Tonight I will attend the first live Timberwolves game in several years. There will be a chance to take a look at the athletic talent Minnesota have acquired in a preseason game. We will play against Memphis with the longest total salary contract player in Mike Conley.
The Timberwolves most would say having the most underpaid talent in the NBA. But having all of your most talented players on their rookie contracts is not anything to pat yourself on the back about. Luck helps this situation, luck helps in the NBA. Kevin Love and Andrew Wiggins have a strange connection with the history of the Timberwolves, and the tummult of the front office in the past 6 years is incredible. It makes the new beginning with Thibodeau seem all the more exciting. From Kahn to Saunders to Thibs/Layden is like amoeba to walking homo sapiens sticker you see on the back of automobiles.
Evolution is exciting, but it sure does take luck, and maybe to say we are at the end with homo sapiens is taking the current hype too far. The Timberwolves have advanced without a doubt from the days of illegally acquiring Joe Smith (thanks McHale) and sacrificing draft picks to the incoming David Kahn drafting Johnny Flynn.
More luck is needed to win a championship. Health must be continued, for all the top players on the team. The biggest hope for the future, the player General Managers of NBA teams have recently voted the most desired to start a franchise right now, is Karl Anthony Towns. Yet this may have been a tag for other young players as well. Players by the likes of Grant Hill and Anfernee Hardaway. Both had a superstar career turned into a good but not great legacy. Injury can derail even the most promising hope and their is unfortunate nothing you can do to prevent freak occurrences.
The shining future of the team could be cut short, but the desire to be great and work hard for three different players is comforting. There is a thought that injury can present opportunity as well, Rubio could get injured and Tyus Jones coudl burt into the scene as the next Isiah Thomas. Let be optimistic, take it one game at a time, continual improvement....
We'll see how tonight goes.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Preseason Madness
The Preseason has started here, and Minnesota sports is in a tizzy. The Vikings are 5-0, the Timberwolves won their first preseason game, and the most dominant sports franchise in the history of Minnesota The Lynx are in the WNBA finals for the 5th time in its short franchise history. I remember the time when I was a T-wolves season ticket holder and the Lynx drafted Maya Moore by proclaiming her the "LeBron James" of the WNBA.
But beyond Sam Bradford and his 3/4 sleeve Fran Tarkenton throwback look, my most exciting sports happening is the 7 assists in 24 minutes that Kris Dunn put up in his first preseason game. I know that preseason defense is lacking and 2nd unit defense is even worse, but that is a 14 assist per 48 min stat that should get your blood going even if it came with 4 turnovers. The backup point gaurd position is in my opinion one of the most overlooked keys to success. The "he's a backup" phrase to relegate players as lesser talents doesn't recognize the difficulty an eighty-two game season presents.
In an era of data aggregation and slobbering at the throne of analytics, where the NBA promotes HACK-a-thon (DeAndre & Shaq were absent) events, every second on the floor counts. Sure some teams have better starters, and some starters can play more minutes then others, but there comes a time in every regular season (playoffs are different) where a majority of the players on the floor are reserves. If Kris Dunn can put out those kind of numbers on regular basis, it could be stunning.
When we look at the numbers Rubio averaged 8.6 assists last year, followed by LaVine at 3.1 and then Tyus at 2.9, Miller at 2.2 and rounding out the top five with Wiggins and Towns both at 2. The Timberwolves finished 8th in the NBA in assists per game, probably one of the highest ranking of a positive stat they accomplished while compiling 29 wins and 53 losses.
They then ranked 13th in Assist to Turnover ratio at 1.63, for comparison the only teams to get above 1.84 were San Antonio at 1.94 and Golden State at 1.93, ranking 1 & 2.
If there is an increase in this it might just come from the second unit. I am guessing much of the second unit assists came from Tyus and Miller, with some sprinkled in from LaVine and Dieng. But 2nd unit production can be huge and Thibodeau has a history of 2nd unit guards performing at their career bests (see Aaron Brooks & John Lucas III).
Excitement is brewing despite listening to the 2nd preseason game on the radio (more on that later) with Alan Horton. Lynx have evened their series up 1-1.
Go Minnesota!
But beyond Sam Bradford and his 3/4 sleeve Fran Tarkenton throwback look, my most exciting sports happening is the 7 assists in 24 minutes that Kris Dunn put up in his first preseason game. I know that preseason defense is lacking and 2nd unit defense is even worse, but that is a 14 assist per 48 min stat that should get your blood going even if it came with 4 turnovers. The backup point gaurd position is in my opinion one of the most overlooked keys to success. The "he's a backup" phrase to relegate players as lesser talents doesn't recognize the difficulty an eighty-two game season presents.
In an era of data aggregation and slobbering at the throne of analytics, where the NBA promotes HACK-a-thon (DeAndre & Shaq were absent) events, every second on the floor counts. Sure some teams have better starters, and some starters can play more minutes then others, but there comes a time in every regular season (playoffs are different) where a majority of the players on the floor are reserves. If Kris Dunn can put out those kind of numbers on regular basis, it could be stunning.
When we look at the numbers Rubio averaged 8.6 assists last year, followed by LaVine at 3.1 and then Tyus at 2.9, Miller at 2.2 and rounding out the top five with Wiggins and Towns both at 2. The Timberwolves finished 8th in the NBA in assists per game, probably one of the highest ranking of a positive stat they accomplished while compiling 29 wins and 53 losses.
They then ranked 13th in Assist to Turnover ratio at 1.63, for comparison the only teams to get above 1.84 were San Antonio at 1.94 and Golden State at 1.93, ranking 1 & 2.
If there is an increase in this it might just come from the second unit. I am guessing much of the second unit assists came from Tyus and Miller, with some sprinkled in from LaVine and Dieng. But 2nd unit production can be huge and Thibodeau has a history of 2nd unit guards performing at their career bests (see Aaron Brooks & John Lucas III).
Excitement is brewing despite listening to the 2nd preseason game on the radio (more on that later) with Alan Horton. Lynx have evened their series up 1-1.
Go Minnesota!
Friday, September 30, 2016
Timberwolves coverage
I would like to talk about the media coverage of the Timberwolves. The different media coverage has been lacking over the years as performance of the team hovered in the dregs of the league. I do like Jim Peterson and his in depth basketball knowledge as a coach and former player. I think he lacks Alan Horton's (The WCCO radio announcer) pizzazz and isn't nearly as entertaining at the leagues most colorful announcer Walt (Clyde) Frazier . Bus he does excel at explaining the intricacies of pick and roll defenses, talking about spacing, weak side help, and lots of other things that make basketball my favorite sport.
Alan Horton has a podcast and this week he talked about team rankings of returning minutes within the roster. Now the Timberwolves haven't been the bastion of continuity that you see in perennial franchises like the San Antonio Spurs, but this year they rank 4th in minutes played returned. Players they don't have from last year Tayshaun Prince , Kevin Garnett, Andre Miller, and Damjan Rudež.
I would imagine that Pekovic was ncluded in returning minutes since he is still on the team getting paid.
I have decided my goal might be to find out when Zach Lowe is in town to cover the team, and seek out his autograph. He is by far my favorite writer and was declared the best sports writer today by some guy from Slate. I listen to his podcast with fervor, I laugh at his dorkiness, his enthusiasm is the intelligent kind. He avoids the rah rah macho BS that you can find often in sports. His background of an actual journalist, covering the beat of local crime in the Northeast makes it seem like he has mastered his trade by covering his passion.
Thats all for now. No movement on the ticket front...
Alan Horton has a podcast and this week he talked about team rankings of returning minutes within the roster. Now the Timberwolves haven't been the bastion of continuity that you see in perennial franchises like the San Antonio Spurs, but this year they rank 4th in minutes played returned. Players they don't have from last year Tayshaun Prince , Kevin Garnett, Andre Miller, and Damjan Rudež.
I would imagine that Pekovic was ncluded in returning minutes since he is still on the team getting paid.
I have decided my goal might be to find out when Zach Lowe is in town to cover the team, and seek out his autograph. He is by far my favorite writer and was declared the best sports writer today by some guy from Slate. I listen to his podcast with fervor, I laugh at his dorkiness, his enthusiasm is the intelligent kind. He avoids the rah rah macho BS that you can find often in sports. His background of an actual journalist, covering the beat of local crime in the Northeast makes it seem like he has mastered his trade by covering his passion.
Thats all for now. No movement on the ticket front...
Friday, September 2, 2016
Selling Tickets a new primer
The process of selling tickets for a handful of NBA teams has changed. A new website software called FlashSeats ( company owned by Dan Gilbert of Quicken Loans & Cleveland Cavaliers) has set up a model where tickets have a price floor and are only deliverable electronically. This has cut out the many scalpers and 3rd party sellers who were taking a cut of the proceeds. The floor for the Timberwolves has been set at 75% of face value. This level angered many season ticket holders last season and perhaps prompted many on the fence to not renew tickets. I myself think my seats are therefore a handful of rows closer in their price range then otherwise would have been possible for an up and coming team.
I had previously sold my tickets in seasons past at Stubhub, but this year have listed a handful and sold 3 games already. I may be hasty in listing, and demand may be higher when the season begins, but I feel the hype is pretty good right now before people get too distracted by the NFL machine. I was able to sell over face value for all of the games so far. I sold the Los Angeles Clippers 1st visit at home for $180 (it is a top tiered Saturday night game), The home opener I messed up and only sold for $120 and the 1st Lakers visit I sold for $150. So that brings the remaining games average down to $56 a ticket/$112 a game.
This does not factor in any preseason sales, which includes two games. But I feel pretty good about getting money starting to roll in right away with smaller returns then might be possible during the season. This way I avoid any risk of a major player injury driving down demand, it's a safe play I feel and the real payoff will come with the Golden State Warriors two visits. The real challenge will come when the early week games against bottom of the league teams fail to drive demand, and some tickets have to be eaten ( I may attend a good half dozen throughout the season). But hopefully the Timberwolves themselves will be the factor of desire for many fans. But I am hoping my advantageous ticket placement in the target center seating/pricing scheme will help out.
I had previously sold my tickets in seasons past at Stubhub, but this year have listed a handful and sold 3 games already. I may be hasty in listing, and demand may be higher when the season begins, but I feel the hype is pretty good right now before people get too distracted by the NFL machine. I was able to sell over face value for all of the games so far. I sold the Los Angeles Clippers 1st visit at home for $180 (it is a top tiered Saturday night game), The home opener I messed up and only sold for $120 and the 1st Lakers visit I sold for $150. So that brings the remaining games average down to $56 a ticket/$112 a game.
This does not factor in any preseason sales, which includes two games. But I feel pretty good about getting money starting to roll in right away with smaller returns then might be possible during the season. This way I avoid any risk of a major player injury driving down demand, it's a safe play I feel and the real payoff will come with the Golden State Warriors two visits. The real challenge will come when the early week games against bottom of the league teams fail to drive demand, and some tickets have to be eaten ( I may attend a good half dozen throughout the season). But hopefully the Timberwolves themselves will be the factor of desire for many fans. But I am hoping my advantageous ticket placement in the target center seating/pricing scheme will help out.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Hiring a CEO is like a New Coach and President
Coaching acquisition & a new Prez
With the hype of Summer League, the Olympics and the hysteria of NBA Free Agency all dying down, I am ready to discuss my ticket sales experiment or investment. I have been a longtime Timberwolves and basketball fan, and have in the past been a season ticket holder. Now this year when buying tickets it was for the express purpose of trying to create income from the investment. I will in turn be comparing my financial status to that of the two other major stocks traded publicly. One of the best comparable is MSG the Madison Square Garden ownership group ran by James Dolan, if one thought the value of the Knicks and it's income growth to be imminent you could purchase stock in this company to see the residual benefits. The other option but less similar is MANU, the publicly traded stock of the Manchester United soccer/football club.
I am hopeful of the playoffs, and this may turn into a multiple year experiment where there is a greater chance for post season play. If that becomes the case there is certainly a place to break down the extra payback/income that will generate.
I purchased my season tickets on April 21st 2016, the day the Timberwolves announced the hiring of Coach and President Tom Thibodeau. In that sense it might be like purchasing a stock the day a company announces a change in CEO, so lets review the past coaches and preformances of the team against some of the top performing coaches in the game today, based only on wins & losses.
Here is the list of top 10 win percentage current coaches on basketball-reference.com
Yrs Seasons W-L Percentage
I am hopeful of the playoffs, and this may turn into a multiple year experiment where there is a greater chance for post season play. If that becomes the case there is certainly a place to break down the extra payback/income that will generate.
I purchased my season tickets on April 21st 2016, the day the Timberwolves announced the hiring of Coach and President Tom Thibodeau. In that sense it might be like purchasing a stock the day a company announces a change in CEO, so lets review the past coaches and preformances of the team against some of the top performing coaches in the game today, based only on wins & losses.
Here is the list of top 10 win percentage current coaches on basketball-reference.com
Yrs Seasons W-L Percentage
| Steve Kerr | 2015 | 2016 | 2 | 164 | 140 | 24 | .854 |
| Gregg Popovich | 1997 | 2016 | 20 | 1574 | 1089 | 485 | .692 |
| Billy Donovan | 2016 | 2016 | 1 | 82 | 55 | 27 | .671 |
| Erik Spoelstra | 2009 | 2016 | 8 | 640 | 399 | 241 | .623 |
and rounding out 11th is Rick Carlisle.
So everyone except Thibodeau and Donavan has won a championchip in the top 5. All of the coaches have been to the conference finals (Joerger as an assistant) and 6 out of the 10 have been to the NBA finals. The top 7 coaches all have had the luck to coach MVP or former MVP players on their roster. Thibodeau has coached 4 separate players during their All-Star Year (Derrick Rose, Loul Deng, Joakim Noah, Jimmy Butler).
The last All-Star the Timberwolves had voted in by the fans was Kevin Love twice (once in 2011 as a replacement for the injured Yao Ming) in 2012 and 2014. But perhaps this could be a new year of All-Stars depending on the assumed growth and development of the three burgeoning stars of Lavine, Towns, and Wiggins.
Many times stocks go up and down based on the news of the retirement or ousting of a CEO/executive. The hiring of Tom Thibodeau was a historically unprecedented hire of someone with an outstanding track record. The Timberwolves last hired a successful coach under the GM David Kahn, when Rick Adelman (career win % of .582) was hired and then proceeded to have 3 of his worst 6 seasons as a head coach, but almost broke .500 his last season with Flip Saunders as GM.
So this move bodes well from a franchise value perspective. Much hype surrounds a team with a two time dunk champion and the last two Rookie of the Year winners. This years draft pick of Kris Dunn was just voted by his rookie peers as most likely to win ROY in the 2016-17 season. Much remains to be seen.
An upcoming blog will report on the financial status of the ticket situation as this was just surmizing the lay of the land and helping to forecast ideas on potential future growth.
Monday, August 29, 2016
Ticket Season Begins
This is the beginning of a financial experiment. The day the Timberwolves announced the hiring of head coach Tom Thibodeau I bought season tickets. As this older article on Reuters talks about there is such thing as timing your purchase. The Minnesota Timberwolves have had the slogan "Eyes on the rise" a riff of the civil rights era documentary 'Eyes on the Prize', and I thought the addition of the well know head coach would be perfect timing for such a bet.
I bought lower deck tickets in Row G for a sum of $4730, making all 41 home games average out to be $57.68 for one ticket, or $115.36 for each game. This does not include preseason tickets and for now we will leave the possibility of playoffs out of the equation.
Other things to note is that with many credit card cash back options you could take a dollar off each ticket price.
The Timberwolves had released the tickets yesterday and I hastily sold the season home opener for $120 or $60/seat but realized my error in estimating the higher demand for the season home opener. I think now I could have probably gotten closer to $80 but this will hopefully be a learning experience that I will also document.
I had previously been a season ticket holder for two seasons during the last year of Al Jefferson and the beginning of Kevin Love's rise into the ranks of NBA stardom. This was the 2011-12 season and the 12-13 season. Two very dismal years for the organization that sputtered at the bottom of the league and positioned itself into a rebuild by being able to trade Kevin Love for the #1 drift pick Andrew Wiggins. The highlight of my game viewing was when Kevin Love scored 30 points and had 30 rebounds.
I will write more in the future... right now this is about getting down the details.
I bought lower deck tickets in Row G for a sum of $4730, making all 41 home games average out to be $57.68 for one ticket, or $115.36 for each game. This does not include preseason tickets and for now we will leave the possibility of playoffs out of the equation.
Other things to note is that with many credit card cash back options you could take a dollar off each ticket price.
The Timberwolves had released the tickets yesterday and I hastily sold the season home opener for $120 or $60/seat but realized my error in estimating the higher demand for the season home opener. I think now I could have probably gotten closer to $80 but this will hopefully be a learning experience that I will also document.
I had previously been a season ticket holder for two seasons during the last year of Al Jefferson and the beginning of Kevin Love's rise into the ranks of NBA stardom. This was the 2011-12 season and the 12-13 season. Two very dismal years for the organization that sputtered at the bottom of the league and positioned itself into a rebuild by being able to trade Kevin Love for the #1 drift pick Andrew Wiggins. The highlight of my game viewing was when Kevin Love scored 30 points and had 30 rebounds.
I will write more in the future... right now this is about getting down the details.
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