In the matter of being a true Minnesota sports fan I enter another season with optimism. And, like the majority of seasons, be it football, basketball or football, my optimism for a Minnesota team to make the playoffs and challenge for a championship is highest before the first game has begun.

The additions of Love and Miller don’t provide any indication of the Wolves improvement in defense this year, but the resigning of Gomes, Telfair and Smith might. SInce defense is a team effort, keeping the core group of players together has to lead to an improvement in defense this year. Foye, Jefferson and McCants have a foundation to build on and Love and Miller, being offensive players but intelligent players as well, should be able to fit into the defensive scheme relatviely seamlessly. And, if the Love and Jefferson tandem is getting abused on defense inside we have Collins and Booth on the bench to provide some inside presence and even an occasional Maddog and Cardinal option to go out and infuriate the opposing team’s players with their energy and uncoordinated hacking that might just disrupt the opposing teams rhythm.

Brewer should get playing time whenever Miller tires or a small forward goes off on him for a string of baskets and Foye will have more experience working with McCants and others. A Foye McCants backcourt does have some potential to provide a physical backcourt and they both should go all out on defense knowing Brewer and Telfair are capable backups who can come in to spell them when they tire. Wittman should have seen how Wade was used in the Olympics to teach Foye to really go after it and let him know he’ll get his breaks in the game. The same might be said for McCants and should be a good reason to keep him in his 6th man role. But, not only because he has freedom to shoot as the offensive weapon when he comes in, but also to create some disruption on defense.

I agree with you that it would have been nice if the WOlves had hired a defensive assistant to instill this mindset in the players, but it still has to come from the top. I think Wittman should be able to do that. At least I’m optimistic til the ball goes up on opening night.

remember, OJ’s in Memphis now.

Is “D”, as Peter points out. As everyone who follows today’s NBA knows (and it seems like the Wolves braintrust is couting on most Minnesota sportswritiers, who don’t know bleep about hoops, to forget this fact), “D” wins championships. Look no further than Boston, or all the Spurs championships.

As the Phoenix experiment has shown, not being able to get stops when you need it will ultimately doom you come playoff time. It also explains why Memphis, for all their promise with the Gasol/Miller tandem, never won a playoff game, let alone a series (and there was a year or two where they had 50+ wins). And it’s why Fliip can’t get to an NBA final (that, and he can’t make adjustments in game or game-to-game to save his hide).

So are the wolves going to be better? If they are healthy, most definitely.

Are they going to score more points? How can they not, with the talent/scorers they’ve added, plus bringing back all the “core” from a 22-win team?

Will they win a few more games? Again, how can they not? There will be nights when some teams will come to Target and not be ready to play. The Wolves should have the offensive weapons to take care of them.

Are they going to win a lot more games? That depends on how improved the “D” is.

How improved will the “D” be? To my mind, not much. True, most of the players will have palyed together for a year now and should be more cohesive. However, the new players who will expect to play significant minutes (Miller and Love) are not known to be great defenders. Miller is probably not a liability against most matchups. However, Love is going to struggle defensively, if only because most young big men do and despite his “small area quickness”, he is still going to be undersized and underatheltic relative to most of the 4s and 5s in the league. So defensive improvement is going to be incremental at best, unless Al makes the leap and becomes a true shotblocker down low. And I can’t remember when a player has “learned” that skill after 4 years in the association.

So what will the wolves have to do to shore up their D beyond this year? to me, the critical elements for this team will be: 1. Getting better defense at the point and 2. Getting defense out of the 5. 3. Pray that Corey Brewer can get enough offensive game to justify 30-35 minutes on the court. None of those are rocket science. I’m somewhat optimistic about #1, if only because Foye is going to be given the chance to be the combo guard and he’ll have to prove that he can at least be a passable defender, otherwise, he’s never going to be a complete player and the Foye-Roy trade truly will be a disaster. PErsonally, i think the brian trust is expecting Foye to be the “lead” guard with McCants and Miller sharing time at the 2, with Telfair as the backup. I think Foye can step it up, at least to the point where he isn’t a liability (like he was when he returned from injury last year).

1. is pretty binary. We’ll know after the first two weeks of the season (if not the first two preseason games) if Brewer has improved offensively. If not, then last year’s draft was a disaster, too.

1. is more problematic, since there isn’t an above average defensive 5 on the roster at this point. While Collins may be an upgrade from the patchwork last year, he’s not a great defensive center. Otherwise, he’d have gotten a lot more minutes at all his other stops during his career. What the wolves are going to have to find (as posters here have said thousands of times) is an intimidating low-post defender. Easier said than done, obviously, since there are fewer than a dozen in the league. However, the payoff could be huge. Combine that unnamed defensive center and assume Brewer develops a jumpshot, a wolves lineup in a year or two of 1. Foye, 2. Miller, 3. Brewer, 4. Jefferson, 5. Defensive center, would provide both offensive punch and potentially spurs-like defense (with Brewer being Bowen and the 5 being duncan).

What do we do until then? Hope for 35 or so wins, expect 30, and pray it’s more than 25 wins.

but the 1st “1.” should be “#3” and the 2nd “1.” should be “#2”. All that typing for naught!