Can we enjoy this Timberwolves season?

Thoughts on the Timberwolves and what it means to be a fan of Minnesota sports

I, like many of you, have been captivated by the Timberwolves over this season and playoffs. It is a fun ride when your team is playing at an elite level and they have every opportunity to win a championship.

Watching this team play together, play elite defense and see the maturation, perhaps ascension, of Anthony Edwards has been a delight.

This Denver series in particular was a roller-coaster of emotions. And I feel like it has been a microcosm of how Minnesota sports fans treat our teams, particularly when they are good.

The Wolves go to Denver and appear completely comfortable and in control, winning games 1 and 2 with very little opposition from the Nuggets. They pulled away in Game 1 and completely dominated game 2. Their defense was stifling, their role-players were playing great and Denver was on the ropes. Jamal Murray was throwing things on the floor like a toddler, their coach was losing his composure and they needed to regroup.

It was at this point that national analysts began declaring this series was over. Colin Cowherd proclaimed that Denver was cooked. Stephen A Smith not only predicted the Wolves would win the series, but that they were the favorites to win the NBA Championship. And the fans were just as enthusiastic about this team.

This is when we should have been very nervous. But frankly, the Wolves looked to be in total control after winning 2 games on the road to start the series and now coming home where you just need to win one. This team wasn’t just going to find a way to beat Denver, but the path to the NBA Finals was clear.

Unfortunately, the NBA gave these teams 3 days off between game 2 and 3, allowing Denver to get things right again. Now playing back in Minnesota, they made some key adjustments and they took down the Wolves in games 3 and 4…causing Minnesota fans to curl up in the fetal position. We’ve seen this before, right? We know what is coming, right? Good things don’t happen to us, right?

Of course, in the critical game 5 at Denver we were without our starting point guard and the result was never really in doubt. Denver controlled again and took a 3-2 series lead while the Wolves looked as though they had no answers. They punched, Denver countered and we had nothing in our arsenal to defend. Then, of course, the fatalistic nature of our fan base came out in full force.

This is what we do, we go from cautiously optimistic (while verbalizing that we know how this is going to end), to feeling as if this is a team of destiny, to experiencing a loss as an intentional emotional front to our very core, and then wearing that martyrdom as a badge of honor.

We pretend that we hate losing in the way we lose. But yet we feel deeply that we have it worse than anybody else and that somehow is something we relish.

Why do we have to be so fatalistic? Frankly, at some point, this becomes self-fulfilling and more often than not, we are doing this to ourselves.

I get it, we have had some epic letdowns and meltdowns and every other down you can think of. I was in the Dome for the Gary Anderson missed kick, I lived the lengthy Twins playoff losing streak, I have seen more unfathomable Gopher football collapses than I care to think about, Eric Harris getting injured in the Regional Final, Sam Cassel getting injured in the Western Conference Finals, the Darrin Nelson dropped pass, Brett Favre throwing across his body…the list could very easily go on and on.

Have we experienced some bad losses? Yes, yes we have. Have we actually won a championship in any of the major televised sports? Not in 33 years. A Twins World Series win that was before many of you were born and so long ago that many of us don’t remember the feeling.

And the Wolves? Well, they haven’t really dramatically broken our hearts like the Vikings have, but they have been one of the worst franchises in all of professional sports. And have been since their inception but for a single season 20 years ago.

I think that for our collective mental health, I’d like to offer up a few things to keep in mind.

1 – Bad losses happen to everybody.

Think of the gut-punch that Atlanta felt after being up 3 games to 2 and losing games 6 and 7 that could have gone either way. How do the Saints feel about Minneapolis Miracle? I know we’ve had to endure a couple of Packer Super Bowls, but they’ve also lost their last 4 NFC Championship games, including the home loss to Tampa Bay in 2021. It happens to everybody. Just so happens that we haven’t found our way to a championship win…yet.

2 – Just because you lose, it isn’t a tragedy.

Denver easily could have won game 7 and you know what? It would have been a great season that ended in a fantastic series to the defending NBA champs. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The Vikings got their ass handed to them by the Eagles after the Minneapolis Miracle. It wasn’t a tragedy, they were beaten by a better team. The problem was that we had built that up to be more than it was…again, doing it to ourselves.

Winning at this level is very hard and sometimes you get beat by a better team. Sometimes shit happens. But that is not indicative of a curse, it just happens.

3 – What happened 20 or 30 or 40 years ago has no relevance to today.

Chris Finch made reference to the decades of futility in a press conference but then dismissed it cause he doesn’t give 2 shits about what happened here 20 years ago. Neither do the players. What happened before is in the past. Why do we feel the need to hold on to these painful memories? Why do we need to put those losses on the shoulders of the current roster?

The painful losses live in our memories, but they have no bearing on today unless we let them.

4 – Nobody is out to get us. The NBA is not fixing games to keep us from winning a title. There is no small-market conspiracy at play here. In fact the NBA has seen champions from Milwaukee, Denver, Cleveland and Toronto over the last 8 seasons.

The decades of Wolves’ futility is a combination of a little bad luck and some awful decision-making. I mean some of the worst decisions made in the history of the league. The Joe Smith deal took away valuable first-round picks that would have been very helpful in the prime of Kevin Garnett’s career. And Johny Flynn is a draft pick that will live in infamy. But these are self-inflicted wounds.

5 – Enjoy the journey without relying on the destination.

This season and post-season has been incredibly fun. It may still end without the Wolves getting 8 more wins. But Mike Tice was 100% right…”ENJOY THE SEASON.”

The 2019 Gopher season was incredible. I have memories from that season that I’ll never forget. Turns out that season ended without any sort of a meaningful trophy or a banner to be hung. But it was a LOT of fun.

I will never forget the Minneapolis Miracle. That was an emotional roller coaster resulting in one of my favorite sports memories. Last night’s Game 7 win ranks right up there as well.

And if it doesn’t end in an NBA Title, it is OK. This isn’t a team of destiny. A loss in the conference finals or the actual finals isn’t indicative of our lot in life as a Minnesota sports fan.

These guys are fun and I am here for every minute of this season.