ESPN ranks us...well, just read it

[Coolbreeze44]

I would never count on anyone near age 40 in this league for well, anything. Those guys are total wildcards. Maybe they contribute, but maybe they don't. The players who are going to contribute the vast majority of our production are very young. I think the first half of the season is going to be very trying. My hope is that we can play close to .500 ball the last 40 games or so. So If everything goes close to plan, I see 30 wins. Any more than that and I will be extremely impressed.

[Mstermisty [enjin:6864008]]

Unless we are crippled by injuries, yet again, I'd be really disappointed with a 24 win season. That's hardly an improvement from last year's team which at times was starting Zach at point surrounded by other guys I have already forgotten about.

Even if simply Rubio hadn't gone down I think we would have won about 22-24 last year. Now factor in getting him back, getting Bazz back, getting K-Mart back and maybe Pek, then Wiggins, Zach, Dieng a year older, adding Towns and the Euro MVP, adding a legit back up point guard in Miller (even though he's old), and some possible improvement from Payne and Bennett, and a full year of leadership from KG, and that to me adds up to at least 30 wins. I think 40 wins or the playoffs is still out of reach, but 24 wins? C'mon.

Then again, until you prove it, you stink. This is the year to prove something.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Yet another reason why ESPN's 24-win forecast is way too low is the fact that we were trying to lose most of the last half of last season. How many more wins would the Wolves have had last year if they hadn't been clearly tanking after the All Star break? Here are a bunch of reasons the Wolves will more than double last year's win total:

1) Tanking made last year's win total artificially low.
2) PG play was a big reason we struggled last year. A healthy Rubio with a reliable distributor like Miller behind him sounds like at least 10 more wins
3) We will all be surprised if Wiggins ranks 28th and LaVine ranks 62nd at their positions in PER this year! These guys, along with other young players like Muhammad, Dieng, Payne and Bennett, are likely to follow the usual NBA learning curve and be substantially better this year.
4) We all saw how the Wolves looked with KG in the lineup last year...imagine the impact he can have on total wins for 60 games rather than 5.

I'm not going to factor in other things that could happen this year, because they are not as probable as those above, but they include:
1) a big contribution from Towns
2) Pek returning to the form he showed before last year
3) a big contribution from last year's Euro-League MVP Bjelica
4) Some movement by Flip in de-emphasizing the long 2-point shot
5) less man games lost because of the addition of the Pistons' trainer, a guy recognized as the best in the league

It has been pointed out that I am emphasizing factors that should lead to more wins this year, and not mentioning negatives. Help me out here, guys...give me a list of factors that didn't exist last year that are likely to lead to fewer wins.

Playoffs, baby!

[alexftbl8181 [enjin:6648741]]

I'll put up some negatives that I think people aren't taking into account that explain the projections

1. Chemistry will be an issue. A lot of teams in the west have played together a while and that means a lot. There is a lot of new pieces to this team. There was clearly some chemistry issues last year as well. Martin and Wiggins didn't seem to mesh very well. Wiggins and Rubio also weren't on the same page for the time they were together. There's a lot of roles that need to be defined on this team

2.Interior defense will still be an issue. Dieng played a ton last year and the Wolves were historically bad for defense at the rim. People will cite Towns, but consider that he's a rookie and rookies don't make that much impact in their rookie season.

3. Continuing on Towns. I think he'll be good but he'll struggle some this year. Why? Rookies don't get calls on offense or defense. Towns struggled with fouls in summer league, I'm guessing that there will be a lot of games where he'll pick up two quick fouls and have to sit. I remember Pek could barely stay in games in his rookie year, and even Wiggins would get killed on offense a lot of times before refs would actually get calls.

4. KG factor will turn out to be overrated. To me, if your talking about best case scenario a guy playing 20 minutes a game for half a season, most likely, he's not going to make that best case. We saw it last year, but talked us out of it with tanking, he didn't need to play, look at the games he did play, ect.

5. Coaching is still an issue. Yea Flip didn't have a full roster to work with, but the fundamentals are clearly out of date. the shitty assistants are still there, and I'm guessing Sam Mitchell is going to coach some games with the Flip cancer deal.

6. Zero shooting. The 3 point shooting is still going to be bad, might even be worse then last year. Compare our shooters to a team like the Warriors or Spurs or Rockets, and it's night and day.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Good summary Alex, representing the realists among us. The other thing to think about is that the Wolves don't operate in a vacuum. Other teams made moves as well and the Western Conference will be as strong as ever. I could potentially get on board with the "fringe-playoff" bandwagon if we were in the East. But no way in the West. Not. Going. To. Happen.

[Monster]

I finally looked at the rankings. I don't see the reason to be so worked up over these as a wolves fan. There is a 7 win gap between #11 (and #12 Kings who have a lot of talent) and the Wolves at #15. That's not a lot. Obviously nobody is buying Kobe being healthy and so why would they believe in our guys being healthy? Every team outside the teams they have in the playoffs have some legit reasons that IF IF they stay healthy, have some young players progress, overcome chemistry issues, etc could sneak up there towards a playoff spot. There is no 76ers bad team at the bottom in the West. Where is the outrage about them only predicting 60 wins for GS? Lol

[AbeVigodaLive]

I'm always among the "pessimists" with preseason predictions, usually near the very bottom for number of victories.

And yet... I've still missed the mark in recent years. The Wolves have ended even worse.



[Note: The Wolves late-season swoons (free falls) should not be overlooked. It's actually quite incredible how poorly multiple teams have finished at the very end of seasons over the past 5 or 6 years.]

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I'm always among the "pessimists" with preseason predictions, usually near the very bottom for number of victories.

And yet... I've still missed the mark in recent years. The Wolves have ended even worse.



[Note: The Wolves late-season swoons (free falls) should not be overlooked. It's actually quite incredible how poorly multiple teams have finished at the very end of seasons over the past 5 or 6 years.]

I think it's possible to be fairly pessimistic (er, I mean realistic!) about this season while at the same time holding out some modicum of hope for the future. We really do have some intriguing potential on the roster. But this will be a gradual process. I'd be fine with 25-ish wins given the strength of the Western Conference and the handicap we have with our coaching staff.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I'll put up some negatives that I think people aren't taking into account that explain the projections

1. Chemistry will be an issue. A lot of teams in the west have played together a while and that means a lot. There is a lot of new pieces to this team. There was clearly some chemistry issues last year as well. Martin and Wiggins didn't seem to mesh very well. Wiggins and Rubio also weren't on the same page for the time they were together. There's a lot of roles that need to be defined on this team

2.Interior defense will still be an issue. Dieng played a ton last year and the Wolves were historically bad for defense at the rim. People will cite Towns, but consider that he's a rookie and rookies don't make that much impact in their rookie season.

3. Continuing on Towns. I think he'll be good but he'll struggle some this year. Why? Rookies don't get calls on offense or defense. Towns struggled with fouls in summer league, I'm guessing that there will be a lot of games where he'll pick up two quick fouls and have to sit. I remember Pek could barely stay in games in his rookie year, and even Wiggins would get killed on offense a lot of times before refs would actually get calls.

4. KG factor will turn out to be overrated. To me, if your talking about best case scenario a guy playing 20 minutes a game for half a season, most likely, he's not going to make that best case. We saw it last year, but talked us out of it with tanking, he didn't need to play, look at the games he did play, ect.

5. Coaching is still an issue. Yea Flip didn't have a full roster to work with, but the fundamentals are clearly out of date. the shitty assistants are still there, and I'm guessing Sam Mitchell is going to coach some games with the Flip cancer deal.

6. Zero shooting. The 3 point shooting is still going to be bad, might even be worse then last year. Compare our shooters to a team like the Warriors or Spurs or Rockets, and it's night and day.

Alex, I see most of those as reasons why the Wolves are not a very good team, but since I provided a list of supportable reasons why they are likely to be better than last year, I was asking posters to supply a corresponding list of reasons why they may be worse than last year. Of your 6 factors, I only see one that might lead to a worse scenario than last year...the one about Flip's cancer possibly making him miss some games next year. But is that really that much of a negative? Are the Wolves really going to play that much worse with Sam Mitchell coaching than the much-maligned Flip Saunders?

A team like Portland or Dallas has a lot of tangible reasons why they are likely to be worse this year than last, but I still don't think the Wolves have any. All the Wolves have is a list of easily supportable reasons why they should be much better than last year, and an equally long list of less supportable reasons why they may be better.

Anybody else have any reasons why they will be worse, or does anybody want to challenge my list of reasons why they should be substantially better?

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

I'll put up some negatives that I think people aren't taking into account that explain the projections

1. Chemistry will be an issue. A lot of teams in the west have played together a while and that means a lot. There is a lot of new pieces to this team. There was clearly some chemistry issues last year as well. Martin and Wiggins didn't seem to mesh very well. Wiggins and Rubio also weren't on the same page for the time they were together. There's a lot of roles that need to be defined on this team

2.Interior defense will still be an issue. Dieng played a ton last year and the Wolves were historically bad for defense at the rim. People will cite Towns, but consider that he's a rookie and rookies don't make that much impact in their rookie season.

3. Continuing on Towns. I think he'll be good but he'll struggle some this year. Why? Rookies don't get calls on offense or defense. Towns struggled with fouls in summer league, I'm guessing that there will be a lot of games where he'll pick up two quick fouls and have to sit. I remember Pek could barely stay in games in his rookie year, and even Wiggins would get killed on offense a lot of times before refs would actually get calls.

4. KG factor will turn out to be overrated. To me, if your talking about best case scenario a guy playing 20 minutes a game for half a season, most likely, he's not going to make that best case. We saw it last year, but talked us out of it with tanking, he didn't need to play, look at the games he did play, ect.

5. Coaching is still an issue. Yea Flip didn't have a full roster to work with, but the fundamentals are clearly out of date. the shitty assistants are still there, and I'm guessing Sam Mitchell is going to coach some games with the Flip cancer deal.

6. Zero shooting. The 3 point shooting is still going to be bad, might even be worse then last year. Compare our shooters to a team like the Warriors or Spurs or Rockets, and it's night and day.

Alex, I see most of those as reasons why the Wolves are not a very good team, but since I provided a list of supportable reasons why they are likely to be better than last year, I was asking posters to supply a corresponding list of reasons why they may be worse than last year. Of your 6 factors, I only see one that might lead to a worse scenario than last year...the one about Flip's cancer possibly making him miss some games next year. But is that really that much of a negative? Are the Wolves really going to play that much worse with Sam Mitchell coaching than the much-maligned Flip Saunders?

A team like Portland or Dallas has a lot of tangible reasons why they are likely to be worse this year than last, but I still don't think the Wolves have any. All the Wolves have is a list of easily supportable reasons why they should be much better than last year, and an equally long list of less supportable reasons why they may be better.

Anybody else have any reasons why they will be worse, or does anybody want to challenge my list of reasons why they should be substantially better?

I haven't read one reason on this thread why we'll be worse than a 16 win team. Only realistic reasons why we won't be close to a playoff team. I'm not sure where you picked up on someone saying we'll be worse next year because of x. At the same time, internal development and health are not enough to catapult a 16 win team to the playoffs in the West this year. Health would have landed us between 25-30 wins last year because we were just too young to do much better. Internal development is not worth 15+ wins to push that team to playoff contention. We're still going to be playing a rookie big man and possibly a rookie PG and forward decent minutes and rookies just are never big pluses on a team's performance. Overall it's just not enough to go from 16 to 45+ wins in one off season. Those kind of swings only happen when you add a Lebron James to your team and we didn't add any all-stars let alone superstars to our team. We added 3 more rookies and two guys pushing 40. 30 wins will be a good year if we can pull that off.