How Many Titles: 2000-'07 Wolves w/ Prime James Harden

[Matt15]

How many titles do they win?

'00 Wolves-'13 Harden
'01 Wolves-'14 Harden
'02 Wolves-'15 Harden
'03 Wolves-'16 Harden
'04 Wolves-'17 Harden
'05 Wolves-'18 Harden
'06 Wolves-'19 Harden
'07 Wolves-'20 Harden

[No-more-rings]

I think 2004 is the only year they’re good enough to win honestly. Most years they’re going to be an offensive juggernaut, but Harden won’t fix the fact that every year outside of 2004 and 2006 the wolves weren’t even a top 10 defensive club. And Harden’s 2 best seasons come when the Wolves were a 32 and 33 win team.

…I mean mayybee they have a decent shot in 03 too since that was kind of a weak year but I wouldn’t bet on it.

[parsnips33]

Wonder who would be the better duo in 05 between KG/Harden and Duncan/Manu

[No-more-rings]

Wonder who would be the better duo in 05 between KG/Harden and Duncan/Manu

KG/Harden, but the Spurs supporting cast outside of those 2 would still be a good bit better.

[Colbinii]

Hardens best years don't overlap all that well with the 2002-2004 teams. I assume Harden/KG make the best duo in the NBA over this stretch and they win as many as Shaq/Kobe or Duncan/Robinson/Manu did.

[Stan]

They maybe win one in '04, though I shudder to think what the Pistons would do to Harden.

[migya]

No championships. Harden gives offense, little defense and those TWolves teams are less talented and just not as good as the Lakers and Spurs.

[tone wone]

2003-2006 would be their best shot. Peak KG and Peak Harden dont quite overlap perfectly but its close enough over a 4yr period that you'd be in the thick of the title picture. I just dont know if they'd ever be good enough defensively. Who are their good defenders after KG? Hassell and who else?

I do really love the idea of pairing KG with an elite high-volume shot creator and Harden with an elite defensive anchor who's actually good offensively.

[Owly]

Looking mostly at the T'Wolves and not into different versions of Harden.

So for baseline the T'Wolves had one team with an SRS north of 4. For that year their second best player irl gets injured in the playoffs.
in descending order
04: 5.86
02: 3.58
00: 2.67
03: 2.46
01: 1.81
05: 1.73
06: -1.75
07: -3.16

Think we can certainly and confidently junk 06 and 07.

In (hypothetical) Minnesota's favor is that they are replacing mostly from a low baseline at the 2. Peeler was also someone Hollinger once noted as a playoff sinker though (1) that was still during his active career, so not complete data and (2) that appears to depend on your measure as his career BPM actually creeps very slightly up. Still first glance most of his Minnesota runs look ugly. Then again I think Kandi is bad for this too from an even lower baseline (checked: true though off a single run sample - '04).

Still I think if '04 Cassell injury is a given, then first glance there's only '02 where they're a top tier contender (if injury luck is reset either at start of season or start of playoffs they're favourites, though SA and are strong and there are a bunch of 4.8 to 6 SRS teams that could be dangerous in series).

After that there's seasons where they're probably a threat in a series, tough out, better than "fringe contender" but never likely to win it all, even if it wouldn't be shocking if they did.

The above is very spitball-y (would have to look a lot closer at Harden and individual years, and team fit and then translating notional goodness/impact to wins in a new context etc) so am open to being wrong / disagreement.