Minnesota Sports Forum

Carlos Danger wrote:27 with three more to play. Sam keeps racking up W's to end the season.

27 wins has some significance because it is now officially over the Vegas line of 26.5 if I recall correctly.

I think the only way Sam isn't back is if one of these big name guys proactively pitches himself to Glen and other influencers in the organization. Glen won't proactively go outside of his comfort zone unless external forces pull him away from it.

Q12543 wrote:

Carlos Danger wrote:27 with three more to play. Sam keeps racking up W's to end the season.

27 wins has some significance because it is now officially over the Vegas line of 26.5 if I recall correctly.

I think the only way Sam isn't back is if one of these big name guys proactively pitches himself to Glen and other influencers in the organization. Glen won't proactively go outside of his comfort zone unless external forces pull him away from it.

Agreed. And LST can now say "Suck it!" to the haters because Sam beat Vegas odds which makes him an over achiever - lol!

This is the first year since I started posting on the ESPN boards that the team actually exceed my expected win total. And I have almost always been on the lower end of the spectrum, meaning I consider myself a realist. Things are starting to feel different.....

Q12543 wrote:This is the first year since I started posting on the ESPN boards that the team actually exceed my expected win total. And I have almost always been on the lower end of the spectrum, meaning I consider myself a realist. Things are starting to feel different.....

Yep.

Q12543 wrote:This is the first year since I started posting on the ESPN boards that the team actually exceed my expected win total. And I have almost always been on the lower end of the spectrum, meaning I consider myself a realist. Things are starting to feel different.....

The season can sort of be broken down into three segments: The hot start, the swoon, and the finish:

Hot Start: They started off 8-8 which was much better than probably most of us thought they'd start. It sort of raised expectations as most assumed with such a young team - we'd only keep getting better.

The Swoon: The next 34 games after the hot start, they went 6-28. The wheels were starting to come off and everyone wanted Sam's head.

The Finish: Over the last 30 games, they have gone 14-16. The finish is pretty encouraging considering over a third of the roster had been unavailable or ineffective during that time. KG, Pek, Open Roster spot, Rudez, Payne, Greg Smith have really not been much help during the last 30 games.

If you told me at the beginning of the season that the Wolves wouldn't add any significant player to the roster during the season and KG, Pek, Martin, and Miller would play a total of 117 games COMBINED for the Wolves and the this team would have 28 wins with 2 games to go I would have pretty much been happy.

monsterpile wrote:If you told me at the beginning of the season that the Wolves wouldn't add any significant player to the roster during the season and KG, Pek, Martin, and Miller would play a total of 117 games COMBINED for the Wolves and the this team would have 28 wins with 2 games to go I would have pretty much been happy.

On the other hand, we've been incredibly fortunate on the injury front with Rubio, Wiggins, and KAT. And those three guys have been the consistent thread running through both the nice start and the nice ending. Dieng and LaVine have been great too, but each had their ups and downs throughout the season and started the year coming off the bench.

Arnie Kander for MVP.

Q12543 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:If you told me at the beginning of the season that the Wolves wouldn't add any significant player to the roster during the season and KG, Pek, Martin, and Miller would play a total of 117 games COMBINED for the Wolves and the this team would have 28 wins with 2 games to go I would have pretty much been happy.

On the other hand, we've been incredibly fortunate on the injury front with Rubio, Wiggins, and KAT. And those three guys have been the consistent thread running through both the nice start and the nice ending. Dieng and LaVine have been great too, but each had their ups and downs throughout the season and started the year coming off the bench.

Arnie Kander for MVP.

Yeah we have been fortunate overall on the injury front especially since it's the young guys that have stayed healthy including Bazz. I do think people tend to gloss over those vets giving the Wolves so little this year and it kinda bugs me. On the old man front Prince has been able to stay healthy and if Arnie sticks around I think that's a big reason why we could see Prince as a Wolf next year if there is mutual interest. I can see reasons for both sides having interest.

monsterpile wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:If you told me at the beginning of the season that the Wolves wouldn't add any significant player to the roster during the season and KG, Pek, Martin, and Miller would play a total of 117 games COMBINED for the Wolves and the this team would have 28 wins with 2 games to go I would have pretty much been happy.

On the other hand, we've been incredibly fortunate on the injury front with Rubio, Wiggins, and KAT. And those three guys have been the consistent thread running through both the nice start and the nice ending. Dieng and LaVine have been great too, but each had their ups and downs throughout the season and started the year coming off the bench.

Arnie Kander for MVP.

Yeah we have been fortunate overall on the injury front especially since it's the young guys that have stayed healthy including Bazz. I do think people tend to gloss over those vets giving the Wolves so little this year and it kinda bugs me. On the old man front Prince has been able to stay healthy and if Arnie sticks around I think that's a big reason why we could see Prince as a Wolf next year if there is mutual interest. I can see reasons for both sides having interest.

To be fair, did anybody expect much more from those vets?

I expected slightly more from Garnett... slightly less from Prince. Miller was brought in as a 3rd team guy.

I think the biggest surprise for me is just how good Towns is. I didn't expect this... this quickly. I imagine we have a "Predict KAT's stats" thread around here somewhere. And I was probably at 13/8 if even that optimistic.

The win total means a lot less to me than the win quality, this team has competed with, and beaten some good teams, the best even. This team didn't win by beating 28 doormats, a good percentage of those wins would be quality wins for the Spurs.

In Rubio, KAT, Wiggins, Lavine, Dieng, Belly, and possibly Bazz they already have 6 or 7 top 9 rotation players on the team and all relatively young. Fill out those last 2 or 3 rotation positions with players that deserve to be on an NBA court and they'll have a team that should be expected to make the playoffs and compete once there.

Learning to beat the teams you should is a hell of alot easier than putting the talent together to beat the best. This team is most of the way there, now they need to add depth and experience, then as Pinky and the Brain would do, try to take over the world!