I have a confession to make... tonight I'm cheering against the Timberwolves. I don't want the Wolves to lose, but I also don't want to see Portland's win streak end. But it's not a simple desire.

My vacation has been a mixed blessing in basketball terms. On Christmas Day, I was in Portland and my special-ladyfriend's father and we scalped great tickets to the sold out Blazers/Sonics game. It was a fantastic NBA experience; Portland kept it's win streak going, the crowd was out of control, Durant played well, and, of course, so did Mr. Brandon Roy. But therein lies my not-so-secret soft spot for the Blazers and the source of tonight's confession.

Every time I watch the Blazers, I think "could that have been the Timberwolves?" We traded Roy for Foye, and as the rumor goes, Chicago's offer for KG that summer was Tyson Chandler, Luol Deng and #2 (LaMarcus Aldridge). I think I've mentioned that before once or twice.

Anyone read Charley Walters' "Don't Print That" section today? Don't be surprised if the Timberwolves, on track for a top-three overall pick in June's NBA draft, target 6-foot-4 Memphis point guard Derrick Rose with their first-round choice. Really? What else you got for us Shooter? Several businesses have reported that the Timberwolves are knocking door to door trying to sell ticket packages. Stop the presses! The Wolves are desperately trying to sell tickets!

Don't worry, I know when I'm being a jerk. And yes, Shooter was right about the Hassell/Buckner trade, so one can only assume that he's on to something with these insider tidbits.

In other news, the Arlington Heights Daily Herald appears unready to drop the Garnett to Chicago/Celtics Conspiracy talk: The thing is, there's a wide-spread belief around the league that the Bulls never had a chance. Garnett was either staying in Minnesota or going to Boston, because Timberwolves GM Kevin McHale played for the Celtics and wanted to hook up his good friend, Boston boss Danny Ainge.

Enough sniping at the professional media. There was a good story by Jerry Zgoda posted yesterday about how Antoine Walker spent his summer vacation, in light of the Sean Taylor murder. I, for one, had forgotten about Toine's run-in with the criminal element, in his own home none the less.

I'm watching the Rockets/Mavericks game tonight on NBATV and I just realized there are 3 former Wolves playing for these two contending teams: Trenton Hassell, Mike James and Juwan Howard. Then there's Ricky Davis and Mark Blount, also playing for a top team in the East (yes, Miami's status at the top is in peril this year). Troy Hudson signed with the Warriors, who last year had one of the greatest playoff runs in recent memory. And, of course, there's some power forward playing in Boston this year.

No matter how you slice it, a good number of players that were supposed to bring basketball glory to Minnesota over the last few years are now playing for very relevant teams in the NBA. And even though it's early, every single one of them seem to be contributing pretty well to their new teams.

I'm struggling to find an answer here, but I just can't. Why couldn't these players, that very good teams have found a use for, get it together here? Were the Timberwolves asking too much of each of them? T-Mac, Yao and a newly deep Rockets team allow Mike James to contribute at his own pace. The same goes for Howard and Hassell in Dallas with their deep squad. Ricky has definitely been contributingg in Miami, and Blount has been as well, to a more limited extent.

If there's one thing that has become obvious in the fallout to trading KG, it's that the Timberwolves lacked serious chemistry ever since Spree and Cassell crept up on free agency. And that's not to blame those two. The chemistry problems have obviously spread from the court to the owner's box and not skipped any level along the way.

I'm as excited as the next guy about this new Wolves team. And, as I wrote yesterday, they looked much better the last two games than I expected. Regardless, trading away KG will leave a bad taste in my and many other's mouths for a long time.

End pontification

Thanks to the best NBA news aggregator out there I saw what Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune had to say on the Garnett trade this morning: At least four teams, including the Bulls, were said to have offered superior deals to the one Boston made, though McHale is telling people Al Jefferson will be a superstar. Of course, McHale is also telling people he's the Timberwolves' general manager, which few believe. If Smith wants to throw McHale under the bus, fine. I've been doing it for a while. But it's complete garbage for him to spout that the Wolves had four better offers for Garnett and didn't take them. First off, if Smith doesn't tell us what the deals were, there's no reason to believe that they were "better." The oft-spoken of Chicago deal was rumored to be offered last summer, before McHale and Taylor were ready to move Garnett, and supposedly included Luol Deng, Tyson Chandler and the #2 pick. Is that a better deal than the Boston deal? Of course. Talk of a deal with Phoenix died when Robert Sarver found out KG was looking for an extension. Was Golden State putting together a deal around draft time? Did Dallas make a serious pitch? Maybe both, maybe neither. Sam Smith, however, makes no indication that he really knows much of anything. As far as I can tell, the deal that McHale and Taylor took for the Big Ticket was the best deal out there at the time they were ready to deal.