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Minnesota Timberwolves NBA Preview

By Staff

Apr 1, 2013; Minneapolis, MN, USA; General view of Target Center before the game between the Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves. Mandatory Credit: Greg Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 1, 2013; Minneapolis, MN, USA; General view of Target Center before the game between the Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves. Mandatory Credit: Greg Smith-USA TODAY Sports /
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Best Case Scenario

Oct 19, 2014; Tulsa, OK, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves guard Andrew Wiggins (22) handles the ball against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the fourth quarter at BOK Center. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 19, 2014; Tulsa, OK, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves guard Andrew Wiggins (22) handles the ball against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the fourth quarter at BOK Center. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports /

This is a tough one.

It’s hard to be too rosy about a team that lost one of the best six players in the NBA. After all, the team only won 40 games last year with Kevin Love.

Then again, six of the top eight players by minutes played from that 40-win team are back, and players like Rubio and Dieng should be improved while Pekovic and Budinger should be healthy and able to outperform their productivity from a year ago.

Outside of health, the distribution of minutes will have the greatest affect on the best-case scenario for this squad. If Martin and Budinger play heavy minutes and the likes of Brewer and Muhammad don’t, well, the team will be better. If Wiggins and Williams play over, say, LaVine and Barea, the team will be better, too.

Given relative health and a win-now attitude by the coach who is also responsible for and accountable to the long-term development of the roster, this team, at it’s absolute best, could win 38 games and finish somewhere between ninth and eleventh in the Western Conference. It’s simply too hard to see this team, even with best-case, rookie version of Andrew Wiggins, reaching the win total of year ago.

The biggest wild card of them all, of course, is Rubio’s performance in a contract year. If he takes a massive step in development, and Wiggins is a league-average player for the majority of the eighty-two game schedule, this team could begin to sniff 40 wins.

But even I can’t talk myself into it. A win total of 38 is the absolute ceiling of this roster in 2014-15, and if the team sees development out of Rubio, relative health from Pekovic, promise from LaVine, Wiggins, and to some extent, Bennett, it will be a successful year.

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