Archives For Zach Harper

David Kahn is reportedly out as Wolves’ President of Basketball Ops

Zach Harper —  April 26, 2013 — 8 Comments

Kahn

Is it time to Flip out?

Let’s just cut to the chase. Our friend Steve Aschburner of NBA.com is reporting that the Wolves are working out a four-year, $9 million that will bring Flip Saunders in to be the president of basketball operations. David Kahn is currently the president of basketball operations. So that leaves us with a math problem here.

You have one president of basketball operations already. You want to bring in another basketball of operations but you only have room for ONE president of basketball operations. So in order to accomplish this move, what mathematic operation do you need to accomplish this goal? I’ll have the answer to this math problem after an excerpt from Asch’s column on NBA.com:

Former NBA head coach Flip Saunders is expected to return to the Minnesota Timberwolves as the team’s next president of basketball operations, NBA.com has learned.

Saunders, 58, has been negotiating a contract that, with option years, could run through the 2017-18 season and could be worth more than $9 million over the full five years, according to league sources who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the hiring.

The move, which could become official as soon as next week, would end David Kahn‘s controversial tenure after four seasons and an 89-223 record during which the Timberwolves’ failure to reach the playoffs stretched to nine consecutive seasons. Kahn’s contract includes a team option for 2013-14 that will not be exercised.

The answer to the math problem above is SUBTRACTION. You use subtraction. And really if the reports are true, it’s addition by subtraction.

According to a few people around the Wolves and the NBA that I’ve talked to, Kahn was never supposed to be making the basketball decisions of the organization when he was hired back in May of 2009. He was supposed to handle the contracts, money and business side of it. For whatever reason (details have been murky about this), Kahn ended up being the de facto decision-maker when it came to the actual basketball side of this. Again, I have no idea if this is the absolute truth here but I’ve been told it by a handful of people, so I think there’s some partial truth in there.

He was asked to fill a role he wasn’t really capable of doing, and he was asked to do it for years. During those years, he managed to alienate the majority of the fan base, a lot of people around the league, and even his own star player. He always made cheap, high reward-low risk moves that never came to fruition and tried to trade Love multiple times (even after his breakout season). And now he’s being replaced by Flip Saunders, who may or may not be a good front office decision-maker.

We also don’t know if Adelman is going to leave or not. What we do know is if this report is true and this is settled by next week, a big cloud over the organization has dissipated. It doesn’t mean another cloud can’t replace it, but for now, you can start to feel confident about the continued direction this team seems to be headed.

Thoughts?

In 2013 Offseason ,
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Clippers 111, Timberwolves 95: Pretty healthy and limping to the finish

Zach Harper —  April 11, 2013 — 3 Comments

WolvesClipped

Maybe it doesn’t matter what type of team you have.

People get tired and worn down. It’s hard to continue to fight for something that really doesn’t have an end game. There are days you don’t want to be at your job, even when you make a lot of money and have a cool profession. And what we see with a lot of teams that don’t have anything to play for at the end of a lost/wasted season is they give in to the regular human nature the majority of us have and they just kind of stop fighting like they used to. It’s something that you can get frustrated about as a fan, but at the same time, I get it.

I don’t want to say the Wolves aren’t fighting. I think they’re clearly fighting.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Game Analysis
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Warriors 105, Timberwolves 89: Let’s kick some ice

Zach Harper —  April 10, 2013 — 5 Comments
This has nothing to do with Beasley but here's an old photoshop I did.

This has nothing to do with Beasley but here’s an old photoshop I did.

I’ve been watching the HBO series Entourage lately when I go to bed for a couple of reasons. The first reason is it helps me clear my head when I’m lying down to sleep. It’s something that’s fairly mindless and I can just relax to. The episodes are relatively short (25 minutes) so if I fall asleep during one of them, it’s not really a pain to go back and finish the episode later.

The second reason is I’m curious as to what my fascination is with this show. Is it that Entourage is a minuscule peek into a world I’m fascinated by? People have often wondered why I like bad movies because they equate it with not being entertaining. I would argue that bad movies can be just as valuable in the entertainment department because it can bring about questions you might never think of asking. How did this get made? Was this how the original draft of the script was? Why would a studio dedicate this much money to such a terrible project? What was the side deal that went with this movie? Is that really the best take they could have gotten out of Hayden Christensen?  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Game Analysis
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Kevin Love will have knee surgery and is done for the season

Zach Harper —  April 9, 2013 — 5 Comments

LoveMonster

We were hoping to see a glimpse of Kevin Love with this core of a surging Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic, Andrei Kirilenko, Chase Budinger, and friends so that we — and more importantly management — would have a good idea of what this team looked like when everybody was on the court this season. The ideal lineup of Rubio-Chase-AK-Love-Pek played exactly zero minutes and zero seconds on the floor together this season, which makes it hard to evaluate what they need to know heading into this offseason.

Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen at all. Love is going to have knee surgery to clean up some scar tissue and that will keep him out of action for about a month. Considering there are only eight days left in the season, math tells me he won’t be back before the game against San Antonio on the 17th. From the team:  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Injuries
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Timberwolves 107, Bucks 98: Ricky Rubio, Buck Hunter Pro

Zach Harper —  April 4, 2013 — 4 Comments

Rubio Buck Hunter Pro

It’s amazing how fun Ricky Rubio can be at times.

We know about the passing and the steals. We know he can crash the boards and break down opposing perimeter defenders. And we see glimpses of an improved jump shooter. In fact, over Rubio’s last 10 games, he’s over 40% from the field (41.2%) and he’s made 50% of his 3-point shots. Now, I wouldn’t say he’s fixed his ability to put the ball in the basket; it’s still very much a work in progress. But there are signs of improvement.

Two things I look for when Rubio taking a jumper are 1) was he readying himself before the pass got to him and 2) where is the arc on his shot?  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Game Analysis , , , ,
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Tanks but no tanks

Zach Harper —  April 3, 2013 — 5 Comments

Coach

To tank or not to tank?

That’s what teams are left trying to figure out at the end of disappointing seasons. For some organizations, the entire season is one big tank fest as they rebuild and try to bring some youth and cheap labor to their re-growing roster (see: Bobcats, Charlotte). For other teams, the season just hasn’t gone their way and they go with a “change in direction” for their organization so they start focusing on “the young talent” on the roster (see: Suns, Phoenix). Teams would never admit to tanking because it’s a nightmare in terms of selling your product.

Also, you can’t tell players not to try hard unless they’re Michael Olowokandi. In that situation, he’s WAY ahead of you. You have to finagle the roster and the lineups as an organization to put out a crappy product. But you can’t come out and tell the coaching staff that a guy isn’t allowed to play because you want a higher draft pick. Players get “held out with injuries” because it’s an easier sell than being “held out with hopes of landing a top-3 pick.”

I don’t have a problem with tanking either. I wish the system wasn’t constructed in a way that promotes tanking. I’d rather have an unweighted lottery because it wouldn’t give teams any incentive to put out a crappy product the last three weeks of the regular season. But the system is what the system is. You get more beer pong balls by losing more games and that means more chances at putting together the right combination to win the draft lottery. As long as the system is this way, you would be stupid not to tank in most cases.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Rick Adelman
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Grizzlies 99, Timberwolves 86: Gritted and grounded

Zach Harper —  March 31, 2013 — Leave a comment

AdelmanTimeout

During Friday night’s stunning win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, Rick Adelman talked about how he was happy to see that the team didn’t have any lulls throughout their game. It was a reason they were able to match the runs the Thunder went on. It was the reason they were able to topple a more talented team. If you can stay even keeled throughout the course of a game, you’re almost always going to be in great shape to win that game. It’s hard for even the toughest teams to do because the peaks and valleys that occur in the NBA are so commonplace.

Against the Thunder, it didn’t happen to be a problem. Against the Memphis Grizzlies Saturday night, that was the Wolves’ undoing. The final score makes the game look like a typical Grizzlies’ blowout of their lesser opponents, but really this was a highly competitive game. Without Nikola Pekovic and without Kevin Love, the Wolves had the daunting task of trying to handle the tandem of Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph inside. And I was actually quite impressed with what we saw from the undersized Wolves.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Game Analysis
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Lakers 120, Timberwolves 117: it takes courage

Zach Harper —  March 28, 2013 — 9 Comments

That’s the only thing we’re going to remember from this game and probably rightfully so.

The Lakers gave the Wolves a lot of opportunities to stay in this game. They played horrendous defense throughout much of the second half and the Wolves fought back to make it a game, thanks to Smite-a-Dwight in the 10th minute of the fourth quarter, a rare missed free throw from Steve Nash, and a rare missed free throw from Kobe Bryant. After Bryant’s missed free throw, Rubio grabbed the board and avoided Kobe as he hauled tail up the court. He released a low percentage runner that never really got a chance to go in because Kobe contested the shot.

In the process of contesting the shot, Bryant hacked Rubio across the forearm. It isn’t the most egregious non-call in NBA history, but it’s certainly a foul that should have been called because it potentially influenced the outcome of the game. Was it more important than the moments in the game that led to 120 points by the Lakers? Absolutely not. But it’s still a chance at a player tying the game and sending it to overtime that was taken away because of a foul that wasn’t called.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Game Analysis
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Get yourself the first AWAW zip-up hoodie!

Zach Harper —  March 25, 2013 — 2 Comments

photo (4)

The first A Wolf Among Wolves zip-up hoodie is now available.

Have $40 to spend? Want to avoid being cold while we wait for the snow to thaw and the mercury to rise? Need something swaggeristic (made it up) to wear to Wolves games? Then the AWAW zip-up hoodie is perfect for you!

It comes in black with white print or heather grey with blue print. There is a design on the left sleeve that may look familiar to you, a standard zipper down the middle of the front, and our AWAW lettering on the hood of the sweatshirt. They run a little big for their size, but will also shrink a bit if you wash them on warm.

There are still a few issues in getting up a store on the site right now (stupid plugin coding I don’t understand), so until that gets resolved we’re going to have to go through a much more archaic manner of ordering the hoodies.

Supplies are limited until we print more, so you’ll need to act fast if you want one. Here’s how the ordering process will be until the store can be implemented into the site:  Continue Reading…

In Minnesota Timberwolves, Transactions
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Bulls 104, Timberwolves 97: a broken clock is wrong almost always

Zach Harper —  March 25, 2013 — 6 Comments

WolfBull

“A broken clock is right twice a day.”

This is one of those sayings that is supposed to be clever and profound, but all it does is make me irate when people use it as a crutch for a terrible argument. Sure, a broken clock is correct twice a day, unless you’re in the military — then it’s correct only once a day. And the rest of the 1,439 minutes, you’re left looking at a time holder that is incorrect and you start wondering how you can get this clock fixed. Or maybe you’re wondering if you need to get a new clock altogether.

The point is a broken clock needs to be fixed. Depending on the type of clock, it could just need new batteries or it could need to be wound up. Or maybe there is a gear that’s completely disconnected. Regardless, if you want that same clock to work then you need to figure out what’s wrong with it and how to get it back to keeping the intended time.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Game Analysis , , , , , , ,
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