April 1, 2012; Portland, OR, USA; Portland Trail Blazers power forward LaMarcus Aldridge (12) drives to the basket on Minnesota Timberwolves power forward Kevin Love (42) during the first quarter of the game at the Rose Garden. Mandatory Credit: Steve Dykes-US PRESSWIRE

Tonight at 7:00 PM ET, NBA TV will broadcast a one-hour show announcing the marquee games of the 2012-2013 NBA Regular Season. The games that will be played on holidays such as Opening Night, Christmas Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. There will also be games announced that are not going to be on holidays but are basketball games everyone wants to see.

In recent seasons I have rarely seen the Minnesota Timberwolves mentioned in these kind of announcements. Who’s to blame them? The Wolves were the worst team in the NBA in the two seasons before the Charlotte Bobcats took that position. The Timberwolves were rarely ever shown on big nation-wide sports networks such as ESPN, TNT, or ESPN on ABC.

I will be shocked not to see the Timberwolves on at least a couple of games that will be shown live on those networks. Last season, I vividly remember that the Timberwolves were only shown on ESPN twice in a games against the Los Angeles Clippers, where Kevin Love had that amazing buzzer-beating three point shot to win the game, and the Phoenix Suns, to which the Wolves lost the contest.

Kevin Love is one of the best players in the NBA today and Ricky Rubio and Derrick Williams are two youngsters the rest of the nation outside of the state of Minnesota need to witness more often. The Timberwolves have already made multiple off-season adjustments in adding guards Brandon Roy and Russian Alexey Shved, solid defenders in center Greg Stiemsma and recently-signed forward Andrei Kirilenko, and role players in Dante Cunningham and Chase Budinger.

The Timberwolves managed to keep some valuable players who were important last season in NBA champion guard J.J Barea, who valiantly carried the team in the final games of the season, Luke Ridnour who had one of the best seasons in his career, and most of all Nikola Pekovic who had a break out season under the shadows of Linsanity. With head coach Rick Adelman still in place and still positive about his team, the Timberwolves are looking great for the season. However, in my opinion they still lack scorers, but I’m not going to get into that in this post.

Here is a list of games that I would love to see the Timberwolves play during holidays and regular days as well that would be shown on national television: (VS means at Minnesta)

• Minnesota Timberwolves @ Portland Trail Blazers – probably a great game for opening night at the Rose Garden in Portland as Brandon Roy returns to the NBA for the first time against the only NBA team he has played for before signing with the Wolves.
• Minnesota Timberwolves vs/@ Los Angeles Clippers - remember last season when these two clubs squared off that one time at Staples Center. Kevin Love hits a buzzer-beating three pointer to win the game. Yeah, that would be awesome.
• Minnesota Timberwolves vs/@ Oklahoma City Thunder - last season, the Oklahoma City Thunder had two tight games with the Timberwolves, one in Minnesota, and one in OKC. The defending Western Conference Champions is certainly going to be a team the Timberwolves can gauge themselves on how far they really are in the Western Conference.
• Minnesota Timberwolves vs/@ Los Angeles Lakers - Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum vs Nikola Pekovic and Kevin Love. Kobe Bryant vs Brandon Roy (hopefully he plays the same way he did before). Ricky Rubio vs Steve Nash. There’s nothing much to say but to watch out for Metta World Peace.
• Minnesota Timberwolves vs/@ Boston Celtics – it’s always a great atmosphere around Target Center whenever former Timberwolves franchise player Kevin Garnett comes to town. With KG at the twilights of his career, Timberwolves fans would certainly would enjoy and cherish every single moment they can see KG playing basketball in the NBA. Furthermore, not only it’s Stiemsma playing against his former club, but also it’s a great point guard match-up with RR and RR. Ricky Rubio and Rajon Rondo
• Minnesota Timberwolves vs/@ Miami Heat – this is the last match-up I’m throwing out here. This is a team the Timberwolves must beat if they would ever want to win an NBA championship in the next couple of years. All their acquisitions, movements, and deals with other NBA teams will be pointless if they can’t win an NBA championship. The Heat is always the team on my mind whenever teams around the NBA make moves. I always wonder, “can this beat the Heat?” For the T-Wolves, no. But this game will certainly test the Wolves to the distance and show us what they lack.

For more NBA analysis and opinions, check out Theon’s general NBA blog, THEONBA!

Jun 21, 2012; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Heat small forward LeBron James (6) celebrates with the Bill Russell mvp trophy after winning the NBA championship in game five of the 2012 NBA Finals at the American Airlines Arena. The Heat defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 121-106. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

First and foremost, *clears throat*, well deserved LeBron well deserved …

Through all the criticisms and insults, through all the  ridiculous NBA Memes on Facebook, through all the jabs thrown at you by NBA Hall of Famers, owners (Hi Dan Gilbert, the Cavs owner who promised to win an NBA championship before LeBron!) and sports analysts and journalists, through all the hatred thrown at you from basically everywhere since you decided to take your talents to South Beach, and through all heartbreaking losses in the post season, LeBron pulled through and led, yes led, not D-Wade anymore nuh-uh, the Miami Heat to the franchise’s second NBA championship.

His determination, focus, perseverance, and hard work in this year’s NBA post season is easily comparable to those of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, two players LeBron has always been compared to. Throughout the entire post season, LeBron has dominated the games, especially when it mattered the most and when his team was on the ropes (Game 6 vs Boston), and through all those successes in the first 15 wins of the NBA playoffs, LeBron rarely smiled.

In the past NBA post seasons, LeBron would normally celebrate a lot after eliminating a team or whenever the Heat or even Cavaliers would win a game. This post season, just as we have seen from Kobe before, LeBron was a man on a mission. And he was 100% serious about winning an NBA championship this year. When the clock was ticking down in Game 5, that was the only time I have honestly seen LeBron James very happy this entire NBA post season. The way he celebrated in this game was similar to how he acted after winning a Game 3 of an NBA 1st round series, but not this post season until he won the title for sure.

Congratulations LeBron and congratulations as well to Chris Bosh for winning his first NBA championship. Well deserved you guys, you’ve earned it. And now it’s time to win another one, and then another one, and then another one … is that what you promised LeBron? Anyways, I won’t try to bring that up and make that a huge topic, all that matters now and in the future is that LeBron James has won an NBA championship and it was well-deserved.

Congratulations to the 2012 NBA Champion Miami Heat! 

Come ooooon Timberwolves … tick tock

For more NBA analysis and opinions check out Theon’s NBA blog at THEONBA!

Jun 21, 2012; Miami, FL, USA; The Miami Heat celebrate winning the 2012 NBA championship at the American Airlines Arena. Miami won 121-106. Mandatory Credit: Robert Mayer-US PRESSWIRE