"The road to greatness isn't an easy one to travel. It takes patience. Understanding. A willingness to fail, and try again, and fail again. The road to greatness is thorny and arduous. It's why so few people travel it."
"Hazarding the road yields rewards. Not immediately, and sometimes not in a tangible way. But with patience and time, greatness will reveal itself if you work for it."
"The Minnesota Timberwolves have experienced growing pains. The pains may not be over. But one thing gets overlooked in that phrase, 'growing pains.'
"They're growing. They're growing fast."
"The winters have been mild in Minnesota for the past two years. But that is changing, growing as well. And soon, when you take your basketball team into Minneapolis for a game...you'll notice.
"Better bring a jacket. Winter is coming."
The lights return and GM/coach JNR is standing at the podium. Behind him are Chris Bosh, Rip Hamilton, and Joe Johnson.
JNR: Thank you for coming to our yearly press conference. And I want to thank Prince for his fantastic voiceover in our video package. I'm glad he believes in our teambuilding plan. It means a lot.
JNR: Onto that plan. We had a busy offseason. We went into the draft with three draft picks. We only made one selection. The other two picks were turned into two of the men standing behind me.
Rip and Joe wave.
JNR: Along with Bosh, they will form an offense that will wipe the floor with last year's squad, which finished last in the league in total offense. We had to sacrifice our defense to do it by sending out Tayshaun Prince in the deal for Rip. And with Joel Pryzbilla having a poor training camp, our defense will probably suffer. But with these three men putting the ball in the basket, our biggest problem last year will be our biggest strength.
JNR: We think we can make the playoffs. After that, it's hard to tell. But for the first time since we traded Chris Webber, we think we have a competitive team. We're deep at the guard position. Chris looks like he's ready to build on his ROY campaign. And Rip has worked on his defense all summer because he wants to be the best player he can be. We think with all of these developments, we can eventually be a force in the West.
JNR: We'll now take any questions you may have.
