Minnesota Sports Forum

No one could reasonably disagree that this season has been a disappointment for the Wolves in light of where they finish last season, the enormous deal the Wolves made for Gobert and the relatively easy schedule the Wolves had in the first quarter of the season. And while I'm obviously not optimistic about this team as currently constructed, I can also see that things are not entirely bleak. Here's my positive spin:

The Wolves have a lot of individual talent. Eventually KAT and JMac will recover and return to the rotation. Edwards looks like he's finally rounded himself into NBA shape and he's starting to look more and more like a guy who could become the franchise player we need him to be. Slo Mo has been as good as advertised and Rivers is starting to be a significant positive for this team, providing some much needed perimeter defense and toughness. Forbes is an entirely different story, but I want to stay positive in this thread. :)

The Wolves are currently in 10th place, which would mean they'd be part of the play-in tournament, albeit the bottom seed. Of course, if the team did finish in that spot, it would be a huge disappointment and legitimate grounds for firing the head coach, PBO or both. But the positive spin is that the Wolves are only 3 games behind the 4th place Suns. And when you look at the five teams between the Wolves and Suns, you can reasonably see the Wolves ultimately passing all of them based solely on each team's respective collection of individual talent. In fact, I would expect the Wolves to ultimately pass the Mavs and Jazz. The Mavs are simply too dependent on Doncic and are clearly suffering from the loss of Brunson. The Jazz have been amazing so far this season, but I still don't think their success to date is sustainable when you look at the full panoply of their talent. I could also see the Wolves passing Portland and possibly Sacramento too based on talent. I don't see the Wolves catching Memphis, New Orleans, Phoenix or Denver. So I think the Wolves remain capped at 5th in a best case scenario. And unless this team surprises me, I don't see them passing the Clippers. And of course, there's the possibility that the Warriors recapture their form from last season after Curry returns.

Bottom line is that the Wolves season isn't over. They're still very much in the playoff hunt. Of course barely making the playoffs would be an unacceptable result in my view, but it's better than the lottery for a team without a first-round pick. Importantly, this team is not out of the hunt for a 5th or 6th seed, in which case they could avoid the play-in tournament and have a better shot at coming out of the first round. The Wolves are in the midst of a really tough stretch. But if they can stay around .500 during this stretch, then perhaps they can put together a big winning streak and get closer to finishing where the Wolves front office obviously thought they'd be when they made the Gobert deal. Yes, there's still reason for hope this season.

By the way - would I rather be a Jazz fan right now? Yes. I'd love it if my home-town team had their collection of young talent and all those future picks. But I'm glad I'm not a Bulls fan. :)

Good post lip.

Even if we make it through the play-in tourney, I just don't see enough juice here to make a lot of noise in the playoffs, so I have kind of thrown in the towel on the season in that respect. Now it's all about learning and growing in order to take a big step forward next season. I don't believe the entire roster should be blown up, but I am open to some offseason changes at PG and may be even head coach.

I think this stretch of play without DLO and JMac could be instructive, not because I think we are going to suddenly win a bunch of games, but because it gives Finch, Ant, and Co. a chance to run a lot of half court offensive sets without a true PG. That will only lead to growth and may be an instructive process as it relates to offseason moves.

Q-was-here wrote:Good post lip.

Even if we make it through the play-in tourney, I just don't see enough juice here to make a lot of noise in the playoffs, so I have kind of thrown in the towel on the season in that respect. Now it's all about learning and growing in order to take a big step forward next season. I don't believe the entire roster should be blown up, but I am open to some offseason changes at PG and may be even head coach.

I think this stretch of play without DLO and JMac could be instructive, not because I think we are going to suddenly win a bunch of games, but because it gives Finch, Ant, and Co. a chance to run a lot of half court offensive sets without a true PG. That will only lead to growth and may be an instructive process as it relates to offseason moves.

Q - I agree with you on the likely outcome this season. I gave the positive spin, but the reality is far less optimistic. A low playoff seed and first-round exit seems the most likely scenario right now. The next most likely is a lottery finish. If I'm wrong, then great. If I'm right, then that's totally unacceptable and a very poor reflection on TC's judgment.

I disagree a bit with your view that it's all about learning and growing. Instead, I think for this Wolves team it's mainly about roster construction with some significant learning/growing needed from Edwards and McDaniels as well. Does the entire roster need to be blown up? Probably not, depending on what's meant by "blowing it up." But it will take more than a tweak or two. Either Gobert or KAT will have to go to make this work in my view. I think it should absolutely be Gobert. As for DLO, I think he can work if it's KAT or Gobert, but not if he's paired with both. He'll certainly be pretty cheap to re-sign. One thing for sure is that this team will never get far with Gobert, KAT and DLO as 3/4 of its starting lineup. That lineup is simply too slow and un-athletic to work in well in today's NBA.

I continue to believe the key is trading Gobert. The Wolves have the #13 ranked defense in the League, the same as last season. Meanwhile, the Wolves' offense is ranked #20 so far this season after ranking #7 last season in spite of last season's rough start with very young players. The Wolves have played 29 games - over a third of the season - and Rudy has played in 26 of them. What's the result? The Wolves are a game under .500 in spite of a soft early schedule. Furthermore, the team's offense is far worse and its defense is no better that last season. Individually, Rudy is ranked #144 defensively. He's averaging only 1.2 blocks per game, which is the lowest in his career by far other than his rookie season when he only averaged 9.6 minutes. He's averaging his second lowest PPG in his last 7 seasons and his second lowest rebound rebounding average in that same period. At age 30, those numbers are not going up over time even though Gobert's salary will.

We saw how well the Wolves played two nights ago against OKC without Gobert, KAT or DLO. The movement and energy were substantially better on both ends than they've been most of this season. Add KAT to the mix and our offense becomes really potent without disrupting the flow and speed of the team overall - hence the Wolves #7 offensive ranking last season. But put KAT out there with Gobert and DLO and the complexion changes. It's painfully obvious that this mix hasn't worked through a third of the season. Blowing it up by trading KAT next summer is one approach, but I think that would be both defeatist and reckless - yet another reckless move by a front office through caution to the wind last summer.

Obviously, trading Gobert now or next summer won't bring back anything close to what the Wolves gave up. But Rudy would still command significant value. As I've mentioned before, I think TC needs to admit he screwed up, rip the bandaid off and quickly put this team back on track as a young, athletic team with a high-octane offense that plays hard and fast. Successful NBA teams have a clear identity and what I described was the Wolves developing identity. Right now, this team doesn't have an identity and I don't think it has the right pieces to forge a successful identity. Will TC do it? Probably not, but I wouldn't rule it out. I didn't think Rosas would trade Juancho either after putting so much of his ego in re-signing him to a pretty heft contract that no other team would have given him. Obviously, trading Gobert now would be a much bigger deal than trading Juancho back then. Nevertheless, the key will be TC's judgment and ego. Will his judgment lead him to conclude that this mix won't work but also restrain him from making another reckless, short-term decision? Will his ego prevent him from moving on from Gobert for pennies on the dollar - albeit a lot of pennies?

I honestly don't know what to expect from TC at this point. He said we should blame him for the Wolves poor shooting so far this season. So his words suggest taking responsibility. But it's actions that matter and I think he'll fire Finch before rather than take responsibility for fixing the roster. That might sound harsh, but I don't believe a word TC says. He told us that he wanted to stay out of the way and not screw things up, but shortly thereafter he asserted himself in the biggest way possible with the Gobert deal. I still like his eye for young talent. But he'll need to regain my trust overall as this team's PBO. Firing Finch would be a copout in my view. Fixing the roster would be taking responsibility.

IMO, there is zero chance of firing Finch - at least this year. My prediction is TC will make a series of moves at the deadline to try and make this year work. I don't know what those moves will be....but the good news is it won't be trading away anymore draft picks (because we don't have any!).

Carlos Danger wrote:IMO, there is zero chance of firing Finch - at least this year. My prediction is TC will make a series of moves at the deadline to try and make this year work. I don't know what those moves will be....but the good news is it won't be trading away anymore draft picks (because we don't have any!).

I do wonder though if he goes in the offseason, assuming the rest of the season is as mediocre as it has been up to this point. Remember that TC didn't hire him, so it's not egg on his face if he ends up letting him go after the season ends.

Q-was-here wrote:I do wonder though if he goes in the offseason, assuming the rest of the season is as mediocre as it has been up to this point. Remember that TC didn't hire him, so it's not egg on his face if he ends up letting him go after the season ends.

Oh - I agree, 100%. Finch has nothing promised to him past this season. But coming off last season - everything was looking pretty good and we were all very happy. Then, TC changed a few pieces and now.... things are not terrible, but not great either. It's just sort of "meh". But certainly not enough to fire the coach IMO. My opinion is any blame should be equally shared among:

1. TC - for Rudy trade which seems to have changed the roles/style of play that worked last year
2. Finch - for not experimenting more and figuring out how to best use the pieces he now has (yet)
3. Players - guys like Edwards, McDaniels and Nowell were all supposed to be ready for another jump - still waiting.

Anyone watch that Vikings game yesterday? It gave me a new perspective of throwing in the towel too early. I thought 33 - 0 into the 3rd quarter was the end. But it wasn't. I haven't given up on this Wolves team yet. But that doesn't mean I don't expect some changes. We can't just hope the things we wanted to happen will happen. They need to take some action at the trade deadline. Finch and TC know they have results based positions and I'm confident they will do some tweaking.

Carlos Danger wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:I do wonder though if he goes in the offseason, assuming the rest of the season is as mediocre as it has been up to this point. Remember that TC didn't hire him, so it's not egg on his face if he ends up letting him go after the season ends.

Oh - I agree, 100%. Finch has nothing promised to him past this season. But coming off last season - everything was looking pretty good and we were all very happy. Then, TC changed a few pieces and now.... things are not terrible, but not great either. It's just sort of "meh". But certainly not enough to fire the coach IMO. My opinion is any blame should be equally shared among:

1. TC - for Rudy trade which seems to have changed the roles/style of play that worked last year
2. Finch - for not experimenting more and figuring out how to best use the pieces he now has (yet)
3. Players - guys like Edwards, McDaniels and Nowell were all supposed to be ready for another jump - still waiting.

Anyone watch that Vikings game yesterday? It gave me a new perspective of throwing in the towel too early. I thought 33 - 0 into the 3rd quarter was the end. But it wasn't. I haven't given up on this Wolves team yet. But that doesn't mean I don't expect some changes. We can't just hope the things we wanted to happen will happen. They need to take some action at the trade deadline. Finch and TC know they have results based positions and I'm confident they will do some tweaking.

I mostly agree with your who to blame list Carlos. I get why TC swung for the fences, but it just hasn't worked out yet. And not seeing any of our three younger guys make a big jump forward has really hurt us. But to your point on not completely giving up, we aren't THAT far behind of the 6th seed and there are a lot of games to be played.

The Vikings' season is truly remarkable and one for the ages. I think most fans realize they probably aren't good enough to make a big playoff run through Dallas, San Fran, and/or Philly, but hopefully folks are enjoying the ride anyway. Winning the North is no small feat and these crazy wins should be enjoyed. That being said, if they do happen to keep things close with one of the aforementioned NFC powers in a playoff game, they will have absolute supreme confidence that they can get a win. The problem is keeping it close, as we saw Dallas and Philly easily dismantle this team.

Nah we're making the playoffs and making some noise, just you guys wait