Athletic Aesthetic strives to take you to sporting events you may never have attended. Such is the case with my trip April 7 to a game at a venue on the northwest edge of downtown Minneapolis. It’s a venue connected to the baseball history-laden Target Plaza – a building surrounded by thousands of Twins fans on many a spring afternoon – and featuring a groundbreaking roof design for a sports facility. This was a game including a top up-and-coming star and an underrated veteran coach about to get recognized for his quality career work.

I went to a Timberwolves game.

Most Chippewa Valley residents have likely never been to a Minnesota Timberwolves game. The team had a run of success during the Kevin Garnett era, but otherwise has been a moribund NBA franchise for most of its two-plus decades of existence. This is a team that has never improved its draft position in numerous NBA lottery appearances. A team with a 2-24 record in the two months prior to that April 7th game.

The visitors were the Golden State Warriors, featuring top newcomer Stephen Curry, plus coach Don Nelson, one win short of the all-time record for most wins by an NBA coach. Nevertheless, I had a couple tickets, so I met up with a college friend of mine and into the arena we went. Read along to discover the experience of a modern NBA game close to home.

We had good seats in the lower level, maybe 15 rows up from the end of the court. The Wolves were not competitive for much of the game, trailing by 20-plus points at one time. When a team is long-suffering but does not have a loyal fan base (Target Center was around two-fifths full), unintentional comedy is the order of the day, and a heaping helping was served at this particular game. During the first quarter, the overhead scoreboard announced that this game was being brought to us by a dog food company. You get the feeling the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics have a different, perhaps more upscale, category of game sponsorship.

Shortly thereafter, the two in-arena audience “reporters” made their debut on the video board. The two talked up T-Wolves promotions, interacted with fans and introduced court activities during breaks in the action. One of the reporters (wearing a throwback Wolves t-shirt) bore a striking resemblance to former Timberwolves star Wally Szczerbiak. Wally, have you really fallen this far?

Another fan interaction involved seeing what one young woman in attendance would do for a Klondike Bar – in this case, how long she could mime the actions of the Timberwolves’ mascot, Crunch. This continued for a good 12 or so minutes, with the woman contorting into yoga positions before finally being deemed a winner. The look on her face when her miming marathon was rewarded with a Klondike Bar was, well, wanting.

This game featured music from the early 90s (including Remember The Time and Heavy D and The Boyz), a scoreboard promotion for the arena restaurant that highlighted a table with the logo of the more-popular Minnesota Wild, an announcement that halftime autographs would be signed by Crunch and the head coach of the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, and a guy in the crowd attempting to get fans to toss a mini-basketball into his portable hoop, only to have one fan throw the ball toward an unsuspecting person in the stands. These things happen when your team regularly resides near the bottom of the NBA in both record and prestige.

The fans finally got excited in the fourth quarter – when T-shirts got fired into the crowd. However, they got legitimately excited when the Wolves closed their deficit to four points, before coming up just short of a win. The Warriors celebrated Coach Nelson’s new record, and the arena emptied.

No, there is not much of note at a Timberwolves game these days, except perhaps the new green roof atop Target Center. It is a rough time to be a Wolves fan. Yet, if a listless franchise like the Bucks can right their ship, maybe there is hope for my team. Hope that something besides the garden on the arena’s roof will soon grow.