Game by game during the 1998-99 season this is where you can get a recap of games and up to date news stories
Steve Aschburner is NBA writer for the Minneapolis Star and Tibune and covers the Timberwolves throughout the year.
Or so we're told. It will be 16 months or so before anyone knows for sure just how ready Nesterovic is for the NBA. The Timberwolves selected the 7-foot center from Ljubljana, Slovenia, with their first-round pick (No. 17 overall) in the NBA draft Wednesday night. But he is under contract to play next season for Kinder Bologna in the Italian League, and won't join the Wolves until the 1999-2000 season. "Who, past the 13th or 14th pick last year, played significant minutes [as rookies]?" Wolves vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale said, explaining his team's sudden willingness to wait for the help inside Nesterovic is expected to provide. "He'll get a chance to play significant minutes over there and improve. His goal is to be an NBA player." Said Wolves coach Flip Saunders: "They play two or three times a week and they have a lot of practice time. It's almost like he's going to college, or [as] if we had a true affiliation with a minor league team." Two days earlier, Saunders had said the team needed a player who could contribute next season and specifically ruled out Nesterovic as a possible pick. Apparently, that was some predraft gamesmanship. Wednesday night, he said the Wolves ranked Nesterovic as the eighth-best player in the draft. That was hard to dispute, considering even the NBA couldn't find video footage of him. Saunders said the NBA ran highlights of some other player on TNT. With the No. 46 pick in the second round, the Wolves were more conventional: They took forward Andrae Patterson, a 6-9 forward from Indiana who averaged 11.3 points and 5.7 rebounds in four seasons. Nesterovic, who turned 22 last month, played 26 games last season for Kinder Bologna, averaging just 7.0 points and 5.3 rebounds in 22.6 minutes. He had 36 blocks, 36 steals and three assists, moving from the bench to the starting lineup. In nine playoff games, though, Nesterovic's playing time increased (29.2 minutes) and so did his production: 11.4 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks, while shooting 76.2 percent. He scored six points and grabbed nine rebounds in a 58-44 victory over AEK Athens as his team won the EuroLeague Championship. "I wasn't playing at [first], so I lost my confidence," Nesterovic said by telephone from the draft's site in Vancouver. "In time, I got my confidence back." McHale said he first saw Nesterovic when he was a 19-year-old and was impressed. The Wolves staff liked him even better when he visited Target Center last week for a workout. McHale compared him to Cleveland center Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the MVP of the Rookie All-Star Game. "We're not looking so much at where we're at [with this pick]. We're looking at where we want to be," McHale said. Nesterovic played for the Slovenian National Team that competed in the European championships in 1997. He signed a two-year contract with Kinder Bologna last June, with an option for a third year, and is contractually bound to that team next season. "One more year, then I'm free," Nesterovic said. Saunders said that, to improve his English, Nesterovic rents American movies. "So he talks like Ferris Bueller," McHale cracked. McHale said Zarko Durisic, the Wolves' new European scout (who assumed the duties of Boris Karebin), lives in Nesterovic's hometown of Ljubljana and will stay in touch with him throughout the Italian League season. Kinder Bologna's training camp opens in early August. Nesterovic will stop in the Twin Cities this week. He said he would take two or three weeks off, then prepare for next season. His greatest need? "Maybe the muscle, the strength," Nesterovic said. The Wolves' history with foreign players has not been good, and the club had no imports on its roster this season. But McHale and Saunders said Nesterovic has little in common with Vrankovic, the failed Croatian experiment at center two years ago. "He's totally different," Saunders said. "He's very fluid with the ball and has very good skills. Stojko was very mechanical. There's a new breed of European player, very offensive-minded." Defensively, Saunders said, Nesterovic is a capable shot blocker who needs to bulk up. With Nesterovic staying in Italy next season, it will mark the second consecutive year the Wolves have "redshirted" a center. Last season's No. 1 pick, Wisconsin's Paul Grant, spent the entire 1997-98 season on the injured list with foot problems but is expected to be healthy when camp opens in October. Patterson, 22, was Indiana's third-leading scorer last season (12.6) and top rebounder (5.8). He actually had a better season as a junior (13.7 points, 6.7 rebounds). The Wolves haven't had a second-round pick last more than one season since guard Chris Smith (1992-95). McHale and Saunders said they worked the phones for much of the day Wednesday, trying to move up from No. 17, with no success. One established player they tried to land was Phoenix point guard Steve Nash, but the Suns shipped Nash to Dallas. © Copyright 1998 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
