Ricky Rubio Injury: the magic is gone, our humor remains

If you were to go back and look at my Northwest Division preview article, you’d see that I predicted a 39-win season for our Timberwolves. Six games in, the prediction already seems bogus. That wasn’t the case just a few short days ago when Ricky Rubio was healthy.

Backtrack to last Wednesday night: the Wolves had just defeated the Nets in Brooklyn in a game where rookie Andrew Wiggins scored 17 points the easy way. With the impressive win, I was actually starting to feel pretty comfortable with my 39-win prediction. I even began entertaining outlandish thoughts of Wolves playoff glory. Like Fox Mulder from The X-Files, I want(ed) to believe.

To truly understand the level of my excitement after the Brooklyn win you’d have to imagine the Kool-Aid Man dunking over LeBron James from the three-point line with commentator Kevin Harlan doing the play-by-play: “Mr. Kool-Aid with no regard for human life!!!” That’s where I was at. Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, the Kool-Aid Man spilled his juice on Kevin Love before, during, and after the jam. Oh, yeah.

In other words, I was feeling alright.

What happened next though was…well…unthinkable. You’ve seen the injury enough on replay, so I won’t bother posting it here, but take a listen to Flip Saunders after the game. You can hear it in his voice. It’s the heartbroken sound of a coach who just lost his majestic unicorn/starting point guard:

Poor Flip. Poor Ricky. Pour us another shot of the good stuff and make it quick. (three is comedy, but it doesn’t save this joke, does it? *sigh*  Nope.)

If this Timberwolves season were a movie, then Ricky Rubio’s injury would be its inciting incident. You know: the point in the flick when the world of the story is altered by an unforeseen event that kick starts the plot and sends the protagonist on an adventure that he/she never planned to otherwise go on. Mythology writer Joseph Campbell would’ve called Rubio’s injury “the call to adventure.” Wolves’ fans just call it a big pile of crap. You say potato…

Speaking of potatoes, movies, and big piles of crap, I was watching the cult classic

Drowning Mona

the other day and it reminded me of the Wolves’ current predicament.  In probably my favorite scene from the film, DeVito tries to cheer up Bette Midler’s character with the classic saying, “Life gives you potatoes, make potato salad.” Here’s the clip:

With the possibility of Rubio being out for up to two months, I think it’s high time we made a little

craptato salad

of our own.

Now, I don’t know how to make anything edible except Hot Pockets, but no matter because craptato salad isn’t real—it’s only metaphor for making the best of things. I think you probably get it, but just in case you’re more mathematically inclined: craptato salad = making the best of things. Then again, I don’t even know if I get it. Metaphors are hard…

…Let’s put this crap to work.

So, Zach LaVine is now our starting point guard. Let that soak in for a second. Got it? Great. Now, there are two ways of looking at this: The typical way, or the craptastic way.

The typical Wolves fan looks at the Wolves problems through the typical Wolves prism. “Oh, jeez, Rubio’s down. There goes the season. Honey, where’s my old jean jacket? You know the one that makes me feel young and important? Yeah, that one. Could you grab it for me? I’m going to the store to pick up another four-pack of Surly Furious. If I’m not back in 30 minutes, call the deuce-deuce.”

We all know this guy. At some point we’ve probably all been this guy. This guy blows. Don’t be this guy.

Now let’s look at this craptastically. “Zach LaVine’s our starting point guard? Okay, that’s kinda crappy, but you know what? At least we’re going to see a few more dunks with Zach on the floor, and he’ll gain some experience that might come in handy down the line. I mean ‘Bounce Brothers’ is a crappy name, but seeing Wiggins and LaVine on the floor together could be kinda fun. Honey, do know where my jean jacket is? I need to make a beer run.”

See the subtle difference?  At the end of the day, craptato salad doesn’t taste very good. In fact, it’s terrible. But if you can find a way to trick yourself into “making the best of the situation” with a heavy dose of craptato salad, you’ll be able to turn any lunch into a picnic.

And that’s what it’s all about right sports fans?

On the slight chance that you absolutely hated this post, I’m sorry to say that I can’t give you back your wasted time, but I can give you this funny clip courtesy of the fine folks over at Timbertrolls. It’s called “Pek and Recreation.”