Timberwolves locked in on playoff run–and baseball
A huge game awaits the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night.
It’ll happen in Houston, even though the Timberwolves will be in Los Angeles. There will be no dunks, no traveling, no three-pointers. No halftime, either. No shot clock, but there will be a pitch clock.
And there will be fouls. Well, foul balls.
These are fun times for the Timberwolves. They’re in the thick of an airtight Western Conference playoff race, but they’re getting a neat and probably unexpected diversion—the World Baseball Classic. Minnesota assistant coach Micah Nori’s son is Dante Nori, and he’s been a breakout player for Italy in that tournament. Italy plays the US on Tuesday night, a game that starts a couple of hours before the Timberwolves take on the Los Angeles Lakers.
“I will be watching the Timberwolves,” Micah Nori said. “But at 6 o’clock Pacific time, I will be focused on the Italians and the Americans in the WBC, for sure.”
Make no mistake, the Timberwolves are focused on the stretch run and trying to lock up the best possible playoff seed. But that doesn’t mean head coach Chris Finch, co-owner Alex Rodriguez—the slugger who knows a thing or two about baseball—and others within the organization can’t stop and cheer for one of their own, even if it does mean paying attention to a different sport.
“My family is obviously locked in on it, but so is our organization,” Micah Nori said. “It sounds crazy, but so many guys are locked in. Our head coach is a big fan, and I can’t tell you how many people send videos or pictures of them watching Dante’s game. It means a lot. It is a welcome distraction, if you will, one that has you just get away from the grind a little bit.”
Figured out at 4
Dante Nori is 5 for 7 through his first two games of the tournament, with a two-homer game in Italy’s win over Brazil on Saturday.
His father says that by the time Dante was 4, he figured his future was in baseball. As the story goes, Dante would try to play with his toy basket and Micah would swat his shot away and put the baseball bat in his hands instead.
Dante says the baseball-over-basketball realization actually happened around the time he was in middle school and realized he wasn’t going to get past 5-foot-9.
“It was a very easy choice,” Dante Nori said. “Just keep the cleats on and play baseball.”
Having Dante wear Italia across his chest for this tournament is a big deal to the family. But it’s not exactly a stretch that Micah Nori—someone who could easily be an NBA head coach one day—has a kid who excels in baseball.
And really, baseball has basically been the family sport.
