Armed with a New Contract, Gomes Feels at Home

Take a gander at Minnesota's roster from the end of the 2006 NBA season. See anyone familiar? Not likely. Only Rashad McCants and Mark Madsen still remain from Dwane Casey's 05-06 squad. As every Wolves fan knows, the last three summers have produced many trades, free-agent signings and draft choices, resulting in a myriad of different players to don the Wolves uniform.

There have been franchise-changing trades, draft-night trades (Kevin Love, Mike Miller - O.J. Mayo) and others (Ricky Davis - Antoine Walker), all of which have played a role in how Minnesota's roster is made up today. In the 2007 offseason, the Wolves traded one franchise player (K.G.) for another (Big Al), while receiving four other players who came to the land of 10,000 lakes with uncertain futures. All five newcomers were either to be restricted or unrestricted free agents at the end of the '08 season.

One of those players with who came to Minnesota in the summer of '07 hoping to impress, was "glue guy" Ryan Gomes. Gomes came to Minnesota with a solid reputation of being a guy that you want on your team, both on and off the court. Gomes did nothing to refute those claims in '08, improving on his totals across the board from '07. In his first season with the Wolves, Gomes averaged 12.6 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 1.8 apg, 0.8 spg in 82 games (74 starts) compared to his last year in Boston where he averaged 12.1 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 1.6 apg, 0.7 spg in 73 games, 60 starts. After his stellar '08 campaign, It became clear that it was his time him to be rewarded with a lengthy contract.

Gomes, 26, entered the summer of '08 in unfamiliar territory, a free agent for the very first time in his three-year NBA career, a process that he was at first very eager to begin, but later was glad to be done with. "It (free agency) was a little nerve-wracking, "Gomes admitted. "I initially felt it was going to be exciting to experience my first free-agency period. In the beginning it was, I had a few teams that were interested. But then I started to see some other guys getting signed, which made me start to wonder when my time would come."

Ryan's time would come. In fact, it came on July 29, 2008, 21 days in to free agency when Gomes signed a multi-year deal to stay in Minnesota, a place where he is happy to grow and develop with the Wolves young nucleus. "I'm happy to be back here because this is an organization at the rebuilding stage that has shown a commitment to keeping their core together," Gomes proclaimed. "They wanted me in the trade of Kevin Garnett, they told me re-signing me was one of their top off-season priorities. It feels nice to be wanted."

Along with Gomes, another former Celtic, Sebastian Telfair and Craig Smith also signed multi-year deals. McHale deemed re-signing the three of them imperative to building continuity and made it an off-season priority to keep the core together. "Re-signing our own guys was our top priority," admitted McHale. "I felt it was important that we bring back a lot of the guys that played last year. They, especially towards of the end of the year last year, started playing very well. I felt they came together as a group."

With his new deal in hand, it might have been easy for Gomes to get complacent. Not the Ryan we know. As you might have guessed, Gomes worked tirelessly in the off-season, working to improve aspects of his game he felt he needed to get better at due to the changes around him made this summer. "I worked on my ball handling, outside shooting and lateral quickness because I knew with the alterations we made to the roster in the off-season, I would be playing a lot more three this year."

Armed with some new cash and newfound security, Gomes is ready to take on more of a leadership role in 2009. "You know, you just have to," Gomes admitted. "I'm coming up on my fourth year in this league. I'm going to try and be a leader by leading by example. Meaning coming to the gym early, be the last one to leave and speak up when guys want to quit. We all have to realize that we're in this together and we have to say no to guys wanting to give up."

What are Gomes' expectations for this year? "With the guys that we have, our goal should be to get to the playoffs, " Gomes concluded. "Hopefully we will get there this year. We won 22 games last year, and I'm sure we will improve greatly on that total this season."