http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/20101 ... rt-gq-blog
Since this is my first blog post of the season, the first item on the agenda is to pick a name for this blog, and the guys at GQ gave me a head start with a couple of options. If you're reading this, you know what I ended up deciding. But here are the names they suggested and I thought I'd share them with you, along with what I thought of each one. Tell me if you think I made the wrong call.
The Love Shack–Of course. When we're in Minnesota, they play this one after every basket I make. Either that or they play that "What Is Love?" song—you know, from A Night at the Roxbury. It is not my favorite. I think I've got enough clout now to put a stop to that one by the time our first game comes around this week. But anyway—The Love Shack? I don't know. It's kind of corny.
Love Bites–That's fresh. That's original. But I don't know. It might make people think, you know, different things as well.
The Love Doctor–That's not too bad. That might get the females on my side. But it's not even about basketball.
Love Will Tear Us Apart–That's pretty badass.
OK, let's talk about the Minnesota Timberwolves this year, because I am very excited about our team. We've gotta be the youngest team in the league. [Editors note: The average age of the team is 23.6 years old.] Luke Ridnour is our oldest player, and he's only 29. And what being so young means is that it gives us a chance to grow together. Look at Memphis, or even more so, Oklahoma City—those were young teams for a couple seasons, and now they've really taken that step forward and built a winning mentality. That's what we want to happen here. And the biggest thing is all of us sticking together, growing as a family and getting on the same page. We're happy with where things are now, and tomorrow night against Sacramento, we want to get this thing started off right.
Over the summer, the president of our team, David Kahn, took out a full-page ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and he wrote an open letter to our fans, in which he said that while our team is young and exciting, we probably won't be contenders again this season. The letter caused a bit of a fuss, but we didn't really pay it any mind. We don't want to worry about what the front office is saying, or what anybody else is saying. We just want to go out and win ballgames. They're not going to help us do that. Only we can do that. So yeah, we heard it. Yeah, we listened to it. And they can make all the excuses they want. We can make the excuse that we're young, or whatever, but at the end of the day, it's just us—those 20 guys, players and coaches, together in our little foxhole. And we're going to have to fight for everything. We're going to have to be the hardest working team in the NBA.
Sure, we have to be realistic about setting our goals, and we know going into the season that we're probably not going to win the championship. But I don't think the playoffs are too far out of the picture. Whether it's this year, or next year. And we know we're gonna surprise some teams. If you're playing back-to-back nights and you decide not to run with us, we're going to blow you out of the gym.
I wanna end this first post with a message for my man over at ESPN, Bill Simmons. I heard that on his podcast, he was going through all the Vegas over-unders for every NBA team's 2010-11 season win totals. Apparently, according to Vegas, the over-under for our team is the lowest in the league, just 23.5 wins. Well, first of all, **** them. No, I'm just kidding! But then I heard Bill took the under on our team—he said he thinks we're gonna win LESS than 23.5 games. Well, OK, Bill. You're my guy. You're a good friend. But you take it out on the Timberwolves a little too much. You need to give us a little more respect! And don't worry, that respect will be earned. We will GLADLY show you. Mark my words: we're going over 30 wins this year.
Read More http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/20101 ... z13USo6fY2
