Howlin' T-Wolf

So Wolves fans what do you think of this team?

Was Kahn lying or telling the truth when he said that the Wolves were going to be exciting to watch this season? After a buzzer-beating win against New Jersey in the opener you would have said yes I’m sure. That of course was only if you hung around for the 4th quarter after 3 of the worst quarters of basketball in Timberwolves history. After giving the top-rated Celtics all they could handle this past week in a 92-90 loss you would have probably said yes too. And maybe even after they lost to the Clippers by 3 in a game that wasn’t really that close you might have said yes as well. But what about those other 4 games? Have we seen worse basketball than that? (Ok maybe the Gophers a few years back or your son or daughter’s 7th-grade traveling team)

So what exactly have we figured out with this team after seven mostly bad games?

So far it looks like Jonny Flynn belongs in the NBA and can/should be a legit point guard in the league. He’s a heady player and with some good coaching and development he appears to have the skills to become the “special” player that Kahn and Rambis have billed him to be. Unfortunately, however, as far as I can tell this is the only good news that this young Timberwolves team has for its fans. Really I can’t think of anything else that I feel good about when evaluating this team as a fan or a basketball junkie, or from an advanced stats perspective, or any perspective really after their first 7 games. Can you? Did you just think and think and think and think some more for something, anything, else that is a positive. What did you come up with? If you answered that a) Pecherov looked good against Boston, b) our second best player is injured so the real verdict is still out or c) we have some good cap space and picks coming up next offseason, I’ll give you a pat on the back for trying. But the list of bad things and really big question marks about everything else is a little frightening isn’t it? In just seven games we can now call into question just about everything with a team that didn’t even have any lofty expectations other than to play hard, play uptempo, and entertain us as fans of the team.

Taking a deeper look into how many ways this team is just not right is a little unsettling so let’s run through it as quick as possible:

• Al Jefferson, the team’s best player, is nowhere near 100%, doesn’t look anything like his all-star self from last year, hasn’t played a lick of D other than 1 key block against New Jersey, and is even playing his more natural power forward position, 30 pounds lighter, and still looks just as slow and very uncomfortable on both ends of the floor.
• Kevin Love, the team’s second best player and arguably the most integral to this team’s success is injured and out for at least another two weeks.
• Two of our top 3 players (Jefferson and Jonny Flynn) are complete misfits in Head Coach Kurt Rambis’ preferred choice of offense, the triangle offense.
• Corey Brewer, the team’s best defensive player can’t shoot a lick and is 18/63 or 28% outside of 10 feet (18/33 or 55% at the rim).
• The team’s best free agent signing of the summer, Ramon Sessions, who was good for 9 Wins Produced for the Bucks last year and is an above average defender in the backcourt, is also a misfit in the triangle and is averaging a mere 20 mins a game playing  exclusively behind Jonny Flynn.
• The commitment to becoming an uptempo team has resulted in exactly a half point more fastbreak points per-game than last year. Yea you read that right, a measley half-point. (10.6 this year to 10 last)
• I’ve been able to watched most of 4 of the 7 games and have seen the triangle offense successfully run just one time as it was meant to be run. It was a thing of basketball beauty to be sure (it ended with Cardinal knocking down a wide open shot from the elbow) but it also happened with the lowly second unit on the floor (Sessions, Wilkins, Pavlovic, Hollins and Cardinal iirc.)
• Jonny Flynn and Ramon Sessions have shared less than 10 minutes of backcourt time together by my count even though plenty of minutes of garbage time have been available after games were already decided. Would it really be that bad to experiment.
• The free throw advantage that the Wolves had in the preseason is now gone with them attempting more and more to run the triangle offense and the open shots it can create as opposed to driving in and getting fouled.

So what does all that tell us exactly? The Wolves have problems, lots of them. Yes we all knew there were going to be problems, especially early, but it’s the scope and specific ones that are so unsettling. While even the most patient fan can understand growing pains from a young team early in a season that has a new everything (players, coaches, gm) and a difficult new offense to learn to boot, it’s obvious that the team has some potentially serious issues. Most notably and almost centrally is the question of whether the triangle offense really is right for this team as it is currently constructed. Jonny Flynn and Ramon Sessions are great at creating offense when driving to the hoop and in the two-man-game off the pick and roll. They both are good at picking apart a defense that way and getting to the rim and as a result the free-throw line. Meanwhile Al Jefferson is one of the best offensive low-post players in the league (when healthy of course.) None of these strengths the team possesses right now is used effectively in the triangle offense which thrives on versatility and shooting, two things the Wolves clearly lack. Something’s gotta give right?

What exactly is going to give though? Is Rambis going to just say after one of these awful games, “You know what the triangle offense doesn’t really fit this team well at all and we need to make a switch to an offense built on posting up Al and running the pick and roll with either Jonny or Ramon.” Not exactly something a first year coach, in his first big head coaching role, is going to say if you ask me. Of course that has to be far more likely than him going to Kahn, his boss remember, and saying “You know what, your two biggest personnel moves this summer don’t work well at all for my type of offense so let me know what we can get for them via trade… and oh by the way our best player really isn’t a great fit either so see what you can get for him while your at it.” I don’t think either is very likely and the only alternative is going to be more games like the ones against the Bucks and the Blazers. (Although tonight’s game should be much like the Suns game where the Wolves look fairly good against a team that doesn’t play much defense and likes to run.)

More than likely the answer to this question and all of the many questions is going to be for us all to wait. Wait first for Love to come back and see just how much he helps. He should help quite a bit as our best all-around player with some good passing from the high post, excellent rebounding, and by helping to start more fastbreaks. But even if he makes the triangle run better and smoother it won’t completely solve the problem that Flynn, Sessions, and Jefferson all are leaving their biggest strengths on the table. So it’s going to be very interesting to see just when it stops becoming the player’s fault for not knowing the offense well enough, not adjusting correctly, and not being in 100% shape, and starts becoming the coaches fault for trying just too hard to create the perfect offensive puzzle with pieces that just don’t fit.