Photo from benheine via Flickr

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. The lockout has lifted, we have a season, can I get an Amen? (Amen.) And in the spirit of renewal, our shiny new cadre of writers is putting together previews for all 30 teams in true HP style. From where teams are going to what their disgrace is to explorations of pop culture, we are about to rock, salute us, can I get an Amen? (Amen.) So sit back, relax, and ponder the awesomeness of this fully operational Hardwood Paroxysm 3.0. -Ed. 

QUO VADIMUS (WHERE ARE WE GOING?)

By Danny Chau

Most of us watch games intently – though some more so than others. For the most part, fans can suss out basic schemes of the offense and defense. A strong eye can see possible scenarios unfolding, and decide for ourselves where the best plan of attack lies. Then we a brilliant pass comes seemingly out of nowhere. We verbalize our acknowledgement of the play, of the genius in grunts and half-enunciated “Nice pass!” We can see plays unfold, but great passes cut through our projections like a literal Occam’s razor. Great passes find the simplest solution to the opposition’s puzzle, leaving the observer with little else to do but applaud and holler.

Minnesota will find out that game gets easier with a point guard capable of threading the needle. Passing begets more passing. Hands are quicker, more receptive. Reads are sharper. The kinetic energy transferred from pass to pass is forged into something altogether mystical, and when shared among all the players, becomes a unifying agent. It’s what we’ve seen in Steve Nash has done practically his entire career, what Rajon Rondo has done with the Celtics since 2008, what Chris Paul is soon to do for the Clippers.

Rick Adelman was brought in to add a “winning culture” to this struggling franchise, and it was perhaps the best decision the team made in the offseason. It’s important for a young team to understand the poise and attention to detail it takes to win games in late situations. The Wolves will win more games than they did last year, but it won’t be because of a “winning culture” – at least not yet. That takes time, and a shortened season doesn’t help in that regard.

It sounds like a copout, but the team will win more just by having fun. It sounds like puppy dog optimism, and maybe it is, but when you have a magician like Ricky Rubio capable of creating something out of impossible situations, you get fewer Michael Beasley 20-foot isolation jumpers from the corner. From what it sounds like, for Rubio, the pressure to succeed in Minnesota is different than the pressure that existed back in Europe. He is free to be a kid here – or at least exhibit it in play. The team will need time to immerse themselves in the infectious play that inherently forms in the presence of a sharp passer. The team will grow and learn to trust one another fully.

Imagine every possession as a potential fast break. Kevin Love corrals a rebound and makes a quick outlet to Rubio who is already darting down the court eyeing a cutting Derrick Williams, or a Wes Johnson situating himself on the baseline, ready to spot up. If the play collapses, the ball can swing around to the trailing Kevin Love for a three. These are plays and options that existed before, but it takes a player capable of breaking down the play into logical progressions. That’s what Rubio can do, and he’ll make the entire team a smarter, more reactive group.

The Wolves are going to be a ton of fun this year – as long as they make a pact never to let Anthony Randolph touch the ball ever.

LET’S START A CULT ABOUT: RICKY RUBIO

By Connor Huchton

What can we say about Ricky Rubio? Everything and nothing, all at once. He’s the embodiment of hope, detraction, and a franchise’s unknown future. But we’ve had years to hear about Rubio’s game, his superb court vision, his quick-minded defense, his underwhelming jump shot, and everything else that makes his play both amazing and questionable. But what Ricky Rubio has become in 2011, above all else, is an idea.

“I’ve hardly seen him play, but I can’t wait to watch him play again.”

When a player comes to symbolize an idea in the mind of a basketball fan, the stakes of emotion slowly rise.  To the lovers of unselfish point guard play, Ricky Rubio becomes the next great pure passer. But to most NBA fans, he becomes the great unknown, something distant that may never come. But now Rubio comes, bringing alley-oops and behind-the-back passes in tow.

“He’s actually coming over?”

The fear of likely failure often brings down great ideas, ideas that seems to stretch so high they can never truly be reached by mere human arms. Rubiocould fail becomes Rubio will fail and begets Rubio did fail. But that remains only a fringe possibility to the fan who believes in the idea Rubio brings, the simple notion of creative exceptionalism and collective identity change. They renounce doubters, and hope fervently Rubio vindicates the idea beyond the tangible on the very tangible basketball court.

Doubt accompanies all lofty ideas. It’s the same reasonable doubt that constantly stands up to scrutiny. The doubt shapes the perception of the idea, feeds against expectation, eats away with its logic and questions. It threatens the transcendental with something that can’t be decried as something simply from the “haters”: the rebuke of quite possible mediocrity.

“He’s supposed to do that, but he can’t even do this?”

Timberwolves’ fans have waited on the Great Rubio Hope for seemingly all of their basketball lives. In moments of franchise low and the toil of disgrace, Rubio was still waiting, only a year or two away, to save the franchise and invigorate fans with the hope for something different, something beyond what was faced in the present. In many ways, Rubio became part of that present franchise existence, the ever-present future for an organization that repeated the word aloud and with action at a constant pace.

“Rebuilding” is a term oft uttered by many small-market franchises in the contemporary NBA. It’s meant to evoke a sense of returned structure and a path towards legitimate relevancy. It rarely works in practice exactly as constructed, but it at least provides a construct to be slowly dismantled and ruptured. For the Timberwolves, Rubio may not only become the final piece in their construct of young talented players. He could serve as the player who forces the leap from rebuilding to competing.

There’s something about the transcendental point guard that evokes strong emotion and nostalgia in the mind of many basketball fans, myself included. The simple idea of the brilliant pass or crossover represents, in its most basic form, true basketball genius. It’s not that point guard is necessarily the most important position on the court; by most measures, it isn’t. But the impact point guard is highly visible, followed naturally by the eye at all times. The point guard controls perception, and thus is regarded with enormous respect if able to control the ball itself. This possession of the ball as the offense flows and the crowd waits for action allows for a keen moment when the brilliant flourish of a perfect entry pass or created open jumper may be recognized by any observer.

Therein lies the magic of Rubio’s arrival. He possesses these skills to a great extent according to the majority of evaluators, but little is known publicly of his actual play. Most perception of Rubio is created by YouTube highlights or reports of his difficulty in Spanish leagues, not actual understanding. Game tape on Rubio is not currently visible to most, and it never was. So the Rubio idea was easily planted, an idea based on the unknown and the magic of a brilliant passer.

I can’t tell you what Ricky Rubio will be in the NBA. Only Ricky Rubio can tell you that with his play, as he will very soon. He’ll move on the court, eyes always frontwards, searching for the moment when, not he, but another, is primed to strike a dagger into the heart of the defense. Early signs are encouraging, but the prognosis on Rubio’s future remains cloudy. Those clouds will soon depart, revealing the validity of an idea long ago believed and only recently understood. The hope, the unknown, and everything that Ricky Rubio represents will be laid bare before a screaming crowd.

The idea burns strong. Someday, that idea may act as only a chiding flicker. But it also may spark a blaze rarely seen by human eyes.

A BRIEF VIDEO INTERLUDE COURTESY OF HOOK

WILL YOU REMEMBER ME, I WILL REMEMBER YOU

By Andrew Lynch

Comparisons are rarely fair, though that doesn’t stop us from making them. One of the biggest stumbling blocks is differences in system.

Minnesota fans are nodding knowingly right now. Shammgod bless Kurt Rambis, but his version of the Triangle offense was to the Bulls and Lakers of the past two decades as one of those knock-off video game consoles designed to trick grandma around Christmas time is to a PS3. For the Timberwolves, 2011-12 amounts to upgrading from a PX-3600 to basically any other actual legitimate video gaming system ever created. Rick Adelman could have arrived in Minneapolis with a Virtual Boy under one arm and a broken XBox 360 under the other and Wolves fans would have reacted like they just got the Technodrome and the Ghostbusters car under the same yuletide tree. The games will be better, if for no other reason than that the system will actually be designed for the pieces present.

And, of course, we will remember Ricky Rubio. He, too, will herald the importance of system. Some of Rubio’s more vocal detractors point to his awful stat line in recent European competition as proof that his abilities won’t translate to the NBA. That might end up being true, but that argument ignores the way in which Rubio was used by his Spanish team. Given the opportunity to handle the ball and initiate the offense with weapons around him in a system that fits his talents, Rubio will thrive. Three pointers will flow like sangria (from everyone but Rubio, naturally), opponents will faint under the onslaught of Love outlets, and every game will end with both teams in triple digits. Finally, a Timberwolves season will pass without David Kahn being the most vibrant memory.

Oster-Tags: 2011-12 Season Previews, Minnesota Timberwolves, Ricky Rubio, somuchoptimismyouguys