Minnesota Sports Forum

The thing that's ALWAYS killed this team the last few years (in addition to defense) was depth. Maybe it evaporates but right now it looks fairly legit. The Celtics might be a good test for that. One of the reasons why the Clippers have been good is depth. You just don't have a big drop off when those guys come in. That's big.

It's the new year and after getting to .500 in that nice flurry after the trade the Wolves are 17-20 which is less than I was hoping for. Still they are only 3.5 games out of the playoffs although some of the teams that were struggling have gotten on track. January is the month we likely find out if this team has a real shot or not. It would help if they were able to get and stay healthy. If they don't get on some sort of roll soon the season (in terms of playoffs) is clearly in jeopardy. To me the keybfpt them is if they can defend more consistently. The jury is still out on this team but the talent is there for them to get on a roll again.

I just don't see the passion in this team. Roco is the only player who seems engaged to being a cohesive unit and now that he's settled in he's starting to play a more individualistic style of ball. I feel like we have a bunch of players trying out for other teams. I don't see a run happening with this roster.

thedoper wrote:I just don't see the passion in this team. Roco is the only player who seems engaged to being a cohesive unit and now that he's settled in he's starting to play a more individualistic style of ball. I feel like we have a bunch of players trying out for other teams. I don't see a run happening with this roster.

Yeah, remember that we were like #1 in the league defensively for about 9 or 10 games after RoCo came on board? Since then, it's been uneven at best, with teams absolutely torching us from 3 about every other game.

We'd be a very competitive team in the East and likely compete for a 6-8 seed. That ain't happnening in the West. We aren't good enough.

Q12543 wrote:

thedoper wrote:I just don't see the passion in this team. Roco is the only player who seems engaged to being a cohesive unit and now that he's settled in he's starting to play a more individualistic style of ball. I feel like we have a bunch of players trying out for other teams. I don't see a run happening with this roster.

Yeah, remember that we were like #1 in the league defensively for about 9 or 10 games after RoCo came on board? Since then, it's been uneven at best, with teams absolutely torching us from 3 about every other game.

We'd be a very competitive team in the East and likely compete for a 6-8 seed. That ain't happnening in the West. We aren't good enough.

Ha. I remember that. Everyone here was excited and enjoyed watching the wolves for a brief moment in time. We thought it was just Jimmy holding us back.

BizarroJerry wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

thedoper wrote:I just don't see the passion in this team. Roco is the only player who seems engaged to being a cohesive unit and now that he's settled in he's starting to play a more individualistic style of ball. I feel like we have a bunch of players trying out for other teams. I don't see a run happening with this roster.

Yeah, remember that we were like #1 in the league defensively for about 9 or 10 games after RoCo came on board? Since then, it's been uneven at best, with teams absolutely torching us from 3 about every other game.

We'd be a very competitive team in the East and likely compete for a 6-8 seed. That ain't happnening in the West. We aren't good enough.

Ha. I remember that. Everyone here was excited and enjoyed watching the wolves for a brief moment in time. We thought it was just Jimmy holding us back.

I think there was a honeymoon period after the Butler drama that also coincided with an easy part of the schedule with a bunch of home games and some weaker competition. We sobered up pretty quickly after we went out and lost four straight on the road. It's been a mixed bag since then and I suspect that's what weve got - around a .500-ish team. That't not good enough in the West.

My playoff emotions are on a roller coaster. I threw in the towel yesterday when I heard RoCo was out indefinitely, but I'm back on the train after last night's performance. This team is deep (Thibs needs to recognize this like last night) and has a bona fide superstar in KAT, and deep teams with a superstar usually make the playoffs. We are only 3 games behind a Laker team that has proven can't win with James injured and whom we will beat tomorrow. None of the teams we are battling for that 8th spot look very unbeatable to me.

One key has to be Wig. Souhan seemed unhappy this morning that the fans didn't boo Wig after his last dreadful home game, but I think it shows the intelligence of the hometown fans. Wig played with some intensity last night (although I agree he lapsed a little on defense in the second quarter), and that's the main thing fans want to see. Sure, his handle is subpar and he does tend to miss key free throws, but when he plays with some intensity and is active at both ends of the court, this team is a playoff team. We don't need Wig to be an all-star...his meagre stats last night are enough when we have KAT (and eventually, we hope, Rose). But his defense is markedly better when he has that hungry look in his eye like he did last night as opposed to the sleepy look. There's no guarantee that he can keep it up, but if he does, I maintain this is a playoff team.

longstrangetrip wrote:My playoff emotions are on a roller coaster. I threw in the towel yesterday when I heard RoCo was out indefinitely, but I'm back on the train after last night's performance. This team is deep (Thibs needs to recognize this like last night) and has a bona fide superstar in KAT, and deep teams with a superstar usually make the playoffs. We are only 3 games behind a Laker team that has proven can't win with James injured and whom we will beat tomorrow. None of the teams we are battling for that 8th spot look very unbeatable to me.

One key has to be Wig. Souhan seemed unhappy this morning that the fans didn't boo Wig after his last dreadful home game, but I think it shows the intelligence of the hometown fans. Wig played with some intensity last night (although I agree he lapsed a little on defense in the second quarter), and that's the main thing fans want to see. Sure, his handle is subpar and he does tend to miss key free throws, but when he plays with some intensity and is active at both ends of the court, this team is a playoff team. We don't need Wig to be an all-star...his meagre stats last night are enough when we have KAT (and eventually, we hope, Rose). But his defense is markedly better when he has that hungry look in his eye like he did last night as opposed to the sleepy look. There's no guarantee that he can keep it up, but if he does, I maintain this is a playoff team.

It was nice to get some help from the east last night. I saw a tweet that Memphis and the Clippers have really fallen off the last 15 or so games.

The hapless James-less Lakers lost at home to the Cavs last night, so now we are only 1 1/2 games out of the playoffs. Further, we are only 4 1/2 games out of getting home court advantage in the first round! The bad news is we have the 4th toughest schedule the rest of the way (based on records of teams we will be playing), but then the Lakers have the 3rd toughest. With the energy we have shown recently, I see no reason we shouldn't pass Utah, Sac-town and the Lakers if we can stay reasonably healthy.

Interesting graphics replresentation of strength of schedule for every team frommwhen this was tweeted and forward. Spoiler alert it's not good to be in the West. Lol

https://twitter.com/edkupfer/status/1083006447515062275?s=21