Often, to prove his point that all NBA teams have some talent, Nuggets coach George Karl will declare “there are no Chico States in the NBA,” which is a fair point, but, c’mon, there’s always the Timberwolves.
Yet, 10 times this month we’ve seen performances straight out of theatre of the absurd — the Timberwolves winning a basketball game.
“I’ll take that any month,” Hornets coach Byron Scott, whose team was one that fell to mighty Minnesota, said Wednesday. “They have a good young nucleus. They’ve got some confidence right now. I saw Detroit’s playing them today, I was like — y’all better be ready.”
Sure enough, the Timberwolves led by one point entering the fourth quarter, but the Pistons finally slayed the dragon.
So what has gotten into the Timberwolves? Is new coach Kevin McHale the reincarnation of Norman Dale from “Hoosiers”? (“My team’s on the floor.”)
Well, indeed the Timberwolves are playing looser for this players’ coach, and the offense is successfully flowing through the best NBA player on a losing team.
Al Jefferson is really good. The 6-foot-10 post is a modern Moses Malone. For the season, Jefferson averages 22.9 points and 10.6 rebounds, but in the past five games, he put up 28.8 and 10.4. And he’s fifth in the entire NBA with 25 double-doubles.
“Al Jefferson’s playing like an all-star,” said Scott, who voted for Jefferson, who ended up not making the team (all the all-stars in the West are on winning squads).
Guard Randy Foye has elevated his game, averaging 19.1 points in the past 11 games, compared to his average of 16.0. And Kevin Love, the guy controversially traded for O.J. Mayo on draft night, is becoming this year’s Al Horford (10-and-10 rookie post). Love is 6-10 and rebounds like he’s 7-10. He averages 9.1 points and 8.4 boards, but in the past five, the kid’s averaged 14.6 and 9.2, but somehow wasn’t named to the rookie team for All-Star Weekend — “utterly ridiculous” McHale said.
You can look at Minnesota’s surge a couple of different ways. The Timberwolves did win 10 games in January, including victories against winning teams New Orleans and Phoenix, but the rest of their wins are against the beleaguered brethren (so, in a way, the Wolves are the best of the worst).
On the other hand, the Timberwolves lost eight games in November by six points or less, which led to the firing of coach Randy Wittman. If they had grabbed a couple of those games, who knows what their fate might have been.
It is hard to believe Minnesota will keep this up. Even in the coming days, four of its next five games are against winning teams. But we should at least appreciate the team’s jaw-dropping January, when it entered the month with five wins and doubled that total.
Snubbed star.
Last Sunday in this column, I wrote that Carmelo Anthony deserved to be an all-star reserve, and I named who the other six reserves would be. Indeed, I nailed the other six. But instead of Melo, who is the NBA’s best small forward, the Western Conference coaches selected David West, who’s the best . . . David West. Look, West is a really good player, lethal from 17 feet, but even Scott said last week that West was a longshot to make the team.
With West’s selection, the Western Conference team has no small forwards on the roster and, really, it’s just hard to believe that more coaches believe West (19.8 points, 7.3 rebounds and the second-best player on his team) is more deserving than Anthony (21.1, 7.1 the best player on his team, and on a team with a better record than the Hornets.)
As for Anthony’s snubbing, Nuggets vice president of player personnel Rex Chapman said: “It’s frustrating that Carmelo wasn’t selected. On the frontline, he can score the ball maybe easier than anyone on this planet. He’s scoring this year and trusting his teammates, maturing and has made us a better team. I want everyone to know that this franchise stands behind Carmelo, and we know he’s an all-star. You’re telling me he’s not one of the top 12 players in the Western Conference? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
If anything, one way to spin it is this — Anthony will get a little more rest during the all-star break than normal, and he will be playing the rest of the season with a chip on his shoulder. So that’s something.
Family reunion.
A fun story line of the Feb. 15 All-Star Game will be the reuniting of Western Conference coach Phil Jackson and West guard Kobe Bryant with former Laker Shaquille O’Neal, the Suns center and West reserve. With O’Neal and Bryant, it brings back memories of the unexpected Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis reunion in 1976.
It was a wild ride with those three on the Lakers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but on Thursday, O’Neal made everything seem peachy in an ESPN interview:
“It’s going to bring back great memories. It’s all about having fun. . . . Myself and (Bryant) we’re still the greatest big-man, little-man combos in NBA history. He’s probably the MVP.”
The reigning MVP is, according to Karl, in a four-man race with Cleveland LeBron James (seemingly the frontrunner), New Orleans’ Chris Paul and Orlando’s Dwight Howard.
“It’s a little to early to make the prediction,” Karl said, “but those four guys right now are head and shoulders above everybody.”
Spotlight on …
Mo Williams, Cavaliers guard
The Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic are two of the three premier teams in the Eastern Conference, yet the Magic will have three all-stars in the Feb. 15 game — and the Cavaliers just one.
In other words, Mo got hosed.
The new Cleveland guard has been an ideal Robin to Batman LeBron, averaging 17.2 points and 4.2 assists this season.
“It’s a tragedy,” Cleveland’s Ben Wallace told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I think it’s an injustice. It’s a fraud. We’ve got the best record in the league, and we’ve only got one guy going. You always make it the next year, after the year you were supposed to make it. It’s a travesty and a sham and a mockery. It’s a shamockery.”
(This brought back memories of Woody Allen in the movie “Bananas,” when he proclaimed: “It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.”)
The player who likely got picked over Williams was Orlando’s Jameer Nelson, who entered the weekend with 17.0 points per game and 5.4 assists. One could argue both are deserving all-stars, but with starter Dwight Howard and reserve Rashard Lewis representing Orlando, maybe it would have been nicer to give each team two all-stars apiece.
Benjamin Hochman, The Denver Post
