Grüße und Vorstellung » be greater than my own

For the first time since 2004 Cheap Clive Walford Jersey , the Minnesota Timberwolves are entering May without their customary collection of good-luck charms for the NBA draft lottery.

The longest-running absence from the playoffs in the league finally over, the Wolves took a significant accomplishment into the summer after their 47-35 record during the regular season tied for the fifth-best in franchise history.

”When you haven’t done something for 14 years, it’s a major step for our organization, and it’s not easy to do. Winning in this league is very difficult, and we should understand that,” said president of basketball operations and head coach Tom Thibodeau, who joined general manager Scott Layden on Monday for a wrapup news conference.

Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns gave the Timberwolves multiple representatives at the All-Star game for the first time since Kevin Garnett and Sam Cassell in 2004 on their way to the Western Conference finals. That was the most recent postseason appearance until the first round series with Houston tipped off earlier this month. With 16 out of 41 home games declared sellouts, they had their highest number since 1991-92, and local television ratings were way up, too.

Still, in typical Timberwolves fashion, the road to relevancy was not without potholes.

Falling in five games to the Rockets was forgivable, considering their opponent had the NBA’s best record, but the Wolves were beaten a total of eight times by the league’s bottom eight teams that all won fewer than 29 games. Win just two of those, and they’re in third place in the West with a much more favorable matchup for the playoffs.

With Butler the resident alpha male in the locker room, the Wolves can no longer be considered an up-and-coming atmosphere where patience with the development of young cornerstones Towns and Andrew Wiggins will be welcomed. With the presence of Butler and the other acquisitions from last year Youth Kendall Wright Jersey , Taj Gibson, Jeff Teague and Jamal Crawford, there’s clearly a win-now window in place.

”They’ve learned what it takes to get yourself to the playoffs,” Butler said. ”Now us as a whole, we have to figure out what it takes to win, whenever we get there. No matter what seed we are, that’s what we’re expected to do.”

Layden wondered aloud whether the Wolves should have been more aggressive to acquire a new player at the trade deadline in February.

”We had a lot of things that went back and forth, and maybe we should’ve done something a little different,” Layden said. ”I take responsibility for that, but we’re always looking to push and push and get better.”

BUTLER’S HEALTH

Thibodeau has always leaned heavily on the starters he trusts the most, and this season with the Wolves was no exception. Butler was third in the NBA with an average of 36.7 minutes played per game, and coincidentally or not he missed 23 games, all but two because of trouble with his right knee. Thibodeau said Butler will not need an additional procedure.

Butler can also opt out of his contract after next season, without an extension in place.

”It’s important for him to feel good about everything that we’re doing here,” Thibodeau said.

LONG RANGE

The Wolves actually led the NBA during the playoffs with a 41.3 percent make rate from 3-point range, but part of the problem is a lack of space in the playbook for setting up attempts from beyond the arc. They finished last in the league in the regular season with an average of eight 3-pointers made per game.

”I thought our guys in the second half of the season were doing a very good job of looking for opportunities http://www.falconsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-ito-smith-jersey , but we do have to take more,” Thibodeau said.

Even owner Glen Taylor, in an interview earlier this month with his hometown newspaper, the Mankato Free Press, openly questioned the lack of improvement.

”If other teams can learn to shoot 3s, why can’t we?” Taylor told the Free Press.

WINNING WITH WIGGINS?

The maximum contract the Wolves gave Wiggins last summer will kick in next season, paying the 23-year-old more than $25 million. There’s no player on the roster who will be under more pressure to be more consistently productive on both ends of the court.

”The experience of the playoffs was huge for him. He did a lot of good things,” Thibodeau said. ”I think we saw down the stretch him playing a more complete game, and I think he can build off that.”

BJELICA

Nemanja Bjelica, who played both forward spots off the bench and was a relatively productive starter during Butler’s absence, will be a restricted free agent. His playing time was scant during the playoff series, which Thibodeau said was matchup-related.

”But I thought overall he played really well for us,” Thibodeau said. ”Sometimes you have to put the team first.”

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Barring unforeseen circumstances, rookie Josh Rosen will begin his first NFL season on the sidelines as Arizona's backup quarterback.

The preseason, though, will be his chance to shine Authentic James Neal Jersey , beginning Saturday night when the Cardinals play at home against the Los Angeles Chargers.

"We want him to play quite a bit and really get into the flow of the game," coach Steve Wilks said.

Rosen said his two weeks of training camp have "gone really well."

"I think I've gotten better pretty much every day since I've gotten here," the former UCLA star said before Wednesday' practice.

Sam Bradford is Arizona's starter but the Cardinals view Rosen as their franchise quarterback of the future. Why else would they have moved up five spots in the draft to pluck him 10th overall?

Asked for specific areas of improvement since he became a pro, Rosen cites "a bunch of things."

"The most tangible is probably the playbook," he said. "I feel a lot more comfortable and fluid with it at the line of scrimmage. I'm focusing more and more with what the defense is trying to do to me rather than making sure I get the right snap count and in the right protection."

He said he's also picking up "the little things on how to use the double-cadence to try and buy yourself time and get someone offside, just little tricks of the trade I didn't know when I was in college."

From the beginning Bradford and Rosen seem to have gotten along well.

"Sam's actually really good with all those little things," Rosen said. "He's a crafty vet and very successful for a lot of different reasons. He might not share every reason with me, but I'll take advantage of the ones that he does."

Bradford said Rosen "asks the right questions."

"He's hungry for information," Bradford said. "It seems like he's always trying to learn something. It doesn't stop in the meeting rooms. Even at the dinner table he'll ask me.

"It's fun to be around someone like that and to hopefully try to be able to help him. I share with him some of the experiences I've had, some of the things I've learned over the years. Hopefully it can relate to him and can help him in some way."

Wilks wouldn't say how much Rosen will play on Saturday night but it will be long enough to do some serious evaluation.

"The mechanics of really running the offense," Wilks said, "putting guys in the right position from a protection standpoint, going through his progression and reads and really just trying to detail the fundamentals."

Rosen is running second on the depth chart, ahead of Mike Glennon, who also figures to play a lot Saturday.

Early in camp, Rosen said he was thinking too much.

"I think I've gotten a lot better since then and continue to each day Customized Dallas Cowboys Jerseys ," he said. "The less thinking you can do, the more you can allow yourself to physically do what I've been doing since Pop Warner, and play the game I know."

As a big-name rookie quarterback, Rosen knows his every move will be scrutinized by fans and critics.

"It's part of the game," he said. "I stay relatively offline for the most part. The most pressure I feel from anyone is myself. I'm very, very highly self-critical, almost too much at times. There's no pressure that should be greater than my own."

There's no changing his throwing style either, which includes an occasional sidearm toss on a bubble screen.

"It's not just how hard or far you can throw it," Rosen said. "It's being able to change your arm slot and delivery. I think Aaron (Rodgers) is the best at it because sort of like mid-throw, your ability to throw sidearm to fit a quick screen in there or just kind of contort your body to get halfback screens and stuff in there."

No one has tried to alter that style, he said.

"They drafted me for what I can do and I'm here to deliver that," Rosen said.

He said he's made preparation for the NFL a day-by-day process.

"Right now I'm fully in work mode," he said. "I'm trying to be the best that I can be and over the course of my career I'm trying to win Super Bowls. And right now I'm trying to put my best foot forward in this preseason game."

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