It's Working
File this one under Unexpected: the Minnesota Timberwolves have started the 2019-2020 NBA season 4-1.
And most convincingly, they got that fourth win without Karl-Anthony Towns and the MVP level of basketball he’s been playing early on. And they won in a blowout.
When CEO Ethan Casson launched the search for a new President of Basketball Operations, he stressed the need for the Wolves to completely overhaul their team culture. The end of Tom Thibodeau’s tenure left the Wolves in unnervingly familiar territory - a terrible basketball team on the court, and a laughing stock off of it - brought about by Thibs’ bombastic style of leadership and his subsequent refusal to deal with the human results of that in a professional manner. The Wolves lost a great deal more than games in the 18-19 season. They lost the respect of their peers, the trust of their fans, and the confidence of their best player.
Since then, the Wolves have worked overtime to turn things around. Gersson Rosas was hired after proving himself to a host of team icons, including Jim Peterson and Cheryl Reeve. Rosas in turn retained Ryan Saunders as the head coach, then built a first class front office and coaching staff, bringing in the likes of Sachin Gupta, Gianluca Pascucci, David Vanterpool and Pablo Prigioni.
And through it all, the team doggedly kept to the vision of building a team as a family. Undoing the damage the previous regime had done to the team’s image and the trust of it’s players and staff, and replacing it with something worthwhile - something that would empower the players on the court and bring back the scored fanbase.
Well. So far, so good.
Behind the Wolves’ hot start to the season is the first round of payoffs for their commitment to a new culture.
First and foremost, Karl-Anthony Towns is making the leap into true superstardom. Expected has been his prodigious scoring, now unleashed under Ryan Saunders after spending 2+ seasons being heavily restricted by Thibs. But unexpected…at least to the casual observer…has been his effectiveness on defense.
David Vanterpool has brought with him the simplified, sink-back defensive scheme he used in Portland that turned lumbering Jusef Nurkic into a defensive force, and Enes Kanter into….well, at least not a liability. The system has ‘uncomplicated’ what defense is for Towns. It has winnowed down what he is truly responsible for and he’s responded by dialing in on those things.
Towns taking the reigns of the team and evolving into a legitimate two-way star is the biggest, most important goal of the season. He’s already done the former and appears to be figuring out the latter. A coach’s top priority is to put his players in the right situation to succeed. Ryan Saunders has done this fairly easily on offense by simply giving KAT the ball and getting out of the way. Vanterpool is showing success at accomplishing the much more difficult task of doing the same on defense.
KAT trusts the new front office and trusts the new coaching staff, both of which he never quite did with Thibs (and for reasons that clearly proved justified). After serious concerns he would demand out, he is back on board with the program, 100%.
And we might as well say it: the fight with Joel Embiid was fight that Towns has no displayed before. It showed spine, and earned his a great deal of respect from his teammates.
Likewise, Andrew Wiggins has shown signs of genuine progress in the early going. After an absolutely miserable preseason and first couple of games, Wiggins has stepped up of late, particularly in the wins over the Miami Heat - in which he scored 16 points in 4 minutes during the 4th quarter - and the Washington Wizards, in which he ably helmed a KAT-less team to a blowout win.
The most encouraging facet of Wiggins’ play has been hints that he’s finally starting to grasp the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’. Whereas in years past, he would have great games or terrible games and have no real explanation for either, he now seems to be getting - or at least starting to get - the threads between what he does and what happens. Particularly against the Wizards, he showed a thoroughness and deliberateness that has been lacking before, thinking through his actions and understanding not just what he did that made a play successful, but why what he did worked. This is a major step forward for Wiggins, far more so than his refreshing commitment to good shot selection. It’s another testament to Ryan, and the methodology of coaching that holds players accountable through encouragement and structure rather than punishment.
On the front office end of things, Rosas and his team have completely reshaped the expectations of what is possible in terms of roster construction. The pursuit of D’Angelo Russell came up short (for now….?) but the mere fact Rosas attempted it is a major departure from past regimes, which too often resigned themselves to picking from the bottom of the barrel after top talents all opted for bigger, better, winning-er organizations.
Likewise, Rosas then displayed an understanding and shrewdness with the salary cap that no other Wolves front office has come close to. Rosas used extremely limited resources in a stupendously efficient way, bringing in Jarrett Culver, Jake Layman, Jordan Bell, Noah Vonleh, Shabazz Napier and Traveon Graham all in one summer to a team that had essentially no salary cap room. Those six player collectively cost less than Gorgui Dieng alone, and form what is easily the best bench mob in Wolves franchise history.
The new roster outlook extends to the end of the bench guys as well, as Rosas has thoroughly and meticulously thought through every roster spot. Having the likes of Naz Reid, Jaylen Nowell, Kelan Martin and Jordan McLaughlin as the 14-17 players is a gratifying and (what will ultimately be) productive change from the Thibs era, when roster spots - and excessive amounts of cap space - were doled out to players like Jordan Hill, who effectively contributed nothing in the end. Reid, Nowell, Martin and McLaughlin could all develop into significant contributors for the Wolves. Martin could contribute quite a bit this year, if it becomes necessary. Having young players developing and on deck, ready to step in when veterans age or price out, is a crucial, ongoing process that good teams commit to.
Layer onto this a completely restructured offense aligned with the modern NBA and a dedication to genuine fan outreach, and yes, a 4-1 start to the season, and it’s easy to see the progress the team is making. Legitimate, visible, quantifiable progress.
Yes, the team bonding press conference quotes and Saunders nostalgia makes for good social media. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real, or that it doesn’t matter. It is, and it does, and the Wolves are proving it.
