Collecting ping pong balls

[Reality]

jn do you believe a word of McHale and do you want the Wolves to tank the rest to a better lotto chance?

Not willing to roll over

Playing for more ping-pong balls would seem the prudent course for the Timberwolves. Al Jefferson is out, after all, and Minnesota owns one of the worst records in the West.

But Wolves coach Kevin McHale isn't interested in just padding the resumes of playoff contenders down the stretch. Minnesota's closing schedule is dominated by teams in the postseason hunt.

"You've got to go out and play," McHale said. "You have to compete every night. You have to put yourself in position to try to win games. The way you get better in this league is you get yourself in one- or two-possession games, figure out how you're going to close it out. When you become a good team, you play in a lot of one or two possession games, so might as well get used to it now."

[ziggy]

Playing for more ping pong balls worked real well for Pat Riley last year.  You play to win every game, every night.  What McHale said is dead on.

[JoMal]

The Kings probably have the worst record in the League pretty much locked up.

They appear to be trying to win every night, but OMG are they bad at it. Beno Udrih is so out of his League as an NBA point guard, he is unwatchable. They have several players who are just NBA stupid. (Garcia and Greene, primarily - I have hope for Greene, however). Jason Thompson is going to get better, but right now he can't brush an opponent without practically getting T'ed up for just "looking" frustrated with the foul calls the refs make on him. Hawes has the right attitude to play in the League, just not the strength yet.

But the worst problem is that the team looks to Kevin Martin as their leader. Oops! Good player, but he needs to have the leadership attention taken off of him.

Which leads back to ping pong balls. This team really, really needs to get Blake Griffin. Since the Artest trade, the Kings have negative leadership. Never a team that ever had real strong leaders, right now I have never seen such a vacuum on any pro team in history. Nocioni and to a degree Bobby Jackson are not too bad, but they are very, very lonely at the moment.   

[jn]

I think JoMal and I are in the same boat.  Tanking is not an issue with our teams because right now they can try really hard AND lose horribly.   Thus I want the Wolves to keep competing.  We'll end up with a good shot at #1 anyway.   

In addition, tanking generally means putting in bench players.  That makes no sense with the Wolves since our bench is made up expiring contract vets like Mad Dog, Brian Cardinal and Kevin Ollie.    The young guys should keep getting the minutes. 

[JoMal]

By the way, jn, what is the deal with McCants? He comes here with a reputation as a malcontent, but I hear that his main problem is that he is a loner who does not "hang" with his teammates. But he can play some ball, from what I have seen.

As for the guys you got from us. we gave Sheldon Williams every opportunity, but he is just not NBA speedy. It looks to me that it has started to catch up with him. Bobby Brown was a whiz during the summer league, but once he realyzed he was in the NBA, his gonads froze up big time.

[jn]

McCants doesn't strike me as an out and out thug. In fact I think he was actually a good student in college.   He definitely has raw ability but he has terrible shot selection, uneven effort and those problems get worse when he feels he isn't getting the ball enough.   He seems like more of a sulker than a complete rockhead. 

I haven't seen a lot of the Wolves lately but I would still agree with your assesment of Williams.   As to Brown I don't know if confidence will help him anyway.  I don't see that he brings anything to the table they can't get from Telfair, which obviously isn't saying much.