Minnesota Sports Forum

I just finished watching the replay of last night's butt-kicking, and I want to believe in this team. I read the game thread and agreed with the optimistic takes...we looked really good last night. But then I went back and skimmed a couple GDT's during our recent losing streak, and noted the general despair just one week ago. So it led me to ask myself: Who are these guys? Are they the ones we watched last night, or are they the guys who had us pulling our hair out just a few days ago. I think I have the answer, and it's not exactly a revelation. And I apologize in advance for the long post, but I think it's a good talker.

I go back to the late season euphoria after we beat the Jazz at home last year. I was driving home from the game with a friend and reveling in how well we had played, and he brought me down when he said "yeah, we can play really well against a team missing its best offensive player" (Mitchell). And I guess he nailed it. For the Wolves more than just about any other team, it's about health...ours, and our opponent's. When we are missing KAT or DLo, we struggle to win. But when we are healthy and our opponents are missing a key player or two, we look like a playoff team. Before you guys say, "well, duh!", note that other teams don't seem to fall apart when they lose a key player like we do. Memphis is just one example...they lose their best player, and win 9 of their next 10 games! I would argue the Wolves are as fragile when it comes to health as any team in the league.

We get excited about our 13 wins when DLo plays, and I agree it's important. But in at least nine of those wins, our opponent was missing a key player and we were not. Zion, Holiday, Simmons, LeBron, Murray, McCollum, Turner, Brooks...that's a nice group of players to have out when we face them! So, 28 games into the season, I think I know who the Timberwolves are:

-When we are healthy and our opponent is missing one or more key players, we are very good.
-When we are missing a key player, we are very bad.

All things being equal, you want to think that injuries will even out over a year (I recognize we have been very lucky this year, and that we were very unlucky last year). So the real question is how good are we when we are healthy and so is our opponent. Unfortunately we don't have many data points this season to allow us to conclude on this, but I would argue that our performance when health is relatively equal will determine if we are a 40-win team or a 30-win team.

And that's why I'm excited for Friday night. Not only do I have pretty good seats for the Laker game, but there's a good chance that we will be watching a rare occurrence this year...a game where neither team is missing a key player. I think we are going to learn a lot more about this team than we did in the 32-point loss to Utah last week or the 17-point win last night. A good win at home against a healthy Laker team will make me feel a lot better about this team's prospects. Let's go Wolves!

I think Rosas has to be somewhat vindicated that his pairing of KAT and DLO has largely worked out.....when they are healthy. What is still an open issue is the fact this team completely falls apart when one of those guys is hurt. Naz, Beasley, Prince, McDaniels, Bolmaro, McLaughlin, Okogie.....just not getting enough from these guys.

Respectfully, what is this thread supposed to accomplish? What is it that you want to come across here? If the point is that the Wolves are only good when they're healthy and their opponents are not, then that's simply erroneous. Their convincing wins against a mostly healthy Heat and Grizzlies team say otherwise -- not to mention their should-be win against the Suns and their close loss against the Nets without Karl-Anthony Towns. The Wolves have been fortunate in regards to health, but they also can't control who they play against. I think you diminish how good the Wolves are when you frame the conversation this way.

The truth of the matter is that this Minnesota team is far too reliant on their little-big three because they lack sufficient depth and supporting pieces around them. When one of the three is missing they don't have the players capable of filling in behind them, and they're a lesser team for it. When they're healthy, however, I think there's no denying that they're a very good team. I'm not even sure how you could argue otherwise, opponent's injuries or not.

Injuries (and depth) are a big part of W/Ls.

I wouldn't call the Wolves a "very good" team even when healthy... but I am sorta optimistic for one of the few times in Wolves recent history that .500 is within sight after about a 1/3 of the season.

I'm hoping it continues... and they even get to the other side of that pretty pedestrian mark. I really don't care if they're doing it against backups or using magic, mirrors and cadavers to make it happen. Just win more than you lose. I don't ask for much.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Injuries (and depth) are a big part of W/Ls.

I wouldn't call the Wolves a "very good" team even when healthy... but I am sorta optimistic for one of the few times in Wolves recent history that .500 is within sight after about a 1/3 of the season.

I'm hoping it continues... and they even get to the other side of that pretty pedestrian mark. I really don't care if they're doing it against backups or using magic, mirrors and cadavers to make it happen. Just win more than you lose. I don't ask for much.

Abe, I'd be curious as to what you would call them then. The Wolves are 13-9 (.590) this year when both Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell suit up. That includes a 6-7 record against teams .500 or better. They're 26-21 (.553) when they have both played since the trade that brought Russell to Minnesota.

The Wolves' starting five also ranks as the NBA's best five-man unit in terms of net rating -- 138.0 ORtg, 88.4 DRtg, 49.6 NetRtg -- with at least 100 minutes played. Minnesota is 8-2 when they start Patrick Beverley, D'Angelo Russell, Anthony Edwards, Jarred Vanderbilt, and Karl-Anthony Towns.

Obviously, they're not contending for a championship or even the conference finals this year, but when healthy they've been very good. If that's unfair or inappropriate to say, I'd be interested to know why.

They'd have 45 wins over a season assuming both DLO and KAT played every game healthy and they continued at their 55% winning percentage. Unfortunately injuries are part of the game. I'd say they are good when healthy (45 wins) but it's also unrealistic so see both play 82 games as well.

What does DLO/Ant/KAT trio look like in 2-3 years? Good enough to be a contending team? I think DLO is playing at or close to his max potential (needs to hit more shots) while KAT is as well (fouls still are an issue along with mediocre screens). I don't think either will be improving much in the next 2-3 years.

Everything we are hoping for is riding on Ant becoming a top 5-10 player in the league. He has the potential, his next level will be starting to distribute off of drives and finding the open man at a good clip. Making others better is the next level in his progression.

Q12543 wrote:I think Rosas has to be somewhat vindicated that his pairing of KAT and DLO has largely worked out.....when they are healthy. What is still an open issue is the fact this team completely falls apart when one of those guys is hurt. Naz, Beasley, Prince, McDaniels, Bolmaro, McLaughlin, Okogie.....just not getting enough from these guys.

I agree, Q. I'll add that I think Rosas should feel vindicated when it comes to his decision to draft Edwards and trade for Beverley. So far this season, McDaniels has been a disappointment, but that's more a reflection of expectations than his play. Nevertheless, I agree that we have a very weak bench right now and our second most important player, DLO, has a long track record of being injury prone.

Camden wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Injuries (and depth) are a big part of W/Ls.

I wouldn't call the Wolves a "very good" team even when healthy... but I am sorta optimistic for one of the few times in Wolves recent history that .500 is within sight after about a 1/3 of the season.

I'm hoping it continues... and they even get to the other side of that pretty pedestrian mark. I really don't care if they're doing it against backups or using magic, mirrors and cadavers to make it happen. Just win more than you lose. I don't ask for much.

Abe, I'd be curious as to what you would call them then. The Wolves are 13-9 (.590) this year when both Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell suit up. That includes a 6-7 record against teams .500 or better. They're 26-21 (.553) when they have both played since the trade that brought Russell to Minnesota.

The Wolves' starting five also ranks as the NBA's best five-man unit in terms of net rating -- 138.0 ORtg, 88.4 DRtg, 49.6 NetRtg -- with at least 100 minutes played. Minnesota is 8-2 when they start Patrick Beverley, D'Angelo Russell, Anthony Edwards, Jarred Vanderbilt, and Karl-Anthony Towns.

Obviously, they're not contending for a championship or even the conference finals this year, but when healthy they've been very good. If that's unfair or inappropriate to say, I'd be interested to know why.

Not a big deal. It's semantics.

Right now, 11 NBA teams are playing .550 or better basketball. That's a lot of very good teams. And that includes teams that have key guys out injured.


[Note: I would be fine with "good" though. :) ]

I'll jump with both feet into the semantical discussion. This team is "very good" when they are healthy and our opponent is missing a key player or players...we saw that Wednesday night. As I look at our 13 wins this season, I see only 1 win against a good team when both teams were at the same relative health...Miami (although technically they were missing Oladipo, but that's quibbling because he never plays!). Camden threw out Memphis as a team we beat when they were relatively healthy, but they were missing their second and 5th highest scorers (Brooks and Melton) so they were clearly not even remotely healthy (would we say the Wolves were healthy if they were missing Ant and Naz?).

So that's the purpose of this thread. I don't think we are going to know who this team really is until we see how they match up against teams with equal health issues. Are we good? Maybe, but we really don't know yet because we haven't had many real tests. Many of us have said last year's 23-win season was not representative of who we are because we were so unhealthy all year, and I don't disagree Well we can't have it both ways...if last year's futility was tainted by our injuries, this year's relative success has to be tainted by the fact that we haven't had to face the likes of Zion, LeBron, Murray, Holiday, Murray and Brooks! It's disingenuous and slanted to conclude otherwise.

That's why I was so excited about tonight's game (I still am, but for different reasons), because I thought we were going to see a healthy Wolves team play a healthy Lakers team. But now we are hearing that 5 Lakers are out due to Covid, and LeBron and Davis are day to day. And even better...next we get two games against Dallas who will be missing the guy who is by far their best player!

So tonight our bizarre luck continues as we face a Laker team missing three starters. But they have LeBron and Davis, so a win would still mean something if we can do it (I see the oddsmakers have us as a 1 1/2 point favorite). So let's go out and win the next three games since we are likely to be favored. But we may still not know who we are until December 23 when we play Utah.

FNG wrote:I'll jump with both feet into the semantical discussion. This team is "very good" when they are healthy and our opponent is missing a key player or players...we saw that Wednesday night. As I look at our 13 wins this season, I see only 1 win against a good team when both teams were at the same relative health...Miami (although technically they were missing Oladipo, but that's quibbling because he never plays!). Camden threw out Memphis as a team we beat when they were relatively healthy, but they were missing their second and 5th highest scorers (Brooks and Melton) so they were clearly not even remotely healthy (would we say the Wolves were healthy if they were missing Ant and Naz?).

So that's the purpose of this thread. I don't think we are going to know who this team really is until we see how they match up against teams with equal health issues. Are we good? Maybe, but we really don't know yet because we haven't had many real tests. Many of us have said last year's 23-win season was not representative of who we are because we were so unhealthy all year, and I don't disagree Well we can't have it both ways...if last year's futility was tainted by our injuries, this year's relative success has to be tainted by the fact that we haven't had to face the likes of Zion, LeBron, Murray, Holiday, Murray and Brooks! It's disingenuous and slanted to conclude otherwise.

That's why I was so excited about tonight's game (I still am, but for different reasons), because I thought we were going to see a healthy Wolves team play a healthy Lakers team. But now we are hearing that 5 Lakers are out due to Covid, and LeBron and Davis are day to day. And even better...next we get two games against Dallas who will be missing the guy who is by far their best player!

So tonight our bizarre luck continues as we face a Laker team missing three starters. But they have LeBron and Davis, so a win would still mean something if we can do it (I see the oddsmakers have us as a 1 1/2 point favorite). So let's go out and win the next three games since we are likely to be favored. But we may still not know who we are until December 23 when we play Utah.

To be fair... who cares.

At the end of the day (season), all that matters is that the Wolves have a good enough record to either be in the playoffs or battling for a spot in the playoffs. Both would be a healthy step forward for this beleaguered franchise. Whether they get there because every other team has its best player break a tibia or not is largely irrelevant. And will be mostly forgotten over time.

Just win.