Kevin Love to enter the Three Point Contest

Kevin Love has surprised me by being a highly productive NBA player. I thought he would be a solid player, but not this good. He has turned himself into a double-double machine and was recently named to his second All-Star game.

If that wasn’t enough, Love says he will be participating in the the league’s Three Point Contest. A surprise to many, but not to Love.

 “I think I got a good shot at anything I do,” Love said. “I’m a pretty competitive guy.” 

Love is shooting 37.8 percent from deep this year so i say he’s got a chance.

Wade Says Beasley Needs To Dedicate Himself To The Game

Michael Beasley came into the NBA with a ton of hype and ability. The only concern any scouts had about Beasley were between the ears. I guess he may have been a little space headed. He still has ability to be a top shelf player in the NBA, that’s not going anywhere. The question is whether or not Beasley can properly dedicate himself to the game.

Former Miami Heat teammate Dwayne Wade says that if Beasley is ever going to live up to his billing that he must have the focus and dedication to get there. A winning environment might also help.

“Michael is an unbelievable talent,” Wade said. “And he can erupt any game, any moment. The ability that he has to use both hands around the basket, finishing. His jumpshot. He has all the tools. With Michael, it’s just going to take him to continue to grow at the game, and get to a winning environment, and start understanding what his team needs from him. I mean, he’s a good player. He’s one of the best young talents that we have in the game. But he has the potential to be a great player. If he wants it. And that’s what we always told him in Miami. So we’ll see.”

To anyone that didn’t know why Beasley was dealt to the Minnesota Timberwolves for a bag of hockey pucks, you know now. One day Beasley’s mind might catch up with his body.

 

Romar Unlikely To Leave Washington

When the Minnesota Timberwolves fired Kurt Rambis one of the names floated out there to be the new coach was the University of Washington’s Lorenzo Romar.

However Romar has no plans on leaving Seattle anytime soon and it sounds like he has no desire to coach in the NBA in the foreseeable future. In an interview in the Seattle Times, Romar sounds comfortable in his current position and knows he has it good where he’s at.

“No. 1 I went to school and played here. I’ve been pulling for this university and the athletics here and the basketball program for over 30 years. I’m invested in this program. I’ve always been a fan of the Pac-8, the Pac-10 and now what will be the Pac-12. I love Seattle. My wife loves Seattle and it’s a place that when we first got here even though some were very skeptical, I thought it was a place where we could be successful. To take a place where you attended, played and went to school and to take that program potentially to great heights is a great, great fun challenge.”



“I did play in the NBA so that mystique of what it would be like up there doesn’t exist. I know things have changed. It was a long time ago that I played. … Even though it was eons ago, I still played and saw a little bit of what it was like up there. I’m still fairly close to it because you have your own players on NBA teams. There’s guys that I played with that are coaching or in management so I still have an idea of what’s going on. So I don’t have that itch to go do that.”

Sounds like someone that has a lot of pride in their alma mater and loves the area. He knows the grass isn’t greener on the other side, especially in this case. Only a fool would take the timberwolves job and that fool will be named in the next few months. As long as David Kahn is running things up there in Minnesota things aren’t going to get a whole lot better and they’ll be going through a a bushel of coaches if the win-loss record doesn’t improve.  

Timberwolves Fire Kurt Rambis

In what was a no-brainer to most, the Minnesota Timberwolves fired Kurt Rambis according to a report by Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski.  

Timberwolves general manager David Kahn won’t announce the decision until after the draft. Kahn had been uncommitted to Rambis after the season leading to speculation whether he was going to come back. Rambis was 32-132 in his two years as head coach. He left Rambis twisting in the wind, holding draft workouts and probably knew he was going to 86 him anyway.

Minnesota Timberwolves general manager David Kahn has decided to fire coach Kurt Rambis, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.



Kahn isn’t expected to announce the decision until after Thursday’s NBA draft, but he’s already begun collecting information on prospective replacements for Rambis, sources said…


Rambis has two years left on his original four-year contract. With the Timberwolves in the midst of a major rebuilding project, he went 32-132 as their coach, including a league-worst 17-65 this season.


Kahn told reporters he’d made the unusual request of asking Rambis to file a written report to him on changes Rambis would make if he returned as coach. He also said Rambis won’t attend the Timberwolves’ draft on Thursday night.


Kahn had wanted Rambis to become a better communicator with players. He also wanted him to design an offense away from the triangle and toward the open-court talents of rookie point guard Ricky Rubio. Rambis’ relationship with key young players, especially Kevin Love, had been frayed, at best.

I know anyone who has ever coached has wanted to be at the helm of their own operation, but Rambis had to know what he was getting into when he signed up for this. I’m not saying this is all his fault because Kahn has proven to be inept as a general manager. Rambis should’ve bolted out the door when he drafted the “point guards of the future” in one draft. The triangle wasn’t going to work in Minnesota. You have to have special and disciplined players for that offense. It’s not for everyone. Rambis didn’t get a fair shake, but this marriage was doomed to fail.
 
      

Darko To Auction Off His Championship Ring

In a page from Ron Artest’s book, Minnesota Timberwolves center Darko Milicic is planning to auction off his NBA championship ring he won with the Detroit Pistons in 2004. He’s doing it for a worthy cause, it’s to raise money and awareness for children dealing with the terminal illness Batten’s disease 

He got the idea from Ron Artest, who auctioned off his Lakers championship ring to raise money for mental health programs in schools.

Outside of the championship he won with Detroit and being known as one of the biggest draft busts in NBA history, this might be the most noteworthy thing he’s done since being in the league.

Michael Beasley Shuts Down Twitter Page

Another day, another Twitter controversy. Not really a controversy, but someone backtracking on what they posted and going into denial about it.

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Michael Beasley shut down his Twitter page after re-tweeting that head coach Kurt Rambis needs to let him ‘play his game’. Message to Beasley, playing your game is why your in Minnesota and not Miami right now.

The post read, “I sure wish coach would just let @RealMIkebeasley play his game!”

After the message was out Beasley recanted and said he has no problem with Rambis. He also said the post was accidental.

“Nah, nah, nah, nah,” Beasley said. “Kurt has given me all the opportunity in the world to grow as a player, as a leader. I really don’t have anything against Kurt and my game.”

Beasley says he finished with Twitter, for now.

“I just got tired of it. Somebody said something I didn’t like. I just got rid of it. That was an accidental re-tweet,” he said. I really don’t know how to tweet well from my Blackberry. That was accidental. I didn’t agree with it at all.”

If you’re gonna deny what you say about how you feel about something, it’s best to keep it verbal or don’t say it at all. At least you can deny it when it’s verbal.