him back slowly, so I wouldn't expect a big jump from the 10 points and 8 assists he had last year.  He truly is a player that everyone on the court better and I can't wait for him to get back.  In the meantime, Luke Ridnour and JJ Barea are more than capable backup point guards.  Ridnour (12ppg, 4.8apg) signed a 4 year, $16MM deal in 2010 that was panned by most, but he's been a solid player.  Look for the 32.2% he shot from 3 point range to jump back up to the 37-38% range.  Barea (11ppg) was banged up a lot last year, but I like his aggressive play style and he'll chip in as well.

Shooting Guard - Brandon Roy is back!  You may remember the Timberwolves briefly had his rights before we pissed them away for Randy Foye and $1MM cash money.  Roy went overseas and had super secret wolverine type procedures to repair his knees with adamantium.  He'll be playing 30+ minutes right off the bat, so we'll see how he holds up I guess.  I'm hopeful and with the injuries I can see Roy being a 17-18+ppg game until Love and Rubio return.  This guy can score and can finish games, and if he's 90% of his formal self we have a legit 2-guard.  Alexey Shved was a sneaky signing from Russia and I and many other internet knobs have compared his game to Rubio's.  It's true in that he's an excellent ball handler, he's all over on the court, he runs the floor.  It's different in that he's bigger (6'7") and he's a better shooter.  He may not play much early as Ridnour and Barea may see time at the shooting guard as well, but I see him playing more as the year progress.  Malcolm Lee is a second round pick from UCLA that is in his second year with the Wolves.  He's considered a pretty good defender and by most accounts is work hard to improve his all-around game.  I don't see him playing a lot unless they're even further decimated by injuries at this point.

Small Forward - The Wolves landed another Russian import and former all-star in Andrei Kirilenko.  One thing previous Wolves' teams have lacked is a lock-down type defender.  Kirlienko can be that guy.  He's big enough to play the small or power forward position and he's very nifty inside.  He moves well without the ball and runs the floor on the break.  He even shoots a decent percentage from the 3 (35.7%) over his career.  He's also average more than a block and a steal per game through his career.  He doesn't need to be a focal point of an offense to be effective, which is extremely useful.  Chase Budinger was also added this year when the Wolves traded their #18 pick to Houston for him.  Kevin McHale satisfied his man-crush for Royce White with that pick and the headaches have already begun. (maddencruiser)  Budinger is a good offensive player; he's athletic, he runs well and can shoot it.  Dante Cunningham was obtained in a trade to Memphis for Wayne Ellington.  Cunningham is a physical player that is known for his defense and rebounding skills.  

Power Forward - Kevin Love, work-out machine, busted his hand doing kick ass high intensity knuckle pushups and will be out until at least late November. We'll also see plenty of Derrick Williams this year and he'll start in Love's absence.  He had a couple of big pre-season games and he really needs to show something early in the year.  He had surgery on his nose of all things in the off-season to improve his breathing which apparently will allow him to work out more and just get along better in general basketball-wise.  I wouldn't be surprised if Kahn shops Williams this year as there is kind of a logjam at SF/PF, but I doubt he'd give up Williams for peanuts, but it's definitely time to put up or shut up.  Louis Amundson is a warm body at the PF position that can't shoot and is kind of a long-haired Mark Madson.

Center - Nikola Pekovic, who I've always been a fan of because I think he's probably buried a couple of bodies in Montenegro, had a big breakout last season.  He's leaner and even meaner this year and I expect big things.  In fact, Pek and Roy will likely be the main options early in the year.  Like Love, Pekovic is a monster on the offensive glass. He averaged 14 points and 7.4 rebounds last year, but that doesn't reflect how great he was when his minutes picked up.  Greg Stiemsma was brought in from the Boston Celtics and is taking a break from his acting career in the Hellboy movies.  He brings a strong defensive presence as well (recognize a theme, we have some defenders!).  

So, there you have it, a quick recap of the roster.  There's a lot to be hopeful for even with the injuries.  As long as Roy doesn't break and Rubio and Love return in December, we're going to watch some playoff basketball come spring. 

Monday Musings

-  I was actually intending to make this a report on the Gopher hoops recruiting so far for 2013, but it turns out there's pretty much nothing to report.  There are still zero commitments, which I knew, but the list of names is really underwhelming, if you believe the recruiting services.  According to ESPN the Gophers have nine offers out, but the highest ranking ESPN gives any of the players who they say have received one is an 79.  To put that in perspective, 2012 signee Wally Ellenson is a 90, and Oto Osenieks was an 87 as was Justin Cobbs.  Which means that according to ESPN Tubby is currently looking to get guys who are at the same level of Dan Monson type recruits.  Now, these recruiting gurus aren't always right because they had both Al Nolen and Devoe Joseph ranked in the 70s and they turned into contributors at the very least, but still it's not exactly an exciting list.

Rivals has it a bit different with the Gophers having extended 18 offers, and there are two players of interest who they give a rank of 4 stars who remained uncommitted:  G Juwan Parker (#94 overall) and G Xavier Rathan-Mayes (#66).  Of course, Parker has already narrowed his list to Memphis, Georgia, or Stanford and Mayes has teams like Kansas, Texas, Arizona, Memphis, and NC State after him so the odds on the Gophers are pretty negligible.  I'll stay more in the loop when things pick up, but man there's is just nothing to report right now.  A couple of names of interest are G Martez Walker and F Nick Fuller who are both lefties and shooters (Walker is a guard, Fuller a small foward) who ESPN lists as "considering" the Gophers, however neither site lists the Gophers as having made an offer to either of them so I don't know.  In short, there's nothing happening and that's super uplifting and makes me really, really happy for the future of the team.

-  So the NBA Draft happened without the Wolves involvement.  I actually watched the entire first round and was typing up a live blog type of deal but then I got behind and then I realized I was writing a paragraph for each pick and that was way too many words to read or type and also I got bored so I quit.  A few quick NBA thoughts, however:

• Outside of the top 3 picks, who were the right guys and right situations I thought, the pick of the draft was pretty clearly Perry Jones to the Thunder at #28.  Once again, OKC proves their front office is better than most.  Let's see, Jones was a top-3 pick if he came out last year, had a so-so sophomore season at Baylor where he shrunk from the pressure in big games, but was still expected in the late lottery and then slides to the end of the first due to a knee injury?  When nobody really knows how serious it is?  I get that if you had a lottery pick you'd rather not roll the dice here, but Fab Melo?  John Jenkins?  Miles fucking Plumlee?  It's ludicrous to me that someone would rather have those guys with almost zero upside than a guy like Jones.  Plus, Jones probably needed one of two things out of the team drafting him to succeed - either an athletic team that likes to get up and down where he can use his athleticism to be a big-time asset in transition or a team with one or two established alpha stars so he wouldn't have to face the pressure of being a savior.  And guess what?  He got both.  And bless the Thunder for not being as dumb as everyone else and realizing it makes infinitely more sense to roll the dice that a big-time talent like Jones will be healthy than burning the pick on Festus Ezeli or Jae Crowder.  I mean seriously.
• Speaking of Jones, even though the Wolves would have had their pick of him, Jared Sullinger, or Terrence Jones if they had kept #18 I still think the trade for Budinger was the right call.  First, you probably couldn't have guessing any of those three would have been there at 18.  Second, they all have serious question marks where you know you're getting a decent scorer who can shoot in Budinger, and thirdly, they all play PF and Kevin Love is probably going to be pretty good for the next 3.5 years before he demands a trade and says he'd never sign another contract with Minnesota after the slapped him in the face by offering him a 4-year deal instead of a five.  So yeah, I like the pick-up.
• Hopefully the Wolves can get Batum as well.  He's a restricted free agent so Portland may match the 4 years and $50ish million the Wolves have offered, but the Blazers have also, ridiculously, offered a max contract to Roy Hibbert which I can't imagine the Pacers matching (especially since they just drafted his replacement in the awesome Miles Plumlee).  Batum, Love, and Rubio are a pretty solid foundation (Batum's only 23) for the next few years.  And Derrick Williams, if he ends up figuring it out.  And speaking of....
• I'm really not sure what to think of this Pau Gasol heat we're hearing.  I can see why the Wolves might want him.  Skilled big man who can play next to Love, excellent high post passer whose unselfish game will translate well with the kind of culture Rubio breeds just by playing with him, him and Ricky can get tacos together or watch bullfighting on tv or whatever, which will only make Rubio more comfortable, which can only be a good thing.  I'm not really sure why they're so hot to move on from Derrick Williams already but if Rick Adelman is done with him that's good enough for me.  I have gotten a distinct whiff of "loses the necessary weight to play the 3 but turns himself into nothing but a 3-point specialist" at the same time.  It's either that or he figures out how to be an undersized 4, and I'm just not seeing it.  I guess I'm in favor of trading Williams and getting Gasol back.  I just think Gasol, Rubio, Batum, Love, Pekovic, Ridnour, Barea, and Budinger make this a really fun team, and now that I type that out I look like a racist.  Great.
• So since I'm on board with getting Gasol and trading Williams, and Dwight Howard has managed to completely destroy his own image in Orlando, and the Nets just traded for Joe Johnson and his ridiculous contract, resigned Gerald Wallace, and want to resign Deron Williams so they're probably not in the Howard discussion anymore, tell me how much this makes sense:
• Wolves trade Derrick Williams, Luke Ridnour, Martell Webster, Brad Miller, and Wes Johnson and receive Pau Gasol and Jason Richardson
• Lakers trade Gasol and Andrew Bynum and get Dwight Howard, Martell Webster, and Luke Ridnour
• Magic trade Howard and Richardson and receive Derrick Williams, Wes Johnson, Brad Miller, and Andrew Bynum
• It works under the salary rules, and everybody gets what they want.  The Wolves get Gasol and a veteran shooting guard they could certainly use in Richardson.  He isn't the athlete he once was but he still averaged 12 points per game and shot 37% from three last year and could take over for Wes Johnson's minutes, especially with Barea playing more point with Ridnour gone.  The Lakers get Howard, who they covet, but also pick up Ridnour to play the point - a major weakness for them this past season.  They also get Webster, who can give them some bench scoring which is another issue for them.  And the Magic get two great pieces to build around in Williams and Bynum, as well as a young guard in Johnson and cap relief in Miller.  It's not perfect - Richardson's contract sucks for the Wolves and the Lakers are maybe giving up a tad too much in both Bynum and Gasol, but I really think this trade makes good sense for all three parties (if you're on the Gasol train).  Really, it's pretty much a genius idea by me.  
• Back to the draft quick, I thought their were two really poor moves - one in the lottery and one late.  The Meyers Leonard pick baffles me because I never thought he'd be a first round pick let alone a top 10 guy, or at least not after last season.  He's athletic for a 7-footer and can shoot free throws, but Tyler Zeller is a rich man's version of Leonard and John Henson is basically guaranteed to be a rotation player at worst because of his defense.  Both were available, and either would have been a better pick than Leonard.  The other move was the Heat trading Arnett Moultrie.  A defensive and rebounding specialist who led the SEC in rebounding last year and was 9th in the country, and despite averaging a double-double last year he wasn't remotely an offensive player.  He could patrol the paint for the Heat and grab rebounds and block a few shots and score off put-backs every once in a while.  He was perfect for that team, yet they traded him to Philly for Justin Hamilton, a poor man's Arnett Moultrie.  They got a future first as well, but dude was a perfect fit.  Reminds me a lot of when the Wolves traded Mario Chalmers even though they desperately needed a PG.  Buncha clown shoes running' teams these days.
• I should also mention Tony Wroten to the Grizz is a really nice pick that late in the draft (at #25).  Odds are he flames out, as most late firsts do, but he has a whole lot of potential and is a sick athlete.  He had some troubling numbers in college, namely 58% free-throw shooting, 16% 3-point shooting, and 3.8 turnovers per game, but if you watched him play at all it was clear he had an NBA body with NBA athleticism and just couldn't harness himself within the college game (which is why Circus Ball U was a perfect fit for him).  That certainly doesn't guarantee NBA success as Corey Benjamin, DerMarr Johnson, and Jerome Moiso could tell you, but it's better than taking Miles fucking Plumlee.
• Keep an eye on the Hawks right now.  They just dumped Joe Johnson's contract to the Nets and then followed that up by sending Marvin Williams and his awful contract to Utah for Devin Harris.  Johnson is owed something like $100 million over the next four years (I'm not exaggerating) while Marvin is owed $16 million over the next two.  Atlanta suddenly has a ton of cap space, is Dwight Howard's home town, still have Josh Smith (good friend of Howard's) and just acquired Anthony Morrow (another Howard buddy) in the Johnson deal.  So they'll have tons of cap space plus retained some tradeable assets (Al Horford, Jeff Teague), two interesting rookies (John Jenkins, Mike Scott), and picked up a future first rounder (protected) in the Johnson trade.  Suddenly a Howard and Chris Paul pairing is a realistic possibility.  If Howard can wait it out and he and Paul sign you're looking at Paul/Morrow/Smith/Horford/Howard.  That's pretty whoa.

- That was certainly a lot of words about NBA things.  I certainly didn't see that coming.

Tuesday's Talkings (mostly nba draft stuff)

Thanks to stupid softball I won't be able to watch the draft live (although I am tivo'ing with a hope for a live blog up by Monday) so I was going to do a mock draft.  Then I got about 7 picks into it and got really bored.  Instead of a whole mock, here are some things to watch for:

-  How the Wolves screw up the #2 pick in a 2-player draft.  Trade for Roy Hibbert?  Trade with Kevin Love for Pau Gasol?  Trade for Marcin Gortat?  Draft some foreign player?  Stay tuned, it's the most intriguing part of the draft.

-  Utah to trade the #3 pick.  This is a two player draft and the Jazz apparently can't come to a consensus on a player, so it makes sense for them to move backwards.  If they don't, look for them to take Kanter.

-  If they take Kanter, Toronto will start salivating at getting Knight at #5 since their current starting PG is Jose freaking Calderon.  I would also expect Cleveland to get a ton of calls from teams looking to get that #4 pick, knowing the Cavs won't take Knight when they just took Irving.   They aren't the T-Wolves for god's sake.

-  How far with Jonas Valanciunas slip?  I won't pretend to know anything about him, but he's supposed to be the best Euro this year (which, let's be honest, is a little like being the most honorable Lannister - or the least douchiest Blue Devil if you prefer your analogies less nerdy).  But Chad Ford has been reporting lately that there are some issues with his buyout from commiesylvania which may cause him to slip.  Personally I'm betting, if the pick isn't traded, that the Cavs take him in kind of a "we already have our sure thing in Irving, let's go for the home run" mode.  A move I'd applaud if I gave a crap about Cleveland.

-  Steals:  Kemba Walker (anybody who can carry a team the way he did can adjust his game to make it in the NBA), Tristan Thompson (already can rebound and play defense at an NBA level), Marshon Brooks (one of the best scorers in the draft), Kenneth Faried (will make an impact immediately), Tobias Harris (best chance at becoming an all-star someday out of the late 1st round types), and Trey Thompkins (just needs polish).

-  Busts:  Kawhi Leonard (way too tweenery, not enough skill to overcome it), Jan Vesesly (girls name), Jimmer Fredette (future And 1 all-star), Iman Shumpert (completely boggled that he's a mid-first round pick, basically a slower T.J. Ford), Nikola Vucevic (yes, let's take the slow, white, 7-footer - that always works out), and Demetri McCamey (wherever he's taken in the NBDL draft it will be too soon).

- My biggest hope for the Wolves - other than they just take Williams at #2 - is that they find a way to trade the #20 pick, either for a future #1, a veteran and not terrible C or SG, or both.  The one team I've seen mentioned a couple of times as looking for a pick in the 20s is the Cavaliers, and although they're pretty barren when it comes to SGs they do have a few big men who are probably expendable since they have a bunch of young guys they probably want to give an extensive tryout to - Antawn Jamison (yuck) and Anderson Varejao (I can see this).  I feel like Varejao's constantly running motor, fundamental hustle, and excellent defense would fit on this team very well, and on a team as young as the Wolves getting a guy like him might be worth the #20 pick since they don't really have room for any more mediocre young dudes.  I don't know how the whole salary thing works and I have no idea if the Cavs would have any interest in trading him, but I'd be down.  Assuming he's not hurt or something.  I don't pay nearly enough attention to the NBA to know everything.

-  Apropos of nothing I'm talking about, but you can never trust a pitcher with a stripper's name, eh Madison Bumgarner?

And a few college hoop notes before I go:

- The early scouting reports and some excellent video shot by gopherhole poster jmag21 are in, and it sounds like Oto Osenieks is going to rank on the white boy scale somewhere between Blake Hoffarber and Dirk Nowitzki.  There's no doubt that jumper is silky smooth and looks to be accurate so far, so even if he never learns to play defense or rebound he'll be pretty close to Blake, and at 6-8, 205 lbs. I'm not exactly expecting him to put on a rebounding clinic, but I'm officially intrigued.  My only real hope is that he isn't just some tall skinny white dork who hangs out around the three point line all day.   I mean, that might be fine during his freshman year, but he needs to progress and get better.  Since that's something Tubby has excelled at since his arrival here I feel good about Oto's chances.

- Speaking of white three-point shooters, Ricky Kreklow is transferring from Missouri.  There was at least some mutual interest there (like between me and your mom) when he was going through the recruiting process the first time.  I don't know if anybody has any interest on either side this time around, but the dude can shoot so I'm interested, and I'd like to go ahead and just throw his name out there so on the off chance he ends up a Gopher I can point out how smart I am.

- Lastly, if you thought it was going to be difficult for the Gophers to sign Tyus Jones things just got more difficult when Jones made the U-16 team as the starting point guard, which vaulted him to #1 PG in his class status, if he wasn't there already.  ESPN already ranks him the #1 PG for 2014 and the #9 recruit overall, and he's got Ohio State, North Carolina, Washington, UCLA, Pitt, and Michigan State after him, amongst others, although let's be honest it doesn't really matter - he can basically write his own ticket anywhere.  So why would he pick the Gophers?  I can't really come up with anything.  The best I can do is loyalty, but I think that really only extends to fans and dogs. 

We can only hope.and wait at this point.  Plus we have a saying around here, "Let Shelbyville handle it."

Weekend Review - 03.28.2011

 What a retardedly stupid nonsensical and awesome tournament this has been.  I can't remember ever having this much fun watching.  Nearly every game close, and essentially completely impossible to predict.  At this point I'd bet there are more people with zero final four teams correct (including your president - suck it, commie) than even have one, and although I'm sure there are a handful of people who have two correct I'd be pretty shocked if I know anyone who does.  Every year it sucks when this tournament ends because it's always the most fun sporting event to watch, but this year it's going to be even worse.  Doesn't help that the Twins are speeding towards mediocrity even faster than usual, but I won't dwell on that know.  Plenty of time to talk hardball after next week.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Virginia Commonwealth Rams.   Hard not to recognize a team that went from the First Four round to the Final Four, and a team that had the "experts" wringing their hands and bitching non-spot about how they shouldn't have gotten a bid (check the records and you'll see that I said they should be in multiple times - point me).  Since you're about to get force fed more happy fun stories about VCU than you can handle I'm going to tell you a semi-funny story from Chicago instead.  As most bars do at this time, the Dayton bar where we spent an inordinate amount of time had a bracket on the wall and an employee would hand write in each winner.  This bar clearly had a female employee do it, because on the line where you would write the winner of the Georgetown/VCU game the chick wrote "VCU/USC."  So now I'm picturing a bracket on the wall of the bar with four different winner lines with "VCU/USC" written down.  I don't know, maybe you had to be there but it's pretty god damn funny.

2.  Derrick Williams.  Easily the most impressive player I saw this weekend and I don't even know if there was a second one.  What an absolute monster.  That dunk he threw down against UCONN in the second half where he basically powered through two dudes to throw down would have been the most impressive dunk of the entire tournament, except he eclipsed that one with the monster Shawn Kemp NBA Jam style slam he had against Duke.  And it's not like he's a one-dimensional, Trevor Mbakwe dunking machine.  He can shoot from the perimeter, rebound like a mofo, and he's excellent with the ball around the basket.  I don't know what kind of NBA career he might have because I don't watch until the playoffs because I'm not retarded, but Williams is/was an absolute college beast.  Probably has a huge crank, too.


3.  Matt Howard.  If Williams blew me away with his awesomeness, Howard blew me away with his improvement.  Last year he was basically a chubby disaster against good teams and, although I don't want to say he single handedly lost the championship game against Duke, but he was so badly outplayed by Brian freaking Zoubek and looked so ridiculously out of place in that game that it's really just a testament to the brilliance of Shelvin Mack and Gordon Hayward that the championship went down to the wire.

Now, however, he's lost a bunch of that babyfat, added a jumper with 3-point range to his game, cut way way way down on his fouling, and is absolutely brimming with confidence.  Which he should be because he's playing great.  He's played some very good front courts so far this tournament in Old Dominion, Pitt, and Florida, and even the dainty Jon Leuer can be a challenge, and he's played well on both ends of the court against all of them.  Last year's version of Howard would have gotten killed by Florida's super athletic dudes, but this year Howard scored 14, grabbed 5 boards, and most importantly only committed three fouls so he was able to play 40 minutes.  His numbers might not jump out an grab you, but if you saw him this year and last you'd see what a massive improvement he's made, and he's a big, big reason Butler is heading to the Final Four.

4.  Jeremy Lamb.  All season long the one thing UCONN really needed was a second scorer to take pressure off of Kemba Walker who, despite being completely awesome, is not unstoppable despite what the media and announcers decided to make their running story (12-25 and 7-17 shooting in the two games this weekend doesn't make him unstoppable, it just makes him a high volume shooter and scorer).  Lamb really stepped up, scoring 24 against San Diego State, tying a season high and was basically the whole reason UCONN won that game, and then following it up with 19 in the win over Zona.  I still think he's a bit soft, but he's only a freshman so he can either take the good path and toughen up a bit and end up a pretty high level player and scorer, or he can go on about his business as he is, having games where he scores a ton and just as many games where he's nowhere to be found.  I say that second thing like it's a bad thing, but I should point out that even that version of Lamb would be the best player on the Gophers, and it wouldn't even be close.

5.  Kentucky Wildcats.  Well I'm flabbergasted.  It's rare of me to misjudge a team this badly.  Actually strike that, because I think team's are better than they really are all the time, but it's rare that a team I think is terrible ends up doing something stupid like going to the Final Four.  Calipari is a terrible game coach and a terrible game planner, generally winning games by having the most talent, almost in spite of himself.  This year's Kentucky isn't all that talented, at least from a Calipari's most talented team perspective, so I figured an early exit was inevitable.  Shocking that I got something wrong in this year's tournament I know, but apparently Brandon Knight is a lot better than I thought.  Much, much better than Brandin Knight, who, of course, played for the world's most chokiest program in history in the Pitt Panthers, the same most chokiest program who I inexplicably chose as my national champion.  Next year I'm not even filling out a bracket, it's getting too embarrassing.  It's like if Stephen Hawking called you to hook up his tivo.  From an understanding how to do it perspective, I mean.  Not the whole "I have no movement in any of my limbs" thing.


WHO SUCKED


1.  Wisconsin Badgers.  As enjoyable as that loss was for Gopher fans and white people haters that had to be brutal for Badger fans.  Really, I mean if you lose a buzzer beater game it sucks like getting punched in the stomach by a large black man who was just helping you find your glasses in a snowbank sucks - quick, painful, unexpected, but the pain subsides quickly.  It sucks to lose that way, just like it sucks to lose to a team that just blows you away because they're so much better or playing so well at the time, but you can live with those losses.  The way Wisconsin lost, however, has got to just gnaw away at you for a long, long time.  Butler gets credit for shutting the Badgers down, but in reality they didn't do much.  It was simply Wisconsin missing open shots.  Over.  And over.  And over.  And over.  In the mid-first half Jordan Taylor was fouled on a three-pointer and missed the first two free-throws, and that basically summed up the night.  And I loved every damn minute of it.    

2.  Jimmer Fredette.  Did you get a chance to watch the Jimmer?  Freaking amazing when he has the ball, right?  Amazing shooter with unlimited range and a hair-trigger release, ability to get buy a defender off the dribble and get into the lane, an excellent eye to find open teammates for easy hoops, and just amazing body control.  Really an impressive player with the ball.  But did you happen to notice him when he doesn't have the ball?  I've never seen a lazier god damn player in my life.  He does one of three things if he doesn't have the ball:

1. Stand there
2. Clap his hands and call for the ball.
3. Run directly at his teammate with the ball and clap his hands while calling for the ball

That's it.  That's the entire repertoire.  My favorite though is any time he passes the ball and it doesn't directly lead to a shot for this teammate he immediately follows his own pass, naturally while clapping and calling for the ball.  There's a reason nobody on this team every gets an assist other than Jimmer, and that's because he either shoots, creates a shot for somebody else, or immediately demands the ball back.  Honestly I was pretty unimpressed, and I watched all four of his games in this tournament and they were all the same.  Add in a level of defense that would make Blake Hoffarber turn red with embarrassment and he might be the most overrated player since Adam Morrison.  If this guys wins National Player of the Year it'll be a travesty and, frankly, should probably spark off some race riots.  But that's pretty much my answer for everything.

3.  Duke Blue Devils.  hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha oh my god that was so awesome.  It was like, all of a sudden Arizona realized, "hey, these guys are a bunch of nerds.  More athletic nerds than the Northwestern dorks of course, but still nerds.  And we aren't, so let's kill them" and then suddenly a dunk contest broke out and pasty white dorks and Jalen Rose's favorite type of brothers were their props.  They could do the entire one shining moment montage just from dunks from this game.  I think if Duke was playing a women's team that night those broads would have been running and jumping all over there heads.  Or maybe a lay-up line would have broken out instead.  I guess that's more realistic.

4.  William Buford.  Outside the Wisconsin duo of Jordan Taylor and Jon Leuer, I'm not sure anybody looked crappier than Buford.  Here's my impression of his game against Kentucky:  clang clang clang clang clang clang and so on and so forth.  Like Billy Ho once said, "I'll tell you what. Why don't we take all these bricks and build a shelter for the homeless, so maybe your mother will have a place to stay.  And your sister, too.  I want your mother and sister out of my house."   Damn Will, you just got played by a slow, white, geeky chump.  What do you mean, black ball?


5.  Colton Iverson's transfer.  Of all the red flags jumping up around the program regarding player defections this one has to be the worst.  The rest can all be rationalized away if you are looking for a reason to do so:  Royce White was a bad egg, Justin Cobbs was homesick, Paul Carter's sister was sick (ok so that one was pretty legit), Devoe Joesph is a selfish player who only cares about himself, and on and on.  If you want to have blind faith in Tubby you didn't have to try to hard.  For me, however, this one is a stunner and, frankly, makes me more than a little concerned.

I mean, what exactly is the reasoning here?  Iverson can't possibly believe Tubby is holding him back from a professional future playing ball, so what possible rationale could he have for leaving with only one year left to play?  It's not like a playing time issue makes much sense either, because of his style of play, body type, and just overall gangliness he's not going to suddenly jump up to 36 minutes a night no matter where he goes.  I just don't get this one.  Colton would have been my last guess at a player who would be transferring out.  I fear there are some real issues with this program, and I'm starting to think this year may not have been rock bottom.  If Colton can leave, anybody could.  What if both Mbakwe and Rodney end up leaving?  Or hell, anybody else, I don't even know any more.  I just know that I'm suddenly more fearful than ever that Tubby's style of coaching isn't just not winning as many games as we'd hoped but is now actively pushing players out.  Let's just move on to baseball so a different team can let me down.


And since we're almost to baseball season (preview of some sort coming soon, maybe even this week), here's the team Snake and I put together in our fantasy baseball draft.  I don't know about you, but looks like a championship to me.

C - Miguel Montero, Arizona (do you realize there are like 3 good catchers?  And we weren't getting stuck with freaking Wieters again.  I've done that dance twice).
1B - Billy Butler, KC (fat doubles machine)
2B - Rickie Weeks, MIL (counting on last year NOT being a career year)
3B - Evan Longoria, TB (so sexy he'll steal your girlfriend)
SS - Starlin Castro, CHC (please don't suck)
OF - Mike Stanton, FLA (not the middle reliever.  We're buying the hype)
OF - Austin Jackson, DET (how about just a little plate discipline?)
OF - Delmon Young, MIN (no points for fielding)
Ut - Jason Kubel, MIN (got him very, very late.  Decent upside)
SP - Jon Lester, BOS (could win 25)
SP - Justin Verlander, DET (looking even more unhittable this year)
SP - Clay Buchholz, BOS (I guess we're all in on Boston)
SP - Madison Bumgarner, SF (hoping his rough spring doesn't mean anything)
RP - Jonathan Papelbon, BOS (like I said)
RP - Joakim Soria, KC (Will probably end up saving 85% of KC's wins)
RP - Drew Storen, WAS (we can't have Strausberg, so we'll take his little buddy)
Bench - 1B Justin Smoak, SEA (Of course)
Bench - SP Michael Pineda, SEA (we hit it big with Leake last year, might as well try again)
Bench - RP Chris Sale, CHW (already unhittable, just needs to get the closer gig)
Bench - SP Carl Pavano, MIN (steady enough)

CHAMPIONSHIP!








RIP Paul.