Minnesota Timberwolves Season Outlook: The Thibberwolves

Sean Flannery

Contributing Writer

How will Thibodeau fit in with Wolves?

To put it bluntly, the last decade of basketball in Minnesota has been underwhelming.  It has been over a decade since the T-Wolves have made the playoffs, and they haven’t put a winning season together since the early 2000s when KG was dominating the league.  They’ve spent the last 8 seasons in the basement of the league, and most of the time the team was content with losing in order to acquire high draft picks.  Rebuilding has been a long process, but it is all starting to come together for the T-Wolves.  The era of losing basketball in Minnesota is now coming to an end, and the franchise has plenty of things to be excited about.  They have each of the last two Rookie of the Year award winners, just signed one of best basketball minds in the game, drafted a point guard with a whole lot of potential, and have the reigning slam dunk champ.  The T-Wolves are finally ready to move out of the rebuilding mode and begin establishing a winning culture.

This offseason the T-Wolves hired Tom Thibodeau to take over as their coach and president of basketball operations.  He has had a pretty impressive NBA resume to this point: amongst current NBA coaches Thibs has the 4^th highest winning percentage (.657).  The only three active coaches with a higher winning percentage are Gregg Popovich(.692), Steve Kerr(.854) and Tyronn Lue(.659).  Popovich is arguably the greatest NBA coach of all time, and Lue and Kerr both just coached their teams to the NBA Finals.  Furthermore, Thibs was one the quickest coaches to hit 100 wins, and has been an assistant on the highly talented and successful Team USA.

Establishing a Winning Culture

The biggest critique of Thibs as a coach has been that his team’s regular season success does not translate into the playoffs. His critics claim that he is too defensive minded, and wears out his players in the regular season — but in fact its Thibs defensive mind and hardworking attitude that makes him a great coach.  His Bulls teams never made a real run in the playoffs because they didn’t have the talent to match the other elite teams in the Eastern Conference (a.k.a. any team with Lebron on it) Thibs’ presumed weakness is actually a result of his over achieving success in the regular season.  The Bulls’ front office became complacent of the lack of playoff succuess, but they never recognized the necessary adjustments in player personnel to put together a championship team.

The T-Wolves, in recent years, have been very different than Thibs’ Bulls teams.  They have just as much — if not more — talent, but to this point they have underachieved, and lack a winning culture.  In the past years losing seasons didn’t really matter, because it provided better chances to get assets in the lottery.  In the past there appeared to be more focus on gathering high draft picks than competing and winning, but Thibs can change this.  His system, which focuses on playing tough D and outworking teams, should resonate with this young talented team.  Thibs is going to pressure them to be the hardest working and most competitive team every night.

Can The T-Wolves fit In With The Modern NBA?

The NBA has become a league focused around floor spacing and 3-point shooting, which is one area that the T-Wolves have struggled in the past few seasons.  They ranked 25^th in the league in 3pt percentage (.338), but the team’s 3pt percentage should rise next season as the young players develop and with the acquisition of Brandon Rush (.414 3pt%).  Reports say that the defensive-minded Thibs spent his year off going to NBA games studying how to implement a modern NBA offense (and spent a good amount of time watching the Warriors). The T-Wolves probably won’t be a top 5 3pt shooting team, but expect an improvement.

However, the T-Wolves possess the other half of most important part of the modern game: the ability to guard the 3pt line!!! This sounds crazy because they ranked 27^th in the defensive efficiency last season, but the they have a near dream team of defensive assets in the modern NBA: strong, athletic guards and wings that can become elite all around defenders; and long, athletic bigs that can protect the rim and even guard the perimeter when necessary.  Andrew Wiggins and Zach Lavine are two of the most athletic players in the league, and have the ability to make any backcourt really have to work to score.  And bigs like Karl Anthony Towns, Jordan Hill and Gorgui Dieng have the size to protect the rim, but also have the ability to switch screens to avoid giving up open 3pt shots.  The key to beating 3pt shooting teams is through defensive versatility, and the T-Wolves can be one of the most versatile defensive teams in the league.

The Wolves have the Potential to be Playoff Bound

The pressure to win is finally beginning to set in on the T-Wolves; expect them to answer the pressure with a breakthrough season.  They should be battling for the 7 or 8 seed in the Western Conference at the end of this season (if they were in the East, I would pencil them in now).  The defense will improve greatly and could end up being the kryptonite for teams that are reliant on the 3-ball, while Andrew Wiggins and Karl Anthony Towns should continue to improve and impress (they could be the next elite duo in the league, like Russ and KD).  Other young players like Shabazz Muhamad, Zach Lavine, and Nemanja Bjelica will continue to improve into important role players as well; and of course, Thibodeau will be implementing his winning attitude and defensive expertise to all of the young and talented players.  Expect to see the Wolves in the postseason very soon.