As I am wont to do, I was browsing the daily Wolves links on the front page of TWB from October 1st. Interestingly, I came across this article by Don Seeholzer of the Pioneer Press: Minnesota Timberwolves want point guard Randy Foye to turn up the volume. Ok, I thought to myself, they want Foye to be more of a leader, more vocal, improve his game, etc etc etc. I was sure that I was probably going to end up reading something that I’ve seen before, which tends to happen in the doldrums of the NBA off-season. (The media is not above recycling the same played out stories ALL summer long.) Anyways, I digress. The article itself is pretty run of the mill… your typical fluff piece. The interesting thing in this article was the following quote by Randy Foye, [in reference to always being mentioned alongside Brandon Roy in various articles, conversations, etc]:
“If it wasn’t for the injury, I might have been in the All-Star Game, too.”
This quote was compelling enough to me to go out of my way to make an entire blog post about it. I have to assume that Foye was completely serious about the comment. You see, without the help of the author, there is no way to know whether or not Foye was joking. But, there is no mention of Foye “laughing” or saying that he was joking immediately before (or after) this quote. The entire article is of a serious nature, and there is nothing to indicate that Foye was making a quip or joke. We can only deduce that the above quote was said in earnest.
So what’s the problem?
I mean, isn’t it good for players to believe they can succeed?
Shouldn’t we be glad that Foye is confident in his abilities coming off surgery?
The problem is that surely Foye can’t be serious about his comment? Can he?!?!
I’m not going to bore you all to death by running the same stat comparisons between Foye and Roy. We’ve all seen them before. Needless to say, Foye does not compare to Roy. In case Randy didn’t notice, he also had another thing going against his potential All-Star selection… the fact being that the Wolves were an atrocious (and I’m talking putrid) team when it came time to vote on All-Stars. If I remember correctly (research smesearch), Joe Johnson and Dwyane Wade were the only players in the entire NBA last year to make the All-Star game from losing teams. Now, the Hawks still made the playoffs, and Wade was voted in as a starter, (meaning he was one of the top vote getters amongst fans.) The Wolves won 22 games. Portland finished nearly 20 games better than the Wolves, at .500 You do the math on who deserved to be in the All-Star game.
Being that Al Jefferson didn’t make the All-Star game, how could Randy Foye have possibly thought he would have been deserving if “healthy?” In case Randy didn’t notice (from the bench,) Big Al was one of only five players in the entire NBA to average over 20 points and 10 rebounds per game. In fact, Al was the only player in the entire NBA to average at least 21 points and 11 rebounds per game. That’s obviously some pretty elite company for Big Al. Earth to Randy, Big Al didn’t make the All-Star game. Heck, Baron Davis didn’t make the All-Star game either. Nor did Deron Williams. Or Manu Ginobili. Some guy named Tony Parker was missing too. In case any readers out there are not aware, the above four guards would eat Foye’s lunch without even breaking a sweat. They probably wouldn’t even glisten.
I get it. I know that professional athletes typically can be egotistical maniacs are confident of their abilities. And don’t get me wrong, they should be! However, from what I have seen of Randy Foye in his short time here in ‘Sota, he appears to have an ego problem. It tends to get overlooked by the majority of our fans, being that our Front Office has basically dubbed him “The Golden Child.” Foye made a comment last year after only a few games back from his injury. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it rubbed me the wrong way, because he was implying that they won the first two or so games he played because of him. That’s hardly something that our future point guard and potential leader of this team should be saying. And the way he plays and talks in interviews just irks me. I guess what I am getting at is I am not completely sure that Foye is totally deserving of all the praise he gets, especially when media members say how selfless he is. Either they don’t care about what they are writing with their name(s) on it, or they are just idiots that don’t pay close enough attention to their subject matter. Foye hasn’t proven a single thing in the NBA, other than he can put up (some) statistics on a bad team. That’s it. I don’t see where/how/why this ego of his is there.
On the other hand.
Maybe I’m just looking too deep into all this. I’d love for nothing more than to see Foye fully realize his potential and make a few All-Star games. A large part of the future success of our team depends on Randy’s ability to improve all facets of his game, as well as help lead the rest of our players. And we don’t need another player with a massive ego to get out of control and bring this team down… we’ve already got Rashad McCants.
Feel free to continue this discussion HERE in the TWolvesBlog Forum!