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Here's this year's Timberwolves How did 2019-20 go? As you can wager from a roster that was pretty bare past KAT, Wiggins, and Robert Covington, the Timberwolves weren't going in with playoff expectations. However, the story of how we ended up with a 29.6% win rate is full of ups and downs. For the first 5 weeks of the season, Andrew Wiggins looked as if he finally put everything together, but then everyone except for Bob Myers realized that averaging 23.2/5.4/3.5 on 46.1/34.2/70.2 shooting splits through December wasn't really any different from what he was doing in his pre-Jimmy years. After starting 10-8, the Wolves lost 11 straight and Gersson Rosas, the new GM of the team, decided that he needed to step in and shake the team up, which he did by trading half of the team.  Anyways, it didn't help dig the Wolves out of the gigantic hole they were in and they missed the Bubble cutoff anyways. We also still don't know if Ryan Saunders is any good as a head coach. Rosas, the man with the plan  Gersson Rosas, the first Latino GM in NBA history, has spent the past calendar year acquiring as many Spanish speakers and players dealing with telenova-esque familial tragedies as he can fit on the team. He also decided that if the team is going to stink, they can at least get up a bunch of 3's at the same time. He's also likely to trade half the team again as the season goes on. Ryan Saunders, Head Coach  Ryan Saunders is nepotism defined, but after the cold tenure of Thibs, Ryan shone like a ray of sunshine on the team. Given that he's younger than a lot of players in the league, he's been quite successful at relating to players in addition to feeding the need for sentimentality of Wolves fans. While his main directive was to unlock Wiggins' full potential with the power of positive encouragement, Rosas decided to keep him around even after dumping Wiggins in the bay. He has a lot of room to grow and many years to get there. THE ROTATION Big KAT  KAT is the undisputed leader of the team, the best Dominican in the league, and is one of the greatest offensive centers in NBA history. His defense has been the main criticism of his game, but he's really not too bad in 1 on 1 situations; it just gets messy when he has to make decisions with multiple guys break through the perimeter at once. KAT has been vocal about wanting to be the hub of the offense like Jokic is for the Nuggets, and this might finally be his year. His mom died and his dad was hospitalized over the summer from COVID, so instead calling him soft all the time, watch him play video games all night and bop the follow button at https://twitch.tv/karltowns D'Angelo Russell  D'Lo was brought in at the trade deadline for multiple reasons. Firstly, he's a very offensively-skilled point guard who will have great success running the pick and roll with KAT while providing great spacing when he's not handling the ball. Secondly, he was such a terrible fit on the Warriors that we were able to get him for the low price of Wiggins and a first rounder. Finally, he's one of KAT's best friends. This is good, as they'll spend a lot of time hanging out on the perimeter on defense as they get hunted in the pick and roll two dozen times a game. Ricky Rubio  A longtime fan-favourite in Minnesota, the Spanish point guard was acquired for the low price of some guy who wasn't Ricky Rubio. While Ricky was expected to be a star in his first Timberwolves tenure, he returns as a vet and will finally be able to fully embrace the role as the maternal figure of the locker room that he always wanted to have. Malik Beasley  Malik came from Denver last season with nothing more than the dream of a payday, a sick gun collection, and a love for smoking mid. If he were white, he'd be celebrated, but as a black man in America the media was quick to malign him. He'll have a really good stretch for a couple of months and then Rosas will extort the Knicks in a trade for him. Anthony Edwards  Our highest pick of the 2020 draft, Anthony Edwards might be the most down to earth #1 pick we've seen in the NBA. Like the 2 time MVP winner and hall of famer Steve Nash, the Antman's heart belongs to another sport but he came to basketball after sensing the greatness that dwelled within. Unlike Steve Nash, he wore a varsity jacket and jeans on his draft night. This guy loves to goof around and smile, so stop taking every quote extracted from an interview so seriously you dorks. Juancho  Spanish, handsome, and the only true power forward in the rotation, Juancho will take open 3's and do nothing else which is perfectly fine. Josh Okogie/Jarrett Culver  The two non-shooting defensive stopper wings that we've drafted in the past couple of drafts. Neither has the size for being a full time small forward, but they don't have much of a choice this year. Gersson will be keeping a close eye on their boxscores lest they become trade ballast. Jake Layman  Not a stretch 4 by any means, but he gets guarded like one for some undecipherable reason. Backup Center? Not this year, from the looks of it. The Season Outlook The Wolves do have a chance at making the playoffs this year, but it's far from a given. If we do end up in the lottery, we can only hope that Adam Silver riggs it like he likes to for bad teams that try really hard so that we end up with a top 3 pick, which would let us keep our pick and give us the chance to draft one of the great prospects in this draft. I'd rather just watch good basketball this year to be honest. The 2020 City Jersey  
Katana_Warrior fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Nov 28, 2020 |
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Nov 28, 2020 02:20
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 08:54 |
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scuz posted:That's a great wolves write-up, KW! Really bummed about those city jerseys, why didn't they use the First Avenue stars?? Nike sucks. It looks like most of the teams are going with the strategy of "no fans, no effort" with the City jerseys this year, but I'm holding out hope that there's something else in the works. This showed up on the Timberwolves' twitter feed the other day: https://twitter.com/Timberwolves/status/1333608080588890112 and with the lack of grey on the leaked jersey top, I'm thinking maybe there'll be something more elaborate on the actual jersey. My only big complaint with the current city jersey is that it looks really flat and like it's missing something.
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Dec 1, 2020 16:43
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R.D. Mangles posted:Garrett Temple, Wing bad news, being on a bad team pisses Garrett off 
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Dec 4, 2020 05:22
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kingcobweb posted:The Denver Nuggets I don't believe in Bol Bol at all, but I'm happy that he's on a fun small market team in the 5% case that he does turn into a multi-time MVP. The Nuggets are great!
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Dec 4, 2020 23:36
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R.D. Mangles posted:Well, you've all had your chances, so I'm going to Meet Your Teams with half-formed ignorance and prejudice, so without further ado, Agreed, Meet Your 2020-2021 Golden State Warriors The San Francisco Warriors are the NBA team that I spend the most time thinking about, and therefore my favourite team. Coming up onto year 7 of the greatest dynasty that the NBA has ever featured, Warriors fans have a lot to look forward to this season. Without further ado, let's start from the top. Joe Lacob - Owner  Former Masshole, current San Fran based Rich Guy who made his millions in venture capital. He's the guy who coined the term 'light years', which he used to describe the competitive advantages a team can gain by underpaying their stars, by loving up their plans to trade Steph Curry, and by acquiring Kevin Durant. Team culture starts from the top, and you know that a guy who's going 42 Million into the luxury tax to get known winners like Kelly Oubre Jr and Andrew Wiggins is committed to keeping this dynasty going. Bob Myers - GM  The league's most renowned general manager, Bob generally manages to make whatever he touches turn to gold or whatever. If he knew that giving the team the go-ahead to play the injured stars KD and Klay in the finals would cause extreme detriment to both of their careers, he wouldn't have done it (unless it gave them a better chance of winning). He hosed the trophy. Steve Kerr - Coach  I will never say anything bad about someone who spends every living moment experiencing anguishing back pain. Steph Curry - Starting PG, Team Leader  After heroically choosing to come back to the NBA after suffering a grotesque stomach ache that sidelined him from the 2020 season after only 5 games, the 2 time MVP is back to lead the Warriors to another championship. That is, unless he's really sad about playing with only one other hall of famer instead of the 3 he's used to, in which case he might save his energy for their inevitable championship run next year, when he'll be 34. Andrew Wiggins - Starting Wing  After spending 6 seasons building a reputation as someone who doesn't care enough about basketball to ever contribute to a winning team, Wiggins has been working hard in the weight room to prove the haters that this season is different. According to Kerr, Wiggins will be using his new bulk all season long, as he'll be responsible to locking up the other team's best wings. Light years. Kelly Oubre Jr - Starting Wing  By far the NBA's best dresser and conventionally prettiest player, Kelly is a versatile big wing who, like Wiggins, has a ton of potential that the Warriors are hoping that they'll be able to unlock. Steve Kerr is giving Kelly the job of defending the best guard on the other team, citing his strong on-ball defense and heavily implying that his lack of attentiveness off-ball would cause bigger issues if he was defending other wings. Unlike Wiggins, who is known for his strong team defensive awareness. Draymond Green - Starting Forward  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2aIo8eCI1g Yes, he's probably washed. Yes, the rest of the locker room is sick of hearing him yell all the time. Yes, his jumper is nasty in the bad way. He's still one of the smartest defensive players to ever play basketball. He's on contract until 2024 anyways, so it'll be for the best that we keep telling ourselves that he's a 16 game player. Kevon Looney - Starting Center  While he's only starting long enough for James Wiseman to "earn" his starting spot, Kevon is the guy who encompasses the term "Warrior" most out of the roster. During the 2019 finals, he played with like 8 broken ribs and no cartilage left in his chest, and despite Kawhi's efforts to spend every other offensive possession bullet punching Kevon in the ribcage, he battled through the rest of the series. In retrospect, Steph missing an entire season because of a stubbed toe is really weird. James Wiseman - Center  https://twitter.com/bykevinclark/status/1329233821863129094 The Warriors' very own Tim Duncan, James has a lot to prove after essentially missing his entire college season. Can he stop taking bad shots and play in the Warriors' heralded system? Can he learn to play defense? Will he ever turn into a better player than modern day Derrick Favors, who is pretty much making the same amount of money this year? Luckily for James, the Warriors have successfully developed several players drafted in the year 2012 or earlier. Don't ask about the other guys they drafted. Eric Pascall - Forward  Despite leading the team in total points and minutes last year, Eric is a 6'6 power forward who shot 28% from 3 and it's hard to see him fitting a role on a roster that isn't the 2019-2020 Golden State Warriors. Shoutouts to making the all-rookie team though. Jordan Poole - Guard  Jordan is a shooting guard who shot 33% from the field and 28% from 3. You may recognize his name from being at the bottom of every "Worst Stat-X of players with more than Y Minutes" list last season. He'll be expected to be a part of the rotation once again this year, which is disgusting. The rest Smailagic sucks, bazemore sucks, chriss REALLY sucks, brad wanamaker's fine. If you hadn't noticed, it's going to be a challenge to get a good 10 dude rotation here, and god forbid someone gets hurt. Season Outlook Championship or bust, kiss the rings, haters! Also, the Minnesota pick is protected 1-3, so stop saying it's the best asset to ever exist. 
Katana_Warrior fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Dec 6, 2020 |
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Dec 6, 2020 19:49
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 08:54 |
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I love the grizz and JJJ/Tyus have the cutest teammate twitter jabs in the league. They will not be good, but they will be fun once everyone's back and healthy.
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Dec 8, 2020 21:58
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