{"id":49336,"date":"2023-04-24T21:55:47","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T02:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=49336"},"modified":"2023-04-25T21:56:05","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T02:56:05","slug":"someone-get-the-minnesota-timberwolves-a-trophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=49336","title":{"rendered":"Someone get the Minnesota Timberwolves a trophy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-49337 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_7272.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_7272.jpg 560w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_7272-300x161.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">They avoided getting swept!\u00a0 They may as well be NBA champions for demonstrating such guile and determination and defeating the mighty and championship pedigree of the Denver Nuggets to stave off elimination.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">This, is the very definition of <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/3flv5nWZgII\">lowered expectations<\/a>, and precisely the instance why I actually have a tag in my brog entitled \u201clowered expectations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Sometimes, the NBA is just so hilarious at how soft and silly it\u2019s become over the decades.\u00a0 There\u2019s so much noise surrounding the entire league, that the actual act of playing hoops seems so almost tertiary.\u00a0 It is entirely possible to get sucked up in the drama and storylines of an entire NBA season and not actually watch a single game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">But back to this hilarious screen grab, it\u2019s perfect on so many levels:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">First, it\u2019s not even remotely accurate that the Timberwolves avoided getting swept for the first time in franchise history; back when the playoffs were still best-of-five, the Wolves were swept in both 1997 and 2002, but the NBA for some reason likes to disregard the BO5 era unless it\u2019s in support of whatever narrative they\u2019re phishing for.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">They act like the Wolves getting swept would be some sort of monumental history or something; Minnesota isn\u2019t an OG NBA franchise, having come into the league in the 1990 expansion, but in 30+ years, they\u2019ve only made the playoffs 11 times. That\u2019s literally 33% of the franchise\u2019s existence they\u2019ve gotten into the playoffs, and of those 11 times, only once have they gotten out of the first round, and that was Kevin Garnett\u2019s MVP season.\u00a0 Otherwise, the Minnesota Timberwolves are definition of a middling pretender that may never actually win an NBA championship ever.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Rudy Gobert being in the frame is like the cherry on top, because I can\u2019t say that I follow the NBA much, but whenever I do hear about the NBA, Rudy Gobert\u2019s name has come up a surprising amount, and it\u2019s almost never in a good context. This is the guy that was the league\u2019s Patient Zero when COVID started, but not only did he deny coronavirus, the guy dared the world to give it to him, and he made a spectacle of rubbing microphones and tried his best to get it, and by golly did he succeed.\u00a0 As soon as he tested positive, the NBA shut down shortly thereafter.\u00a0 Oh, and just a few weeks ago, the Wolves ended their season with Gobert getting into a fight\u2026 with a teammate.\u00a0 Real smart guy, that Rudy Gobert is<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Whatever though, let\u2019s hear it for the Minnesota Timberwolves for <span style=\"text-decoration-line: line-through;\">winning the NBA Championship after 33 long years of operation<\/span> staving off getting swept because they\u2019re totally going to be the first franchise in NBA history to ever come back from an 0-3 series deficit, and that statistic, is very much factual with no asterisks or caveats.\u00a0 Maybe the Wolves can build on this grandiose achievement, and perhaps in 22 more years, get knocked out of the first round in game six instead.\u00a0 Progress!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They avoided getting swept!\u00a0 They may as well be NBA champions for demonstrating such guile and determination and defeating the mighty and championship pedigree of the Denver Nuggets to stave off elimination. This, is the very definition of lowered expectations, and precisely the instance why I actually have a tag in my brog entitled \u201clowered &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=49336\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Someone get the Minnesota Timberwolves a trophy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59,194,45,78,83,58],"class_list":["post-49336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-basketball","tag-coronavirus","tag-fail","tag-lowered-expectations","tag-observations","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49338,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49336\/revisions\/49338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}