Hello and welcome to the hook collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we are doing on

New Year's Day evening, Sunday evening, and joining me from Naples, Florida is Bobby Marks,

Bobby. Happy New Year. Thanks for joining us.

Hey, Brian. Happy New Year to you. Thanks.

So there's been a lot happening in the NBA over the last few days.

There's like seven or eight different guys have scored over 40 points. Like on New Year's Eve,

I, or maybe not New Year's Eve, but December 30th, I swear there was like eight guys who scored

over 40 points. It was like a wild day. Lucas going crazy. But you know us, we tend to always look

at the other side because it's more interesting. And so I want to start off today, Bobby, by talking

about the what's plaguing the Minnesota Timberwolves who are definitely one of the more disappointing

teams in the league to this to this point. They're not completely out of position. They're there

only in 11th place. Right now, there are five games under 500. They've lost six games in a row.

And this is kind of the lowest point because on Saturday, they lost at home to the Detroit

Pistons. Anytime the Pistons beat you, it's not good, especially once you're when you're at home

with their six straight loss. And look, they have been without Carl Towns for the last 16 games.

There's six and 10 in that stretch. Recently Rudy Go Bear has been out of the lineup a little bit

with illness. And so they've been some of these games. They've been relatively short-handed. They've

had some other guys who have been out for long stretches, Torian Prince, Jordan McLaughlin,

who is their backup point guard, but is a key player for them. So I want to be clear before we

talk about this, they are definitely to have dealt with injuries. But there is a lot, you know,

affecting this team right now. They're competitive, I don't know what you want to call Bobby,

their competitiveness is definitely been questioned, especially in the second half of some games,

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