The Timberwolves remain a work in progress. Via the Star Tribune:
Objectively, this season was a failure. The Wolves began with modest hope, then finished 23-49.
Subjectively, you can see the makings of a quality team, an entertaining team, perhaps the best Wolves team since the roster included not only Kevin Garnett and Sam Cassell, but also Ndudi Ebi, Latrell Sprewell, Quincy Lewis, Fred Hoiberg, Oliver Miller, Michael Olowokandi, Mark Madsen and “the other” Ervin Johnson, just in case you forgot how any given roster can look like the cast of a “Survivor”-like game show.
Making the dangerous assumption that the Wolves will be relatively healthy next season, their starting five — even without a top-three draft pick — would be D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Karl-Anthony Towns.
That’s more than good enough in the categories of athletic ability, three-point shooting and ballhandling, and the Wolves’ improvement on defense toward the end of this season might be an indication that defense won’t be the embarrassment that it was before Ryan Saunders was fired.
Their leading scorers in 2020-21 were Towns at 24.8 points per game, Beasley at 19.6 ppg, Edwards at 19.3 ppg, and Russell at 19.0 ppg. Everyone else averaged under 12 ppg.
