Bulletin Board Material
I don’t know Jim Souhan.
Never met him. Never read any of his work.
Until today.
If he’s in attendance at tonight’s Thunder-Wolves game inside Target Center, I suspect he could use a friend.
If you’re not familiar with the name, Souhan is a sports columnist for the Star Tribune. In this morning’s paper, he wrote a scathing column titled, “Will the Wolves ever matter again?” The piece took aim at everyone in the organization, owner Glen Taylor, GM David Kahn, coach Kurt Rambis, leaders Kevin Love and Micahel Beasley, point guards Jonny Flynn and Luke Ridnour and young gun Wesley Johnson. Souhan left no stone unturned.
A few snippets.
I fear that the Wolves’ losing culture is so pervasive that everyone in the Wolves’ organization, from owner Glen Taylor on down, has lost sight of what it takes not only to win, but to function in a competent workplace, that they have all become comfortable with the dubious concept of barely visible, incremental improvement.”
They’re better in many ways, but they still fail to play — or attempt to play — defense. They still lack basketball intelligence. They still choke in close games. They still, after drafting three first-round point guards and signing two more in the past two years, lack a starting-caliber point guard, and their current backup, Jonny Flynn, seems to lack even one above-average NBA skill.”
A mediocre Rockets team came to town Monday night without franchise player Yao Ming, and demonstrated a dramatic edge in basketball intelligence over our Wolves. With the underrated Rick Adelman orchestrating offense from the sideline and the basketball genius Shane Battier making everyone around him better, the Rockets made the Wolves look slow and stupid all night. Which is just business-as-usual at Target Center.”
Why does this matter?
Because the Thunder could be about to walk into a buzzsaw.
Souhan seemingly has provided the perfect measure of bulletin-board material. It just so happens that the Thunder is in the Twin Cities.
The Wolves, losers of four straight and nine of their past 10, appeared just about ready to roll over and play dead in the last half of the season. But tonight, they’ve got a reason to show up. Players always say they don’t read the paper. Yet somehow, anytime a writer pens anything critical they seem to always know about it. Expect tonight to be no different.
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