HoopsHype Poll says TWolves have brightest future in 3 years

[Monster]

I'll be that guy I guess. This is a fan poll and it's not like 30,000 people voted or something. It's fun to see or talk about but I wouldn't put much thought into the results. It's nice there are some fans that know the Wolves are on the upswing that's what I take from it.

[Coolbreeze44]

7th or 8th seed would be a failure in my opinion. I think Mitchell would have gotten us to that level. It's time to raise expectations and demand excellence from this organization. The goal should be home court in the first round of the playoffs.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

7th or 8th seed would be a failure in my opinion. I think Mitchell would have gotten us to that level. It's time to raise expectations and demand excellence from this organization. The goal should be home court in the first round of the playoffs.

Wait, what happened to "patience" and "enjoy the process" and "stick with the young guys"? Now you are saying we should expect a top 4 finish next season!?

Let's see what the draft and free agency brings us before suggesting this team is going to go from 29 to 53 wins. Even when this squad was clicking in the last third of the season, we played under .500 ball.

I'm not opposed to Thibs taking some big swings in free agency and looking at some aggressive trades for vets (#5 for a vet for example). But if his plan is to retain the current core and fill in around the edges, then your prior mantra for patience is probably more apt.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I'm with Cool on this one. Sam Mitchell was much maligned on this board, but he had the Wolves playing .500 ball the last 20 games of the season, including a visiting win over a healthy Warriors team. Any kind of normal progress from our promising young guys would have easily put us in the 7th or 8th playoff spot last year. Now we've added a coach with a winning pedigree, and have the cap space and desirability to land free agents like Deng and Noah. While there may be some issues early adjusting to a new coach (and this can be alleviated somewhat if we have players that know his system like Deng, KG and Noah), a home court playoff position should be our goal.

[Monster]

If this team can add some decent players in FA I absolutely see a path to looking towards having home court advantage and even the idea of expecting that seems reasonable. I'm sure the idea that "7 or 8 seed being a failure" was some hyperbole but I think there are still some things that could go wrong so it's also perfectly reasonable if you are more cautious to keep the expectations to just playoffs at least till we know what happens in all the FA moves.

To me Towns and Thibs make looking to playoffs and beyond for next season sort of a no-brainer. It also helps that the west is far from certain at this point about who is gonna be good and who isn't. You never know when that window to get far in the playoffs will suddenly become wide open.

[Coolbreeze44]

7th or 8th seed would be a failure in my opinion. I think Mitchell would have gotten us to that level. It's time to raise expectations and demand excellence from this organization. The goal should be home court in the first round of the playoffs.

Wait, what happened to "patience" and "enjoy the process" and "stick with the young guys"? Now you are saying we should expect a top 4 finish next season!?

Let's see what the draft and free agency brings us before suggesting this team is going to go from 29 to 53 wins. Even when this squad was clicking in the last third of the season, we played under .500 ball.

I'm not opposed to Thibs taking some big swings in free agency and looking at some aggressive trades for vets (#5 for a vet for example). But if his plan is to retain the current core and fill in around the edges, then your prior mantra for patience is probably more apt.

I'm assuming we're going to make some more roster improvements before the season starts. It's still going to be a process and there will be frustrations along the way. But those frustrations will be more:

- why didn't we close out that game in San Antonio that we had a chance to win
- we should have swept that 3 game home stand instead of letting one get away
- would we have these soft tissue injuries if Kander was still here?
- Why would we go through a slump when the schedule seemed fairly soft

If Thibs is as great as most think he is, and we add more quality depth to the roster, I see no reason we shouldn't win 50 games.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

In my opinion, top 4 in the West is unrealistic unless three factors all break for us. 1) Thibs can get this team to improve significantly, not just from our overall record, but also from when we were playing almost .500 ball. 2) We land a free agent who is either very good (Horford) or fits in perfectly and makes a big contribution (Deng, Dudley). 3) We have a healthy year with reasonable improvements from everybody, and one or two of the other top teams in the West have injury problems or falter somehow.

Unless all three of those things happen, it's setting ourselves up for disappointment to think we'll finish above lots of average to good teams like the Rockets, Blazers, Grizz, and Jazz, but also one of either the Warriors, Thunder, Spurs, or Clippers.

I DO think we should set a slightly more realistic goal of making the playoffs in the 6th or 7th seed, and THEN having a kind of secondary goal of being able to surprise the 2 or 3 seed and push it to 7 games or maybe even make the second round. To me, it's more important that we not only make the playoffs, but that we can actually develop the kind of game that would allow us to really take a good team by surprise in the playoffs.

It think that's kind of a more realistic goal, but one with an eye on the ultimate goal, to be a contender someday relatively soon. I don't care if we're the 7th seed or the 4th as long as we've developed the ability to win a series against one other team. or really threaten and take down one of the big boys That's what it's all about. Obviously, the 4th seed would give us a weaker opponent, but at some point, we'll have to go through one or two of the big boys to get to the dance. I'd rather sneak into the fight and surprise or even shock somebody than be considered an overachieving team in the regular season who falls short in the playoffs.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

This board has a history of over-estimating win totals. Heck, I consider myself somewhat of a pessimist/realist and this past season was the first time in 8 years the team exceeded my win total prediction (although I was close - I predicted 26 and the team won 29 games).

So while I'm as excited as everyone else for this squad, I just don't think it's a realistic expectation to believe this team will be or should be top 4 next year in the West unless we get a Durant or something ridiculous like that. Two or three years from now? Yes, hopefully.

Even when OKC made their much ballyhooed leap from 23 to 50 wins, they weren't in the top 4 in the West. As Drew mentioned, a gazillion things need to fall our way. How often does that happen?

[Coolbreeze44]

This board has a history of over-estimating win totals. Heck, I consider myself somewhat of a pessimist/realist and this past season was the first time in 8 years the team exceeded my win total prediction (although I was close - I predicted 26 and the team won 29 games).

So while I'm as excited as everyone else for this squad, I just don't think it's a realistic expectation to believe this team will be or should be top 4 next year in the West unless we get a Durant or something ridiculous like that. Two or three years from now? Yes, hopefully.

Even when OKC made their much ballyhooed leap from 23 to 50 wins, they weren't in the top 4 in the West. As Drew mentioned, a gazillion things need to fall our way. How often does that happen?

The West isn't quite the juggernaut it was a few years ago Q. 50 wins should have us fighting for the 4th spot. Even the year you mentioned, the Thunder was only 3 games out of the #4 seed.

[Lipoli390]

I can certainly see us making a Thunder-type jump to 50 wins without any major roster additions other than adding a role player or two like Dudley. A 50-win season and 4th seed wouldn't surprise me, but it's not my expectation going in.

Assuming every team including the Wolves remain healthy and don't lose any key players this off-season, I see the Warriors, Thunder, Spurs and Clippers finishing ahead of the Wolves. That leaves us fighting with several other teams for the 5-8 slots in the West. Those other teams include the Griz, Blazers, and Jazz. I could see the Kings jumping up into that group under their new head coach. You can't count out the Mavs with Carlisle as their head coach.
And who knows what we'll see from the Pelicans. I think we're the most talented in that group on paper. Assuming Thibs is as good as advertised, we should finish 5th. But we're still very young and there will be some adjustments to the new coach. So I'm keeping my expectations in check.