ChokeFasncists wrote:Prokorov wrote:vote: none
Nominate: OKC
i still dont get why minnesota is on the list already. i get they have some great young talent and added a great coach. but they were a 29 win team last year. are they 25-30 wins better to where they are to 5ish team in the NBA?
to me thats not warranted.
Wait, you're saying this is a prediction of next season's record? That's certainly not how I voted.
OTOH, I do think Minny has more potential than OKC. They'll have some growing pain in the meantime tho.
Towns the No. 1 player NBA GMs would build team aroundhttp://fansided.com/2016/10/18/nba-gms-karl-anthony-towns-player-want/Dunn could be like Dipo pretty soon. LaVine and Wiggins have some mad potential. I like Dieng's game. Shabazz off the bench is terrific. I can see Thibs having improved.
I don't think they're no.5 anyways. It was the Raptors, then there are other teams ahead.
If I titled this series Top 10 Teams 2017, the list would be heavily favored for those teams that were successful last season. However, by ranking the top 10 lineups I hope to inspire people to take into account potential in addition to continuity. The continuity of Minnesota shows a team that already demonstrated
the potential to perform at an high level early last season.
The beauty of what’s happening in Minnesota, though, is that it’s not just Towns’ prowess that’s turned them into a respectable offensive team. He’s also got weapons around him with plenty of potency – and I’m not just talking about Andre Miller. Wiggins has quietly improved his 3-point shot, hitting 37.5 percent of his attempts this year after only 31.0 percent last year. Nemanja Bjelica (41.7 percent) and LaVine (41.4 percent) have been even better from deep. Overnight, the Wolves have gone from a laughingstock offensively to an inside-out juggernaut with a phenomenal big man anchoring an horde of outside shooters. Minny has gone from 25th in the league in offensive efficiency to 11th.
And then you have the defense, which is also improved significantly, jumping 10 spots from 30th to 20th in the league. We always focus on offensive improvement with young teams – whose court vision is improving, whose jumper is falling and so on – but Minnesota’s growth on the other end has been just as intriguing.
Yeah, that’s right – per NBA.com/stats, the Minnesota freaking Timberwolves currently have the best lineup in the league, by fewest points allowed per 100 possessions. Everyone laughed at this Wolves team as it was coming together. It was a goofy idea to team up Kevin Garnett and Tayshaun Prince, two guys who almost qualify for Social Security, with the young Towns/Wiggins nucleus. But, with the obvious small sample caveat that’s attached to every November observation about the NBA, you can’t deny that so far it’s working. This lineup makes sense – it’s got length, quickness and KG’s on-court leadership to help guide the ship.
Small sample size? Absolutely. Performance through the first 15 games of an NBA season proves very little. Any statistic that can show the Nets were remotely decent at anything last year is probably off, with the exception of the effectiveness of Lopez + Thad, and the defensive potential of RHJ.
The reason certain posters are up in arms about the Thad trade is because of his proven continuity with Lopez in spite of this not ultimately manifesting in the Nets record. Whether or not Booker should expected to perform comparably is not the point I am trying to make. If you can give any credit to the continuity or performance of a 21-61 team, then it's not a stretch to give credit to the performance of Minnesota.
If your main gripe is over OKC not being nominated yet, I can understand only to a certain extent. Regardless of your expectations, removing a top 5 NBA player from a roster will negatively impact a team's performance. For a team that finished 3rd in the Western conference, and only two games better than the Blake Griffin-less Clippers, it's completely reasonable to expect them to be a step behind the GSW, SAS, LAC. Furthermore, POR has a strong advantage over OKC in terms of continuity. Given that the Thunder weren't a playoff team when Durant was injured, counting OKC among the third tier of playoff teams is just as fair as predicting MIN to make a leap into this tier.
Personally, I think Minnesota's roster lacks the veteran presence necessary to be anything than a potential 8th seed, and if any team is posed to jump into the playoff picture in the Western Conference, it's probably Utah who just added George Hill, Boris Diaw, and Joe Johnson, but the people who participated in this thread prior felt it appropriate to nominate Minnesota. I'm not going to stand in their way
