Howlin' T-Wolf

The Lakers are swarming in controversy right now, and perhaps growing desperate. Thanks to superstar Kobe Bryant’s open comments about the trade rumors revolving around teammate Pau Gasol, the Lakers’ front office has never been in a more awkward position.

And while the Lakers continue to sort through the internal issues, the controversy actually hurts the Wolves. ESPN is reporting that the Lakers have inquired about the Timberwolves’ Michael Beasley. A trade, if done, wouldn’t be worth much in return for the Timberwolves except mostly likely a big fat salary dump and maybe a draft pick — something the Wolves certainly don’t need, believe it or not.

Although we recieved Beasley for two loaves of Wonder white bread, he still holds some value to the young Wolves. After suffering a foot injury that sidelined him for 11 straight games, Beasley has nestled himself into the sixth man role for the Wolves. An unfamilar spot, Beasley is still taking his time getting used to the reduced role and reduced minutes. But Beasley’s rotation swap has forced him to be more efficient in his limited time on the court.

Known as a volume scorer a lot like Kobe Bryant, Beasley, in the past, needed the ball in his hands to be successful. But lately Beasley has been spotted doing all sorts of things for the Wolves including higher rebounding numbers and stiffer defense, once an afterthought in Beasley’s capabilities. These different aspects of his game have actually improved his offense a bit too as well as his confidence. He’s looking to post up more often, where I believe he does his best work, and is hitting his open shots, especially from three-point land (43-percent, a team high).

Beasley still has lightyears to go in terms of attitude and overall game i.q., but he’s proving himself worthy of being a potent scorer off the bench, much like Jason Terry has done for the defending champion Mavericks. It’s a brilliant move by Adelman to move Beasley to the bench because; 1) It has forced Beasley to amp his game up and make his minutes more efficient; and 2) Limits Beasley from blowing up on the court when things start going awry, which happens often on the offensive end.

He’s a headcase and somewhat of a black hole on the offensive end. I’m not so sure how any of Beasley’s qualities fit the Lakers’ needs — they’re small forward position is weak — but using Beasley outside of his current sixth man role would do them no good; he’d likely fall back into his comfort zone of demanding the ball and taking lots of shots. That’s not a good combo to put alongside Pau Gasol and, of course, Kobe.

The Wolves don’t need to dump Beasley quite yet. David Kahn needs to let the season run its course and see who could fill the small forward/sixth man position in the future — Michael Beasley or Derrick Williams, if he loses weight, that is. Once that gets sorted out, then the Wolves could afford to make a move using either forward to seek the ultimate prize, a starting 2-guard. Having said that, the Wolves would be smart to hold on to Beasley for the rest of the season before jumping the gun for minimal assets.

Derrick Williams is just turning this into quite the entertaining weekend. Originally named to the Rising Stars Challenge along with teammate Ricky Rubio, Williams is now throwing his name into the dunk contest, the weekend’s true highlight reel.

This now means that Timberwolves are now infesting All-Star weekend like never before. Kevin Love is playing in the actual All-Star game as well as the three-point shooting contest. Rubio is playing in the Rising Stars Challenge alongside Williams and I wouldn’t be surprised if he dabbles in the skills competition. And now Williams, who has to be the favorite to win, is in the dunk contest.

Again, he’s got to be the favorite over mediocre rim-rattlers like Chase Budinger, Iman Shumpert and Paul George (George can actually throw down). William’s jumping ability and explosiveness is nearly unparalleled, well, except by Blake Griffin, of course.

But this is just nasty:

Kevin Love has been suspended for two games by the NBA.

Apparently, I’m just a giant homer.

From ESPN:

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love has been suspended for two games for stomping on Rockets forward Luis Scola’s face in their game on Saturday.

The NBA announced the suspension Monday.

On the one hand, I can’t say I’m surprised. The NBA makes a pretty obvious effort to prevent players from fighting, cursing or doing anything that might further brand the league, as ignorant online commenters like to say, “a group of thugs.” Stepping on another human being seems to qualify under the category of “thuggish.”

That being said, I’m still not convinced Love did it intentionally. I think A Wolf Among Wolves actually had the best description of the actions: he didn’t try NOT to. Apparently, that’s good enough for the NBA, who robbed the Timberwolves of Love’s services for the next two games.

The good news is that Minnesota’s next game, the first one Love will miss, is against the Sacramento Kings. The bad news is that the next one is the next night against Memphis in Memphis.

Hey Beas/D-Will? If you were looking for a chance to show your worth, it’s now.

Alright. This is going to get covered everywhere else, so I’ll post my recap tomorrow and talk about this first.

At this point, you have probably heard that Kevin Love stepped on Luis Scola Saturday night. Here’s a video:

I don’t think Love meant to step on Scola’s face, so I’m in complete disagreement with the announcers in this very biased video. It looked to me as though he was trying to step over him and sort of fell forward. If he had meant to step on his face, he would have done it with his foot, not his shin, right? If anything, Love tried to step on his chest.

That being said, I don’t think Love is at ALL sorry he did it.

Further, the officials let that entire situation get WAY out of hand. First, they let the Rockets hang all over Love on one end, frustrating Love inordinately. Then they let Love get away with a blatant frustration foul on the other end, sending Scola crashing to the floor. Was Love’s action not called a foul as some sort of make-up non-call? Because for an NBA official, that’s despicable. Love fouled him and the violation needed to be called. Would they have gotten booed? OF COURSE. It’s their job as officials to make calls like that and take the abuse that would have rained down on them. Then, to cap off this whole fiasco, they called a ticky-tack foul on the Rockets on the other end, which completely threw the situation out of whack (”alright, Love and Scola assaulting each other? No foul…just DON’T YOU TOUCH RIDNOUR!”) before calling a technical on the Rockets bench who were complaining about what had happened on the other end. Mind you, nobody from the Rockets bench stood up or anything. Apparently, they were just complaining too loudly.

It was one of the worst officiating sequences I have seen in a long time. I’ll be surprised if Love gets suspended, but if he does I’m blaming the bad officiating for about 40% of it. (Love gets the other 60%…control your temper and don’t throw Luis Scola to the ground next time.)

And really, that’s what this situation boils down to. This isn’t a case where some deep, violent inner tendency of Kevin Love has come to the surface. It’s a case where he did something stupid, in the heat of the moment battling against Scola. It’s hard to say whether or not it was intentional, and I’m glad it’s not my job to sort out the wreckage.

Back to our regular scheduled programming…the Wolves are back to .500! MUCH more on that tomorrow, with minimal references to this incident. I promise.

Beasley-Darko for Kaman. Any takers?

Reports released last night entail that the Hornets are actively shopping Chris Kaman, who they got as part of the Chris Paul deal. They working so “actively” that they’re even benching Kaman until a deal is done. Talk about prudence.

The good news is that the Hornets and Kaman have mutually agreed that this is the best decision for both parties. Even better news is that the Wolves may be in the market for a new, shiny center.

The Wolves do indeed have some money locked up at the center position with Darko Milicic (signed through 2014 after inking the erroneous 4 year, $20 mil deal), Nikola Pekovic (signed through next season at 3 years, $13 mil), and Anthony Randolph, who is more of an afterthought at this point.

By removing a heavy contract at center — Darko — and maybe something pretty enticing for a young rebuilding team like the Hornets — Michael Beasley — well, you got yourself a pretty fair trade for both teams involved, if you ask me, sending Kaman to Minnesota.

There’s no denying that Darko and Pek have played big minutes all season long — Just last night, Pek worked Tim Duncan in the post like he wasn’t even there, and Darko recorded a season-high seven blocks against the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday. But neither are true long-term options. Kaman would clean Kahn’s slate of awful contracts given to centers, and be plugged in alongside Love to form a fearful duo; Love with the sheer rebounding and shooting and Kaman with the defense and refined post game.

Currently, Kaman is set to become a free agent at the end of this season, meaning any trade would also mean committing to a long-term deal with the Michigan product. But the Wolves are in luck. After resigning Kevin Love on Wednesday to an awfully flexible deal, the Wolves have money to play with over the next three years, as they continue to piece the puzzle together. Of course the key would be to get Kaman at a premium, which is entirely possible due to his age and drop in production, I’d put it around, oh, 3 years, $20 mil.

A steady center like Kaman alongside Love at that kind of price could be what this team is looking for. And the trade also pays the Wolves a huge favor by ridding them of Beasley’s drama.

Do the deal. Make it happen.

Despite leaked reports last night, Love signed a four year extension with the Timberwolves this afternoon.

Via ESPN:

The Minnesota Timberwolves and star forward Kevin Love have at last reached terms on a contract extension, according to sources close to the situation, beating Wednesday’s midnight ET deadline.

To do so, Minnesota had to grant Love a player option in the final year of a four-year deal worth in excess of $60 million, sources said.

Much more analysis will be available once details are released, so stay tuned.

Jonny Flynn doesn't miss Minnesota.

Ok, so “beef with Rubio” might be sensationalizing a wee bit. But Jonny Flynn definitely doesn’t appreciate the way that Minnesota’s fans turned on him during his time with the team, and after reading what he has to say, it’s a little hard to blame him.

From The Pioneer Press:

Jonny Flynn…said he was disappointed with fan criticism when he was with Minnesota last season and the speculation about Ricky Rubio joining the team.

I let (the Rubio talk) get to me too much,” Flynn said. “Everybody was always talking about Ricky coming here. My two years here was like five years to me.

Flynn said he “tried to stay a professional” about the situation.

“I remember all of that,” Flynn said of the criticism. “It felt like we were playing 82 road games last year when your own crowd was on you. What did I do to deserve that? I never spoke bad about Minnesota or the organization.”

Flynn makes a pretty convincing case. Minnesota’s fans turned on him quickly during his sophomore season when he was struggling to come back from an injury. As he struggled, it was probably natural for fans to pine a little bit for someone else to come along and save the team, but in doing so, it wouldn’t be hard to infer that they helped wreck Flynn’s confidence. Young point guards have to make huge adjustments coming into the league, and it’s incredibly important for any young player to have confidence. Flynn was never given that chance.

Of course, one of the things Flynn failed to mention is that his struggles were probably more due to the system he played in than a lack of fan support. We all knew that Rambis’ triangle offense was a godawful abject failure, but it’s possible it may have ruined the career of Flynn, who never got comfortable shackled within it and consequently lost a lot of playing time.

As someone who has been cheering for Flynn for a couple of years, it definitely stings a little to see that he feels the fans treated him this badly. It also stings to see him badly buried on the depth chart in Houston, barely even getting garbage-time minutes.

I, for one, truly hope he finds a role somewhere in the NBA, far away from Kurt Rambis. Good luck, Jonny.

We assumed he was celebrating, but now we are reading it as "what the hell is happening?!"

So let’s sort through this mess as best we can, with the knowledge that it could very well be entirely different by the time you are reading this Wednesday morning.

The Pioneer Press reported Tuesday that Love and the Timberwolves had agreed to a contract extension of 4 years and $62 million. ESPN, presumably basing their information off the same report, ran a story as well. Kevin Love was staying in Minnesota! Yay! Smiley face!

Then ESPN ran a report that said discussions were “ongoing” and that no agreement had yet been reached. Sad face.

Also, Love himself tweeted a snarky comment about the current state of affairs, with a nice little zinger for internet journalists as well: “If you read it on the internet it must be true right? #sarcasm.” Sarcasm?! PANIC FACE!

Now TwinCities.com has an updated post, as of 12:55 CST on Wednesday, saying that Love IS going to sign the extension today, and that David Kahn has flown down to Dallas to complete the paperwork. Happy…sad…confused….what face?

Fortunately, we here at Howlin’ T-Wolf can exclusively report that Kevin Love is definitely a basketball player who has definitely played the past few seasons for the Minnesota Timberwolves, and we’d really like him to continue to do so.

Whatever is happening, it’s definitely probably not nothing, and we will keep you updated throughout the day.