Note: Since this is New Year's Eve, this is the last Weekly Minnesota Sports Sports Survey that will be published on Fridays. As is custom, once the New Year rolls around, the WMNSS for 2022 will be published on the day of the week on which January 8 falls on -- therefore, Saturdays. The next survey will encompass December 31, 2021 to January 7, 2022 in order to ensure that all Games played on New Year's Eve (of which there is only one) will be accounted for when I shift to the new day for the survey.
#-1: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3). With the squad continuing to be racked by COVID-19, the Wolves, like many other clubs, have scrambled to find people to play for them. Not only does that include G-Leaguers, but it also includes veterans who have washed out of the league. Seriously, the wave of signings onto teams desperate to find bodies to play for them have been repeated blasts from the past.
The prime example for the Timberwolves? Greg Monroe! Part of me thought he retired. Part of me thought he was still in the NBA. He actually had not played in The Association since 2019, after which he bounced around to Germany and China. This Year, he got into the G-League (or, as I want to refer to it from now on, the "Gleague") but got signed by Minnesota to a ten-day contract after the outbreak on the team.
His first Game was Monday at home versus Boston, a team he played for for a few Months. I caught part of the contest while working out, and I'll be goddamned, but I think he needs to be a part of this team moving forward. Seriously. He was running point off the high block for much of the Game, and he had close to a Triple-Double (eleven Points, nine Rebounds, six Assists) as he was instrumental in the Timberwolves' 108-103 Win over the Celtics. They don't win without him. Now, they followed that up the next night with a 96-88 home loss to New York, but whatevs. They sit in ninth place in the Western Conference, which means they would be in the Play-In Tournament, and this franchise has been so awful that even that stage of the post-season (well, technically it's not the post-season) seemed like a wild, unfounded fantasy to think they could reach.
I have to say, though, that this team has improved -- maybe not as much as the talent on paper would lead you to believe, but they're improving. And that leads to speculation that these guys could get better if they just make a trade. I ran across a Twitter account called Timberwolves Clips (I don't think they're affiliated with the organization at all) which yesterday/Thursday afternoon went through a series of at-least possible (if not plausible) trades the Wolves can make. Many of the trades involve shipping out Naz Reid and Taurean Prince for some reason, so maybe the person running the account has kind of gotten stuck with a certain way of thinking. But there are some names which I could see greatly improving this squad: Eric Gordon, Jae'Sean Tate from Houston, Cam Reddish from Atlanta, Marvin Bagley from Sacramento. The big one, I think, is Myles Turner from Indiana. The Pacers have let it be known that they're conducting a fire sale on the roster, and Turner could be the 5 that allows Karl-Anthony Towns to finally get away from the rim on defense (which he has not really been interested in working on) and begin picking and popping from deep. Timberwolves Clips say that Turner will cost the club Reid, Prince, Josh Okogie and their First-Round pick (although the handle says it should be protected down to the top five picks). The big hang-up with doing this trade, or any trade for that matter, is that the Wolves are hard up against the cap, and there is no reason to believe the organization will be willing to pay any luxury tax. But as far as trades go, I would really, really like this.
They're in Utah tonight/New Year's Eve to take on the Jazz. That begins a three-Game road trip with a stop in Los Angeles to face The Team That Was Stolen From Us v.1.0 and the Clippers. They then have a home-and-home with The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics.
There should be more outrage, or at least more askance glances, over the 17-Game season the NFL appears to be going with for the foreseeable future. It's not the increased length of the regular season that bothers me; I'm actually OK with that. It's that it's now an odd number. Seriously. Why is the regular season an odd number? Can anyone name any sports league on Earth that has a regular season with a scheduled (I'm not talking about instances of baseball teams not reaching an even number of Games because rainouts late in the season aren't made up) odd number of Games? You can't. Because playing an odd number of Games is weird. Not just weird, it's fucked-up.
The main reason it's fucked up is because it doesn't provide an equal number of home and road Games. That seems like an inviolate rule when it comes to a league's regular season: You are given the same number of Games at home as you play away from home. It's only fair. But instead the NFL takes this half-ass step of not adding a home and a road Game and instead giving one conference an extra home Game (this Year it's the AFC, next Year it's the NFC). For the Vikes it meant an extra road Game at the Chargers. Ultimately it didn't matter because Minnesota won ... and also, and I won't be dissuaded from believing this, the Chargers have no fans and so the Vikings were playing in front of a crowd that was majority theirs. Still, it's unbalanced and therefore it's unfair. And more people should be pissed off that some teams get an extra home Game and some don't. That more football fans aren't up in arms over this is another sign that Americans are lazy and therefore this country is ripe to be taken over by a dictatorship.
OK, rant over. They hosted The Bastard Cleveland Rams and, like they have way too often this season, they were close enough to win but didn't make enough plays and they lost, 30-23, thereby suffering a huge blow to their playoff chances. The neckbreaker of the tilt was a Rams Touchdown on a Punt. But once again, both the Offense and the Defense have to take their share of the blame: The former couldn't convert on Third Down and in the Red Zone, and the latter yielded in one big category, in this case the running game.
Now they go to Lambeau Field and face the Green Bay Packers. Sunday night football, vs. a team that is still seeking the top seed in the NFC and the bye that goes with it, headed by a Quarterback having yet another monster season and has the pettiness to want to stick a dagger in the playoff chances of a division rival? And the Vikings charge into Green Bay without Adam Thielen, who's out for the rest of the Year? Bye-bye playoffs -- and probably bye-bye to Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman.
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