Hardwood Paroxysm Presents: The NBA Holiday Gift Guide
I would give Timberwolves fans a Raising Arizona-esque vision of a happy future
By Steve McPherson
That night I had a dream. I dreamt I was as light as the ether, a floating spirit visiting things to come. The shades and shadows of the people in my life rassled their way into my slumber. I dreamt that Corey Brewer and Kevin Martin got traded. Probably that’s just as well. I don’t mean to sound superior, and they’re a swell couple of guys, but maybe they weren’t the right fit for a young, rebuilding team.
And then I dreamed on, into the future, to an opening night in the Target Center where Andrew Wiggins’ name was being announced last to raucous and thunderous applause. I saw David Kahn a few years later, still having no luck getting anyone to listen to the reasons why he was done wrong. Maybe he threw in one “Mana from Heaven” joke too many. I don’t know. And still I dreamed on, further into the future than I’d ever dreamed before, watching Kevin Love’s progress from afar, taking pride in his accomplishments, as if he were our own, wonderin’ if he ever thought of us, and hopin’ that maybe we’d broadened his horizons a little, even if he couldn’t remember just how they got broadened.
But still I hadn’t dreamt nothin’ about Ricky Rubio, until the end. And this was cloudier, ’cause it was years, years away. But I saw Rubio as a seasoned veteran. He wasn’t screwed up, and neither was his team … And I don’t know. You tell me. This whole dream, was it wishful thinkin’? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I’m liable to do? The Timberwolves, they can be good, too. And it seemed real. It seemed like them, and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Minneapolis, then a land not too far away, where all parents are strong and wise and capable, and all children are happy and beloved. I don’t know. Maybe it was Utah.