Todd Swank: A Minnesota Timberwolves Preseason Game

October 10, 2021

A Minnesota Timberwolves Preseason Game

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for October 10, 2021

On Monday night, we were invited to attend the pre-season opener of our hometown Minnesota Timberwolves. We're not special or anything. I usually buy some games each year and giving us a free preseason game is their way of reminding me it's time to buy some tickets again.

Masks are still required at Target Center so we had the joy of pulling these out again. It's been awhile since we've been to a place that required them, so that was fun.

The Timberwolves have had a long history of being a poorly performing team, but this year feels different. We have a lot of good, young talent and they're gonna be a fun team to watch!

One of my favorite players is last year's Rookie of the Year runner-up, Anthony Edwards. He's a very talented athlete.

Anthony is really fun to watch and has a unique perspective which makes his interviews pretty entertaining as well. Matching him up with our all-star center, Karl-Anthony Towns, gives us a pretty solid core to build around.

Anthony's youthful energy is contagious and the other players always seem to follow his lead on things. Like when he brought out his pet hamster to show the coach, all the other players excitedly gathered around to get a look for themselves.

One of our newest players is Patrick Beverly who is a wily veteran who played for the LA Clippers last year. He seems to have taken Anthony under his wing and I think he'll be a great influence on him especially on the defensive end of the floor. The Wolves have long needed to be better on defense, so I look forward to seeing how this progresses.

Chris Finch is a relatively new coach for us. Technically this isn't his first year as our last coach, Ryan Saunders, was fired mid-season last year and Finch was brought in to replace him with mixed results. It will be good to see what he can do with a full season available to him.

Since it was only a preseason game, it didn't seem to matter who won or lost. The Timberwolves did show a lot of potential and ended up winning the game 117-114, but the Pelicans didn't even play their best player, Zion Williamson. He seemed to be pretty happy to be there and sitting on the bench, though.

I have no idea what Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor's wife said to him, but he seemed pretty shocked by it.

Karl heard it. He seemed to find it pretty funny.

On Thursday night, we connected with our old friends, Cathy & Jeff, at Celt's Craft House in Apple Valley. We hadn't seen them since before Covid so we had a lot of catching up to do. Good times!