Tag: Minnesota Timberwolves

Still, it was a more promising time for me, a Timberwolves fan since their early days in the league. I have less time now to do the things I did when I was in my early 20s, and thankfully so. I miss sports games now, even when my favorite teams are playing. The Western Conference playoff race was unprecedented in how tight it was: The third-place team and the ninth-place team were separated by four wins or less, depending on when you checked, so a short winning streak or a short losing streak could mean the difference between being locked in a high-playoff seed or sitting at home. The Timberwolves were in third place once, briefly, toward the end of February. In a perfect storm of scheduling, the NBA had Denver and Minnesota play each other in the final game of the season, their records tied, with the winner getting into the NBA playoffs. I found myself thrilled by this, rooting for a team that I once imagined great, before they became an underdog, having to claw their way to a place that they'd felt had been promised. If there is a difference in what draws me to sports now, it is narrative, and so I watched the Timberwolves in new ways, rooting for the race to get closer. Sports have been political for decades now, but the ways they present as political today can feel a lot more all-encompassing. It is easy to tune out the world's lurching forward.