Minnesota Sports Forum

We're 30 games into the season now, approaching the half-way point. Even though there are a lot of games to go and situation is still fluid, I think we have a good sense of how the race in the West is breaking down. I see the following three tiers in the West:

1. The first tier consists of Golden State, Denver and OKC. These are currently the top three teams in the West with Denver in first, the Warriors a half game behind and OKC 1.5 games behind. I see these as the top three teams when the season ends barring the Lakers making a significant trade that takes them up a notch. I'm surprised to see Denver and OKC doing this well and I've been waiting for both to slip, but I've seen enough now to believe they're for real. The Thunder have stayed up near the top in spite of injuries to Westbrook and Roberson. The Warriors have survived injuries to Curry and Green. And the Nuggets have survived injuries to Barton and Harris. Yet all three teams remain bunched together at the top of the standings. And all three have substantially higher positive point differentials than any other Western Conference teams. It's that final stat, achieved in spite of significant injuries, that tells me these three teams are in their own class above all the others in the West.

2. The second tier consists of the next 11 teams in the standings - in other words every team except the Suns. All of those 11 teams, including the Wolves, are within 4 games of one another. All have similar point differentials, although some are noticeably better than others. So I see a race that has 11 teams vying for the final 5 playoff seeds in the West. That means 5 of the 11 will be in and 6 will be on the outside looking in at the end of the season. The Wolves are definitely in that mix. Unfortunately, the Wolves are second from the bottom among those 11 and haven't had to play through any significant injuries yet. However, on the positive side, the Wolves had to overcome the Butler fiasco and seem to be gelling, at least at home, with the two new players received in the Butler deal.

3. The final tier is occupied entirely by the Phoenix Suns. That have that tier to themselves.

Given the way the Wolves have played on the road and their coaching situation I would move them to 3. They will not be competitive this year.
If I was the owner I'd focus on development and put the three T's (Taj, Toliver and Teague) on the bench and give their playing time to players that will be on the team next year. I'm not saying tank. Decisions will need to be made regarding Jones and Rose. Okogie needs minutes to develop. Saric deserves minutes.

I think you broke it down pretty good. I think we are going to be in the race until the end as long as we don't miss Towns or Cov for a long period of time. We got to figure it out on the road. But in the end all those teams you have mentioned I believe are pretty equal. The wolves before the last Kings game played the 3rd hardest schedule in the NBA according to ESPN.

I know you mentioned that we have been pretty healthy. But I haven't compared it to other teams but Teague has missed 25% of the games this year, Wiggins and Rose have missed multiple games. Butler missed multiple games and didn't try in multiple games (Thibs fault on that).

It will be interesting and it could all come down to injuries.

kekgeek1 wrote:I think you broke it down pretty good. I think we are going to be in the race until the end as long as we don't miss Towns or Cov for a long period of time. We got to figure it out on the road. But in the end all those teams you have mentioned I believe are pretty equal. The wolves before the last Kings game played the 3rd hardest schedule in the NBA according to ESPN.

I know you mentioned that we have been pretty healthy. But I haven't compared it to other teams but Teague has missed 25% of the games this year, Wiggins and Rose have missed multiple games. Butler missed multiple games and didn't try in multiple games (Thibs fault on that).

It will be interesting and it could all come down to injuries.

regardless of our feelings for or against Thibs, Jimmy had no right to ask for a trade and Thibs had no responsibility to honor that demand. Jimmy sitting out and not playing hard is on Jimmy and nobody else. Unfortunately that isn't the story the media portray.

I have wondered about the timing of the trade request. Is Jimmy fully healthy, or is he worried about his knees and wanted a new contract before they get worse? Is that the real reason he sat out with a groin injury? He healed pretty quickly from that.

sjm34 wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:I think you broke it down pretty good. I think we are going to be in the race until the end as long as we don't miss Towns or Cov for a long period of time. We got to figure it out on the road. But in the end all those teams you have mentioned I believe are pretty equal. The wolves before the last Kings game played the 3rd hardest schedule in the NBA according to ESPN.

I know you mentioned that we have been pretty healthy. But I haven't compared it to other teams but Teague has missed 25% of the games this year, Wiggins and Rose have missed multiple games. Butler missed multiple games and didn't try in multiple games (Thibs fault on that).

It will be interesting and it could all come down to injuries.

regardless of our feelings for or against Thibs, Jimmy had no right to ask for a trade and Thibs had no responsibility to honor that demand. Jimmy sitting out and not playing hard is on Jimmy and nobody else. Unfortunately that isn't the story the media portray.

Fair. I'm against jimmy also. But if he was going to pull the act that he did should have suspended him or not played him

kekgeek1 wrote:

sjm34 wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:I think you broke it down pretty good. I think we are going to be in the race until the end as long as we don't miss Towns or Cov for a long period of time. We got to figure it out on the road. But in the end all those teams you have mentioned I believe are pretty equal. The wolves before the last Kings game played the 3rd hardest schedule in the NBA according to ESPN.

I know you mentioned that we have been pretty healthy. But I haven't compared it to other teams but Teague has missed 25% of the games this year, Wiggins and Rose have missed multiple games. Butler missed multiple games and didn't try in multiple games (Thibs fault on that).

It will be interesting and it could all come down to injuries.

regardless of our feelings for or against Thibs, Jimmy had no right to ask for a trade and Thibs had no responsibility to honor that demand. Jimmy sitting out and not playing hard is on Jimmy and nobody else. Unfortunately that isn't the story the media portray.

Fair. I'm against jimmy also. But if he was going to pull the act that he did should have suspended him or not played him

I certainly agree with that. I think the suspension would have made Jimmy look worse as well.

Big O wrote:Given the way the Wolves have played on the road and their coaching situation I would move them to 3. They will not be competitive this year.
If I was the owner I'd focus on development and put the three T's (Taj, Toliver and Teague) on the bench and give their playing time to players that will be on the team next year. I'm not saying tank. Decisions will need to be made regarding Jones and Rose. Okogie needs minutes to develop. Saric deserves minutes.

Agree completely! I'd trade those 3 for future assets, flexibly going forward to help build the team the next 2-3 years. The problem is, they have a coach/POBO who won't look at the situation objectively.

Bspn speculating that Anthony Davis will join the Lakers per LeBrons influence. Because of course they have to say that.

BizarroJerry wrote:Bspn speculating that Anthony Davis will join the Lakers per LeBrons influence. Because of course they have to say that.

But he's supposed to get illegally traded to the Celtics during the season.

http://www.espn.com/nba/standings/_/sort/winpercent/dir/desc/season/2004
I think we can still replicate this this season.