As the Timberwolves season came to a close last season I was thinking about whether 2017 - 2018 was a success, a failure or something in between. There are negatives out there who will try to make a hard case that it was a full blown fail. I don't buy that. Not after 14 years of lottery picks that more often than not turned out to be horrific. Not when we are still talking about them and it's almost May. I mean for real, it's draft day and I'm talking about the Pups.
That's not to say that everything was sunshine and roses this year, because there's a lot that needs to be improved and retooled on the roster. But what exactly could or should be done?
Let's examine
Most notable: three point shooting. How many years in a row have Wolves fans been saying that though?! Too many. To resolve that...or least help fix it, Andrew Wiggins, hit the gym & start chucking! 1,000 threes a day until the next season starts, MINIMUM!
Beyond the Canadian space cadet, having Crawford around for another season is good - for the offense. His defense is still as non-existent as ever but as a gunner off the bench, that can be worked around. Hopefully the fountain of youth continues to pour out upon him!
But what other roster moves should they make?
I'm on the fence with Rose. He looked good at times and then would disappear or worse become a detriment to the play. I don't think he played his way into too much money so if they get him back at a couple million, with a lot of it riding on minutes played or games played since healthy is and will always be the most glaring concern with the former MVP. With Aaron Brooks on the way out, I'd flip his money to D-Rose plus a little bit. I think that's a reasonable possibility.
I despise that Cole Aldrich is signed for nearly seven million next season. He's a practice player and little else on this team. I haven't understood it the entire year because I thought he was a defensive type center yet never sniffed the court. Maybe he'll get bought out...
The two guys that I'd most like to see them resign from the roster are Bjelica & MGH. Neither are great, I won't pretend otherwise but Bjeli is another guy who can shoot the three a little bit but again, it would have to be for the right price. Marcus Georges-Hunt contributed less on the court but there was a stretch of time when he got to play with moderate constancy and he managed to do some good things.
Coach Penguin will never go deep into his bench so the guys who get paid to sit front row should be cheap. But this team needs more then 5 cheap spectators. Because like it or not, the way this team is set up right now, it won't be a Western Conference title contender. Yeah, I know that they were primed for a top four seed before Butler got hurt. And yeah, he's an MVP level player when healthy. But guys get hurt. The injury rate in sports is 100%. Gotta be able to overcome a single injured, even one to a guy of that magnitude. Look at what Boston has managed to do with out Gordon Hayward all year and not Kyrie Irving. But they have a top three coach in the NBA, not a top 40 one. So yeah I guess I'm officially joining the refrain of guys who want a new coach...that's better than Thibodeau.
With the way the money is destined to be distributed in very short order, the only way for the team to get markedly better is to do what they've rarely done and strike gold with a non lottery rookie.
But it's NFL draft weekend so I'm not yet ready to start breaking down who could be good additions via the June draft. So yeah, there's a lot that needs to happen with the team going forward. But as we say good bye to Basketball in the heartland I do not think that it's an errant judgment to consider the season a success.