Sure, it’s only the NBA exhibition season, and yes, hopes are high that the Timberwolves might make a post-season appearance for the first time in a decade. But coach Rick Adelman is already taking it to his team.
The Star Tribune reports that Adelman let his players have it after Saturday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors, just a few games into the pre-season. Coach is especially miffed that the team is 0-2 at Target Center, and the players are slacking in their own house.
“If you’re going to be successful in this league, you better win at home,” he tells the Star Tribune’s Jerry Zgoda, “and we’ve lost two games at home.”
Adelman doesn’t count the “home” win over the Bucks in Sioux Falls – he’s only seeing losses.
He apparently has decided that, already, the players are victims of their own arrogance. “Maybe it’ll help us,” he says. “Maybe it’ll wake us up.”
In other Wolves news, there are reports that the team is interesting in Marquis Teague, a raw but promising point guard with the Chicago Bulls.
NBC’s Pro Basketball Talk says that the Utah Jazz, with an injury to 1st-round rookie Trey Burke, are interested in Teague, but that the Wolves have shown interest in him in the past, and wouldn’t mind shoring up the backup role to Ricky Rubio and J.J. Barea.
Meanwhile, over at Grantland, there’s a small profile of Kevin Love and how much he wants to forget his injury-plagued year last season.“We all know what happened last year,” he says. “We just want to move forward.”
