Klomp wrote:I know it feels like we're treading water, stuck in place with nowhere to go. But I still feel very strongly that this is a great time to be a fan of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
-Ownership change brings new life to franchise. Things seemed bleak in 1994, but the purchase by Taylor almost immediately brought success. I'm not crediting him for the Garnett era, though you can obviously say that without Glen Taylor the Garnett era never even begins because the franchise would be in New Orleans. But again, things have turned bleak, but the process of the ownership change bringing in new voices is once again breathing life into the franchise.
-Front office changes will hopefully bring stability. People are down on Connelly, but think about it this way.....when was the last time a current Timberwolves front office head was good enough to be potentially courted by another franchise? He build up Denver into a sustainable franchise. He's trying to do the same here. He made mistakes in Denver, he's made some here too. But I think consistency is so important to a small-market franchise when trying to build something up.
-I know people are down on the season, and I'm disappointed with the result too. But I'm choosing to focus on the baby steps of getting back to the playoffs again despite the disappointments. Small steps over a low bar, but an important step nonetheless.
-We still are building around 21-year old Anthony Edwards. That immediately gives us an enormous leg up on so many franchises.
I think the biggest issue is that many people (most) are down on the franchise BECAUSE of the disappointment they experienced this season with the biggest expectations this team has probably had since KG/Cassell/Spree days.
While the season certainly didn't go the way I would have preferred nor predicted, there certainly was a lot of value to it despite the results not being what we had hoped. It seems that due to this bump in the road many fans want to turn the car around, but I am still very excited by the potential of this team/franchise going forward.
One lackluster (PLAYOFF) season certainly isn't enough to lose me considering how many years of bleak obscurity we've already gone through as fans of this team. To some the fact that Gobert didn't improve the wins total/result over last season as a reason to lower the potential ceiling on this team, but I look at it the opposite way.
Going from a team that overachieved and had great injury luck the previous season to one that had HORRIBLE injury luck this season AND a roster overhaul, but still making the playoffs (and only winning 4 less games) with their best player out the majority of the season is actually a testament to the fact that this roster has some depth (and the ability to fight through adversity, sometimes literally).
While everyone would have preferred this Gobert/KAT experiment had started off better, not getting the immediate result your hoping for does not mean the entire experiment is a massive failure (as many here and nationally have painted it), it just means that they need to adjust and take the data they've collected from the first part and apply it to the future (not smash everything out of frustration and sell off parts for pennies on the dollar).
