Timberwolves Mini-preview

TIMBERWOLVES MINI-PREVIEW

Nov 02, 2012 by Patrick Minton

I got a call from a guy at Fox in Minnesota, asking me if he could feature my blog in a commercial because he likes my work. I suspect, though, what he really likes is the fact that I am pretty bullish on the Minnesota Timberwolves:

Note how my article on the Wolves being good enough to get 57 wins is featured, with the 57 wins prominently highlighted! I'm used to people coming along and saying "Dude, you high?", and often enough it's actually my sanity barometer -- when mainstream pundits start agreeing with me, I get worried. If you are chiming in for the first time are going to be thinking I'm nuts. I'll point out, though, that Kevin Love still had healthy knuckles when I wrote that post.

Tonight (finally!) the Wolves play their first game. I've been looking forward to this for a while (how cruel of the NBA to go three whole gamedays without us). Tonight, I only have one prediction, and it is based on sound scientific principles and has been thoroughly tested by most robust statistical models:

"And the Peksecutioner will rise from atop a pile stacked high with the skulls of his victims. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Get it? "Children of the kingdom"? Get it? It's funny because we're playing the kings. Get it?

Ok, I have one other prediction for this season. Like Ryan Anderson before him, Nikola Pekovic will win the NBA's "Most Improved" award, without actually improving. They should just rename it the "NBA Player Who's Always Been Pretty Great But Whom We Didn't Know About Last Year" award.

Categories: Minnesota Timberwolves, Predictions

Brett Gunter

Patrick,
As usual, I'm with you. Leave it to the NBA to make the most interesting team in the league wait forever to debut. There are some unknowns, of course--Roy's knees, Shved's development, Kirilenko's year in Europe, Rubio's recovery time--but even if they get NOTHING from all 4, I still see huge improvement over last year. This is either a very deep, talented team, or, when Love and Rubio return, an incredibly deep, star-laden team--and no one seems to realize it.

201 days ago

Kevin Myers

For the record...
I was a "Wins Produced" convert about a year ago and started following you during the season last year.
Then, we renewed our agreement with the Wolves to have them return to My29.
And then, you came out with your articles with very strong projections for the team.
Finally, about a week ago, my boss asked me if there was any unique angle we could take to market the Wolves games to the crowd that watches "The Big Bang Theory", which is our highest rated program and leads into many of our game broadcasts.
Market basketball to geek-lovers? Well, how could I pass up merging my two interests?
Thanks for letting me feature your work.

Roy's performance in the Toronto game has me legitimately worried. He looked like he was 72 years old.

198 days ago

Patrick Minton

Hey Kevin,

Thanks for the press, and I was just teasin'.

Roy had me very worried. He looked better in game 3. I suspect we will see him go up and down a lot this season; with these knees, he's probably only an average-level player at best, and such players aren't very consistent, they have good games and bad games (i.e. the variance is much bigger than we expect). This might be worthy of an article.

197 days ago

Steve Dickinson

"Ok, I have one other prediction for this season. Like Ryan Anderson before him, Nikola Pekovic will win the NBA's "Most Improved" award, without actually improving. They should just rename it the "NBA Player Who's Always Been Pretty Great But Whom We Didn't Know About Last Year" award."

Hollinger always trys to figure it out by predicting the best player who will have the biggest bump in minutes. Fairly similar to what you are saying.

197 days ago

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