mcinerney

I flew out East early Tuesday morning. I was working on very little sleep because I was up late for work and then had to pack. My flight left at 7am and I was actually feeling relatively alert considering I had only slept about four hours, which was good because I had a handful of things I wanted to get done on the flight. Generally when I am sitting at the gate in the airport I can spot three or four people that I hope do not end up sitting next to me. It’s usually the person running (literally) late that is all sweaty or the person who likes to retell the same old airport / travel stories that everyone has and knows. Surprisingly, I didn’t see anyone like this at my gate.

1st sign of trouble….
After they boarded the first class passengers and the “gold-super-elite-I-fly-15%-more-than-than-the-average-customer” people they gave the “boarding all rows / all passengers” call. The last 30 of us got in line to board the plane. One normal looking woman about 15 people ahead of me in line made this obnoxious sound and walked over to the garbage can to spit. This was especially unusual because she did not try to hide what she was doing at all.

2nd sign of trouble…
As I board the plane heading to my seat in the second to last row I see that the window seat next to the woman spitting in the garbage can is open.

3rd sign of trouble…
I take my seat next to this woman. She immediately opens “the bag” in the seat pocket in front of her. She spits in it a couple of times as I try to rationalize what’s going on with her. I’m thinking she has something sharp in her mouth that she doesn’t want to swallow….or maybe her kids put dog food in the cereal box and she bit into this morning and now she can’t get the taste out of her mouth. The plane takes off and I’m waiting for the crew to give the “it’s okay to use electronics” announcement. Before they have a chance to make that call….

Trouble…
The woman next to me starts puking. She doesn’t puke once or twice, she pukes consistently for the entire two plus hour flight. I had two thoughts as this lady was puking:
1. Why me? Why did I have to be the one sitting next to her? There were 150 people on the plane and I had to be the one sitting next to her. It is a good story if it happens to someone else, and I’d rather hear the story than tell the story.
2. I felt bad for this poor lady. I have no idea what was wrong with her. I knew I didn’t want to breathe her air. She was stuck. Anymore airlines are not very forgiving if you want to change your flight. She was stuck flying yesterday. It was a completely full flight so they couldn’t move her to first class or somewhere where she would have more space. She was stuck in the middle seat in row 25. And I was stuck in the window seat next to her in row 25.

Needless to say, I didn’t get the work done that I had hoped to complete.

It is pretty well known that I’m a huge KG fan. I have probably watched 90% of his games and interviews since he came into the league in 1995. Why do I like him so much? One obvious reason is because of how hard he plays at both ends of the court every game of every season. He played as hard in the NBA Finals last year as he did in a January game vs. Atlanta in 2001 with the Timberwolves.

The other reason I am a big KG fan can be seen in this video. Pay attention to how KG describes the situation in Las Vegas over the summer. It’s as if he is saying, “yeah, that makes sense…what the heck.” “No nonsense.”

When the Wolves first traded OJ Mayo to Memphis for Mike Miller and Kevin Love I was against it. I just thought that the Wolves needed to take a gamble. As far as careers go, Mayo probably could be a 1 (think Joseph Forte) or a 9 (think top 10 NBA player today). On the other hand, Love could be a 5 (think serviceable, but not All-Star like Andrew Bogut) and he could be a 7 (think Brad Miller when Miller when he was good). I just felt like the Wolves needed to gamble and find a team-changing player. I was and am still a little concerned that Mike Miller is the kind of player that helps you win 40 games, but not the kind of player that helps you win 55 games. Do the Wolves want to be a 40 win team? Let’s hope they are building a team with a goal of 55 wins.

Maybe most of my fear was that McFale pulled off this trade and I have no confidence in him as a General Manager. I feel like teams call the Wolves when they are desperate and need to steal some players.

Some time has passed and I have warmed up to this trade. Mike Miller is a solid player. He averaged 16.4ppg and 6.6rpg last season with Memphis. He shot over 50% from the field and over 40% from three. Playing with an inside force like Al Jefferson will only make him better (assuming Big Al can learn to pass out of a double-team). Kevin Love plays the game the right way. He is strong and gets in good position for rebounds.

If OJ Mayo averaged 16.5ppg and 6.5rpg this season, he would have a shot at Rookie of the Year. So, we get those stats out of Miller AND get Kevin Love. We also dumped Marko Jaric and Antoine Walker in the deal. Walker was easy to trade since he was in the last year of his contract, but getting rid of Jaric’s contract (a mistake McFale brought on a few years ago) was a good move.

My concerns about McFale as a GM and Wittman as a coach are still there. What style of basketball to the Wolves play? As an avid fan I should know this, but I don’t. This is Wittman’s fault. They need to define a style. Again, I like Randy Wittman as a person, but not as a coach. I just don’t ever see “NBA Championship Coach” being written next to Randy Wittman’s name.

I’ve warmed up to this trade a bit, but I’m anxious to see how it plays out. I’m hoping I can learn to love Kevin Love as a basketball player.

Beat LA…Beat LA….Beat LA…

There are a bunch of sites claiming the Wolves will select Brook Lopez with the third overall pick. Please tell me McFale won’t do it. Please tell me this is all just speculation. Please tell me the decision makers remember Felton Spencer, Luc Longley and Paul Grant. Nothing can make it more clear than these two videos. You will notice in the first one, they do not show the ball going through the hoop once. Not once. The second one is a video of OJ Mayo, who I believe should be the #3 pick at this point.

Brook Lopez (likes comic books and basketball isn’t his life):

OJ Mayo (his life is basketball):