Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:Unfortunately, I left a written record of my 47-win prediction last year. So I can't lie and get away with it. But I still think the team grossly underachieved last season under Thibs. Do I still think we were a 47-win team? No. But I have no doubt we had the personnel to win far more than 31. I honestly think we should have won 40-42 games last season with the players we had. Thibs just didn't connect with the players the way a head coach must to be successful.

So where does all that take me in predicting the upcoming season? I'm going out on a limb again predicting 51 wins. I start from the premise that we had the talent to win 40-42 games last season if our head coach would have connected with our players. With that as the starting point, I see 50-52 wins this season based on the following factors:

First, there is no quesiton in my mind, we have a better top 3 in Butler, Towns and Wiggins than we had in Zach, Towns and Wiggins. I loved Zach, but Butler is clearly a substantial upgrade over Zach -- better all-around offensively and dramatically better defensively. Moreover, based on their youth alone, Towns and Wiggins are bound to be significantly better. You generally go as far as your elite players take you in the NBA. I believe we have two elite players in Towns and Butler with Wiggins potentially elite but at worst just a notch below elite. I see our stop 3 as being as good as any in the West except the Warriors and Thunder.

Second, the team's rotation is substantially better 4 through 8. I see the Ricky for Teague swap as essentially a wash. But beyond that, I anticipate a lot of improvement the supporting rotation cast for our top 3. Gorgui's development is still on an upward trajectory and I expect him to be even better next season after a very solid previous season. We've substantially upgraded our front court defense with the addition of Taj Gibson. Turning 25 with a major chip on his shoulder after settling for a vet minimum contract, I expect the talented, leaner, hard-working Shabazz to have a break-out season. He's already turned himself into a decent defender and that will likely improve even more. I see his offense being more consistent as he also ramps up his his 3-point shooting. Crawford gives us a proven, bona fide offensive sparkplug off the bench that we didn't have last season. The underrated Tyus Jones at age 22 will likely be better.

Third, in Butler and Taj the Wolves have added not only two highly respected talented vets, but two players who know and like Thibs. I see these two guys as the missing links we need to connect Thibs to Wiggins, Towns and the other guys from last year. Since I think the disconnect between players and head coach was the main reason we won 31 instead of 41 games last season, I see this factor as a big one.

So it's 51 wins guys. Take it to the bank. :)

Hoops! I Did It Again! wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Unfortunately, I left a written record of my 47-win prediction last year. So I can't lie and get away with it. But I still think the team grossly underachieved last season under Thibs. Do I still think we were a 47-win team? No. But I have no doubt we had the personnel to win far more than 31. I honestly think we should have won 40-42 games last season with the players we had. Thibs just didn't connect with the players the way a head coach must to be successful.

So where does all that take me in predicting the upcoming season? I'm going out on a limb again predicting 51 wins. I start from the premise that we had the talent to win 40-42 games last season if our head coach would have connected with our players. With that as the starting point, I see 50-52 wins this season based on the following factors:

First, there is no quesiton in my mind, we have a better top 3 in Butler, Towns and Wiggins than we had in Zach, Towns and Wiggins. I loved Zach, but Butler is clearly a substantial upgrade over Zach -- better all-around offensively and dramatically better defensively. Moreover, based on their youth alone, Towns and Wiggins are bound to be significantly better. You generally go as far as your elite players take you in the NBA. I believe we have two elite players in Towns and Butler with Wiggins potentially elite but at worst just a notch below elite. I see our stop 3 as being as good as any in the West except the Warriors and Thunder.

Second, the team's rotation is substantially better 4 through 8. I see the Ricky for Teague swap as essentially a wash. But beyond that, I anticipate a lot of improvement the supporting rotation cast for our top 3. Gorgui's development is still on an upward trajectory and I expect him to be even better next season after a very solid previous season. We've substantially upgraded our front court defense with the addition of Taj Gibson. Turning 25 with a major chip on his shoulder after settling for a vet minimum contract, I expect the talented, leaner, hard-working Shabazz to have a break-out season. He's already turned himself into a decent defender and that will likely improve even more. I see his offense being more consistent as he also ramps up his his 3-point shooting. Crawford gives us a proven, bona fide offensive sparkplug off the bench that we didn't have last season. The underrated Tyus Jones at age 22 will likely be better.

Third, in Butler and Taj the Wolves have added not only two highly respected talented vets, but two players who know and like Thibs. I see these two guys as the missing links we need to connect Thibs to Wiggins, Towns and the other guys from last year. Since I think the disconnect between players and head coach was the main reason we won 31 instead of 41 games last season, I see this factor as a big one.

So it's 51 wins guys. Take it to the bank. :)

From what i seen are top players played great for Thibs,,, Bazz and Rickiy had there best years last year that had most on here upset they where moving on. Towns was lights out , Wig was good -D,,, Dieng was good. To me it came down to having the worst bench in the league they would come in and we would watch are led go from up 8 to down by 6.. I would have to disagree that there was a disconnect with coach and players..

monsterpile wrote:

Hoops! I Did It Again! wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Unfortunately, I left a written record of my 47-win prediction last year. So I can't lie and get away with it. But I still think the team grossly underachieved last season under Thibs. Do I still think we were a 47-win team? No. But I have no doubt we had the personnel to win far more than 31. I honestly think we should have won 40-42 games last season with the players we had. Thibs just didn't connect with the players the way a head coach must to be successful.

So where does all that take me in predicting the upcoming season? I'm going out on a limb again predicting 51 wins. I start from the premise that we had the talent to win 40-42 games last season if our head coach would have connected with our players. With that as the starting point, I see 50-52 wins this season based on the following factors:

First, there is no quesiton in my mind, we have a better top 3 in Butler, Towns and Wiggins than we had in Zach, Towns and Wiggins. I loved Zach, but Butler is clearly a substantial upgrade over Zach -- better all-around offensively and dramatically better defensively. Moreover, based on their youth alone, Towns and Wiggins are bound to be significantly better. You generally go as far as your elite players take you in the NBA. I believe we have two elite players in Towns and Butler with Wiggins potentially elite but at worst just a notch below elite. I see our stop 3 as being as good as any in the West except the Warriors and Thunder.

Second, the team's rotation is substantially better 4 through 8. I see the Ricky for Teague swap as essentially a wash. But beyond that, I anticipate a lot of improvement the supporting rotation cast for our top 3. Gorgui's development is still on an upward trajectory and I expect him to be even better next season after a very solid previous season. We've substantially upgraded our front court defense with the addition of Taj Gibson. Turning 25 with a major chip on his shoulder after settling for a vet minimum contract, I expect the talented, leaner, hard-working Shabazz to have a break-out season. He's already turned himself into a decent defender and that will likely improve even more. I see his offense being more consistent as he also ramps up his his 3-point shooting. Crawford gives us a proven, bona fide offensive sparkplug off the bench that we didn't have last season. The underrated Tyus Jones at age 22 will likely be better.

Third, in Butler and Taj the Wolves have added not only two highly respected talented vets, but two players who know and like Thibs. I see these two guys as the missing links we need to connect Thibs to Wiggins, Towns and the other guys from last year. Since I think the disconnect between players and head coach was the main reason we won 31 instead of 41 games last season, I see this factor as a big one.

So it's 51 wins guys. Take it to the bank. :)

From what i seen are top players played great for Thibs,,, Bazz and Rickiy had there best years last year that had most on here upset they where moving on. Towns was lights out , Wig was good -D,,, Dieng was good. To me it came down to having the worst bench in the league they would come in and we would watch are led go from up 8 to down by 6.. I would have to disagree that there was a disconnect with coach and players..

I think the disconnect that most people point out is defensively. I will say a number of podcasts I have listened to the past few months both media and various basketball folk on the outside looking in (not Wolves media etc) said they were not at all surprised the Wolves young players didn't get Thibs defensive system. They thought it may take an entire season to get it and this year would be the year we would see it on that end and that was before Thibs brought in Butler and Gibson. We will see. There were a couple guys that seemed to get it especially Belly.

Now you brought up guys playing well offensively. That's kinda funny how Thibs is known as a defensive coach and he seemed down the stretch to have gotten a lot out of guys. I think you may see him play to guy's strengths more this season than he did last year...on both ends.

60WinTim wrote:While you call the lack of defensive (or offensive) execution can be called a "disconnect", how much of it is really a "Thibs can't connect with his players" versus "our players were just too damn young"?

thedoper wrote:

60WinTim wrote:While you call the lack of defensive (or offensive) execution can be called a "disconnect", how much of it is really a "Thibs can't connect with his players" versus "our players were just too damn young"?

I think this is it. We were bad defensively but even with how bad we were defensively we shit the bed in the 4th quarter and blew leads in over a third of our games. This was because of offensive execution in the 4th as much as poor D. To me making mistakes under pressure is a tell tale sign of inexperience rather than any sort of connection Thibs was making. Thibs coached them to about 60 very winnable games that the players couldn't follow through on. It's all ready to change as I see it. We have experienced winning vets and can field a unit of 5 players who can all score if we need that in the 4th.