I’ve talked about my parallel fandom of the Minnesota Vikings on Twinkie Town before. Football may occasionally gain a little advantage, but baseball always makes a comeback.
However, my enthusiasm for Minnesota sports has never extended to the Minnesota Timberwolves or the Minnesota Wild. Regarding hockey, I understand why—a family comedy classic is a video of me doing my childhood fawn-legged ice skating performance. However, basketball? Well, it probably explains the lack of interest—the Wolves were “Kevin Garnett and absolutely nothing else” throughout the majority of my adolescence.
But now that the T-Wolves have won an NBA playoff series for the first time since 2004 (yes, that year is back again!), it seems fitting to reflect on that one fleeting moment when I was roaring with them.
Like me, if you were a child of the 1990s, basketball was all around you, whether you liked it or not (this was the height of Air Jordan’s popularity). I was the same.
I was on the driveway turnaround with the basketball hoop.
When I was eleven years old in 1996, I watched Space Jam, and at the time, it was the only thing you had to do to gain any sort of social standing.
On NBA Jam for the Super Nintendo, I would constantly shoot 3-pointers with Reggie Miller (“he’s on fire!”) or slay the paint with Malone & Stockton (“slams it!”).
I still clearly recall being enthralled by the 1998 NBA Finals, when Michael Jordan’s “final dance” with the Chicago Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz once more.
However, until a specific combination of conditions occurred, none of that actually “took” in the sense of watching sports.
I was almost done with high school in the late spring of 2004 and was desperate for a reason to put Advanced Physics on hold. Usually, the Twins would have offered the ideal diversion, but Victory Sports One had stolen them from my screens.
Combine it with a Timberwolves team that had players like Karl-Galvin, Latrell Sprewell, Trenton Hassell, Fred Hoiberg, Michael Olowokandi, and Wally Szczerbiak at their prime, which was perhaps the best in the team’s history. After years of first-round “thanks for participating” exits, this team (58-24, 1st in the Midwest Division) was ready for a deep playoff run, and it finally materialized.
I got involved because senioritis was at its worst and there was no baseball available. I remember seeing parts of their dominating the Denver Nuggets in the first round and their thrilling seven-game series win over the Sacramento Kings. I would read the Star Tribune basketball coverage with the same eagerness as I would the box scores, even if the games ended later than I wanted to go to bed.
I was so engrossed in the Wolves that I continued to watch Fox Sports North after VS1 was cancelled and the Twins returned. Regretfully, they lost to the Shaq & Kobe Los Angeles Lakers juggernaut in the Western Conference Finals despite putting up a valiant six-game battle.
Did this b-ball romance make me a hoophead for the rest of my life? Not at all. I have never gone to a Timberwolves game at Target Center as of yet. However, momentum is once again building as Anthony Edwards dominates the Phoenix Suns and channels Michael Jordan’s enthusiasm. Maybe I should watch the Wolves vs. Nuggets semi-final match (assuming it doesn’t coincide with our summertime boys, of course). I don’t have to worry about physics anymore, at least not until John Foley writes something new.
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