The Minnesota Timberwolves season isn’t over yet, but it might be best if they lose the next four games so that it can be.
Disagree? Let’s consult some data:
At their current, KAT-less capacity, Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight Elo ranking system rates the Timberwolves as the worst team in the NBA, and by a significant amount. In fact, fewer Elo points separate the team ranked first (the Los Angeles Lakers) from the team ranked fifth (the Dallas Mavericks) than the Timberwolves are from their 29th-placed counterparts.
When factoring in the boost Karl-Anthony Towns’ presence gives the team, FiveThirtyEight estimates the Wolves are, drumroll please… the 25th-best team in the league. According to FiveThirtyEight, they have a 3% chance to make the playoffs.
Minnesota ranks 26th in Offensive Rating, 28th in Defensive Rating, and 30th in Net Rating, according to NBA.com. This is especially impressive when considering that their strength of schedule so far has only been .500, which ranks tied for 15th in the league, according to ESPN.
And they can’t even claim that they’re snakebitten in close games… because they have barely managed to keep games within two possessions all season. Only one of their nine losses so far have been within six points at the final horn.
If I had to describe this team’s start to the season, it would be a controlled implosion of a building with its main load-bearing support removed.
Today’s reprieve from the crushing nihilism of NBA fandom that is emotionally investing in the Timberwolves is that when I am writing this article, they are only 2.5 games out of the 10th-seed. In case my readers have forgotten, the NBA has leaped into the Bill Simmons-ifying void of thinking that anything the least cool 50-year-old imaginable thinks would be cool is a good business decision. They decided that 53% of the league’s teams making the postseason wasn’t enough, and they should make it a nice, round two-thirds involvement.
Sure, why not adopt the slightly-amended, play-in tournament idea from the guy who clearly stopped doing any amount of research into his opinions beyond a kneejerk, emotional reaction? I mean, yeah, I’ll watch the games if they’re on TV, but also, I don’t want to see a 10th seed go up against the 1st seed in the first round of the playoffs. I tune into the NBA because I want to watch good basketball, not more mediocre basketball, despite watching the Wolves regularly.
More than anything, I’m concerned that a 10th-seed entry might give the Timberwolves false hope, cool the seat that has to be heating up underneath management for constructing this non-shooting, non-defending version of wannabe small ball from Island of Misfit Toys.
And yeah, if it sounds like I’m in a bad mood, it’s because I am. Until today I forgot this stupid play-in tournament existed, and I also forgot to include the most important data to my earlier list on why I hope the Timberwolves put a fork in this season sooner rather than later:
The Timberwolves only retain their first-round pick this season if it falls inside the top three of the draft.
Seriously.
Considering that this stupid play-in tournament exists while also remembering the state of this roster compounded upon the foolishness of trading away a thinly-protected first-rounder should be enough to send any Wolves fan into the pit of short-to-mid-term despair.
Because I know that instead of tanking to try to keep their top-3 protected first-round pick — in a loaded, top-heavy draft no less — that the Golden State Warriors own thanks to a doubling-down on the Andrew Wiggins Fun Time Max Contract Experience Band (testing out names for my new shoegaze outfit… thoughts?), the Wolves are going to keep their eyes on the prize, and hope to punch their ticket to getting humiliated by the Memphis Grizzlies, or beating them and then getting humiliated by the Lakers and, oh my god, I am typing myself into a rage just thinking about it now.
Seriously, this is a disaster that we are about to watch unfold before our eyes. And I forgot about the presence of this catalyst of this inevitable disaster, this stupid play-in tournament. I will add it to my lengthy list of reasons why I dislike Bill Simmons when I see Adam Silver placing a Warriors cap on somebody like Jalen Suggs, Jalen Green, Evan Mobley or Jonathan Kuminga after they’ve dropped out of the top three and into the Warriors’ waiting arms at 4, 5 or 6. Never mind the opportunity cost of missing out on the studs we could’ve gotten at 1, 2 or 3, like the presumptuous current prize of the draft, Cade Cunningham.
And yeah, if the Wolves tank to the worst record in the league, they still stand a 60% chance of losing the pick anyway.
But, I would absolutely prefer that outcome to a 70% chance of being smashed by the Grizzlies or a 30% chance of being smashed by the Lakers, and then a 7% chance of keeping the pick (which, if the Wolves make the play-in tournament, is the highest chance they can have).
At a certain point, Gersson Rosas needs to make a tough decision to rip this band-aid off. Throwing away the rest of this year might also force his hand into trading KAT, but, honestly, I welcome it. For this franchise, the healing has to start sometime, and that healing will start when the Wolves realize that while KAT isn’t a bust, his defense has been so far, and that has made attempting to build around him nearly impossible.
A top-three pick won’t guarantee that the Timberwolves get immediately back on track. Still, it won’t hurt, and the absence of it might make the Wolves’ eventual KAT-less, DLo-less, and, (yeah, I’m absolutely about to go there) Anthony Edwards-less reboot.
If the Timberwolves are 3-13 in a week, there will be no more cause for optimism. No life rafts of hope, no factoid about how KAT, DLo and Josh Okogie together are the Wolves were 2-1. Nothing to cling to.
