Minnesota Sports Forum

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:Thibs would be delighted by the cover he's being given by the low expectations in this thread. .500 next year? Unacceptable. You can't overlook the fact that they were 9-10, almost .500, over the last quarter of the season. Abe says it's a small sample size, and it is. But it's also 1/4 of KAT's career, so for him, that's a significant sample size. And since our team is so young and just learning to play in the NBA, it's reasonable to assume results from the last quarter of the season are much more meaningful than those from the first 3/4.

So, .500 the last quarter of the season as our teenagers learned the game, expected continued development from our under-25 guys, and the addition of great depth in Aldrich, Hill and Rush. And then everyone tells me that Thibs replacing Mitchell should add some wins. And still posters here are saying they would be content for the team to win at the same pace they did the last 1/4 of the year? Come on...we gotta think bigger than that!

I understand that injuries could torpedo any year, but let's not look at last year as an unusually good year...we ranked 17th in terms of games lost to injury last year, close to the middle of the pack, and much worse in terms of VORP lost to injury. We are as likely to have better injury results next year than worse. I'm not ready to give Thibs the pass you guys are willing to. If he really is a much better coach than Mitchell, this team needs to win close to 50 games this year.

I'm with you here LST. I don't like the tenor of the conversation that's starting to permeate these threads:

- The West is too tough

- We can't expect to stay as healthy this year

- We're too young

- Can't expect a huge jump

The apologies are lining up and the season hasn't started yet. I've been saying for quite a while that this is a process and we need to have patience. But the next step in the process is to make a huge leap, following the standard OKC set several years ago. If our players and coach is as good as we think they are, there is no reason we can't win 50 games. If we don't at least play .500 ball, then I would question our personnel and head coach.

khans2k5 wrote:OKC is not a playoff team in my opinion. Where's the offense coming from outside of Westbrook? I don't see how they are that much better than the Sacramento's and NO's of the world with 1 great player on the team and not a ton of help. I just don't see nearly the offensive firepower needed to hang in the West.

GS
SA
LAC
Utah
Memphis
Portland
MN
Houston

TheFuture wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:OKC is not a playoff team in my opinion. Where's the offense coming from outside of Westbrook? I don't see how they are that much better than the Sacramento's and NO's of the world with 1 great player on the team and not a ton of help. I just don't see nearly the offensive firepower needed to hang in the West.

GS
SA
LAC
Utah
Memphis
Portland
MN
Houston

Oladipo, kanter, ilyasova, Adams, Payne, mcgary, roberson, sabonis is a good group surrounding a top 5 player. Didn't Westbrook carry them to the playoffs a couple years ago without Durant?

kekgeek1 wrote:

TheFuture wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:OKC is not a playoff team in my opinion. Where's the offense coming from outside of Westbrook? I don't see how they are that much better than the Sacramento's and NO's of the world with 1 great player on the team and not a ton of help. I just don't see nearly the offensive firepower needed to hang in the West.

GS
SA
LAC
Utah
Memphis
Portland
MN
Houston

Oladipo, kanter, ilyasova, Adams, Payne, mcgary, roberson, sabonis is a good group surrounding a top 5 player. Didn't Westbrook carry them to the playoffs a couple years ago without Durant?

Nope they took 9th

PorkChop wrote:I see the Wolves finishing anywhere between 6th and 11th. They were a very healthy team last year, to expect that again might be wishful thinking. So being virtually the same team as last year (except Dunn) and expecting more of an injury bug I'm gonna say they just miss out of the playoffs to either Portland or New Orleans. 39-43 would be a 10 game improvement and a strong step in the right direction .

TheFuture wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

TheFuture wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:OKC is not a playoff team in my opinion. Where's the offense coming from outside of Westbrook? I don't see how they are that much better than the Sacramento's and NO's of the world with 1 great player on the team and not a ton of help. I just don't see nearly the offensive firepower needed to hang in the West.

GS
SA
LAC
Utah
Memphis
Portland
MN
Houston

Oladipo, kanter, ilyasova, Adams, Payne, mcgary, roberson, sabonis is a good group surrounding a top 5 player. Didn't Westbrook carry them to the playoffs a couple years ago without Durant?

Nope they took 9th

Was that also the season Westbrook missed 20ish games as well?

Either way, his supporting cast is better now than it was that season. I'm expecting full terminator mode from Westbrook and do not doubt one bit that they make the playoffs.

Westbrook for MVP

Q12543 wrote:

PorkChop wrote:I see the Wolves finishing anywhere between 6th and 11th. They were a very healthy team last year, to expect that again might be wishful thinking. So being virtually the same team as last year (except Dunn) and expecting more of an injury bug I'm gonna say they just miss out of the playoffs to either Portland or New Orleans. 39-43 would be a 10 game improvement and a strong step in the right direction .

I have to agree with you here Pork. The numbers will say we were around league average in terms of injuries last season, but it wasn't any of our going forward core players. It was mostly KG, Pek, and Bjelica. Rubio, Wiggins, Towns, and LaVine were all VERY healthy last season.

I think something in the 39-45 win range seems like a realistic objective. We'll be among a whole mess of teams competing for the last couple of playoff spots.