GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. (AP) -It is Monday night and the Minnesota Timberwolves are preparing to take the floor in Dallas against the Mavericks.
“Gotta get in my position,” star center Al Jefferson says.
For the past two months, that position has been in the basement of Jefferson’s gorgeous home minutes from downtown Minneapolis – on an overstuffed, gray couch with the recliner extended to keep Big Al’s surgically repaired right knee elevated.
This is where Jefferson watched this season slip away, one game at a time, on a huge flatscreen television mounted in a wall-length cabinet fixture in a home he purchased from former Twins ace Johan Santana.
“He had pretty good taste,” said Jefferson, who kept many of the window treatments Santana used to frame a breathtaking view of a quiet lake.
f the best young post players around welcomed The Associated Press into his home to watch the first half of Minnesota’s final road game of the season Monday night, providing a rare glimpse of what it is like for a star athlete to watch his world move on without him.
It’s better now for Jefferson than it used to be: The first few games he watched here were torture.
“Just not to be able to be out there fighting with my teammates when I know they need me most, just as much as I need them,” Jefferson said. “It was very, very hard times for me, but I got through it.”
The Wolves went 1-12 in their first 13 games without Jefferson. Watching it all, he was like a pot of water left over a high flame too long – it was only a matter of time before he boiled over.
Jefferson once got so frustrated that he threw one of his size 18 shoes at a television and broke it.
But the initial helplessness that so infuriated him while dealing with his first major injury has subsided. The stove is set to simmer these days as he takes a more analytical approach when the games are on. And he knows that, mercifully, there is only one more left to watch.
eason is over with, no one’s playing. It’s not as bad now, because at first, it was real tough on me.”
On this night, the Mavericks have jumped out to an early 10-point lead and Dirk Nowitzki is backing down the smaller Minnesota forwards, getting easy shots right over the top of them. One comes on a forced jumper from the free throw line just as the shot clock expires.
Jefferson just throws his hands up and scoffs, the pain of a squandered defensive stand as evident on his face as it is in the slumped shoulders of teammate Ryan Gomes and coach Kevin McHale on the court some 950 miles away in Dallas.
After Brian Cardinal sinks a 20-foot jumper – “There you go, boy! I don’t know why Brian would not shoot the ball when I played” – Nowitzki draws a ticky-tack foul on the other end.
“That’s why I threw my shoes the last time,” Jefferson said. “These referees, sometimes. I don’t know.”
His black sneakers stay on his feet this time. He is calmer now because he is watching with a purpose.
“I look at it as a fan and I also look at it like I am a coach, scouting,” Jefferson said, leaning back in his lounger during halftime.
t only now, after watching games on television, are those lessons really starting to sink in.
“Mac used to tell me how important it was for me to roll right in front of the rim. It used to go in one ear and out the other one,” Jefferson said. “Now that I’m out, I see it and I realize why he wanted me there because by me rolling right in front of the rim, I get so much attention that I can get guys open shots.”
It is difficult to overstate Jefferson’s importance to the Timberwolves. Like LeBron in Cleveland and Kobe in L.A., everything revolves around Big Al in Minnesota.
Shot clock winding down? Throw it in to Big Al.
Opposing team on a 10-0 run? Big Al will stop the surge.
Need a bucket in crunch time? Give it to Big Al and he’ll either score it or create an open shot for a teammate.
The Wolves were 17-34 with Jefferson in the lineup and showing signs of improvement in the second year of the post-KG Era. But they are 7-23 without their leader, their star and their safety blanket, who averaged 27.2 points and 12.3 rebounds in the nine games before he tore the ACL in his right knee at New Orleans on Feb. 8.
winning games. You get the respect when you win. That’s what it’s all about and that’s what we’re going to have to do.”
The victories were starting to come more frequently in January after the team adjusted to McHale taking over as coach for the fired Randy Wittman. The Wolves got off to a 10-2 start in 2009.
“If I wouldn’t have got hurt and the way we were playing, we were on the verge of having 30-plus wins. I really believe that,” he said. “Maybe even close to 40. Even some of the games we’ve lost since I’ve been out, I know we would have easily won if I had been there.”
This season closes on Wednesday night in the finale against Sacramento. But while many see this as yet another lost year, Jefferson thinks his team will benefit from this adversity.
“I really believe that even though things didn’t go like that and with me getting hurt, I still look at this season as an improved season because we won more games than we won last year,” Jefferson said. “This is still a good season for us to continue to climb up the ladder.”
He would like to see McHale return as coach, but only if that is what makes McHale happy. He knows there will be changes to the roster for a team that will have abundant cap room and three first-round draft choices.
he stairs to his basement to watch the team play, he vows to be ready to go once next season begins.
Because he is sick of watching.
“Hopefully we realize that we need each other. Me on the block, getting double-teamed and triple-teamed, I’ve got to get the ball out to these guys,” Jefferson said. “If they’re moving the ball the way they move it when I’m watching these games, it’s going to be hard to stop us.”
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