Wolves Updates 8/24
by SG on Aug 24, 2010 12:53 AM CDT
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Pics from Love's cameo on Entourage and more
From Kurt Helin/ProBasketballTalk:
Kevin Love got smacked on the head pretty good in the United States win over Lithuania Saturday then did not play on Sunday.
But don't read anything into that, he is good to go and likely will see the court against Greece Wednesday. The reason he didn't play Sunday was it was just one day after the injury, according to NBA.com's John Schuhmann.
From JE Skeets' twitter account:
Few pics of Kevin Love's 10-sec. #Entourage cameo — http://tinypic.com/r/33y0x9i/4 / http://twitpic.com/2hjmyb
Minnesota Timberwolves - The Wolves were the worst team in the West last year. They've since subtracted Al Jefferson and brought in Wesley Johnson, Michael Beasley, Nikola Pekovic, Kosta Koufos, Anthony Tolliver, Luke Ridnour, Martell Webster, Sebastian Telfair and Lazar Hayward.
They should be better with the influx of pieces but how much better?
We may be talking a bump from 15 wins to 22.
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Really?
We may be talking a bump from 15 wins to 22.
Glad expectations are that low from the “experts”.
We should definitely be better than the Clippers, Warriors, about half of the East and likely better than the Grizzlies.
Honestly I expect us to either barely make or miss the playoffs at the very least.
Actually I thought that was fair
Maybe a little low but I think the average feeling on this site seems to be in the 25 range – judging from the polls the last couple of months the mean seems to be in the mid 20s.
by Breaking Ankles on Aug 24, 2010 8:59 AM CDT up reply actions
30 wins is optimistic
I just don’t see the playoffs as a remote possibility. Looking at teams that could end up with a worse record than us, I only see one in the West: Sacramento. And I’m not sure that’s likely. For all the major trades that happened, none of the teams that failed to make the playoffs in the West got worse this year.
Grizzlies might have
I mean, they’ll probably do better than us, but there’s always the chance of a complete meltdown.
by aarendsvark on Aug 24, 2010 10:28 AM CDT up reply actions
Denver
won’t be as good – too much turmoil, and they were starting to age last year. Phoenix and NOR are big question marks as well. There are a lot of other teams that might trend up or might trend down. I think we’ll a big clumping of teams between 45-50 wins this year instead of 8 teams above 50 like last year. That’s potentially 30-40 wins being redistributed to other teams who didn’t do as well.
"Styx might be the mullet of bands."
Anything above 30 is absolute gravy.
Getting to that level seems like a question of defensive improvement, to me, on top of having actual wings on the court this season. Either of those would be novel.
As far as the West goes, I think the dynamic is more about softening at the top. The list of actual championship contenders is thinning year by year; who aside from the Lakers is really up there any more? And who in that second or third tier is stepping up? Portland might have done so, but had its injury curse and now a kind of front office watershed. Oklahoma City is the short list of up-and-coming franchises, and they’re not guaranteed not to simply regress toward the mean. Meanwhile Denver shudders, New Orleans stumbles outright…. Even teams that treaded water near the top, like Dallas: do the Mavericks not seem to be a bit past the expiration date? Utah held ground at best, really, unless Sloan gets defense from big Al and range shooting from some so-so parts. The Spurs missed their every-other-year tide a while back, and competent as they are it’d have to be someone like Splitter taking them over the top again. That feels like it’s not coming back, not at championship level. Houston I give a lot of credit, but Yao, Yao….
If the Wolves are going to get back to 30+ victories, there’ll be some more Utah and Denver-type wins. It’s not so much a matter of running the Clippers or Kings for the season, any more. They need to put up some road wins in places like Phoenix.
"As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way." RWE
Have you seen the Warriors roster?
I figure they have only 5 players that would make the Wolves roster, and one of them (Udoh) is going to miss significant time.
Those other four players would likely start
Biedrins, Curry, and Ellis are all upgrades a the 1,2 and 5. And Lee has pretty much the same strengths and weaknesses as Love (borderline All-Start, best player on a bad team, great rebounder, suspect defensive quickness).
I agree that the Warriors bench is thin, but then again, it’s the bench.
by greyline on Aug 24, 2010 11:15 AM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
No way is Ellis an upgrade at the 2 in the Wolves offense and especially not on the defensive end
Unless you consider a volume shooter and not much else to be an upgrade over a three player rotation featuring defense, length, shooting, and athleticism (Webster, Johnson, Brewer). I’m also skeptical that Biedrins would be an upgrade.
When Biedrins is healthy, he’s a top 12 NBA center. He’s an upgrade.
Ellis is a terrible fit on the Wolves roster, so I can’t really argue that too much. I just don’t trust the Wolves’ point guards enough to keep Ellis in line and playing like he did with Baron Davis running the show. He can absolutely light it up, and if he bought into the system would do some serious good, but if he starts running the offense, you’d have troubles. Also, his defense made serious strides last year. He’s mediocre now.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
Biedrins, Lee, Dorell Wright, Curry, Ellis, Brandan Wright, and Reggie Williams would all make the Wolves roster. Switch any of those 7 for a current Wolf of your choosing, and the team gets better. It’s not a deep team, but that top 7 crushes the Wolves’ top 7 and 8-12 on any team rarely make enough of an impact to overcome a defecit like that.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
Can't see playoffs next year
The talent is there to maybe win 40 games, but that’s with a few years of seasoning. Next year the team will struggle, but hopefully show some signs of life now that we have more core pieces in place. I’d say 20-25 wins is realistic. The big jump should come the year after next when these guys have some experience playing with each other and (hopefully) RR comes over.
Interviewer: Can you understand why teams value potential ahead of experience and accomplishment in the draft? Wes Johnson: "Yeah. I understand. It’s the youngness of everything – older guys like young women, so it’s the same way."
I think 22wins is a FAIR projection. We’re starting over again, nobody can really see how fast we will click… Carefull optimism is in it’s place.
by Wim (Belgium) on Aug 24, 2010 11:02 AM CDT up reply actions
Agree
22 wins to me is very fair. It would be a 7-game improvement on a team that traded it’s second best player (Al Jefferson) and replaced him with a bevvy of young, but mediocre talent. Granted, some of that talent has upside and Kahn is betting that by giving young vets like Darko, Beasley, and Webster a new lease on life, they will in turn reward us with career years. And if that happens, then yeah, I could see us push for 30 wins. But that’s the upper bound, with a lower bound in the mid-teens again, especially if you factor in a key injury or two.
I remember on this site that last year most everyone was predicting something in the 25 to low 30s range in terms of wins (including me). This is what the fans of all bad teams do because they factor in all of the upside on their roster and can’t bring themselves to factor in the potential downside. No one predicts their team will only win 18 games.
by Rascal Flatts on Aug 24, 2010 12:06 PM CDT up reply actions
I would say
22 wins would be the low threshold. I believe we could have won 20 games last year if our only goal was winning. Adding the fact that we have more talent will give us a minimum of 2 extra wins. Our range will be somewhere between 22 and 32 wins which will depend on how much we gel as a team and whether a couple of our guys really step up.
Since we are pretty deep and you can argue our 10th best guy is almost as good as our 3rd best guy, one or two injuries no matter who they are will not affect us as much as other teams. That is why I don’t see the possibility of us losing less than 22 games.
The 10th best vs. 3rd best is a good point
and it cuts both ways. The fact we can’t easily distinguish who our best players are speaks volumes to the mediocrity of our roster. On the other hand, we are truly a deeper team this season in terms of the 6-12 slots.
This is essentially the second offseason where Kahn has punted assets into the next season to be deployed (primarily in the form of cap space and future first rounders). I think he can buy one more crappy season since the bar is so low, but after that, it’s time to take a major step forward.
by Rascal Flatts on Aug 24, 2010 3:24 PM CDT up reply actions
it's not always a good thing when your tenth best player is as good as the third best
because that probably means you don’t have enough talent at the top end, which this team doesn’t.
also projecting the wolves to push for a playoff spot (which someone above did) is just … delusional. a 30-win season would be a fantastic progression. being 100% better than last year? i’d take that.
by voiceofharlanspast on Aug 24, 2010 4:29 PM CDT up reply actions
That is only because
Since we are pretty deep and you can argue our 10th best guy is almost as good as our 3rd best guy
Most of our guys have never played a game for the Wolves.
So far all we know is about Love and half a season of Darko.
My bet is that playing on the Wolves will provide opportunities that were never before presented to Pek, Wes and Beasley. Beasley especially I know can easily be a 20/10 scorer and leader on this team. My bet is also that Pek will be a superior 4/5 on the Wolves than Love and that Wes will, by mid-season, be a superior 2/3 to whoever we had before.
30 wins is scratching the lower end of the possibilities for this team.
Honestly, if the press weren’t so bent on piling up on Khan at every least opportunity, if we had drafted Beasley directly out of College and he had never played on such a politically charged team as the Heat of two years ago (Don’t get me started here), most people would have projected us to win more.
I just can’t wait for the season to begin. Lots of people will be eating crow and I’ll be beyond ecstatic to serve it to them.
it has nothing to do with kahn
so … our team is going to be better than expected because we added two players who have never logged an NBA minute, and another who has yet to live up to (admittedly enormous) talent. just don’t see it happening overnight. if K Love and Flynn take big steps forward, and Johnson is serviceable (which is often all you can expect from a rookie) – then maybe. also just because they haven’t played for the wolves doesn’t mean you can’t make judgments about their talents or worth as NBA players. i watched a lot of michael beasley last year. very talented, but expect to be frustrated a lot this year. unless of course the change of scenery alone means he figures out defensive rotations and has his head in the game night and out.
i’m not trying to be a downer. just trying to be realistic. our o/u to begin the season last year was 25.5. i’d have to think it would be there or a win or two either way this year when that goes off.
by voiceofharlanspast on Aug 26, 2010 2:38 PM CDT up reply actions
Got to agree
A lot of new pieces to fit together and mid 20s for wins would be about right. The “here, here” was for getting the season started already:)
Sorry Dominate,
can’t agree on being better than the Clippers. They should be better by virtue of having Griffin actually play this year. Griffin, Davis, Gordon and Kaman actually sounds pretty decent to me. Not so sure about the Warriors either, but that point has been hashed out pretty well.
From the East we should be better than the Cavs and Raptors for sure. Beyond that it gets hard to say that we are clearly better than any of the rest of the East. Detroit could get ugly and we will have to see if NJ plays up to a decent level this year. With the Pacers getting their PG they should be ok and the Wizards have some upside as well.
I am looking foward to better play that is much more entertaining from the Wolves this season. Of course, trades and injuries can change everything, but it seems likely that we will be in the bottom 5 of the NBA and mid 20s for wins.
Is it agreed that we are pushing for more wins this year rather than fewer (and a better chance in the lottery)?
More wins to get Ricky interested
It seems that tanking this year would not be a good way to get Ricky over for 2011-2012 (barring a lockout of course). So look for the win total to go in a positive direction. I am guessing that with an all new lineup it will be pretty hard to break out of the bottom five anyway.
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