Minnesota Sports Forum

STAYING: Nemanja Bjelica, Gorgui Dieng, Kevin Garnett, Tyus Jones, Zach LaVine, Shabazz Muhammad, Adreian Payne, Nikola Pekovic, Ricky Rubio, Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.

ADDED: Cole Aldrich (LA Clippers), Kris Dunn (Providence), Jordan Hill (Indiana), John Lucas (Piratas de Quebradillas), Toure Murry (Sioux Falls Skyforce) and Brandon Rush (Golden State).

GONE: Damjan Rudez, Tayshaun Prince and Greg Smith.

STRENGTHS: Best young nucleus in the NBA ... A superstar in the making in Karl-Anthony Towns, who comes off one of the best rookie seasons in recent league history ... He just brings the whole package ... Wiggins has the potential to become one of the league's top wing players ... The Towns-Wiggins 1-2 punch could be a nightmare starting this year ... Ultra athletic squad with Towns, Wiggins and Zach LaVine on the floor ... Call them Lob City East ... Ricky Rubio is a glue guy for this team ... His defense and vision of the court are important assets for Minnesota ... Should be a very interesting point guard duo with Rookie of the Year candidate Kris Dunn ... Improved depth in the frontcourt with solid veterans like Jordan Hill and Cole Aldrich now in town ... Tom Thibodeau maximizes talent - especially in the regular season ... It's going to be a culture of hard work ... With Kevin Garnett around, you know the young guys will be held accountable.

WEAKNESSES: Towns and Wiggins combine for just 42 years ... They have nine players born in the 90's ... Youth and inexperience will cost the Timberwolves wins ... There's no way around it ... They are not going to scare teams from three-point range ... Rubio and Wiggins combined for for 31.3 shooting from beyond the arc last season ... No Timberwolf shot better than 39 percent from three in 2015-16 ... Unless there's been a lot of in-house improvement, outside shooting will remain a problem ... Rubio's jumper is broken (or his confidence is) and that allows opponents to put extra pressure on his teammates ... Wolves have to cut down on the turnovers ... With Thibs there, defense is going to improve, but they are starting from a very low point.

PREDICTION: 2nd in the Northwest Division, 5th in the Western Conference.

PREDICTION: 2nd in the Northwest Division, 5th in the Western Conference.

I'll take that

The "Weaknesses" section doesn't touch on defense until the final sentence, but that is by far the biggest issue for this team. Offensively, we were the 7th best offense in the NBA from game 42-82. That's due largely to the insertion of Dieng and then eventually LaVine into the starting lineup. I've documented previously how if you isolate our offense to just the starting 5-man unit we ended the season with, they are right up there in offensive efficiency with any other 5-man unit in the league. So offense shouldn't be a problem. It's all about defense!

Really like someone suggesting we will be a 5th seed. I can't help but notice that the 5th seed last year won 55 games, which Cool and I have been saying for several months ought to be the Wolves' goal this year given reasonable health, expected growth of our youngsters, and the impact of a coach who has regularly won 50+ regular season games.

Of course I agree with Q that defense isn't talked about sufficiently here and is the key to how this season will play out. On the positive side, I think the author doesn't dig deep enough into the wolves' shooting stats last year. When you're dealing with a roster that is so young, full season stats are not as meaningful as end of year stats as they are progressing and learning the NBA game so rapidly...huge progress in shooting toward the end of the year by Belly, Wig and Zach. I would like the article to have noted the Wolves had the 2nd best 3-point percentage the last half of the year...a much better indicator of future performance than last year's full year stats, I think.

55 wins seems pretty optimistic as we're bound to have some injuries next year, but maybe we'll get lucky and be healthy again. Can't remember what I predicted before, but I'll say 50 and the 7th seed.

longstrangetrip wrote:Really like someone suggesting we will be a 5th seed. I can't help but notice that the 5th seed last year won 55 games, which Cool and I have been saying for several months ought to be the Wolves' goal this year given reasonable health, expected growth of our youngsters, and the impact of a coach who has regularly won 50+ regular season games.

Of course I agree with Q that defense isn't talked about sufficiently here and is the key to how this season will play out. On the positive side, I think the author doesn't dig deep enough into the wolves' shooting stats last year. When you're dealing with a roster that is so young, full season stats are not as meaningful as end of year stats as they are progressing and learning the NBA game so rapidly...huge progress in shooting toward the end of the year by Belly, Wig and Zach. I would like the article to have noted the Wolves had the 2nd best 3-point percentage the last half of the year...a much better indicator of future performance than last year's full year stats, I think.

Good post LST. I think you and I have been saying 50 wins should be the expectation. 55 is a little above my expectation but not impossible. Nice points about the shooting trajectory during the 2nd half.

This type of article gets me really excited. It won't be long now boys.

BizarroJerry wrote:55 wins seems pretty optimistic as we're bound to have some injuries next year, but maybe we'll get lucky and be healthy again. Can't remember what I predicted before, but I'll say 50 and the 7th seed.

It's interesting, Jerry...the Wolves have had such horrible injury luck prior to last year, that we think that they were injury-lucky last year. In actuality, I believe they ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of man games lost. And I would argue that the relative youth of our roster should make us less injury prone than other teams. I find it logical to predict that our lost games actually decrease from last year.

Now, if KAT goes down for any significant portion of the season, I think the season would be torpedoed. Ricky too. But I see enough depth throughout the roster to overcome a normal level of injuries to the rest of the roster.

longstrangetrip wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:55 wins seems pretty optimistic as we're bound to have some injuries next year, but maybe we'll get lucky and be healthy again. Can't remember what I predicted before, but I'll say 50 and the 7th seed.

It's interesting, Jerry...the Wolves have had such horrible injury luck prior to last year, that we think that they were injury-lucky last year. In actuality, I believe they ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of man games lost. And I would argue that the relative youth of our roster should make us less injury prone than other teams. I find it logical to predict that our lost games actually decrease from last year.

Now, if KAT goes down for any significant portion of the season, I think the season would be torpedoed. Ricky too. But I see enough depth throughout the roster to overcome a normal level of injuries to the rest of the roster.

LST, Those injury stats were padded by Pek and KG's significant absence, two guys that really aren't part of the future. The really key guys - Rubio, KAT, and Wiggins especially - were all very healthy last season. That's the part that seems unlikely to continue.

I think 50+ wins is ridiculously optimistic given the strength of the Western Conference. The other teams aren't exactly standing still. We'll get our predictions "on record" soon enough, but I'm pretty sure I'll be in my usual spot on the lower end of the range people predict.

Q12543 wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:55 wins seems pretty optimistic as we're bound to have some injuries next year, but maybe we'll get lucky and be healthy again. Can't remember what I predicted before, but I'll say 50 and the 7th seed.

It's interesting, Jerry...the Wolves have had such horrible injury luck prior to last year, that we think that they were injury-lucky last year. In actuality, I believe they ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of man games lost. And I would argue that the relative youth of our roster should make us less injury prone than other teams. I find it logical to predict that our lost games actually decrease from last year.

Now, if KAT goes down for any significant portion of the season, I think the season would be torpedoed. Ricky too. But I see enough depth throughout the roster to overcome a normal level of injuries to the rest of the roster.

LST, Those injury stats were padded by Pek and KG's significant absence, two guys that really aren't part of the future. The really key guys - Rubio, KAT, and Wiggins especially - were all very healthy last season. That's the part that seems unlikely to continue.

I think 50+ wins is ridiculously optimistic given the strength of the Western Conference. The other teams aren't exactly standing still. We'll get our predictions "on record" soon enough, but I'm pretty sure I'll be in my usual spot on the lower end of the range people predict.

You're correct about the impact of Pek and KG on our missed games stat, Q, but I would surmise that "old guys" are a significant part of most teams missed games stats...they have more miles on their bodies, and are logically going to miss more games. We were somewhat reliant on "old guys" the first half of last season (KG, Prince, Martin), but I think this year's minutes will be dominated by "young guys"...and even better, young guys who for the most part don't have a record in college or the pros of missing games due to injury. That's why I'm projecting the Wolves to be among the leaders in fewest man games missed this season.

I think there's a difference between making a prediction and having an expectation. With supposedly having the greatest coach since Red Auerbach himself, our young players having another year to mature, and building on the promise of last season, our expectation should be 50 wins. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm predicting a 50 win season, it just means that's where the expectation should be.

I'll see what happens between now and opening night before making a final forecast.