Predicted Record
18-64 (Tom), 20-62 (Gil)
Last Year’s Record
32-50
Tom’s Commentary
Sebastian Telfair’s odyssey as kind of a strange mini-me to Stephon Marbury takes him to the land of Garrison Keillor, Marbury’s first pro stomping grounds. The Timberwolves are actually Al Jefferson’s team, which is interesting in that Jefferson goes to Minnesota somewhat less famous than the departed-to-Boston Kevin Garnett was as a high school player and one-time Timberwolves draftee, even though Jefferson’s been playing a while now. I think this is a case of Al Harrington moving to Atlanta more than it is Tracy McGrady going to Orlando. Jefferson’s more likely to be back in Boston in 2011 than he is to be a perennial Western Conference all-star.
My great affection for the name of Al can’t push me past the thought that the rest of the team looks like one of those fake squads that gets put together for a movie about an NBA team led by a dunking goat or whatever. Not one of their players from 3-10 would score more than 60% on a test of “Are they still playing?” given to 30 random NBA fans. Jefferson had better be really, really good.
Rejoinder From Gil
Antoine Walker, a late trade to the T-Wolves, can’t escape the Celtics orbit. Which is funny, consider he’s heavy enough to have his own gravity-field.
Gratuitous Comics Connection
Minneapolis is the home of several cartoonists, including our friends at Big Time Attic.
Gratuitous Pharma Connection
3M has a drug delivery unit that does some pretty innovative work.
The Bottom Line
We’ll see that a bunch of Al Jefferson’s development in the post was derived from having a monster wing-player in Paul Pierce. Worst team in the west. –GR