Hoops Tonight - NBA Power Rankings: #14 Minnesota Timberwolves led by Ant Edwards & Karl-Anthony Towns

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hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. Yeah, all right, Welcome to hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are

having a great week so far. We are moving off with their power rankings today onto number four team, the Minnesota Timberwolves are really really interesting team to dive into because once again we have to throw away just about everything from last season because they traded a traded out a bunch of their players for Rudy Gobert, which obviously changes fundamentally the identity of this particular basketball team. They

should be a really really interesting watch this year. They have one of my favorite young players in the league and Anthony Edwards. It was a lot of fun diving into this. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements.

And last but not least, if you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish them, you can find them in audio form wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight. One last thing. Please bear with me guys. Last week on Thursday, when I said I had allergies, turns out I had some sort of upper respiratory illness was not COVID. I tested negative.

It really took it out of me. It's the most sick I've been since I had COVID, which was in the fall of and I'm kind of over it now, but it has destroyed my lungs and destroyed my vote, my voice, and I've been dealing with some coughing and stuff. So apologies in advance for just the lack of overall vocal energy, but I appreciate you guys bearing with me. Um. All right, So, last year, the Timberwolves were seventh in

offense in defense. They were one of the teams for those of you guys who were following the show at this point as the season was coming to an end the regular season, this is one of the teams that I was focusing on a lot because they were playing really, really well. Now there was some context there, like they went thirty and sixteen over their last forty six games.

That was from January three to the end of the season, but they did play a lot of teams that were, you know, good in the sense that they's it showed their strength of schedule to be strong because of the records of the teams they were playing. But like almost every night that they were playing a good team, somebody was sitting out. And this is classic U n B. A load management problems. You guys know, I would love to see them cut the season down from eight two

to sixty six games. I know that's a non starter for the owners and the players because they want money, But to me, it's pretty simple. I believe that right now the product is crap because almost every time you get a marquee matchup on national TV, at least one star is missing, if not both because of the the need that teams feel to prepare for load management throughout the season. If you shortened the schedule to the point where teams were only playing three times a week, they'd

have automatic baked in looad management. They'd have at least one stretch every week where they'd have two consecutive nights off. I think it would lead to the to a league where almost every one of these marquee matchups had all the stars playing, and not not to mention an additional twenty percent of urgency in how much value there is in a win or how much pain there is in a loss. I believe that that decrease in regular season volume of games would be replaced by at least increase

in quality of play. But that's another separate soapbox. For me there um. But the Timberwolves were a huge beneficiary of that last year. They ended up going like I said, from January three on thirty and sixteen. They had the number one offense in the league during that span, the

number sixteen defense, number five overall in net rating. Um. They end up getting out of the play in tournament and they make it to the Grizzlies and a really bizarre series where they lose in six games, but they end up pretty much controlling five of the six games. They just completely fell apart at the end of every single game. For those of you guys who remember when I did that series preview for that particular series, my biggest fear for Minnesota going into that series was late

game decision making. And you're gonna hear me talk about this. A lot basketball games are one and lost at the end in a lot of cases because it's it's a lot easier in a smaller sample size for the better team to lock in and really, truly, you know, beat come what their basketball identity is, and if they're the better team than you, they're gonna take care of business

down the stretch of a game. Yes, for three quarters, you might be able to hang with them for one reason or another because maybe they don't truly feel threatened or whatever the deal is. But at the end of a game, you become who you truly are as a basketball team. And I was worried that Anthony Edwards, who I really like, but as young in D'Angelo Russell, who's a player that I don't particularly like. I had a feeling that they were going to struggle with like game

decision making, and they did. In the fourth quarters of that series, the Timberwolves were outscored by forty one point six points per one hundred possessions. They were absolutely terrible on both ends of the floor in clutch time, So when the games were within five points with less than five minutes remaining, they had a negative forty points six net ratings, So they were outscored by forty points seven points every one hundred possessions. Terrible on both ends of

the floor. So they were a terrible fourth quarter team and a terrible clutch team, which was my biggest fear going into that series, and it costs them because you could argue that they were the better team and they controlled throughout that series. They frequently had large leads and they just weren't able to do anything with it. Excuse me. So obviously, in this offseason, the Timberwolves undergo a change of UH in their basketball operations department. They bring in

Tim Connolly. He immediately is very aggressive and makes the Rudy go Beart trade, flipping Patrick Beverley. They're starting point guard Molik Beasley, They're starting to guard their UH um or three depending on whether or not they were starting Delo on any given moment, and then UM Jared Vanderbilt, their best wing on the roster. They flipped those three guys, a couple of younger players, four first round draft picks, and a pick swap for Rudy Gobert. I was truly

shocked by that. UM. I thought Rudy Gobert was a negative asset. Now, to be clear, there's a difference between negative as set a negative player. I just thought, because of Rudy's offensive limitations and the fact that he was gonna be making forty plus million, you know, longer, you know, all the way to six or something, that teams would be hesitant to trade for him. Clearly I was wrong about that. He there UH was at least one GM

in the league. Of viewed him as very valuable um but so essentially what they did if you zoomed out from that trade, they exchanged three really good perimeter defenders for one great back line anchor, arguably the best in the league. I think Anthony Davis when he's engaged, as a little better. I think Janice is a little better. But I think Gobert's right there as a top three

defensive player in all of basketball. He's one of those guys that's kind of become the butt of the joke for a lot of basketball fans, but that's not actually backed up with what you see in tape. The defensive issues for the Utah Jazz had nothing to do with Rudy Gobert and everything to do with everybody else on their roster. I expect him to come in and immediately make Minnesota a great defensive team. They also signed Kyle Anderson,

Austin Rivers, and Brent Forbes. Kyle Anderson and Austin Rivers are both above average defensive players for their position. Both of them are somewhat inconsistent offensively. We'll get in a little bit further into them later. Kyle Anderson can do some stuff attacking smaller defenders and shooting over the top. Austin Rivers is capable as an on ball creator, but obviously below average compared to some of his peers around the league. And then Brent Forbes is your textbook off

the bench type of shooter. You know, Um, you know. NBA coaches are constantly obsessed with like what they can do to run offense for periods of the game when their stars are out of the game, and they they they have the ability to run defense, a run offensive players off of screens that's in their offense already. They did that a lot with Molik Beasley last year. I think they'll run some similar sets like that with Brent

formed with Brent Forbes this year. Off the bench, they also dress drafted Wendell Moore Jr. He's a classic wing that can do a little bit of everything, but I don't think he'll play much this year. If we look at the depth chart at the guard position, their guard heavy. They have Dangel Russell, Anthony Edwards, Jalen Noel, uh Bryn Forbes, Awesome Rivers, and Jordan McLoughlin. Um, Jalen Noel and Jordan McLoughlin are gonna be two interesting guys to watch. I

don't know a ton about them at this point. I need to watch more film, but those are two guys from what I've heard that Minnesota's depending on Big Time to replace a little bit of what Malik Beasley and Patrick Beverley did for them, Um on the Way and Kyle Anderson, Torrian Prince and Jadie McDaniels. And then as BIG's they have Rudy Gobert, Carl Anthony Towns and Nas read So. On the offensive end of the floor, they run a lot of isolation. They were the seventh most

frequent isolation team last year and the fourth most efficient. Now. Generally speaking, isolation is kind of youed as like a bad word in the basketball world, especially amongst the coaches, because they associated with stagnation, and a lot of coaches don't like ISO because they think of it as like bad offense essentially. Um. To me, though, I think isolation is a little bit undervalued, especially in the modern NBA,

for a couple of different reasons. First of all, Um, in a playoffs setting, in particular, a lot of teams do a lot more switching than usual, and in addition to that, they scout your sets, and so your your sets are far less likely to actually generate quality shots in a playoff setting than they are in the regular season because every coach has seen, like the advanced scouts have seen every single play you've run during the season.

They've charted how often you ran those plays, and they've presented that information to the coaching staff, and the coaching staff coaches the players on how to jump in front of specific actions to deny UH. You know, maybe an entry pass here there to stop the play from UH from taking place, or a preplanned switch to take care of a shooter coming off of a screen, or whatever the action is. They find ays to scout ahead of that stuff. And so a lot of times in playoff

series is it does devolve into isolation basketball. And you know what it really comes down to. Isolation basketball is physical advantages. And you know, Anthony Edwards and Carl Town's have physical advantages over almost every single defensive player that they're gonna face in this league, right, So it's not bad for them to do, UH, to rely on a good amount of isolation basketball. I think it's smart for

what their roster can do. And again, a lot of ice, so they were the number one offense in the league for more than the second half of the season, a little bit over what I say, like forty six games or something like that, so that's pretty substantial. The other thing with isolation basketball, the second big advantage is it's

avoiding bringing other defenders into the play. So, you know, if I want to pick and roll or some sort of off ball screening action or dribble handoff or anything that involves multiple offensive players in some sort of exchange, what's gonna happen there is I'm bringing other defenders to

the play. So if I'm bringing the ball up the floor on the right wing and I call for a pick and roll and the other team is scared of me and they want to try to get the ball out of my hands or use second defenders or third defenders to dissuade me from getting to my spots, if I bring a screener up, it's easier that I'm bringing a second defender up, and if they're playing is to get the ball out of my hand, they can jump me on that pick and roll by trapping right, or

like if I'm running a dribble hand off or an off ball screening action, by bringing that second defender into the play. I make it easier for the other team potentially to deny me the basketball. Even though yes, it will lead to openings elsewhere, it does cause some problems for you as the ball handler in isolation. If they're gonna offer help, they're gonna have to straight up a band in their man to do so, which allows you to open up things in terms of drive and kick.

So there are advantages to ISO. Don't let coaches and old fashioned basketball minds convince you that it's a bad thing. It just it needs to be done smartly. It needs to be done with the right matchups. It needs to be done when you have physical advantages, and it needs to be done with the proper spacing, and it needs to be done with uh what while taking into account rhythm in the way that the other players on the

floor are impacted. To make a long story short, isolation is fine, but just like any other thing, it's about balance and figuring out how you can have counters from that or mix things up so that you don't become predictable. I am not an anti ISO basketball guy. Um. In terms of pick and roll, they did not run a lot of pick and roll last year they were twenty four and pick and roll attempts. That's to be expected.

They didn't have a good role man. Naz Reid is a good big man, and and obviously Karl Anthony Towns is dynamic as a score and as a perimeter shooter, but he's not a good role man. He's not a vertical spacer. So it wasn't a thing that that they were going to do last year because it didn't play into their strengths. But that is one of the very few things that Rudy Gobert is good at. You know, my my, my criticisms of Rudy Gobert mainly lie on

the offensive end of the floor. I think, you know, I think his inability to punish switches and post up situations as a problem. I think he's generally slow making decisions, so he's not good in the short role. Obviously he can't shoot from the perimeter. But there are two things on offense that he's outstanding at. That's he's an outstanding

screener and he's an outstanding vertical threat. So what's one thing I can do on the offensive end of the floor that's going to properly use Rudy Gobert and what he does well pick and roll. So even though they were twenty four and pick and roll attempts last year, I expect a significant increase in the Timberwolves pick and roll offense this year. I expect him to do it a whole lot more. One last note on Rudy. He

is very good as an offensive rebounder as well. That's one of the things that he can do on the offensive end, but he is somewhat limited on that. He's straight up just a role player, even maybe less than that on the offensive end of the floor. They ran a lot of off screen plays last year. There were seventh most in the NBA, but again that was a

lot of Malik Beasley. The vast majority of their off screen actions were Malik Beasley flying off of screens and pin downs um to look to shoot or to curl around and try to make a play with him being gone. I expect that to kind of go by the wayside. So just kind of think like a lot a lot there. They were a lot of is, so last year there will be a lot of is. So they were not very much pick and roll last year. I expect a lot more pick and roll. There were a lot of

off screen stuff last year. I expect a lot less of that, but I do think they'll do a lot of that with Bryn Forbes off the bench, just not enough to make up for what Malik Beasley was doing, so I expect them to be somewhat low volume in that regard, so kind of zooming out. This is a mismatch attacking isolation team has two players that can constantly have physical advantages around the floor, Karl Anthony Towns and

Anthony Edwards. And then I think they'll supplement that with a lot of high pick and roll with Rudy Gobert, either with Dilo and Angelo Russell or excuse me, D'Angelo Russell or Aunt. Those are the two guys that I expect to run a ton of pick and roll with Gobert. When it comes to their isolation play with Carl Towns and with Aunt, it's gonna all be about spacing. The issue was his Rudy Gobert because he can't shoot from the perimeter because he's, you know, basically just a vertical

spacing threat who can screen well. He's going to be in the dunker spot a lot, which is going to flat out affect their spacing. The driving lanes are not going to be as good for Anthony Edwards as they were last year. That's simply a fact of that trade. As soon as you made that decision to flip a five out team with Carl Towns as your rims, your floor spacing big too. Now having a non spacing center, it's going to change the dynamic of driving lanes for

this team. The other guy that I'm worried about them in terms of their spacing is Kyle Anderson. He's a good defensive wing and they lost a good defensive wing with Jared Vanderbilt, so I expect them to play him quite a bit. He was thirty two on catch and shoot threes last year. If they have Kyle Anderson and Rudy Gobert on the floor at the same time, things could really get clogged for them in the paint. One of the benefits about this partnership of having two bigs

on the offensive end of the floor. We're gonna talk about the defensive end. I think the having two Biggs things could present some problems for them there. But on the offensive end of the floor, you know, Carl Town's shooting ability makes it so that in theory, if you have the other guys that can shoot, it could work out and still have some you know, um usability. Uniquely, what Carl Towns does so well is he's amazing shooting

above the break. The vast majority of role players around the league shoot pretty well from the corners and not as well above the break. Simple math, it's a further shot, right, um, But Carl Town's attempted five above the break threes per game last year and shot on them. So you can tuck him further away from the basket. And you know, especially with him and how quick his releases, he's gonna pull a pretty big defensive player really far away from

the basket. That will that that part will make some of the go Bear lineups at least usable. But I think in the aggregate, the overall spacing of the lineup will not be as good as it was last year. Um. I think Rudy Gobert is going to be in pick and roll as the natural counter to their spacing problem. So again, it's just gonna keep him more involved in the offense if he stands in the dunker spot. Any really good defensive big is gonna be capable of helping

on drives while still dissuading Rudy around the rim. That's gonna be a problem for them. But in pick and roll, he's gonna have a head of steam going downhill. It's just gonna be harder for his defender to to deal with him in a pick and roll situation than he is uh in the dunker spot. So again, pick and roll is gonna be their counter to their spacing issues.

The number one issue I have with them on the offensive end of the floor is going to be their clutch offense and decision making, like we talked about earlier. So in clutch time, in eighteen minutes against Memphis, So again, that's eighteen minutes in the series where there was less than five minutes remaining on the clock and the scoring margin was five points or less, D'Angelo Russell and Anthony Edwards combined to go three for sixteen from the field,

including one for eight from three. That's I don't see that problem going away. Um. You know, Anthony Edwards again, I really like him, but he's he's probably several years away from being a good clutch basketball player. Again, at the end of basketball games, like we talked about, teams

really flash their true identity. So when you get into late playoff settings and you're going to answer a really good defensive team, and there's a great deal of scouting involved, they're gonna find ways to pack the paint on Anthony Edwards and really test his decision making as a passer and his willingness to settle for pull up jump shots. Now, for those of you who remember when we did our

player rankings video, I had Anthony Edwards pretty high. I think I had him twenty one, and his pull up shooting was one of the big revelations of that playoff run. He shot the ball extremely well off the dribble, but he does have a tendency to settle when even when he has physical advantages. So again, it's gonna team's packing the paint. It's going to test Anthony Edwards in his willingness to pass the open shooters and his willingness to avoid difficult pull up jump shots. So that's gonna be

my biggest concern for them. Again, if you're gonna win the title is if you're gonna just come out of the Western Conference, you're probably gonna have to out execute a Steph Curry in a playoff series, You're gonna have to out execute and Nicola Yokich in a playoff series. You're gonna have to out execute a Kawhi Leonard in a playoff series. Hell, if the Lakers figure it out, you might have to out execute a Lebron James in a playoff series. You might have to do that anyway

in a first round series. So at the end of the day, like decision making is going to be the biggest question mark for this particular team on the offensive end, so kind of zooming out, I think Google, I think Rudy Gobert is legitimately going to mess with their offense. I think they'll take a step back on the offensive end of the floor, and I do think they'll continue to struggle at the end of the game, at the end of games. So I expect them to finish somewhere.

They were seventh and offensive rating this year. I expect them to finish somewhere closer to at ten this year. Let's move on to the defensive end of the floor. Um, last year, like we said, they were an average defense. They finished thirteenth. Even when they got hot towards the end of the year, it wasn't their defense. It was

their offense that got going. But again I got we have to give Chris Finch a lot of credit here because when you really look at what they were working with, you know, with Carl Towns, who for his position as one of the worst defensive players to play big minutes in the league right, and then D'Angelo Russell, who throughout his career has been a bad defensive player. He got both of them to have the best defensive seasons of

their career. D'Angelo Russell became a serviceable defensive player, obviously not a great defensive player, but a serviceable defensive player. And in general, from the roster, from on the roster, from the top down, there was a ton of buying, especially from their perimeter defenders and their willingness to slide

their feet and keep people in front. Again, we've talked a lot about this concept on the show, but it's quickly becoming one of the most important aspects of NBA basketball, your ability to contain ball handlers, because think of it

like this. We think a lot about help schemes, and we think a lot about back line defenders and like things like defensive rotations, but those things aren't necessary if a defender can contain the dribble, if you can contain the dribble and prevent ball handlers from getting into the paint, then you don't have to offer as much help. You don't have to be in rotation as often, and your foot speed on the back line matters less. Right, And

that was a clear identity from this particular team. They were a team that sat down in a stance and got stops. Malik Beasley did an outstanding job in perimeter contain. Patrick Beverley one of the best in the league at it Dangel Russell had the best defensive season of his career at Anthony Edwards best defensive season of his career there. I just wanted to give a shout out to Chris Finch there because I think he did a really good

job with this particular group. Again, this team is going to be completely different defensively than they were last year. Last year they were average defense because they had great perimeter defensive players, but their back line was weak. This year, I think they've taken a step back, a significant step back in perimeter contain, but they brought on arguably the best back line defensive player of this era. Depending on who you ask, so at least the top three right,

so at the top four if you count Draymond. So from that standpoint, they're gonna be a very different defense than they were in the past. My guess is they will prioritize taking away the three point line with their perimeter players, knowing that they have a lot more help on the back line with Gobert, and probably adapt some sort of funneling scheme where the intent is to try to just get people to drive into Gobert, get terrified because they don't want to get their shot blocked, and

then kick it out to defenders that are waiting. Um that that's typically the way that teams will structure their defense when they have outstanding rim protectors, and I expect the Timberwolves to do the same. The start of the NFL season is here and the best place to practice your touchdown dance is on fan Duel. America's number one sports book, Vanduel is kicking off Week one with a no sweat bet for everybody. It doesn't matter if you're a new customer or already have an account. You'll get

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Jason T to get started. That's promo code Jason T. Either way, celebrate the return of football season with a no sweat bet during Week one, make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Obviously, losing Jared Vanderbilt on the wing is big. I actually really like Jaden McDaniels of the hot take, but I actually think he could be a little bit better in

the long run, so I didn't hate that exchange. Austin Rivers and Kyle Anderson, like we mentioned earlier, are both above average defensive players for their position. They're just not as good offensively as the players that they lost. Um and then you know the big thing is going to be looking at the difference between what this defense is gonna look like in the regular season versus the postseason. Like, I'll just skip ahead right now. I think the Timberwolves

are gonna have a top five defense this year. Um. That's kind of a staple of the Rudy Gobert process. And he's got better defensive players around him than he ever had in Utah. So, flat out, I expect the Timberwolves to be a top five defense this year, provided that everyone stays healthy. The conundrum there is going to be the difference between what their defensive ceiling is in the regular season versus what it is in the playoffs. Again,

in the regular season, drop coverages work pretty damn well. Um, especially in the day in, day out grind of the regular season. It's a it's you know, generally speaking, the scouting isn't as in depth as it is in the postseason. There's a little bit more of like we're just trying to get through this kind of thing, right, And Gobert is the kind of guy that it's difficult to scheme him away from the rim, but you can do so. It's just hard to do in a one game sample side.

Sometimes it takes three four games to kind of figure out how to keep him away from the rim. That's why his defensive abilities to clean up messes for his teammates goes down in the playoffs compared to the way it is in the regular season. So, for instance, having a D'Angelo Russell on the floor, having Carl Town's on the floor, that those two guys potentially on the floor at the same time, losing Patrick Beverley, losing Malik Beasley. That might not matter as much in the regular season

because of Gobert cleaning up messes. But when you get to the postseason and teams find out how to keep Rudy Gobert closer to the perimeter and make him guard more in space, it's not Rudy Gobert loses his value as a defender. He's every bit as good defensively in the postseason as he is in the regular season, but his ability to clean up his teammates messes goes down

significantly in a playoff setting. And so from that specific standpoint, I do think there will be somewhat of a drop off when they get into the postseason, because once again, you have Carl Towns on the floor, who doesn't guard well in space. You have D'Angelo Russell, who's a decent help defender but doesn't guard well in space. So in a playoffs setting, teams are going to find a way to attack those guys while keeping Golbert away from the rim.

The other thing is transition defense, and this is where having two bigs hurts. I don't want to need to get all into the weeds again, but you guys know how I feel about big men and the limitations they have in terms of foot speed. And Carl Towns and Rudy Gobert two of the more mobile bigs that we have in this league. Theoretically, right, you know, Carl Towns isn't very laterally quick, but he does have a good first step, and he can beat people off the drib

on offense, and he can run the floor pretty well. Right, But the reality is with both of them on the floor, they will be slower footed, especially in the open floor and in five out situations than they were last year. You know, last year, uh, they were the eighth best transition defense in all of basketball. I expect them to take a significant step back in transition defense this year because of them playing with two big So when you

factor that in and some of the playoffs stuff. I expect them to have a top five regular season defense that functions and translates to the postseason, more like a tenth best defense in the league type of deal. Again, because of the fact that they're gonna have two defenders on the floor that teams are going to try to

attack all the time. What are the interesting counters here that I'd like to see them try, especially since I have a feeling that they might end up trying to trade D'Angelo Russell in the long run, but it might be worth benching him, especially in big moments and in playoff series, and going all in on with a second wing, like going with Jaden McDaniels and Kyle Anderson, or Jaden McDaniels and Torrian Prince alongside Cat Gobert and Aunt and

kind of going in on defense and understanding that, yes, you're lacking shot creation, but you know, D'Angelo Russell's shot creation didn't translate super well to the postseason anyway. That would be what I would do if I was coaching this team, and I'd go all in on defense and just count on Aunt and Carl Towns to be able to physically bludge in the opponent to get enough offense.

So best case scenario, um, if Anthony Edwards takes a leap to superstar and we're gonna get a little bit further into that when we get to the X factor. If Rudy Gobert finds a way to not completely screw up their offense and be somewhat productive there. If Carl

Town's plays with consistency. If you guys remember when we did our power rankings, that's one of my biggest issues with Carl Towns is like one night he's dialed in and he's focused, and he's making all the right decisions and he's punishing teams with physicality the and then the next night he's just hacking people and getting infal trouble or or just like kind of emotionally pulling away from the game and and not being as aggressive physically. And it's just he's just kind of like an up and

down type of personality on the basketball court. If Carl Town's plays with consistency, that would be a huge upside for them. If the team somehow manages to maintain their perimeter defense from last year. That counts on some of these younger players like Noel and Uh and McLaughlin coming in and playing well, Austin Rivers coming in and playing well,

Kyle Anderson coming in and playing well. If they do that, and they replicate their perimeter defense from last year, in combination with what Gobert can do, they could have a great defense, a defense that could be problematic in a playoff series with their physical mismatches with what Carl Towns

does and and Anthony Edwards does. In terms of the predicament they put you in as the other team and who's gonna guard those guys, I think they're capable of being anybody in the West except for the Clippers and the Warriors. They have the physical matchups to handle those guys. Draymond Green would eat Carl Towns alive in a playoff series. Andrew Wiggins would give Anthony Edwards some problems, you know with the Clippers with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, similar

type of deal. So from that standpoint, I think, with exception of those two particular teams, they are capable if they hit their ceiling, of beating any of those teams, being a top four seed getting home court advantage in the playoffs. It's just I just don't see them beating those two particular teams. Their worst case scenario if Gobert comes in and just butchers everything on offense, and again, they were number one in offense from January three to

the end of the season. I expect them to take a little bit of a step back at least on that end. But it could get ugly with Gobert, especially with how much Carl Towns and Anthony Edwards like to drive the ball to the basket. Um them having two bigs if teams find ways to kill them in transition or spacing the floor. A really good team like the Clippers could put them in a five out situation where Carl Town's and Gobert are playing more like perimeter players

guarding people in a driving kick system. That could be a problem. Um. Obviously, we talked about bad late game decision making from D'Angelo Russell and Anthony Edwards. Injuries could always be an issue. If those things all crop up, this is a playing team again, and that would be an absolute disaster. With how much they paid for Gobert in that trade, the biggest X factor on this team

in my opinion, without question, is Anthony Edwards. So last year he was something like the best player in the world. I ranked him twenty one because of what I value from him in particular, But that's kind of where I see him at this exact moment in time. But he's a young player that has a great deal of potential, not just a great deal of potential. He's like true

superstar potential, like top ten player in the world. Potential like looka Luca don Che type of player in the face and play every bit as good as him, if not better in a playoff series type of potential. That's what he's capable of. That's what I see from him five years from now. So then it becomes about timeline. Is it gonna be now? Does he take that leap this year, does he take it in two years, does he take it in four years? That becomes the question.

He's built for the playoffs because he's big and strong. That's why he's scoring. An efficiency went up when he got into that stage. Obviously, he flashed a ton as a pull up jump shooter in that playoff run. It remains to be seen if that's real or if that was just a hot streak. We will find out during the season. He gets to the rim a lot that translates well to the playoffs and as an athlete, his

tons of defensive potential. If Anthony Edwards takes a leap to become a top ten player in basketball all of a sudden, then they're a contender. You know, coming into this show, I had them in that tier below as non contenders. You know, the Bulls, the Pelicans, you know that this particular Wolves team, I didn't see them as a team that was capable of winning a championship, and

I still don't. But if Anthony Edwards is not the twenty one best player in the league this year, if he's the eighth best player in the league this year, then you're damn right there a contender. And that absolutely puts them in a situation where they could be a dominant defensive team built around Gobert with a super duper star and Anthony Edwards that could squeeze out a playoff series or win a big matchup against a great superstar in this league. And so he is the biggest X

factor of this team because of his upside. His upside is so high that this timber Wolves team is capable when he reaches whatever that point is something some point in the next couple of years and it's gonna become that guy. And when he does, this is gonna be a damn good basketball team. And it's always a risk that it could be this particular season. Obviously, if he's a couple of years away, they could be a playing team.

They could be a six or seven seed. They could lose in the first round, they could lose in the second round. But that's the big that's the big swing factor in this particular season is how good does Anthony Edwards get um? All Right, that is all I have for tonight, guys. That's all I have on the Minnesota Timberwolves. We'll be back with number thirteen tomorrow. As always, I always, I appreciate your guys support and I will see you guys in the the volume