The Legitimate Interest In Simmons' GM Candidacy Called Into Question

The Sports Fella set Minnesotans' hearts aflutter with his semi-serious T'Wolves GM idea, resulting in thousands of pro-Simmons emails from a disillusioned fan base to a befuddled T'Wolves executive office. But somebody's rigging the numbers.

Originally, speculative rumors listed the number of emails from Simmons supporters to the T'Wolves' executive department at 12,000. That's a high number, even for someone with the internet following of Sports Fella, when you consider how long it takes for a person to construct an email (even one as simple as SUBJECT: HIRE SIMMONS) and the fact that you'd be hard-pressed to find that many Timberwolves' fans who cared that much. Michael Rand, Minnesota's most intrepid (and trusted) pamphleteer of sports culture, originally reported the number as 12,000, but then heard from Wolves' public relations department that the number was more along the lines of 1,300. That's still a significant response, but probably not enough to ignite legitimate discussions among the higher-ups for it to actually happen. But there's still some clamoring about the number of pro-Simmons emails, apparently, as some "people" are convinced the number is actually higher than the 1,300 one T-Wolves' president Chris Wright claims he received. Why would he lie about something like that?

But here's who the T'Wolves have reportedly expressed genuine interest in for the position: Former Indiana GM David Kahn, Portland assistant GM Tom Penn, former Heat GM Randy Pfund. The T-Wolves' first choice, ESPN columnist Scoop Jackson, respectfully turned down the position early on.

T-Wolves' president Chris Wright has received 1,300 emails about Bill Simmons, but source says it's 15,000 [ Randball]