This is the year?

The Minnesota Timberwolves start their season tonight with a lot of hope. A determined Kevin Love, a revitalized Ricky Rubio, the return of Corey Brewer, and a healthy Nikola Pekovic.

The Timberwolves have long been in buried in losses, horrible personnel decisions, and bad luck. The hope is that finally they’ve finally assembled a decent post-Garnett era team and can avoid injuries. They have a point guard that excels on defense and as a passer, a sharp shooting big man who also owns the boards, and a bruiser in the low post. They’ve also added enough pieces to assemble an actual NBA roster that appears capable of at least competing for a playoff spot.

This has happened before, the past few years the Timberwolves have put together decent rosters on paper only to have their season’s ruined by injuries. In 2011 Ricky Rubio blew out his knee in December and the team couldn’t hold on to make the playoffs without him. Last year, everyone else got hurt. Kevin Love missed almost the entire season, Nikola Pekovic missed 20 games, and Chase Budinger was out for more than half of the season. You can’t win many games when 3 of your starters miss that many games.

The Timberwolves haven’t been in the playoffs since 2004 and haven’t even been close in the years since. The closest they’ve been to a winning record was last season with an amazing record of 31-51. The following stat will give you an idea of how terrible the Timberwolves have been. In the past three seasons combined the Wolves have won a total of 74 games, last season alone the Miami Heat won 66.

Going into the home opener tonight almost everyone is healthy. Budinger reinjured his knee in the preseason but the Wolves have added multiple players that can replace his production. That’s right, the season hasn’t even started and the injuries have begun, or maybe not. Maybe Budinger just came back to early, just a fluke, the rest of the team will be fine. I sure hope so. If this season goes down the same way as the last 9 seasons, I don’t know if people will buy in again. You can only burn your fans so many times before they give up.

Who am I kidding? I’ve been a Vikings fan my entire life. I’m used to having my guts ripped out, I’d just like the Wolves to do it for once.