Sid speaks on Lakers and Wolves

The Timberwolves honored Sid Hartman before Tuesday's game for his decades of work running the Minneapolis Lakers and years later covering the Timberwolves.

Phil Jackson and Kurt Rambis presented him with framed jerseys from both teams.

Sid had a speech all prepared for the crowd announced at 17,111, but never got the chance to deliver it because of television time constraints.

So he asked me if I'd put it up on the blog.

Here it is:

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I'm sure you fans came to watch the great Lakers teams play the Wolves tonight, not to hear me bore you with a long speech.

I go back knowing all about Phil Jackson to his college days at North Dakota playing for the great Bill Fitch. And then, when he helped a New York Knicks team win the NBA title in 1973 under a very good friend of mine, coach Red Holtzman.

I'm very humbled to have a future Hall of Fame coach on this program. And, as far as Kurt Rambis is concerned, he was a winner as a player, a winner as an assistant coach and I'm sure will be a winner as the Timberwolves coach.

George Mikan, the man with the statue in the Target Center lobby, should be given credit for the great reputation this Lakers name has.

I actually was involved in starting another team, the Chicago Packers, in 1960. And, had things worked out, Jerry West would have been playing for the Packers, which then became the Zephyrs, then the Bullets and now the Washington Wizards instead of the Lakers.

I want to give credit to the great Buss family, who were kind enough to fly Vern Mikkelsen and his family free to the championship Lakers victory this past year.

In closing, I hope to be covering both the Timberwolves and the Lakers for many years and have the same relationship I have with commissioner David Stern and many others in the league.