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Lakers, Timberwolves Try to Avoid Historic Collapse
Last Season's Conference Finalists Might Be Lottery-Bound
By STEVE ASCHBURNER, AOL
LOS ANGELES - A former clash of the titans might be reduced to a battle over an extra Ping-Pong ball.
The Lakers and Timberwolves, who square off Thursday night, have far different teams than last spring's squads that collided in the Western Conference finals.
Never before has a pair of NBA conference finalists, one year later, missed the playoffs entirely. Never before, as well, have two pretend contenders mapped out such divergent routes leading to the same dreary place: Secaucus, N.J., site of the annual draft lottery.
The Timberwolves never asked for this. The Lakers all but begged for it. One has suffered this season from corrosion. The other, of course, from explosion.
Minnesota, still convinced it can catch and pass Denver or even Memphis in the West standings (despite a troublesome bulge in the loss column), assumed that what worked in 2003-04 was good enough to work again in 2004-05. Especially with bit players from last year's top-seeded team - Wally Szczerbiak, Troy Hudson, Michael Olowokandi - healthy and available for a new 82. More figured to be better, with added depth around the league's reigning Most Valuable Player Kevin Garnett and, in Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell, a couple of salty compadres.
Minnesota assumed wrong. Sprewell and Cassell took the relative success of last spring - the Wolves never had advanced past the first round until they arrived - as a mandate to seek contract extensions. Owner Glen Taylor and vice president of basketball Kevin McHale chimed back a la Stevie Wonder, "You haven't done nothin'," and took a more prudent view, factoring in the two aging backcourt stars' combined 69 years and the $17 million Taylor had just lost to the luxury tax rules.
Rarely has being right felt so wrong: Sprewell's scoring average is down by more than four points to 12.6, a career low. Defensively, Sprewell has lost a step and the NBA's new hands-off policy makes him look slower.
As for leadership, hey, how can a guy lead when he's worried about feeding the family, to paraphrase Sprewell's notorious preseason comment. That PR disaster set the tone for Minnesota this season.
Cassell, on the heels of his first All-Star season, is averaging six points and two assists less than a year ago (13.8, 5.3) and has missed 23 of 71 games, mostly due to a recurring right hamstring strain. He's also been slowed by offseason hip surgery.
There have been other problems: Hudson played most of this season as if still hurt, or convinced he was. Szczerbiak, in his sixth season, still doesn't fit with this team. Olowokandi remains a tease in the middle who looks good enough, once every fortnight, to keep himself handsomely employed. The Wolves aren't especially quick or athletic or strong or tough, and even Garnett sagged for much of February when his aching right knee yipped at him louder than usual.
There was one more lingering issue, a sense from within the Minnesota locker room that, at any point, the team could flip a switch and start playing at a championship level, rather than the 8-5 of November, the 8-6 of December, the 8-9 of January and the look-out-below 4-9 of February. It was as if the Wolves were ready for those best-of-7 series, but not the 82 games that preceded them.
So instead of flipping a switch, Minnesota switched a Flip, dumping coach Flip Saunders at 25-26, then going 12-8 with in McHale's first 20 games on the bench. That doesn't look, right now, as if it will be good enough.
Still, whatever disappointments the Timberwolves have thrown at their fans, the Lakers have loaded up double. Minnesota's streak of eight consecutive playoff appearances is in jeopardy; the Lakers almost certainly will snap a 10-year string. This is a franchise that, dating back to its Minneapolis roots, has missed the postseason only four times in 57 seasons and just once in the past 28.
But what else could anyone have expected, with Kobe Bryant wielding his free agency like a club last summer? Using - or rather, abusing - the Clippers for leverage, Bryant waited until it was clear that coach Phil Jackson would not be back and center Shaquille O'Neal had been traded to Miami before re-upping as owner Jerry Buss' chosen one.
The parts that Miami sent back in the O'Neal trade were just that, parts, tooled primarily for a perimeter team with none of the inside-out dominance Bryant enjoyed with the big man. Coach Rudy Tomjanovich, stepping in for Jackson, proved to be a temp worker, stepping down after a 24-19 start. Then Frank Hamblen took over, dusted off Jackson's triangle offense to further confuse matters and went 8-18, losing eight in a row - the second-longest losing streak in team history - before beating New York on Tuesday night.
"They're starting to erode my immune system, I'll tell you that," Hamblen said last week after No. 7 in the skid.
Bryant? He's doing fine, averaging 28.1 points and a career-high 41.7 minutes. But his assists are down, he's chasing the ball more than ever defensively and you've got to go down to No. 48, among the league's Top 50 scorers, to find another Laker (Lamar Odom, 15.2 ppg). The Lakers are one of eight teams giving up more than 100 points per game, and rank dead last in forcing turnovers.
The lid on all this seemed to blow Sunday, when guard Chucky Atkins, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, made remarks critical of Bryant. Asked before a game against Philadelphia what type of moves the team needed to make, Atkins responded: "I ain't the GM of this team. Kobe's the GM of this team. Ask Kobe. You've been watching this [stuff] all year. You've been watching it and I've been playing in it."
But Atkins' status as that one honest man lasted only a day. By Monday, the veteran guard had backed off his initial comments, and rather peevishly at that. "They wrote the wrong thing and they know what's up," he said. "Guys have been taking shots at Kobe Bryant all year. He hasn't broken, and he ain't going to be broken."
Why should he be? Bryant won't be the one sitting at the draft lottery in May with the embarrassed look on his face. That will be GM Mitch Kupchak, seated not so far from McHale (or, if McHale can't stomach it, Wolves GM Jim Stack).
Secaucus, they'll find out, can be lovely in May. It's the six months leading up to it that stink.
Steve Aschburner covers the NBA and the Timberwolves for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/sports/article.adp?id=20031023224209990004
Last Season's Conference Finalists Might Be Lottery-Bound
By STEVE ASCHBURNER, AOL
LOS ANGELES - A former clash of the titans might be reduced to a battle over an extra Ping-Pong ball.
The Lakers and Timberwolves, who square off Thursday night, have far different teams than last spring's squads that collided in the Western Conference finals.
Never before has a pair of NBA conference finalists, one year later, missed the playoffs entirely. Never before, as well, have two pretend contenders mapped out such divergent routes leading to the same dreary place: Secaucus, N.J., site of the annual draft lottery.
The Timberwolves never asked for this. The Lakers all but begged for it. One has suffered this season from corrosion. The other, of course, from explosion.
Minnesota, still convinced it can catch and pass Denver or even Memphis in the West standings (despite a troublesome bulge in the loss column), assumed that what worked in 2003-04 was good enough to work again in 2004-05. Especially with bit players from last year's top-seeded team - Wally Szczerbiak, Troy Hudson, Michael Olowokandi - healthy and available for a new 82. More figured to be better, with added depth around the league's reigning Most Valuable Player Kevin Garnett and, in Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell, a couple of salty compadres.
Minnesota assumed wrong. Sprewell and Cassell took the relative success of last spring - the Wolves never had advanced past the first round until they arrived - as a mandate to seek contract extensions. Owner Glen Taylor and vice president of basketball Kevin McHale chimed back a la Stevie Wonder, "You haven't done nothin'," and took a more prudent view, factoring in the two aging backcourt stars' combined 69 years and the $17 million Taylor had just lost to the luxury tax rules.
Rarely has being right felt so wrong: Sprewell's scoring average is down by more than four points to 12.6, a career low. Defensively, Sprewell has lost a step and the NBA's new hands-off policy makes him look slower.
As for leadership, hey, how can a guy lead when he's worried about feeding the family, to paraphrase Sprewell's notorious preseason comment. That PR disaster set the tone for Minnesota this season.
Cassell, on the heels of his first All-Star season, is averaging six points and two assists less than a year ago (13.8, 5.3) and has missed 23 of 71 games, mostly due to a recurring right hamstring strain. He's also been slowed by offseason hip surgery.
There have been other problems: Hudson played most of this season as if still hurt, or convinced he was. Szczerbiak, in his sixth season, still doesn't fit with this team. Olowokandi remains a tease in the middle who looks good enough, once every fortnight, to keep himself handsomely employed. The Wolves aren't especially quick or athletic or strong or tough, and even Garnett sagged for much of February when his aching right knee yipped at him louder than usual.
There was one more lingering issue, a sense from within the Minnesota locker room that, at any point, the team could flip a switch and start playing at a championship level, rather than the 8-5 of November, the 8-6 of December, the 8-9 of January and the look-out-below 4-9 of February. It was as if the Wolves were ready for those best-of-7 series, but not the 82 games that preceded them.
So instead of flipping a switch, Minnesota switched a Flip, dumping coach Flip Saunders at 25-26, then going 12-8 with in McHale's first 20 games on the bench. That doesn't look, right now, as if it will be good enough.
Still, whatever disappointments the Timberwolves have thrown at their fans, the Lakers have loaded up double. Minnesota's streak of eight consecutive playoff appearances is in jeopardy; the Lakers almost certainly will snap a 10-year string. This is a franchise that, dating back to its Minneapolis roots, has missed the postseason only four times in 57 seasons and just once in the past 28.
But what else could anyone have expected, with Kobe Bryant wielding his free agency like a club last summer? Using - or rather, abusing - the Clippers for leverage, Bryant waited until it was clear that coach Phil Jackson would not be back and center Shaquille O'Neal had been traded to Miami before re-upping as owner Jerry Buss' chosen one.
The parts that Miami sent back in the O'Neal trade were just that, parts, tooled primarily for a perimeter team with none of the inside-out dominance Bryant enjoyed with the big man. Coach Rudy Tomjanovich, stepping in for Jackson, proved to be a temp worker, stepping down after a 24-19 start. Then Frank Hamblen took over, dusted off Jackson's triangle offense to further confuse matters and went 8-18, losing eight in a row - the second-longest losing streak in team history - before beating New York on Tuesday night.
"They're starting to erode my immune system, I'll tell you that," Hamblen said last week after No. 7 in the skid.
Bryant? He's doing fine, averaging 28.1 points and a career-high 41.7 minutes. But his assists are down, he's chasing the ball more than ever defensively and you've got to go down to No. 48, among the league's Top 50 scorers, to find another Laker (Lamar Odom, 15.2 ppg). The Lakers are one of eight teams giving up more than 100 points per game, and rank dead last in forcing turnovers.
The lid on all this seemed to blow Sunday, when guard Chucky Atkins, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, made remarks critical of Bryant. Asked before a game against Philadelphia what type of moves the team needed to make, Atkins responded: "I ain't the GM of this team. Kobe's the GM of this team. Ask Kobe. You've been watching this [stuff] all year. You've been watching it and I've been playing in it."
But Atkins' status as that one honest man lasted only a day. By Monday, the veteran guard had backed off his initial comments, and rather peevishly at that. "They wrote the wrong thing and they know what's up," he said. "Guys have been taking shots at Kobe Bryant all year. He hasn't broken, and he ain't going to be broken."
Why should he be? Bryant won't be the one sitting at the draft lottery in May with the embarrassed look on his face. That will be GM Mitch Kupchak, seated not so far from McHale (or, if McHale can't stomach it, Wolves GM Jim Stack).
Secaucus, they'll find out, can be lovely in May. It's the six months leading up to it that stink.
Steve Aschburner covers the NBA and the Timberwolves for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/sports/article.adp?id=20031023224209990004
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ugly game in the first half 'specially
