MinnesotaSportsScene.com

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.

ESPN.com is batting about the latest possible trade rumor in the NBA: that Miami is so taken with O.J. Mayo, they may be willing to work out a trade with Minnesota to swap the second pick for Minnesota’s third pick in the draft, which would allow Miami to take Mayo and give the Wolves a chance to draft 6-9 big man Michael Beasley.

Another possibility could be that Miami would draft Beasley and Minnesota could draft Mayo, with the intent to work out a trade on draft night, after both selections have been made. Mayo, who is more of a combo guard in the mold of Randy Foye, would be a welcome addition, but Beasley is a legit big man who could take some pressure off Wolves ace Al Jefferson in the front court.

While the cost of such a trade would help determine the Wolves’ willingness to swap picks with Miami, it’s hard to imagine the Wolves wouldn’t want a shot at Beasley, though they haven’t exactly resorted to GPS tracking in anticipation of this rumor becoming reality just yet.

Also, there’s still no guarantee Chicago will draft Memphis PG Derrick Rose, and may opt for Beasley instead, which would throw the whole trade scenario into chaos.

It may not be happening as quickly as some might like, but it appears Fred Hoiberg, the former Minnesota Timberwolf forced into retirement by a heart condition, who has become involved in the front office of the Wolves, is still being groomed to take over Kevin McHale’s role when he finally decides to step away from the team. When that will be, no one is sure, but Hoiberg is the heir apparant.

“We’re getting him involved in all parts, and this coming year, we’ll get him some more responsibilities,” owner Glen Taylor told TwinCities.com columnist Charley Walters recently.

Let me be your travel guide to at least one degree, Fred: despite the tendencies of your predecessor, there are a lot of other teams to make deals with other than the Boston Celtics.

On a related note, if the Celtics win it all this year, I nominate the man most responsible for Boston’s return to glory, Minnesota GM/team VP Kevin McHale, as the NBA GM of the year.

The Minnesota Timberwolves improved their chances, however slightly, in the NBA Draft after winning a tie-breaker with the Memphis Grizzlies this weekend. Both the Wolves and the Grizzlies finished with 22-60 records, but the Timberwolves had rare draft-related good fortune and won the tie-breaker, placing them in the third spot in the NBA Draft, which gives them a slightly better chance in the NBA Lottery to determine draft position.

If the Wolves’ lottery chances continue to fall on the rosy side, they could advance even higher in the draft. In the worst-case scenario, they would pick no later than sixth. The Wolves’ chances of winning the top pick in the lottery is 13.8; Memphis’ chances are 13.7 after the tie-breaker. Someone with a reliable Patek needs to keep an eye on the clock on this one.

Although the Minnesota Timberwolves have been anything but as reliable as car insurance this season, I have to give them credit for not losing out, even when it endangered their lottery position. The team won two of its final four games when it might have been easier to lose them.

The final game of the season against Milwaukee was a fine example. They led early, let it slip away, then fought back to tie it up at the end, take it into overtime, and ultimately win the game. That’s not a team that’s giving up in order to improve their draft position, and they still wound up positioned in third-worst in the NBA, so they didn’t hurt their lottery chances by winning two of the final four, either.

With Al Jefferson now established as the franchise player, the Wolves go into the off-season with at chance at a Top 5 pick, and, I believe, perhaps another first-round pick in the coming draft. The team has a very talented young core group of players, though most must keep improving to make the Wolves a playoff-contending team, and with more young talent headed the Wolves’ way, they can let some of the undertalented older players go.

Along with Jefferson, I believe the Wolves will want to keep Ryan Gomes around. Keeping Sebastian Telfair, however, will ride on who the Wolves draft in July. Telfair’s a solid backup PG, and filled in nicely the first half of the season while Foye was out. But if the Wolves land a draft spot to pick the Memphis point guard who’s coming out, Telfair, a restricted free agent, will likely be allowed to sign elsewhere.

There’s plenty of talent on this team, and plenty of draft picks in this future. A 22-win season is a downer, but the future is bright. What a contrast to last season, when they won more games, still missed the playoffs, Garnett’s contract prevented them from acquiring free agent help, and they faced the propsect of losing two of their next three draft picks.

As a makeover team, rebuilding from the ground up, I’d have to say this year’s Wolves, while a work in progress, as much better to invest some hope for the future into, than last year’s edition.

Minnesota Timberwolves big man Al Jefferson, who pivots between power forward and center depending on the lineup coach Wittman sends out on the floor each night, admitted to local media sources this week that his conditioning isn’t where it needs to be for the Wolves to make the post-season and perform well in the playoffs.

This is likely a result of the trade from Boston to Minnesota; in Boston, as a younger player, Jefferson was not used quite as much as the Wolves have played him this year as a full-time starter. Jefferson’s numbers have been stellar most of the season, but in the Wolves’ six-game losing skid at the end of the season with four games to go, Jefferson’s numbers have suffered as well.

“I feel like if we were to start the playoffs in two weeks, I’d have a mental breakdown,” Jefferson told the PioneerPress earlier this week. “That’s why I’ve got to do a better job this summer of getting my body in great shape, because I plan on being in the playoffs real soon. I really feel like if we started the playoffs this year, my body would break down and I would have a mental breakdown, too.”

It’s a surprising bit of honest, but not uncommon among young players adjusting to the demanding NBA schedule; even Kevin Garnett went through it. In high school, a regular season schedule is usually about 20 games long, thought that varies from state to state. That rises to an average of about 30 games in college. But in the NBA, the schedule is 82 games long, nearly three times as many games as are played in college in the regular season.

The crowds have been sparse in this 19-win season at Target Center, but the Wolves have a young, talented roster that’s only going to improve after this summer’s draft; soon they’ll need a Bose home theater system scaled up to arena-size in order to capture the roar of the crowds, once this team hits its stride in another season or two.

Despite a strong run in March when the Minnesota Timberwolves won six of nine games, the team has been in a downward spiral of late, losing eight of the last nine, including six straight losses. At the moment, the Wolves would need to win their final four games - and the New York Knicks would need to lose their final four games - for Minnesota to lose their grip on the third-worst record in the NBA.

It’s not that the Wolves haven’t been playing tough, though tonight’s 122-90 loss to New Orleans makes you wonder, but more that the last baker’s dozen of games have been perhaps one of the tougher portions of the Wolves’ schedule this season. And of course, the youth of the squad has affected their longevity down the stretch as well.

While the team may be booking cheap flights the rest of the way to the post-season, the losing streak has helped them with their lottery chances. Additionally, if Seattle wins even one more game, the Wolves would have a chance to improve their lottery chances by becoming the team with the second-worst record in the NBA. Miami, at only 14 wins, is virtually a lock to have the worst record in the NBA this season.

Losing out has never looked smarter for the Timberwolves. Their final four games are against Orlando, Memphis, Detroit and Milwaukee, whereas Seattle faces Houston (tonight), Dallas, San Antonio and Golden State. The teams Minnesota faces have combined for 151 wins this season, while Seattle’s final four have combined for 204 wins, so the chances of Seattle maintaining the second-worst record look good at the moment.

Still, Wolves fans can be grateful that their team was able to rally and win enough games to spur on some hope for the future, while still keeping their chances on a top lottery pick solid. The last time the Wovles bottomed out to this degree, they had a bad enough record to get the top overall pick, but through bad lottery luck, were bumped back to the third pick and drafted Christian Laettner out of Duke.

Good news for the Wolves is that this year’s draft is at least three blue-chippers deep, with Michael Beasley of Kansas State, Derrick Rose of Memphis and O.J. Mayo of USC all declaring for the NBA Draft, and some question marks still remaining as to who will declare this year. The bad news is that, if the lottery goes against the team once again, they could fall back as far as the fifth of sixth spot, provided enough teams leapfrog the worst three teams in the lottery.

It’s late in the NBA season, a time when teams with no playoff hopes are supposed to tank it to ensure a higher chance of doing well in the NBA lottery. After spending almost half of the NBA season as one of the worst teams in NBA history, not to mention the season, the Wolves are suddenly playing .500 ball and looking like a team with potential.

Just in time to move up the standings enough to lose a lot of lottery balls in this summer’s NBA Lottery and draft.

Strangely, like mortgage lenders out to sell homes in a bear real estate market, the staff of the Timberwolves, led by GM Kevin McHale, is saying the determination to win as many games as possible to close out the season is all part of some master plan.

Would that be the master plan to prevent the team from improving, perhaps? Sure, it’s nice to think the Wolves have turned the corner; but at this point in the season, winning big over the New York Knicks is no big whoop; they were a game up on us and wanted to lose, to improve their lottery chances.

So we won a game that the Knicks wanted to lose; where’s the improvment in that?

The Wolves need to learn how to win, and I can agree with McHale and company on that. But winning at the beginning and middle of a season, when it matters, is of far more importance, I think, than winning in the garbage games at the end of the season, when every team’s fate is pretty much sealed, isn’t my idea of the Wolves winning important games.

Just one night after losing to the Bulls on the road, the Wolves won on Wednesday night at home … against the same Bulls team. In a rare case of back-to-back games against an Eastern Conference opponent, the Wolves started sluggishly but finished strong to overwhelm Chicago, 83-67.

The game, which would have looked sharp on an LCD HDTV hanging on a tv wall mount, looked ugly but gave Minnesota their ninth win of the season, and their fourth win in the last six games. The Wolves have not had a cupcake schedule in that stretch, which includes wins over the Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors and New Jersey Nets, as well as the Bulls. The two losses in that stretch include only Boston and the Chicago road game.

Al Jefferson had 26 points and 20 rebounds while Ryan Gomes had 25 points and 10 boards; both players were keys to the deal that sent Kevin Garnett to Boston last summer. Jefferson signed a contract extension before the season, but Gomes is looking like one of the expiring contract players the Wolves might want to keep around beyond this season.

With the win, the Wolves move to 9-36, which still gives Minnesota the worst record in the NBA by a half-game. Miami is just ahead of them at 9-35, while Seattle is a full game ahead at 10-35. Minnesota is almost certain to win at least one more game the rest of the way, which means they’ll avoid tying the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers’ record for worst NBA season ever, 9-73.

Of course, the problem is that the more the Wolves win, the worse their lottery chances in the off-season and with 36 losses already this year, a post-season berth is a very dim hope at best. There are only 37 games left in the Wolves season. Even if they kept up their current pace the rest of the way, winning two of every three games, the best record they could hope for is 33-49, which is about what the Wolves achieved the last two seasons.

Translation: it’s a bit late for the Wolves to get really hot the rest of the way, since they’d miss the post-season anyway, and push themselves to the middle of the lottery rather than near the top anyway. For the sake of the franchise, I’m hoping that we don’t see the Wolves go on a 24-13 tear the rest of the way. As nice as that might seem, it would be better if they Wolves played below-.500 ball, kept their lottery chances high, and waited until next season to really set the NBA on fire.

If I had to describe Al Jefferson and limit myself to three basic assessments of his talents, it would go something like this:

Al Jefferson is younger than Kevin Garnett.

Al Jefferson is cheaper than Kevin Garnett.

And Al Jefferson is playing better this year than Kevin Garnett.

It’s clear now why the Wolves valued Jefferson so highly and insisted he must be included in any trade involving Kevin Garnett leaving the Wolves to play in Boston; right now, it’s looking like the Celtics are the ones who missed out on stocking their franchise with the better player, not only in the future, but this season as well.

This season, Garnett is averaging 19.2 ppg and 9.9 rpg, not quite a double-double, on a talent-laden team with the best record in the NBA. This season, Jefferson is averaging 20.9 ppg and 11.9 rpg, a solid double-double, on a team that hasn’t won much, but is potentially just as talent-laden, but far younger and less experienced. The Wolves still have the worst record in the NBA.

But the tide may be turning a bit in Minnesota. While Garnett is living a veteran’s dream of being on a top team, contending for a championship, the Wolves seem to have reached bottom, figured out the problems and may be even showing signs of reversing course. The key to that reversal is Jefferson, who has played a key role in the team’s last four games, in which the Wolves have gone 3-1.

The only team they’ve lost to in that stretch? Garnett’s Celtics.

I’m not saying the Wolves are ready for prime time and should start installing bathroom vanities in every players’ locker, but it is a sign of evidence for hope. On Sunday, Jefferson reached a new career high for the second time this month, scoring 40 points while grabbed down 19 rebounds in a three-point, final-period win over the New Jersey Nets.

Add to that some key young players helping out at critical times, such as Ryan Gomes and Corey Brewer, and you have somethi And with last year’s top Wolves rookie, Randy Foye, set to return to action soon - possibly before but more likely after the All-Star Break, it’s possible things could improve yet this season for the worst team in the NBA.

After a half season of near futility, the Minnesota Timberwolves have put together back-to-back wins for the first time in the franchise’s post-Garnett era. Wednesday night’s 117-110 win over Phoenix marks the second time this season the Wolves have beaten down the Suns, who are the Western Conference’s elite team this season.

Al Jefferson hit a career-high 39 points on the night, coupled with 15 boards for a standout performance, a feat that surpasses his 32-point, 20-rebound performance against the Suns back on December 8, when the Wolves earned their third victory of the season and their first win over the Suns.

The victory nearly set off Target Center’s alarm system monitoring, due to wins being so rare this season for the Wolves; the machinery considered the victory an anomaly. Joking aside, the win moves the Wolves to 7-34 at the official halfway point of the season (41 games).

The previous victory was a Monday afternoon, 109-108 road win against Golden State on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. That followed another close road game against Denver, although that one was a loss.

The Wolves have the makings of a rare quality in Minnesota this season: momentum. If they can build on this spark of success going into the All-Star Break, the second half of the season might hold more interest for Wolves fans, beyond how each win affects the Wolves’ lottery chances.