Al Jefferson returned to the Timberwolves on Monday morning, four days after he left the team bound for Florida to see his grandmother one last time.

“I got the chance to see her before she died,” Jefferson said after Monday’s practice. “She died 30 minutes after I got there. That was good for her and me. She told my auntie four days before she died that she was just waiting on me.”

Annie Bell Randolph died Thursday afternoon in Fort Lauderdale. She was 83.

“Luckily, I got there just in time,” he said. “Thanks to my team, my coach, my GM for understanding and making me feel really comfortable, because at first I didn’t want to leave. I was going to wait until Sunday, when we had the day off. Coach let me know it’s real important that family come first. It made me feel good about leaving. I’m glad I did.”

One interesting tidbit is that the Wolves sent new player development coach Darrick Martin and a strength coach down to Florida to help him workout and stay in shape while he was away. One little, telling example about how David Kahn and Kurt Rambis are going about changing the franchise’s culture.

Al says he’s ready to play Wednesday against Houston at Target Center.

From Jonah Ballow/Timberwolves site:

Love will undergo X-rays on his surgically repaired broken finger on Friday. The tests should give the coaching staff an indication of when Love can return to practice and game action. Without Love in the lineup, Minnesota is averaging 42.6 rebounds a game, 13th in the league.
Rambis said he will give more time to backup point guard Ramon Sessions as long as Sessions is “doing the proper things out there on the floor.”

Sessions had his best game of the season in the Wolves’ 97-87 loss at Memphis on Saturday night with 13 points and eight assists in 26 minutes. The eight assists were the most by any Wolves player this season. Rookie Jonny Flynn finished Saturday’s game with 10 points, three assists and a season-high six turnovers in 29 minutes.


Rambis said he is not ready to make more use of Sessions and Flynn as a tandem.
From Stephen Litel/Downtown Journal:
As we knew before the draft, Flynn is a charismatic person and is easy to root for because of the heart and work ethic he brings to the game. As a point guard, he should be looked upon as a leader—even though he’s a rookie—and his personality helps his teammates in that regard. It also helps fans to accept the reality of the current season and look past the rookie mistakes. After all, 14.2 points per game on 47% shooting, along with 3.3 rebounds and assists per game in only 28.4 minutes are nothing to sneeze at and will only improve as he continues to find his comfort level.
From Jonah Ballow/Timberwolves site: 1-on-1 with David Kahn

David Kahn: Well, we’re really not running a triangle offense in the way that most people would think of a triangle, but before I even address that, I think we’re responsible for maybe creating some of the confusion. Our long-term vision for this team is that it’s going to be a running, attacking, open-court team, and we’ll be looking for personnel that suits that style. Not everybody who runs needs to have a half-court offense to flow into, and I really like some of the concepts that Kurt has chosen to do that, some of which are triangle-based–but not all. I think that we’ve kind of allowed ourselves to be characterized as something that, first of all, for a long-term vision we won’t be, and even for a current vision is not really correct either.

From NBA.com: NBA Cares’ Season of Giving set to tip off
• The Minnesota Timberwolves will show their appreciation for more than 100 active and retired military service members and their families during their annual Give Thanks dinner.