Look for the Timberwolves to offer Kevin Love a $60 million, four-year contract extension within the next eight days.
Love, 23, who is playing for $4.6 million this season, can become a restricted free agent after the season unless he signs an extension before Jan. 25. If he opts for free agency, the Wolves would have the right to match any outside offer. Love also can return to Minnesota in 2012-13 for $6.1 million and become an unrestricted free agent after the season.
Wolves President David Kahn isn’t commenting on contract talks, and Love says he’s unaware of the status of negotiations. The Wolves, though, want to get Love signed by next week.
Love, one of five players in NBA history to start a season with 13 double-doubles (points-rebounds), is the Wolves’ fifth-highest-paid player.
The 6-foot-10, 250-pound Love is second in the NBA in rebounding with 14.3 a game. He is featured in an entertaining ESPN Sport Science video – tinyurl.com/7yxgr3e – showing him competing against a 5-10, 360-pound sumo wrestler for a rebound.
Love was fitted with 12 electronic sensors to measure the impact of colliding with the sumo wrestler while using a wide stance and body leverage to box him out for a rebound. The video is not only instructive but funny.
“I did it at (ESPN studios) in Los Angeles last summer,” Love said Monday. “They wanted me to box out this sumo wrestler, so I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ It was fun.
“Part of it was made for TV, but some of it was also my ability to box out against guys who aren’t 360 pounds, guys who are more in my range of weight. In that regard, I feel I’m very strong.”
Love is growing out his hair. Asked if he plans to copy teammate Ricky Rubio’s floppy style, Love joked yes. He said they go to the same Uptown Minneapolis salon.
Rubio was to be featured on the cover of today’s USA Today sports section and featured in Sports Illustrated today. Later this week, he’ll be featured in GQ magazine.
Kevin McHale, who fired old pal Flip Saunders as Timberwolves coach in 2005 when McHale oversaw basketball operations, coached the Houston Rockets past Saunders’ Washington Wizards 114-106 Monday in Washington. Houston is 6-7 in McHale’s first season. Washington is an NBA-worst 1-12.
As expected, Orono grad Jon Leuer, a second-round draft pick of the Milwaukee Bucks out of Wisconsin last June, has broken into the starting lineup for the Bucks. The 40th overall pick in the draft, the 6-10 Leuer is averaging 7.3 points, 4.2 rebounds and 19.1 minutes a game.
Royce White, who transferred from the Gophers to Iowa State, recently was compared to Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics by Cyclones coach Fred Hoiberg, then hall of famer Magic Johnson by Missouri coach Frank Haith, then former NBA all-star Jamal Mashburn by Oklahoma State coach Travis Ford, the Des Moines Register points out.
White, the 6-7 former Mr. Minnesota Basketball from Hopkins, is up to 270 pounds and playing point guard as a sophomore. He continues to lead Iowa State (12-5) in scoring (13.4) and rebounding (9.6).
Former Gophers-Wolves guard Bobby Jackson, on returning to Minneapolis as a Sacramento Kings assistant on Monday: “Good to be back.”
Delano High and University of Minnesota grad David Meyer, whose family owns the public Pioneer Creek Golf Course near the private Windsong Farm Golf Club west of Minneapolis, has bailed out the financially troubled Windsong Farm.
Under the deep-pocketed Meyer, who is CEO of Fargo, N.D.-based Titan Machinery, plans are for Windsong to have a $15,000 initiation fee for members 40 and over this year, with a national membership fee of $2,500. Regular annual dues will be $7,600.
About 75 Gophers men’s basketball alumni are expected to attend Sunday afternoon’s game against Northwestern at Williams Arena. They’ll be introduced at halftime.
The Gophers baseball office walls are adorned with pictures of alumni who went on to become millionaire major league players. Now, Jack Hannahan can be added.
On Tuesday, the former Cretin-Derham Hall slugger signed a $1.135 million, one-year deal with the Cleveland Indians, more than doubling his 2011 salary after hitting .250 with eight home runs and 40 runs batted in. If Hannahan wins the regular third base job this spring and becomes a Gold Glove Award winner, of which he certainly is capable, he’ll receive a $25,000 bonus.
Joe Speed, who represents a fleet of former Gophers baseball players, lobbied the Houston Astros for two years to move Mike Kvasnicka from third base to catcher. This week, the Astros agreed.
Beloved Dottie Riley, wife of retired longtime St. Paul sportswriter Don Riley, died Monday. She had Alzheimer’s disease.
DON’T PRINT THAT
Pssst: NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver, who will succeed David Stern as commissioner, dined with Wolves owner Glen Taylor, then met with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and some legislators Monday about financing to improve Target Center in conjunction with a new Vikings stadium.
Best bet now, people in the know say, for a new Vikings stadium is either on the Metrodome site or near the Basilica in downtown Minneapolis.
Word is that guy perpetually dressed in a suit who became a Target Center trademark at Wolves games by exuberantly banging his program on the floor from his front-row seat could be returning to the arena after the economy sidelined him for a couple of seasons.
The recent Gophers-Notre Dame hockey game at Mariucci Arena netted benefactor U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame $70,000.
The Big Ten Network is considering one of five University of Minnesota student finalists for a $1,000 scholarship for outstanding community service. That stipend might cover the cost of a handful of text books for classes.
OVERHEARD
Electronic wall sign at Shamrock’s Grill and Pub in St. Paul: “Joe Mauer eats here. Ricky Rubio wants to.”
