The most difficult thing is the teasing

As I sit here on a late Sunday afternoon, the Timberwolves are currently getting their collective asses kicked by the Boston Celtics. In many ways this doesn't really bother me. The C's, after all, are one of the three best teams in the Eastern Conference. They are two years away from winning the title. And they have a helluva lot more talented than the Baby Wolves.

But it caps a week that demonstrates to me just how tough it is to hang with a team through rebuilding.

The tough part isn't knowing there are games when your team doesn't have a shot and will need something close to a miracle to win. What's tougher is simply the teasing.

The teasing? Yep.

Let's look back at the past nine days or so. Last Saturday they get stomped at Sacramento, losing by 20. Monday night they respond by getting a very nice win at Utah. They come back Wednesday night and show not nearly enough effort in a bad loss to the Clippers. And then they lead tip-to-horn in the rematch against Sacramento and win. Tonight, the Wolves are simply overmatched and that could be the case again Tuesday against Atlanta.

Maybe I'm not patient enough for the reality of NBA rebuilding, but I'd like to see more consistent play. I know there are a large number of teams that are flat-out better than the Wolves, but I'd like to begin to see the elimination of the really bad performances.

The Wolves, as bad as they are, aren't 20 worse than Sacto. They shouldn't fail to show up for a winnable home game against the Clippers.

I get that 82 games is a lot of games. Maybe this doesn't have much of a point, but I'd like to see a few of the bad games vanish. I also know this isn't simply a Minnesota problem. Oklahoma City has run into a little of this. Sacramento has done the same as has Milwaukee. Even Portland -- albeit the injury-riddled Blazers -- have struggled with this.

I am happy that this team is getting better. Waiting for the the Wolves to make another small step is difficult.

I love eBay/what to expect tonight.

I just walked back to my desk from the printer. In my hand is the printout of two tickets for tonight's Wolves-Clippers game. I bought them off of eBay. $100 worth of tickets that I scored for $18.30. How good is that? For less than the price of going to a movie, I'll get to see a number of good young NBA players. Will I see a playoff team? Probably not, but it should at least be interesting.

What exactly will I see this evening? The team that got crushed at Sacramento? Or the one that made good plays (with Gomes out) down the stretch in Monday night's win at Utah?

While the Timberwolves still have but four victories this season and are last in the Western Conference, there are some good things out there. A look at them:

- The biggest thing is that the Wolves simply have a better clue as to what Rambis wants offensively. There looks to be less confusion and less standing around.

- JFlynn, in the process, seems to have a better sense of what he wants to do and is playing with more confidence. His play at the end of the Utah victory was strong. I didn't like the early-in-the-clock three with a couple of possessions remaining. But the way he beat Deron Williams off of the bounce on the winning basket was very good. That is especially the case considering that the screen to get him loose never really got Williams.

-I'll be interested in seeing Corey Brewer tonight. He played his best game of the season against Utah in that he played a bunch of minutes, scored 22 points, shot better than 50 percent from the floor, had two assists for every turnover and took a great charge in the final 45 seconds on Carlos Boozer. While I didn't see the Sacramento game, he shot better than 50 percent in that game as well. I hope that he has figured out the magic of good shot selection. If that is the case, that would be significant for the Wolves.

-Has Big Al finally returned? On the recent road trip, Big Al averaged 24.3 points and 12 rebounds per game. He scored 23 or more points in each game, marking the first time this season he has gotten 20 in three straight games. Maybe the knee is starting to feel good. It will be interesting to see what he can do against Chris Kaman tonight. Al only had 13 points against the Clippers earlier this season while turning the ball over eight times.

FLYNN FOURTH: If you have ESPN insider access, you can read David Thorpe's analysis of the rookie class at this point. Thorpe rankes Flynn fourth behind Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings and Omri Casspi. I totally get the first two. I'm not as sold on Casspi, but I can't totally argue either as the native of Israel is having a fine rookie season for the Kings. At the same time, he doesn't have nearly the responsibilities as Flynn either.

That's it for now. Looking forward to an evening at Target Center tonight.

Dead Freakin' Last

That is where Marc Stein has the Wolves now in his weekly power rankings. You can see it here.

I'm not sure the Wolves are last as they have played better since Love's return. That said, I only saw the first half of Saturday night's butt-kicking from Sacramento. It appears as if keeping the wife happy was a good move because that thing got UGLY.

Tonight at Utah? Would love to say that I'm optimistic.

I do have an eBay bid on some tickets for Wednesday night against the Clippers. Will know by the end of the night if I'll be in Target Center for the big game.

Also, make sure you check out the New York Times story on the Triangle offense. It is some good stuff.

That's it for now. I might be tweeting during tonight's game, so make sure you're following @the600project.

UPDATE: Timberwolves.com says Gomes isn't going to play tonight after tweaking his knee. He can walk and should be fine, but won't play tonight. Audio link here

Thoughts on Lakers and Kings

Well, let's get the most interesting item of last night out of the way. Here is the link to the Corey Brewer total facial of Derek Fisher from last night. It is nasty.

The game itself wasn't nearly as awful as I expected it to be. The Wolves actually played pretty well against a Lakers team that is, frankly, way better and way more talented. It was a one-point game at halftime and finished as a 12-point loss to the team that is clearly the best in the West.

I really thought this was probably Al Jefferson's most complete game this season, especially considering the level of competition. Big Al finished with 24 and 13 while shooting better than 50 percent from the floor. While everyone would like to see the pre-knee injury Al from last season, that hasn't always been the case. But against the Lakers, there were more glimpses of it.

In addition, Sessions was very effective, especially in the second quarter as the Wolves kept this from being a total ass kicking.

As I posted yesterday, that brings us to another challenging game tonight at Sacramento. I know what you might be thinking: Sacramento, they suck. Wolves will win for sure.

I'm not sure that I agree with that line of thinking. The Kings, in my estimation, have exceeded expectations as much as any team in the Association. Sacramento, after all, won only 17 games and current Wolves assistant Reggie Theus was fired just 24 games into the season.

This season, Sacramento has won nine games despite playing without its best player -- Kevin Martin -- for much of the year. I truly thought when Martin went down that the Kings were again going to be the worst team in the West.

Exactly what has happened under new coach Paul Westphal is difficult to completely explain. Rookie guard Tyreke Evans has been very good (20.2 ppg) and really might end up as the best rookie in the league (even despite Brandon Jennings going for 55 earlier this year). In addition, second year big Jason Thompson has shown significant improvement.

I have taken to watching the Kings a little bit at night on League Pass and one thing that has been fairly consistent is that Sacramento really plays hard. Effort is sometimes easier to see than it is to quantify, but here's one area where it shows -- the Kings are outrebounding opponents by 40 for the season in 21 games.

While the Kings are better, this is the most realistic opportunity for the Wolves to get a win on this road trip. It won't be easy, but it also isn't impossible. It will be interesting to see how the Wolves respond to the second night of a back-to-back.

On additional note: There was an interesting CBSSports.com story yesterday that discusses NBA attendance/revenue. This might not be a shock to anyone who has been to Target Center this season, but Ken Berger says that the Wolves revenue is down 24.4 percent over a year ago. That, my friends, is fairly scary.

If there is some good news it is that the Wolves are not in the bottom five in PAID attendance per game. Memphis is last in the league, averaging only 6,879. Sacramento, Milwaukee, Philly and Charlotte all also average less than 9,000 paying customers per game. The Wolves are 21st in announced attendance (generally tickets distributed) at 15,077 per game. It is very unclear what the paid number is.

One other tidbit from the story shows that the Wolves are among teams bringing in less than $500K in revenue/game.

"Compared to full-season figures for 2008-09, the number of teams netting less than $500,000 in gate receipts per home game has grown from five to eight, with the Sixers, Kings, and Bobcats joining the Grizzlies, Timberwolves, Bucks,Pacers, and Hawks in the under-$500K club."

Will Sessions be moved?

That's at least a possibility according to ESPN.com's Marc Stein.

He lists Sessions as one of the players most likely to be moved in this piece.

Does that make sense? It's not a crazy idea. With Jonny Flynn appearing to get more and more comfortable, it certainly looks like Sessions' minutes are going to go down as we get further into this season.

That, however, does create some issues. The biggest of which is who the hell would back up Flynn? Obviously they could get a backup PG in a deal or sign somebody from the D-League or something. Some of that could make sense if the hope is to get John Wall.

Anyway, food for thought. Just wanted to pass it along.

A couple of quick items

Semi short of time here this morning, but wanted to throw out a couple of things for my faithful readers (seriously, I love the comments).

In this morning's Star Tribune, it was pretty clear that Jerry Zgoda went to Lakers practice yesterday.

A couple of the highlights:

- The last four Wolves losses have come by an average of 2.7 points. The previous 11 losses were by an average of 18.8 points.

- Phil Jackson on the Wolves: "They look like they started to get it about a week and a half ago. They're starting to play better. It's nice to see his team starting to play well and be competitive. They've gotten over the hump, so to speak, so I'm warning our guys not to take them lightly."

My thoughts:

1. I expect the Wolves to get their asses completely kicked tonight at Staples Center. If we have learned anything in the first six weeks of this NBA season, it is that the Lakers are in a different universe from the rest of the teams in the West. Eight of the Lakers 17 victories this season have been by 15 or more points. They beat Utah the other night by 24 points. They have a 19- and a 20-point win over Phoenix. They beat the Bulls by 15, Oklahoma City by 16, New Orleans by 16, Memphis by 16 and Golden State by a whopping 33. Basically I'm going with no expectations and if the Wolves make it somewhat competitive, I'll be thrilled.

2. If the Wolves can win one game on this three-game road trip, that would be a pretty good feat. I'm guessing, however, that it will be an 0-3 trip. Winning at Sacramento seems like the most obvious place to get a win, but the surprising Kings are 8-3 at Arco this season (losing only to Miami, Chicago and Atlanta). In addition, guess who doesn't play tonight? Yep, Sacto. And Monday night in Utah? I say no chance. The Jazz are going to want to give the Wolves a serious beatdown after losing here last Saturday.

3. Here are a few things I'll be watching for on this trip: How long can Rambis keep bringing Love off of the bench? How will the minute distribution between Flynn and Sessions evolve? How will Ellington adjust now that teams have some film of him playing legit minutes?

That's probably it from here today. Please chime in whenever in the comments. I am happy to hear from you, even if you disagree with me.

The perfect game?

The email was on my BlackBerry when I woke up this morning. The sender was a friend of mine who loves all things Minnesota sports. The Wolves aren't his favorite team, but he watches a good number of games and has a decent sense as to what is going on.

His take was simple: Last night's loss to New Orleans was the perfect game for the Timberwolves.

I'm not sure that I believe with that, but I do get his point. The Timberwolves played very well for 2 1/2 quarters and still had a chance to win the game in the final minutes. Jonny Flynn set a career high in assists, KLove was again solid and Big Al put up good numbers.

And they lost.

My buddy says he's now on the bandwagon for the Wolves to lose as many games as possible so they have the best chance at winning the lottery and landing John Wall. The way he puts it, "the difference between 15 and 22 victories is irrelevant, but if that means we can get just one more ping-pong ball, it's worth losing."

My take has been that the Wolves need to eliminate this culture of losing and at least establish a culture of improvement. I was disappointed that the Wolves had awful offensive execution in the second half that was littered with turnovers and predictable play. I was bummed that Flynn lost CP3 on that last inbounds play. Because while New Orleans isn't what it was a couple of years ago, it is still a decent team. I would like to see the Wolves win some games -- like the Saturday win over Utah -- against teams that are at least in the conversation for the playoffs. I'd also like to have them show some improvement so that they might be on the radar screen of more people in the Twin Cities. Because eventually this whole economic model of no one showing up will collapse.

What are your thoughts? Should people hope for loss after loss? Or should they try to squeeze out every possible victory?

The worst job in sports?

There are certainly bad jobs out there in the sports world. You could do the laundry of large NFL linemen. You could be one of those goofy guys with the flags at the Vikings. You could be Tiger Woods' PR guy right now.

But is there a tougher job in sports than to be someone trying to make a living by selling tickets for the Timberwolves?

These poor folks -- who can't be making all that much money -- have to try to find a way to get people to buy tickets from the team to see a team that is off the radar of way too many people in town.

Tonight the Wolves host New Orleans. I don't have corporate or vendor tickets for tonight's game. Now I realize I should probably go home after work, deal with the snow in my driveway and curl up in front of my TV to watch the game. But there is something about watching Chris Paul in person that has me at least considering another option.

It is amazing how little you can get into a game for now at the Target Center (can you really go more than about 48 hours without receiving some sort of ticket email from the team?). A quick glance at Craigslist/StubHub/eBay/Ticket King has pairs upstairs for less than $10. Downstairs tickets can be had for very little as well. I can only imagine what scalpers are getting outside. Can't be much.

This leads me to something of a moral question: Do you ever feel like you should buy from the team? That way the Wolves don't lose as much money, people might not lose jobs, the team can't use the 'we're losing money so we can't get better' card.

I am sometimes torn on that. I'm cool with buying from the team, but I need to look out for my own pocketbook as well. A cheap or free ticket that happens to end up in my lap is always a good thing and, obviously, I'm going to buy a beer or two and something to eat at the game.

Anyway, still considering ticket options. Maybe I'll see if somebody on Craigslist gets desperate by the end of the afternoon and I can grab some good seats for peanuts. Otherwise, I'm probably going blow snow and watch on TV.

And if you are someone trying to sell tickets in this market, I feel for you. I think the product isn't bad and is worth watching, but this is the biggest problem with the start of the seasons. The Wolves can no longer sell hope to the public and that is not a good thing.

Perhaps progress at the quarter pole

OK, I know that 82 games isn't divisible by four. But for the sake of this little blog post, I'm calling 20 games into the season to be the quarter mark.

For the Minnesota Timberwolves, the first fourth of the season hasn't been terribly pretty. There was a 15 game losing streak. There were lots of new faces. There was little Kevin Love. There was Al Jefferson, but not at 100 percent.

But on Saturday night, there were brief signs of life. A murmur. A little something. If the NBA season was a Grey's Anatomy episode, the Wolves would still be on the operating table and Christina would be bitching about something while Derek attempted another impossible surgery. On second thought, maybe I should quit the Grey's Anatomy reference since Seattle couldn't even keep its NBA team.

But as I sat in Target Center on Saturday night, I couldn't really believe what I was seeing. The Wolves played with confidence. They, largely, made good decisions down the stretch. They knocked down open shots. And they beat Utah for their first home victory since opening night.

While Utah is more middle-of-the-pack than great, the Jazz do still have some nice pieces. They have a great PG in Deron Williams, they have a system and they usually don't beat themselves.

At the end, I don't really care that the Wolves won on Saturday. I do, however, care about how they won. They won, in large part, by going young. Over the final 5-plus minutes, Rambis went with this lineup:

Big Al, KLove, Gomes, Flynn and Ellington.

Or 24 years old, 21, 27, 20, 22

Or sixth year, second year, fifth year, rookie, rookie

This, to me, is progress. I understand that making the Wolves competitive is going to be a process. I get that it is going to take time. And I'm cool with that. I'm cool with them losing if it means truly playing guys who have a chance moving forward.

What I'm not cool with is playing the guys who aren't part of the longer term future. I don't want to see Pecherov on the floor at the end of games. I don't want Jawai. I certainly don't want to see Brian Cardinal.

I say play the kids and see what happens. I'm cool with a little bit of Damien Wilkins, but not a ton. I don't think Ryan Hollins is really an answer, so I want only small doses. I am also not super excited to see Corey Brewer on the floor during the final minutes because he simply isn't good enough.

One more thing. Less Sasha Pavlovic would be nice.

To me the return of KLove and the improved play of Ellington helps greatly in this area. Against the Jazz, neither Pecherov or Jawai saw the floor and Hollins played less than 13 minutes. We all know that Kevin Love has a chance to be a very good player in the NBA. He may never be an All-Star, but he is very, very solid. He rebounds like crazy, he starts the team's transition game and he makes very few mistakes. After all, he has two double-doubles in two games. What's wrong with that?

But as important as Love's return is to the Wolves, the emergence of Ellington in the past week can't be overlooked. Part of the reason why I like Ellington is that he seems to have a good understanding of what he can't do and he tries to find ways to do what he is good at. He's a good outside shooter, he's a pretty good passer and he's kind of sneaky good as a rebounder.

Over the past three games, Ellington has averaged 26 minutes, 3 rebounds and 10 points per game while shooting .619 from the floor and averaging more assists than turnovers. Let's compare him with Corey Brewer. Over Brewer's past five games (easy stats on espn.com), he is averaging 25.8 minutes, 3.4 rebounds, 8 points per game while shooting .372 and turning the ball over more than getting assists.

Corey Brewer seems like a nice guy. He seems to be in good shape after missing almost all of last season with a kneed injury. And he's a good dunker. But Wayne Ellington is way more efficient offensively, doesn't make as many dumb plays and doesn't need as many shots to score.

The biggest difference to me is that he seems to know his limitations and avoids things he isn't good at while Brewer either doesn't know or doesn't care that his range is about four feet from the basket. He also tries for the impossible a little more than I'd like and that leads to turnovers.

Anyway, this thing has gone in about 12 different directions, but I think the combination of KLove returning and Ellington seeing more late-game minutes is a step in the right direction.

Returning from injury. And what might have been.

When Wolves play tonight at New Orleans, much of the focus will be on Kevin Love. Jerry Zgoda just tweeted that Love will play tonight for the first time this season after breaking a bone in his hand during the preseason.

But I keep thinking back to last Feb. 8. That was the night that Al Jefferson went down in a heap near the end of a loss to the Hornets. You know the rest of the story: Torn ACL, out for the season, Wolves go into a total tailspin.

The Wolves had just gone 13-9 over the previous 22 games, but would go a brutal 7-25 the rest of the way.

Even now, I don't think Al is fully healthy. He's played, but hasn't looked like himself. He's been great at times and then vansished at other times. It might be another month until he's fully the Al we once knew.

But what happens if Al isn't on the floor in the final 30 seconds at New Orleans Arena? How many more games do they win? Another five? Another 10? What does that do to the team's draft position?

Do they make the move with the Wizards? Do they end up with Rubio and Flynn? Do they end up with someone like Tyreke Evans or Brandon Jennings?

Back to Love. I am interested to see how much he plays tonight and, as a result, how much he plays tomorrow night at Target Center against the Jazz.

As Phil Miller wrote in the Star Tribune this morning, the Wolves should be able to take advantage of Love's ability to outlet the ball quickly and play faster. There is reason to believe that one of the slowest offenses in the NBA will speed up and get more easy baskets.

I don't think this is going to be an immediate fix for the Wolves. Love needs to get in a little better game shape -- working out is not the same as playing in a NBA game. But I do think the Wolves are going to get better.

How much better is a question. Just as it is interesting to think about what could have happened if Big Al had had a better last trip to New Orleans.

Entering a cold winter

Thanks to some corporate seats, I was about 12 rows up on the side from Ramon Sessions when he missed the first of two free throws last night. All he had was an opportunity to last night's game in the closing seconds and potentially force overtime against the Memphis Grizzlies.

I watched the Wolves melt down, again, in the third quarter and give up control of a game that they owned in the first half. I watched defense -- especially on Rudy Gay and Zach Randolph -- become super soft.

A postgame beer later, I walked out into a brisk night and it hit me: This is all we've got. The Timberwolves are a bad team and even though Kevin Love could be back as soon as Friday night, I'm not sure things are going to really change.

Because let's be honest. If you can't beat a bad Memphis team that was playing the final game of a five game road trip at home, how good can you really be?

I tried to be optimistic even as the Wolves won game after game. I thought it was the schedule and that the home losses weren't really all that bad. But nobody is going to confuse Memphis with the Lakers or the Celtics. While the Grizzlies do have a few good players, there doesn't seem to be a big team concept going on there.

And if you can't beat a Griz team with an injured point guard, who are you going to beat?

It has been five weeks since the Wolves won their home opener. When are they going to win again at Target Center?

I truly thought this team would be improved over a year ago. Damn was I wrong. And it's going to be a long, cold winter.

KLove back by the weekend?

Jerry Zgoda blogs about it here. Love says he's hoping for Saturday against Utah. But Tuesday at Toronto could be the date as well.

The month ahead: December

The Wolves enter December on a win-a-month pace. They won once in October and then, 15 losses later, won the final game in November. Here's a look at where they are, how that compares with a year ago and what to expect over the next month.

Overall record: 2-15

November record: 1-14

Record through November last season: 4-11

December record last season: 2-14

What to expect: While the bar is admittedly quite low, it seems quite unlikely that the Timberwolves will be as bad in December as they were in November. The team should be gaining a greater understanding of the Kurt Rambis' offense and get a better sense of what the head coach wants. In addition, Kevin Love -- who hasn't played since breaking a bone in his non-shooting hand during a preseason game at Chicago -- should return by mid-month at the latest.

And there is the schedule. The December schedule is easier. Much easier.

After a November that saw the Wolves make three separate trips to the West Coast and have double games with Phoenix, Portland and Denver (along with the Clippers), things are much different.

The Wolves only have one West Coast trip in the month, they have eight home games instead of seven and the multiple games are against Utah, New Orleans and a surprising Sacramento team.

In addition, there are simply more games that you look at and say, "They might be able to win that." That starts Wednesday night with a home game against Memphis. In addition, there are two games against a banged up New Orleans team, two with the Kings, a home game against the Clippers, a game at awful New Jersey and a home game against Washington.

What's realistic: The Wolves should win at least four games this month and five or six isn't completely crazy. Five wins in December would put the Wolves ahead of their victory pace at that point a year ago. That, however, is a bit deceiving as the McHale led Wolves went 10-4 in January.

Game worth seeing: I am a big fan of two things. I like teams on the rise and I like catching teams from the East that only make one trip to MSP. Because of that, I'm calling the Dec. 22 game against Atlanta as the one to go to. The Hawks are an example of why NBA fans need to have patience. Five years ago, Atlanta went 13-69. Since then the Hawks have steadily increased their win total, going from 26 to 30 to 37 and 47 a year ago. They are currently 12-5 this season with two wins over Portland, a win at Boston and a win over Miami. Plus the game is a chance to see Joe Johnson in person. After the uber-elite of LeBron, DWade and Bosh, Johnson will be among the most interesting free agents available this summer.

Three Random Things

Maybe I'll make this a regular part of the blog. We'll see I guess. But here are Three Random Things going through my mind when it comes to the NBA.

1. My biggest weakness has become the Golden State Warriors.

Some people love chocolate. Other people can't stop smoking. I can't stop watching the Golden State Warriors.

I know that the Warriors are totally flawed and dysfunctional. I know that Monta Ellis said on the first day of training camp that there was no way that he and Steph Curry could play together. I know that they were dumb enough to sign S-Jax to a big deal and then trade him away for not a whole lot. I know that Don Nelson does crazy things like not play Anthony Randolph enough minutes.

But, man, are they fun to watch. The ball moves like crazy. Ellis attacks the rim like he's twice the size that he is. Anthony Morrow might be the best three-point shooter in the Association. And they can run it up on almost anybody. 

It has reached the point for me that if I'm flipping around the League Pass offerings and the Warriors are play, I'm probably watching. Hell, I'm considering trying to buy one of those sweet "City" T-shirts. Last night's game against Indiana was a perfect example of why. The Pacers had no clue as to slow down Ellis. He finished with 45 despite fouling out with about six minutes left on what I thought was a crap block/charge call. 

Tonight, the Warriors play Denver and I'll probably watch again. Nothing like a little late night up and down.

2. What doesn't get talked about regarding Brandon Jennings

Upon my return from Thanksgiving, I found Sports Illustrated sitting in my mailbox. In it was a nice piece on Brandon Jennings. While I've seen him mentioned a little bit in stories on Jennings, this piece quoted former Oklahoma and Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson at length.

I really think that Sampson's role on the Milwaukee staff has helped Jennings greatly. Sampson was one of those college coaches that forced his guys to work. He was a cheater, but he got his guys to work, play hard, defend and get after it. Sampson has worked hard with Jennings on his outside shooting -- what many people thought was his biggest weakness. He has repeatedly worked him out, put him through drills and given him confidence.

Plus almost all of Sampson's coaching career has been spent dealing with players around Jennings' age. He understands what a teenager is like, what a teenager wants and how to get through to them. That can only be a bonus. 

3. My new reading material

Over the weekend, I picked up the still pretty new Bill Simmons' The Book of Basketball. First, you have to love Costco. The list price for this massive 700-page epic is $30. I saw it at Target for $21. I bought it at Costco for $16 and change. 

I'm not super far into the book,  but it seems as if it is going to be a good read. Simmons is funny and I had no idea about his history of going to Celtics games at Boston Garden. The book seems cool so far and the footnotes are hilarious. 

I'm sure there will be more updates down the line.

That's three items. And I'm out. Look for a post later about the month ahead for the Wolves.