Minnesota Timberwolves: A Welcome Era

I’m a little torn, to be honest. After spending last year covering an exciting young team from a country where I don’t reside, I developed something of an affinity for those foreign underdogs who, before last season started, I was never quite sure would ever get the thing securely on track.

Well, congrats to those Toronto Raptors, who I know are on the right track now, and ready to make a legit statement in the Eastern Conference.

I’m moving back to the West. And back to my hometown team.

Writing columns on the Minnesota Timberwolves this season will definitely be a change in tone from writing about the Raptors. Before Toronto gained their traction in December, I wrote about their potential for permanent residency in a contender’s “no man’s land.” I argued about how that was the worst possible place to be and that Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri apparently agreed, saying that he would make whatever moves he had to make to avoid being that perennial fringe contender.

It was nice to write and analyze a team that was making their way out of that purgatory. The Raptors had to think boldly and act boldly to see what they had. Their addition by subtraction was a move to be revered and envied, and their position moving forward is a bright one. My parting words for them are familiar, but no less pertinent: Please give Jonas Valanciunas the ball. He’s a monster, and you know it. You mean well, but you get away from him too easily. Feed the beast, and you’ll be plenty feared in the East.

Of course, speaking of “no man’s land,” there is no confusing the Minnesota Timberwolves as being anywhere near that land. And to be honest, I’m grateful for that. I remember back to the Kevin Garnett–Wally Szczerbiak–Sam Cassell days where the team was good enough to be a factor in the brutal Western Conference, but any observer just knew that collection of guys was never going to beat the San Antonio Spurs or the Los Angeles Lakers in a seven-game series. It was a disheartening feeling. You had to feel good about the relative success of the team yet you couldn’t really get too excited about its prospects. It’s possible that about half of the NBA’s fans have this feeling about their team of choice.

This era of Timberwolves basketball is, frankly, unlike anything we’ve seen in their history. This time, it isn’t a transcendent young talent interspersed with veterans to create a pseudo-competitive atmosphere where no one is really sure of the player hierarchy or the direction. The new era is young, green, inexperienced and unproven by any conceivable measure. A core of Ricky Rubio, rookies Zach LaVine and Andrew Wiggins, and second-year players Gorgui Dieng and Anthony Bennett is a group that will undoubtedly show flashes of amazing, but hardly surpass 15 wins this season.

And what does that cause, you ask? Excitement. An unbridled enthusiasm that, at least from what I can see, is only rivaled by a near championship contender. Living in Minnesota and listening to people talk about the perceived haul that they got for Kevin Love and how they finally have a group of elite talents that can grow up together is intense. The fans of Minnesota are jacked up for this season to start. And they are fine conceding that this may be a 15-win season. It doesn’t dampen the optimism or change the tenor of the outlook.

I almost feel like my critic button has to be muzzled, for now. Of course, I could be giving these patient fans far too much credit. I’ll see what they have to say after Wiggins’ first back-to-back 1-for-8 games.