A Summer Summary

As I've traveled and enjoyed the Summer my attention to the sports scene has been diminished. That's far from a unique circumstance this time of year, but has been compounded by the fact that the Twins have been somewhere between abysmal and forgettable.

In addition to that, the addition I have put toward sports over the last week has been to prioritized the soon coming positivity.

Football is almost back folks. That is an annual fact that brings nothing but positive emotions. If not for the product on the field, for the hardcore fantasy football that can once again breath.

But I digress because this is not about football, at least not mostly.

The New Cleveland

Before I even begin, whether Cleveland wins the NBA championship tonight or not I don't think they are actually going to be replaced because of the general incompetence of the Browns and long history of misfortune for the Cavs and Indians. Yet a championship would take them off the list of pro sports championship droughts.

As it stands, Cleveland has the third longest drought (52 years). Ottawa dwarfs that with an 89 year drought and San Diego has a 53 year drought. The difference, and I think it's significant, is the number of pro teams that the cities has.

Ottawa has the Senators but no other big time pro sports teams. San Diego has the Chargers and Padres. Cleveland has the Cavs, Browns and Indians, no other team on the list between Cleveland and Minnesota has that many and obviously Minnesota has all four. Yet hasn't had a championship in 25 years. That's 100 years of seasons. Ugggghhhh yuck. Why did Brett have to throw across his body. Why did AP have to fumble so much. Dang it 09.

Now I get that the Lynx have been awesome over the last 5+ years and I've given them due and will do so again before the summer is out. But the WNBA is probably not in the top 10 of sports in this country (that would be including college sports) so I really don't want to lean on that as the drought defeater.

There's more too it that I'll get to after the break.

Coach Speak

The Minnesota sports teams have had an array of coaches over the years. Some of them were pitiful, some excellent. I think that the current lot of coaches is as good as there has ever been in this area.

Bruce Boudreau
Mike Zimmer
Tom Thibodeau
Cheryl Reeve

I'm not a hockey fan so I'm going to give my take on Boudreau first. Much to my chagrin the NHL season still hasn't even wrapped so making any postulations about a new coach is premature and foolish but reflecting on his past work may point toward future results. He's been the head coach for
the Washington Capitals and the Anaheim Ducks. Every year he's been in charge have resulted in his team's having a winning record. That's an impressive statistic on it's own but within that is one that is most impressive. In 2011 he was fired by the Capitals 21 games into the season. He had a 12 and nine record but there must have been extenuating circumstances which resulted in his release. It seems that it was only a problem with Caps and not with him because in-season the Ducks hired him as their head man. With no off season or training camp he was able to guide the Ducks to a 27 - 23 record. Not the most impressive win loss ever but when adding in those details its a good showing of who he has been and hopefully who he will continue to be for the hockey lovers out there.

But on to the other three now

Fast Break

So there have been some big local news breaks over the past couple days but none of them merit a post alone so I'm gonna go with a quick wrap on everything.

• The Lynx are undefeated. 7 - 0 with more double digit wins then single digit victories. This is what champions do. Great job ladies!

• Rumor has it the Timberwolves will pursue Joakim Noah from the Bulls. That's not especially surprising since he played very well under Thibs during the Bulls recent run of success. I'm not sure he has longevity or athleticism to merit a starting roll type contract for the pups but his experience will probably deride that to some degree if he signs here.

• A few days ago Vegas put out odds on every NBA's team chance to win the 2017 championship. The local five were eleventh. A team that hasn't made the playoffs since I was frosh in high school is in the top 11!!!! There are only four Western Conference teams above them. It's unbelievable! Fairness in facts, they're tied with three other West teams so as not to mislead. Do I think they're a contender? No. But Vegas gets these things wrong so rarely. Even they're putting money on our squad making the playoffs!

Drama Town

Coming on the heels of the Baylor revelation most of what I'm about to spout about is insignificant. I have a strong and at least moderately controversial opinion about what should happen to people who sexually abuse others. It's much more important then sports. It's more tragic then the loss of any game. It is a terrible representation by a school that on paper aligns itself with a certain sect of Christianity. I hope that those people turn to Jesus and find healing for the wounds.

Closing Statement

144 - 109

Quick poll, who do you think scored which? Your options are the Timberwolves and the Pelicans.

Spoiler alert: The Timberwolves won

If this were the Wolves of old they would have folded like an origami flower but instead of enjoying a 50% increase in wins from last season and leave their games in the locker room they closed out with the best effort of the season and one of the best in the history of the franchise.

Shooting 65% with other 46% from 3 and 82% from the line. yeah, they were on fire.

The negatives will point to the fact that New Orleans is little more then a D-league team at this point but they hammered them in a way that they have not done all season and good to great teams win games emphatically that they are supposed to beat.

But as per usual, more after the jump

Vikings Draft - Stage 2

So working on up from the bottom of the seventh round I think the Vikings would benefit from going defensive line and wide receiver. That would create competition at some important areas while allowing for the remainder of the draft to bring in guys to strengthen other areas of the team.

As mentioned before, I'm completely ignoring the likelihood of Spielman making trades with some of the picks.

The two picks I want to speculate about today are number 198, from the sixth round and 160, from the fifth round.

I'll get to it just across the divide.

Dominance ignored

In the landscape of sports there is likely some argument over what would be the Everest. Personally I don't think anything tops the NFL for pro sports or Division 1 football for collegiate athletics. We're a football crazy country. As an outlier to that, I think that the evidence that the NCAA Men's basketball tournament rivals the super bowl for viewership, which is a testament to the Super Bowl since it's one event versus 67 games.

But the sports landscape is much broader then the NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA Football & Basketball. Sure there are other sports shown as brief highlights on that E network but that never really does justice to the athletes for their work. They probably would say they don't need the attention, but needing and deserving are different things. The fact that there isn't as much profitability or national prominence shouldn't matter.

To that end, I feel like highlight 2 of the most dominant sports programs over the last 5+ years that haven't gotten nearly enough attention in my estimation.

That and more after the break!