The next 9 games

[thedoper]

We should go 8-1. But I don't see us doing better than 6-3.

Come on Lip. Vote 8-1 with me. I know you want to. If Minnesota fans can't be delusionally optimistic then what do we have?

[Lipoli390]

We should go 8-1. But I don't see us doing better than 6-3.

Come on Lip. Vote 8-1 with me. I know you want to. If Minnesota fans can't be delusionally optimistic then what do we have?

Lol. Too late. But some like SJM would probably say I'm delusionally optimistic at 6-3. :)

[Wolvesfan21]

LST, are you trying to crush dopers December record thread?

Yeah, I'm all confused now! I had us going 9-7 in that other thread, so not going to bother to parse it down further. I think we're 1-1 so far. In fact, we have quite the symmetry right now going in terms of wins and losses. Here are the last 10 games: L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W. I'm not feeling so good about Sunday!

Doper's been negligent in maintaining his thread, so it's become a distant memory :).

With 9 games coming up in which we should be favored in 8 of them, I thought it was a good time to measure whether board members think this team can live up to expectations. I don't expect that a team should win every game in which it is favored, but also they should occasionally win a game in which they are an underdog...so it should all balance out. If a team is favored in 8 out of 9 games, it seems they should be able to win 8. The problem is this team is underachieving...the question is how much are they going to underachieve over the next 9 games. I say they will underachieve by 2 games, and thus am picking 6-3. And by the way, I think 6-3 will be quite disappointing if we are favored in 8 of those games.

(this experiment is invalid if in fact we are not favored in at least 8 of the next 9 games...I think we will be though).

You could figure out the actual odds through the money line.

If the Wolves are favored by 5 points, it's not a 90% chance to win. It's actually about 66%. Of course they don't have the lines out that far but on avg. statistically they should not win 8 out of 9. The Wolves won't be favored by enough. They are not that good. They'd need to be huge favorites like the Cavs currently who are on a role.

6 wins is probably realistically where the over/under would be if vegas put odds on it. Maybe 5.5.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

LST, are you trying to crush dopers December record thread?

Yeah, I'm all confused now! I had us going 9-7 in that other thread, so not going to bother to parse it down further. I think we're 1-1 so far. In fact, we have quite the symmetry right now going in terms of wins and losses. Here are the last 10 games: L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W. I'm not feeling so good about Sunday!

Doper's been negligent in maintaining his thread, so it's become a distant memory :).

With 9 games coming up in which we should be favored in 8 of them, I thought it was a good time to measure whether board members think this team can live up to expectations. I don't expect that a team should win every game in which it is favored, but also they should occasionally win a game in which they are an underdog...so it should all balance out. If a team is favored in 8 out of 9 games, it seems they should be able to win 8. The problem is this team is underachieving...the question is how much are they going to underachieve over the next 9 games. I say they will underachieve by 2 games, and thus am picking 6-3. And by the way, I think 6-3 will be quite disappointing if we are favored in 8 of those games.

(this experiment is invalid if in fact we are not favored in at least 8 of the next 9 games...I think we will be though).

You could figure out the actual odds through the money line.

If the Wolves are favored by 5 points, it's not a 90% chance to win. It's actually about 66%. Of course they don't have the lines out that far but on avg. statistically they should not win 8 out of 9. The Wolves won't be favored by enough. They are not that good. They'd need to be huge favorites like the Cavs currently who are on a role.

6 wins is probably realistically where the over/under would be if vegas put odds on it. Maybe 5.5.

Damn, that's a great point WF...a long-time gambler like myself should know that! Damn you for poking holes in my "Thibs is hurting this team" narrative :)!

Just in case we needed it, the fact that by far the most posters selected 6-3 is more evidence that this forum is much smarter than LST...6-3 is probably the correct answer, not because we would be underachieving, but because it is the mathematically most probable answer. Oh well, I'll update this thread anyway, and 6-3 would put us on pace to win close to 49 games. Let's go Wolves!

[Lipoli390]

LST, are you trying to crush dopers December record thread?

Yeah, I'm all confused now! I had us going 9-7 in that other thread, so not going to bother to parse it down further. I think we're 1-1 so far. In fact, we have quite the symmetry right now going in terms of wins and losses. Here are the last 10 games: L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W. I'm not feeling so good about Sunday!

Doper's been negligent in maintaining his thread, so it's become a distant memory :).

With 9 games coming up in which we should be favored in 8 of them, I thought it was a good time to measure whether board members think this team can live up to expectations. I don't expect that a team should win every game in which it is favored, but also they should occasionally win a game in which they are an underdog...so it should all balance out. If a team is favored in 8 out of 9 games, it seems they should be able to win 8. The problem is this team is underachieving...the question is how much are they going to underachieve over the next 9 games. I say they will underachieve by 2 games, and thus am picking 6-3. And by the way, I think 6-3 will be quite disappointing if we are favored in 8 of those games.

(this experiment is invalid if in fact we are not favored in at least 8 of the next 9 games...I think we will be though).

You could figure out the actual odds through the money line.

If the Wolves are favored by 5 points, it's not a 90% chance to win. It's actually about 66%. Of course they don't have the lines out that far but on avg. statistically they should not win 8 out of 9. The Wolves won't be favored by enough. They are not that good. They'd need to be huge favorites like the Cavs currently who are on a role.

6 wins is probably realistically where the over/under would be if vegas put odds on it. Maybe 5.5.

Damn, that's a great point WF...a long-time gambler like myself should know that! Damn you for poking holes in my "Thibs is hurting this team" narrative :)!

Just in case we needed it, the fact that by far the most posters selected 6-3 is more evidence that this forum is much smarter than LST...6-3 is probably the correct answer, not because we would be underachieving, but because it is the mathematically most probable answer. Oh well, I'll update this thread anyway, and 6-3 would put us on pace to win close to 49 games. Let's go Wolves!

It doesn't hurt your "Thibs hurting the team narrative." The money line reflects coaching as well as talent. :)

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I think we'll win the next four against Dallas, Philadelphia, Sacramento, and Phoenix. We'll drop a close game against Portland at home, which will probably sting a bit, but then win the following four games after that against Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles Lakers, and Denver again.

Then we'll pick up a loss at Milwaukee on the second half of a back-to-back (scheduled loss, IMO) and redeem ourselves against Indiana to close the month.

That's 9-2 to close December and 11-4 for the month as a whole. Maybe we drop the game against Philadelphia for some reason, but even that wouldn't be a killer.

A large part of my optimism comes from Minnesota having a wide gap in terms of talent level against most of these upcoming opponents. Five of those games are against bottom feeders that are 100% rebuilding. We should be in for a good stretch of basketball.

[benthewolf [enjin:19020845]]

I vote 6-3 because as has been rightly pointed out, you don't automatically win each game you are favored. If that was the case the Warriors would be 82-0.

[Lipoli390]

I just went through the rest of our schedule and projected wins and losses in each game. Even assuming we win these next 5 very winnable home games, my individual game analysis has us finishing with between 43-46 wins. And that's assuming we stay healthy. The schedule gets tougher in after mid January. After watching the way Bazz was playing and in light of Belly's foot problem, we have no margins for injuries. And we really need to win big over this next 10 game stretch playing lesser teams and teams like Denver that lack some of their key players.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I just went through the rest of our schedule and projected wins and losses in each game. Even assuming we win these next 5 very winnable home games, my individual game analysis has us finishing with between 43-46 wins. And that's assuming we stay healthy. The schedule gets tougher in after mid January. After watching the way Bazz was playing and in light of Belly's foot problem, we have no margins for injuries. And we really need to win big over this next 10 game stretch playing lesser teams and teams like Denver that lack some of their key players.

Yup, we need to get some breathing room. We haven't played Houston once yet! I can't see us winning a single game against that team. That 5-game winning streak early in the year is proving to be really big for us right now. We have basically been a ..500 team otherwise. If we can come out of this next stretch 6 or 7 games over .500, that really gives us some room for error.

(keep mind my only goal is to make the playoffs and I think 42 or 43 wins might get it done).

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I just went through the rest of our schedule and projected wins and losses in each game. Even assuming we win these next 5 very winnable home games, my individual game analysis has us finishing with between 43-46 wins. And that's assuming we stay healthy. The schedule gets tougher in after mid January. After watching the way Bazz was playing and in light of Belly's foot problem, we have no margins for injuries. And we really need to win big over this next 10 game stretch playing lesser teams and teams like Denver that lack some of their key players.

I agree that we really need to take advantage of the next 9 as the road gets bumpier after that. But I'm more optimistic than your 43-46, and the reason is Jimmy Butler. I think he has shown signs of assuming the mantle of team leader the past 10 days, and as painful as that may be for KAT who likes to see himself as that, it's all for the good of this team. This doesn't mean I don't agree with Cam that KAT needs to be more involved offensively at the end of games, but he also needs to understand that Butler is the man, and the guy who is going to offset Thibs and take us to the next level.

One of the main reasons for my optimism is Butler's recent comments about Thibs' rotations...his positive relationship with Thibs seems to make him more comfortable than others to express his views even when they are somewhat critical of Thibs. For instance, he has been verbal about Tyus playing well and needing more minutes (although Thibs has not heeded that message yet). More importantly, Butler has begun talking about Thibs' minutes distribution in the past week. After the Clippers game, he told Marney Gellner that "we need to talk to Thibs...these minutes are adding up". Butler is well aware of how Thibs' grinding shortened the careers of three Bulls' players (Deng, Noah and Rose all aged faster than the average NBA player), and he seems to understand that our exhaustion at the end of games is costing us wins. Thibs is too bullheaded to listen to anyone else, but I sense he and Thibs have a mutual respect and that continuing comments by Butler are our best hope for changing Thibs. I'm much more optimistic about this team after listening to Butler this week.