Rand: Inside those Timberwolves commercials with season ticket holders

The Timberwolves' 2012-13 season hasn't exactly gone according to plan, but the organization still is making a good impression on some key fans. Various season-ticket holders were used in commercials with Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic, Andrei Kirilenko and Greg Stiemsma that are now airing in promotion of the team.

Among the most amusing is a commercial featuring Rubio and season-ticket holder Anton Martynenko. We chatted the other day with Martynenko, 28, a third-year season-ticket holder who lives in Eagan, about the process.

• On how he was picked: "My season ticket representative randomly e-mailed me one day asking if I wanted to be in a commercial. That's all she knew. That's all she told me. I figured it would be something like I would say, 'Go Wolves' and that would be it. But an agency contacted me a few days later and did a conference call interview where they asked a bunch of questions about basketball. And they picked me."

• On his love of Rubio: "I've been following him since he was like 16. I remember the gold medal game and all the hoopla around that. We talked about that and joked around."

• On the scene during the commercial shoot: "Me and the other (season-ticket holders) were there for like six hours. They shot all the commercials in one day. The players were there for like 30 minutes each."

• On how they came up with the punch line for the Rubio commercial, in which Ricky claims he can read minds: "I mentioned his vision on the court, and they came up with the reading minds thing. I had no idea what would go into it. Ricky was really funny. He kept saying, 'I don't do that. I don't want to say that. I don't really read minds.'"

• On his connection to Rubio outside of the commercial: "His brother Marc played in the same recreational hoops league as me in the fall. Their record was like 1-7 and Ricky said he was giving him a hard time."

• On the attention he is getting now that he's a commercial star with Rubio: "It's been great. Facebook and my phone have been going crazy the last month."

MICHAEL RAND