Category Archives: Timberwolves

David Kahn at the NBA Draft Lottery. (The fun begins around 2:15) Will Kahn be around for this season’s Lottery?

[This is Part 2 of a multipart season review series. This post looks ahead to the future--mostly next season--and what it might look like.  A subsequent post will look at the team's longer term prognosis.]

1.  What Should The Team’s #1 Off-Season Priority Be?

Patrick J: Re-signing Pekovic.

You’ve gotta retain a high-quality big who is dominant at times and keeps adding dimensions to his game each season. That’s priority number one, hands down. A second important priority, though, is getting a legitimate shooting guard. This dead horse been beaten elsewhere, so I won’t focus on it here. And the Adelman situation might be more important than both for the Wolves’ long-term outlook. Is he a coach, a GM, or a retiree? More on that below.

Andy G: Ditto. You’ve gotta match Pek.

They’ve gotta re-sign Pek, or match whatever offer sheet he signs. They can’t let a good starting center walk. The team won’t have any options in free agency that could offset losing The Godfather. (If Kirilenko opts in and they re-sign Budinger, they won’t really have any cap space at all.) There aren’t any trade ideas that I can see that could offset losing The Godfather. This is entirely within the team’s control and it’s imperative that they retain a foundational player that happens to be in his prime.

2. How much can a rookie – any rookie, take your pick – actually help the Wolves win next season?  Can you parlay that into win-column improvements that are meaningful for contention next?

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A forgettable Target Center finale on a night when many minds were elsewhere, thinking of the victims of the marathon bombing.  My only time spent in Boston was for, of all things, Pat’s wedding a couple summers ago.  Thoughts are with the families of the injured and fallen.

The game tonight was not good.  Utah took control early, let up a couple of times, but mostly dominated throughout.  They won by 16.  The closing moments had Wolves fans chanting M-V-P for Chris Johnson, in obvious jest.  Al Jefferson and Mo Williams took turns dominating the low block and perimeter, respectively.  The Wolves couldn’t defend Jefferson without a full double team.  Another former TWolf, Randy Foye, looked much better than his opponents, chipping in 14 points.

Ricky Rubio shot the ball terribly.  Derrick Williams played okay (18 points on 7-13 shooting) but didn’t dominate.  He never does.  Next highest in the scoring column were Dante Cunningham (12) and J.J. Barea (11) who barely hit double figures.  For consistency’s sake, the Wolves shot 2 for 17 from downtown.  It wasn’t pretty.

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The Timberwolves split their weekend back-to-back; games 79 and 80 of this 2012-13 season that reaches its final pages this week.  On Friday they narrowly lost at Utah to a Jazz team desperate for wins, one game behind the Kobe-less Lakers in the pursuit of the opportunity to be swept by the Thunder or Spurs eighth seed in the Western Conference Playoffs.  I missed that game.  The box score tells me that Al Jefferson had 40 points, 16 rebounds and 6 assists.  I bet that was fun to watch for Big Al fans like myself.

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Dating back to 2006, the months of March and April have not been interesting ones for Minnesota Timberwolves fans.  In what was first inspired by a surprising and disappointing inability to reach the playoffs and a draft-pick debt to the Clippers that was protected if the Wolves picked high enough (finished with a bad enough record) the franchise introduced its fans to the concept of intentionally losing games.  “Tanking” is the commonly accepted term in NBA circles.  In 2006, Kevin Garnett sat out the season’s final 6 games.  The Wolves lost 5 of them.  The final game — when a win would have jeopardized the team’s ability to trade away Brandon Roy a couple months later — included the most embarrasing, shameless display of tanking in league history.  Mark “Mad Dog” Madsen was deployed to chuck up shots that he had no chance of making.  Mad Dog was 1 for 15 from the floor (and 0-7 from downtown) and the Wolves lost in double overtime.  Welcome to the Twin Cities, Randy Foye.

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