Being a fan of both professional basketball and professional wrestling, I like to make parallels between the two whenever I can. The NBA has stagnated in a sense in recent seasons. Much like WWE kept repackaging the same few key players into stale feuds, the NBA sees themselves falling into similar pitfalls. NBA’s “super teams” are the equivalent of John Cena. You know the same teams are going to be at the top of the proverbial card come the playoffs, much like Big Match John. The same franchises also end up in the lottery, the NBA equivalent of enhancement talent. But as the WWE tries to usher in a “New Era”, the NBA may be doing the same as well. And no team is poised to usher in that era and upset the status quo more than the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Only the Philadelphia 76ers have been worse in the past five years. Winning percentage-wise, the Minnesota Timberwolves are the worst team in NBA history. Nevertheless, the club have slowly formed a cohesive, explosive unit in the Twin Cities. They’ve done so primarily through the Draft and with cost effective free agent signings. This is very similar to how Tampa Bay rose from the bottom of the barrel in baseball. Unlike many of their lottery brethren, Minnesota is building a team rather than throwing darts at a wall. While their talent pool is substantial, Minnesota’s biggest coup has to be Tom Thibodeau.
Thibs bypassed several other more prominent opportunities to go to Minnesota. When you see the basketball clay there that he gets to mold though, you can’t blame him. He’ll spend his summer in Rio with the Olympic squad, but don’t for a second think that Thibodeau isn’t relishing the chance at the career defining season he has before him.
You look at this lineup and it is hard to believe that they won’t crack the playoffs, even in the Western Conference, in 2016-17. They have two former #1 picks, Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns, both rapidly developing into superstars. The club has made life after Ricky Rubio even more palatable with the drafting of Kris Dunn. Kevin Garnett may not have much left in his 40 year old legs, but his leadership and fire is invaluable. Their bench may be one of the deepest in the entire NBA after the summer. The only thing keeping Minnesota from taking that next step is themselves.
But Thibodeau’s arrival should mean the end of many of the T-Wolves’ constant ills. Turnovers and poor defense aren’t staples of a Tom Thibodeau coached team. It will not be any different at the Target Center. He took a Bulls team without an identity and made them a #1 seed. He also took a team with little defensive acumen and turned them into the league’s best. And he did that with only Joakim Noah as an above average defender. Imagine what he will accomplish with the likes of Wiggins, Towns, Dunn, Zach LaVine and Gorgui Dieng. They’ll give up significantly less than the 106 PPG they allowed last season.
But it isn’t all about defense, as the past two NBA Finals have shown. Minnesota can score the rock with the best of them. They put up 102 per contest last year, better than five playoff teams from a year ago. They had seven players average double figures last season, led by Wiggins at 20.7 PPG. You can expect upticks all the way down this season, even more so if players like Nikola Pekovic are 100%.
The Warriors, Cavaliers, Spurs, Thunder and many more of the NBA’s current crop of main eventers aren’t going anywhere. Some combination of them will be there deep into the spring months of the NBA season. But a shift in power is coming, and it is approaching more rapidly than some want to admit. The Timberwolves are at the forefront of that shift. Young burgeoning superstars with a head coach dying to make them even better at their craft is a dangerous combination. NBA fans need to take notice now. If not, they risk the bandwagon trampling them come next year.