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Smith suffered a career-ending knee injury that season. While he was lying in bed recuperating from microfracture surgery, he started to think about what he was going to do with a life that had been consumed by basketball since he was a kid. He wanted to meld his faith and love of sports through an apparel line and went to Tolliver when he was looking for investors. "He said when you're ready to move forward with this if you need any help with it, I'm there," Smith said. "A lot of guys will give you that lip service, and when it comes to the moment of truth they'll disappear. Anthony stood by that word." Wall Street Journal

Minnesota Timberwolves, Anthony Tolliver, Lanny Smith 

Smith got linked with Lin through friend Patrick Ewing Jr., who was Lin's teammate in Reno, and the Asian-American point guard started wearing the wristbands in games. The two first met face to face in Houston, when the Rockets claimed Lin off waivers. Shortly after, Lin was waived again and picked up by the Knicks, who returned for a game against the Rockets less than two weeks later. "I remember waiting at the Knicks bus and there were all these fans waiting to see Amare (Stoudemire) and Carmelo (Anthony)," Smith said with a chuckle. "Lin just walked off the bus and nobody asked him for an autograph or anything. We just stood there chatting. That will NEVER happen again." Wall Street Journal

Minnesota Timberwolves, Anthony Tolliver, Lanny Smith 

"All these pictures across the world with him rocking our bands," Tolliver said. "Basically at that time, our website launched. It just was crazy after that." The website — MyActiveFaith.com — crashed three times before they were able to get a dedicated server to handle the traffic and they sold 10,000 wristbands in the first two weeks. "Nike, Adidas, Reebok, UnderArmour, they'll never make a faith-based product. They'll never really crossover and touch that," Smith said. "We felt that this was a niche and a market that we could create. That's what we plan on doing, almost being the Nike of the Christian sports apparel." Wall Street Journal

Minnesota Timberwolves, Anthony Tolliver, Lanny Smith 

Anthony Tolliver: Congrats to Kaleb Canales on being named interim head coach of the trailblazers. Great guy! He will do great Twitter

Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trail Blazers, Coaching, Anthony Tolliver, Nate McMillan, Kaleb Canales 

Anthony Tolliver: Praying for @Ricky Rubio ! Extraordinary healing is coming your way! Keep your head up Twitter

Minnesota Timberwolves, Ricky Rubio, Anthony Tolliver, Injuries 

In addition to Michael Beasley, who is on the radar for the Lakers, Celtics, Magic and Nets, the Timberwolves are gaging interest in Anthony Tolliver and Wayne Ellington, sources said. CBSSports.com

Minnesota Timberwolves, Trade, Michael Beasley, Anthony Tolliver, Wayne Ellington 

Ryan McNeill: Anthony Tolliver: "I'm still trying to figure out what a Muskie is." #Wolves #NBA Twitter

Minnesota Timberwolves, Anthony Tolliver 

Jeremy Lin and Timberwolves forward Anthony Tolliver share a bond — and a band. Lin is one of roughly 20-30 NBA players who have worn wristbands made by Active Faith, a company Tolliver holds an ownership stake in. Knicks teammate Landry Fields also wears the wristband. “It became something that grew and grew and grew,” Tolliver said before last night’s 100-98 Knicks victory. New York Post

Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks, Anthony Tolliver, Jeremy Lin 

"My whole life I've always been kind of the underdog type player," Tolliver said. "I've always had the goal and the dream to play in the NBA, so every year I've just continued to work on my game and do the things that a lot of people don't want to do." Fox Sports North

Minnesota Timberwolves, Anthony Tolliver 

It would seem in those moments of basketball monotony that the sport is all Tolliver has, that it's his life. But that's the irony of it all -- for him, basketball is just one facet of an increasingly complex and dynamic life. Growing up in Springfield, Mo., Tolliver learned a lot from his late mother, Donna Lewis. He developed his strong Christian faith, and he also picked up the dogged perseverance of a single woman who raised three children on a teacher's salary. But most of all, he learned to keep his eyes open and to think beyond the court, beyond the gym. "Going through college, four years, and getting a finance degree, you just hear about different things that make you want to go into different aspects of life," Tolliver said. "You know that basketball's not going to last forever." Fox Sports North

Minnesota Timberwolves, Anthony Tolliver 

Late Tuesday afternoon, NBA TV added the Wolves to one of its national telecasts, a March 15 game at Utah. Rubio and Williams already have made a combined three appearances on ESPN's Top 10 plays feature on "SportsCenter." Rubio's bounce pass between the legs of Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki to teammate Anthony Tolliver, who sank a three-pointer from the corner, was the No. 1 play Sunday night in ESPN's Top 10 segment. All of this hype has helped the Wolves where it counts the most. The Wolves sold out their first two home games, against Oklahoma City and Miami, and are averaging 17,097 in attendance, up from 15,243 at the end of last season. St. Paul Pioneer Press

Minnesota Timberwolves, Ricky Rubio, Anthony Tolliver 

How often does a player do something like that? Well, as long as I asked, Anthony Tolliver also called Riley after signing a free agent contract with the Timberwolves. New York Post

Minnesota Timberwolves, Free Agency, Anthony Tolliver 

Wolves forward and union player rep Anthony Tolliver said by text Tuesday night that he expects he and his teammates will gathered at Target Center next week for "at least a few days" of their own workouts before training camp opens Dec. 9. The league has given team executives and agents to talk business first thing Wednesday morning after forbidding conversation since the lockout went into effect on July 1. Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Minnesota Timberwolves, Anthony Tolliver 

Anthony Tolliver: get that #NBAlockout OUTTA HERE!! Im glad we can actually get back to work... and now i can actually rep my team again! lol #twolves all day Twitter

Minnesota Timberwolves, Anthony Tolliver, Lockout 

Ken Berger: Caron Butler, Ben Gordon, Anthony Tolliver and Derrick Williams are plaintiffs in the Minnesota case. Twitter

Dallas Mavericks, Detroit Pistons, Minnesota Timberwolves, Law, CBA, Anthony Tolliver, David Stern, Ben Gordon, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Caron Butler, NBPA, Derrick Williams 

Anthony Tolliver: During the 1998 lockout, David Robinson made the statement after one of their failed negotiation sessions, "They don't negotiate They tell you how it will be, and they don't want to listen to the players." Isn't it interesting how history repeats itself? Twitter

Minnesota Timberwolves, Anthony Tolliver, Lockout, David Robinson 

The league has dangled in front of their players and their fans a 72-game season starting Dec. 15 if the union accepts a deal that Tolliver says at first glance looks a bit better than last week's last, best offer but not good enough. "They're doing that for P.R., so fans and players will want to take the deal," Tolliver said Friday of the 72-game offer. "The NBA has played the P.R. side of this great. I'm on Twitter and I got 10, 15 tweets since yesterday asking me to take the deal. Yes, it's OK for fans to say take it. It doesn't affect fans' pocketbooks, their livelihoods, their jobs. Yes, if you're an arena worker or you own a restaurant near an arena, it affects you. But if you're a guy who works 9-to-5 at the bank ... it's easy to tell someone else to take a bad deal if it doesn't affect you. "Everybody on our team wants to get a deal done, but at the end of the day, we don't want to get taken advantage of. There isn't one guy who'll say let's just play, let's just take whatever deal." Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Minnesota Timberwolves, CBA, Anthony Tolliver, Lockout, NBPA 

When asked why player reps will meet again to consider this latest offer rather than sending it directly to a vote by the entire membership, Tolliver said player reps have been elected by their teammates and much like elected politicians are chosen to represent their constituents. "A senator represents a state, I represent my team," he said. "It's my job to go and analyze it knowing generally what my teammates want." Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Minnesota Timberwolves, CBA, Anthony Tolliver, Lockout, NBPA 

Tolliver said he has not signed the decertification petition, even though he says owners are dictating the negotiations by demanding they win the battle in both economics with a 50 -50 revenue split and a system that will restrict free-agent options for players. "I'm not against it, but I won't say I'm for it," he said of decertification. "I'm on the fence. I still think we have time to get a deal done. The only thing that would make me swing the other way is the fact that the owners are being unreasonable. They're issuing ultimatums and saying they won't negotiate anymore. That's not negotiation. That's a very large corporate form of bullying." Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Minnesota Timberwolves, CBA, Anthony Tolliver, Lockout, NBPA 

The NBA has made its latest take-it-or-leave-it-offer. Is it really all-or-nothing, already here on Nov. 12? "We're not even into December yet," Tolliver said. "The season itself is not in jeopardy yet. When you consider the last lockout [the 1998-99 season] didn't end until Jan. 6, two months from now, there's still time to negotiate." Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Minnesota Timberwolves, CBA, Anthony Tolliver, Lockout, NBPA