Mystery Theatre 3000 Deciphers David Kahn's Letter

In an effort to ease the pain of Minnesota Timberwolves fans, Mystery Theatre 3000 writers have agreed to interpret President David Kahn’s most recent open letter. 

Dear Timberwolves Fans and Supporters:

Dear people who don’t turn off the television when we play and everyone else.

I am writing this to you while on the plane from Minneapolis to Memphis, on Friday night following our loss to Dallas. We are 1-9, having lost nine in a row. Our record was to be expected—but it will not be accepted.

Big difference, I think.

We knew that we would be bad but man we are stinking up the joint.  Did you see the Golden State game?  OK, if we are going to lose we can keep the margin of victory under 20.  Yes, it is still a loss but it is not as bad as getting blown out.  Sounds good?

What matters most to me is how we respond to adversity this season – knowing it will come in heavy doses occasionally. Our last nine opponents are a collective 51-30, and there will be similar tough stretches throughout the season.

What matters to me is that our guys show up at the stadium on time as we have bills to pay.  You do know that we finished 24 games behind the last team to the make the playoffs in the Western Conference, right?  The Commissioner only allows us to play a few games against the teams that didn’t make the playoffs so we may go through several stretches in the season when we lose 9 or 10 in a row.

Specifically, I am eager to determine if the team:

• Improves week to week, month to month, first half to second half. This should occur as everything becomes more familiar and our young players develop. Jonny Flynn and Wayne Ellington in particular need to take advantage of the rare opportunity to play significant minutes as rookies – to learn what works and what doesn’t work at this level and eliminate the mistakes.

I am not going to make any more trades for awhile as Flynn and Ellington can’t keep the names of their teammates straight.  It is embarrassing when your new guards call out the wrong name of their teammates.  We expect that since both went to top flight schools that they will come up with nicknames for their teammates over the course of the season that will work.

• Displays a physical and mental toughness, even when we lose. We cannot lose as we did at Golden State—without a fight. I liked the fact that we fought Dallas until the end tonight and won the fourth quarter. Our crowd appreciated it. I expect that to be the norm. I not only expect that to be part of our culture, but also will demand it.

I brought in Nathan Jawai; he is 6’10 and 280 pounds.  We will at least we will look tough; Jawai is 50 to 100 pounds heavier than either Ryan Hollins and Oleksiy Pecherov depending on what they each had to eat in the morning.

We aren’t ready to win games on a consistent basis however we should be able to win at least a quarter in each game.  After all, opposing teams have to play their second team during the second quarter of our games by NBA rule and I intend to hold the Commissioner to this rule.

• Starts running and attacking more on offense, as Kurt and I envision this team playing in the long term.

We will play up tempo basketball like the Lakers did when Kurt was on the team.  We may have to wait until we have different players but we will eventually be a running team.  Remember our motto, United We Run!

On that last point, it has been hard for us to sustain a running game without our best rebounder, Kevin Love, and with Al Jefferson still not all the way back from his ACL knee injury. And our defense has been poor at times. It is extremely difficult to run when you are taking the ball out of the basket. But make no mistake – this will become a running team and that will be our identity.

We are committed to running the basketball.  You have seen how we have let Flynn run even when his teammates aren’t keeping up?  The problem for us is that the other team continues to make baskets preventing us from running and we have got no one that can get a defensive rebound.  Sooner or later, the other teams will start missing shots and make no mistake we will be ready to push the ball.

I also don’t want to use Kevin and Al as excuses. Everybody has injuries. Everybody has tough parts of the schedule. Everybody has adversity. We will not be a team that makes excuses.

We are missing Kevin and Al but we are not going to use their absence as an excuse.  Sure, Kevin finished among the top 10 in rebounding last year and Al was having an all-star caliber season before being injured.  But we understand we can’t use them as a crutch that’s why we don’t emphasize their absence.  Did I mention that Kevin broke his hand and that Al is still recuperating?   

At times like these, I am motivated to work harder. I want to scout more, watch more film, crunch more numbers, ask more questions. I know Kurt and the coaching staff feel the same.

The coaches are the strength of our ballclub right now—I am proud to be working with them. We all recognized when we signed up for this mission that it takes a Herculean effort, from all corners, to turn around a franchise and make it championship-caliber.

Hey, we all know as friends and supporters of the Wolves that we all need to work hard to try and figure out how the other teams have figured out how to win games.  I don’t want to watch our game film and the coaching staff also doesn’t want to watch our game film but we are committed however to watching other teams to try and figure it out.  As soon as someone has a good idea, please let me know.

We obviously are not working hard enough yet. We need to do more. And we will.

You know that 24 teams had more wins than us last year.  We have a lot of film to review so please be patient.

Best regards

Say a prayer for me as I say a prayer for you

David Kahn

Timberwolves Basketball Czar

As a Timberwolves fan, do you feel better now?  Remember, we only need 24 more wins to surpass last season’s victory total.