A few links for you today. We'll be back later with a preview of tonight's game against the Cavaliers.
A day after national reports had the Wolves looking for veteran bench help, perhaps at the expense of Derrick Williams and/or Alexey Shved, Flip Saunders denied he was shopping, reports Jerry Zgoda in today's Star Tribune.
Saunders asserts that it's too early to make definite personnel decisions, but they are evaluating constantly.
Meanwhile, in a reaction to the goings on with the Miami Dolphins, the Wolves have banned all forms of "hazing," including telling rookie Shabazz Muhammad that he could not carry the Jonas Brothers backpack team veterans provided him with. I could use a new backpack...
We'll have more on the Cavs later today, but the week ahead provides the Wolves an opportunity to pad their record, as they have four winnable games coming up:
Tonight home vs. Cleveland
Friday at Nuggets
Saturday Home vs. Celtics
Tuesday at Wizards
After that comes a much harder stretch, so the Wolves need to make hay while the sun shines.
Happy Birthday to Shabazz Muhammad today! #Wolves fans, make sure to wish @phenom15balla a great day! pic.twitter.com/imjqXiyIYF
— MN Timberwolves (@MNTimberwolves) November 13, 2013
I forgot to mention this the other day, but a Wolves press release tells us:
The Minneapolis City Council voted today to approve the term sheet deal between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) Facilities, and the City of Minneapolis on a $97 million renovation to the 23-year-old, city-owned Target Center. The public-private partnership is a 50/50 split, with half the money coming from the City and half coming from private entities. Minneapolis will contribute $48.5 million to the project, the Timberwolves and Lynx will pay $43 million and AEG Facilities will pay $5.5 million.
So there go some more of your public dollars.
Speaking of public dollars for sports arenas, or, really, not speaking of that but the Vikings are getting a new palace while signs of CTE are showing up in retired players. This is a new development, as far as I can tell, as previously it required a post-mortem examination to discover CTE. Now it appears they can test for it in the living, or at least think they can.
Today's birthday is Nikolai Fraiture, the bassist for The Strokes. He turns 35 today.
Open thread. Etc.