Mike Miller News

Is this the bearded big's big breakthrough? Said bearded big is Greg Oden , who teamed with LaMarcus Aldridge to overwhelm Joakim Noah and the Chicago Bulls on Monday.

The Timberwolves' 10-game losing streak has not led to second thoughts from team president of basketball operations David Kahn about the possibility that he made too many offseason deals for salary cap reasons.

When Coach Flip Saunders took over as an early-season replacement with the Minnesota Timberwolves in December 1995, his team lost seven of its first eight games. But when Saunders took over the Detroit Pistons nearly 10 years later, his team won its first eight games, setting off his most successful three-year run in the NBA and perhaps spoiling him with the relative ease of the transition.

Saunders's first eight games with the Washington Wizards (2-6) have served as a not-so-friendly reminder that even an amateur magician such as Saunders can't heal injured players and produce wins with the snap of a finger. The early bumps -- especially the offensive inefficiency -- have challenged his patience, but one of his former players, Chauncey Billups, called on Thursday night to help calm him.

Five games into the beautiful 2009 NBA season and already teams are starting to show their true colors.

Ray Richardson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports : Timberwolves forward Oleksiy Pecherov has become the team's most improved player, and he's done it in the past three games.

In less than a week, Oleksiy Pecherov has gone through a surprising transformation in the Timberwolves' offense - from unnoticed to almost irreplaceable.

Corey Brewer was the seventh overall selection in the 2007 NBA draft. He was such a bricklayer as a rookie that there was the impression the Timberwolves had spent this lofty choice on a player destined to be a defensive specialist.

When Randy Foye met with media the day after the trade to acquire he and Mike Miller was finalized, he sounded like a man who was both eager and hungry to make a change.A During his three losing seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves,A A heA endured three coaching changes in three years, and he was never given a clear,A defined role.

In three games, Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas has managed to shift discussion from his surgically repaired left knee to whether he might return to All-Star status.

Get in-game updates from your phone or PC at startribune.com . Preview: The Cavaliers have lost two in a row, and the Wolves are coming off a season-opening, buzzer-beating victory over the Nets, so it would seem everything is lined up for the Cavs to get healthy against the undermanned, underappreciated Timberwolves.

The Kevin McHale era is finally over in the twin cities. General Manager-Interim Coach McHale was fired after destroying what was once a competitive team.

It was just five years ago, but it seems like a tale from a different age. On a late October evening in 2004, the Timberwolves soared into Sioux Falls to play an NBA preseason game at the Arena, where they drilled the New York Knicks and brought major-league sizzle to a minor-league city.

If Timberwolves coach Kurt Rambis was considering using power forwards Kevin Love and Al Jefferson as a regular tandem in the lineup, the plan has been put on hold.

You've heard the expression, "No love lost." Well, it's happening for real. This is no way to start the NBA season, and for fantasy owners who were banking on Kevin Love helping them in the first month of the season, this is a huge blow.

The last acquisition still standing from David Kahn's first trade as Timberwolves boss, Oleksiy Pecherov, introduced himself to his new team's hometown fans Wednesday who probably view him just as NBA talent evaluators do: As a complete mystery.

It appears the Timberwolves are making progress in Kurt Rambis' classroom. The first-year Wolves coach often has said his top priority this season is to educate players on his system and what it takes to become an NBA contender.

Timberwolves forward Ryan Gomes had a wide-eyed look on his face when he saw Al Jefferson do something he never had seen his teammate do.

In 1997, I was quite stoked for the release of the film "A Life Less Ordinary." So much so that I attended the first matinee showing of it's opening weekend.

The remade Timberwolves made their Target Center debut this season with Friday night's preseason game against Toronto.

For Randy Foye , training camp might as well have been dubbed "The Great Point Guard Experiment, Part II." The new Wizard, whom current Wizards assistant coach Randy Wittman tried to make a point guard when he was coaching the Minnesota Timberwolves , spent nearly every drill, scrimmage and set initiating the offense on the ball during the ...