Monthly Archives: December 2015

The Spurs used the first pick in the 1987 NBA Draft to select David Robinson from the United States Naval Academy. Because Robinson had a two-year active-duty obligation with the Navy, his basketball career did not begin until the 1989-90 season. As an older-than-usual rookie, The Admiral averaged 24 points, 12 rebounds, and 4 blocks per game. He made the All-Star Team and the Spurs made the second round of the playoffs. They won 56 games that season, one year removed from winning only 21, marking the greatest one-year turnaround in league history, up to that point in time.

After that 56-win season, the Robinson-led Spurs went on to have season win totals of 55, 47, 49, 55, 62, and 59. In 1995, the 62-win season, Robinson won league MVP and the Spurs reached the Western Conference Finals. They lost to Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets — the eventual champions — and parts of the foundation began to crack around Robinson.

Dennis Rodman was the league’s leading rebounder and Spurs’ second-best player. He missed a bunch of games in the ’95 season due to team suspensions and a motorcycle accident. In the playoffs, Rodman’s behavior became a terrible distraction. In the Game 3 of the semifinals versus the Lakers, Rodman was taken out of the game by Coach Bob Hill. After exchanging words with Hill, Rodman took his shoes off and sat down on the end of the sideline, yelling at Hill not to put him back in the game. In Game 4, a Spurs win to go up 3-1, Rodman didn’t play at all.

Rodman was traded to the Chicago Bulls in the offseason — he went on to win three more championships (in addition to the pair he won with the Detroit Pistons) — and the Spurs took a step back in the ’96 season. They won three fewer games than the year before, and this time only made the conference semifinals. When Robinson was hurt early the next season, Hill was fired and replaced by the self-appointed general manager, Gregg Popovich. Pop held Duncan out of all but six games to preserve him for the future and “tank” for a better draft pick.

They finished with the third-worst record in the league, and went on to win the much-anticipated draft lottery; anticipated because whoever landed the top pick would get to select Tim Duncan from Wake Forest.

Duncan, like Robinson before him, was a seven-foot tall college superstar picked first in the draft. Together in San Antonio they formed the “Twin Towers” and immediately won 56 games (surpassing the previous turnaround record set in Robinson’s rookie year by 1 game) and reached the second round of the playoffs. Like Robinson, Duncan was an All-Star rookie. Like Robinson, Duncan was great at every part of the game: scoring, defending, rebounding, passing, and blocking shots.

The Twin-Towers Spurs won championships in 1999 and 2003, bookending the Shaq & Kobe Lakers threepeat. Robinson retired after the ’03 title.

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Prior to Sunday’s game at Brooklyn, the Timberwolves had only played Karl-Anthony Towns and Gorgui Dieng together as the frontcourt pairing for 80 minutes spread over 13 different games out of the 26 they each had played in. That means Sam Mitchell was utilizing them as an entirely “either/or” proposition in half of the games, and trotting them out together for about 6 minutes per game in the other half. In those 80 minutes that Gorgui and KAT played alongside each other, the Wolves outscored opponents by 19 points. It was a small sample size, but suggested that it might be worth trying more, as finding enough minutes for these two has seemed to be an ongoing struggle for Mitchell.

Against the Nets, Mitchell deployed the KAT-Gorgui combo for over 16 minutes of action, and it worked well. In the first half, Towns started out with some uncharacteristic struggles on his jumper. When Gorgui checked in for Kevin Garnett midway through the first quarter — a rare move this season, probably reflecting a diminished faith in the struggling Nemanja Bjelica — the offense began to flow his direction. Ricky passed it to a pick-and-popped Towns, who then fed Gorgui, who had his man posted up under the hoop. He made a jump hook. Later in the first half, after Towns had rested and then returned to join Dieng again, KAT set an early high ball screen for Ricky and rolled toward the hoop on the right side. With Brook Lopez needing help defense, Rubio stared at Towns while dishing it instead to Dieng on the left side of the lane, who threw it down with authority.

Dieng had a lot of success as the ball screener, too. During the time when KAT was getting his first-half rest, Rubio found Gorgui on three assists for easy baskets. On two of them, Gorgui had sealed his man on the correct side so that Rubio’s pass — one of them thrown behind his back — led directly to an easy layup. Later in the game, Dieng set an early, semi-transition high ball screen (a staple set of the Seven Seconds or Less Suns that the Wolves would be wise to adopt as one of their own) and rolled toward the hoop. With the immediate entry pass not there, Rubio instead kicked it back to KAT at the top. The angle now better for entry, Towns fed Dieng on the high-low, as he did in the first quarter, and again Dieng converted the jump hook.

Towns got going as the game went on, developing the sort of synced-in chemistry with Rubio that Gorgui had in the first half. He ended the game with 24 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks. Dieng finished with 20 points, 10 boards and 3 assists.

In the time they shared the floor on Sunday, the Wolves outscored the Nets by 3 points. I had, and maybe still have, some doubts about whether this is a viable starting caliber frontcourt. Those doubts mainly exist because Dieng has struggled to defend big centers in the past, and may not have sufficiently refined skills to play power forward. However, Dieng’s defense seems to be improving, and Towns’s outstanding shooting allows them to use Dieng as the ball-screen roller and post man, with KAT stretching the defense out to the perimeter.

But perhaps more than anything about “fit,” the issue just comes down to these two being the team’s best big men, and benefits of getting both of them as much playing time as possible. If you remove the little-used Andre Miller, the Wolves field-goal percentage leaders are Dieng (54.7) and Towns (53.5). They’re both excellent foul shooters, with Dieng currently at a crazy 90 percent, and Towns just behind him at 85. Per 36 minutes, Towns leads the Wolves in rebounding at 11.7. Dieng is third on the team (also behind KG) at 9.8. Per 36, they lead the team in blocks. Towns gets 2.6, Gorgui gets 1.6. Dieng also gets 1.7 steals per 36; an underrated part of his game, reflecting his high motor and activity level. Scoring is where Towns shines much brighter than Dieng (20.3 points per 36, versus 13.0) but Gorgui is a better scorer than the alternatives that might play next to KAT for a lot of minutes — players like the struggling Bjelica and the largely written off Adreian Payne.

Mitchell must have had this pairing on his mind after the win on Friday over the Kings. They did not play together very much that night, but he said this after the game:

“I like Karl and G, the way they play. It’s almost like when G comes in for KG, it keeps us big and athletic and I think G’s defense has just been outstanding all year. He’s probably, of our young guys, he’s probably been the most consistent, defensively.”

After enduring the worst part of their season to date — going 1-8 in a nine-game span that included a soft schedule — the Wolves now have a winning streak. Andrew Wiggins was the star in the first win over the Kings. Ricky Rubio was incredible in the second win at Brooklyn. This new wrinkle of pairing Dieng and Towns might have staying power, if it continues to click like it did today with each player putting up over 20 points and 10 rebounds.

We’ll have to see how Mitchell feels about it tomorrow night at Boston, where the Wolves will try to extend this streak to 3 wins against a good Celtics team.

Until then.

Season Record: 11-16

After a pair of overtime games this week — a home win over the Lakers followed by a road loss to the Nuggets — the Timberwolves are now past the season’s quarter point. They have a record of 9-13, which sets a pace to win about 35 or 36 games; more than people expected before the season began, but perhaps a little bit worse than people feel the team is capable, having had the chance to see them play. Managing expectations is funny that way: exceeding them early can lead to raising them too high later on.

This is one of the most interesting Timberwolves teams in history. It has the much-talked-about combination of veteran leadership and athletic young talent. It has the franchise’s all-time great, Kevin Garnett, playing his twenty-first season. It has the franchise’s pair of great young hopes, Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, playing their first and second. This Wolves team has a version of Ricky Rubio that seems both more comfortable with who he is (and isn’t) as a player, and more dissatisfied with his team losing more than it wins. This team has a lot of players — too many, really — who have a valid expectation of playing time. Managing that long and complicated rotation is Sam Mitchell, an interim head coach whose promotion from the assistant ranks came about by the worst circumstances imaginable when his boss, former coach, and friend Flip Saunders died from cancer.

Through each of the 9 wins and 13 losses have emerged themes for the season that have structured the discourse of Timberwolves pundits. Some are positive and celebratory: the awesomeness of KAT, and the team’s improved defense. Some are negative and cause knee-jerk reactions: Mitchell’s outdated offensive system, the continued deployment of Zach LaVine at point guard, and blowing big leads to lose in disappointing fashion.

Here’s a list of letter grades for each player through the season, to date. Grades take role and expectations into account, so an A doesn’t necessarily mean a better player or overall performance than a B or C. We’ll do this by position, starting with guards, then forwards, then centers.

Ricky Rubio: B+

Last year, Ricky Rubio’s season involved sitting out of games so that the team would lose enough to win the draft lottery, and working out with special shooting coach Mike Penberthy to see if he could build some confidence in his shot; a flawed part of his game that many believe to be fatal, at least insofar as Rubio could potentially be the point guard on a championship-contending team.

This year, Penberthy is gone, Ricky is shooting the worst percentages of his career (34.8% on all field goals, 20.7% on threes) and yet he continues to positively affect his team’s performance more than most point guards in the league. (And more than any of his teammates.) Rubio’s net rating of +4.9 is now second best to Tayshaun Prince, and his “off” rating (how the Wolves do when he sits) is -5.0. In other words, the Wolves are a good team when he’s on the floor, and a bad one when he is on the bench.

It’s the same story. He’s a bad shooter who happens to be a good player. Or a good player who happens to be a bad shooter. However you want to put it.

Ricky’s still good, he’s just not perfect. His per-36 assist assist-to-turnover ratio of 10.2 to 2.9 is the best of his career on both sides of it. Throughout his 4.25 NBA seasons, the Wolves have never come close to reaching the point anticipated by some where Rubio’s shooting woes limit their team’s potential. Some believe that may happen in the playoff setting, when opposing defenses have better scouting reports more specifically tailored to highlight weaknesses like Rubio’s shot.

I would love to find out if that’s the case.

Zach LaVine: B+

Depending on who you ask, Zach LaVine’s rookie season was either an abject disaster or a reason for excitement. Without repeating all of the details, LaVine the rookie made spectacular highlights and showed off all sorts of skills, but lacked awareness or discipline required to help a team win. His basic stats were sometimes good, but his advanced ones — especially those that take team performance into consideration — were awful.

He is playing much better this year. Mitchell is still playing LaVine out of position at backup point guard — and for almost 25 minutes per game — and LaVine is unable to initiate good half-court offense. But he has improved his defense, and is making fewer mistakes. In some short samples at shooting guard next to Rubio, LaVine has looked very good. Statistically, his most significant improvement is in scoring volume. Shooting roughly the same percentages as last year, he’s posting over 20 points per 36 minutes, compared to last year’s 14.7. He’s turning it over one half fewer times per 36 as well. These have his PER up from 11.3 (significantly below average) to 16.9, which is a great leap. If he ever plays shooting guard and takes advantage of his athleticism with stronger drives to the hole, he might become a pretty special player.

Based on my conversations and the commentary I observe online, I think LaVine is much less polarizing than he was a year ago. His performance has stabilized a lot in a short amount of time. The next step is trying to tap into his enormous potential as a playmaker off the dribble.

Andre Miller: A- Continue reading →

“We had a lot of games last year where it was hard to see how much we learned because we were getting hammered. This year, we’re disappointed with our record at home, but we’ve been in every game…

I ask my young guys after every game, if one of em learns something tonight… about execution, about spacing, about timing, about waiting on screens, about making the extra pass, then the loss was worth it because they grew tonight. So I can take that.”

–Sam Mitchell, after tonight’s 110-106 loss to the LA Clippers

When the Timberwolves blew a 17-point loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday night at Target Center, I wasn’t overly discouraged by it. Portland does not have a great team this year, after losing LaMarcus Aldridge in free agency and trading Nicolas Batum to Charlotte for younger players. But the Blazers are solid, with a spectacular point guard in Damian Lillard, and the Wolves lost despite an outstanding performance turned in by their rookie big man, Karl-Anthony Towns.

Towns was coming off of a four-game stretch of having his minutes mysteriously limited by Coach Mitchell. In those four games, his minute counts were 22, 21, 26, and 22. This was mysterious because, up to that point, Big KAT had been performing like the Wolves’ best all-around player. I think I speak for the Timberwolves-fan community at large when I say that we’d like to see Towns playing more like 30 to 35 minutes, unless he is in foul trouble or bothered by injury.

On Saturday against Portland, KAT’s playing time returned with his productivity. In 31 minutes and 50 seconds of action he dropped 27 points and 12 rebounds on the Blazers, scoring in a variety of ways while doing other things like protecting the rim on defense and dishing out a couple of assists. Towns was animated throughout the game, celebrating made shots and screaming in excitement.

Despite a whole bunch of things that went wrong in that game to cause the lead to disappear, my thought was that as long as both Wiggins and Towns get a full slate of minutes, the game is competitive, and at least one of them looks great, I’ll take that as a win this year. If of the Wolves 82 games, they get 70 or 75 of them that involve a competitive second half and a strong performance from one of their franchise cornerstones, there will have inevitably been a whole lot of progress toward the eventual goal of making the playoffs, and then contending for a championship.

I guess I was redefining for myself what constitutes a successful game for the 2015-16 Timberwolves.

Tonight, Sam Mitchell shared his views on the subject after the game in what was his most enlightening post-game presser of the season. He joked about what many of us (meaning, the media seated before him) would be doing if we were 20 years old with millions of dollars to spend. He was praising his young players for their professionalism at such young ages, continuing to work hard and avoid off-court trouble. Without mentioning the Philadelphia 76ers by name, he said that there are teams in the league that have a lot of youth, without great veterans mentors like Kevin Garnett in the locker room, and we are seeing the kinds of problems that can lead to. But Mitchell’s big quote was the one that I led with; the one about what constitutes a successful game. If a young player learned something, then that’s a win.

Now, we can’t take these things too literally. If the Wolves got spanked by 20 points against a bad team while showing lackluster effort, they could arguably have “learned something,” about preparation, and I doubt Mitchell would feel victorious no matter how far he bends the definition of the word. But he also distinguished this season from last, in that these games — partly structured by the veteran leadership of Ricky Rubio, Tayshaun Prince, and Kevin Garnett — have been competitive.

That is such a nice thing to see this year, having Wiggins, Towns and Zach LaVine get tested in big moments almost every single night. Tonight against the Clippers, LaVine had 14 of his team-high 21 points in the 4th Quarter of a close game against one of the very best teams in the NBA. Towns ended the game with 18 points on just 9 shot attempts, and had by far the best plus-minus among Wolves starters. Wiggins struggled, sometimes bothered by the great defense of former Timberwolves wing stopper Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. Maybe he learned something, while Towns and LaVine had more success.

The most fun play of tonight’s game was when Kevin Garnett caught a fast-break bounce pass from Ricky Rubio with just the right momentum in his footwork to cock it back and flush over Blake Griffin. The crowd went crazy and so did KG. He was immediately T’d up for taunting, and even Mitchell had to admit that he didn’t care. The moment was worth it.

The most disappointing play of tonight’s game came out of a timeout with 25 seconds left, when LaVine threw a questionable inbounds pass to Wiggins, who did not handle it well against Mbah a Moute’s defense, leading to a terrible, ill-timed turnover. It’s the sort of play that would drive you nuts if it were a playoff game. Maybe they’ll learn from it. When discussing that screw-up, and others his young players make, Mitchell contrasted their impatience when waiting for a screen or play to develop with Chris Paul of the Clippers, who times his decisions perfectly, always testing the defenses and inviting them to make a mistake. I’m sure they’ll go over that play tomorrow and try to do it better next time.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I think, or at least wonder if, the Timberwolves might have a playoff-caliber roster right now. The immediate impact play from Towns was not foreseeable — even the best rookies typically struggle to help win games right away — and it sort of threw season expectations into a blender. We’re still seeing what will eventually come out. Ricky Rubio missed games due to ankle pain, which led to a slew of losses, but now he’s back and playing almost a full load of minutes every night, so we’re going to see what this team is made of.

Maybe they’ll go on a big winning streak as their schedule eases up in the next couple weeks. In their next seven games they play the Lakers, the Nuggets twice, the Suns, the Knicks, the Kings and the Nets. If they remain healthy throughout that stretch, it’s possible that they could come out of it right back around the .500 mark, and in the playoff discussion. It would be fun to keep that conversation going as long as possible; both for fan interest in the season and for the upbeat spirits of the young players.

But even if the playoff dream dies early, as it very well might, I’ll find most games to be beneficial and reason for increasing hope if Mitchell will simply run out his best two young guys for a full load of playing time — nothing excessive, just full starters minutes for Wig and KAT — and at least one of them shines like a star. If that happens most nights this year, it’ll feel like a success.