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From Simmons' column today --

Or suppose you're the T-Wolves, and you've been a doormat for years. You could say, "From now on we're a clean-living, Christian organization. We have prayer meetings before every game. We are home by 11. We never do drugs." Then you'd have the inside track on every clean-living college basketball player in the country. Are there enough quality religious players out there to win a championship? There must be! (By the way, why has no one ever put together the all-time clean-living starting five? And how great a name for a franchise is the "Minnesota Christians?")

Rev, don't get any wild ideas

I can think of 1 elite player like that, Dwight Howard. And he wouldn't come here because of a "Drug Free Zone" advertisement. Regardless, that whole 3-part "discussion" was full of irritating ideas. As usual, Simmons has his annoying coastal bias, basically stating that only those teams should be at elite level. Not that I condone tanking for a high pick, but in the "ideal league" these guys describe, the wolves could be sold to an ideal owner like Paul Allen, clean out the front office and hire Jerry West and company to run things, and still have to get extremely lucky in the draft to really have a shot at success, since we have such a hard time getting top free agents here. I'm sorry, I wouldn't want to wait a decade (with absolutely ideal conditions that would never occur) to have a chance at a championship.

I'm not sure what he's saying though, help me out

Devilzsidewalk wrote:I'm not sure what he's saying though, help me out

That the Wolves should trade for Redd.

our starting center should be John Amaechi

Madsen stays.

Esohny wrote:I can think of 1 elite player like that, Dwight Howard. And he wouldn't come here because of a "Drug Free Zone" advertisement. Regardless, that whole 3-part "discussion" was full of irritating ideas. As usual, Simmons has his annoying coastal bias, basically stating that only those teams should be at elite level. Not that I condone tanking for a high pick, but in the "ideal league" these guys describe, the wolves could be sold to an ideal owner like Paul Allen, clean out the front office and hire Jerry West and company to run things, and still have to get extremely lucky in the draft to really have a shot at success, since we have such a hard time getting top free agents here. I'm sorry, I wouldn't want to wait a decade (with absolutely ideal conditions that would never occur) to have a chance at a championship.

Like we arent already looking at that kind of timetable.

If the wolves had an owner like Allen and a top level front office at the Target Center tomorrow, they'd be contending within 2 years.

My point was that that article was all about how Simmons thinks the NBA is "better" if the only elite teams are LA, NY, Miami, Boston and a few others, and those teams feed on everyone else perpetually. Conveniently, his favorite team is included in the short list. This isn't surprising, it's just one more example of why Simmons isn't to be taken seriously.

I agree with you there. Simmons bias is pretty ridiculous at times

now I get it, reading the article really helped me out.

I wouldn't mind changing the lottery format so that all non playoff teams get equal draft odds.

4ho5ive wrote:I agree with you there. Simmons bias is pretty ridiculous at times

his bias is mostly against parity and teams with mediocre crowds, it just happens that the smaller cities are usually the newer expansion teams that take advantage of the rules that favor parity and tend to have the mediocre fan interest.