Former Star Tribune colleague Steve Aschburner, writing for NBA.com, has a wonderful look back at the one year the Timberwolves played inside the soon-to-be-gone Metrodome. It's not overly long, so you should go read the whole thing. But if you just have time for one snippet, it is this fascinating and strange nugget:
"The Wolves used the visitors' [baseball] clubhouse, on the other side of the laundry room," said Clayton Wilson, the Timberwolves' longtime equipment manager, who worked for the Twins before switching over with the move to Target Center. "Tom Kelly [Twins manager] could sit in there and listen to Musselman rip into the players. 'Lohaus, you [bleep]!' Muss would get in their faces a little bit."
Kelly was a season-ticket holder, like Twins Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett.
"T.K. loved the Xs & Os," Wilson said, "so he would go in pregame and listen to them, and then [during the game] he'd say, 'OK, see how the coaches said they were going to deny this guy the ball and get it to that guy? That's what they're doing.' "
There were more than a few nights, Wilson said, that Kelly – rattling around his Dome office in the middle of a Minnesota winter – would give the regular laundry guy a night off and wash the Wolves' sweaty uniforms and socks.
