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The Pups? The Pups. The Pups! Images tk, they're on my home computer. Maybe bench capsules too) Come and meet your Minnesota Timberwolves. After a decade of horrible play (and one shining moment courtesy of Jimmy Butler... at the crippling cost of Zach Lavine and, with him, the first positive vibes the org'd had since Ricky's knee exploded against the Lakers), the Timberwolves made the playoffs! Many considered them one of the most exciting young teams in basketball, largely based on Ant -- along with a nulook KAT who appeared on the fringe of becoming the Point 5 he's apparently always aspired to. The following year, last year, they did something miraculous. Something I'm told has happened before but I only have the vaguest memories of: Made the playoffs in consecutive seasons. For a franchise cursed by Sam Cassell's hips not being able to support the heft of his gigantic testicles, you would think that this would be the happiest fanbase in the league, a feel good story, the league pass darlings. Instead, we start our introduction the same way all conversations about the Wolves must begin: The Trade The Wolves dealt a metric fuckton of picks and swaps to the Utah Jazz, along with a grab bag of players that would generously be described as fringe rotation guys (miss you Vando  ). They got back Rudy Gobert. The deafening roar you hear is the laughter of the NBA commentariat, and the howls ( ) of bitterness from a fanbase that was just finally feeling like something other than a punchline. Gone was the fun energy, the "nobody believes in us but us" attitude brought by Pat Bev, the chaotic offense and defense that guaranteed watchable games. The two big fit was clunky, then KAT went down for 50+ games and things started to implode despite a passableish record from a team expected to make some noise. Turns out DLo really didn't like Gobert. He didn't like playing with him. He didn't like passing to him. He did enjoy putting Rudy in spots to look foolish, and calling out the resulting failures on the court. So come the trade deadline, the freshly hired Tim Connelly pulled off a move that may prove more impactful in time. Out went DLo, the drama*, and the Bird trap of his expiring contract. In came the grizzled Mike Conley, recent wing bust Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and a trio of second round picks (genuinely inexplicable to me how the Wolves ended up with picks from this trade). Riding a resurgent Mike Conley, a returning KAT, and an Ant who was starting to really put the pieces together, the Wolves barely scraped in to the playoffs (featuring a win-or-go-home playin victory largely determined by a suddenly not bustish NAW playing elite defense against his cousin SGA)... and got Ant his second playoff series before the age of 22. It went poorly, though that may have something to do with a pair of crucial injuries and the * from above: Rudy punching Kyle Anderson during a game just before the playoffs started.Our recent history walked through, it's time to Meet the Team  StartersMike Conley Should play: 25 minutes per game for 60-70 games in the regular season Will play: Somewhat more than that as he splits time with the Wolves backup point guard   it's direHe played as a freshman at Ohio State with Greg Oden. My brain consistently rejects this fact, which means I get to be astounded again every time I see it. The last one out in Utah, Conley came over in the aforementioned DLo/Westbrook trade. After arriving at the Wolves, he knocked down 42% of his threes and started shooting more and facilitating less - with nearly 3 fewer assists per game. His familiarity with Rudy on both ends of the floor played a crucial role in driving the team forward, and the plethora of wing defenders meant that Mike was rarely stretched defensively. He can actually rebound the ball, which must have confused his teammates. By all accounts, Ant loves him. Mood: Wracked Nerves. He needs to stay healthy, he needs to stay productive, and the portrait of Greg Oden in his attic needs to keep aging in his stead. Anthony Edwards Should play: For an NBA championship before long Will play: With aspirations of a Top 6 finish in the west Ant is the most fun player in the NBA and while many things are subjective, this is not. He embodies fun. He radiates fun. He, as a rookie, all but asked Jimmy Butler if he was going to bark all day or if he was going to bite. He is a chaos golem constructed of pure joy and when that is ruined by the Timberwolves, I will be shattered. In the interim, Ant is a terribly exciting young player who seeks out firm coaching and has an astronomical ceiling. Kerr's effusive praise coming out of FIBA has set up the first season of Ant's career where he needs substantial growth to meet expectations. He could do it, but that's a big shift for the young star-in-the-making. On the plus side of his ledger, Ant can get to his spot and can drain shots, regardless of the defense, from just about anywhere. From the moment he was drafted, he was one of the most thrilling in-game dunkers in the league. He can be an elite on-ball defender (when he puts his mind to it, more below) and showed 2 seasons ago that he can really work well lurking and offball too. He can distribute well when he makes it a priority (also more below). More intangibly, he's loved and respected by his teammates regardless of age or statute and seems to see holding the team together as his responsibility. He also (at times to a fault) is going to play if he is physically able. Ant's weaknesses, especially given his age, tend more towards needing adaptation than repair. For his height and weight and athleticism, he's an incredibly mediocre finisher at the rim - Finch pegs this as his style (euros + strength) making it hard for refs to identify fouls. The directive has been to simply his game in traffic around the paint to make it more obvious (a la Jimmy). He, and we saw this in FIBA until he was spoken to by basically the whole team, knows he's often the best option on any given possession. From past interviews (pre Gobert!), he's also aware of how much better the offense is when people other than he or KAT (or at the time DLo) are going, and that means all of them need to sacrifice some usage... he just often struggles to reconcile the thoughts unless he's focused and intentional about it. His defense is markedly better late in quarters and against stars than it is during the middle of the game against 3rd options. He's not a particularly efficient scorer, in part because he's a streaky shooter, even accounting for his high usage. More specific to the Wolves in 2023, he struggles to play in structure, he has never faced drop coverage in the P&R prior to last year, he's never had to utilize a lob threat, he dribbles the air out of the ball too frequently, and he's not much of an asset offball on offense. There are two schools of thought about all of this, with the obvious caveat that the Wolves are lucky these are the biggest oncourt challenges with their 22 year old franchise foundation. One school of thought is the popular and entertaining "let Ant cook". Trying to shoehorn him in to a structured, P&R-centric offense with Rudy is going to stunt his development and not even lead to more wins in the near term. The other is what Connelly's espoused since the Rudy trade just after he came on board: What can be done now to make Ant better later? The front office is huge on playoff experience early in his career, possibly looking at the trifecta of KAT, Wig, and Zach as cautionary tales. Similarly, they seem to believe Ant will be a more complete and dangerous 27 year old if he learns some of the structure and stylistic lessons through experience in his early 20s... even if it comes with growing pains. I see both ends. If Ant can become a consistent MVP contender, he's best served being allowed to cook. If he's more like the 3rd-4th best guard/top 10 player, playoff success will require him to show flexibility and diversity. Mood: Can we have nice things? Minnesota sports fans are a wounded people. Ant won't fall to the bust outcome some warned about in the draft and early in his career, but will he reach the ceiling Kerr painted this summer? If he does, will it be in Minnesota? (  Pat).Jaden McDaniels Should play: Like the aspiring Miles Bridges many believe him to be. Also a poo poo ton of minutes at the three. Will play: As the Swiss Army knife providing both offensive and defensive versatility to a roster that will either die hammering 2 bigs for 48 minutes or thrive by pairing the versatility of its role players with the two extremely different styles of its bigs. Jaden is, depending on who you listen to: the league's best young 3&D wing, a rangy player too slight to man up on any of the league's top players without fouling, the second coming of Scottie Pippen, or the second coming of Tony Allen. He was a consensus 5* recruit who slipped in the draft due to a bunch of technicals and the resulting narratives during his year at Washington - since then, he's been the most targeted Wolves player in trade talks and 2 of the Rudy picks were reportedly due to the Wolves insisting on holding on to him (sidebar: Imagine him on the Jazz right now. That'd have been an instarebuild). He can guard 1 through (most?) 4s, and the biggest what if for Wolves fans for the next few years may be "what if the curtain he punched in last year's finale wasn't in front of a wall and he was available for the play in and first round series against the Nuggets?". Finch loves the kid (the Scottie comp was his), and it's easy to see why. As Ant develops and with NAW seemingly rising, Finch is seeking to use Jaden more offball as well, believing he's one of the better rotational rim protectors in the league but that it's not been seen since he covers everyone from Jamal to Zion. Mood: He got paid, Wolvesland is thrilled. Ant and Jaden is one hell of a foundation. Many outlets have him as a top 70 guy, longterm the biggest question (probably bigger than the specifics of Ant's ceiling) for the Wolves is if he tops out at Top 20, Top 40, or if he plateaus. Karl Anthony Towns The self-proclaimed greatest big man shooter of all time... isn't totally offbase? He's an extremely efficient and effective post player. He's an upper echelon shooter To his credit - making the Gobert trade required him to leave his comfort zone and spend more time in situations that highlight his shortcomings. He responded by doing the most (and too often, too much) to get Rudy integrated on the offensive end before he went down for the bulk of the season with a severe calf strain. Since being drafted in 2015, he's on his 4th head coach and 8th general manager/POBO, never demanding a trade or a coaching change. He is a multitalented player and one of the real joys of watching the 21-22 Wolves was seeing him struggle with new defensive strategies against him before rapidly learning the new skills or mentalities he needed to punish the defense. Mood: Cautious optimism. Based on his play with the DR, he's back from his calf issue and he seems to be having fun with basketball again. Rudy Gobert Should play: Low. Stay low Rudy. I swear to God if I see you setting a pick for anyone other than Kyle or Mike with fewer than 18 seconds on the shot clock I'm going to scream, Rudy. Will play: chasing after the ball on the second action like a goddamn grade schooler playing soccer. Rudy joined a team that played an energetic and entertaining scramble defense and chaotic offense and promptly dragged it in to the muck (and a top 10 defensive rating....). The two questions in 2024 are how flexible is he willing to be and how much was last year's ugliness and step back acclimation as opposed to being broken as poo poo. Rudy has markedly more defensive and offensive talent surrounding him than he ever did in Utah. He also has a pair of players in Conley and Anderson who excel at finding him in predictable moments late in the shot clock, where he is at his best. Finch has been clear that the defensive strategy will not be "funnel your man to Rudy" and Rudy has been clear he thinks funneling is best. Mood: Tenuous Trust. I think if there's immediate success (in the 20-15 record vein, not even 25-10), there's enough connective tissue between the vets and Ant's gravity that the foundation'll get built. If it's rockier, like early last season, Rudy's only going to tolerate so many offensive fouls from KAT drives and Ant ISOs into a contested midranger before he starts being visibly and publicly lovely. I think Rudy senses, with what he's being asked (defend more in space, sit visibly out of the play on offense) that he's going to end the season as either a peerless big or a pariah. For a guy who baselines as mercurial, that's a powder keg. Rotation "Naz Reid" Naz Reid "Slo Mo" Kyle Anderson "Oh hell" NAW Shake Milton Depth Troy Brown Luka Garza Leonard Miller Jared McLaughlin Josh Minott Wendell Moore Overall outlook: The Wolves are a trendy pundit pick for home court in the West, and I think it's because Ant-Jaden-Rudy-KAT worked defensively according to the metrics and people assume the offense can't possibly be bad with all that talent. My stance is a little different. Few teams are really built to directly handle two bigs - the league has trended towards playing even lone traditional bigs off the floor, as seen throughout Rudy's Jazz tenure. What Connelly's done to remarkable effect in his year here has been to build a roster that has the pieces to counter counters. If KAT and Rudy can work well enough to force opponents out of their preferred lineups, Connelly's bet is that Finch can mix and match to beat anybody's alternative. If the egos can allow it, there are few teams with a roster that can effectively counter all of KAT or Rudy or Naz. This roster works best when they can play together effectively (OKC play in), but Ant and the focus on versatility 7-10 in the rotation gives a LOT of defensive flex while retaining scoring punch. "If the egos can allow it" is the big piece... Finch has noted that not everyone can close every game, and there will be games that make sense for Rudy as a lone big, or for Karl in the 5, or for Naz (or even smaller with Kyle) as the small ball center. Will Rudy be content with 20 minutes if he spends all 20 spoonfed by Kyle and Mike? Will KAT accept that the same lumbering center he'd destroy on offense lets Rudy dominate defensively and Mike-Ant-Jaden-Kyle provide more than enough scoring punch and perimeter defense to finish them off while he chills courtside? Will Kyle (far better as a 4) be okay getting exposed by small forwards in a contract year if the team more than makes it back thanks to his hockey assists on the other end? And does it matter? Connelly's huge bet, more than that two bigs will work, is that 3-4 years of real playoff contention for Ant (and changing the league's perception of the Wolves) is more important to the franchise's future than 4 after-lottery picks (or what else he could have gotten for them) would be. That's a wild, counterintuitive wager... but it means success is best measured in rounds rather than rings until Rudy expires. Paracaidas fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Oct 24, 2023 |
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Oct 24, 2023 20:10
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 12:53 |
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