Minnesota Timberwolves fans have long wondered why the national media seems to shy away from covering their team positively. Obviously, there were some extremely tough years with very little interesting to cover other than the front office’s inability to make the team competitive. It understandably would be difficult to write many positive or exciting articles about the post-Kevin Love 2014-15 Wolves, who only won 16 games. That is unless you were writing about Wolves legend Gorgui Dieng’s stellar season, leading the team in Win Shares with 4.9.
With that said, the national media is still hesitant to give the Timberwolves the respect they deserve, even though they’re good now. When they beat the Los Angeles Clippers in the play-in tournament last year, the Inside the NBA crew made fun of the way the Wolves celebrated, rather than celebrating Minnesota’s victory.
Even after acquiring Rudy Gobert in a trade this year, they still seem to be getting overlooked in the preseason power rankings. Many of them will admit that adding Gobert should help the team during the regular season. Still, they can’t seem to praise the roster without also expressing their concern about the team’s ability to perform in the playoffs, even though the season hasn’t started yet.
However, recently on a Hoop Collective podcast episode, Brian Windhorst pulled back the curtain. One of ESPN’s best analysts told a story that illuminated the root causes for his Timberwolves angst from the perspective of someone who works in the national media.
In the 2019-20 season, the Wolves started strong, going 7-4 in their first 11 games. They were looking like they could make a run at the playoffs. Windhorst was high on the team then and flew into Minneapolis to write a story about their early-season success. The article was going to highlight some of the innovative things Ryan Saunders did as “the first Millennial head coach,” including inviting players to curate playlists of songs they would listen to during practice. Windhorst was also going to highlight Saunders’ ability to relate to the players he worked with, citing a story about Saunders and Andrew Wiggins bonding over parenting. Both had recently had a kid.
Sadly, the Wolves quickly began to struggle after that strong start. They lost four of their next seven games and then went on an epic 11-game losing streak. According to Windhorst, by the time he was done interviewing players and the story was set to run, the Wolves were deep into their struggles, and he was forced to table his optimistic article. The article never got published because the Timberwolves could not turn their season around. Windhorst recounted that “they traded half the team at the trade deadline, and like half the guys I interviewed were not even on the team anymore.”
The story he had written sounds awesome. I’m sad that these interesting nuggets about Saunders’ personality as a coach and the relationships he built with his team never got published from Windhorst’s perspective on a national platform. However, given how quickly the season took a nosedive, I also understand why it wasn’t published. As a writer, I empathize with Windhorst’s story. It would be massively disappointing to put your heart and time into an article you’re proud of, only to have it made irrelevant by a team’s inability to win.
I can also empathize as a fan of the team. The root of Windhorst’s Timberwolves-related angst is the same as mine, disappointment. It just comes from a different perspective. I have also gotten hyped for a Wolves season, only to become frustrated when it’s made clear during the first 20 games that the team is not good enough to make the playoffs. For so many years, researching the next draft class was more interesting than watching actual Wolves basketball. As a result, many Minnesotans began to give up on the franchise, and attendance plummeted.
I don’t want to pour any more salt on my slowly healing wounds by rehashing bad memories, and I hope not to let my past disappointments cloud my judgment of a new team. However, in Windhorst’s case, his cautious approach when going on the record with predictions and bold statements about the Wolves makes sense, especially after hearing that story.
In our current media landscape, bold takes attract viewers and boost your credibility when you’re right. But they reduce credibility and get you roasted on Twitter when you’re wrong. This dynamic becomes exceedingly more significant when you work for a platform like ESPN, the self-proclaimed “worldwide leader of sports.” Imagine the criticism Windhorst would have received had his article been published right before the Wolves’ losing streak.
Windhorst is now optimistic again about the Timberwolves. He told Doogie Wolfson that he could see the Wolves being a top-4 team. He also noted that few teams in the league have the level of top-end talent the Wolves do. However, he also joked about feeling he needs to be cautious with his expectations on his podcast, saying, “I’m a little bit thrice burned fourth time shy on the Timberwolves over the years. … I can’t believe I’m back to do another ‘Wolves are gonna be good’ story, because I’ve done this story several times.” He later said one of the other times he got burned was when Tom Thibodeau first became the coach, and he and Tim Bontemps predicted the team would win over 50 games, but they only won 31.
Windhorst’s story is enlightening because it shows that he has gone through many of the same disappointments that Timberwolves fans have, and has too been scared by their failures. While he doesn’t have the same emotional attachment to the Wolves as fans do, those disappointments have made us all afraid to be overly optimistic about the team, lest we be hurt again. Luckily, the Wolves now appear to be in a better place than ever before, with a robust front office full of successful staff members and a promising core of talented players. We should soon be able to let our cautious optimism bloom into full-blown confidence without feeling foolish for doing so a month later. That confidence is something that Wolves fans, and writers covering the team, have deserved for a long time.
