Timberwolves

How Much Water Can the Wolves Take On?

Photo Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

The Minnesota Timberwolves hired Chris Finch on Feb. 22, 2021, a day after they lost to Tom Thibodeau’s New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The Wolves had lost to the Toronto Raptors at home before heading to the Big Apple, and Finch was on Toronto’s staff. An amateur sleuth could connect the dots and figure that then-GM Gersson Rosas had tipped Finch off that he was interested in hiring him when the Raptors were in town.

Minnesota never had an interim coach. Finch was behind the bench the next game in Milwaukee.

It’s crazy to think of how much has changed since then. The Wolves hired Rosas on May 1, 2019. He said he would build a sustainable winner while sitting next to his wife and balancing his kids on his lap. He also retained Ryan Saunders as head coach after the Wolves elevated him mid-season in 2018 to replace Thibodeau. Rosas overhauled the roster in February 2020 and fired Saunders in February 2021. Then ownership fired him in September 2021, days before training camp opened after he had an affair with someone who worked for him.

Thibodeau somehow has become a specter in Minnesota’s long effort to create stability. When the Wolves hired him as coach and president in 2016, he promised to build an immediate winner. A year later, he traded for Jimmy Butler during the draft and led the team to 47 wins and their first playoff berth since the Kevin Garnett era. But Butler forced his way out the next season, and the Wolves fired Thibodeau shortly after that. And on Monday night, Thibodeau’s Knicks blew out Finch’s Wolves, 120-107, sending Minnesota to 5-6 on the year.

In a vacuum, a .500 record at this point in the season is hardly a death knell. However, Minnesota’s October schedule looked easy in the offseason, and now they’re about to enter a tough stretch where they play the Phoenix Suns at home and then three good teams on the road. They’ll only have one more home game between now and the Golden State Warriors game on Nov. 27 – a Nov. 21 matchup with old friend Butler and the Miami Heat.

Suppose the Wolves had a winning record right now. Then they’d have a buffer to drop games to the Memphis Grizzlies, Cleveland Cavaliers, Philadelphia 76ers, and Miami and remain around .500. That isn’t the case, though. It’s too early to panic; Thibodeau didn’t end Finch’s coaching tenure last night. But it’s fair to wonder if or when things will turn around.

The conventional wisdom with new teams is that it takes about 20 games for things to come together. The Wolves were 4-9 when Patrick Beverley rallied the troops with a locker room speech about roles and accountability. Minnesota won eight of their next nine games and finished with 46 wins before losing to the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs.

Suddenly they appeared to have a foundation. Finch was the steady hand that stabilized a lost season, then got them to the playoffs a year later. Anthony Edwards emerged as a star in the playoffs. Glen Taylor was transferring his ownership over to Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez, who had started to clean house by firing Rosas. Perhaps with new ownership would come stability. They signed Finch to a multi-year contract. They pried Tim Connelly away from Denver, where he had built a sustainable winner, with a five-year, $40 million contract.

But new owners often want to make a splash. They’re spending billions of dollars on the team, after all. Nobody spends that kind of money to watch a losing team in a stale building. And they signed off on Connelly’s blockbuster trade for Rudy Gobert. Suddenly, they had enacted a Rosas-like roster makeover. Gone were Beverley, the leader who helped turn around a 4-9 team, and the hard-working Jarred Vanderbilt. In came Gobert, a large, big-money player in a league that’s grown smaller every year.

You can see Gobert as a source of stability. The Utah Jazz had a 50-win floor with him on the roster. But you could also see him as a chaos agent. The Wolves overhauled their roster to get him, and he fundamentally changes how they’ll play offense and defense. There is probably truth to both sides. Either way, there would be a natural adjustment period once he arrived. Now the Wolves are 5-6 and heading into a tough stretch a year after they seemingly had righted the ship.

There is a lot on the line right now. Can Edwards play consistently? Will the Gobert experiment work out? How long before fans give up and say Same old Wolves?  They were saying that before Beverley helped turn things around last year. They were again after the Knicks blew the Wolves out on Monday. Granted, Minnesota’s early schedule has been a Trojan horse. Utah and the San Antonio Spurs are playing well. Other good teams have started slow.

Let’s look ahead to that 20-game mark for a second. Let’s say the Wolves beat Orlando, the Indiana Pacers, and Charlotte Hornets. However, they lose to Phoenix, Memphis, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Golden State. In that case, they’ll be 8-12 a quarter of the way into the season. That’s not something they can’t overcome. But it means they’ll have to be a significantly better team in the final 62 games to win 50 games and push for home-court advantage in the playoffs.

Fans will start to waver on the team because of their history. They’ll question the Gobert trade and hiring Connelly. They’ll wonder who will step up as the vocal leader in Beverley’s absence. And they’ll be more likely to remember that the Wolves blew three double-digit leads in the playoffs than that they won 46 games to get there. Minnesota’s ship took on some water to start the season. Thibodeau and the Knicks dumped a couple of buckets on them on Monday night. Soon, they’ll need to drain the boat to have smooth sailing for the rest of the season.

Timberwolves
Jordan McLaughlin’s Adaptability Remains Invaluable For the Wolves
By Jonah Maves - Mar 28, 2024
Timberwolves
Draymond Green’s Antics Are Beneath the Wolves
By Andrew Dukowitz - Mar 27, 2024
Timberwolves

The Wolves Unlocked Something By Starting Naz Reid

Photo Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

Naz Reid. Those two words were the only thing you could see or hear inside Target Center on Friday after in-arena host Jon Berry instructed the sold-out […]

Continue Reading