In case you didn't already know, you can scalp GREAT tickets to Timberwolves games these days. Skyner and I got $100 face tickets for $25 a pop; and that's including my negotiation-screwup fee.

The best summary I can give this game is that we looked solid overall, shaky at times, and then blew it in the 4th quarter. And it bear's mentioning that it was against a Northwest Division rival that we should expect to see quite often in the next 5 years.

Two bright spots (especially when scoping the box score were Rashad McCants and Craig Smith off the bench. Both played very productive games. Shaddy had a couple bonehead plays, but 85% of the time he was not the chucking, lax defender I had expected tonight. So, for that, I owe Dying To Be Loved a good deal of credit.

I am definitely in the camp that thinks Craig Smith is not a long-term solution on a team centered around Al Jefferson. That's not to say that Craig isn't a fantastic talent though; it's purely a matter of fit. If, however Wolves management thinks keeping Craig around is a better idea than trying to trade him, here's what some other young big men (all 2nd rounders, by the way) got last year:

With the impending NBA trade deadline and three young players (Telfair, Gomes and Smith) up for restricted free agency, the Timberwolves have some tough decisions to make sooner or later. But what's the ballpark for these guys? What might it take to lock them up? Contingent upon the Timberwolves wanting to, of course.

The real trick will be timing these deals. Whoever gets the first deal will be used as a measuring stick by the other two. In my mind, that's all the more reason to deal one and avoid internal contract jealousy.

Since fantasy is a much better option than the Wolves’ current state of affairs, let me engage in a bit of wishful thinking about the far-off possibility of the Blue and Green having something to offer another Association team for something meaningful in return. What do the Wolves have that other teams need? Thanks to wd’s post about finding a running mate for Big Al, this is the best I could come up with:

To the Chicago Bulls:

1. Theo Ratliff
2. Antoine Walker
3. Craig Smith

To the Minnesota Timberwolves:

1. Joakim Noah
2. Ben Wallace

Why would this work?

First of all, the salary numbers match up—which is an accomplishment by itself in the NBA. Secondly, while the Wolves would be gaining a young true center, the Bulls would be jettisoning one of the worst free agent salaries in recent memory. Smith would probably require a sign and trade to make this deal happen, but the Bulls would be receiving $12 million off the books in 2008, which would help them recover from their stupid decision not to lock up Luol Deng and/or Ben Gordon during the last off season. They would also be getting a solid vet and a promising young bench player who can hit the boards and shoot for a high FG%. They are protected against the loss of Noah because of their depth and fellow rookie center Aaron Gray, who played well during Scott Skiles' last few games at the head of the Bulls’ bench.

Now that the Bulls are in crisis mode, they have shortened their rotation and Noah hasn’t seen a tremendous amount of action. In his last 3 games, he has seen the court for a grand total of 27 minutes. Gray has clocked in with 33 minutes during the last 3 contests.

On the season Gray is averaging 4.2 ppg and 2.6 rpg. Noah is putting up 4.1 and 3.0. Wallace is clocking in at 4.2 and 8.6. Gray and Noah have similar 40 minute stats. The bottom line here is that Wallace’s tank is running on E and Gray and Noah are an effective push on a team that has shortened them out of the everyday rotation in a last-gasp effort to make the playoffs.

The Bulls would also gain because Smith would give them an off-the-bench low-post presence and Walker is an experienced vet who can hit from 3 and provide leadership in the locker room. He’s also from Chicago.

Meanwhile, the Wolves get a true center that would bring a Corey Brewer-esque high-energy effort to the court each and every single night. They’d have to suck up Wallace’s massive contract for 3 more years but, in the grand scheme of things, Wallace has fewer years on his deal than does Walker and he could spell Jefferson and Noah at both the 4 and 5--allowing everybody to play in position and the Wolves to focus on getting either (fingers crossed) Michael Beasley or a solid guard in next year’s draft. How nice would either of the following line-ups look?

1. Telfair/Foye/Jaric
2. Foye/Brewer/Jaric
3. Beasley/Brewer
4. Jefferson/Wallace
5. Noah/Wallace

or

1. Derrick Rose (OJ Mayo/Ty Lawson/DJ Augustin)/Telfair/Jaric
2. Foye/Brewer/Jaric
3. Brewer/2nd round pick (or Gomes if Taylor wants to pay for it)
4. Jefferson/Wallace
5. Noah/Wallace

Hell, throw Eric Gordon into the 2nd rotation and roll with Foye and Gordon at the guards with Brewer, Jefferson, and Noah on the front line. I’m personally smitten with option #1, but I’d be happy with either one in fantasy GM land. Any way you cut it, you’d have the talent to end up with 20-30 wins and the core of a nice young team built for the long haul.

Folks, this trade isn’t too far out there. Granted, it would be a tough sell to convince the last-gasp Bulls to let go of Wallace, but $15 million off the books speaks pretty loudly to even the most desperate of teams; plus, they’d be getting a nice young post player in return. The Bulls are running 7 (maybe 8) deep right now and Joe Smith is their starting power forward. He could easily move over to the 5 and Andres Nocioni could move into the starting 4 with Smith off the bench. Plus, call me cynical but I have a strange feeling that Ratliff’s knee would feel a bit better in a Bulls uniform.

The Timberwolves are a very, very, very bad team. It should worry fans that they seem to be falling in love with a Smith/Jefferson combo at the 4/5. It should completely freak fans out that they are starting to whine about a lack of quality guard play instead of the non-existence of a true center. Wouldn’t it just top everything off if the Wolves picked OJ Mayo or Eric Gordon while not addressing the 5 and keeping Smith and Big Al as the starting big man duo? Signs are beginning to point in this troubling direction. They need to start thinking of ways to avoid all the problems that a Smith/Jefferson 4/5 combo would create for this franchise in the long-run. This is a fairly realistic way of doing so. I’d love to hear other suggestions.

It’s kind of a bittersweet night for Mr. Stop-n-Pop. My Oklahoma Sooners and Minnesota Timberwolves took it in the chin, but come tomorrow the airwaves of Southern Minnesota and Iowa (where yours truly is writing from—beautiful Council Bluffs…or, as I like to call it, Counciltucky) will no longer be clogged with political ad after political ad after political ad. When Conor Oberst is called in to campaign for Barack Obama from across the river in Omaha, some sort of unofficial line has been crossed. That line can generically be referred to as the gee I miss those Cialis commercials line. It’s truly a sad state of affairs.

Getting back to the Wolves, tonight’s recap will be cross-posted at Britt Robson’s On the Ball website, where Mr. Robson has created an open thread for those fans who would like to create their own trey. Sooooooo….

The Three Pointer: Boobery, Bullshiite, and the Hard Bigotry of No Expectations

1. Fouling for Pleasure

There are many, many things that are wrong with our beloved Puppies. From the lack of a consistent perimeter threat to important injuries, there are no shortages of things to nag about. However, the two most pressing and important deficiencies for the Blue and Green are their lack of a true center and their massive free throw disparity.

In a way, the free throw gap (not to be confused with the gap at center court before the game) is the most destructive portion of the Wolves’ game. By allowing nearly 8 more free throws per game to their opponents, the Wolves’ d is put in a hole so deep that even when it holds an opponent to 45% shooting from 2, 0% shooting from 3, and only 7 offensive rebounds (as it did against the woeful Clippers), it simply can’t find a way to win.

A big part of the problem with the loss to the Clips was that the Pups were fouling people 70 feet away from the basket. The 2 main culprits in the far-away hackathon were Rashad McCants and Craig Smith. I’ll give these 2 the benefit of the doubt by pretending that the fouls were the result of good defensive intentions gone bad; after all, according to pre-game analysis by Jim Pete and the newly minted Paul Allen, one of the keys to victory over the Blazers was to play aggressive defense without hacking the guy with the ball. Again, I’m not sure what defensive aggressiveness has to do with swinging wildly at an opponents arm 70 feet away from the bucket, but I’m willing to extend the benefit of a doubt.

Against the Blazers the Wolves performed admirably in the battle of free throws. 20 makes to the Blazers’ 22 is pretty good for this team and they even kept the FTAs within a reasonable 2 shot margin (25-27). Unfortunately, this game exposed a secondary issue that is growing out of the free throw disparity.

I don’t have the official stats for what I am about to claim but I am 100% sure that the Minnesota Timberwolves lead the league in bat-shiite crazy fouls. Whether it’s Shaddy trying to jump inside of Brandon Roy’s shorts in a macho show of look how aggressive I can play defense boobery or the Rhino giving a forearm shiver to the back of an opponent in an attempt to get an offensive rebound, our young, undisciplined, talent-strapped Wolves are gaining a reputation for unparalleled hackery. As any long-time NBA observer will tell you, this sort of thing is a perpetual motion machine; once the refs identify a player or team as being prone to commit bad fouls, more bad fouls are called. This situation further compounds itself when the bad-fouling players/teams are fouled in return and (gasp) the whistle is not blown…which then results in frustration and (double gasp) more bad fouls.

In one particular nasty stretch during the 4th quarter, Craig Smith was hacked in somewhat spectacular fashion by some no-name Blazer. Unfortunately, no whistle was blown. Smith was upset with the call and he took it out on Portland on the next possession by not rotating to his attacker on an open three. Thankfully, the shot was off and Smith grabbed the rebound while possibly being fouled again by the nameless Blazer. On the Wolves next shot (a miss, of course), Smith gave a hard shove to the back of He Who Shall Not Be Named and picked up the offensive foul. He then proceeded to throw both the ball and a hissy fit while picking up a technical. Which brings me to item #2…

2- Soul Searching

Following his technical, the Rhino stayed on the court. I know this shouldn’t surprise me, but isn’t it kind of sad that at this point in the season I’m not exactly sure what it takes to get benched? If throwing a ball (sort of) at the ref after failing to rotate defensively and picking up an offensive foul isn’t on the list, I’m not really sure what passes for standards with Randy Wittman.

Here’s another unofficial stat that the Wolves lead the league in: shots of pre-commercial f-bombs mouthed by dejected Wolves players. Last night saw Corey Brewer and Craig Smith give some adult rated love to the home viewers. In the past 2 contests I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Sebastian Telfair, Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, and Shaddy drop the uckfay on live TV. I’d swear too if I was headed off to a place where there appears to be no standards of performance or guidance. Granted, I’m just a casual observer with a League Pass, but this ship seems to be sinking a bit faster in recent games, and for all of the drastic changes that have been promised (another DNP-CD for Chris Richard) I just don’t get the sense that the inmates are listening to whatever it is that Witt is selling anymore. This is just a tad bit troubling with 51 games left to play. We all knew it was going to be bad, but when the coach starts telling local media that he doesn’t really know what to do and the players start acting like they really don’t give a shiite….well, I don’t know what it looks like, but there’s a line to be crossed for hard core fans like myself and I have a nagging sense that its fast approaching.

3- Misc

One of the biggest failures of the Wolves’ coaching staff is the recent post-flu bug rash of yo-yo playing time for young players like Richard and Brewer. Brewer has been additionally yanked around by being switched to the 2; a position he is much more physically suited to play at the moment. The change in minutes and position has had mixed results so far. Brewer isn’t as physically mismatched as he used to be at the 3 and he has improved his shot selection during the past 5 games while shooting 48% from the floor. Also, his assists and steals are up and he runs the floor better than any other rookie in the league. On the downside, his rebounds are way down and he looks even less comfortable with the ball in his hands on the offensive end. Corey looks like he’ll cruise through the rest of the year with 6-8 points on 7-10 shots while getting 2-3 assists and 5-6 rebounds per game. If he can keep up the steals and limit the turnovers while continuing to manage his shot selection, he’ll be all right. However, I don’t want to see too many more f-bombs on the way back to the bench.

According to CNNSI's FanNation Player Fantasy Position Rankings, Randy Foye is listed ahead of Bassy. His latest setback is trying the patience of eager fantasy owners, but he should be worth the wait, says FanNation. "Bite me," says Bassy.

Kevin McHale gets a shot across the bow in the latest run up of Memphis at ESPN.com:

Reality check: Minnesota Timberwolves general manager Kevin McHale likely would swap teams straight up with Memphis if he could.

I don't know. I'd much rather have last year's Florida squad. Speaking of which, how about Toine, Ratliff and the Rhino to the Bulls for Joakim Noah and Ben Wallace?

Speaking of the Gators, will Chris Richard get to play on Rookie Appreciation Night on the 6th?

Is it possible to sign and trade Craig Smith?

How could the Sooners possibly lose to inbreeds from West Virginia?

I’d have more for you tonight but it’s late and I have a long day of caucus organizing to do tomorrow in scenic Iowa.

Until later…