Timberwolves star forward Kevin Love has accepted an invitation from Flip Saunders, the new president of basketball operations, to represent the team at the NBA draft lottery May 21 in Secaucus, N.J.

The Wolves have just a 1.7 percent chance of getting the No. 1 pick through the lottery.

Look for the Wolves to invite former Gophers Trevor Mbakwe and Rodney Williams for personal workouts after the lottery. Mbakwe, but not Williams, is among 63 players expected to participate in the NBA predraft combine next weekend in Chicago.

Also invited were former Gopher Colton Iverson of Colorado State, Nate Wolters of South Dakota State and St. Cloud, Minn., and Mike Muscala of Bucknell and Roseville.

It looks as if the Minnesota Wild’s best route to significantly improve next season might be by signing restricted free agents this summer. That means signing free agents to offer sheets and hoping their teams won’t be able to match for salary cap reasons.

The Wild, losers of four of five Stanley Cup playoff games against Chicago, would be able to free up nearly $10 million in salary by not re-signing Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Niklas Backstrom.

To become a legitimate playoff contender, the Wild need to add one defenseman and two forwards and find a bona fide goaltender.

The Wild need to acquire size and speed in the offseason to be able to compete with the Blackhawks, who next season will play in the same division as Minnesota.

Wild owner Craig Leipold, who wrote free-agent signing bonus checks for $10 million apiece to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter last summer, is expected to lose money this season despite having had two sold-out playoff gates in St. Paul.

Among those looking forward to the Blackhawks playing in the same division as the Wild is former North Star Tom Younghans, 60.

“If (the Wild) were smart, they would try to take back the North Stars name,” Younghans said. “I don’t know why they couldn’t.”

Playing for Milwaukee, nationally coveted junior shooting guard Rashad Vaughn of Robbinsdale Cooper scored 13 points with six rebounds in a 55-46 loss to the Texas Titans the other day in Dallas.

Ex-Twins: Third baseman Danny Valencia is hitting .289 after 33 games and outfielder Lew Ford .170 after 13 games, for the Baltimore Orioles’ Triple-A Norfolk Tides.

Joe Angel, 65, a Twins broadcast partner of late hall of famer Herb Carneal, is in town as the radio voice of the Orioles.

“I left the Twins after the 1986 season. Terrible timing — they won the whole thing in 1987,” Angel said.

That was St. Paul’s Mark Nelson refereeing the recent World Boxing Association title fight won by Kazuto Ioka in Osaka, Japan.

Ex-Viking Percy Harvin of the Seattle Seahawks will sign footballs and jerseys for $89 apiece at a memorabilia show June 1 in Washington.

Hard liquor at Vikings games at TCF Bank Stadium in 2014-15 will be available only in private suites.

Some of the 75 students who took legendary St. John’s football coach John Gagliardi‘s coaching classes this spring wrote in reviews that it was the best class they had enrolled in at the Collegeville, Minn., university.

“It wasn’t rocket science,” said football’s all-time winning coach, now retired.

Chances of Stillwater boys hockey coach Phil Housley getting to coach the U.S. men’s hockey team in the 2014 Olympics in Russia haven’t been hurt by the performance of the U.S. national team at the world championships in Helsinki. The U.S. team, with Housley as an assistant, has won four of its past five games, going into Sunday’s game against Germany.

In its first season in NJCAA Division II competition, St. Paul’s Tom Cross coached the Dakota County Technical College softball team to the Region 13 championship.

Twins radio analyst Dan Gladden will ride a custom-made “Harmon’s Harley” motorcycle that will be raffled at Target Field as part of the Harmon Killebrew Hospice Day and Biker Rally fundraiser Aug. 18.

The Twins will play the Chicago White Sox at Target Field that day.

Meanwhile, there will be no Harmon Killebrew fundraising golf tournament this summer in Minnesota. The tournament had been held annually in the Twin Cities.

Senior left-fielder Andy Henkemeyer of Sauk Rapids, Minn., is the Gophers’ best overall baseball player.

Stew Thornley, who with Gregg Wong is an official scorer at Twins games, was appointed to Major League Baseball’s three-member official scoring advisory committee after a meeting in New York last week.

Wild press box liaison Randy Peterson, 57, bowled a 300 game the other day at Cedarvale Lanes in Eagan. It was his first perfect score in 42 years in the sport.

Add Andrew Alberts, who played at Benilde-St. Margaret’s and for the Vancouver Canucks, and T.J. Oshie, who played at Warroad and for the St. Louis Blues, to the list of 17 Minnesotans in the NHL playoffs.

Longtime Mendakota Country Club general manager Steve Watson has left the job.

DON’T PRINT THAT

Pssst: The Vikings are in pursuit of 3M to become a corporate naming-rights sponsor for their new stadium. 3M could join U.S. Bank and Target.

Speaking of 3M, don’t be surprised if hall of fame golfer and TV analyst Johnny Miller, as well as hall of fame golfer Annika Sorenstam, play in the Champions Tour legends event in August at the TPC in Blaine.

It’ll be interesting

to see whether the Blackhawks, considering that the NHL salary cap will be lowered by about $6 million next season, will be able to afford restricted free-agent defenseman Nick Leddy, 22, of Eden Prairie.

Also unrestricted free agents after the season are New York Rangers Ryan McDonagh of St. Paul and Derek Stepan of Hastings.

The reason the Rangers recently traded ex-Wild star Marian Gaborik to Columbus was that with the new salary cap they wouldn’t be able to afford to re-sign him and still pay McDonagh and Stepan.

It will be announced that Jim Carter, Charlie Sanders, Krissy Wendell Pohl, Natalie Darwitz, Jon Andresen, Gary Wilson, Rick Naumoff, Lloyd LaMois, Louis Lick and Larry Ross are new electees to the University of Minnesota “M” Club Hall of Fame.

Based on his auditions with ESPN last week in Bristol, Conn., former Vikings and Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk of St. Paul instantly would become the network’s top NFL analyst.

Wild rookie Mikael Granlund, already a hockey star in Finland, said his brief time with the Wild this season “opened my eyes” regarding the level of competition in the NHL.

Ex-Twins starter Liam Hendricks is 1-3 with a 5.53 earned-run average at Triple-A Rochester. He has given up 43 hits in 27 2/3 innings and struck out 15.

Don’t be surprised if a Minnesota rock act is the headline entertainment at the Vikings-Steelers game Sept. 27 in London.

OVERHEARD

Twins assistant GM Rob Antony, asked about the possibility of a major league promotion for Kyle Gibson, who in his most recent start pitched a complete-game shutout for Triple-A Rochester: “We don’t make decisions off of one game. We’ll see if he backs it up another game and shows that he’s ready to pitch up here.”

Charley Walters can be reached at cwalters@pioneerpress.com.