Sports fan in Minnesota haven’t had a whole lot to cheer about recently. The general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves, David Kahn, received some flack recently for simply stating the obvious. The NBA lottery is a flawed system that annually does not give the team the position it deserves in the draft.
He insinuated that the good story of the year obtains the pick.
Once again, the club fell victim to the ping pong balls. It doesn’t seem to be a year that it will be of great impact because there are two players that are head and shoulders above the rest: Derrick Williams of the Arizona Wildcats, and Kyrie Irving of Duke.
It still would be nice for the team to have the ability to choose the one of their preference, rather than settling for the leftover. It is a slam dunk though that the brass will say that their choice is number one on their board. I will leave the rest of the draft analysis to my much more capable colleague on this site: David Kay.
-Shifting gears, The Minnesota Twins have the worst record in baseball after coming into the season with high expectations.
-The Minnesota Vikings are coming off a six and ten season that buried them in the NFC North. The main stories of their year were the alleged marital transgressions of Brett Favre and the roof caving in on the Mall of America Field. At least they rectified the situation by drafting a consensus first round quarterback in Christian Ponder. The Florida State product could have been selected much later, but the team was impressed with how smart he was. I am not looking to watch somebody’s IQ on a Sunday afternoon. I could not care less whether someone is a genius or a blithering idiot as long as he can perform on the football field.
-The offseason also brought the Adrian Peterson debacle of equating NFL players to slaves. I would take some time to explain how ludicrous this is, but it is one of those times when it’s already apparent. The Vikings are fortunate that the players are locked out so fans don’t have to be put through the torture of clips watching them work out. They are destined to be surpassed by the Detroit Lions this upcoming year if play occurs.
-Tubby Smith was supposed to be the savior for University of Minnesota basketball. It hasn’t really gone according to plan. The team tanked the end of the conference season last year after the key injury to guard to Al Nolen. The loss of Royce White to lawlessness and eventually Iowa State was also a major blow to the program. He truly is a game changer who obviously needs to get his life in order before he even thinks about basketball. The football team is a constant disappointment. The addition of TCF Bank Stadium has done nothing to change that. In this tradition rich sport, it is nearly impossible to turn around programs in major conferences because so many players are needed to do so.