Minnesota Sports Forum

A 1st round sweep and getting blown out won't help these guys in the future. Preseason I expected this team to be competitive and finish with a 3-5 seed. Be competitive at least in the playoffs and maybe even win the 1st round matchup.

This was not a Wolves team of the past with all young guys anymore. Thibs mortgaged the future by bringing in Jimmy, signing Taj and Teague. Don't give me injures, every team has them to some extent. The future is now. I consider 8th seed a failure. They have no chance to beat the Rockets. What say you?

How a 16 win improvement can be interpreted as a failure is beyond my understanding.

First off, you are making a massive assumption that we even win the game Wednesday. Denver should be favored....But I will indulge nonetheless.

I think winning 47 games and getting the 8th seed is a success. I'm on the side that believes getting the playoff monkey off our back is a massive stride forward, even if we do get crushed by Houston.

But here's my main problem.....that success is due almost 100% to Butler and Gibson. I think this is a 30-win team if you take those two away. What does that say about KAT and Wiggins? What does that say about Thibs' other offseason moves? What does that say about Thibs ability to coach defense?

thedoper wrote:How a 16 win improvement can be interpreted as a failure is beyond my understanding.

This team SHOULD have been a 3-5 seed. With good defense they would have been. The point is Thibs failed, the team failed even if they do win tomorrow. At least in my eyes. Underachievement is failure.

Q12543 wrote:First off, you are making a massive assumption that we even win the game Wednesday. Denver should be favored....But I will indulge nonetheless.

I think winning 47 games and getting the 8th seed is a success. I'm on the side that believes getting the playoff monkey off our back is a massive stride forward, even if we do get crushed by Houston.

But here's my main problem.....that success is due almost 100% to Butler and Gibson. I think this is a 30-win team if you take those two away. What does that say about KAT and Wiggins? What does that say about Thibs' other offseason moves? What does that say about Thibs ability to coach defense?

Thibs is the one I see as the one who failed this team. I think that is my point. Sure you can hold onto hope they win Wednesday and maybe win a couple home games against Houston. I don't think so. The defense is too big a problem. Unless they been half assing it all year, just saving themselves for the playoffs! lol :D

The Wolves will be favored against Denver. The season is a failure regardless of what happens in that game. Butler did what history says he would do - play great but miss an important chunk of the season. Yes, I'm going to say it, Wiggins had a terrible year given his talent. And Towns anchored one of the worst defenses in the league - again. At one time we had all the assets to build a true contender. Now they're used up and we are stuck in no mans land in the NBA. Good enough to miss out on high draft picks, and bad enough to never contend. Failure.

I see this season as a definite failure. Thibs added Jimmy Butler and Taj Gibson to "the best young roster in the NBA" and he can only lead them to 46 or 47 wins? That's a disastrous failure in my opinion.

Those here who choose to see this year as a success look to the improvement in wins over last year. I think that is a false comparison. What relevance is there in comparing a team that started Gorgui Dieng and Brandon Rush with a team that starts Jimmy Butler and Taj Gibson? I think it's more relevant to compare the success of this year's Wolves team to other 2017-8 teams. Compare the Wolves' roster with the Clippers', for instance. I see a huge difference in talent between these two rosters, but the Wolves are likely to win only 4 more games than the Clippers this year. I can only make one of the following conclusions: either Doc Rivers is the greatest overachieving coach of all time, or this year's season was a colossal failure for the Wolves. I predicted 46 wins in the prediction thread, but also said that prediction included a hefty Thibs discount. I believe that now even more strongly. This roster should have won 54-55 games, but Thibs brought them down to 46-7...that's failure in my opinion.

WolvesFan21 wrote:

thedoper wrote:How a 16 win improvement can be interpreted as a failure is beyond my understanding.

This team SHOULD have been a 3-5 seed. With good defense they would have been. The point is Thibs failed, the team failed even if they do win tomorrow. At least in my eyes. Underachievement is failure.

The west improved collectively. Vegad has our over under at 46.5. We didn't exceed expectations but calling this season a failure is dramatic.

It's hard to judge this team. It's a story of contradictions and expectations and disappointment and everything else. Consider...

- As Doper noted, Vegas had the Wolves at 46.5 wins. And MANY insiders thought it was too high. The team is right on the fence with 46 wins... and bettors are nervous.
- The Wolves are iso-heavy and awkward and boring and predictable offensively. They're also ranked 4th for efficiency.
- Thibs plays the starters too much. It's not sustainable. The Wolves have 3 starters at 81 games... I don't believe any other team can make that claim.

I know we all have various degrees of frustration with Thibodeau. With Wiggins. With Crawford. And everybody else. But there's not a lot here to run with for the "failure" angle.

Especially coming from an organization with its rich history of abject crappiness. Heck, even the 2014 team didn't receive this much criticism on this site. That was a Top 10 offensive AND defensive team for most of the season and should have won (Expected W/L) 48 games. They only won 40 and yet we argued for weeks/months/years with each other as we made excuses for that team. Adelman took a bit of heat. Saunders took very little.

And that team failed to meet expectations a lot more than this team. A jump from 46/47 wins to 55 is no small feat. It's HUGE.

They have more wins than I expected but given how well this team plays when it is on it's game I view Thibs as a failure to not have been able to get them to play that way more often.