Whelp. This put a damper on an otherwise pretty good day. Apparently Love broke his hand during his morning workout Wednesday. My initial reaction was a four-letter word, but after a deep breath I think I’m a little better. But this is still really crappy news!

Ugh. Why can’t we ever have nice things.

Anyway, I’m resisting the urge to feel too bad for myself. I mean, I’m sure the developers didn’t know that they were building the Target Center on an Indian burial ground. Ok, I’ll knock it off. Really, this means we won’t see Love and Rubio until just before Christmas, and there will be a lot of basketball to be played after that.

In the mean time, the Wolves have multiple players to platoon at the power forward including Derrick Williams (Tom will have more on this later), Dante Cunningham, and Andrei Kirilenko. This also means that wing players like Brandon Roy and Chase Budinger will have to pick up the scoring slack and stretch the floor like Love did. And of course, Nikola Pekovic will could really earn his extension if he can shoulder some of the load.

Anyway, we’ll learn a lot about the meddle of this team and how deep they really are these next 6-8 weeks. I’m curious to see how they will handle being down their top two players. At least there’s a chance they could be ok with their apparent depth.

Remember when I was saying that Derrick Williams was best-suited to play the power forward and that he likely didn’t fit on this team? To many I was a common hater. They said, “But he’s young! You can’t give up on him,” and I wasn’t. When I said that he didn’t have the range now  to play the small forward position they said, “But he’s dropped weight and been shooting jumpers,” in the same way that someone might try to become a tree by sticking their feet in the ground in hopes they become roots and growing their hair out to act as leaves while holding out their arms like branches.

Does that make you anymore of a tree? Heck no.

Then, Friday, Oceanary over at Canis Hoopus gave us this:

I know a lot of us would love to see Williams work out successfully at the 3, but I just don’t see how that realistically will happen. We couldn’t get Beasley to work as a 3, and he actually had a good amount of the skills and at least the basic mindset for it. Williams isn’t going to overtake Kirilenko, and it’s kind of hard to make a reasonable argument for why he should be the #1 reserve instead of Budinger. At this point, I have a hard time even convincing myself he’s the best backup for Love, after seeing up close what Cunningham can do. Dante is a physical, blue-collar guy who’s going to affect the game with sheer activity (and without his numbering being called) by rebounding, playing hard-nosed defense, and just generally being disruptive. And that, in a very real way, makes him better suited to and more valuable for this team.

At some point, I think this team is just going to have to face the facts: Williams is a guy who could potentially be a pretty good power forward, on a team that has absolutely no minutes available at power forward.

It’s not like the Wolves are oblivious to this sort of thing. The reason we got Cunningham in the first place is because the team saw it had a need for a hustler/defender in the post and no minutes available for Wayne Ellington on the wings.

I like Williams, and I think he’ll have a good career as a valuable player, but I don’t see how it will happen here. He’s a stretch 4, on a team that already has one of the best, if not the best, stretch 4s in the league. With Kirilenko and Cunningham filling in the gaps around Love, how is Williams going to find space?

Read the full article yourself, but I’ve been saying!  In fact, Oceanary probably said it better, and some things that I hadn’t thought of yet. And it’s not just me. Williams was 5-15 shooting at one point in Friday’s game with just 12 points before making his last four shots and getting to the line a few times to save his stat line. Honestly, it’s probably time to face the facts that he’s not efficient enough right now to play on the perimeter. Especially since the Timberwolves added perimeter shooters, hustle players, and defensive-minded players to address the team’s needs that are also areas of weakness in Derrick’s game.

This isn’t to say that Derrick will never be able to shoot or learn to play defense, but he’s not that type of player now. And there really is nothing with being able to be a good power forward. Unfortunately for Williams, the Wolves have three better players at that position than him now, and a trade may be mutually beneficial for both parties.

New Wolves guard Brandon Roy joined  Paul Allen on KFAN for a few minutes Tuesday morning to discuss a number of things. Instead of live-tweeting, I decided it would be easier to do things this way: in a blog post. Roy divulged some good info on his health, role, and even how much we can expect to see of him this season. If you missed the interview, scroll down.

(All quotes are pretty accurate, but I did have to paraphrase in some places.)

The first question PA had for Brandon was how his knees were doing, to which he replied, “Knees have been great. We’ve been going at it for about five days for 3 hours at a time.” From there he said that he feels good coming out of camp and was excited to play a game Wednesday.

With all of the fresh faces on the roster, Adelman has been mixing up lineups, and Brandon in particular mentioned that he’s been seeing time with Nikola Pekovic and Kevin Love. Brandon praised the roster, and talked about building those friendships off of the court to grow the chemistry on court, and added, “We got a lot of really good pieces along with the guys who were here last year. We’re just trying to build chemistry as soon as possible…we got a lot of guys.”

Brandon spoke highly of Derrick Williams and Ricky Rubio when he was asked of them. Although he did say that while Williams is talented, the team needs him to be aggressive, and that he told Derrick just to focus on being effective regardless of what position he plays. As far as Rubio, he talked about how his hustle and unselfishness rubs off on teammates and makes them want to follow suit.

Probably my favorite part of the interview was when he was asked about his role on the season and how he expects to help the team.

We all know that Rick Adelman decried the lack of ballhandlers on last year’s team,  but it sounds like he already trusts Brandon with it, and Brandon mentioned that he can see playing the 1-3 positions. Brandon mentioned that he can create pick ‘n’ rolls and create off of the dribble.

When Allen asked if he could still get to the line Brandon said, “If I wasn’t able to get to the basket and create, [or draw fouls] I wouldn’t have made this comeback. Fouls shots can help separate our team.” He said that aspect is a huge part of his game and doesn’t want to become a jump shooter.

Brandon added — and this was neat to hear him talk about how exactly he sees himself in the offense– that with the way Rubio and JJ Barea draw defenses in he’s not sure how many three pointers he sees himself taking, and that you’ll probably see him (and others) with more catch-and-shoot opportunities than the past. On top of having gifted passers throughout the roster like Love, Kirilenko and Rubio, there should be some good shots available this season.

As far as a minutes restriction, Brandon said they haven’t talked about it yet but, “I’ve been asked this question since I came to town. Me and coach are gonna talk about it. I’m gonna have to bump him on the shoulder [to discuss it]. I wanna keep it in-house to make sure teams don’t know, ‘Brandon’s on a minute limit…’” As he wrapped up, he added that Adelman is the biggest reason he came here and trusts him and that it’s a long season and he’s coming off of a knee injury. I liked that he added that he understood that because it’s seemed that Brandon has let his competitive spirit override concern for his health in the past.

Anyway, Brandon mentioned a lot of good stuff, and I for one am excited to see him in action. It’s taken a while, but I’m finally optimistic about Brandon’s season. Brandon’s attitude and talent are going to be good for this team. He also seems to have a good balance between competitor and being a good teammate, which isn’t easy for every player to manage.