Returning to the Glory of the 90s: The Gabriel Arcadia Story (TPB 2K5)

[Izulde]

1990. It was the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century. M.C. Hammer and Vanilla Ice ruled the airwaves and "You Can't Touch This" became a national slogan. The Me Generation of the 80s was slowly beginning to give way to Generation X and on the horizon was a return back to the 60s in thought, music, and fashion style.

There are few decades more beautiful than the last stretch of ten years before the turning of a new century. I'm just glad that I was able to not only live through it, but to experience joys and anguishes along the way, both personal and professional.

The greatest of my triumphs and tragedies some might say came on the basketball court. A case could be made for this, I suppose. Certainly history judges a man not by the kind of character he was, but what imprint he left on the world, be it for good or for ill, be it as sweeping as changing the course of the world everafter him or as simple as bringing children into this world and raising them.

But enough of my rambling. You want to hear the story, don't you? The juicy details, the inside scoop--you want to know it all and hear what no one else has until now. All right, all right. I'll begin, then.

The year was 1990. I was Gabriel Arcadia, rookie general manager of a rookie team, the Minnesota Timberwolves.

And this is where it begins.

[Izulde]

Most people think the NBA has a long and illustrious history, filled with paegantry and decades of tradition and glory. I suppose that's true in a sense, but the NBA as we know it today didn't really begin until 1980.

You see, back before then, there were numerous professional basketball leagues all competing with one another for fans, money, and glory. Some of you know their names I'm sure and can roll them off your tongue as easy as can be: the National Basketball Association, the Continental Basketball Association, the American Basketball Association, the United States Basketball League, and so on.

In the beginning this worked out okay. Folks loved the sport of playground kings and they flocked to these startups, cheering on their local team to victory in the small ponds of their leagues. Enough profit was being made to pay the players a decent salary and the owners were satisfied enough with their bottom line to keep things going that way.

But just like that soft and plush stuffed animal you got for Christmas lost its fuzziness and cuddly newness after a while, so too did it go with the leagues. Once the novelty wore off, a lot of the fans stopped going. Owners started getting hungry for more money and so did players. Competitors in other sports were growing in popularity as well. The NFL was getting a larger fanbase and Major League Baseball was still America's most loved pastime, awash in the autumnal glory that would seem all the more beautiful after the steroid and strikes tarnished the game in the mid-to-late 90s.

The heads and owners of the scattered basketball leagues saw their products declining and after intense negotiations in that unforgettable summer of 1979, announced that they were dissolving all of their leagues and uniting together under the banner of the National Basketball Association. Taking a lesson from the American Revolution, they knew that they would either hang as one or hang separately.

23 clubs began play that winter of 1980. Teams were allowed to keep the records they had from their own leagues, but all playoff appearances and all championship titles were stricken from the record. This was a whole new league and everyone was starting over fresh.

The consolidation proved to be a overnight success, resurging an interest in the sport of professional basketball. Over the next decade, league attendance and merchandise sales soared through the roof, beyond even the most optimistic NBA brass's expectations. The exponential growth in popularity was helped by an East Coast-West Coast battle for basketball supremacy waged every season between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Eight of the ten titles awarded in the 80s were won by those two teams--Boston with three and the Lakers with five. They were the undisputed royalty of the NBA and the marketing gurus of the league loved them for the publicity they generated.

In fact, the NBA was so immensely successful, that before the 1990 season, the league made a daring move that stunned the more conservative business minds in the country. Because of the viability and health of the league, the commish's office announced and because it was the 10-year anniversary of the new NBA in the coming season, there would be an unprecedented expansion of seven teams, including the first-ever Canadian team.

So much excitement was generated by the bold tactic that it even made international headlines. Those with an interest stake in overseas leagues turned their attention to the United States to see how the model worked. Fans in the new cities were ecstatic to be a part of something new and exciting unlike what anyone had ever seen before. It's true what they say that success breeds success, for the seven noviate teams all had pretty high fan interest and sales of both tickets and paraphenlia were quite brisk even before a single minute of basketball had been played.

Seven teams. It's amazing to me even now that the NBA made the decision they did, but I'm happy they did. It allowed me my first step into the general manager ranks and for that I am eternally grateful.

I suppose you want to see some newspaper clippings right about now, something you can see and feel, maybe even smell the dust of the ages rising up to meet you. Something to give weight to the words of a man whose not so young anymore.

I can do that, but first, let's go get a cup of coffee. My throat's dry and I need to wet it before I can continue.

[Izulde]

Good coffee they have over at Larry's, isn't it? I always try to patronize the local shops whenever I can. There's something about those big corporate chains that just strikes me as cold and soulless. There's more spirit in a ground out cigarette butt than a national franchise to me. Of course, they were once small and local, too. So at what point did they lose their essence then, I wonder?

Ah well. This isn't the time for philosophical discourse. You wanted to see a newspaper article, yes? All right, here's one. Be careful with it please. It's old and prone to cracking. Somehow I just can't bring myself to laminate it. Too much like neutering it if you ask me. Go on and have a read.

Unknown Hired As Minnesota Timberwolves GM

In a shocking announcement made yesterday, Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor introduced the man he's appointed to be the general manager of the fledgling NBA team, a 35-year old virtual unknown by the name of Gabriel Arcadia.

Unheard of in NBA circles, Arcadia does have GM experience, having served the past three years in that capacity for the Lacrosse Purple Knights, an independant semi-pro basketball team.

After being presented, Arcadia remarked, "This is an exciting opportunity, both for a young man like myself and for a young team like the Minnesota Timberwolves. While the early years will be difficult, I am fully confident that by the end of five years, you will see the Wolves in the playoffs."

The guarantee was met with a roar of approval and a standing ovation from the crowd. A daring proclamation to make, it remains to be seen whether Mr. Arcadia can live up to the promise he delivered.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are one of seven expansion teams joining the NBA starting this season. The others are the Miami Heat, the Orlando Magic, the Memphis Grizzlies, the New Orleans Hornets, the Charlotte Bobcats and the league's first Canadian team, the Toronto Raptors.

***End Article***

Pretty saucy words for a rookie GM of an expansion team wouldn't you say? But then, that's how I got the job in the first place.

You see, at my interview, I told Glenn, "I've been a general manager for three years now and I know I'm awfully young to be a GM at this level, but I'll work for you for five years at $25,000 below whatever the next lowest-paid general manager in the league is making. If we make the playoffs in that period, you'll reward me with a contract comensurate with my success after the five-year contract is over. If we don't, then you can fire me and you'll have gotten by cheaply for the first five years of the franchise."

I remember he laughed just then and brushed some rogue strands of his combover back to their original place. It looked really funny but I wasn't about to tell him that he either needed to get a toupee or just leave his hair be. I had a job to win.

"You've got balls, Arcadia and I haven't had a creative offer like that yet. Since I'm a patient guy, I like your plan and I'll accept your offer. We'll have the contract to you out by the end of the week. Welcome to the Minnesota Timberwolves!"

There have been few other points in my life that exhilirated me as much as that one. My childhood dream had come true... I was the general manager of a professional sports team.

After leaving Mr. Taylor's office, I danced like a crack-smoking monkey out in the hall, whooping and hollering as if I'd just won an NBA championship. When you grew up in a small northern Wisconsin town like I did, nobody expects you to reach this level in any profession. And here I'd achieved it.

Still, underneath my celebration, I was worried. I'd shown a lot of moxie and bluster in getting the job, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to carry out my claims. The packed stadiums and big-money world of the NBA were a far cry from the small crowds and low wages of the semi-professional teams.

My thought then was only that I hoped I'd be able to pull off the promise I'd just made back in the owner's office. At that time, it was too much too fast to even begin to think of dreaming beyond that.

[Izulde]

The day after news of my hiring hit the press, I went in to my office to look over the notes on the team that I'd written in the practices since I knew I'd gotten the job.

1990 was the first year the NBA instituted a salary cap. It wasn't a concern of mine, as we were a very comfortable $11 million under the cap.

Coaches:

Head Coach: Hubie Brown
65 years old. 1 year left on contract. $4 mill. salary. Coaching philosophy is avg. off. pace w/high pressure D. Pretty good strategist and good scout. Works well with kids. May or may not keep. Not happy with his lineup.

1st Assistant: Sidney Lowe
30 years old. Player-coach. Making $500k p/yr as coach with 2 yrs left on contract. Terrible at tactics and an average scout. Can spot the defenders, though. Only okay with youngsters. Will fire as a coach immediately.

2nd Assistant: Flip Saunders
34 years old. 2 years left on contract. Absurd $4.3 mill. salary. Coaching philosophy is slow off. pace. w/high pressure D. Pretty good strategist. Is okay at determining potential and knows how to scout the off. and def. abilities of a player. Okay with youngsters and extremely greedy. Will promote to 1st Assistant, but will not renew contract.

3rd Assistant: Dave Cowens
41 years old. 2 years left on contract. $300k salary. Okay strategist. Can't scout at all but does all right with the kids. Will keep but not renew contract.

Before you move on to the players, let me tell you what I did with my coaching situation. Like I said, I called Sidney in and told him he was no longer going to be coaching for us. He was upset at first, but understood when I told him I wanted him to concentrate on his role at point guard for us. Flip was ecstatic when I told him he was being moved up to the top assistant position. I have a feeling he was pretty sure he was going to be able to replace Hubie after the season. Naturally I didn't tell him that wasn't going to happen and that his days with us were numbered.

After extensive hunting and talking to people, I hired Mike O'Koren as our second assistant. He was 31 years old, average at the Xs and Os of the game, okay at figuring out the potential kids had, but couldn't develop them worth a damn. On the bright side and the reason I chose him really, was that like Flip, he was good at scouting out just what talents players had on both sides of the ball at any given in point in time. Not only that, but he came cheap. $391k for 3 years was his starting contract. I didn't know then if he'd turn out to be head coaching material or not, but at the time, he was the best assistant available.

Okay, you can go on to reading about the players now. I didn't get a chance to choose my own team at first, by the way. Glenn did all the expansion draft and signing decisions himself. Some of his choices I thought were excellent. Others I was more than underwhelmed with.

Players:

PG Sidney Lowe:
6'0". 195 lbs. May not be much of a coach, but superb ballhandler and good passer. 2 years left on player contract. $6.9 mill the first year, $7.6 mill the second. Mediocre on D but can steal quite a few passes. Smart and disciplined. Lazy in practice and obviously angry about getting fired as coach. Inconsistent and disliked by other players. Hated by fans. Must trade.

PG Pooh Richardson
6'1" 180 lbs. 23 years old. Rookie whose passing and ballhandling already on par w/Sidney's. Subpar D and slight above average stealing ability and intelligence. Average scorer, but terrible from charity stripe. Fiercely determined to get better. Puts in average effort in practice and is liked okay by teammates. Pretty good consistency. The PG of the future. Love this kid.

SG Doug West
6'6" 200 lbs. 22 years old. Another rookie w/better outside shot than Pooh's and same scoring instincts. Horrible defender and very stupid. Undisciplined and an average ballhandler. Extremely loyal, motivated, works hard, and is popular with fans. Despite intangibles, will try and trade while some teams still think he has potential.

SG Tyrone Corbin
6'6" 210 lbs. 27 years old. 4-year vet. Long contract left. 7 years remaining. Starts at $5 mill and ends at $7.5 mill. Not happy about that. Slightly better shooter and scorer than Pooh and Doug. Average ballhandler and slightly above average rebounder. Good D and better thief than Lowe. Average intelligence. Not the loyal type. Extremely motivated, but average otherwise intangibly speaking.

SF Tony Campbell
6'7" 215 lbs. 27 years old. 6-year vet. 3 years left on contract at good salary for what he brings. Good shooter with very good scoring instincts. Average ballhandler and rebounder. Slightly above-average D and intelligence. Disloyal, lazy, and hated by fans and teammates, but motivated.

SF Adrian Branch
6'7" 185 lbs. 26 years old. 4-year vet. 1 year contract for $675k. Mediocre shooter and ballhandler. Above-average rebounder with mediocre D who has a suprisingly uncanny and prodigal talent for stealing. Also really knows how to draw a foul despite not being all that bright on the court. Motivated and doesn't care about money. Horrible intangibles otherwise. Will wait and see how he does this season before deciding contract status.

SF Sam Mitchell
6' 6" 210 lbs. 26 years old. 4-year vet of the semi-pro leagues. 3-year contract ranging from $1.3 mill to $1.5 mill. Slightly above-average shooter. Average rebounding and D. Looks lost right now on an NBA court. Devotedly loyal, works hard, is motivated, loved by teammates, and is a fan favourite. Unfortunately also very greedy. Still, the best value guy on the team.

PF Donald Royal
6'8" 210 lbs. 25 years old. 2-year vet of the semi-pro leagues. 2-year contract for pocket change. Average scorer with a decent inside shot. Horrendous ballhandling and D. Mediocre rebounder. As lost as Sam on the court. Average intangibles except for great motivation and good consistency.

PF Scott Roth
6' 8" 210 lbs. 26 years old. 4-year vet. 2 year contract averaging out to $1 mill a year. Very good inside shot w/good scoring instincts. Average ballhandler who's mediocre at rebounding and D. Good stealer with average intelligence. Can draw a foul or two. Terrible intangibles except for extremely low greed, high motivation and iron durability.

C Tod Murphy
6'9" 220 lbs. 26 years old. 3-year vet. 2 year contract with $1 mill and some change in each year. Mediocre shooter and defender. Average ballhandler w/above average rebounding and intelligence. Not all that loyal, but not greedy either and decent intangibles outside of that.

C Gary Leonard
7'1" 250 lbs. 22 years old. Rookie. Mediocre shooter who can't hit a FT to save his life. Also mediocre on D, but above average rebounder and a shot-blocking demon. Clueless on court and poor stamina. Horrible intangibles, save for motivation and very low greed.

C Randy Breuer
7'3" 230 lbs. 29 years old. 6 year-vet. 4 year contract going from $6.8 mill to $8.9 mill. Bad, bad contract. Good inside shot but only average scoring instincts. Average ballhandling and D. Above-average rebounder with good shotblocking talent. Above-average intelligence. Great motivation and not too greedy. Not very well liked by anyone and has average durability.

I knew after looking over my notes that there had to be some changes made even before the season started. So I hit the phones and spent the next few days talking over various trade offers to teams. Lowe wouldn't go by himself, I knew. Not with that contract. West would have to go with him in a package deal.

It's a funny thing how life works sometimes. Though I originally intended to have West and Lowe leave first, that wasn't what happened. My very first trade as an NBA GM actually turned out to be with Golden State. I've got the newspaper clipping around somewhere, but I can't be bothered to find it right now.

The deal was this: Leonard, Roth, and our 1991 second-rounder went to Golden State for shooting guard Mitch Richmond, center Manute Bol, and the Warriors's 1992 first-rounder.

Golden State adored Roth's all-around game, especially his shooting talents, and his contract. They also thought that Leonard was a younger, better version of Bol and they liked the players both highly enough that they were willing to give up their first-rounder two years down the road if we gave them an extra second-rounder for the next year.

On my end, Mitch was a good shooter with very good scoring instincts, young at 24 years old, quite intelligent, and had workhorse endurance that more than made up for his subpar ballhandling abilities and average defense. Intangibly speaking, he was really motivated and extremely consistent and durable, and folks liked him okay. The one worry I had was that he wanted to play for a winner, so I wasn't sure if we'd be able to keep him happy. It was a chance I had to take though, especially after I'd seen him light up the NBA in his rookie season by averaging 22 points a game. His contract was a steal at averaging a million bucks for two years. Golden State hadn't picked up his rookie option for some reason. To this day I don't know why. You can bet I picked up his option real fast, though. That gave him to us for another year at $1.4 million, which I felt was a steal.

Manute on the other hand was probably the worst shooter on the planet. He also wasn't too good with handling the ball, but I loved his height. At 7'6", he was an even more amazing shotblocker than Leonard had been and he was just above average on defense and in terms of intelligence. Plus he had one year left at $863,000. He was also coming off an injury from the season before, but I didn't care. My intention was that Hubie would have him serve from the bench and if he panned out, I'd sign him to another contract. If not, then he'd be let go and he could take his what would be five years of NBA experience elsewhere.

That first round pick was what really had me excited, though. Two first-rounders in 1992. I was pretty sure Golden State would be improved by then, but I didn't think they'd be good enough to make the playoffs, especially after trading away Mitch. I figured even if they did miss the lottery, we'd still have a mid first round selection, which, everything else figured in, was worth it in my book.

That was the end of my offseason dealing before the 1990 campaign. Nobody wanted Lowe's contract and I couldn't blame them. I certainly wouldn't have taken it myself.

Still, I was happy with the move I made. True a lot of it was a gamble, but in my heart I thought I'd be able to have the Timberwolves winning quick enough to make Mitch happy and that our extra first-rounder would be further ensure the winning ways.

Oh, one more thing before I tell you how that first season went. I have Coach Brown's lineup card that he made out after the Golden State trade and training camp:

Starting Line-Up Minnesota Timberwolves 1990 Post-Training Camp

PG: Tyrone Corbin
SG: Mitch Richmond
SF: Tony Campbell
PF: Tod Murphy
C: Randy Breuer
6th Man: Sam Mitchell

[Izulde]

It's funny how you never forget your firsts. Your first kiss. Your first girlfriend. Your first car. Your first job. Your first house. They're all forever a part of you and your memories because they broke a barrier that was important both to you yourself and the society you lived in. I suppose if we'd grown up in a sub-Saharan tribe, our points of rememberance would be something like our first kill in the hunt or the first spear we made.

But that's getting off track. I'll spare you any further sociological aside and move back to the original topic. Like I said, you never forget your firsts. I'll always remember my first game as GM of the Lacrosse Purple Knights and I'll definitely always remember that first game as GM of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

We were on the road against Magic Johnson and the mighty Los Angeles Lakers. I thought at the time that there was no greater first test that we could have faced in the NBA and that we were likely to get slaughtered. Still, it would allow me the chance to really look at a championship-caliber team and see the blueprint that the Purple and Gold had used to win half of the NBA's titles. Not that I would copy them, you understand. I had my own style and own philosophies concerning a team. But it was always good to look at successful organizations and learn from them.

I still can see it to this day. Breuer winning the tipoff and the boys racing down to their half of the court. Corbin fed it to Campbell who found Randy inside. Breuer went up for the jump shot and dropped in from 10 feet out. We officially had our first lead 10 seconds into our infant history. 2-0 against the godly Lakers. I cheered in my seat.

I became even more ecstatic after we extended our lead to 6-0 before the Lakers finally scored. Mitch answered right back with a slam dunk on the other end and we were still up, 8-2. The Staples Center crowd was furious, booing us and booing the poor quality of the home team.

We got to a 16-10 lead before Hubie sent our subs in and it was all downhill from the there. By the end of the first quarter, the Lakers had captured the lead and they never looked back, or so I thought would happen.

Then, midway through the third quarter, a funny thing happened, something so bizzarre and so miraculous that I had to blink twice before I was sure I was seeing right.

Mitch Richmond had just nailed a 25-foot jumper and we'd gotten the lead back.

What followed after that was a fierce back-and-forth battle between two determined teams. I've lost count now of the number of lead changes that occurred over that last quarter and a half of play. All I remember is the numbers at the end, gleaming in their red brilliance on the scoreboard.

Minnesota 117 L.A. Lakers 113.

The expansion NBA peasantry had knocked off the league's royalty in their very first game.

Here, I still have the post-game report from that night. It's not the original copy, mind you, but one I had a computer whiz-kid draw up for me. The original is someplace safe where only I and a few other people know of its location. No, I'm sorry... I can't tell you where. Not yet at least. Maybe as time goes on and we get to know each other more.


Quite possibly the single-greatest upset in NBA history...

[Izulde]

Highlights of that first month came in greater profusion than I'd anticipated. There was Mitch Richmond scorching the Utah Jazz for 27 points in the first half en route to a 38 point game as we beat the Malone-Stockton combination 107-89 in our third game.

Our comeback win against the Sonics in which Richmond, Corbin, and Campbell all scored more than 20 points and we blitzed Seattle 36-15 in the 3rd quarter.

There were lowlights, too. The dismantling we took from the Jazz three days after Richmond's amazing output. Defending champion Detroit pounding us every which way possible in a 107-69 loss for our side.

Even high points and low points. Even record, too, as we finished our first month of play 7-7. Although we were only half a game out of the playoffs after the first 30 days, I knew we were playing far above our actual talent level and that changes would have to be made if we were to maintain our initial pace throughout the season.

A look at the early returns of statistics and watching the games revealed several things about us.

First, that Mitch Ritchmond was as good as advertised. Though his turnover ratio was a little high, averaging 3.1 a game, his 23 points per game really galvanized us and had been integral to the success we'd had.

Second, my preseason suspicions concerning Tyrone Corbin's ability were justified. Though he was averaging in double figures, he was also comitting 5 turnovers a game on par and that wasn't acceptable to me. Not even when he was below that for his assistant mean. Unfortunately, though Pooh Richardson outplayed Tyrone when subbing for him, Hubie refused to displace Tyrone and Corbin's contract meant that he was untradeable. Still, I put him on the trading block and hoped an offer would come through.

Third, Randy Breuer was vital to our gameplan as well. Chipping in double figures in both points and rebounds, he also was getting nearly two blocks a game.

Fourth, Tod Murphy wasn't the answer at power forward and was barely serviceable starting there. The truth was, I liked Donald Royal, his sub, a fair amount better than Tod, but Hubie wouldn't hear of it.

Fifth, Tony Campbell's 19 and a half points a game were huge and presented more production than I'd expected about him. My hunch was that his numbers would go down over the course of the season and so he was certainly available as trade bait.

On non-starter notes, Pooh was playing well, like I said. Doug West was developing fairly nicely too. Manute Bol did well with the minutes Hubie gave him, and Sidney was a lemon, not playing much and earning far too much money.

A lot of guys were on the trading block after the first month and some were even unhappy. I didn't want those guys unless they were upset about their lack of playing time and could be an upgrade at power forward for us. Tod Murphy didn't excite me one bit as I said.

After a lot of calling around the league, I finally made my second trade of my career.

Doug West and Tony Campbell went along with our 1992 2nd round pick to the Seattle Supersonics for two young kids who I thought looked really promising and should start for us right away, power forward Derrick McKey and point guard Avery Johnson.

McKey was a big defensive upgrade over Murphy and had room to grow. Excellent intangibles too.

Johnson, on the other hand, wasn't as good an intangibles guy, but he was masterful with the ball in both handling and passing, had a good outside shot, and was good on the D, too. He was also one of the smartest students of the game you could ever hope to come across.

On Seattle's side, they wanted the extra pick and Campbell gave them someone they thought could be an offensive powerhouse off their bench. West started off on their IR, but the Supersonics figured he might have a shot at filling in the legendary Dale Ellis's place when he retired.

I was angry when I found out Hubie's new starting line-up, though. The two kids we'd just gotten who I felt should be starting got the short end of the stick. Avery was listed as the sixth man and McKey was just part of the rotation.

"Hubie", I said to him in my office, "Either you start at least one or both of those kids by the end of this season or your contract will *not* be renewed. Is that quite clear?"

Coach Brown didn't answer me. He just tightened his lips and stormed out. Evidently he thought a guy thirty years his junior didn't have the right to order him around like that, but I knew I did. I was his boss, after all.

Anyway, that's the note the first month ended. How about we go and get ourselves some ice cream? Dairy Queen sounds good right about now.

[duckman]

Very good start. I like way you are telling the story.

[damnMikeBrown]

Yeah, very nice job!

[Izulde]

duckman: Thanks. I was trying to figure out a way to present this dynasty when I d/l'ed LaTulipe's 1990-2004 roster set when I hit upon the idea of a GM telling someone his story after the fact. I'm glad you like it.

damnMikeBrown: Thanks! I have to confess, I like it quite a bit myself, which is rare for the stuff I write.

[Izulde]

I love Dairy Queen's Blizzards, especially the Butterfinger kind. It's bad for my teeth I know because of all the sugar, but I don't care. It's still delicious to eat.

Now then, have yourself a seat. Where was I? Oh yes, I'd just gotten done telling Hubie he'd best move Avery or Derrick to the lineup by the time the season was over or he would be the one that was over.

So it was a mixed first month we'd had, but overall, I felt pretty good. A five-hundred record is darned good for an expansion team and I thought with the Seattle trade, we'd be in a nice position to improve on that in the second month.

The first game, we hung with Michael Jordan and the Bulls for three quarters before falling in the fourth. Jordan reamed us for 40 points. There's never been any player who's been as brilliant as him, I think. His capacity to take over a game was just phenomenal and beyond description.

Among the good memories of the month were Randy Breuer's 23 point, 13 rebound performance in a win over our expansion brothers, the Orlando Magic, followed by a dominating 29 point, 13 rebound game in which we beat Bernard King's Wizards by the narrowest of margins, 105 to 103.

Our come-from-behind victory over the two-win Toronto Raptors, memorable only because we were down 19-4 and I was swearing that I would fire Hubie after that game if we lost to them. We won by double-digits with a solid all-around effort and 23 points off the bench from Avery, who still wasn't starting, much to my annoyance.

The win against the Supersonics that snapped our five game losing streak, where not even former Timberwolf Tony Campbell's 12 points and 5 steals could save Seattle. Corbin, Richmond, and Breuer all had more than 20 for that game, too, with Randy grabbing 11 rebounds for another double-double.

After that match, we went out to dinner with Tony, I and a few of the other guys on the team. We caught up and spent a very pleasant evening chatting and wining and dining. He'd worked his way into the starting lineup of the Sonics by then, something that made me proud. I liked Tony, I really did. I liked even better that we'd held him 7 points below his season average in that game.

There were the bad memories, too. Our heart-breaking, last-second loss against the Knicks. That 23 point debacle against the Nets, where we lost even though Mitch had 33 points because our bench did nothing that game.

All those times we would suddenly, inexplicably, turn cold and not score for long stretches of time, vast deserts of empty nets where our lead would be sliced to shreds, frequently displaced by our opponents overtaking us and going ahead.

The lowest point of the month, a 112 to 64 massacre by the Hawks after which I was embarassed to say that this was my team, my Timberwolves.

All told, at month's end we were 11-18, now well out of the playoff hunt. The last three games, we'd lost by an embarassing average of 25 points, roughly. Mitch was now starting to become unhappy with the losing habits we'd suddenly acquired, just as I feared might happen when I traded for him.

Statistics wise, Mitch was still holding steady with his 23 points and 3 turnovers a game. I thought his growing discontent might start to affect his play, but he was too good and too important for us to think about trading. It was my intention to build the franchise around him and I couldn't do that if I traded him away.

Though Tyrone had cut his turnovers down to about 4 and a half per game, his assists had also dipped and he continued to frustrate me. Hubie and I got into a lot of heated debates in our offices about him. I wanted Pooh or Avery to start and Tyrone to be relegated to the bench. Hubie wouldn't hear of it, though.

Sam Mitchell was doing okay since he stepped back into the small forward role after Campbell got traded, but like Tod Murphy the month before, it wasn't exciting me.

As for Murphy, statistically speaking, his game had improved significantly over the last thirty days, but that was somewhat misleading, as he was now clocking an average of 37 minutes a game, by far the highest on the team.

Randy continued to contribute steadily in the paint, though his rebounding average had dropped to just below double digits by this point. I still considered him one of the key players on the squad, though.

In the reserves, Pooh replaced Avery as the sixth man early in the month in Coach Brown's rotation and frankly he deserved it. He was outplaying the new Timberwolf and really should have been starting.

McKey and Johnson, to speak of the additions from the month before, hadn't lived up to expectations. Derrick wasn't playing as well as I'd anticipated even when Hubie did give him some minutes. Avery as I've already mentioned was being passed up by Pooh.

Though I was pretty sure that I was going to stick with the team I had, I nonetheless made some calls and did some exploring with my fellow GMs around the league.

Then, in Miami, a golden opportunity arose.

Glen Rice wasn't happy with how the team was playing, for like Mitch, he wanted to be part of a winner. A rookie who was already scoring in double figures at 15 points a game, he could shoot quite well, was a good defender and showed nice discipline on the court.

The chance to improve the Timberwolves was too much, especially since the Heat were asking so little.

In the end, Donald Royal and Adrian Branch went to Miami for Rice and the Heat's 2nd round pick of the next year, thereby netting us the pick we'd given up in the Richmond trade.

This time, Hubie wasn't about to disagree with me. The same day the trade was announced, he declared that Glen was going to be the starting small forward and that Sam would be moved back to the sixth man position.

I suppose you're wondering how the trade made sense from Miami's end. Well, it was pretty obvious that they weren't going to go anywhere this year and they didn't want Glen to become a cancer on the team, so they were looking to dump him. Adrian and Donald gave them two young guys who could really strengthen their bench, which was pretty sickly at the time. More importantly, they were low-salary guys who weren't obsessed about playing for a winner. That was a key part of the Miami front office strategy back then.

Richmond and Rice. 'Come see the Timberwolves for a little R & R.' That was the marketing slogan I had in the back of my mind.

I knew that this trade would either be a great coup and we would start winning, or it would prove to be a massive failure and I'd have two extremely talented, extremely unhappy young stars on my hands.

[Izulde]

As the third month began, I prayed that we would start surging and drawing closer to playoff contention again, or R & R would both be wanting out and my rebuilding project would have to take that much longer.

The day before our first game, I signed Louis Orr, a power forward from the semipro leagues. He'd been playing down there for the past eleven seasons, was 33 years old, and had never gotten a shot at the NBA until we gave him a one-year deal. Hubie loved him so much he made him the seventh man in the rotation, which I thought was a mistake. Then again, I thought a lot of what Hubie had done up to that point in the season was stupid.

We opened badly that month, getting beaten by both L.A. teams. The Lakers crushed us in the opener and the Clippers nipped us at the last second for by a single point.

Then Glen broke through with a 25 point game against the Rockets and Orr gave us his second double-digit scoring game in three appearances, with eight rebounds besides as we came from behind to beat the Rockets 99-97.

Other high points including Mitch scorching the Kings on the road for 34 points and a sweet runaway victory on our part. Mitch again, this time blitzing the defending champion Pistons for 37 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 steals in a 117-101 upset at the Palace. If nothing else, I thought to myself after that game, we specialized in pulling the red carpet out from under the NBA's nobility in their home courts.

We had a lot of heartbreaks, too. That buzzer-beater loss to the Clippers. Another one we had to the Suns, followed immediately after by a two-point defeat at the hands of the Sonics.

The best performance against us was Larry Nance of Cleveland, who reamed us for 24 points, 19 rebounds, and 5 blocks in a game the Cavaliers dominated 105-77. After that game, I considered trying trading for him but decided against it. He was one of the franchise players of the league at the time and nothing could pry him away from them.

By the time the dust settled on the month we were standing at 17-27. Our gap between wins and losses had widened, and as you can probably guess, Mitch was not happy about it. He still wasn't asking for a trade though, so I resolved to hang on.

After the month was over, I met with Hubie and his assistants in my office. They told me that, much as I'd anticipated, Pooh was turning out to be the Real Deal. On the other hand, Glen wasn't progressing as well as they'd hoped, either. True he wasn't exactly doing terrible out there, but he wasn't really impressing anyone either.

His numbers had dropped a bit since joining us and that concerned me. I also found it troubling that McKey wasn't getting any minutes out on the floor. The rest of the guys were all staying pretty constant with what they'd been putting up and I'd given up on trying to get Tod out of the rotation, because he was actually doing pretty good in there, with near double figures in both rebounding and scoring.

I was pleased to see that Tyrone's turnover numbers had lowered again and I began to think maybe he wouldn't be that bad after all.

There was still room for improvement on the team obviously. Mitch was the only bona fide star we had and he wasn't enough. I only hoped we could keep him from outright revolting before we had the chance to really make impressive gains and improve. He still remained the cornerstone to everything because I felt in my heart that by the time he was done developing, he would be one of the top players in the league and worthy of being considered a franchise player.

I just had to pray he'd be willing to weather the storm with us until we turned the corner.

[Izulde]

We opened up the next month against four teams that were playoff-bound by record at the time and we managed to get a split, something I was happy with. The Knicks were the first ones we beat, as we came from behind to top them.

The second victory of the split is the one I'll always remember the most, though. Mitch Richmond weaving and burning through the Jazz as if they were so much straw to his searing pillar of flame. By the end of the first quarter, he had 22 points. The first quarter. It was like nothing I'd ever seen, nor likely would see again. He ended up with 48 points, easily the most dominating performance of the young Timberwolves history. I still have the tape of that game. You can watch it sometime if you like. I felt like the best GM in the NBA after that contest.

Two games later though, I was reminded of just how far we had to go when we played the Chicago Bulls. Jordan and Pippen shredded us for a combined 58 points and after the game, Mitch stopped by to talk to me.

"You see Mike and Scottie out there? I want to be like them.. I want to be winning now and someday I'm going to be as good as Jordan. Glen, he ain't no Scottie. I've been on a winning team all my life and it hurts to have to be losing now." Mitch told me.

I looked at him straight him in the eye and said, "Look Mitch, I'm not going to B.S. here. We're an expansion team and it'll be at least a year or two before we're winning. Glen may not be up to Scottie's level yet, but he's still just a rookie. Give him time to develop. As for you, you aren't on Jordan's plane either right now. You turn the ball over too much for that and aren't as good on defense as he is."

Mitch only nodded and walked on. As he headed for the arena exit, I only hoped that I'd said the right words and given him the assurance he needed that things would get better with time.

One of the biggest low points of the month, if not the biggest, came a few games later with a 97-90 loss to the Heat. We blew a 10 point halftime lead, Glen went 2 for 9 against his former team and Tyrone had a disgusting 10 turnovers. I wished more than ever that Herbie would just put Pooh in as the starting point guard, but he still refused to. It didn't make me want to re-hire him at the end of the season, I can tell you that much.

Adding insult to injury was losing by double digits the next game to the Charlotte Bobcats. Everyone forgot how to shoot and play defense. Glen in particular drew my ire with his for 4 for 16 showing. I was beginning to think that maybe Mitch was right and Glen wasn't fit to be the accessory man after all, at least until I found out he'd sprained his finger during the game and was out for 13 days. Tod got hurt too and was down for 16 days.

So out went Glen and Tod and in went Sam and Louis to take their places. Tod's injury also had the nice bonus of getting a chance to see Derrick finally get some PT. I was hoping he'd do well enough in the opportunity he'd been given to at last get it through Hubie's thick skull that he needed to be starting on a permanent basis.

Before I could find out though, All-Star Weekend was upon us. Pooh was named the starting point guard on the Rookies team and Mitch got the nod as the starting shoot guard for the Sophomore squad. The Sophs won 106-98 behind the combined efforts of Clifford Robinson, who had 19 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 blocks, Grant Long chipping in 18 points from the bench on perfect 7 for 7 scoring, and Mitch's 14 points. Pooh was the second leading scorer for the Rookies with 15 points. All in all I was happy with the performance from my guys.

Though nobody from our team was named to the All-Star squad, I watched the game anyway. The East won 144-126 behind MVP Larry Bird's great all-around performance of 27 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocks, and Jordan's 28 points. What was interesting for me to see was that Tony Campbell, who'd we traded to Seattle as part of the McKey/Johnson pickup, was named to the West Team as a reserve, though he didn't play. I enjoyed seeing him there. He told me he really enjoyed the city of Seattle and was happy there, but that he kept tabs on us to see how we were doing.

All-in-all, I felt pretty good after my first All-Star Weekend. As our selections showed, our backcourt for the next several years at least was going to be very solid indeed, which meant that I would be concentrating on our frontcourt in the draft and in free agency.

Derrick didn't do very well in his first extended-game duty in a long time. He failed to score a field goal, though he did pick up 7 rebounds and had 4 assists. By the end of the game, it was clear that Louis, who had played well since I signed him from the semipro heap, was outshining him on the court.

The trade deadline came and I spent quite a bit of time researching my team and the available options out there. Some deals had already been made by the time I started looking at my choices. Here, I've got a sheet of the trades and my thoughts on them. Have a look.

1990 Deadline Deals

Detroit Pistons receive:
SF Billy Thompson

Miami Heat receive:
SG Gerald Henderson
Detroit 1st round pick (1991)

Billy gives Detroit some extra rebounding muscle and steps in as the 6th man for the Pistons, who are trying to make a championship repeat. Gerald hasn't been performing to expectations and I think he might be on his way down at 34. The extra first-rounder will help the Heat though it probably won't be worth much as the Pistons are still one of the top teams in the league. Both contracts are expiring, but Gerald's expires for $12 mill., whereas Billy's is only for $4.5 mill. The extra money, should Miami renounce the contract, will put the Heat at $20 million under the cap and give them the chance to make a splash signing in free agency.
Winner: Draw.

Portland Trailblazers receive:
SF Derrick Gervin
NJ 2nd round pick (1991)

New Jersey Nets receive:
SG Drazen Petrovic

Gervin is supposed to be a phenomenal scorer but hasn't lived up to the billing, as the four-year veteran is barely breaking double digits, even though he was a starter for the Nets. However, he also comes really cheap for this year and next, at $383k and $425k respectively. Drazen is a much, much better all-around scorer, passer, ballhandler, and defender, though he's only average at the last three categories. He instantly becomes NJ's starter at SF. Locked up for the next three years at a very reasonable $1 mill and some change for the still under-cap Nets.
Winner: New Jersey by a mile.

L.A. Lakers receive
PF Phil Zevenbergen
Memphis 2nd round pick (1991)

Memphis Grizzlies receive:
C Vlade Divac

The Lakers get a bench player and a mediocre pick for a guy who could become one of the most dominating centers in the league when he's done developing. How does this trade make sense for L.A.? It pretty much comes down to this: Zevenberger is a good rebounder and is more polished than Divac, and a polished player is what a team thinking championship title needs. Vlade is a godsend to the Grizzlies. He may still be quite raw, but he steps in as the starting PF and is without question Memphis's best defender, a fact indicative of just how poor our expansion kin are on D. Still, I love this trade for Memphis. It reminds me a lot of the Mitch trade we made with Golden State and of the trade the Nets made for Drazen.
Winner: Without a doubt, Memphis

Portland Trailblazers receive:
PG Kelvin Upshaw

Golden State Warriors receive:
C Wayne Cooper
Portland's 1st round pick (1991)

The Blazers are at the trading again and this trade makes more sense than the Drazen deal. Kelvin is still young at 27 and is a good all around player and very good thief. They also took a $12 million contract headache off their hands, as Cooper is earning that this year and is making $13 million next season. I have to wonder what Golden State is thinking. That first rounder will be more like a second-rounder and they're eating up all their cap space on a guy who isn't even starting. Not to mention, it only adds to the logjam at C they have out in California. Oh yeah, Cooper's also 33 and probably on his way down, even if he is a stellar rebounder, a good defender, and a very good shotblocker. I don't like what Golden State's doing this year though from their organization's standpoint. Stupid moves all around. First giving Mitch away for what was essentially a song and now this. They're already below .500 and with what they're doing now, I predict they'll be one of the worst teams in the league for quite a few years to come. This is great news for our '92 1st rounder from them, though.
Winner: Portland

L.A. Lakers receive:
C Maurice Martin

Memphis Grizzlies receive:
SG Michael Cooper
L.A. Lakers 1st round pick (1991)

A day after the Divac trade, the Lakers and Grizzlies decided they weren't done trading with each other yet and made another swap. Martin's a very good rebounder and an okay shooter, but is medicore on D and doesn't have much wind to speak of. He'll slot in as the 6th man for the purple and gold because of it. Cooper is a veteran guy who plays smart, has good endurance, can really make the charity stripe shots, and won't turn the ball over much. Unfortunately, he also takes up all but $2 mill of Memphis's contract space for this year with his $14 mill contract and he earns $15 mill next year. The Lakers' pick, like a lot of first rounders I've seen traded lately, won't be worth much more than an early second-rounder. Don't much like this trade for either team.
Winner: Draw and not in a good sense

We were 20-34 at the deadline and Mitch, while still not happy about the losing, still was willing to stick it out with us. That was something I was really thankful for as it meant I wouldn't have to trade him. With that in mind, I scoured the trading blocks around the league to see if there was anyone I was interested in getting that could be had without ruining the foundation I'd lain. My main interest was obviously in the frontcourt, so that was what I was keeping an eye out for, especially at power forward.

I very nearly traded for Rony Seikaly from the Heat. He was a better rebounder and defender by far than Randy, was 23 years old and a second-year player, and had a much nicer contract. Already a dominating center, he only looked to get better and better. Unfortunately, he was also prone to cases of butterfingers and in the end, that and his hunger to win like Rice and Richmond is what prevented me from pulling the trigger. I don't think Miami would have been willing to accept Randy's contract anyway.

Richard Anderson from the Bobcats was another guy I very strongly considered. About equal with Tod on defense and rebounding, he was a better scorer and ballhandler by far. In the end though, I decided that his contract was too exorbiant and too long for me to pick him up. He also had terrible intangibles.

As it turns out, no deals went down on the day of the deadline, though there was a lot of discussion going on around the league. I found myself thinking the day after that I should have tried to trade Derrick away as a part of a deal to get Rony, but it was too late now.

Mitch dropped 45 points a couple games later against the Hornets, getting 6 rebounds, an assist, and a steal in besides. I felt better and better about having traded for him. He really was the straw that stirred our drink.

It appeared by month's end that my decision to stay pat was the smart one, because we finished with a three-game win streak and stood at 23-34. Our last game was against Rony and the Heat. We overcame a double-digit deficit to win 109-100, thanks to Tyrone's going crazy with 34 points. Rony had 26 points and 14 rebounds, but also 5 turnovers. I still wasn't entirely certain I'd made the right long-term move in trading for him, but I was happy enough with the short-term result.

Mitch felt a little better after the streak too, though he was still not that thrilled about our place in the league overall.

Oh yes, here's a picture of Mitch after that 48-point night against the Jazz. It's one of my favourites.


His first of two 40+ point games of the month

[Izulde]

As we got set to play the last 25 games of my inaugural season as GM of the T-Wolves, I thought to myself that we'd done pretty well for ourselves and I still believed, much as I had not long after we got Glen, that we were only one or two really good player away from being a solid playoff team, possibly even a bona fide contender.

The need for a quality big man became even more apparent to me than ever at we opened the month by getting blown out by 32 points against the Pacers, in which their power forward, Detlef Schrempf, took us apart for that margin and in the next game, versus the Clippers, where Benoit Benjamin ripped into us for 38 points, 21 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, and 4 blocks. Derrick most certainly was not the answer or the future for us at the four spot. I resolved to trade him at some point in the offseason.

Tod's coming back helped us as we snapped the losing streak by beating the Blazers handily at home. Though I'd disparaged him for much of the season, he really was quite solid and dependable there, hovering near the double digit mark in both scoring and rebounding while being relatively turnover-free.

After that, we tumbled into another losing streak where too many teams exposed the soft underbelly of our interior and we were helpless to stop them. Even the victory that broke it only came at the last second on Mitch's timely 38th and 39th points against the Bucks.

Without question our best game of the month was 128-99 thrashing of the Lakers, where we were led by Glen's 27 points. It wasn't as fantastic as our first win, though, in my opinion. Like I said a little while ago and you saw in my notes, I thought the trades they'd made were greatly to their detriment and the game against us showed it. Maurice Martin's sievelike defense was killing the Purple and Gold.

We played Golden State twice that month and we beat them both times, the last game thanks to Mitch sweeping through the Warriors for 35 points and 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals. He really seemed to get up for playing against his former teammates, something I was grateful for.

Though I'd hoped to have 30 wins by the end of the month, a heartbreaking 111-110 loss to the Jazz on the second to last day prevented that. I still have a bitter taste in my mouth from that game. We were so close and Mitch played his heart out again, getting 30 points, but it just wasn't quite enough.

So instead we were 29-41 by the time the thirty days was up. At 7 and a half games out of the 8 seed, it was more or less guaranteed we weren't likely to make the playoffs, but we were also the tenth team in the Western Conference playoff race. We also had the 10th-worst record in the NBA at that point. The Eastern Conference was a much rougher and more competitive conference than the West that year, which is why the situation was as I've just described it to you.

The status quo was the story with Mitch. He still wasn't very happy with our record, but he wasn't standing on top of any soapboxes demanding a trade either. I apologize if I seem so obsessive about him. He was the first player I'd ever traded for and all through that first year, I felt in my bones that he would be the cornerstone of our franchise for seasons to come.

I noticed as I was talking to the other GMs around the league about their team that Rony was very eager to get out of Miami and quite desperate to be traded. He was an option that I silently promised myself I would continue to keep open and would explore the possibility of trading for in the offseason, depending on how free agency and the draft looked.

Richmond, Rice, and Rony. That had a pleasant, alliterative ring to my ears. I wasn't sure then if I'd end up creating the Triple R's or not, as I nicknamed them in my head in those days when I envisioned the three of them on the court together.

Ah, I talk too much. Let's go get some Mike's Hard Lemonade and catch the ball game down the street. Then you don't have to listen to this old man babble.

[DeToxRox]

Excellent read, keep it up.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by DeToxRoxDVHStyle

Excellent read, keep it up.

Thank you very much! I will. I'm really loving doing this dynasty.

[Izulde]

Nothing is more fun than spending an early summer evening watching a city softball game. The crowds are smaller, the atmosphere's relaxed, and you really get to know the fans and players. That was a good game, too. Who would have thought Johanesson would have corked that homerun for the win in the last half-inning? Not me, that's for sure. He's a nice guy though, even if he does drink a little too much.

Want a Pepsi? It's in the fridge. I'll have myself a seat back on the couch before I continue.

All right, so there we were, 29 and 41 with the last smattering of games to be played before we hit the postseason. Like I said, the Timberwolves weren't going in all probability and I didn't expect us to. I was frankly quite happy with the gains we'd made in our first season.

We got the 30th win in our first game of the month, a 20-point blowout of the Rockets. It was just a really nice-all around effort, with Glen leading the way with 25 points and Randy picking up a double-double. We had some excellent bench play in that game too, with Pooh, Avery, and Sam all breaking double digits in points scored.

That was the start of a beautiful three-game win streak as we took down the Grizzlies and the Hornets as well, Mitch getting 35 and 30 points respectively in the two games. We were in helped in Memphis by Vlade's being limited thanks to a calf strain, but I didn't care. It'd been a long time since we'd had that kind of win streak, so I wasn't too bothered when the Nuggets beat us handily in our next game after Mitch had an uncharacteristically cold 2 for 12 shooting night.

We bounced right back though, as Tony came into town with the Sonics and Mitch and Tyrone welcomed him home with 20+ points a piece in a win for us. Tony got a lot of razzing about getting beat when we all took him out to dinner, but to be fair he played pretty well against us, getting 17 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 steals.

Thanks to our weak schedule that month, where we played our expansion brothers quite a few times, we had several nice wins. Probably the most memorable was against Memphis with a healthy Divac back in the lineup. Derrick McKey had been improving his play significantly the last several games, but that night, he just exploded. 27 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals. I was glad for his late-season surge, because contract decisions were coming up soon and I was going to have to make some choices that might seem minor, but when your roster is just 12 active guys, 15 at most, no choice is ever truly insignificant. His enhanced play was going to make some options no-brainers if he kept it up.

Without a doubt, the best all-around performance for us in those last days of the 1990 regular season came from Mitch, who bombed Golden State for 35 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists, and an incredible 8 steals in the second to last game of the year.

All told, when the curtain set on the regulation games of 1990, we finished 37-45, damn close to a .500 record, something I thought was just incredible for a first-year team. Though I'd originally feared our blazing close would kill us in the lottery, we ended up with the 11th-worst record in the league, so we would have an acceptable selection to find what we needed, I hoped.

The best part of our fast and furious finish was that Mitch called me and told me that he was now happy to be a Timberwolf. Our torrid pace the last couple of months had him believing that we were on the fast track to winning and he wanted to stick around for the days to come.

I'm not too much of a religious man, but on that day, I gave thanks to God.

I suppose you want to hear about how the playoffs went, who won the awards that year, and what went down in the offseason. You'll find out soon enough, my friend. For now though, I'm hungry, so I'm going over to Larry's for some late-night pancakes and a cup of coffee. You can come with if you like.

Ah yes, I figured as much. Young Turks like you always need to cut a rug with the pretty girls at those dance clubs. That's the way it was in the discos of my day and that's the way it is now with your techno clubs. It's the way of youth, I suppose. Do have fun. Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you the rest of the story for that first year.

Oh, wait. Before you go, here's printouts I have of the final 1990 regular-season standings. Keep the copies. I've got more.


Chicago and Boston ruled the East roost that year


The Suns looked to be the class of the West after those stupid trades by the Lakers

[Izulde]

Welcome back. How did last night go for you? Ahh, it's a shame to hear that. Don't worry, though. The sea of life is filled with female fish and more than a few of them are as pretty as a sun-speckled rainbow trout. You just have to be patient and keep trying.

All right, let's finish up the 1990 season, shall we? The playoffs were set. Chicago versus Indiana, Cleveland versus New York, Atlanta versus Detroit, and Boston versus Philadelphia in the East in Round One.

I knew there was no way Chicago or Boston would lose, and I had a feeling Detroit wouldn't let their title defense go down in the first round. Cleveland against New York was a tough matchup to pick, but in the end I reasoned that the Cavaliers would trounce the Knicks. They had too good a squad to lose and I still had nightmares about Nance tearing us apart in that one game from earlier in the season.

In the West, it was Phoenix and Seattle, Denver and the Lakers, San Antonio and Houston, and Portland and Utah.

Phoenix and Portland looked to be easy wins. Houston I thought would take the Spurs down. The Lakers would probably beat the Nuggets as well, though it would take a full slate of games to do it by my reckoning.

My predictions were perfect in the East. Chicago swept the Pacers, Cleveland beat New York in six games, as did Boston in their series victory over the 76ers. Detroit won their round in five games.

I also did pretty well in the West. Phoenix swept Seattle, Portland squeaked by the Jazz in seven games. and I successfully picked Houston's upsetting San Antonio. Unfortunately, Denver beat the Purple and Gold in six, ruining my perfect record. Still, a 7-1 outcome was nothing to sneeze at.

For the round two matchups, it was Chicago and Cleveland on one side of the bracket in the East, Boston and Detroit in the other. I really didn't see any way that the Bulls and Celtics could lose, even given the Cavaliers' tough inside presence against Chicago and the Pistons's defensive prowess versus Boston.

That year's second-round West side story was a song of Phoenix versus Denver and Houston playing Portland. The Suns would take care of Denver, I felt and I had a hunch that Houston would continue their stellar play by knocking out the Trailblazers.

I was dead wrong on Portland. They swept the Rockets, much to everyone's shock. As for the rest of my picks, Chicago finished off the Cavaliers in six and the Suns did the same to Denver. I finished with an even record for the round when the Pistons beat out the Celtics, also in six. My record was now 9-3 for the playoffs.

So it was on to the conference final matchups then. Jordan's Bulls against the defending champion Bad Boys of Detroit in the East and the blazing Suns taking on second-seeded Portland in the West. My gut told me Chicago would solve the Piston menace and that Phoenix would reaffirm their dominance in the West by beating the Trailblazers.

The Suns proved me right by winning in five games. The Bulls won too, scraping out a series win over Detroit in a thrilling seven-game series. 11-3 for the playoffs I was.

So it was Chicago versus Phoenix for the crown. There was no way I was going to against Jordan and Pippen. The Bulls to win it all, I thought.

And... I thought wrong. The Suns blistered the Bulls in six games to take home the 1990 NBA Championship.

The awards were announced a few days after Phoenix took home the title. Here's a sheet that I printed out for you with the winners of that year.

MVP:
Michael Jordan - Chicago Bulls
38.5 ppg 3.9 apg 6.4 rpg 0.7 bpg 2.3 spg

Defensive Player of the Year
Patrick Ewing - New York Knicks
29.0 ppg 2.3 apg 12.6 rpg 3.0 bpg 1.3 spg

6th Man of the Year
Fat Lever - Denver Nuggets
14.2 ppg 3.5 apg 4.6 rpg 0.2 bpg 1.6 spg

Rookie of the Year
Tim Hardaway - Golden State Warriors
18.5 ppg 8.5 apg 3.9 rpg 0.0 bpg 1.4 spg

Coach of the Year
Dough Collins - Chicago Bulls

All-League First Team
PG Kevin Johnson - Phoenix Suns
SG Michael Jordan - Chicago Bulls
SF Charles Barkley - Philadelphia 76ers
PF Karl Malone - Utah Jazz
C Patrick Ewing - New York Knicks

All-League Second Team
PG Mark Price - Cleveland Cavaliers
SG Magic Johnson - L.A. Lakers
SF Dominique Wilkins - Atlanta Hawks
PF Larry Nance - Cleveland Cavaliers
C Hakeem Olajuwon - Houston Rockets

All-League Third Team
PG John Stockton - Utah Jazz
SG Clyde Drexler - Portland Trailblazers
SF Larry Bird - Boston Celtics
PF Tom Chambers - Phoenix Suns
C Brad Daugherty - Cleveland Cavaliers

All-Defense First Team
PG Mark Jackson - New York Knicks
SG Michael Jordan - Chicago Bulls
SF Charles Barkley - Philadelphia 76ers
PF Larry Nance - Cleveland Cavaliers
C Patrick Ewing - New York Knicks

All-Defense Second Team
PG John Stockton - Utah Jazz
SG Ron Harper - L.A. Clippers
SF Scottie Pippen - Chicago Bulls
PF Karl Malone - Utah Jazz
C Hakeem Olajuwon - Houston Rockets

All-Rookie First Team
PG Tim Hardaway - Golden State Warriors
SG Mookie Blaylock - Atlanta Hawks
SF Glen Rice - Minnesota Timberwolves
PF Pervis Ellison - Sacramento Kings
C Vlade Divac - Memphis Grizzlies

All-Rookie Second Team
PG Pooh Richardson - Minnesota Timberwolves
SG George McCloud - Indiana Pacers
SF Sean Elliott - San Antonio Spurs
PF Shawn Kemp - Seattle Supersonics
C Stacey King - Chicago Bulls

I was quite pleased with the recognition that Glen and Pooh received. It boded well for our future in Minnesota to have our young players viewed as some of the best players coming up in the NBA.

In other award news, we had our first Hall of Fame induction as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was elected after retiring that year.

After the celebrations were all over, I knew I had some very difficult choices ahead of me, decisions that would affect the Timberwolves both in the short-term and the long-term. One of the most critical things I had to figure out was whether or not I wanted to keep Hubie as the coach of the team beyond this year.

Since I knew he was good at assessing the ability and potential of young players though, I rather selfishly decided to hold off on deciding his fate until the draft was over. His input was too valuable to let him go before then.

Our chances of moving up from the 11th pick in the 1st round were slim at best and as it turns out, 11 was where we stayed at. I didn't mind. We had that pick and the fourth selection in Round 2 thanks to our trade with Miami earlier in the year. I thought we could get a couple of good players out of those two picks.

The lottery that year was insane. Orlando, with a 1.7% chance, wound up with the third pick, leaping from the spot ahead of us up to there. Charlotte made the jump from the seventh selection to the second. And number one that year was the Toronto Raptors, who moved up one spot from their former second selection.

Let me show you this paper that I wrote down the order of the lottery portion of the draft after the selections had been made. I also noted the jumps and slides each team made in terms of numbers of spots.

1. Toronto Raptors (+1)
2. Charlotte Bobcats (+5)
3. Orlando Magic (+7)
4. Memphis Grizzlies (-3)
5. New Orleans Hornets (-2)
6. Miami Heat (-2)
7. Sacramento Kings (-2)
8. Golden State Warriors (-2 and hopefully won't be much improved because of it)
9. New Jersey Nets (-1)
10. Los Angeles Clippers (-1)
11. Minnesota Timberwolves
12. Washington Wizards
13. Milwaukee Bucks
14. Dallas Mavericks

As it turned out, the NBA decided that year to institute a rule where all coaches had to be signed to their teams for the coming season before the draft started. This was to prevent people like me from using our coaches for their scouting talents and then letting them go after the draft was over.

So I was forced to make my decision sooner than I'd wanted. After much deliberation and thought, I called both Hubie and 3rd assistant Dave Cowen into my office and told them they were fired. Dave accepted the news calmly, but Hubie was furious. He called me a traitor who wasn't fit to run a team and he predicted that I would end up ruining the team.

After his outburst, I was glad that I'd let him go. Flip showed up the day after I fired Hubie of course, arguing that he should have the head job. I told him absolutely not and to get out of my office. He complied, though he wasn't happy about it.

I signed our new third assistant right away, a 46-year old guy by the name of Larry Riley. He was average all around, except for assessing the potential of the youngsters, which he was good at. For 3 years and $350,000 a season, I thought he was good enough.

As for our head coach, I signed him the very next day. Gregg Popovich had just about everything I wanted in a head man. He was an unparalleled genius at strategy, was a good scout, and was even better than Hubie at ascertaining the defensive abilities of players. The only thing I didn't care for was that his coaching philosophy preached a slow-paced offense and I wanted something fast and exciting to watch on the court. Still, he was the right man for us at the time and so I hired him.

Hubie got another head coaching job, with the New Orleans Hornets, one of our fellow expansion teams. I was happy for him though I have to be honest.. I also went out right after I heard about his hiring and circled the dates we'd be playing them next year. I desperately wanted to make sure we beat them.

Three other teams made head coaching changes and they were also expansion teams in 1990.

Toronto signed John Wetzel, a phenomenal Xs and Os guy good at scouting what talents players had at any given moment, but was only average outside of that. I wasn't too impressed with him.

Miami hired Phil Jackson, a move I considered extremely stupid by one of our trading partners from last season. Sure he was excellent at strategy like Gregg and John and he had a better eye for developed talent than both of them, but he was only average at guessing how good players could become. Even worse, he was terrible at developing youngsters, the kiss of death for a team like the Heat, who had a lot of good green players back then.

Memphis completed the head coach turnover when they hired Bill Musselman, a Hubie clone in every way, save for that he was three years older. I actually liked that move by the Grizzlies. Though they'd dropped to the fourth pick in the first round, Vlade would benefit immensely from having a guy like that coaching him.

The mock draft released that year had us picking Antonio Davis, a power forward out of UTEP. They certainly had our needs pegged down. The consensus number one player by everyone was power forward Derrick Coleman, who everyone had going to Toronto with the first pick.

I did some studying and analyzing, and after a while, I sent out the fifteen invitations that every team was allotted to give out to players. Though I concentrated heavily on players that might be around for our eleventh pick in the first round, I also invited a few guys that I thought would be there for our second selection, the fourth spot in round two.

I'll never forget that first draft night. There's no more exciting night to be a GM than that evening. I remember the cries of shock that went up throughout the room when Toronto drafted Gary Payton, a point guard. They desperately needed a frontcourt player and they drafted Payton. It's amazing to me even this day that they did that.

Charlotte, as you can imagine, wasted no time at all in gleefully selecting Coleman. The Bobcats certainly had a charmed existence when it came to the draft that year.

In a bitter bit of irony, Lionel Simmons, the power forward out of Lasalle that I really wanted and who I thought would fall to me, wound up being taken fifth by the Hornets. Hubie won that round and got a nice bit of revenge in the process. Even now, I think he did it deliberatly to rob me of the guy I most coveted.

By the time our pick rolled around at number eleven, things were looking grim. Tyrone Hill, who'd been my backup plan in case Lionel was snatched up, went two selections before to the Nets and in the pick just before ours, the Clippers had taken Scott Williams, my third choice.

Left down to the nitty gritty, I searched our remaining players, trying to decide which of them I could work up the most enthusiasm about. After a lot of soul-searching and internal debate, not to mention a few discussions with Gregg, we finally made our choice.

With the eleventh pick in the 1991 draft, we made the draftniks right and selected Antonio Davis. Despite that fact, the talking heads on ESPN ripped us for the pick, saying that we should have gone one of the pretty good shooting guards still available to back up Mitch. I never have liked the television media very much and still don't to this day.

I've still got a list where I wrote down the first rounders of that day. Here it is.

1. PG Gary Payton (Toronto)
2. PF Derrick Coleman (Charlotte)
3. C Walter Palmer (Orlando)
4. PF Loy Vaught (Memphis)
5. PF Lionel Simmons (New Orleans)
6. SF Cedric Cellabos (Miami)
7. C Elden Campbell (Sacramento)
8. C Patrick Eddie (Golden State)
9. PF Tyrone Hill (New Jersey)
10. PF Scott Williams (L.A. Clippers)
11. PF Antonio Davis (Minnesota)
12. PF Tony Massenberg (Washington)
13. SG Dave Jamerson (Milwaukee)
14. SF Toni Kukoc (Dallas)
15. SF Gerald Glass (Seattle)
16. C Barry Stevens (Utah)
17. PF Terry Mills (Philadelphia)
18. SG Willie Burton (Indiana)
19. C Kenny Williams (Houston)
20. SG Dee Brown (Memphis)
21. C Alaa Abdelnaby (Atlanta)
22. SF Marcus Liberty (San Antonio)
23. PG Rumeal Robinson (Miami)
24. SG A.J. English (Denver)
25. PG Tate George (New York)
26. SG Dennis Scott (Golden State)
27. PF Jayson Williams (Cleveland)
28. C Alec Kessler (Phoenix)
29. PG Wayne Turner (Chicago)
30. PG Bo Kimble (Boston)

I'd hoped that Kessler would fall to me in the second round, but the NBA Champion Suns picked him up late in the first. So I wound up taking a flyer on center Duane Causwell instead. Most of our staff didn't think he had much ability or much potential, but I loved the kid's intangibles. He was loyal, busted his butt in practice, had a fantastic attitude, and was loved by his teammates. Took good care of his body, too.

Interestingly enough, the talking heads liked my pickup of Duane. Some of them thought he even should have gone late in the first. I know I was satisfied with the selection. He could learn from Randy and Tod for a couple years about the game and maybe Manute too, if I re-signed him, I thought.

After the draft, there were contract choices to be made. More specifically, I had to decide whether I wanted to resign Louis and Manute.

Though Louis had provided us some solid play the season before, I just didn't think he was worth keeping, so I renounced the rights I had to him. Manute was a little harder choice after I signed Duane to a three-year rookie contract. In the end, I decided resigning Manute would cut too much into Duane's development time and so it was with great sadness that I renounced Manute's rights. He was one of my favourite players and I hoped he would be able to find another team.

In the summer league, Duane led in blocks, but Gregg told me that despite that, he'd picked up some bad mechanics that would hurt him against more established players. He and Glen looked to be a little worse after the summer session. Antonio was unchanged and Pooh's defense increased, something I was happy about, because he would need to get better on defense to be able to unseat Tyrone from the starter's slot.

And with that, I think I'll stop my story for tonight. I'll leave with this, though. We were in a good position going into free agency. Six million dollars under the cap and we already had twelve players under contract. No roster-fillers would need to be signed. We had the luxury of hunting for the best player available who could upgrade our team.

[Izulde]

So, I imagine you're all set to hear tonight how the rest of my first offseason went. You'll hear it all right. Have a seat.

Now, before the actual free agency period began that year, I wanted to find a way to clear out more money that we could use to sign people with. To that end, I wanted to get rid of Sidney Lowe, who had a year left on his contract at $7.6 mill. I just had to find someone who was eager enough for the cap room to take him. I'd have given him away for a song at that point.

So I contacted teams around the league, hoping to find a squad that was under the salary cap enough and in desperate enough need of a point guard with superb ballhandling abilities to take him for a second round draft pick. Unfortunately, no one was willing. Nobody was dumb enough to sign him on and waste precious cap room before free agency.

Left with no choice, I shut up and took my 6 mill into free agency. Manute still had some interest in playing for us, so I offered him a minimum deal on the first day. We also tried to lure Bill Wennington from Dallas to our team. He was a good all-around player who had decent intangibles. Nice inside shot, good rebounding, good D. I thought he'd make a better starting center than Randy. My guess was we'd have a pretty good shot at landing him, because even though Dallas had his rights still, they still also had the rights to Roy Tarpley, who was a superior middle man to Wennington in every way.

Tarpley resigned with Dallas on the sixth day of free agency for 7 years and $107 million. When the news of that broke, I thought for sure we'd have our man. Manute was still kept in the back of my mind as a safety valve, but by this time, I really wanted Bill in Minnesota.

It was quiet for the next few days of free agency until day ten, when the news broke that Hubie had gotten a nice player in the form of Jeff Hornacek, a guard who jumped ship from the defending champion Phoenix Suns to play for New Orleans. Detroit resigned Billy Thompson and in other Phoenix news, the Suns resigned All-Star Tom Chambers.

The next day, we got our man. Bill Wennington came to Minnesota for 3 years and $20 mill. It was a pretty significant free agency signing from my viewpoint and it gave us a huge upgrade over Randy.

Other major signings that year included Dell Curry re-signing with Charlotte, Xavier McDaniel going to Indiana, and possibly the biggest jump of the year, Detlef Schrempf leaping to the Milwaukee Bucks. Just how the hell the Bucks were able to finagle a player of that quality since they were way over the cap, I still don't know, but they got him for 6 years. To my mind, they instantly became one of the contenders in the East.

Oh yeah, Maurice Martin resigned with the Lakers for a 1 year deal with $701k. I thought they were stupid for resigning him, but for some reason the Purple and Gold brass loved him.

The Pistons also improved on D by signing Ron Harper, who was on the NBA All-Defense squad the year before, away from the Clippers on a one year deal.

After training camp was over, Gregg released his opening day lineup to the press and I was steaming when I saw it. Here it is.

Projected Opening Day Lineup - Minnesota Timberwolves 1991 Season

PG Tyrone Corbin
SG Mitch Richmond
SF Glen Rice
PF Tod Murphy
C Randy Breuer
6th Man: Pooh Richardson

Not a single bloody thing had changed. It didn't give me much hope for the upcoming season.

(OOC Note: Now that I've gotten through a complete season, is there anything you guys would like to see me add, expand on, delete, etc. for the coming seasons? I've a few ideas in mind; I just wanted to see what you all thought. )

[Izulde]

As the new season opened up, I had a sense of real optimism that we were going to improve on our record from last year and maybe even sneak into the playoffs as lower seed.

I have to tell you that about an hour before our first game, Gregg called me and told me that the lineup he'd submitted to the papers was just a joke to get me mad. I told him it'd worked and not to be such a smartass. He countered by telling me, "Gabriel, if you don't develop a sense of humour, you'll be dead by the time you're 40." That was something I took to heart and I've always remembered it ever since.

The new lineup card he showed me went like this:

PG Pooh Richardson
SG Mitch Richmond
SF Glen Rice
PF Bill Wennington
C Randy Breuer
6th Man: Sam Mitchell

We won the first game 110-105 against Patrick Ewing's Knicks that was a nailbiter back and forth affair after we blew a 12 point halftime lead. Antonio looked okay in his debut, getting 6 points on 3 for 6 shooting, 4 rebounds, and 2 assists. Derrick was starting to get more minutes now, but he wasn't doing much with them.

The win was costly, though. We lost Mitch for 14 days and Antonio for 3 days. The last one wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that we had the Jazz the very next day.

But the boys came through with a win. Sam, who was starting for Mitch, had a double-double as did Randy. Our bench played well and we crushed the Jazz 94-75. Karl Malone's 23 points, 19 rebounds, and 4 blocks just wasn't enough for Utah. We'd opened up the season with a winning streak.

A streak that ended the next game against the Grizzlies in an embarassing loss. Their two first-round selections in the draft, Loy Vaught and Dee Brown, were playing exceptionally well in the young season and I knew they'd end up in double win totals for the season. Memphis was clearly a team on the rapid rise, I thought to myself. They'd made all the right offseason moves that I'd told you about.

If I'd ever had any doubt as to Mitch's importance to us, they were dispelled by the three-game losing streak we suffered after he went out. We couldn't score worth anything and looked extremely lackluster in the games we played. Fortunately, we followed that with a two game win streak where we played tough defense and got some major contributions from our bench. Glen was also starting to step up a little bit, averaging 20 points in the two victories. I knew he was no Mitch, though. He was only a Scottie at best.

The game we got Mitch back was against the Grizzlies and we promptly repaid Memphis for the pounding they'd given us earlier in the month by bushwhacking them by 30. It was an all-around effort by us, with all five starters breaking the double-digit mark, Glen leading the way with 19 points.

Without a doubt, the biggest low point of the month came against the Hornets. Hubie's new squad beat us soundly and I became frustrated with our lack of consistency and scoring. This also dropped us to a .500 record and put us in danger of having a losing month. I found myself wondering if Gregg was really the right fit for us after all.

We followed the Hornets loss with an agonizing defeat against the defending champion Suns, who were struggling too. They missed Hornacek in a bad way.

The month ended ignobly with a defeat at home to the ends of the Warriors. Golden State was much-improved that early part of the season, much to my aggravation. Our first-rounder that had looked a sure high lottery pick in the initial phases looked to be a midrounder at best.

6-8 we finished the first 30 days at, a full game worse than our first year. I'm not a drinking man, but after that month, I sorely longed to get plastered. It was the single most frustrating, annoying thirty days I'd ever been through.

I was just thankful that Mitch understood that a large part of the problem we had was not having him for half the month, so he wasn't too bothered by our losing record.

As I looked over the team statistics that month, I couldn't help but notice that our leading score was Glen, with 17.3 points a game. I knew a large part of this was Gregg's slow offensive philosophy, but it still irked me. Worse yet, I knew going out and getting another scorer wouldn't be the answer. With Mitch and Glen, we had guys who could score. Pooh and Bill had shown flashes of scoring talent, too. Rebounding was a problem, as Randy's numbers were down, Bill was only grabbing 7 boards a game, and Antonio was our third-leading rebounder with a shade over 5 per. We missed Manute's shotblocking skills too, I think.

On the other hand, our turnovers were drastically down, so there was hope. I decided to go looking at the trading block around the league and see if there was anyone I was interested in picking up.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that Scottie Pippen of all people was on the block. I instantly called Chicago to find out if we could work a deal for him.

As it turned out, we could, but the cost would be exorbiant. Nonetheless, the chance to improve the team was too much for me to resist and so I pulled the trigger. Glen and Sidney went to Chicago for Scottie and Bill Cartwright. Not only was my team upgraded, but I also had two expiring contracts, whereas before I had only one.

Time would tell how it affected the team chemistry, but I thought to myself as I hung up the phone with the Bulls' GM that Mitch had talked so often about getting his own Scottie, that he would now be thrilled to have the genuine article at his side.

[Izulde]

Month two of season two was one that I regarded with some trepidation. The trade I'd made for Scottie would either revitalize us or it would tear us apart, as Scottie was another win-hungry player.

One thing I liked about him already though was that as the press conference where the trade was announced, he told the reporters, "I understand that this is Mitch's teams and I'm the number two guy. I'm out there to give everything I've got and help Mitch to take the Timberwolves to the playoffs."

This was a marked contrast from the feud that had been developing over the last couple of weeks between Glen and Mitch. Glen thought he should get top billing on the team and not Mitch after he started outscoring him while our star shooting guard was down with an injury. That didn't make me happy and contributed greatly to my decision to trade him.

Oh, you want to know my analysis of the trade for the teams? I can do that, sure. Basically Scottie gave us somebody who I thought was the perfect second man to Mitch. He was the best defender on our team right away and gave us some muscle on D that we'd been sorely lacking. Bill Cartwright was just in there to make the numbers work. While he provided good depth at the center position, enough to where Gregg had him pretty high up on the bench, I didn't see myself signing him after the season was over.

For the Bulls, they desperately wanted another scorer to team up with Jordan so that Mike didn't have to shoulder the offensive burden by himself. Glen fit the bill perfectly. Not only that, he was two years younger and was locked up for two years at a cheap price. Sidney gave them an expiring contract they could renounce from their books and by trading Scottie, they avoided the problem of having to sign him when his contract ended after the season. He was sure to ask for more than the $7.3 mill he was making then.

To tell you the truth, I was worried back then about having to sign Scottie to an extension if he proved to be as good as advertised. It would destroy the cap room we'd been planning to have after the season, but I made up my mind to just put it out of thought and attend to it at the proper time.

The first portion of the month was an extremely frustrating one. We just couldn't put together a win streak worth anything, though we did have an impressive 129-68 win over the Pacers in which the only person who broke 20 for us was Tyrone, who had exactly that. It was an excellent team-played game and we were dominating on defense. The papers carried the headlines of the 61-point victory all across the country. I've got some of the clippings in my scrapbook if you want to take a look sometime.

By midmonth, it'd gotten so vexing that Gregg actually made the bold move of starting Antonio at power forward for a game against the Celtics. It worked, as we won. I myself was a little surprised by it, since I didn't think Antonio had been playing that well, and had in fact been seriously considering trading him.

That only lasted two games though, because after another heart-breaking loss, this time at the hands of the Clippers, Wennington got his job back, where we dropped yet another close one, a one-point defeat at the hands of the Cavaliers. Injuries to Pooh and Antonio didn't help matters any.

To his credit, Gregg was willing to result to some unorthodox tactics to get wins out of the hard-luck team we were in the early going that year, including lining Mitch up at small forward against the Bobcats, who were .500 at that time. Mitch went on to take Charlotte out of an even record, if only momentarily, and dropped 31 points on them.

In the end, despite all the injuries, the tough losses, and the general feeling of being so close, yet so disjointed, we actually finished the month at 13-14. We'd closed the gap to .500 by one game and with any luck, we'd be at or over the line by the end of the next thirty days.

Mitch was happy with the improvement we'd made and he and Scottie were both convinced we'd be able to put it together for the rest of the season as the team played together more often and developed better chemistry.

As I talked to the other GMs at the end of the month as you know by now was my habit, I found out some amazing things. Gary Payton, the first pick in the draft, wanted out of Toronto. He didn't like it in Canada and he didn't like losing. I'd thought all along the Raptors made a huge mistake in passing on Derrick Coleman and now it was being proven true.

Miami was a mess. Donald Royal, who went to the Heat in our first Rice swap, wasn't happy there, probably because Rony still wanted to get a ticket out of town, as did Sherman Douglas. Kevin Edwards was pretty upset about the situation too. Somehow I didn't see any titles coming to South Florida any time soon.

In Indiana, franchise face Reggie Miller was angry about the poor play of the Pacers and was asking to be dealt somewhere else. Dennis Rodman wanted to leave the underachieving Pistons and quite a few Bobcats players were on the block.

Before I tell you what I decided on doing though, let's head to the liquor store. I'm suddenly thirsty for a nice, bright blue bottle of Hpnotiq. After we get back here and have a drink, I'll tell you not only about what I did, but about the two trades besides ours that had gone down in the first two months. I didn't tell you about all of last year's trades, but starting with 1991 season, I started keeping track of every trade that happened and making notes on them.

You'll see when we get back. Now let's get that Hpnotiq.

[Izulde]

Nothing like a glass of sweet cognac goodness to loosen up the limbs and make an evening a little more cheerful eh?

So, as I was saying before we left, two trades had gone down in the first couple months. My notes are here. Read over them, why don't you?

New Orleans Hornets receive:
SG Hershey Hawkins

Philadelphia 76ers receive:
PG Brian Shaw
SF Steve Stipanovich

Hershey gives Hubie a good 6th man who can score, play decent defense, and is smart and disciplined. This trade essentially boils down to Hawkins for Shaw, because Stipanovich got released right after the trade was made. Brian figures to be a good backup for 76ers starter Johnny Dawkins, with better rebounding, defense, and intelligence than their current options. All in all, a good trade for both teams that fills a need on each without giving up too much.
Winner: Draw

Memphis Grizzlies receive:
SF Anthony Mason
New Jersey Nets 2nd round pick (1992)

New Jersey Nets receive:
PG Vincent Askew

I really like what this does for Memphis. Mason is young and a defensive beast who really helps shore up the Grizzlies' greatest weakness. The extra second rounder for the next draft will help their youth movement too. Vincent becomes the primary backup to Mookie Blaylock at point guard for the Nets, but this was a case of New Jersey being extremely desperate for a backup PG and overpaying for one as a result.
Winner: Memphis by a considerable margin

Although we were doing the best of the second-year teams at that point with our 13-14 record and New Orleans wasn't all that far behind with a 14-17 showing, I still strongly believed that Memphis was the most improved of the teams. They'd made some excellent moves that had lain the foundation for future success, and they'd already surpassed last year's 5 win mark and nearly doubled it after just two months, as they sat with a 9-19 mark. I had no doubt that if they managed to keep their young core together and add a good point guard to the mix, they'd be a strong playoff team within a few seasons and possibly even a contender for the title.

Also, as I said before we went and got our booze, the situation around the league was ripe for movement and so, always on the lookout to improve the team, I did some hunting around with other teams.

I saw that the Nets had Tyrone Hill on the block and I decided to see if they would do Tyrone for Antonio straight up. Tyrone was the guy I'd wanted for our spot in the draft in case Lionel was taken as you'll recall, so I was hopeful that I might be able to get him on the Timberwolves. Even though our staff thought they were essentially equal players with only a few differences, I still wanted him. Sure Antonio was a little bit better scorer and shooter and a little bit better at handling the ball, but Tyrone was a little bit better rebounder and defender, and rebounding is something we really needed to improve on. Potentialwise, they were considered about the same as well.

And as it turns out, New Jersey took the deal. It wasn't so much that they thought Antonio was all that much better than Tyrone, because they thought the same thing we did about them. The Nets just needed to make a move to show the fans they were trying to get past the .500 quagmire they were stuck in and reach up for a playoff spot.

Our second game that next month, we lost Scottie and Randy for 11 days a piece. It seemed like just when we were about to actually start putting things together that season, something always happened to set us back. In our next game, a win against the Wizards, Avery went down for 10 days. Two starters and a key reserve, all out with injuries. It got to the point where I considered signing a couple semipro guys to 10-day contracts to help us get over the hump.

As a matter of fact, that's what I did. I brought Manute back on a 10-day contract to help stem the tide. He was really happy to be back in Minneapolis, if only for a short period.

As you no doubt can imagine, the next few days were filled with frustrating losses where we just couldn't put it together. Losing that many vital players wreaked too much havoc on both our chemistry and talent levels.

There was a silver lining to the cloud, though. During this period of about six or seven games where we were missing some important guys, I discovered that Bill Cartwright was absolutely atrocious and needed to be put on the trading block posthaste. I knew I wasn't going to be renewing his contract at the end of the season even if he didn't get sent out, that's how bad he was playing.

The hemmoraghing of losses finally ended with a 119-108 win against Orlando, when Mitch had 39 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, and a steal. I began to hope that there might be light at the end of the tunnel after all to the miserable, miserable month.

Once everyone came back, we suddenly started playing a lot better again, so good in fact, that by the end of the month we had once again improved our record and were at .500 this late in the season for the very first time. It was a monumental occasion for us and at the celebration dinner I had on the first of the next month for the team, I knew that regardless of what problems I might have with his style of offense, Gregg was our man at coach for the duration of his contract. The job he'd done in keeping the team together through these times of adversity we'd had in the early going had earned him that much at least.

The month was a pretty busy one for trades, with Miami making two of them as the Heat sought to shake up their roster and get rid of some of the malcontents on their squad. As always, my notes are at your disposal.

Miami Heat receive:
SG Vinny Del Negro

Sacramento Kings receive:
PG Sherman Douglas
Miami Heat 2nd round pick (1992)

Miami dumps one of the most vocally unhappy players they have and get a guy who has excellent ballhandling skills, is a good shooter, and is average on D. High motor and pretty smart, too. He wasn't give much of a chance in Sacramento this season, where his playing time went down, a fact I find rather strange, considering my staff's opinion of him. He'll start off buried on the Heat bench as well. My guess is he'll make his way into the lineup before season's end. Sherman is principally a good ballhandler and that's about it, though he can shoot okay. Like Vinny, he wasn't used much in his old team, but will start off higher on the bench than Del Negro in Miami. Both young players with potential, though Vinny is significantly better. One thing I find strange, both players have been vocal about wanting to go to a winner, yet get traded to losing teams. Still, Vinny looks happier in Miami than Sherman is in Sacramento right now, so the edge goes to Miami because of that and the fact that he's enough of a better player that his value exceeds the high second round pick Sacramento gets even when added to Sherman.
Winner: Miami

Miami Heat receive:
C Mike Brown

Utah Jazz receive:
SG Kevin Edwards

The Heat get rid of another unhappy player and in exchange get the perfect backup to Rony. A good rebounder and a slightly better defender than Rony, he also is better with the ball and, more importantly, isn't too concerned without being on a winning team. The Jazz get a fairly intelligent, decent scorer, whose primary talent is stealing the ball. He'll be a good bench player for Utah and is the second-best thief on the squad. Also still has considerable room to grow as a player. Another smart trade for both teams, but this one goes to Miami, but just barely, for the improvement in chemistry this will have on their squad.
Winner: Miami by a whisker

Dallas Mavericks receive
PF J.R. Reid

Charlotte Bobcats receive
PF Randy White

I'll resist the urge to make any who shot J.R. and Dallas jokes here. The Mavericks get a young player who could turn out to be a pretty good athlete when all is said and done. Already good at rebounding and slightly better than average on D, he needs work on ballhandling and shooting. The best part about this deal for Reid is that he gets out of Charlotte, where the Bobcats have fallen apart since losing to us in Month 2. Randy is a rebounding machine who can score some too. More importantly, he's more developed than J.R. despite having the same amount of NBA experience and figures to be about the same level of player as Reid when they're done developing. He'll be a great backup for draft steal Derrick Coleman. The better development, ridding of a team headache, and equal potential make this one clear. Bobcats win all the one here. Oh yes, Randy's also the type who isn't overly concerned with a winning team. That makes the pick all the easier. In fact, it turns it into a blowout.
Winner: Charlotte by a big margin

Charlotte, like Memphis, was making some nice moves to improve their team, though luck played a huge role in their landing Coleman. As I've said before, there's no way the Raptors should have let Derrick slip through their claws when they had the chance to get him.

The first thing I did after the month was up was put Cartwright on the trading block and hope some offers would come in for him.

Just before I was about to begin my monthly routine of calling the other GMs, Duane came into my office and announced that he was unhappy with the playing time he'd been getting. He felt like he deserved more.

"I agree, and that's why I put Cartwright on the block", I told him. He was satisfied with that and left the room. The short meeting made me more determined than ever to get rid of B.C.

After calling up my colleagues, I found out from Danny Brooklyn, the GM in Memphis, that Anthony Mason was already wanting to relocate from Tennessee. This surprised me, but when Danny asked me, I told him I didn't want a cancer on my team but that he'd been doing a fantastic job with the Grizzlies all in all and he deserved to be commended. That cheered him up considerably. It'd been a rough season and near-half for him, as you can imagine, even despite the improvement Memphis was showing.

I made some more calls around the league and became involved in some serious talks with the Bucks, who were sitting with a .500 record as well, despite the presence of Detlef Schrempf who I considered the key free-agent acquisition of the offseason.

Detlef was a player I'd been in love with ever since he tore us up when we played Indiana that first season and Milwaukee was willing to listen to trade offers for him, but they reminded me that it had better damn well be a good deal I was proposing.

And so I made the single most daring trade offer of my short tenure.

The deal I proposed was Bill Cartwright, Avery Johnson, and our own 1st round pick in the upcoming draft for Detlef Schrempf, center Brad Lohaus, Milwaukee's 1992 2nd rounder, and Milwaukee's 1994 2nd rounder.

They accepted the deal.

The biggest gamble of my entire career to that point had just been made. Even more than the Pippen trade, it would secure us the playoffs for the next few years to come, or it would blow up in my face and I would be forced to start over from scratch.

As I lowered the phone with my shaking hands after the deal was confirmed, I couldn't help but be thankful we still had Golden State's 1st rounder in the next draft. With Tim Hardaway demanding to be traded from the Warriors and other malcontents on the horizon, they looked to be a team destined to go downward.

[Izulde]

Even now, my heart shivers at the ballsy nature of the trade I just told you about. The deal looked okay from the Bucks' end, too. Though they were giving up the guy that I thought would make them contenders, they were ony .500 with him thus far, so they dealt him and got payroll flexibility with two expiring contracts and an extra first rounder that could be anything at this point in the season.

From a here and now standpoint, Milwaukee got another young point guard to fight with Bimbo Coles over who would back up Jay Humphries and maybe succeed him at some point. At the moment, Avery held the edge and was part of the rotation. In Cartwright, the Bucks got a veteran backup center who complemented Sikma pretty well and was likely a better fit for them than Lohaus was, who wasn't all that happy in Milwaukee.

And as fate would have it, our first game that month, guess who we played? That's right, the Bucks.

It was right tight neck and neck until the second quarter, when our defense just shut Milwaukee down for a good stretch and broke the game open. We never looked back and wound up winning 125-86. There was no real single standout performance; we had balanced scoring, rebounding, and defensive stats all around. Scottie, Mitch, and Sam all broke 20, Randy grabbed 11 boards, and, in what was probably a sign of things to come, Pooh scored just 4 points, but had 8 assists. Our prized young point guard was the perfect fit for our new system.

The next game, Mitch got his third 40 point game of his career in a win against the Kings and Pooh and Randy both had double-doubles. Pooh's was the most exciting as it was his second double-double of his career and he set a personal best for assists in a game with 13. We were clicking like we hadn't in a very long time.

Our streak ended the next game against the Rockets as Olajuwon bullied his way through us for 19 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, a steal, and 6 blocks. It was a reminder to me that if we ever wanted rings, we would have to get a truly good center, not just the serviceable ones we had patrolling the paint right now.

After that we started going downhill in our playing and tragedy once again struck after a gut-wrenching, bile-in-the-mouth, last-minute 107-105 loss to the Jazz. Mitch was once again hurt and was out for 12 days this time.

Detlef and Scottie answered the call though and elevated their games while Mitch was out. In the first two games when we played without our top scorer, Scottie dropped 25 and 28 points respectively, adding 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, and 5 blocks in the second one. Detlef was the big man in the first one with 34 points and 11 rebounds, adding in 25 in the second game to secure a key two-game win streak for us.

That was the last of Mitch being out as he insisted on coming back on as a sub after that, even though he was still hurt. We split the next two games, the win coming on an thrilling 100-96 win over the Cavaliers, who had the best record in the NBA. It was balanced effort time again, with Detlef and Randy nabbing double-doubles. Detlef with 22 points and 12 rebounds also teamed up with Pooh in scoring, who had 20 points and 9 assists. It was one of the sweetest victories thus far for the Timberwolves, particularly since Cleveland had been one of the biggest thorns in our sides.

Detlef was also out for 6 days after that game, but even in that, we got a lucky break finally, because it was the All-Star Break after that.

An epic back-and-forth battle was waged in the Rookie-Sophomore game that year, with the Rookies pulling away in the waning minutes of the game to win 104-99. Derrick Coleman was the rightful MVP as he tore through the Sophomores for 22 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals. I still think even to this day that Toronto made a huge mistake in passing him over, irregardless of what some experts have argued about the value of an exceptional floor general.

Our lone representative in the Rookie-Sophomore game was, to my utter lack of surprise, Pooh, who did well coming off the bench for the Sophomores. He finished with 12 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists in 21 minutes of action. Unfortunately, he also banged up his hip in the game and was listed as day-to-day for 6 days. That one scared me. We had no truly viable point guard on the roster besides him.

The All-Star game was a roller coaster of a matchup, with the East sprinting out to a double digit lead in the first quarter, only to find themselves with a double digit deficit at the end of the first half as the West roared back. From then on it was much like the Rookie-Sophomore game where it was back and forth until the last few minutes of the game, where the East reasserted their dominance and won for the second year in a row, 140-134.

Once again we were without representation in the Midwinter Classic and Michael Jordan was named the MVP of the game after scoring 24 points and getting 11 rebounds, 2 assists, and 5 steals.

By the eve of the trading deadline, no less than 5 deals had gone down, two of which involved Dallas, who was quite busy with rearranging their team that season, and two that involved Denver, a team that was imploding badly after having made the second round last year. Not to be outdone, Utah made two trades as well, as they sought to find the last couple pieces for a possible championship run puzzle solution. Toronto was another team that was involved in two trades, though they didn't deal who I and probably you're thinking that they would. As always, I'll give you my notes to look over.

Dallas Mavericks receive:
SG Bill Hanzlik

Denver Nuggets receive:
C James Donaldson

Dallas gets a good ballhandler whose mediocre in everything else and is an average benchplayer, but one of the top guys with hanging on to and distributing the rock, something that's going to be critical if the Mavericks want to do well in the playoffs. Denver gets a veteran big man to back up two serviceable guys in Blair Rasmussen and Danny Schayes. Not a trade that makes a whole lot of sense from the perspective of the Nuggets, as James also has a larger contract. The Mavericks win this swap of benchmen.
Winner: Dallas

Dallas Mavericks receive:
SG Quintin Dailey

Toronto Raptors receive:
PG Steve Alford
SF Bob McCann

This trade is basically Alford for Dailey, as Toronto released McCann immediately after the deal was done. The Mavericks get a guy who has a real scorer's mentality and has been averaging about 10 points a game in a bench role for Toronto. He'll do the same thing here, serving as the seventh man. I'm not sure how much Dallas needed a guy with scoring instincts, but he's the most natural at it on their squad now. Steve can... shoot free throws. That's the only thing he does with any real talent, and he certainly is a charity stripe god. About the only other benefit he brings to the Raptors is that he doesn't care one whit about the team's record. While that's a huge plus for the struggling Raptors and their sulking number one pick, Gary Payton, it's not enough to offset the Mavericks advantage. Dallas makes a nice couple pickups to make amends for the Reid-White mistake earlier in the year.
Winner: Dallas

Denver Nuggets receive:
SG Eric Johnson
PG Delaney Rudd

Utah Jazz receive:
PF Ken Bannister
Denver Nuggets 2nd round pick (1992)

Since Rudd was released, this boils down to Johnson for Bannister and the 2nd rounder. Eric is in tune with the rock, as he's a great passer, handler, and thief. The problem is, he sucks in everything else. While he may pan out to a decent player, this is a bad move by the Nuggets, especially as he's put on their IR and giving up a 2nd round pick besides is just foolhardy. In contrast, the Jazz get a veteran player with good rebounding ability who shows some ability to score points, a good fit for their bench as they gear up for the playoffs. Throw in the fact that they get a free pick besides, and this becomes one of the most lopsided trades I've seen so far in my time here. Oh how low Denver has fallen from just last season.
Winner: Utah by a hundred thousand times

Utah Jazz receive:
SG John Lucas
Memphis Grizzlies 2nd round pick (1992)

Memphis Grizzlies receive:
PG Blue Edwards

A very smart move for both teams. Utah gets a 37 year-old veteran SG who is really a PG in disguise as he's one of those rock gods with excellent handling, passing, and stealing ability. Throw in that he's disciplined and savvy on the court, with average scoring and defense, and you have the perfect 6th man. I really like the moves the Jazz have made in the last few days. It's clear they're trying to gun for the NBA crown. My best friend Danny Brooklyn over in Memphis adds another one to his youth movement. Blue is primarily a scorer, but still has the potential to develop into something pretty good. He's the heir apparent to the 6th man role that 34-year old Frank Johnson currently holds.
Winner: Draw

San Antonio Spurs receive:
SF Ed Pickney
Toronto Raptors 2nd round pick (1992)

Toronto Raptors receive:
PF Zarko Paspalj
SG Jeff Lebo

Another Toronto trade, another released player by the Raptors. This turns into Pickney and the 2nd rounder for Paspalj. San Antonio gets a very good all around player in Pickney, who has no real weaknesses in his game and becomes a superb sixth man for the Spurs. Zarko is young and raw, and doesn't seem to have much potential to turn into anything better. His only plus is that he doesn't give a hang about the team's record. Are you seeing a common theme here? I am. It appears Toronto's philosophy has turned into 'Let's get all the crappy guys we can who don't care about losing so that we can tank again this year and get another #1 pick to find somebody for Gary to play with that won't have him wanting to kill everybody in Canada.' While that strategy has its merits I suppose, they're losing fan support like crazy, pissing Payton off, and getting reamed in trades like this one.
Winner: San Antonio by a landslide

As I looked over the team's situation, some things became pretty obvious to me. First, Duane was growing more and more unhappy with his relatively few minutes. Secondly, it didn't look as though Derrick McKey was ever going to turn out to be the player I'd hoped he would be when I traded for him. With that in mind, I went shopping in the point guard market, looking for somebody I could bring in as a backup for Pooh.

Intense negotiations ensued with Charlotte over supermidget star point guard Mugsy Bogues, who was demanding out of Carolina, but we just couldn't find a way to make the salaries work unless I traded Tyrone, and despite my squabbles with Tyrone playing at the point, he was one of my best defenders and I wasn't going to part with him for a mediocre defender like Mugsy.

For a while, Toronto and I batted offers back and forth for deals involving a swap that would have meant trading our respective stellar young point guards, but a straight exchange would have meant our giving up all of our second round picks for the next few years. I didn't want to do that. As it was, I was leery of trading Pooh, but Gary was just that much better a player and actually was a big team guy as long as the club was winning. Some more discussions took place, but we just couldn't get a deal done. I almost pulled the trigger on a Pooh and McKey for Payton and Mark West trade, but that just would have added to our already too-large glut of centers.

Bimbo Coles out of Milwaukee was another guy we went heavy in discussions over. Finally, we made another deal with the Bucks. Duane went to Milwaukee along with our own 1994 2nd round pick while Bimbo came to Minneapolis.

Or at least, I thought we had a deal. Then the Bucks GM refused it at the last minute and demanded a lot more. By that point, I was disgusted and said to hell with it, I'm not dealing with Brew City for a long time after this. We got what we needed out of them with Detlef.

Another round of discussions went on with the Raptors over the particulars of a Pooh for Payton deal, but in the end, it all came to naught as we just simply couldn't agree on a trade that satisfied us both. I would play the rest of the season with the hand I'd dealt myself.

As it turned out, staying pat seems to have been the smart thing to do in the short term, as we won two straight despite missing Pooh, including a crucial win over Seattle, whom we were battling with for a playoff spot.

The streak stretched to three with an upset of the Trailblazers, but we lost Scottie for 9 days with an injury. This didn't bode well for us continuing our streak, but Gregg had done an exceptional job of preaching a team-first philosophy that had gotten us through rough times before. The key telling point of the guys buying into it? Mitch was under 20 points per game average and still our leading scorer.

When the month came to a close, we were an amazing 31-26. Unfortunately, the Northwest was also one of the toughest divisions in the league, so we were still only 4th in the division. The biggest news though, was that we held the 8th and final seed in the playoffs by half a game over, much to my disappointment, Golden State, and we were tied with Seattle, who had the tiebreaker edge over us for 3rd in the division and 7th seed in the playoffs at that point.

I hoped that we and Seattle could combine forces to make sure the Warriors stayed out of the playoffs so that we could have a lottery pick at the end of the year, even it was only the lowest one.

Duane was still unhappy about his playing time, but there wasn't really anything I could do about that. The other centers on the roster were simply playing too much better than he was at that point. About the only thing I could do was let Brad Lohaus's contract expire at the end of the season, and I wasn't so sure I wanted to do that.

Still, even in spite of my Warriors' worries and the pressure for playoffs, I felt better about our situation in Minnesota than I had in a long, long time. Hiring Gregg as the coach and the trade for Detlef had been the two big moves of that year that propelled us into the fight for the postseason and I felt pride in having been the one to engineer both of them.

[Izulde]

Oh yes, there was that third move for Pippen. You're right. Sometimes when I talk about the past, the seasons run together.

So as I was saying, there we were, clinging to that last playoff spot. As fate and irony would have it, our first game that month was against Golden State, the team we wanted to keep out of the playoffs and as far down the lottery pike as we could get them.

We came away with a 118-115 gasp of a win after blowing a double-digit lead that we held at halftime. Mitch played like he was possessed, getting 45 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 5 steals. Detlef added 26 points and 7 rebounds to the cause. It was a big win for us as you no doubt can surmise, though thinking about those last few minutes still raises my blood pressure.

Interestingly enough, the next game was against the Bucks, who had fallen apart since trading Detlef and now stood at 25-30. We cheerfully thanked them for giving him to us earlier in the season by ending their 5-game losing streak and playing terrible in a 31 point loss. Mitch had another 40 point game, but it wasn't nearly enough to save us. Pippen being hurt was costing us a lot, and he'd reaggravated his injury when he put in 8 minutes against Golden State the game before.

And as luck would have it, Sam got hurt in that game too, so we were down to Tyrone as the starter at small forward. Fortunately our next match was against the Raptors, who were missing an injured Gary Payton, so we were able to cruise to a 30 point blowout behind 20+ point efforts from Pooh, Mitch, and Detlef, with Derrick McKey providing a nice 16 points from the bench.

But the injuries continued to mount, as Pooh got hurt. It was getting so bad I thought I was going to have to dip into the semipro pool again.

Once we got everyone back we started playing quite a bit better, including what was probably the most fun game of the month, when Hubie and the Hornets came to town. Though Hubie was still a little miffed about being fired by me, he was really happy in New Orleans. They loved him in the Big Easy and he had the team fighting for a playoff spot out in the East Conference. We didn't help their cause any that day though, as we beat them in a solid game, highlighted by Detlef's 28 points.

Mitch actually got hurt again along the way and had to miss a couple of games, including the Hornets game, but Detlef took charge much like he did the last time Mitch got hurt, as we went on a two-game win streak by beating the Rockets in Houston next outing, where Detlef had a double-double of 25 points and 13 rebounds. He had another double-double the next game against the Grizzlies with 29 points and 11 rebounds to lead us in a not as close as it looked 103-98 game.

By the end of the month, my decision to stay put at the trading deadline looked like the epitome of genius. The team had gelled together and we seemed almost unbeatable out there on the court. In fact, this is how well we played in those these days...

We were 42-30. We were guaranteed of a winning record in just our second season. The papers in Minneapolis sang hosannas of my GM abilities and we had polevaulted into second place in the division. No longer were we barely hanging on to the number 8 seed in the playoffs. We were now slotted in at the number 4 seed.

Even better, Golden State was still out of the playoffs and were a full game out of the eighth seed.

But it wasn't going to be easy. Most teams still had 10 games left and the difference between us at the fourth seed and being out of the playoffs was just three and a half games.

We couldn't afford a collapse or to get lazy in the last weeks of the season.

My feverent prayer every night was that we would stay strong and stay hot.

[JeeberD]

I'm loving this dynasty, though I'm pissed at you for two reasons. First of all, you broke up Run TMC again by trading for Mitch. At least Timmy was able to win ROY in this reality.

Second, you traded my boy Antonio Davis away. You're making it very difficult for me to root for your T-Wolves.

Go Rockets! Go Warriors!

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

I'm loving this dynasty, though I'm pissed at you for two reasons. First of all, you broke up Run TMC again by trading for Mitch. At least Timmy was able to win ROY in this reality.

Second, you traded my boy Antonio Davis away. You're making it very difficult for me to root for your T-Wolves.

Go Rockets! Go Warriors!

Glad to hear you're enjoying the dynasty.

As for breaking up Run TMC, I'm not apologizing. Mitch has been too big a part of my team's success.

Though I will say, I regret trading away Antonio. So I'll give you that one.

[Izulde]

We continued our sizzling play when the last slate of ten started with a three-game winning streak, including a win over the defending champion Phoenix Suns. Mitch was at the forefront for those games, scoring 20+ in two of three, and getting 18 in the other. Bill Wennington was invaluable off the bench, nabbing double digit points in all three games and winning Player of the Game honours against Phoenix with his 25 point, 13 rebound double-double.

Though we lost against the division leading Jazz in the fourth game, I felt really good. We had established as ourselves as being one of the top teams in the league, despite only being a second-year franchise and looked to be secure in our playoff spot.

Then I received the medical report after the Utah game. Wennington broke his hand and was out for 47 days. My prize free-agent pickup, once a starter, now our 6th man, was definitely out for the rest of the season and the early going in the playoffs. Though I was tempted to put him on injured reserve and have Tod take his spot for the rest of the season, the opportunity to give Duane and Tyrone more minutes was not to be missed, even though they'd been disappointing thus far in their rookie campaigns.

The next game, a win against the Hawks, we lost Randy for two weeks to injury. Things were getting ugly for us in the front court, but Brad Lohaus had played well in extensive bench time versus Atlanta and so he now slid into the starting spot.

And our next contest was against Golden State, who was down to a .500 record. I wanted very badly to knock them out and put them under the even mark.

We managed it in a back and forth barnburner of a game that saw us winning by a single point, 116-115. Ironically enough, it was Brad who was the star for us, scoring 21 points and grabbing 8 rebounds while stealing it once and blocking them three times. Though I'd originally intended to let him walk during free agency, his performance in crunch time was making that choice one I was having to revisit.

Unfortunately, the injury bug bled us again. Worst of all was that it was Brad. We were now down to no true centers, except for Tod, who was on the IR, and Duane, who was ice cold and miserable with his lack of playing time. At 47-31, we had four games left and led the Spurs in the race for the fourth seed by a game and a half.

In the end, I decided to keep Tod on the IR and just ride the storm out. We were guaranteed a playoff spot no matter what happened, since Seattle was the first team out and they were six games behind us.

Despite our depleted bench and the fact that Derrick McKey was now our starting center, we managed to grind out a 114-105 win against the Nuggets in our next game, Mitch serving as our defender of the faith with his 33 point, 7 rebound, 2 assists and 1 steal player of the game performance.

Shock flooded through me when I once again saw the trainer walking up to me after the game.

"Mr. Arcadia? Bad news. McKey wrenched his back during the game. He's out for nine days."

"What?! Every starting center we've had the last few games has been hurt!", I exclaimed, "Do you really know what you're doing or do I need to find someone who is more competent in protecting the health of my players?"

He shrugged and looked at me with a helpless expression, "I'm as confounded as you are, Mr. Arcadia. I've never seen anything like this."

And so it was that Duane finally got his first start for us when we played the Sonics the next game. We lost by a huge margin as Tony dropped 21 on us. When we took him out to dinner, Tony couldn't believe the rash of injuries we'd had either. He said it was the craziest thing he'd ever heard of, but he wished us luck in the playoffs.

Duane was horrible in his starting debut and Tyrone continued to disappoint in his extended minutes. I found myself wishing that I hadn't traded Antonio away after all.

I also found myself wishing that I'd hired a new trainer after the last injury, because the news after the Seattle game was not pleasant. Pooh went down and we were forced to start Tyrone at the point for our last two games.

The schedulemakers proved kind to us as the first of the two games was against the Grizzlies. Detlef, as he usually did when we were bleeding with serious injuries, went bananas on the court, blitzing the Grizzlies for 33 points, 19 rebounds, 4 assists, and a steal.

Our exhausted bench collapsed and we squandered a significant lead against San Antonio, losing soundly in the fourth quarter.

The regular season was now over and we stood at 49-33. We were the fourth seed in the playoffs and were going up against the Rockets in the first round, something that scared me with our injuries at center and the presence of Olajuwon in the middle for Houston.

On the eve of our first game, the Timberwolves injury list looked like this. Yes, I wrote it all down. It was too unbelievable not to.

PG Pooh Richardson: 3 days
PF Derrick McKey: 3 days
C Randy Breuer: 2 days
C Bill Wennington: 35 days
C Brad Lohaus: 3 days

Maybe it doesn't look so bad when you consider it from this vantage point, but it guaranteed that we would lose at least the first game in my mind, possibly two as the rust would still be evident in the second game.

And those first two games were at home, where we'd posted a 30-11 record. We were just 19-22 on the road. Lose those first two games at home, and we were more or less guaranteed of bowing out in the first round.

On another note, Hubie got the Hornets into the playoffs after all. They got the number six seed and were playing the Lakers in the first round.

But I'll tell you the story of the 1991 playoffs tomorrow. I'm tired of talking now and I want to go to bed.

Thanks. You sleep well too, when you get there.

[JeeberD]

Oh yes, Hakeem and the Rockets will destroy your front line-less Wolves...

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Oh yes, Hakeem and the Rockets will destroy your front line-less Wolves...

So it would seem at first glance....

[Izulde]

Good afternoon. I'm good. Just take your usual spot on the couch while I go get us something cold and wet to drink. Pepsi okay? Good.

Here you are.

Now, the most interesting thing about the playoffs in 1991 was that the defending champions weren't in them. Phoenix had been devastated by the loss of Jeff Hornacek to New Orleans in free agency and the fact that the Suns were out and the Hornets were in made me think that Hornacek was a real player, even more than I'd thought in my days with Lacrosse, when I was just a fan of the NBA game and not an active participant in its mechanisms.

The East held a lot of last season's suspects, with Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York all returning. New to the fold were New Jersey and Washington, who'd replaced Indiana and Atlanta.

In the West, the same held true. Returning were six teams; San Antonio, Utah, the L.A. Lakers, Seattle, Houston, and Portland. We were the newcomers along with New Orleans and both of us were the first expansion teams to make the playoffs, both in our second year of existence. That the Hornets had gotten in with our former coach made for some nice grist for the media wanting storylines to latch on to.

Here's a paper with the first-round matchups from that year on it.

East Conference First Round 1991
(1) Cleveland vs (8) Detroit
(4) Chicago vs (5) New Jersey
(3) Washington vs (6) Boston
(2) New York vs (7) Philadelphia

West Conference First Round 1991
(1) Utah vs (8) Seattle
(4) Minnesota vs (5) Houston
(3) L.A. Lakers vs (6) New Orleans
(2) San Antonio vs (7) Portland

I figured the East that year would go down like this in the first round: Cleveland and Detroit would be a dogfight, because the Pistons relished the underdog role, but Cleveland would eventually come out on top. Chicago would decimate New Jersey, who had gotten stupid in their trades ever since the one coup they made in 1990 to get Drazen. Boston had just enough left in their aging lineup to get past Washington in my opinion and Ewing would beat Barkley in the matchup of single-star teams based in coastal states.

Our side of the bracket looked like Utah would dismantle Seattle and Houston would take care of us for the reasons I told you about last night. The Lakers, despite making stupid moves, would likely have enough in the tank to beat Hubie's up-and-coming Hornets, and San Antonio I thought would take down Portland.

We lost 90-84 in Game 1 against the Rockets and to make matters worse, we lost even though Olajuwon didn't play. He'd torn his MCL in practice the day before and was gone for well over a year. What killed was a stretch in the 3rd quarter of over five minutes where we didn't score a single point. We just didn't have enough time to rally in the fourth then. Most painful was Detlef's uncharacteristic, unclutch 1 for 8 shooting night.

Gregg took Detlef aside after that night and ripped into him, I found out later. He told him that he was the one that needed to step through in the crunch time because he'd shown the capacity to do it when we needed him to during the regular season, and the team was looking to him to resume his leadership role during the current crisis.

His tactic worked as Detlef was an absolute animal in game two, reaming the Rockets for 41 points, 12 rebounds, an assist, and 3 steals. We evened the series up and suddenly hope was on the horizon that we might make it to the second round after all.

Game 3 in Houston was a vicious contest, with no lead ever reaching double digits. In fact, at our highest point, we were ahead by 7, the Rockets' largest lead being 5. We escaped with a one-point win, 99-98, on the strength of Mitch's 28 points, Pooh's 24 points in his first game back from injury, and Detlef's double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds.

We suffered our first injury in the playoffs that game as Duane went down for seven days with a finger sprain, but I didn't care. He was a disappointment and he was going to be dealt soon anyway, particularly since he had grown even more unhappy and was starting to make noises about wanting a trade.

The fourth game of the series was another war in the trenches with neither team getting ahead by more than 8 points at any one given moment. We pulled away in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter though, and got the 100-95 win. Scottie put up 27 points and a pair of key blocks and Detlef came through with another double-double, this one of 23 points and 10 rebounds. Pooh's 12 assists were greatly welcomed as well.

We were now up 3-1 and were in the driver's seat for the series.

Losing two straight games at home proved too much for Houston as they went down without a whimper in Game 5 in Minneapolis. The knockout punch was swift and brutal to the tune of 107-73.

The Timberwolves had won their first playoff series ever, in just their second season. Although I was happy about the win, I couldn't help but feel that it was only through luck that we'd won. If Olajuwon wouldn't have gotten injured before the series started, we would have been swept. Of that, I have no doubt.

We were joined in the second round by Utah and San Antonio, who had beaten their opponents in six games. And also, in the biggest upset of the opening round, New Orleans joined the second round party, as they dispatched the Lakers in six as well. Hubie really had the Hornets humming. Hornacek was the cog that got everything going and Lionel Simmons, who I'd coveted above all other players in the draft, looked to be a strong candidate for Rookie of the Year. The Lakers' miscues I've already mentioned.

In the East, Cleveland took down Detroit in six. Washington and New York won their respective matchups against Boston and Philadelphia in five and in a show of my handicapping greatness, Chicago swept New Jersey.

So the second round looked like this:

East Conference Second Round 1991
(1) Cleveland vs (4) Chicago
(3) Washington vs (2) New York

West Conference Second Round 1991
(1) Utah vs (4) Minnesota
(6) New Orleans vs (2) San Antonio

The papers went bananas over the news of two second-year franchises making it in to the second round. Nobody gave us a chance against Utah, including myself really. I've already told you about some of the excellent deals the Jazz had made earlier in the season to solidify themselves as a bona fide contender and we hadn't been able to beat them during the regular season.

Hubie's squad was going to go down too, in my opinion. San Antonio was just too talented and too deep for the Hornets to have any real hope of success, no matter how good their core group was.

Chicago and Cleveland were repeating last year's second-round dance in the East and I figured the waltz would play out the same: With a Bulls victory and second consecutive trip to the conference finals.

New York I thought was going to absolutely pancake Washington. To me, the Wizards had no business in the second round, just as the Nets had no business even being in the playoffs in the first place.

I think I'm going to stop there and leave you hanging, just for the fun of it. Besides, you've got that girl to call, don't you? You can use my phone. No sense in wasting your cell's minutes if you can help it.

After you're done talking to her, come back and I'll tell you about at least the second round and maybe more.

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by Izulde

...Olajuwon didn't play. He'd torn his MCL in practice the day before and was gone for well over a year.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah I was a little sick when I read that myself. I mean, sure I knew we had a good shot at advancing to the second round then, but I feel like it's a hollow win because they didn't have Olajuwon.

That'd be like us playing the Grizzlies without Mitch, in my opinion.

[Izulde]

No answer, eh? Too bad. Hopefully she'll call you back. You left a message right? Good.

Okay, so it was the second round and I thought we would get pulverized by the Jazz. We hadn't been able to handle them in the regular season with any degree of success. Stockton-to-Malone was still too good a bread and butter combination for us to solve. The good thing was, excepting for Bill being out, we were at full strenght. The bad thing was, Utah all fit, too.

Detlef once again picked a terrible time to have a bad game, sitting fairly early with quick fouls, a problem that would plague him all night. Worse yet, we had a double-digit lead in the second quarter, but like I suspected, the Jazz were just too much for us in the second half. They came back to win going away in the fourth 101-95. Malone paced them with 26 points and 7 rebounds. Stockton chipped in 13 points and 12 assists and shooting guard Darrell Griffith had a surprising 28 point game to lead all scorers.

Before the start of Game 2, Gregg lectured the team on how they'd gotten too soft after getting that ten point lead in the opening game, and how they needed to stay strong and stay focused for the entire length of the game, right down to the very last second.

His message got through as we won by eleven points, 118-107. It was an amazing display of team balance as four of the five starters broke 20 points. Detlef, as you've probably already guessed, led with 27 points, followed by Mitch with 26, Scottie with 21, and Pooh with 20. Brad continued to try and make my pending free agent decision concerning him difficult, as he contributed 10 points , 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal from the bench.

With the split in hand, we headed back to Minneapolis, albeit with bad news. Pooh had banged his knee up in the win and was out for about a week and a half. The scoring deficit we could recover from. It was his 12 and 8 assists respectively in the first two games that we would miss the most. Of course, the injury only served to reaffirm my determination to pick up a ballhandling maestro backup PG to Pooh, either in the draft or through free agency.

Losing Pooh killed us in Game 3. We fell behind early and never caught up in the 105-94 loss.. Every time we got close, Utah would put together another run to break our spirits. Tyrone's six turnovers reminded me once again why I was so happy to see him relegated to the bench.

The tonguelashing Gregg gave Tyrone in the locker room after the third game paid off handsomely in Game 4 as he had 7 assists and just 2 turnovers en route to a crucial 103-78 win for us. Mitch blazed the trail with 23 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals. Scottie got the Player of the Game nod after picking up 19 points, 11 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 steals, and a block.

One thing I'd noticed throughout the season was that Gregg would alter the starting lineup a bit every now and then, by having Mitch play small forward and putting Scottie at shooting guard. Whenever he did that, we usually got a win, as was the case that night.

Our split salvaged, it was back to Salt Lake City we went. Unfortunately, Game 5 was essentially a repeat of Game 3. Utah gets early lead, and we spend the rest of the night trying to get close, only to have the Jazz pull away again every time we did. In the 99-80 loss, Karl Malone squashed us for 33 points, 13 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals, and a block.

It looked as though Utah was going to head on to the conference finals, for they were in the seat, much as we had been in the series before against the Rockets. I confessed to myself as I watched that fifth game that the Jazz deserved it. As I said before, I didn't think we had even a prayer against them, so if we did bow out in Game 6, we'd given it one hell of a go and with losing our premiere point guard early in the series on top of it.

And win in Game 6 they did, though not before we threw a scare into them, coming back from a double digit deficit to take the lead in the 4th quarter. They charged right back and we fell 99-95. Game, series, Jazz. Even Mitch's 28 points and Brad's double-double of 10 and 10 from the bench wasn't enough to get us the victory we needed to force Game 7.

In other second round action in the West, San Antonio swept Hubie's Hornets, setting up a Spurs-Jazz matchup for the West crown.

The East featured Cleveland getting revenge on Chicago for last season by downing the Bulls in 6 games and New York proving me right in my assessment of Washington by punching out the Wizards, also in six.

Another round, another paper. By the way, I did the same for all subsequent seasons, so I'll just give you the papers then as I talk about them.

Eastern Conference Final - 1991
(1) Cleveland vs (2) New York

Western Conference Final - 1991
(1) Utah vs (2) San Antonio

The Cavaliers-Knicks matchup looked to be a great game. Larry Nance, one of our archnemeses, versus Patrick Ewing, one of the best centers in the league at the time. I had a feeling it was going to be the Knicks' turn to represent the East, so I picked them to win.

In the West, David Robinson was an impressive and dominant player to be sure, but we'd beaten the Spurs pretty squarely in the regular season, so I was giving this one to the Jazz.

As it turned out, I was wrong on both counts. San Antonio swept Utah behind a phenomenal display of rebounding and second chance points throughout the series and Cleveland dispatched the Knicks in five.

1991 NBA Finals
(1) Cleveland vs (2) San Antonio

There was no way I was going to go against the Cavaliers again. I pegged them to be the year's NBA champions.

It took the full slate, but in Game 7, Larry Nance showed why he was one of the top players in the league, period by scoring 28 points, and getting 16 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, and 5 blocks in a dominating all-around performance that got him the Finals MVP award and a championship ring, as the Cavaliers beat the Spurs 100-89 to win the 1991 title.

Oh yes, it's rather anticlimatic now I suppose, but here are the regular season standings from that year. I forgot to give them to you the other night, and for that I apologize.





The award winners were announced a few days after the last game of the Finals. As always, the list.

MVP:
Michael Jordan - Chicago Bulls
34.1 ppg 3.3 apg 6.8 rpg 0.7 bpg 1.6 spg

Defensive Player of the Year
David Robinson - San Antonio Spurs
19.0 ppg 2.1 apg 10.2 rpg 2.8 bpg 1.2 spg

6th Man of the Year
Joe Barry Carroll - New Jersey Nets
8.9 ppg 1.6 apg 6.7 rpg 2.1 bpg 0.8 spg

Rookie of the Year
Lionel Simmons - New Orleans Hornets
13.6 ppg 3.0 apg 8.1 rpg 0.7 bpg 1.4 spg

Coach of the Year
Lenny Wilkens - Cleveland Cavaliers

All-League First Team
PG Mark Price - Cleveland Cavaliers
SG Michael Jordan - Chicago Bulls
SF Larry Bird - Boston Celtics
PF Karl Malone - Utah Jazz
C Patrick Ewing - New York Knicks

All-League Second Team
PG Kevin Johnson - Phoenix Suns
SG Jeff Malone - Washington Wizards
SF Dominique Wilkins - Atlanta Hawks
PF Larry Nance - Cleveland Cavaliers
C Hakeem Olajuwon - Houston Rockets

All-League Third Team
PG John Stockton - Utah Jazz
SG Jeff Hornacek - New Orleans Hornets
SF Chris Mullin - Golden State Warriors
PF Kevin McHale - Boston Celtics
C David Robinson - San Antonio Spurs

All-Defense First Team
PG Nate McMillan - Seattle Sonics
SG Michael Jordan - Chicago Bulls
SF Chris Mullin - Golden State Warriors
PF Larry Nance - Cleveland Cavaliers
C David Robinson - San Antonio Spurs

All-Defense Second Team
PG John Stockton - Utah Jazz
SG Doc Rivers - Atlanta Hawks
SF Larry Bird - Boston Celtics
PF Karl Malone - Utah Jazz
C Hakeem Olajuwon - Houston Rockets

All-Rookie First Team
PG Gary Payton - Toronto Raptors
SG A.J. English - Denver Nuggets
SF Gerald Glass - Seattle Sonics
PF Lionel Simmons - New Orleans Hornets
C Patrick Eddie - Golden State Warriors

All-Rookie Second Team
PG Wayne Turner - Chicago Bulls
SG Dee Brown - Memphis Grizzlies
SF Toni Kukoc - Dallas Mavericks
PF Derrick Coleman - Charlotte Bobcats
C Alec Kessler - Phoenix Suns

I have to confess, I was surprised that Lionel was picked over Coleman for Rookie of the Year. I thought sure Derrick would have it, but that wasn't to say I wasn't pleased with the selection. It affirmed my and my staff's intuition that Lionel had been one of the best power forwards in the draft that year.

A lot of the usual suspects in the teams mentioned. I was disappointed that Scottie didn't make All-Defense again, but c'est la vie. Our team was still good enough to make the playoffs, and that's something quite a few award winners couldn't say about their squad, like Mullin on the Warriors.

Speaking of the Warriors, their freefall had us guaranteed at picking #12 in the first round, a slot below where we ourselves had made our selection last year. Here are the lottery results for that year and the shifts in position teams made.

1991 NBA Lottery First Round Order
1. Orlando Magic (+7)
2. Sacramento Kings (+4)
3. Miami Heat
4. Memphis Grizzlies (-3)
5. Toronto Raptors (-3)
6. L.A. Clippers (-2)
7. Denver Nuggets (-2)
8. Indiana Pacers (-1)
9. Milwaukee Bucks
10. Atlanta Hawks
11. Charlotte Bobcats
12. Minnesota Timberwolves
13. Phoenix Suns
14. Dallas Mavericks

For the second year in a row, Memphis had gotten robbed of the first pick in the draft by the ping-pong balls and for the second year in a row, Orlando made a huge jump from a mid-lottery selection to one of the top three picks, this time securing the first overall selection.

When I called Danny in Memphis, the Grizzlies GM told me he was frustrated by the hard luck they kept having in the lottery, but I reminded him of what a fantastic job he'd done in the last offseason and that I thought he could have another successful one this year. He thanked me for the support and congratulated me on our playoff run.

So with our draft position set and another season completed, I was ready to roar into my second offseason.

The last one had produced mixed results. Our draft picks turned out to be disappointments, as Antonio wasn't doing well in New Jersey either, and Bill, while an extremely valuable reserve after we dealt for Detlef and a serviceable starter until Schrempf's arrival, was a little overpriced.

I only hoped I would be able to do better this go-round, but a lot of tough choices awaited on the horizon.

Scottie and Brad with their expiring contracts, another mid-round first-round selection... they involved decisions that weren't going to be easy, but I was prepared to work hard to make the most informed choices I could.

[Bee]

(OOC Note: Now that I've gotten through a complete season, is there anything you guys would like to see me add, expand on, delete, etc. for the coming seasons? I've a few ideas in mind; I just wanted to see what you all thought. )

I'd love to see your player's stats at the end of every season. I'm curious to see what kinds of numbers some of your guys are putting up.

[SelzShoes]

I think you are doing your usual superlative job Izlude.

[Izulde]

Bee: Sure thing. I'll see if I can post the 1991 numbers in the next update after I get home from work. If not, then I'll just start doing the stats with the 1992 season.

Selzshoes: Thanks Selz. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

[Izulde]

Oh yes, that reminds me. You wanted the statistics of how the players did that year, so I had that computer whiz prepare a sheet for me out of my notes. He's going to do the rest of the seasons too, so you'll be able to look at those as well.



Now, as I said, there were a lot of important decisions to be made that offseason, decisions that would significantly affect the future and direction of the franchise.

While we wouldn't be changing head coaches, as Gregg was our man after the playoff run, we needed to find a new first assistant. Flip didn't deserve a $4.3 mill. salary and I didn't like the attitude he'd given me after he got passed over for the head job when we let Hubie go.

Flip took a huge paycut and went to Sacramento for about $577,000 a year for five years as their first assistant. It was a good place for him to go, as the Kings were terrible the year before and if they continued their losing, he'd have a shot at the head coach job there. If they improved, he'd become a hot commodity.

I found the guy I wanted right away. Dan Issel was an excellent strategist, a very good scout on all levels, and could really develop the young guys. Unfortunately, he refused my offer of more money and instead went to Denver to become the head coach.

Second on my list was Ron Rothstein, who'd coached Miami in their first year of play, leading them to a 17-65 record. While not quite as good a scout as Dan and a little more greedy than Issel was, he was still a damn fine coach and an ideal candidate for the first assistant. Unfortunately, he too, deserted me, taking the head coach gig at Golden State for half of what I was offering him.

So it dropped down to my third choice then, Bill Fitch. Another ex-head coach, he'd coached Toront during the expansion year and was very good at tactics and a good scout in all areas, but very greedy. I still thought him pretty good 1st assistant material, but the barrel was looking pretty nasty after him. Fortunately he agreed to the deal and our coaching staff was complete with his hiring.

There were a lot of head coaching changes that offseason. No less than 10 teams changed their top man, meaning a full third of the league would start the new season with new captains. I've got a list I wrote down real quick here of all the changes that year.

Don Nelson - Charlotte Bobcats
Gene Shue - Toronto Raptors
John Wetzel - Sacramento Kings
Dick Harter - Miami Heat
Dan Issel - Denver Nuggets
Douglas Moe - Milwaukee Bucks
Jerry Reynolds - L.A. Clippers
Del Harris - Orlando Magic
Matt Guokas - Memphis Grizzlies
Ron Rothstein - Golden State Warriors

Don had a 70-94 record and really wasn't that exceptional a coach in my opinion. He reminded me too much of a poor man's John Wetzel.

Speaking of Wetzel, his former employer, the Raptors, hired Gene, who sported a 60-104 record after two seasons. A coaching genius who was very good at scouting veteran players, he was only average around the youngsters, both from a scouting and a developmental standpoint. I still considered him an upgrade over Wetzel and with his talents in tactics, the Raptors would hopefully for their sake get enough more wins to mollify Gary Payton at least somewhat.

As you can probably guess, I still hated Wetzel. I'd take Flip over him, that's how much I disliked him. Why Sacramento was so boneheaded as to hire him in the head spot over Flip, stuck in the first assistant's slot, I still don't know.

Miami figured out after one season what I knew when they hired him, that Phil Jackson was a bad fit for their young team. Unfortunately, Dick Harter was only a little better with a young squad, couldn't scout offense worth a damn, and was a piss-poor strategist compared to Jackson. Overall, I considered it a step in the wrong direction.

Dan I've already mentioned, so I'll move on to Milwaukee's choice. The Bucks imploded after the Detlef trade, so they decided to change coaches to mollify the fans. In doing so, they picked one of the worst guys on the market. In a league that was full of brilliant coaching minds, you don't hire a guy with only average ability at strategy to lead up your team, and yet that's exactly what Milwaukee did. I would have tabbed George Karl, who was inexplicably the second assistant for the Bucks, instead.

The Clippers did one thing right that Bucks didn't do. They hired their mediocre tactician for the miserly salary of $766,000 a year. Otherwise, it was just like Doug Moe in Milwaukee, only in the inferior L.A. squad's case, they had no obviously better assistants.

Del Harris was another merely average strategist who had the top job for the two years the league had been in existence and garnered a below .500 record. Unlike the Clippers and the Bucks though, the move actually made some sense for the Magic. While only average at developing players, he was good at assessing their potential, something that would be key for Orlando as they held the first pick in the upcoming draft. Too, they had Phil Jackson as Del's first assistant to draw up the gameplans and advise on the ways to win. So all in all, it was a pretty decent set of coaching changes on Orlando's part.

When I saw who Danny had hired to coach the Grizzlies, I immediately called him and asked him what in the blazes he was thinking. Matt was another one in that long line of mediocre coaches with the subpar showing after two years. About his only talent was in scouting the current capabilities of players, which he was only good at. Danny told me that the owner, Michael Heisley, had been impatient with the team when they didn't break 20 wins last season, so he demanded that there be a change in coaches.

And to make matters worse, there wasn't much money in the budget, as the fans stayed away in droves despite the doubling of wins, so Danny had no choice but to go and get the best deal he could for the limited funds he had. When I heard that, I knew he'd done the best he could with the meagre resources he had available to him. I still felt bad for him, though. Memphis had been one of the teams I was privately starting to root for, and then that had to go and happen.

Ron I've already mentioned as well. We were fortunate that he hadn't been hired by the Warriors the season before, or we wouldn't have a lottery pick to be able to draft from.

The draft that year wasn't a very strong one. According to the mock draft projections, power forward Chris "Gunner" Gatling out of Old Dominion would go first to Orlando, but I thought that would be a mistake on Orlando's part. True, his game was pretty polished, but in my mind, he wasn't even the best power forward in the draft, let alone the best player.

The one I thought should go first and who the draft experts had going second to Sacramento, was center Dikembe Mutombo from Georgetown, a 7-2 kid already well polished and with the potential to become a franchise player by the time he got done.

According to the mock draft, we would be selecting Isaac Austin, a center out of Arizona State. While the Sun Devil was a pretty good all-around player, it'd seemed like he reached his peak and didn't have much of a ceiling. Besides, I was satisfied with our situation at center unless we could get a breakout impact player like Mutumbo and that certainly wasn't going to be happening.

No, what I really wanted was to find a good ballhandling point guard to back up Pooh and preferably one who could play all three positions of point guard, shooting guard, and small forward. While another center would be nice, most of the guys I saw I wasn't that impressed with and besides, there was still Duane that needed minutes and developing.

The truth was, outside of a need for a backup point guard, with our position in the draft, there were no really urgent needs that we could address. Shooting guard was set for at least a few more years with Mitch and Tyrone. Small forward could be a concern if we decided not to resign Scottie or if he decided to sign elsewhere. At power forward there was Detlef and Derrick, though McKey's contract was up and I wasn't sure if I would be resigning him. He'd been a real disappointment in his time with us. Bill could also fill in at power forward, as he'd proven early last season.

So after I thought about it some more, I decided that my first choice would be to go for a point guard. Barring that, we would look for depth at small forward, then power forward, and finally center. I made my fifteen selections and a few weeks later, we were set to go. Draft night was here.

As was the case with the year before, the first selection was a shock. Orlando did draft a center, but it wasn't Mutombo. It was Dale Davis. I remember thinking as I sat watching the draft in our war room and listening to the boos that whatever good will Orlando had generated from me with their coaching arrangement had just been slaughtered. Payton the year before I could understand, as you don't often get a chance to get a franchise type point guard. This sin was not forgiveable in the least.

The mock drafters got something right for once when Mutombo went to Sacramento with the next pick.

Terrell Brandon out of Oregon was the player I really wanted. He was the perfect fit for what I was looking for as a backup point man, and I prayed that he would drop down to us. The experts had him going to the Bucks at number 9.

The Bucks' selection came up and I started breaking out into a cold sweat. Though I was tempted to call them up and make a deal, I saw that they had no centers on their roster and decided to hold off, figuring they would take a big man. They did, taking center Victor Alexander.

Now Atlanta was up and everything about the Hawks screamed point guard. Fearing they would snatch Brandon away from me, I called them up and inquired about the possibility of making a deal.

After some very intense back-and-forth negotiations, we finally reached a deal that was actually tipping in their favour. I sent the #12 pick, Tyrone Hill, and Duane Causwell to the Hawks for the #10 pick, power forward Alexander Volkov, and Atlanta's 2nd round picks in that draft and the next two drafts to come.

After the trade and selection were announced, a roar of approval ripped through the auditorium. Sweat-soaked, I hung up the phone and cheered. In one fell swoop, I'd gotten rid of two players who likely wouldn't have turned out to their full potential and grabbed a player that would solidify our backcourt rotation until Corbin left the team. I would now be free to concentrate solely our front court in the next few drafts and free agencies.

The Hawks did select a point guard as I'd surmised they would. They took Kenny Anderson, my second choice. Kenny was a great all-around player, but his attitude and work ethic were both horrible. I didn't like those type of players then and I still don't. Alexander, the guy we'd just traded for, was a problem child, but I could put up with him for the last two years of his contract.

It turns out after the wheeling and dealing that we had back-to-back picks in the second round at nine and ten. Most of the guys we'd scouted were gone by that point. Luckily, there was still one player available that I'd liked enough to think about drafting in the second round and so with the ninth pick we took him, and small forward Stacey Augmon from UNLV became a Timberwolf.

His selection got the thumbs down from the talking heads but I didn't care. For the second half of our back-to-back, there weren't any players I scouted that were left who I liked, so I took a flyer on center Anthony Avent, who'd finished his career at Seton Hall with a double-double average and was 7 feet tall to boot.

Contract decisions were up next and after reviewing Anthony's scouting report, I decided not to offer him a contract. While he had potential to develop into a decent player, his intangibles were terrible and he was so raw, he had no place on a playoff team such as ours.

Stacy had good enough tangibles, development, and promise to get a contract and so we signed him. While he likely would never develop into a star player, or even a starter, he was at least probable for becoming a pretty good rotation guy.

Volkov's presence meant that McKey was expendable and so I renounced our rights to him. Joining him was Tod Murphy, who'd been a nice guy for us, but who simply wasn't cut out for joining our team.

After long hours of hard thought, I decided to renounce Brad's contract as well. Though he'd been good for us down the stretch, he simply wasn't good enough to justify the contract he was going to demand on the market.

So in the end, the only rights we kept were Scottie's.

In the summer league, Tyrone Hill led in rebounds, ironically enough. He also showed some improvement. I wasn't really mad about it, though. Not when Terrell averaged 20 points and 8 assists and showed improvement in passing and rebounding.

Anthony, who was still under us even though he hadn't been signed, did his best to try and show he deserved a contract with 8 points and 7 rebounds on average, showing better ballhandling in the process, but it wasn't going to be enough.

Stacey popped off almost 15 points on average, so he looked to be a pretty good scoring option off the bench.

Free agency started and we were $3.6 mill over the cap. I knew there was no way we were going to get anybody all that good, so I was going in there with the intention of resigning Scottie and getting someone for the midlevel who was good enough to be of bench value to us.

Scottie wanted 11 million for 6. I started off by offering him 8.5 for 6 and offering center Chris Dudley the low exemption of 1.6 mill for a year, about a $200k raise from his previous salary. The 6 million per year multiyear deal he was wanting was a joke.

In big signings, Phoenix learned their mistake about letting quality guards go and re-signed Kevin Johnson for 7 years, $110 mill.

Partway through the period, I realized that Scottie would only be 32 at the end of a 6 year deal and thus likely to still have some playing talents, so I upped the offer to 8.5 for 7. I really wanted him to retire a Timberwolf and at 33 at the end of a 7 year, he'd be old enough to where his skills would have started declining enough to want a lower deal, but still young enough to be a contributor.

Just before the halfway mark of the free agency period, Scottie signed the deal, the same day that Wayman Tisdale made the jump from the Wizards to Golden State for 6 years and $67 mill.

I also noticed at that point that Avery Johnson was on the market and Milwaukee hadn't made an offer yet that met his satisfaction. I decided to keep tabs on him while I kept pursuit of Dudley up.

In ex-Timberwolf news, Scott Roth re-signed with Golden State for 4 years and 19 mill. Avery Johnson re-signed with the Bucks a few days later for 4 years and 15.9 mill. I personally thought he could have gotten a little more than that, but it did solve the dilemma I would have had over whether or not to go after him.

As of day 14, Derrick McKey was still unsigned and I began to think about seeing if he wanted to hitch up with us again.

On day 15, Chris Dudley finally signed with us for the low exemption, so that gave us the minimum roster of 12 players. I wanted to add somebody for a minimum salary though, so we would have some insurance in case of injury.

I almost made Derrick the offer, but then I saw power forward Sam Perkins sitting there without any interest from teams that he was considering. A good, solid all-around player, I threw a minimum contract at him.

Our offer was immediately thrown back at us and the next day, my eyes were opened. Still on the market was shooting guard Ron Harper, who'd been All-Defense Second Team our first season of play and he still looked good. My thought was that if I grabbed him, I could trade Tyrone. Not only was he a better defender than Tyrone, but he had better intangibles too.

In a move that infuriated me, the day we made the offer to Ron, the Lakers resigned Maurice Martin for 6 year and $7 mill. I hated Martin and didn't know why the Purple and Gold had such a fixation with him.

The next day, Ron signed for our mid exemption. Our team for the 1992 season was now complete.

[Izulde]

Oh yes, I see that I forgot to give you the first round selections of the draft that year. I'm sorry. Here's the list now.

1. C Dale Davis (Orlando Magic)
2. C Dikembe Mutombo (Sacramento Kings)
3. SG Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (Miami Heat)
4. C Rich King (Memphis Grizzlies)
5. PF Chris Gatling (Toronto Raptors)
6. SF Richard Dumas (L.A. Clippers)
7. PG Eric Murdock (Denver Nuggets)
8. PF Larry Johnson (Indiana Pacers)
9. C Victor Alexander (Milwaukee Bucks)
10. PG Terrell Brandon (Minnesota Timberwolves)
11. C Jim Grandholm (Charlotte Bobcats)
12. PG Kenny Anderson (Atlanta Hawks)
13. C Isaac Austin (Phoenix Suns)
14. C Irving Thomas (Dallas Mavericks)
15. PG Greg Anthony (Detroit Pistons)
16. SG Rodney Monroe (Philadelphia 76ers)
17. C Luc Longley (Boston Celtics)
18. C Stanley Roberts (L.A. Lakers)
19. SG Mario Elie (Seattle Supersonics)
20. C John Turner (Portland Trailblazers)
21. SF Henry James (New Orleans Hornets)
22. SG Steve Smith (Houston Rockets)
23. C Daniel Hodge (Washington Wizards)
24. PG Chris Corchiani (New Jersey Nets)
25. C Howard Wright (Milwaukee Bucks)
26. PF Doug Smith (San Antonio Spurs)
27. PG Mark Macon (New York Knicks)
28. SF Rick Fox (Utah Jazz)
29. PF Leron Ellis (Chicago Bulls)
30. SF Billy Owens (Cleveland Cavaliers)

After training camp, the new season was set to get underway. Gregg released Opening Day starters to the press just before tipoff of the first game.

1992 Minnesota Timberwolves Projected Opening Day Starters
PG Ron Harper
SG Mitch Richmond
SF Scottie Pippen
PF Detlef Schrempf
C Alexander Volkov
6th Pooh Richardson

Ron being started over Pooh surprised me a little, but the real shocker was Volkov at center. To my mind, he was too short to be the starter at that slot, but Gregg reassured me that Volkov would be better than Wennington or Randy in there and that Alexander had busted his ass off in training camp and in practice.

One thing became quite clear over the first two games of the season, which we split with a loss against the Knicks and a win against the Nuggets. We really could use someone who could score and score consistently. Mitch was starting off slow and Detlef was being as erratic as usual. I thought we needed someone who could night in and night out put up 20 or more points on the board to go along with Mitch and to cover for Detlef when he was having off days.

I decided not to make any moves that early in the season, but to keep tabs on the situation the month and the season progressed.

In our next game, a win against Hubie's Hornets, we were blasted by injuries. Mitch, Sam, and Tyrone all were injured. Suddenly shooting guard, the strongest position on our squard, didn't look very good. Mitch was down for 19 days, Sam had a minor injury that would keep him out for 4 days, and Tyrone was gone for a week.

Mitch got put on IR and Stacey was pulled from the list so he could get some playing time. I was curious to see what he could do.

Ron turned into Mitch the next game as we thrashed Indiana 112-83. He had 32 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks to carry us. Detlef performed his usual injury heroics with a double-double of 21 points and 14 rebounds. Other pleasing notes in that game were Brandon's 16 points off the bench in his first flash of brilliance since the season had started and Stacey's 2 steals in limited minutes. The last one gave me hopes that Augmon could turn out to be a second-round steal and a good defensive bench player for us in the end.

As it turns out, we were completely fine without Mitch. So fine, in fact, that while he was out, we went on a five-game winning streak to add to the one we had against New Orleans, giving us six in a row. A tight 83-76 win against Dallas was my favourite, I think. Volkov had 20 points, 18 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, and 2 blocks. Not bad for a guy I'd only asked for to make salaries work. He reminded me a lot of Detlef with his streaky play, and like Randy, he was capable of putting up 20 points now and then, at a fraction of the cost besides.

Our next contest was against Seattle. Tony Campbell was still playing exceptionally well for the Sonics, who were also doing quite well on the court with an 8-3 record going in. They left 8-4 after a 112-87 loss at our hands. Tony dropped 22 on us, but as he said at dinner afterwards, "Man, I wish I was playing for you guys still. Your best scorer gets hurt and what do you guys do? You go apeshit on the rest of the league. You guys are gonna be scary to play in the postseason."

Our last game without Mitch was another win against the Pacers. Once more, Detlef was the one to go bananas, getting 28 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 assists. There wasn't a day that went by where I didn't give thanks that the Bucks had been foolish enough to give him up. We had no more vital cog than him, I think.

The streak continued when Mitch returned with a difficult win against the Grizzlies and an aggravating 95-92 loss against the Kings. Wennington got hurt for a week and a half after the Sacramento game, so Stacey got put back on the active roster.

When I compared our struggles against the lower teams when Mitch came back to our hot streak before that, I found myself wondering if I wouldn't be better off parting with the player who had been the foundation for our success.

Yes, Mitch was our leading scorer, but he also led us in turnovers and was in the last year of his rookie deal. No doubt he would demand and deserve a much higher salary than he was making now. If there was ever a time to deal him, it was in that season, while I could still get a lot of value for him.

We closed out the month with a win against personal rival Golden State. Though the final was 126-118 and though Mitch scored 29 points against his old team, the game was much closer than the score indicated.

A third straight game of struggle against a subpar squad sealed Mitch's fate in my mind.

It was time for me to be a bastard and deal the player I originally thought was my foundation.

But I'll tell you just how I did it later. It hurts to talk about it even now, so let me save it for tomorrow night.

Oh, before you go, I have to tell you this. At 12-2, we weren't the team with the best record in the league. We were tied for second best with Portland, who was also 12-2.

The team ahead of us?

The defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers, sporting a flawless 15-0 mark.

[damnMikeBrown]

Guh...dealing off your star SG when you're 12-2. I think you may not survive the assassin's bullet...

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by damnMikeBrown

Guh...dealing off your star SG when you're 12-2. I think you may not survive the assassin's bullet...

Yeah, the locals aren't going to be too happy about that one, to say the least.

[JeeberD]

Trade for Timmy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Trade for Timmy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice idea, but it wouldn't make sense. Not when we already have Pooh and Brandon on the roster.

[Izulde]

Hello there. Just have your usual seat while I get us a couple glasses of iced tea.

Here you are.

So, I know you've been waiting to hear what happened with Mitch.

Shortly before the month ended, I made some calls to teams around the league that I was interested in negotiating a deal with. A few offers were seriously considered; most went nowhere. In the end, though, I finally had the trade that I felt would most benefit us as a team, so I called Mitch into my office the next day.

"Mitch", I said, "I just want to know that you've been really great for this team and you were an integral part of our early success."

He stared at me with a tight face. I could see the trepedition in his eyes, so I plunged ahead before he could answer.

"But times change and while you were out with an injury, this team played the best ball it ever has. I know you've been happy here and we've been happy with you, but the fact of the matter is, we've struggled since you've come back against teams we shouldn't. In addition, your contract is up this year and you're likely to command a very deserved large salary increase. As much as I like you, Mitch, I don't want to detonate our cap situation, not when the situation is as I've just told you. In other words, Mitch, you've been traded."

"What the hell?! How could you do this to me, Mr. Arcadia?! I'm the team's one true star! My jersey sells more than anybody else's and the fans love me! You can't do this to me!" Mitch's reaction was one of righteous fury as he slammed his fist down on my desk.

I just looked at him calmly and said, "I'm sorry, Mitch, but it is what it is and the deal is already done. You'll be happy to know that I've traded you to the Rockets. They're not doing very well this year, but that's because Olajuwon is out for another four and a half months. Once he's back, you'll be back on a winning team, so long as you stay in Houston."

Mitch glowered at me before sliding his hands off the desk, "You better be right, Mr. Arcadia. I still can't believe you did this to me. The fans will hate you for this and you damn well know it."

He lifted his head and held it high as he turned around and walked out of my office. I felt sad as I watched him go. Originally I'd planned to build the team around him and now he was the odd man out and no longer a Timberwolf.

The exact particulars of the deal were Mitch and our own 1993 2nd round pick to the Rockets for unhappy small forward Anthony Bowie, Houston's 1993 first rounder and their 1995 first rounder.

I knew with Hakeem still out for another four and a half months that the Rockets were likely doomed to a lottery selection, even with the addition of Mitch and the possible return of their star center towards the tail end of the season. That we were going to get another first rounder, even a likely late one, in addition to the probable lottery pick, I considered gravy.

Mitch was right about one thing, though. The fans were outraged, to the point where more than a few effigies of me burned in yards across the Twin Cities. The press wasn't any less forgiving as they ripped me apart, calling my move "premature" and "a death knell to the Wolves' title hopes".

It seemed to me a little ludicrious that a third year franchise would be considered a championship contender, even with our sterling record, so I just let the criticism wash off my back. Though the trade wasn't popular, the extra first-round picks would do much to ensure our continued long-term success, provided I drafted well. Furthermore, we *had* been playing fantastically without Mitch and we also still had a second rounder in the next draft, that being Atlanta's pick.

One another trade went down in that first month.

Dallas Mavericks receive:
PG Michael Adams
Denver Nuggets 2nd round pick (1993)

Denver Nuggets receive:
PF J.R. Reid
PF Fred Vinson
SG Bill Hanzlik

Dallas ships out a couple of players they got in trades over the past couple years and a promising second round selection who looked pretty good in his rookie year in Vinson. Hanzlik's age has definitely been catching up to him so far this season, as his skills seem to have eroded and I never have been impressed with Reid. Nothing has happened since then to change my mind. By contrast, the Mavericks get a gifted shooter, scorer, and ballhandler in Adams who is both extremely disciplined and highly intelligent. Needless to say, Michael instantly steps into the starting lineup for the .500 Mavericks. Even with just Adams, I'd consider this a huge score for Dallas. The extra second round pick just reinforces it.
Winner: Dallas in a rout. Denver continues to make stupid moves that are dooming the franchise

We opened the month in impressive fashion, demolishing the Suns 118-83. Our team chemistry was back in full force now that Mitch was gone, it seemed.

That was the start of a three game win streak that included the Suns, the surprising 10-6 at the time Clippers, and the retooled Mavericks as our victims. An early first quarter shooting outage doomed us against Philadelphia to end the streak, but I was still very pleased with how we were shaping up.

After Bill got back from his injury, I decided to put Bowie on the IR. I knew that would make Anthony angry, as he valued his playing time, and though he was a better player than Stacey at that point, I really liked Stacey and how he'd been playing, and considered him one of my own since I drafted him. We always favour the children we bear over the children we bring in, I think. It's only human nature from a genetic standpoint.

Bill got hurt again after our next game though, a heartwrenching 2-point loss to the Kings. Once more out for two weeks, Anthony got called back on to the active roster.

What followed was a series of frustrating games, in which we would go through frequent icy periods and be unable to shoot the ball. During those times, I would wonder if I made the right choice in trading Mitch. Then came our best game of the season, when we obliterated the Raptors 120-69. Volkov had 27 points, Detlef had 25, and Ron had 20. I began to realize that having two streaky shooters like Alexander and Detlef was hurting us during our colder moments, and I silently pondered searching for a scorer who could replace Mitch. For the time being though, I stayed my hand and decided to wait the month out.

I was rewarded for my patience with another set of wins, including my favourite, a 104-101 upset of the then 23-1 Cavaliers. The defending champions were not happy about their second loss, but we were thrilled. Detlef had one of his good games with 24 points and Ron chipped in 23 to pave the way for us.

This time, when Bill was ready to come back, it was low-exemption free agent signing Chris Dudley that I put on IR. It made our newest center furious, as he was as greedy as Bowie about playing time, but I didn't care. He wasn't going to be resigned at the end of the season anyway.

At the end of the month, we were 21-6. Though we'd cooled off and gone 9-4 as opposed to 12-2 in the first month, it was still a good record to have in my opinion. It showed that we could still play well even without Mitch and had to be considered a threat to go deep in the playoffs, even with our streaky play.

Sadly, we were also once more stuck in the fourth seed in the playoffs, as Seattle was half a game up on us. It was still early in the season though. It was going to be an interesting race if it kept up, particularly since former Wolf Tony was far and away the leading scorer for the Sonics, averaging 22 points a game.

There was one trade that month, but I'll tell you about it tomorrow. I'll leave you with this note: Chris Dudley was the only unhappy player on our team. Even Anthony Bowie was satisfied with his minutes.

In short, all in all, we were looking pretty good as a team and our prospects for the rest of the season and the playoffs looked pretty nice, particularly if we could dethrone Tony and the Sonics.

[SelzShoes]

Where did you get the roster for this--is there a 'lahman DB' for basketball? I'm actually toying with growing beyond just baseball.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by SelzShoes

Where did you get the roster for this--is there a 'lahman DB' for basketball? I'm actually toying with growing beyond just baseball.

Nope, no Lahman style database. A guy named La Tulipe who posts over at the Greydog Forums made a database for the 1990 season onward though and includes the draft files for each year.

Really brilliant work, though I did some editing of the team records and championships to reflect the 10 years of history in the database. Oh and I erased all the retired jerseys too, most of which were anachronistic.

[Izulde]

Before I tell you about the lone trade in month two, I have to mention that Derrick McKey was signed out of the semi-pro leagues. The Nets liked what they saw of him enough that they give him $688k deal for the rest of the year, then promptly stuck him on the IR list for emergency backup. Another ex-Timberwolf, Antonio Davis, was injured for a week at the time and had been getting even less minutes than in his rookie season even before he was hurt.

So the trade then.

Memphis Grizzlies receive:
SF Nick Anderson

Orlando Magic receive:
SF Walter Berry
Memphis Grizzlies 2nd round pick (1993)

Danny Brooklyn is really feeling the heat in Memphis. The owner demanded at least 20 wins this season or he'd be fired. So far the Grizzlies only have 5, the lowest number in the league. Nick provides them with a young guy who packs defensive punch they need and is a pretty decent scorer with good intangibles and still some upside. He should be starting, but the Grizzlies coach stupidly has him on the bench. Even despite that, Anderson will be an excellent changeup from the all offense-no defensive of aging, bad-contract veteran Purvis Short and is the heir apparent at the SF position. What Orlando gets out of the deal besides the probable high second-round pick is largely addition by subtraction, as Nick was extremely unhappy about the miniscule minutes he was getting with the Magic. Berry is worthless and not even worthy of mention, as his IR status in Orlando shows. I call this a pretty important win for Memphis.
Winner: Memphis, though Orlando benefitted fairly nicely as well

Ironically, Memphis was who we played in the opening game of the month. It was a laugher as we dominated 108-63. I felt bad for Danny, but he put a brave face on it when I met him for a late supper afterwards. He told me I'd put together a superior team and that I should be proud of what I'd accomplished in just a few seasons. In turn, I told him to keep his chin up. I certainly hoped he wouldn't be fired, as I liked him immensely.

That win was the start of an amazing streak during which nothing could stop us, not even a pair of simultaneous minor injuries to Detlef and Bill. During most of the streak, it was Detlef's frequent double-doubles, Pooh's exceptional ballhandling, and occasional explosions of points from Pooh or Volkov that powered us. Also key was Bill's contributions from the bench, ones that were so good, I began to think he was worthy of 6th Man of the Year nomination.

Our first game when we had both Bill and Detlef sitting because of injuries was against Denver and Randy went off for 33 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals, and 4 blocks. He'd seen his time go down drastically since Alexander and Bill had turned out to be so good, and he was determined to take advantage of whatever opportunity he got to prove he should be playing more often.

The orgy of victories finally ended with a with 92-82 loss against the Raptors, our first loss of the month. Chris "Gunner" Gatling had 23 points and Gary Payton added 28 in an amazing display of their first round picks from that year and the year before. Though Toronto had been villified for passing up Coleman and even though Payton was still unhappy in Canada, as that night showed, if all parties kept patient, this was going to be a very scary team in a few years.

Another series of wins followed the loss, but it wasn't the carefree march of blowouts we'd enjoyed earlier in the month. Now each game was a bitter war waged on the court, with most of the wins coming under double digits. Most disturbing was when we blew a 20-point 3rd quarter lead against the Sonics before bouncing back to win. Tony had a lot of fun with us over our nearly losing at our usual post-game Seattle supper that night. He himself didn't do very well that game, getting only 8 points on a terrible shooting performance, as Gregg sought to shut him down, as he was still Seattle's top offensive option.

The third quarter was quickly proving to be a problematic one as a letdown in that section of play doomed us against Atlanta in a 109-91 loss near the end of the month. Volkov struggled against his former teammates, netting just 8 points and 3 rebounds in what was easily his worst performance of the season.

Our second-half troubles continued the next game with a fourth quarter lying down as we blew the lead against the Jazz and lost by 15. That loss still pisses me off even after all these years. Malone out with an injury and we still lose. Pooh picked the most god-awful evening to go 1 for 13 from the floor.

Gregg ripped a new hole into the team after that two-game losing streak and made them run a ton of suicide sprints in particularly vicious practices over the next few days. He told them that if they weren't fit enough to finish the game, then he'd run their asses until they were.

The strategy worked as we closed out the month with our usual balanced game plan getting us a much-needed 105-92 win against the Kings.

We now had the best record in the West and the number one seed in the playoffs. Seattle was 4 games behind us in the division and we were still the number two team in the league according to record, with a 35-9 mark.

Ahead of us, as you can probably guess, was once more the champion Cavaliers, with a sparkling 39-4 record.

It became my private wish that we would meet them in the Finals and beat them for the NBA crown.

[Izulde]

Another trade went down in that third month, but only one. It was still of interest to me, though, as it involved a player I'd had my eye on for some time.

Charlotte Bobcats receive:
C Rony Seikaly
Miami Heat 2nd round pick (1993)

Miami Heat receive:
SG Rex Chapman

Rony's improved his ballhandling abilities significantly since I last looked at him and he steps in as the immediate starter at center for the Bobcats. He's a huge upgrade in the paint for Charlotte and between him and Derrick Coleman, they've got themselves a very solid frontcourt. Rex is a good outside shooter, but becomes a bench player for the woeful Heat. That's not good and it shows just how much Miami was desperate to get rid of Rony, who'd wanted out for the past two years. Desperate times often make for stupid moves. The team chemistry problem here isn't enough to say Miami truly benefited, unlike the Orlando scenario, not when they're giving up a second round pick as well.
Winner: Charlotte by several laps

One of the greatest efforts ever turned in against us occurred during our first game that month, when we squeaked by the Bucks 115-108 in a game that was even closer than the score indicates. Ricky Pierce lit us up for 43 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals. Milwaukee was still reeling after the Detlef trade from last season and was, much like when we traded for him, barely treading water at .500. Not a good thing when you're a team with as many cap issues as the Bucks were at the time.

A few games later, we played Houston for the first time since we'd traded Mitch to them. The Rockets had broken the double-digit win barrier and stood at 13-34. Leading up to the game, Mitch told the press that he was bound and determined to beat us as revenge for getting rid of him.

It didn't work. We demolished his new team 107-78 behind our usual balanced scoring attack, Volkov leading the way with 18 points, 9 rebounds, an assist, 2 steals, and a block. Mitch himself only scored 12 points as our top of the line defenders hounded him all night long.

The win came at a price though, as Brandon went down for a week and a half with a sprained wrist. Dudley was clamouring for minutes and growing increasingly unhappy with the team, as was Bowie, but I still wasn't going to take Chris off the IR. Signing him had been a mistake on my part, and he wasn't going to get off that list unless we really got hit hard by injuries.

What followed was another amazing streak of wins so bright and so beautiful that I could scarcely believe it. We were once more unstoppable. Teams started concentrating on Detlef and Volkov, figuring if our frontcourt was shut down, then we'd be an easier opponent. That only opened up things for our backcourt tandem, however, and on most nights Pooh and Ron would both have 20+ points. When you add in that Corbin was all of a sudden sizzling off the bench, you more or less had an unstoppable combination.

So there we were 44-9. Terrell was still hurt, and Tyrone had gotten injured a few days before, but Bowie was playing well with the minutes he'd been given. Our streak and our next opponent was none other than the 46-4 defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers, our nemesis in the quest for NBA supremacy. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe this matchup wasn't a preview to the Finals.

It was the potency of their offense, their lineup studded with 3 guys averaging over 20 points a game and 2 guys who weren't far off the mark, versus our deadly defense, evidenced by our top scorer averaging a shade under 16 points.

The game was fiercely fought, lead changes thrashing to and fro constantly, but in the end, their firepower proved to be too much and we fell 112-108 on the road.

I wasn't upset about the loss, though. We'd played damned hard against the team that was clearly the class of the league and the Cavaliers knew as they filed back into their locker room that they'd met a squad in us that could not only hang with them, but beat them.

The Rookie-Sophomore game was won by the rookies 108-100. Terrell was named to the Rookie squad as a reserve, something I was quited pleased with. Even more pleasant was his 13 points that was second in scoring for his side.

In the All-Star Game itself, the West never had a chance against the East as our conference's star players were demolished 140-128 in a game that was a bigger blowout than the score says. Perhaps as a pity treat, Karl Malone for the West was named MVP with his 25 points and 10 rebounds.

When the trade deadline came up, I looked over the team and pondered whether I should make any moves. It seemed foolish to do anything to a team that was dominating so consistently, but Dudley was vocal in his anger with his role on the team and Bowie still wasn't happy either.

As I made some calls around the league, I found myself quite intrigued when I discovered that Rick Fox, a rookie for the Jazz was on the block. Rick was a player I'd privately coveted and hoped to get with my early second round pick in the draft, but Utah had snatched him up with the 28th pick in the first round.

After some negotiations, a deal was struck. Going to Utah was my original pet project, Stacey, who'd struggled in the minutes he'd been given, Dudley, and the 1994 2nd round picks of us and the Atlanta Hawks, leaving us with Milwaukee's second rounder for that year.

Coming to us was Rick and power forward Ken Bannister, a guy who wasn't worth anything to me because of his poor ballhandling, but who had a cheap contract for the next couple years, could score, and could rebound. More importantly, he didn't give a damn about playing time, so we could just stash him away on the IR list until we needed him.

Did I overpay for Fox? Probably, but I really liked the kid and thought he could turn into something pretty nice for us.

There were two other trades near the deadline besides ours, one involving Charlotte, who was still retooling their team, and one involving none other than Cleveland.

Charlotte Bobcats receive:
C Jack Haley

Dallas Mavericks receive:
SF Terry Dozier
Charlotte Hornets 1993 2nd round pick

You have to wonder why Charlotte made this trade when they already have Rony. True, the centers not named Seikaly playing for the Bobcats are ice cold right now, but putting this guy on the IR when Charlotte gave up a pick for him makes no sense. Dallas gets a guy who doesn't do anything very well and showed extremely little in his first two seasons in Charlotte. Maybe Dozier can improve, but it's doubtful, especially since he's buried on the Mavericks bench. Call this a wash, as the second round pick Dallas gets is negated by the fact that they lost a pretty good backup center in my estimation.
Winner: None and a bad trade for two teams that normally make smart trades

Cleveland Cavaliers receive:
PG Andre Turner

New Orleans Hornets receive:
SF Winston Bennett

Turner may be cold right now, but when he recovers from his funk, he provides a very good ballhandler and a decent shooter for the Cavaliers, an ideal backup to superstar Mark Price. This doesn't make me happy about the prospects of battling Cleveland if we both make it against the Finals, but that's what smart teams do to ensure dynasties--They find the players needed to fill the remaining pieces. Hubie gets a fairly young kid who can rebound some and that's it. Stupid trade by New Orleans, smart one for Cleveland.
Winner: Cleveland by a pretty good amount

Our first game after the trade we won handily and then we lost a heartbreaking 100-98 last second game to the Sonics. Tony had a lot of fun with us after that game. Shawn Kemp was turning out to be a pretty special guy for them and was learning a lot about the game from Tony.

We rebounded with a solid win over the Trailblazers to close out the month in which Detlef and Volkov both got double-doubles, 27 points and 13 rebounds, 10 points and 12 rebounds respectively.

With that victory, we were now 46-11. Our lead over Seattle for the division, despite the loss to the Sonics, had expanded to 6. Cleveland still hadn't lost even 10 games and were sitting there with a 50-5 mark. There was talk in the papers that they might even set a record for wins by the time it was all said and done.

I didn't worry about them, though. I was only concerned for us and I wanted more than anything to see a banner flying in our arena. 1992 Western Conference Champions sounded good.

1992 NBA Champions sounded even better.

But there was still a lot of basketball to be played.

[Izulde]

When we started the next month with a collapse in the fourth quarter and a loss to the Warriors, I started to get worried that it would be symbolic of how our season would finish out, but we rebounded with a 119-99 win against the Bucks in which Ron had 31 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, and 2 blocks. He was one free agent signing that I'd been very pleased with and it was my intention that we would re-sign him after his one year mid-level deal expired.

The next game against the Celtics was another case of falling apart in the last few minutes as we dropped our second loss of the month 113-109. This trend was starting to become alarming and I secretly began to regret ever trading away Stacey and Dudley. I only hoped this was just a matter of chemistry adjustment and that it'd be restored before the playoffs.

We got back on track with wins against Charlotte and Miami, though the game against the Heat was a lot closer than I'd liked. Tyrone got nicked up with a small injury in the latter contest, but his absence wasn't missed as Fox and Bowie took advantage of the extra minutes to perform well in our next game, a victory over the Magic.

Despite another small knock, this one to Brandon, we continued to roll as we crushed the Mavericks 127-89. Ron had been instrumental in our resurgance after the initial stumbles out of the gate and that night was no exception as he put up 30 points and nabbed 7 rebounds and 2 assists. That he was a shooting guard with extraordinary rebounding talents certainly had helped us out a lot over the course of the season.

We then went on a tear of a win streak that led me to believe our team chemistry was once more fully functioning. Towards the end of the month, the streak came crashing down with a nailbiting 112-106 OT loss to Hubie's Hornets, when not even Detlef's double-double of 25 points and 15 rebounds could save us.

The team was angry at the loss and rebounded the next game by trashing the Nets 112-75. Once again Detlef had a double-double, this time good for 16 points and 15 rebounds. He also chipped in 4 assists and 3 steals. Leading us in points was Ron with 19. He and Detlef established themselves since Mitch's departure as our most consistent team leaders. Pooh, Scottie, and Alexander, while capable of periodic outbursts, weren't quite at the same level as Ron and Detlef.

We closed out the month with a sweep of the two L.A. teams, the Lakers falling despite Orlando Woolridge's 39 points and 8 rebounds. In fact, the Purple and Gold was 29-42 on the year, due largely to their continued infatuation with Maurice Martin and their insistence that he start at center even though, as I've already mentioned, he was a horrible player who wasn't worthy of starting for anyone, much less a storied franchise such as the Lakers.

And so at month's close, we stood at 58-14. With ten games remaining in our regular season, we'd clinched the Northwest Division crown, as Seattle was now 10.5 games behind us in the divison. We had the number one seed in the playoffs locked up as well, for San Antonio was 13.5 games behind us for the number two seed.

It was success on a level I'd never dreamed of when I first took the job for the 1990 season. If you'd told me then that in our third season, I would have guided the expansion Minnesota Timberwolves to the number one seed in the playoffs, I would have laughed and bought you a beer for telling such a funny joke.

But the joke was more than funny now.

It was reality.

[Izulde]

To be honest, I didn't know how we would play those last ten games. Would we, having assured ourselves security in the playoffs, start becoming lazy and just go through the motions? Or would we remain sleek and determined to go into the post-season sizzling and intent on peaking for the entireity of the playoffs?

The answer in the early going was the second one, as we reeled off three workmanlike, solid victories over the Suns, Kings, and Jazz that were the product of the same balanced-offense, iron defense that had brought us wins all season long.

Randy continued his dazzling play off the bench during that stretch. Bill just wasn't the same after his last injury and I was now leaning towards not re-signing him, much as I liked Wennington.

Our next game was a 117-89 beating of the Nuggets. Ron scored 32 and Detlef picked up a gem of a double-double in 25 points and 14 rebounds. We were heating up and becoming spectacular at about the right time, I felt.

The Hawks, Warriors, and Jazz again were the next three to fall to us. This was the Pooh stretch, when he piled up 20+ points a game and had several brilliant assists to feed the rest of the offense.

For the second go-round against the Jazz and the easy win against the Sonics afterwards, we were without Scottie, who was sidelined with a small injury. It turned out not to matter, even against Seattle. Volkov played exceptionally well in the small forward spot in place of Scottie and Randy was only too happy to have his old starting job back at center, even if only for a little while.

Tony Campbell told us at the usual supper that he was amazed at how easily we'd dismantled them, by 31 points in fact. He predicted that the East Conference crown would be ours and hoped that we'd be able to take down the Cavaliers, who still looked like the class of the league and a serious threat to repeat.

Reunion time continued in the next game, a meeting against Hubie's Hornets. Though the final score read 116-88, that's a misleading stat. The truth was, we were right tight neck and neck the entire game, and it wasn't until the waning minutes of the last quarter that we finally pulled away. Hubie always wanted to beat us every game and always got his players up for our matchups. Though he'd been having success in New Orleans, he was still bitter about having been fired after that first year.

This game though, no matter how hard the Hornets fought us, and fought well they did, in the end, Randy's 21 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists, steal, and incredible 7 blocks just wasn't enough for New Orleans to overcome, especially not when combined with Detlef's double-double of 26 points and 14 rebounds.

In the last contest of the year, we got Scottie back and summarily crushed the Spurs 107-63. San Antonio was helpless to do anything against our suffocating defense, even when Alexander sat down after 3 minutes with 4 fouls, done for the night until the final seconds, when he picked up another foul. Volkov was furious with the refs and his statline filled with 0s and swore to make good in the playoffs.

68-14. That was how we finished. Our last ten games ended up being a beautiful, shimmering streak of 10 victories, with only two of them having looked even close to being losses at any point.

The date with destiny was now set. All across the country, newspapers and even Sports Illustrated chatted up the matchup they thought most likely for the Finals: the champion Cleveland Cavaliers against the pack of snarling, hungry Minnesota Timberwolves.

But first, there were hurdles to be overcome, in the shape of our Eastern Conference opponents.

I'll tell you about the playoffs and get you that season's standings tomorrow. The papers are buried somewhere and I'm feeling tired. My back isn't what it used to be and I need to rest.

Good, I'll see you then. Have a pleasant evening.

[Izulde]

Hello again. Yes, my back's doing much better. Thank you for asking.

Here's the standings sheets for the 1992 regular season. Forgive me if I'm a bit slow and groggy today. The pain medication I'm on makes me not as sharp as I should be.


Can anyone conquer the Cavaliers?


A truly weak division when the champ is .500

A couple of things I want to mention about the West Conference that year. Danny Brooklyn was fired from Memphis after the Grizzlies didn't win the 20 games their owner wanted. He came over and I consoled him with a nice dinner of homecooked spaghetti, my speciality. Maybe I'll surprise you with it some day.

Anyway, I told him he'd have a good run of it and that he would probably have a good shot at landing a GM job elsewhere. There were rumours circulating of other positions in the league opening up and I was sure he'd be able to find a place somewhere.

One of those places was thought to possibly be Houston. Despite the addition of Mitch, the Rockets still couldn't muster up more than 25 wins. Hakeem's recovery had gone much slower than anticipated, to the point where he didn't see a single game all season long.

While the ensuing lottery pick would have been nice, they no longer had it as you know. It belonged to us instead as a result of the Mitch trade. As for the star shooting guard himself, well he'd angered the Rockets fans by complaining about the losing and insisting he wanted to be traded to a winner. Like I told Danny over dinner though, he wouldn't be a malcontent once they got Hakeem back the next season and started winning again.

No matter how the playoffs went, I knew that I was going to enjoy the next offseason. We had a guaranteed Top 10 pick, maybe even top 3 or top 5, depending on how the balls bounced, and there weren't going to be any real difficult contract decisions.

Pooh and Ron both had their contracts up. Pooh would definitely be re-signed, Ron was a wait and see proposition depending on how the draft shook out. Anthony Bowie was our other expiring deal and he wasn't going to be resigned, though I did like him quite a bit.

On to the playoffs then.

This is how the first round for each side looked matchup wise that year.

1992 Eastern Conference First Round:
(1) Cleveland vs (8) Milwaukee
(4) Detroit vs (5) Chicago
(3) Atlanta vs (6) Washington
(2) New York vs (7) New Jersey

I knew Cleveland would steamroll the Bucks. Milwaukee wasn't that good to begin with and suffered a serious blow earlier in the month when they lost Alvin Robertson for two months. The only question was if it would be a sweep or not.

Detroit and Chicago was a really tough matchup to call. Jordan versus the tenacious team-oriented Pistons. If there was one thing I'd learned from the season though, it was that teamwork beats talent nine times out of town. So I put my odds on the Pistons winning.

The most interesting matchup of the first round to me was Atlanta and Washington. A couple of minor injuries were nagging the Hawks and might cost them the first game or two, but after that, they'd be able to match the Wizards' two-punch firepower blast in the form of King and Malone. That game or two in the early going would be the difference in the end, I decided, so I gave the nod to Washington.

New York was going to waffle New Jersey. There was no doubt of that in my mind. Ewing was still a top center and I've told you before how much I hated the Nets' front office and their stupidity in a lot of things. Knicks all the way to my eye.

1992 Western Conference First Round:
(1) Minnesota vs (8) L.A. Clippers
(4) Seattle vs (5) Portland
(3) Sacramento vs (6) Utah
(2) San Antonio vs (7) New Orleans

The Clippers were easily the surprise team of the season. An outfit notorious for losing sneaking into the playoffs was a tremendous feat. Though they wouldn't make anyone forget the Purple and Gold, it was a crucial step forward for the Red and White. Unfortunately for them, I knew they wouldn't be able to stop us. Score it to the Timberwolves.

Seattle and Portland was, like the Eastern counterpart, a damn tough choice to call. I liked the Sonics though, and relished the thought of meeting Tony's boys in the second round, so I voted for Seattle's winning out.

.500 that year got you a division title and the number three seed if you were in the right division. The Kings had no business being there and the Jazz were going to blow them out, I felt. No more needs to be said there.

Hubie had the Hornets in the playoffs again, but David Robinson's Spurs were just going to be too much for them to handle. San Antonio in the end was my selection.

We blew apart the Clippers in Game 1 99-78, but I wasn't too happy. We'd had a 20 point lead at the half and let them back in it in the third quarter, even getting as close as 2. Gregg ripped the team's heads off at the intermission leading into the last quarter and they responded by shutting the lesser L.A. squad down. Detlef was the man of the night with his usual double-double. 21 points, 13 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, and a block was his final statline.

The Red and White got inspired after their third quarter showing in Game 1, because the second game of the series was a pitched battle with constant lead changes the whole way. In the end, we prevailed 108-102, once again due mostly to Detlef and his 28 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals. Also critical was Randy's contribution of a 17 point, 10 rebound double-double from the bench.

The gloss of the win was wiped away a bit though when we got the report from the trainer after the game. Pooh was down for 11 days and Terrell was knicked up for 3. That meant a makeshift backcourt for at least Game 3, possibly even Game 4. I began to worry that we'd let the series slip away from us in Los Angeles.

In Game 3, the Clippers came charging hard out of the starting gate and had a 10-point lead at the end of the first quarter. We rallied in the second frame and took the lead, holding it through the third. Then, in the fourth, we collapsed into another back-and-forth war. A last-second shot by shooting guard Jim Farmer, who finished with 30 on the night, and we lost, 109-108. The heartbreak was near devastating. The drivers' seat we thought was ours had just been pulled out from under us. Not even Detlef's double-double of 26 points and 13 rebounds could save us.

Once more the home team broke out to a fast start and a fair-sized lead in the first quarter in Game 4. But this time when we came back, we didn't let up. None of us wanted to go back home with a 2-2 tie. And we didn't. 101-83 was the final. Once more, it was the Detlef Show, as he finished with 21 points and 9 rebounds. When reporters asked him afterwards if he felt sad about his double-double streak being snapped, he just laughed and said, "Not at all. We won and that's what matters. Besides, Scottie got the double-double for us." And he did. Pippen finished with a beaut of an all-around game. 17 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, and a block.

Game 5 gives me a headache to think about it even now. We forgot all about how to play defense and the Clippers steamrolled us for most of the game. Only a miraculous fourth-quarter comeback secured us the 109-102 win and the series victory. It wasn't a game we deserved to win by any means. We didn't have any really stars that game either. Scottie had another double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Detlef matched Scottie's point total and got 8 rebounds. Volkov had a double-double of his own with 14 points and 10 rebounds and Terrell contributed 16 points from the bench in his first action back from his injury.

But I didn't complain about the way we'd played. The important thing was that we'd closed out the series and had guaranteed ourselves the second round.

Cleveland did in fact sweep the Bucks as I'd predicted. Milwaukee was simply outclassed in every way possible.

Fellow five-game series winners were the Knicks over the hated Nets, the Spurs over Hubie's Hornets, and the Jazz over the misplaced Kings.

Jordan proved too much for the Pistons, scoring 34 points in Game 6 to get the Bulls into Round 2.

Two series went to Game 7 and when all was said and done, the Hawks handily beat the Wizards to advance and poor Seattle dropped a 110-109 heartbreaker to the Trailblazers, allowing Portland into the second round. It was us who took Tony out to dinner after that night, as he was really depressed after the loss. We did our best to cheer him up and I gave him courtside seats to the opening home game for us in the next round.

1992 Eastern Conference Second Round
(1) Cleveland vs (5) Chicago
(3) Atlanta vs (2) New York

There was no way Jordan and Rice could make up for the firepower that the Cavaliers had in my mind. Cleveland was going to roll onto the Conference Finals, no doubt about it.

Atlanta and New York was another easy matchup. Ewing was simply too dominant and there were too many other pretty good players on the Knicks for the Hawks to win, though I figured the Redbirds would make a good show of it at least.

1992 Western Conference Second Round
(1) Minnesota vs (5) Portland
(6) Utah vs (2) San Antonio

The Trailblazers were going to be a tougher test than the Clippers had been, but I still thought we had enough to be able to best them, especially once we got Pooh back, who was scheduled to return after the first game.

Utah against San Antonio was a lot harder matchup to predict, but in the end, I surmised that Robinson and his merry band of Spurs would join us in the Conference Finals.

Buoyed by the news that Pooh was coming back the next game and determined to exact revenge for Tony, who'd accepted the tickets and was in attendance, we reamed the Traiblazers 125-96 in Game 1. Detlef had 20 points, 9 rebounds, and 8 assists to lead the way. Ron contributed 22 points, 4 rebounds 3 assists, a steal, and a surprising 3 blocks. Randy punched in 19 points from the bench. In short, it was a spirited and united team effort, the most complete victory we'd had yet in the playoffs.

With Pooh's return, we went back to our balanced offense, bearish defense ways and scored an easy 93-69 win in Game 2. Volkov had a 16 point, 10 rebound double-double and Pooh celebrated his chance to play again with a double-double of his own, to the tune of 12 points and 13 assists. There was no doubt he was the straw that really stirred our drink.

We went to Portland with a 2-0 series lead in hand and came away with a stinging 111-103 loss due largely to the noisy home crowd and a second half collapse that saw our lead evaporate and never be regained. In spite of Volkov's double-double of 10 points and 12 rebounds and Detlef's of 11 points and 12 rebounds, and even in spite of Pooh's 23 points, it just wasn't enough to seize us that critical third win.

The Blazers were glavanized by their success in Game 3 and carried it over into Game 4, where they led box to wire and withstood a fast and furious rally attempt by us in the fourth quarter, getting the win 98-95 in a game that wasn't nearly as close as the score indicated. Clyde Drexler tore us apart for 33 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal. Had the fight gone out of the Timberwolves? Would we become frustrated now and go down in flames now that things were tied up 2-2?

I found out the answer in Game 5. Returning to home, we were sluggish in the first half, all save for Detlef, who had 10 rebounds by halftime already. Nonetheless, it was good for a lead that stayed right up until the last second of the third quarter, when Terry Porter hit a shot that gave them the lead. My heart sank when I saw that bucket. I was sure we would fall apart down the stretch yet again.

That didn't happen. Gregg tersely lectured the team as he'd done several times before going into the fourth quarter and the end result was that we dominated the final section of play. Dominated it so much that we won 96-71. Detlef was the hero of the game with 22 points, 14 rebounds, an assist and a steal. Scottie picked up another playoff double-double with 12 points and 14 rebounds. We were now up 3-2 and had the coveted driver's seat.

Game 6 in Portland was one for the ages. We jumped out to a 10 point first quarter lead that was cut to four by halftime. By the third quarter we were trading leads with the Trailblazers and went into the last period up by a single point. The fourth quarter was another taut, heartpounding string of minutes. Cheers roared from the homers as Portland began to pull away, but then we wrestled back and tied it 102-102.

With just 11 seconds remaining on the clock, the Trailblazers inbounded the ball and started towards half-court, with a play designed in mind to get Drexler the ball.

They never made it to the other side.

Ron got his second steal of the game just before Porter crossed over into our side. Detlef saw the move and raced down the court ahead of the rest of everyone else. The ball pounded into our power forward's hands just inside the 3-point arc on the pass from Ron.

Detlef took a deep breath, raised up, and fired.

The single second on the game clock expired midshot.

Everyone in the arena, players, coaches, and fans, watched in silence as the ball soared through the air.

Thunk.

The ball hit the backboard.

Rumble rumble.

We watched the orange ball roll forward.

Swiiiiish.

Through the net.

104-102.

The win was ours and we were headed to the Conference Finals!

...Forgive me. It's just that whenever I think about that moment again, I find myself going back there and I just get lost in the memory. It's one of the sweetest I have, you know.

In fact, would you mind terribly if I waited until tomorrow to tell you about the rest of the playoffs? I want to keep the rest of that memory with me today, drink an iced tea, and relive every moment of that game again.

Why yes, as a matter of fact I do have a tape of that game. You want to see it?

All right, sounds good. I'll get us some iced tea and the tape then.

[Izulde]

Good game wasn't it? That last play is one of my favourites to watch. I'm glad you liked the iced tea. It's a recipe that Mrs. Arcadia taught me while we were dating, but I'm not going to bore you with our love story.

It's the basketball you want to hear about.

The upset of the ages happened over in the Eastern Conference after we beat the Trailblazers. One of the Bulls scored 50 points to knock off the defending champion Cavaliers.

Jordan, you say? Wrong.

It was none other than Glen Rice, the former Timberwolf. 12 for 17 from the floor, 4 for 7 from 3-point range and 22 for 24 from the charity stripe to be the difference and then some in Chicago's 111-102 series-clinching victory.

I called and congratulated him on that amazing feat right after I heard about it. He thanked me and told me how much he loved it in Chicago and that he was really happy he'd been traded for. Playing every night with Jordan inspired him with confidence and helped him to become a better player.

I didn't regret trading him, though. Scottie had helped to take us up to the level we were now at. If we still had Glen, I don't think we'd even have been in the Western Conference Finals. It was one of those trades that had worked out perfectly for each team and given them exactly what they needed.

The conference final matchups were set when the Hawks upset the Knicks in New York in Game 7 and, over in San Antonio, the Spurs dodged a bullet, escaping the Jazz by a single point, 95-94, also in Game 7.

Truth was, I was a little bit disappointed over the Jazz not winning. We matched up better against Utah than we did San Antonio and the Spurs advancing made me really worry about how we would fare in the conference title round.

1992 Eastern Conference Finals:
(3) Atlanta vs (5) Chicago

There was no way that I could see the Hawks beating the Bulls. Chicago looked like a team of destiny and I really wanted the chance to face off against Jordan and Glen in the Finals if we made it that far.

That being said, Atlanta had quite a couple former Timberwolves on them as well, and we had an old Hawk, Volkov, as our starting center. So no matter who the winner was, it'd be reunion time in Minneapolis.

1992 Western Conference Finals:
(1) Minnesota vs (2) San Antonio

As I said, I was really worried going into the series. Robinson was one of the dominant centers in the league and Cummings was a damn good player too. I figured it'd go down to Game 7, in any case, and it could go either way.

Game 1 turned out to be a cakewalk as we won 113-83. Gregg had Robinson doubleteamed whenever he was in and as a result the Admiral went just 1 for 9 from the field and none of the other Spurs was able to step up.

Randy was the man of the night, scoring 22 points from the bench and adding on 8 rebounds, an assist, and 4 blocks after Detlef got into major foul trouble fairly early on. 1-0 Timberwolves.

Early in Game 2, it looked as though we were going to have another easy victory, but then the Spurs came roaring back in the second half and closed the gap. Unfortunately for them, we found our shooting stroke just in time and got out of the Target Center with a 103-98 win and a critical 2-0 series lead.

The double-team didn't work against Robinson this game, as he scored 27 points and his teammates woke up and started shooting better, too. But in the end, they were no match for Detlef's double-double of 22 points and 10 rebounds, or Randy coming through for us again from the bench. He got 20 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists, and an astounding 6 blocks. His stellar play after Bill got hurt again and started becoming less effective had been an unexpected boon and one that was keeping us alive in those playoffs.

I expected a ferocious battle when the series switched to San Antonio for Game 3, but that didn't happen. We broke out with an early lead, the Spurs hung with us for a while, and then we pulled away, never once looking back. The end result was a 110-85 victory and the coveted driver's seat of a 3-0 series lead. Robinson was once again shut down by Gregg's doubleteam schemes, so effectively so that he only took four shots all night. We won with our balanced offense, epitomized by Ron's all-around player of the game performance of 19 points, 3 rebounds, 7 assists, 4 steals, and 3 blocks.

With their backs against the wall, I knew the Spurs were going to come out fighting hard in Game 4. And they did. They took the lead a few times in the first quarter, but by the middle of the second quarter, we'd widened our lead to a considerable gap and San Antonio was just too worn out to have any hope of catching us. We won 102-83 and swept the team that I feared most in the conference.

Detlef came through with his usual double-double, this time good for 24 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal to lead us. He was without question the most key player I'd ever picked up in a trade and as I'd done so many times before, I gave thanks after our win that I'd gotten him.

Minnesota Timberwolves. Western Conference Champions. The words were beautiful when I heard them announced over the P.A., and they sounded even more likey honey when I said them to myself.

In three short years, we'd gone from expansion team to conference champions.

Now all that remained was to see if we could knock down the last hurdle standing in our way and become... the NBA champions.