With Kevin Garnett gone, it’s gut-check time for Wolves fans.
Timberwolves 2007-2008 Season Preview
For the first time in my life, I’m about to experience a Timberwolves season without Kevin Garnett. Yes, I’ve been a fan of the team since its inception, but for all intents and purposes, Friday night will be the first time I watch a season begin without No. 21 pounding his chest and making a chalk cloud. You see, in the era before Garnett, things like the internet and NBA League Pass were futuristic technologies. If you lived in New Jersey and liked the Timberwolves, you were forced to follow the team through a box score in the paper. The only way you even knew what the role players on your team looked like was if you were fortunate enough to get one of their basketball cards in a pack. Back then, being a fan of the Timberwolves meant owning a t-shirt and always picking them on NBA Live ’95, even though they were awful. Eighteen years later, things are extremely different. Kevin Garnett isn’t able to sneeze without a complete play-by-play of the event being instantly sent to someone’s cell phone. Hardly a minute passes by without some fan making a blog post about his thoughts on the team. If I had the time, I could easily plunk myself down in front of my computer and spend a solid two-hours every day reading all the latest Timberwolves news. Being a fan of the Timberwolves has a completely different meaning in medical school than it did in elementary school. And so that’s why I say that Friday, November 2nd will be my first time that I truly begin a Timberwolves season without Kevin Garnett.
I’m sure it may feel very differently for those of you who are long-time fans living in the Twin Cities. You were able to go to the games and see Tony Campbell, Christian Laettner, and J.R. Rider. You didn’t spend your first nine seasons as a Timberwolves fan with an impossible thousand mile distance between you and your team. But I’m guessing that most fans ages 25 and under, regardless of where you call home, probably feel the same way as I do. For us, the Minnesota Timberwolves and Kevin Garnett are inseparable. When the 2007 season tips off this week and The Big Ticket is in a Celtics jersey, we’ll feel like a child who’s parents just got divorced. Our NBA world has been ripped in two, and there’s no way to repair it. The fact that the Wolves have added eleven different players to the team’s roster this off-season hasn’t even begun to fill the gigantic hole that has been bored through this franchise. And no matter what superstar the franchise brings on board, or how many rings Garnett wins with Boston, there will be no filling it. That hole will always be there; a scar to remind us of shattered dreams and what should have been.
Not the inspiring the article you’re used to from this site, huh? Well that’s because there’s absolutely nothing for Wolves fans to be inspired about. You can wax optimistic about the potential of Al Jefferson, Randy Foye, and Corey Brewer until you’re blue in the face, but that won’t change the fact that everything that Wolves fans have strived for these past eighteen years was crumbled up and thrown in the trash the day Garnett was forced away. When the team was horrendous, we kept believing that there would be a better day. When the Wolves missed out on stars like Shaq in the draft, we kept hoping that we’d land a franchise player. When we finally got Garnett, we kept holding on, waiting for a playoff series victory. And when this team fell back into the lottery, we refused to give up on them. We’ve spent our entire lives as Timberwolves fans searching for meaning in the long upward climb and the following precipitous fall. We gave everything we had to this franchise and then some. So how can it possibly be that we’re sitting here eighteen years later and about to start the 2007 season the same way we did in 1989 – with a roster full of unfamiliar and unproven players, planted firmly on the bottom rung of the NBA ladder?
When you look at things in that light, it makes you want to quit, doesn’t it? I mean, do you really want to spend the next eighteen years living and dying with this team’s every game, only to find yourself back at the starting point once again?
If you’re a true Timberwolves fan, then you were quick to answer, “Yes”. I’ve said for years that if being a Timberwolves fan has taught me anything, it’s to never give up, no matter how dire the circumstances may be. The thought of spending the next two decades trapped in the same vicious cycle is daunting, but not nearly awful enough to change the way I feel about this team. The same can’t be said for the many who have abandoned this team since the 2004 Western Conference Finals. They stood and cheered in the Target Center when the Wolves defeated the Kings in Game 7, but where nowhere to be found the past three years. Others have followed Garnett to better days in Boston, and left Minnesota in the rearview mirror. Either way, there’s no denying that the few of us remaining in the dwindling T-Wolves nation are the truest of the true. If we haven’t been convinced to pack up our bags yet, there’s little chance that anything ever will.
I’m not going to lie. The 2007-2008 season is going to be a trial. In all likelihood, the next few seasons are going to be a trial. But the way I see it, these dark days only serve to give us fans the opportunity to shine our brightest. When the Target Center’s only filled with 14,000 people, your voice tends to carry a lot further – and it sends a message. It says that you know what it means to stand firm in the harshest of circumstances, to keep believing when hope appears to be lost, and to find the strength to hang on just one second longer. It speaks volumes about what you’re made of and who you truly are. You just don’t get that when your team’s winning titles. Trust me, as a Patriots fan, I know. Every time somebody asks me what football team I like, I feel compelled to add, “since 7th grade”, as I’m invariably met with questioning looks. Ask me who my NBA team is, and I never need to qualify or justify anything. Being a Timberwolves fan speaks for itself. So as this season begins, we can either sulk in our team’s struggles or embrace the opportunity to bleed for a team that isn’t going to win a title, just because we’re strong enough to bleed.
You’re a Minnesota Timberwolves fan. Wear it loud. Wear it proud. And show them what we’re made of.
Predictions:
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Atlantic Division:
1. Boston
2. New Jersey
3. Toronto
4. New York
5. Philadelphia
Central Division:
1. Chicago
2. Detroit
3. Cleveland
4. Milwaukee
5. Indiana
Southeast Division
1. Washington
2. Orlando
3. Miami
4. Atlanta
5. Charlotte
WESTERN CONFERENCE
Northwest Division
1. Utah
2. Denver
3. Minnesota
4. Portland
5. Seattle
Pacific Division
1. Phoenix
2. Golden State
3. Los Angeles Lakers
4. Los Angeles Clippers
5. Sacramento
Southwest Division
1. Dallas
2. San Antonio
3. Houston
4. New Orleans
5. Memphis
PLAYOFFS:
EASTERN CONFERENCE:
1. Boston
2. Chicago
3. Washington
4. Detroit
5. New Jersey
6. Cleveland
7. Orlando
8. Toronto
First Round:
Boston over Toronto
Chicago over Orlando
Cleveland over Washington
Detroit over New Jersey
Conference Semifinals:
Boston over Detroit
Chicago over Cleveland
Conference Finals:
Boston over Chicago
WESTERN CONFERENCE:
1. Phoenix
2. Dallas
3. Utah
4. San Antonio
5. Houston
6. Golden State
7. Denver
8. Minnesota
First Round:
Phoenix over Minnesota
Dallas over Denver
Utah over Golden State
San Antonio over Houston
Conference Semifinals:
San Antonio over Phoenix
Dallas over Utah
Conference Finals:
San Antonio over Dallas
NBA FINALS:
San Antonio over Boston
