MinnesotaSportsScene.com

When I first heard that the Timberwolves were smart enough to take O.J. Mayo with their third pick in the NBA Draft last Thursday, I was thrilled. When I heard the next morning they’d traded him overnight to Memphis for a player they could have had anyway, I was not so thrilled.

Correction: I was pissed as hell.

But I’ve had time to calm down now and look at the team the Wolves are left with as a result of the trade, and surprise, it’s not looking quite so bad at the moment. In fact, it’s looking pretty good.

For those who aren’t in the know because they were away on European cruises, here’s the skinny on the deal:

The Wolves sent O.J. Mayo to Memphis, along with Greg Buckner, Marko Jaric and Antoine Walker. In that group, the only real loss is Mayo. But then there’s what we get in return.

First, we get PF/C Kevin Love, who Memphis drafted, and who the Wolves liked quite a bit, despite drafting Mayo. In addition, we get Mike Miller, Jason Collins and Brian Cardinal. Miller is the catch of the deal, while Jason Collins is an upgrade at center and will be paired with Love at that position, taking the pressure off Al Jefferson and allowing him to switch back to PF.

Going into the draft, Minnesota was weak in the front court and had a fair amount of dead weight on their roster, most especially Jaric with three years and $21 million left on his deal, wasting cap space, as well as one year and $9 million for Walker, who didn’t want to be a Wolf anyway.

Now, take a look at our starting and second-string lineup for the Wolves:

PG Randy Foye, Sebastian Telfair
SG Mike Miller, Rashad McCants
SF Ryan Gomes, Corey Brewer
PF Al Jefferson, Craig Smith
C Kevin Love, Jason Collins

That’s an improvement. Is it enough to get out of the lottery and into the playoffs? It all depends on how the pieces fit, but the Wolves have about $6 million in cap space for free agency this year, which may be spent on retaining Gomes and Telfair; they also have potentially three first-round and two second-round picks in next year’s draft, depending on if they must send the LA Clippers the pick they owe them or not, from the disastrous Jaric trade. And they expect to have about $18 million free under the cap for free agency in the summer of 2009.

Not bad.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are doing their homework on all the players who they might potentially choose later this week with the third overall pick in the NBA Draft; they’ve run them through their paces on and off the court and held everything but competitions in swimsuits. And that may be coming yet.

Although the team has been the subject of many trade-down rumors and at least one trade-up rumor (to snag Beasley and give Miami a shot at Mayo), indications are the the Wolves may be looking seriously at keeping the third pick and, barring changes in the draft above them, taking Mayo to give the Wolves a back-court combo of O.J. Mayo and Randy Foye, with Rashad McCants and Sebastian Telfair backing them up.

While that could set up the Wolves’ backcourt for the next decade, the question is whether it is what the Wolves need to turn the corner; the Wolves have no lack of young talent now, thanks to the Garnett trade and this is one of the rare cases where a trade-down (perhaps two spots or so) might make sense, if it brings in a veteran small forward or center, and still gives the Wolves a chance to draft someone they like, such as Brook Lopez or Kevin Love.

We’ll know soon which route they choose. The draft is scheduled for Thursday, June 26.

Despite a solid recruiting class in 2008, Tubby Smith still hasn’t obtained a signature point guard to run his Gophers offense. That is something he’s hoping to change with the recruiting class of 2009, and the auditions have begun. Instead of subscribing to California wine clubs over the summer, Smith is, among other activities, directing his own basketball camp at which one PG target is in attendance.

That recruit, DeShawn Dockery of Illinois, is a 5-11 prospect whose cousin, Shawn Dockery, is a guard at Duke. DeShawn may be headed to Worcester Prep School in Massachusetts for his senior season and is on Tubby’s short list as a true PG prospect.

Others include Milwaukee’s Johnnie Lacy and Chicago’s Chris Colvin.

Minnesota alumni and hero Kevin Garnett will have to play a game six to bring home his first NBA championship to his new team, the Boston Celtics. Kobe Bryant, who the Celtics had shut down most of the series, scored 25 points, and Lamar Odom 20 points, in game five to create a 103-98, five-point road upset to keep the series alive on Sunday.

So now it is back to Boston, where the Celtics will enjoy a home-court advantage for Game Six and have the chance to win the NBA Title in front of a home crowd. The Celtics laid it out to attempt to close down the series, however, and only a CAT5e might be able to detect where things went wrong.

Paul Pierce led all scorers with 38 points, Ray Allen had 16, and Garnett scored 13 points along with 14 rebounds, but got into foul trouble against the Lakers’ Pau Gasol, limiting his effectiveness. Still, with the chance to end the series and win in front of their home crowd, Celtics fans must be excited at the prospect of a Game Six.

Well, the game ended and Garnett and company did the unlikely; they erased an 18-point half-time deficit and came back against the odds, on the road in Los Angeles, to win Game 4 and return to Boston up 3-1 against the Lakers, winning by a final margin of 97-91.

Believe me, if Boston wins the next game and takes home the trophy in five games, there will be plenty of small business opportunitites in celebrating the Celtics’ return to glory. From a Minnesota perspective, it’s the second-best possible news for the former home state of Kevin Garnett.

The best-possible news, of course, would be if he’d been doing all this as a Timberwolf.

As a long-time Timberwolves fan, it’s hard not to be happy for Kevin Garnett as he goes through his first NBA Finals appearance as a player; after trying to win a gold bangle or two during a dozen years in Minnesota, the Big Ticket is finally realizing his dream.

As I write this, Boston’s making a hard second-half push to win Game Four and take the series back home to Boston with a 3-1 advantage over the Lakers. Strangely, the big stars on both teams are relatively quiet; Garnett has only 14 points for Boston and Kobe Bryant has a mere 13 ponits for the Lakers.

The score is 83-82 as I write this, with the Lakers up by one. Here’s hoping and praying that Garnett can pull out the road win with the help of Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. It’d be a great feather in Garnett’s cap after too many years surrounded by not enough talent to get the job done in Minnesota.

Former Champlin Park, MN linebacker and Gophers freshman Sam Maresh, one of coach Tim Brewster’s top “gets” in the class of 2008, may never play a single down for the maroon and gold. Not because Maresh is transferring out or because of antics on or off the field, but sadly, due to health problems.

Maresh went for a routine physical and found out he has a serious heart condition; he is sceduled for open heart surgery on June 26. The medical conditions Maresh has been diagnosed with include, “a congenital heart defect, an aortic valve leak and an enlarged ventricle and aortic root,” according to an email released by Maresh’s parents to the media on Tuesday. Any one of these conditions would be serious enough on its own; together, they make the procedure later this month that much more urgent.

Maresh was never detected as a candidate for a heart condition because the young athlete kept himself in such good shape, he never felt ill effects from the condition. According to the email, Maresh’s parents are unsure if Sam will ever be able to play football again, a projection that likely won’t be able to be determined until some time after the surgery.

It’s tragic; some kids mess around with generic Phentermine, steriods and other garbage and never suffers ill effects or even catches a cold. Then, along comes a solid kid like Maresh, who never does any of that foolishness, who many top-notch schools recruited, and BAM!, something like this happens.

The prayers of MinnesotaSportsScene.com are with the Maresh family.

Former Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders has been fired by the Detroit Pistons. His crime? Only that he took the team to the Eastern Division championship series in all three of his seasons in Detroit. I guess that’s not good enough for some folks; it’s an NBA title or you’re gone.

Of course, with all the blinds on management’s eyes in Detroit, I suppose it’s hard to blame them; all they want to see is championship gold or nothing. Never mind that Flip’s teams have been among the top four every year in the last three years.

I wouldn’t worry too much about Saunder, though. He’ll be well-paid for the year left on his contract, and he’ll have his pick of NBA jobs once he’s ready to jump back into the fray.

There’s only one thing I wish the local sports press would shut up about, already: Stop wishing Tubby Smith would move away from Minnesota so that Flip can coach the Gophers.

I guarantee you, Tubby’s a better college coach than Flip will ever be, because Tubby’s been a college coach all his career! For the long-term good of the Gophs, now’s not the time to start pushing Tubby out the door. Personally, I hope he coaches the Gophs for at least the next decade, and retires at Minnesota.

Then, perhaps, Flip can have the job. In the meantime, Flip should continue coaching in the NBA. Unless the Wolves rehire him, he’ll be able to go through another couple NBA jobs and still be available 10 years down the line, when Tubby retires from college basketball after taking the Gophers to at least seven Sweet 16s, four Final Fours, and at least one NCAA championship.

The Minnesota Timberwolves will return to their original radio home, AM 1130 KFAN, beginning next season, just in time for the team’s 20th year of existance. The Wolves spent 17 years on KFAN before jumping ship to BOB 106 FM, a country music station, the past two seasons. Arbitrons suffered greatly, and in returning to KFAN, the Wolves return to a station that has an all-sports format.

While the station has not yet named a Wolves broadcast team, it is widely believed that Chad Hartman, a KFAN mainstay and longtime broadcaster with the Wolves, will play a central role. No longer the pimply-faced kid he was 20 years ago, Hartman is now an industry vet with no need for acne treatments.

We’ll be listening closely throughout the franchise’s 20th anniversary season.

After a dozen years in Minnesota and a trade to Boston, Kevin Garnett has finally made it to the Big Dance. While most Timberwolves fans would have loved to see The Big Ticket reach this goal in a Wolves uniform, I can’t imagine anyone begrudging him this long-awaited career accomplishment.

He’ll be cashing in a lot of flight deals during his series against the LA Lakers, which recalls all the classic Lakers-Celtics matchups of the 1980s, when Wolves GM Kevin McHale was in a Celtics uniform, rather than rebuilding Minnesota’s franchise, as he is these days. Ironically, it was McHale’s trade of Garnett to Boston that reignited the Boston franchise enough to re-fuel this decades-old Finals rivalry.

I’ll be enjoying every minute of it; I long to see Garnett finally prove, on the biggest stage on the NBA, that he and his Celtics are far better than Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.