Kevin Love Trade: The End Is Nigh
Apr 8, 2014; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love (42) grabs the ball pre game at Target Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
As of now, the Kevin Love trade talk is almost non-existant. If this were an old Western, then this is the part where you’d see a tumbleweed blowing across a dirt road somewhere.
On a nearby porch, there’d be a wrinkled man in a rocking chair with his trusty canine companion beside him keeping the lookout. At the saloon, the bartender would give a freebee to the local drunk, and the fancy gals would clean up last night’s brawl while waiting for the gold diggers and cowboys to ride in for the night.
With the deadly hot sun rising higher and higher, only the vultures would willingly bear its burden, happily waiting for an unfortunate something to die in the desert. All in all, things would be just a little too quiet.
Obviously, the Wolves’ offseason isn’t a Western, but still, things are pretty quiet ’round these parts. And like the characters from the cowboy tropes, we as fans are waiting for that saloon door to be kicked open, and for some faraway messenger to bring us some fortune improving news.
We know the catalyst of change is coming, and that this moratorium is only the calm before the chaos. On the 23rd or shortly thereafter, the trade will go down, and Kevin Love will be gone. This isn’t a matter of debate, and it hasn’t been since the trade was unofficially announced on August 8th.
Yet the real time clock was set in motion when Andrew Wiggins signed his rookie contract last month. With the hour glass finally turned and the grains of sand slowly trickling down, the wait was officially on. Since then it’s been like a kid waiting for Christmas in July, or using Napster to download your music. Weeks have gone by in dullness and boredom. Tick tock.
But now we’re almost there, and the buzz is back. Like Phil Collins, we “can feel it in the air.” I don’t know, you can probably smell it, too. Maybe you have a heightened sense of intuition and you’re experiencing premonitions or goose bumps. The superstitious among us will be going to sleep in their tattered KG Jerseys.
If you believe in God, you’re praying; if you believe in karma, you’re giving; and if you believe in Star Wars then, we’ll, you’re doing your absolute best to bring balance to the force. Personally, I’m mixing and matching all of the above. Anything to get it right this time around.
High Noon finally arrives on Saturday, and like villagers in the old Western town, we’ll sit by and watch helplessly as the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Cleveland Cavaliers engage in an old fashioned shootout. Flip Saunders and David Griffin will draw their trade shooters and BANG! It’ll all be over.
The dust will settle, and there will be a victor. But unlike the instant gratification of movies where one man lives and the other is left for the vultures, we’ll have to wait for years before we know who truly wins this showdown.
All of this waiting. It never seems to end. It makes me wonder what we’re even waiting for…Is it the playoffs? Or championships? Are we waiting for Godot? If so, we could be waiting a long, long time.
In all likelihood this weekend will mark the end of one era and the beginning of another for our Minnesota Timberwolves. By Monday’s new moon (Yeah, I’m in to moon cycles.), Flip Saunders will be welcoming a group of young, talented, and exciting players to our team. And if you’re into that kind of basketball, then you can rejoice because the wait will be over.
It’ll finally be here.