Patrick Reusse: 'Re-branding' effort won't end Wolves' blight

The Timberwolves made a 36-hour visit to Minneapolis this week. This occurred between a pair of two-exhibition road trips, which followed 10 days spent in Istanbul and London for early training camp.

The fact the Wolves had been invisible and now were available for videotaping had little impact with the local media. No TV stations were present Thursday; only a handful of lowly sportswriters from the Twin Cities dailies, City Pages and the team's website.

The front office hopes to upgrade this new roster's profile substantially starting Monday, when it will launch what team President Chris Wright calls a "rebranding" effort.

It will include much advertising, as well as daily public promotional events for the 12 days leading to the Nov. 2 opener against Denver at Target Center.

The campaign will come with the slogan, "See What They Can Do," a reference to a roster that includes seven players who are 24 or younger.

This is also a sentiment that applies to the current mindset of coach Randy Wittman, who still is trying to sort through a collection of older veterans, younger veterans and rookies that adds up to 16 players with contracts (one over the limit).

The most favorable option would be a 2-for-1 trade to bring the Wolves a player with at least marginal ability to play point guard. The two listed point guards -- Randy Foye and Sebastian Telfair -- are injured, and the horrible truth is this:

Foye doesn't have point guard skills, and Telfair hasn't shown NBA skills.

The starting point guard for now is Marko Jaric, and the Wolves' small group of diehards has seen his limitations previously. For instance: Dribbling is a skill you like to see in a point guard, and Marko doesn't do it too well.

It was suggested to Wittman that he's going to spend the first month of the schedule trying to find a nine- or 10-player rotation.

"Rotation? It's probably going to take the first month to find a lineup," he said. "You might see a different lineup every night for the first few weeks."

Many outside agitators have stated the Wolves must trade Ricky Davis, the inside agitator, so that he doesn't have a negative effect on the attitude of young players.

Ricky is a loose cannon, but he's also in the final season of a reasonable contract, meaning the Wolves should get a competitive effort from him on most nights.

The real conundrum is what to do with Mark Blount. He's a 7-foot spot-shooting center, about to turn 32 and guaranteed $22 million over the next three seasons. In other words, he's unmovable.

This question was offered to Wittman: Blount's strength when he was traded here was supposed to be the ability to play off Kevin Garnett. With Garnett gone, what is Blount's value?

"He might do better playing off Al Jefferson than Kevin," Wittman said. "Kevin played out on the court. Al spends most of his time down on the block. I assume most teams are going to double-team him. That should give Blount some space to shoot his 17-footer."

There are two problems with that: A) Jefferson has averaged 0.7 assists for his career, indicating he's not a passer; and B) Blount's low-energy play contributed to Wittman's 12-30 record after he was named coach at midseason.

"Mark has to play the way he did the first half of last season," Wittman said. "We have to light a fire under him, and keep it there. He can't just be a jump shooter. He has to rebound and defend."

This is the season of a fresh start for the Wolves, and a fresh start for Blount. Right, Mark?

"I'm on the way to my car," he said after Thursday's practice. "We got a flight."

How do the Wolves use you without Garnett?

"Ask the coach," he said.

Do you think having Jefferson in the low post will give you more space to shoot jumpers?

"Ask the coach what he thinks," he said.

What's your view of the young players?

"Everybody's good," he said.

And then Blount was in his car and gone -- still a Wolf and prominent among the reasons to look at this franchise as still blighted rather than rebuilding.

Patrick Reusse can be heard weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP at 6:45 and 7:45 a.m. and 4:40 p.m. • preusse@startribune.com