A Year and Patience...

The difference a year makes.

One year ago, the Minnesota Timberwolves NBA franchise made the playoffs. The last game of the season, this happened:

A player that they had traded for the off season before threw a punch at a teammate. He was suspended for the first game of their playoff series.

As you kept watching, one of their young and upcoming stars punched a wall in anger of being tossed from the game and broke his hand.

Another of their young stars broke his wrist a few weeks before.

The young Wolves, still figuring out how to play with each other and showing immature behavior and poor decision making, were punked by the Denver Nuggets in just five games and the winners went on to their first NBA Championship a month later.

After the series, the Coach of the T-Wolves, Chris Finch said, "“Way more physical than we were. They played with more speed, more force, they kicked our butt in every category that you can possibly imagine.”

One year and a month to the day, Minnesota beat the defending NBA Champs in Denver last night in a game 7 that saw them trail by as many as 20 points in the third quarter. 

Is it miraculouos? Not at all. 

It's patience.

Young players need patience, teams need time to find their groove. Teams need to learn how to play with each other, against other teams. They need to learn tendencies and the behavior of their teammates.

However, we are an impatient society.

We want to lose weight NOW. We want to feel better NOW. We want to win NOW! We don't accept the time that goes into these goals, time and effort and growth.

Social Media, the barrage of national media criticism and pundits looking to prove themselves to be the smartest in the room bounced back and forth between who would win the series after Minnesota won the first two games and Denver the next two. In between all the noise, the team stayed focused. They beat Denver by 45 points in game 6!

For Minnesota, they will head to the NBA's Western Conference Finals, a place they haven't been in 20 years with a team who, a year after chaos and distrust, believes in each other and themselves. 

The difference a year, AND PATIENCE, makes!