I'm Back?

It has been one glorious year since I last disappeared from the blogging world. I traveled across Tibet and the plains of Mongolia trying to find my inner self. When I was backpacking across Asia I met a small, tired old man with a scraggled grey beard.

I approached this decrepit ugly foreigner, but remained a good Manut Bol's arm length away, asking him what he was doing sitting out on this hill all alone. He replied, "one does not sit alone, when one is with all". I had to think about this one for a minute because he was clearly alone with no one in sight. The old man sensing my confusion let loose a gravely chortle from his toothless mouth... I also swear I saw a moth come out.

"Go back to the others and you will find, the joy in sharing words with them online". Now, at this point I wasn't sure if he was talking about the internet or if he was talking about his clothes line strung across a nearby tree. It turns out he was talking about his clothes line, because he got up and and started taking clothes off the line. HOWEVER, I interpreted his words differently and decided it was time to return to America and time to return to Short Shorts.

I have learned a great deal in my travels and met many a weird, gross folk and plan on never leaving the U.S. again. Just picture a whole town of Nikola Pekovics and imagine how gross and sweaty that would be, and that is basically every small town in Europe and Asia. Their women were as beautiful as the ugliest Aye Aye's and as strong as the staunchest Water Buffalo. (SEE BELOW)

Aye Aye

European Woman

                                                                  

Water Buffalo

                                                             

Other than encountering ugly people I have learned that basketball is adored all around the world and is growing in popularity in China. Their Chinese Basketball Association is growing and during the NBA lockout last year numerous NBA players opted to play in China rather than wait out the lockout at home. Of course everyone remembers Stephon Marbury aka Starbury and Tracy McGrady aka T-Mac. Well, those faded NBA superstars now both play in China and both are once again All Stars and can relive their glory days. Even though playing against 5'8 power forwards isn't the same as going up against Kobe Bryant and Lebron James....good for them.

My beloved Minnesota Timberwolves are a perfect example of an international NBA team. We have Russians, Serbians, Spaniards, Puerto Ricans, French and whatever the hell a Lou Amundson is. I still am convinced he is a vampire, so I'll go ahead and say we have a Transylvanian too. The Forest Dogs are on a little bit of a slide right now, ever since coach Rick Adelman had to leave the team for personal matters. Tonight will be his first game back and just in the nick of time too, the Wolves have 9 games in the next 15 days leading up to the All Star break.

All I know is that these next two weeks will be huge for the T-pups, our players are going to be exhausted and for a team that already has the majority of its starters injured this is not a good sign. If we don't go at least 4-5 in the next 9 games  the Wolves will be in major trouble. After going 2-9 without Adelman and dropping 7 games below 500, the Wolves can hardly afford to drop further behind in the stacked Northwest Division and Western Conference.

Tonight the Wolves face the hot and exciting Clippers, with high flying Blake Griffin and Deandre Jordan. Thankfully Chris Paul will still be out with an injured calf, but they have a quality backup in Bledsoe who will almost be as equally difficult for the Wolves to match up against. But the Wolves have done surprisingly well against the Clippers the past few years and hopefully they can sneak out a home win tonight in Minneapolis.

PREDICTIONS

Clippers 102 - Wolves 96

Timberwolves

Rubio: 12 points, 8 assists, 3 steals

Ridnour: 17 points, 4 assists

Kirilenko: 22 points, 7 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks

Clippers

Griffin: 28 points, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks

Bledsoe: 20 points, 6 assists

Odom: 16 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists


Unfortunately I believe that the Wolves will lose tonight, with the injury plagued roster matching up against the taller, more athletic team from L.A. Even without Chris Paul I believe the Wolves' point guards will have a difficult time matching up against Eric Bledsoe, and then with our lack of height and size we will have a tough time matching up against Blake Griffin and Lamar Odom. Odom still hasn't returned to the player who won the 6th man award a few years back with the Lakers, but with the a good match up tonight I think he will have a nice game.

Either way, it's good to be back and I hope to continue to update this blog a lot more for the second half of the season, I hope you will continue to check it out and let your friends know!

David

Side note: I found out that the old man on the hill was blind and addicted to opium so I don't think he ever knew I was there....

Prediction Results

Let's compare my prediction results from yesterdays match up against the Spurs.

Prediction

Ricky Rubio: 14 points, 12 assists, 6 boards, 5 steals, one high pitched HEY

Actual

Ricky Rubio: 18 points, 10 assists, 4 boards, 0 steals, 4 high pitched HEY's

Grade: B

Prediction

Nikola Pekovic: 10 points, 6 boards, 4 fouls

Actual

Nikola Pekovic: 14 points, 10 boards, 5 fouls

Grade: B-

Prediction

Derrick Williams: 12 points, 5 boards

Actual

Derrick Williams: 12 points, 3 boards

Grade: A-

Prediction

Tony Parker: 23 points, 8 assists, 2 steals

Actual

Tony Parker: 20 points, 3 assists, 0 steals

Grade: B-

Prediction

Tim Duncan: 19 points, 11 boards, no sign of emotion

Actual

Tim Duncan: 9 points, 10 boards, he was actually declared dead 3 times on the court

Grade: B-

Prediction

Wolves 103 Spurs 98

Actual

Wolves 87 Spurs 79

Grade: C-

All in all, I think it was a decent night for predictions. I was wayyyy off on the final score but hey, the Wolves won. Until tomorrow Timberpup fans hooowwwwlllll howwwwllllll

Wolves vs. Spurs Prediction

Alright, now that my crystal ball is back from the shop I can accurately predict this game. I peer deeply into the crystal ball only to see long extremely white legs from a little weiner of a player named John Stockton. I gaze further into the abyss and suddenly numbers and names begin to appear...

I sense....I sense.... Ricky Rubio: 14 points, 12 assists, 6 boards, 5 steals and at least one "HEY!" in a high pitched funny accent after he takes a jump shot and thinks he got fouled.

I see more...I look deep into my crystal ball and see Nikola Pekovic...that beast child from an Ogre mother and a Mongolian father is going to go for.... Pekovic: 10 points, 6 boards, 4 fouls

Then I see two Spurs coming into focus...First Tony Parker, that dirty frog son of a bitch, then Tim Duncan...

Parker: 23 points, 8 assists, 2 steals

Duncan: 19 points, 11 boards and lack of emotion like a Dementor.

The visions begin to fade, my eyes roll back forward to the front of my head then from my hotel room I see a child walking by wearing a Derrick Williams jersey...could it be? A sign from the heavens? I have no choice but to go out on a limb and say that... Williams: 12 points, 5 boards

I run to the bathroom and throw up multiple times getting all of the spirits out of me and prepare to watch the game. I must cleanse myself from all the figure skating I had to watch today...

Final Score: Wolves 103 - Spurs 98

I know I predict the Wolves win often, but with Manu out of the game and the aging Tim Duncan only getting more fluid in those bony knees, they just won't have enough fire power to keep up with Kevin Love (5th leading scorer in the NBA) and a rejuvinated bench.

I must rest now, the spirits have taken it out of me today, b-easy my children and followers.

Look out!! Someone must have made him angry, he's furious!!

NBA Players and Their Dopplegangers

A PUG Joakim Noah

What can I say here, Joakim Noah's eyes are so far apart from eachother that he looks like a Pug. The only concerning difference I can see is that Pug's have difficulty breathing, and Noahs have difficulty playing basketball.

Paul Bearer Stan Van Gundy

Paul Bearer used to be the manager for The Undertaker in WWF, then when he was finished with that he became the coach for the Orlando Magic.

Dr. Dre Marcus Camby

One day I was watching Portland play and I noticed the similarities between the two, they both have that mean mug glare. Eminem is Dre's protege, and I have to assume that Luke Babbit is Camby's protege because Babbit is the only white guy on the whole Trailblazer team.

E.T. Sam Cassel

I hate to even have this here because of my enormous fear of E.T., ever since I saw that scene where he was hiding in the stuffed animals and started screaming, I cannot look at him without getting chills.. That goes for E.T. and Sam Cassel, so you can imagine how hard it was for me to watch the Wolves when he was here...nightmares

Kyle Korver Ashton Kutcher

I think that everybody has drawn comparisons to the two, but instead of just looking alike, I typically say that Korver looks like Kutcher with down syndrome.

Andre 3000 Gerald Wallace

I'm not sure why Andre 3000 looks like the Colonel from KFC in this picture, but I think you can see the similarities between the two with these pictures. The smile, the long chin and the little dirty goatee on the end. My other possible option for Wallace was going to be Snoop Dogg.

Gollum Chris Kaman

Disgusting creatures the both of them. Kaman may be the ugliest thing to play pro sports since Stockton's sack fell out of his short shorts back in 86. You can see in this picture that he is more than likely reaching out for the ring of power, the only difference is that Kaman is a horrifying 7 feet tall making him a much more dangerous Gollum. What is..Taters precious?

50 Cent Rodney Stuckey

Rodney Stuckey aka Ten Cent, aka 10 liter Jetta, looks like the thugged out bullet ridden 50 aka Ferrari F50. I just wish 50 would hire him to be his mini me and carry the little fella around on his shoulders.

Velociraptor Chris Bosh

I just picture the scene from Jurassic Park where they lower the cow into the Velociraptor pen and they demolish it and the contraption holding it...Now picture three Chris Bosh's inside that pen ripping apart a cow, ooof gives me chills almost as bad as Sam Cassel. All I know is I would rather die by dinosaurs than this big mouthed skinnysaurus....Clever girl.

Side note, my crystal ball must have been cracked when I made my predictions the other night because both Dirk and Luke were out due to injury...woops. Predictions for tonight's game to come later this afternoon.

Wolves vs. Mavs Prediction

Well, it's about time to make my pregame prediction for the Timberwolves game. Tonight we are playing the Dallas Mavericks in Dallas. We won the first matchup of the year, but now that the older Dallas team has gotten a handful of games under their legs I feel like this game will be a lot more difficult for the Wolves.

Final Score: Dallas 106 Wolves 98

Love: 25, 14 (3 three pointers)

Rubio: 12, 11 assists, 5 boards

Dirk: 31, 7

Terry: 22, 5, 3 assists

Random Pick of the Game

Luke: He is a streaky player, leading the team in scoring a few times this season and shooting the lights out, he has been kinda slow lately which is why I think this game he will pick it back up.

15, 5 assists

I think Dirk will light us up tonight, I don't really know who we have who can slow him down, I'm pretty sure Tolliver will be guarding him most of the time. I just don't think we can slow them down enough to win again. Unless we can get lots of nut shots in there.

First post

Welcome to my NBA blog. Either you came here because you are a friend of mine, or you Googled John Stockton's short shorts, and if that were the case then I don't want you here.

I will be posting weekly about the NBA, the Timberwolves in particular, and will try to post multiple times a week as well. If you are interested in me writing about a certain topic feel free to leave a comment for me.

I will be posting my predictions for Timberwolves games the night of their games and then posting on whatever topic I deem necessary. For instance, my first post will be about Ricky Rubio and his silly accent and his poor English.

I just Ricky Rubio, joo know? I play like Ricky.

I think most of us Minnesota Timberwolves fans remember the first time that we heard Ricky Rubio speak, and that was after we drafted him fifth overall in 200

9. Here is that interview below. Fast forward to the 5:30 mark...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgxcwBwuBEM

So, props to Ricky for putting up with this Mark Jones fool who is talking to him like a 4 year old. I really like how he is speaking extra slowly, using hand gestures and using simple words. My

favorite part is when Jones says "You'll have to get used to the cold" while taking his arms and covering himself like a blanket.

Yes Ricky isn't the best English speaker, but I don't think his agent or publicist would put him on live national television if he didn't understand the world cold. One thing I will critique Ricky on is his lack of ability to say his D's and T's, this isn't Espana Rick the only D's and T's we use here are hard....Unless an H follows a T, but we'll get into that at a later chapter.

I was searching Ricky on Google and found some interesting photos of him when

he was younger, he still looks basically exactly the same, but it's a little disheartening that I have to say in his younger days he looked like the offspring of Justin Bieber and a Toucan.

THIS JUST IN. On the ticker for NBA TV, it said that the Wolves have come to a deal with Kevin Love to sign him for a 4 year extension for $62 million dollars. It's about time Glen Taylor actually coughed up some dough to keep a player here. Even though he has great ability, he is probably the most opposite thing of a big ticket seller that we could get. Sure he avgs. 24 and 14 a night, but half of those points come from dirty put backs and sloppy shots where he gets hacked. Don't get me wrong, I love having K. Love on the team and he is a great player, just not the most exciting creature on this planet. It will be nice to see Ricky coming home to K. Love for the next couple of years though!

Riiicky, I'm Hoooooooommmme!