The movie Fargo is about a large number of stupid people running amok in Minnesota until order is restored by a pleasantly bland and respectable character.
This could also be the story of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
If you didn't know, the T'Wolves are the oldest franchise never to have made the playoffs. The team floundered through six years of bad draft picks -- Felton Spencer, Luc Longley -- and strongly conflicting personalities -- Christian Laettner, Isiah Rider, Coach Bill Musselman -- before hiring native son Kevin McHale as their general manager in '95. They had been a pitiful cast, struggling to win one of every three games, but now stand perched atop that proud group of Western Conference teams poised to enter the playoffs with losing records.
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They accomplished this remarkable mediocrity through improving their defense. McHale's acquisition of Kevin Garnett was a gamble offensively, but pretty safe defensively. Garnett brings intimidation to the middle of the defense even if his offense doesn't develop any more than it has. In addition, Tom Gugliotta, fellow All-Star, is a good defensive player with quick hands and rebounding tenacity. Numerically, the T'Wolves are winning now not because Garnett and Gugliotta can score, but because the team defense has improved close to seven points (per 100 possessions) since 1995. The offense has improved less than a third of that.
It's boring, but defense is what has turned Minnesota into contenders.
Sacramento Kings owner, Jim Thomas, is probably going to take his basketball team out of town. He gave the city that all too familiar ultimatum: either build me a new state-of-the-art arena or I leave. Apparently, Thomas backed down a little because the Sacramento populace didn't vote to give him the money, but he is still there, at least through next season.
It is particularly strange that any owner can win with this hardball approach. Approximately 99% of the citizens of a city cannot afford to go to even one basketball game a year. Why would they want to upgrade the arena? The people who may want an upgrade are the people already paying to go to the games. A lot of times, these people are actually companies that write off part of the expense of the tickets as tax-deductible. As a result, they are willing to pay even more for those seats and/or for a new arena. But the other 99% don't care that much. Yes, they want a local team to watch on TV, but they will watch the Golden State Warriors if the Kings leave. The 1% of the population that goes to games regularly cares if the Kings leave and would be willing to pay more to keep them there. So why don't they just raise ticket prices, rather than asking tax-payers to fork over money?
Rather than paying money to Thomas, Sacramento voters decided to put money in schools. Go figure.
On a completely unrelated note, I am currently moving across country to California. As a result, my columns will be erratically updated until around the beginning of April.
I'd like to thank Dave Walker of KCRA-TV in Sacramento for bringing this news to my attention and keeping it on my mind.