Could the Wolves be this years Phoenix Suns?

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Q you could take any lineup in the NBA and do the same thing

I agree. Lip described one side of the coin with these guys in an attempt at optimism, which is something I'm allergic to when it comes to the Wolves. The reality is that a number of our players have some gaping holes in their games that don't necessarily go away with a change of the coach or a single offseason.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I honestly believe we could be the suns of this upcoming season. Maybe not 48 wins but a surprise team who performed better than expected and end up with 40 wins much like last year.

There are 3 guys on the team that I believe will perform at a higher than expected level next season. Namely Rubio, Young and Wiggins.I can see all 3 having big years.

Rubio will have a breakout season. Career high numbers and make a case for a near max or max extention.

Young will continue and build on his good showing last season. His game is a great fit to rubio's passing. His rebounding was disappointing but I see him working on it and pulling down 7-8 reb next season.

Wiggins will be much better next season than people projects. His my ROY pick next season.

ROY doesn't necessarily mean the player had a net positive impact on his team. Look at MCW last season. As someone posted a few weeks ago, rookies very rarely make a net positive impact - especially 19-year old ones. Also, I think Wiggins will be asked to be a defender first and foremost. His offense will likely be a struggle next year. Ironically, that probably would have been his primary role in Cleveland as well.

[worldK]

I honestly believe we could be the suns of this upcoming season. Maybe not 48 wins but a surprise team who performed better than expected and end up with 40 wins much like last year.

There are 3 guys on the team that I believe will perform at a higher than expected level next season. Namely Rubio, Young and Wiggins.I can see all 3 having big years.

Rubio will have a breakout season. Career high numbers and make a case for a near max or max extention.

Young will continue and build on his good showing last season. His game is a great fit to rubio's passing. His rebounding was disappointing but I see him working on it and pulling down 7-8 reb next season.

Wiggins will be much better next season than people projects. His my ROY pick next season.

ROY doesn't necessarily mean the player had a net positive impact on his team. Look at MCW last season. As someone posted a few weeks ago, rookies very rarely make a net positive impact - especially 19-year old ones. Also, I think Wiggins will be asked to be a defender first and foremost. His offense will likely be a struggle next year. Ironically, that probably would have been his primary role in Cleveland as well.

Q, Whats are you getting at? MCW may or may not be a net positive based on whatever stats you are looking at but the eye test say MCW made philly a better team and take him out and philly probably loses more than they did.

My point is wiggins will play better than you and others are projecting him to be and if he wins ROY, that means he did well. I know your pessimistic about the wolves next season and all im saying is AW will be better than what you are projecting him to be. Yea, he will be asked to be a defender because he has the tools and willingness to play d. Offensively, he is not yet a finish product but he can score.

[Lipoli390]

Q you could take any lineup in the NBA and do the same thing

Correct. More importantly, the point of my post was a comparison of our roster this season to our 1996-97 roster, which won over 40 games. I forgot about Googs, but otherwise, our team was built then around a rookie with one year of college behind him and a second year player out of high school. And yes, believe it or not, Marbury and and KG had flaws then. Marbury had great numbers coming out of college, but he was a very poor defender. KG was still a work in progress and not a big scorer. Flip developed and molded those two young talented players along with Googs and largely marginal vets that season into a 40+ win team. We have far more talented young players today than we did then and a better, much deeper array of good vets -- Pekovic, Rubio, Martin, Mo Wlliams and Turiaf, compared to Googs and Sam Mitchell et. al.

Admittedly, I'm in the camp that thinks we'll only win a around 30 games because I think the West is tougher now then it was then and our two most talented young guys (LaVine and Wiggins) don't seem as NBA ready as Marbury and KG were that season. But looking back at the 1996-97 tells us that 40 wins with the group we'll have this season is not pie in the sky.