Minnesota paying dues now for bright future
The Minnesota T-Wolves are just 2-8 in their L10 and 14-32 for the year but unlike the Philadelphia 76ers and the Lakers, this is a team on the rise that is doing things right.
Since entering the league in 1989, Minnesota has enjoyed just a smattering of success. After struggling like most expansion teams do, the Wolves hit gold by drafting Kevin Garnett right out of high school in 1995. Garnett would go on to be perennial all-star and become one of the most dominating power forwards in the league culminating in an MVP award in 2004 after leading Minnesota to its first and only division title.
Garnett left for Boston where he would eventually win a NBA title and the T-Wolves would become a rudderless ship led by Kevin McHale and David Kahn. The Kahn era (2009-2013) was particularly dark where bad trades and poor drafting left the franchise with little talent and in a world of hurt.
Flip Saunders, who coached Minnesota during it’s best years, was brought in by owner Glen Taylor to rebuild the franchise and was will into the process before suddenly succumbing to Lymphoma in October of 2015. He was replaced by assistant Milt Newton but not before turning impending free agent departure Kevin Love into Andrew Wiggins and drafting Karl-Anthony Towns.
Wiggins has not proven to be the point guard that Minnesota might have envisioned but he has proven to be a solid scorer (20.8, 3.8, 1.8) while learning under veteran distributor Ricky Rubio (9.6, 8.6). Towns has justified his being taken first overall in last year’s draft with an amazing rookie year that has seen him average (16.1, 9.8) per game and Garnett has been brought back to mentor him through the process.
Kevin Martin is a solid veteran combo guard that would also be good trade fodder if the Wolves looking to deal. Minnesota also has a pair of good young players out of UCLA in Shabazz Muhammed (10.0 ppg.) and the extremely talented Zach LaVine (12.1, 3.1, 3.2) who can jump out of the gym and whose skills seem endless.
Tonight, the Wolves are in a decent spot to stop a nice game losing streak to to the Oklahoma City Thunder. This is OKC’s third road game in four nights which includes a double-overtime win against the Knicks last night. Minnesota has been awful at home at 7-17 straight up and 6-17-1 against the number but … the Wolves had a confidence building home win over Memphis in it’s last home game and subsequently played the Cavs tough in Cleveland. The teams met on this floor in a similar spot just 15 days ago with OKC (-10.5, 209) escaping with a 101-96 win. Minnesota might be worth a look here with the points.