Don’t Get Your Hopes up Too High If You’re a Minnesota Sports Fan

*******Posted by ESPN 99.1 intern Andrew "Lil Scalabrine" Holtan. Follow him on Twitter @LilScalabrine******

About a month ago the Minnesota Timberwolves traded Zach Lavine, Kris Dunn, and the No.7 overall pick to the Chicago Bulls for Jimmy Butler and the No. 16 overall pick.

This trade put the Timberwolves in position to make the playoffs for the first time since 2004. As a Minnesota native and a Timberwolves fan since birth I am very excited for the future. But I always have to stop myself from getting to excited as a Minnesota sports fan.

I am fan of every single team. Timberwolves, Vikings, Wild and Twins. My Dad also has season tickets to Gopher football and basketball.

I am 21 years old and have never seen any of my teams win a championship. Hell, I haven’t even seen any of my teams in a championship game or series.

Now I realize that Minnesota Lynx have won three championships in the past six seasons, but I haven’t been a fan of them since birth. So that’s why I don’t count them as a team winning a championship.

In 2009 I witnessed Brett Favre throw away a trip to the Super Bowl after he threw an interception late in the NFC Championship game against the New Orleans Saints. The Saints went on to kick a field goal and win the game in overtime.

This was definitely the most heart broken I have ever been as a sports fan. It was the Vikings year and in epic Minnesota fashion they botched it.

The following year I thought that the Vikings would redeem themselves and win the Super Bowl. Instead Brett Favre got hurt half way through the year and they finished 6-10.

That’s when I realized as a Minnesota sports fan that I should never get my hopes up to high cause they will always break my heart.

I haven’t had a whole lot of times where my teams can break my heart cause out of the four major pro teams, they have only won a total of 12 playoff series or playoff games since 1995. The Vikings have six of those and the Wild have four. Timberwolves have two and the Twins have one.

Being a fan of the Gophers might be even worse. Especially football. They haven’t beaten their rival, Wisconsin, in 13 years.

Now I realize that at any point I could have said screw it, I’m done with Minnesota teams and switched teams. But there is something about being a fan of the same team that your family likes and your friends like.

So as the Twins sit at 49-50 and are 4.5 games back in the AL Central and three games back in the wild card. I don’t have the expectation that they will make the playoffs. I also have zero expectations for the Vikings even though they started out last season 5-0 before their whole offensive line got hurt. I certainly don’t have the expectations that the Timberwolves are a lock for the playoffs because you can never be sure with a Minnesota team.

So if you’re a Minnesota sports fan don’t ever, EVER, think that any of these teams are for sure going to win anything until they actually do because then you will be heart broken when they don’t.

It’s a tough way to be a fan but I believe it makes things a lot easier.