Reusse: After all this time, we finally care about the Timberwolves

The Minneapolis Lakers left for Los Angeles after the 1960 season. The attempt to return pro basketball to this area failed with the fledgling American Basketball Association at Met Center, first with the Muskies in 1967-68 and then with the Pipers, transplanted from Pittsburgh, in 1968-69.

The North Stars put us in the NHL for the first time during those years. They had sellouts with enthused fans. Meantime, columnist Jim Klobuchar made this claim in the Minneapolis Star:

He called the Muskies box office, asked what time the game started, and the answer was, “What time can you get here?”

It was another two decades before Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner landed an NBA expansion franchise for Minnesota that would start with the 1989-90 season. The 41 home games were played in the Metrodome and ticket sales were announced at 1,072,572 for an NBA record.

And give Marv and Harv credit for this: They settled on a great nickname … Timberwolves.

Wolfenson also chose the perfect coach to fit that fierce name in Bill Musselman. Sadly, it was a short romance, based on moments such as this:

Eric Musselman, Bill’s son and an assistant in Year 2, asking Bill, “What did Marv and the others want in that meeting you were called to this afternoon?”

The Muss: “They told me winning was not the issue, play the young guys … especially Gerald Glass.”

Later that night, Wolves win. Glass, zero minutes. End of season: Musselman fired.

And off we went.

By the end of the 1993-94 season, Marv and Harv had reached a deal to sell the franchise to New Orleans interests. The NBA balked and Glen Taylor purchased the team for $88 million in the summer of 1994.

Marv and Harv had built Target Center with their money and were carrying a $73 million debt and couldn’t get out from under it.

Later, Harv, the quieter of the pair, had a quip along these lines: “Marv got me into basketball and made me a millionaire. Before that, I was a multimillionaire.”

We are 30 years removed from that chaos.

There were the eight playoff seasons with the great Kevin Garnett, but only at the end of that eighth one did they advance — beating Denver and Sacramento (in a monumental series) before losing in six games to Kobe, Shaq and the Lakers in the Western Conference finals.

What followed was the flop of 2004-05 and, since then, the Timberwolves mostly have just existed in this sports market.

Modest excitement came when landing Karl-Anthony Towns as the No. 1 overall choice in 2015. Jimmy Butler came in a trade in the summer of 2017, which was briefly exciting, until he dedicated himself to destroying the team in the search for a greater pile of millions.

When Butler helped the Wolves win a playoff game, one, in 2018, it was the first in 14 seasons. Then they returned to form and missed the playoffs for the next three seasons.

Meantime, win, lose, or lose in overtime for a cheap point, the Wild were nightly packing their arena in St. Paul.

The Wolves … they were the wintertime orphans.

They sold some tickets. They won some, lost more, but did it really make a difference if they finished a couple games over .500 or under .500?

You had the faithful season-ticket holders, and the couples with young kids sitting up in Target Center’s uncrowded upper deck, with cheap tickets landed somewhere.

Typical conversation at a Wolves game: “What did you think of that Vikings game Sunday?”

Now we have expectations — for the Timberwolves?

We, and I’m using the royal “We” as did The Dude in “The Big Lebowski” … we didn’t have expectations for the Timberwolves, not since 2004.

Win two games in a first-round series vs. Memphis in 2022, and praise was attached for a hard-nosed effort. Next time, in 2023, one win in the first round vs. Denver.

We liked this new guy, Anthony Edwards, the Ant Man — the franchise’s most popular player since Garnett, but shaking off a quick playoff elimination for the Woofies was the equivalent of a mosquito bite on our sports scene.

And then came 2023-24.

Ant was great, the defense was great with Rudy Gobert in his second season in Minnesota. The Wolves won 56 games, swept Phoenix (with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker), came back down from 3-2 to bounce The Joker and Denver, and reached the Western Conference finals.

The Timberwolves, our tame puppies, were now big dogs in the sports market — No. 2 to the Vikings.

KAT was traded, and received greater accolades on the way out of town than in nine seasons here, and that made the start of this season more intriguing.

The Vikings are riding high, the Wild are a surprise, the Lynx almost won a title, the Gophers have a chance to upset Penn State on Saturday, and guess what?

The Timberwolves are off to an 8-6 start and a huge number of Minnesota fans are locked in on ‘em enough to be upset with how that has looked.

Which, in the big picture, is very different for the franchise. We are watching Ant and friends closely. Whether complaining or celebrating, this is current truth:

More than ever, we care about the Timberwolves.