General Wolves News

The Timberwolves Might Be For Real
FiveThirtyEight’s NBA podcast discusses Minnesota’s quest to end its 13-year playoff drought, Steph Curry’s hot streak and the Lakers’ life with LaVar Ball.

Wolves' talk starts with about ~30 minutes left.
Mentions what Teague and Tyus brings to the team.
Town's defense getting much better since Dec 15th.
Wiggins talk about defense and overlap from Butler.
The bench mostly about Crawford.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-timberwolves-might-be-for-real/

Also, their CARMELO projections for teams has Minnesota at a 4% chance of winning the title, 8% making the finals. They mentioned in the podcast that their lack of playoff experience hurts their chances in the calculations.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-nba-predictions/

FiveThirtyEight's Career-Arc Regression Model Estimator with Local Optimization (CARMELO) is a system that forecasts a player's future performance. The similarity score is an index measuring how comparable one player is to another, scaled such that a score of zero is average similarity and 100 is the highest possible degree of similarity. Plus-minus is derived from Box Plus/Minus, a measure of the number of points per 100 possessions that a player contributed to his team, relative to an average NBA player. All player ages are as of Feb. 1, 2018.

Also, if you want to see what the CARMELO projects for the players before the season...
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/

MN7725 · Post #329 » by **MN7725** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:22 pm

About to listen to JimPete on Zach Lowe’s pod

Should be interesting
Zach I would say has been lower on Wolves than most national guys last few years

JimPete is usually blunt and more critical of players in these type of interviews

MN7725 · Post #330 » by **MN7725** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 10:54 pm

MN7725 wrote:About to listen to JimPete on Zach Lowe’s pod

Should be interesting
Zach I would say has been lower on Wolves than most national guys last few years

JimPete is usually blunt and more critical of players in these type of interviews

Jim was on fire with the insight and thoughtful criticism, mostly on KAT

Zach didn’t really give many opinions, mainly would set up Jim

Definitely one of the most enjoyable pods I’ve ever heard

TaylorTag · Post #331 » by **TaylorTag** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 10:59 pm

MN7725 wrote:
MN7725 wrote:About to listen to JimPete on Zach Lowe’s pod

Should be interesting
Zach I would say has been lower on Wolves than most national guys last few years

JimPete is usually blunt and more critical of players in these type of interviews

Jim was on fire with the insight and thoughtful criticism, mostly on KAT

Zach didn’t really give many opinions, mainly would set up Jim

Definitely one of the most enjoyable pods I’ve ever heard

Yup, great pod. so excited for the game tonight. too bad I can't watch it

walk with me · Post #332 » by **walk with me** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 11:01 pm

MN7725 wrote:About to listen to JimPete on Zach Lowe’s pod

Should be interesting
Zach I would say has been lower on Wolves than most national guys last few years

JimPete is usually blunt and more critical of players in these type of interviews

0:00 - 3:15 = introduction and recap of nov - dec
3:15 - 5:15= jim pete POV of how the team is unifying and why more people aren’t rallying behind Jimmy Butler
5:15 - 7:40 = ZL asking why was towns struggling defensively and why is he kicking ass now and JPs answer
7:40 - 13:20 = jim pete gets side tracked in saying jimmy butler has raised Kat and this teams level and he’s tempted into saying its at the level of KG and said he’s already #2 Twolves player ever
13:20 - 18:11 = ZL asks about jimmy butler feeling out the first 12 games then turning into jimmy buckets and whether the rest of the team is ok with that and JP’s answer
18:11 - 19:55 = ZL saying towns looked so remarkable early in his career and JP saying that guy is finally back because he’s accepted his role with the team
19:55 - 22:55= ZL interjects saying Kats essentially unguardable and JP jumping in saying some teams will play the 4 on Kat and possibly suggests he initially floated on the wing too often. Now thibs does a good job of mixing up the looks with the helps of towns willingness to pass.
22:55 - 25:30 = ZL asking JP if the coaching staff had a coming to Jesus moment with Kat and his weird timing on blocks earlier in the season.
25:30 - 28:38 = ZL asking JP about the team cleaning up low hanging fruit of transition defense, Kats zany timed blocks and other easy fixes that can make the team thrive.
28:38 - 31:12 = ZL asking why the fan base has shown discontent even though the team has been winning games and are the fans starting to turn around
31:12 - 32:37= why does thibs yell scissors so much and why does Andy Greer always yell green
32:27 - 36:20 = JP suggests Andy Greer is “in charge” of telling thibs when to make subs and ZL jokes what if the asst coaches never told thibs to sub what would happen. ZL asks JP how knowable thibs is (JP response is kind of long winded, also kind of doesn’t answer doesn’t avoid the question though, just doesn’t really answer)
36:20 - 37:00 = JP says the Portland game was the turning point for this team “having fun” and the fans enjoying the team
37:00 - 39:40= ZL asking again how knowable thibs is and how willing to have a dialogue Thibs is
39:40 - 40:30= ZL tells a funny story about thibs non basketball interest at summer league and how unlikely it would be for thibs to be in a podcast
40:30 - 43:30= ZL asks what match up JP “likes” and what matchup makes him nervous in a playoff series
43:30 - 49:27 = Lynx talk
49:27 - till end = JPs nba memories with Hakeem Olajuwon as his fellow rookie

Post #333 » by **Klomp** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 11:07 pm

I thought the rationale on why KAT was chasing blocks early in the year was fascinating. If that truly was it and it turned a switch in KAT's brain....genius!

AirP. · Post #334 » by **AirP.** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 9:48 pm

Minnesota Is Having a Moment
Jimmy Butler has helped push the Timberwolves to new heights. Now comes the big question: Can they stay there?

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/1/16/16895722/jimmy-butler-minnesota-timberwolves

ace625214 · Post #335 » by **ace625214** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:24 pm

Klomp wrote:I thought the rationale on why KAT was chasing blocks early in the year was fascinating. If that truly was it and it turned a switch in KAT's brain....genius!

Quick recap on this point for those of use that can't listen?

TaylorTag · Post #336 » by **TaylorTag** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:37 pm

ace625214 wrote:
Klomp wrote:I thought the rationale on why KAT was chasing blocks early in the year was fascinating. If that truly was it and it turned a switch in KAT's brain....genius!

Quick recap on this point for those of use that can't listen?

Pretty sure Klomp was referring to Jim Peterson's explanation that the coaching staff was worried KAT was too stagnant on defense, that he wasn't chasing blocks, so a way to fix that is they told him to chase every shot blocking attempt. then, once KAT established an inkling to hunt down blocks, to the point where he was doing it too much, the coaching staff then taught him when to pick his battles.

the rationale being that it is difficult to teach a player to have that tenacity yet also discipline. so instead of trying right away to get Towns to be perfect, they let him loose for a bit in order to recalibrate him later.

really convoluted stuff and not sure I buy it to be honest

Post #337 » by **Klomp** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:48 pm

ace625214 wrote:
Klomp wrote:I thought the rationale on why KAT was chasing blocks early in the year was fascinating. If that truly was it and it turned a switch in KAT's brain....genius!

Quick recap on this point for those of use that can't listen?

First of all, Jim Pete said Towns is a high-IQ player, but thinks he can be single-minded. It can be hard to get things into his brain because he thinks he's already doing things right.

But to this specific thing, Jim asked Karl after the Miami game about why he was jumping for everything and the answer was "I'm just doing what I'm told."

Here's where Jim's thought process went from there: "Because KAT was not thinking about weakside defense early and not thinking about coming, I think they just told him to come every time. You can pull the reigns back on a guy, but it's hard to get a guy who's inactive to become active. You can chill a guy out and tell him to be a little more strategic, and I think they were trying to get him to come every time because they wanted him to think about being a more active weakside defender. To get a guy who's more thinking about guarding his man and not really being a help defender to being overly so, and now they've kinda throttled it back to a really good level. Through video sessions, through coaching, through whatever means they use, to get him to find a really good balance."

TaylorTag · Post #338 » by **TaylorTag** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:50 pm

Klomp wrote:
ace625214 wrote:
Klomp wrote:I thought the rationale on why KAT was chasing blocks early in the year was fascinating. If that truly was it and it turned a switch in KAT's brain....genius!

Quick recap on this point for those of use that can't listen?

First of all, Jim Pete said Towns is a high-IQ player, but thinks he can be single-minded. It can be hard to get things into his brain because he thinks he's already doing things right.

But to this specific thing, Jim asked Karl about jumping for everything and the answer was "I'm just doing what I'm told."

Here's where Jim's thought process went from there: "Because KAT was not thinking about weakside defense early and not thinking about coming, I think they just told him to come every time. You can pull the reigns back on a guy, but it's hard to get a guy who's inactive to become active. You can chill a guy out and tell him to be a little more strategic, and I think they were trying to get him to come every time because they wanted him to think about being a more active weakside defender. To get a guy who's more thinking about guarding his man and not really being a help defender to being overly so, and now they've kinda throttled it back to a really good level. Through video sessions, through coaching, through whatever means they use, to get him to find a really good balance."

Jim explained it a lot better than I just did lol

AirP. · Post #339 » by **AirP.** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 10:54 pm

It's interesting that this team still can get better by playoff time, both defensively and offensively. It's nearly criminal how few of shots Towns is getting on the team. As of now in the NBA, only Butler and Towns are averaging 20+ ppg getting fewer then 16 FGA. THE ONLY TWO IN THE ENTIRE NBA.
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Going a little more in detail with TS% and 20 ppg, there are only 10 20+ ppg players in the NBA more efficient then Butler, with Towns, there are only 3 players more efficient then him(Curry, A.Davis, L.James). Yet Butler, Towns and K.Thompson are the only ones on that list averaging less then 23.3 ppg.
__________________________________________

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The efficiency that Towns is scoring on a solid volume of shots is extremely special and he should be utilized way more for the betterment of the team.

AirP. · Post #340 » by **AirP.** » Tue Jan 23, 2018 8:02 pm

Thibs is near the end of the podcast, no real info from him as usual.

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