The Super Bowl was last Sunday in Arizona. On Monday, hundreds of members of the sports media presumably filtered out of the Phoenix area.
And I was probably the only member of the sports media in this country who ARRIVED in Phoenix the day after the Super Bowl. It was purely a bit of coincidental planning — a quick family getaway for some time in the sun — but the strangeness of it was not lost on me as I spied remnants of evidence that yes, in fact, the biggest spectacle in U.S. sports had just been there.
One car rental terminal at the airport still was festooned with Patriots and Seahawks gear upon arrival, including balloons with both team logos. (This would be a great place for a "deflated" joke, but in all honesty every balloon looked to be of proper air pressure).
On a sunny, can't-believe-it's-so-nice jog in the Arizona sun Tuesday, a sign bearing a telephone number to call for Super Bowl tickets still lingered upright near the side of a road.
It was as strange to witness those things as it was to follow — from afar, if only for a week — what was happening back home in Minnesota. Namely: that the very things imagined about our two major winter pro sports teams were actually coming true, and both of the things were positive.
• As someone who has watched countless train wreck Timberwolves games this year, but who had basically reached the point of refusing to get fully invested in a game until Ricky Rubio returned, this past week proved that stance to be correct.
Once Kevin Martin and Nikola Pekovic returned, Minnesota became functional again. But it wasn't going to be until Rubio came back that the preseason plan could really be assessed.
As it turns out, the Wolves with Rubio, Martin, Pekovic and other developing youngsters (led by Andrew Wiggins) are a fun team. They are not yet a great team or even a good team. But they are a competitive team — as evidenced by narrow victories over Miami and Memphis and a win on the road over the Pistons with Rubio resting — and just maybe they have a future.
