Consistently Solid (a.k.a. Ryan Gomes)

After re-signing Sebastian Telfair and Craig Smith to very reasonable deals in the past few weeks, Minnesota locked up Ryan Gomes on Tuesday to continue an excellent offseason that leaves the franchise with both improved talent and finances.

Whether you're selling tickets for the Wolves and think Felton Spencer was a great pick, or you hate the team and rip the franchise more than Bachelor fiancées split up, you gotta like what's gone on this summer in the front office: Getting Mike Miller and Kevin Love in the Memphis trade while shedding Marko Jaric's contract; acquiring a first-round pick, Rodney Carney and Calvin Booth from Philly for (basically) nothing; and now signing three solid players without breaking the bank.

Gone are the expensive, long-term contracts for guys making marginal contributions at best (it'd be easy, but let's not name names here). In are proven players like Miller, a unique talent in Love and the aforementioned kids who will have at least two years to prove further why they might stay with the franchise well into the future.

We know that Al Jefferson and Love are going to be here for a long time, and can at least predict the same for Randy Foye, Corey Brewer and Miller (based on what he's said). With Gomes, the bottom line is that since he knows his strengths and weaknesses so well and can play in so many different situations, he makes the team better regardless of what kind of lineup head coach Randy Wittman puts out.

"His consistency made a great impression on us," explained McHale. "But more than that, it was his knowledge of the game, his personality, the match-up problems that he poses for other teams and the fact that he can go out and spread the court was what made us want to re-sign Ryan.

"He's so versatile - that versatility comes because he is such an intelligent player. He's a heck of a basketball player, but he's a better person than he is basketball player and that's saying quite a bit."

It's not all golden with Gomes, of course: He's not fast, he doesn't get fouled a lot and he isn't a lock-down one-on-one defender. But he is smart enough to cast some of his weaker traits into the shadow of his strengths. Throw in the fact that he's terrific in the community and the locker room, and it's hard to find anything negative to say about securing Mr. Gomes for a number of years.

Indeed, this is a 25-year-old who epitomizes "solid" and "consistent," two qualities that are among the hardest to replicate around the NBA. In terms of actual basketball skills, he possesses perhaps the two most important: a silky-smooth jumper and the ability to rebound. Check his career statistics.

I want Ryan Gomes on my squad ... And so should you.

Rock Solid
Things that are solid: Tom Brady's arm; Derek Jeter's nerves; Al Iafrate's slap shot in NHL '92 for Sega; Chris Brown's album "Exclusive;" The combined number of Hollywood girlfriends for John Mayer and Justin Timberlake; Ryan Gomes in the community and locker room.

Sometimes being a solid player starts with being a solid person: In Boston, Gomes nailed down the Celtics' community award in his second season; just last week he went on the Wolves Caravan for four days around smaller Minnesota communities despite not having a contract; today he held his press conference at the Farview Community Center in North Minneapolis, one of the several places he donated an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) and hosted a free basketball clinic for area youth.

"I'm telling you, I really do enjoy the opportunity to go out in the community so often as a representative of the league and the Wolves, because it almost gives more credibility to the words," Gomes told me after his press conference. "Especially with the kids, when I talk to a group, even if that one guy or girl out of 100 gets my message that hard work and self-confidence can take them anywhere, I feel like I did an important thing."

No doubt about that. But sssshhh, don't tell anyone this: On occasion professional athletes work in and donate to the community because they have to and are getting paid for it. Put on that smile, kiss a baby or two, give dap to the corporate sponsors and bounce as quickly as possible. But Gomes cares so much about it that he's the one coming to Minnesota's community relations department with ideas.

Consistent
Things that are consistent: Johan Santana striking people out. Manny Ramirez bashing dingers. Manny Ramirez saying crazy things. Tila Tequila being perverted in front of potential lovers' families. Ryan Gomes shooting and rebounding the basketball.

Despite falling to pick No. 50 in the second round to the Celtics in 2005 after starring for Providence College for four years, Gomes quickly demonstrated his value on the floor, averaging 7.6 points and 4.9 rebounds in only 22 minutes per game to make the NBA's All-Rookie Second Team. After backing up Paul Pierce and not playing much to start the year, he became a starter after the Wally Szczerbiak- Ricky Davis trade between the Wolves and Celtics and scored at least 10 points in 21-of-29 games he started, grabbing double-digit boards in seven of those games. Gomes was also named to the Summer League All-First Team both prior to his rookie year (2005) and after ('06).

Gomes continued to improve in his second year with the Celts, starting 60 games and scoring 12.1 points with 5.6 rebounds in 31.2 minutes per contest. His block and steals numbers were below 1.0 in each of his first two seasons, but with just 0.9 and 1.4 turnovers, respectively, his steals and blocks were cool. His best game actually came against the Wolves, when he scored 21 points and grabbed 17 rebounds in a double- overtime contest.

Then came the Kevin Garnett trade, sending Gomes, Telfair, Jefferson, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff's contract and two first-round picks to the Wolves. Gomes started 74-of-82 games at either small or power forward, averaging 12.6 points and 5.8 rebounds. His free-throw shooting continued to improve from 75 percent in his rookie year to 81 percent as a sophomore and 83 percent in 2007-08. Now, in talking about consistency, Gomes has shot around 46 percent in all three of his seasons, holding a career 46.7 mark from the floor. By comparison, Steve Nash is a career 41.7 percent shooter, and Rashard Lewis - though he shoots many more threes - is also a career 46 percent guy. I'm just saying.

Let's go back to the rebounding for a second. Gomes averages almost two offensive rebounds a game (1.6 last season) despite often doing his work on the perimeter, meaning he's constantly swooping in and attacking, and is always hustling. With Jefferson and Love's dual penchant for grabbing every rebound, and Miller being no slouch on the glass himself, Gomes wont necessarily need to be a dominant Windex man, but it always helps to have players who will get every board within their reach.

So if I can get Ryan Gomes in a five-year deal loaded with options and stipulations, I'm doing it in a New York minute.

In this case, I guess that'd make me Kevin McHale...

Good for me.