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?