Minnesota Timberwolves Looking for Prey with "Love"

The Minnesota Timberwolves weren't expected to be much of anything coming into the 2008-2009 NBA regular season, and rightfully so. Starting off early in the season, the roster was still forming and rotations weren't sure, and the myriad of young players on the team hadn't yet taken a distinct shape. There was still the question of whether rising star Al Jefferson was going to play center or move to his natural power forward position, and their promising rookie from the previous year, Corey Brewer, had gotten injured for the season after just 15 games. The point guard situation was still iffy, there were an inordinate amount of similarly-skilled, similarly-sized players, and on top of that, head coach Randy Wittman was later canned (which was ultimately a positive outcome).

Halfway through the season, the Timberwolves still weren't contenders of any sort for anything tangibly important in the league, but some wonderful things occurred. Jefferson started to garner major attention of his outstanding play and was considered an All-Star candidate for the Western Conference (he was later snubbed), but when he got injured, rookie Kevin Love started to lead the charge. The fifth overall selection in the 2008 NBA Draft, Love was long considered a prep prodigy and a winner, even in his lone freshman season at the University of California in Los Angeles. While Love had struggled learning the NBA game and getting his timing right on the court, Jefferson's absence also helped to give Love more room to play his way, seeing as to how Jefferson and Love are both power forwards that have had to play center for a great amount of time (which was a quixotic situation that resulted when the Timberwolves drafted Love knowing that he played in a similar fashion to Jefferson).

Other positive things happened as well, when former front office executive and legendary Hall of Famer Kevin McHale became head coach. Inspiring better play from his own draft choices, the lineups started to round out and take a distinct shape. Former high school star Sebastian Telfair began to play solidly enough to warrant elevated minutes as the starting point guard, while Randy Foye also became more comfortable as an effective player at off-guard. Former Philadelphia 76ers cast-off Rodney Carney suddenly started to show legitimate basketball skills (a knock on him that followed Carney even as a college star for the University of Memphis), which made the surprising ineffectiveness of Mike Miller less of an issue.

In all, while Minnesota may not be immediate threats to other top championship contenders in the league, the Timberwolves have shown enough evidence that, barring injuries, the core of the team (Jefferson, Love, Foye) will allow for more positive results in the short-term future.