ESPN ranks us...well, just read it

[Big O [enjin:13874644]]

"And why would you expect our "injury history" to get better? It is the same guys year in and year out getting hurt. I don't expect that to all the sudden magically change. Rubio is still a sissy who will sit 30+ games. Pek is still 330 lbs and working on bad legs. Martin, well, is Martin"

Come on! As I just posted in the Prince thread Rubio played 82 games the season before last - sissy? Martin played 68 two years ago and 77 the year before that.

[Hicks123 [enjin:6700838]]

"And why would you expect our "injury history" to get better? It is the same guys year in and year out getting hurt. I don't expect that to all the sudden magically change. Rubio is still a sissy who will sit 30+ games. Pek is still 330 lbs and working on bad legs. Martin, well, is Martin"

Come on! As I just posted in the Prince thread Rubio played 82 games the season before last - sissy? Martin played 68 two years ago and 77 the year before that.

Uh-huh.....
Ricky career games played - 62%
Martin career games played - 73%
Pek career games played - 63%

Those are expected to be 3 of our main contributors. Point to 1 season all you want, but their body of work states pretty clearly that we should expect a different outcome.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

I think we are only for sure better than the Lakers and the Blazers. Denver has a real coach now with some talented guys in Faried, Chandler, and Gallo among others. They also have the best home court advantage in the league. Sacramento has better top level players in Cousins and Gay that we don't match yet so in theory they should be better. It will all depend on if their coaching situation blows up, but if Karl and Cousins can work together I think they are better than us this year. Lillard in Portland this year is the equivalent of Kyrie in Cleveland all those years. He's not good enough to make a difference in the W column by himself. I also think LA just doesn't have any stars like us and their closest guy is over the hill and has barely played the last two years whereas ours is a second year two way player on the brink of being an all-star in my opinion.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

"And why would you expect our "injury history" to get better? It is the same guys year in and year out getting hurt. I don't expect that to all the sudden magically change. Rubio is still a sissy who will sit 30+ games. Pek is still 330 lbs and working on bad legs. Martin, well, is Martin"

Come on! As I just posted in the Prince thread Rubio played 82 games the season before last - sissy? Martin played 68 two years ago and 77 the year before that.

Uh-huh.....
Ricky career games played - 62%
Martin career games played - 73%
Pek career games played - 63%

Those are expected to be 3 of our main contributors. Point to 1 season all you want, but their body of work states pretty clearly that we should expect a different outcome.

I hear your point about the Wolves' brittleness, hicks, but when I evaluate whether a player is likely to be injured in the future or not (i.e. injury prone), I tend to look at the nature of injuries they have incurred in the past to try to make an accurate assessment if they will continue in the future. I agree that Pek needs to be labeled as injury prone...even if his off-season surgery took care of his heel/ankle problem, he has missed time in the past for any number of nagging injuries that one can safely predict are likely to recur. When Martin came here three years ago, most of us would have labeled him injury prone because of past knee issues. I would have. But I'm not aware of any significant time he has lost since he joined us due to issues with his knee, so you could argue that those issues are over. He missed a lot of time last year because of a fractured wrist, but I would argue any player in the league would have missed a lot of time after falling on their wrist like he did. And I also won't label Rubio as injury prone. Watch video of what happened to him against the Lakers three years ago, and his ugly ankle incident last year. Ricky is tough, but has merely suffered a couple severe injuries that could have happened to anyone in the league...bad luck, as it were, rather than injury prone.

Wishful thinking, perhaps, but there is a difference between injury prone or permanently injured (Pek, Brandon Roy, etc.) and players that have suffered freakish one-time injuries that have no indication of returning (Rubio, Martin, etc.). I think most of the Wolves' issues fall into the latter category, and that's why I'm not expecting them to repeat the injury woes of the past 3 years.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

"And why would you expect our "injury history" to get better? It is the same guys year in and year out getting hurt. I don't expect that to all the sudden magically change. Rubio is still a sissy who will sit 30+ games. Pek is still 330 lbs and working on bad legs. Martin, well, is Martin"

Come on! As I just posted in the Prince thread Rubio played 82 games the season before last - sissy? Martin played 68 two years ago and 77 the year before that.

Uh-huh.....
Ricky career games played - 62%
Martin career games played - 73%
Pek career games played - 63%

Those are expected to be 3 of our main contributors. Point to 1 season all you want, but their body of work states pretty clearly that we should expect a different outcome.

2 of them may not even start let alone be 2 of our 3 main contributors. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say our top 3 contributors this year will be Ricky, Wiggins and Dieng.

[Big O [enjin:13874644]]

Hicks, LST just made my point. I believe Rubio played every game up to the ACL injury. When he returned from that injury i believe he played every game for the next year and a half until the severe ankle sprain in game 4 last year. I believe they tried to bring him back too early and his missed a few more games. Bottom line is he isn't "a sissy that will sit out 30+ games"...

[Monster]

I didn't read it but I have no problem with the Wolves being put in the bott third of the league and then after that ranking the worst teams in the league...ugh that's tough to figure. The Wolves have the factors to be at least decent maybe even better but they won 16 games last year and have a ton of question marks. I have no problem with them being put at or near the bottom. Portland is a great example of where the heck do you put that team in the rankings?

Monster, after losing 4 of their 5 starters from last year, Portland is going to start Plumlee, Ed Davis, Aminu, Henderson and Lillard. Lillard is a player, but I don't think he can carry a team on his back, and the other 4 starters only averaged 35 PPG between them last year. Frankly, I think a Wolves' second unit of Pek, Bjelica, Shabazz, Martin and Miller would play their starting unit fairly even! I see them battling all year with Denver for the cellar.

I don't really disagree with you but Lilliard is still a better player than anyone we have and Portland has some interesting young players like Leonard a center that shot 42% from 3 over 93% from the FT line and averaged 4.5 Rebs in 15 mins. There has been a lot of turnover for a lot of teams and while I am not saying the Blazers are gonna be good I just can't say for sure how bad they really will be. Kamen is a nice vet player they still have as well. Good for mentoring. ;)

Maybe my point would have been better used on the Lakers. If somehow they stay somewhat healthy and somehow the talent sorta meshes (don't bet on any of this lol) they could be more than decent. They are more likely to crash and burn though and have a fire sale.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Here's why I think ESPN's 24 win projection is absurd. I compare last year's team based on minutes played...

PG: LaVine
SG: Martin
SF: Wiggins
PF: Young
C: Dieng

Top 3 reserves: Bud, Mo, Bennett

to the 8 guys that I expect to see the most minutes this coming year:

PG: Rubio
SG: Martin
SF: Wiggins
PF: KG
C: Towns

Top 3 reserves: LaVine, Shabazz, Dieng

and I see much more than 8 more wins. And this isn't even taking into account any bump they might get if Pek is able to play 50-60 games at the level he played at before last year. Rubio replacing LaVine at PG adds up to ten more wins alone in my book. And a top three bench of LaVine, Shabazz and Dieng is light years ahead of last year's Big 3 of Bud, Mo and AB. I don't think ESPN really spent much time analyzing the guys who played last year compared to those that are likely to play the most this year. 40 wins seems very achievable to me if you look at it this way.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

LST, While I think 24 wins is a little on the pessimistic side, it certainly seems within the range of error, meaning something in the low 20s to the low 30s can be sanely backed up with solid data.

I think offensively, it's reasonable to assume that we will be better. LaVine and Wiggins should improve their efficiency and Shabazz may take another step forward given his work ethic and hunger offensively. Rubio and Miller give us two very competent floor generals and Bjelica is an intriguing talent that could make some plays off the bounce from the 4-spot. Still, this team doesn't have enough pure shooters and Flip won't allow guys with stretch potential (AB, Payne, Towns, etc.) to aggressively look for that shot. That will continue to be a problem for this squad as we go to battle each night with basically one arm tied behind our back.

Defensively, I also see improvement (how could it NOT improve?), but not enough to keep us out of the bottom 5 or so. I love Towns and think he can eventually be a special player, but let's face it, he's going to get murdered in the paint this season. The adjustment for rookie Centers defensively is probably harder than any other position. The refs won't give him any benefit of the doubt. In addition, he's still clearly growing into his body and working on his strength. We saw last year how Wiggins was man-handled at times on the boards by other SFs that simply cleared him out or won the 50/50 balls with their strength. That will be 3X of a problem with Towns since he has to play Center.

So we basically have three guys that can defend on this squad: Rubio, Wiggins, and KG. And Flip isn't capable of coaxing more value than the sum of his individual parts defensively. It's this side of the ball where your thesis falls short.

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

I wouldn't get discouraged. Where did they have GSW last year at this time? Probably around 6th in the west, which is where they finished the year before.

My favorite still is watching Jaworski bend himself into a pretzel for seven days after his "QB ranking" trying to say that yeah he thinks Bridgewater is bad unless he does well and then it would be something he predicted. His explanation of his top tier was "Guys who take their teams to the playoffs no matter whom the supporting cast is." Um, Brees? The Vikes had the same record as the Saints, and beat them in N/O if it wasn't for the that sorry Munnerlyn roughing-the-passer call.

This team has five guys on the way up who can't handle the pressure of 36 minutes and five guys who don't have the health for 36 minutes. The solution: All ten play 24 minutes. The vets can give their all and still play the next game, and the youngsters don't get weighed down by the pressure. If that happens, 45 wins is certainly possible.

And again, I love the Miller signing. Jones might not be ready, and Miller being here gives him some DesMoines/Development time.