Dear Mr. Kahn,
Well, here we are again, left wondering where it all went wrong. Well not wondering so much, it's easy to pinpoint the exact moment where everything started a slow swirl to the bottom of the bowl, think it was around pick #6, when the Golden State logo came out of the envelope and it was clear that two teams with higher picks had found their way into the top 3. Sure there was a slim chance that the Wolves still could've ended up in their rightful position, but those of us who have seen this movie before knew how it ended, and it wasn't pretty.
I'm not really mad about it, just disappointed; probably more so than I should be, given past history and expectations that were at rock bottom. But even when you expect nothing, it's hard not to feel a twinge of excitement as the dominoes start to fall, and one team after another takes it's correct place. The moment was similar two, although not approaching the significance of, the Vikings march down the field as time ran down in the NFC Championship game. You try so hard not to care, but once you get a glimpse of that goal line, emotion overrides logic, and you start to believe, only to be slapped down hard once again.
On the bright side, I suppose we've really lost nothing here. No lead has been blown, no big name is leaving town, the cost of this misfire is just a series of hypotheticals, which may even prove to come true in some other roundabout way. As a master of spin Mr Kahn, you've been quick to offer a fallback, and we appreciate that. Perhaps history will eventually bear out your claims that moves can be made and not all is lost with your team's failure to land one of the two big names in this year's draft. Perhaps soon, even the fabled Rubio will come from across the sea to usher in a new era of Wolves basketball alongside Lottery Pick X, who's presence we will no doubt bemoan when it's announced next month. Maybe, perhaps, possibly, things could work out in some oddly ironic way. But at the moment Dave, from where I'm sitting, you don't appear to have a damn thing.
Going into last night, I was ready to give things the benefit of the doubt and reinvest myself in the Timberwolves basketball. At one point I was an entusiastic fan, but years of stagnant, fringe-playoff teams had dampened that enthusiasm. But with the Wolves poised to take the first steps back to relevance, it seemed time to check back in; after all, rooting for a young team on the rise is far more intriguing than an established squad stuck in the middle. Youth offers the promise of improvement, that tomorrow will be better than today, instead of the gnawing concern of the same familiar flaw popping up again to derail a season, as it always does in the world of the perennial also-ran. The Wolves teams during the last few years of the Garnett Era were a caricature of their previous selves, continually trying to plug one hole in the dam, just to have three or four new ones spring forth. The team was neither good enough to win it all, nor bad enough to gain a high draft pick, it was simply spinning it's wheels; frankly, as a sports fan, I consider this the worst possible place to be.
So fast forward a few years, and while this wasn't exactly a team on the rise, it was certainly a team ready to move onto the next chapter. Gone were the ill-advised contracts handed out in last-gasp attempts to salvage the end of an area, replaced instead by malleable (albeit underskilled) parts that could be shifted as necessary in pursuit of a nucleus. From that nucleus we'd build a competent squad, then a playoff team, and then a contender; at least that's the way it gets drawn up. The path has been laid out by many other organizations throughout sports history, and while falling into absolute irrelevance is tough to stomach, it also provides the freedom to do whatever is necessary to change the conditions that put you there in the first place. Nothing is sacred, it can all get blown up, all that's required to rise from the ashes is a shrewd evaluator of talent at the helm, ownership that was will to spend as needed...and a little bit of luck.
You see Dave, that's where it's always gone wrong around here, as yesterday once again hammered home. It would seem that random chance should dictate a single instance of success in 15 tries at anything with a resonable probability of success. Yet time after time, despite odds that are certainly more than reasonable, the failure continues to perpetuate. (Meanwhile, teams like the Wizards, who wouldn't be within a mile of the lottery had their best player not been suspended all year, strike gold, you really can't make it up) Adding in the abysmal front office missteps over the years, and the fact that NBA free agents apparently view Minnesota as a slighty more desirable destination than Siberia, it gets pretty tough to imagine a scenario in which this franchise will ever be able to free itself from it's current morass.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is, this isn't working for me and something needs to change. It's not you, it's me; you've barely been here a year, my fear and loathing regarding the draft day misadventures of the franchise go back a decade more. While it can be said your first runthrough has not been overly encouraging, you're not to blame for even one-tenth of the apathy I feel toward your franchise; the seeds of boredom were sewn long ago, and they now stand as a towering oak of indifference that even the sharpest axe could not fell. It's true these situations do not fix themselves overnight, but this team has been teetering toward irrelevance for the better part of a decade, falling over the brink a few seasons ago, perhaps never to be heard from again.
So you're on your own Dave, sorry to say, but I just can't muster the interest for another season where 20 wins is the ceiling. I'll check back again in a year or so, in the meantime re-iterating the same hope I had at this time last year: That the coming draft yields at least one player who gives the appearance of being a future building block (one who sees actual NBA minutes this season would be preferable). I have to admit, I have my doubts about your acumen, but I like your sense of humor and hope you succeed in spite of my reservations. After all, we're in this together...well, you know, after you get something resembling a professional basketball team on the floor.
Best wishes,
Pat
P.S. I know you said you don't believe in luck, but even so, bringing the Vikings play-by-play guy to the lottery couldn't have helped.
P.P.S. Rubio is never going to play here, trade him for anything of decent value.
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