Minnesota Sports Forum

- The Wolves are in the middle of the 10th straight season where the "Expected Pythagorean W/L record" is better than the actual record. (Memphis has 6 straight seasons where it has exceeded its Expected wins.) Coincidence?

- 12 straight seasons without a playoff appearance. Tied for 2nd all time. The Clippers went 15 years.

- 11 straight seasons below .500. The Clippers went 12 years... twice. Sacramento went 16 years, but made the playoffs in there a couple of times.

- Last 4-game winning streak... 2012.

- .390 all-time winning percentage. That's the worst of all-time (Clippers surpassed the Wolves and are at .396)

AbeVigodaLive wrote:- The Wolves are in the middle of the 10th straight season where the "Expected Pythagorean W/L record" is better than the actual record. (Memphis has 6 straight seasons where it has exceeded its Expected wins.) Coincidence?

- 12 straight seasons without a playoff appearance. Tied for 2nd all time. The Clippers went 15 years.

- 11 straight seasons below .500. The Clippers went 12 years... twice. Sacramento went 16 years, but made the playoffs in there a couple of times.

- Last 4-game winning streak... 2012.

- .390 all-time winning percentage. That's the worst of all-time (Clippers surpassed the Wolves and are at .396)

That 4 game win streak is unbelievable

Damn that's depressing. I think I'll go re-watch the end of the Charlotte game again.

On the bright side, the perennial pathetic Spurs franchise that is a paltry 12-0 on the road this season is coming to town tomorrow.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:- The Wolves are in the middle of the 10th straight season where the "Expected Pythagorean W/L record" is better than the actual record. (Memphis has 6 straight seasons where it has exceeded its Expected wins.) Coincidence?

- 12 straight seasons without a playoff appearance. Tied for 2nd all time. The Clippers went 15 years.

- 11 straight seasons below .500. The Clippers went 12 years... twice. Sacramento went 16 years, but made the playoffs in there a couple of times.

- Last 4-game winning streak... 2012.

- .390 all-time winning percentage. That's the worst of all-time (Clippers surpassed the Wolves and are at .396)

Depressing. That first one is insane. I think part of it has to do with being more offensively oriented vs. defensively oriented. When things are clicking, we can blow games wide open and score a ton of points, which pads our margin of victory stat. Whereas a slow-paced, defensive oriented team tends to win by lower margins.

One other thing on Memphis...Check out the collection of guys they have playing right now in their rotation:

Andrew Harrison - Rookie
Wade Baldwin - Rookie
Troy Williams - Rookie
Deyonta Davis - Rookie
JaMychal Green - 3rd year player
James Ennis - 3rd year player

Where is the adjustment period to their new coach? How is the lack of experience affecting them? This rag tag bunch of rookies and journeymen, with yes, a couple of stalwart vets like Allen and Gasol, are easily outplaying our collection of Italian sports cars (credit to Doper I think on that analogy).

Again...what gives? Culture? Coaching?

Q12543 wrote:One other thing on Memphis...Check out the collection of guys they have playing right now in their rotation:

Andrew Harrison - Rookie
Wade Baldwin - Rookie
Troy Williams - Rookie
Deyonta Davis - Rookie
JaMychal Green - 3rd year player
James Ennis - 3rd year player

Where is the adjustment period to their new coach? How is the lack of experience affecting them? This rag tag bunch of rookies and journeymen, with yes, a couple of stalwart vets like Allen and Gasol, are easily outplaying our collection of Italian sports cars (credit to Doper I think on that analogy).

Again...what gives? Culture? Coaching?

I think it goes beyond coaching. Fizdale is very highly regarded. But Memphis has been doing this with three different coaches now. Minnesota is on its 6th straight "losing" coach. Or is it 7th? I can't keep track.

From coach to coach...

Marc Gasol sets the tone. Along with...
Mike Conley.
Tony Allen.
Zach Randolph.
Even Vince Carter.

Those are veteran players. They've won. And they've won in the playoffs. They can show the young guys what it takes to win in the NBA on and off the court. There's continuity there, too. They've created a "culture" of sorts. Maybe it's accountability. Or work ethic. Or.... something else?

Now look at the Wolves.

Ricky Rubio.
Brandon Rush.
Jordan Hill.
Cole Aldrich.
G. Dieng.

Those are the Wolves vets. Who's won anything in any kind of a key role?

We had Prince and KG last year - both with rings on their fingers - along with Miller for the first part of the year. Yet none of these guys could prevent the abysmal mid-season slide (I think we went 4-21 for that stretch?).

Granted, we did eventually turn things around to finish the season with - whoopee! - 29 wins. Ironically, by then the veteran mentors were largely out of the rotation, if not completely out of the picture.

Q12543 wrote:We had Prince and KG last year - both with rings on their fingers - along with Miller for the first part of the year. Yet none of these guys could prevent the abysmal mid-season slide (I think we went 4-21 for that stretch?).

Granted, we did eventually turn things around to finish the season with - whoopee! - 29 wins. Ironically, by then the veteran mentors were largely out of the rotation, if not completely out of the picture.

I mocked the "Garnett as mentor" narrative, but I think those guys actually helped a bit considering their brief stints and marginal on-court roles. I know the team added Towns, who played better than expected. But it was a 16-win team previously. And the coach/architect of the team died days before the start of the season.

I think those veterans helped steady the ship. And as we know, the team did show progress as the season went on. 29 wins was a nice step from 16 wins.

Was less than one season... and minimal roles... enough to create a team built on accountability and professionalism or whatever? Apparently not. This season, all that responsible falls on a chubby, loud 50+ year old guy who probably has next to nothing in common with any of these players. Assumption here: But do you think any of the young guys are seeking out Thibodeau to just discuss the game? Are they actively avoiding him when they can?

I think that's the #1 thing we're going to learn from this season. Hopefully, Thibodeau learns (already knows) it, too.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:We had Prince and KG last year - both with rings on their fingers - along with Miller for the first part of the year. Yet none of these guys could prevent the abysmal mid-season slide (I think we went 4-21 for that stretch?).

Granted, we did eventually turn things around to finish the season with - whoopee! - 29 wins. Ironically, by then the veteran mentors were largely out of the rotation, if not completely out of the picture.

I mocked the "Garnett as mentor" narrative, but I think those guys actually helped a bit considering their brief stints and marginal on-court roles. I know the team added Towns, who played better than expected. But it was a 16-win team previously. And the coach/architect of the team died days before the start of the season.

I think those veterans helped steady the ship. And as we know, the team did show progress as the season went on. 29 wins was a nice step from 16 wins.

Was less than one season... and minimal roles... enough to create a team built on accountability and professionalism or whatever? Apparently not. This season, all that responsible falls on a chubby, loud 50+ year old guy who probably has next to nothing in common with any of these players. Assumption here: But do you think any of the young guys are seeking out Thibodeau to just discuss the game? Are they actively avoiding him when they can?

I think that's the #1 thing we're going to learn from this season. Hopefully, Thibodeau learns (already knows) it, too.

Don't forget another huge difference between '14-15 and '15-16 is that we had a healthy Ricky Rubio and we (eventually) ended the LaVine at PG experiment. Again, that had nothing to do with veteran mentorship or leadership, yet I would argue it was a big reason we won more games (along with KAT).

As for Thibs, it's a very valid question as to how he is connecting with his young charges. One of the things I felt was going to be a really positive factor heading into the season was that from the get-go, we were going with the same 5-man starting group that we ended last season with. And to this day, Thibs continues to stick with that group. Yet they have taken a fairly large step backwards from last year. I never would have expected that. I mean, that has GOT to not reflect well on Thibs, right?

Q12543 wrote:We had Prince and KG last year - both with rings on their fingers - along with Miller for the first part of the year. Yet none of these guys could prevent the abysmal mid-season slide (I think we went 4-21 for that stretch?).

Granted, we did eventually turn things around to finish the season with - whoopee! - 29 wins. Ironically, by then the veteran mentors were largely out of the rotation, if not completely out of the picture.

The huge difference is not simply adding "veteran" players, but adding/having PRODUCTIVE veteran players. Memphis is aided by having their top 5 guys being older vets, and having the ability to mix in youth and inexperience around them. The Spurs are the other team that does this so well. We all comment that seemingly every guy they draft turns to gold. The key, IMO, is that those players are drafted with a specific "fit" in mind. This can help a guy succeed very early when they have very specific goals, and don't have to step out of that box and contribute more than they are capable of. Dunn is a good example. We need him to BE a lot of things for this team....and he is failing in what should be expected fashion. If he was on Spurs or Memphis, they could easily live with his defensive chops and little else. That is simply not our reality at the moment.....a #5 pick as a situational defender?