Step 3 is in the process...we are getting close guys!!

I highly doubt the team will be moved anytime soon, if ever. And I don't think the team needs to move to be relevant. The seasons we were in the playoffs with KG were relevant despite sub-par management and coaching. And if not for a really stupid injury to Cassell, we probably would have been NBA champs one year.

This market has shown a lot of support for NBA basketball when the product is good. We dont have trouble attracting good baseball, hockey or football free agents here. The root problem with regard to the Wolves has been Taylor.

I dont have any idea if Arod & his partner will be good or even if they'll be better than Taylor, but stuff I have read makes me think they have no plans to move the team. Arod has no real attachment to Seattle as some have speculated and the NBA is unlikely to allow the Wolves to move out of this market because it might screw up their plans for expansion in other the markets that might be attractive to this team to move to. Part of the appeal of this team to the new owners is that the cost of it is about 25% less than what buying a new expansion team would cost. I think they intend to stay here.

This goofy **** about Taylor mentoring them for 2.5 years to become owners is typical Taylor silliness, but whatever. Hopefully the silliness doesnt turn these guys off and throw a monkey wrench into the deal.

Very much agreed. Minnesota is VERY much a basketball state...we're just starved for a winner. Hell, the first four games after the d-lo trade were all sellouts I think. And anytime there's anywhere a meaningful Wolves game, it gets better viewing numbers than the Twins or Wild.

The NBA is interested in expansion, much moreso than moving existing teams around. Just hope that the "it's in the contract" promise Taylor refers to isn't some handshake and good faith deal like with Wiggins.

I know Taylor has to be very smart in order to get as wealthy as he is, and its great that he saved the team from moving and insists on keeping them here after he's gone, but the guy botches seemingly every decision he makes with regards to this team. I hope we can get this team out from under his control without him doing more damage.

Wolves sweep Jazz

These last two games were more fun to watch than any I can remember in the past few years. Maybe the Denver game that decided who was going to get into the playoffs was the last one this exciting.

Wolves record vs Utah this season: 3-0.
vs every one else: 15-44.

Utah record vs the Wolves: 0-3.
vs everyone else: 44-14.

I think I heard Benz say last night that this is the first time in NBA history a team has beaten another team in back to back games in which they trailed in each game by 17+ points. We were down by 17 Saturday and by 18 last night. Amazing.

Both games, it didn't feel like we just caught Utah on a cold shooting game. It looked like the reason they were missing so many shots was because of us actually making them take difficult shots.

Our coach out-coached one of the best coaches in the NBA in two consecutive games.

ANT could end up being great. KAT is great.

DLO has skills - if he would play this way all the time, he would be an all star again. I'd like to trade him for someone else who has value this offseason if that is possible, but if not, lets hope he continues to play within the system like this instead of playing hero ball all the time.

McDaniels looks like the steal of the draft for sure - this guy plays defense like a great veteran defensive specialist, and he isn't terrible offensively. He can defend all five positions very effectively against the best players in the NBA already as a rookie. He reminds me defensively of AK-47 and prime KG.

This type of play should be sustainable. The question is, will they keep playing like this, or will they half-ass it in most of their games again because of overconfidence, taking lazy, bad shots and giving poor effort defensively? Their track record on this sucks, but putting together two games in a row like this vs the team with the best record in the NBA gives me hope.

Read the bold sentence again. Fitch looks very good right now.

Rosas' player decisions are looking better than ever right now (although if we lose our #1 this season, that is going to sting a lot). ANT was a clear swing for the fences and he does have more upside than anyone else in that draft. McDaniels was a clear home run. Bolmaro is tearing it up in Europe - he looks like he is ready to contribute next season. I hope we can get him here that soon. Naz is improving and was a fantastic find. McGloughlin was a nice find. Culver looks like a bad whiff, but that might be the only truly awful thing he's done so far. Now that he's in good shape, Juancho is looking like a real NBA player. If Beasley can come back healthy, he's good. I had started to question whether Rosas knew what he was doing, but I think he does. If we can win a top 3 pick in the lottery this year, we could have a very bright future.

Ant will be the best player on this team, and that with KAT on the team, by the end of the 22-23 season.

If that happens, we might have a chance to win some titles.

Rosas fired for sexing subordinates. I find it interesting that timberwolves fandom has declared that this is a huge loss because Rosas is a genius. The Wolves are in cap hell and +700 to make the playoffs. And that's with winning the lottery in there.

I was surprised that the "difficult/toxic to work with" stuff came out, because I had never heard any similar stories. Sounds like he was a huge ******* to Gupta.

Random note, but I walked past him and the (alleged) girl he was sexing last month in the skyway. He's really short.

I'm genuinely confused about the real reason. Stories I have read from people who are supposedly in the know say a whole bunch of stupid reasons (hard to work with, he made me work too hard, omg he fired a scout, he's an *******, he's difficult to negotiate with, the team's record was bad, etc.), then they mention the sex thing at the end and say that was only the straw that broke the camel's back. If the sex thing is the real reason, I am fine with that, but they need to tell us that was the reason. All that other stuff sounds like BS that you do not fire a POBO for this soon into his tenure.

Apparently quite a few people had heard about the "difficult/toxic" stuff before, but never thought any of that would lead to his firing, which again makes me suspicious about the real reason.

yeah, he is short. I met him at a pregame press conference once.


Everything I have heard about Gupta sounds like he could be very good at this. I hope he gets a real chance to prove himself. It sounds like the new owners like Elton Brand for some reason. I do not want that guy. Every decision I saw that he was involved with seemed like bad decision making.

Anyone else watch the preseason opener last night vs NO? I know its only a preseason game and I know Zion didnt play, but the first half team looked a lot different defensively than any Wolves team we've seen in a long time. They contested just about everything, blocked shots, got steals, hustled... ANT looked very good defensively. Apparently he's been working hard on defense this offseason and Finch has had the team focusing 80% of their time on D in practice. It showed.

This could be a fun, competitive team to watch this year.

If we play like this during the regular season and if PHI continues holding out for more for Simmons, I think his stock is going to drop even lower. If we could get him for something like Beasley, McDaniels & filler, we ought to jump on that. If we have to give up a bunch of #1s or even DLo (never thought I'd say that), we ought to stand pat. I like the look of this roster right now. I want to see what they can do.

KAT looks locked in. DLo looks like he can be a good contributor if KAT & ANT are playing with him - his long arms can be pesky to opponents when he's actually showing interest in playing D and offensively, he is very good shooting & passing when he has other good offensive players on the floor with him.

Beverly looks like a great acquisition. Prince looks pretty good so far too. I want to see what Balmaro looks like playing with some of our regulars. He could be good.

negative: giving up way too many offensive rebounds. We are too small with Okogie or McDaniels playing PF. It'd be good to pick up a quality big. Prince looks like a legit SF - he plays some D, shoots 3s and seems to have a high BBIQ, but he's too small to bang against big PFs. Vanderbilt is a fine backup PF, but he's small for a PF too.

If Ant becomes the best player on the team and Kat plays 75 games, .500 is within reach!

I heard Ant-Man can go 1 on 5.

ANT could be the second coming of Michael Jordan (on steroids), but he has a long way to go. I don't think ANT will be the best player on the team this season (it could happen in a couple/few years), but I do think we have a good chance at .500 or better this season.

KAT is playing fantastic right now and he's in the best physical shape of his life. He's an MVP candidate if he keeps this up.

I think we have a great coach, probably the best in franchise history. Adelman was very good for longer, but I think Finch will surpass him.

DLo could be the anchor that drags us down. Either that or injuries. My fingers are crossed that neither of these things holds us back.

I think this team has a chance to be very good fairly soon.

That win in Milwaukee last night was potentially a major turning point for the season. I love the way ANT took it to Middleton at the end of the game. That was amazing to watch. The game just looks easy for him when he is playing well.

We get another stiff test vs Denver Saturday, but DEN has to play at DAL tomorrow night then travel to MN while we rest. Plus Jokic is dinged up. Hopefully we're catching them at a good time.

DLo hurt, will likely miss multiple games. Weird.

It looked like a legit ankle sprain to me. I dont know if this is a good or bad thing for the team right now.

The team looked like a flaming bag of dogshit in the 4th last night. Just awful. Just when they suck me in, they lay a big turd again. That last quarter was very much like many of the epic losses they pulled off last season when Towns was injured. This time, he was playing. The great defensive effort they had been playing with was out the window. If they think they can just show up and win by going through the motions, its going to be a long, ugly season.

Rinse and repeat. It’s pathetic how little it takes for me to get sucked in. Feel like lots of people here are the exact same. If/when we finally get a decent team it will be crazy.

We like the NBA and we are starved to have a legitimately good NBA team here.

A game like this really turns me off. Its the same old lifeless, lack of effort bullshit we've seen way too much over the past 17 years. I'll be paying attention to see if they snap out of this right away and continue with the effort they showed to start the season or not. Its going to be hard to care much if they play like this anymore.

The first three quarters of this last game was subpar. The 4th quarter was a bad joke. No effort or sense of urgency at all. They could be a good team if they always played with fire. The 4th quarter of the Orlando game, they would have got their ass kicked by every team in the NBA. Yeah, Orlando was hot, but a lot of that had to do with us not contesting shots and making life easy for them on both ends of the floor.

Hopefully that game was just a wake up call, but I am not optimistic right now.

Benz & Peterson & ANT & Beverly all said we lost to the Clippers last night "because they were hot".

Why were they hot?

Yeah, P George was almost unstoppable for a while no matter what we did to him defensively (nothing we could do about that imo), but what about the rest of their team? Maybe because we left their 3 point shooters wide open?

Towns & Finch both said we didn't rotate defensively the way we were doing in most of the previous games this season. They ****ing half-assed the defense again.

We didn't play as horribly as we did vs Orlando, but we're capable of being much better. Good NBA players get hot when you let them shoot uncontested shots. Good teams do something so that doesn't happen with their opponents.

Cha,

I think you overestimate the talent on this team. Towns and Edwards have talent. Though at this point in Town's career, we know he cant lead a team to the playoffs. Beasley could be a top 6 rotation guy on a really good team. Besides that, most of their players are fringe players that maybe dont see the court on a championship level team.

Beasley is horseshit this season. He's out of shape, which seems to be affecting his shot. If he cant shoot well, he's useless. He's a useful piece if he's shooting 3s at 40%+. Nowell should be getting most of Beasley's minutes until Beasley is in shape.

I think effort is different than talent. The team is good when they play with effort the whole game. When they coast, they have letdowns and then they suck. You are correct in the fact that the talent on this team is not good enough to coast through games and win.

Anyone else paying attention?

The 6 straight losses had me ready to give up, then they started playing (mostly) really well and sucked me back in again.

After the great win in MIL and the close loss vs DEN, they reverted back to being the old Wolves for several games. Great blowout win vs LAL, followed by laying another turd vs LAC. Then something happened.

Very close loss to PHO, who is now in the midst of a 16 game win streak I think. Wolves should have won that game. Then we win two games vs bad teams by > 10 points - ok, that's what a playoff team is supposed to do.

Then the 43 point blowout of MEM got me interested again. Close W over NO was kind of a let down, but at least it was a W, then the 12 point win at MIA and General Soreness was a signature win imo. Bad letdown getting blown out at CHA - yeah, it was a good team on their home court, but our effort was piss-poor. Then the next night at PHI we win in double OT after KAT fouled out - nice!

The win last night vs IND wasn't all that impressive because we played bad in the first half, but looking back on it, we didn't have three important players (Beverly, Vanderbilt & McDaniels) and KAT fouled out again. Nice job by the rest of the team eeking out that W.

This team has holes, but they can compete with any team in the league. We need at least one decent big, preferably a C imo. Without Vanderbilt, we suck at rebounding.

D Blo has turned himself into good D Lo. Some eye opening stats:

and from a few days ago:
Also, I read something the other day that I can't find and I can't reproduce exactly, but by basketballreference five man lineups, Beverly, Edwards, Russell, Towns & Vanderbilt have a net rating of +45.3 per 100 possessions, which is the highest of any five man combination in the NBA with over 90 minutes played together by a wide margin. I think the second best 5 man lineup was ~+29. And Beasley, Edwards, Russell, Towns & Vanderbilt are +27.3, albeit in only about 27 minutes.

We need Beasley to shoot well. He's a useful player when he does, but he is completely useless if he's shooting the way he did for most of the games so far this season.

Nowell and Vanderbilt are the surprises of the season so far. Nowell playing like people thought Beasley would.

Nowell has a lot more to his game than Beasley does. He is solid at creating his own shot, shooting midrange and closer shots and also isn't bad at shooting 3s. He also has PG skills, gluing McGloughlin to the bench (as he should be). He should be taking all of Beasley's remaining minutes when the two of them are not on the floor at the same time imo.

Beasley, when he's playing well, is very good at shooting 3s. He has not been playing/shooting well. He isn't good at defense and does little to nothing well aside from shooting from deep. I hope he heats up enough the rest of the season to increase his trade value enough to get something positive in return.

Russell is a whole lot better than almost anyone gave him credit for (I hated watching him play up until ~1/4 way into this season) - he actually plays great team defense and the offense hums along nicely most of the time when he is playing. I wish he would quit taking the bad heat-check shots and get a little less lazy with some of his passes, but overall, he's very good.

The team as a whole just needs to bring the intensity every game if they want to be much better than a ~.500 team.

I think we need to add another competent 4/5. We are too small and weak vs certain opponents. I wish we had kept Monroe and dumped one of the end of the bench guys.