Bob Sansevere/Pioneer Press conducts a Q&A with GM Jim Stack.
We’re more by committee since the Kevin Garnett trade. I’ve been able to do some contracts. And I think (Wolves owner) Glen (Taylor) is able to see I can handle some things. Kevin (McHale) has been the head guy. I’m not one to vie for that if I’m not in that role. I’m comfortable in that role if I’m put into that role. I’m not going to chase after it…
If I could trade places for a day with anyone, I’d harken back to biblical times. I’d like to be Jesus Christ. That might sound weird, but just to go through that period of what he had to deal with. Some people say he wasn’t the son of God, that he was just one of the big prophets. I think it would be really neat to experience what he went through during his short life on Earth. It’d be pretty cool to be Einstein, too. To be that bright and have such an impact on society would be cool.
Click here for the forum’s thread on tonight’s game at Sacramento
Game previews:
From Peter W/Canis Hoopus: Back by Miniscule Demand – Diary of a Mad…er, Coaching Genius
From Timberwolves Press: Conspiracy at Target Center: The Untold Story
Shooting guard Mike Miller looked a lot better in his second game back from a sprained right ankle than he did in the first, scoring 11 points and hitting 3 of 5 three-pointers.
“It’s getting better,” he said. “It’s going to take time before it’s there, but it definitely feels better.”
McHale, who thought Miller’s 33 minutes in Friday’s game against San Antonio were 10 to 12 too many, played him for more than 39 minutes against the Lakers.
The Minnesota Timberwolves aren’t the worst team in the NBA.
So far, that’s the best news to come from this season.
Love returned Sunday to Los Angeles — where he played one glorious season for UCLA last winter — and was asked about the cold Minnesota winters, his new coach whom L.A. Lakers followers don’t so fondly remember and the already-mounting comparisons to Mayo, the former USC guard who is posting Rookie of the Year-type numbers in a Grizzlies offense already molded around him.
Mayo scored 28 points in his team’s fourth consecutive victory Sunday.
“O.J., he’s a great player and I’m not taking anything away from him, but we’re two totally different players,” Love said. “He’s going to put up those numbers. He’s shooting 18 shots a game. I don’t know how many I’m shooting, but it’s nowhere near close to that. He’s getting 38, 39 minutes a game. I might have gone into a little slump, but I’ve picked back up.
Mike Trudell/Timberwolves site posts audio of Kevin Love talking about his adjustment to the NBA.
By ordinary standards, Love is doing great, averaging 8.8 points and 8.0 rebounds in 24 minutes.
On a rebound-per-minute basis, he’s in the NBA’s top 10. Not that that may eclipse Mayo’s 28 points in Sunday’s win over Miami in every Minnesota fan’s mind.
Then, nothing about Love was ever ordinary, like his year at UCLA when he arrived looking like a 6-foot-10 pear, weighing 275 pounds, with a vertical leap that may or may not have reached double figures, and took the Bruins to the Final Four.
Love’s girlfriend is still going to school at UCLA. So yes, there are days when he goes home to his self-help books and view of the Minneapolis River and wonders what it would’ve been like if he hadn’t jumped to the NBA after his freshman season.
“Absolutely,” Love said before his first career NBA game in Los Angeles. “I talked to guys in my class like Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo, Russell Westbrook, all those guys. If it made sense, which it did, they left. If it didn’t make sense we would’ve gone back. In today’s day and age with the one-year rule – unlike my situation, some are getting out of poverty and taking care of their families, so it makes it easy for them.”