Minnesota Sports Forum

I will stick with my prediction of 25 wins. The reasons are as follows:

- The loss of Kevin Love. Thinking that he can be replaced by Young and Bennett without much of a fall-off is pretty laughable. We are without question weaker at PF this season. And his defense was never as bad as people make it out to be. We have numbers to prove this!

- Injuries to key players. Pekovic, Martin, and Budinger are key vets on this team, but all three are injury-prone. If one is making a prediction, you have to include the most reasonable odds of injuries. Based on historical data, those guys will miss a combined 50+ games in all likelihood. Therefore.....

- We will become overly reliant on our rookies. As Drew mentioned before, rookies - even when they show great promise - almost always hurt a team more than they help in their first season. Go look back at Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, and Kevin Love. All were net negatives to their teams on a +/- basis in their rookie years. So I'm not sure why some of you view the addition of Wiggins and LaVine as something that will help us this year (certainly we all hope they will help us in 2-3 years).

- 3-point shooting. Our 3-point shooting was pretty good in the pre-season, but we had a couple of players especially hot (e.g. Mo Williams) and that can't be sustained. Also, Flip's insistence that an open 2 point jumper is superior to an open 3-point jumper for some players is mathematically illogical.

- Interior defense. It's still a problem. Pekovic and Young aren't going to be any better at protecting the paint than Pekovic and Love. And while Dieng certainly adds some much needed length and shotblocking to the equation, he struggles in man-on-man situations near the basket and tends to get manhandled too easily. While this squad will get a lot of steals, I'm still not sure we're capable of playing the stout, positional defense so important against the better teams. Zone traps can only go so far....

Add to all of this a Western Conference that only seems to get better every year and it's tough for me to envision this team winning 30 or more games.

Q, this team won 40 games last season with those same injury prone guys on the team, and Bud accomplishing absolutely nothing for them. Regardless of whether Mo was extremely hot in the preseason, he is still going to have better players around him on the second unit. Bennett looks like he may be a huge upgrade from DC, and I do think there will be an improved chemistry and confidence for our younger players having Flip vs Adelman as their coach.

Even though the interior D may not be improved at all, our perimeter and PnR D should be better. Love's offensive prowess and rebounding is our one loss from last season to now. We have upgraded several of the other positions, like backup PG, SG, SF, and PF. Rebounding is clearly the area of biggest concern to me, and I am not sure we can fix that with Young in the starting lineup. Hopefully, Wiggins not leaking out like Brewer at the SF position can help remedy that a little.

Q, while each of your points is valid, you were rather liberal in your pessimistic presentation of those points. Your first point about the loss of Love is the one most people cling to when predicting a losing season.

But I think that point is way over blown. If Love were traded mid-season, then yeah, the Wolves would have not only have to figure out how to play with a new starting PF, but would have to figure out how to spread his production among the rest of the starting lineup. But that's not the case here. With Love traded in the off-season, Flip put together a balanced roster that stands on it's own. And that roster has been figuring out how to play without Love since day one.

As long as the talent is there to absorb Love's production, his departure will not make as big an impact as most people seem to think. And I will remind you all of this throughout the season. ;-)

And Carmelo, Lillard and Westbrook (to name a few) disagree with your rookie-bashing...

Actually, I expect very little from LaVine. And while I am hopeful Wiggins can have a positive impact on the team, I am in no way expecting him to carry this team his first year.

sjm34 wrote:Q, this team won 40 games last season with those same injury prone guys on the team, and Bud accomplishing absolutely nothing for them. Regardless of whether Mo was extremely hot in the preseason, he is still going to have better players around him on the second unit. Bennett looks like he may be a huge upgrade from DC, and I do think there will be an improved chemistry and confidence for our younger players having Flip vs Adelman as their coach.

Even though the interior D may not be improved at all, our perimeter and PnR D should be better. Love's offensive prowess and rebounding is our one loss from last season to now. We have upgraded several of the other positions, like backup PG, SG, SF, and PF. Rebounding is clearly the area of biggest concern to me, and I am not sure we can fix that with Young in the starting lineup. Hopefully, Wiggins not leaking out like Brewer at the SF position can help remedy that a little.

True, they won 40 games with those same injury prone players on the squad. But Love played 77 games and carried a huge load of the production. Without him, we're even more vulnerable to one of those guys getting hurt.

While obviously Bennett has a ton more upside than DC, I'm not ready to say he will have a more positive impact this season. Again, I think we underestimate the nuances of learning the NBA game, especially on defense. DC was not a great player, but he rarely made mistakes and is a classic "do no harm" PF. AB was impressive in some of his stints in preseason, but I'm not ready to declare him a big upgrade over DC. Longer term, I think there is a lot of promise. I even question his ability to stay healthy.

60WinTim wrote:Q, while each of your points is valid, you were rather liberal in your pessimistic presentation of those points. Your first point about the loss of Love is the one most people cling to when predicting a losing season.

But I think that point is way over blown. If Love were traded mid-season, then yeah, the Wolves would have not only have to figure out how to play with a new starting PF, but would have to figure out how to spread his production among the rest of the starting lineup. But that's not the case here. With Love traded in the off-season, Flip put together a balanced roster that stands on it's own. And that roster has been figuring out how to play without Love since day one.

As long as the talent is there to absorb Love's production, his departure will not make as big an impact as most people seem to think. And I will remind you all of this throughout the season. ;-)

Tim, I don't think losing Love by itself costs us 15 games. I think it's the combination of losing Love and doling out playing time to a bunch of rookies and 2nd year guys, especially once our vets start missing games.

I'm encouraged by the pre-season and the long-term potential of some of Flip's 1st and 2nd year guys, but I think their youth will be exposed once we hit the grind of the regular season and people start going down.

60WinTim wrote:And Carmelo, Lillard and Westbrook (to name a few) disagree with your rookie-bashing...

Lillard was a four-year college player that came into the league a pretty finished product. Westbrook had two years at UCLA, and while his +/- wasn't bad, his actual efficiency/production was pretty poor. And Carmelo was not a net plus as a rookie, but yeah, he was pretty decent.

I don't see one-year college guys like LaVine or Wiggins ready to contribute in the way Carmelo did with Denver.

Q12543 wrote:

60WinTim wrote:Q, while each of your points is valid, you were rather liberal in your pessimistic presentation of those points. Your first point about the loss of Love is the one most people cling to when predicting a losing season.

But I think that point is way over blown. If Love were traded mid-season, then yeah, the Wolves would have not only have to figure out how to play with a new starting PF, but would have to figure out how to spread his production among the rest of the starting lineup. But that's not the case here. With Love traded in the off-season, Flip put together a balanced roster that stands on it's own. And that roster has been figuring out how to play without Love since day one.

As long as the talent is there to absorb Love's production, his departure will not make as big an impact as most people seem to think. And I will remind you all of this throughout the season. ;-)

Tim, I don't think losing Love by itself costs us 15 games. I think it's the combination of losing Love and doling out playing time to a bunch of rookies and 2nd year guys, especially once our vets start missing games.

I'm encouraged by the pre-season and the long-term potential of some of Flip's 1st and 2nd year guys, but I think their youth will be exposed once we hit the grind of the regular season and people start going down.

Q, thanks for the summary of potential problem areas for the Wolves this year...they are all factors I have been thinking about also. I don't agree, though, with your point that reliance on rookies will result in fewer wins this year. I don't think that LaVine and Robinson will see the court except in blowouts, so their impact should be negligible. Wiggins, on the other hand, is expected to contribute, and once he is healthy should even start at SF. But even though he is a rookie, he only needs to be better than last year's starter Corey Brewer in order for him to be an upgrade. I like Corey, and think he is an excellent guy to have on your team. But his primary talents are finishing at the rim and steals, and he is below average in all other categories. He is a poor outside shooter, a terrible rebounder, not a very good distributor, and except for his steals, only an average defender at best. Wiggins was the #1 pick in a good draft and one of the most heralded rookies in recent years. I think he will be a big upgrade over Corey, and a reason for more wins rather than fewer.

LST, I don't think LaVine and Robinson will get much playing time either....to start. But trust me, they will get playing time eventually once the injuries hit us, especially LaVine since he's a guard and we have very few true guards on the roster.

As for Wiggins, him being heralded or drafted #1 is meaningless to me as it relates to this season. I wish people would stop describing Wiggins in terms used before he went to college. What matters to me is how he played at KU, summer league, and pre-season. Based on those three stints of play, I just don't see a guy that will impact the game a whole lot this year. As for comparing him to Brewer, keep in mind that Corey had a career year last season. Wiggins will not have the same impact as Brewer.

By the way, I actually agree that Wiggins should start. He is definitely ready for NBA playing time and I like the idea of putting him out there with a group of veteran starters so that he doesn't have to carry a big load, yet still gets the minutes and top tier matchups to defend. That's a great place to focus as a young rookie.....But that doesn't make him an upgrade over Brewer.

Q, I guess we'll just have to see how Wiggins compares to 2013-4 Brewer by the end of the year. Brew went 12.7 and 2.7 last year with average defense. I don't know if Wiggins will score more than 12.7, but I'm confident he will provide more rebounds and better defense.