Great expectations: the Minnesota Timberwolves 2017-18 season preview
Welcome to the first step on what should be a thrilling — and expensive — road to relevance.
Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, and SportsIllustrated.com.
Welcome to the first step on what should be a thrilling — and expensive — road to relevance.
After years of disappointments, the Wolves are suddenly expected to make the playoffs this season. Should we believe the hype?
After a series of moves — including trading Ricky Rubio to Utah — the 2017-18 Timberwolves will be older, blunter, bruising, expensive and better.
Butler is the best player the Timberwolves have ever acquired via a trade in the 28-year history of the franchise — and an absolutely perfect fit given the team’s current circumstances.
Thibs, Wiggins and Towns are inextricably tied to each other. Can they synergize their extraordinary skills in a manner that elevates the Timberwolves?
A coach of Thibs’ pedigree deserves a season-long mulligan if it is prelude to the great leap forward. But that mulligan has eight games left. Then that vaunted reputation is on the clock.
The brief and predictably specious boomlet of playoff talk surrounding this year’s Wolves turned out to be a mirage.
Does this mean the Wolves will snag a playoff berth? Doubtful. But the chance to be obliterated in a first-round playoff series is a short-term endgame that ignores the greater good of the Wolves metamorphosis.
Rumors of the point guard’s imminent departure were greatly exaggerated.
If Thibs and Taylor don’t have the stomach to make a big bet on three young players, Zach LaVine could be Zach leavin’.
The second half of a 78-minute interview with Minnesota Timberwolves head coach and President of Basketball Operations Tom Thibodeau.
“The challenge when you have young players is: How do you speed up the process? Just understanding what goes into learning — you have to give them the chance to learn,” Thibodeau said.
Put bluntly, the great danger here is that the heralded coach and the star trio are a bad match.
The Wolves this year are like one of those doorstop Russian novels — only poorly written, with precious few plot twists and a predictably disheartening resolution.
It didn’t seem like it in the preseason, but a wretched start to the season perhaps reordered Tom Thibodeau’s priorities.
The team’s sturdier, more diligent defense has emanated almost exclusively from the starters.
The win interrupts a downward spiral that has called into question the team’s psychological equilibrium, the character of the roster, and the players’ relationship with Tom Thibodeau.
Twenty-two games into the season, there is more than enough blame to go around for the flagrant failure of the Wolves D.
A month into the season, the Wolves are adrift, with a slate of tough opponents on tap. It is time for the hype to start gelling into reality.
When it comes to the bottom line of winning or losing basketball games, this Wolves team is quickly establishing a reputation for being epic chokers.