CoolBreeze44 wrote:There is certainly room for improvement. But when you consider the clown car that delivers our coaching staff to the arena every night, you have to wonder how much improvement we can realize.
Well said, Cool. It's not a high level NBA-caliber staff by any stretch. I cringe ever time I see Sidne Lowe talking to players. I just hope they're tuning hm out. :). Not sure what mini-Adelman is doing out there. You have to ask yourself: Would any NBA team hire either one of those two as one of their assistant coaches? I'd say the answer is an easy emphatic NO. And no one was talking about Sam Mitchel being on anyone's short list for a head coaching position.
I actually think Sam could be OK as a head coach. He brings toughness and discipline. But he needs a full staff of top-notch assistants.
I'm dropping down to 26 and I think most of those will come in the second half of the season. This team isn't nearly ready for the start of the season offensively or defensively.
khans2k5 wrote:I'm dropping down to 26 and I think most of those will come in the second half of the season. This team isn't nearly ready for the start of the season offensively or defensively.
I started at 26 after watching the Wolves first two preseason games. I'm now down to 23 after tonight's game. The good news is that the Thunder won only 23 games the first season Durant and Westbrook were together. The next season the Thunder jumped to 50 wins. The watch-word is patience. We will all need a lot of it this season.
Interestingly, the Wolves could win their first 4 games. Our first three games are against the three other rebuilding teams in the West - Lakers, Nuggets and Blazers. Then we play the Heat at Target Center - a team we could beat at home with a little luck.
I'll throw my predictions in. I've been mum on this team other than Twitter for a reason. I'm trying to figure out why in a season where most everyone is healthy, KG's back, Towns is here, Bjelica is here, Ricky is 100% and youth all around, I have no enthusiasm for the year, and preseason's reminding me why.
I'll predict we go 24-58. Personally, as bad as they look, I think we'd all feel better if they play better in the 2nd half of the year. That's where our best basketball of the year should be played. Months of gelling and mixing and matching should yield better results, but with our injury bug and lack of incentive to keep going, we have run off some AWFUL March /April records. If I thought they'd do OK I'd be closer to 30 wins but I can't see it. This team still doesn't get it. Flip isn't here but he might as well be with some of the basic stuff they do wrong. Unfortunately, I think Mitchell will make it his mission to see if Zach LaVine will make it as an NBA player-- at the expense of everyone else on this team. I'd love to be wrong, but it still seems like we're not a year or two away from the playoffs but rather a year or two away from being watchable. Now I say this assuming even if Ricky's healthy, he'll have to deal with the new age JJ Barea in LaVine. We have yet to see that point where it all clicks and we say "I think they're finally ready to end this part of the process and actually resemble an NBA team." They're a ways away from that.
I'll say 24 and 58.
and with that I'm ready for another season among you guys.
I wanted to revise my prediction. Now, I MUST do it.
18 wins. 18 fucking wins. You read that right. 18 - 64. But don't get me wrong. We'll do this exercise again next season and we'll see the same optimistic replies and mantras:
- "This season Ricky will be healthy. He makes everybody else so much better. We saw that last season on Tuesday games in rainy weather in temps below 43 degrees against teams with white lettering on their jerseys."
- "Flip being out set this team back an entire season (e.g., decade)."
- "Towns just had the best rookie season of all-time, or at least since Wiggins' rookie campaign. He's a superstar SOON."
- "Wiggins showed improvement. His field goal percentage went up .00002. How can you call his 2nd season disappointing? How dare you!"
- "LaVine is still young. But he's going to learn how to play. He's NOT Gerald Green or Rashad McCants like in any way. You'll see when he finally gets to play his actual position."
- "Our #1 draft pick has franchise superstar potential. What could go wrong?"
Actually, WW, you should be thrilled with Sam. In the matter of 3 weeks LaVine has gone from starting SG to backup PG. At this rate, he might not even make the final roster!!! ;-)
Seems like a lot of people are up in arms about the effort this preseason. I understand they want good habits shown right off the bat. But I am not at all worried. I like most here want more wins this season, and still firmly believe we will get there. Sam played 14 players last night, it will be paired down to 9 or 10 by game one. These games are for trying the random combinations to see if there is any chemistry on either side of the floor. The conditioning for panic among this fan base cracks me up. I really cant see a scenario where we don't better our record significantly from last year. We have at the very least the exact same team.
