The Minnesota Timberwolves have the look— the look of the next great team in the NBA.
Minnesota’s rise has been years in the making. Before the ’14-15 season, the TWolves drafted uber-athletic combo guard Zach LaVine, and traded franchise player Kevin Love for Andrew Wiggins (future Rookie of the Year) and Anthony Bennett (who was never heard from again). The team won a grand total of 16 games, and also won the absolute honor of drafting Karl-Anthony Towns out of Kentucky with the top overall pick in the following draft to be the true heir to Kevin Garnett. KAT immediately proved himself to be a star winning Rookie of the Year — in what turned out to be a loaded draft — by averaging 18 and 10. Last year, the young Wolves won 29 games and nearly doubled their win total. With the fifth pick this year, Minnesota selected what may have been the best guard in the draft in junior Kris Dunn out of Providence. Dunn rounds out a talented young core as the 22-year-old is ready to contribute immediately.
This team will have two key cogs ready to make the third-year leap in Wiggins and LaVine, to go with a roster full of length and veteran experience. But in the NBA, talent alone isn’t enough.
Luckily for Timberwolves fans they were attractive enough to sign one of the greatest coaching minds in recent NBA history. On April 20, Minnesota announced Tom Thibodeau as their new head coach and general manager, meaning he answers only the owner of the franchise. Thibodeau was the mastermind behind the championship defense of the “ubuntu” Celtics before taking over a similarly young Chicago Bulls team to winning 62 games in his first season. If you squint you can see the building blocks of a Tom Thibodeau defense, as KAT fills the role of Kevin Garnett or Joakim Noah, while Wiggins, LaVine, Dunn and Ricky Rubio are all running teams off the perimeter. Thibs’ Bulls squads made the playoffs each year during his five-year tenure in Chicago while winning at least 45 games each season despite famously dealing with injuries to hometown MVP Derrick Rose. Thibodeau is widely credited with changing how defense is played in the modern pace and space NBA; his teams are a mainstay atop the defensive standings. Under the Thibodeau tutelage, the Timberwolves are going to unleash hell on the NBA.
The Oklahoma City Thunder already set a recent precedent for the type of leap from lottery to playoffs that we predict for the TWolves. The Durant/Westbrook/Harden/Ibaka core helped the Thunder go from 23 wins in 2008 to 50 in 2009 with a playoff appearance versus the Lakers.
Nobody’s saying it’ll be easy for these kids, especially with Thibs in town.
The Thunder aren’t even the only example of a young team making a swift turn around. The Boston Celtics bottomed out in 2013 with a 25-57 record and rebounded the following year going 40-42 (a 15 win increase for those who suck at math) returning to the playoffs in the first year under coaching wunderkind Brad Stevens. The Celtics were led that season by a young undersized point guard named Isiah Thomas (who Knicks fans booed mercilessly in the second round the draft because of his namesake!), a couple of former Ohio State Buckeyes in Jared Sullinger and Evan Turner, and of course the veteran malcontent Rajon Rondo. Stevens went on to finish fourth in Coach of the Year standings and is still consistently moving up the coaching ranks.
Minnesota has the skill and coaching acumen to follow in the footsteps of the Thunder and Celtics. We aren’t the only people who believe in the Wolves though. Hoop heads, the statisticians at fivethirtyeight and NBA general managers alike believe in the Timberwolves, especially burgeoning big man Karl Anthony-Towns. In this year’s GM Survey Towns and the Timberwolves received heavy praise:
- Towns: Second most likely to have a breakout season (only Devin Booker earned more first place votes).
- Towns: Voted fifth best center in the NBA.
- Towns: Voted as the player most GMs would want to start a franchise.
- Dunn: Most likely to win Rookie of the Year.
- Dunn: 20% of GMs believe he’ll be the best player from this rookie class in five years (only Ben Simmons earned more votes).
- Thibodeau: Best defensive schemes and expected to make the biggest impact amongst new coaches.
- Minnesota: voted to be the most improved team.
So much of the expectations around this franchise are centered on Towns, who has all of the makings of a generational talent. KAT Daddy can do it all— defend, rebound, block shots, he can shoot from mid-range and distance. He’s a great athlete and learned the finer points of the NBA game from non other than the his spiritual predecessor and former teammate Kevin Garnett. “He taught me so much in such little time,” Towns said. “It’s very easy to learn things and grasp things easily when you have such a great teacher and mentor.”
The league is watching the Timberwolves and there is a great opportunity for Minnesota as the race for the last few playoff spots is wide open. Dallas and Memphis are vulnerable to decline due to age and changing of identity respectively. There are legitimate questions surrounding the Thunder sans Durant. The Phoenix Suns, Pellies, Nuggets will all serve as obstacles to varying degrees. The Lakers are going to be bad and the Kings will be worse. Admittedly, progression isn’t always linear, the Wolves could be too young and or not have the type of veteran players to balance out the roster. Any of the core players could suffer a slump, and an injury could derail the season. Those catastrophes notwithstanding, the Wolves should be in the playoff mix.
It’s been 13 long years since the Timberwolves last made the playoffs. In 2004 they reached the Western Conference Finals as Kevin Garnett was (finally) able to get some help in the form of known alien-in-disguise Sam Cassell, New York Knicks legend Latrell Sprewell and a rookie point guard out of Bowling Green State University named Keith McLeod (Go Falcons!). Towns, Wiggins and these young Wolves are going to start their journey of contending for a title this year as they make their triumphant return to basketball’s second season.