The pundits are all atwitter about the NBA season. The trades! That horrible all-star break!! And, now, the final push to the playoffs!!! Well, I dunno. Oh, sure, the trades were interesting. And, the all-star game and all of that really sucked. But, the final push? The Timberwolves, for one, have 26 games left. A third of the season. That’s a long time. A lot can happen. The final push, well, that can come in March or even April. I mean, heck, a lot has already happened to the Timberwolves and their fans. Two major transformations in one season!
First, of course, came the transformation from Karl Anthony Towns, a franchise cornerstone for a long long time. He helped the Wolves win 50+ games last year for only the 2nd time in 21 years! And, the Timberwolves and of course we Timberwolves fans all had expectations of doing the same thing again in 2025. So the KAT trade had to be presented as talent-neutral. Not only would Julius Randle mostly replace KAT’s productivity, but then there’s the fact that the trade was a two-fer. We also got Donte DiVincenzo, and his sharpshooting was going to help give Anthony Edwards more space for his offensive fireworks.
Well, either the Timberwolves management knew that it was jiving us or it was jiving itself. It can only be concluded today that they were jiving us and they knew it. The Timberwolves were not going to be better without KAT. The KAT trade was never about improving the team. It was a salary dump. Randle has been an immense disappointment, except to those who saw it coming and had no expectations.
KAT 2024 (Wolves) 22 ppg 50-42-87%
Randle 2024 (Knicks) 24 ppg 47-31-78%
KAT 2025 (Knicks) 25 ppg 53-43-84%
Randle 2025 (Wolves) 19 ppg 47-32-81%
Of course these numbers reflect the Wolves slow pace of play. But, the point is that KAT was better with the Wolves than Randle is, and KAT is better with the Knicks than Randle was.
As to that slow pace of play. This in turn of course helps the Wolves defensive numbers. The Wolves have fewer, longer possessions than most NBA teams (97 per 48 minutes these past 2 years after being more than 100 the previous 6 years), and so the opponents have fewer possessions. Well, defense wins games, right? So I have no problem with this strategy. But, of course, everybody knows that Randle is not as willing a defender as KAT was, no matter what that selfish, self-centered Jimmy Butler might have to say on the subject. So, all things considered, Randle was probably a particularly poor prospect for replacing KAT, if you’re gonna replace KAT.
But, wait, DiVincenzo’s perimeter sharpshooting was going to help create more space for Ant. Well, when he got hurt Donte was shooting 40-37-82%. OK, not bad, but no defense in their right mind is going to sacrifice their focus Ant to guard Donte or anybody else. Not even Julius Randle. And, in any event, Randle’s inability to hit the 3 makes him easier to defend and it means that you can slough off Randle on the perimeter and help out on Ant.
Now, it’s true that Ant’s numbers are up a little bit this year but who really thinks it’s due to Randle and DiVincenzo replacing KAT? No one, that’s who.
And, in any event, the sum total of all the machinations is this. Last year the Wolves outscored their opponents 116-109 and won 56 games. This year they’re outscoring their opponents 114-111 (thank goodness they’re outscoring them!), and they’re on a 45 win pace. This is almost certainly bad enough to land them once again in the play-in games that, even if you win, gets you a road series against the #1 or #2 seed. Not a recipe for success.
The Final Push
And, so, it strikes me that for the Wolves the final push to the playoffs might really be beginning Saturday night at Houston. Not to say that Houston is a must-win. Still, almost one-third of their remaining games (8 out of 28) will be on the road against teams that have winning records. They’re gonna have to win some of those, so now would be a good time to get started. Houston has lost 8 of 10. Point guard Fred VanVleet missed half of those games and he remains out for Saturday’s game.
And the Second Transformation
So that brings us back to the Wolves 2nd transition, one necessitated by the Wolves’ injuries, which make Houston’s look like nothin’ much. DiVincenzo went out with a toe injury on January 17. Randle went out with a groin strain on January 30. Rudy Gobert missed the last game before the all-star break with a back injury. Mike Conley missed the last 3 games before the all-star break. And, all 4 of these players appear to be out on Saturday, though it’s true that Conley and Gobert are listed as questionable and not just flat “out.” But, on top of all of that, Ant Edwards missed games on February 1 and February 8 and he is listed as day-to-day for Saturday.
And, so, of necessity, the 2nd transformation. You’ll recall that coach Chris Finch is kinda like Rocco Baldelli. Think of the Twins bullpen. Like Rocco, Finch likes to run the same rotations out there night after night, whether they’re actually working or not. And, that’s what he did throughout most of what Ant now calls a “roller-coaster” season, Until the injuries forced his hand, it was Gobert, Randle, McDaniels, Conley and Ant, with Naz Reid, DiVincenzo and Nickiel Alexander-Walker off the bench. Well, eventually, he finally moved off of the rapidly aging Mike Conley and put DiVincenzo in the starting lineup, only to see Donte get hurt soon thereafter.
Still everybody else on the roster might just as well have been a toad.
Well, OK, Rob Dillingham got a few minutes. He played in about 2/3 of the games for an average of 9 minutes, but that’s just 6 minutes per game if you spread it out across the whole schedule. Jaylen Clark got 8 minutes a game when he played, but that was just 7 times. Luke Garza got 5 minutes a game when he played, but that was, like Dillingham, only in about 2/3 of the games. I always wondered why Terrence Shannon was not playing, though I now understand that he was hurt.
So, since February 1:
• Dillingham’s minutes are up from 9 per game to 16, and his scoring up from 4 ppg to 6 with a high of 13.
• Clark’s minutes are up from 8 to 20, and his scoring from 2 to 8 ppg with a high of 17.
• Shannon’s minutes are up from 4 to 14, and his scoring from 1.5 to 6 with a high of 13.
So, who knew!? These guys can play! As Donte and Julius and Conley and Gobert return from their injuries, as presumably they will, will these guys continue to get some minutes or will Finch go back to the Baldelli plan? You, know, if Randle is having an off night, will Clark get a shot? When DiVincenzo is off target, will Shannon get a shot? And, for that matter, does Randle ever see the starting lineup ahead of Naz Reid again? Maybe not, at least not in my world.
Heck, the Wolves beat Chicago 127-108 on February 5 and Houston 127-114 with on February 6 with Randle and DiVincenzo out. They beat Portland 114-98 on February 8 with both Ant and Conley joining Randle and Donte on the sidelines. They even somehow beat Oklahoma City 116-101 on February 13 with Gobert, Conley, Randle and Donte out. Fortunately Ant was back and outplayed SGA. OK, SGA outscored Ant 24-23, but Ant was +10, SGA -12!
Still, wouldn’t you know that after Houston, the Wolves get a home & home against the Thunder, and, then, a game at the L.A. superstars. They then get 6 straight games against teams with losing records, but 5 of those are on the road. Winning 6 of those next 10 games would be a pretty good couple of weeks. You’d hate to see them get into any deeper of hole than that, what with the goal of avoiding the play-ins.
In total, the schedule looks like this.
• 9 home games against losing teams. You better win 7 of those!
• 6 away games against losers. Better break even.
• Only 3 games at home against winning teams–OKC, Indiana and Detroit. Better win 2 out of 3.
• And, 8 away games against winning teams. Ouch. 4-and-4 would be a nice accomplishment, but I don’t know if that’s realistic, especially if the injury trends continue. Still let’s say 4-and-4.
That adds up to 16-10, for a total of 47-35 (.573). The past 3 years that would have been worth 6th, 4th and 8th place. Wouldn’t 4th place be great! Well, that’s not gonna happen. 6th would be acceptable considering the Wolves have been through not one but two transformations. 16-10 may not be good enough to get to 6th place, and 16-10 is a stretch goal unless everybody gets healthy PDQ.
And, you’ll know that the Timberwolves have really transformed a 2nd time if it turns out that Dillingham, Clark and Shannon can really play for Chris Finch. That is, if Chris Finch has confidence in them. If he does, well, I don’t care about spreading out the minutes and keeping the big guys fresh. They get a lot of money to play when they’re not daisy-fresh. What I hope is that Dillingham, Clark and Shannon can give the Wolves some more bona fide options to exploit certain matchups (opportunities) that the Wolves might find themselves up against as the year grinds toward April. 1) Can Dilly and Clark and Shannon do that? And 2) does coach have the insight and ingenuity and flexibility and guts to do that?